At least until people are crying mercy ... well, okay, I'm not that sinister ... but for the next little bit I thought I'd start listing some of the War Crimes that have resulted from this hideous War Against Drugs we now find ourselves embroiled in. Most of the citations will be from http://www.drcnet.org , since it is my best link to the drug-war news items you don't see on the AP wire, but I hope to not rely solely on them. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/125.html#custody (Week of 2/18/2000) Knee-jerk justice is still merely knee-jerk. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/130.html#dorismond (Week of 3/24/2000 ... excerpted) Funny ... if I was a DA prosecuting, say, the murder of anyone but the target of a random drug sting, I would be charged with contempt for even suggesting that the deceased's juvenile criminal record had been opened. Follow up from the next issue ... http://www.drcnet.org/wol/131.html#newyorkcity But I guess it's worth it. There's tons of these ... I could go on forever today (I have like eighty of their newsletters). I'm inclined to believe, however, that this would not be a good thing. hope & victory, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
Tiassa-You have some very good examples of a system gone horribly wrong. I don't think legalizing drugs is the answer, which is what some people believe. I used to work for a company that delivered medical supplies to adults and children. Most of the diagnoses were CP, Spina Bifida, MS, or else the clients had been the victims of some terrible accident. There was, however, a group of clients whose diagnoses colored my opinion on drugs for all time. These were the children of mothers and fathers who saw nothing wrong in the use of drugs. These innocent victims were often so hideously deformed that it would have been more merciful to have euthanized them at birth. This is the other side of the War On Drugs. I agree that the current tactics seem to be doing more harm than good, but something must be done. We should rethink our tactics in cleaning them out of our collective system rather than just laying down and letting them lay waste to our children. ------------------ I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will fight, kill, and die for your right to say it.
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/106.html#badraid The Week Online (week of 9/9/1999) ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
Oxygen-- You have given me much cause for thought. Unfortunately, my conclusions mimic an ongoing trend in the allegedly-sane, allegedly drug-free world. It seems to me that society accepts a number of hideous tragedies for stupid, stupid reasons. Entire towns poisoned by irresponsible mine operators, the best excuse possible is that they did it for the money and out of sheer stupidity. You ever read a pregnancy-warning on a bottle of American liquor? A childhood friend's aunt pulled that stunt when she claimed that her child's fetal alcohol syndrome wasn't her fault; it hadn't occured to her that it was unhealthy to drink two and a half fifths a day while pregnant. Hello? Shouldn't we have thrown the mother in jail? Educate, empower, etc. Money in undereducated hands is bad ... look at how many stupid former pro athletes have blown their money three years out of ball! If you enrich a society financially without elevating its educational standards, that economy will be dedicated to more of the same old crap. The Drug War forces these conditions. Quite simply, these wounds will heal once society escapes the war. In Seattle, we recently had an election ballot about affirmative action in which minority leaders were admitting the necessity of sacrificing "a generation" to an absence of the affirmative action cushion without any evidence of demonstrable equality between the races. Likewise, the end of the Drug War will see its generation sacrificed, but it will be a generation free from a "prison industry" (a growth-industry, I might remind) and the effects that come from having a calculable percentage of the workforce behind bars. But inasmuch as the Drug War keeps an entire subculture underground, the more sacrificial lambs will rise in its fields. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
