War On Drugs

Drug Forfeiture Program Funded Militarization In Ferguson

August 18, 2014 Eapen Thampy, www.forfeiturereform.com Educate! Militarization, Police, War On Drugs

Those interested in the use of aggressive, militarized law enforcement tactics in Ferguson, Missouri, should consider the role of non-appropriated asset forfeiture revenues as a substantial funding mechanism for military weaponry and its use. First, consider this note from the website of the Metro Air Support Unit (a joint operation with the St. Louis County Police Department, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, and the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department): The contracts signed by each of the three participating departments specify the agreements of each department to provide the personnel as listed above and the annual dollar amount to be contributed by each department towards operating expenses. The contracts state the St. Louis County Police Department and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department are to contribute $150,000 annually and due to a lower call volume and usage of the helicopter the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department is to contribute $100,000 annually. All of the money contributed by each department is money that is collected from asset forfeiture. Asset forfeiture is a term used to describe the confiscation of assets which are either the proceeds of crime or the instrumentalities of crime. No funding of the Metro Air Support Unit comes from any of the police departments actual budgets.

50th Anniversary Of First Pot Protest – August 16, 2014

August 15, 2014 California NORML, www.canorml.org Resist! California, Marijuana, War On Drugs

When thousands assemble to celebrate Hempfest in Seattle this weekend, Saturday will mark the 50th anniversary of the first marijuana freedom protest. On August 16, 1964, a lone crusader named Lowell Eggemeier marched into the San Francisco Hall of Justice, fired up a joint, and puffed it in the presence of the police inspector. “I am starting a campaign to legalize marijuana smoking," he announced, “I wish to be arrested.” He was promptly hauled off to jail for marijuana possession, at that time a felony. Eggemeier’s solitary “puff-in” proved to be the spark for a movement that would grow over the next half century. His protest attracted the attention of a libertarian attorney named James R. White III , who described himself as “to the right of Barry Goldwater.” White filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus for Eggemeier’s release to the California Superme Court. He also organized the original marijuana reform advocacy group, LeMar (Legalize Marijuana), to support Eggemeier’s defense. White’s petition argued that marijuana’s status as an illegal narcotic was an unconstitutional violation of the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and the 14th Amendment’s due process clause.

Reversing Militarization & Federalization Of Local Police

August 11, 2014 Privacy SOS, www.privacysos.org Organize! Police, Privacy, War On Drugs, Wars and Militarism

The United States is not a battlefield, and our homes and communities should not be targets for military raids. But throughout Massachusetts today, forces composed of members of our public police departments increasingly resemble military units, backed up by advanced surveillance technologies, weapons, and battle vehicles. These units, known as SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams, conduct raids in our communities that increasingly resemble Special Forces operations executed by the US military in war zones abroad. For instance, SWAT teams break down doors in the middle of the night, dressed in combat gear, and hurl flash-bang grenades in civilian homes — too often merely to serve routine drug warrants. After more than a decade embroiled in wars abroad, the tactics, mentality, and tools deployed by the US military in overseas war operations are coming home to our cities and towns. Law enforcement is a difficult job, and police officers are sometimes sent into very dangerous situations: active shooter, hostage, and violent barricade scenarios among them. Under these and a similar, limited, set of circumstances, militarized police raids may be appropriate. But all too often, as our review of open source material in Massachusetts and empirical figures from other states show, SWAT raids in America are executed in drug-related cases where there is no justifiable use of such extreme force. Worse still, these militarized drug raids do not impact all Americans equally: unjustifiable force and SWAT raids against people in their homes most often target people of color and the poor. The ACLU’s national office recently found that the majority of people impacted by the more than 800 SWAT raids it investigated were people of color.

Grassroots Power Is Shaping New York’s Marijuana Debate

July 26, 2014 Hannah K. Gold, www.wagingnonviolence.org Organize! Grassroots, Marijuana, New York (NY), Police, War On Drugs

Earlier this month, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson announced that his office would no longer, in many cases, prosecute low-level marijuana possession. Despite being limited to Brooklyn and allowing exceptions for people smoking in public areas or in front of children, the policy represents a historic break in the city’s marijuana decriminalization debate. “That does not happen because someone wakes up and realizes it’s a problem,” said Kassandra Frederique, New York Policy Coordinator at the Drug Policy Alliance, a national organization that partners with local grassroots groups to reform drug policy. “There is no doubt that public pressure from grassroots organizations and people who have been impacted have influenced the talking points of elected officials on marijuana arrest policy in New York.” The day after Thompson’s announcement, a crowd of about a hundred people, including a dozen elected officials and representatives from local advocacy groups, gathered outside City Hall in Manhattan to introduce the Fairness and Equity Act — a bill that, if passed, would reduce racial disparities in statewide marijuana arrests by demoting low-level marijuana possession from a misdemeanor to a violation that comes with a fine. It would, effectively, extend Thompson’s policy to the rest of the state and put additional protections in place for people most impacted by current policies of marijuana arrests and prosecution.

