GLOBAL POLITICAL AWAKENING: DRUG WAR

Showing posts with label DRUG WAR. Show all posts

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Joe Rogan Talks Drug War and Deep Web with Alex Winter

By Joe Rogan

Alex Winter is a filmmaker and actor known best as Bill S. Preston, Esquire, from the "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" franchise. His latest film "Deep Web" tells "the untold story of Bitcoin and The Silk Road" is available on May 31 on Epix. http://www.deepwebthemovie.com/

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Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Afghan Mission accomplished: more heroin for the world

Dees Illustration

Jon Rappoport

The Guardian reports statistics on opium agriculture in Afghanistan:

“…the US counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan stands out: opiate production has climbed steadily over recent years to reach record-high levels last year.”

“Far from eradicating the deep-rooted opiate trade, US counternarcotics efforts have proven useless, according to a series of recent official inquiries. Other aspects of the billions that the US has poured into Afghanistan over the last 13 years of war have even contributed to the opium boom.”

Lyn Ulbricht Describes the INSANELY Unfair Silk Road Trial

By Free Ross

Lyn Ulbricht speaks to SXSW audience about the Silk Road trial of her son, Ross Ulbricht, and how the defense was stopped at every turn from introducing evidence.

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Saturday, March 28, 2015

Deep Web movie premiere Q&A at SXSW

By Free Ross

Q & A after premiere of the Deep Web movie at SXSW. L to R: Cody Wilson, Marc Schiller, Glen Zipper, Lyn Ulbricht, Andy Greenberg, Alex Winter, with moderator Brian Knappenberger.

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Monday, March 23, 2015

Former Narcotics Officer Quit to Fight Prohibition Laws

By Jeff Berwick

Jeff interviews ex-cop turned freedom fighter Barry Cooper of Never Get Busted, topics include: smoking pot as a cop, changing your life through psychedelics, Ayahuasca, the end of the war on drugs, two million people caged in the US, 80,000 in solitary confinement which is torture, growing up in East Texas, stinging the cops, escaping the US as a wanted man, asylum in Brazil, Mexico, getting people out of jail, 30 years for marijuana seeds, Marc Victor, self ownership, being a nice person, compassion and kindness, creating an alternative to government...

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Visit NeverGetBusted.com

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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

'Silk Road' Was Safer Than the Streets for Buyers/Sellers

Ross Ulbricht is an Eagle Scout with no criminal record

Meghan Ralston

In the aftermath of the guilty verdicts handed down in the case of Ross Ulbricht, some journalists have been having a field day reporting on the downfall of the ‘alleged mastermind’ behind Silk Road, while others are shining a light on the apparent miscarriage of justice. But curiously absent in the deluge of reporting around Silk Road is the discussion about the drug war. While it’s disappointing that we’d rather use words like ‘alleged mastermind’ than ‘evidence of drug war failure,’ it’s perhaps understandable, because it’s not always easy to talk about the uncomfortably obvious:

People use drugs. They get those drugs from someone else. In order to consume drugs, someone had to buy them, and someone had to sell them. We don’t have to like it, but we do have to acknowledge the reality of it.

Our entire approach to responding to that reality has thus far been a dismal disappointment. Silk Road was, in the most basic sense, a product of our failed war on drugs—a response to our woefully inadequate way of managing not only drug use, but also drug demand and drug sales.

Libertarian Party Calls for Release of Ross Ulbricht, Says Gov't Are The Real Perps in Silk Road Case

Ross Ulbricht is an Eagle Scout with no criminal record

By Nicholas J. Sarwark

The Libertarian Party calls for dismissal of the unfounded criminal charges against alleged Silk Road founder and operator Ross Ulbricht, whose trial is set to begin tomorrow, and for the resignation of the New York prosecutors who trumped up charges against an innocent man.

Silk Road is a website that allows its users to maintain their privacy while trading goods and services by using Tor, an open network that protects anonymity, and the digital currency Bitcoin for payment.