Sorry that the doctor's mistake in the original example did not immediately clear the parents but, hey, life is not perfect. With respect to the "laws" protecting the "innocent", our daughter brought a friend to our home for safe harbor after school one Friday afternnoon because she confided to our daughter that severe sexual abuse was being perpetrated by her 'uncle' with whom she was living upon one of her older 'cousins' who was the uncle's daughter. Our daughter's friend said that she was afraid that she'd be his next victim. Not knowing if what the teen was telling us was the truth or not, to err on the side of caution, we invited the teen into our home for dinner, we called her mother who lived in another state to explain what was happening and she gave the go-ahead for her daughter to stay with us for the weekend. We also called the local department of Social Services before they closed to give them a heads-up on what was happening before they went home for the weekend. That evening, members of the State Police, City Police and Sheriff's Office surrounded our home. Based on what the unbalanced and emotional uncle had told them, they expected to find some resistance from the kidnappers. To make a long story even longer Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! we did not offer any resistance. But we were able to look the officers in the eye and speak the truth to them in a non-emotional way that made them pause, think, and move forward with caution in the best interest of the teen. Yeah, life is not perfect, and neither are those who enforce the law. But I'd rather see an innocent kid be protected to the hilt when there is a complaint, before all the relevant facts are known, than to find out that one child was abused while the world stood still for fear that we might wrongly inconvenience a parent or guardian during the investigative process. Just another opinion, Brian
Brian-- A personal tale I'd like to relate, though its relevance is slightly roundabout. To revive tales of "horrible sexual abuse", I can say that occasionally the idea of protecting a child "to the hilt" can have impressive results. Once upon a time, when I was about 17-20, I counselled a close friend and part-time lover. When we met, she was flat-out psychotic; enough said. Skip ahead through format-testimonial .... So one night when things are horribly out of hand and I'm literally 250 miles out of position, I receive a call telling me to get back to town and handle this, that the police are on their way. When I finally did arrive, my friend had been recovered safely, and also voluntarily, which is important. During the three and a half hours it took me to travel, the police were actually told to step very carefully until I arrived; for whatever reasons, her psychotherapist, her parents and sisters, and two of her teachers participating in the search all declared that somehow, a high-school senior needed to be in charge of that. For whatever reasons ... she returned of her own will about an hour before I got there. But what impressed me is that, in a time of dire human need, an entire police department (for that's what the several officers I met comprised) waited for an idiot to arrive on the grounds that A) the object-person will calm down in the intervening period, or B) that I, somehow, could coax a person from a behavior pattern that, as this episode is concerned, I've never been fully informed, even after nearly ten years. To this day, I'm impressed. I wanted to support the idea of protecting children. But do you really think officers would take that kind of risk if it was Drug War-related erratic and dangerous behavior? History says no, but then again, History says the same about cops waiting for me to handle a bad situation. Somehow, the police understood the vitality of the situation, that SOP would only complicate the problem and endanger the object-person. They were willing to wait, if it promised a better end. They did, in essence, protect that child to the hilt. But those considerations are never given in the Drug War. In the meantime, Law Enforcement and its Laws are doing damage. The standard that we hold to "before relevant facts are known" doesn't apply quite the same. On one hand, the standard supports an artificial prohibition. On the other, relevant facts are hard to come by because, for at least twenty-seven years, its been illegal to collect relevant facts about the Drug War in the United States. thanx ... much to consider, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
tiassa, Glad to see that things worked out for your friend. Aside - I am left wondering why you would have chosen to bed-down with someone who was psychotic? I hope that if you were of the age of consent that so was she. Otherwise, well, we could start a whole new topic... As far as the drug-war under discussion goes, briefly, what do you mean when you say it has been illegal to collect relevant facts in the United States? Why, do you think, are law-enforcement agencies so aggressive when dealing with suspected drug dealers? Thanks, Brian
