War on Drugs

Nevermind! TMI.
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“Oops!” - Xi

[ This Message was edited by: Xi on 2002-06-07 14:13 ]

Also, by allowing the legalization of drugs you allow for purer forms of drugs. The problem is that many drug dealers sell drugs in impure form and don’t cut it correctly so they can pocket the extra cash. This is especially true of heroin. Also, legalized drugs would cost less than those sold on the black market. That means less money going to corrupt drug lords.

“Anyone from Holland, did use go up when it was legalized?” …I’m in Holland, but I wouldn’t know, I’ve only been here for about a year and a half.

If memory serves my correct, I think that in Amsterdam, drug use increased immediately following the lift but then decreased below pre-legalization standards among certain age groups.

On 2002-06-07 13:51, HortenFlyingWing wrote:
“That is the thing about prohibiton, less people drank less alchohol.”

No, alcohol use went up after falling drastically during world war 1.

“Oh, it is the Middle Class which is big into drugs. It’s not surprising, they have the money. Rich white suburbs have higher drug usage rates than poor ghettos.”

I think statistically the lower classes smoke more…

You’re wrong on both counts, Horten. To quote my brother’s history text, “The persistent myth that drinking increased under prohibiyion is not true. Drunkeness and alchoholism deckined significantly in spite of speakeasies.” About the the rich whites using the most drugs, i can’t remeber the numbers, however I see that regularily on news magazine shows.

Didn’t think you ment me :smile: Glad to see someone agrees with me.

A personal message from Ron Crickenberger, Libertarian Party Political
Director

My Dear Friends,

I was arrested on June 6 for civil disobedience, while protesting a
federal government crackdown on medical marijuana clinics.

LP Campus Coordinator Marc Brandl and 8 other drug reform activists
were also arrested. We had chained ourselves across the entrance of the
Department of Justice on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. We read
statements to the press, and chanted slogans every time the police came
to give us “one more warning.”

Before the Federal Protection Service cut the chains and drug us away
in tight plastic handcuffs, we posted a “Cease and Desist” order on the
door, demanding that the federal government end its misguided, immoral
war against sick and critically ill patients who ease their suffering
with medical marijuana.

Our protest in DC was one of 55 actions with more than 1000
demonstrators in cities across America on Thursday. I participated as
part of my congressional campaign, as did many other Libertarian
candidates around the country. Americans for Safe Access (ASA)
coordinated the nationwide action. ASA is a grassroots effort designed
to force Attorney General Ashcroft and the Bush Administration to back
off its anti-medical marijuana crusade and to grant states the right to
choose and govern medical marijuana laws.

Since September 11 of last year, the federal government has conducted
at least 5 raids against medical cannabis dispensaries in California,
throwing patients in the street, confiscating homes, and arresting
caregivers. June 6 was picked as the day of action because a federal
judge in California is expected to issue a ruling very soon that will
effectively give the DEA a green light to escalate their raids –
depriving thousands more patients of their safe, quality-controlled
source of medicine.

Committing an act of civil disobedience was not an action I took
lightly. I sought advice from LP Chairman Jim Lark, General Counsel
Bill Hall, Sheriff Bill Masters, as well as all of the HQ office staff.
And of course, my partner in life, Noelle. I recognized that, in
addition to the obvious potential negative consequences to me, that
there was the potential for negative as well as positive public
reaction.

MY DECISION

As “point man” for the LP’s Drug War Focus Strategy – our plan to end
drug prohibition at the federal level by 2010 – it is my
responsibility to network with the other drug reform groups, and to
work with them to help implement our strategy. You can’t do much more
to demonstrate that you are committed to a cause than to get arrested
in a civil disobedience action. So I had incentive to participate
beyond just believing that it was the right thing to do.

I came into the Libertarian Party because of taxation. I spent most of
my first years in the LP working on issues that were in the economic
realm. I did not take up the issue of medical marijuana until it
touched me personally.

