Category Archives: The War on Drugs

The Government is NOT Your Friend – Part sixtyquajillion

Individual Rights, Legal, Politics, The War on Drugs

Due to the fact that I am an idiot, and don’t know when to quit working and playing, and rest so I can get better; the cold that our oldest took home from school with her two weeks ago (and everyone else is already recovered from), has in my case metastisized into a lovely sinus and upper respiratory infection (which I am currently, slowly, recovering from).

I’m in the middle of the nastiest case of the crud I’ve had in over a year. I’ve been sicker, in that I’ve had fevers and whatnot, but I havent had this level of chest and sinus congestion in a while; thus why I call it “the crud”, as in what is completely filling every breathing passage of my body at least 50% of the time.

I’m staying upright and breathing due to the wonders of modern pharmeceuticals; a combination of Sudafed, and Oxymetazonline. Of course when the oxymetazoline wears off the crud slingshots back worse; but that’s livable, so long as I’m taking the REAL Sudafed, or it’s generic equivalent.

Let me just note, the new, fake, sudafed works… for about 20 minutes, no matter how much of it you take.

Pseduoephedrine hydrochloride, is the most effective nasal decongestant known to man; and it doesnt cause rebound rhinitis. Phenylephrine hydrochloride, the ingredient manufacturers are substituing for PsE-Hcl, to put it mildly, is not as effective… or even 1/10th as effective for that matter; and it DOES cause rebound rhinitis.

Of course, pseudoephedrine has some nasty side effects, including increases in blood pressure, pulse and respiratory rate, perspiration etc…, as well as vascodilation to a significant degree.

But that’s not why its a “problem”; its a problem, because it’s also the primary ingredient in Methamphetamine; and therefore the government has declared war on it…

…declared war, on a nasal decongestant.

The war on some drugs has made getting the actual medications that work, a lovely process where you must give your drivers license to a clerk, where they record and report on your purchases; and in most stores in most states, you can’t purchase more than 1 weeks worth of recommended adult dosage at a time.

Of course the so called adult dosage is calculated so that a 90lb woman can take 4 times the recommended dosage four times as frequently as recommended and not hit the LD50. For a 370lb, highly drug tolerant man, the amount required to obtain the desired result is… significantly higher shall we say?

I used to be able to get 90mg pseudoephedrine pills, mail order, in bulk; take 1, and be good for 4 hours. Now, because of the “meth war”, the strongest I can get at my local pharmacy is a 24 count box of 30mg each, which don’t even make a dent, so I have to take 4 of them. The pharmacy will only sell me 1 box per week, or 3 boxes per month.

I can order them over the internet for a 48ct box of 60mg each, but again, only one box per order, and only one order per week, or three boxes per month.

A federal law, snuck into a terrorism bill, says that I, an adult; may only purchase a maximum of 3.6grams of pseudoephedrine per day; and a maximum of 9 grams per month, or 7 grams if buying by mail order.

So, in order to obtain relief, I take 120mg two or three times a day (yes, it only lasts full effect for about 4 hours, but I can live with that); for 240mg to 360mg a day; and I’ve been sick for 12 days, with probably another 3 or four days to go. Lets call it 15 days, for a total of 3.6 grams.

So, by federal law, I, as an adult, can purchase one course of treatment for myself in one day; if I can get a retailer to sell it to me.

However, those retailers are paranoid about being persecuted in the drug war, so I can’t buy a full course of treatment; the most I can buy in my local pharmacy is actually two or three days worth. So after my two or three days are up, can I go buy more? Nope I have to wait until next week to buy another two or three days worth.

If I buy on the internet, I can get a weeks worth, or maybe even two weeks if I limit my dosage.

But what if there’s more than one sick person in my house? What if I want to stock up for the winter? what if I want to buy in bulk to save money?

I buy most of my OTC medications in bulk from Costco, because it’s a heck of a lot cheaper. I can by as much dextromorphan, or diphenhydramine as I want; in fact I buy it from Costco in 300ct bottles of 50mg each. Both drugs are halucinogenic in large quantities; both drugs are euphoric and stuporific in large quantities, both drugs have a large potential for abuse etc…

So I can buy these “dangerous’ drugs, in 300ct bottles; but I can’t do the same with the most effective nasal decongestant known to man?

Nope, federal law also says that each individual dosage must be packed in blister packs; because it’s more work for someone trying to make meth to pop them out, then to pour out a bottle of mini-thins.

Mini-thins are tiny little 25mg pseudoephedrine pills that used to sell in 120ct bottles for $8 mail order. They were the most popular brand of pseudoephedrine for making meth; because you could buy them by the palletload online, and they had less binders and fillers than any other brand, so you got more of the drug for the bulk of the pills.

They were specifically targeted by congress, and the legislatures of several states; so the manufacturer added guaifenesin to it; which makes it useless for meth (it’s a very strong expectorant that can’t be cooked out in the meth manufacturing process. If you took meth made with it, you’d drown in your own bodily fluids. It’s happened a few times). They also repackaged it in 144ct blister packs, for $30 a bottle.

