Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little

Jul 22nd 2010 | Spring, Texas

THREE pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris’s home in Spring, Texas. Six armed police in flak jackets jumped out. Thinking they must have come to the wrong place, Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through papers, dumped things on the floor and eventually loaded 37 boxes of Mr Norris’s possessions onto their pickups. They refused to tell him what he had done wrong. “It wasn’t fun, I can tell you that,” he recalls.
Mr Norris was 65 years old at the time, and a collector of orchids. He eventually discovered that he was suspected of smuggling the flowers into America, an offence under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This came as a shock. He did indeed import flowers and sell them to other orchid-lovers. And it was true that his suppliers in Latin America were sometimes sloppy about their paperwork. In a shipment of many similar-looking plants, it was rare for each permit to match each orchid precisely.
In March 2004, five months after the raid, Mr Norris was indicted, handcuffed and thrown into a cell with a suspected murderer and two suspected drug-dealers. When told why he was there, “they thought it hilarious.” One asked: “What do you do with these things? Smoke ’em?”
Prosecutors described Mr Norris as the “kingpin” of an international smuggling ring. He was dumbfounded: his annual profits were never more than about $20,000. When prosecutors suggested that he should inform on other smugglers in return for a lighter sentence, he refused, insisting he knew nothing beyond hearsay.
He pleaded innocent. But an undercover federal agent had ordered some orchids from him, a few of which arrived without the correct papers. For this, he was charged with making a false statement to a government official, a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Since he had communicated with his suppliers, he was charged with conspiracy, which also carries a potential five-year term.
As his legal bills exploded, Mr Norris reluctantly changed his plea to guilty, though he still protests his innocence. He was sentenced to 17 months in prison. After some time, he was released while his appeal was heard, but then put back inside. His health suffered: he has Parkinson’s disease, which was not helped by the strain of imprisonment. For bringing some prescription sleeping pills into prison, he was put in solitary confinement for 71 days. The prison was so crowded, however, that even in solitary he had two room-mates.

A long love affair with lock and key

Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.
The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.
In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.

Some criminals belong behind bars. When a habitual rapist is locked up, the streets are safer. But the same is not necessarily true of petty drug-dealers, whose incarceration creates a vacancy for someone else to fill, argues Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University. The number of drug offenders in federal and state lock-ups has increased 13-fold since 1980. Some are scary thugs; many are not.
Michelle Collette of Hanover, Massachusetts, sold Percocet, a prescription painkiller. “I was planning to do it just once,” she says, “but the money was so easy. And I thought: it’s not heroin.” Then she became addicted to her own wares. She was unhappy with her boyfriend, she explains, but did not want to split up with him, because she did not want their child to grow up fatherless, as she had. So she popped pills to numb the misery. Before long, she was taking 20-30 a day.
When Ms Collette and her boyfriend, who also sold drugs, were arrested in a dawn raid, the police found 607 pills and $901 in cash. The boyfriend fought the charges and got 15 years in prison. In a plea bargain Ms Collette was sentenced to seven years, of which she served six.
“I don’t think this is fair,” said the judge. “I don’t think this is what our laws are meant to do. It’s going to cost upwards of $50,000 a year to have you in state prison. Had I the authority, I would send you to jail for no more than one year…and a [treatment] programme after that.” But mandatory sentencing laws gave him no choice.
Massachusetts is a liberal state, but its drug laws are anything but. It treats opium-derived painkillers such as Percocet like hard drugs, if illicitly sold. Possession of a tiny amount (14-28 grams, or ½-1 ounce) yields a minimum sentence of three years. For 200 grams, it is 15 years, more than the minimum for armed rape. And the weight of the other substances with which a dealer mixes his drugs is included in the total, so 10 grams of opiates mixed with 190 grams of flour gets you 15 years.
Ms Collette underwent drug treatment before being locked up, and is now clean. But in prison she found she was pregnant. After going through labour shackled to a hospital bed, she was allowed only 48 hours to bond with her newborn son. She was released in March, found a job in a shop, and is hoping that her son will get used to having her around.
Rigid sentencing laws shift power from judges to prosecutors, complains Barbara Dougan of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a pressure-group. Even the smallest dealer often has enough to trigger a colossal sentence. Prosecutors may charge him with selling a smaller amount if he agrees to “reel some other poor slob in”, as Ms Dougan puts it. He is told to persuade another dealer to sell him just enough drugs to trigger a 15-year sentence, and perhaps to do the deal near a school, which adds another two years.
Severe drug laws have unintended consequences. Less than half of American cancer patients receive adequate painkillers, according to the American Pain Foundation, another pressure-group. One reason is that doctors are terrified of being accused of drug-trafficking if they over-prescribe. In 2004 William Hurwitz, a doctor specialising in the control of pain, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for prescribing pills that a few patients then resold on the black market. Virginia’s board of medicine ruled that he had acted in good faith, but he still served nearly four years.
Half the states have laws that lock up habitual offenders for life. In some states this applies only to violent criminals, but in others it applies even to petty ones. Some 3,700 people who committed neither violent nor serious crimes are serving life sentences under California’s “three strikes and you’re out” law. In Alabama a petty thief called Jerald Sanders was given a life term for pinching a bicycle. Alabama’s judges are elected, as are those in 32 other states. This makes them mindful of public opinion: some appear in campaign advertisements waving guns and bragging about how tough they are.

