FARC Shoots Down Coca Spraying Plane

BOGOTA, Colombia, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Left-wing Colombian rebels shot down a small police airplane near the Venezuelan border on Friday as it sprayed coca crops with defoliants, killing the Colombian pilot, police said.

The attack happened in Norte de Santander province in northeast Colombia where Marxist insurgents and far-right paramilitary militias fight over control of land used in the Andean country's lucrative drug trade.

Loretta Nall Announces Run for Governor of Alabama
WSFA TV Montgomery, AL Sep 29, 2005

Prison reformer to run for office
Montgomery Advertiser Sep 29, 2005

Hatter spots marijuana plants at funeral

Demopolis Times, AL
By Rick Couch / Demopolis Times writer

LIVINGSTON-The Sumter County Sheriff's Department recently took Laterrace Wade, 23, of Emelle into custody on charges of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance after Sheriff Johnny Hatter discovered marijuana plants inside Wade's vehicle near Emelle.

According to Hatter, he was attending a funeral at St. Peter's Church on County Road 20 when he walked past a black Oldsmobile Cutlass parked nearby and spotted an ice chest sitting on the front floorboard of the vehicle. There appeared to be several marijuana plants growing in the ice chest.

Hatter said the bust was definitely a first in his law enforcement career.

"I used to work in a funeral home and I have attended a lot of funerals," Hatter laughed. "But that's the first time I have ever seen anybody show up with those kind of flowers."

Wade, who also goes by the alias "Boo Sue," was taken into custody and placed in the Sumter County Jail. His vehicle was seized by the Sheriff's Department and impounded.

Hatter said a search of the vehicle incidental to the arrest revealed a semi-automatic handgun and a sawed off shotgun concealed inside the vehicle. The department also discovered drug paraphernalia and a bag of an unknown type of pills.

Wade was later released on bond and is awaiting a court appearance in the case.

Semi Driver Faces ‘Pot’ Charge; Rig Searched For Explosives By Feds

BY JEN GIBSON
Warsaw Times Union, IN

Law enforcement had a scare during a traffic stop Wednesday on U.S. 30 near CR 250N.

Around 11:25 a.m. Wednesday, an Indiana State Police officer observed a disabled semi-tractor-trailer on the side of U.S. 30.

The officer spoke with the driver and observed signs of possible drug activity in the cab of the truck.

The driver, Adel Hasan Jado, 39, of Evergreen Park, Ill., agreed to let the officer search the trailer of the vehicle. Marijuana reportedly was found in the trailer, and Jado was arrested for possession of marijuana and booked into the Kosciusko County Jail. He is being held on a $15,000 bond.

The truck was moved to a towing company in Warsaw where drug- and explosive-sniffing dogs from Kosciusko County, Winona Lake and Fort Wayne were called to the scene and detected possible explosives.

Bomb squads, the state fire marshal and the National Guard were called to the scene because the chemical found in the truck showed possible signs of being a nerve agent. After testing, the substance was proven not to be a nerve agent.

The truck was returning to Chicago after making a delivery in Fort Wayne. The truck was used to deliver one trailer to Fort Wayne, then picked up another trailer filled with plastic recyclables to take back to Chicago.

The Indiana State Police was assisted in the investigation by the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department, the Warsaw Police Department, Winona Lake Police Department, the Fort Wayne Police Department, the Allen County Sheriff’s Department, the Indiana State Fire Marshal, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard, the FBI, Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

New charges may help pot activist

Globe and Mail, Canada
By CAMILLE BAINS
Thursday, September 29, 2005 Posted at 6:40 PM EDT
Canadian Press

Vancouver — A private citizen says he's filing charges Friday against pot activist Marc Emery and two of his associates, partly because that will throw a wrench into the United States' plans to extradite the trio to face drug charges in that country.

“If he gets charged in Canada that will have major legal consequences for that extradition request,” said David McCann, a local philanthropist and businessman.

Mr. McCann said he has hired prominent lawyer Peter Leask in filing three charges of conspiracy under the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act and the Criminal Code of Canada.

Canada has been hypocritical in allowing Mr. Emery to sell marijuana seeds and collecting thousands of dollars in taxes while the city of Vancouver gave him a business licence for his pot paraphernalia store, he said.

“We have let him operate and now we let the Americans walk into our country and charge a man who they will probably lock away for the rest of his natural life in the United States for doing something that the government of Canada condoned. And you know, I got a problem with that as a Canadian.”

Mr. Emery, along with his co-accused, Michele Rainey-Fenkarek and Greg Keith Smith, were arrested July 29 after police raided Mr. Emery's store following an 18-month investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

ADHD drug may be linked to suicidal thoughts

St. Petersburg Times, FL
By wire services
Published September 30, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration warned doctors Thursday about reports of suicidal thinking in some children and adolescents who take Strattera, a drug used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Manufacturer Eli Lilly & Co. announced that a black-box warning will be added to the drug's label in the U.S. Such a warning is the most serious that can be added to a medication's label. The company said a study showed instances of suicidal thinking were rare.

The FDA said it "is advising health care providers and caregivers that children and adolescents being treated with Strattera should be closely monitored for clinical worsening, as well as agitation, irritability, suicidal thinking or behaviors, and unusual changes in behavior."

Documents: Break up plans made before rave

Utah Rave-RaidHeidi Toth
Provo Daily Herald, UT

Recently released documents show Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy made plans to break up an August party in Spanish Fork Canyon days before he had officers raid the event.

The pages of documents, including police reports and memos from officers involved to co-workers and the sheriff's office, indicated Tracy knew about the party as early as Aug.18, two days before it happened, and contacted other law enforcement agencies for assistance in shutting down the event.

Several days after the raid, the Daily Herald sent a request to Utah County under the state Government Records Access Management Act for any documents relating to tactical planning received or sent by the Utah County Sheriff's Office. Chris Yannelli, an attorney in the Utah County Attorney's Office, told the newspaper at the time the documents didn't exist.

But those documents do exist, and indicate law enforcement's intent in advance to shut the party down. The Utah Department of Corrections has released memos it addressed to the Utah County Sheriff's Office detailing the raid planning, dated the day of the event. Those memos were obtained through the Utah Department of Corrections by Brian Barnard, attorney for party promoters Nick Mari and Brandon Fullmer and landowner Trudy Childs.

"What those records initially show me is the sheriff planned to do what he did substantially in advance," Barnard said. "He knew that this was gonna happen, and he wanted to come in and frighten the hell out of everyone."

The lawsuit, which was filed Sept. 2, alleges illegal search and seizure and violations of the plaintiffs' right to be secure on their property, due process, freedom of association and freedom of expression. It also asks a judge to declare Utah County's mass gathering law unconstitutional because it allows law enforcement too much discretion. The American Civil Liberties Union has announced it will act as co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

Marijuana beats wheat

BLOOMBERG

SEPTEMBER 30: Canada's marijuana dealers are converting suburban homes and abandoned warehouses into pot farms, creating a C$10 billion ($8.5 billion) market that's three times the size of the nation's biggest legal crop, wheat.

Cities such as Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto may each have as many as 20,000 pot factories, said Rich Baylin, former national coordinator for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The “grow-op” business has created a rift with the US, where police say much of the weed is sold. Efforts by Prime Minister Paul Martin to decriminalize marijuana are a bigger threat to US relations than the softwood-lumber dispute, according to a Compas Research poll of 146 Canadian chief executives in March.

“The US is taking the border a lot more seriously than in the past,” said Tom Riley, spokesman for the White House Office for National Drug Control Policy. The increase in Canadian marijuana production risks harming all trade between the two countries, he said.

Almost half of all adult Canadians smoked pot at least once in their life, according to a survey last year by Health Canada.

The same proportion support decriminalization of possession, compared with a third of their US counterparts, a November Ipsos-Reid poll found.

Pot stories have been a staple of newspapers such as the Globe and Mail and the Vancouver Sun, covering drug busts and the fight by legalization activist Marc Emery to avoid extradition to the US He faces life in prison if convicted after a July arrest for selling marijuana seeds.

Canada's annual pot harvest is as much as 5.3 million pounds, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Federal agents raid Illinois lab linked to BALCO steroid

San Francisco Chronicle

Federal agents Thursday raided an Illinois laboratory where the steroid that ignited the BALCO scandal is suspected to have been created -- signaling that the three-year investigation is continuing.

In raids led by the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation division, search warrants were served on the Champaign, Ill., offices and home of chemist Patrick Arnold, who authorities believe produced the steroid that came to be known as "the clear" in the BALCO case.

During the September 2003 raids on BALCO, owner Victor Conte and vice president James Valente both identified Arnold as the source of the once-undetectable steroid called "the clear," according to government memorandums detailing the interviews. Conte, Valente, track coach Remi Korchemny and Greg Anderson, personal trainer for Barry Bonds, recently pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges and are awaiting sentencing next month.

France asks Colombia permission to see rebels

BOGOTA, Colombia, Sept 29 (Reuters) - France has asked Colombia for permission to meet leftist rebels in order to seek the release of dual French-Colombian national Ingrid Betancourt, who was taken hostage while running for Colombia's presidency in 2002, a French emissary said on Thursday.

The request from French President Jacques Chirac came a week after Colombia protested to France over unauthorized talks between French representatives and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"We want to continue acting, in coordination with the Colombian government," said French emissary Nicole Guedy in Bogota.

Betancourt, 43, was taken hostage by the FARC after ignoring military warnings and taking her campaign for a small left-wing party to a dangerous part of southern Colombia in February 2002.

She is now one of 63 hostages the FARC want to swap for guerrillas held in government jails. Other prisoners include politicians, soldiers, police officers and three Americans -- civilian U.S. Defense Department contractors captured when their light plane crashed on a mission to find drug crops in 2003.

Inventor Of Valium Dies At 97

All Headline News
September 30, 2005 6:35 a.m. EST

Hector Duarte Jr. - All Headline News Staff Reporter

Trenton, NJ (AHN) - Leo Sternbach, the inventor of a string of tranquilizers that included Valium, dies at his North Carolina home at the age of 97.

Sternbach, an award-winning chemist who helped the Swiss maker Roche Group build its U.S. headquarters in Nutley, N.J., after fleeing the Nazis during World War II, dies in Chapel Hill, N.C., after a short illness late Wednesday.

Sternbach led development of more than a dozen important drugs during a sixty-year career with Roche. His other breakthroughs include sleeping pills Dalmane and Mogadon, Klonopin for epileptic seizures and Arfonad for limiting bleeding during brain surgery.

From 1969 to 1982, Valium was the country's most prescribed drug, nicknamed "Mother's Little Helper" after the Rolling Stones song. It was three times more potent than its predecessor, Librium.

Roche sold nearly 2.3 billion Valium pills during the drug's peak in 1978.

Loretta Nall Announces Run for Governor of Alabama

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Loretta Nall
Nall for Governor Campaign
ph: 251-650-2271
cell: 334-415-9174
fax: 251-217-9175
email: cnall1@charter.net
Nall for Governor website

Loretta Nall Announces Run for Governor of Alabama

Alexander City, AL September 29, 2005 – Internationally known drug policy and prison reform advocate Loretta Nall has announced that she will be running for Governor of Alabama in the 2006 election.

Mrs. Nall has devoted the last three years of her life to learning about U.S. Drug Policy both at home and abroad after local police targeted her for writing a letter to the editor.

In that letter Nall encouraged Alabama voters to change the drug laws. It was published two days after the last gubernatorial election between then Gov. Don Siegelman and current Gov. Bob Riley. Nall was arrested and jailed six days later. The affidavit in support of the arrest warrant was based on her letter.

Loretta has traveled throughout the U.S., Canada and even Colombia, South America bearing witness to the devastating effects of "zero-tolerance" drug policies.

“Here in Alabama, the drug war has given rise to the current Alabama prison crisis, which is costing Alabamians millions of dollars a year with only negative returns in exchange. It is destroying families and putting our children at greater risk by allowing unrestricted access to drugs," said Nall.

Nall stated that she is running for Governor because drug policy is a crucial Alabama issue and the other candidates are too afraid to engage in a rational, scientific discussion. She says she wants to make it clear that her campaign is not about using drugs, as her detractors are almost certain to claim, but about critically examining current policies to determine whether or not they are reaching their stated objectives.

“The other candidates are not up to addressing these important but controversial issues surrounding drug policy because they have built their political careers on meaningless slogans like ‘Tough on Drugs’ and ‘What about the children?’ which, in fact, do nothing to deter drug use or protect children," said Nall.

Nall also states that the current elected officials are afraid of losing corporate campaign contributions from alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical companies, who ironically, are the largest funders of the failed drug war.

"The drug war is nothing more than a government jobs program, which creates the crime it claims to protect us from while destroying the Bill of Rights in the process. Alabama politicians are addicted to drug war money and Alabama families and children are simply cannon fodder for the politicians who promote this failed and destructive policy for their own political gain," said Nall.

In addition to drug policy and prison reform Nall's other platform planks include:

* States Rights

* Non-compliance with the Patriot Act and REAL I.D.

* Alabama Out of Iraq - Bring the Alabama National Guard Troops Home.

* No Gun Control.

* Check Box Style Governing System. - Let the voters decide how their tax money is spent

* Legalizing Lottery and Casino Gambling.

* Giving Parents more Choices and Control in the Education of their Children.

* Ballot Access Reform

*Initiative and Referendum for Alabama Citizens

Loretta will embark on a walk across Alabama during her campaign where she will meet voters, speak at local Town Hall style meetings and other venues and gather signatures for ballot access. Details and a tentative schedule will be announced soon.

Nall is currently seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party of Alabama.

Loretta is the mother of two children, 13-year-old Alex and 8-year-old Isabella. She and her husband Terry Nall have been married for 15 years.
###

Probe deepens at gun maker Taser

BBC

Shares of Taser International, the US company that makes stun guns, have dropped 4.4% after US regulators stepped up an inquiry into the firm.

Taser has been criticised over the safety of its weapons and is facing a range of lawsuits from shareholders and families of Taser victims.

The company's stock has lost more than 80% of its value so far this year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has now expanded its inquiry, allowing it to seize documents.

The SEC had already opened an informal investigation into the company over the safety of its stun guns and the accounting for a distribution deal struck late in December 2004.


Google News Search: Taser

Marijuana design attracts sales, flak

Billings Gazette
Associated Press

GILLETTE, WY - Victoria Moren, owner of M+M Imports, is used to taking flak for the blankets she sells outside her stores. Designs such as a Confederate flag or a Corona bottle often attract attention, but it's the one that resembles a marijuana leaf that draws the most fire.

A police officer stopped by and asked her to stop displaying it outside her store because it promoted drugs, although he told her it was not against the law to do so.

Moren rejects the accusation that she is promoting marijuana. She calls the design a slightly altered version of the Canadian maple leaf and said the company that sells it calls it "The New Canadian Flag."

"I felt offended by (the officer's request). It's just a blanket," she said. "It's not like you can do anything with the blankets."

Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Hamilton is quick to say he supports the free speech behind the products.

"There is certainly no problem as an example to all of us of the free speech portion of the Constitution," he said. "While this is not a statement I would like to make, I would support free speech."

However, he said the blankets were harmful in their own way: Marijuana-emblazened merchandise promotes a criminal act, and a medically risky one as well, in addition to reflecting on the person using the product.

"Too many people don't understand that these statements are a measure of the person making the statement," he said.

The products have been lucrative. Moren sold out her first shipment of blankets in less than a week. She raised the price from $50 to $60, but still had trouble keeping them in stock.

"I made $7,000 in less than a week on one blanket. That's all I'm selling," she said. "Once I got this in, they aren't buying my NASCAR (blankets)."

Man charged after drug raid

Durham Herald Sun, NC
Sep 28, 2005 : 10:06 pm ET

DURHAM -- Police arrested a 42-year-old Durham man on drug charges Wednesday afternoon after a search of his residence yielded evidence he was selling cocaine out of his home, according to reports.

David Cornell Thompson, 42, was arrested at his residence at 1202 Evergreen St., and charged with possession with intent to sell or deliver a half gram of cocaine, possession of paraphernalia and felony maintaining a dwelling for the purpose of selling a controlled substance.

Thompson was held on 15,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in court today.

Detroit council puts brakes on police bid for armored assault vehicle

September 29, 2005, 12:40 AM

DETROIT (AP) -- First there was the mayor's Lincoln Navigator. Now this.

The Detroit Police Department wants to use $743,000 seized from drug dealers to buy an armored assault vehicle.

But two City Council members are balking at the request. They're asking whether the department should be spending money on "The General" -- a 10-wheeled, 16-passenger, amphibious, war wagon -- when 150 of its officers are being laid off.

The vehicle -- land mine-resistant and tricked out with, among other things, periscopes and thermal cameras -- is no frill, an incensed police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said.

Members of the Special Response Team asked for a replacement for their 18-year-old armored vehicle, which is used in drug raids, barricaded-gunman incidents or hostage situations, she said.

Cannabis Based SATIVEX® Significantly Reduces Central Neuropathic Pain in People With Multiple Sclerosis

Medical News Today (press release), UK
28 Sep 2005

The cannabis based medicine, Sativex®, is effective in reducing central neuropathic pain and sleep disturbance in people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in a UK study published today in the medical journal, Neurology 1.

This randomised, controlled trial demonstrates that Sativex® was significantly superior to placebo in reducing the mean intensity of pain (p=0.005) and sleep disturbance (p=0.003) amongst people with MS1.

The study was conducted in 66 patients, 65% of whom required support to walk or were wheelchair bound and were suffering from moderate to severe central neuropathic pain which had not been alleviated by currently available medications. Patients continued to take their existing medication throughout the trial1.

Sativex® was administered as an oromucosal spray allowing flexible dosing which is ideally suited to the variable nature of MS. Sativex® was generally well tolerated in the study, although more patients on Sativex® than placebo reported dizziness, dry mouth and somnolence. Cognitive side effects were limited to long-term memory storage1.

Dr. Carolyn Young, principal investigator and Consultant Neurologist based at the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Liverpool said, “Central neuropathic pain occurs frequently in people with MS. It can be tremendously debilitating and unresponsive to existing therapies. Our findings demonstrate that Sativex was effective in reducing both central pain in MS and pain-related sleep disturbance in a population with moderate to severe central pain inadequately relieved by existing medication”.

Big Fun With Netdisaster

Poop on the ONDCP!
Switch from "auto" to "mouse" for precision pooping.

DRCNet's Phil Smith in Afghanistan

My friend and colleague, Phil Smith, of DRCNet is reporting for the next two weeks from Afghanistan.

I think very highly of Phil. He is a superb wordsmith who can capture a personality with his pen like nobody's business.

Phil, do take care over there. Especially be on the lookout for those Black Water mercenaries.

Here is a bit from Tuesday's report.

Tuesday, September 27:

I am not well. Must have eaten bad kebab somewhere. Not well, but not bedridden. Sorry no pics, no time, off to conference soon; I'll send some tonight. For today:

The Senlis Council yesterday officially unveiled its report on the feasibility of licensing Afghan opium production for the legitimate medicinal market, but UN and Afghan anti-drug officials didn't wait to read the study before dismissing it. In yesterday morning's newspapers, Afghan Counter-Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi was quoted as saying, "As far as the licensing at this moment is concerned, I am saying no. I'm not in favor because it jeopardizes the whole of our effort. There would be anarchy in the country now. It would create a lot of problems."

Click HERE for more.

Medical marijuana user banned from regatta

By Eliot Kleinberg
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Irvin Rosenfeld, the South Florida stockbroker who gained national attention for his fight to freely use marijuana as medicine, has run into resistance from one of the nation's top sailing events for the disabled and expects to be barred from next year's event.

The reason: an independent group that monitors use of drugs by athletes won't exempt the pot Rosenfeld uses to treat tumors that would otherwise leave him bedridden and in pain.

Rosenfeld, who has sailed in three races of the North American Challenge Cup in 11 years, has asked the race's organizers and the U.S. Sailing Association to overrule the United States Anti-Doping Agency and let him sail in the 2006 regatta. He said an event that celebrates overcoming disabilities is in effect discriminating against a disabled person.

The USADA, the official anti-doping agency for Olympic, Pan American and Paralympic sports, gave no reason for its rejection, Rosenfeld said in a Friday e-mail to the sailing officials.

Agents Raid Muslim Campground

September 24, 2005
By GARY LIBOW
Hartford Courant

EAST HADDAM, CT -- Federal agents raided a Muslim campground in Moodus Friday morning, seizing specimens and seeds from what they believe is datashak, a plant native to India.

Members of the FBI and U.S. Department of Agriculture said in documents that they also seized 19 computer discs and an assortment of documents from the 18-acre Town Street property, owned by Darul Uloom Shady Brook Inc.

Property caretaker Mojibur Rahman said that he was awakened about 9 a.m. by banging. It was agents, who demanded all datashak seeds on the property, he said.

A short time after the raid, a shaken Rahman walked over to a large garden of lush, viny datashak, also known as amaranth, and other vegetables.

Rahman, who is from Bangladesh, said he was perplexed as to why seeds and specimens of a plant eaten by Muslims at the property was confiscated.

Documents that the agents left with Rahman for the property owners said the focus of the search was any and all seeds, plants - whether growing or harvested - of datashak. The warrant was signed by U.S. Magistrate Donna F. Martinez.

The agents noted in a document that Bank of New York deposit slips, books and documents were seized. They also sought maps, directions, and gas receipts relating to travel.

FBI spokeswoman Lisa Bull would confirm only that agents conducted "investigative activity" at the Moodus property, in support of the agriculture department.

War on Drugs Impedes New Beginning for Some Hurricane Victims

Drug Policy Alliance, DC

Easily Amused

Ok I admit it...I am generally easily amused so when I came across this in my inbox on an otherwise gloomy day it lifted my spirits and I thought I would share it with my readers.


Bored at Wal-Mart?

1. Get 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they aren't looking.

2. Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. Make a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the rest rooms.

4. Walk up to an employee and tell him/her in an official tone, 'Code 3' in housewares.... and see what happens.

5. Go the Service Desk and ask to put a bag of M&M's on lay away.

6. Move a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. Set up a tent in the camping department and tell other shoppers you'll invite them in if they'll bring pillows from the bedding department.

8. When a clerk asks if they can help you, begin to cry and ask 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?'

9. Look right into the security camera; use it as a mirror, and pick your nose.

10. While handling guns in the hunting department, ask the clerk if he knows where the antidepressants are.

11. Dart around the store suspiciously loudly humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.

12. In the auto department, practice your "Madonna look" using different size funnels.

13. Hide in a clothing rack and when people browse through, say "PICK ME!" "PICK ME!"

14. When an announcement comes over the loud speaker, assume the fetal position
and scream "NO! NO! It's those voices again!!!!"

15. Go into a fitting room and shut the door and wait a while; and, then, yell, very loudly, "There is no toilet paper in here! '

ACLU joins suit by rave organizers

Heidi Toth DAILY HERALD
New Utah, UT

The organizers of last month's rave-turned-raid say they got a boost Monday when the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah announced it was joining the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of law enforcement's actions.

Brian Barnard, attorney for concert promoters Brandon Fullmer and Nick Mari and landowner Trudy Childs, said joining forces with the ACLU would
help the lawsuit in several ways.

"One is that that means we have more resources to prepare the case and present the case," he said. "The other thing is that a national organization is taking note of what good old Sheriff Tracy is doing and questioning the way these two raids were handled."

The lawsuit was filed Sept. 20 against Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy and one of his officers, the county commissioners, Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson and Utah County. It alleges illegal search and seizure and violations of the plaintiffs' right to be secure on their property, due process and freedom of association and free expression.

