DdC

NPR has a good four-part series on Asset Seizures

We're going to take your money now. Trust us.

Justice Department figures show that in the past four years alone, the amount of assets seized by federal law enforcement agencies -- the vast majority of it cash -- has tripled, from $567 million to $1.6 billion. And that doesn't include tens of millions more the agencies got from state asset forfeiture programs.

Lots of police departments are making asset forfeiture their big game. They're actually spending more effort profiling drivers going south than going north, because they'd rather seize money than drugs -- the drugs get destroyed, the money they get to keep.

"If they catch 'em going south with a suitcase full of cash,
the police department just paid for its budget for the year."
-- Jack Fishman, attorney

And plenty of cases, they're just stealing it from innocent people at gunpoint.

There were some telling and bizarre quotes from law enforcement in the series...

Part 1
Investigator Mike Tamez assures us that we have no reason to worry if we just trust them:

"We're not going to sidestep the law and seize people's money just for the financial gains of the department," Tamez says. "It's not going to happen."

Apparently law enforcement is immune from the lure of money? Right. Of course, plenty of other stories in the series puts the lie to Tamez' statement.

Part 2

Captain Ray Escamilla explains one of the tricks in picking the mark.

"You don't want to take the money from any John Doe," Escamilla says. "If you can't prove that it's been a criminal activity, reasonably suspicious, probable cause, you don't want to take it, 'cause it'll look bad in court."

Yeah, cause you don't want to look bad in court is the main reason for a cop not to steal from people.

Part 3

Chief Deputy Eddie Ingram:

"If you get money, God bless America," Ingram says. "It's a wonderful thing. ... But that ain't what our sole purpose in life is. If all I wanted to do was get money, I know how to get out there and get all the money I want."

Yep. God bless America -- where else can government officials have the power to pull people over without cause, search through their stuff and take what you want? I mean, other countries probably have constitutions and stuff to prevent that kind of wholesome, fun activity.

Part 4 covers some of the questionable spending with proceeds of asset forfeiture, although the mere notion of a government entity controlling the money it seizes is unacceptable because such a system cannot help but spawn corruption.

Legalize Every Drug
John Stossel Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Drew Carey videos
Sunday, June 15, 2008

Raiding California
Should medical marijuana be kept from minors at all costs? Why is it that pharmacists can dispense amphetamines without getting busted, but legal operators who dispense medical marijuana face prison time?

Why do armed federal agents persist in raiding California?

Senator Webb's hearing on Economic Impact of U.S. Drug Policy
All the prepared documents from today's hearing are available here

Senator Webb set the tone with his opening:

The central role of drug policy in filling our nation's prisons makes clear that our approach to curbing illegal drug use is broken. [...]

It is painful to note that as people gather today to celebrate the end of slavery, Human Rights Watch reports that while "ostensibly color-blind, the U.S. drug war has been and continues to be waged overwhelmingly against black Americans." [...]

Our current combination of enforcement, diversion, interdiction, treatment, and prevention is not working the way we need it to. And, despite overwhelming facts [^] the ease with which drugs can be obtained, the price of drugs, the number of people in prison, the violence at the border [^] there has been little effort to take a comprehensive look at the relationship between the many interlocking pieces of drug policy. continued...DWR/2900



Pot Potency? Boomers' blissfully unfazed by mere facts

"It's just a jaw-dropping lecture to receive from the Drug Czar, who previously claimed that marijuana potency had increased "as much as 30 times" precisely by using weak domestic samples as his baseline. Well thanks for clarifying that, finally. Maybe ONDCP should send a press release to 2002 to warn everyone how full of crap they are."
-- Scott Morgan 06/17/2008

Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage



"Name me another agency that publishes data, but then denies the validity of said data the moment somebody highlights it," Armentano said. "This sort of slipshod research would receive a failing grade on a high-school term paper. It's an embarrassment that the most well-funded drug policy agency in America would engage in such an admitted act of duplicity."
-- Paul Armentano, NORML
essay in the HuffingtonPost.com

Journey for Justice Pedaling for Pot



StoptheDrugWar.org

Drug War Chronicle

Stop the Drug War DRCNetis an international organization working for an end to drug prohibition worldwide and for interim policy reform in US drug laws and criminal justice system.

THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES 5/19/06
A missing evidence investigation in Delaware and a missing evidence sentence in California; more sticky-fingered cops in Tennessee; a would-be porn king with a bad temper in Denver, and some perverse traffic cops in Baltimore.