I had long believed in drug relegaliztion for both philosophical and
pragmatic reasons. But I had looked on the concept of medical marijuana
much in the same way that its opponents do: “medical marijuana, yeah
right, nice try to work toward making it legal for you to get toked
up.” Despite years of LP activism, and lots of reading on drug
legalization in general, I was pretty ignorant of the remarkable
medical properties of cannabis.

Then my best friend of 25 years sickened with cancer. She was on
intense chemotherapy and couldn’t keep any food down. She lost almost
50 pounds, more than a third of her body weight, in just a few months.
She was on a “pain pump” which shot her full of heavy narcotics through
an IV day and night.

Unfortunately, Gina is not a medical marijuana success story. I knew
enough to have heard that marijuana could help with nausea from chemo,
but not enough to really push her to try it. Back then I had not heard
the personal testimonies that make it so clear just how absolutely
remarkably marijuana works for some patients. For those who are
suffering severe nausea from chemotherapy, the treatment can be as life
threatening as the disease.

And really, the word “nausea” just doesn’t cut it. Nausea sounds like,
“gee, my tummy’s a little upset.” With chemo and some AIDS “cocktails”
we are talking about gut-wrenching, lying on the floor moaning and
crying dry heaves that go on for what seems like forever. Patients in
this condition obviously cannot keep down any kind of anti-nausea
medication that must be swallowed.

Gina bought the government propaganda that smoking pot would further
damage her already ravaged immune system.

If she hadn’t bought the government’s line on medical marijuana, and if
I had been more knowledgeable at the time about how wondrously
effective it is for nausea during chemotherapy, it’s likely her last
days would have been a lot more bearable.

A few years later, I met Peter McWilliams, and saw first hand how
quickly marijuana could relieve the nausea from chemo or AIDs
medication “cocktails.” His assertion that “one puff and the symptoms
start going away” was demonstrated to me at the national convention
where he spoke. I saw him going in just a few minutes from puking his
guts up into the trashcan in the speaker’s green room, to being able to
compose himself and go onstage to give one of the most memorable
speeches ever at an LP convention.

I met Todd McCormick, who had cancer 9 times before the age of 10.
Watching the other kids in the cancer ward die off from malnutrition
due to chemo and radiation, and seeing her son going down that same
road, Todd’s brave mother Ann decide to try medical marijuana for her 9
year old. The difference was incredible. Todd was again able to regain
both a healthy appetite, and a positive attitude, and survive.

The radiation treatments left Todd with many of his vertebrae
permanently fused, and one hip that will forever be the size of a ten
year old’s – and permanent pain. Many patients with bone and muscular
disorders that produce chronic pain find that marijuana relieves that
pain even more effectively than the much stronger narcotics that would
also make them dysfunctional. Todd effectively treated his pain with
cannabis – until he was imprisoned for giving the same life-saving
medicine to other patients.

I met Elvy Mussika who suffers from severe glaucoma. She treats it
legally with marijuana, which lowers eye pressure. Elvy is one of the
last 7 patients still alive in the federal governments “Compassionate
Use” program, which actually supplies medical marijuana to these few
patients.

The feds have not accepted any new patients into the “compassionate
use” program in many years. I guess we can afford armies of armed
agents to raid clinic after clinic, but just can’t possibly afford
“compassion” for more than 7 people.

Since then, I’ve met dozens of MM patients who have found what is often
life saving relief from this oldest of natures medications. Medical
Marijuana is frequently helpful in treating the symptoms of AIDS,
glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and chronic pain. Other
patients and doctors have found it be very helpful for everything from
arthritis to menstrual cramps.

Having seen what I have seen, and learned what I have learned, how can
I not do all I can to end this injustice for others?

Prior to deciding to participate in the civil disobedience, I checked
with our General Counsel Bill Hall who said that “RICO” law should not
apply to this type of demonstration. We were on public property only,
and were not trying to influence any type of private business.

Other arrestees who were in similar employment situations checked with
their General Counsels or staff attorneys, and were also given a green
light. In one case, one of the arrestees WAS the staff attorney, as
well as the head of the organization – Kevin Zeese of Common Sense for
Drug Policy.

