AMPLIFY Artist Addition: Cas Haley

SSDP's AMPLIFY Project is proud to announce Cas Haley as our newest addition to the AMPLIFY artist family! We're excited to add an artist that has proved determination, hard work, and good vibes can take you a long way (not to mention incredible talent!). Head over to his facebook page and show him some love! Cas' story is pretty cool:

His crystalline voice and funky, easygoing beats earned Cas Haley a second-place finish on America’s Got Talent, which in turn netted him a measure of fame and a following. But the contest also locked the Texan singer/songwriter/guitarist into a major label deal that didn’t feel right. So, not wanting to be turned into a manufactured product, he struck out on his own. Connection, his Easy Star Records debut, is aptly named. It’s all about those deep-running connections that make him what he is—those unbreakable links between artist and audience, between styles of music, between art and life, and most of all, between all people. As Cas points out, reggae’s core message is, after all, "one love."

Cas is about to hit the road with AMPLIFY artists Easy Star All Stars and The Green just in time for spring. What better way to warm up after a chilly winter than signing up your SSDP chapter for some of these shows?

3/23 Mt. Snow - Mt. Snow, VT
3/31 Bourbon Quarter - Baltimore, MD
4/1 Jefferson Theatre - Charlottesville, VA
4/2 The Orange Peel - Asheville, NC
4/3 Cat’s Cradle - Carrboro, NC
4/5 The Soapbox - Wilmington, NC
4/6 The Music Farm - Charleston, SC
4/7 Freebird Live - Jacksonville, FL
4/8 Plaza Theatre - Orlando, FL (part of Florida Music Fest)
4/9 Culture Room - Ft. Lauderdale, FL
4/10 State Theatre - St. Petersburg, FL
4/12 Common Grounds - Gainesville, FL
4/13 Seville Quarters - Pensacola, FL
4/14 New Earth Music Hall - Athens, GA
4/16 World Café Live - Wilmington, DE
4/17 World Café Live - Philadelphia, PA
4/20 Highline Ballroom - New York, NY (w/ AMPLIFY artist John Brown's Body)
4/21 Castaways - Ithaca, NY
4/22 Westcott Theatre - Syracuse, NY (w/ AMPLIFY artist John Brown's Body)
4/23 The Great Hall - Toronto, ON
4/25 Cabaret Mile End - Montreal, QC
4/26 Higher Ground - Burlington, VT

Congressman Jared Polis to Speak at SSDP Conference

Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) will be giving a keynote speech on the evening of March 17, as part of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Training Conference & Lobby Day. Representative Polis is an ally of SSDP and an advocate for sensible drug policies. We are delighted to have him speak at our event.

Other speakers at the conference include:

• Ethan Nadelmann, Drug Policy Alliance
• Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake and Just Say Now
• Brian Wallace, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
• Aaron Houston, Students for Sensible Drug Policy
• Jill Harris, Drug Policy Alliance
• Jasmine Tyler, Drug Policy Alliance

This is very much a conference for students by students! Many sessions and workshops will be led by some of SSDP's most experienced student activists and alumni. 

If you haven't reserved your space at this amazing event yet, register today at http://www.conference.ssdp.org

In the video above, Rep. Polis speaks out against legislation that would further escalate the failed war on marijuana and explicitly calls for regulating and taxing marijuana from the well of the House floor. 

Anti-Drug War Graffiti in Mexico City

"Calderonismo" -- In reference to Mexico's President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa

These stencilled graffiti appeared on a corner I pass to go to work, Cuauhtemoc and Morelos in the Delegacion Coyoacan. It's a well-traveled corner, in between a vibrant market and a main thoroughfare. A school sits a couple of blocks away. Coyoacan is one of the oldest, most established, and wealthy places in Mexico City. It's a favorite place for a Sunday afternoon stroll. The ice creams are delicious.

The stencil on the left, with a person pointing a gun at somebody's head, with the word, Calderonismo, underneath it, suggests that the President has not offered the country anything but violence. Whether that's true or not is obviously up for debate. But Mexico is certainly beset with little but a concern for violence, much of it from the drug war, and for which some people obviously blame President Calderon.

"Ni uno mas -- Crucifix -- Ni uno mas." (Not one more.)

Since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon entered office in Mexico, 35,000 people have died. And an unkown number have disappeared without trace. The cross is a symbol to commemorate the dead, and the words "Not one more" coupled with the reference to Calderon in the previous graffiti implicitly reject the chilling statisic of 35,000 dead.