Watching hairs go white, and lifetimes ebb away

Many Americans assume that white-collar criminals get off lightly, but many do not. Granted, they may be hard to catch and can often afford good lawyers. But federal prosecutors can file many charges for what is essentially one offence. For example, they can count each e-mail sent by a white-collar criminal in the course of his criminal activity as a separate case of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. The decades soon add up. Sentences depend partly on the size of the loss and the number of people affected, so if you work for a big, publicly traded company, you break a rule and the share-price drops, watch out.

Eternal punishment
Jim Felman, a defence lawyer in Tampa, Florida, says America is conducting “an experiment in imprisoning first-time non-violent offenders for periods of time previously reserved only for those who had killed someone”. One of Mr Felman’s clients, a fraudster called Sholam Weiss, was sentenced to 845 years. “I got it reduced to 835,” sighs Mr Felman. Faced with such penalties, he says, the incentive to co-operate, which means to say things that are helpful to the prosecution, is overwhelming. And this, he believes, “warps the truth-seeking function” of justice.
Innocent defendants may plead guilty in return for a shorter sentence to avoid the risk of a much longer one. A prosecutor can credibly threaten a middle-aged man that he will die in a cell unless he gives evidence against his boss. This is unfair, complains Harvey Silverglate, the author of “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent”. If a defence lawyer offers a witness money to testify that his client is innocent, that is bribery. But a prosecutor can legally offer something of far greater value—his freedom—to a witness who says the opposite. The potential for wrongful convictions is obvious.
Badly drafted laws create traps for the unwary. In 2006 Georgia Thompson, a civil servant in Wisconsin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for depriving the public of “the intangible right of honest services”. Her crime was to award a contract (for travel services) to the best bidder. A firm called Adelman Travel scored the most points (on an official scale) for price and quality, so Ms Thompson picked it. She ignored a rule that required her to penalise Adelman for a slapdash presentation when bidding. For this act of common sense, she served four months. (An appeals court freed her.)
The “honest services” statute, if taken seriously, “would seemingly cover a salaried employee’s phoning in sick to go to a ball game,” fumes Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice. The Supreme Court ruled recently that the statute was so vague as to be unconstitutional. It did not strike it down completely, but said it should be applied only in cases involving bribery or kickbacks. The challenge was brought by Enron’s former boss, Jeff Skilling, who will not go free despite his victory, and Conrad Black, a media magnate released this week on bail pending an appeal, who may.
There are over 4,000 federal crimes, and many times that number of regulations that carry criminal penalties. When analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offences on the books, they were forced to give up, exhausted. Rules concerning corporate governance or the environment are often impossible to understand, yet breaking them can land you in prison. In many criminal cases, the common-law requirement that a defendant must have a mens rea (ie, he must or should know that he is doing wrong) has been weakened or erased.
“The founders viewed the criminal sanction as a last resort, reserved for serious offences, clearly defined, so ordinary citizens would know whether they were violating the law. Yet over the last 40 years, an unholy alliance of big-business-hating liberals and tough-on-crime conservatives has made criminalisation the first line of attack—a way to demonstrate seriousness about the social problem of the month, whether it’s corporate scandals or e-mail spam,” writes Gene Healy, a libertarian scholar. “You can serve federal time for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of Woodsy Owl.”
“You’re (probably) a federal criminal,” declares Alex Kozinski, an appeals-court judge, in a provocative essay of that title. Making a false statement to a federal official is an offence. So is lying to someone who then repeats your lie to a federal official. Failing to prevent your employees from breaking regulations you have never heard of can be a crime. A boss got six months in prison because one of his workers accidentally broke a pipe, causing oil to spill into a river. “It didn’t matter that he had no reason to learn about the [Clean Water Act’s] labyrinth of regulations, since he was merely a railroad-construction supervisor,” laments Judge Kozinski.

Society wants retribution

Such cases account for only a tiny share of the Americans behind bars, but they still matter. When so many people are technically breaking the law, it is up to prosecutors to decide whom to pursue. No doubt most prosecutors choose wisely. But members of unpopular groups may not find that reassuring. Ms Thompson, for example, was prosecuted just before an election, at a time when allegations of public corruption in Wisconsin were in the news. Some prosecutors, such as Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced ex-governor of New York, have built political careers by nailing people whom voters don’t like, such as financiers.