The lawsuit addresses two parties, both on 350 acres of land in Spanish Fork Canyon. The Aug. 20 concert was broken up by numerous law enforcement officials. Dozens of people were arrested on various charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor,
resisting arrest, drug possession and disorderly conduct. Childs also was arrested.

A similar concert on July 16, which was planned by a member of the Childs family, also was broken up by law enforcement. Barnard said no reason was given for this party to be shut down.

Rethinking the war on drugs

By John Simpson
BBC world affairs editor

The drugs business offers one of the best returns on investment of any commodity on earth. It operates according to the pure, undistorted laws of the market.

And its greatest, though unconscious, supporters have been the governments of the European Union and the United States.

A few years ago I went with a camera crew to a frightening little drugs town in north-eastern Peru, where the farmers mostly grew coca.

I assumed they would be violent and aggressive. Not at all: they were the ones who were scared.

Every week or so gangs of armed, drugged-out tracateros, or buyers, would erupt into the town, forcing the growers to sell their coca paste to them at rock-bottom prices.

"So," I asked, "Why don't you simply grow something that won't get you into trouble? Maize, or wheat, or something?"

As it happened, we were close to a little shop. The chief spokesmen of the coca growers took me by the arm and led me inside.

There were all sorts of foods and vegetables for sale, mostly imported from the United States or the EU.

He told me how much each item cost; it was clear that every one of them had been dumped on the market at a fraction of its real value.

"We're just poor peasants," he said.

"We can't compete. We can't afford to grow these things so cheaply."

The only commodity they could grow which wasn't fiercely undercut by the artificially cheap produce of Europe and America was coca.

I'm Behind Bars by Gary North, LewRockwell.com
There is nothing like a weekend in a maximum-security prison to enable a person to appreciate the blessings of liberty.

'I was in prison' Shelby Star, NC
Why invest this much effort with men who may never be free again? Walls said he and other volunteers feel bound to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, as related in Matthew 25:36 (NIV): “I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Prison ministry offers inmates cookies, caring, lifelong change Shelby Star, NC
The non-denominational, international work is bringing men who are dedicated to Christ face to face with men at Alexander who are convicted of violent crimes — rape, murder, aggravated assault — offering them friendship, home-cooked meals, homemade cookies and a short course in Christianity.

The Child Pornography Protection Act of 2005

Among other provisions, the bill targets adult citizens who record visual images of consensual sexual activity in the privacy of their own homes, adds nudity and clothed images of pubic areas to the definition of "explicit sexual activity". The bill's enforcement provisions empower law enforcement with the power to seize the assets of violators.
The bill was passed by the House, with a vote of 371-52, and now moves to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration.

Read more from Radley Balko at The Agitator


Normally I would have to have some pot before they could seize my home, children, car and bank account. Now, apparently, a picture of me in my boxers will be enough to do the trick.

Al. Sen. Sessions Appears at Pro-War Rally

"The group who spoke here the other day did not represent the American ideals of freedom, liberty and spreading that around the world," Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, told the crowd. "I frankly don't know what they represent, other than to blame America first."

Dear Senator Sessions,

If your idea of American "freedom and liberty" is forced "theocracy", illegal wars for oil and profit, illegal occupation of another country and the sacrifice of everyone's children except your own as cannon fodder for said illegal war...then you are DAMN RIGHT (quite likely for the first time ever) that WE DO NOT REPRESENT YOUR IDEA OF AMERICAN FREEDOM AND LIBERTY!

You are an embarassment of the great state of Alabama. If you love this war so much then grab a gun and head on over you greedy, gluttonous SWINE!

I'll vote for that!

Very Sincerely Yours,
Loretta Nall

Afghanistan not ready for legal opium - minister

By David Brunnstrom

KABUL, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Afghanistan, the world's biggest producer of illicit opium and heroin, is not ready to adopt a controversial proposal to use its opium to help ease a global shortage of painkillers, its counter-narcotics minister says.

The Senlis Council, a Paris-based non-governmental organisation, has suggested licensed Afghan opium production could be used to produce morphine and codeine and is to a launch a feasibility study on the proposal in Kabul on Monday.

Speaking to Reuters on Sunday, Counter-Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi said he was happy for Senlis to do studies, but it was too early to consider such a proposal when Afghanistan was still struggling to cut massive illegal production.

"As far as the licensing at this moment is concerned, I am saying no," he said. "I'm not in favour because it jeopardises the whole of our effort ... There would be anarchy in this country now. It would create a lot of problems."

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has also rejected the Senlis Council proposal, saying it risked creating confusion among farmers and raising false expectations.

Senlis has estimated the worldwide shortage of morphine and codeine at about 10,000 tonnes of opium equivalent a year, while Afghanistan produces roughly 4,000 tonnes of opium a year.

However, the UNODC, while conceding there is a shortage of narcotics for medical purposes, says lawful production of opiates worldwide had considerably exceeded global consumption in the past years and could be increased should demand increase.

The U.N. body argues that licit production of opium would send the wrong message to farmers in Afghanistan, would be impossible to control, and would not offer a viable economic alternative.

DEC to help the children

Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil, IA

The prospect of armed men wearing black facemasks storming into your home is frightening. Imagine what it must look like to a child.

But those armed men only show up to a home when it has been identified as a drug house. Those men may be that child's only salvation, and that is where the Iowa Alliance for Drug Endangered Children comes in.

A decontamination trailer from Polk County's DEC was on display at Ameristar Casino-Hotel during "Meth Affects," a training seminar offered by the Iowa Department of Human Services, on Friday.

Prairie Meadows Racetrack, the Division of Narcotics Enforcement and the Polk County Sheriff's Department and County Attorney Office purchased the $22,000 trailer that is used at drug bust sites where children are involved.

The trailer contains showers to wash off chemicals, a television and various toys and blankets to comfort children. The trailer can also be a place where multiple interviews of the child can occur.

Sens. Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley both support the program, and have earmarked federal dollars for Iowa DEC.

DEA Microgram Bulletin

August Edition

Stories include: "LIQUID METHAMPHETAMINE" SMUGGLED IN A VEHICLE'S WINDSHIELD
WASHER AND COOLANT RESERVOIRS

OPD mistakenly kills UCF officer

By Jay Hamburg, Erin Cox and Susan Jacobson | Sentinel Staff Writers
Posted September 25, 2005

A pre-game party before the University of Central Florida football home opener turned deadly Saturday when an Orlando police officer shot and killed an undercover university police officer working with state agents to stop illegal drinking.

The dead UCF officer was identified as Mario Jenkins, a four-year veteran with the university police who was in his late 20s.

He was shot by Dennis Smith, a reserve officer for the Orlando Police Department who had retired after 25 years on the force. Smith was placed on administrative leave Saturday night, standard procedure in all shootings by police.

A UCF student also was wounded in the fracas and was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center. He was identified as Mike Young, in his early 20s, by Rachel Neal, an 18-year-old UCF student who said Young was her boyfriend.

Cruel & Unusual

BY LEE WILLIAMS AND ESTEBAN PARRA
The News Journal, Delaware
09/25/2005

Anthony Pierce was known to cellmates as "the brother with two heads."

Pierce was serving 14 months for a parole violation stemming from a burglary charge at the Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown when a small lump appeared on the back of his head. It was January 2001 and a prison doctor employed by a private medical contractor said the marble-size lump was most likely a cyst or an ingrown hair.

Seven months later, when the growth had become like a second head, Delaware's contract prison medical director, Dr. Keith Ivens of Correctional Medical Services, stabbed the bulging tumor five times with an 18-gauge needle, withdrawing a bloody fluid.

Rather than keeping the sample for analysis, Ivens emptied the syringe into a trash can, according to Michelle Thomas, a former prison counselor who was holding Pierce's hand during the examination.

The News Journal gained access to Pierce's medical file through his family, and there was no record of a biopsy performed before cancer ate into the 21-year-old's skull.

Asked about the case in a telephone interview, Ivens said, "I'm trying to remember who Anthony Pierce is." He declined to comment further.

Near the end of Pierce's life, the tumor stretched the skin around his face, pulling his right eye closed, causing muscle spasms and crippling pain. The medical staff still ordered no tests or treatments, claims a lawsuit that Pierce's family filed against Ivens, CMS and the state of Delaware.

Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore to Announce on October 3

From NBC 13

GADSDEN, Ala. -- Former Chief Justice Roy Moore will announce October 3 whether he will run for governor next year. The chairman of the We Need Moore 2006 Committee -- George Hundley -- says Moore will make an announcement at 1 p.m. that day in his hometown of Gadsden. A spokesman for Moore confirmed the plans.

Moore served as a circuit judge in Gadsden before being elected Alabama's chief justice in 2000. He had a homemade plaque of the Ten Commandments in his Gadsden courtroom. But after he became chief justice, he put a 2 1/2 ton monument of the Ten Commandments in the state judicial building.

Moore was ousted from office in 2003 for refusing to abide by a federal judge's order to remove the monument.
------------------------------------------------------------------


The Second Commandment:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath.You shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

Now, if Roy Moore believes so much in the Ten Commandments then why did he turn them into a carved (graven) image and proceed to worship them thereby disobeying in the highest fashion the Second Commandment?
And why do people who claim to be Christian follow him?

I actually hope Moore gets the Republican nomination because that will raise my chances of winning the election exponentially!

Thousands Gather in Washington for Antiwar Rally

New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 - Thousands of protesters from around the country poured onto the lawns south of the White House on Saturday to demonstrate their opposition to the war in Iraq, pointedly directing their anger at President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

A sea of anti-Bush signs and banners flashed back at a long succession of speakers, who sharply rebuked the administration for continuing a war that has cost the lives of nearly 2,000 Americans and as many as 20,000 Iraqis. Similar rallies were held in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and other cities in the United States and abroad.

Alabama Says: Stop the War on Iraq!

Anti-war demonstrators stage day of protest

MSNBC / AP

WASHINGTON - Opponents of the war in Iraq marched by the tens of thousands Saturday in a clamorous day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead, some showing surprisingly diverse political views even as they spoke with one loud voice in wanting U.S. troops home.


Bush holes up underneath the Rocky Mountains.
NORTHCOM
NORAD
NORAD

Make money, not war, say libertarians

The Auburn Plainsman Online

By Chase Mitchell
Assistant Campus Editor

September 22, 2005

Saturday, the Auburn University Libertarians will join with the Libertarian Party of Alabama, as well as several non-partisan groups for a peace rally in downtown Birmingham.

The Libertarians want to make it known that Democrats are not the only political party taking a hard line against the war in Iraq, said Dick Clark, representative of Alabama’s Libertarian Party and former president of the Auburn Libertarians.

“Frankly, our take on this is, while we agree with the conclusions (liberals are) drawing, like that this war is illegitimate, we think their reasoning isn’t all that great as to why,” Clark said. “As Libertarians, we’re saying there’s serious economic reasons that we shouldn’t be in this war.”

His party’s stance veers away from Republicans, he said, who believe that war helps the economy, but it also stops short of the Democrats’ moral objection to war in general.

“We’re not pacifists,” Clark said. “We just believe that only defense is legitimate, and if you’re trying to sell something as defense when you’re actually going and invading a country, then that’s B.S.”

full article

Dumbass Govt. Official of the Week Award

And this weeks "Dumbass Award" goes to J. Michael Dorsey for the following gem of government wisdom.

Dorsey said the proposal was misguided, partly because voters should not establish law enforcement priorities. He also objected to a second portion of the initiative, which would declare that Telluride would approve if Colorado decided to legalize, tax, and regulate marijauana use.


Please read the story this came from HERE

That has to be the dumbest, most incredibly fucking stupid line I have yet heard from a "government official".

If voters don't get to decide what laws police enforce, then pray tell, who does?
The police?

I think NOT!
The police work for the CITIZENS (or at least they are suppossed to) and NOT for the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!!

Hopefully the voters of Telluride will vote to kick this moronic, government-loving, bastard out of their FREEDOM LOVING CITY!

A Less Fashionable War

A Less Fashionable War

by Charles Shaw
OpEdNews.com

Malcolm X once said, “Any person who claims to have deep feeling for other human beings should think a long, long time before he votes to have other men kept behind bars—caged. I am not saying there shouldn’t be prisons, but there shouldn’t be bars. Behind bars, a man never reforms.”

On Friday September 9th I became one of the roughly 25,000 people released from an Illinois prison this year—600,000 nationally—after completing only 10 weeks of a one year sentence due to extreme overcrowding. My crime was victimless, simple possession of a controlled substance, specifically a small amount of marijuana and MDMA.

But as the rare upper-middle class educated White American in prison, I found myself in a truly alien, self-perpetuating world of crushing poverty and ignorance, violent dehumanization, institutionalized racism, and an entire sub-culture of recidivists, some of whom had done nine and ten stints, many dating back to the Seventies. Most used prison as a form of criminal networking knowing full well they would be left to fend for themselves when released. We were told on many occasions that an inmate was worth more inside prison than back in society. Considering it costs an average of $37,000 a year to incarcerate offenders, and the average income for Black Americans is $24,000, and only $8,000-12,000 for poor Blacks, one can easily see their point.

But unlike the vast majority of ex-offenders, I was fortunate enough to return to an established life and work, and a support system of friends, family, and colleagues.

The Chicago Tribune reported this year that about two-thirds of the more than 600,000 ex-convicts released in 2005 will be re-arrested within three years, and about half will return to prison for a new crime or violation of parole. Despite having “paid their debt to society”, once released their punishment is not nearly over. These days there is little to no hope of any real reform, as within the various Departments of Corrections, “correction” is a painfully misleading euphemism for the warehousing of offenders. There are few, if any, re-entry programs for ex-offenders and virtually no jobs or social services to help keep them afloat in an increasingly difficult and unforgiving society. Thus, most ex-offenders have no choice but to return to their old crime infested neighborhoods, destitute and desperate to survive any way they can. A significant majority of the new crimes or parole violations are drug related, often nothing more than testing positive on a monthly drug screen.

This lack of any employment, training, or rehabilitative opportunities has created a permanent underclass of ex-offenders who remain trapped in poverty, unable to provide for themselves or their families without resorting to the few, generally illegal means available to them. Faced with their very survival, most have no compunction about engaging (or re-engaging, as the case may be) in drug dealing rather than starving.

What may be even worse is that for some, their ongoing “crimes” are only those of association, or in some cases, the consequences of being black and poor. Laws prohibiting ex-felons from associating with other ex-felons and gang members, such as the Illinois Street Gang Terrorism Omnibus Prevention Act, or those preventing ex-offenders from being in areas designated as “high crime” or where “controlled substances are illegally sold, used, distributed, or administered” means that many ex-offenders are in violation of their parole simply by going home, where the majority in their neighborhood, including family members, have criminal records, and drugs are sold on almost every corner.

I cannot begin to recount all the men I met, particularly those with prior records or those on parole, who were re-incarcerated for crimes they did not commit, simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. Gasps! Not possible! Lies! Propaganda! Our system is just! True it is, for those who can afford justice in the form of a bond and a private lawyer, or for those whom the system is not already unduly prejudiced. But in a system with corrupt cops eager for arrests, zealous State’s Attorneys eager for convictions, jaded and overwhelmed Public Defenders eager for quick pleas, and rigid bond judges eager to set bail far beyond what anyone in their socio-economic class could reasonably afford, there is little opportunity for a fair trial. For so many, including myself, the conditions in the penitentiary were preferable to those in Cook County Jail—where some 30,000 detainees languish awaiting the resolution of their cases—so a quick plea is the lesser of all evils and the shortest route to freedom. Had I chose to fight my case, there is little doubt I would still be there today. In the end, what does that say about our criminal justice system?

Instead of correction and rehabilitation, what we have is what University of Nevada-Las Vegas Criminal Justice professor Richard Shelden calls a "criminal justice industrial complex" where “the police, the courts and the prison system have become huge, self-serving and self-perpetuating bureaucracies, which along with corporations, have a vested interest in keeping crime at a certain level. They need victims and they need criminals, even if they have to invent them, as they have throughout the ‘war on drugs’ and ‘war on gangs,’”

Thirty years ago Gore Vidal noted that “roughly 80% of police work in the United States has to do with the regulation of our private morals…controlling what we drink, eat, smoke, put into our veins…with whom and how we have sex or gamble.” Then there were roughly 250,000 prisoners in the nation. Today there is more than 2 million, with another million in county jails awaiting trial or sentencing, and another roughly 3 million under “correctional supervision” on probation or parole. The total national cost of incarceration then was $4 billion annually; today it’s $64 billion, with another $20 billion in federal money and $22-24 billion in money from state governments earmarked for waging the so-called “War on Drugs.” Nationally, around 60% or more of these prisoners are drug criminals. Yet, throughout all this time and expense there has not been the slightest decrease in either drug use or supply.

And amidst all the talk of race as a factor in the Katrina disaster let us not forget a bigger disaster: One in every 20 black men over the age of 18 is in prison compared to 1 in 180 White men. Despite African Americans comprising only 12% of the total population, in five states, including Illinois, the ratio of Black to White prisoners is 13 to 1. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that Blacks comprise 56.7% of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons while Whites comprise only 23.3% (in my Illinois prison—one of 28 in the State—of the 1,076 inmates, 689 were Black, 251 were White, and 123 were Latino). Based upon these numbers, a full 30% of African-Americans will see time in prison during their life, compared with only 5% of White Americans, even though White drug users outnumber Blacks by a five-to-one margin.

Anyone familiar with these facts was not surprised by the response to the largely poor and black victims of Katrina. It was simply a further affirmation of their invisible status within our society, further proof of the Third World existing within the First in America. What may be the biggest shame in all of it is how New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin himself reinforced all the most miserable Black stereotypes by characterizing the looters as “drug starved crazy addicts wreaking havoc” in an attempt to expedite Federal assistance and justify a declaration of martial law. It spoke volumes to what resonates within the public consciousness, stirring up some of our deepest fears.

It’s time to realize, once and for all, that this war is lost. It’s akin to trying to empty the flooded New Orleans streets one teaspoon at a time. But sadly, Americans have forgotten this war amongst the multitude of more fashionable, media-friendly others that have arisen in the last five years. As peace groups mobilize for a national march on Washington later this month to end the Iraq War, a few miles away from the Mall the Drug War is still raging. The Sentencing Project and the Schaffer Library for Drug Policy reported that at one point in the 1990s half of all of Black men 18-35 in Washington D.C. were either in jail or on probation or parole, and more than ninety percent had arrest records.

No matter how much money the government pours into the War on Drugs, it doesn’t appear to make a dent in drug use or drug-related crime. The body count in this “war” still rises. Dead and corrupted cops, dead gang youth, dead traffickers and couriers, dead innocent bystanders—the urban “collateral damage”—devastated families, addiction, disease, overdoses from unregulated, poor quality drugs, exploding prisons, crushing costs, corrupt officials, craven politicians, sensationalist media, and a limitless harvest of offenders. Where does the madness end?

We cannot address poverty and race in America nor can we talk about needless death and expense without addressing the Drug War. If we don’t stop the direction in which we are heading, by 2020 there will be over 6 million people in prison, and thousands more lives extinguished in the crossfire of a domestic war that we had no chance of winning in the first place.

____________

Charles Shaw, a writer and activist, is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Newtopia. A Contributing Writer to many publications including Alternet, Guerrilla News Network, and The Next American City, he is currently writing a series on his recent prison experience.

Y'all come back now ya hear?

September 24, 2005

The use of 'y'all' is spreading northward

HOWARD RICHLER
Freelance
The Montreal Gazette

Espied at the newsgroup alt. usage.english:

"I hate it when people, predominately Northerners, look down their noses at Southerners, as if they spoke some bastardized form of English. Our forefathers came to this country speaking English as their native tongue whereas most Yankees learned English as a second language ... and the end result is a cold, nasal sounding speech that irritates the ear. Now, we have the experts from up North coming down here telling us how wrong we are speaking as we do, and making fun of the way we talk."

Alas, we northern city slickers do tend to make fun of Southern U.S. speech patterns.

I remember many years ago seeing a skit performed by New York comedian Lenny Bruce in which he played Albert Einstein doing a Southern accent. His punch line was "Y'all wanna hear about nooclear fishin?"

Well, you'd better get used to a proliferation of "y'alls" emanating from south of the border. A recent U.S. survey found that "y'all" was inundating the United States. Outside of the South, the survey showed that "y'all" (or "you all") was used by almost 80 per cent of Americans ages 18 to 24, and even by more than 40 per cent of those over 65.

Does this statistic point to a dumbing down of America?

A little history of the word "y'all" is in order. The term was first used at the beginning of the 19th century among blacks living in the southern United States, and it quickly spread to southern whites of all social classes. From there it became more widespread in U.S. English, particularly as black people moved into the northern states after the Civil War.

Some linguists believe that the term "y'all" may have antecedents in local creoles, especially Gullah, which was spoken by many slaves who lived along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and northern Florida. Surprisingly, however, there is a school of thought that sees the term's origins in the early Irish and Scots American usage and points to the fact that the parts of the United States that have the widest usage of "y'all" are those areas where black and Celtic immigrants have long coexisted.

Critics of the term "y'all" may be surprised to learn that it actually fulfills a grammatical function. The English language used to distinguish between the singular you and the plural you. "Thou" was used to refer to one person, and "you" to more than one, but when the use of "thou" became largely obsolete in the 18th century, a new term was needed to indicate that a plural was required. One of the pluralization solutions was the use of "youse," common in Ireland and in areas of Irish settlement in Canada, the United States and Australia. Another alternative was the use of "you all," which morphed into "y'all."

Many Southerners hotly reject the idea that "y'all" is ever used in a singular sense, but there is evidence that it occasionally is used to refer to a single person.

For example, someone might say "See y'all" to a person who clearly is unaccompanied . In The Stories of English, linguist David Crystal relates that while buying a Stetson for his son in Fort Worth, Tex., the salesperson asked the unaccompanied Crystal "What can I do for y'all?"

That being said, the word is usually reserved for addressing more than one person, though sometimes the people are viewed as a single body. Someone who asks, "How y'all doing?" might be wondering not only about you, but about the well-being of members of your family, that is, "you and yours." "Y'all come over this afternoon, you hear?" implies that even if you are alone at the time, you will have someone else accompanying you later.

In The Stories of English, Crystal points out that dialects that make use of words like "y'all" are actually "richer in their possibilities of expression, than Standard English." Saying "What can I do for y'all?" as opposed to "What can I do for you?" is regarded by many as a friendlier, more inclusive form of communication.

But just as "y'all" is spreading northward, there is an infusion of corrupting elements from large urban areas into the "y'all" heartland. Garner's Modern American Usage reports that in recent years, there has been a noticeable tendency among people living in Southern U.S. cities to replace "y'all" with "you guys." In an article three years ago in the Dallas Morning News, one writer characterized this term as a "horrid Yankee construction."

Y'all come back for next week's column, you hear?

hrichler@canada.com
-----------------------------------------------------

whereas most Yankees learned English as a second language ... and the end result is a cold, nasal sounding speech that irritates the ear.


Can I get an AMEN brothers and sisters? Not to be offensive to my Yankee friends but man that accent GRATES on ones eardrums and nerves something awful! I think I'd rather listen to nails on a chalk board.

Blackwater Down

By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation. Posted September 22, 2005.
The frightening -- and possibly illegal -- presence of heavily armed private forces in New Orleans only demonstrates what everyone already feared: the utter breakdown of the government.