I was especially glad that Kevin was planning on participating. It was
psychologically easier for me to join in since two of the others to be
arrested, Kevin and Bruce Mirkin, were also in their mid-forties and
heads of their organizations. I do wish we had had some seniors
participating, but our ages ranged from 20 to me as the elder
incarcerant at 47.

Another turning point in my decision to participate was a thumbs up
from LP News editor Bill Winter. He is usually pretty “conservative” in
how he wants to see the LP presented to the public and the press, and
he felt the medical marijuana issue had progressed to such a degree of
public support that the action would be viewed in a positive light.

The night before the action I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I was
quite naturally worried about what might happen the next morning. Would
we actually get arrested? Would they stop us before we could even get
to the door? Would the police get violent? Would they pry open our eyes
and pepper spray us like they did those protesters in Oregon recently?
When it’s all over – will I look like a hero, or like a fool? Or will
anybody even notice?

I read Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham jail,”
defending the direct actions of the civil-rights movement. These words
struck me most of all:

“I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil-rights
without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. We know through
painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

“Justice too long delayed is justice denied. There comes a time when
the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be
plunged into the abyss for despair. I hope, sirs, that you can
understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963

The issue and the faces may have changed, but the desperate need for
justice has not.

And I thought a lot about my friends Gina and Peter, and cried a little
for their being gone, and finalized my resolve. About 4:00 AM I wrote
the following:

“There are some of my friends that my action today of civil
disobedience will be too late to help. I take this action so that
others may not suffer needlessly in the future. I take this step with
all due seriousness, after deep contemplation, and in loving memory of
my friends Gina Purcell and Peter McWilliams.”

ACTION and ARREST

There were about 25 activists involved – half a dozen Libertarians, the
rest Democrats and Greens. We had met for planning sessions at one of
the hard leftist’s homes, amidst posters with slogans like “Liberate us
from Capitalism.” I doubt he and I are going to agree on free-market
economics any time soon. But he’s my ally on drug policy, so I
refrained from proselytizing about Hayek and Von Mises, and just talked
drug reform.

We met at 9:00 AM for a few practice runs. But as soon as all of us got
into the van, something began scraping the ground as we drove. Somebody
looked at it and said, “its just the muffler strap, we can still go
on.” I looked again and saw it was the gas tank strap instead! So we
were perhaps about to turn a peaceful sit-in into an unintentional
suicide car bomb!

The driver hurried to beg a local repair shop to fix it quick, while we
practiced chaining ourselves to a couple of trees that were about the
same distance apart as the doors of the Justice Department. She got it
fixed, and returned with just a few minutes to spare.

During the practice sessions, I ended up becoming the “point man,” the
one who would be first out of the van and first to be chained. And as
it ended up, I would be the one who would have to walk straight at the
guard who was right in front of the door. In addition to the 10
arrestees, we had 4 people serve as “lockers” who would actually fasten
the chains and locks onto the large rings on the doors of the Justice
Department.

In addition to the chains, we had cushioned pipes that were covered
with messages about medical marijuana. We threaded the chains through
the pipes, and would hold hands to make it more difficult to separate
us. We were not actually fastened to the chains, but would appear to be
so. We also all had pictures of medical marijuana patients hanging
around our necks with “Patient, Not Criminal” printed on them, along
with their name and condition.

During the practice sessions, what appeared to be an undercover
officer’s car drove by 3 times, so we began to worry our plans had been
discovered.

The “lockers” went on ahead to scout the area once more. Press and non-
arrestee participants were being held at a nearby subway stop until we
were chained in place.

When we left the practice area, the undercover car appeared again,
followed us for several turns, and then disappeared.

We circled the Justice Department building once to see if there were
more guards than usual, and things seemed normal – except the guard was
standing directly in front of the door. In our scouting trips, they
were usually walking around or sitting in the shade instead of directly
in the doorway. We circled once more to see if he would move a little,
but no luck.

Our driver pulled to a stop on Pennsylvania Ave, and threw open the
back door of the van. Heart pounding, and more adrenaline than blood
flowing through me, I swung out of the van and headed straight for the
door – and the guard.