Running For Their Lives: The Child Migrant Crisis

July 26, 2014 Mitchell Zimmerman, www.otherwords.org Educate! Central America, Immigration, Refugees, War On Drugs

As the Department of Homeland Security tries to deliver busloads of Central American children and families to places of temporary safety, shrieking demonstrators in California, Arizona, and other states are barring the way and demanding these kids be dumped over the border. These outbursts resemble the ugly mentality that, in 1939, prompted our government to send a ship with more than 900 German Jews aboard back to Europe where many were eventually killed by the Nazis. Like them, many of the Central American children will be murdered if they are returned home. That’s what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees concluded after interviewing hundreds of these kids. “The M-18 gang told me if I returned to school, I wouldn’t make it home alive,” said a 17-year-old boy identified as Alfonso. “I was threatened by a gang. In El Salvador, they take young girls, rape them and throw them in plastic bags,” said 15-year-old Maritza. Like Alfonso, she fled to the United States. Our government has apprehended more than 50,000 children so far. Protestors objecting to their arrival call them “invaders,” but these kids are refugees. They travel here on their own out of desperation — to escape murder, rape and conscription into gangs. And the United States bears much responsibility for the violence they’re fleeing.

First U.S. Flight Deports Kids Under Fast-Track

July 17, 2014 Gabriel Stargardter, www.reuters.com Educate! Deportation, Foreign Policy, Immigrant Rights, Immigration, War On Drugs

The United States deported a group of Honduran children as young as 1-1/2 years old on Monday in the first flight since President Barack Obama pledged to speed up the process of sending back illegal immigrant minors from Central America. Fleeing violence and poverty, record numbers of children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have crossed into the United States over the past year, testing U.S. border facilities and sparking intense debate about how to solve the problem. Monday's charter flight from New Mexico to San Pedro Sula, the city with the highest murder rate in the world, returned 17 Honduran women, as well as 12 girls and nine boys, aged between 18 months and 15 years, the Honduran government said. Looking happy, the deported children exited the airport on an overcast and sweltering afternoon. One by one, they filed into a bus, playing with balloons they had been given. Nubia, a 6-year-old girl among the deportees, said she left Honduras a month ago for a journey that ended when she and her mother were caught on the Mexico-Texas border two weeks later. "Horrible, cold and tiring," was how Nubia remembered the trip that was meant to unite the pair with her three uncles already living in the United States. Instead, her mother Dalia paid $7,000 in vain to a coyote, or guide, to smuggle them both across the border.

Treat Immigrant Children As Refugees?

July 15, 2014 Anna Lekas Miller, www.wagingnonviolence.org Organize! Children, Immigrant Rights, Refugees, Violence, War On Drugs, Wars and Militarism

Last week, the news broke that another wave of unaccompanied migrant children crossed the border, which brings the number of unaccompanied minors that have attempted to escape into the United States since October to more than 52,000. Most of them are fleeing escalated gang violence in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Unlike many migrants from Central America and Mexico, coming to the United States to escape economic hardship, this new wave of migrants is escaping brutal drug-related violence plaguing the region. For this reason, both immigrant justice activists and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees are calling upon the U.S. government —which has already allocated $116 million to process the deportations and pay the transportation of the most recent wave of children — to treat these migrants as refugees, allowing them to seek temporary or permanent asylum in the United States. Political instability and corruption in Central America allows drug trafficking gangs fighting for control of key smuggling routes to grow unchecked. The resulting violence has been called an undeclared war, with murder rates in Honduras being the highest in the world.

Worldwide Protests Erupt Over Racist, Failed War On Drugs

June 28, 2014 Owen Poindexter, www.alternet.org Resist! International Law, Mexico, Protests, War On Drugs

“There is complete ignorance of the dynamics of the phenomenon and the most convenient ways to fix it,” said Torres of the drug war and its social costs. (Prof. Torres’ quotes are translated from Spanish.) “One ton of cocaine impounded at the international airport is an achievement that will benefit the government in power politically, but it will not solve the underlying problem of drug trafficking in the long term.” These politically popular but ultimately meaningless victories in the war on drugs are hardly restricted to Peru. Niamh Eastwood, an organizer at Release, a London-based drug reform advocacy group, said in a press release: “In the UK…the two main parties – the Conservatives and Labour – are reluctant to engage in the debate preferring a ‘tough on crime, tough on drugs’ stance. That is why it is the job of civil society in the UK to highlight the damage the current criminal justice approach does and why, especially the Labour Party, needs to consider how our drug laws are interconnected with issues of social justice.” Organizers in Mexico City found that the sheer number of street protests and demonstrations in Mexico makes people tune them out, so instead they are using the June 26 day to launch a microsite (a small, targeted website) packed with interviews, infographics and op-eds on why Mexico’s drug policies are detrimental to every one of its citizens.

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