Sanho Tree, a fellow at the Drug Policy Project of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., has a wrap-up of the drug war and its consequences in the May-June issue of Sojourner, titled The War at Home.

Until we provide adequate resources for drug treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention, the United States will continue to consume billions of dollars worth of drugs and impoverished peasants around the world will continue to grow them. The enemy is not an illicit agricultural product that can be grown all over the world; rather, our policies should be directed against poverty, despair, and alienation. At home and abroad, these factors drive the demand for illicit drugs which is satisfied by an inexhaustible reservoir of impoverished peasant farmers who have few other economic options with which to sustain themselves and their families.

Tree does offer an alternative approach to the issue of drug abuse, namely, Harm Reduction.

The investigation into the DNA lab at the FBI is widening. Instapundit is on top of it, as is MSNBC.

The AP reported this month that FBI lab technician Jacquelyn Blake quit while under investigation for failing to follow required scientific procedures while analyzing 103 DNA samples over the past couple of years, and a second lab employee was indicted for allegedly providing false testimony.

Inspector General Glenn Fine expanded the Blake inquiry to examine the FBI lab’s broader practices in DNA cases. The FBI has been cooperating, the government officials said.

The officials said the goal of the investigation is to identify vulnerabilities in lab procedure that could affect the quality of the FBI’s DNA analyses or permit a rogue employee to go undetected.

Frederic Whitehurst, the whistleblower in the 1995 FBI lab scandal that affected the WTC and Oklahoma City bombing investigations, and who has gone on to become a lawyer as well as forensic specialist, is also on top of the new inquiry. According to the MSNBC report,

Criminal defense lawyers are planning challenges to the database and to DNA evidence in cases involving the FBI lab technician or the local crime labs accused of wrongdoing. “All of us are depending on DNA as a gold standard in forensics work — innocence projects, prosecutors and defense lawyers. And now we don’t have a gold standard. The gold has been tarnished,” said Frederic Whitehurst, a lawyer and former FBI lab employee whose whistle-blower allegations led to major changes in the lab in the mid-1990s.

Bottom Line according to Dr. Whitehurst: DNA may be an almost pure and perfect science, but it becomes easily tainted by the fact that DNA scientists are human beings. Here's more from Dr. Whitehurst:

The beleaguered San Francisco Police Department is back in the news today with the release of a report showing the Department has routinely hindered investigations of citizen complaints against police:

San Francisco's independent police watchdog agency issued a blistering report Wednesday charging that the Police Department routinely impedes investigations into citizen complaints of serious officer misconduct. Some of the cases involve the deaths of suspects in custody and shootings by police.

Bump and Update: The suit's been filed.

Posted April 21:

The city and county of Santa Cruz, California will file suit Wednesday over medical marijuana. The lawsuit will be filed against Attorney General John Ashcroft, Acting DEA Administrator John Brown and Drug Czar John Walters. It will seek a preliminary injunction to allow a raided marijuana club to reopen and resume providing marijuana to the medically ill.

It is legal in California for medically ill people to use marijuana. It is illegal under federal law. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on medical marijuana.

``It is pretty clear that the people in the state of California support the use of medical marijuana,'' said Mardi Wormhoudt, a Santa Cruz County Supervisor. ``It is disturbing when the people in the state have overwhelmingly expressed their support at the ballot the federal government feels no right to uphold that.''

Earlier this month, three U.S. Congressman, Sam Farr (D-CA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), and Barney Frank (D-MA), introduced the "Truth in Trials Act", to allow marijuna defendants, both users and providers to introduce evidence at trial that their actions were for medicinal purposes and in accordance with state law.

Thousands of Peruvian coca farmers, fighting to end restrictions on their coca crops, marched on the Peruvian capital Monday. The marchers left their homes and crops in the mountainous jungle valleys and set out for the captial ten days ago.

The Bush Administration has launched a proposal to expand the national DNA database by requiring testing of juveniles and adults who have been arrested but not convicted of crimes. Presently, the national database includes only those convicted of crime.

Critics say that adding juvenile and arrestee profiles to the database threatens privacy by expanding the pool of samples beyond adult criminals. Although only digital DNA profiles would be linked to the FBI computer, the blood or saliva samples from which the DNA was drawn would be kept by state labs, they note. "It's only a matter of time before the government gets its hands on those DNA samples and starts playing around with our genetic codes," says Barry Steinhardt, privacy specialist for the American Civil Liberties Union's national office in New York City. "They say they don't want to do that, but not too long ago they were saying they'd only take DNA profiles from rapists and murderers and now they want juveniles ... We're not just on a slippery slope, we're halfway down it."