It’s a little difficult to be inconspicuous when you are walking really
fast, chained to other people, your arm is inside some strange looking
pipe, and there’s a big sign around your neck – but I did my best. I
tried to keep an eye on the guard without making eye contact. I could
tell he had spotted us when I was within about 20 feet of the door –
but I kept walking.

When I was about 10 feet away, the guard turned around and ran inside
the building!

54 seconds from the time the door opened on the van, we were all
chained in. Some guards appeared on the other side of the glass door,
and chained it from the inside.

A few minutes later the media and other demonstrators arrived. As they
arrived, we began some chants. I’ve always felt kind of silly chanting
at a demonstration, but I joined in.

Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project, who had brought the media
from the subway, began the public statements to the press about who we
were and why we were there. Those of us chained to the door began
making statements in turn, although we were interrupted a couple of
times when the Police Chief came to give us our first and second
warnings. Our response to his warning was to chant even louder.

I then read the “Cease and Desist” order that was being posted to the
doors of DEA offices across the country that day. I then pasted the
order onto the door with my unchained hand – even though just putting a
sticker on the door could potentially subject me to a destruction of
federal property charge.

The chief gave us his third warning. We chanted back at him. They then
began to move all the media and other demonstrators away, and out of
site of us.

They first arrested Dave Guard, the one member of our group who was not
chained. Then they cut the chains on Jennifer and Leslie, two young
ladies from the University of Maryland’s Students For Sensible Drug
Policy, and tried to drag them away. But they lay down and hung on
tight. Eventually their arms were pulled out of the pipes, and they
were dragged away to the paddy wagon.

They cut us away one by one and drug us away with varying degrees of
resistance. When it came my turn, Officer Williams in front of me was
asking me if I was going to cooperate or be carried, at the same time
the guy who was handcuffing me was making a point of jerking my
shoulder around and squeezing my fingers painfully. I gave out a little
“aarrrgh” and Officer Williams said, “hey, lay off the guy.” He asked
me again if I was going to cooperate. My answer was, “the gentleman
behind me has just convinced me not to.”

If I ever do this again, I’m determined to be carried off a little more
gracefully – if such a thing is possible in that situation. In the heat
of the moment, I couldn’t decide whether to go feet first or feet back.
Plus, the very polite Officer Williams kept urging me to cooperate so
that “they would not accidentally hurt me.” My normal nice guy
instincts to help out when someone nicely asks me for assistance were
somehow still kicking in, even while the officer on my other arm
continued to “make a point” by twisting my wrist and arm further.

So I ended up doing something like the Russian bent-knee dance as they
carried me off, and feeling like I looked pretty silly. Maybe the
humorous aspect was why they picked me to show being dragged away on
the local evening news.

Once in the police station, we all changed from resistance mode to
persuasion, chatting up the officers about drug reform policy as if
they were our old buddies. I don’t think we made many points with this
group though – one of the officers even said he would arrest his own
mother on her deathbed if she smoked medical marijuana. When we
challenged him, he would not back off from the statement. “The law is
the law.”

The same officer also flatly stated that police “had intelligence”
about our plan, apparently confirming our suspicions that we had been
followed earlier.

They handcuffed some of us very tightly. I have some existing nerve
problems in my right hand, and the cuffs quickly caused my hand to go
to a painful numb. One of the girl’s hands was swelling and changing
color, and all they would say was "we’ll loosen them “soon.” “Soon”
ended up being about two hours for them to just cut the plastic cuffs
off and put them back on a little looser.

It really seemed like they were not used to the procedure for arresting
people. They fumbled over the paperwork for what seemed like forever.
They did not process any one of us the same way. Some of us they
searched over and over. Some of us they never searched. Some of us had
our ties and belts and shoestrings taken. Some did not. They had to ask
us to spell simple words for them.

When they took our belts, I had a good laugh with Bruce Mirkin of the
Marijuana Policy Project about “sittin’ here on the group W bench,” but
most of the rest of our group was too young to get the Arlo Guthrie,
“Alice’s Restaurant” reference. One of the girls asked if it wouldn’t
be easier for her to take off her pants to hang herself than to use her
shoestrings. She was told, “say anything else like that and I’ll take
you to the psycho ward.”