Because the site is alleged to accommodate the buying and selling of illegal drugs, prosecutors have charged Ulbricht with a slew of crimes: narcotics trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering, engaging in a criminal enterprise, and conspiracy to traffic in fraudulent IDs.

The prosecution has failed to identify a single victim of any of the alleged offenses.

Man Serving Life in Prison for Pot Charge Won’t be Pardoned

Joshua Krause

When Jeff Mizanskey was arrested for his part in a drug deal in 1993, he had no idea what he was in for. After all, he had been arrested for the possession and distribution of marijuana twice before. Once in 1984, and again in 1991. Both carried relatively light sentences compared to what he was facing. Though he didn’t know it at the time, he was about to become the latest victim of the drug war, as well as Missouri’s draconian “3 strikes” law.

Unbeknownst to him, the two men on the other half of the deal had been recently arrested, and agreed to sell out their “co-conspirators” in exchange for leniency. Mizanskey ended up with the short end of the stick, and due to his prior history was facing the longest sentence. The prosecutor offered him 25 years in prison if he pleaded guilty, but he refused. After losing the trial, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Blackwater-type Mercenaries Drop from Unmarked Helicopters to Raid Legal Marijuana Gardens in California

CBS - SF

Private military contractors are now policing the war on drugs by raiding legal marijuana gardens in California according to an explosive report by CBS San Francisco.

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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Oregon Votes to Legalize Recreational Marijuana This November

Phillip Smith

The New Approach Oregon marijuana legalization initiative has qualified for the November ballot, the secretary of state's office reported today.

It won't get a measure number until next month.

First word came in an email from New Approach Oregon's Anthony Johnson. When the Chronicle contacted Johnson to confirm the email, he said "I got the call from the secretary of state's office today."

The initiative had needed some 87,000 valid voter signatures to qualify; it handed in about 145,000 a couple of weeks ago.

US Sentencing Commission Votes Unanimously to Reduce Drug Sentences Retroactively

Phillip Smith

The US Sentencing Commission Friday voted unanimously to make previously agreed upon federal drug sentencing reductions retroactive. That means tens of thousands of federal drug prisoners could see sentence cuts beginning in November 2015.

The move comes after the Commission's April decision to amend federal sentencing guidelines by lowering base offense levels in the guidelines' Drug Quantity Table across all drug types, which should lead to lower sentences for most federal drug offenders. Today's vote means that sentencing judges can extend that reduction to people currently serving drug sentences.

"This amendment received unanimous support from Commissioners because it is a measured approach," said Judge Patti Saris, chair of the Commission. "It reduces prison costs and populations and responds to statutory and guidelines changes since the drug guidelines were initially developed, while safeguarding public safety."

Little Rock Implements Orwellian Police State: Operation Ceasefire

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

--George Orwell

by Mark Daniels

Arkansas Police Accountability Project

(Little Rock, AR) Little Rock Police Department's Operation Ceasefire: Necessary Police Action or A Slippery Slope Spiraling Downward Toward an Orwellian Nightmare?

As reported by local news, this year is being called one of the deadliest in Little Rock history with a total of 29 homicides so far. To fight back, the Little Rock Police Department has implemented Operation Ceasefire to saturate neighborhoods notorious for crime. Fox16's Melissa Schroeder recently did a ride along with SWAT officers and reported that "Little Rock SWAT officers are out in full force--seven days a week from 3-11 p.m.--working to stop crimes before it starts".

"SWAT officers are out in full force...working to stop crime before it starts"?

