Taliban + Marijuana + Canadian Army = Hilarity

I am not in the military, nor have I ever been, but I imagine that the field manuals do not advise trying to burn down a pot field if you enemy is hiding in it. Well apparently the Canadian Army skipped that day of field exercises because when encountered with what described as a ‘forest’ of marijuana in Afghanistan, that is exactly what they tried.

The Taliban fighters were using the dense thicket of plants for cover, so the troops were forced to eliminate the weedy threat.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy and heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," General Rick Hillier said in a speech in Ottawa.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hiller said.

Sometimes you just have to scratch your head and wonder? Best part... They failed to burn down the 'forest' of plants. Seriously? You couldnt light marijuana on fire?

Cops Shoot Family Cat. Wait, Two Cops Shoot Family Cat.

Okay. I am aware that this has nothing to do with drug policy but with the recent shooting of a family dog in Schenectady for a $60 pot bust, maybe there is a trend going on with police killing family pets.

CHANNAHON, Illinois: After a neighbor called 911 about a stray cat in her yard ( a bit of an over reaction if you ask me) two police officers decided the cat had rabies, took it to a field where they shot it to death, and left the remains there.

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Dean and Cheryl Campbell's cat is missing, and they think they know what happened to it.

"It was completely mishandled," Dean said. "Why would you leave a cat you thought had rabies dead in a field for other animals to eat the carcass and spread rabies throughout Channahon?"

Dean and Cheryl said the story they were told stinks. Their cat did not have rabies, they said. He was an indoor cat and was never exposed to the virus.

The ASPCA will begin training Channahon police officers on humane and appropriate methods of handling animals. The department will also require new officers to receive the training, Cook said.

Currently, when Channahon police officers capture a loose pet, local veterinarians will take the pet and call a humane society, which will take the pet away.

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Sometimes I wish there were higher educational requirements for becoming a police officer. If police can't even follow the rules and use common sense when dealing with a cat that "might have rabies", how can we expect them to handle complex situations involving drugs?

Rest in Peace Jefferey the cat from Channahon.
SSDP loves you.

An update on the story is here: Commission gets cat-shooting case

Evo Morales on No Fly List

Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, has recently been added to the No Fly List. Read the article here. It also includes a dead Nazi sympathizer, international dignitaries like Nabih Berri, the head of the Lebanese parliament who recently met with Condoleezza Rice, and is making travel tough for some unlucky Americans named Robert Johnson.

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"I mean, do you think that the president of Bolivia's gonna highjack an airplane?" Kroft asks Bucella.

"I don't know if what you're talking about is true 'cause I haven't had an opportunity to take a look at it. And quite frankly, I'm not sure if that is accurate," she replies.

It would certainly seem to be. The Evo Morales on the No Fly List has three variations of his name listed along with a date of birth, all matching the president of Bolivia.

The names on the list are Evo Morales, Juan Evo Morales Aima and Evo Morales Ayma, all born on Oct. 26, 1959.

It also has created enormous frustration and aggravation for thousands of innocent travelers who have the misfortune of sharing a name with someone on the list and some of the names are among the most common in America. Like Gary Smith, John Williams or Robert Johnson. 60 Minutes found 12 of them and brought them to New York for an interview.

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Well, its clear that when Evo isn't busy trying to stop the exploitation of his country's natural resources, legalizing coca cultivation, or putting an end to the aerial spraying of herbicide over Bolivia, he is making time to become a threat to US aviation security. Or maybe that is why we want him to be viewed as a threat...

Survey says: Stop testing us

High School junior Dylan Currie was recently given a "Golden Pen Award" by The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette for writing a letter to the editor slamming the use of anonymous surveys to justify random student drug testing.

Dylan writes:

In middle and high school, the anonymous drug surveys given to students are seen as a joke. Not only do kids say they have done drugs that they have not heard of, they fill in the corresponding bubble saying they used cocaine more than 50 times a week as a sixth-grader. Until now, these drug surveys have shown ridiculous numbers of drug users in the district resulting from the anonymity of the test.

After the random drug testing was implemented, however, everything changed. Middle and high school students began to see that these surveys, while still anonymous, were finally being used for something: numbers to verify the need for drug testing.

Drug testing is not the Holy Grail to preventing drug use. It has actually done very little to stop drug use in the district (only 1.9 percent of tested students tested positive). The huge decline in drug and alcohol use in these surveys can be attributed to the clever students seeing that if they are honest, federal grants will not continue to be poured into the district for drug testing and the program will not be renewed by the school board at the end of the 2008-09 school year.

If Dylan is right, and he very well may be, students are now answering truthfully about their drug use, in hopes that the administrators reading the surveys will stop collecting their urine for testing.

I've contacted Dylan about getting involved with SSDP at his school, which ironically sits in the district represented by Rep. Mark Souder, the most ardent drug warrior in Congress. I've got my fingers crossed for a new SSDP chapter that can follow Souder around the district and ask him about his ridiculous drug policy positions every time he makes a public appearance.

Thanks for the tip, Pete.

Zang!

Drug Sense Weekly's letter of the week goes right along with Kris' debate about home drug testing on Fox News. The letter is by Charley Jensen and heres some of what he has to say about Calvina Fay and school drug testing in Florida:

Calvina Fay is the executive director of Drug Free America Foundation and operated a company that sold test kits to businesses and agencies. Anything she says has to be weighed against the potential economic conflict of interest she represents.

Are the citizens of Hernando County aware of Fay's economic interest in selling drug detection kits to the county?

Finally, it is true that more than half of all graduating seniors have experimented to some degree with some form of illegal substances, usually marijuana, and we cannot as a society afford to make them all into criminals with records and forced vacations in gray-bar hotels, where they become marked for life and unable to become fully functioning members of society.

