The deceptively titled "Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006" has passed the House. It will result in a vast increase of wide-scale searches of public school students based on even the slightest suspicion that just one student brought drugs to school. The searches could take the form of pat-downs, bag searches, or strip searches depending on how administrators interpret the law.

The Student Teacher Safety Act of 2006 (HR 5295) mandates that any school receiving federal funding -- essentially every public school -- must adopt policies that allow teachers and school officials to conduct random, warrantless searches of every student, at any time, on the flimsiest of pretexts. Simply by claiming that one student is suspected of having drugs in the building could provide officials with authority to search every student.

How lame. The Bush Administration's Office of Narcotics and Drug Control Policy has uploaded its anti-drug videos to YouTube.

The Bush administration is taking its fight against illegal drugs to YouTube, the trendy Internet video service that already features clips of wacky, drug-induced behavior and step-by-step instructions for growing marijuana plants.

The decision to distribute anti-drug, public service announcements and other videos over YouTube represents the first concerted effort by the U.S. government to influence customers of the popular service, which shows more than 100 million videos per day.

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report released today, marijuana arrests reached an all-time high in 2005 -- 42.5% of all drug arrests were for pot. Pot arrests have doubled since the 1990's.

In 2005,

Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. In past years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested were age 19 or younger.

West Virginia will become the first state in the country to bust drug users using the new EyeTech technology.

It is being made possible by a $2 million grant from Congressman Alan Mollohan, and will allow local law enforcement officials to receive training. The training will help them bust drug users, by learning the physiological signs, and through scanning the individual's eyes with the EyeCheck device.

The device looks like binoculars, and in seconds it scans an individuals pupils to detect a problem. "They'll be able to tell if they're on drugs, and what kind, whether marijuana, cocaine, or alcohol. Or even in the case of a tractor trailer driver, is he too tired to drive his rig?" said Ohio County Sheriff Tom Burgoyne.

The device can also detect abnormalities from chemical and biological effects, as well as natural disasters.

Can it also pick up the dry cleaning? Sounds like a hype and junk science to me.

San Diego has been leading the charge in California against medical marijuana. So it's probably no surprise that a group of federally-funded law enforcement officers and personnel have chosen San Diego for their annual anti-cannabis cabal.

Here's the invitation:

September 5, 2006

To: Invited Guests

Re: National Marijuana Initiative Conference

The National Marijuana Initiative (NMI), funded by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Program, will hold its annual conference October 31-November 1, 2006 in San Diego, California. This year, the NMI, in partnership with Californian's for Drug Free Youth and its local affiliate the San Diego Prevention Coalition, has expanded the conference for California and other states' Drug Free Community grantees and prevention organizations. For the first time ever, the NMI is inviting prevention professionals to join us for Day 1, and for a new Day 2. An agenda will be sent out within the next few weeks.

All of the HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas) Directors located within the "Marijuana-Seven" states have been invited to participate. The HIDTA and their appropriate state and local law enforcement personnel will share their marijuana investigations and eradication efforts on public lands on Day 1. Day 2 will focus on marijuana prevention efforts.

Via NORML:

98 Percent Of All Domestically Eradicated Marijuana Is "Ditchweed," DEA Admits

Washington, DC: More than 98 percent of all of the marijuana plants seized by law enforcement in the United States is feral hemp not cultivated cannabis, according to newly released data by the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program and the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.

According to the data, available online here , of the estimated 223 million marijuana plants destroyed by law enforcement in 2005, approximately 219 million were classified as "ditchweed," a term the agency uses to define "wild, scattered marijuana plants [with] no evidence of planting, fertilizing, or tending." Unlike cultivated marijuana, feral hemp contains virtually no detectable levels of THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, and does not contribute to the black market marijuana trade.

Previous DEA reports have indicated that between 98 and 99 percent of all the marijuana plants eradicated by US law enforcement is ditchweed.

by TChris

Attention often focuses on the problems of urban America -- and there are problems aplenty, to be sure -- but sparsely populated areas of the country have their own problems, one of which is identified in a study reported today by the New York Times: boredom, an affliction that leads to binge drinking.

A federal government survey recently confirmed what residents of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas already knew: people there drink to excess, at very early ages, well above the national average. The survey, conducted over three years by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said south-central Wyoming led the nation with the highest rate of alcohol abuse by people age 12 and older. In Albany and Carbon counties, more than 30 percent of people under age 20 binge drink -- 50 percent above the national average.

Western red state kids turn to alcohol, and sometimes methamphetamine, to cope with "the boredom of the big empty." Megachurches apparently aren't filling the voids in their lives.

On Monday, I wrote over at 5280.com about a DEA officer who reportedly was attempting to raise money to campaign against the legalization of marijuana initiative that will be on the Colorado ballot in November. The initiative, sponsored by Safer Colorado, would legalize possession by adults of up to one ounce of marijuana. Denver voters passed a similar initiative last year, but the state said it would continue to enforce its law which makes such possession a petty offense punishable by up to a $100 fine. (Colorado also has a medical marijuana law that allows people to obtain a state license to possess and grow up to six plants if they submit a letter from their doctor.)

Today, the DEA responded to the report it intends to campaign against the measure and says it's not true.

by TChris

Another tangle between state autonomy and federal supermacy is in the making, as Gov. Schwarzenegger decides whether to sign a bill authorizing California farmers to grow industrial hemp.

The rapidly growing plant with a seemingly infinite variety of uses is against federal law to grow because of its association with its evil twin, marijuana. ... But California is the first state that would directly challenge the federal ban, arguing that it does not need a D.E.A. permit, echoing the state's longstanding fight with the federal authorities over its legalization of medicinal marijuana.

You'll recall that California came out on the losing end of the medical marijuana argument. Yet the federal interest in uniformity of drug law enforcement is stronger than its interest in preventing farmers from growing a crop that adds nothing to the supply of illicit drugs.

by TChris

Note: Jeralyn also posts about this here.

If we can launch a preemptive strike against a country that has no weapons of mass destruction simply because (thanks to the administration's propaganda) we feel threatened, why shouldn't we be able to preemptively kill neighbors who seem like they might be threatening? A growing number of states are enacting self-defense laws that eliminate an already eroding common law principle that the use of deadly force in self-defense is permitted only after attempts to retreat from the dangerous situation have failed.

Supporters call them "stand your ground" laws. Opponents call them "shoot first" laws.

Many states have copied a Florida law that permits the use of deadly force, with no duty to retreat, by a person who reasonably believes the force is necessary to prevent great bodily harm or "the commission of a forcible felony." A fear of imminent harm is presumptively reasonable if deadly force is used against a person who forcefully enters the defending person's residence or car. Persons who use deadly force under those circumstances are immune from arrest and prosecution (and from civil liability).

Note: TChris also posts about this here.

I'm gonna stand my ground, I won't back down....Tom Petty

The New York Times reports today that states are increasingly enacting "Stand My Ground" laws that allow an individual to shoot to kill in self-defense without first having to "retreat to the wall."

The first of the new laws took effect in Florida in October, and cases under it are now reaching prosecutors and juries there. The other laws, mostly in Southern and Midwestern states, were enacted this year, according to the National Rifle Association, which has enthusiastically promoted them.

15 states have now enacted such laws, and Florida's is serving as a model. I support these laws, but think they should go further and cover businesses not just residences and vehicles. The basics of the Florida law are:

Do our federal prosecutors really need more money? That's what Reps. Henry Waxman and John Conyers think. Here's their letter to Congress.(pdf)

Will there be an equal increase for federal defenders?

White Collar Crime Blog has some thoughts on the matter.