Prison deters? Not much, not the worst
Some people argue that the system works: that crime has fallen in the past two decades because the bad guys are either in prison or scared of being sent there. Caged thugs cannot break into your home. Bernie Madoff’s 150-year sentence for running a Ponzi scam should deter imitators. And indeed the crime rate continues to drop, despite the recession, as Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, an advocacy group, points out. This, he says, is because habitual criminals face serious consequences. Some research supports him: after raking through decades of historical data, John Donohue of Yale Law School estimates that a 10% increase in imprisonment brings a 2% reduction in crime.
Others disagree. Using more recent data, Bert Useem of Purdue University and Anne Piehl of Rutgers University estimate that a 10% increase in the number of people behind bars would reduce crime by only 0.5%. In the states that currently lock up the most people, imprisoning more would actually increase crime, they believe. Some inmates emerge from prison as more accomplished criminals. And raising the incarceration rate means locking up people who are, on average, less dangerous than the ones already behind bars. A recent study found that, over the past 13 years, the proportion of new prisoners in Florida who had committed violent crimes fell by 28%, whereas those inside for “other” crimes shot up by 189%. These “other” crimes were non-violent ones involving neither drugs nor theft, such as driving with a suspended licence.

And now the reckoning, in dollars
Crime is a young man’s game. Muggers over 30 are rare. Ex-cons who go straight for a few years generally stay that way: a study of 88,000 criminals by Mr Blumstein found that if someone was arrested for aggravated assault at the age of 18 but then managed to stay out of trouble until the age of 22, the risk of his offending was no greater than that for the general population. Yet America’s prisons are crammed with old folk. Nearly 200,000 prisoners are over 50. Most would pose little threat if released. And since people age faster in prison than outside, their medical costs are vast. Human Rights Watch, a lobby-group, talks of “nursing homes with razor wire”.
Jail is expensive. Spending per prisoner ranges from $18,000 a year in Mississippi to about $50,000 in California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that. “[W]e are well past the point of diminishing returns,” says a report by the Pew Center on the States. In Washington state, for example, each dollar invested in new prison places in 1980 averted more than nine dollars of criminal harm (using a somewhat arbitrary scale to assign a value to not being beaten up). By 2001, as the emphasis shifted from violent criminals to drug-dealers and thieves, the cost-benefit ratio reversed. Each new dollar spent on prisons averted only 37 cents’ worth of harm.
Since the recession threw their budgets into turmoil, many states have decided to imprison fewer people, largely to save money. Mississippi has reduced the proportion of their sentences that non-violent offenders are required to serve from 85% to 25%. Texas is making greater use of non-custodial penalties. New York has repealed most mandatory minimum terms for drug offences. In all, the number of prisoners in state lock-ups fell by 0.3% in 2009, the first fall since 1972. But the total number of Americans behind bars still rose slightly, because the number of federal prisoners climbed by 3.4%.
A less punitive system could work better, argues Mark Kleiman of the University of California, Los Angeles. Swift and certain penalties deter more than harsh ones. Money spent on prisons cannot be spent on more cost-effective methods of crime-prevention, such as better policing, drug treatment or probation. The pain that punishment inflicts on criminals themselves, on their families and on their communities should also be taken into account.
“Just by making effective use of things we already know how to do, we could reasonably expect to have half as much crime and half as many people behind bars ten years from now,” says Mr Kleiman. “There are a thousand excuses for failing to make that effort, but not one good reason.”
http://www.economist.com/node/16636027?story_id=16636027&fsrc=rss

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for another installment of our exciting series “Your Tax Dollars at Work”. In this week’s installment, we bring you the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, some creative souls at the USPTO created a new category of trademarkable item: “Processed plant matter for medicinal purposes, namely medical marijuana”.
Now, as it turns out, selling pot is a federal crime. So creating a new category of trademark specifically for marijuana was, well, ill-advised.
Now, here’s where it gets fun and where we’re wondering exactly which heads will roll. As it turns out, the USPTO created this new category on April 1, 2010. Yep, April Fool’s Day.
It wasn’t a joke, however, to the hundreds of opportunistic entrepreneurs who immediately filed trademark applications for such medical-sounding substances as Maui Wowie, Chronic, Budtrader and Keef Cola.
This week, according to USPTO spokesman Peter Pappas, that category has been removed. Entrepreneurs are still welcome to apply for trademarks, according to Pappas, but they’re no longer able to have a category all their own.
The catch: the USPTO has never actually granted a trademark for anything pot-related.
Ah, well. Brings a whole new meaning to “This bud’s for you.”
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/obama-patent-office-approves-then-nixes-trademarks-for-marijuana/9210