What Fay and Tellone propose is foolish, counterproductive and, most important, contrary to what I like to think of as "The American Way".

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Hmmm. That last line sounds like something Ben Franklin would have said.

Zing!

SSDP's Kris Krane on Fox News:

If you appreciate SSDP's work to spread our anti-Drug War message through major media outlets, please make a donation today! We don't sell drug testing kits to keep our organization afloat, but instead rely on contributions from supporters like you. Please make the most generous donation you can afford today. No gift is too small (or too large)!

If the YouTube version above isn't working, you can also view the video here.

Record number of members of Congress support repeal of Aid Elimination Penalty

Just two weeks ago, Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), signed on as a co-sponsor of the Removing Impediments to Students' Education (RISE) Act, which would fully repeal the law that strips financial aid from college students with drug convictions.

This brings the co-sponsor list of H.R. 1184 to 71 members of Congress, the most that have ever signed on to the bill.

Although we're getting close to the end of this congressional session, it's not too late to contact your legislators and tell them to overturn this counterproductive and unfair penalty.

And it's worth noting that Rep. Clay signed on to the bill only after Bailey Hirschburg, one of our activists from the University of Missouri-Columbia, approached him at a public event and spoke about how this penalty negatively impacts students.

We're making a difference, one legislator at a time. Contact yours now!

Holy cow

For your amusement, I offer up the following New York Times news brief, in its entirety and without comment:

World Briefing | Europe

Poland: How to Calm a Cow

By REUTERS

Published: September 23, 2006

A woman in western Lobez who grew marijuana to calm the nerves of her cow has been charged with cultivating a narcotic. The cow had been “skittish and unruly” — once breaking someone’s arm — until someone suggested mixing marijuana in with the feed, the woman told the police. The plants, grown from seeds bought at a market, reached nearly three yards tall, and the cow, the woman said, “became as calm as a lamb.”

The police state: Defending you from peeing pooches and tired tykes

If Radley Balko updates Overkill (his white paper on botched paramilitary police raids), this one is sure to make the cut:

SCHENECTADY -- A police strike team raided a woman's Prospect Street apartment and handcuffed her children and killed her dog early Tuesday in a $60 pot bust.

[snip]

Woodyear said she is appalled about the way her children were treated -- and said her 12-year-old daughter was hit with pepper spray.

The dog, a pit bull terrier named Precious, urinated on the floor in fear and tried to run from the police before it was killed, Woodyear said.

Police said the animal was aggressive and left them no choice but to shoot.

Elijah Bradley said he awoke to find armed men in his home. "They had the shotgun in my face," the 11-year-old said. "I punched at him. I didn't know who he was."

All for a $60 bag of pot. I think this spokesperson from the NAACP said it best:

"That seems like an awful lot of firepower for marijuana," said Fred Clark of the Schenectady chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "That's like spending $125,000 for $5."

I would say it's like swatting a fly with a cruise missile.

A half-asleep, urinating fly.

(Thanks to SSDP alum Adam Scavone for the heads up on this one.)

House approves school searches, but the fight continues

Thanks for taking action! SSDP needs your help now more than ever.

Friends,

I would to thank all of you who took the time this week to write and call your your members of Congress in opposition to the so-called “Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006.” Unfortunately, despite an overwhelming response from SSDP supporters and our allies, the bill passed the House of Representatives last night by a voice vote.

While we are disappointed that the House passed such a reckless bill, we are grateful to the thousands of you who took action to defeat it. In the past four days, SSDP supporters generated thousands of letters and phone calls to Congress. We were confident that the bill would have been defeated if a recorded vote were taken. Unfortunately, no member of Congress called for a roll call vote after the voice vote by just 25 or so representatives in attendance.

Fortunately, this bill has not yet become law. To do so, the Senate would still have to pass a companion bill before the end of the legislative session, and we will be working hard to ensure that this does not happen. Will you please consider making a financial contribution to help SSDP’s legislative efforts today? Please visit http://www.ssdp.org/donate if you are able to give anything at all.

Despite being unable to stop the House from passing this bill, SSDP supporters responded to our call to action in unprecedented fashion. SSDP supporters sent more than 3,600 letters to Congress in opposition to this bill. That's more than have taken action on any single piece of legislation in our organization's history. SSDP chapters across the country responded to our call to action by setting up phone banks on their campuses, sending action alerts to their listserves, and spreading our alerts through cyberspace using Facebook and MySpace.

With only four days of lead-time before the vote, we were able to mobilize supporters like never before. I hope you will consider visiting http://www.ssdp.org/donate to make a contribution to SSDP today to ensure that we are able to respond even more effectively in the future.

While House members were not forced to go on record on the important issue of students rights’ and privacy last night, many members did take noble stances against the bill. Representatives George Miller (D-CA), Danny Davis (D-IL), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) all gave speeches on the House floor opposing HR 5295. Rep. Woolsey made a passionate speech, vowing, "We will stop any new program that would label all youth as guilty!" In a letter to an SSDP supporter, Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) wrote:

“As a former teacher and principal, as well as a member of the Democratic Task Force on Education, I believe it is crucial to make schools as safe as possible for our children. However, I believe this can be done without invading the rights of our students.”

In addition to support from these courageous members of Congress, the National PTA, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Association of School Administrators, and the National School Boards Association all issued statements opposing this legislation.

SSDP will continue to keep you informed if a companion bill comes before the Senate. I hope you will consider making a contribution to SSDP today so that we can continue to fight back against harmful attacks on students’ rights in the future.

Please visit http://www.ssdp.org/donate today if you can afford any contribution – large or small.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Kris Krane
Executive Director
Students for Sensible Drug Policy

P.S. Please befriend SSDP on MySpace and put us in your top 8 friends. Our profile is at http://www.myspace.com/ssdp

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