Banning Hard Drugs

For John, BLUF:  Portland, Oregon, has a major drug problem, big enough they are taking action to correct it.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Portland’s Cry for Safety:  The Impending Ban on Hard Drug Use

From Conservative Fix, by Ms Alexandra Russel, 10 September 2023

Here is the lede plus five:

In an era where most political issues point fingers at the current Democratic administration’s weaknesses and alleged corruption, the beautiful city of Portland shines a spotlight on a more immediate, localized concern.  Portland, once a beacon of creativity and innovation, now desperately seeks the state’s permission for a monumental move: banning hard drug use to protect public property and its citizens.

This potential decision comes after years of observing the devastating impact of unchecked drug use on public spaces, local businesses, and most importantly, its residents.  It’s an outcry for a safer environment, for a city that deserves to reclaim its lost vibrancy.

• Rising Crime Rates:  Cities that have reported higher drug use often face a subsequent rise in crime.  In fact, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, drug abuse and addiction cost American society over $740 billion annually in lost workplace productivity, healthcare expenses, and crime-related costs.
• Public Health Crisis:  The rampant spread of drug abuse leads to a significant strain on public health systems.  It’s reported that every day, 128 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids – a dire reflection of the nation’s opioid crisis.
• Loss of Community Spirit:  The once-thriving community spaces in Portland are now overshadowed by drug-related activities, causing residents to avoid these areas, leading to a loss of community interaction and spirit.

As the 2024 presidential race heats up, it’s essential not to lose sight of local issues like these that affect everyday Americans.  Cities like Portland are at the heart of our nation, and their well-being directly reflects our national health.

It is a little amazing that Portland has reversed course on hard drugs, but there it is.  Conditions in the City are causing leaders to cast about for potential solutions.  I wish them well in this effort.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Mentally Ill

For John, BLUF:  In fighting homelessness, part of what we are fighting is mental illness.  And we aren't doing a very good joob.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Dual Diagnosis

From Outnumbered, by Reporter Dagen McDowell, 14 November 2022.

While we were driving North on I-93 today we were intermittently listening to the Fox News Show, Outnumbered.  We caught Ms Dagen McDowell talking about the poor job we are doing with regard to the Mentally ill.  She was on target.

In particular, I was impressed by her analysis of how Cities are responding to those with a dual diagnosis (a mental illness and a comorbid substance use disorder).  Her point was that while the Cities (and their Counties and States) haven't funded mental health treatment, they are moving to provide free drug injection sites.  Thus, the mentally ill are being allowed, perhaps encoruaged, to self medicate.  This seems like malpractice.

Thanks for this insight, Dagen.

Regards  —  Cliff

Pandemic Worse Than Winnie the Flu

For John, BLUF:  I am being super-cautious about COVID-19, but realize there are other, more serious, killers out there.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Overdose deaths far outpace COVID-19 deaths in San Francisco

From The San Francisco Gate! by Associated Press, 19 December 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

A record 621 people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco so far this year, a staggering number that far outpaces the 173 deaths from COVID-19 the city has seen thus far.

The crisis fueled by the powerful painkiller fentanyl could have been far worse if it wasn't for the nearly 3,000 times Narcan was used from January to the beginning of November to save someone from the brink of death, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

I blame the Republicans.  The last Republican Mayor, George Christopher, left office in January 1964.  Then what?  All Democrats, as Blogger Ed Driscoll points out.

This little data point also suggests there is a lot we don't know about the public health tradeoffs involving COVID-19.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Looking For Solutions in All The Wrong Places

For John, BLUF:  Our problems, from drug abuse to mass murders, are being viewed through defective lenses.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

No-One's Life Matters. That's Why There Are Mass Shootings

From Pajama Media, by Mr David P Goldman, 7 August 2019.

Here is the lede plus:

Writing in the left-wing Forward website today, Cathy Young warns the Left to take its own violence seriously:

...It has been a staple of conventional wisdom that the real danger comes almost entirely from the far right....But is that still true today? We don’t know if Connor Betts, the 24-year-old Ohio man who killed nine people (including his own sister) and wounded 27 more when he opened fire on a crowded street in Dayton on Sunday, had any involvement with Antifa. But Betts’s Twitter trail makes it clear that he was a hardcore leftist who embraced some fairly extreme ideas—and, in some cases, advocated violence toward political enemies in Antifa-style language.

