Meth and Jesus in West Virginia

Vice magazine just published a grim but fascinating article featuring a woman whose business it is to clean up meth labs in West Virginia. The whole article is worth reading, but the last few paragraphs are particularly harrowing:

Beneath the surface in every case, there's evidence of hardcore drug use. It's almost a game when the three cleaners walk into a house to find the hidden syringes. They're under carpets or flood boards or sewn into mattresses. "We've found them in baby bottles," Jennifer says. "We found them in a hollowed-out Bible once."

"Where there are children involved, that's the worst part," offers Heath. "That affects me a little bit. Otherwise, it's just work." Kids live in 80 percent of the places they clean, he tells me.

Stories about meth often come with theories on why this particular drug has such a foothold in the boonies: Coke and heroin seem exotic and taboo. Meth helps with manual labor. Barns and remote, abandoned buildings provide cover for labs.

A lifelong West Virginian, Jennifer says she knows people who've used meth, "people I would have never expected until they told me. Contractors use it to stay up three days to finish a deadline." She's never had a bust in one of her rentals, though.

Jennifer notes the exploding popularity of some hard drugs in general, like heroin. She's seen enough pill bottles and dope paraphernalia in busted meth sites to think all these drugs are rising in popularity together, and she's seen enough Jesus tchotchkes and throw pillows to know they're all working their way into the banal fabric of normal life here.

Meth and Jesus, both providing false hope of relief from the agonies of living life mired in rural poverty in a bleak landscape where for all but a very few the American Dream has all but permanently disappeared. Rural America has become a place where one of the few decent livings to be had is cleaning up after the awful messes created by the downtrodden, desperate and destitute. Not that I begrudge the entrepreneurial spirit of the subjects of the article. Just that I find the whole thing profoundly sad.


Bonus: "Say my name." "Heisenberg." "You're goddamned right."

Killing the Pain

I'll begin this post by making a confession--over the past year I have become what some people would consider a drug addict. What that means is that I take continual doses of Dilaudid--synthesized morphine--all day, every day. That is not to say I am doing anything illegal, as my dosages are well within the limits set by my prescription. However, because of what has been diagnosed as moderate-to-severe neuropathy in my fingers as especially my feet, a fun little aftereffect of the chemotherapy that helped save my life, I need the drug just to get through the day without screaming. Yes, I am aware that there are other drugs and methods for treating peripheral nerve damage. Problem is, none of them have as yet been able to do squat to relieve my constant pain and discomfort. Maybe medical marijuana would be right for me, except it will be a truly chilly day in Hades before Virginia ever deigns to legalize it and asshole Obama, fake liberal fuck that he is, is every bit as hard-hearted a drug warrior at the federal level as any of his Republican predecessors.

But I didn't come here today to whine and complain about my own ailments. I only wrote that last paragraph so that everyone will know where I am coming from with the rest of this, and that obviously I have every bit of empathy in the world for people who truly are in pain.

That said, do you know what the number one cause of "accidental" death in America is these days? Drug overdose. And the leading form of drug overdose is...drumroll please...prescription drugs. Sorry, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but heroin doesn't even rate.

I'll throw another little fun fact at you from the article I just linked. Despite having the only 5% of the world's population, America consumes an astounding 83% of the world's prescription opioids. Even considering that half the world's population is living in subsistence level poverty with little or no access to decent health care, that is an astounding figure.

Clearly, lots of people in this country are in pain for whatever reason. And just as clearly, there are lots of people out there whose lives have become so desperate and hopeless that they manage to kill themselves while trying to kill the pain.

The latest scare tactic media campaign--and that's another area where America proudly leads the world, using fear of drug abuse to scare the shit out of the "straights" who vote--features teevee ads telling adults to secure their prescription medications lest their drug fiend children and grandchildren get ahold of them and promptly kill themselves. One of the ads I saw recently featured a middle-aged gent standing in front of his bathroom mirror, calmly taking his meds while his teenage daughter stared back at him in the reflection doing the same thing. Made me laugh, because this bozo would have had to be pretty out of it not to notice his pills are disappearing twice as quickly as they ought to be, and with the tighter controls on prescriptions these days he's gonna run out of that shit well before he can get a renewal.

Maybe, as is usually the case, good parenting is a better strategy than keeping a padlock on the ol' medicine cabinet. That's not to say there aren't teenagers out there abusing prescriptions drugs, most certainly there are, but just that there is no better way to get those same straights all fired up about an issue than telling them it's for the good of the children.