Brian-- In 1994, a GOP Senator introduced legislation that, had it passed, would have banned people from the internet for posting "drug-legalization" materials. NORML, Washington State Hemp Initiative, High Times, and others would be GONE, and their programmers banned from internet communication. This, thankfully, did not pass. When PDFA (Partnership for a Drug-Free America) could no longer hold its "marijuana-as-carcinogen" line--the counterpoint coming from a suppressed 1972 report to congress that pot isn't carcinogenic--it changed its tactics to the distasteful: There isn't enough evidence to warrant legalization. Now, ignoring the fact that there isn't much evidence to warrant Draconian criminalization, I think the irony becomes especially sick when we see that the research PDFA is asking for to demonstrate the "safety" of marijuana has, since 1972, at least, been illegal to collect. Axl Rose (of Guns & Roses) was paid $8.50 in the mid-80's to chain-smoke cigarettes for UCLA. We can't pay someone a little less, say, Cheezie-Poofs, to smoke bowl after bowl after bowl of marijuana and figure out what it does? And other such odd logic. What existing data there is has become so political that even testing methods are now in question. Largely, I think Law Enforcement is so aggressive is because, at the bottom line, this is about money. Who pays to stop pot-legalization ballot measures to be voted on by the public? PDFA? Nope. ONDCP (Drug Czar)? Nope. Howzabout petrol (hemp makes fuel), textile (hemp makes cloth), timber (hemp makes paper), and synthetics (hemp makes rope, &c.) That last one is super-important. Given that pot makes rope, and that Dow released Nylon in 1937 and 1938, and given that Dow had employees advising the Bureau of Narcotics, do we find it odd in the least that what made pot illegal was actually a commercial law? It's called The Marihuana Tax Stamp Act of 1937. The rest of the Drug War mimics a couple of observations: First, that we call it a "Drug War", and secondly, that the "Drug War" only gets serious about anything approaching a "solution" when the demographics change. For instance, when white dealers were selling crank to Hispanic users, the users were being arrested. Methamphetamine was a normal Sched. 1 sentencing guideline. However, shortly after new demographic numbers came out, indicating that Hispanic sellers were targeting white buyers, the impetus changed to target the dealers. Now that the demographics demonstrate Hispanics selling to Hispanics and other minorities, the sentencing guidelines have been brought up to date, so that methamphetamine is treated like crack. Users, dealers ... everyone goes to prison. By the way ... what would happen to the cigarette companies (who own Nabisco, Frito-Lay, &c.) and the booze companies (Anheuser-Busch, Seagrams) if suddenly intoxication was as far away as your back yard? The whole of the "Drug War" is about money. Only the rich survive. Everyone else is fodder. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
from http://www.drcnet.org Can someone please explain to me what good this is going to do? Really, I want to know. Because it seems to me that making a person's life harder for doing something to themselves that you don't want them to do is no way to encourage them to stop it. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
http://washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServe r?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A1905-2000Jun5 The only commentary I'll add is that if we look to the claims of various "white-power" groups and the like, here lies the link between race and crime. How long has this trend stood? Perhaps since the beginning of marijuana prohibition, when Hispanic-Americans and Black Americans were the primary users. In my own life, the community has stressed that ex-cons are anathema; you don't want them to tend your store, file your papers, or mow your lawn. (Is there a connection between economic empowerment and crime rates?) During my lifetime, studies have expressed that 1 in 3 black males will serve prison time before their 30th birthday. If, as I've asserted, the Drug War is unjust, are we not inviting crime into minority communities by focusing our efforts on them? Anyway, it's just a few random ramblings .... thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke) [This message has been edited by tiassa (edited June 12, 2000).]
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! the following is from DRCNet, whose address you'll find littered all throughout this topic. This is what the War Against Drugs is worth. --Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/#damnstatistics If I quote everything relevant, the post gets massive. But this is just another example of the agencies we entrust to do their work seeking the quickest, "easiest" way to do their jobs without any consideration to the definition of the word success. I'm reminded of Bart Simpson, falling off the roof of a brothel: "S-U-C-C-E-E-S ... that's the way you spell ... whoa!" Remember, kids: Just say No to liars and thieves who don't really care about you but need to scare and threaten you to keep their jobs. General Barry McCaffrey, our "Drug Czar", is not a decent man. Its lies like this DAWN report that pusillanimous fools use to justify their crimes against their citizens. We, the People, own this Government, and should demand that it tell us the truth, so that we might make our own decisions, come what may. Anything else is tyrrany. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