Good for Ms. Young, who declines to join the chorus blaming President Trump for the last two atrocities. Never mind that the five worst mass shooting incidents took place outside the United States, or that more mass shootings occurred during the Obama presidency than under Trump. But that leaves us with the question: Why are there mass shootings?

Mass shootings are a special form of suicide. The shooter never expects to survive. But the shooter combines self-hatred with group hatred. Hate becomes so melded with the shooter's identity that he determines to take as many people as he can with him. They are of the same order as the pilot who crashed a Germanwings airliner into the Alps in 2015.

Emil Durkheim's 1897 diagnosis of "anomic suicide" describes the Columbine perpetrators as well as the 2016 San Bernardino attack by Muslim fanatics, the "right-wing" shooter in El Paso and the "left-wing" shooter in Dayton. They are individuals cut off from society, destabilized by change and despairing of their own place in the world. Such monsters always have been among us. But now we are cultivating such monsters by destroying the ties that bind us to each other, to our past and to our future.

We are looking for easy answers, or answers that don't point back to cultural failures, at least not failures in our current culture.  Blaming The Gun is foolish.  It is like The Old Gray Lady, yesterday, saying airplanes aimed at the Twin Towers.  No, People did.  To achieve an objective.  And most discussions of the El Paso and Dayton mass killings neglect the Garden Grove killings that weekend—perhaps because an edged weapon was used.

If we can't (or won't) name the problem, any solution will be partial, and by accident.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Suicide Problem

For John, BLUF:  Both suicides and drug overdose rates are a symptom of social breakdown.  But why?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

America’s suicide epidemic

Here is the sub-headline:

On a problem that literally has life-and-death significance for a pivotal portion of his base, Trump has been AWOL.

From Nation of Change, by Author Rajan Menon 19 June 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

We hear a lot about suicide when celebrities like Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade die by their own hand.  Otherwise, it seldom makes the headlines.  That’s odd given the magnitude of the problem.

In 2017, 47,173 Americans killed themselves.  In that single year, in other words, the suicide count was nearly seven times greater than the number of American soldiers killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars between 2001 and 2018.

A suicide occurs in the United States roughly once every 12 minutes.  What’s more, after decades of decline, the rate of self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people annually — the suicide rate — has been increasing sharply since the late 1990s.  Suicides now claim two-and-a-half times as many lives in this country as do homicides, even though the murder rate gets so much more attention.

In other words, we’re talking about a national epidemic of self-inflicted deaths.

This is a serious problem.  I don't think the Author is willing to do the deep dive, which would reveal how the destruction of so many families, of all races and ethnicities and creeds, has resulted in more isolation and higher suicide rates.

Regards  —  Cliff

Bad Analysis Leads To Bad Solutions

For John, BLUF:  The author argues that some of our social problems may not be due to evil corporations, but rather cultural shifts as we embraced more freedom in our interactions, leading to a breakdown in relationships.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The tragic — and overlooked — fallout from the ’60s sexual revolution

From The New York Post, by Ms Mary Eberstadt, 23 August 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

Declining life expectancy, mass shootings, alarming rates of mental illness, rising white nationalism, the opioid crisis:  By many measures, our society is in trouble, and we are ignoring a root cause:  the unprecedented familial dispersion that followed the 1960s sexual revolution.

At heart, that revolution aimed to radically sever human sexuality from marriage and child-rearing, from the responsibilities society had hitherto imposed on the individual sexual appetite.  Afterward, fatherless homes, family shrinkage and breakup, childlessness and abortion all became commonplace.  The net effect of these changes is having fewer people to call one’s own.

Many Americans would say that their own lives have been enhanced mightily by the new liberties wrought by the ’60s revolution.  Perhaps.  But if we examine what these same changes have delivered at a collective level, an unsettling picture emerges.

One feature of the new landscape is widespread loneliness.  And while initial studies were trained on the isolated elderly, scholarly focus is rapidly expanding as social-science data reveal ravaging isolation at the opposite end of the spectrum.