UMD SSDP Wins Four Year Campaign

Four years ago, as a sophomore at the University of Maryland (and at the time President of the UMD SSDP chapter), I was elected to the University Senate, the most powerful policy making body on campus, comprised of 90% faculty, and 10% students. In an effort to place myself in a position to influence campus drug policy, I sought and received an appointment to serve on the Student Conduct Committee. There I proposed adopting a Good Samaritan (or medical amnesty) policy that would ensure students would be protected from judicial sanctions if they called 911 for themselves or a friend who needed emergency medical attention due to an alcohol or other drug overdose. I had no idea that this would mark the beginning of a very long, difficult, and complicated saga, culminating in a Senate vote that took place yesterday.

When things began back in 2007, the idea was not exactly welcomed with open arms by the other members of the committee, many administrators were not convinced that implementing such a policy was necessary, and some feared that students would abuse the policy or that it would send a message that drinking/using drugs was acceptable. I was surprised by the level of opposition I faced, and frustrated by the painfully slow process. Even after the student body voted overwhelmingly in favor of adopting the policy, the administration did not take action.

Things were not looking good:

• Feb. 14, 2008 Hope for Good Samaritan policy dims 

• Feb. 20, 2008 Good Samaritan bill takes last gasps

My time as a Senator expired in 2008, by the time I graduated in 2009, Irina Alexander (currently the Chair of our National Board of Directors, who was leading the UMD SSDP chapter at the time) picked up right where I left off when she was elected to the University Senate. She conducted research, continued to build coalitions, met with and kept pressure on administrators to adopt a life saving Good Samaritan policy.

She and other student leaders fought tooth and nail to help pass a watered down version of the proposed policy. The "Promoting Responsible Action in Medical Emergencies" protocol provided protection for alcohol only, and did not clearly nor permanently alleviate student fears that might cause hesitation in potentially life threatening situations. This was a compromise that had to be made in order to move the issue forward, but by no means was it considered an acceptable end solution.

Students continued to encounter obstacle after obstacle:

• Apr. 15, 2009 U. Senate Samaritan policy scuttled 

• May 13, 2010 Good Samaritan will face steep opposition in fall

• Sept. 16, 2010 Amnesty protocol unlikely to become policy

But UMD SSDP was not willing to throw in the towel. In September 2010, Crystal Varkalis, Vice President of the chapter was featured in an article titled "Still Fighting" sharing her touching personal story about losing a friend to a drug overdose, which fueled her passion for this issue.

Finally, as seen in the video above, the University Senate passed the medical amnesty policy in a 78-1 vote. Additionally, The Diamondback editorialized in our favor, praising the hard work students exhibited in seeing this through.

While we still have much work to do to extend this policy to apply to all drugs, not only alcohol, yesterday marked an important victory. The people and institutions that provided invaluable time, resources, and support are too numerous to name, but without the help of others, there's no way anyone could have made this happen on their own. I want to extend my sincerest gratitude to everyone who played a part in this saga, no matter how small. You all should be proud that you helped to implement a policy that makes student health and safety a #1 priority and that could prevent the indescribable pain experienced by loved ones of students who didn't get the help they needed in time to save their life.

Words can’t even describe how it feels to see my idea come to fruition. I feel honored and humbled to have played a role in this policy change, and feel an incredible sense of pride about the work we all did to turn this dream of reform into reality.

• For more info on this long & difficult struggle, visit this page on our site.
• To learn about the issue in general and for resources to help you bring change to your campus, visit our Good Samaritan Policies campaign section.

Marijuana: Gateway to the White House

Indiana's Republican governor, Mitch Daniels, has recently been named a possible contender in the GOP presidential primary. Perhaps realizing that the Oval Office's three most recent occupants were marijuana users, the governor decided that it couldn't hurt to expand on his own bust story from May 1970.

The Daily Princetonian reported in a recent interview with Daniels that, "Officers found enough marijuana in his room to fill two size 12 shoe boxes, reports of the incident say. He and the other inhabitants of the room were also charged with possession of LSD and prescription drugs without a prescription." Of the incident, Daniels says “I had used marijuana and I was fined for that, and that was appropriate."

I applaud Governor Daniels for telling his story, and I'm truly glad his arrest didn't devastate his life as it does with so many others. But I will point out that Daniels was arrested with a relatively significant amount of marijuana. Two large shoeboxes is enough volume that it's hard to conceive of any modern hard-charging prosecutor not seeking an indictment for possession with intent to distribute in such a case. Daniels was also busted about six months prior to President Nixon signing the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (on October 27). If that law had been on books in May 1970, Daniels could have faced an array of charges, including several felonies. And if he had been busted after 1998 when the Higher Education Act's Aid Elimination Penalty took effect, he could have lost any federal financial aid as the result of a drug conviction.