By JOE KLARE
In order to help you choose the right strain for your specific needs, we here at The 420 Times are starting a new feature titled This For That. Each month, we will focus on one or two medical conditions and identify various marijuana strains that might be helpful in managing them. In this issue, we will talk about chronic pain and insomnia.
First up is Purple Erkel, which can be identified by its fruity and aromatic taste. It’s a strong Indica, which means that if you need to stay awake, it’s probably not for you. On the other hand, it will do a good job at helping you fall asleep and, at the same time, will provide a sense of pain relief.
There are a handful of strains that produce effects similar to Purple Erkel’s. Red Devil is a strong Indica useful for dealing with insomnia and pain relief. Grand Daddy Purple has garnered a reputation for being conducive to couch lock, which might be just what you need. Afgoo is a heavy stone but not as much of a couch-locker. Another worthy of mention is the classic Northern Lights — it’s hard to go wrong with a classic, after all.
Being Indica-dominant, most Kush strains work well for getting a good night’s rest. OG Kush is strong, earthy, and spicy; Purple Kush leaves you with a warm and relaxed feeling. In any case, both will put you right to sleep.
If you want pain relief but don’t want to fall asleep, there are a handful of strains we would recommend. Sour Diesel is a hybrid — meaning it’s a mix of Indica and Sativa—that will help relieve symptoms of pain but keep you alert enough so that you can get things done. DJ Short’s Flo is also ideal for pain relief and staying awake. Its high can be described as cerebral, energetic, and positive.
We would be remiss in discussing pain-relief strains if we didn’t mention concentrates: wax, hash oil, and butter are just a few things you can use. You can use them on their own or in conjunction with cannabis. For those who don’t like to smoke, they can be used in a wide array of foods. Most decent dispensaries will have a collection of concentrates and edibles for you to choose from.
If you’re one of the millions of Americans who suffers from either insomnia or some form of chronic pain, try one of the strains I’ve described above. Finding a strain that works for you might take some trial and error, so stay patient and keep on experimenting!
http://the420times.com/2010/07/this-for-that/

MADISON: As I noted in Part One yesterday, 35 years ago this summer, Wisconsin officials held a series of eight public hearings on Wisconsin’s marijuana laws.
The Wisconsin hearings, conducted by the Controlled Substance Board’s “Special Committee on Marijuana Laws,” produced a “Final Report to the Controlled Substances Board,” issued in October 1975, and titled, “SHOULD WISCONSIN REVISE ITS MARIJUANA LAWS?”
The results, coming at a time when medical use was barely on the radar, were amazingly progressive.
From a Wisconsin Sate Journal article from Sept. 11, 1975:

The notion that the courts should stop jailing people for smoking marijuana gathered support Wednesday from several members of the establishment, including Madison Police Chief David C. Couper.
Couper’s views, which he indicated were shared by members of the Dane County Metro Narcotics Squad, were presented to a public hearing in the State Capitol.
The hearings, which resume today in Milwaukee, are being conducted by the Controlled Substances Board at the request of the State Council on Drug Abuse.
The question under consideration is: Should Wisconsin revise its marijuana laws?
Others taking similar stances were Paul Ginsberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison dean of students, and State Rep. David C. Clarenbach (D-Madison), who said he will introduce legislation that would decriminalize marijuana use.
Testifying with Ginsberg, Judie LaForme of the UW Drug Information Center said marijuana is no threat to health or social order, and presents laws discourage those with problems from seeking help., and result in arbitrary, unequal, and often plain impossible enforcement.

After the report’s release, the October 18, 1975 Wisconsin State Journal discussed the results:

Two members of a state hearing panel, including an assistant attorney general, have endorsed liberalizing Wisconsin’s marijuana laws.
In the final report from the panel, Dr. Joseph Benforado and Assistant Atty. Gen. John William Calhoun joined more than 1,000 persons (90 percent of those who appeared) surveyed at eight hearings around the state who favor easing or eliminating penalties for marijuana possession.
Most speakers at the hearings felt strongly on the issue, pro or con.
Out of 1,128 who responded to a questionnaire, 1,083, or 94 percent, favored lightening or eliminating present penalties against possession of marijuana for personal use.
Of the 28 people who said the present law is not strict enough, 20 favored both longer jail terms and greater fines.
Of those who said present laws are too harsh, 59 percent favored legalizing marijuana. Legalizing would mean regulating and taxing the sale and use as the state does alcohol and tobacco.
About 40 percent supported “decriminalization” of personal use. That is, possession of small amounts would be treated as a civil forfeiture, like a traffic ticket.

The 11/14/75 Capital Times cited more support for passage of a state decriminalization law.

The Governor’s Council on Drug Abuse endorsed the decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana Thursday, with both Attorney General Bronson La Follette and Gov. Patrick Lucey’s designee in support.
The council’s 7-1 vote followed a similar move Oct. 20 when the Controlled Substances Board backed removing criminal penalties on a 4-2 vote.