I guess logic equals insanity to that officer.

After about 3 hours at the Federal Protection Service office, we were
driven across town to a DC precinct holding cell. Our cuffs were
finally removed after about 3.5 hours.

We were charged with “incommoding,” a rather unglamorous sounding crime
that essentially means trespassing in order to block an entrance. We
were offered the opportunity to “post and forfeit” a bond. This is
essentially a “no contest” type of plea that closes out our cases. We
accepted, paid $50 each, and will not have to appear in court. You
might think they would release us at that point. Nope.

We kept ourselves amused as best we could, talking about war stories
from other demonstrations, and discussing what our next steps might be.
One of the highlights of the afternoon was when someone found a
cockroach in the toilet. Hey, there’s not much to keep you amused in a
holding cell.

While the democrats and libertarians were debating what to do – should
we liberate the cockroach – or have a betting pool on how long he could
swim – Adam, the Green Party guy, flushed him.

As the afternoon turned to early evening, a stream of arrestees on
various traffic charges were added to our holding cell. While we had to
depend on what they told us as to what they were arrested for, it all
pretty much sounded like bogus driving-while-black charges were the
main reason they were there. I can’t imagine that I would have gotten
more than a ticket for the same charges that these guys were arrested
for.

It’s one thing to read about the racism of the justice system. It’s
another thing to witness it right in front of your eyes.

One of the traffic arrestees gave us a good laugh with his take on our
civil disobedience. “Damn, you mean you guys broke INTO jail?”

We started getting frustrated that we were not being processed more
quickly. You would think that we would not have been expecting
efficiency and logic from our captors. The processing officers spent
much of the afternoon watching Scooby-Do and other TV shows instead of
bothering to photograph and fingerprint us.

A little after 6:00 PM, they let the first five of us out. The rest
were released a couple of hours later.

THE RESULTS

We did civil disobedience specifically in order to get media attention
to the issue of medical marijuana. We wanted the public to know that
this is an issue so critical to so many sick people that others are
willing to risk jail to bring it to the public’s strong attention.

We certainly succeeded enough to declare the action a success. The
biggest hits we know of were the two major news wire services, Reuters
and United Press International. The LA Times, Washington Times, and
Washington Post ran stories, as did many smaller papers. Local TV news
affiliates around the country covered the demonstrations. Noelle had
the rough experience of watching me being drug away in handcuffs on the
nightly news in DC.

We are still assembling a comprehensive list of all the media hits, but
it’s safe to say we reached millions with our message.

WHAT’S NEXT

Drug reformers are already discussing larger direct actions in the
future. But there are vital steps to be taken right now by the
Libertarian Party if we want to keep the medical marijuana issue in the
public eye.

The next important step in our Drug War Focus Strategy is to produce a
quality, hard-hitting, easily customizable TV commercial about medical
marijuana that can be used by any LP candidate.

We want a commercial that will resonate with the 73% of Americans who
believe that medical marijuana should be legal, and that physicians and
patients should make medical decisions, not law enforcement.

And we want a hard hitting commercial that can make it dangerous for
politicians NOT to vote for medical marijuana, and that can help
candidates in tight races knock the worst drug warriors out of Congress
and state legislatures.

And we want to make it so that not only can it be run nationally, but
so that any LP candidate or local party can easily use it just by
adding their own tag line.

And we want a commercial that will convince people that a policy of
compassion is better than one of incarceration, and that will motivate
them to vote for the Party of Principle and our candidates.

We haven’t finalized a script yet, but we are leaning toward something
like this:

Picture a “little old lady in tennis shoes,” except she’s also in a
wheelchair. Her husband’s beside her, her children in back, along with
their many trophies from school.

She starts talking about how the voters in her state voted to make her
medicine legal, and her doctor recommends it, but the government sent
armed agents to close down the dispensary. She explains how painful and
life threatening her condition is, and how medical marijuana is the
medicine that treats it more effectively than any other.