Drug War, Iraq War, Hurricane War. It's all the same when you are a hired killer.
This page has video: BLACKWATER TRAINING CENTER: WHERE PROFESSIONALS TRAIN

State prisoners overstay welcome

State prisoners overstay welcome
Thursday, September 22, 2005
CARLA CROWDER
News staff writer
The Birmingham News

Alabama counties say they're again footing the bill as sentenced prisoners linger for months in county jails, and they want Gov. Bob Riley to fix it.

Though jails have been forced to house a backlog of state prisoners off and on for years, the situation has pushed county officials to send a resolution to Riley calling for an immediate solution.

"We can't continue this piecemeal solution," said Sonny Brasfield, assistant executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama. "We're really weary of doing the same thing over and over again."

County jails now house 1,153 state prisoners ready for transfer into the Department of Corrections, including 644 who've been ready longer than 30 days - the time allowed before the state violates a long-standing court order.

Among other problems, the inmates can't be transferred until DOC employees enter inmate sentencing transcripts into a computer system, and those transcripts are piling up untouched.

County officials believe the state doesn't start counting it's 30-day limit until the records are entered. But prisons spokesman Brian Corbett said the clock starts when DOC receives the paperwork from the court.

"If it is received today and entered 31 days later, we immediately show that that inmate is over 30 days. We are not using this to buy time and keep inmates in county jails without penalty," Corbett said.

Brice Paul, director of jail services for the Alabama Sheriffs Association, said he's learned that only one DOC employee is entering the transcripts, though Corbett said three positions are allotted to that work.

"All of a sudden we've got three stacks over there, 27 inches tall, that have been sent over there by clerks at the circuit courts, that have never gotten into the computer," Paul said. Because of the disarray, prisoners whose paroles have been revoked sometimes get stuck in county jails past the date they're supposed to go free, he said.

`Vastly understaffed':

Cuts in state court budgets also have left fewer employees in Circuit Courts, so the transcript work required on that end has fallen behind, as well.

"The clerk's offices are vastly understaffed," Paul said. "It can be a month to six months from when the clerk's office gets it to the DOC."

State courts have laid off 212 circuit clerk employees since 2003. Almost half remained vacant through 2004, according to the Administrative Office of the Court.

The bureaucratic backlogs are somewhat of a blessing to the state, but a burden to counties. The state pays county jails $1.75 per inmate per day for food, a fraction of what it pays private prisons where it is housing inmates.

"They'll pay $24 and change a day to keep 200 and something inmates in Louisiana, and they won't pay my sheriffs anything," Paul said.

The Jefferson County jail houses 148 sentenced prisoners, including four who have been there longer than 30 days, said sheriff's department spokesman Randy Christian. He estimated that it costs county taxpayers $62.50 a day to house each state prisoner.

Pushing for a plan:

The Association of County Commissions passed the resolution at its August meeting and sent it to Riley's office this week.

"The State of Alabama prison system has endured years of inadequate funding, tough-on-crime sentencing laws, lack of effective alternative sentencing programs and general neglect," the resolution reads.

It asks the governor to call a special session of the Legislature, if necessary, to develop an immediate plan with long-term solutions to the chronic problems.

Riley has said he's considering a special session to address prison issues.

He's also appointed the Task Force on Prison Overcrowding that's been meeting several months and will soon have a list of recommendations, said Riley spokesman John Matson.

Under Riley, the backlog disappeared for about a year and has stayed below 2002 levels, Matson said.

E-mail: ccrowder@bhamnews.com
--------------------------------------------------

Good to see the county commissioners giving it to Riley in this fashion. When Bob Riley was running for governor one of his "promises" was that he would abide by the recommendations of the sentencing commission with regard to prison overcrowding. That did not happened.

Later Riley commissioned a second group of "experts" which included prison guards, police, judges and district attorneys but no average citizens, to look at the prison crisis and what was causing the overcrowding.

And now we are on our third group of experts which goes by the lovely name "Task Force on Prison Overcrowding" (why does everything have to be a "task force"?) who are currently wasting our money studying the same things the first two studied.

There couldn't possibly be anything they do not already know with regard to why prisons are so overcrowded.

I guess when Riley said he would "abide by the recommendations of the sentencing commission" he failed to mention which commission that would be. Apparently he plans to keep forming them until they tell him what he wants to hear and then he will abide by their recommendations.

You are a naughty boy Bob, and the citizens of the great state of Alabama do not hold naughty boys in high regard.

Charges dropped in Corral pot-possession case

By BRIAN SEALS
Santa Cruz Sentinel

Misdemeanor pot possession charges against local medical marijuana advocate Valerie Corral were dropped Thursday, but the fight isn’t completely over.

Aided by the American Civil Liberties Union, Corral said she will battle to get back the confiscated pot and seek a change in how the city of Burbank addresses medical marijuana laws.

Corral was charged July 27 for possessing a small amount, about 5 grams, of pot while passing through security at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.

She along with husband Mike are co-founders of the Santa Cruz-based Wo/men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

Though only a misdemeanor that carried a $100 fine, Corral planned to fight the charge and go to a jury trial.

At a pre-trial hearing Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court the charges were dropped, said Anjuli Verma, advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Drug Law Reform Project in Santa Cruz.

"What would have come out in court is that the city of Burbank has a policy of prosecuting medical marijuana patients they know are innocent," Verma said.

A green light to grow

24 Hours Vancouver, Canada
By Robyn Stubbs

The legal avenues for growing pot legally in B.C. are more convoluted than a corn maze.

People with licenses issued by Health Canada to use marijuana for its medicinal benefits not only deal with municipal bylaws and Health Canada regulations, but they have to surrender their personal information to police so they won't get busted.

And all this red tape is driving people with legal permits to obtain their marijuana illegally through Compassion Clubs, said the founder and director of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, Philippe Lucas.

"Compassion Clubs (across Canada) are serving about 10,000 people right now," said Lucas. "And we supply over half of the legal exemptees in Canada. Ironically enough, after going through the onerous application process, you still end up at a Compassion Club to get a good source of (marijuana) medicine."

According to the latest national tally by Health Canada, there are 943 people licensed to have pot for medical purposes, 181 of whom live in B.C.

But only 18 per cent subscribe to government-grown weed, while 74 per cent are allowed to grow their own. That means nearly 700 home-grow operations in Canada, and more than 100 in B.C.

"If Health Canada allowed people to grow co-operatively, it would be very likely they would have to monitor far less grow operations," Lucas said.

Vancouver police spokesman Tim Fanning said yesterday that legal pot grow-ops have been busted several times, and while they try to check with Health Canada on the status of a suspected grow op, they aren't always able to get confirmation of a license.

However, Christopher Williams, Health Canada's spokesman for medicinal marijuana, said they share personal information about a licensee with law enforcement, and recent amendments to the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations Act force all applicants to share their information with police.

Bear chase leads to pot bust

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Seattle Post Intelligencer

CLARKSTON, Wash. -- Two people were arrested after police chasing a runaway black bear stumbled into a backyard pot-growing operation.

Kim H. Bedwell, 52, and Gladys P. Bedwell, 50, both face charges of manufacturing marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to deliver.

On Wednesday, Asotin County Superior Judge Ray D. Lutes set bail of $250,000 for Kim Bedwell and $100,000 for Gladys Bedwell. They were being held at the Asotin County Jail.

According to police reports, a black bear being chased by law enforcement officers jumped a fence Tuesday afternoon and landed in the Bedwells' backyard.

During the commotion, Kim Bedwell allegedly tried to stash some marijuana plants under a vehicle in his garage, according to the report.

After he was spotted by police and told to stop, he allegedly ran out of his garage and tossed a plant over a fence.

Clarkston police officer Scott Wohl was pursuing the bear when a large marijuana plant sailed over the fence and landed on him, police said. Deputies jumped the fence and arrested Kim Bedwell, according to the report.

Officers searched the Bedwell home and found four bags of marijuana in a refrigerator in the garage, and a grow room, according to the report. Inside the residence, police found two bags of marijuana in the refrigerator.

The 300-pound black bear was later captured and killed.

National group seeks legalize pot in Maine, six other states

AP
Boston Globe
September 22, 2005

MESA, Ariz. --A pro-marijuana group based in Washington, D.C., is looking for activists in Arizona to build grass-roots support for legalized marijuana, with the eventual goal being to get the drug legalized here for all adults.

The nonprofit Marijuana Policy Project is targeting seven states: Arizona, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon.

The effort is in its infancy, and project officials emphasize they have no master plan for the seven states.

Instead, the group is looking for local activists whose efforts would be funded by the project's grant program. The eventual goal is to put marijuana in the same category as alcohol, with the same kind of taxes and regulation.

A request for proposals has been issued in the seven states, where grant applicants are asked to list "escalating tactics that would lead to a change in state law in three to five years via the state Legislature or the statewide ballot initiative process," according to a job listing on the Internet.

Tactics could include organizing demonstrations, lobbying state lawmakers, building a coalition of supportive organizations and generating favorable news coverage.

Fascist free-Association

The Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism

Opiates of the Iranian people

Despair drives world's highest addiction rate

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Writers Group

FBI: Lennon too stoned to be a threat

John Lennon was dismissed as a Communist threat to the US only because he was always stoned, secret FBI papers revealed yesterday. The ex-Beatles singer was thought to be a ringleader of revolutionaries plotting to hijack a Republican conference, the documents show.

READ MORE

Well....I wish the hell they'd dismiss me as whatever kind of threat they have me labled as!

Birmingham this Weekend

Bush to meet evacuees in Birmingham
Update: Bush ditches Birmingham trip and heads to Texas

Anti War March and Rally
List of Sponsors and Endorsers

The 7th annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival

A True American Patriot!

Claire Wolfe has a fantastic post on her BLOG today from Liz Michael who, after reading this post, strikes me as a True American Patriot.

I do wonder how it is that she is able to post this and avoid the gestapo showing up at her door????
Perhaps they do not come because they know she will shoot?

(disclaimer (borrowed from Claire's site): Public proclamations of intent, however, are another matter. Neither Ms. Michael nor I have picked up arms and marched off to follow Ms. Michael's advice. I don't intend to die today unless the battle comes to me.


Here is an excerpt from Liz's site:

Excerpt:

"They Shot the Bastards!!!"

"Gee, she sounds like a radical" you say. And I suppose I am. But what example am I following? The example of the American Revolution. Beyond all the flowery words, beyond the toil and struggle to build a constitution, beyond the love of liberty, the longing for religious freedom, the spiffy tri-corner hats, everybody forgets the one thing that both initiated, and finished, the American Revolution. That rather inconvenient, for many, fact. That fact that makes the modern devotees of Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi squeamish. What fact? This fact.

THEY SHOT THE BASTARDS!!!

Let me repeat that for effect. When the Founding Fathers set upon establishing a free republic, the first order of business was...

THAT THEY SHOT THE BASTARDS!!!

When the English general demanded that the colonials turn over their flintlocks, what was the response of the colonials?

THEY SHOT THE BASTARDS!!!

Every July 4th. We celebrate the fact that THEY SHOT THE BASTARDS!!! Every Veteran's Day. Every Memorial Day. Yes, we honor the troops. But what do we honor the troops for? We honor them because THEY SHOT THE BASTARDS and often died TRYING to shoot the bastards! Every time you sing "The Star Spangled Banner", you celebrate the anniversary of your forebears SHOOTING THE BASTARDS!!!

Obviously all this talk about "shooting the bastards" make the people who have BECOME the bastards, very nervous. Well, as Thomas Jefferson, that wild eyed radical, said, "When the government FEARS the People, there is liberty, but when the People fear the government, there is tyranny." I frankly am sick of the tyranny, and am up for a little liberty... actually, a lot of it. How about y'all?

READ THE REST

Three indicted in Madison County jail sexual assault

Three indicted in Madison County jail sexual assault

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) -- Three Huntsville men have been indicted on sodomy charges for a sexual assault that allegedly occurred while they were in the Madison County jail.

A grand jury returned the indictments against Darius Montes Hampton, 25, Kelly Lavar Rashad Brooks, 18, and Javorr Aswon Fletcher, 22, who are accused of fabricating a metal weapon to threaten a 22-year-old cellmate while they assaulted him in May 2004.

The grand jury also recommended the jail use a classification system to separate violent and nonviolent inmates. A spokeswoman for the Madison County district attorney's office said the victim was being held on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, while the three alleged attackers were being held on charges involving violence.

Brooks, who was being held on a murder charge, later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Hampton, who was being held on a sexual assault charge, later had it dismissed. Fletcher was being held for assault and breaking and entering, charges that were later dismissed.

Sheriff Blake Dorning said it is not possible to automatically categorize inmates with the crowded conditions he has at the jail. Madison County's two jails have beds for 530 prisoners, but were housing 879 inmates Tuesday.

Woodbridge prison guests attack inmates

New Brunswick Home News Tribune, NJ

WOODBRIDGE — They call the program at East Jersey State Prison "Scared Straight."

But yesterday the group lesson that attempts to shock young offenders into staying out of prison backfired when three "guests" listening to the hardened inmates attacked two of them, badly beating one, authorities said.

It was the guests, not the inmates, who had to be restrained, one corrections officer said.

The incident at the medium-security prison for men in the Avenel section of the township was believed to be gang-related, said a state Department of Corrections official and a corrections officer in the prison.

Ex-Inmate Sues Texas for Alleged Gang Rapes

By Tracy Stokes, BET.com Staff Writer

Posted Sept.21, 2005 – An eight-man, six-woman jury has been seated in federal court in Wichita Falls, Texas in the civil trial of a a former inmate who alleges state prison officials ignored his pleas for help when he was repeatedly raped.

In opening statements Tuesday, attorneys for 37-year-old Roderick Keith Johnson argued how their client was also sold as a sex slave by other inmates, The Houston Chronicle reports.

Johnson's suit describes how he was sexually assaulted almost every day for 18 months and how gang members negotiated fees of $5 to $10 for sex with him. "He was told that if he refused, he would be beaten and killed." The suit also charges that the prison's all-White classification committee told him "he needed to learn to fight" or find a defender.

Fatal police shootings are on unprecedented pace

By Andrew Marra
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 22, 2005

Fatal police shootings, usually a rarity in Palm Beach County, have surged to become an almost monthly occurrence with seven in the past eight months.

Officers have pulled the trigger on a variety of targets, including teens in fleeing vehicles, suspects accused of reaching for weapons and unstable men who apparently wanted to die.

The sheriff's office also has been criticized for not releasing more information about a fatal shooting during a federal drug operation in West Palm Beach in early August. Sheriff's deputies are investigating a Jupiter officer's decision to shoot and kill Donovan Brooks, 40, on Aug. 5 in a motel parking lot.

In an extraordinary move, the sheriff's office has refused to identify the officer or reveal the apparent reason for the shooting. A spokesman said the officer's identity was being protected for his own safety, and circumstances surrounding the shooting were not being released because the Drug Enforcement Administration asked the agency not to make those details public.

The Strange and Seedy Case of Marc Emery, Canadian

Facing life in a U.S. prison, the ‘Prince of Pot’ sparks an extradition war that could test the limits of the War on Drugs – and legalize pot in Canada at last

By DEAN KUIPERS
LA City Beat, CA

Doctor indicted for giving steroids to NFL players

By CLIF LEBLANC
The State (Columbia, S.C.)

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A West Columbia alternative medicine doctor, who prescribed steroids to members of the Carolina Panthers, was indicted Wednesday on nearly 30 counts of violating federal law.

A federal grand jury accused Dr. James Shortt of conspiring to dispense two kinds of steroids and a human growth hormone during a 3 1/2-year period.

The indictment alleges Shortt illegally prescribed drugs on 28 occasions between February 2001 and June 2004. All but one of those involved the steroids Stanozolol and Nandrolone. The other count deals with the human growth hormone Somatropin.

Another count contains the charge that Shortt intentionally conspired to dispense the drugs.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to as many as five years in prison and $250,000 in fines per violation.

Drug raid puts dozens into custody

By Suzanne Gamboa, Associated Press
September 22, 2005

WASHINGTON - Drug enforcement agents said they arrested at least 18 people and halted prescription writing by dozens of doctors and a pharmacist in a crackdown Wednesday on illegal sales of medications over the Internet.

Thirteen arrests were made in Texas and five in Florida. The Drug Enforcement Administration suspended the registrations of 20 doctors and 22 Internet pharmacies in the U.S., including Puerto Rico, to stop them from writing or filling prescriptions.

Agents also shut down at least 4,600 Web sites the suspects controlled, and seized 2,400 checks and money orders written by individuals for $200 each. They also seized seven luxury cars and boxes of cash that had not yet been counted in the yearlong multi-agency investigation dubbed "Operation CYBERx."

They have started legal procedures to seize several homes belonging to those arrested, valued at about $7.85 million.

Soros dives into midterms

The Hill, DC

Billionaire financier George Soros hosted a fundraiser for Senate Democrats last week at his Manhattan home, making his first foray into politics after spending $25 million of his money in an effort to defeat President Bush last year.

Soros gathered about 60 of his friends and acquaintances in his Upper East Side home Thursday to hear a presentation from Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to a knowledgeable source. The event raised an estimated $250,000 for Senate Democratic candidates.

“I think it is shocking that Democrats would treat him as a mainstream force of Democratic politics,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). “He has an agenda that transcends American interests.”

Soros is known for making provocative statements and is often associated with hot-button issues that most politicians would rather avoid, such as drug decriminalization, assisted suicide and voting rights for felons. Soros, for instance, has helped fund numerous initiatives that would soften criminal penalties for drug use.

“I believe that a drug-free America is a utopian dream. Some form of drug addiction or substance abuse is endemic in most societies,” Soros wrote in a 1997 Washington Post op-ed. “Insisting on the total eradication of drug use can only lead to failure and disappointment.”

A cop campaigns to legalize durgs

Oneida Dispatch, NY

ONEIDA - Howard Wooldridge is taking an old-fashioned approach to spreading his message about the benefits of drug legalization.

For the past seven months the 54-year-old retired police officer has been riding on horseback across the United States, calling for an end to harsh legal penalties for American drug users.

"I want to bring awareness to the failure of our policy of drug prohibition and try to get Americans to agree that we need to sell all drugs in a state-regulated store," said Wooldridge, who is from Fort Worth, Texas.

Having worked as a police officer in Bath Township, Mich., which is near East Lansing, Wooldridge is now a member of the international organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Founded in 2002, LEAP is an organization comprised of current and former law enforcement officials who advocate for national systems of drug regulation instead of prohibition.

"What I've seen across America is that with tremendous consensus people agree this policy is a failure, people agree that prisons are worthless, and people agree that nobody should go to jail for personal amounts of an illegal drug," he said.


Durgs?

Mexico security minister killed in helicopter crash

By Eduardo Quiros

HUIXQUILUCAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's public security minister, a key figure in the war against drug cartels, was killed along with eight others on Wednesday when his helicopter went down in mountains near the capital.

Rescue workers found the burned wreckage of Ramon Martin Huerta's aircraft six hours after contact was lost early into a flight from the capital to a high security prison.

In a televised address, President Vicente Fox vowed to push on with his fight against violent gangs running drugs into the United States.

Martin Huerta, a former governor of the central state of Guanajuato, was a top figure in a battle launched this year on drug-related crime on the U.S. border and western Mexico, where violence has spiraled.

More than 1,000 people have been killed this year as drug gangs fight over lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

War declared on designer drugs as Chinese middle class gets high

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Thursday September 22, 2005
The Guardian

A "people's war" on narcotics in China has turned into a campaign against designer drugs after police found a surge in usage of ecstasy, ketamine and methamphetamine, or ice, among urban professionals.

In a shift that may be down to a booming economy and the growing influence of globalised culture, Chinese authorities said this week the focus of their anti-drugs campaigns has widened from disadvantaged social groups - such as minorities, prostitutes and the unemployed - to affluent white-collar workers.

According to the domestic media, the public security ministry launched a campaign against "new drugs" - synthetic stimulants and hallucinogenic chemicals - which are popular in nightclubs and karaoke bars in the fast-growing cities such as Shanghai and Chongqing.

In November, the government will introduce new rules to crack down on the use of such narcotics, which are not clearly covered by existing laws. The new policy follows a sharp rise in seizures of laboratory-made drugs.

Jonathan Magbie Family Files Lawsuit!

Attorney Donald M. Temple speaks at the announcement of the lawsuit, accompanied by Jonathan Magbie's mother, Mary Scott, left; brother, John Magbie; and sister, Regina Magbie. "No one should have been treated like that," Scott said of her son. (By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post)
Local Katrina Relief

Mother Sues Over D.C. Inmate's Death
City, Hospital Accused Of Not Giving Proper Care

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 21, 2005; Page B08

The mother of a quadriplegic inmate who died after suffering breathing problems at the D.C. jail has filed a lawsuit accusing the District government and Greater Southeast Community Hospital of failing to give him proper care.

Standing on the courthouse steps yesterday, nearly a year after her son Jonathan Magbie died of acute respiratory failure, Mary Scott said she wants justice -- and $50 million in damages -- for what her suit called the repeated failures and "brutal insensitivity" of the city and hospital.

"My baby lost 40 pounds in four days, and they never lifted a finger. No one should have been treated like that," Scott said. "He needed medical attention, and they turned their backs on him."

Magbie, 27, of Mitchellville, was paralyzed from the neck down after being hit by a drunk driver when he was 4. On Sept. 20, 2004, he sat in his mouth-operated wheelchair as D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith E. Retchin sentenced him to 10 days in jail for a misdemeanor charge of possession of marijuana. He was a first-time offender.

Magbie was taken to the D.C. jail, and within hours he was having difficulty breathing. He was moved to the emergency room at Greater Southeast; the hospital released him to the jail the next day. On Sept. 24, he again was taken to the hospital, where he died that day.
READ MORE
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I am most pleased to see this family filing a lawsuit. I wish that Judge Judith Retchin, who could have prevented this unspeakable cruelty altogether (had she had more than a black hole for a heart), had somehow been held responsible. Unfortunately, she still sits on the bench waiting to pounce on the next hapless, helpless, quadriplegic, medical marijuana smoker with the unfortunate luck to get rolled into her courtroom on hearing day.

We have to end the drug war.

Agency treats more children 12 and under for drugs

Agency treats more children 12 and under for drugs

By Mike Linn
Montgomery Advertiser

The number of preteens who have sought counseling for substance abuse through the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation has increased dramatically in the past few years.

Ok...so I am to believe a kid under the age of 12 walked into a drug treatment center and asked to be treated? This would not be legally possible as parents must be the ones who sign permission forms for anyone under the age of 18 to be treated. DUH!

The numbers are relatively small: 18 children between 6 and 12 years old last year received drug counseling compared with five in 2002.

These figures are unusual in that before 2000 it was rare for anyone under 13 to seek substance abuse counseling, according to Kent Hunt, associate commissioner for substance abuse at the state Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

"For years and years we never had anybody admitted to treatment (in this age group)," he said. "Every once in a while, we'd have a kid who was 13. For us, it's a huge increase percentage-wise for kids ages 6 to 12."

The number of high school age children seeking treatment is also up slightly, from 1,556 in 2002 to 1,587 in 2004, statistics show. But the percentage of young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 who sought treatment declined by 5 percent.

Juveniles between the ages of 13 and 17 charged with drug offenses increased by about 7 percent from 2000 to 2004.

But Cary McMillan, juvenile technology manager for the Alabama Office of Administrative Courts, said some years there's a spike in drug complaints and other years they dip, so it's not necessarily a trend.

That more youngsters are getting treatment, she said, is likely due to more youth being screened for drug problems in the juvenile court system.

"Even if the youth is not held on drug charges, a screening may show they may have a substance abuse problem. Even if it's not a drug charge, they can send them to drug treatment," she said.