Drug Cops Shouldn’t be Paid With Confiscated Drug Money 06/18/2008
A disturbing report from NPR illustrates that many police departments have become dependent on confiscated drug proceeds in order to fund their anti-drug operations.

Seize This!

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DdC

Drug War Chronicle Book Review

Enough is Enough: Stop the Deadly SWAT Raids

Two More Horrible Drug Raid Disasters
Scott Morgan Chronicle Blog 06/12/2008

Derrick Foster is the latest person facing prosecution after mistaking a drug raid for a robbery and firing on the intruders, who turned out to be police. He's gainfully employed, has no criminal record, and wasn't involved in any drug activity. But, of course, police are pushing the theory that he wanted to kill some cops on purpose. Concerned that Foster's innocence could result in him being found…innocent, the local police union is going around intimidating potential character witnesses.

In yet another raid-gone-wrong, police heard that Ronald Terebesi, Jr. was smoking crack in his house (smoking, not selling). So they threw a flashbang grenade in his window, smashed down his door with a battering ram and killed a disoriented man who "charged" at them. 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan is now dead because police went nuts in order to stop a guy from smoking crack.



World Record Marijuana Crop Gets Blown Up By Fighter Jets

There's something tragically ironic about using fighter jets to launch air strikes on a plant that's never killed anyone in the history of the world. Are you having fun yet, brave desert drug soldiers? Someone get these guys some volleyball nets before they nuke a poppy field.
-- Scott Morgan Chronicle Blog 06/12/2008



Misdemeanor possession... Confiscate her home!!!

Auction Action by Judy Osburn
"Police seized vehicles" exclaimed the advertisements for the Labor Day weekend auction. Four FEAR activists arrived at United Public Auctions in Upland, California early Saturday morning in time for the 7 a.m. auction preview. We intended to alert bidders that their own car could easily be forfeited under the unfair laws by which the vehicles up for auction were seized.

5029 3/26/05 Lynn and Judy Osburn 142x190



Forfeiture Endangers American Rights Foundation
A 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Donations are tax deductible.
20 Sunnyside Suite A-419, Mill Valley, CA 94941
Phone: 415-389-8551 or toll-free 888-FEAR-001

Help Free Dana Beal... Founder of MMM
Coles County sheriff said that Mr. Beal was facing a charge of money laundering. He is being held in $250,000 bail. Mr. Beal had told friends that he was traveling with cash because he was planning to finance a clinic. Mr. Weberman said the clinic was to study ibogaine, a derivative of an African shrub that researchers have said can be used to counter addiction. "He raises money from all over the world, And a lot of it comes from potheads."

"One of the problems that the marijuana-reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in tbe middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."
-- William F. Buckley

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_tyranT

can you summarize it?

DdC

Of coarse now that it’s past June 21. I would have had to springerize before. If you have trouble reading, most puters have sound. Just c&p and turn it on. It will read it for ya. Not that it’s a difficult concept.

1 trillion spent on the Ganjawar = 1 trillion profit and competition kept off the trade markets.

Maintaining Dysfunction only hurts the taxpayer.

The Ganjawar is a Product Sold by D.E.A.th to Profit Fascist

60+ years of censorship and a one way media working for the corporations in competition to Ganja and Hemp. Prisons to $40 bil black budget for the 6 figured salary drug czar. Inflated prices, forced rehab costs. Lots of incentives that have nothing to do with Ganja.

The Art of War - Sun Tzu

To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands.
But the opportunity of defeating the enemy,
is provided by the enemy himself.
If you know the enemy, and know yourself,
you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself, but not the enemy,
for every victory gained you will also suffer defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself,
you will succumb in every battle.

STATE OF THE UNION: CORRUPT

I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare.
I paint my face and travel at night.
You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag."
--Ralph Reed, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 11/9/91

The "M" Word

"If they catch 'em going south with a suitcase full of cash,
the police department just paid for its budget for the year."
-- Jack Fishman, attorney

US War On Drugs - A Trillion Dollar Joke

Jun 11, 2008 Help Free Dana Beal... Founder of MMM
Beal was in possession of over $100,000.00 cash. Unable to verify where he obtained the money Beal has been incarcerated in the Coles County Jail. He was being held on $250,000 bail. Mr. Beal had told friends that he was traveling with cash because he was planning to finance a clinic. Mr. Weberman said the clinic was to study ibogaine, a derivative of an African shrub that researchers have said can be used to counter addiction.

