"Tolerate injustice or end it. When it’s all said and done, those are the only two choices we have." (click on read more for answer)

Anthony D. Romero current Executive Director of the ACLU.

When I was a teenager one of my favortite programs was the Firing Line Debates hosted by William F. Buckley. The only time I ever disagreed with him was on the question of whether the ACLU did more harm than good. Now, I know that the ACLU is a far from perfect organization. But I firmly believe they do far more good (see here) than harm and I offer the above quote as a part of my justification for that position.

Human Rights Watch recently sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia but it mission was not to investigate mistreatment of Saudi women or the fact that homosexuals are subject to the death penalty in that country. No they went there to raise money and as David Bernstein reports in the Wall Street Journal their main strategy involved highlighting Human Right Watch’s anti-Israeli bias. Spokesperson Sarah Leah Whitson asked the wealthy Saudis for help with her organization’s battles against "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations."

Bernstein also quotes Nathan Wagner at Opinio Juris saying that, “surely there is a moral difference between raising funds in free nations through appeals to ideals of universal human rights and raising money in repressive nations through appeals highlighting pressure brought against their enemies.”

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

When America elected Barak Obama almost everyone thought there would be new massive transfers of wealth from the rich to the poor in the socialist tradition. What we did not know is that the money would be mostly moving in the other direction.

Anthony Gregory’s most recent post below has inspired me to ask some moral questions of my own. I seem to remember that awhile ago we found out that the CIA once planned to assassinate Fidel Castro and that this revelation caused a great deal of controversy. If I remember correctly the outcome of this debate was a consensus that the killing of enemy leaders by the U.S. Government was wrong and it would not be done. Now my question is this; if it is not OK to assassinate Castro, Iran’s president, Assad in Syria or Kim Il Jong, why is it alright to kill what are probably mid-level clerics, not to mention any women and children in the vicinity, with drones in Pakistan? Are we not assassinating these people? And, who exactly are they? What is the justification for their deaths? We know that the government was not too concerned with guilt or innocence when they started throwing people into Guantanamo, are they being anymore careful in this case? Lastly is it just fine to murder these people because Barak Obama is a Democrat?

The government does not like Siobhan Reynolds who is head of The Pain Relief Network an advocacy group fighting against the state persecution of pain patients and their doctors. The immediate cause of animosity is Reynolds defense of Kansas Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Nurse Linda Schneider, who have been accused of operating a pain clinic responsible for 56 overdose deaths. The network has been organizing patients in support of the defendants and generating publicity about the case.

The Schneider’s federal prosecutors tried to impose a gag order on Reynolds’s group but the judge denied the motion. Now the Drug War Chroniclereports that she “has been targeted for a grand jury investigation of obstruction of justice for her role in supporting a Kansas physician and his wife in their legal battle against federal prosecutors.” In her subpoena Assistant US Attorney Tanya Treadway “demands that Reynolds turn over all correspondence with attorneys, patients, Schneider family members, doctors, and others related to the Schneider case. She also demands that Reynolds turn over bank and credit card statements showing payments to or from clinic employees, patients, potential witnesses and others.” Reynolds has stated that she has no intention of complying with the order and has filed a motion seeking to have the subpoena thrown out.

Gore Vidal has said that, “America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know.” Given the large amount of truth in that statement, this pernicious governmental attempt to silence an advocacy group should be all the more frightening to us.

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

The drug law reform community put much effort and faith into the election of President Barack Obama and until just recently they have experienced nothing but disappointment in return. First, during the transition Obama nominated hardline drug warrior Eric Holder, who sought to make simple misdemeanor marijuana possession a felony with mandatory minimum sentencing in the District of Columbia, to be Attorney General. The president then named as Surgeon General television personality Sanjay Gupta who has demonstrated astounding ignorance on the subject of cannabis use.

The new administration’s measures in this field so far have been just as bad as his nominations. During his first week in office there were federal raids in California on medical marijuana clinics operating legally under state law, an action that broke a campaign promise to change this Bush policy. Although, the leader of NATO in Afghanistan, a U.S. general under Obama’s command, did announce a policy change, henceforth his subordinates were to kill on sight anyone involved in the drug trade irregardless of any connection with the insurgency. Also, when the City Council of El Paso Texas voted for a resolution merely calling for a national discussion on legalization of drugs they were threatened with a loss of stimulus package funding from the Obama Administration. And, there is no evidence that any of the above actions has displeased our new leader.