I believe Ms Mary Eberstadt is correct, but I believe her analysis is incomplete.  We need to examine the impact of LBJ (Great Society) and California Assemblyman Jim Hayes (No Fault Divorce).  These were not political actions that strengthen the family.  Just the opposite.  I think that, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed out in his report, The Negro Family:  The Case Fore Nation action, family life can have a major impact on culture and on individual success.

Until we fix the family everything else is just bandaids.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Leadership

For John, BLUF:  Interestingly, Drug Lords sometimes care about more than just dealing drugs.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Parole for drug lord Rayful Edmond?  Ask for John Thompson’s permission

From The Washington Examiner, by Reporter Quin Hillyer, 15 February 2019.

Here four key paragraphs:

Edmond, himself a good basketball player, grew up as friends with John Turner, a Hoya role player.  Thompson heard Edmond had been seen hanging around with Turner and Hoya superstar Alonzo Mourning.  There was and is no evidence either player was involved with drugs; indeed, Mourning remains to this day a man almost universally admired for both grit and character.  But Thompson wanted to take no chances.

Thompson sent word to the streets:  I want Rayful Edmond in my office.  Rayful Edmond complied.  Think of what would have happened if, say, Knute Rockne had summoned Al Capone to a meeting.  Capone would have sent word back:  “You want me to come to you?  No, you come to me.  Capisce?”

But Edmond dutifully showed up at Thompson’s office — and Thompson told him, in no uncertain terms, to leave his kids alone.

And Edmond did. He was never seen in the company of a Hoya player ever again.  As Andrew Sharp wrote for SB Nation, Thompson “single-handedly scared the shit out of one of the most infamous drug dealers in U.S. history.”

The edge Coach John Thompson had was that Rayful Edmond had respect for the Hoya basketball team.  And, he (Coach Thompson) was ornery enough to confront the problem head on.  An edge Coach Knute Rockne wouldn't have had.

But, it does say that each of us needs to be aware and speak to those we are in contact with.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Legal Change in Status of the Opioid Fentanyl

For John, BLUF:  Recognition by the manufacturer of fentanyl that it is (or should be) a controlled substance is a step in the right direction.  However, social conditions must also improve for this epidemic to subside.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Xi Tells Trump China Will Schedule Fentanyl

Here is the sub-headline:

China, world's fentanyl source, to finally control drug

From The Washington Free Beacon, by Reporter Charles Fain Lehman, 3 December 2018.

Here is the lede plus two:

China will finally add fentanyl and its analogs to its list of controlled substances, following a Saturday meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump.

"President Xi, in a wonderful humanitarian gesture, has agreed to designate Fentanyl as a Controlled Substance, meaning that people selling Fentanyl to the United States will be subject to China's maximum penalty under the law," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced in a Saturday night statement.

The agreement came as the two leaders joined other representatives of the G20 nations in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the organization's annual summit.  The two had aimed to broker a deal end their respective countries' escalating trade war.  The scheduling of fentanyl was part of a package deal, offered by Xi to stop Trump from raising tariffs on some $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

The questioni is, can the US Government, working with the new Mexican Administration, parley this into a way of controlling the widespread, and illegal, distribution of fentanyl, which is killing a lot of Americans.

The current path of the drug is from China to Mexico and then up into the United States.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Nevada Traffic Deaths Fall in Last Year

For John, BLUF:  Maybe legal marijuana won't be as bad as some of us feared.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Nevada Traffic Deaths Plunge 10% Following Marijuana Legalization

Here is the sub-headline:

It is the one-year anniversary of recreational marijuana in Nevada - how has the state fared?

From Zero Hedge, by Mr Tyler Durden, 2 July 2018.

Key Paragraph:

According to a report from NBC Reno, about 310 people died in traffic accidents in Nevada between July 2016 and May 2017.  From July 2017 to May 2018 — the first 11-months of legal recreational marijuana — just 277 people died in car crashes across the state. KRNV noted that the Nevada Department of Public Safety was unable to provide data for June.

As Stephen Green notes, correlation is not causation, but something is going on.  My wife suggests that maybe people are just staying home and smoking.  Or maybe they aren't drinking as much and are thus not quite as impaired on the road.

I wonder what the results are for Colorado?