Courtney Green, a junior at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School in Montgomery, estimated at least 40 percent of high school students have tried marijuana and about 20 percent drink alcohol on the weekends.

Rachel Wismulek, a freshman at the school, said teens can get drugs relatively easily in Montgomery, and that many high school students have tried drugs like marijuana.

"People behind gas stations will give people our age drugs and stuff like that," she said. "It's really easy to get a hold of certain things. If anybody wanted to try it, they could."

And there you have it folks. Due to prohibition of certain drugs kids have unfettered, unrestricted access to them. Your laws to stop drug use are responsible for this as well as responsible for the prison crisis in Alabama. Maybe it is time to realize that approaching drugs from the point of regulation and harm reduction is not the same as condoning drug use.
If this is about keeping your kids safe then I would have to say your current plan is an abysmal failure. It will be your kids who are the next generation of Alabama inmates unless you do what is necessary to change these laws.

Alabama Says: Stop the War on Iraq!

Statewide Peace Rally and March

Saturday, Sept 24th
2:00 - 5:00 PM
(Please arrive by 1:30 to line up for the march!)
Kelly Ingram Park (1700 6th Ave. N.)
Birmingham, AL
Our message is:
Stop the killing!
Support the troops, bring them home now!
Spend money for human needs, not war!


Sculpture, Kelly Ingram Park

A Libertarian on Poverty

Charley Reese at Lew Rockwell.com

Exerpts:

We have allowed a system to develop that makes it easier for the rich to get richer and harder for the poor to escape to the middle class.

The underlying cause – and the most difficult to address – is a policy of gradual depreciation of the currency. It's usually referred to as inflation, but whatever jargon you wish to apply, the end result is that year after year, the dollar a man or woman earns buys less.

If you had put $10,000 in the mattress in 1967, it would be worth $2,500 today. The $7,500 was stolen by a combination of Congress and the central bank, for they are monetizing the deficits that have depreciated the currency.

America is being converted into a Third World country before our very eyes.

Cannabis advocates rally for rights

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | September 18, 2005

Under hovering storm clouds, thousands gathered on the Boston Common yesterday to sway to gritty rock music, shop for T-shirts with slogans like ''Thank You for Pot Smoking," and rally against marijuana prohibition.

Police motorcycles were parked seven deep at the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition's 16th Annual Freedom Rally, and uniformed and undercover police trolled the crowd for marijuana smokers. Puffs of smoke hovering over the crowd came mostly from cigarettes, but police made 44 arrests, mostly for drug possession, although there were some distribution charges.

''There is no day off from the law today," said Deputy Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald.

www.masscann.org

Bel Aire police mistake sunflower plants for marijuana

Associated Press
Sat, Sep. 17, 2005

BEL AIRE, Kan. - The police thought they'd found marijuana plants growing in a former mayor's back yard, where his wife sometimes entertains members of the senior citizens' group she leads.

Officers took pictures. They showed them to an assistant district attorney, who took a search warrant application to a judge, who signed it. And when police in this Wichita suburb went back to Harold and Carolyn Smith's house for a closer look, they found ...

Sunflowers.

The couple had grown the plants from seeds given to them by their son, a wildlife biologist.

Kansas is, of course, the Sunflower State - which made the error even more baffling, the Smiths' attorney said.

"That plant on our state flag is not a marijuana plant, but a sunflower," said the attorney, Dan Monnat, of Wichita.

Bel Aire Mayor Brian Withrow, an associate professor of criminal justice at Wichita State University, has hired a consultant - a university colleague, Michael Birzer - to look into the Sept. 6 search and the events that led up to it.

On Birzer's list of questions to answer, Withrow said, is the obvious: "How did we make this mistake?"

The Smiths have hired him to do the same thing, Monnat said.

"These are very community-oriented people who have been active in their community affairs for years," he said. "I think it's probably fair to say they care much less about the idea of a lawsuit than they do about assuring the citizens of Bel Aire that they have competent police officers who will protect the rights of everyone."

During the search, Monnat said, at least 10 officers went through the Smiths' house, checking drawers and closets and videotaping everything. The tape has not been returned, Monnat said.

Withrow said the plants weren't blooming at the time, but Monnat said some were - and noted that police would have had to drive past many other sunflower plants on their way to the home to search it.

Harold Smith served as mayor from 1991 to 1998, leaving office before serving all of his fourth and final term.

U of M Will Host Cyber Security Education Day Sept. 26

For release: Sept 13, 2005
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey

To increase awareness of computer security issues, the University of Memphis will host Cyber Security Education Day on Sept. 26 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. in The Zone at the University's FedEx Institute of Technology. The seminar is free and open to the public.

The event will focus on information assurance education and the growing need for information assurance training for professionals in various disciplines. Sessions will be presented by representatives from Microsoft, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, Auburn University, the University of Louisville, and the U of M.

The seminar is designed to build partnerships with local and regional educators. It is sponsored by the U of M's Center for Information Assurance.

Registration is available online at http://cfia.memphis.edu.
More information about the U of M's role in computer security is available from Dr. Dipankar Dasgupta at 901-678-4147.


Student Arrested After Pilot Uniform Found

The Associated Press
Friday, September 16, 2005; 11:39 PM

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- A university student from Egypt was ordered held without bond after prosecutors said they found a pilot's uniform, chart of Memphis International Airport and a DVD titled "How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act" in his apartment.

The FBI is investigating whether Mahmoud Maawad, 29, had any connection to terrorists. He is awaiting trial on charges of wire fraud and fraudulent use of a Social Security number.

Maawad, who is in the United States illegally, told the judge during a hearing Thursday that he is studying science and economics at the University of Memphis.

"My school is everything. I stay in this country for seven years; I stay for the school," he said.

Justice for a 'Death of Neglect'

By Colbert I. King
Washington Post, United States
Saturday, September 17, 2005; Page A21

Next Tuesday marks the first anniversary of 27-year-old Jonathan Magbie's final encounter with the D.C. government. It will be no cause for celebration.

It was on Sept. 20, 2004, that D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin sentenced Magbie, a quadriplegic since an accident at age 4, to 10 days in the D.C. jail. His crime? Possession of marijuana.


Five days after falling into the hands of the D.C. government, Magbie was dead. He died a horrible death. It was preventable. But nobody in the system cared.

Looking down from her bench, Retchin saw a first-time offender. He controlled his wheelchair with a mouth-operated device. He could breathe only with a battery-controlled pulmonary pacemaker. At night he needed the assistance of a respirator. He could have been sentenced to home detention, where he would have had round-the-clock attention. Instead, Retchin, apparently upset when Magbie refused to swear off weed, which helped him get through a miserable existence, sent him to that taxpayer-supported hellhole near the Anacostia River known as the D.C. jail.

What happened to Magbie at the jail and at Greater Southeast Community Hospital, where his life ended five days later, shouldn't happen to a dog. In fact, it doesn't happen to dogs and cats in the custody of decent and caring people. But Magbie had no one in his corner except his mother, Mary Scott, and she could not join him in jail.

read more.

For more US Marijuana Party coverage go HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Chili 'missed, but not forgotten'

Lansing officers bid farewell to loyal police dog

By Susan Vela
Lansing State Journal

Lansing K-9 handler Dennis Bunch struggled Friday to express the bond between him and Chili, the city's second police dog to die in the line of duty.

"Chili was like one of my children and my best friend and partner all in one," Bunch told more than 150 people, half of them fellow officers, during a memorial service in the police department's South Precinct gymnasium.

Chili, a 6-year-old black German shepherd, died Wednesday night after Bunch's patrol vehicle collided with another vehicle at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Willow Street. The crash is under investigation.

Bunch and Chili began tracking drugs, criminals and missing people together in September 2001. Chili lived with Bunch, watching TV by his side and sleeping in his room at night.

Bunch said he and Chili really clicked professionally once he realized the dog was smarter than he was.

Jeb Bush's Son Arrested for Public Drunkeness

The Smoking Gun

Bush Nephew Nabbed
Jeb's youngest son in Texas booze, resisting arrest bust

SEPTEMBER 16--One of President George W. Bush's nephews--the youngest son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush--was arrested early today and charged with public drunkenness and resisting arrest. John Ellis Bush, 21, was nabbed at 2:30 AM by Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents in Austin (Jeb Jr.'s street corner arrest came in one of the capitol's popular bar districts).

According to the above arrest warrant, filed with the Travis County Municipal Court, an intoxicated Bush, "continually pushed against this officer and struggled as I attempted to handcuff him."

After about four hours in custody, Bush was released on $2500 bond for the resisting count (the intox charge was covered by a personal recognizance bond). This is the second time young Jeb has landed on a police blotter. In October 2000, Jeb, then 16, and a girlfriend were discovered naked from the waist down in a Jeep Cherokee parked at a Tallahassee mall. Jebby's siblings, George and Noelle, have also had well-publicized run-ins with the fuzz.

Police pouring over massive stack of documents seized from pot crusader

September 16, 2005 - 20:36

VANCOUVER (CP) - Police are analyzing piles of documents stretching 20 feet higher than the Empire State building from pot crusader Marc Emery's computer, court heard on Friday.

Prosecutors say it will take until January for them to analyze. Emery is wanted by the United States for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet to Americans.

Lawyers asked Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm for more time before setting a date for Emery's extradition hearing, because they have so much evidence to examine.

The case was put over until Oct. 21.

His co-accused, Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek and Gregory Williams appeared with Emery on Friday.

Their lawyers said they all have to work out payment and that their clients may be applying for legal aid.

Emery, who is out on bail, was granted permission to make trips to Montreal on Sept. 18 and Calgary on Sept. 30.

How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to change a light bulb?

Via TalkLeft

The Answer is TEN...

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed,

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed,

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb,

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness,

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb,

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner Bulb Accomplished,

7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally in the dark the whole time,

8. One to viciously smear #7,

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along,

10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Alternate Answer:

ANSWER:

None. There is nothing wrong with the bulb. Any reports of its diminished incandescence are merely delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably and anything you say diminishes the lighting efect. Why do you hate freedom?

SCHR Video Trailer

Southern Center for Human Rights

Click on "Watch the trailer"
then "download the trailer"
and it will play.

Where's Lisa?

The Day The Squirrel Went Berserk

'Spanky' Plays Rough, Owner Says

POSTED: 7:49 am PDT August 22, 2005
UPDATED: 7:54 am PDT August 22, 2005

LEOMINSTER, Mass. -- A police officer got a rude welcome from a pet squirrel when he went to serve a warrant on a Massachusetts woman.

The incident happened last week in Leominster, Mass.

Once police were inside the home, the squirrel, named "Spanky," attacked Officer Dwayne Flowers.

Flowers suffered some scratches and was treated and released at a local hospital.

Flowers said he has been attacked before, but never by a pet squirrel.

"He had a good chuckle," Flowers said of his partner.

The woman said Spanky didn't mean any harm, he just plays rough.

Spanky was in the custody of animal control officers, who said they weren't sure what they would do with the animal.

Police said they were serving the 42-year-old woman with a warrant to get her help for an alleged drug dependency.

Check out this PRICELESS SLIDE SHOW

This reminds me of the Ray Stevens song "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival"


More squirrel action from Baylen at To The People.

Good Squirrel Gravy Recipe.

AL. Sen. Figures' son arrested on drug charges

Sen. Figures' son arrested on drug charges
Montgomery Advertiser

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- A state senator's son is in jail on drug charges after fleeing a traffic stop in Mobile.

Akil Figures, 23, is the oldest son of state Sen. Vivian Figures, D-Mobile, and the late Michael Figures, former president pro tem of the Alabama Senate. Akil Figures is being held at Mobile County Metro Jail on $7,500 bond, according to the jail log. He has been charged with possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance, plus two counts of violating his probation.

"I am a mother in pain with a son in trouble like so many others. At this time, I just ask for everyone's prayers," Sen. Figures said Wednesday evening.

Akil Figures was already on probation stemming from May 2002 drug charges.

Officer Eric Gallichant of the Mobile Police Department said officers tried to pull him over on a routine traffic stop in the Toulminville area Monday when he refused to stop the vehicle and sped up.

Gallichant said Akil Figures eventually abandoned his vehicle and fled on foot until police caught up with him. Officers reporting finding several types of drugs in his possession. Gallichant said they appeared to be marijuana, crack cocaine, powdered cocaine and ecstasy pills.

Kilby Prisoners Raise Money For Hurricane Katrina Victims

WSFA, AL

Montgomery, AL - Despite being behind bars some area prisoners are doing their part to help storm victims.

Inmates at Kilby prison raised more than eleven-hundred dollars in one week. When they started out they hoped to get one hundred guys to give a dollar each but the money kept increasing. The men say they got the idea after watching news coverage of New Orleans and Mississippi. Flynn says,"This is the first time we've done this inside a prison. We hope it'll be the last time but we will do it again if the need is there. We felt like if we were on the streets we would be raising money. This gives us an opportunity to be a productive part of society."

The donation went to the American Red Cross. The Red Cross says in the past few days it has given over 3 and a half million dollars to hurricane evacuees who came to Montgomery.

Soldier Pleads Guilty to Role in Smuggling

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
The Associated Press
Thursday, September 15, 2005; 8:42 PM

FORT BLISS, Texas -- A soldier stationed in Colombia as part of the U.S. war on drugs was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday after pleading guilty in a scheme to smuggle cocaine into the United States using military planes.

Army Staff Sgt. Kelvin Irizarry-Melendez, 26, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, wrongful importation of cocaine and a charge related to taking money to Colombia.

Lt. Col. Jeffery Nance sentenced Irizarry-Melendez to six years, reduced his rank to private and ordered a dishonorable discharge. Under a plea deal, Irizarry-Melendez could have been sentenced to no more than 9 1/2 years.

Irizarry-Melendez apologized to his family, the court and the Army in a brief statement. He said he joined in the drug ring in part to help support his family and pay for costly medical treatments to help correct his daughter's debilitating foot problem.

"I felt I had to do something to help with my daughter's condition," a tearful Irizarry-Melendez said.

He and three other soldiers were accused of smuggling cocaine from a U.S. base in Colombia. All four have been jailed since their arrests earlier this year.

Inmate Shot Inside Grady Hospital

The Common Voice, SC

ATLANTA -- A Fulton County sheriff's deputy shot an inmate who scuffled with another deputy at Grady Memorial Hospital in downtown Atlanta Tuesday night, authorities said.

The inmate, identified as Wesley Mansfield, tried to overpower a deputy who was guarding the prisoner during a visit to the hospital and another deputy came in, saw what was happening and shot the inmate, sheriff's spokeswoman Sgt. Nikita Hightower said.

"The prisoner was able to take the gun from the guard's holster, but a second guard then shot the prisoner," said Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, Grady's president and chief executive officer.

Hightower said she did not know how many times the inmate was shot or the nature of the wounds but said it was not a fatal wound.

Mansfield, 21, was admitted to Grady with a gunshot wound and was under guard. He was believed to be in stable condition, authorities said.

The identities of the deputies were not immediately released.

Inmates are being escorted in and out of Grady hospital frequently, and the Sheriff's Department has a station near the emergency room, Hightower said.

She did not know why Mansfield was taken to the hospital initially but said he had been jailed on charges of loitering and prowling, obstruction of an officer and possession of marijuana.

Authorities said Mansfield was being questioned about allegedly stealing drugs when he attacked the deputy.

A special holding cell, examining room and triage center exists inside Grady solely for the purpose of treating prison inmates who need medical attention.

Lanett Police Accused Of Brutality

WTVM, GA

Lanett, AL - Witnesses at The Breaker Box club in Lanett say police showed up and got physical this past Saturday night. News Leader 9 has been given an amateur video of the incident at a Christian heavy metal concert.

According to witnesses, a teenager was calling home to get a ride when police threw him into a light pole and then onto the ground.

"I saw two Lanett police officers. One of them grabbed a young black male, head-locked him, ran him into this pole, slammed him to the ground, put their knee in his back and cuffed him," said John Keith.

That's when the lead singer of "Only After Faith" grabbed his video camera.

"A blow to the back of the head, and a couple of knees to the back. They finally got a little 13 or 15-year-old boy in the car," said Adrian Buice.

The video apparently shows the boy, without handcuffs, refusing to get into the car. The officer uses his nightstick to force him into the back seat.

According to police, they cannot comment on the case until an independent investigator looks into the incident.

"When his investigation is complete, if there's a violation of policy or law, then we'll take steps to address the situation at that time," said Chief Ron Docimo, Lanett Police Department.

Witnesses say people were being pulled from their cars by the officers after trying to leave the club. Keep in mind, we haven't heard the police side of this story yet.

News Leader 9 asked Docimo if this was standard procedure, if the officers have been suspended, or if police cameras show anything different. He said he is not allowed to comment until after an investigation has been conducted.

Police: Man Tried To Distract Drug Dog With Biscuits

WRAL.com

WABASH, Ind. -- A Kansas man faces drug charges, accused by police of trying to distract a drug dog by throwing dog biscuits out of his car window.

Indiana State Police said Jong H. Kim, 23, of Overland Park, Kan., was stopped on Wednesday for speeding.

Police said Kim was uncooperative, nervous and vomiting. When a drug dog arrived at the scene, police said Kim tossed debris and dog biscuits toward the dog in an apparent attempt to distract the K-9.

The dog alerted police to the possible presence of drugs in Kim's car.

Police said they removed Kim from the vehicle by force and conducted a search.

Officials said they uncovered about 75 grams of marijuana hidden in the vehicle and that Kim also had marijuana in his system.

Kim was charged with possession of marijuana, resisting law enforcement and operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

Venezuela no longer U.S. ally in drug war

In a move likely to strain ties further with Hugo Chávez's government, the White House took Venezuela off its list of allies in the war on drugs.

BY STEVEN DUDLEY AND PABLO BACHELET
Miami Herald
pbachelet@herald.com

WASHINGTON - President Bush has taken Venezuela off his list of allies in the war on drugs, saying that the government of President Hugo Chávez spurned anti-drug cooperation with U.S. officials and fired its effective law enforcement officers.

But the White House waived the cuts in U.S. foreign aid usually attached to the ''decertification'' so that it can continue to support Venezuelan pro-democracy groups that oppose the leftist Chávez.

Bush's decision is expected to sharply exacerbate already bitter U.S.-Venezuelan relations roiled by Washington's charges that Chávez is promoting subversion around the hemisphere and the Venezuelan president's allegations that Bush is out to kill him.

The U.S. State Department's No. 3 official, Nicholas Burns, announced the Bush administration decision Thursday in New York City around the time Chávez was arriving there for a U.N. summit gathering. The only other nation decertified this year was Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

Accompanying Burns, U.S. drug czar John Walters said that in the past Venezuelan cooperation on drugs was ''quite successful and extensive'' but that now it seemed that Chávez ``no longer wants a productive relationship.''

Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel said of the annual certification process required by U.S. law, ``We reject it. . . . it's infantile.''


White House Press Release: Statement on President Authorizing Secretary of State to Transmit to Congress Annual Report Listing Major Illicit Drug-Producing and Drug-Transit Countries

The Great Prison Panty Rebellion of Alabama

I have a confession to make.
I do not wear panties.

As I understand it one in three other women follow this sort of lawless drawerless dress code as well.

I haven't worn them since my first pregnancy when my OBGYN informed me of the many good reasons for not doing so. I also find them uncomfortable.

My mother doesn't wear them either. She hasn't since I told her about all the things my OBGYN said years ago.

There.
It's out.

Now, I know some of you are saying,

"LORETTA!, I don't believe I'd'a told that. That is more than we ever wanted to know about our gubernatorial candidate or her mother. Explain yourself at once!"

Well, I never thought I would have to share that little tidbit with the public. I would have preferred to keep it to myself, truth be known, but what happened today as a result of this pantiless Alabama tribe was so beyond the pale that I have to share it with you.

If you have followed my career in drug policy reform you have likely heard the story of my brother, Randy. In brief, (in case you haven't heard it and don't have time to read the above referenced material) Randy is a career alcoholic. This has led him to become frequent a resident of the Alabama Department of Corruptions. All of his crimes are non-violent and they are all alcohol related.

He is serving time now on an alcohol related charge.

So today September 4, 2005 after many weeks of planning and schedule arranging, I drove my mother and my oldest brother (a disabled Airborne Ranger and combat veteran) to see Randy at Elmore Correctional Facility which is just outside of Montgomery.

Incidentally, it is also in the broadcasting area of "The Morning Show" which I often co-host with Roberta Franklin. I hear we are very popular at Elmore Correctional and other prisons within our listening area around the state. I was really looking forward to this visit not only for being able to see Randy but also to meet some of the people who listen to the show on a regular basis in person. Since it has just been revealed that Drug & Alcohol Convicts Can VOTE in Alabama! I wanted to do a little campaigning among people who would likely get very excited about the possibility of being released, having their records erased and so forth.

I considered from the outset of this trip that there might be trouble because of the show and my prison reform work but thought...."Nah...Surely not."

It had been a while since we were able to make the trip and Randy had been transferred from Limestone Correctional Facility since the last visit.

We drove down a winding country road surrounded by large vegetable gardens in various stages of harvest, cow pastures with lots of passive cows mooing softly and small rural homes.

Eventually we came to a sprawl of ugly, yellow, corrugated steel buildings, many covered with rust, surrounded by chain link fencing topped with concertina wire.
It was a really ugly blight on an otherwise beautiful landscape.

When we arrived there was nowhere clearly marked as "Visitor Parking". There was a dusty lot strewn with chunks of broken pavement and a lot of cars were parked in it, but I wanted to make certain that it wasn't an employee lot. Best not to run afoul of the guards if it can be avoided.

A guard, dressed in a policeman-style uniform bearing the Alabama D.O.C. logo, was standing outside the guard shack which consisted of a squat cinder block building painted an awful eye-hurting booger green color. It was surrounded on three sides by the same razor wire topped fencing as the rest of this miserable hole.

I rolled down my window and asked him if this was the proper lot to park in.

He looked at me like that was the most ludicrous question he had ever heard and gave me a dismissive wave of his hand.

I took that to mean, "yes this is the proper lot" and parked the car.

We weren't sure what we would be allowed to take in with us but left what we knew would be problematic (cell phones, keys) in the car. We go into the guard shack and present our I.D.'s to the guards behind the desk and they proceed to cross-reference us with information in their computer database.

The guard at the computer said, "Oh..so this is your first time visiting here...Randy will be glad to see you."

"Yes, and we will be glad to see him too. It's been a while."

There were two female guards in the shack conducting the visitor searches. One of them informed us that shorts were not allowed and of course my brother was wearing shorts. Knee-length khaki shorts, very respectable, if you know what I mean.

This was upsetting, as it was obvious they were not going to let him in and we had driven over two hours to get there. As I noted earlier, my brother is disabled and has lots of things that make it almost impossible for him to sit or stand for any extended period of time.

I asked if there was a Wal-Mart or something similar nearby that would be open on Sunday morning. Many businesses in Alabama still operate under "Blue Laws".

One of the guards told me there was one in Wetumpka, which was a good 18 miles away and that was the closest one. So, despite it being a real inconvenience to us we got back into our car and headed to find Wal-Mart.

As it turns out the nearest one was some seven miles closer and in a different town.

Getting proper clothing for my brother cost me $31.97 that I really did not have to spend. It was worth it to me though, because my brothers have always been very close and both were very excited about the day. Also, you just can't beat a good pair of overalls.

After that was done we head back to the prison and back into the guard shack. We were told to leave our purses, any tobacco products, lighters, paper money, hats and everything but our trunk key in the car.