Blister packs are bloody expensive in case you didn’t know. It was $8 for 120 pills; now, it’s $8 for a 24 count pack of 30mg of pseudoephedrine each, in little individual blisters (and that’s the generic). Each of those pills now costs 35 cents, vs. 7 cents each.

Also, have you ever tried to get your pills out of a blister pack when you’re really really sick? I’ve been sick enough that I could just barely do it; and I’m a big strong man. What about it you have severe arthritis?

So let’s review: I am a grown man, a legal adult, licensed to drive a car, fly a plane, and carry a concealed weapon… I am a parent, trusted to raise my children (well.. that’s another rant for another day). I can buy as much alcohol as I can carry away with a forklift. I can go into a home depot and buy enough poisions to kill thousands of people should I so wish…

…but I can’t buy enough decongestant to relieve my sinus infection for a week?

…and people actually support this policy?

Chris Byrne
I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com

A Perverse Incentive

Constitution, Individual Rights, Legal, Police Watch, Politics, Privacy, Property Rights, The War on Drugs

A Question was asked by a reader:

1500 SWAT raids a day…. Has the Drug War completely corrupted our legal system?

It depends on what you mean by corrupted. It is certainly corrosive to the souls of the police, and their relationship with the public they are, and must be, inextricably a part of.

I was watching the history channel, or discovery channel or some such, and they were talking about SWAT training. They mentioned 5 towns in rural Illinois I just happen to know about, as all having full time SWAT teams, equipped with fully automatic weapons, and full ninja gear etc…

As I said, I know these towns. None of them are bigger than 30,000 people. None of them have a real crime problem. The only crime issue they have is meth labs; but no more than anywhere else in the American midwest these days.

But all five towns have full time SWAT teams; and those teams existence has to be justified somehow.

Last I checked, more than 60% of all departments now had at least part time swat teams or something similar (ESU, high risk warrant squad etc…); now really, is there a need for even HALF of these teams, for a quarter of them?

I understand the need for officer safety; and how the movement of meth into rural America has changed the risks and difficulties of law enforcement for a large portion of the country; but is there any reason on this earth why a town of 24,000 people, where the only real violent crime is domestic; should have a five man full time SWAT team?

Of course not. Most of those SWAT teams didn’t exist before 1994; which coincidentally is when federal funding, and equipment purchase programs were ramped up for SWAT type teams, so that local law enforcement organizations could better fight “the war on drugs”.

Of course most place dont NEED a SWAT team, but almost any law enforcement organization could use more money, more training, more equipment etc… The incentive was there for federal funding to be spent, and federal equipment to be acquired; and where there’s financial incentive, there will be a means created to fulfill that incentive.

Now that they are there, they need to justify their continued existence; so what used to be a normal warrant service all of a sudden ends up with 5 guys with machine guns and balaclavas busting a 90 year old womans door down in the middle of the night.

And this sort of thing is 1500 times a day all over this country. Now of course, most of those SWAT raids are on genuine bad guys (drug dealers mostly, who aren’t exactly boy scouts); but some of them most definitely are not necessary, or worth the higher risk of injury or death to the general public… in fact Id wager a guess a hell of a lot of them are not.

Of course the police will say it’s all about officer safety; but in reality more officers are shot on raids than in standard warrant service (and we’re going to get into a correlation vs. causation issue here)… oh and the number of officers shot in any other circumstances are dwarfed by officers being shot in domestic disturbances, and traffic stops (especially felony traffic stops, which are in fact how most criminals end up getting arrested).

So, in the name of oficer safety; and of course in preventing the evidence from being flushed down the toilet; purse snatchers, and 90 year old women with joints, end up getting killed.

This is properly decried wherever it happens; but police being what they are, the blue wall goes up, defending policy and officer actions; and gets higher, and tighter; separating the police from the public they serve, ever more, with every raid.

Corruption? Not the way most people mean it. Just the perverse incentive toward the militarization of the police, and their estrangement from the public

Chris Byrne
I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com

Crossed the line yet?

General, The War on Drugs

Maybe this will be enough for those who still support the war on drugs to realize that something needs to change. Follow the links, because there’s a lot of good info, but the short version is that the U.S. Government stood idly by and let an innocent man get brutally murdered because a man involved with the murders was an informant working for ICE. Lest anyone think the murder was a one-time aberration, the informant has been linked to 12 other murders. In fact, since he was wearing a wire, his handlers were able to hear the actual murders being committed. Then the government covered everything up and canned a senior DEA agent who had the gall to speak out against the government being complicit in murder. This senior DEA agent described the informant as a “homicidal maniac.”

I’ll let the agent have the last word: “This situation is so bizarre that even as I’m writing to you it is difficult for me to believe it. I have never before come across such callous behavior by fellow law enforcement officers.”

Just more collateral damage in the war.

mike
http://noangst.blogspot.com

Did Kathryn Johnston Follow the Four Basic Rules?