Jun 13, 2008: Beal, 61, was charged only with obstructing justice Thursday, though his case's prosecutor said other charges could be filed later. The attorneys in the Beal's case also agreed that his bond will be reduced.

Effort To Disguise a Medicine as an Illegal Drug
The organizations that represent Minnesota's police chiefs, sheriffs, county attorneys, police officers and narcotics investigators are united in opposition to legislation that would authorize the use of marijuana for medical purposes...

Marijuana Laws Cost Government $42 Billion Annually



One person's "cost" is anothers "profit"...

Town's school books or Sikorsky Green Harvest helicopters...
Health care or prison jump suits...
Farmers growing Hemp food, oil, clothing and plywood or Banksrupting...
Neato snooping devices or a computer in every home...
$6 figure drug czar salaries and a $40 bil black budget or the infrastructure...



Crowded schools, traffic-choked roads and transit cutbacks are eroding the quality of American life, according to an analysis by civil engineers that gave the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of D. A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Wednesday assessed the four-year trend in the condition of 12 categories of infrastructure.

It's so thoughtful of the media to program the news fit for us to hear without the burdon of us thinking or commenting... Let Loudobb and Wuf inferm us. Leaving us free to solve greater problems like Deal or No Deal. Time Warner and Truth now there's a concept... NBCBS, ABCBS and just plain ole CBS. Saving us from the fascist Fox... I only watch community TV for news. Free Speech TV, occasionally Democracy Now. INN and Liberty News. Pirate Radio.

They can't pîss off their bread and butter coincidently in competition with Ganja and Hemp...

Shadow of the Swastika: An Open Letter to All Americans

Hearst’s Disinformation and Yellow Journalism



Thank you Miss Rosa

Prejudice: Marijuana and Jim Crow Laws

The Last Days of Legal Cannabis

Blatent Bigotry

Starting with the 1898 Spanish American War, the Hearst newspaper had denounced Spaniards, Mexican-Americans, and Latinos.

After the seizure of 800,000 acres of Hearst’s prime Mexican timberland by the “marihuana” smoking army of Pancho Villa,* these slurs intensified.

* The song “La Cucaracha” tells the story of one of Villa’s men looking for his stash of “marijuana por fumar!” (to smoke!)

Non-stop for the next for three decades, Hearst painted the picture of the lazy, pot-smoking Mexican—still one of our most insidious prejudices. Simultaneously, he waged a similar racist smear campaign against the Chinese, referring to them as the “Yellow Peril”.

Hearst, through pervasive and repetitive use, brought the word ‘marijuana’ into English.

Hearst’s and other sensationalistic tabloids ran hysterical headlines atop stories portraying “Negroes” and Mexicans as frenzied beasts who, under the influence of marijuana, would play anti-white “voodoo-satanic” music (jazz) and heap disrespect and “viciousness” onto the predominantly white readership. Other such Jim Crow (apartheid) offenses resulting from this drug-induced “crime wave” included: stepping on white men’s shadows, looking white people directly in the eye for three seconds or more, looking at a white woman twice, laughing at a white person, etc.

For such “crimes,” hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and blacks spent, in aggregate, millions of years in jails, in prisons, and on chain gangs, under brutal segregation laws that remained in effect throughout the U.S. until the 1950s and ’60s. Hearst, through pervasive and repetitive use, pounded the obscure Mexican slang word “marijuana” into the English-speaking American consciousness. Meanwhile, the word “hemp” was discarded and “cannabis,” the scientific term, was ignored or buried.

The actual Spanish word for hemp is “cáñamo.” But using a Mexican “Sonoran” colloquialism—mariju ana, often Americanized as “marihuana”—guarante ed that no one would realize that the proper terms for one of the world’s chief natural medicine, “cannabis,” and for the premier industrial resource, “hemp,” had been outflanked, outlawed, and pushed out of the language.



Hearst’s Disinformation

In early 1937, Assistant U.S. Surgeon General Walter Treadway told the Cannabis Advisory Subcommittee of the League of Nations that, “It may be taken for a relatively long time without social or emotional breakdown. Marihuana is habit-forming…in the same sense as…sugar or coffee.”

But other forces were at work. The war fury that led to the Spanish American war in 1898 was ignited and fanned by William Randolph Hearst through his nationwide newspaper chains, marking the beginning of “yellow journalism”* as a force in American politics.

* Webster’s dictionary defines “yellow journalism” as the use of cheaply sensational or unscrupulous methods in newspapers and other media to attract or influence the readers.

In the 1920s and ’30s, Hearst’s newspapers deliberately manufactured a new threat to America and a new yellow journalism campaign to have hemp outlawed. For example, a story of a car accident in which a “marijuana cigarette” was found would dominate the headlines for weeks, while alcohol-related car accidents (which out numbered marijuana-connected accidents by more than 10,000 to 1) made only the back pages.

This same theme of marijuana leading to car accidents was burned into the minds of Americans over and over again in the late 1930s by showing marijuana-related car accident headlines in movies such as “Reefer Madness” and “Marijuana—Assassin of Youth.”
the authorized on-line version of Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” text from “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” © Jack Herer CD-ROM and web presentation © 0=2

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DdC

Marijuana Prohibition

THE TRUTH AS I HAVE LEARNED IT by Susan A. Moles
My Cannabis Research May 16, 2007

Starting with William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper journalist and U.S. Senator from 1886-1893. When William was 24 his father gave him a choice of his holdings and William choose the San Francisco Examiner, which the family had acquired years earlier for political reasons. Remember that there was no mass media as we have today. People had their newspapers and they believed everything they read. They had nothing to compare it to so they saw no reason not to believe. In the 1947 Encyclopedia Britannica under newspapers/yellow journalism, you will find quite an interesting story about Mr. Hearst. Seems he used his newspapers for his own self-interest. Mr. Hearst had some land in Mexico, which the Mexican government seized.

Keep in mind, Mr. Hearst was a bigot and if you weren’t white he hated you and he was already on record as speaking derogatory of Mexicans. He began a yellow journalism campaign against the country of Mexico running headlines such as "Marijuana- That Killer Drug From Mexico", "Those lazy marijuana smoking Mexicans." Much of our perception, even to this day, of the Mexican people is a direct result of this negative campaign. Remember that people believed what they read in the newspaper. Mr. Hearst gave us the word marijuana so individuals would not know he was talking about the cannabis they had growing out back to feed, clothe, and comfort their families. Everyone knew about hemp, but he scared them with talk of this killer drug from Mexico.



THE REAL REASON HEMP IS ILLEGAL

A media blitz of 'yellow journalism' raged in the late 1920s and 1930s. Hearst's newspapers ran stories emphasizing the horrors of marihuana. The menace of marihuana made headlines. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to loose morality.

Films like 'Reefer Madness' (1936), 'Marihuana: Assassin of Youth' (1935) and 'Marihuana: The Devil's Weed' (1936) were propaganda designed by these industrialists to create an enemy. Their purpose was to gain public support so that anti-marihuana laws could be passed.



How cannabis became illegal

With the help of ally Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, Anslinger began a campaign of misinformation against cannabis hemp, which they renamed marijuana, playing on racism and xenophobia.

It was so effective that by 1938 the US Congress passed the Marijuana Transfer Tax Act, quite unaware that what they were banning was cannabis hemp, a plant they had been trading profitably for centuries.



Why hemp is suppressed

The reason that Hemp is illegal in America today is because the main families in America (Masons), the Harrimans and Rockefellers (Standard Oil), the Whitneys (Eli Whitney-Cotton Gin), Dupont (Chemicals in wood pulp processing and cotton pesticides), and Hearst (Newspapers, Media) find it more profitable to sell us unnecessary chemicals, unneeded dug-up petroleum oil, immune system destroying pharmaceuticals, and axed up trees cut into real thin slices, all at over-inflated prices and at the expense of our health and living environment.

For these companies, the real problem is that one cannot patent a natural plant. Almost everything produced in America by large corporations is exported for sale on the world markets. The total value of oil, petrochemicals, and pharmaceutical sales totals hundreds of billions of dollars. However, with the availability of over 50,000 new products and the necessity to manufacture them, America would be a much richer nation if the farmers and the average citizen were allowed to grow this valuable crop.

William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst's grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.

In 1937, Dupont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. Dupont's Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of Dupont's business.

THE CONSPIRACY

Andrew Mellon became Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury and Dupont's primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. These men took an obscure Mexican slang word: 'marihuana' and pushed it into the consciousness of America.

MEDIA MANIPULATION

A media blitz of 'yellow journalism' raged in the late 1920s and 1930s. Hearst's newspapers ran stories emphasizing the horrors of marihuana. The menace of marihuana made headlines. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to loose morality.

