The botched drug raid fiasco in Berwyn Heights, MD grows more embarrassing for Prince George's County police everyday. Their theory is now that a deliveryman was planning on intercepting the package:

Prince George's Police Chief Melvin C. High did not apologize to the Calvos or exonerate them completely in the case. However, he said police have discovered five or six other similar deliveries made in recent days to addresses where people inside had no knowledge of the delivery. He said he believed the Calvos were "likely" innocent but that police continue to investigate. [Washington Post]

It bothers me to no end that this whole mess seems to hinge in many people's minds on the ultimate determination of whether or not the Calvos had anything to do with the marijuana. While I agree that the destruction of innocent lives and property is one of the most disturbing consequences of our wildly out-of-control war on drugs, I think Police Chief High (don't laugh, not funny) is missing the point.

His officers shot two black Labradors, one of which was running away. It's just barbaric. A source who attended a memorial service for the dogs learned that the raiding officers didn’t even know the homeowner was the mayor until they began interrogating him. The point isn’t that he deserved special treatment, but rather that police didn’t even conduct a basic investigation of their suspects. They went in blind, and their subsequent violent actions owe much to the ignorance that guided them throughout the process. This type of policing is unacceptable categorically and without regard to one's occupation or even their involvement in drugs.

Worse yet, there's absolutely nothing unique or exceptional about any of it. As this very story unfolded we learned that a Lima, OH officer was acquitted of negligence charges after shooting a baby and killing her unarmed mother in a drug raid. He literally used the excuse that the sound of his fellow officers shooting dogs downstairs startled him, causing him to shoot at a shadow. That shadow turned out to be Tarika Wilson, who he killed while also shooting her baby's finger off.

Horrible drug raid stories have become vastly more common than they ought to be. The patterns are disturbingly familiar, the excuses are disturbingly unpersuasive, and the next similar disaster will occur disturbingly soon. Just watch.

The highly controversial Charles Lynch trial has reached a disappointing conclusion:

The owner of a Morro Bay marijuana dispensary was found guilty today in federal court of five counts of distributing drugs.

Charles Lynch, the owner of the dispensary, faces a minimum of five years in prison.

His closely watched trial involved conflicting marijuana laws and went to a federal court jury Monday. Jurors were asked to determine if Lynch was guilty of violating federal drug laws.

During a week-and-a-half-long trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors sought to depict Lynch as a common drug dealer who sold pot to teenagers and carried a backpack stuffed with cash.

Lynch was charged with distributing marijuana, conspiring to distribute marijuana and providing marijuana to people under the age of 21. [LA Times}

Like other medical marijuana convictions, federal prosecutors were only able to prevail by blocking testimony about medical marijuana and misleading jurors about the true nature of the defendant's actions. reason.tv tells the truth about the Lynch case here:

Fortunately, while the federal government can lie to a jury, they cannot conceal their contemptuous conduct from a public already sickened by the vicious and embarrassing war on medical marijuana patients and providers. Their manipulative tactics will be fully exposed in the aftermath of today's result and will be greeted with the same widespread disgust that has characterized past persecutions prosecutions.

We must never mistake today's events for anything but what they are: a pathetic and purely symbolic attempt to obscure the obvious benefits of state medical marijuana laws. They are powerless against the tide of public opinion and the booming industry that has spawned amidst their intransigence. They now resort to petty martyrings, the brutal last resort of a disgraced tyrant, in the fading hope of intimidating a nation that has embraced democracy itself to subvert their hideous war.

Even in its hour of victory, the war on medical marijuana shivers naked before us, spitting desperately into the eyes of a public whose support it lost long ago.

Taking people's cars against their will is, of course, not a crime when police do it:

A new push by Annapolis police officers to crack down on drugs and violence in the city is having an added benefit: Record vehicle seizures and revenues.

Sgt. Dave Garcia, who oversees the vehicle seizure program, said city police seized 120 vehicles in the first six months of this year, netting $23,960 in the process.
…

Sgt. Garcia said when the city began its seizure program, officers had discretion on whether to seize a vehicle. About a decade ago, however, the department adopted the zero-tolerance policy.

"We wanted it to be fair for everyone," he said, explaining now it doesn't matter if the officer finds a glass pipe for smoking crack or a kilo of heroin - the city will take your car. [hometownannapolis.com]

It is just amazing what the term "fair for everyone" can mean to a narcotics officer. It disturbs me greatly that police can even say things like that in our newspapers without provoking massive public outcry.

