no third solution

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Category Archives: Drug War Rants

Reefer Madness

September 18th, 2008

Last weekend, I made a Julian Simon-esque wager with a friend: that we’d see the complete decriminalization of marijuana (and possibly other substances) within 10 years, citing only what I believe to be massive popular support (or at least, a lack of strong opposition among the public at large). It’s been quasi-legalized, or decriminalized in a number of states/cities.

Now, a recent ruling in California (Santa Cruz v. Mukasey) might put an end to the fascist War on Drugs, as we know it.

[A U.S. District Court] has recognized a concerted effort by the federal government to sabotage state medical marijuana laws, which violates the U.S. Constitution. The significance of this ruling, the first of its kind, cannot be overstated…

In the summation, the court found that, “There was a calculated pattern of selective arrests and prosecutions by the federal government with the intent to render California’s medical marijuana laws impossible to implement and therefore forced Californian’s and their political subdivisions to re-criminalize medical marijuana.”

Medical Marijauna is on the ballot in Michigan this year, so the ruling in California is cause for optimism. Perhaps we will one day look back on the days when terminally ill people were forced to die in pain, or when otherwise peaceful and law-abiding individuals were arrested, families destroyed, etc. Maybe.

The empirical evidence in favor of decriminalization/legalization is overwhelming to the point of not warranting citation, here.

It’s time to face the facts: drug prohibition doesn’t work, and no amount of tax-dollars directed towards the war on drugs will render it successful. Alcohol prohibition in the 1920s was such an abysmal failure that the Amendment to the constitution was eventually repealed. The drug war, has by any objective account, ruined or destroyed far more lives, wasting untold billions, depriving brown-skinned people in third world countries of lucrative incomes (cf American interventionism in Afghanistan’s opium trade), disproportionately incarcerating brown-skinned Americans, and depriving people of their individual liberties.

But still, politicians and pseudo-politicians like Sheriff Bouchard are willing to throw the will of the people out the window, if it disagrees with his personal opinions on the matter. Last I checked, recreational use has at least tacit support among a pretty significant number of people.

Some people argue that the Medical Marijuana initiative is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and that the proponents of medical marijuana are trying to back-door their way to full-blown legalization. I say that full-blown marijuana legalization is the issue, and it’s the only way to frame this discussion which is compatible with any notion of freedom.

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See also: Reefer Madness #1

If You Can Think For Yourself, You Can’t Serve on a Jury

August 20th, 2008

Not that anyone who can think for himself would want to serve on a jury, where he’ll be asked to sanction, sanitize and legitimize the predominately criminal acts of the government…

John P says that jury nullification protects people from the State, citing a recent case where a juror was removed for questioning the legitimacy of the law.
He quotes,

The jury sent a note to the trial judge with the following query: Since the Constitution needed to be amended in 1919 to authorize federal criminal prosecutions for manufacturing and smuggling alcohol, a juror wanted to know from the judge where “is the constitutional grant of authority to ban mere possession of cocaine today?”

I’ve often wondered the same thing. Alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment to infringe upon individual sovereignty. Modern drug laws face far less resistance.

Apparently, questioning the legitimacy of the law, especially one which clearly fails to meet the standards previously set for similar legislation, will get you removed from the jury. I agree that jury nullification is not the be-all, end-all of libertarian justice, but as long as jurors are not permitted to question the validity of the law, jury nullification is the only moral option.

Errors & Omissions #1: Another Isolated Incident

July 15th, 2008

In response to Another Isolated Incident, 1955Design comments:

I am confused. The link you refer us to reports only about a suspect who was *apprehended* by the police, not killed by them.

Am I missing something?

Yes and no.

Yahoo!News was missing something. The headline I clicked on via Yahoo! said something like, “Burglary Suspect in Houston Dies After Being Tasered,” but the link took me to the June 26 article that I cited, wherein the suspect was merely apprehended. However.  The fact that the article I read (initially) said nothing about the death didn’t really surprise me.  Apparently, the Yahoo!’s intern was at the helm Monday morning.

Rest assured, the actual incident did happen, and you can read about it via the Houston Chronicle: Burglary suspect dies after Taser shock in NE Houston. This incident involved slightly different circumstances: a reported home invasion, and a fleeing suspect who was tasered when he refused to submit peacefully. This man did die, and the tone of the commentary is strikingly similar (and strikingly illiterate):

  • This is a classic misuse of a taser, the officer should have shot him instead. A bullet is much cheaper than a new taser.
  • HPD shoulld (sic) have used real bullets instead.
  • Great Job HPD…one less (sic) turd off the streets….

Francois Tremblay wants to know what makes people think this way. Probably years of propagandized education and mass-media that has succeeded in rendering most people incapable of any amount of critical thinking.

The circumstances of this case are apparently less appalling than the other case, although I think it is probably safe to assume that this person also had a drug addiction, so the underlying differences are only of degree. As I said,

[T]he moment he flees, there is no longer a conceivable threat… sufficient to justify the use of lethal force—and that’s what we’re talking about here.

The fact of the matter is that tasers are simply not the “non-lethal” devices that many people believe them to be, and given their lethality, should only be used when one would otherwise morally justify the use of lethal force. Attempting to apprehend a suspect after the threat of personal harm has disappeared does not strike me as such a circumstance.

no third solution

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