Drug War Chronicle, Issue #601 -(urls + editorial)- 9/18/09

Drug War Chronicle, Issue #601 -- 9/18/09
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601

A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Membership/Book Offer: "Marijuana is Safer -- So Why Are We
Driving People to Drink?"
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/book_offer_marijuana_is_safer

Table of Contents:

1. FEATURE: WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH SAN DIEGO? ANOTHER ROUND OF
MEDICAL MARIJUANA RAIDS AND ARRESTS HIT "AMERICA'S FINEST CITY"
San Diego may be a gleaming, coastal California city, but when
it comes to medical marijuana, it's more like Fresno-by-the-Sea.
The latest round of dispensary raids has patients and advocates
fuming and looking for ways to extract political revenge and
gain a little justice.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/san_diego_medical_marijuana_raids

2. FEATURE: MARIJUANA ARRESTS, ALL DRUG ARRESTS DECLINED
SLIGHTLY IN 2008, FBI REPORTS
The number of marijuana arrests last year declined for the first
time since 2002, the FBI said in its Uniform Crime Report this
week. The overall number of drug arrests also fell slightly. The
down-tick seems to be the result not of enlightened policing,
but of law enforcement agencies feeling the budgetary pinch.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/fbi_uniform_crime_report_marijuana_drug_arrests_de
cline

3. HIGHER EDUCATION: HOUSE PASSES STUDENT LOAN BILL WITH FURTHER
LIMITATIONS ON DRUG WARRIOR "AID ELIMINATION PENALTY"
The Higher Education Act's "Aid Elimination Penalty," or
anti-drug provision, is poised for further watering down after
the House of Representatives passed a bill that would limit it
to people with drug sales -- not drug possession -- convictions.
But the provision's author, Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) kept
fighting almost until the end.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/higher_education_act_souder_drug_provision_limited

4. BOOK OFFER/MEMBERSHIP APPEAL: "MARIJUANA IS SAFER -- SO WHY
ARE WE DRIVING PEOPLE TO DRINK?"
To kick off our autumn fundraising drive, StoptheDrugWar.org is
pleased to offer the exciting new book, "Marijuana is Safer --
So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?," as our latest
membership premium -- donate $36 or more and we'll send you a
copy for free! Things are happening, and the importance of your
support at this time could not be greater.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/book_offer_marijuana_is_safer

5. LATIN AMERICA: MEXICO DRUG WAR UPDATE
Mexican President Felipe Calderon's war against drug cartels
reached a milestone late last week, but not the kind he's
looking for: This year's prohibition-related death toll has gone
over the 5,000 mark.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/mexico_drug_war_update

6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
More fun for the Philly narcs, a New Jersey ICE employee goes
down, and a Brooklyn drug squad supervisor gets off easy.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/police_drug_corruption

7. FOREIGN POLICY: IN ANNUAL CERTIFICATION REPORT, STATE
DEPARTMENT SAYS BOLIVIA, BURMA, VENEZUELA NOT COOPERATING IN
ANTI-DRUG FIGHT
The State Department and President Obama have issued the annual,
congressionally-mandated list of countries not complying with US
drug war objectives. The only countries listed as not in
compliance are three with which the US has chilly relations,
while countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, elements of whose
governments are deeply implicated in the drug trade, get a pass.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/US_decertifies_bolivia_burma_venezuela_anti_drug

8. HARM REDUCTION: PENNSYLVANIA ALLOWS SYRINGE SALES WITHOUT
PRESCRIPTION, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
And then there were two: Pennsylvania's Board of Pharmacy has
issued new regulations allowing pharmacies to sell syringes
without a prescription. That leaves Delaware and New Jersey as
the only states that don't.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/pennsylvania_syringe_sales_without_prescription

9. LAW ENFORCEMENT: FACING BUDGET WOES, MINNEAPOLIS AXES DOPE
SQUAD
Minneapolis has become the largest US city without a drug squad
after the chief axed it as part of an effort to reduce a $5
million budget gap.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/minneapolis_police_disband_narcotic_squad