The National Bureau of Economic Research suggested that there is “little evidence” that the legalization of marijuana is responsible for increases in traffic deaths in states that have legalized recreational marijuana.  And, in Nevada, local tax revenues are up.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Tenth Amendment Democrats (For Now)

For John, BLUF:  I think of Senator Schumer as a bit of a grand stander.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren are all for state autonomy — when the GOP's in charge

Here is the sub-headline:

Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren want states to decide their own marijuana policies. They're big federalism fans — when the GOP's running America.

From USA Today, by Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 23 April 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

If hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, then Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has delivered a whopping tribute to the constitutional doctrine of federalism.

In a series of tweets, he announced:  “Today, I am formally announcing my plan to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.  It’s time we allow states, once and for all, to have the power to decide what works best for them.  I have long believed that states should function as their own laboratories of democracy.  My bill is a step in the right direction aimed at removing the barriers to state legalization efforts.” —

Schumer was joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who said: “The federal government needs to get out of the business of outlawing marijuana.  States should make their own decisions about enforcing marijuana laws.”

Ah, the idea that the individual States are the “laboratories of democracy” meme.  I think it is just political opportunism.  But, when you are losing to President Trump you need to exploit your opportunities.

Here are my thoughts on Mary Jane:

1. It should be legal, like alcohol.
2. It is bad for you, but, free will and all that.
3. Smoking it in public is not just impolite, but perhaps bad for the health of those around you.
4. No Government entity is going to make money off the taxing of the sale of marijuana.
5. People under the age of 23, at which point the brain is pretty well formed, should be banned from using it

The Author, Professor Reynolds, the InstaPundit, wonders, further into the article, if Senators Schumer and Warren would feel the same way about guns and abortion.  I doubt they would.  I doubt they are all that happy with the Electoral College.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Follow the Law

For John, BLUF:  Less laws and more clarity.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Here's a novel idea: If you don't like Jeff Session's marijuana decision, change the law

This is basic civics stuff, but it seems to have eluded a lot of legislators who decided to fire off tweets instead of make real change.

From USA Today, by Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds (The InstaPundit, 8 January 2018.

Here is the lede plus three:

Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution provides that:  “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

Legislative powers are the power to make and repeal laws.  Those powers are not vested in the executive branch, which includes the president and, more relevant to this discussion, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recently announced that he will no longer follow an Obama-era policy of not enforcing federal laws against marijuana.  Some states have repealed their own laws against marijuana, but marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and will stay that way unless Congress legislates otherwise.

This is basic civics stuff, but it seems to have eluded a lot of people.  People such as Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who exploded in response to Sessions’ announcement, saying that marijuana laws should be left to the states, and who vowed to “take all steps necessary” to secure a reversal of Sessions’ announcement, including holding up nominees to the Department of Justice.

Many other members of Congress — from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., were also critical.  But if you want to leave marijuana decisions up to the states, there’s an easy way to do that:  Repeal the federal marijuana law.  Legislate, which is supposed to be the job of ... legislators. Like Gardner, Sanders or Lieu.

Yes, this is what happens when public schools don't teach civics.  When the students grow up and get elected to Congress those civics deprived students don't know their responsibilities as legislators.

And, by the way, the same goes for the treatment of illegal immigrants.  Rather than having state-level Democrats acting like the second coming of Vice President John C Calhoun, Federal Legislators should take up the issue of immigration, should legislate and should then hold hearings on what the Executive Branch is doing to enforce the laws just passed by the Congress.

At this point it seems rather hit or miss.  How Federal Laws against marijuana are enforced depends on the Federal Attorney in the area, in our case, US Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew E. Lelling. Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

UPDATE:  And this just in from The Boston Clobe, US attorney throws future of legal pot in Mass. into doubt

Regards  —  Cliff

Drugs for Nucs

For John, BLUF:  This could all be "fake news", but the Politico article seems fairly well researched.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Sessions orders DOJ review after report Obama administration gave Hezbollah a pass

From Fox News, 22 December 2017, Reporters Alex Pappas and Jake Gibson.

The lede:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is launching a review of a law enforcement initiative called Project Cassandra after an investigative report was published this week claiming the Obama administration gave a free pass to Hezbollah’s drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations to help ensure the Iran nuclear deal would stay on track.

Project Cassandra.