While I went back out to place all of these items in the trunk my mother and brother were searched.

When I re-entered the building my brother was nowhere in sight and my mother was sitting on the couch looking upset. One of the female guards asked me "Are you with her?"

"Yes. She is my mother."

"Well, she can't go in and visit."

"What? Why?"

The guard looked at me with such disdain as in "How dare you question me CIVILIAN!" and said, "Because she isn't wearing panties."

As you can guess I was completely flabbergasted and decided after a second that I must have misunderstood what she said.

"I'm sorry...what did you say?"

"Because she isn't wearing panties."

I felt a fit of mad, cackling laughter coming over me at the absurdity of what was taking place. But I held it in and said,

"And why is that a problem? No one is going to be checking to see whether or not my mother is wearing panties while we are visiting my brother. She is wearing pants. (I could see this rule coming in to play if one were wearing a dress). What is the purpose of that rule?"

"It is just our rules. We don't owe you an explanation."

"I think you do because no rules are posted on your website about visits nor do you give inmates a set of rules to pass along to their families and looking around in here I see a bunch of rules posted but "Mandatory Panties" is not among them. This has never been a problem on previous visits to the Alabama Department of Corrections."

"Those are our rules."

My mom could tell I was about to lose my temper and so she said "It's okay (although she looked as though she were about to cry). You and John go ahead and I'll wait out here."

Then my mother looks at the prison guard and asks if it is okay to sit on the couch in the reception room while she waits for us. It was brutally hot outside but nice and cool in the shack.

"No. You are not allowed to be in here."

Mom to me, "Well I guess I'll just wait out here in the car till y'all are done."

Guard: "No you won't. In fact, you have to leave state property altogether. If you aren't visiting you must leave."

Now, my mother is a meek, sweet, tiny little Christian woman who has a mortal fear of driving in strange places. She will not drive in large cities, or on four lane highways if she can get out of it and having never been to this area of Alabama before today I wasn't about to allow them to send her off to get lost and add further frustration to this already unbelievable day.

I told them about my mother's fear of driving in strange places and a different female guard said she would direct her to a service station up the road.

I relented and the two of them left the building.

I stood around and waited to be searched. The pro-panty guard stood beside me but did not motion for me to enter the search room. After a few minutes the other guard came back in.

She looked at me and told me I was free to go on in and visit my brother. And I almost did. I almost walked through that door UNSEARCHED but then I thought that if they discovered I had not been searched after I had gotten through then they would search me (as in body cavity) as well as my brother and I did not want that to happen.

So I said, "You're sure I'm free to go on in?"

Both guards in unison, "Yes"

"But, I haven't been searched."

They both looked at each other and said, "I thought she searched you."

It reminded me of two little kids simultaneously pointing their finger at each other to avoid accepting responsibility and being disciplined when they know they have really fouled up.

"No. Neither of you have searched me."

They look at each other for a moment and one of them gestures for me to enter the search room. Unfortunately, this was the same pro-panty guard that searched my mother.

"First, take off your shoes and show me the bottom of your feet."

"Now, lift up your bra and shake it out."

"Now, show me the top of your panties."

Uh Oh! In all of the clamor about my mother not wearing drawers I had forgotten that I don't wear them either.

I begin to wonder if this day will ever end.

"It just dawned on me that I am not wearing any panties either."

"Look, my brother who is disabled and can hardly stand on his own and is without his cane because you wouldn't let him take it in, needs myself or my mother in there with him. He falls a lot."

"I am not going to go charging through the door announcing
"Hey Boys...I'm not wearing any panties" so no one is going to know aside from you. We have come a long way and I have already driven 25 additional miles and spent $30 that I didn't have to spend so that my brother would have proper attire. If I have to leave again then visiting time will be over by the time I get back. I haven't seen my brother in a long time and do not know when I will be able to make this trip again. Do the right thing and let us visit him."

She didn't even consider it.

"You'll have to leave state property."

I proceeded to the desk and asked the guard to return my license.
He looked up at me as said "So you aren't going to visit today?"

"No, but not because we didn't show up, but because you supposedly have rules in place that you neither post on the internet, nor distribute to inmates to pass along to family members nor do you have this particular one posted in your guard shack on the wall with all of the other rules. That leads me to believe that no such rule exists and I will be demanding a copy of the current rules and codes on Tuesday morning. If that rule isn't in there then you better hope you can convince the Commissioners office to print you an altered one real quick like or there is going to be serious trouble."

I really lost it at this point, but held onto my tongue until I was out the door. My mom was still outside with the other female guard because she had lost the car in the parking lot. You can imagine how she would have fared if she had gone driving away on strange roads.

I told her what happened in an extremely loud voice so that guards and prisoners alike could hear me.

"Mom it seems these people are unaware that we, the taxpayers, are the ones who pay their salaries. They also seem unaware that we, the taxpayers, are actually the owners of this property. It is unconscionable that our own employees should treat us in this manner especially considering that these female guards did not search me until I pointed out to them that they had not done so. I think I should dock their pay since I did their work."

"Since I am on the Prison Advisory Board and am a widely known critic of this system, I have a direct line to the prison commissioner and I will call him first thing Tuesday morning and when I am done someone's ass is going to be in a sling."

My mother was so overwhelmed at this point that she began to cry. I hate to see my mother cry.

I loaded her up in the car and we drove to friendlier territory where panties were not required.

We waited for an hour while mulling over all of the possible reasons why panties were such a big deal as long as one was wearing pants.

My mother pointed out that it couldn't be to prevent rape as the extra nano-second it would take some crazed rapist to rip off a thin piece of cotton would in no way benefit you or the guards.

Then she added;
"I should have told that guard to let me see her panties."

Then my dear, sweet, Christian, republican mother quipped up with this keeper;

"Oh Lord Loretta...they are going to think we are some sort of weird non-panty wearing lesbian cult."
(note to readers: neither my mother nor myself are anti-gay in any way. )

Hearing my soft-spoken, polite, mother say such a thing with such grim seriousness sent me into gales of laughter complete with snorts, tears and a stitch in my side.

When I regained control of myself we drove back to the prison to pick up my other brother.

On our way home he told us that no one checked to see if he had on underwear. His exact words were
"Hmm...well no one checked my drawers."

He said Randy cried when we were not allowed in. He also told me that one of the female guards called me by name indicating that she knew who I was. She never looked at my ID so I can only surmise that she knew who I was before the whole panty spectacle.

As I sit here a few hours later writing this my phone rings and it is my mother.

Apparently my brother called and told her what happened after we left. One of the guards said I cursed the female guards and was smart with him when I requested my license and that he was considering banning me from the prison.

Hell, that sounds alright to me.
If I'd known that a little rebellion was all it took to keep me out I would have shown up drawerless a long time before now.
Perhaps I could ask him to implement that ban statewide.

He also supposedly implied that if I say anything about what happened in the public realm, that being the Morning Show which I made arrangements to do before I left prison grounds, and this article which I am about to publish online for all the world to see that my brothers remaining time there will be very hard.

Apparently, even a little challenge to the suppossed authority of these power drunken fools is enough to expose them for the criminals that they really are underneath that uniform.
Threatening a captive who has no means of fighting back.
Seems to me that the people running a jail are the ones who need to be in it.


So, this will serve as my warning shot across the bow of the Alabama Department of Corruptions and in particular to the guards at Elmore Correctional Facility:

If you so much as harm one hair on my brother's head or make his hellish existence in your concentration camp any worse, you will be the sorriest bastards on earth because you will find yourself among those you have held captive for so long.

Won't that be fun?

So, dear readers and supporters, I hope that you will not think less of me now that you know about my aversion to drawers.
My attire is a personal choice that I never would have shared had it not suddenly become an issue for the Alabama State Prison Guards.
I'd also like to note that I would have been more than happy to follow their rules and don a pair of panties if the rules had been made accessible to me beforehand.

I also hope that you won't think less of me for my refusal to drive an additional 25 miles to get some in order to comply with a rule that I do not believe exists. I won't be treated like an inmate until I am one and until that time,

"I REFUSE TO GIVE THE STATE POWER OVER MY PANTIES!!!"

CONTRIBUTE

Yours in Liberty,
Loretta Nall
September 4, 2005

My friend Libby over at LastOneSpeaks has been chewing up the Alabama Department of Corruptions since she got wind of the panty snafu.

Today she posted the correspondence between herself and Brian Corbett who is the ALDOC spokesman and it follows.


Thursday, September 15, 2005

Fighting the prison system - Undie update

For those readers who are following this story, I've been corresponding regularly with Mr. Corbett of the Alabama Corrections Dept. Our correspondence is somewhat long but I'm going to post it all as an object lesson in bureaucracy. So we left off here. Corbett replied.

Ms. Spencer,

I am not sure which facility in Elmore that you are referring to, in that, ADOC operates five facilities in that county. Please Keep in mind, visitation at any prison is a privilege for both the visitor and the inmate, it is not a right.

Any Administrative Regulation or facility SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) that requires a visitor to wear underwear is necessitated for very common sense reasoning. Dress code for ADOC employees also mandates the wearing of underwear. Rules are prominently posted on signage at the facility entrance. Inmates are advised of visitation rules at orientation and expected to relay such information to their visitors. The visitor is oriented upon arrival at the facility.

I'd say based on the tone of your email that you have already committed the cardinal sin of journalism., "In order to understand this uncivil, inhumane and I believe possibly illegal conduct on the part of your officers." you have seemingly drawn conclusions, biased yourself by taking sides and created an agenda based story idea for yourself. Per ADOC regulations bloggers are not considered valid media outlets.

Despite this however, please refer to the following attachment. This regulation is dated and under review. However, it should provide a basis for visitation rules.

Regards, Brian Corbett

---------

The attachment is long, so I'm not posting it. Email me at cnall1@charter.net if you would like a copy, otherwise I referenced the pertinent parts in this reply.

Dear Mr. Corbett:

Thank you for your prompt response to my enquiry, although I'm afraid it doesn't address the specific questions I asked and I must take issue with your response.

To begin with, while we can agree that visitation is a priviledge extended to the inmate; the vistitors, by your own screening methods, are not criminals and as tax-paying citizens whose contributions fund the operation of your facilities, certainly have a right to visit their family members, unless and until some rule has been breached. Even your own guidebook makes only that distinction. "Visitation and most free world correspondence are privileges extended to inmates."

In the instant matter, the only persons breaching the rules, were your own officers. Again, I refer you to your own guidebook.

"For males: A Pat search is conducted – checking collars, sleeves, waist. Go down back with hand, Pat down pants legs, hems and check bandages. Shoes and socks are pulled off by visitors to be checked. Belts and all jewelry are checked."

"For females: Females are asked to pull out the bottom of their bra and shake it. If wigs are worn, they are asked to pull it off and it is checked. A Pat search is conducted – checking collars, sleeves, and waist. Go down back with hand. Pat down pants legs, hems, check bandages. Shoes and socks are pulled off by visitors to be checked. Belts and all jewelry are checked."

Nothing in this material defines specific attire that is forbidden and the procedure does not include checking panties. Indeed, since the main thrust behind the rules seems to be to prevent the importing of contraband, it would seem to me that common sense would dictate the lack of same is one less place for it to be secreted.

Your employee dress code is immaterial. They're also required to wear uniforms. So I repeat my request for an explanation as to why a visitor would be "required" to wear undergarments. I also see nothing in the rules that prohibits the wearing of shorts, yet I know of at least one case where a person was prohibited from entering the visitor's room for this reason.

I am told that no rules regarding such a dress code for visitors are visibly or prominently posted in any facility, nor have they been made available to the families in any other manner. Furthermore, no visitor recalls having been invited to an orientation.

It hardly seems sufficient to say you disseminated that information to an incoming inmate while he was being processed. One would expect that to be a rather traumatic moment in anyone's life and perhaps they may have all forgotten having received this rule. However, it does stretch credibility to believe that not one single inmate remembered to impart that information to visitors they earnestly want to see. So I repeat my request for some definitive proof that this "dress code" has been disseminated in a manner that would it make it reasonably available to those families.

I must tell you that I have received complaints from many people who were similarly mistreated at various facilities under the Commissioner's control but I am reluctant to be more specific because the guards have threatened repercussions to the inmates if any specific complaints are made.

I do however, have one family courageous enough to do so and is willing to file a formal complaint upon assurance that retribution will not be taken against their loved one.

I'm sure we can agree that if reducing recidivism and rehabilitating inmates in order to return them to productive society is still the goal of our corrections system, then facilitating family support should be a primary concern.

Thank you in advance for your continued attention to this matter.

-------------

Mr Corbett promptly answered,

Ms. Spencer,

I am afraid we must agree to disagree. In that, visitation is a privilege for the inmate it does not guarantee any visitor a specific "right". More so, that proposed visitor must understand that his or her visitation privileges are just that, a privilege. Therefore, they must obey ADOC rules during visitation, whether or not they agree with them. If they simply do not agree with ADOC rules of visitation, then of course they are free to leave without visiting. Family members to not have a right to visit, it is a privilege for both the inmate and the family member. Visitation may be suspended or canceled at anytime by ADOC. That being said, we do encourage visitation.

As sated in my previous response, the wearing of appropriate undergarments, including panties and bras is an ADOC standard operating procedure requirement. you may agree or disagree, like or dislike this requirement, however, it is an ADOC requirement for the privilege of visitation. Inmates are also required to wear appropriate undergarments and uniforms, just as our officers and support staff are. Why should such by immaterial? Its a very valid point. Why should inmate and staff have a requirement regarding appropriate dress but visitors should not? Yes, shorts are prohibited too.

My I ask were you the visitor in question? If not, how do you know the only persons breaching the rules were ADOC officers? Are you simply taking for fact the word of a visitor? Again, I must state that by the tone of your email you are breaching journalistic ethics by drawing inaccurate conclusions, which lead to bias and agenda driven story telling or "blogging". Blogging is certainly not an accepted journalist standard and is not recognized as valid media by ADOC.

What you have been told regarding the posting of visitation rules is inaccurate and/or false.

One of your readers sent a box of undergarments to the facility so that those who attempt to visit, yet are dressed inappropriately, might have something appropriate to wear and be allowed to visit. We certainly appreciate the donation. ;-)

Brian Corbett

---------------------

Needless to say this irritated me and I sent this.

I am assuming your sniping at my journalist credentials indicates you are unwilling to furnish me with the information requested. While I am not a card carrying member of the main stream press, I do have a legal background and would expect a more responsive answer even as an ordinary tax-paying citizen.

Merely asserting that you have made adequate efforts to facilitate visits without proof of same does not meet the standard for accountability of a publicly funded office.

While it's true I have not personally endured the reported behavior of your officers, I do have sworn affidavits from those who have, and plaintiffs willing to forward in this matter. One suspects a suit in which your agency is a named party may draw the attention of journalists whose credentials you may respect more.

This is a serious matter. I, or our legal representative, will be back in touch after I have consulted with counsel on our available legal remedies to address your refusal to furnish the requested documentation.

------------------------

And finally Mr Corbett replies,

Ms. Spencer,

I do not mean to snipe. However, I do take exception with your bias as a so called "journalist" since your first email mentioned the Detroit Free Press. I spent 17 years in the journalism field before coming to ADOC. I take bias, slander and other journalist ethics violations very seriously. I do enjoy the debate though. Still, ADOC will not continue to provide fuel for an opinion based "blog".

If you and or the visitors who are making these allegations are willing to file a lawsuit in this matter that is your right. However, visitation is not a right as stated. On those grounds alone I think you'd be wasting your time and money but that is up to you.

Because visitation is a privilege ADOC governs the rules thereof. One of the rules requires that visitors will be required to meet the following conditions: "Female visitors will not be permitted to enter the institution wearing shorts, halters and brief dresses. They will wear appropriate undergarments, including bras". This rule is in place for very common sense reasons, we do operate a prison system after all.

It is the visitors responsibility to make sure they are aware of all the rules and regulations regarding visitation before they attempt to enter. I agree this is a serious manner, therefore, your clients should obey the rules and wear underwear when trying to enter an ADOC prison facility as required.

Legal counsel should not be back in touch with me. Instead they should contact ADOC legal directly.

Respectfully,

Brian Corbett

-------------------------

You'll notice Mr. Judge of journalistic standards got the name of my newspaper wrong and is suddenly signing respectfully. And that's where it stands. I haven't answered and what happens next is up to Loretta as the injured party. I'd like to pursue it though, not just for her, but for all the family members who are mistreated by the system.

Borderline Crime

BC’s Prince of Pot faces extradition
Missoula Independent

While 4,000 people gathered in Caras Park Sept. 10 to support industrial hemp at Missoula’s Hempfest, worldwide Smoke Out America protests calling for an end to the U.S. drug war drew thousands more. One protest, at the U.S. Consulate in Vancouver, British Columbia, had special urgency and a special guest. Marc Emery, aka “the Prince of Pot” who founded the British Columbia Marijuana Party [BCMP] as well as Cannabis Culture magazine and Internet-based Pot TV, showed up to rally for his own cause.

At the request of the U.S. government, Emery and two of his employees—Greg Williams and Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek—were arrested July 29 by Canadian police on U.S. charges of conspiring to distribute marijuana and marijuana seeds and money laundering. The charges stem from Emery’s marijuana seed-selling business, Mark Emery Direct Seeds, reputedly the world’s largest marijuana seed business, which had been in business for nearly a decade. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, an 18-month investigation traced Emery’s seeds to busted growing operations in nine states, including Montana, and the charges seek to hold the defendants responsible for those plants. The process of extraditing the “B.C. Three” is underway and each of the three charges could carry penalties of 10 years to life in prison. While Emery and his lawyer, John Conroy, are hopeful they can fight extradition successfully, they’re also nervous because Canada and the United States have a long history of granting one another’s requests.

Still, many factors besides Emery’s alleged crimes feed into the issue—Canadian sovereignty and political persecution, to name two. Although selling seeds is technically illegal in Canada, the government there has deliberately ignored Emery’s business—and dozens of similar ones—for several years, Emery says. Since 1999 he’s paid $578,000 in income taxes openly generated by the seed business, Emery claims, and the Canadian health department even referred medical marijuana patients seeking seeds to his website.

“I’ve been selling seeds untouched for seven years, every day of my life,” says Emery, who’s out on bail. “Seeds have become so acceptable here, and the last time anyone was fined it was like a $500 fine in 2000.”

He says he was surprised to find that the charges came from the States. Emery hasn’t left his home country in eight years because he knows the DEA might arrest him overseas, but he figured he was safe in Canada.

Conroy says the fact that Canadian citizens may be harshly punished for something their own government chooses to ignore irks Canadians. A poll by the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail backs that claim, showing that a majority of Canadians oppose extraditing Emery, and their interviews reveal concerns about Canadian sovereignty as well as the disparity between how Canadians and Americans enforce and sentence marijuana crimes.

Conroy says the main argument in Emery’s favor is that the U.S. prosecution is politically motivated. Though DEA agents paint Emery as a greedy drug trafficker, Emery says he’s dedicated the last 15 years to the cause of marijuana legalization and has donated all business proceeds—$4 million—to the movement and its activists, both in Canada and the United States.

A statement issued by DEA Administrator Karen Tandy the day of Emery’s arrest goes a long way toward showing the true aims of U.S. prosecutors, Emery and Conroy say.

“Today’s DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement… Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on,” the statement reads.

“That’s revealing,” says Emery. “It mentions the movement in four places. The whole thing is about politics…There are dozens and dozens of seed distributors in Canada but I’m the only one who’s a political activist.”

Though the timing of Missoula’s Hempfest in relation to Smoke Out America was a coincidence, according to organizer John Masterson, the Caras Park appearance of U.S. Marijuana Party founder Loretta Nall was not. Nall, who’s worked with Emery, Cannabis Culture and Pot TV since 2002, spoke to the crowd about Emery’s case and collected more than $200 in donations for his legal defense.

Kirk Tousaw, the BCMP general counsel who’s coordinating Emery’s legal team, says the extradition process will likely take at least two years, and both the British Columbia Supreme Court and Justice Minister Irwin Cotler would have to approve the surrender of the B.C. Three.

Cotler could deny approval if he believes the crime’s potential punishments would “shock the conscience” or that the prosecution is politically motivated. In addition to the political persecution argument, Conroy will argue before the BC Supreme Court that the disparity between the countries’ sentences is shocking: “In the States it’s 10 to life without parole—up here it’s a fine…The maximum for production up here is seven years for any amount,” he says. “We got rid of a mandatory seven-year minimum for import/export because it was cruel and unusual.”

Tousaw says both Canadians and Americans should call upon Cotler to deny extradition. Emery’s first extradition hearing is Sept. 16.

“It is a unique situation in this sense: We’re talking about nonviolent, nonharmful people who have not set foot in the U.S., whose alleged activities were conducted in the open for political reasons, and who were not impeded in any way by the Canadian government,” Tousaw says.

jmcquillan@missoulanews.com

Women hail menstruation ruling

By Sushil Sharma
BBC News, Kathmandu

Women's rights activists in Nepal have hailed a Supreme Court order to end discrimination against women during their menstrual cycle.

There is a tradition in parts of Nepal of keeping women in cow-sheds during their period.

The practice is common in far western districts of the country.

The Supreme Court has ordered the government to declare the practice as evil and given it one month to begin stamping the practice out.

The court reached its decision on Wednesday.

'Not enough'

Women's rights activists say the court has upheld their right to equality.

Pushpa Bhusal, a leading lawyer, said it was a positive move in removing the traditional discrimination against women.

She warned however, that a change in the law alone would not be enough.

She said people needed to be educated against such a scourge of society.

Women in poor villages in much of western Nepal are forced to stay in dirty cow-sheds outside the home for four days during their monthly period.

They are often given unhygienic food and suffer verbal abuse.

Unisys gets pact to build federal inmate phone system

By Akweli Parker
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
philly.com, PA

Unisys Corp., Blue Bell, said today it has won the contract to build the next-generation federal inmate telephone system, potentially worth $96 million.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons awarded the job, which calls for Unisys to provide program management support, installation of hardware and maintenance at more than 110 federal prisons.

The contract has a three-year base period and three one-year options exercisable at the government's discretion.

Unisys said inmates would be able to make calls three ways: by direct debit from their prison commissary accounts, collect, or pre-paid collect.

Man Allegedly Pedals Away With Pot Plants

The Associated Press
Thursday, September 15, 2005; 9:22 AM

EUGENE, Ore. -- It was a terribly low-tech version of drug trafficking. Dwayne Earl Anthony Etzel was arrested on drug possession charges after a police officer caught sight of him pedaling on a bicycle with three uprooted marijuana plants under his arm.

Police spotted Etzel, 18, cycling in the early evening Monday with what they described as a "big smile" on his face. It was 5:40 p.m. and still light out.

"I see this guy riding up the street with what looked like a big old bush under his arm," said Eugene Narcotics Detective Scott Vinje. "It didn't click right away that it was marijuana. Then I smelled it."

He pulled up alongside the bicyclist, showed him a badge and ordered him to stop.

When police tried to stop him, Etzel allegedly threw the marijuana plants at the officer's car and pedaled off. After catching up with him, the officer used pepper spray to get the cyclist under control.

KBTV Rides Alongside Sheriff During Hardin County Drug Raid

KBTV4.tv, TX

Deputies launched a full scale war Wednesday on drug dealers and other criminals in Hardin County Wednesday. Hometown News reporter Rusty Surette and photojournalist John Jones followed the troops as they stormed into an on-going battle in our own backyards.

On a beautiful Wednesday morning, most people don’t want to start their day off in handcuffs to be hauled off to jail with your family in shock.

