know hope

From The Stranger:

By the look of things, [Washington state is] about to become ground zero in the national battle to legalize marijuana. Tomorrow [This] morning at 11:00 a.m. in the Downtown Seattle Library, a well-organized new campaign called New Approach Washington will roll out the details of a still-partly-mysterious marijuana legalization initiative. So far they're only saying it would "authorize the Liquor Control Board to regulate the production and distribution of marijuana for sale to adults 21 and over in state-licensed stores."

It appears to be an unprecedented attempt to replace marijuana prohibition with a fully regulated marijuana industry...

The backers look powerful. And given that it will be filed in mid-summer, this would be an initiative to the legislature (which goes to lawmakers in Olympia early next year and to the ballot in 2012)...

This could win. This could be the big fight with the federal government. It will certainly stir the debate. It may go to the Supreme Court in a challenge of federal preemption. And these guys are serious.

The "powerful backers" include a former U.S. Attorney.

This could be fun.

i fear sane drugs policy might be like the metric system

Which is to say, the entire rest of the planet will adopt it before we are even willing to consider it seriously.

Dan Savage writes:

The Global Commission on Drug Policy released its report this week. Dirty hippies like George Schultz and Kofi Annan declared our five-decade War On Drugs a failure that has had "devastating consequences" for societies, governments, and individuals. The commission called on governments to stop treating drugs users like criminals, to legalize some drugs, to provide more addiction services, and to go after criminal networks, not small producers. The Obama administration's reaction:

"Making drugs more available, as this report suggests, will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe."

...

And for what it's worth: there wouldn't be an Obama administration to react to this report if the president, back when he was using illegal drugs "frequently," had been swept up by the same criminal justice system he's defending today.

QFT.

"maybe the whole thing's over and nobody bothered to tell us...maybe we won."

According to Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, the War on Drugs is over.

Well, that's a relief.

what nick gillespie said

Though limited to voters in a single state, Prop. 19 is the only policy matter on the table with the potential to restructure the lives of virtually all Americans. If Prop. 19 passes, it will force, at long bloody last, an honest reconsideration of failed prohibitionist policies throughout the United States. In fact, given the drug war's influence on our foreign policy in Latin America and central Asia, Prop. 19's reverberations would even be felt far outside our borders.

There's much more. Read the whole thing..

the illiberal left in washington state (and everywhere else)

Washington's ballot initiative I-1068, which would abolish state criminal and civil penalties for marijuana (for adults 18 and over), hit a snag this week, when the Service Employees International Union and "other players in progressive causes" declined to financially support the drive to get the necessary signatures to put I-1068 on the ballot. Phillip Dowdy of the group Sensible Washington writes:

Over the last month, the SEIU and others in state politics have talked with Sensible Washington about steps they could take to ensure that the initiative turned in enough signatures to qualify for this November’s ballot because marijuana legalization being on the ballot would drive extra voter turnout in ways that would benefit progressive causes and candidates in November in what’s shaping up to be a tough year for Democrats and progressive issues. Now after stringing the I-1068 campaign along for four weeks, they’ve walked.

This, despite the fact that a slim but significant majority of Washington voters support the legalization of marijuana, according to a recent poll.

Anyone who is truly serious about reforming drug laws should have given up on the mainstream left as a reliable ally a long time ago. If you can't get a former litigator for the ACLU to vote the right way in Gonzales v. Raich, you're pretty much screwed.

Bruce Ramsey really nailed it on the Seattle Times blog yesterday:

I keep telling people that a lot of the lefties in this state, and particularly in this city, are not liberal. They aren't interested in individual rights [em. added]--at least, not rights to do very many things outside a bedroom. Progressive activists are believers in government. They want to save the Earth by controlling people more, including by banning the use of tobacco outdoors in the public parks. I think the broad group of people who vote leftward are far more tolerant than the activists, and would vote for I-1068 if they could. Maybe now they won't get the chance.

quote of the morning

A couple of years ago after I’d given a speech on [the use of military-style tactics by local law enforcement], a retired military officer and former instructor at West Point specifically asked me to stop using the term "militarization," because he thought comparing SWAT teams to the military reflected poorly on the military.

Read the whole thing.

senate votes to oppress minority drug users only 18 times more than others

I guess this is what passes for liberalization of drug laws in the United States:

After more than a decade of debates, hearings and lobbying, the Senate has passed a bill to change the punishment for possession of crack cocaine.

The bill had strong support from both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. While the current law punishes crack users 100 times more heavily than powder cocaine users, the new Senate bill brings the 100-to-1 ratio down to 18-to-1.

What really got to me when I heard this on the radio this morning was the post hoc justification for this atrocious policy on the part of drug warriors:

Congress enacted these rules in the early 1990s, when crack was ravaging urban communities. In those days, Reggie Walton worked on drug policy in the first Bush administration. Back then he supported the sentencing disparity, but now he is a federal judge in Washington and feels differently.

"We believed it was a different chemical substance. [emphasis added] We now know that's not the case," Walton said. "The reality is that crack cocaine and powder cocaine are the same chemical substance."

What, they didn't have analytical chemistry all the way back in the 1990s?

Look, making crack from powdered cocaine ain't a big mystery, folks. In fact, it's so easy, even a crackhead can do it! The end product consists of two major chemical constituents: 1) cocaine and 2) sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda). Separation and analysis of these molecules could be accomplished in a high school chemistry lab, never mind the fine professionals at the DEA.

Either Judge Walton is seriously misremembering the context in which this policy (which he has subsequently testified before Congress about) was made, or the policy was made without any serious inquiry as to the actual nature of this drug they rushed to legislate on. Come to think of it, I'm not sure which is worse. (Or more likely.)

quick ones

--This is why you should care about the 2nd Amendment, even if you don't care about (or for) guns (and for the record, I neither particularly care about or for guns, myself.) If "shall not be infringed" means anything other than exactly that, then "Congress shall make no law", etc., don't mean a whole hell of a lot, either.

--This seems to be under the radar in the national media, but marijuana possession in the City of Seattle is now effectively decriminalized. (Hooray Seattle!)

--The only basketball league that will suck worse than the WNBA.

dear mr. president,

I will be concise:

Don't be such a dismissive dick to a significant portion of the populace that voted for you.

Thank you,
B

PS--More here and here.