10. SOUTHEAST ASIA: NEW INDONESIAN DRUG LAW DRAWS HUMAN RIGHTS
CRITICISMS
Indonesia has a new drug law, but it looks pretty much like
business as usual for Southeast Asia, home of some of the
world's harshest drug laws.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/indonesia_passes_new_drug_law

11. EUROPE: DUTCH BORDER TOWN CANNABIS COFFEE SHOP OWNERS LOSE
COURT BATTLE AGAINST BAN
Faced with thousands of drug tourists flooding into their towns
each week, the mayors of two Dutch border towns ordered their
cannabis coffee shops to quit selling marijuana as of Wednesday.
Coffee shop owners went to court last week to block it, but so
far with no luck.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/dutch_cannabis_coffee_house_border_ban

12. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/drug_war_history

13. FEEDBACK: DO YOU READ DRUG WAR CHRONICLE?
Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we need your feedback to
evaluate our work and make the case for Drug War Chronicle to
funders. We need donations too.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/do_you_read_drug_war_chronicle

14. ANNOUNCEMENT: THE 2009 INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY REFORM
CONFERENCE, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, NOVEMBER 12-14
Every two years drug policy reformers from across the United
States and around the world come to the International Drug
Policy Reform Conference to listen, learn, network and
strategize together for change. This year the conference is in
Albuquerque, in November, and StoptheDrugWar.org is a partner.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/2009_international_drug_policy_reform_conference_a
lbuquerque_new_mexico

15. WEEKLY: BLOGGING @ THE SPEAKEASY
"Former Mexican President Proposes Legalizing Drugs in Mexico
AND the US," "The Marijuana Ads That ABC, FOX, and CBS Refused
to Show You," "The Weekly Standard Cheers on Mexican Drug War
Bloodshed," "No Matter How Bad You Think the Drug War Is, It's
Worse," "Using Drug Laws to Steal From Innocent People," "US
Forest Service Apologizes for Racist Marijuana Warning," "Drug
War Violence is Destroying Mexico's Economy," "The Manhattan
DA's Race: The Princess of Darkness vs. Two Former Coke-Snorting
Assistant DAs," "A Victory in the House of Representatives,"
"ALERT: Crucial Vote on Souder's Law Happening Tomorrow -- YOUR
PHONE CALLS NEEDED!," "Drugs the Most Numerous Arrest Type in
'08, Though Down Slightly from '07, FBI Reports," "Room for
Debate on Mexico's Drug Decriminalization Law."
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/blogging_at_the_speakeasy

16. STUDENTS: INTERN AT STOPTHEDRUGWAR.ORG (DRCNET) AND HELP
STOP THE DRUG WAR!
Apply for an internship at DRCNet and you could spend a semester
fighting the good fight!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org to sign up
today!)

===============

1. Feature: What's the Matter With San Diego? Another Round of
Medical Marijuana Raids and Arrests Hit "America's Finest City"
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/601/san_diego_medical_marijuana_raids

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis claims to be a
friend of medical marijuana, but one would be hard-pressed to
find anyone in the local medical marijuana community who would
agree with her. This "friend" coordinated mass raids against
medical marijuana dispensaries there in 2006, again in February
of this year, and yet again just last week.

It is part and parcel of a pattern of bitter, recalcitrant
refusal on the part of San Diego county officials to abide by
the will of the voters and accept the state's medical marijuana
law. The conservative county Board of Commissioners is notorious
for its opposition to medical marijuana, going so far as
pursuing a quixotic and costly legal challenge to state laws,
which it lost in every court that heard it.

On Tuesday, the Board unanimously extended for 10 months a
moratorium on new dispensaries
(http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-09-16/news/county-supervisors-vote-to-extend-marijuana-
moratorium)
in unincorporated areas of the county. After its court challenge
to the state law was defeated, the Board is now grudgingly
allowing staff to develop regulations for dispensaries, but in
the meantime, DA Dumanis is picking them off in batches.

The city of San Diego has been a bit more friendly. Last week,
just one day before Dumanis' raiders struck, the City Council
voted to implement a task force to create recommendations for
regulating collectives and co-ops in accordance with guidelines
issued earlier this year by the state attorney general. But if
the City Council is working with the medical marijuana
community, the San Diego Police Department is not. Instead, it
has joined forces with Dumanis and her conservative cronies to
attack the dispensaries.

