Reggae star and political activist Ziggy Marley explains how the legalization of marijuana could change California and the rest of the country.
Source MSNBC
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Cops Under Pressure To Deny They Support Legalizing Marijuana
During California gubernatorial debates last week, Meg Whitman was asked about her position on Proposition 19 and marijuana legalization and said: "Every single law enforcement official in this entire state is against Proposition 19."
Former San Jose Chief of Police Joseph McNamara disagrees.
"She's absolutely wrong," said McNamara. "A lot of police officers both retired and on duty are in favor of passing it because they realize that the 'war on drugs' has failed and is going to fail."
For example, McNamara noted, hundreds have joined the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
"I think she misstated what she believed," he said.
Whitman's office did not immediately respond to a HuffPost query requesting clarification.
One thing is true: California's active-duty police officers can't speak up in favor of legalizing marijuana for fear of losing their jobs.
For instance, scores of former officials recently signed a letter saying that marijuana prohibition only fuels more dangerous crime by enriching Mexican drug cartels who put guns on American streets -- but every member of the California police department waited until after they'd retired to sign.
HuffPost talked with cops who support Prop. 19 about the element of suppression.
"It's difficult, there are all kinds of factors that inhibit police officers from taking a public stance," said David Bratzer, a police officer for the Victoria Police Department in British Columbia who supports legalizing the drug. "They're worried about career advancement; harassment from colleagues or supervisors -- these are all issues that serving police officers have to consider."
Bratzer told HuffPost in an interview Wednesday night that even though many law enforcement officers will agree with him privately, only a handful of cops have been willing to make their opinions known publicly.
"The paramilitary structure of law enforcement discourages police officers from speaking out against the status quo even if that status quo is causing enormous damage in terms of wasted lives and resources," said Bratzer, who was careful to emphasize to HuffPost that his views are his alone and should not be attributed to his police department.
Groups ranging from The National Black Police Association to the California NAACP haveendorsed Prop. 19, arguing that police waste valuable resources targeting non-violent cannabis consumers, while thousands of violent crimes go unsolved. Still most officers wait until they've left their jobs in law enforcement to take a stand.
"I was with the LAPD when Nixon declared the 'war on drugs' over 40 years ago and was one of the 'generals' on the front lines who helped implement that same failed drug policy that is still in effect today," said Stephen Downing, a retired LAPD deputy chief of police.
"By keeping marijuana illegal, we aren't preventing anyone from using it," added Downing in a statement. "The only results are billions of tax-free dollars being funneled into the pockets of bloodthirsty drug cartels and gangs who control the illegal market."
Downing is not the only former police chief who has come out against prohibition.
McNamara, now a research fellow in drug policy at Stanford University, has argued that the 60 percent of the cash that supports violent drug cartels comes from the sale of illegal marijuana.
"I think many veteran officers start out as I did being a drug war warrior," explained McNamara, who, since he began studying drug policy academically, has become increasingly convinced that the problem is prohibition not the plant.
"We were participants in the war on marijuana," he said. "But after a while, I realized that the majority of the cops I hired during my 18 years as a police chief had used marijuana before we hired them."
"I don't personally use it," he said, "but I think it's really stupid to put people in jail for that reason."
Still, McNamara insists there are good reasons for cops not to speak out in favor of marijuana legalization while they're on active duty.
"You take an oath to support the law, not just the laws you agree with," he told HuffPost in an interview. "You're under the authority of elected officials and so you can't speak out on policy issues in opposition to what your superiors say."
If police officers feel they can't enforce a law in good conscience, they can always leave. But often, McNamara said, they don't.
"People don't commit career suicide," he said. "So they do the best they can. Whether they agree with them or not, they have to carry out the laws." When he was a cop, McNamara said he tried to keep things in perspective. "I did, within the area of my discretion, enforce the law with as much common sense as I could," he said.
A poll of 1,067 likely voters released Thursday found 44 percent of likely voters said they plan to vote for Prop. 19, while 49 percent plan to vote against it. That's an 8-point drop in support since September when 52 percent of likely voters said they would vote for it.