This is not just a law enforcement tool as the Administration suggests.

[Privacy advocates] note that researchers are identifying genetic markers for height, hair color and other features. They suspect that authorities soon will want to search DNA samples for such genetic markers.

This is a bad idea. We strongly oppose it. [link via Kevin ]

More wrongdoing at the FBI lab has been revealed.

Anyone ever hear of Marks, Mississippi? Marks is a town in Quitman County, in the Mississippi Delta, about 60 miles south of Memphis. Quitman County is poor. Very poor. Too Poor to Defend the Poor. It has no money to provide the poor with lawyers. Here is an example of the kind of justice it provides:

Diana Brown met her court-appointed lawyer for the first time on the day she pleaded guilty to several serious crimes five years ago. They spent five minutes together and have not spoken since.

"You are guilty, lady," the lawyer, Thomas Pearson, told Ms. Brown, according to her sworn statement, as he met with her and nine other defendants as a group, rattling off the charges against them.

He told her she was facing 60 years in prison for assault, drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident, and should accept a deal for 10 years, court papers say. He gave her five minutes to decide. Offered no other defense, she took the deal.

But three cheers for Quitman County--it is suing the state of Mississippi.

Texas is joining the growing list of states concerned about the cost of incarcerating low level drug offenders. Two bills have been introduced this session to reduce drug penalties and offer treatment.

Both bills aim to reduce the number of people locked up for such crimes, require treatment for drug addicts, and keep those caught with small amounts of drugs from being saddled with a felony conviction that could impair their ability to get jobs or rent apartments. The Houston Chronicle reported last fall that nearly half of the 15,000 inmates in the state jail system -- lower-security jails established in 1994 to house nonviolent felons -- were there for drug crimes involving less than 1 gram. The bulk of those offenders -- 49 percent -- were from Harris County.

These statistics are mind-boggling. For those of you not familiar with drug quantities, one gram is 1/28 of an ounce--think, a "sweet and low" or "equal" packet:

Of the 58,000 drug convictions won by local prosecutors over the past five years, 77 percent involved less than 1 gram, according to a Chronicle analysis of district court data. Harris County sent 35,000 of the small-time offenders to jail or prison.

The FBI Lab is facing scrutiny in over 100 cases in which it performed DNA tests.

Five years after FBI administrators pledged to clean up their much-maligned evidence lab, officials are again facing questions over shoddy lab work -- this time involving more than 100 DNA tests.

A bureau spokesman says the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General, its internal investigative branch, is looking into how an FBI lab technician might have compromised DNA tests over a two-year span.

Officials at the National Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, which has been critical of the lab, said they were unaware of the latest problem and urged the FBI to reveal more information.

"Our concern is just the typical Justice Department stonewalling on this thing," said Dan Dodson, an association spokesman. "Every defense attorney in every case should be notified."

Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, the former FBI lab chemist whose allegations of incompetence sparked the 1997 investigation, said the technician's mistakes are more proof that the lab should be subject to independent regulation and inspection.

The White House Drug Office has announced it is ending it's drug and terrorism advertising campaign.

Now, the office will direct 60% of its buys toward youth-oriented media -- the same percentage it had previously directed at adults -- and will focus on halting drug use among children already using rather than aim to deter youth from starting drugs. The drugs-and-terror ads will end in May.

The people of this town in Iowa have far too much time on their hands. Maybe they could volunteer some of it a constructive way, rather than coming up with hare-brained ideas like passing a law to make lying a crime. [link via Arthur Silber at Light of Reason]:

MOUNT STERLING, Iowa - Lying could be perceived as more than just a character flaw in this southeast Iowa town. It could become a crime.

Four City Council members have proposed an ordinance against fibbing.

Acting Mayor Jo Hamlet said he's tired of the exaggerating that comes with stories in the town of 40 residents famous for its hunting and fishing.

"We wanted to slow down on this lying," Hamlet said this week. "Plus, I'm bored. ... It's been a long winter."

Hamlet said the ordinance has a chance of passing.

"We're going to beat it around," he said. "You never know with the City Council around here what's going to happen."