While Wisconsin ignored these findings and has never passed a statewide decriminalization to date, the legislature did enact a law allowing counties and municipalities to adopt local decriminalization ordinances for amounts of 25 grams of cannabis or less.
This has created a giant patchwork of different enforcement across the state. Some areas have no local ordinance but have a county statute. Other places have it, but rarely use it. Some places have smaller amounts than 25 grams. In many locales, criminal charges are often filed anyways for small amounts depending on circumstances.
Oddly enough, the State Controlled Substances Board that once showed an open mind and support for reform has spent most of the intervening time opposing ANY reform, even for medical use. The Controlled Substance Board not only sent a representative to testify against the Jacki Rickert MMJ Act, it’s chair, Dr. Darrold Treffert, ran his own opposition blitz in conjunction with State Rep. John Townsend (R-Fossil), who is finally retiring. These harsh laws that make second offense any amount a felony as well as the dozen year failure to pass a medical cannabis law are driving Wisconsinites to greener locations like Michigan, Colorado, Oregon, California and other places that have managed to find some peace amid this unending, immoral, counterproductive, unnatural and stupid prohibition.
http://www.examiner.com/x-30194-Madison-NORML-Examiner~y2010m7d21-Part-2-35-years-ago-this-summer-State-held-hearings-asking-Should-Wisconsin-Revise-Marijuana-Laws

By ELIZABETH VARIN, Staff Writer
Cannabis is an effective pain reliever and helps overcome side effects of chronic pain medicine, said Dr. Wally Marsh at Tuesday’s El Centro City Council meeting.
Medical marijuana was a topic of discussion at the meeting as three people came before the council to “dispose myths of medical marijuana,” Marsh said.
Marsh was an ophthalmologist for more than 40 years in Lompoc near Santa Barbara before switching to a cannabis consultant two years ago, he said. He sees medical marijuana as a “wonder drug,” not only being natural but also with the potential to benefit a lot of people. However, residents here don’t have access to it.
“I would like to see this council clear the way for people to buy marijuana in a safe way,” he said.
El Centro resident Joann Villareal agreed. Villareal was the director at the alleged dispensary that was shut down last week.
“I’m here for the patients of El Centro,” she said to the council, adding that a collective or dispensary is a safe environment for patients. “We’re just looking for some help from you.”
In the three weeks the collective on Fifth Street in El Centro was open, people from all walks of life, including veterans, the elderly and those in wheelchairs, came in to get help, she said.
“These are medical patients with needs,” she said.
Placing a moratorium, as the city had done, is taking away rights from collectives, said Lanny Swerdlow, registered nurse and medical marijuana activist from Riverside. Patients need the medicine, and the city must enforce state law.
The city placed a moratorium on dispensaries at its April 21 meeting, and later extended the hold at the June 2 meeting.
There were multiple reasons that Mayor Cheryl Viegas-Walker previously said as to why the city decided to wait until the beginning of October to take action. The first was to await a decision in the appellate court about another city banning marijuana dispensaries.
The moratorium also allowed staff time to find an appropriate land zone to classify a dispensary, she said. The final reason was to see what the outcome of the November election will be as one of the ballot measures would be whether to legalize marijuana for all adults in California.
“It’s an issue that isn’t going away,” she told the three, who said they would be back at other meetings to discuss the issue.
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2010/07/21/local_news/news03.txt

Amanda Loman | The Saginaw News

SAGINAW — Medical marijuana advocates at the intersection of Michigan and Court in Saginaw pumped signs into the air, wagged flags depicting pot leaves and cheered in the direction of passing vehicles, prompting supportive honks and waves from some motorists about noon today. “Arrest my suffering, not me” and “Haven’t you always wondered why marijuana is illegal,” it said on two signs, one neon pink, and another read: “Change this law, Mr. Obama, The Constitution demands it.”

Joe Cain, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and the chief executive officer of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association who organized the rally, with long gray hair and a mustache, said he’s happy with the turnout so far.

About 11 a.m., five protesters stood on the street corners with signs, while about 30 others rustled about in Borchard Park, where a table held informational documents and a videocassette movie labeled “Hemp for Victory.” They prepared signs and conversed. Onlookers clapped for several speakers who gave speeches from the park’s gazebo.

By noon, the number of protesters swelled to nearly 100, many who traveled to Saginaw from outside the county, and dozens stood on the corner holding signs.

“It’s growing,” said John Roberts, 49, of Thomas Township. The protest is scheduled to continue until 3 p.m.

The home he lives at with his fiancee, Stephanie Whisman, 38, was raided by the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department — with support from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency — on April 15 and again by DEA agents on July 6, less than a week after a protest Roberts staged outside the Saginaw County Governmental Center, 111 S. Michigan.

