Smuggling... Least Violates the Consciences of Men
"When the President does it,
that means that it's not illegal."
~ Richard M. Nixon
What if the President Smoked Pot? The Atlantic Derek Thompson Jun 24 2009
I'm reading William Saletan unpack the latest antismoking bill, and although I don't have a great framework for evaluating drug regulation, it seems to make a lot of sense. Rather than take steps to outlaw cigarettes, the law is a practical response to the question: How can we make this safer? It allows the FDA to alter the harmful chemistry of cigarettes and expands approval of nicotine gum and patches, among other things. And it makes me wonder: Why can't other drug policies be practical responses the same question?
Saletan has this great kicker of a final paragraph:
If you want to know what Obama really thinks about tobacco, don't read his lips. Read his teeth. To relieve his addiction and protect his health, he's been chewing nicotine gum. The law he just signed authorizes the FDA to expedite approval of nicotine lozenges, gum, and patches. It encourages the agency to broaden the grounds for prescribing such products and to authorize their "extended use." It puts regulators smack in the middle of the nicotine business so they can turn it to better use. If only all our drug policies were this rational. continued...
"The FDA has rejected the possibility of making cigarettes illegal by saying the underground product would be "even more dangerous than those currently marketed." So when you make popular products illegal, it has the potential to make those products more dangerous. Gee, ya think?"
~ Derek Thompson
"I want a Goddamn strong statement on marijuana, I mean one that just tears the ass out of them. You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish."
~ Richard M. Nixon - Former President
"The United States can't be so fixed
on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans . . ."
~ Bill Clinton, March 1, 1993,
press conference in Piscataway, N.J.
(Boston Globe, 3/2/93, page 3; and USA Today, 3/11/93
"Not only are we here to protect the public from vicious criminals in the street but also to protect the public from harmful ideas."
~ Robert Ingersoll - Former DEA Director (1972)
A former El Paso trucking manager convicted of transporting marijuana in his tractor-trailers was sentenced this week to life in prison by a North Carolina judge, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Hector Ruben McGurk, 47, the former operator of Allied Van Lines in El Paso and a former resident of the West Side, will not be eligible for parole, officials said.
McGurk was arrested in August 2002 and convicted of conspiring with some of his employees to transport more than 100,000 pounds of marijuana from El Paso to the East Coast from January 1996 to August 2002. The drugs were often hidden behind furniture and other household items in the big rigs. He was also convicted of money laundering. continued...
"You see it in the headlines, you hear it every day. They say they're gonna stop it, but it doesn't go away. They move it through Miami and sell it in LA. They hide it up in Telluride, I mean it's here to stay. It's propping up the governments. in Columbia and Peru. You ask any D.A., man, they'll say there's nothing we can do. From the office of the president right down to me and you. Me and you. It's a losing proposition, but one you can't refuse. It's the politics of contraband, it's the smugglers' blues."
~ Glenn Frey
NORTH CAROLINA LEGISLATORS
HAVE DECLARED WAR ON TUBE ROSES.
Tube roses are little roses and pens in glass tubes. Also on the legislator's list of evil products are cigar splitters. Splitters are plastic tubes that split cigars lengthwise. Both are sold at convenience stores.
Our legislators apparently believe that these products will increase the use of illegal drugs. So the legislature passed "An Act to Provide for the Regulation of Certain Devices that May be Used as Drug Paraphernalia." continued...
In 2001 — 34 years after the mission — some of Tercero's friends in Phoenix put together a packet on his behalf for the Department of the Army requesting an upgrade of his Bronze Star to a Medal of Honor.
But the Army Decorations Board didn't budge.
"There's my dope-smuggling past to consider. I wasn't just a nickel-and-dimer. We were flying the shit in, tens of thousands of pounds [of marijuana], for years. We got caught a bunch of times, and even though I was really lucky to escape prison, I did what I did and it's public record."