Last week's raids shuttered 14 dispensaries in San Diego, the
North County, and South Bay, and resulted in 33 arrests -- 31
under state charges and two under federal charges -- including
wheelchair-bound patients hauled away by armed and uniformed law
enforcement agents. Dumanis assembled squads of San Diego
Police, San Diego County Sheriff's officers, DEA agents, and IRS
agents to swoop down on the dispensaries, make arrests, seize
cash and medicine, and disrupt the local medical marijuana
distribution system.

While the DEA was present, last week's raids were Dumanis's
baby. Only two of those arrested face federal charges.

"It was a joint investigation with the sheriff's department and
the police department," said San Diego DEA spokeswoman Amy
Roderick. "We were asked for our assistance. We were not at
every location."

Roderick declined to spell out how DEA San Diego is interpreting
the current Justice Department position on not pursuing medical
marijuana providers in states where it is legal unless they are
in violation of state law. "I can't comment on policy," she
said. "It's not made by the DEA."

"Like most San Diegans, I support the use of legitimate and
legal medical marijuana use," Dumanis said at a press conference
touting the busts. "However, it appears these so-called
'marijuana dispensaries' are nothing more than for-profit
storefront drug dealing operations run by drug dealers hiding
behind the state's medical marijuana law."

"We're not surprised at all, but very disappointed," said
Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy state director for the Drug
Policy Alliance (http://www.drugpolicy.org). "What Dumanis is
doing is simply unacceptable. If she has legitimate concerns
about how dispensaries are operating, whether they're operating
as collectives, she could use civil actions, she could use
letters and accountants. There is no call for bringing in the
DEA, arresting people in wheelchairs, scaring the hell out of
patients, and shutting off medical marijuana access for very
sick people. It's her tactics that we're really concerned with,"
she said.

"But also her misrepresentations to the public of what she's
doing and her unproductive strategy of pointing out what she
says is illegal, but not saying what is legal," Dooley-Sammuli
continued. "Collective operators are doing their best to comply
with the law, but she doesn't have answers for them. People have
gone out of their way to follow the guidelines, but got raided
anyway."

I don't think Bonnie Dumanis has ever seen a legal dispensary in
13 years," said Dion Markgraff, San Diego coordinator for
Americans for Safe Access (http://www.safeaccessnow.org) "She
can't follow the plain language of the law, but instead she
holds some impossible standard that no one else knows about," he
said.

"We're on the front lines of the most terrorist county in the
whole state," Markgraff continued. "The DA is sending in cops
who lied to doctors to get valid recommendations, and then
busting dispensaries that are operating according to the law. At
worst, maybe somebody didn't file this or that piece of paper or
had a zoning issue, but there was certainly nothing criminal."

Markgraff himself has had a taste of the DA's bitter medicine.
"I was raided two months ago for 32 immature plants," he
related. "My girlfriend and I both have medical marijuana
recommendations, and I had a state caregiver card. The cops
laughed at my card, then stole it. They took everything, they
arrested me and my girlfriend, they took my kid, they gave us
both $130,000 bail. Now we're fighting this Kafkaesque,
Orwellian system where the prosecutors and the judges don't give
a shit about legality."

There was nothing unique about police seizing his daughter,
Markgraff said. "They do it all the time. The first thing they
say is 'we're going to take your kids if you don't plead.' When
they're using your kids as leverage, that's really ugly," he
said.

"We have not, and will not prosecute people who are legitimately
and legally using medical marijuana," Dumanis said at the press
conference. "It's a shame that a few illegal drug dealers are
trampling on the compassion shown by voters in passing
California's medical marijuana law."

Medical marijuana patient and now criminal defendant Donna
Lambert begs to differ. She joined a 10-person medical marijuana
collective after the 2006 raids that disrupted supplies. "I
provided medical marijuana to a valid qualified patient who was
an undercover cop who lied to a doctor to get a doctor's
recommendation," said Lambert, who was one of 14 people arrested
in the Operation Green RX raids conducted in February. "There
was no dispute about my patient status or his patient status."

