War on pot rejected by voters

[Mark Stapleton]

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/930...ohibition/


The Killing of Rachel Hoffman and the Tragedy That Is Pot Prohibition

By Paul Armentano, AlterNet. Posted July 29, 2008.


Police caught Hoffman with pot but promised to drop charges if she agreed to go undercover in a drug bust. She was killed soon afterward. Rachel Hoffman is dead. Rachel Hoffman, like many young adults, occasionally smoked marijuana.

But Rachel Hoffman is not dead as a result of smoking marijuana; she is dead as a result of marijuana prohibition.

Under prohibition, Rachel faced up to five years in a Florida prison for possessing a small amount of marijuana. (Under state law, violators face up to a $5,000 fine and five years in prison for possession of more than 20 grams of pot.)

Under prohibition, the police in Rachel's community viewed the 23-year-old recent college graduate as nothing more than a criminal and threatened her with jail time unless she cooperated with them as an untrained, unsupervised confidential informant. Her assignment: Meet with two men she'd never met and purchase a large quantity of cocaine, ecstasy and a handgun. Rachel rendezvoused with the two men; they shot and killed her.

Under prohibition, the law enforcement officers responsible for brazenly and arrogantly placing Rachel in harm's way have failed to publicly express any remorse -- because, after all, under prohibition Rachel Hoffman was no longer a human being deserving of such sympathies.

Speaking on camera to ABC News' "20/20" last week, Tallahassee Police Chief Dennis Jones attempted to justify his department's callous and irresponsible behavior, stating, "My job as a police chief is to find these criminals in our community and to take them off the streets (and) to make the proper arrest."

But in Rachel Hoffman's case, she was not taken "off the streets," and police made no such arrest -- probably because, deep down, even they know that people like Rachel pose no imminent threat to the public. Instead, the officers on the scene secretly cut a deal with Rachel: They told her that they would not file charges if she agreed to go undercover.

Rachel became the bait; the Tallahassee police force went trolling for sharks.

In the weeks preceding Rachel's murder, police told her to remain tight-lipped about their backroom agreement -- and with good reason. The cops' on-the-spot deal with Rachel flagrantly violated Tallahassee Police Department protocol, which mandated that such an arrangement must first gain formal approval from the state prosecutor's office. Knowing that the office would likely not sign off on their deal -- Rachel was already enrolled in a drug court program from a prior pot possession charge, and cooperating with the TPD as a drug informant would be in violation of her probation -- the police simply decided to move forward with their informal arrangement and not tell anybody.

"(In) hindsight, would it have been a good idea to let the state attorney know? Yes," Jones feebly told "20/20." Damn right it would have been; Rachel Hoffman would still be alive.

But don't expect Jones or any of the other officers who violated the department's code of conduct -- violations that resulted in the death of another human being -- to face repercussions for their actions. Obeying the rules is merely "a good idea" for those assigned with enforcing them. On the other hand, for people like Rachel, violating those rules can be a death sentence.

Of course, to those of us who work in marijuana law reform, we witness firsthand every day the adverse consequences wrought by marijuana prohibition -- a policy that has led to the arrest of nearly 10 million young people since 1990. To us, the sad tale of Rachel Hoffman marks neither the beginning nor the end of our ongoing efforts to bring needed "reefer sanity" to America's criminal justice system. It is simply another chapter in the ongoing and tragic saga that is marijuana prohibition.


Paul Armentano is the deputy director for the NORML Foundation in Washington, D.C.

[Keith Millea]

Magda,
Bob Marley was indeed a very large threat to the PTB.Unlike John Lennon,who was involved with an already awakened Peace and justice movement,Marley was just starting to awaken the African Continent.Marley could very well have been the most dangerous political voice in the late seventies.I have always thought that his death at what(37),to be a probable hit.He had already been shot once in an attempt to silence him.

And then there's the story of William Colbys son visiting Bob and bringing him a precious new pair of boots.:eek:


"I don't know how we and dem gonna work this out"

Bob Marley-"We and Dem"

[Myra Bronstein]

Magda,
Bob Marley was indeed a very large threat to the PTB.Unlike John Lennon,who was involved with an already awakened Peace and justice movement,Marley was just starting to awaken the African Continent.Marley could very well have been the most dangerous political voice in the late seventies.I have always thought that his death at what(37),to be a probable hit.He had already been shot once in an attempt to silence him.

And then there's the story of William Colbys son visiting Bob and bringing him a precious new pair of boots.:eek:


"I don't know how we and dem gonna work this out"

Bob Marley-"We and Dem"

Keith, Magda,

I am so glad that Bob Marley is on your radar. The assassination attempt, wherein a gunman broke into his home and shot everyone present, receives too little attention. Bob Marley himself receives too little attention. Like John Lennon, Marley was a powerful cultural force.