I hope that when Daniels says fining him was an "appropriate" punishment he means that a fine should be the maximum penalty for possessing several pounds of marijuana and LSD. If not, does he believe it's right to punish drug arrestees more harshly than he was treated?

SSDP at the International Students for Liberty Conference 2011

I was invited to speak at this weekend's 2011 International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington D.C. This was my first experience as a speaker at a conference over 500. I found out fairly early on that nearly every state in the U.S. had registered, and that 25 countries were also registered. I met people from Romania, Australia, UK, Nigeria, and others that I am not currently remembering. The level of intellect of those in attendance was nothing short of stunning.

Students for Liberty is not at all what I thought it was; I figured it would be a bunch of Libertarians spouting off about how terrible government and bureaucracy is, and while there were some people that held these beliefs, this conference struck me as very similar to that of an SSDP conference. The political beliefs ranged from unsure independent to ultra libertarian, and everything in between. While many people debated politics for long periods of time, there tended to be one thing in common with everyone: everyone felt as though our liberties were being infringed upon.

Students for Liberty is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, which is what makes it so different from other Libertarian groups. They don't support any specific policies, nor do they support Libertarian groups that are not non-profit. From my perspective, this is what makes SFL so important.

Alexander McCobin and Sloane Frost, two co-founders of Students for Liberty, did nothing but impress me with their level of commitment to the organization they founded. Both were top notch speakers that seem to have mastered the process of organizing and delegating, and in three years successfully turned their organization into the largest student-run, liberty-promoting group in existence.

The Stossel Show was filmed at the conference, where John Stossel made it clear that he had never seen a group of politically minded students similar to SFL in his years in the media. The energy in the crowd was nothing short of electric as students from around the world lined up to ask questions during the taping. Gary Johnson spoke about his perspective of politics which blew everyone away (apparently he vetoed more bills than anyone else in the country when he was in office). While he probably will not be President of the United States anytime soon, he is still running in 2012, which continues to garner more and more media attention.

In a nutshell, and in my opinion, Students for Liberty is the future of politics. There is not another group of such incredibly intelligent students in existence, and there is absolutely no way to stigmatize the organization. SSDP and SFL will continue to foster a collaborative relationship so that we can work together to help end the failed War on Drugs and advance the ideals of Liberty across the world.

Thanks to all those that took the time to get to know me; it was an honor for me to have the opportunity to share my story. I sincerely hope that it encourages more chapters of SSDP to start up, and more people to get involved in their local chapters. Only time can tell what will happen, but if anyone from Students for Liberty has any questions about SSDP or wants to get one started, I'd be happy to help where I can. My co-presenter, Stacia Cosner, is the Associate Director of SSDP and it is her job to help students start chapters. Her e-mail address is stacia@ssdp.org. Check out the slides from our presentation on "Drug Policy Activism" here.

Staggering Cases of Injustice Resulting from the Drug War

The drug war continues to wreak havoc on the lives of U.S. citizens. It continues to wreak havoc on the lives of non-U.S. citizens, too. But we just heard of this case of an Oklahoma woman being sent to prison for a decade for dealing marijuana in front of her children; the grandmother has received a non-custodial sentence, but still has to submit to regular drug testing. You can read just how bloody-minded and unforgiving the prosecutors in the case were. The article doesn't even explain how non-existent or awful the defense team was, even though there are clear problems for the women the moment they were arrested.

The case is from Taft, OK, and the full story may be found here.

There are different dynamics in other cases of unjust imprisonment, but should you want examples which would embolden your understanding of systematic injustice, appraise yourself of the story of Tulia, Texas. And when you finish with Tulia, take a look at Hearne, TX. And when you are done with those stories, why not take a look at LA's Ramparts Division and the crisis that unit endured regarding corruption charges. And even if that doesn't explain to you how wrong this situation is, just look up Gary Webb on Wikipedia and have a look at his "Dark Alliance" series. If you don't know about Webb, then you really don't understand the fatal dynamics of anti-drug war commentary and fact finding. You don't understand how the drug wars systematize oppression.

