Why can’t our politicians come clean on drugs?

Simon Jenkins writes for the London Evening Standard:

What is the single most curable evil afflicting community life in London? The answer is the criminalisation of drug use under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.

It blights half the capital's youth at some stage or other. It hovers as a black cloud over every neighbourhood, pub and street corner. It causes crime and gangland disorder. It packs the courts and fills the prisons. It costs billions of pounds in personal loss and public spending.

Needless to say, not one party in the current General Election is prepared to discuss it. As a result, London is about to be taught a lesson in social policy by, of all places, America.

As I whiled away last week waiting in Los Angeles for Her Majesty's Government to find an ash cloud policy, I decided to pop into one of many local cannabis “dispensaries” — strictly in the interests of research.

While the exteriors are carefully anonymous, the interiors are designed to cater for all whom “a doctor” has decided need the therapeutic benefits of a dose of “weed”. I could choose between Harmony House and Holistic Harvest. I could try Nature's Wonder or Mary and Jane's mobile delivery service. The Green Oasis chain offers “40 flavours” of cannabis, including Sour Diesel, Blue Dream and Woody Kush, plus a 1,300 square meter “vaporising lounge” to help things go swimmingly along. In most cases, the requisite chit certifying medical need is available on the premises, like club membership in a casino.

California now makes Amsterdam's drug laws look timid. Since the licensing of “medical marijuana” production and sale in 1996, California and 14 states across America have seen a blossoming of cannabis retailing. Some estimates are of more dispensaries (or “clinics”) in Los Angeles than Starbucks. The city authorities reckon they have at least 500 and possibly 1,000 outlets, meaning that in some areas there are more dispensaries than there are bars serving alcohol.

Since reliable figures are hard to find, it is impossible to discover whether the result has been an increase or decrease in the overall consumption of marijuana. Use of the drug has come out of the closet. There are certainly testimonials to the relief of pain delivered, and with it a reduction in need for conventional medicine. There is a corresponding reduction in pressure on law enforcement and imprisonment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that private growers are supplanting the criminal gangs who have long imported supplies from Canada.

~ more... ~

Drone pilots could be tried for ‘war crimes,’ Law prof says

The pilots waging America's undeclared drone war in Pakistan could be liable to criminal prosecution for “war crimes,” a prominent law professor told a Congressional panel Wednesday.

Harold Koh, the State Department's top legal adviser, outlined the administration's legal case for the robotic attacks last month. Now, some legal experts are taking turns to punch holes in Koh's argument.

It's part of an ongoing legal debate about the CIA and U.S. military's lethal drone operations, which have escalated in recent months — and which have received some technological upgrades. Critics of the program, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have argued that the campaign amounts to a program of targeted killing that may violate the laws of war.

In a hearing Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's national security and foreign affairs panel, several professors of national security law seemed open to that argument. But there are still plenty of caveats, and the risks to U.S. drone operators are at this point theoretical: Unless a judge in, say, Pakistan, wanted to issue a warrant, it doesn't seem likely. But that's just one of the possible legal hazards of robotic warfare.

Loyola Law School professor David Glazier, a former Navy surface warfare officer, said the pilots operating the drones from afar could — in theory — be hauled into court in the countries where the attacks occur. That's because the CIA's drone pilots aren't combatants in a legal sense. “It is my opinion, as well as that of most other law-of-war scholars I know, that those who participate in hostilities without the combatant's privilege do not violate the law of war by doing so, they simply gain no immunity from domestic laws,” he said.

“Under this view CIA drone pilots are liable to prosecution under the law of any jurisdiction where attacks occur for any injuries, deaths or property damage they cause,” Glazier continued. “But under the legal theories adopted by our government in prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, these CIA officers as well as any higher-level government officials who have authorized or directed their attacks are committing war crimes.”

~ more... ~

Researchers of the bizarre

For those interested, this page is worth a look.

Dorothy Day Documentary: Don't Call Me a Saint

"Dorothy Day: Don't Call Me a Saint" is the first Full-Length Documentary on Dorothy Day by Claudia Larson. Please visit http://www.dorothydaydoc.com for more information.

See also:
Dorothy Day: "Witness" (1964; UCSB archive) part I

Dorothy Day on Christopher Closeup, part I

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Gil Scott-Heron

A collage of Youtube clips to the original recording from Gil Scott Heron's classic first album.

Words from the later, and more well-known recording are:

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.