"Zero tolerance,” Hardin County Sheriff Ed Cain asserted. “We`re not going to tolerate drug dealing or possession in this county."

For this big bust, Hometown News was granted full access to the Hardin County Sheriff. From door-to-door, ever arrest is the result of a six-month, top secret investigation into Hardin County’s core criminals.

"The drugs involved are marijuana, methamphetamines, cocaine and prescription medicine illegally sold on the street,” Cain said.

The deputies were armed with 35 warrants for 25 men and women ranging from age 16 to 50. Some were away from home while some people, like the man pictured to the left, returned home at the wrong time.

"He just walked up and we arrested him,” Cain said. “But we`re not always that lucky."

And luck stayed on the side of the Sheriff and his deputies and Cain says if criminals continue to take a gamble in this county, their luck will soon run out.


"War","Troops","Battle". This kind of language is increasingly accepted in reference to police actions against American Citizens. This reflects the mindset of the government mercenaries who see their job as making war on the American people.

U.S. Constitution
Article 3, Section 3:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

My Grandmother is critically ill

I just got a dreaded call from my mother telling me that my grandmother is critically ill.

My grandmother raised my sister and me for many years of our childhood. She is a great woman.

She has suffered for untold years with crippling arthritis and has been bed ridden for about the last 8 of those years. I will be taking the day off to go and be with my family.

Please keep us in your thoughts.

Welcome NORML-TV to the Bloggerhood

I'd like to welcome NORMLTV to the wide world of blogging.


PORT TOWNSEND, WA - NORML, The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, announced today the NORML Video Blog, (http://normltv.blogspot.com/) a FREE online international public educational resource for their community to showcase medical, industrial and personal use of marijuana.


Check it out!

Police trainee accidentally killed by instructor

CNN

AUSTELL, Georgia (AP) -- A trainee at a state law enforcement academy was accidentally shot and killed by her instructor Tuesday during a classroom exercise, authorities said.

The police trainee was among about 30 students in the seventh week of a state-mandated 10-week training course at the North Central Georgia Law Enforcement Academy.

Pot TV News Report: Worldwide 'Emery' Protests - Vancouver, September 10th 2005

Loretta Nall on FreeTalkLive

Bump & Update: Last nights appearance on FreeTalkLive went very well. Ian and Manwich are very skilled talk show hosts. We should all try and get them on stations in our areas. In case you missed it you can listen to the show here.

Tonight at 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Eastern time I will be a guest on FreeTalkLive Radio discussing my recent Alabama Prison Guard Encounter.

FreeTalkLive is a pro-Liberty, anti-drug war talk show.

China to crack down on drug use in entertainment venues

BEIJING, Sept 14 (Xinhuanet) -- China's six Ministries and CPC departments recently announced the beginning of a three-month-long crackdown on illicit drug use in entertainment venues.

The Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Film, Radio and Television, the General Administration for Industry and Commerce and the National Narcotics Control Commission on Monday jointly issued a circular saying that an education and publicity campaign in places of entertainment nationwide will be launched from September to November.

"At least 90 percent of entertainment venues, such as hotels and bars, in drug-plagued cities should be made aware of new drugs," said the circular.

Owners of the entertainment venues who conduct drug business will be punished and a long-term system for combating narcotics will be established, according to the circular.

The circular also said citizens who voluntarily report the entertainment venues that do drug business would be awarded and noted that a "People's War on Drugs" should be initiated so as to combat the newly-emergent narcotics.

Recent years have seen a sharp rise in the use of new drugs, such as methamphetamines, Ecstasy and Ketamine, in entertainment venues. Enditem


Fred Reed just returned from China and reports that he was unable to locate any communists. This is good news. Capitalism has Communism on the run without a shot being fired, much less a bomb being dropped.
You will notice from the above-liked Xinhuanet article that the retreating Communists seem to be making a last stand in that last refuge of a scoundrel, the Drug War.

Marijuana: sold in drugstores in 2006

Dean Beeby
Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Health Canada's long-delayed plan to sell government-certified marijuana in drugstores appears to be back on track for early next year.

The pilot project would stock medicinal pot in some pharmacies for use by authorized patients, making Canada only the second country after The Netherlands to allow easier access through drugstores.

The Birmingham Free Press

I just noticed that The Birmingham Free Press has linked to The Great Prison Panty Rebellion in Alabama and so I thought I would reciprocate in kind as a way of saying thanks.

I am very happy to see this article getting coverage in Alabama.

Loretta Nall for Governor

This is a tad blurry but when printed it will be fine. Also, while I have secured the domain name I have not launched the site yet. It is slated to be up and running in two weeks.

Joliet woman's sex toy suit goes to trial

Joliet Herald News, IL

CHICAGO — The trial for a local woman's lawsuit against 14 police officers for allegedly capering about with her sex toys and modeling her lingerie during a drug raid on her home opened Monday in federal court in Chicago.

Attorneys made opening arguments and eight witnesses testified with the case scheduled to continue today.

Plaintiff Dorothy Campbell filed the lawsuit and accused the officers of conducting an unreasonable search and seizure at her then-Raymond Street home in February 2003. She also sought damages from two of the officers over allegations of obtaining a second search warrant under false pretenses to recover a tape of one of their colleagues apologizing for the initial raid.

Rehnquist's Drug Habit

The man in full.
By Jack Shafer
Friday, Sept. 9, 2005
slate.msn.com


As we usher the 16th chief justice of the United States to his celestial reward, let us remember him in full. He labored successfully to return power to the states, treated colleagues with warmth and respect, was said to be a gregarious boss, and, inspired by a judge's costume he saw in the performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, added four silly gold stripes to each sleeve of his judicial robe.

And for the nine years between 1972 and the end of 1981, William Rehnquist consumed great quantities of the potent sedative-hypnotic Placidyl. So great was Rehnquist's Placidyl habit, dependency, or addiction—depending on how you regard long-term drug use—that by the last quarter of 1981 he began slurring his speech in public, became tongue-tied while pronouncing long words, and sometimes had trouble finishing his thoughts.

Gun Show Owner, Patrons May File Civil Rights Suit

By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
September 12, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - VA - The owner of a gun show targeted by federal law enforcement for a half dozen undercover enforcement operations may join with some of his customers in filing a federal class action civil rights lawsuit against the agencies that participated in the operations.

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Richmond and Henrico police officers, acting under instructions from ATF agents, conducted "residence checks," going to certain gun buyers' homes to confirm their residence information. Records obtained through another FOIA request of the Henrico County Police Department support the allegation that some officers shared confidential information about gun buyers with their relatives and, possibly, with neighbors.

Marijuana parties

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pot bill shelved until after next election

CTV.ca
Canada

The Liberal government's controversial bill to decriminalize marijuana will be shelved until after the next election, CTV News has learned.

The contentious cannabis bill has been sitting in legislative limbo for more than two years.

While the Conservatives oppose the proposed marijuana legislation, the NDP and Bloc Quebecois support decriminalization but they want major amendments, including an amnesty.

"It's been estimated about 600,000 Canadians have a criminal record as a result of personal possession," says NDP MP Libby Davies.

The government now concedes the bill will likely be put off until after the next federal election.

Smoked Out

By Silja J.A. Talvi
AlterNet

The 'war on drugs' has evolved into a war on weed. Billions of dollars spent, tens of thousands incarcerated, and marijuana is still as popular as ever.

The Conscience Test

Personal morality in a time of change

CC Magazine offers perspective at a time when shit is going increasingly haywire.

Video Coverage of Gun Confiscation

Claire Wolfe provides video of the American Police State.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Pot activist rallies support

By AMY CARMICHAEL
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Canadian Press

Vancouver — Marc Emery took a quick hit from a joint as his fans smoked and screamed for his freedom in front of the U.S. consulate.

The self-proclaimed Prince of Pot, faces extradition for seed sales — a crime that isn't prosecuted in Canada — and up to life in prison if convicted by a U.S. court.

In the same breath, supporters gathered around him demanded sovereignty for Canada and the world-wide legalization of pot under a billowing cloud of smoke from spliffs being waved in the air.

People everywhere are outraged and scared it could happened to them, declared Mr. Emery, 47.

Cotler caught in a web of hemp

The U.S. 'persecution' of Marc Emery leaves the justice minister with few choices, most of them invidious

Peter McKnight
Vancouver Sun

Say what you will about Marc Emery, but in getting himself indicted on marijuana charges by a United States grand jury, the Prince of Pot might well achieve what he's failed to realize through decades of activism -- his life ambition of legalizing marijuana.

Senate Approves Anti-Meth Bill

CBS News

(AP) Sales of over-the-counter cold remedies used to make methamphetamine would be restricted under a measure approved by the Senate on Friday.

The bill would require stores to sell Sudafed, Nyquil and other medicines only from behind the pharmacy counter.

Those medicines contain the ingredient pseudoephedrine, which can be extracted to manufacture the highly addictive drug that has wreaked havoc in communities across the country.

"It will very substantially reduce the number of local labs that are out there because it throttles the ability of the cooks to get the pseudoephedrine that they need to make the methamphetamine," said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Consumers would have to show a photo ID, sign a log, and be limited to 7.5 grams, or about 250 30-milligram pills, in a 30-day period. Computer tracking would prevent customers from exceeding the limit at other stores, according to the bipartisan bill.

The Senate voted by unanimous consent to add the anti-meth measure to the massive Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill, which is expected to pass the Senate next week.

The same appropriations bill has already passed the House but without the anti-meth measure attached. Talent said he is hopeful the anti-meth measure will be included in the final version of the legislation that emerges from a conference committee.

The White House has not taken a public position on the Senate bill, a sore point with some lawmakers who have criticized Bush administration statements that marijuana still poses a larger drug problem.

Pot growers engage hunters in shootout

Payson Roundup, AZ

Bear hunters and at least three Mexican nationals overseeing a marijuana garden exchanged gunfire after the hunters accidentally stumbled upon the illegal pot fields.

Undercover Gila County Narcotics Task Force agents, who asked not to be identified, said the incident began about noon Friday, Sept. 2 with a 911 call from the hunters.

In interviews with the Queen Creek hunters, agents learned the four were scouting for bear southwest of Payson on the Cross F Ranch.

"One of (the hunters) was in Deer Creek canyon and came across some clothes, and plants that appeared to be marijuana," the GCNTF agent said. "Minutes later, he found himself face-to-face with one of the suspected growers he has identified as a Mexican national."

Not wanting a confrontation, the hunter backtracked, but not before several shots rang out.

"We think there were three to five shots, one hit in front of him and sprayed dirt on him," the GCNTF agent said.

The hunter told agents he quickly scurried out of the canyon to search for his friends.

Once reunited, the four hunters decided on a show of force and fired 20 to 25 shots in the direction the suspect had been seen, the agent said.

Robbers hit another pot clinic

Oakland Tribune, CA

HAYWARD — Law enforcement officials had been calling pot clubs "crime magnets" even before a break-in at an area medical marijuana clinic Friday morning.

In the three weeks since a man was fatally shot Aug. 19 by the owner of a medical marijuana club in San Leandro, the Sheriff's Department has been called to investigate a robbery and a burglary at two separate clubs this month.

Lt. Dale Amaral said the latest incident occurred around 12:40 a.m. Friday at the Garden of Eden cannabis club at 21227 Foothill Blvd. in an unincorporated community adjacent to Hayward.

Amaral said deputies responding to an alarm arrived at the club and found it had been broken into. A security camera inside captured images of two armed men, one standing guard at the door while the other used a handgun to smash the glass display case where marijuana was stored.

The two suspects made off with an undetermined amount of marijuana and a handgun that had been left inside the club, Amaral said.

"This is going to continue," Amaral said. "If they can't rob and shoot their way in, they're going to burglarize their way in. These various businesses have done a lot of things. But it's only so much you can do to harden these buildings. If they want to get in bad enough, they're going to get in."

Judge lets rave arrests stand

Flint Journal, MI

FLINT - A judge Thursday refused to dismiss charges against dozens of people arrested on charges of frequenting a drug house during a controversial raid on a Flint nightclub in March.

Flint District Judge Ramona M. Roberts said the arrests did not violate the free speech and free assembly rights of those who attended the rave party at Club What's Next and were not caught with illegal drugs.

The ruling was a setback for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents 93 people cited under a city ordinance.

The ACLU vowed to fight the cases all the way through the court system, if necessary.

"Unless this decision is reversed, the police will be able to arrest anyone in a licensed nightclub or any music concert whenever a stranger lights up a marijuana cigarette," said Ken Mogill, who leads a team of 10 ACLU attorneys working on the case.

The March 20 party at Club What's Next, 2511 W. Pasadena Ave., had been promoted for months on the Internet and drew people from southern Michigan and other states, police said.

Flint police and the Genesee County Sheriff's Department arrested 130 people after undercover officers and civilian operatives bought Ecstasy, LSD and a psychedelic mushroom inside the club, they said.

About 17 people, including the promoter, were arrested on felony drug charges. The other partygoers were arrested on misdemeanor drug possession charges or for frequenting a drug house, a maximum 90-day misdemeanor.

The 10th Annual Missoula Hempfest

Saturday, September 10th 2005, Noon-10:30pm at Caras Park in Missoula, Montana

I just got back from a FEMA Detainment Camp

Link from Crooks and Liars
First-hand account with pictures of camp in Oklahoma.

Is this true? The pictures look authentic.
Can you imagine this 80 year old man standing there with a basket of apples that he bought with his Social Security in hopes of being a good Christian and feeding some refugees only to have his offering refused and to be run off of church property because it has now become Federal property?
This is all really getting unbearable.

The Republican Harvest

Karen Kwiatkowski gets righteous on some neocons.
Here is the parable she references in her above-linked article:


Matthew 13

The Parable of the Weeds

24 Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.

26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

27 "The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'

28 " 'An enemy did this,' he replied. "The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'

29 "'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.

30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "

God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again

onion news


Different nationalities missing in Louisiana.

UK: 96 missing
Mexico: 90 missing, three dead
France: several dozen "untraced"
Poland: 22 missing
Canada: 9 missing
Spain: 6 untraced
Italy: at least 2 families out of contact
South Africa: 3 out of contact
New Zealand: 2 missing
Netherlands: 1 person out of contact
Australia: 1 missing
source: AFP news agency

Bush Video

Real Media file: here.
14.7 MB Music Video - War Pigs/Antichrist Superstar
Please copy and distribute. Our bandwidth probably won't go very far by itself.
The section with the "fire" motif was produced before the 2004 election and so is not a reflection of the "light a fire in the minds of men" quote in the inauguration speech but may have foreshadowed it.

First U.S. Army

Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré's outfit.

Google news search: Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore

Australian man found in prison after Hurricane Katrina

The World Today

ELEANOR HALL: More details are emerging this lunchtime about the situation facing the 30-year-old Australian man, Ashley MacDonald, who'd been missing since Hurricane Katrina struck and who was found alive this morning.

Mr McDonald was located in a Louisiana prison, where he was placed after being arrested just before the hurricane devastated the region.

Our correspondent Leigh Sales has just visited the prison and has spoken to authorities there, and she called in a short time ago with the latest information.

LEIGH SALES: We've got a lot more information, Eleanor, but there are still some holes in the story.

What happened was, Ashley McDonald was arrested for public drunkenness, and he was thrown in the equivalent of the local lock-up.

Unfortunately, this coincided with a major hurricane warning and Department of Corrections officials had to evacuate all of the prisoners held in the New Orleans area and put them in facilities that were going to be safe.

So, Ashley McDonald was caught in that evacuation and then he was taken to the Elaine Hunt Correctional Centre, which is where he's been for about the past week.

Now, the problem is that once he was caught up in that dragnet, he was stuck with everyone from people arrested for public drunkenness, to people arrested for rapes and murders. They all had to be evacuated and they all have to be still processed, and that's the situation that he's currently in.

ELEANOR HALL: Wasn't he allowed a phone call at any point though, to inform his family?

LEIGH SALES: Well, 7,000 prisoners had to be evacuated out of New Orleans and put into facilities, and it's been a security nightmare for the Department of Corrections, who I've just been talking to, because as you can imagine, a lot of prisoners in this situation try to take advantage, and so a lot prisoners have been saying, "Look, I was just picked up for public drunkenness, or I was just picked up for J-walking and you should let me go."

And the Department of Corrections doesn’t have adequate records on the charges these people were facing, or even on their identities, because a lot of that material was swept away in the floods.

Pot grower changes plea to guilty

Hamilton Ravalli Republic, MT

In a plea agreement, Hamilton pot grower Tom Lanrose changed his plea to guilty for two of six felonies and received a recommended 20-year suspended sentence.

Tom and Karen Lanrose were arrested in March on drug charges after police officers searched their home and confiscated almost five pounds of marijuana, as well as evidence of a much larger growing operation. Officers discovered growing rooms in underground bunkers connected by a tunnel.

Both were charged with criminal production or manufacture of dangerous drugs, operation of a clandestine laboratory, criminal possession of precursors to dangerous drugs, criminal possession of dangerous drugs with the intent to distribute, criminal possession of dangerous drugs, and use of property subject to criminal forfeiture, all felonies and possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor.

The plea agreement dropped all but two felony charges - criminal production or manufacture of dangerous drugs and use of property subject to criminal forfeiture.

If District Court Judge Jeffrey Langton accepts the plea agreement, Lanrose would be sentenced to 10 years for each charge with all time suspended, except for time served, and would be required to make a $5,000 contribution to the Ravalli County Drug Fund.

Standing before Langton, Lanrose started to explain his actions.

"I grew medical marijuana - a small number of plants - in my garage," he said.

Langton wanted to know if he was licensed to grow medical marijuana.

"I got in a helicopter crash and my back was hurting," Lanrose explained. "I put the cart before the horse and did not have the doctor's permission to grow medical marijuana for back pain."


This man was growing Marijuana Plants and the best our prosecutors can do is to charge him with six felonies and then drop four of them in the plea bargain? How can we hope to keep our children safe from these filthy disease-ridden Communist sodomites when our own prosecutors lack the backbone to impose real penalties?

Mexican man gets prison term in marijuana, assault case

TUCSON, Ariz. - A Mexican man has been sentenced to seven and a-quarter years in prison for ramming a federal law enforcement officer's car with nearly 650 pounds of marijuana in his truck.
Twenty-one-year-old Jesus Manuel Ochoa-Estrada of Cananea, Sonora, was sentenced yesterday.

Prosecutors say Ochoa-Estrada was fleeing from federal agents toward Mexico in February 2004 when he rammed the car of a U-S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

He then led officers from three agencies on a 15-mile chase between Bisbee and Mexico.

Ochoa-Estrada was caught after abandoning his truck loaded with pot.

He was convicted of assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon, possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute and depredation against property.


Steve Earle - Copperhead Road MP3

Earle performs at Camp Casey. Video from Crawford.

Police frown on pot as chicken feed

ANSA, Italy

Farmer arrested for growing illegal crop

(ANSA) - Pesaro, September 7 - Hay may be for horses but grass is not for chickens, a local farmer here discovered after he was arrested for growing marijuana .

The 68-year-old farmer failed to convince police that his marijuana crop was used as chicken feed and that his family had always fed pot to their chickens .

Because he had no criminal record police did not take the farmer into custody, although he will have to appear in court for cultivating a controlled substance, but they did take away his 11, two-meter-high marijuana bushes and over ten kilos of dried leaves .

Pot Use Down Where Medical Use OK

Study shows a sharp decline in teens smoking marijuana in states, including California, where the drug is legal for medicinal purposes.
By Eric Bailey
LA Times

September 7, 2005

SACRAMENTO — Bucking dire predictions by anti-drug warriors, the 10 states that approved medical marijuana laws over the last decade have experienced sharp declines in cannabis use among teenagers, according to a new study by a marijuana advocacy group.

California has seen usage among ninth-graders drop 47% since 1996, the year the state became the nation's first to legalize medical marijuana. Over the same period, the nation as a whole experienced a 43% decline among eighth-graders.

The study, released today, is based on data from national and state surveys, which show a drop in marijuana use by teens.

Although debate over medical marijuana is often shaded by concerns about increasing drug abuse among young people, the report suggested the opposite has been true.

The study's authors were Mitch Earleywine, a State University of New York psychology professor, and Karen O'Keefe, a legislative analyst with Marijuana Policy Project, the organization that commissioned the research based on state and federal data.

That data "strongly suggests" that approval of medical marijuana has not increased recreational use of cannabis among adolescents, Earleywine and O'Keefe concluded. And the decline in many of the states with medical marijuana laws is "slightly more favorable" than trends nationwide, they said.

California, Washington and Colorado have all experienced greater drops in marijuana usage than have occurred nationwide. Only three states with medical marijuana laws — Maine, Oregon and Nevada — have lagged behind the national drop in teen marijuana use, the report said.

"If medical marijuana laws send the wrong message to children," the authors said, widespread attention to the debate "would be expected to produce a nationwide increase in marijuana use, the largest increase in those states enacting medical marijuana laws. But just the opposite has occurred."

Tom Riley, of the president's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the drop in teen drug use across the nation is attributable to the federal anti-drug advertising campaign in recent years, including $125 million spent during the federal fiscal year that ends Oct. 1.

Medical marijuana has only clouded that pitch, he said.

"It's foolish to give kids a message that marijuana can be helpful to them," Riley said, adding that all Americans "should be glad that teen drug use is going down. If the drug legalizers are recognizing that, too, I think that says something."

But the researchers sketched a different hypothesis: that medical marijuana shifted the perception among some teens about pot.

"Perhaps medical marijuana laws send a very different message," they wrote. Teens may increasingly consider pot "a treatment for serious illness, not a toy, and requires cautious and careful handling."

The most extensive available data was in California, where a survey of about 6,000 students every two years showed that pot use among teens was climbing before passage of the 1996 medical marijuana law. For all grades, marijuana use dropped significantly between early 1996 and 2004, with the biggest downward shift among ninth-graders.

Between 1996 and 2004, the number of high school freshmen in the state who reported using pot in the last 30 days dropped 47%, while the number of freshmen who had tried cannabis at least once dropped 35%.

Dutch seize tons of cocaine in Rotterdam

Associated Press

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Authorities seized 5 tons of cocaine hidden in reels of steel cable in the Port of Rotterdam last month in what prosecutors described Monday as one of the country's biggest drug busts.

The seizure was the largest in the Netherlands in terms of value, with an estimated street worth of $275 million.

Eleven men and two women of six nationalities were arrested after the seizure on Aug. 3 - most of them last weekend. A 45-year-old Colombian suspect died after falling from an apartment window in Amsterdam, prosecutors said in a statement.

Prosecutors said the man died while trying to escape during a police raid, but national investigators have launched an independent inquiry into his death.

The seizure was kept secret while the arrests were prepared. Police in Spain and Belgium have made an undisclosed number of additional arrests in the case, Dutch prosecutors said.

The 13 suspects were from the Netherlands, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Greece and the United States, and their ages ranged from 15 to 50, prosecutors said.

Additional arrests were possible, they said.

The cocaine was concealed within reels of steel cable 12 feet high and 6 feet wide.

The drugs were divided between two shipping containers recorded as having been sent from Venezuela and bound for Iraq via Belgium. The cocaine was unloaded in Rotterdam.

Viagra health warning follows theft

Daily Mail - UK

Thieves broke into a doctor's surgery and stole 3,000 Viagra tablets worth almost £16,000, police have said.

Greater Manchester Police have issued a warning to members of the public about taking Viagra without a doctor's advice. A police spokeswoman said: "Detectives in the area would like to warn the public of the dangers associated with the drug, particularly for anyone who may suffer from heart conditions.