Here is the Politico story on Sunday.

Are drugs not a big deal in our nation?  Are Hezbollah officials sitting over in Lebanon, laughing at us?.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Coddling Hezbollah For A Nuclear Deal With Iran

For John, BLUF:  That dodge nuclear deal with Iran was not cheap.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook

The sub-headline:

An ambitious U.S. task force targeting Hezbollah's billion-dollar criminal enterprise ran headlong into the White House's desire for a nuclear deal with Iran.

This is from Politico, by Mr Josh Meyer, on or about 19 December 2017.

Here is the lede plus one:

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States.  They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa.  And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

And then it all went South.

Regards  —  Cliff

Opioids to Kill the Physical Pain

For John, BLUF:  Giving folks with chronic pain medical attention could reduce opioid overdoses by a significant amount.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Over 60 percent of people who OD on opioids and die have chronic pain: Study

This is from United Press International (UPI) and their HealthDay News, 28 November 2017.

Here is the lede plus two:

More than 60 percent of opioid overdose deaths involve people who suffer from chronic pain, a new analysis reveals.

Many of them also struggled with depression or anxiety, the investigators found.

The findings stem from a study that examined the medical backgrounds of more than 13,000 men and women who died from an opioid overdose between 2001 and 2007.

Another study says that a factor in not getting off drugs, and thus being at risk for overdose is isolation.  A story in NPR in 2015 said that a study showed that 95% of returning Vietnam Veterans, who had been using "in theater" did not pick up the habit again once returned stateside.  I am not sure we really understand all there is to know about drug addiction and drug overdoses.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Why Are There Overdoses?

For John, BLUF:  I think there is a lot of Pop Psychology driving Government Policy.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Were We Wrong About Addiction?

The sub-headline:

Right-wingers tend to think of addiction as a moral failing, and leftists tend to think of it as a disease. It looks like both positions might be wrong.

This Foundation for Economic Education article by Mr Jon Miltimore is datelines 17 November 2017.

The lede:

In his bestselling book Chasing the Scream, British journalist Johann Hari highlights a different study from the 1970s conducted by Bruce Alexander, a psychologist and professor from Vancouver. Alexander noticed something peculiar: the rats in these experiments were always solitary.

What would happen if the rats weren’t alone? he wondered.

Eager to find out, Alexander created an environment he called Rat Park, a happy home where rats enjoyed playgrounds and the company of other rats.  He discovered these rats “had much less appetite for morphine than rats housed in solitary confinement.”  Importantly, none of the rats in the happy environment died from overdose.

Alexander’s research is just one of the many pieces of evidence Hari cites in his book, a three-year project that led him to a startling conclusion:  “Almost everything we think we know about addiction is wrong.”

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Drug Murders

For John, BLUF:  The line "politics is a blood sport in Lowell", doesn't compare to politics in Mexico.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

This item has been in my "to do" queue for about three weeks—"Mexican Mayor Is Killed a Day After Taking Office".

This is our next-door neighbor, Mexico, and good government is fighting a tough battle with corrupt drug cartels.  This woman was killed a day after taking office.

The source is The Old Gray Lady.  The lede plus two:

The mayor of a city south of Mexico's capital was shot to death on Saturday, less than a day after taking office, officials said.

Gunmen opened fire on Mayor Gisela Mota at her house in the city of Temixco, said the government of Morelos state, where Temixco is located.  Two presumed assailants were killed and three others detained following a pursuit, said Morelos security commissioner Jesus Alberto Capella.  He said the suspects fired on federal police and soldiers from a vehicle.

On his Twitter account, Morelos Gov. Graco Ramirez attributed Mota's killing to organized crime, without citing a particular drug cartel or gang.  Cartels seeking to control communities and towns have often targeted local officials and mayors in Mexico.

Who caused Mayor Gisela Mota's death?  Drug users in the US (and other nations).  No drug black market means no corrupt cartels.

The more serious problem is that this corruption could come to these United States.

Regards  —  Cliff

Government Free to Do As It Pleases

For John, BLUF:  When they don't bother to tell you, you are really out of luck.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

This article is by Mr Tim Cushing, from Tech Dirt—"Who Pays When The DEA Destroys Your Vehicle And Kills Your Employee During A Botched Sting? Hint: Not The DEA".