Films like 'Reefer Madness' (1936), 'Marihuana: Assassin of Youth' (1935) and 'Marihuana: The Devil's Weed' (1936) were propaganda designed by these industrialists to create an enemy. Their purpose was to gain public support so that anti-marihuana laws could be passed.

Examine the following quotes from 'The Burning Question' aka REEFER MADNESS:
* a violent narcotic.
* acts of shocking violence.
* incurable insanity.
* soul-destroying effects.
* under the influence of the drug he killed his entire family with an ax.
* more vicious, more deadly even than these soul-destroying drugs (heroin, cocaine) is the menace of marihuana!

Reefer Madness did not end with the usual 'the end.' The film concluded with these words plastered on the screen: TELL YOUR CHILDREN.

In the 1930s, people were very naive; even to the point of ignorance. The masses were like sheep waiting to be led by the few in power. They did not challenge authority. If the news was in print or on the radio, they believed it had to be true. They told their children and their children grew up to be the parents of the baby-boomers.

On April 14, 1937, the Prohibitive Marihuana Tax Law or the bill that outlawed hemp was directly brought to the House Ways and Means Committee. This committee is the only one that can introduce a bill to the House floor without it being debated by other committees. The Chairman of the Ways and Means, Robert Doughton, was a Dupont supporter. He insured that the bill would pass Congress.



Shadow of the Swastika: An Open Letter to All Americans

The future will be what we make of it.

You should research the drug war and its true causes a little more, you might be surprised. For starters you can safely ignore the mainstream media, since their big-business partners have a vested interest in negative public perception of some drugs, and positive of others.

Look up W.R. Hearst and Dupont in relation to crimilization of marijuana, or the CIA and their heroin/cocaine smuggling operations for a taste of the real reasons for the drug war.

Leary v. United States
Marihuana Tax Act violated his privilege against self-incrimination

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patriot

We fight for everyone, even those who are too stupid and/or brainwashed to understand what we are truly trying to accomplish.

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A true patriot is always ready to stand up against his own government.

We can't be using plants that come from the Lord for beneficial purposes. Now hurry up, or we'll be late for church.

The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.-Adolf Hitler

Legalizing marijuana won't grow our economy-Barack Hussein Obama 2009

DdC

Ain't that the kicker? lol
I thought about that the other day getting bashed by a drug worrier.
It's just information for the benefit of all. Even the Drug Czar and his family.
The DEAth serves a few International corporations and copshops and the paraphernalia that goes along with busting people for a plant.
We throw life preservers to drowning gas guzzlers and they curse and throw it back trying to hit us with it. It's just information probably not broadcast on local or cable TV. Dangerous only to those harming us or keeping us under their thumbs with high prices and wars.
Just give me some truth and let the people grow. There is money in Peace and fixing the Environment that cost the same as fighting and dying for oil.
Another nice day on the Coast. Hopfully no more fires. Lightning struck and started several yesterday. Our third major forest fire in a month. The latest may be a wingnut lighting them from the highway. Where are the cops? Busting sick people. Not enough firemen? Too many benefits in drug enforcement confiscating Christmas presents and cash why risk their asses. Citizens Initiatives over rule politicians. It is high time the citizens got off their lazy scared ass and initiated a Federal ban on Drug Czars.
Be well,
DdC

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kamikazi89

..and after all that fined 1,300 hundred bucks because his money smelled like marijuana..

gimmee a fucking break already

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katie west is the best

Being

he doesn't know how.
ive said it before and ill say it again. you suck at posting. you deter people from ever reading or caring about your posts when you make them so unbelievably unorganized, random, and bloated. it doesn't make you look smarter, only that you can copy and paste better than anyone else.

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R.I.P. Gov

kamikazi89

i always find something useful, wanting to helps

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katie west is the best

Being

its usually regurgitated stuff either him or someone else has posted on the net already anyways. '

all im saying, take a little effort to improve your posts and how they are constructed, people will care more about your posts which I'm sure you want in the cannabis activism forum

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R.I.P. Gov

kamikazi89

i'm happy with information, whinning i could do without

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katie west is the best

Being

is that the Stewie version of whining?

Constructive criticism isn't whining though, ty

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R.I.P. Gov

kamikazi89

you're not really being all that constructive, honestly ... been posting the same way for years and they ain't going change because you don't like it..you're really just badgering

not that i care, you gotta be true to you

this was very interesting:Ibogaine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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katie west is the best

K10

no one is forcing you to read it.

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Just because you tie dye your wool, doesn't mean
you're not a sheep.
R.I.P. Alice D.