[This is Part 5 in the Mutinyblogging series - previous posts here, here, here, and here]

"You know, in their silliest moments, the Three Stooges never reached this level of indignity" - Tom Servo

[This is the fourth part of the Mutinyblogging series, a salute to this terrible movie and the MST3K episode it spawned --- Earlier parts here, here, and here]

"It has to be noted that Captain Santa Claus really is failing here" - Mike Nelson

[I posted this up recently at Effin' Unsound]

I'm not sure how any introduction could possibly do this post justice.  Ms. Tracy, take it away:

This morning, as a first arrival, I was advocating for a youth at the King County Juvenile Court. As we sat in the lobby which seats approximately 150 people, my vigilant American eagle eyes spotted a Middle Eastern man casually dressed with the Shari’ah regulation beard and mustache walking into the waiting lobby.

Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot know for sure that the events being described in this post actually happened or not, but what I do know is that if they did --- holy shit.

I apologize if this has been diaried already today, but as someone who has followed the trial of Cory Maye, the Mississippi man who was sent to death row under very questionable circumstances following a botched drug raid, I want to get out the word on this.  

This is my last Drug War Roundup for a little while.  My commentary this week is posted here.  It describes why I've been doing this and why I think this issue is so important.  I'm taking a break as I know I won't have enough time to do this over the next several months.  I want to thank everyone who's been reading this diary and recommending it.

Recently, I had an exchange with a drug warrior at Reload, my main site for posting drug war news and info.  In a response to a breakdown I'd done of something he'd written online, he made these remarks in my comments:

Whose right is it to promote morality then? God? Religion? Those seemed to have worked great over the years. Geez, it's as if you have no understanding of history. Of course government dictates morality...they call them laws.

...

I would love to prohibit alcohol, but it's completely inpractical, we both know that. I'll stick to what can continue to be illegal.

Washington State's law authorizing medical marijuana came into effect with a voter initiative in 1998.  In the years since, Washington State residents who have a medical need for the drug have been either growing the plant themselves or obtaining it from unofficial caregivers.  Due to the vagueness of the original law passed by the voters, however, it became fairly easy for law enforcement officials to undermine the spirit of the law while still remaining within the letter of it.  These incidents have been especially common in the more rural areas of the state, where opposition to marijuana in general runs the highest.

Last spring, Mexico's congress passed a bill that would have decriminalized the personal use of drugs.  The bill was similar to what had been done in Portugal five years before (and much of Europe has already decriminalized the possession and use of softer drugs like marijuana).  President Vicente Fox promised to sign the bill, but after a complete freakout by American officials over the perceived consequences of such a move, Fox vetoed it.  The legislature made an effort to override his veto, but nothing came about before the summer elections, when Felipe Calderon was elected in a close, controversial election.

Five years after coalition forces went into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, the country is still struggling with security problems while the Taliban has been able to rebuild itself and continue to challenge the Karzai government. Just about everyone from the Bush Administration to the UN to NATO leadership recognizes that the opium trade is the root cause of our problems there. Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's illicit supply of opium, raking in billions of dollars for those who are able to grow it, process it, and export it to the west. In a poor country like Afghanistan, this money has easily corrupted officials all the way up through the government.

Back in November, when Evangelical leader Ted Haggard was exposed as a homosexual who paid for meth (illegal) and to have sex with a male prostitute (illegal), he was not charged for either of those two crimes.  Instead, he was able to enter "rehab."  At the end of his "rehabilitation," Haggard didn't announce that he was no longer a meth user or a john.  Instead, he proudly boasted to the world that he was no longer a homosexual, the one part of his routine that was not even illegal, and for most people, not even a problem.

Driving while under the influence of marijuana is a controversial topic.  Few people will come out and say that operating a vehicle in that mental state is an entirely safe proposition (even people who've done it regularly), but it's also wrong to simply equate it to the dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol, which is a much clearer public risk.  Over the years, a number of studies have been done to determine what level of risk exists when operating a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana.  This report by the BBC is a very interesting look.  In that video, a reporter rode in a car on a test track with a driver who had just used marijuana.  He found that the driver did not seem impaired in any way, and actually drove somewhat better.

Mary Anastasia O'Grady, a Wall Street Journal writer and outspoken critic of the drug war, writes about Evo Morales, the new President of Bolivia:

Evo Morales is an anti-American extremist who wants to turn Bolivia into another Venezuela.  That naturally alarms Washington, but not enough to halt its war on drugs, which is aiding the president -- and leader of Bolivia's coca-growing peasant movement -- in his bid to become a dictator.

In a recent interview with the Bolivian Catholic radio station Fides, Mr.  Morales explained that in 2003, when he was at a conference in Havana, Fidel Castro told him "not to stage an armed uprising" but to "make transformations, democratic revolutions, what [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez is doing."

In last week's roundup, I listed out what I thought were the main drug policy goals at the national level.  This week, I'm going to discuss what I think can be done here in the state of Washington.  This state is more progressive than most, and with the recent election of drug policy expert Roger Goodman to the state legislature, I will be closely following what happens in Olympia this year, starting with a blogger/legislator conference happening the last weekend in January.  The list below is more general than specific about the things I think could be effective in this state for bringing about positive change.  As I learn more about how the legislature works, what's being done already, and the overall attitudes of the legislature, I'll be revising this accordingly.

One of the best new blogs of 2006 is the Drug Law Blog, written by California law school student Alex Coolman. He writes this week:

In 1969, someone named Mr. X wrote an account of his experiences with marijuana.  It was printed in Marihuana Reconsidered in 1971.  Mr X was a successful young scientist who had discovered marijuana in his 20s.  Though skeptical at first that the drug was nothing more than a placebo, he eventually discovered that the high from marijuana had a number of amazing benefits and expanded his mind beyond the world of science into other interests and endeavors.  Mr X wrote:

Confidential informants have become a key element in drug law enforcement.  In the case of Cory Maye in Prentiss, Mississippi, police were able to obtain a warrant to enter Maye's home after a confidential informant told them that drug activity was happening there.  On the night of the raid, Maye, likely believing that he was being robbed, fired a shot at officer Ron Jones, killing him.  Maye was tried for the officer's murder and sentenced to death row.  Other than the remnants of a smoked joint, there were no drugs in Maye's apartment.  He was not a drug dealer and had no criminal record.  

When it was revealed last month that Evangelical leader Ted Haggard had purchased meth from a male prostitute, some were wondering if Haggard would actually be charged with a crime.  Possession of methamphetamine is illegal, and there are a number of people who've been arrested for what Haggard did.  But there was no one demanding that Haggard be charged with a crime, despite the fact that there's no debate at all over whether what he did was illegal.  It reinforced one of the dynamics that keeps the drug war going:

Milton Friedman was known more for his economics, but his philosophy on freedom and responsibility also made him oppose the drug war from the very beginning, and he was stunningly prescient about what he predicted.  Seventeen years after Nixon launched the modern War on Drugs, in 1989, Friedman pleaded with Drug Czar Bill Bennett to rethink the government's approach: