Month: October 2014

Last night, my daughter’s school had a little pre-Halloween
parade. She’s 3. She was wearing a pink tutu. A nice-looking older
lady was standing on the parade route handing out baggies of candy
to the army of Elsas and Iron Men, none of whom were older than 9
or 10. When we got home, I checked out her spoils (though
not because I was afraid of razor blades or poison). This is
what I found:

That’s right, it’s a 24-page anti-marijuana tract in a baggie
with some bribery candy. Which someone thought would be appropriate
to hand out to elementary school kids.

Luckily, my daughter can’t read. But plenty of the kids at her
school can. (Or at least I hope so.) And if they cracked open this
booklet while munching on Bit o’ Honeys, here’s what they would
have found: 

And this: 

The last page of the tract says that “millions of copies of
booklets such as this have been distributed to people around the
world in 22 languages.” The publisher is the Foundation for a
Drug-Free World, a Los Angeles–based nonprofit. 

Naturally, I went to the Google to figure out what the heck was
going on. Short answer: It looks like Scientology dressed up
as a drug warrior this Halloween.

You can read a little more about the Foundation for a Drug-Free
World in their own words on an official Scientology
site here,
or on Wikipedia here.
But essentially the organization is a way to grab people with
substance abuse problems and funnel them into Narconon, which
promotes L. Ron Hubbard’s
rather unorthodox views about addiction.

There’s nothing wrong with giving kids a little age-appropriate
information about drugs, and this lady was well within her rights
to hand out these pamphlets on a public street. I’m more than happy
to provide counter-propaganda in the form of Jacob Sullum’s
oeuvre when the time is right. But it’s unlikely the
well-meaning parade organizers would smile upon their Halloween
festivities being used as a Scientology recruitment ground.

Yet no one thought to question her. Why? Probably because, to
their eyes, she looked like an obvious good guy. Marijuana’s legal
status may be changing, but she was doling out materials more or
less identical to what will be foisted on kids during official
school activities for the rest of their lives. We’ve become so numb
to outrageous anti-drug scaremongering that someone can hand a
3-year-old ballerina a booklet with stories about people dying of
cancer and teachers urging kids to use heroin and no one bats an
eye. 

Scary.

Last week King County, Washington, Sheriff John
Urquhart, speaking at a conference in California, alternated
between praising his state’s approach to marijuana legalization and
conceding that implementation has been more than a little bumpy.
His overall message: Things are great, and it will all work out in
the end. In my latest Forbes column, I explore the
reasons for such ambivalence. Here is how it starts:

Next week voters in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington,
D.C., will decide whether to legalize marijuana. If they
look for guidance to the two states that took that step in 2012,
they will see a situation in Colorado that falls far
short of the cannabis catastrophe predicted by
prohibitionists. The legal industry is thriving, although it has
not entirely displaced the black market yet, and
marijuana-related problems are minimal so far, although controversy
swirls around issues such as regulation of
edibles and restrictions on consumption. If voters
contemplating legalization turn their attention to Washington,
which has been plagued by regulatory delays and uncertainty, there
are lessons to be learned there too, but they mostly
concern what not to do.

Read the whole thing.

In Vendargues, a small French town near Montpellier, there will
be one classic costume conspicuously missing this Halloween. Under
order of
decree by Mayor Pierre Dudieuzere, no resident age 13 or above
shall wear a clown costume or clown makeup in public this October
31.

So what are we looking at here? An extreme case of coulrophobia? Au
contraire! It seems nearby cities and towns have been terrorized by
evil teenage clowns for the past several weeks. Dudieuzere said
he’s merely aiming to “avoid confusion and eventual disruption on
the occasion of the feast of Halloween.” 

Vendargues’ ban on clowning around in public lasts through
November 30, 2014, although an extension is possible if “the
evolution of this phenomenon” of menacing clowns continues. Those
who break the clown ban will be arrested and prosecuted, though the
decree does not say what the punishment is. Also no word on whether
mimes are prohibited.

According to the BBC, French police have recently arrested more than
a dozen teen clowns who were “frightening passers-by” with
weapons and sometimes physically assaulting people. “The incidents
appeared to be fuelled by a clown craze on social media,” the BBC
article reports cryptically.

A story from earlier in the week elaborates on
this alleged evil clown “social media craze”, which apparently
is not just a phénomène français but an “international trend.”

“Earlier this month in the US, there were several reports of
scary clowns in California, Florida and New Mexico,” the
BBC’s Anne-Marie Tomchak reports. 

Photos of clowns were shared on social media accounts using the
name “Wasco Clown”. The Wasco Clown was was originally an art
project featuring photos of an anonymous clown in the town of the
same name. It inspired copycats, with some sharing disturbing
images of clowns in intimidating scenarios. Social media accounts
using the Wasco Clown name built up a following on Twitter and Instagram.
There was also on a tribute
Facebook page. 