"Any such medication should only be taken as prescribed by a doctor and can be dangerous when taken in conjunction with any other medication.

Anti-gang effort logs 1,260 arrests

By Jerry Seper
The Washington Times
Published September 7, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A federal law-enforcement initiative aimed at dismantling street gangs and their operations nationwide has accounted for the arrests of more than 1,260 suspected gang members in the past six months, including more than 600 members of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman Michael E. Keegan said the arrests are part of a continuing enforcement initiative known as "Operation Community Shield," which began in March in an effort to confront the national problem of violent street gangs.

Prisoner gets away in appropriate car

Edmonton Sun, Canada

A prisoner serving a life sentence in Edmonton escaped custody while visiting a sick relative in Winnipeg on Saturday.

The convict's choice of getaway car: a Ford Escape.

Robert Gray, 36, was serving life for manslaughter and was under armed escort in Winnipeg when he escaped custody shortly before 11:30 a.m.

He was last seen driving a 2005 Ford Escape. The vehicle has since been recovered but Gray remains at large. He is wanted in both Alberta and Manitoba.

Anyone with information about Gray's whereabouts is asked to call Winnipeg police at 204-986-6222.

A Long Walk To Freedom

Dear Supporters, Reformers, True American Patriots and Friends,

First, I want to thank each and every one of you who came to my aid a few months ago after the U.S. D.E.A. persuaded Canadian authorities to arrest my close friend and employer Marc Emery.

Marc Emery's arrest was political as D.E.A. administrator Karen Tandy pointed out. Their main intent was to stop the drug policy reform movement from engaging in lawful political activity by removing one of our largest financial funders and thereby (whether planned or not) almost stopping me from launching my campaign for Governor of Alabama by making sure I had no income.

Marc's arrest threw many families into financial crisis, which is another part of what the U.S. Government wanted. They detest self-sufficiency and independence in all forms and strive to make each and every one of us completely dependent upon them. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we have all been witness to what happens when people are dependent on the federal government for the basic necessities of life.

One story that confirms this claim is that of a young, black male who commandeered a school bus in New Orleans, loaded it with women and young children and drove it to the Astrodome in Houston, TX. For taking matters into his own hands and possibly saving the lives of 20+ people he was branded a RENEGADE and prosecutors are considering charging him with stealing the bus.

With your generous contributions to my family we have made it through the last two months without gov'ment assistance or resorting other undesirable but acceptable means for survival. I was even able to keep prior commitments in Washington D.C., Seattle, WA, Missoula, Montana and Birmingham, AL.

From the bottom of my heart THANK YOU for helping me show the D.E.A. that the drug policy reform movement is SOLID in the U.S. and that we are a family who will come to the aid of our fellow reformers when called upon to do so. It is a lesson they needed to learn.
I hope that you feel I have earned your contributions and put them to good use.

Now, I have to humble myself once more and ask for your assistance. This time it is for something a little different but with the potential for far greater impact.

Since late 2002 I have worked closely with the Libertarian Party of Alabama on a variety of issues ranging from ballot access reform to medical marijuana. They have seen my dedication and unshakable commitment to changing the drug laws in Alabama, which are some of the harshest in the nation, my fearless tenacity and (let's be honest here) my DOWNRIGHT LOVE of challenging high-level government officials and they have developed both respect for me and confidence in me.

In February of 2005 I was given the tentative nomination to run for Governor of Alabama on the Libertarian Party ticket in the 2006 election.

On September 29, 2005 I formally announced my candidacy. The announcement was promptly picked up by the two most conservative media outlets in the state and has continued to pop up in various places around Alabama and across the U.S.

On October 4, 2005 I appeared in Tallapoosa County Circuit Court to continue the appeals process in my case. And on October 5, 2005 my hometown newspaper The Alexander City Outlook published an article on my case and my run for Governor of Alabama. Also on October 4, NBC 13 one of the largest news stations in Alabama included me in an online poll for Governor. I was added one day after the poll went up on their website and I have done very well for someone who had to overcome a 24 hour delay.

Now it is time to start this campaign in earnest.

Originally, I had planned to campaign like every other candidate in Alabama by burning up fuel driving all over the state to meetings and events. However, I have decided that is not the way to go.

I have decided instead to embark on a walk across this great and beautiful state.
Walking across the great state of Alabama shows hard work, patience, perseverance and commitment to my great home state and its people.

I will meet people in towns and cities, arrange speaking engagements and radio interviews, and speak to any and all about the crucial issues of drug policy and prison reform, States Rights, the need to refuse to comply with the Patriot ACT and REAL ID, the need for ballot access reform and initiative and referendum for the citizens of Alabama who have almost ZERO power in their government and the need to pull Alabama National Guard troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Walking will make me directly accessible to the voters of this state. It will give me the opportunity to introduce the concept of bio-diesel, which can be produced right here in Alabama, thereby bringing new industry, jobs and freedom from Washington D.C.'s oil addiction which has been paid for with the lives of young Alabamians.

Walking will show me as someone willing to sacrifice during hard times which is not something Alabamians are accustomed to seeing their elected officials do.

Walking will allow me to further thwart the D.E.A.'s ILLEGAL ATTEMPT to silence my political dissent. They have not yet taken my feet. They may likely try at some point, but we shall cross that bridge (on foot) if or when we come to it.

It will send the message to my fellow Alabamians and, hopefully to my fellow Americans, that there is always a way to fight back and that the time to do so IS NOW!

Walking will get my message of drug policy and prison reform out to many more people than the traditional ways alone. These are controversial topics that pique people's curiosity. Generally, folks will offer an opinion on either or both when asked and being able to engage in dialogue with a gubernatorial candidate, whether you agree or disagree with their stance leaves an impression. My platform and ideas will be a topic of conversation around the dinner table, which has always been and remains the best way to spread information in Alabama. None of the other candidates will be talking about the issues or offering the solutions to them that I will be and I believe that is an advantage all by itself.

I want to move on to why I believe that now is a very pivotal and critical time to seek elected office in Alabama.

Let's start with the other potential candidates.

Incumbent Republican Governor Bob Riley is best known and will likely be best remembered for his "biblically inspired" $1.2 billion tax increase proposal. Perhaps we'll also remember Gov. Riley for his complete unwillingness to ease prison overcrowding in Alabama, which is some of the worst in the nation.

I hear the Republican Party in Alabama is not too happy with Governor Riley these days which brings us to our next possible opponent Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore.
Roy Moore, former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court ,is best known for turning the Ten Commandments into a 2 1/2 ton graven image and (illegally and under the cover of darkness) placing it in the State Judicial Building so his misguided followers could worship it, thereby disobeying, in highest fashion, The Second Commandment as well as the FIRST AMENDMENT. I guess maybe he never bothered to read either, which makes me wonder why he and so many others think he is qualified to lead a state.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, he has a lot of support in Alabama. Likely enough to get him the Republican nomination in next June's primary. Moore formally announced his candidacy on October 3, 2005.

Let's move on to the potential Democratic Party challengers.

Before Governor Riley took office we had Governor Don Siegelman. The 2002 election was so close that Gov. Siegelman demanded a recount. He lost in the recount but has recently announced that he will seek re-election again in 2006.

In that same 2002 election Democrat Lucy Baxley was elected Lieutenant Governor of Alabama.
Her career in the public sector has included positions in city government, the offices of Probate Judge and District Attorney in the Houston County Courthouse before spending six years in state government in the offices of the Attorney General and the Department of Transportation.

And then, of course, there is me and I am neither Republican nor Democrat.

Since I am not religious (but fully respect others right to be as religious as they like so long as they don't try and mix it with my politics) I won't have to waste my time trying to out-Jesus the Republicans and, since I am not a Democrat, I won't have to waste my time trying to figure out how to create more government programs with other people's money which will leave me plenty of time to talk about the real problems we face in Alabama.

Ideally, I would like to see Roy Moore and Don Siegelman as my opponents because we all three have criminal records and they won't be able to play that particular card against me.

With the Roy Moore candidacy in the upcoming election the national and international media will undoubtedly have a field day at the expense of the Good Citizens of Alabama. Why just today Former Gov. Siegelman said "Kiss My Ass & Women Suck" while Roy Moore was photographed autographing bibles! Without my voice of reason in this election Alabamians will once again likely be portrayed as ignorant, racist, bible-thumping, inbred, toothless, snake-handling, tobacco-chewing, beer-swilling rednecks. I'm right sick of that image myself and changing it is almost as important to me as running in this election.

As you can see, the 2006 Alabama election is shaping up to be a real doosie and, this being Alabama, anything can happen.

I intend to be there when it does.

I intend to be there to properly represent the hard-working, regular citizens who sacrifice way more than they should have to in order to get by.

I intend to be there to speak for those who have had their voice silenced behind prison walls.

I intend to be there for the little guy who is afraid to exercise his right to speak out against injustice for fear of losing everything that is dear to him.

I intend to be there to tell the Federal Government to go straight to hell and that Alabama can and will take care of her own.

I intend to be there.

In this election I win even if I don't actually win office. These imperative issues and their possible solutions will at least be in the spotlight and Alabamians will be exposed to new information about what the drug war really is, how it was designed to fail and the immeasurable destruction it has wreaked on our society. Once they know the truth about the drug war I firmly believe that my fellow Alabamians will do their part to stop it in this state.

You are likely wondering by now what the rest of my platform is.

Originally, when I became involved in drug policy reform and politics, I focused on a single issue.
Any of you that have been involved in the political arena know that one-issue candidates never get very far.
I want to go far and I have expanded my platform to include other issues that are important to my fellow Alabamians and to me.

* Drug Policy and Prison Reform - Possession and cultivation of marijuana for personal use will be legal under state law for adults age 18 and over. Sales will be through state licensed outlets much like those that now sell liquor. Taxes collected from the sale will go to fund treatment on demand for hard drug addicts and for a rational, realistic, scientific-based program like Safety 1st that teaches Alabama's youth why they should avoid drugs but also how to safely avoid danger should they decide to ignore our advice.
As adults and parents it is our job to help our youth make the proper decisions and to keep them safe. Abstinence only policies are unrealistic and amount to nothing more than burying ones head in the sand while our kids die or get hauled off into the black, gaping maw of the American gulag.

All non-violent drug offenders will be granted amnesty and their records will be expunged. I will also be granting amnesty to inmates convicted of other "victimless crimes" such as prostitution.

Any voluntary exchange between two consenting adult that doesn't involve fraud has no business clogging up our courts and prisons. Making all taxpayers foot the bill for the imprisonment of a person who has not wronged all of us punishes all taxpayers.

* Refusal to comply with the Patriot ACT and REAL I.D. - Someone has to have the courage to stand up to the Federal Government and I volunteer for that position.

* No gun control laws - No criminal walks into a gun store to get his or her gun. Therefore the only citizens gun control laws affect are law abiding ones who have to wait 15 days. The US Constitution and the Alabama Constitution give us the right to bear arms in defense of the state and ourselves. Nowhere in Constitution does it state that citizens can only possess certain kinds of guns. If it did we private citizens would surely have been regulated to BB guns while the government and dangerous criminals would have all the good ones and that would effectively nullify the 2nd Amendment.

*States Rights. Washington D.C. OUT of Alabama - A lot of folks shudder when I say those words. Granted they invoke negative images in the eyes of many in Alabama and around the world. But, States Rights are some of the most important rights we have to prevent Federal government intrusion into our lives. Alabamians historically resent being told by the gov'ment how to act and what to do. Apparently a lot of Alabamians have forgotten that and I intend to remind them.

*Check Box Governing System - This will consist of listing all of the state programs that taxpayer money funds, placing a Yes and No box beside each item and allowing the taxpayer to decide whether or not they would like their money spent on said program.

*Alabama Out of Iraq - I will call for the Alabama National Guard troops home and loudly and vocally support the pullout of all remaining U.S. troops from the Middle East. The Iraq War is illegal, for profit and has succeeded only in making America less safe than ever before. The State Militia or National Guard if you prefer was never intended to fight on foreign soil but to protect the state from invasion.

*Choices in Education - Public schools across America are run by the federal government. Boy Howdy was that ever a bad idea! I travel all across this country and talk to high school kids who tell me that the police should make them pee in a cup and have a vicious man-eating dog sniff their private parts and property more often than they already do in order to keep drugs out of school.

Let's face it. Our children are indoctrinated and brainwashed from the moment they set foot in a public school. 33% of them think the First Amendment gives us too much freedom.
I find that most alarming and will not tolerate statist indoctrination in Alabama's Public School System.

Parents must have more choices in how their children are educated.

*Ballot Access Reform - Alabama has the most restrictive ballot access laws in the country. Third party and Independent candidates are required to get 41,000 registered voter signatures before their name is placed on the ballot. Republicans and Democrats are only required to gather 500. This effectively stifles new people with new ideas from ever reaching the voters and firmly secures a two-party system for the Republicans and Democrats who are deathly afraid of people like me. I believe that anyone who has the courage to stand publicly for what they believe in, that has the courage to place themselves under the microscope of public scrutiny should have unrestricted ballot access.

*Ballot Initiative and Referendum - In Alabama the Legislature is in complete control. In order to get a new law passed one must find someone to draft the proposal and find someone to introduce it to the Legislature. The Legislature then votes. If the legislature votes no then the process must be started all over again. If the legislature votes yes then the bill is passed on to the Senate to go through the same process. If the Senate votes no the process starts all over again. If the Senate votes yes then the bill is passed on to the Governor who has the power to veto it.
Alabama citizens need ballot initiative and referendum in order to wrest control back from the legislature who are nothing more than a bunch of highly paid lobbyists who care nothing for the citizens they supposedly represent.


Now, back to the walk across Alabama.
I need the following in order to get started on this walk and make this campaign a success.

1. A sturdy, durable, weatherproof backpack. I would prefer this be made from hemp and be capable of carrying a laptop.

2. A tent for nights when I am not near a hotel or do not have an Alabama family to take me in for the evening. I hope to spend most of my nights in the homes of my fellow Alabamians.

3. Money - Aside from regular campaign expenses I will need a high-pitched dog whistle (I am deathly afraid of large dogs and Alabamians are rather fond of them but not real big on fences and leashes) a stun-gun and pepper spray on the offhand chance I run into bad business along the highways. I will be walking alone until others decide to join me.

I need money for a pair of really good walking shoes, for food and water, campaign and drug policy reform literature to distribute, yard signs, money to pay signature gatherers, for upkeep on the website and probably a thousand other things I have not thought of because I have never endeavored to do this before.

4. Products from hemp-based businesses to sell along the way. If you have a business that deals in hemp clothing, body care items, paper or other hemp-based products please consider donating some to my campaign so that I can use them to raise money and be self-supporting to the best of my ability.

This is a grass roots campaign and I have tried to make it as inexpensive as possible by planning to walk instead of drive, by planning to stay with Alabama families instead of in expensive hotels and by doing the things that make the media focus on me out of interest in what I am doing as opposed to purchasing expensive campaign advertising.

I need the help of ALL DRUG POLICY REFORMERS in the U.S. to make this a success.

With the national and international spotlight focused on the Alabama election this is OUR OPPORTUNITY AS REFORMERS to show the Federal Government that we are an ORGANIZED POLITICAL MACHINE and that from here on out we will be A BIG PART OF THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE AND WE WILL RUN CANDIDATES FOR OFFICE AND WE WILL BE HEARD!!

I need the help of ALL AMERICANS who believe that the drug war is wrong, that prisons need reform, that American citizens should be able to speak freely against laws they disagree with without fear of retaliation from police and the government.

I need the help of ALL AMERICANS who believe that the war in Iraq is illegal and that our troops should be brought home.

I need the help of ALL AMERICANS who believe the federal government is out of touch with the people of this great country and they are leading us straight to proverbial hell.

I need the help of ALL AMERICANS who believe in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights as they are written.

I need the help of ALL AMERICANS who understand what it truly means to be a patriot.

If you are an AMERICAN PLEASE help me in this historic undertaking by making a contribution to my campaign. Please visit the Nall for Governor site and click on the "Contributions" link on the left.
It is a secure page.

You can also make a contribution by clicking HERE.

If you would rather mail your contribution please make checks and money orders payable to Nall for Governor and mail it to:

Nall for Governor Campaign
4633 Pearson Chapel Rd
Alexander City, AL 35010

I have stepped up to the plate to speak for those of us who desire change in our government.

I have stepped up to the plate to take on Goliath for those of us who are too small, poor, weak or otherwise unable to do so for ourselves.

I have stepped up to the plate to challenge unconstitutional laws that make our society more dangerous and less free.

I have been to jail for stepping up to the plate.

I have been and am still embroiled in a legal battle for stepping up to the plate.

I have been harassed by the F.B.I., the D.E.A., the National Guard, local police and U.S. Customs for stepping up to the plate.

I have had government-sanctioned kidnappers try and steal my precious children for stepping up to the plate.

And now, having firmly established myself as someone who will not be intimidated or silenced, I am once again stepping up to the plate in the grandest fashion by running for Governor of Alabama.

I am calling on My Fellow Americans and Drug Policy Reformers to step up to the plate now. Together we will firmly establish our territory in the American Political Landscape.

Here's to Freedom!

Yours in Liberty,
Loretta Nall
Alabama Gubernatorial Candidate 2006
Nall For Governor

Around the bloggerhood

My friend and colleague in drug policy reform Dr. Tom O'Connell has launched a new blog that is definitely worth checking out.

This new blog by an MD; it's focused mainly on the surprising implications of what he's learned (and the government doesn't know) about pot use. It's based on a study of those hoping to be designated as "medical" in accordance with California's much misunderstood law.

Check it out!

Privatize the Levees and the Public Sector

by Michael S. Rozeff
LewRockwell.com

Freedom means untrammeled choice and association in all matters, great and small, that do not harm others. It means a child can run a lemonade stand without being forced to be licensed, inspected, having wages withheld, paying a helper the minimum wage, meeting safety standards, labeling the lemonade contents, or being open only certain hours.

Oppression means every baby having to have a Social Security number, being herded into a convention center or stadium, kept there and left to die, and being severely beaten for no good reason by a brutal customs agent.

Robert Davis, USA TODAY

Reporter's notebook: Treating those left behind

First-Hand Account of Heroism

"As we walk in a line towards the center, a remarkable thing happens. Seeing the blue EMS shirts, people start to cheer.

The guards may have been wearing bulletproof vests but the paramedics found what they usually find in volatile situations: Once people realize that you're here to help, they don't mess with you. Even the most violent thugs have seen their friends helped by paramedics."

Homeland Security Press Release

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010
September 3, 2005


What does it say?

It looks like Bush has ordered his staff to all present ideas on how their various departments can respond to the hurricane.
Look at the press release to see the list of agencies under the Executive Branch and their various responses.

Here are a couple of examples:

DEA to control emergency prescriptions.
"DEA is coordinating with Texas and Arkansas Pharmacy Boards to provide assistance with emergency prescription refill procedures due to requests that have started to come from Louisiana residents".


Off-Road Diesel Street-Legal Until September 15th! Now here is a really great idea.

Treasury Department: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that "dyed diesel fuel" is now permitted for road use. Dyed diesel fuel ordinarily is not subject to federal excise taxes because it is intended for off-road use in farm equipment or in certain government vehicles such as school buses. The fuel is dyed to distinguish it from diesel fuel intended for road use. The relief will remain in effect through September 15, 2005.

The Feds are going to relax their stranglehold on diesel for 11 days.

The Ugly Truth About Drugs

Libby over at LastOneSpeaks has a great article on The ugly truth about drugs.

Can you say BINGO?!?!


Thanks to Paul von Hartmann for passing on the link to this fabulous article from the health website News Target. Mike Adams nails the drug policy myths in this lengthy piece. Here's a few of the money grafs.

Fact is, we are a nation of drug addicts. We drug ourselves, our elderly and our children on a daily basis. We do it with prescription medications, over-the-counter pills, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine... and we say it's all fine because those drugs are legal.

What medical symptoms does Ritalin treat, then? What measurable physiological state is addressed with Ritalin? There are none, of course. Ritalin is an authority drug. It keeps children in line. It makes teachers feel less stress and parents feel less guilt. Ritalin is a mind-altering narcotic, and yet millions of children are on it today. Its purpose is not to help children, but to make life more convenient for those who manage children.

Here's the raw, blunt truth about the war on drugs. Drugs are declared legal or illegal based primarily on who benefits from their manufacture, distribution and sale.

Think about it: if prescription drugs were peddled by street dealers instead of doctors, and if all that revenue changed hands in a non-taxable, non-corporate structure (i.e. street cash), then you'd be seeing full-scale law enforcement action against the makers, distributors and sellers of those drugs. You'd also see endless headlines about how dangerous they were: "Street painkillers kill twelve in South Miami!"

Every drug that's legal is legal for one simple reason: somebody in a position of power is keeping it legal because they're getting a cut.

You see, corporate America doesn't really care what you put in your mouth, up your nose, through your lungs or into your veins, as long as they get a cut from it. That's the whole prescription drug racket in a nutshell: it's billions of dollars in annual profits generated from mind-altering (yet legal) drugs that flat-out kill people. Lots of people. Like 100,000 Americans a year (or a lot more if you believe more critical statistics).

The DEA is properly named, by the way. It's the Drug Enforcement Agency. It's enforcing drugs. The right drugs. The legal drugs. The drugs that make money for drug companies, drug distributors, drug retailers, cities, states and countries. It's enforcement at gunpoint, and as long as the money keeps flowing, the drugs will stay perfectly legal, regardless of who dies.

The entire distribution system is well in place: the false and misleading television advertising, the outright bribery of drug dealers (doctors), the street corner fulfillment centers (pharmacies), and the coordinating drug lord running the show (the Fraud and Drug Administration). It's a brilliant system for manufacturing, promoting, delivering and selling deadly, addictive drugs to children, adults and seniors while generating corporate profits and tax revenues for cities, states and nations.

It's the three P's. Prohibition, profit and power. As long as the first is in place, the other two will be used to reinforce government control over your personal choice. Read the whole thing.

``We're going to take these jokers out,''

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg)

About 21,000 National Guard members have deployed to the flooded regions, along with 4,000 active-duty troops, to help control looters.

``We're going to take these jokers out,'' said the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security's Cowan. ``We're setting up a temporary holding facility with the Department of Corrections, and, by Sunday, we should be able to hold up to 750 people.''

It's a Combat Mission! "This Place Will Be Like Little Somalia"

via TalkLeft

LA National Guard: 'Combat Operations Are Underway'

Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome.

“We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”

Reality Check Awaits Condi Rice in Alabama

On Friday, September 2, 2005 Secretary State Condoleeza Rice made the following statement during a press conference about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina;

But noting her own roots in Alabama, and her father's in Louisiana, Dr. Rice announced plans to visit the region this weekend and said, "That Americans would somehow in a color-affected way decide who to help and who not to help - I just don't believe it."

Apparently the good Dr. Rice has not made it around to the Mobile Alabama Forums to see how people are reacting.

Pay special attention to what the user FoxFire13 has to say on all of this. In one post she reveals that she is the daughter of a Mobile County Sheriffs Deputy. I can only guess that is how her daddy taught her to act in public.

In one post she states;

"Give me a .50 cal...It's time to take a road trip to New Orleans..I'm Pissed"

It sickens me to know that one American can look upon another American and say they deserve to suffer and die because they have the misfortune of being poor and black.

Among the many things that Hurricane Katrina laid bare in her wake was any notion that racial equality exists in America or that much of anything has changed for t he better here in the South since the civil rights movement.