Keep and Bear Arms, Police Watch, The War on Drugs

Shane Vaiskauskas is a writer for the University of Georgia’s campus newspaper. He is apparently a junior in college, and just might be a wide-eyed idealist. Either way, I think he’s completely missing the point here.

Woman died from misuse of a firearm

What struck me first and foremost about this case was the irresponsible use of a firearm by Ms. Johnston.

Col. Jeff Cooper of the United States Marine Corps, the father of modern shooting theory and technique, outlined four basic rules of shooting:

1. All firearms are loaded, even when they are not.
2. Never point the muzzle at anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire at your target.
4. Always identify your target, and what is behind it.

It was neither the war on drugs, nor unjustified or unwarranted police raids that killed Kathryn Johnston.

It was her failure to heed the four most basic rules of shooting.

We have heard the tired argument — it was late, she was old, she had just woken up and was disoriented, it was dark and her vision is roughly that of a 88-year old.

She made the conscious decision to either fail to properly educate herself on firearm usage or fail to follow it, and as is often the case with irresponsible use of guns, her life is forfeit.

Kathryn Johnston is dead not because she didn’t follow the rules. Let’s go over them:

1. Check. She knew the firearm was loaded.
2. Check. She was shooting with intent to kill.
3. Check. She was ready.
4. Check. She determined that her house was invaded with the threat of deadly force, and used deadly force to respond.

Rules 1-3 are clearly to prevent a negligent discharge, or “accident”. There was no accident here. So it all comes down to Rule #4. And that’s where it gets tricky. Shane’s argument is similar to the people who bemoan the cops after a shooting asking “why did they have to shoot to kill, couldn’t they have aimed at an arm or leg?” It’s ridiculous.

Kathryn Johnston lives in a bad neighborhood. In that neighborhood, someone busting down your door in the middle of the night is assumed to be doing so with ill intent. She had to make a quick decision with the understanding that refusing to act could mean imminent death. In the dark, in the middle of the night, with armed attackers invading her home, she made the decision that fighting back was her only way out. She did not have time to determine whether the invaders were police or burglars, because in the dark of night, by the time she made the determination, it would be too late.

As it turns out, the decision was wrong. The invaders were police, not burglars. What happened was a tragedy, but it was not “misuse of a firearm” or a failure to follow firearm safety rules. It was a result of a woman responding to a threat of force with force.

Would she have lived if she hadn’t started shooting? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Unarmed 18-year-old Peyton Strickland didn’t shoot at the cops, and he’s dead (along with his dog). Sean Bell wasn’t armed the night before his wedding, when he was gunned down by police.

What’s at issue in the Kathryn Johnston shooting isn’t firearm safety. While Shane may disagree, I think the issue is that police decided to conduct a no-knock raid on a house in the middle of the night, using overwhelming force and surprise tactics. The reason they did this is to ensure that the drugs they were searching for (2 grams of pot) were not destroyed. It seems to me that the entire matter is the war on drugs and police tactics. A raid that didn’t have to happen, likely wouldn’t have happened if the cops had done a proper investigation, and that was conducted using questionable tactics resulted in the death of Kathryn Johnston and the wounding of three officers.

But go ahead… Keep blaming the victim.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

More Details in the Kathryn Johnston Case

Police Watch, The War on Drugs

Shooting warrant confirms pot, not crack, at house

Confirming what Atlanta police have consistently maintained, a small quantity of marijuana was found in Kathryn Johnston’s home, according to a Fulton County Magistrate Court document released Tuesday.

But the “return” document from the search warrant for the Neal Street home — the paperwork that lists items police took during the search — does not mention surveillance cameras or crack cocaine. Police cited both as reasons for seeking a “no-knock” warrant to raid the elderly woman’s northwest Atlanta home.

…

The inventory of items seized from 933 Neal St. include 1.93 grams of marijuana in three individually packaged bags, an envelope of marijuana rolling papers, and a piece of misdirected mail.

Yep. Kathryn Johnston was killed for drugs carrying a street value of under $20.

But it’s okay, because the informant is usually “reliable”:

Police had said that earlier that day, a man named “Sam” sold crack cocaine to an confidential informant at the house.

In a court affidavit, Atlanta narcotics officer Jason R. Smith said “Sam” greeted the informant, disappeared into the house and reappeared with two bags of crack cocaine.

Smith’s statement also said that the informant — a reliable source who helped police make drug arrests in the past— had alleged that “Sam” had installed surveillance cameras at the house and monitored them constantly.

“I believe cocaine is being sold and stored at [the house],” Smith said in the affidavit. He was granted a warrant allowing officers to enter the house without knocking.

Since then, the informant has said he never bought drugs at the home, and that officers involved in the bust had asked him to go along with a story they concocted after the shooting.

According to the story of the police, they took the story the informant supplied, got a warrant (without further investigation, apparently), and served the warrant that night. Doesn’t this just scream a big red flag of “NEGLIGENCE” all over?

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/
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