Yes, folks, anyone in the whole world who posts clown photos to
the Internet is clearly part of this global violent clown
conspiracy. Don’t worry, though: “Social media is also being used
as part of a counter movement. In France, police say groups are
organising online to track down the clowns and they’re taking the
matter very seriously,” Tomchak notes.

According to the
French Ministry of the Interior, several clown hunters were
arrested carrying batons and brass knuckles. “Possession of a
weapon on a public road is an offense punishable by imprisonment,”
says the Ministry in a statement. “Everyone, aggressive clowns
clowns or hunters, discovered in possession of a weapon … on the
highway will be arrested” and taken into police custody. The
statement also urges French citizens to report “aggressive clowns”
to authorities immediately. 

Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)
has just published an
op-ed in Ozy titled, “What No One is Saying about
Marijuana,” where he sounds the alarm that “Addiction is big
business, and with legal marijuana it’s only getting
bigger.”

A
recidivist drug and alcohol abuser (who has miraculously
avoided jail time despite committing crimes while under
the influence that would send lesser mortals to prison on felony
convictions) arguing for the continued imprisonment of adults
choosing to responsibly consume a substance is rich in its own
right. But for a third-generation Kennedy to argue against ending
marijuana prohibition because major profits will be made off of it
is head-exploding irony and hypocrisy.

Perhaps the ex-Congressman missed the just-concluded
final season of Boardwalk Empire, which included a major
subplot depicting his grandfather, Joseph P. Kennedy, shrewdly
anticipating the end of alcohol prohibition and getting in on the
ground floor of legally importing liquor into the United States.
With that one move, the politically connected and ruthlessly
ambitious Kennedy patriarch built the fortune which to this day
affords the Kennedy scion the ability to avoid both work and
prison. 

In today’s op-ed, Kennedy’s greatest fears for a world without
marijuana prohibition are “Big Tobacco” swooping in and profiting
off the newly legalized substance with a potentially huge consumer
base, and that the “mainstreaming” of marijuana will harm
the mental health of the nation’s youth. He
writes: 

I’ve spent the last several years after leaving Congress
advocating for a health care system that treats the brain like it
does any other organ in the body. Effective mental health care,
especially when it comes to children, is critically important.
Knowing what we now know about the effects of marijuana on the
brain, can we really afford to ignore its consequences in the name
of legalization? Our No. 1 priority needs to be protecting our kids
from this emerging public health crisis. The rights of pot smokers
and the marijuana industry end where our children’s health
begins.

Citing one study tying
marijuana with mental illness, Kennedy not only goes nowhere
near the effects
of alcohol on mental health, he makes no
mention of the billions of dollars spent on marketing alcohol to
youths, merely lamenting that when “Big Tobacco” becomes “Big
Marijuana,” they will surely “target our kids and profit from
addiction.”

Essentially, a man who owes his money, power, and freedom to
profits made off of selling the
most toxic and deadly drug in existence, wants people to
continue to be locked up for recreational drug use, lest other rich
people make money off of selling drugs. 

For more on “The Patriarch” and the booze business that enables
a grandson’s passion for prohibition, watch this Reason TV
interview with Joseph P. Kennedy biographer David Nasaw:

Liberals often complain about
the greed of profit-seeking corporations, while conservatives
likewise complain about abuses by government officials. Both sides
might take notice of something that seems to epitomize the worst of
both worlds — government agencies that use their power to bolster
their own budgets. An eye-popping example – filled
with allegations of fraud, corruption, and official
misconduct – is unfolding in a northern California legal case
involving state and federal efforts to secure a massive financial
settlement from the state’s largest land owner, Sierra Pacific
Industries. Steven Greenhut writes that the Moonlight Fire case
isn’t a rare instance where agencies use their power to secure
large payments that then benefit government agencies. Local, state
and federal officials routinely rely on the proceeds
from civil-forfeiture cases to balance their budgets.

View this article.

The other day, I noted that a
partner in CB Scientific, immediately after promoting his company’s
test kits as a defense against the mythical menace of
marijuana-laced Halloween candy, added, “Not that we believe
anyone will be passing out pot candy to kids…” New York
Times reporter Jack Healy likewise is totally not lending
credence to unsubstantiated rumors about strangers with cannabis
candy who want to get your kids high. Except that he is.

“To some marijuana advocates,” Healy
writes, “the warning belongs with shadowy urban legends about
poisoned chocolates and candy bars spiked with razor blades. There
have not been any reported cases of marijuana-laced treats being
passed out on Halloween here [in Colorado], and edible marijuana
comes in drab packages that look nothing like regular candy.” Yet
Healy uses the Halloween angle to introduce a story about the
hazards supposedly posed by newly legal marijuana edibles. Even if
there is no truth to tales of tykes taking THC-treated treats from
tricksters, he says, “the Halloween message underscored a growing
concern among parents’ groups and regulators that the abundant new
varieties of legal, edible marijuana just look too much like
regular food.”

That concern recently led Colorado’s health department to
briefly propose a ban on almost all forms of marijuana edibles. It
quickly backtracked from that idea,
for good reasons. But let’s take the concern about lookalike
cannabis candy at face value. Doesn’t it cast doubt on the
effectiveness of warnings about marijuana edibles in trick-or-treat
bags?

The Denver Police Department and other law enforcement agencies
emphasize that the marijuana products look exactly like
conventional candy, even while urging parents to be on the lookout
for them. Short of testing every piece of candy (which would make
the folks at CB Scientific very happy but would be prohibitively
expensive), how is a parent who takes these warnings to heart
supposed to distinguish between spiked and unspiked versions of the
same product? They can toss out loose gummy candies and jelly
beans, of course, and any edibles in their original packaging will
be readily identifiable. But wouldn’t a prankster who is determined
to slip your kids cannabis candy think of putting it in packaging
from conventional candy? Alternatively, he could buy regular candy
and dose it with cannabis tincture. The truth is that there is no
reliable, cost-effective defense against someone bent on disguising
drugs as Halloween treats. 

It’s a good thing such people
do not seem to exist. Not only are there no documented cases,
but the idea is implausible on its face. It would be a pretty
pricey prank, since cannabis candy is a lot more expensive than the
conventional sort. And what exactly is the payoff? The knowledge
that, hours later, after the kids get home, eat the candy, and it
starts to kick in, they will feel loopy and drowsy? The prankster
would never know for sure that kids actually got high from his
candy, and if they did he would not be around to witness the
results.

But fear springs eternal. Today the Associated Press
reported that police in Prince George’s County, Maryland,
“seized several boxes of candy infused with marijuana” that had
been shipped from Colorado and “the West Coast.” Exactly when this
seizure happened is not clear, but the reason for announcing it
today is: “Police say it’s the first time they’ve seen that type of
product in their jurisdiction and wanted to make parents aware of
the seizure ahead of Friday’s trick-or-treating.”

In 2006 two police officers in
Hartford, Connecticut, received a tip from a local gang member who
said that illegal guns were being stashed in an abandoned Nissan
Maxima parked in the backyard of a particular house. Although the
informant never explained how he learned about this alleged hiding
place, the officers wasted no time in acting on the information.
They went straight to the house and straight into the backyard.
They did not stop to get a search warrant first.

Upon arrival the officers found no Nissan and no guns. What they
did find was a 3-year-old St. Bernard named Seven, who they
proceeded to shoot and kill in front of the 12-year-old girl who
was playing with her pet in the backyard at the time. According to
that girl, she watched one of the officers shoot the dog in the
head while it was lying wounded on the ground from two previous
shots.

The girl’s family filed suit over this warrantless home
invasion, but a jury ruled for the police. The jury said the
“exigent circumstances” exception to the Fourth Amendment permitted
a warrantless search in this particular case.

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit rejected
that jury’s holding and ordered a new trial for the offending
officers. “There was simply insufficient evidence to warrant the
application of the exigent circumstances exception here,” the 2nd
Circuit declared in
Harris v. O’Hare. “Taken to its logical end, [the
officers’] argument would permit exigent circumstances anytime
there is a tip about illegal guns being located in a high-crime
neighborhood or city, and would allow the exception to swallow the
rule.”

Editor’s Note: This article originally misstated the
age of the dog’s young owner.

The Hells Angels, known for
their criminal activities, violent tactics, and abundant odors, are
perhaps the most notorious motorcycle gangs in the United States.
Hunter Thompson once described the group as “American as jazz.” And
that’s worth remembering; No matter what their reputation is, they
have the same rights as any other Americans. One member of the
group, Maurice Eunice, is fighting the federal government in court
for needlessly launching explosives through the front door of his
clubhouse.

From
Vice:

On August 2, 2011, Special Agent Patrick Ryan of the DEA
obtained a search warrant for the Hells Angels clubhouse in San
Diego county, California.

Instead of knocking, they opening the door by firing “breaching
charges and flashbangs” through it.

The raid in El Cajon was the result of a two-year investigation,
and agents were looking for specific Hells Angels members, but the
explosion revealed a building empty except for a terrified dog.
…

As the Angel who owned the clubhouse, Eunice says the government
conducted an unreasonable seizure and, once inside, intentionally
caused him emotional distress by stomping on pictures of his dead
friends.