And if you want to thank anything or anybody for this situation, then why not ask the architects, proponents, and sustainers of the drug wars -- for instance, the presidents in the Americas who coyly suggest a debate on drug legalization, but then back away from that debate -- as to how and why they can put their fellow citizens and human beings through such misery? And at such cost to the public purse.

In any event, one woman in Oklahoma just began a decade-long custodial sentence for less than $50.00 of pot. If this were Denmark, and I were Shakespeare, I would be screaming that this state is rotten. And it may be rotten to the core...

Dismantling the Drug War, Bit By Bit

The U.S. House of Representatives just voted to eliminate $34 million in funding for the National Drug Intelligence Center for fiscal year 2011 (on a 262-169 vote). While this news could seem mundane on its face, it's a huge development. This demonstrates that conservatives in Congress will finally put their money where their rhetoric has been for a long time. Drug policy reformers should be encouraged that there are indeed hidden supporters in Congress. Now we need to educate them, spreading the message that the drug war represents the most dramatic expansion of the size and scope of the federal government in the history of this country.

Drugs and Peru's Presidential Politics

It's a trend blowing through electoral politics and drug policy around the Americas. Last year, Mexico's Felipe Calderon mentioned having a debate about legalizing drugs; last month, U.S. President Barack Obama told a YouTube audience that the debate needs to take place; Colombia's President Santos has joined this chorus, now for a second time; in late January Bolivia sought and failed to achieve an exception to Coca-leaf chewing via a UN treaty; and, lately debates about drug policy have entered Peruvian political life.

Watchers of the wind of global drug policy will want to follow Peru's upcoming presidential race, scheduled for April 10, 2011. Drug policies have taken something of a center stage in the Western Andean nation, of late, in part because of former (2001 - 2006) President Alejandro Toledo's current campaign to return to the presidency on a ticket which espouses socially progressive policies: drugs, abortion, gay rights. Our friends over at the Drug War Chronicle provide an excellent overview of what different presidential candidates have said or done over the issue, and whether or not the debate is actually meaningful since Peru has already decriminalized small amounts of marijuana and cocaine.

Peru's importance as a drug producer is well known, and the proximity to the wealth of cocaine affects all parts of life. Even Toledo has suggested that Peru must not become a "narco-state." Whether the country manages to offer a different approach to the "war-on-drugs" may depend on the outcome of April's election.

Gray's Anatomy: Guns and their Sources in the Mexican Drug War

Trying to figure out where the drug trafficking organizations in Mexico obtain their arms is a major task. It is widely accepted that notwithstanding some of the strictest gun purchasing laws in the Western Hemisphere, the country is awash with firepower. Making their presence felt are guns, grenades, and other materiel, many of which have helped to kill about 36,000 people since 2006 in a brutal and widening drug war.

Politics also bedevil the attempt to classify guns seized during Mexican military and justice operations, and compromise methods used to ascertain Mexico's gun market. In the United States, the right refuses to accept the Department of Justice and Department of State's calculation that ninety percent of guns in Mexico come from US sources, calling it a "myth". Senator Charles Grassley has also alleged that the DOJ's Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms division was involved in smuggling arms from the United States, arms which may have killed a Border Patrol Agent in December 2010. New Wikileaks' cables employed by the left suggest the fruitfulness of investigating questions about how US military materiel has made it to Mexico.

Some analysts have pointed out that that the US and its decommissioned military armaments are not the largest part of Mexico's secretive gun market. Firepower is finding its way from China, and in a number of cases old arms arrive from Central and South America. These analysts suggest that the DOJ and State ignore these sources as a way to criticize the sources by which guns arrive in Mexico from the United States. In one investigation, one Houston-area gun shop has had 115 guns sold through its store, all of which ended up being used in crimes in Mexico.

But the US cases are some of the best documented, notwithstanding a 2003 US law that shields the identities of gun dealers whose guns are used in crimes in Mexico. In December 2010 the Washington Post wrote a lengthy article which featured Houston, TX as it is the gun-buying capital for Mexico. Houston is preferred, one long-time ATF agent told the Washington Post reporters, because "you can go to a different gun store for a month and never hit the same gun store." About four or five years ago, ATF initiated Project Gunrunner to interdict and document gun sources. Many of the statistics used in this State briefing document about Gunrunner have been questioned by the right.

Another things is certain: drug traffickers use these arms to defend and protect their hold over an illegal drug market, defending it from rival traffickers or Mexico's authorities. The other thing that is certain is that guns and drugs are intimately linked in the mindset of US law enforcement: the Southwest Border Initiative focuses on shipment of guns and traffic of drugs.