As one might guess, the program serves no crime control function and accomplishes nothing other than funding the process of busting more people and taking more cars:

It is unclear if the seizures actually are deterring anything, though. The city seized about 170 vehicles a year for the past three years, only to see record numbers of murders and robberies.

"Is the message getting across the way we like? Probably not," Sgt. Garcia said. But he noted police rarely seize the same car twice, and the money the city makes on the seizures helps buy new surveillance equipment, computers and unmarked cars for the city Police Department. All of the seizure money goes to a special fund maintained by the department.

"They are helping us fund our war against drugs," he said.

The article goes on to describe how citizens may purchase their cars back for hundreds of dollars, but only if they agree not to contest the seizure. In other words, if you're innocent, you have to risk losing your car entirely in order to challenge your false arrest and the confiscation of your vehicle.

Once again, we find the soldiers in our war on drugs engaged in behavior that would be a serious crime if anyone else did it. This is just pure extortion carried out against a large group of people who haven’t yet been convicted of any crime. Police then parade around exclaiming that they are helping people solve their drug problems, as though taking people's property and selling it back to them is some form of drug treatment. It's not.

If these are the sorts of ideas we're coming up with for addressing our nation's drug problem, it's time to include more people in the discussion.

Looks like there will be no accountability or apologies for one of this year's worst botched drug raids:

A white police officer was acquitted Monday in the drug-raid shooting death of an unarmed black woman that set off protests about how police treat minorities in a city where one in four residents is black.
…

Chavalia shot 26-year-old Tarika Wilson and her year-old son she was holding, killing her and hitting him in the shoulder and hand, during a Jan. 4 SWAT raid on her house. One of the child's fingers had to be amputated.
…

Chavalia, an officer of 32-years, had testified that he thought his life was in danger when he fired the shots. He said he saw a shadow coming from behind a partially open bedroom door and heard gunshots that he thought were aimed at him. It turned out the gunfire he heard was coming from downstairs, where officers shot two charging pit bulls. [ABCNews]

So police shooting innocent dogs downstairs became an excuse for police shooting innocent people upstairs. I'm never surprised to see a jury (an all-white jury, no less) ruling in favor of police in a case like this. Still, I can’t get over the officer's admitted failure to even observe what he was shooting at. An officer who panics and fires at "a shadow coming from behind a partially open bedroom door" is incompetent at best, but clearly criminal if we're to hold police to anything approaching the same vicious standards applied to civilians in these raids.

I shudder to contemplate the sort of carnage it may require to get out the message that modern drug war police tactics are not a necessary precaution, but rather a genuine and growing threat to public safety.

Marijuana's incredible medical potential becomes increasingly clear with every new study:

Raymond DuBois and colleagues at the University of Texas in Houston discovered that a key receptor for cannabinoids, which are found in marijuana, is turned off in most types of human colon cancer.

Without this receptor, a protein called survivin, which stops cells from dying, increases unchecked and causes tumour growth.

To better understand the role that the receptor, called CB1, plays in cancer progression, the researchers manipulated its expression in mice that had been genetically engineered to spontaneously develop colon tumours.

"When we knocked out the receptor, the number of tumors went up dramatically," says DuBois. Alternatively, when mice with normal CB1 receptors were treated with a cannabinoid compound, their tumours shrank. [New Scientist]

The body of evidence showing that THC may effectively treat tumors is already extensive, so there's nothing particularly surprising about this latest research. Rather, it provides yet another opportunity to point out just how much damage our government has done in the course of its relentless and fraudulent campaign to convince everyone that the marijuana plant is incredibly dangerous rather than incredibly helpful.

Imagine what we might have achieved if our nation's efforts over the past thirty years had been focused on identifying the plant's benefits rather than exaggerating its harms and vilifying its users.

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO) signed on to Barney Frank's marijuana decriminalization bill because he thought it was the right thing to do. He certainly wasn't trying to score political points, but look what happened:

Clay was worried about the reaction. Supporting the liberalization of marijuana laws is not often seen as a political winner, especially in Midwestern cities like St. Louis.

But instead of stoner jokes, derision and righteous indignation, Clay was surprised to start getting praise from complete strangers.

“People are coming up to me saying this is a common-sense, sensible way to deal with the issue of personal use,” Clay said.