During that protest, state police arrested his fiancee on a warrant that was issued because of a $23 outstanding city tax bill.

Today’s protest was a response to the latest DEA raid.

Robert Redden, 59, said he drove two hours from Madison Heights to participate in the rally.

He showed off his medical marijuana card with a sticker that said “defendant’s exhibit C.”

Redden, who suffers from a bone disease, said he was arrested for growing medical marijuana and charged with illegally manufacturing it in Madison Heights 18 months ago. His case will likely be heard by the state Supreme Court, he said.

He wore a paper grocery bag over his head that said “Marijuana patient,” with two eye-slits to see through.

“I’m scared,” Redden said. “I don’t want to be raided (again).”

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2010/07/update_about_100_medical_marij.html

visits and (surprise, surprise!) their recently released results show that “marijuana dependence was associated with the lowest rates” of emergency room visits.
NORML’s Paul Armentano has broken down the study here on Alternet:

Among those surveyed, subjects that reported using cannabis were the least likely to report an ED visit (1.71 percent). Respondents who reported lifetime use of heroin, tranquilizers, and inhalants were most likely (18.5 percent, 6.3 percent, and 6.2 percent respectively) to report experiencing one or more ED visits related to their drug use.
Investigators concluded, “[M]arijuana was by far the most commonly used (illicit) drug, but individuals who used marijuana had a low prevalence of drug-related ED visits.”

Paul also points to a recently released RAND study that found California hospitals received only 181 admissions related to marijuana in 2008, compared to an estimated 73,000 such admissions related to alcohol.
This is extremely valuable information in the debate over marijuana prohibition, since opponents of legalization—including the nation’s drug czar—consistently argue that marijuana’s “social costs” are a leading reason why we shouldn’t lift prohibition.
When they make this argument, Gil Kerlikowske and others will always mention the social costs of alcohol without including any supporting evidence to show that marijuana leads to similar results. The reason they don’t cite such evidence, of course, is because they don’t have any. Findings about the extremely low level of emergency room visits for marijuana compared to alcohol and other drugs simply drive another nail into such blissfully ignorant prohibitionist logic.
Oh, and if anyone tries to argue that this situation will somehow change drastically in a regulated marijuana market, consider this: More than 3 million Californians currently use marijuana (at least once) annually, yet fewer than 200 of them end up in the hospital for related reasons.
Kerlikowske and others shy away from stats like these, however, because they are further evidence of marijuana’s high margin of safety—and the insanity behind its prohibition.
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/marijuana-use-rarely-leads-to-emergency-room-study-shows

For far too long, most politicians have operated under the (false) notion that supporting efforts to reform marijuana laws amounted to political suicide. But nowadays–as public support for reform continues to grow at a record pace–there are increasing signs that the movement to end marijuana prohibition is reaching a crucial threshold for victory: Political strategists are beginning to realize that candidates can not only benefit from supporting pro-legalization efforts, but suffer for opposing them.
Already this election season, we have seen two major statewide political groups–the California NAACP and the Washington state Democratic Party–endorse state ballot initiatives that would make marijuana legal for adults.
Then this weekend in San Jose, the California Democratic Party voted to remain neutral on November’s Proposition 19 ballot measure despite widespread internal support, almost entirely out of concern that endorsing legalization would harm the party’s anti-legalization candidates, among them Sen. Barbara Boxer and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown. Many other Democratic officials have already endorsed the initiative on their own, and the L.A. Times reports, “despite taking a cautious stance, [the Democrats] appeared solidly behind the initiative, cheering and whooping much more raucously for the pro-endorsement speakers.”
Consider the pitch made by just one of those speakers:

Robert Cruickshank, public policy director for the Courage Campaign, which backs progressive causes, called for the vote in an attempt to overturn a party committee’s recommendation to adopt a neutral position. He started by reminding the assembled Democrats that the party’s chairman, former San Francisco state Sen. John Burton, has said pot was the issue that would motivate young voters to go to the polls in this off-year election.
“If we endorse Proposition 19 and take a courageous position to support reform, just as we took courageous positions on same-sex marriage and other contentious issues, we will win the moral argument, we will win Proposition 19 and we will win races in November,” Cruickshank said.