And she says politicians who have taken away the medicine that gives
her relief. She talks about the threat of arrest for using medicine
that could help save her life, and how her doctor is threatened with
loss of license just for recommending marijuana.

And she asks, “Why would they do that to me, I’m a cancer patient, not
a criminal?”

What a waste of electrons. Anony coulda jus’posted the website. no need to clutter this string.
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“Now cut that out!” - Xi

No, cause I’m going to read all that.

in Canada it’s prolly likly that pot will become legal for the public in the next 5 years.

you can allready get a licence to grow it for madicenal use and they may change the penelty for posation to a fine instede of jail time.

Well in California it’s especially easy to grow drugs in the hill sides and in homes, which is why we often get reports of drug lab explosions (geezzz… know your chemistry folks!).

Anonymous receives the coveted NoPrize (1 of 2 so far) from me for the longest post EVER! But the trick is to only read the last paragraph that usually saves me time by telling me everything that I need to know.

hehe at the U of Guelph you can take corses on hydroponics and how to properly use it.

BC and Ontario pot, some of tthe finest in the world.

Yeah, the U.S. gets most of it’s pot from Canada. I don’t know what our druggies would do without those canucks…

On 2002-06-12 15:30, TG Moses VI wrote:
But the trick is to only read the last paragraph that usually saves me time by telling me everything that I need to know.

T VI,
Thanks for the idea! I do that with some long paras in books and don’t miss a thing.
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“Why didn’t I think of that?” - Xi

quote: hehe at the U of Guelph you can take corses on hydroponics and how to properly use it.

BC and Ontario pot, some of tthe finest in the world.

Dude, you totally havn’t been paying attention. Manitoba Marijuana is where it’s at. We received a fair bit of American attention for growing the good stuff. Speaking of which, Flin Flon, a northern communitee is the site of gov’t grown Mary Jane.
Re: Medicinal Marijuana - you can get similar pain relief from a couple of tylenol (according to one study anyway). We need REAL studies, not the anecdotes of some cancer victims before we may consider marijuana to be of any medicinal use (also see echinacea, etc.)
Re: Legality. I think that the Cdn gov’t should decriminalize marijuana use. Possibly a fine might be a little handy, and trafficers should be treated the same as smugglers, but sending pot-heads to prison is doing no one any good. I am in favor of putting both marijuana and tobacco in the same legal context as marijuana does not appear to kill as many people second-hand as tobacco does.

Well I was never a user of Marijuana. Pure Opium is where all the good stop if at, and with the highest LD50 out there.

Getting back to the original purpose of this post about weather the war on drugs should continue/should drugs be legalized, the solution seems rather simple to me. Its just a mindset really. We need to educate people in reality. The purpose of all drugs (except stupid ones like nicotine that just addict) are to take you away from reality, to get “high” is like travelling into a fantasy world where you can forget your current worries and just have a good time. If life is so FCKED up that we can’t deal with reality without artificial aids then I say legalize it all and damn the consequences…but otherwise we should just deal :smile:

Drugs do exactly as they’re told, it is up to the user’s will to decide if he wants to ruin his life by taking drugs.

ahhh Moses, you liberal you. Nice idea, but we need now to invoke a massive series of steps in order to insure quality of product, education of the people, and keeping drugs away from children. Then you have the societal problems (alcohol being the heavyweight currently in causing these). Also the public purse tends to get squeezed quite a bit by the drug users - both in terms of lost productivity, as well as rehabilitation (how many drug users wish they never started?), clinical sequelae and treatments, family issues, crime-to-support-drug-habits, and other social issues. Finally (and i know this is a weak argument already, ok?) we already have tons of legislation out there in place to protect people from themselves in order to prevent the above listed consequences - seatbelt laws, helmet laws, pharmaceuticals that never make it to market for some FDA/health Canada reason, jaywalking laws, even suicide is legislated (rather stupidly). This is in the name of the public good/fiscal responsibility of politicians etc. I will reitirate, tho’, that users (esp of "soft drugs) should not be made criminals b/c of their addiction or enjoyment of the drug, but do need to be made aware of the consequences. Dealers on the other hand . . . .