So far, he said, his calls, mail and contacts are running 80-20 in favor of the bill. He was impressed enough that he decided to go ahead and step before the cameras last week with Frank and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) at a news conference touting the bill. [The Hill]

One of the most pernicious artifacts still tainting the marijuana policy debate is the false notion that reforming marijuana laws is "politically risky." As Lacy Clay just learned, it isn't nearly that simple. Support for marijuana legalization has increased steadily for the last 20 years, according to a 2005 Gallup poll. While full legalization is still not the majority position, decriminalization enjoys 72% support according to Time/CNN.

It is just a fact that most Americans believe our marijuana laws are deeply flawed. This view continues to gain momentum despite mountains of misleading government propaganda designed to achieve the opposite effect. We are on a trajectory towards reform in terms of public opinion, yet many of our politicians remain hamstrung by antiquated conventional political wisdom, which holds that reform can't be marketed to the public. It's wrong, and it can be proven so through a process as simple as voting for decriminalization and watching as your constituents glow with praise and enthusiasm.

It is really just a matter of time before the political viability of marijuana reform is fully revealed, and when that happens, I suspect we'll discover that our movement has friends we didn't know about.

Last month I posted some video highlights, filmed by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, from a recent NGO session convened by the United Nations drug agency in Vienna where many of our friends participated.

HCLU has released some more videos from the session, "Abstinence First?," discussing the flaws of the abstinence-only model; "Student Drug Testing"; and War on Drugs: The New Jim Crow."

Follow the links to read introductory comments by HCLU's Peter Sarosi before watching the videos, or just watch them here:

If we had a sensible marijuana policy in America, things like this wouldn't happen:

A routine marijuana check in Cass County, Michigan, turns deadly.

Michigan State Police say 51-year-old Niles Wilson shot himself when he realized he had been caught growing nearly 130 marijuana plants on his property. [wndu.com]

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, a young father was shot and killed (questionably) by police after fleeing during a traffic stop. It appears he fled because he had a joint of marijuana:

I don't think either of these people made smart choices. But the reason their judgment was clouded has everything to do with the frightening consequences of our drug laws. People are terrified of the drug war and sometimes make unfortunate decisions. Sure, they could refrain from using if they're afraid of jail, but that's no excuse for marijuana laws that hurt people worse than marijuana. Events like these are not the sign of a healthy society with a healthy drug policy.

If our laws cause suicides and police chases, they are quite clearly not making us safer.

The mayor of Berwyn Heights, MD is the latest botched drug raid victim:

A police SWAT team raided the home of the mayor in the Prince George's County town of Berwyn Heights on Tuesday, shooting and killing his two dogs, after he brought in a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been delivered to his doorstep, police said.
…

"My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs," Calvo said. "They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don't think they really ever considered that we weren't." [Washington Post]

Nothing about this guy says "drug dealer," and while anything is possible, I think the most likely explanation is that the package was meant to be intercepted by its intended recipient prior to ending up in the possession of the mayor. A neighbor or someone at the post office was probably keeping an eye out for it, which seems not to have occurred to police.


Since this happened in the D.C. area, I got to hear callers discuss the incident on a popular NPR call-in show. It was frustrating to hear multiple people complain that this should have been dealt with more delicately because the suspect was the mayor. It's bullshit. Almost any drug raid can be handled better than this, regardless of who the suspect is. You can't flush 32 pounds of marijuana down the toilet. There was no risk of flight or destruction of evidence and no reason why a simple knock on the door wouldn't have sufficed.

This is big news in Washington, D.C. today. Everyone seems to be very shocked by what has taken place, except for those of us who've been following the drug war and know that this type of thing (hell, this exact thing) happens to innocent people and their pets all over the country all the time. Ladies and gentlemen of the nation's capital, welcome to the war on drugs.

From The Washington Post:

A Montgomery County man was arrested after a researcher tracking a radio-equipped turtle in Rock Creek Park found the animal standing in a garden of marijuana plants in a remote area of the park, police said today.
…

The researcher notified authorities after finding the plants -- about a pound and a half of marijuana worth roughly $6,500 when sold in smaller amounts on the street, police said. Lachance said investigators covertly watched the marijuana garden until a man showed up to tend to the plants.