Others have pointed out that marijuana ballot initiatives could help Democratic voter turnout overall as well. Earlier this month, on an apparent “tip from an Obama official,” The Atlantic’s Joshua Green discovered “a few Democratic consultants who have become convinced that ballot initiatives legalizing marijuana, like the one Californians will vote on in November, actually help Democrats in the same way that gay marriage bans were supposed to have helped Republicans.”
This strategy falls short, however, when Democrats fail to support marijuana initiatives. MPP’s Steve Fox has already hypothesized that single-issue California voters who turn out in favor of Proposition 19 could also vote against Brown because of his opposition to the initiative (“Vote Green, Not Brown”). Now the state Democratic Party seems to share that concern.
And it’s not just Democrats who see opportunity in supporting sensible marijuana policies. Right now in Connecticut there is a GOP primary race for the state’s 4th Congressional District, in which two candidates’ opposing views on marijuana policy are emerging as a potential campaign issue. Both candidates–Rick Torres and Rob Merkle–say they have used marijuana in the past, but only one, Torres, favors taxing and regulating the drug. Merkle, whose father prosecuted and sent to jail major drug traffickers, wants it to remain illegal. Torres says that makes Merkle a hypocrite.
The following is an unfortunately buried lede in an otherwise predictable article about feigned “outrage” over the recent finding that Merkle was arrested for marijuana possession more than 10 years ago.

Torres said that what disturbs him about the arrest is that Merkle and his campaign blasted Torres for his stance on marijuana laws. Torres said he favors legalization.
Merkle said he does not — a stance, in light of his arrest and lenient treatment, that Torres said he finds hypocritical.

Whether that difference will benefit either candidate remains to be seen. But with marijuana measures on the ballot this year in California, Arizona, South Dakota, Oregon, and Detroit, and even more expected for 2012, don’t be surprised to read about more candidates trying to court the steadily growing number of voters who no longer support policies that squander law enforcement resources and criminalize otherwise law-abiding adults simply for using a recreational substance that is safer than alcohol.
Politically, it might be in their best interest.

By Mike LaSalle

Legalize it. Tax it. Regulate it. Get over it.

The first purpose of MND has always been to explore the scope and contours of “misandry in popular culture“.
Long-time readers of this website know that misandry comes in many flavors, and that it is part of a larger complex of social ills which can be generally described as feminist postmodernism.
Thus, MND’s coverage of topics as diverse as economics, academic freedom, science, religion, and climate change propaganda all contribute to a larger understanding of the ordinary man’s place in the postmodern world.
As the publisher of MND, I have tried (though not always successfully) to keep my personal opinions and interests separate from this editorial vision. Indeed, my attitude has always been that MND is a tool for dispassionate discovery, not a soapbox for any individual contributor — most especially including myself.
But in recent days, an event has occurred that is both newsworthy and evocative of my personal outrage.
Many MND readers may have already gathered that I have no love for the so-called “war on drugs”. Nor have I used MND for the purpose of supporting my personal interest in seeing this insane “war” summarily discarded upon the ashpile of history.
But the events I am about to describe go beyond my personal feelings. This isn’t just a story about the drug war; it’s a story about liberty, the First Amendment, and the free exercise of religion.
In 2006, long-time readers may recall that I published an article entitled, “The Bicameral Universe: A Theory of Everything in One Blog Post“. I wrote the article after a flash of revelation while I was under the influence of Cannabis.
Whatever any particular person may think of my article, I wrote it as a genuine expression of opinion, having read and thought deeply about the issues of God, man, religion, science, and the Anthropic Principle for many years. The article outlines my personal understanding of God and my place as a free agent in the multiverse.
A year later, in 2007, I moved to the state of Hawai`i, where I met one Reverend Roger Christie, the founder of the Hawai`i Cannabis Ministry. On September 8, 2007, I was ordained as a Cannabis Minister in his church.
For the past 10 years, Rev. Christie has operated the Ministry openly — one might even say “loudly”. The Ministry is located on the second floor of the Moses Building on Kamahameha Ave in downtown Hilo, right across from Hilo Bay. As a matter of fact, everyone in this part of Hawai`i is entirely aware of the THC-Ministry, because of its central location and because of a large banner that has been hanging for years from the second floor window, declaring, “We Use Cannabis Religiously, And You Can Too!”