However, last week Obama did do something that drew praise from the nation’s drug law reform organizations, he nominated Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The Drug Policy Alliance for example cited the facts that Seattle had legalized medical marijuana, made recreational marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority, allowed the implementation of needle exchange programs, and pursued a progressive policy when it came to dealing with overdoses as very good signs. Perhaps the greatest cause for optimism is the fact that Chief Kerlikowske has followed in the footsteps of retired Seattle police chief Norm Stamper now a prominent member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) who “believes the drug war causes untold misery, undermines effective law enforcement, and does not begin to pass any sort of cost-benefit analysis.”

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

I have a shameful secret to reveal. I have always wanted to be a pundit. Here is my first attempt a radio interview I did with Scott Horton on the subject of drug prohibition.

In the comments section Tony Litwinko took issue with my assertion that the drug war is an outgrowth of Progressive Era thought, writing that it ” is a logical fallacy to insist that because prohibition arose during the progressive era it was instituted by progressives. It was not, and Mr. Halderman, as an expert on the era of marijuana use should be able, more than anyone else, to insist on the distinction.

I responded with the following: The most influential drug policy organization in the 1930s was The World Narcotic Defense Association, founded and headed by Richmond P. Hobson. He had won the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Spanish-Cuban-American War and parlayed that into an election to Congress from a district in Alabama. While there he authored the 18th Amendment which brought in Alcohol Prohibition, the center piece of the progressive reform movement. Hobson campaigned as a speaker for the Anti-Saloon League making arguments based on scientific grounds not religious ones. He put forth a brief for Prohibition entirely consistent with the basic premise of Progressive Era thought that social problems could be solved in a scientific efficient manner by government experts. The modern day schedule of drugs enacted in 1970 is a classic example of that theory put into practice. Government specialists on drugs decide which are the good ones and which are the bad, then they prohibit the bad ones making everything just fine, simple as that. When the American delegation went to the Hague Convention in 1912, where our government signed a treaty obligating it to create an anti-narcotics organization, the leader was Bishop Brent. Not a right wing figure but an Episcopal churchman. Some of the strongest supporters of draconian drug war measures have been liberal congressmen and Senators, from Hamilton Fish to Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden. If drug prohibition is not a progressive policy, why has a congress controlled by Democrats, the presumed inheritors of the progressive legacy, not enacted a bill legalizing marijuana for George Bush to veto? I stand by my statement that drug prohibition is an artifact of the Progressive Era.

The murder rate in the city of Juarez, Mexico doubled last year because of increased efforts to enforce drug prohibition. The city council of its sister city, El Paso, Texas, voted 8 to 0 in favor of a resolution calling for a national debate on the legalization of drugs. The mayor vetoed the legislation and six votes were needed to override this action. Despite the powerful testimony of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) member Nubia Legarda and the articulate and authoritative support for discussion from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) the veto was sustained in a 4 to 4 vote.

Why did four members of the council change their votes? The answer quite simply is that they were coerced. Ryan Grim writing on The Huffington Postreveals that “Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat who represents El Paso in Congress, lobbied each council member, making it clear that if the resolution calling for a debate passed, El Paso would risk losing money in the upcoming stimulus legislation. Five Texas House representatives made the same threat.”

Here is an opportunity for Barack Obama to prove that his promise of change has at least some substance. His administration should contact Rep. Reyes and the four state legislators for the purpose of finding out if anyone working in the federal bureaucracy indicated that funding would be cut off if the resolution passed. If any such persons are found then Obama must fire them immediately. He ought to also make a very public statement that discussing issues is not grounds for denial of stimulus or any other government funds. If he does not take these actions then we will know for sure that it is business as usual in the nation’s capital.

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

Studies finding that cannabis, or marijuana as it is more commonly known, has both a mitigating and prophylactic effect with regards to Alzheimer’s disease continue to accumulate. One of the latest articles comes from researchers working at the Department of Physiology and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin. They found that “certain cannabinoids can protect neurons from the deleterious effects of β-amyloid and are capable of reducing tau phosphorylation. The propensity of cannabinoids to reduce β-amyloid-evoked oxidative stress and neurodegeneration, whilst stimulating neurotrophin expression neurogenesis, are interesting properties that may be beneficial in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease” and the Scientists concluded that “cannabinoids offer a multi-faceted approach for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease by providing neuroprotection and reducing neuroinflammation, whilst simultaneously supporting the brain's intrinsic repair mechanisms by augmenting neurotrophin expression and enhancing neurogenesis.”

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

Hat tip to Ian Goddard