In Operation Green RX, as many as ten detectives spent six
months becoming qualified medical marijuana patients on
fraudulent grounds and then joining medical marijuana
collectives. Undercover San Diego Police Detective Scott
Henderson lied to a doctor to obtain a valid medical marijuana
recommendation and then reached out to Ms. Lambert for help.
When, believing she was lawfully helping another patient, she
supplied him with medical marijuana, Lambert became yet another
of Dumanis' victims.

"Lambert, a 47-year-old San Diego resident, began relying on
marijuana to cope with chemotherapy. She struggles with a number
of serious illnesses, including hepatitis C, cirrhosis, cancer
and Sjoegrens Disease. She was bound over for December trial
during a preliminary hearing last week, despite the judge in
that hearing noting that she was clearly not in it for profit.
"My attorney says they've never dismissed a medical marijuana
sales case in San Diego," she said.

"They are a little more conservative down there than the other
coastal cities," said San Francisco-based Marijuana Policy
Project (http://www.mpp.org) spokesman Bruce Mirken when asked
what was the matter with San Diego. "It seems like the county is
more a problem than the city, and some of their officials,
including the DA, are particularly bad."

California's confused medical marijuana law is part of the
problem, said Mirken. "It doesn't specify with absolute clarity
what is legal and what isn't when it comes to medical marijuana
distribution. Everyone is operating on the attorney general's
guidelines, which haven't been tested in court, and that leaves
room for interpretation, so you have fertile ground for
officials who choose to be jerks to wreak a great deal of havoc.
That's what's happening in San Diego County."

"People got up in arms at the DEA, but in this case, they were
playing a supporting role," said Mirken. "The real problem is
local officials who think medical marijuana is okay as long as
you don't actually get it from anyone. The law says patients can
have marijuana, so it makes sense to have an aboveground,
organized distribution system. We have working models for that
in places like San Francisco and Oakland. It's not that hard to
do if you have the political will to do it," Mirken said.

"It's just been an ongoing battle for lo these many years," said
Dale Gieringer, head of California NORML
(http://www.canorml.org) in San Francisco. "The city of San
Diego isn't so bad, but the county is more conservative. The
county board of commissioners is the one that filed the lawsuit
trying to overturn the state medical marijuana law. And the DA
is just bad. We initially approved of her election; she is gay,
and was viewed as progressive, but she's been really tough on
medical cannabis. Still, I see a glimmer of hope here. In half
of her statements, Dumanis seems to be saying that there might
be some legal dispensaries around, but nobody's clear on who
they are."

San Diego medical marijuana patients and activists aren't seeing
glimmers of hope; they're seeing red. "We need to replace the
DA, most of the county board, and the county sheriff," said
Lambert. "They are all working together to subvert the state
law. It doesn't matter to them if people are following the law
or not, she just lies through her teeth about it. I am the
perfect example of her lies."

"Dumanis has made a political calculation that this will appeal
to her conservative base," said Markgraff. "There is no one
currently running against her, but we are trying to get someone
to do that. There are plenty of people upset with her, and now
just in the medical marijuana community. She's ripe for being
thrown out," he said.

"We are mobilizing in San Diego," said Dooley-Sammuli. "Patients
and medical marijuana supporters are working to put pressure on
her to stop these tactics, and we're working with the newly
created city task force to craft regulations, but this is really
all about Bonnie Dumanis and the upcoming election. She is
hoping this will work for her politically, and we're working to
see that it doesn't."

San Diego activists told the Chronicle of many more horror
stories about medical marijuana persecution under DA Dumanis.
While they are working to get rid of Dumanis and bring a measure
of real justice to the DA's office, the Chronicle will be
digging a little deeper into the alleged abuses.

================...

___________________

It's time to correct the mistake:
truth:the Anti-drugwar
<http://www.briancbennett.com>

Cops say legalize drugs--find out why:
<http://www.leap.cc>

Stoners are people too:
<http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
___________________

later
bliss -- Cacoa Powered... (at sfo dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cacoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

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