If you are headed out tonight to celebrate, plan ahead. The cops will be everywhere.

In Denver, if money's an issue, the Frank Sawaya law firm will pick up the tab for your taxi. Just send your receipt with a photocopy of your driver's license to: Holiday Free Cab Ride Home Program, The Sawaya Law Firm, 1600 Ogden St., Denver, CO 80218.

Sawaya says his offer, now in its 4th year, is offered on New Years Eve, July 4th, St. Patricks Day and Halloween. It costs the firm about $20,000. a year.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Michigan is asking a federal judge to force the state's Department of Community Health to comply with a subpoena and turn over the medical marijuana records of 7 people under investigation by the DEA. Michigan law protects the confidentiality of those granted medical marijuana cards and makes disclosure a misdemeanor. The DEA subpoena seeks:

“copies of any and all documents, records, applications, payment method of any application for Medical Marijuana Patient Cards and Medical Marijuana Caregiver cards and copies of front and back of any cards located for the seven named individuals.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bruha says:

a “state-created confidentiality provision … must yield to the enforcement power of the federal agency.”

[More...]

The LA Times reports that jurors are telling judges they won't convict defendants in small marijuana cases.

The article focuses on a recent trial in Montana. One juror said she'd have a problem convicting the defendant. A second said she couldn't do it.

"Then one of the people in the jury box said, 'Tell me, how much marijuana are we talking about? … If it was a pound or a truckload or something like that, OK, but I'm not going to convict someone of a sale with two or three buds,' " the judge said. "And at that point, four or five additional jurors spontaneously raised their hands and said, 'Me too.' "

The judge adds: [More...]

The New York Times examines the Wikileaks cables and the DEA. What it finds: the D.E.A. has been expanding its global reach. It now has 87 offices in 63 countries. One of the things foreign governments love about the agency: its wiretapping capability.

The DEA has emerged from the shadow of the FBI and become much more than a drug agency. Its intelligence capabilities are in great demand, world-wide, but not always for the right reasons. This detailed article on the leaked Wikileaks cables concerning the DEA and war on drugs begins with Central and South America, where some governments want access to its technologies to go after political opponents. [More...]

Phoenix's Sheriff Joe Arpaio may have a rival in the category of worst Sheriff in America. Pinal County (Tucson)Sheriff Paul Babeu has announced his department will institute a policy authorizing (mandating) the use of lethal force against suspected drug smugglers.

"I've given specific instruction, no less than lethal force is going to be used. It's all lethal force only and we go into that environment knowing that we're likely expecting an armed threat from these people," Babeu said.

Good thing for this Sheriff's deputy, he's in Texas and not Tucson. [More...]

Prohibition was a failure. The War on Drugs is a failure. Maybe it's time to try a new approach.

Former UK Defense Minister Bob Ainsworth says it's time to legalize drugs. The methods of the past, including prohibition, don't work. They fail to keep the public safe.

The war on drugs has been "nothing short of a disaster" and it is time to study other options, including decriminalising possession of drugs and legally regulating their production and supply. "We must take the trade away from organised criminals and hand it to the control of doctors and pharmacists."

[More...]

A year ago I wrote about the DEA's expensive "African vacation" during which it sent informants and agents to Ghana as part of an elaborate sting operation to intercept cocaine on its way to Europe. It ended up with no cocaine or money, but flew three African men back to the U.S. to face criminal charges. (A year later, the court's docket in U.S. v. Oumar Issa, et. al., SDNY, shows the three are still in custody and the case hasn't even gotten past the discovery phase to the filing of pre-trial motions.)

I'm sure the men's lawyers (some of whom are court-appointed since some of those charged are indigent) will be very interested in Wikileaks' release of embarrassing cables today pertaining to cocaine enforcement operations in Ghana, Mali and elsewhere in West Africa. One set of cables pertains to a longstanding and expensive UK operation called Westbridge, in which the UK teamed up with the Ghana Government. Cables by American diplomats claim corruption in Ghana has ruined the operation. [More...]

In the Dec. 27th issue of the Nation, the cover story is "Dare to End the War on Drugs." It's about the need to rebalance our drug policy. Almost the entire issue is devoted to the topic. If you care about our failed war on drugs, this issue seems like a winner.

Nearly forty years after President Nixon declared a "war on drugs," it is painfully clear that the nation's approach to drug policy is counterproductive and cruel. Shifting our priorities toward a more sensible approach—one that offers treatment rather than punishment for addicts, and that recognizes the deep injustice of mass incarceration—seems like a daunting task. But as the writers in this forum suggest, we have all the answers and resources we need. If ever there was a time to say enough is enough, it's now.

Participants include: [More...]

Via the Washington Post: Not trusting the Mexican police, the DEA is partnering up with the Mexican Marines. Capture and kill missions are some of the tactics.

The U.S. government is turning to elite units of Mexican marines to go after drug cartel bosses in aggressive "capture or kill" missions, providing intelligence and training to bolster what officials say is Mexico's most trustworthy and nimble force.

The recently released Wikileaks cables contain some details:

U.S. officials confirm in interviews and recently leaked diplomatic cables that the U.S. military is conducting urban-combat and counterinsurgency instruction in Mexico and the United States. [More...]

Meet Keith Bulfin, an Australian stockbroker convicted for fraud and then recruited from an Australian supermax prison by the DEA for expensive and elaborate stings against the Mexican Cartels. His new book, Undercover: Story of a Life bills itself as "A true story of drug multi-millionaires, shoot-outs, executions, betrayal, armed car chases, assassins, double-agents, revenge, survival... and finally, redemption." From his bio:

Keith spent three years in a Supermax prison, where he was introduced by prison authorities to two Mexican fugitives. It was his friendship with them that led to his recruitment by the US Department of Justice to operate a covert banking operation in Mexico for the Mexico drug cartels. He was reassigned to Washington DC and the FBI to operate a covert bank, targeting Middle Eastern countries and terrorist organisations. He has worked as an expert advisor on money laundering with the National Security Council in Mexico, various foreign governments, policing agencies and multinational companies.

[More...]

Using its emergency powers, the DEA today banned five chemicals used in synthetic marijuana. They are JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol. The federal register notice is here.

Except as authorized by law, this action will make possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the U.S. for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) further study whether these chemicals and products should be permanently controlled.

....The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to allow the DEA Administrator to emergency schedule an abused, harmful, non-medical substance in order to avoid an imminent public health crisis while the formal rule-making procedures described in the CSA are being conducted.

The chemicals are used in smokable herbal blends like “Spice,” “K2,” “Blaze,” and “Red X Dawn.” Eric Sterling says there's no evidence the chemicals or herbal blends are dangerous. [More...]

Every November 1, amendments to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines go into effect. Most of the talk this year has been about the reduction for crack cocaine penalties, which are minimal and don't apply to offenses committed before August 3, 2010 (although one judge in Maine last week said he'd apply them to someone awaiting sentencing on August 3.)

And many drug defendants, including those sentenced for drugs other than crack, may get higher sentences under the enhancements that Congress Passed as part of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.

But, there is one change that applies to all defendants that may be helpful. For the first time, those at Level 13 with a Category 1 criminal history (no more than 1 point), with a guideline range of 12-18 months, don't have to get a prison sentence. That's because the Commission moved Level 13 from Zone D, where it's been since 1987 or whenever the zones were established, to Zone C. All Zone D sentences must be to prison. In Zone C, alternative sentences are possible. [More...]