So, yeah, come on down Condi. But be forewarned that a serious reality check awaits you when you get here.

Study: New Orleans courts bogged down with minor offenses

August 24 2005

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — While violent crime is spiraling in New Orleans, the city's criminal justice system in bogged down in minor narcotics offenses while only a small percentage of major criminals wind up behind bars, according to a study released by a private anti-crime watchdog group.

According to the Metropolitan Crime Commission, 72 percent of all convictions in criminal district court in New Orleans were for drug offenses, while two-thirds of those were for simple possession. The commission released the study Tuesday.

The study, which covered the period of Oct. 1, 2003 to Sept. 30, 2004, also found that only 12 percent of those convicted of drug distribution were sent to prison. Such crimes as murder, rape, robbery and felony batter or assault made up only 5 percent of the convictions.

"Basically, we're convicting the minor offenders, and the serious offenders are walking free," said Rafael Goyeneche, the commission's executive director. "Is it any wonder we have a serious crime problem when so few people are being prosecuted, much less convicted, for crimes of violence?"

Chief District Judge Calvin Johnson did not argue with the findings.

"If they're saying we're becoming a marijuana court and a misdemeanor drug court, they're right," Johnson said. "Where are the robbery cases? Where are the burglaries? Where are the murders? They're not on my docket. We're being overwhelmed by these nickel-and-dime cases."


LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD - No time for Disaster. Busy bullying teenagers. Targeted Age Group: 8 - 18

Virginia Nurses Again Demand Medical Cannabis

The Virginia Nurses Association, representing some 80,000 nurses, have recently reconfirmed their support for Medical Cannabis and are continuing their support for immediate legislation legalizing its medical use.

(PRWEB) September 3, 2005 -- The Virginia Nurses Association, representing some 80,000 nurses, have recently reconfirmed their support for Medical Cannabis and are continuing their support for immediate legislation legalizing its medical use.

The Virginia Nurses Association (VNA), representing 80,000 Nurses, at their October 2004 VNA Delegate Assembly, resolved that:

"The Virginia Nurses Association will continue to support legislation that would legalize the medically prescribed use of cannabis/Marijuana for the purpose of relieving pain and distressful symptoms of acute, chronic, or incurable illness."

The VNA "will continue" to support this patient care position since the VNA was the first of now 14 state nursing associations that have taken written published positions in support of the therapeutic use of cannabis. The VNA leadership in 1994 has been echoed over the years by the American Nurses Association, the American Public Health Association, the National Nurses Society on Addictions, and dozens of other medically orientated groups.

Promoter sues over canyon rave raid

By Michael N. Westley
The Salt Lake Tribune



The promoters of a rave held in Spanish Fork Canyon that was busted by Utah County sheriff's deputies filed a civil lawsuit Friday, claiming the sheriff misinterpreted the law and used unnecessary force to break up the party.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks a review of Utah County's mass-gathering ordinance and a court order prohibiting the sheriff from terminating an event based upon his estimation of how long the event will operate.

Named in the suit are Sheriff James Tracy, Lt. Grant Ferre, County Attorney Kay Bryson, Commissioners Jerry Grover, Steve White and Larry Ellertson and Utah County.

Police and promoters say that more than 1,000 people were in attendance when about 90 officers from multiple agencies stormed the party in full riot gear around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 20. With the aid of a helicopter, dogs and machine guns, police cited 60 people on a variety of charges, including resisting arrest, illegal alcohol consumption and possession of a controlled substance.

Detention records show that about 30 of those cited were booked into the Utah County Jail early on Aug. 21. Many of those arrested say they were injured by police as they were thrown to the ground and handcuffed.

Report From New Orleans

Writes Ronald J. Theriot, Jr.:

"Mr. Rockwell: On Tues. August 30th I went to St. John the Baptist Parish Civil Defense and asked if they needed volunteers to help w/the rescue operations in New Orleans. They seemed indifferent and said they didn't know but to leave my name and number.

"After a while they found the pad to write the names on. Today, Sept. 2nd, they'd still not called. I went back over there and asked what they thought about setting up civilian convoys to get people out of New Orleans. They looked at me like I was crazy and said no one could get into the city.

"I thought I'd try anyway. Within 30-40 minutes I was across the Orleans Parish line driving down Oak St., Carrollton Ave., and St. Charles Ave. all the way to Lowerline St. There was no water on the streets anywhere I went. There was no evidence of looting on the two avenues and I even saw a couple of people on a balcony. They seemed to be okay.

"On the way back to LaPlace I picked up three people, two men and a woman, who'd escaped from St. Bernard Parish. They'd been bussed to the Airport in Kenner and said they were kept like they were in a prison camp. They were frightened to get onto a crowded school bus for a 120 mile trip west.

"A law enforcement guy told them, "If ya get off the bus ya gotta walk ta Lafayette." They said they'd do that. They were extremely grateful to me. I gave them $30 and let them call their father from St. John Civil Defense. The cops at Civil Defen' I said, 'I'm with America.' When I was leaving the head deputy told me, 'Hey, for now on this is a DOC, not a recovery unit!' Whatever that meant. I guess they were busy because about ten of them were standing around laughing, smoking, and drinking coffee. Tomorrow I'll try to run some more missions.

"I thought you'd like to have proof that there is, in fact, an all dry surface route into the city."

New Orleans Isn’t Anarchy

It's government-run chaos.

Article by Brad Edmonds.
LewRockwell.com

Traffic stop yields arrest, $543,190

Traffic stop yields arrest, $543,190
Montgomery Advertiser

MONTGOMERY -- Alabama State Troopers seized $543,190 during a traffic stop Monday, a news release stated.

Troopers stopped ae 2001 Toyota with California plates on Interstate 85 near the 16 mile marker. It is unknown what direction the car was traveling.

The money was found in two duffel bags in the cargo area of the car.

The money was seized and the vehicle's passenger, Enrique Barajas, was taken into custody on immigration-related charges.

The driver was unidentified and allowed to go free, said Dorris Teague, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Public Safety. Teague could not say why the money was seized or what specific immigration violation led to Barajas' arrest.

Barajas was from Mexico, Teague said.

The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force assisted in the arrest and is helping with the ongoing investigation
------------------------------------------------------

So, were any drugs found?

Bush in Alabama

governor.state.al.us
September 3, 2005
Governor Riley

c-span

Battle of New Orleans - Bush Forgot the Ladders

Here Come The Troops!!

On FOX right now US Military MP's are rolling into New Orleans to take back control of the city.
They have been amassing on the opposite bank of the Mississippi for days according to CNN.

So much for sending "help"
This is not help it is FORCE.
Look at what the corporations are doing if you want to see help.

I believe we are about to witness American soldiers killing American citizens.

Oh my god.............

LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD

Counterdrug Coordinator:
LANG-J3-CD, BLDG 35
JACKSON BARRACKS
NEW ORLEANS, LA 70146-0330
Phone: (504) 278-8556
Fax: (504) 278-8552

JAMA Calls for Rescheduling of Marijuana

JAMA Commentary Calls For Marijuana's Rescheduling
NORML

Chicago, IL: Cannabis provides therapeutic relief for patients and should be reclassified by the federal government to allow for its legal use as a prescription medicine, according to a commentary in the August 17 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

"Sound regulation of medical marijuana requires government oversight based on public health, a rigorous research agenda, a private physician-patient relationship, and respect for patients who seek relief from suffering," the commentary states. "A first step would be to reclassify marijuana as a schedule II drug because, like the schedule II substances cocaine and morphine, it fits well within the statutory definition of having ... 'a currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions.' This would allow for medical prescriptions subject to strict regulation without unduly interfering with federal drug policy. ... The public can make a distinction between a drug of abuse and a drug prescribed by a physician for a compassionate purpose."

The commentary further argues that the federal classification of cannabis as a Schedule I prohibited drug needlessly obstructs investigators from conducting clinical research of the plant's medical properties. "To objectively answer the questions about the safety and efficacy of marijuana, the federal government must be open to the results of scientific research," it states. "Yet research has been sporadic, with the federal government posing multiple hurdles to scientists."

The commentary concludes: "The data suggest that marijuana may offer respite for some patients - a position supported by patient experiences and physician opinions. The 'drug war' metaphor does not justify an ideology that removes hope from patients when they are most vulnerable and in need."

The American Medical Association (AMA) has Previously_Called for "adequate and well-controlled studies of smoked marijuana [to] be conducted in patients who have serious conditions for which preclinical, anecdotal, or controlled evidence suggests [that cannabis holds] possible efficacy," but has yet to take a formal position in favor of the plant's rescheduling.

For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500. Full text of the commentary, "Medical marijuana, American federalism, and the Supreme Court," appears in the August 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

U.S. Customs' hurricane-relief Blackhawks pulling press duty

By Bill Conroy
on the Narcosphere
Posted on Thu Sep 1st, 2005 at 07:57:52 PM EST

The crews for three U.S. Customs Blackhawk helicopters stationed at Crestview Airport in Florida are "livid" because they have not been directed to provide full-time support for the ongoing hurricane-relief effort in the nation's Gulf Coast region, according to Mark Conrad, a former regional Internal Affairs supervisor for U.S. Customs.

Conrad says instead of helping people left desperate in the wake of Katrina's wrath, the Blackhawk's actually were slated to transport a CNN news crew to take video shots of those people.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection leadership in Miami is behind the press-play strategy, Conrad says.

"They have three Blackhawk helicopters and crew just sitting there doing nothing, just so they can look good for CNN. The crew is livid," Conrad says. "They made one trip earlier and flew over Biloxi, (Mississippi) where there are dead bodies everywhere. Those are highly trained crews and Blackhawk helicopters can carry a lot of food and water. They could be doing something."

Zero Tolerance

Guardian Unlimited
AP

The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.

``I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this - whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud,'' Bush said. ``And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together.''

Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.

``They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out,'' he said. ``We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!''

BUSTED! A Drug War Survival Guide

Author Chris Fabricant has written a book called BUSTED! which is a comprehensive guide from the the buy, to the bust to begging for mercy.

Also, check out his site Drug War Survival

'Renegade bus'

CNN

Buses carrying evacuees from New Orleans began arriving at Houston's Astrodome overnight as Louisiana officials began clearing out the hurricane-ravaged Superdome.

The first bus -- an Orleans Parish school bus -- pulled up to the gates of the Astrodome about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, surprising authorities who were not expecting anyone for several more hours.

Organizers later declared it a "renegade bus," saying it was carrying people fleeing the floodwaters in New Orleans but was not part of the official caravan of commercial buses traveling from the Superdome.

It was not immediately clear how the 50 people on board the renegade transportation came into possession of the bus, but officials in the Astrodome said they would be allowed to stay. A 20-year-old man was behind the wheel.


Rely on the government for help and you are an "evacuee".
Stand up and do something for yourself and you are a "renegade".

1. One who rejects a religion, cause, allegiance, or group for another; a deserter.
2. An outlaw; a rebel.

Prison guard busted for relieving himself on computer

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - A Washington state prison guard is in a heap of trouble -- accused of peeing on a jail computer. Police busted Willie Shannon, another guard and a third man after a drunken brawl at a nightclub in the Olympia area. Police charge that Shannon relieved himself on a computer while he was being held at the city jail. Shannon and the other guard have been fired by the state corrections department. Olympia police Lieutenant James Costa says Shannon later apologized. Police say the computer and related equipment are worth about 15-hundred dollars. Shannon could face additional charges.

Governor awards grant to fight use and sale of illegal drugs

By Jaine Treadwell and Ken Rogers, The Messenger

(AL) - Gov. Bob Riley has awarded a $147,500 grant to the Pike County Commission to help fight the use and sale of illegal drugs in Pike and Coffee counties.

The grant will enable the 12th Judicial Circuit Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force to continue undercover operations, conduct raids on unlawful drug labs and investigate and prosecute drug offenders in an effort to rid the area of illegal drugs.

Since it was established in 1990, the task force has made more than 5,200 arrests. Task force agencies include the district attorney's office, sheriff offices in Pike and Coffee counties and the police departments of Elba, Enterprise, Troy and Brundidge. The unit often works with state and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate drug cases.

Assistant district attorney Larry Jarrell said the grant requires a local match. In other words, local matching funds of $147,500 will supplement the grant.

A press release issued by the governor's office said the task force will use the funds to purchase specialized equipment, including drug test kits, surveillance equipment and body armor. In reality, however, the grant will go toward salaries.

"Drugs and crime often got hand-in-hand, so we must continue aggressive efforts to removed illegal drugs from our communities," Riley said. "I commend the efforts of the task force to make our neighborhoods safer."

Riley award the grant from funds made available to the state from the U.S. Department of Justice. The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs will administer the grant.

"This money is coming from Homeland Security funds," Jarrell said.

Blowing in the Wind

Blowing in the Wind
by Ray Boyd (31 Aug, 2005)

US government priorities revealed by killer storm

When the levee breaks...
They used to call New Orleans "The Big Easy."

In the 1920's and 30's, it was home to jazz musicians who smoked "muggles," which today we call "joints."

The hipster musicians smoked Mexican weed while they played. When they began to bring the blues and jazz out of the South to places like Chicago, they carried muggles with them.

America's first drug czar, Harry Anslinger, said New Orleans, Chicago and other havens for weed-smoking jazzers were dens of iniquity.

He actually ordered the government to "go after" jazz musicians, to infiltrate their ranks, to destroy the jazz culture.

In 1937, he convinced the US Congress to criminalize marijuana, using racist arguments warning that black and Mexican jazz musicians and their weed could corrupt America's innocent blue-eyed young girls.

Marijuana made blacks and Hispanics "uppity," Anslinger said. It made them feel too good. It made young girls feel sexy. It made innocent white girls look lustfully at non-white jazz musicians. It was the devil's weed, spreading across America in brown and black hands.

Despite marijuana's long history as an important, legal agricultural and industrial crop before 1937, Anslinger started a war on the plant that has, so far, cost approximately $300 billion.

Hurricane effects: Gulf Shores, Alabama
The war on marijuana is just one example of what the US government has been doing with its citizens' money while disasters like the flooding of New Orleans waited for the right hurricane to happen.

Even anarchists agree that some government is necessary. Most people would accept the idea that the government should ensure safe infrastructure, streets, dams, electrical grids, development, parks, schools.

Indeed, most people think that a government's primary responsibility is to manage infrastructure, to regulate where suburbs should be built, to make sure that corporations and other commercial activities don't damage human health or the environment.

Unfortunately, the US government doesn't take those responsibilities very seriously.

And the New Orleans disaster didn't occur just because a wicked hurricane roared in off the Gulf of Mexico.

It occurred because the government is too busy messing around where it shouldn't be messing around, while ignoring danger at home until it is too late.

New Orleans probably should never have been built where it is. It's way below sea level. It's in the path of hurricanes. Global warming, which George Bush and most oil addicts refused to acknowledge as a fact, has created a warmer Gulf of Mexico which fuels stronger hurricanes.

The wetlands, barrier islands, 1500-year-old cypress swamps, rivers and other natural features that used to exist around New Orleans, and which might have offered some protection against Hurricane Katrina, have been paved over to become new New Orleans real estate.

In the meantime, the Gulf is rising in height and in temperature, even as agricultural and industrial pollutants that pour out of the mouth of the Mississippi River have created an 8000 square mile dead zone in the ocean near New Orleans.

Ever year for the last ten years, scientists warned that global warming, petroleum and natural gas industry activities and pollution in and around New Orleans and in the Gulf, hurricanes, rampant development of suburbs in marginal areas, neglect of dikes, levees, and pumping stations, and other mistakes permitted or committed by government, had made New Orleans ripe for what is happening today- a flood of Biblical proportions that has basically destroyed The Big Easy.

Evacuees walk on the elevated freeway in downtown New Orleans
Nobody listened to those scientists. The Bush administration and its allies in Congress and the petroleum industry have been trying to get those scientists fired. The developers, real estate agents, and construction contractors didn't want to hear the truth either. The government planners and agencies responsible for supervising and managing population growth and industrial activity in and around New Orleans paid no attention to what scientists and environmentalists were warning. They rubber-stamped massive housing and commercial projects, placing thousands of people in harm's way.

In 1995, New Orleans was flooded by a heavy rainstorm and a few people died. Congress poured some money onto the situation, most of which was swallowed up in the black hole of construction company profits and government agency waste, otherwise known as the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (SELA).

The Army Corps of Engineers, which has a disgusting history of destroying ecosystems, rivers, lakes, oceans, shorelines, and beaches, took half a billion dollars to implement SELA, and did a damn ugly job of it.

So ugly that everybody agreed that with hurricanes increasing in frequency and intensity, it was time to spend even more money on SELA and get the damned city protected somehow, if it could even be protected.

In 2001 and every year thereafter, safety advocates begged the federal government for approximately $400 million to finish the SELA job.

But the US government had other priorities. It had the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has so far cost about $300 billion, and has accomplished little more than to kill and maim lots of people while creating thousands of new "terrorists" and billions in profits for Dick Cheney's Halliburton and other war-profiteering corporations. It also had to give billions in tax cuts to the wealthy Americans who helped elect Bush and Cheney.

"First things first," the Bush administration told New Orleans, announcing that it was cutting funding for SELA to pay for tax cuts for the rich, and for the wars.

Some folks in New Orleans protested that destroying Iraq and Afghanistan, and giving tax refunds to millionaires, should not be as important as fixing the levees and pumps that protected New Orleans. But Bush was on vacation. He didn't hear the protests.

Nor did he hear when people asked why so many members of the National Guard from hurricane-vulnerable southern states, and their equipment, have been stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan for two years instead of back home where they belong.

In case you didn't know, the National Guard is not supposed to be fighting wars for the US military. The Guard was founded to provide help for domestic problems within the US, problems like floods, fires, earthquakes and other disasters.

In the last two decades, however, the National Guard has been commandeered by the US military, and by the DEA and other drug warriors.

The levee system of New Orleans
National Guard soldiers and equipment are an integral part of the war on plants. Their presence has helped escalate state anti-marijuana efforts to the level of military conflicts, with machine gun-toting soldiers jumping people in their back yards, pointing guns at them, confiscating their cannabis plants.

So when the governors of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, and the mayor of New Orleans, needed immediate National Guard assistance before, during and after Hurricane Katrina, there wasn't much National Guard assistance available. Many Guard soldiers have been killed or injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their equipment is there too. Or they are flying helicopter missions over forests, searching for marijuana plants.

It's all a matter of priorities.

In June, 2004, the head of New Orleans's emergency management agency said that money to protect New Orleans from hurricanes and flooding had been "moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

An Army Corps of Engineers official said in 2004 that the levees were sinking. He begged local governments to provide the money that the feds weren't providing.

"Everything is sinking," he said, "and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise the levees, then we can't stay ahead of the sinking. The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The locals kicked in a few million in funds, but it wasn't enough. Bush said he didn't have enough money for SELA, which needed about $36 million. He said he had to spend ever more money fighting wars overseas. He cut Corps of Engineers funding in 2004 and 2005, even refusing to pay for a study that would quantify the risk New Orleans faced from a severe storm like Katrina.

The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate guaranteed amount of federal money for protecting New Orleans and Louisiana's coast, but the White House opposed the funding request.

Other than the overseas wars, the White House has domestic war priorities, especially its war on marijuana.

In Bush's 2006 federal budget, he lavishes money on the Pentagon and cuts everybody else to the bone, including schools, health care, elderly care, national parks, and other programs.

And yet, the Pentagon's budget has increased from $400 billion to $419 billion.

Prison inmates are held at the end of a sunken highway
Drug police get more money in Bush's budget, but other police funded by the feds lose money. The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program received $499 million dollars in 2005, but Bush's 2006 budget slashes COPS by 95%, leaving a measly $22 million. Bush administration funding for state and local law enforcement will drop by almost 50%, from $2.8 billion in 2005 to $1.5 billion in 2006.

As you would expect, in these dire times of budget cutting, the DEA has seen its budget increased by seven percent to $2 billion.

What good does the DEA do for New Orleans? Not much, apparently. There's no evidence that DEA agents protected the city from any threats as real as flooding. DEA agents don't solve real world problems like natural disasters and levee breakage. They go after people who enjoy plants, plant derivatives, hallucinogens, things that may harm a few individuals perhaps, but nowhere near as much harm as a flood that drowns an entire city.

Flood control agencies needed $36 million and didn't get it. The DEA got the money instead.

What did the DEA do with the money that could have gone to protect New Orleans?

They busted raves and grow rooms. They busted medical marijuana patients.

They even had time for some fun. Earlier this year, agents from the DEA's New Orleans District Office went to Redeemer-Seton High School in New Orleans, where they encouraged students to consider employment with the DEA and the National Guard.

In June, New Orleans DEA Special Agent George J. Cazenavette visited Tulane University and tried to recruit students enrolled there in an English as a Second Language (ESL) program. He told students the standard DEA lies about marijuana - that it has no medical value, is addictive, and can lead to use of other drugs.

He also answered somewhat hostile questions about the DEA's activities in foreign countries. Ever since Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez kicked the DEA out of Venezuela a few weeks ago after accusing DEA of being part of a plot to overthrow his government, some people have been asking hostile questions about the DEA's presence in Latin American and elsewhere.

In June, Cazenavette and DEA agent Anita Pope visited Jackson University's Education Learning Center Youth Camp in Jackson, Mississippi, where they lied about marijuana and gave out nifty t-shirts that said "POLICE" on the front.

Cazenavette later gave a speech at the Gulfport Chapter of the Mississippi District Exchange Clubs, where he tried to convince people that there's a link between drug use and child abuse. He forgot to mention the link between alcohol and child abuse. He also visited Xavier University's Family & Community Life Center Career Day, where he encouraged students to seek jobs with DEA.

DEA agents... no National Guard?
What else did the DEA to with the money that could have been spent to shore up the levees that protect New Orleans from floods?

It sent undercover agents to Vancouver, Canada to purchase marijuana seeds from Marc Emery.

It funded agents for nearly two years as they recorded conversations with Emery, lied to Emery, monitored his mail, set up stings, and otherwise tried to gather evidence to be used against people who sell and grow seeds.

So when you see the heartbreaking pictures from New Orleans - the floating corpses, the crying children, the looters stealing guns from flooded stores, the "home of jazz" underwater - just remember that the whole stinking mess is not by any means a "natural disaster."

Instead, it's an unnatural disaster created by a government that spends billions of dollars to blow people up, to bust grow rooms, to arrest seed merchants, to invade other countries, while ignoring the needs of its people in the homeland.

When the next hurricane comes to New Orleans - and come it will - DEA agents should be given buckets, raincoats, pumps and sandbags, and told to go protect the city. At least they'd be doing something useful for a change.

Medicine sales logs lead to meth arrests

By LINDA MAN
The Kansas City Star
Sep. 01, 2005

Jackson County prosecutors on Wednesday charged two Lee’s Summit residents with manufacturing methamphetamine near a school and in the presence of children.

Scott Stewart, 34, and Kathy Adams, 41, are charged with one count each of manufacturing a controlled substance and three counts each of endangering the welfare of a child.

Missouri Highway Patrol officials said the arrests were a result of a new law that requires merchants to keep a log of pseudoephedrine purchases and requires customers who buy cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine to show a photo ID. It is the second time authorities have used such information to raid a local methamphetamine lab.

Three children, ages 2, 5, and 12, lived at the house.

Authorities said the children were taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital for an examination and would be referred to the Missouri Department of Social Services.

The Media's Meth Baby Mania

Maia Szalavitz
on AlterNet

Being labeled a 'meth baby' by the media can do more harm to children than the methamphetamine itself.