As is usually the case with any supposed "crisis" our media decides is worthy of its very short attention span, nobody ever pauses to ask WHY this has become a problem. Why are so many people killing themselves with painkillers? Why do some teenagers feel compelled to try and escape reality for a few precious moments through the abuse of them? Actually, I think I may know the answer to that last one--it comes straight from a quote from a retired DEA agent in the linked article:

“I’m better at picking out drug addicts than anyone you’ve every met,” Stutman told the crowd.

Still, he can’t spot opioid abusers. His prime example: Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who confessed to being an Oxycontin addict for years while hosting a nationally syndicated show every morning, and nobody knew. The same can happen to kids.

“They’ll get A’s in high school until they’re dead, or so close it doesn’t matter,” he said.

Do you suppose it might be the pressure to GET all those A's, knowing that if they don't a truly grim future working the counter at the local Panera franchise awaits them, or that even if they do manage to get the grades it'll mean admission to a college that'll saddle them with debt they won't be able to pay off until they are well past their parent's age that might have led little Jane/Johnny to seek the solace of all those painkillers? Perish the thought.

This all should come as no surprise to any thinking person. America is a sick society in so many ways, and it just continues to get sicker every day. It's in everything from our poisoned politics, to our poisoned media culture and right down to the poisoned "food" so many of us consume in massive quantities. All of it causes pain, either physical or psychological--and once you have the pain we'll give you even more poison to help kill it.

But hey, it's all good for the corporate bottom line. And that's all that REALLY matters, amirite?


Bonus: I wish it hadn't been my destiny

Ha-Ha! Obama’s Drug War Betrayal Might Cost Him the Election

From David Sirota at Salon Magazine…oh please, oh please, oh please:

Candidate Obama did explicitly promise to restrain the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana offenses in medical marijuana states, and President Obama has nonetheless overseen an intense Justice Department crackdown on medical marijuana in those states, directly contradicting his pledge.

Though the national media has made the unilateral decision to ignore the massive and destructive Drug War, Johnson and his supporters clearly see the issue as a perfect opening for maximum local — and by virtue of the Electoral College, national — impact. They can make a full-throated libertarian case against the Drug War in a state whose politics are uniquely aligned to convert that argument into an election-winning game-changer for the Republican presidential nominee.

Is this a brilliant GOP conspiracy theory? In other words, is the libertarian candidate deliberately trying to help Romney, as Obama partisans will no doubt grouse? Almost certainly not, as Johnson is no fan of Romney, to say the least. He has run a consistently honest and principled campaign that has been equal — and equally harsh — in itscriticism of both parties. For that, despite being on most state ballots, he has been mercilessly shut out of the national debate by America’s bipartisan Political-Media-Industrial Complex. But apparently not shut out enough to potentially shift the outcome of the entire 2012 election.

No, if Obamaphiles have any grievance over the Johnson Effect in Colorado, it should be with their candidate. He was the one who needlessly betrayed his own position on the failed drug war, a position that almost certainly got him votes in 2008 from disaffected Republicans and libertarians. He probably made the same calculation as the national media: He probably believed few care about the Drug War or his drug policy reversals, and that the brazen reversals might even win him votes by making him look “tough.”

But, then, every now and again, such cynical calculations can end up being epic miscalculations, especially when it comes to lying to a motivated subset of voters. In that sense, nobody should be surprised that having been betrayed, many of those Democratic-leaning voters who supported Obama in 2008 specifically because of his position on the Drug War may look for an alternative in 2012. The only thing surprising is that thanks to Colorado’s perfect storm, there’s now a very real chance that the alternative could end up changing the entire course of history.

I’m not the biggest fan in the world of Gary Johnson, and interestingly his positions as plotted by political compass.org barely place him on the libertarian end of the political scale, but I swear if I could I would move to Colorado, register and vote for him if I thought it would help the election play out the way Sirota supposes. Might the Democratic Party then finally get the message that “sellout politics” is a long term loser? Probably not. Instead they will no doubt try to tar and feather Johnson as 2012's version of Ralph Nader. But it is nice to fantasize about.


Bonus: "Ball-less, soulless, spiritless, corporate little bitches, suckers of Satan's cock...each and every one of them"

The War on Drugs Sinks To A New Low

This story below from NBC San Diego is simply so horrifying in what it reveals as to just how far America has declined as a nation that I feel I have to post it in its entirety:

Daniel Chong, the UC San Diego student who was left in a Drug Enforcement Agency holding cell for nearly five days, said the time spent in his cell was a life-altering experience.

Before holding a press conference Tuesday afternoon, the 23-year-old spoke with NBCSanDiego and said he was increasingly worried throughout the days he spent in a 5 ft. by 10 ft. cell, where he could not spread his arms out wide.