Although the turtle wasn't trained to sniff out marijuana, it's fairly obvious that's what happened. This is Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., a short distance from where I grew up. Trust me, those woods aren't crawling with clandestine cannabis cultivators. The turtle found what may have been the only outdoor marijuana growing in the whole city and I refuse to believe it was a coincidence.

Hypothesis: turtles are hippies. I assume the researcher has taken copious notes to that effect.

Pot smokers and drug reformers weren't the only people interested in Barney Frank's news conference yesterday about his decriminalization bill. The law enforcement web site Police 1 noted it as well and posted a short piece asking its readership what they thought. The piece, Are Small Pot Busts Taking Cops Away From Important Work? What Do You Think?, was a calm, unbiased look at the decrim bill and what it would (and wouldn't) do.

I wish I could say the same about the responses. Now, before I get into the meat of the matter, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the responses are not necessarily reflective of police officers' views in general, but are only the responses of a self-selected set of anonymous posters who have registered with Police 1 and who Police 1 says are verifiably law enforcement personnel. That caveat notwithstanding, the posters offer a pretty depressing look into the mind-set of at least some cops.

Here are some of them:

Raymundo: I think we all know that pot heads just want to be able to do what they want. Marijuana kills brain cells and they don't come back, hello we need those. Marijuana should stay illegal and I hope congress continues to see that it should be illegal.

SPD853: I think we waste time on plenty of crimes. It is our job. Those cops who think it is a waste of time just "wind test" it anyway (if they do anything at all).

I hadn't heard the phrase "wind test" before. I think that means when they just steal your property, open up the baggie and let the goodies blow away in the wind. That's pretty rude, but preferable to getting arrested, I guess.

Chr1s11: How many of those "small" pot busts have been turned over for info leading to a much larger bust for a much worse controlled substance. The pot heads tend to give up the crack dealer to save the misdemeanor record. Besides, it's still an illegal substance that causes serious dificulty for someone to be a productive individual. Pot heads are the loosers that turn into coke/crack/meth heads. Then comes the violent crime they have to commit to support the habbit.

Well, of course. We all know that pot smokers are crack heads who inevitably turn to violent crime to support their habits. The only other comment I have on this poster is that anyone who can't spell loser correctly probably shouldn't be calling other people losers. He would be better off going back to school and actually passing eighth grade this time.

Baltoblue: I'd rather lock people up for Marijuana all day long then taking 6 reports a day because people can't resolve small problems on their own. The fact is that people can't resolve small problems on their own. The fact is that Marijuana is great PC for searching vehicles (on smell), and also leads to larger cases. I for one, have never locked up a nuerosurgeon for pot, and most that I lock up for pot are involved in larger crimes.

A couple of things on this one: I know I shouldn't pick on people for misspellings, but when you're trying to call pot smokers dumb, you should probably spell "neurosurgeon" correctly. Secondly, Baltoblue's point that pot is great for providing PC (probable cause) for searching cars is a common theme on this board.

Mac25: It is already hard enough to get a conviction when they wont emit it is their property but now they will say it is for personal use and I am not selling. When you compare the drugs (marijuana/alcohol) they both have their down falls but seem to be the lesser evil of all the drugs out there. With that said, the battle on drugs including marijuana has gone on too long to turn around and try to make it legal. I would say most, at least 75, of the people that use marijuana are dirt bags and are involved in other crimes or some how connected to those that commit the crimes. The marijuana arrests are and can be used to assist us (police) in catching those criminals. If it is legalized it will be thrown in our faces day in and day out by these criminals.

This guy's reasoning skills are right up there with his spelling and composition skills. So, 75 (percent, I assume, unless he's personally counting up the dirt bags) of pot smokers are "dirt bags" and are involved in other crimes or know somebody involved in other crimes or live in the same country as people committing other crimes or something.

But at least there was one poster who was sympathetic:

In 14 years of active road service as a cop, I have never responded to a call involving anyone who had smoked a joint and was ready to fight with their wife or anyone else for that matter. Yes, I think to much time is spent on arrests involving small amounts of pot. Alcohol, on the other hand, has cost our country Billions of dollars and a tremendous loss of life. While I don't think pot should be legal, I think we need to re-think this issue.

There are more comments on the web site. Check 'em out if you have the stomach for seeing what those people who are supposed to serve and protect you think about you. As for me, I always try to treat police officers with the same respect they show me.