~ Tony Tercero
UPDATE: Viet War Hero Tony Tercero -- the Subject of Our Current Cover Story
"OK" After Cancer Surgery
By Paul Rubin in News
Tuesday, Jun. 2 2009
"I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash first 'round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico
I just plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road
And noe the D.E.A.'s got a chopper in the air
I wake up screaming like I'm back over there
I learned a thing or two from Charlie, don't you know?
You better stay away from Copperhead Road"
~ Steve Earl
Smuggling is depicted by the law as wrong and detrimental to the ?national? interests. In fact, smuggling is the exchange of goods and labor where people want certain things. The arrangements are all consenting and to the benefit of all parties ? except governments. The purpose of government is to exercise its monopoly of force to control the tastes, appetites and perogatives of the ordinary citizen. To enforce this, governments create borders to keep ?outside? influences at bay.
The demands of people are expressed in the marketplace of goods and ideas, not by governments. So when considering the opportunity of a career in smuggling pot, know it is a noble calling: a craft, an art, a little bit of luck fraught with risk and more than a few pulse-racing moments. continued...
Alien Smugglers Use Ambulance Service to Get Past Checkpoint Marfa, Texas – (Thursday, April 16, 2009)
A clever smuggling scheme in Presidio County, Texas, came to an abrupt end March 5, 2009, with the arrest of a Presidio man who had been using an ambulance service to transport illegal aliens past a Border Patrol checkpoint.
"Some were smoking Colitas while other were loading their guns. Blowing smoke from their six-shooters, spinning their barrels for fun. Contrabandistas, banditos alike -- We're the Free Mexican Air Force and we're flyin' tonight. High in the hills we are harvesting sweet sensimilla. Yeah the law wants it all 'cause they know that the wild weed can free ya. And freedom for us is a prison for the rulers of might. That's why the Free Mexican Air Force -- Mescalito riding his white horse -- Yeah, the Free Mexican Air Force is flyin' tonight Flyin' so high- yi- yee...Flyin' tonight!" ~ Peter Rowan
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2,500 U.S. citizens are arrested abroad. One third of the arrests are on drug-related charges. Many of those arrested assumed as U.S. citizens that they could not be arrested. From Asia to Africa, Europe to South America, U.S. citizens are finding out the hard way that drug possession or trafficking equals jail in foreign countries.
Mandatory death sentence for Samantha Orobator, 20, who was in possession of 1.5lb (680g) of heroin when she was arrested at Wattay airport in Laos
Langley B.C. trucker Robert Shannon is going to federal prison for 20 years Shannon’s fleet of trucks carried pipes with marijuana stashed inside, trailers with false walls and drugs in RVs and even a church van.
"You're talking about tens of thousands of pounds of cocaine.
Tens of thousands of pounds of marijuana,”
ICE Agent in Charge Leigh Winchell.
Our current drug crisis is a tragedy born of a phony system of classification. For reasons that are little more than accidents of history, we have divided a group of nonfood substances into two categories: items purchasable for supposed pleasure (such as alcohol), and illicit drugs. The categories were once reversed. Opiates were legal in America before the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, and members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, who campaigned against alcohol during the day, drank their valued "women's tonics" at night, products laced with laudanum (tincture of opium).
“People inside these prisons are very vulnerable.“They are lawless and a dangerous place to be because guards have very little to do with the inside.“They stay on the exterior to stop prisoners absconding.”
~ Matthew Pinches
Prisons Abroad spokesman
"Of all serious crimes under the law, smuggling...
least violates the consciences of men.
It is a crime against law and against government,
but not against morality.
The smuggler robs no man.
He buys goods honestly in one market
and sells them honestly in another.
His offense is against an arbitrary regulation of government....
he simply fails to pay its demands.
Many men otherwise honest
are unable to see any moral turpitude in smuggling.
...government, in exacting toll, plays the part of the highwayman."
-- "The Kaasan Bay 'Find,'" editorial,
The Oregonian, Jan. 21, 1886, p. 2
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