Some people may say that police actions such as this are necessary to fight violent crime while others will counter that we are already on a slippery slope spiraling downward toward a truly Orwellian nightmare with increased militarization of the local police departments, increased reports of police brutality and the largest per capita prison population in the world. Arkansas jails and prisons are vastly overcrowded and while the establishment politicians are willing to concede the fact that we need reform to address the problem, neither the Democrat or Republican candidate for Governor is willing to acknowledge the empirical data that proves drug policy is a major contributing factor. Fortunately, the Libertarian Party candidate, Frank Gilbert, is not only willing to acknowledge the empirical data, he has stated that he will pardon all persons imprisoned in Arkansas for non violent drug offenses. Mr. Gilbert also supports legalizing marijuana.

The Stated Goal and Alternative Solutions

The stated goal of the Operation Ceasefire program is to decrease violent crime, most of which is related to the drug trade. However, the violence of the drug war is a direct result of prohibition, and the best way to stop that violence is to end prohibition; not to implement an Orwellian Police State * (see description at the end of this article).

As explained in this article, 8 reasons to end prohibition of all drugs immediately:

The steady increase in violent crime over the past few decades is directly correlated with the escalation of the drug war. As we saw during the times of alcohol prohibition, when you ban any inanimate object, you create an incentive for people to get involved in the black market distribution of that object. Since there is no accountability, or means of peaceful dispute resolution within the black market, buyers and sellers are forced to resort to violence as their sole means of handling disagreements.

Eventually, this violence spills over into the everyday world and effects everyone’s lives. No one could imagine Budweiser and Miller Lite in a back alley gunfight, but less than a century ago during alcohol prohibition, distributors of the drug were involved in shootouts on a regular basis, just as drug gangs are today. Of course, all of this violence came to an immediate end when alcohol was legalized, however, it was not long before the establishment found a new crusade in the drug war, which allowed them to continue the same policy just with different substances.

There is significant evidence that legalizing or decriminalizing drugs actually does reduce violent crime. The murder rate in Denver was actually cut in half following marijuana legalization.

As reported by Glenn Greenwald in Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies, since Portugal decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin, on July 1, 2001, none of the nightmare scenarios touted by pre-enactment decriminalization opponents--from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for "drug tourists"--has occurred. In fact, the empirical data indicates that decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates in Portugal. Although drug usage rates have remained roughly the same or even decreased slightly, drug-related pathologies--such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage--have decreased dramatically. Furthermore, the data show that, judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success. Within this success lie self-evident lessons that should guide drug policy debates around the world. Read the Full White Paper Here

A Nationwide Campaign

Little Rock's Operation Ceasefire is most likely part of a Nationwide Campaign which began in the mid-1990's in the City of Boston. As reported by Melanie W. Rambaud in Behind the Guns: The Failure of Boston’s Operation Ceasefire Intervention to Address the Root Causes of Youth Homicide:

Operation Ceasefire was an ineffective long-term youth violence reduction intervention because it was limited to a deterrence strategy. As a public health intervention, deterrence is ineffective to change behavior, particularly gun violence, because it does not address the root causes of behavior. Violence is multi-factorial with both individual and societal causes, it requires multi-faceted efforts. In order to effectively intervene it is important to understand that violence emerges from multiple and complex environmental, economical, and cultural factors. An effective violence reduction intervention must then be a comprehensive, community-oriented approach that focuses on the circumstances that put people at high risk of engaging in or being victimized by violence. What is essential is a long-term community mobilization strategy focused on prevention that promotes youth development in the context of their community and does not emphasize punishment as a deterrent to reduce youth gun violence.

In sum, we are provided a false choice by the Little Rock Police Department: tolerate increased violence from "criminals" or tolerate an increased level of police action which often leads to violence. The real choice is between an Orwellian nightmare or effective and efficient police and drug policy. What are your thoughts? Are the human and financial costs of these type of police actions justified or do you think it would be better to end the war on drugs?

For more information and to get involved, please visit Arkansas Police Accountability Project's Facebook page.

*Orwellian Police State

Eric Arthur Blair, known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism.

He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945).

Nineteen Eighty-Four popularised the adjective Orwellian, which describes official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past by a totalitarian or authoritarian state.

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