Update no.495

Update from the Heartland

No.495

6.6.11 – 12.6.11

Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,
The Global Commission on Drug Policy issued is report titled: “War on Drugs” on Tuesday, 2.June.2011.
http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report
The title page of the report offers a graphically descriptive preface to the content, conclusions and recommendations.

Report Title Page

[report title page.jpg]

The 19 international Commissioners who produced the report are:
» Asma Jahangir - human rights activist, former UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions, Pakistan
» Carlos Fuentes - writer and public intellectual, Mexico
» César Gaviria - former President of Colômbia
» Ernesto Zedillo - former President of México
» Fernando Henrique Cardoso - former President of Brazil (chair)
» George Papandreou - Prime Minister of Greece
» George Shultz - former Secretary of State, United States (honorary chair)
» Javier Solana - former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Spain
» John Whitehead - banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial, United States
» Kofi Annan - former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ghana
» Louise Arbour - former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, president of the International Crisis Group, Canada
» Maria Cattaui - Member of the Board, Petroplus Holdings; former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Switzerland
» Marion Caspers-Merk - former State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health, Germany
» Mario Vargas Llosa - writer and public intellectual, Peru
» Michel Kazatchkine - executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, France
» Paul Volcker - former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve and of the Economic Recovery Board, U.S.
» Richard Branson - entrepreneur, advocate for social causes, founder of the Virgin Group, cofounder of The Elders, United Kingdom
» Ruth Dreifuss - former President of Switzerland and Minister of Home Affairs
» Thorvald Stoltenberg - former Minister of Foreign Affairs and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Norway
The Commission offered eleven recommendations along with numerous observations, supporting examples, and insight from their research and study. The report is worth everyone’s precious time to read. The human cost of the “war on drugs” has been incalculable. The Commission takes a predominately social, humanistic approach to drug use. They noted, “The factors that influence an individual’s decision to start using drugs have more to do with fashion, peer influence, and social and economic context, than with the drug’s legal status, risk of detection, or government prevention messages.” The Commission also pointed out, “The factors that contribute to the development of problematic or dependent patterns of use have more to do with childhood trauma or neglect, harsh living conditions, social marginalization, and emotional problems, rather than moral weakness or hedonism.” They concluded, “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world”; and recommended that we, “End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others.”
While I laud and endorse the Commission’s report, legalization is only a half-step likely to lead to a quasi-anarchistic state that could be more threatening to public health and safety. The Commission failed to note the most basic, overarching and fundamental reality that altering private behavior can and will only occur when the individual convinces himself that he must change his conduct. My experience and knowledge tells me there are no laws, no threats, no arguments, no rhetoric, no family, no shame, no officials, no treatments, nothing that can turn an individual from his addiction. The addict will only seek and respond to treatment if he recognizes he has a problem and truly wants to break his dependency upon psychotropic substances. Anything short of that point is destined to failure for a host of reasons. In my humble opinion, the best we can hope for once an individual has turned to the intoxication of any psychotropic substance is to minimize the collateral damage until the addict either convinces himself to change or dies. While we can and should have compassion for the addict, we cannot help him. Our focus should be on all other citizens we can protect. There may be many paths to accomplish our societal contribution, but we have obligations to our citizens – even those who seek intoxication. Let us return freedom of choice to and respect the choices of all citizens. Let us end the foolishness and transgressions carried out in the name of the so-called “war on drugs.” Please see the King ruling below.

