Drug War Chronicle, Issue #522 -- 2/8/08
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/psmith
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522

A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director,
http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Three New Book Premiums for Our Members:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/three_new_book_offers_for_our_members

Students: Intern at DRCNet to help stop the drug war now!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

Enough is Enough: Stop the Deadly SWAT Raids:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/raidpetition

Table of Contents:

1. FEATURE: WITH MORE CUTS PROPOSED IN DRUG TASK FORCE GRANT
PROGRAM, BATTLE TO RESTORE FUNDING MOVES TO TWO TRACKS
Even as law enforcement and its allies fight a rear-guard effort
to restore lost 2008 funding for the grant program that funds
state and local drug task forces, the Bush administration is
proposing to cut it again in the 2009 budget.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/jag_byrne_grant_budget_cuts_2008_2009

2. FEATURE: VANCOUVER CONFERENCE SENDS A MESSAGE TO THE UN
As part of a series of regional forums in advance of next
month's meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in
Vienna, Vancouver this week hosted a forum where participants
sent a clear signal that prohibition is not working.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/vancouver_forum_UN_vienna_ngo_committee

3. APPEAL: THREE EXCITING NEW BOOK OFFERS FOR OUR DONATING
SUPPORTERS
We are pleased to offer the works "Over the Influence: The Harm
Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol," "Women Behind
Bars: The Crisis of Women in the US Prison System," and
"Cannabis: Yields and Dosage," as our latest membership premium
gifts.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/three_new_book_offers_for_our_members

4. WEEKLY: BLOGGING @ THE SPEAKEASY
"80%% of Drug Policy Experts Oppose the Drug War," "You Can Go to
Jail For 27 Years For Selling Marijuana," "A Cop is Dead Because
An Informant Mistook Japanese Maple Trees For Marijuana,"
"Nevermind, Barack Obama Wants to Arrest Marijuana Users After
All," "Heading Down Mexico Way," "How many drug dealers does it
take to supply a 10,000-person community? Or, is Twiggs County,
Georgia, the latest Tulia?"
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/blogging_at_the_speakeasy

5. STUDENTS: INTERN AT DRCNET AND HELP STOP THE DRUG WAR!
Apply for an internship at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and
you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
More Los Angeles area cops go down in a broad conspiracy, a
Customs officer gets nailed for helping traffickers, a Kentucky
cop gets nailed for peddling pills, another NYPD cop gets
busted, and so does a Tennessee sheriff. Just another week in
the drug war.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/police_drug_corruption

7. SENTENCING: MUKASEY TELLS CONGRESS TO PASS BILL BLOCKING
EARLY RELEASE FOR CRACK PRISONERS
The US Sentencing Commission has ordered that sentence cuts for
federal crack cocaine offenders be retroactive, but Attorney
General Mukasey is now urging Congress to undo that.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/mukasey_congress_block_crack_retroactivi...

8. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: NEW NORTHERN CALIFORNIA US ATTORNEY HINTS
THE ERA OF DEA RAIDS MAY BE COMING TO AN END
The newly appointed US Attorney for Northern California hinted
at his first press briefing that medical marijuana raids may
soon be a thing of the past. They're a waste of time and
resources, he said.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/russoniello_northern_california_medical_...

9. SEARCH AND SEIZURE: THE SMELL OF A BURNING JOINT DOES NOT
JUSTIFY A WARRANTLESS ENTRY, US FOURTH CIRCUIT HOLDS
A cop who smells marijuana smoke coming from an apartment still
needs a search warrant before entering, the conservative US 4th
Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/fourth_circuit_appeals_court_marijuana_s...

10. ECSTASY: KANSAS BILL WOULD MAKE SIMPLE POSSESSION A FELONY
Spurred by the state's narcs, the Kansas legislature is
considering a bill that would make ecstasy possession a felony.
It's all about the kids, proponents argue, but opponents wonder
how saddling them with felony records will help.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/kansas_ecstasy_bill_felony

11. TOBACCO: IN WAKE OF SMOKING BAN IN BARS, RESTRICTION ON
STRIP CLUBS, UNDERGROUND "SMOKEHOUSES" APPEAR IN CLEVELAND
What are you going to do if they ban smoking and strippers? Some
Cleveland-area residents have an idea.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/smokehouse_cleveland_smokeasies

12. SOUTHEAST ASIA: PHILIPPINES COURT ORDERS LIFE SENTENCE FOR
SELLING TWO GRAMS OF MARIJUANA
The Philippines may no longer execute drug offenders, but it is
still handing out horrendous sentences. This week, a man was
sentenced to life in prison for selling less than two grams of
marijuana.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/philippines_life_sentence_two_grams_mari...