"So influential a cultural icon had Marley become on his home island by the mid-Seventies that Time magazine proclaimed, “He rivals the government as a political force.” On December 5, 1976, Marley was scheduled to give a free “Smile Jamaica” concert, aimed at reducing tensions between warring political factions. Two days before the scheduled concert, he and his entourage were attacked by gunman. Though Bob and Rita Marley were grazed by bullets, they electrified a crowd of 80,000 people when both took to the stage with the Wailers on the 5th - a gesture of survival that only heightened Marley’s legend. It further galvanized his political outlook, resulting in the most militant albums of his career: Exodus, Survival and Uprising."
http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/bob-marley

I can't image that the CIA run Time magazine was happy about that influence.

I attached the famous photo of Marley bringing Michael Manley and Edward Seaga's together at the One Love concert 'cause... it seems relevant.
http://www.rasta-man-vibration.com/michael-manley.html
"Philip Agee, former CIA officer (as interviewed in the DVD Marley documentary, "Rebel Music") confirms that the CIA was supplying guns and anti-PNP propaganda to the conservative JLP. (Some Jamaican's began calling Seaga "CIAga.") In this interview Agee states, "The CIA would look upon the radical political content of reggae as dangerous because it would help to create a consciousness among the poor people, the great majority of Jamaicans."

I have not seen "Rebel Music," yet.

I haven't had time to look through it much, but this looks like an interesting forum:
http://bobmarley.prospero.com/n/pfx/foru...=bobmarley

[Dawn Meredith]

I too have long been suspicious about the death of Bob Marley. Had no idea that the son of William Colby visited him. Now that is STRANGE. If I recall the death was attributed to cancer (shades of Jack Ruby?).

Dawn

[Myra Bronstein]

I too have long been suspicious about the death of Bob Marley. Had no idea that the son of William Colby visited him. Now that is STRANGE. If I recall the death was attributed to cancer (shades of Jack Ruby?).

Dawn

Right. The only type of cancer more deadly than the melanoma is the Jack Ruby type cancer. And that seems to be the form Marley had.

[Mark Stapleton]

In the interests of ramming the point home beyond any vestige of doubt, here's the story of the drug mastermind who ran a quarter of a million dollar drug business from within his cell in an Australian maximum security prison:


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/sto...84,00.html


So what's my point? Well, if this person was able to run a multi million dollar drug business from within a maximum security prison, then what hope do the authorities have of preventing illicit drug trafficking in free society?


For Americans, the cost of maintaining the charade of drug prohibition is about 50 billion per year:


http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm


Pretty costly when one considers that many Americans will soon be relying on food rations from the Government and charities.

For God's sake America, wake up.

[Peter Lemkin]

For God's sake America, wake up.

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz........

I personally know a very sad 'drug' victim. Sentenced to about 50 years in prison on a charge he is innocent of. Too long a story for here, but in short. He was an auto mechanic and one of his regular customers had had him rebuild his engine. The car was waiting in his parking area and he noticed it was gone. He assumed [correctly] the man had a second key and had come at night to get his car. He knew where he lived and drove there, after the man refused to answer his calls. He had the misfortune to arrive during a big drug bust at the man's house and was also arrested. Because he had had two minor legal infractions from his youth, and because one was for smoking pot; and because of the new draconian laws and 'three-strikes-your-out; and because he hadn't enough money for an attorney and the public 'defenders' are often more interested in / or too inexperienced to not go along with the prosecutor's plans - he was/is 'in' for 50 years for something he was totally innnocent of. The prisons - even deathrow are full of similar stories.......

[David Guyatt]

In the interests of ramming the point home beyond any vestige of doubt, here's the story of the drug mastermind who ran a quarter of a million dollar drug business from within his cell in an Australian maximum security prison:

I understand that the vast majority of the US prison population are members of various gangs and that the chief activity of these gangs are running drugs.

[Mark Stapleton]

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz........

I personally know a very sad 'drug' victim. Sentenced to about 50 years in prison on a charge he is innocent of. Too long a story for here, but in short. He was an auto mechanic and one of his regular customers had had him rebuild his engine. The car was waiting in his parking area and he noticed it was gone. He assumed [correctly] the man had a second key and had come at night to get his car. He knew where he lived and drove there, after the man refused to answer his calls. He had the misfortune to arrive during a big drug bust at the man's house and was also arrested. Because he had had two minor legal infractions from his youth, and because one was for smoking pot; and because of the new draconian laws and 'three-strikes-your-out; and because he hadn't enough money for an attorney and the public 'defenders' are often more interested in / or too inexperienced to not go along with the prosecutor's plans - he was/is 'in' for 50 years for something he was totally innnocent of. The prisons - even deathrow are full of similar stories.......

That's a doozy.

The worst cases I've read about are from America of course. All too often the Feds (DEA) bust the door down, hold several people at gunpoint, throw them in jail, confiscate any drugs or money lying around, then sell the house of the unfortunate occupants to pay for the raid. The sentences can range from six months to twenty years, often for just smoking weed.

This is the model society America tries to export.

[Mark Stapleton]

I understand that the vast majority of the US prison population are members of various gangs and that the chief activity of these gangs are running drugs.

Of course. It's a much better earner than guns, and not just the gangs profit from it. It's also the prison staff and management getting in for their chop.

Why do you think the California prison officers union (reportedly the largest union in the US) are so politically active in support of prohibition? They need to keep throwing poor minorities in prison to preserve their jobs........and perks.