Drug warriors crash the party when Barney Frank announces his marijuana decriminalization bill.
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Police are awarded medals for terrorizing and nearly killing an innocent family in a botched drug raid.
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Mexico's US-funded war on drugs isn't protecting children, it's getting them killed in the streets.
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Pete Guither has a good, though depressing, post covering various interesting drug war trials taking place this week.
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Deputy drug czar compares smoking pot to having sex with 10-year-old girls
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I linked it yesterday, but can't stress enough the importance of 20/20's report on the Rachel Hoffman murder.
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Everywhere you look, the drug war is perverting our politics, ruining peaceful lives, wasting tax dollars, and even killing innocent children. But don't look away. That's what the authors of this grand catastrophe are hoping we'll do, what so many of our fellow citizens have already done, and what we will never do no matter how much it hurts to witness such hatred and abuse at the hands of our government. If these are the things they're willing to do right before our eyes, imagine what could happen if we turn away even for a moment.

Only a month after President Bush signed a $465 million drug war aid package for Mexico, we're learning more about the types of brutal activities our tax dollars will be paying for:

OJINAGA, Mexico (AP) — This hardscrabble Mexican border town welcomed 400 soldiers when they arrived four months ago to stop a wave of drug violence that brought daytime gunbattles to its main street.

But then the soldiers themselves turned violent, townspeople say, ransacking homes and even torturing people.

The frustration boiled over this week. More than 1,000 people marched through the streets carrying signs begging President Felipe Calderon for protection from his own troops.

Unsurprisingly, the Mexican government was quick to make light of the growing problem:

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission says it has documented more than 600 cases of abuse since Calderon sent 20,000 soldiers across the nation to take back territory controlled by drug lords.

Mexico's attorney general argues the cases are isolated incidents.

Unfortunately, human rights violations in the war on drugs are anything but isolated. They are endemic and inevitable. Horrible stories of misconduct emerge wherever drug laws are enforced. You can count on that, just as you can count on the people responsible for preventing such abuses to dismiss them and defend the policies under which they proliferate.

Joe Biden! Hello! I just read your new press release and I need help understanding what the hell you're trying to do:

Legislation Takes Aim at the Use of Submarines for Drug Trade;
House Passes Key Biden Provisions Today

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs and the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, introduced the Drug Trafficking Interdiction Assistance Act of 2008 (S.3351), legislation designed to help disrupt drug trafficking by criminalizing the use of unregistered, un-flagged submersible or semi-submersible vessels in international waters whose operators intend to evade detection. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) joined Sen. Biden in introducing this bill, which will give authorities a new tool to go after the drug lords who have been using this technology to avoid prosecution. [sorry, no link]

Raise your hand if you think anyone who moves drugs by the submarine-full gives a flying crap about the law. Ok, then.

This is the kind of legislation that makes drug lords cough up their caviar with laughter. They're building submarines in the f@#king jungle. They'll dig a tunnel from Bogota to Brooklyn if they have to and I really don’t understand why Joe Biden is even bothering to pretend they give a damn about anything he does. Give us a break, seriously.

The drug war is wasteful, brutal and destructive enough without our politicians goofing around dreaming up ludicrous, useless legislation at our expense. Just stop. You're embarrassing us all.

Yet another needlessly violent drug raid, this time in Louisiana:

HOUMA -- A 26-year-old Crozier man shot by a narcotics agent in a drug raid Thursday morning remains in intensive care, though his condition has stabilized, relatives said.

Floyd Franklin Jr. was shot inside his home at 112 Edgewood Drive after agents from the Terrebonne Narcotics Task Force raided the trailer about 6:45 a.m. and found Franklin pointing a gun at them.

The agents were executing two search warrants that are related to an investigation into the distribution of a "large amount of illegal narcotics," Sheriff Vernon Bourgeois said. [Daily Comet]

A large amount of narcotics, huh? So what did they find?

…two containers of liquid codeine agents found in the house, Bourgeois said. The drug, an opiate available by prescription, is used illegally to lace marijuana cigarettes or add to drinks, the sheriff said.

They've got to be kidding. Yeah, I'm sure people have been known to mix codeine with other drugs, but is that the default assumption we should reach anytime a drug suspect is found in possession of extremely common prescription medicines? The author of the story has yet to return my email inquiring whether the codeine was found in the medicine cabinet.