94 Kamehameha Ave, Hilo, HI.

There is nothing subterranean in the way this Ministry was operated. The Ministry has existed as a transparent part of this community for many years. In fact, in 2008, Roger Christie ran for mayor of the County of Hawai`i as a Cannabis activist. I ought to know: I was a campaign advisor and webmaster. I attended campaign strategy meetings, and was present when Roger registered with the county as an official Mayoral candidate in the Summer of 2008.
Needless to say, we were not successful in getting Rev. Christie elected to the highest office in Hawai`i County, but it was sure fun to try.
Over the past two years, Rev. Christie has continued to operate the Hawai`i Cannabis Ministry openly, and the Ministry banner has continued to fly above Hilo Bay for all to see.
But on July 8, 2010, everything changed. On that day, the DEA along with a dozen other government agencies descended on the Ministry offices and arrested Reverend Christie, along with 13 members of his flock, charging them with a slew of federal drug trafficking crimes.
Details of the arrest have been documented by the Associated Press and by other local news organizations.
At this time, Reverend Christie is being held without bail in a federal detention center in Honolulu. He has been appointed a public defender, and his trial has been set for September 8, 2010.
Since the arrest, I have contacted our local chapter of the ACLU in an attempt to garner their interest in defending Rev. Christie and the other 13 members of the Ministry currently under federal indictment.
For my part, while I am a member of the Ministry and have an interest in pro-Cannabis political activism, I am not now, nor have I ever been involved in the production or distribution of Cannabis. I am an activist, a writer, a thinker. But I have no problem defending the idea that smoking Cannabis is a legitimate spiritual activity that can bring practitioners closer to God and the ultimate meanings of life.
Having said all of this, I can no longer stand idly by while my pastor — a man I know to be genuine, simple and honest — is arrested and railroaded by an out-of-control federal authority.
Going forward, this publication will lend its support to the defeat of this irrational war on Cannabis, and will expose the damage it has caused to innocent men and women everywhere.
Mike LaSalle
Publisher, MensNewsDaily.com
***UPDATE*** August 19, 2010.
In July, Roger Christie was denied bail by two federal judges in Honolulu, on the grounds that he was a “danger to the community”. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the earlier ruling.
On August 18, several hundred people gathered in downtown Hilo for a rally and march to protest Christie’s incarceration.
“Christie a pacifist who is no threat to our community is denied bail,” one man commented.  ”Christie is a political prisoner.  He is a threat to the war on marijuana and all its corrupt sponsors, but he is no threat to the community.”
Christie’s trial has been rescheduled to April 26, 2011. The Court has ordered that he will be held at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center without bond until trial.
Case documents are available here.
Hundreds March for Jailed Marijuana Activist Rev. Roger Christie
Christie’s trial gets delayed 7 months
Hawaii State Resumes Marijuana Eradication on Big Island

MADISON: Wisconsin is often said to be a progressive state, but the state’s policies on marijuana have actually been nothing but regressive for more than three decades.
But, there was a time when state leaders were actually willing to initiate a statewide discussion on the laws prohibiting cannabis and even talk about taxation and regulation as with tobacco or alcohol. 35 years ago this summer, the state actually held a series of public hearings on Wisconsin marijuana laws. The results, coming at a time when medical use was barely on the radar, were amazingly progressive.
The hearings were set in motion by the findings of a commission appointed by President Richard M. Nixon to look at marijuana laws. Nixon thought his that former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond Shafer, who he chose to lead the committee, would produce a report supporting Nixon’s “war on drugs” and support his escalation of the war on cannabis.
Instead, The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse – Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding found the opposite. An angry Nixon rejected the report, but it led to passage of marijuana decriminalization laws in 11 states, as well as debate and discussion of the criminalization of cannabis and its effects on society all over the nation.
The Wisconsin hearings, conducted by the Controlled Substance Board’s “Special Committee on Marijuana Laws,” produced a “Final Report to the Controlled Substances Board,” issued in October 1975, and titled, “SHOULD WISCONSIN REVISE ITS MARIJUANA LAWS?”
The introduction of the report gives this background on the origin of the idea:

At its February 6, 1975 meeting, the Wisconsin Council on Drug Abuse decided that a statewide series of public hearings should be held on the issue of whether Wisconsin should revise its marijuana laws. However since the council meets quarterly, it requested the Wisconsin Controlled Substances Board, which meets monthly, to actually conduct the hearings. At the March 26, 1975 meeting, the board appointed a Special Committee on Wisconsin’s Marijuana Laws to plan and conduct the hearings. Accordingly, the Committee adopted the following schedule of hearings”

It went on to note a schedule beginning June 9, 1975 at Winnebago and concluding in Milwaukee on September 11, 1975.

The 8 public hearing sites:
Winnebago
Green Bay
Wausau
La Crosse
Superior
Eau Claire
Madison
Milwaukee

By the time the hearing reached Madison on September 10, 1975, support was strong with many state leaders strongly in favor:
Decriminalization supporters included:

Gov. Patrick Lucey and his Council on Drug Abuse
Attorney General Bronson La Follette
Assistant Atty. Gen. John William Calhoun
Wisconsin Controlled Substances Board
U. S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), (who sponsored federal decriminalization legislation with 4 other senators)
State Rep. David C. Clarenbach (D-Madison)
Milwaukee County District Attorney Michael McCann
Madison Police Chief David Couper
UW Sociology Prof. Gerald Marwell, who did research for the 1971 National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (Shafer Commission).
UW Dean of Students Paul Ginsberg
Judie LaForme of the UW Drug Information Center
ACLU leader William Gorham Rice
http://www.examiner.com/x-30194-Madison-NORML-Examiner~y2010m7d20-35-years-ago-this-summer-State-held-hearings-asking-Should-Wisconsin-Revise-Its-Marijuana-Laws