"Personally I think it's a shame that more serving California police officers are not supporting reform publicly," said Bratzer. "History will remember this as a failure of leadership at the highest levels of law enforcement in the state."
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
California Pot Law Could Spark Court Action
an Francisco -- Federal officials haven't ruled out taking legal action if California voters approve a ballot initiative that would legalize recreational medical use in the state, President Barack Obama's drug czar said Wednesday.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Director of National Drug Control Policy Gil Kerlikowske said Justice Department officials are "looking at all their options" for responding to the measure, which would conflict with federal laws classifying marijuana as an illegal drug.
Among them, he said, is following the recommendation nine of the nation's former Drug Enforcement Agency chiefs made last month in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder: having Obama sue to overturn Proposition 19 as an affront to federal authority.
"The letter from the former DEA administrators, a number of whom are not only practicing attorneys but former state attorney generals, made it very clear that they felt that pre-emption was certainly applicable in this case," said Kerlikowske, the former police chief of Seattle.
Holder told the former DEA heads last week that that the U.S. government plans to "vigorously enforce" federal laws outlawing marijuana possession and distribution even if the activities are allowed under state law. But the attorney general did not respond directly to their suggestion that the administration should go to court if California passes the first-of-its-kind measure aimed at treating marijuana the same as alcohol.
Proposition 19, a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot, would allow adults at least 21 years old to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana and grow 25-square-foot pot gardens for personal pleasure. It would also authorize county and city governments to regulate and tax commercial cultivation and sales.
Kerlikowske was in Southern California on Wednesday for a visit to a Pasadena drug treatment center where he planned to discuss new government data on marijuana abuse in California.
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Lisa Leff, The Associated Press
In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Director of National Drug Control Policy Gil Kerlikowske said Justice Department officials are "looking at all their options" for responding to the measure, which would conflict with federal laws classifying marijuana as an illegal drug.
Among them, he said, is following the recommendation nine of the nation's former Drug Enforcement Agency chiefs made last month in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder: having Obama sue to overturn Proposition 19 as an affront to federal authority.
"The letter from the former DEA administrators, a number of whom are not only practicing attorneys but former state attorney generals, made it very clear that they felt that pre-emption was certainly applicable in this case," said Kerlikowske, the former police chief of Seattle.
Holder told the former DEA heads last week that that the U.S. government plans to "vigorously enforce" federal laws outlawing marijuana possession and distribution even if the activities are allowed under state law. But the attorney general did not respond directly to their suggestion that the administration should go to court if California passes the first-of-its-kind measure aimed at treating marijuana the same as alcohol.
Proposition 19, a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot, would allow adults at least 21 years old to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana and grow 25-square-foot pot gardens for personal pleasure. It would also authorize county and city governments to regulate and tax commercial cultivation and sales.
Kerlikowske was in Southern California on Wednesday for a visit to a Pasadena drug treatment center where he planned to discuss new government data on marijuana abuse in California.
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Lisa Leff, The Associated Press
He's a Train Wreck Behind The Wheel
California -- The man in the uniform had a question for me. "How do you feel?" CHP Sgt. David Nelms asked. His interest in my health was probably prompted by the fact that I was at that moment toking a joint stuffed with a bud called Train Wreck. Pretty good, I said, already buzzed enough to wonder if this was really happening.
In my youth, I spent more than a few evenings hoping the police weren't keeping close tabs on my activities. So it felt a bit strange last week to have a group of cops paw my marijuana stash and then ask me to get high.
"There you go, Cheech," said KABC radio host Peter Tilden, a fellow volunteer. Tilden was smoking something called Blockhead, which I presume is a standard choice among talk show hosts.
As reported in my first installment of the Cannabis Chronicles on Sunday, I had been asked by Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich to help determine whether, and how, marijuana impairs driving. He recruited more than two dozen police officers from various Southern California agencies and the CHP to bear witness and study the differences between driving while high and driving while drunk.
"Probably nowhere in America is what we're doing today occurring," Trutanich's chief of investigation, Gary Schram, announced after I arrived at the LAPD training center in Granada Hills.
I think that was probably true.