Juxtaposed with the Commission’s report above, we have the recent Supreme Court decision of Kentucky v. King [563 U.S. ___ (2011); no. 09-1272] – a contemporary example of the collateral consequences and damage done by the “war on drugs.” This is yet another crucial 4th Amendment “search and seizure” case. The context is important, so I shall risk boring you with some of the details. I shall ask everyone to imagine they happen to live in the proverbial “left apartment” as described below.
On the evening of 13.October.2005, Lexington-Fayette County [Kentucky] police conducted a drug “buy bust” operation at a Centre Parkway apartment complex. Undercover Police Officer Gibbons watched the deal take place from an unmarked car in a nearby parking lot. After the deal occurred, Gibbons radioed uniformed officers that the suspect was moving quickly toward the breezeway of an apartment building, and he urged them to “hurry up and get there” before the suspect entered an apartment building. The uniformed officers drove into the nearby parking lot, left their vehicles, and ran to the breezeway. Just as they entered the breezeway, they heard a door shut and reportedly detected a very strong odor of burnt marijuana. At the end of the breezeway, the officers saw two apartments, one on the left and one on the right, and they did not know which apartment the suspect had entered. Gibbons had radioed that the suspect was running into the apartment on the right, but the officers did not hear this statement because they had already left their vehicles. Because they smelled marijuana smoke emanating from the apartment on the left, they approached the door of that apartment. Officer Steven Cobb testified that the officers banged on the left apartment door "as loud as [they] could" and announced, “This is the police” or “Police, police, police.” Cobb said that “[a]s soon as [the officers] started banging on the door,” they “could hear people inside moving,” and “[i]t sounded as [though] things were being moved inside the apartment.” These noises, Cobb testified, led the officers to believe that drug-related evidence was about to be destroyed. At that point, the officers announced that they “were going to make entry inside the apartment.” Cobb then kicked in the door. The officers entered the apartment and found three people in the front room: Hollis Deshaun King, his girlfriend, and a guest who was smoking marijuana. The officers performed a protective sweep of the apartment during which they saw marijuana and powder cocaine in plain view. In a subsequent search, they also discovered crack cocaine, cash, and drug paraphernalia. As the subsequent investigation determined, King was not the subject witnessed by Gibbons; that man was in the right apartment. King was convicted for possession of drugs and paraphernalia discovered during the warrantless search of his apartment.
Associate Justice Sam Alito wrote for the Court and the 8-1 majority. He stated, “This Court has identified several exigencies that may justify a warrantless search of a home.” Alito went on to conclude, “Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame for the warrantless exigent-circumstances search that may ensue.” Thus, the Supremes affirmed King’s conviction and substantially expanded the police use of “exigent circumstances” – in essence, the police can invoke that condition whenever they wish against whomever they wish . . . now isn’t that a comforting thought. The sole dissenter, Associate Justice Ruth Ginsburg, opened her dissent, “The Court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases.” One sentence of her dissent best summarizes the seriousness of this issue, “In no quarter does the Fourth Amendment apply with greater force than in our homes, our most private space which, for centuries, has been regarded as ‘entitled to special protection.’” In the King ruling, each and every one of us lost more of that “special protection,” all in the name of the disastrous “war on drugs.” Justice Ginsburg asked the question we should all ask ourselves, “How ‘secure’ do our homes remain if police, armed with no warrant, can pound on doors at will and, on hearing sounds indicative of things moving, forcibly enter and search for evidence of unlawful activity?” This is precisely what we have sacrificed, in that private freedom of choice cannot be (and I will argue never should have been) prohibited, and thus used to justify expansion of police powers in a free society. While “illegal substances” may not be the sole reason for police invocation of “exigent circumstances,” that single reason surely appears to be the predominant root cause. The police can bang on any door, and if they invoke “exigent circumstances,” they can break down your door. What happens when the police have the wrong place (as was the case for Hollis King)? Or, the folks banging on the door are bad guys claiming to be police? Where are the limits? When the police lose contact (like a trail of evidence) with a suspect, the King decision virtually gives the police carte blanche to search whatever they wish, and collect up whatever they might find. Is the denial of freedom of choice to a few other citizens worth all of us sacrificing this much of our precious Liberty? I think not!

News from the economic front:
-- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke believes the U.S. economy should pick up in the second half of 2011, despite recent signs of weakness and an “uneven” economic recovery. He also believes the central bank's stimulation of the economy is still necessary, as he reiterated the expectation that interest rates will remain low for an “extended period.” Bernanke acknowledged that conditions in the labor market remain troubling.

Comments and contributions from Update no.494:
Comment to the Blog:
“While I oppose laws banning circumcision, I also oppose the practice. Circumcision is unnecessary surgery, and it carries the risks of any surgery. Any medical benefits from removing the foreskin remain controversial after many years of investigation. In addition, the surgery is typically done without anesthesia, and I count pain as harm to the infant. In addition, I see psychological harm as harm, and socially-sanctioned destruction to that part of a boy is bound to cause psychological harm, whether or not he consciously remembers it. Last but not least, should that decision not be left to the person whose penis is irrevocably altered by circumcision?
“You are correct that donations freely made, even to Harold Camping, are protected by law. The legal question, I would think, is whether his end-of-the-world claims constitute coercion of his believers. I tend to think it would be coercion given the context. The sad thing for me is that, legitimate or not, those donations are beyond taxes on the receiving end and largely unaccountable.”
My response to the Blog:
Penile circumcision (as differentiated from clitoral circumcision) evokes an emotional response and an opinion from most folks, like abortion, prostitution, gambling, drug use, et cetera. In the main, I would agree the decision logically should belong to the person undergoing the medical procedure, although I do not agree with the negative cost-benefit assessment. However, parents are charged with making medical decisions for their minor children; circumcision is one of those proper decisions. We are each entitled to our opinion and the exercise of our individual rights to make such decisions for ourselves and our children. We are agreed in our objection to State intrusion; now, we must enlist all voters in San Francisco to disapprove the intrusive, offensive initiative; the State has no place in the private lives of individuals or families. On a personal level, I believe the benefits outweigh the risks, and I do not believe there is any injury, no more so than a smallpox vaccination. We can argue the aesthetics. Regardless, this is a very personal decision, not a matter for State interest.
Spot on, re: Camping. Faith is one of the beautiful aspects of religion, and yet it is also one of its greatest weaknesses, i.e., a feature so easily exploited by charlatans, false prophets, and clever con men . . . as I believe Camping fits all three.

My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)