It is all on Mr Craig Patty, and Driver Lawrence Chapa's widow, if he has one.

The DEA likes to borrow stuff.  It's just not very good about returning borrowed items in the same shape it got them.

Like a woman's Facebook account.

Or a businessman's semi truck.

And his employee's life.

Craig Patty runs a tiny trucking company in Texas.  He has only two trucks in his "fleet."  One of them was being taken to Houston for repairs by his employee, Lawrence Chapa.  Or so he thought.

In reality, Chapa was working with the DEA, which had paid him to load up Patty's truck with marijuana and haul it back to Houston so the DEA could bust the prospective buyers.  That's when everything went completely, horribly wrong.

And I like this line (from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division).

To borrow a phrase from qualified immunity law, Patty has not shown that the “clearly established law” in place when the undercover operation was planned and implemented made the officers’ conduct unconstitutional..

And people want us to nationalize the police force?

What about tar and feathers?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Shooting Down Drug Runners

For John, BLUF:  Do we need to be consistent regarding illegal drugs?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From the web magazine War on the Rocks we have "Narcotrafficking, the Shining Path, and the Strategic Importance of Peru", by Dr. R. Evan Ellis is Research Professor with the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College.

Here is the beginning:

In April 2001, the U.S. pushed the Peruvian government to suspend its aerial interdiction program against suspected drug flights after the Peruvian Air Force mistakenly fired on a flight killing a U.S. missionary and her seven-month old daughter. Peru is now on the verge of resuming its interdiction program, and it might not be a bad idea.

On March 9, the National Defense Committee of the Peruvian Congress approved legislation authorizing the nation’s armed forces to interdict aircraft transiting its airspace without authorization. The proposed law, promoted by Peruvian congressman and retired Admiral Carlos Tubino, is a response to the increasing number of “narco flights” (now 6-10 per day) carrying cocaine and associated intermediate products from the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valley region (the “VRAEM”), to neighboring Bolivia and Brazil.

And yet we are legalizing Mary Jane?

Regards  —  Cliff

Being Stopped for a Search

For John, BLUF:  If you give your civil rights away then you don't have them.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From Simple Justice:  A Criminal Defense Blog, we have Lawyer Scott H Greenfield writing "Hot Cash And Cold Consent".

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been so incredibly effective in eradicating demon narcotics that it no longer has any cartel kingpins that require its time and, instead, its agents can hang around bus stops.  Bet you didn’t realize that these guys deserved a statue.

Federal drug agents may be racially profiling and unjustly seizing cash from travelers in the nation’s airports, bus stations and train stations.  A new report released by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Justice examined the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s controversial use of “cold consent.”

What makes this unusual, to the extent it is unusual, isn’t that it happens, but that Mike Horowitz, DoJ Inspector General, calls out the DEA for engaging in these “interdiction” approaches.

Quoting from the IG Report:

But after reviewing the DEA’s policies, the Inspector General concluded, “cold consent encounters and searches can raise civil rights concerns.”

You think? Here is an example that (1) raises civil rights concerns and (2) suggests how indiscriminate it is:

In one incident, DEA agents cold-stopped an African-American woman at an airport and allegedly subjected her to “aggressive and humiliating questioning”; the woman was a Pentagon lawyer and travelling on government business.

General Curtis LeMay is alleged to have said that he could not distinguish between the incompetent and the unfortunate.  The DEA agents in this case were definitely one or the other or both.

The easy thing to do is just give in to some DEA person when they flash their badge  The right and proper thing is to politely say no.  You owe them human courtesy, but you don't owe them answers to questions, so don't get started.  Do not consent to being searched.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Medical Marijuana Now Legal Nation Wide

For John, BLUF:  We are moving toward legalization.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Remember the CROmnibus Bill, the bill to fund the Government for Fiscal Year 2015—$1.1 Trillion?♠  Tucked inside was a provision to remove Federal restrictions on Medical Mary Jane.

Co-sponsors were Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, from Costa Mesa, and Democrat Rep. Sam Farr, from Carmel (both in California).

This means that no longer will the threat of Federal arrest hang over users of medical marijuana.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The one where the entire Massachusetts Delegation voted against keeping the Federal Government open.