Low-Level Marijuana Offenders “Pay The Rent” For Law Enforcement

In Texas Monthly, there is a great article on the subject of “trace cases” that quotes Former DA Pat Lykos’ presentation at the Baker Institute that I was a part of in 2012:

To help explain her reasoning, at an appearance at Rice University’s Baker Institute, she held up a package of Splenda, which weighs approximately one gram. She and her predecessors had been prosecuting people for less than 1/100th of that amount. “Sometimes they had a little flake extruding from their nose, a little flake [on a shirt collar] or on a crack pipe. We had thousands of cases clogging up our dockets, and that meant thousands of people overcrowding the jail.”

Beyond that, she argued that the policy helped police make better use of their time “When someone is arrested for a trace case, that officer is out of service for two to three hours,” she said. “That neighborhood is unprotected for two to three hours. Officers are getting time-and-a-half to fight the drug war, and this is their drug-war arrest, time-and-a-half to go to court. So the union bosses are not happy with me.”

But it’s the naked fiscal honestly revealed by the law enforcement community that is the shocker of this article. …

California Medical Marijuana Crackdown Ramps Up As More Dispensaries Targeted For Closure

SAN FRANCISCO — Several dozen protesters gathered in downtown Berkeley Wednesday afternoon to fight federal action against one of California’s oldest medical marijuana dispensaries, targeted for closure by the Justice Department.

“The Obama administration’s ongoing war against patients is despicable and has to stop,” Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, told the crowd. “This is a mean, vindictive move aimed at shutting down one of the oldest and well-respected dispensaries in the country.”

U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag on Friday served pot shop Berkeley Patients Group with a lawsuit that attempts to seize the property and ultimately shut the business. Berkeley officials say the dispensary provides significant benefits to the community. …

Collected Quotations Of The Dread Pirate Roberts, Founder Of Underground Drug Site Silk Road And Radical Libertarian

In public, the pseudonymous Internet drug czar known as the Dread Pirate Roberts doesn’t say much. Roberts’ website, the illegal, anonymous drug-selling black market known as the Silk Road, has survived only because of its creator’s discretion. On the rare occasions when DPR speaks to the press, he (or she) does so in short messages, and–at least in my case–only through the anonymizing service Tor, the same cryptographic tool used to prevent the Feds from tracking down the Silk Road’s servers or its users. Thanks to that discretion, the Silk Road’s Bitcoin-driven narcotics trade has thrived for more than two years without being shut down by law enforcement, and its founder hasn’t been identified.

Why Good Parents Should Support Drug Legalization

As an ex-junkie, I know how harmful addiction is. As a father, I want to protect my daughter from harm. Making all drugs legal will help.

A friend of mine used to laugh when I said I was in favor of legalizing all drugs. He just couldn’t fathom such a position. He told me that if they legalized drugs, “It would take all of the fun out of it.”

Three years after he died of a heroin overdose, I wonder whether he’d be alive now if drugs had been legal. …

Eighty-One Years for Weed?

Here’s how absurd the war on drugs has gotten: firstly, an activist from Keene, New Hampshire, is facing 81 years in prison for dealing marijuana; and secondly, even though he’s admitted on camera that he did sell about a pound of pot to an FBI informant, he’s still fighting the case in court in hopes the jury will acquit him.

The man’s name is Rich Paul, and his ordeal started last May, …

FDA bans generic versions of original OxyContin pills

In an effort to curb prescription painkiller abuse, the Food and Drug Administration is banning generic versions of the original OxyContin formula.

“The FDA has determined that the benefits of original OxyContin no longer outweigh its risks,” the agency said in a statement.

OxyContin was first approved in 1995. The drug became attractive to abusers who crushed it to snort, or melted and injected it. OxyContin tablets have a time-release formula that delivers the drug over a 12-hour period. But when a pill is crushed, the entire dose is immediately absorbed into the bloodstream. …

A Heartbreaking Drug Sentence of Staggering Idiocy

Three-hour standoff between cops in riot gear and Queens residents after drug bust

Shocked witnesses said police officers pounded on brothers Raynard Fields, 27, and Corey Crichlow, 33, outside the Baisley Park Houses during the 7:45 p.m. arrest on Foch Blvd.

The War on Drugs Is Far More Immoral Than Most Drug Use

A prohibitionist says libertarians dismiss moral considerations when they call for legalization. The truth is quite the opposite.