Regardless, this is just a disgraceful attempt to portray the man they shot as some weirdo poly-drug abuser. Absent evidence that he actually intended to use the codeine for such purposes, there's no justification for including these pathetic smears in the article. The guy probably also had a few steak knives which could be used to murder the elderly, but I didn't see that in the article so spare us the insinuations and put the cough syrup back where you found it cause no one cares.

Moreover, does anyone really think this guy would try to shoot it out with police over that? Officers say they announced, but that doesn't mean Franklin heard them. This could easily be another case of an innocent drug suspect mistaking police for burglars and merely attempting to defend his home. After all, there certainly wasn't a "large amount of illegal narcotics" present for which he might seek to evade capture. How many more innocent people have to get shot before police realize that charging into homes with guns drawn increases rather than reduces the risk of something going wrong?

In my recent televised debate with the UK's Deirdre Boyd, the question came up of whether people involved in the illegal drug trade now would continue to operate -- as drug dealers or other criminals -- following legalization. I argued (video #3) that with all the money that currently goes into the criminal underground through the drug trade not being spent by people in that way anymore, there will be fewer jobs in crime. Illegal drug sellers won't be able to drop their prices enough to compete with the safe and inexpensive alternatives that legalization and regulation will provide for -- a certain level of profitability is needed to make it worth taking the substantial risk involved in being a criminal -- so they would no longer have customers. (Boyd argued that they would turn to "people trafficking," and there was no more time left in the segment, so I didn't get to respond that drug traffickers are investing their money in all kinds of places now, some of them probably illegal and abusive, so the last thing we should want is for them to continue to make even more money from drugs that they'll continue to invest in other places.)

A post today in Small Business Trends reports on a study by economist Rob Fairlie which found a statistical relationship between being a teenage drug dealer and being self-employed as an adult. Fairlie accounted for factors like people having less formal education, or having criminal records that would tend to hinder them becoming other people's employees, and found that they didn't explain it. His conclusion is that entrepreneurs in both legal and illegal enterprises have some of the same characteristics.

Matt Bandyk has an insightful follow-up on the US News & World Report entrepreneurship blog Risky Business, where he gets to the heart of the matter at hand:

Does drug prohibition change the incentives such that potential entrepreneurs pursue lives of crime rather than legitimate businesses?

My follow-up is to ask the related question: Do the violence and disorder of the illegal drug trade, which exists because of drug prohibition, drive away legitimate businesses that could provide quality job opportunities with the possibility of advancement for bright young people growing up in troubled neighborhoods who want to do something interesting?

This is how I see it:

prohibition + continued drug use -> inner city drug crime and opportunity to work in crime
crime -> less business investment -> fewer jobs -> difficulty finding work -> poverty
crime -> arrests -> criminal records -> difficulty finding work -> poverty
poverty -> crime, substance abuse, etc.
arrests -> incarceration -> broken family & community relationships, training in crime
opportunity to work in crime & training in crime -> people working in crime -> arrests, etc., and on and on and on...

So yes, I'd say that prohibition creates the wrong incentives -- maybe all the wrong incentives.

This 20/20 report on the death of Rachel Hoffman illustrates perfectly the greed and incompetence that too often characterizes modern drug war policing. Even if you already know the story, I can't recommend highly enough that you watch this and share it with everyone you know.

From the moment Tallahassee police laid their hands on her, to the day she died, to the disgraceful press conference in which they blamed her for her own death, there was not one moment throughout this shameful episode that can be excused. I can think of at least a half dozen laws that should be changed immediately in the aftermath of this and a few police officers that should be thrown out of the department and mauled in civil court.

But the one thing you won’t hear on 20/20 is that policing this bad doesn’t happen by accident. It wasn't bad training or a series of tragic coincidences that produced this outcome. It is the war on drugs, corrupt to its core, that incentivizes police to behave with a reckless disregard for the safety and well-being of the people they serve. Every action they took made sense to them. That's the problem.

A bold new anti-drug campaign has emerged in Lima, OH, the site of a shocking drug raid gone wrong in which the SWAT team killed Tarika Wilson -- an unarmed mother of six -- and shot her baby:

For about four hours, Jesse Lowe stood silently by himself holding a cardboard sign with three words scrawled in black marker: "Drugs Bring Death."

His message wasn't aimed just at the dealers or residents of the neighborhood scarred by shootings and fear. He wanted the city to hear him.