13. DEATH PENALTY: HASH-SELLING, DRUNKENNESS EARN ULTIMATE
SANCTION, TWO MORE BEHEADED IN SAUDI ARABIA
One man gets a death sentence for drinking in Iran, another for
selling hash in India, and Saudi Arabia keeps up the pace,
executing two traffickers last week.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/death_penalty_alcohol_iran_hash_india_sa...

14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/drug_war_history

15. FEEDBACK: DO YOU READ DRUG WAR CHRONICLE?
Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we need your feedback to
evaluate our work and make the case for Drug War Chronicle to
funders. We need donations too.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/do_you_read_drug_war_chronicle

16. WEBMASTERS: HELP THE MOVEMENT BY RUNNING DRCNET SYNDICATION
FEEDS ON YOUR WEB SITE!
Support the cause by featuring automatically-updating Drug War
Chronicle and other DRCNet content links on your web site!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/drug_policy_content_syndication_feeds_no...

17. RESOURCE: DRCNET WEB SITE OFFERS WIDE ARRAY OF RSS FEEDS FOR
YOUR READER
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War
Chronicle and more -- is now available.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available

18. RESOURCE: REFORMER'S CALENDAR ACCESSIBLE THROUGH DRCNET WEB
SITE
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to
the events coming up the soonest, and more.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/drug_reform_calendar

(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org to sign up
today!)

================

1. Feature: With More Cuts Proposed in Drug Task Force Grant
Program, Battle to Restore Funding Moves to Two Tracks
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/jag_byrne_grant_budget_cuts_2008_2009

Even as law enforcement and its allies in Congress move to
restore funding for the embattled Byrne Justice Assistance Grant
(JAG) program (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/jag.html),
which is best known for funding the legions of state- and
local-level multi-jurisdictional drug task forces that now roam
the land, the Bush administration has struck again, this time
proposing folding it into a broader grants program and funding
it at only $200 million. Now, law enforcement will have to
fight a rear-guard action to get back last year's cuts while at
the same time having to try to persuade Congress to undo the
cuts proposed in this year's budget.

It's not that the Bush administration is averse to funding drug
war activities. According to the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) fact sheet on Justice Department spending
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/budget/justice.pdf),
the DEA is seeing its budget increased slightly to just over
$1.9 billion, the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task
Force is also getting a slight increase, to $532 million, and
the new Southwest Border Enforcement Initiative would throw
another $100 million at drugs, guns, and violent gangs on the
border. The 2009 Bush budget also allocates hundreds of millions
of dollars for Plan Colombia and its new baby brother, Plan
Mexico.

Funded at $520 million last year, the two-decade old JAG
program that allows states to supplement their anti-drug
spending with federal tax dollars was already down substantially
from previous funding levels. For the past three years, as a
cost-cutting move, the Bush administration has tried to zero it
out completely, but that has proven extremely unpopular with
Congress. This year, the House voted to fund the block grant
portion of the program at $600 million and the Senate at $660
million, but in last-minute budget negotiations, the White House
insisted the funding be cut to $170 million.

While federal funding for law enforcement drug task forces would
appear to be a sacred cow in a law-and-order Republican
administration, there are several reasons the JAG program is a
tempting target for cost-cutters, said Eric Sterling, executive
director of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
(http://www.cjpf.org) and former counsel for the House Judiciary
Committee.

"First, Bush is not running for reelection, so there is no
political cost in that sense," Sterling said. "And if Congress
does listen to the cops, Bush can blame Congress for exceeding
his budget."

The second reason has to do with conservative fiscal ideology,
said Sterling. "The typical Republican position is to let the
states pay for state and local programs. It's a states' rights
and states' responsibilities sort of position," he said. "And
given the way their budgets have bankrupted the federal
government, they have to cut somewhere."