“We found the pictures inside with footprints on the glass,”
says Julia Yoo, the civil rights attorney who wrote the complaint.
“And there’s a video of the incident that was filmed before any of
the other [members of the media] showed up. There was an agent
standing outside giving interviews. Somebody tipped them off.”

Eunice, who first filed his lawsuit back in 2012, believes the
feds wanted to create a media spectacle, and that if they wanted to
search his building, they could’ve asked him for a key instead of
bombing it and causing $130,000 worth of damage.

“A district judge granted a summary motion… that ruled in the
government’s favor” earlier this month, but Eunice plans to
appeal.

“The Hells Angels pose a criminal threat on six continents,”
according
to the Department of Justice. But, once again, that doesn’t mean
individual members don’t deserve their rights to be protected. The
scary thing is, they aren’t so different from the rest of us when
it comes to victimization by militarized police. In at least

one past case, a Hells Angel pulled a gun on a SWAT team
looking for drugs that busted into his house, because he thought
they were robbers. They killed him, and never found any drugs –
kind of like the case of
an 80-year-old who died in his bed due to a botched, fruitless
raid.
Or this guy who now faces the death penalty for shooting an
intruder who turned out to be a cop looking for drugs. 

If the police have nothing to hide, then they
have nothing to fear about being required to wear video cameras.
The Associated Press is
reporting that 36 police officers will begin wearing body
cameras next week. If they prove effective, then body cameras will
be issued to the entire department by the end of 2015. Requiring
police to wear video cameras should be universally adopted sooner
rather than later.

In my 2013 column, “Watched
Cops Are Polite Cops,” I reported:

Earlier this year, a 12-month study by Cambridge University
researchers revealed that when the city of Rialto, California,
required its cops to wear cameras, the number of
complaints filed against officers fell by 88 percent and the
use of force by officers dropped by almost 60 percent.

People who know that they are on camera (unless it’s part of the
Real Housewives franchise) tend to act better. The Baltimore
Sun is
reporting that a city cop has been charged with assault and
perjury after his sucker punch attack on a citizen was revealed on
a video from a city surveillance camera. See below.

The fact that it took three months for the Baltimore
surveillance camera video to surface highlights the need to
establish speedy and secure chain-of-custody rules for video taken
by body-worn cameras. In my “Watched Cops Are Polite Cops” column,
I outlined some rules for the proper handling of cop videos
including that officers should notify people that they are being
recorded; officers should be subject to stiff disciplinary
sanctions if they fail to turn on their cameras each time they
interact with the public; failure to record an incident for which a
patrolman is accused of misconduct should create a presumption
against that officer; and videos should be retained for no more
than 30 to 60 days, unless flagged.

In its September series, “Undue
Force,” the Baltimore Sun reported that the city has
paid out $5.7 million in taxpayer funds since January 2011 over
lawsuits claiming that police brazenly beat up alleged suspects.
The newspaper noted that sum would cover the price of a
state-of-the-art rec center or renovations at more than 30
playgrounds. And that the payments didn’t count the $5.8 million
spent by the city on legal fees to defend these claims brought
against police. It seems to me that the city can’t afford not to
equip its officers with cameras.

To reiterate, requiring police officers to wear video
cameras…

…will accomplish an important democratic task as well: turning
the tables on the functionaries of the surveillance state. It gives
citizens better protection against police misconduct and against
violations of their constitutional rights. And it protects good
cops against unfair accusations, too.

No, I say in my column at The Week this morning.

RNC Chair Reince Priebus has been
promising the GOP faithful that if his party takes the Senate,
it will do everything in its power — “defunding, going to court,
injunction…you name it” — to stop Obama from declaring “executive
amnesty” with the aim of forcing him to back down. And some liberal
columnists such as Matt Yglesias and Brian Beutler are worried
(hoping?) he’ll do just that.

But that’ll be politically calamitous for Democrats in 2016. I
note:

Many Latinos are
disgusted by Obama’s midterm switcheroo on executive action —
he deferred action till after Nov. 4 for nakedly political reasons.
But cynical as his decision may have been, it did make a certain
amount of political sense. Of the 10 toss-ups that are in play next
week, only one — Colorado — has a significant Latino presence.
Deferring action will certainly
depress their turnout next week (although by how much is

debatable since Latinos don’t show up in huge numbers for the
midterms anyway). But forging ahead would have mobilized far more
whites in the other nine states, making next week even more of a
rout for Democrats, especially since the
gap is no more than a few percentage points in most of these
races.

But in the 2016 presidential election, this dynamic will
fundamentally change.

Go
here to read the whole thing.