I was invited to participate in part because I had been cleared to use medical marijuana legally last year by a gynecologist who said he knew nothing about back trouble but believed cannabis might just be the best cure for my pain. I'm not really a smoker, though, so I was concerned that I might get knocked on my heels and skew the results.
But Trutanich and many cops believe that if Proposition 19 passes next month and marijuana is as legal as potato chips and nearly as cheap, more new users will be driving under the influence, so the experiment would be worthwhile. Trutanich also noted that users often have no clue as to the potency of the grass they buy, and it varies wildly. Some of it can even make you feel like you've been in, let's say, a train wreck.
"OK," said Trutanich, "let's go."
Before I sampled the meds, the cops wanted to get a baseline on how I drove unimpaired, so I got behind the wheel of a marked CHP cruiser and was put through a series of tests involving a slalom course and various tight parking maneuvers.
For the trickiest part of the test, I drove toward a three-lane fork in the road, with a green traffic light above each lane. At the last second, two of the lights turned red and I had to swerve into the green lane. I pulled it off just fine, but in jerking the car, my bag of dope slid onto the floor.
Next, Tilden and I were escorted to a bluff at the edge of the training center where we could light up without risking a contact high for the assembled peace officers.
Two brave representatives of the CHP accompanied us, Nelms and officer J. Leffert. Well, here we go, I thought, lighting a stick of Train Wreck with the cops looking on. From the bluff, I could see "Nooch" Trutanich and company assembled in the distance, with an L.A. Fire Department paramedic unit waiting in case something went horribly wrong.
A few hits later, I suggested to Tilden that we roll a vehicle, come out holding our necks, sue everyone and retire, but that was the dope talking. Tilden had forgotten his rolling papers, so I gave him my Bob Marley wrappers and Officer Leffert expertly rolled a fat one for him.
"What are you, Rastafarian?" Tilden asked the officer. "Look at the size of that blunt."
One of us, after several strong hits on a second joint, was now giggling like a high school sophomore, and it wasn't Tilden or the cops. I believe Train Wreck may be from the sativa rather than indica species of pot. Sativa is said to give you a spacey surge instead of a drowsy body buzz. This could explain why, when I saw southern division CHP commander Kevin Gordon approaching to see if we were ripped yet, I stood on one foot for him, as if taking a sobriety test while puffing away and laughing like a hyena.
"Are you having fun?" asked Nelms, the drug recognition expert.
What, is that a crime, officer?
When we were driven back down the hill and I slid into an unmarked Crown Vic for my driving test, I couldn't resist the urge to play a little prank. I revved the engine, shifted into forward and jerked forward in the direction of the gathering, honking the horn like a lunatic as Trutanich and the others prepared to scatter.
But despite behaving like a doofus, I thought I could drive pretty well. For several minutes I concentrated on slaloming, parking and then finally the dreaded traffic signal.
It didn't seem to me that I was as impaired as I would have been after a few beers or glasses of wine or if I was one of the morons who drive while texting and yakking on cellphones.
But when I finished, Sgt. Nelms said I was less confident than I had been before smoking. He had to admit I hadn't bombed on the slalom and parking challenges, wobbling only a few traffic cones.
Getting through the traffic signal was another matter. Having to process a lot of information and make a quick decision, on Train Wreck, was a challenge. I swerved radically before getting into the correct lane, and if I were a cop, I'd have pulled me over.
Tilden, meanwhile, parked like a blind man. He ended up so far from the curb after parallel parking that he would have needed a search party to find it. But he had enough Blockhead in him to think he'd done just fine.
"They both show impairment across the board," Sgt. Nelms announced after we were put through another round of field sobriety tests.
Trutanich seemed pleased with the findings, but I think more research could be useful. Dude, I didn't even get a chance to dip into my bag of Skywalker.
Call me any time, Nooch. I'll do it for science.
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Steve Lopez
Website: LAtimes
In my youth, I spent more than a few evenings hoping the police weren't keeping close tabs on my activities. So it felt a bit strange last week to have a group of cops paw my marijuana stash and then ask me to get high.
"There you go, Cheech," said KABC radio host Peter Tilden, a fellow volunteer. Tilden was smoking something called Blockhead, which I presume is a standard choice among talk show hosts.