In the months since, Lowe's solitary protest has drawn together black and white, rich and poor in a city simmering with anger since a white police officer shot and killed a black woman and wounded her baby during a drug raid. The officer faces trial Monday on negligent homicide and negligent assault charges.

Upwards of 100 people have shown up at many of the nine rallies he's put together, waving "Drugs Bring Death" signs. They've handed out thousands of stickers, T-shirts and signs that now blanket the city midway between Toledo and Dayton. A billboard company donated space on four signs, and businesses have supplied food for the rallies.

"The courage of one man is spreading to everyone," said police Maj. Kevin Martin. "This is what the solution has to be. As police, we're limited in what we can do." [AP]

This is the same department that posted an image on its website that was threatening to the public and even positioned snipers over a peaceful public protest against their own violent tactics.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that in a town plagued by aggressive drug war policing, law enforcement would rally around a man who blames drugs and not the drug war for the suffering that surrounds him. Yet it was police who killed Tarika Wilson and who've kept their mouths clamped shut as the community cried out for answers. Across the nation, police are killing innocent people through needlessly confrontational paramilitary drug raids. It's a disturbing trend that will surely grow worse if we continue to blame drugs themselves for the preventable consequences of overzealous narcotics enforcement. Just look at the effect Lowe's campaign is already having:

"I don't know what caused Jesse to go out there, but thank God," said Bob Horton, a minister. He listens to a police radio scanner at home and has noticed a change in the neighborhood.

"People are calling in more when they see something," he said. "They didn't use to do that."

Unfortunately, the more calls police receive about suspected drug activity, the more mistakes will be made and the more innocent people will be killed. That is just the inevitable consequence of declaring war within our own communities. You get just exactly what you ask for, except, of course, any lasting peace and security.

So while I don't fault Jesse Lowe at all for spreading the message his challenging life has taught him, it's frustrating to see the discussion of drug abuse boiled down to such a simple soundbite. It is precisely the "Drugs Bring Death" mentality that fosters tolerance for the excessive drug war violence carried out by our own public servants. It is that sense of morbid inevitability that prevents too many of us from envisioning an answer beyond the endless war taking place in our own streets.

As long as the drug war continues, there will be no control, no security and no solution. If communities can muster the bravery to stand up to the dealers on their block, let's hope they'll someday join us in challenging the laws that created those enemies and recognize at long last that drugs are only as dangerous as we allow them to be.

Conditions that send everyone else running for shelter are actually appealing to drug traffickers:

Smugglers tried to use Hurricane Dolly as a cover in at least three attempts to move drugs or illegal aliens through Texas, border officials said Wednesday.

About 9,600 pounds of marijuana was found buried under cotton seeds on a truck on U.S. 77 at the Border Patrol's Sarita checkpoint south of Kingsville, Texas, said Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.
…

Jayson Ahern, deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said the Sarita checkpoint marijuana bust was one of three Wednesday in which smuggling operations appeared to be attempting to operate under the cover of the storm. [CNN]

Well, shucks, what are we gonna do about this? I guess it will be necessary to double border security during hurricanes to prevent smuggling. Any volunteers?

AP has a good story reminding us of the plight of Bill Day, whose effort to reduce AIDS in San Antonio has been blocked by overzealous local drug warriors.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Bill Day is a familiar face out under the San Antonio viaducts, where skinny addicts shoot drugs into their bruised arms.

Day, 73, is the source of something many of them desperately need: clean syringes, which Day sees as his calling from God to prevent the spread of disease.

Authorities see it differently. Backed by an opinion from the Texas attorney general, District Attorney Susan Reed says she can prosecute anyone in possession of drug paraphernalia, regardless of the reason they have it.
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"I am really angry," Day said, pointing to piles of used needles in the brush under a bridge on the city's West side. "Every day we're not out here, someone is getting HIV."

How can anyone possibly dispute that? The drug czar's office continues to maintain that needle exchange enables drug use and makes the problem worse, to which Day responds:

"No one says to themselves, 'They're giving away syringes, let's go get some heroin,'"

The reality that addicts will shoot up with or without clean needles shouldn't have to be debated or even explained. It is deeply disturbing to witness opposition to proven AIDS prevention practices from the very people who are supposed to be protecting our society from the harms of drugs. For the thousandth time, I find myself shaking my head in amazement that the people in charge of our drug policy want to reduce the availability of clean needles.