And the pressure of looming cuts feeds into the third reason JAG
is now on the line: bureaucratic imperatives. "The budget
deficit is a real headache for all agencies," Sterling said.
"For a manager within the Department of Justice faced with cuts
that would lay off FBI agents or US Marshals or faced with
cutting a program that only gives money to someone else, the
choice is easy. It's much easier for Justice to say 'let's cut
this.'"

That sort of decision is made a little easier by a 2005 OMB
report
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail/10003806.2005.html)
that undoubtedly is one of the underpinnings of the Bush
administration's effort to cut the program. OMB described the
program as "results not demonstrated," and found that it scored
extremely poorly when assessed for planning and design,
strategic management, and results and accountability. The same
sort of assessments lay behind other drug war programs the
administration has cut or attempted to cut, such as the drug
czar's youth media program and the National Drug Intelligence
Center, which is once again on the chopping block.

As the Chronicle noted in our recent report on the battle over
JAG program funding
(http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/drug_task_force_federal_grant_cuts),
the drug task forces have been repeatedly criticized by drug
reform, civil liberties, and civil rights organizations as
out-of-control cowboys responsible for scandals like Tulia and
Hearne, Texas. But such criticisms have played no noticeable
role in the administration's assault on the program.

Nor have they resonated with a bipartisan group of senators who
last week announced they would seek to reinstate 2008 fiscal
year funding for the JAG program at a level of $660 million.
Led by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), the effort is also being backed
by Sens. Kit Bond (R-MO), Joe Biden (D-DE), Saxby Chambliss
(R-GA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

"Without financial support, Iowa communities are forced to
combat crime and drugs with fewer and fewer resources. More than
10 Iowa counties have been forced to shut down their task forces
because of funding cuts. This gutting of drug prevention
programs cannot continue," Harkin said at a press conference
announcing the move. "My aim is to restore Byrne Grants to a
level that will give local law enforcement officials in Iowa and
across the country ample funding for already successful
anti-crime and anti-drug initiatives."

The senators' initiative is being supported and prodded by a
powerful coalition of law enforcement groups, including the
National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA), the National
Narcotics Officers Associations Coalition, and the National
Association of County Officials.

"Let there be no room for doubt, communities everywhere will see
the effects of this bill and its cuts to criminal justice
funding," said NCJA president David Steingraber. "A cut to the
JAG program is a cut to local law enforcement and victims of
crime everywhere. Congress has just made the job of every police
officer in this country more difficult. Members of Congress have
turned their backs on local law enforcement officers who are now
forced to make due without significant federal assistance,"
Steingraber said. "It is our hope these drastic cuts are not a
long-term solution to a federal fiscal problem. The safety of
our nation is far too important and deserves adequate funding,
with violent crime back on the rise.

But despite the formidable lobbying power of the police and
their allies, the future of JAG funding remains in doubt. And
drug reformers will unite with fiscal conservatives and the Bush
administration in a strange alliance to try to keep the funding
cuts intact.

"The reason the JAG funding was cut at the last minute last year
was that it was obvious that Bush would veto it, and it remains
clear that he pretty much wants to eliminate it," said Bill
Piper, national affairs director for the Drug Policy Alliance
(http://www.drugpolicy.org). "This year's appropriations process
is just starting, but what is interesting and hopeful is that
because Bush wants to eliminate it completely, that is going to
make it harder for the Democrats to restore last year's
funding."

But not impossible. As law enforcement proponents of restoring
the money told the Chronicle last week, they will try to get it
back any way they can, including attaching it to either the
economic stimulus package or the supplemental war funding
appropriation. It's the latter that has Piper worried.

"The Iraq supplemental doesn't have to fit within the overall
budget, and Bush would be reluctant to veto his war spending
bill," he said. "I know law enforcement and some senators are
already talking about this. Our challenge is to reach out to
fiscal conservative organizations and craft a message that
funding shouldn't be restored, but if it is, it should be
earmarked for treatment. It can already be used for that, but
most states don't."

The JAG grant program is but one line item in a record-breaking,
deficit-building, $3 trillion dollar 2009 federal budget. But
it is one line item that could stand to be completely
eliminated. That probably won't happen this year, but it seems
likely the drug task forces are going to have to limp along with
reduced funding, persuade state and local governments to cough
up more money, or go out of business once and for all.

================

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