"Probably nowhere in America is what we're doing today occurring," Trutanich's chief of investigation, Gary Schram, announced after I arrived at the LAPD training center in Granada Hills.
I think that was probably true.
I was invited to participate in part because I had been cleared to use medical marijuana legally last year by a gynecologist who said he knew nothing about back trouble but believed cannabis might just be the best cure for my pain. I'm not really a smoker, though, so I was concerned that I might get knocked on my heels and skew the results.
But Trutanich and many cops believe that if Proposition 19 passes next month and marijuana is as legal as potato chips and nearly as cheap, more new users will be driving under the influence, so the experiment would be worthwhile. Trutanich also noted that users often have no clue as to the potency of the grass they buy, and it varies wildly. Some of it can even make you feel like you've been in, let's say, a train wreck.
"OK," said Trutanich, "let's go."
Before I sampled the meds, the cops wanted to get a baseline on how I drove unimpaired, so I got behind the wheel of a marked CHP cruiser and was put through a series of tests involving a slalom course and various tight parking maneuvers.
For the trickiest part of the test, I drove toward a three-lane fork in the road, with a green traffic light above each lane. At the last second, two of the lights turned red and I had to swerve into the green lane. I pulled it off just fine, but in jerking the car, my bag of dope slid onto the floor.
Next, Tilden and I were escorted to a bluff at the edge of the training center where we could light up without risking a contact high for the assembled peace officers.
Two brave representatives of the CHP accompanied us, Nelms and officer J. Leffert. Well, here we go, I thought, lighting a stick of Train Wreck with the cops looking on. From the bluff, I could see "Nooch" Trutanich and company assembled in the distance, with an L.A. Fire Department paramedic unit waiting in case something went horribly wrong.
A few hits later, I suggested to Tilden that we roll a vehicle, come out holding our necks, sue everyone and retire, but that was the dope talking. Tilden had forgotten his rolling papers, so I gave him my Bob Marley wrappers and Officer Leffert expertly rolled a fat one for him.
"What are you, Rastafarian?" Tilden asked the officer. "Look at the size of that blunt."
One of us, after several strong hits on a second joint, was now giggling like a high school sophomore, and it wasn't Tilden or the cops. I believe Train Wreck may be from the sativa rather than indica species of pot. Sativa is said to give you a spacey surge instead of a drowsy body buzz. This could explain why, when I saw southern division CHP commander Kevin Gordon approaching to see if we were ripped yet, I stood on one foot for him, as if taking a sobriety test while puffing away and laughing like a hyena.
"Are you having fun?" asked Nelms, the drug recognition expert.
What, is that a crime, officer?
When we were driven back down the hill and I slid into an unmarked Crown Vic for my driving test, I couldn't resist the urge to play a little prank. I revved the engine, shifted into forward and jerked forward in the direction of the gathering, honking the horn like a lunatic as Trutanich and the others prepared to scatter.
But despite behaving like a doofus, I thought I could drive pretty well. For several minutes I concentrated on slaloming, parking and then finally the dreaded traffic signal.
It didn't seem to me that I was as impaired as I would have been after a few beers or glasses of wine or if I was one of the morons who drive while texting and yakking on cellphones.
But when I finished, Sgt. Nelms said I was less confident than I had been before smoking. He had to admit I hadn't bombed on the slalom and parking challenges, wobbling only a few traffic cones.
Getting through the traffic signal was another matter. Having to process a lot of information and make a quick decision, on Train Wreck, was a challenge. I swerved radically before getting into the correct lane, and if I were a cop, I'd have pulled me over.
Tilden, meanwhile, parked like a blind man. He ended up so far from the curb after parallel parking that he would have needed a search party to find it. But he had enough Blockhead in him to think he'd done just fine.
"They both show impairment across the board," Sgt. Nelms announced after we were put through another round of field sobriety tests.
Trutanich seemed pleased with the findings, but I think more research could be useful. Dude, I didn't even get a chance to dip into my bag of Skywalker.
Call me any time, Nooch. I'll do it for science.
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Steve Lopez
Website: LAtimes
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