“They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “I’m not sure how they could forget me.”

Chong and his lawyer spoke to the media on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the claim they will file with the federal court system on Wednesday.

“He was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said his lawyer Gene Iredale, who compared Chong’s experience to Abu Ghraib.

Chong said he was at a friend’s house in University City celebrating 4/20, a day many marijuana users set aside to smoke, when agents came inside and raided the residence. Chong was then taken to the DEA office in Kearny Mesa.

He said agents questioned him, and then told him he could go home. One agent even offered him a ride, Chong said. No criminal charges were filed against him.

But Chong did not go home that night. Instead, he was placed in a cell for five days without any human contact and was not given food or drink. In his desperation, he said he was forced to drink his own urine.

“I had to do what I had to do to survive….I hallucinated by the third day,” Chong said. “I was completely insane.”

Chong said he lost roughly 15 pounds during the time he was alone. His lawyer confirmed that Chong ingested a powdery substance found inside the cell. Later testing revealed the substance was methamphetamine.

After days of being ignored, Chong said he tried to take his own life by breaking the glass from his spectacles with his teeth and then carving “Sorry mom,” on his wrists. He said nurses also found pieces of glass in his throat, which led him to believe he ingested the pieces purposefully.

Chong said he could hear DEA employees and people in neighboring cells. He screamed to let them know he was there, but no one replied. He kicked the door, but no one came to get him.
By the time DEA officers found Chong in his cell Wednesday morning Chong was completely incoherent, said Iredale.

“I didn’t think I would come out,” Chong said.

He said when employees discovered him in the cell that they looked confused and nervous. A DEA employee rode with him to the hospital, where they paid for Chong’s visit.

He spent three days in the intensive care unit at Sharp Hospital and his kidneys were close to failing.

The DEA has not apologized to Chong, said Iredale.

The incident also caused Chong to miss his midterms at UCSD. He said he does not know if he will return to school, as his perspective on life has changed since his isolation.

San Diego defense attorney Gretchen Von Helms said the victim could get millions if he files a lawsuit.

"In all my years of practice I've never heard of the DEA or any Federal government employee simply forgetting about someone that they have in their care," she said.

"There has to be repercussions if people do not follow the safety and the care when they have a human being in their custody."

Before I continue, I just wanted to point out that the only reason this story is getting a lot of media coverage is because the victim of this gross governmental abuse of power was a middle class college student. Does anyone really believe that this is the first time anything like this has happened in the DEA’s detention cells? If so, I’ll take that bet. The agency’s “bad luck” in this case was that Chong wasn’t some poor, black kid from the projects.

There are so many levels of Fail in this story that I hardly know where to begin. Let’s start with the DEA busting into a private residence trying to defeat the “deadly scourge” of college students smoking pot. Really? In this day and age in which governmental resources are being stretched to the breaking point and vital agencies like the National Weather Service and the Department of Agriculture are undergoing cutbacks—not to mention that none of the criminals on Wall Street who crashed the economy back in 2008 have been arrested or punished?

Then there is the issue of Chong’s five day confinement, which was so profoundly negligent as to beg the question of whether it was done intentionally. As far as we can determine from the story, Chong was arrested for mere possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor offense at best. Given how, as I have documented numerous times before on this blog, the court system, including the federal courts, are also facing steep cutbacks in budgets and personnel, it seems highly possible that Chong’s case would have eventually been simply dismissed—and don’t think for a minute that those who locked him in that cell and then “forgot” about him didn’t know that.

Does it seem incredible to you that the DEA might have made an example out of Chong in order to send a chilling message to the other potheads at his school? If so, then you need to read some to the articles Exiled reporter Yasha Levine wrote about the treatment that he and other Occupy LA protesters received at the hands of the police after their encampment was raided. There is a cold, Machiavellian logic to the idea of sending a message that since the courts cannot be counted on to hand out stiff punishments to the young miscreants who are no longer going along with the program, they should expect to be badly abused during their time in custody to serve as a deterrent. From Chong’s comments about how “his perspective on life has changed since his isolation,” I’d say he got the message loud and clear.

And let’s also not lose sight of who it is that is ultimately responsible for this abuse of power—President Hopey-Changey himself. Maybe we can’t pin the Occupy LA abomination on the “Constitutional Scholar” in the White House, but the DEA is a federal agency directly under his control. The president absolutely does have the authority to stop this kind of bullshit if he wants to, but given that Obama has gone so far as ordering a federal crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries, he has conclusively shown which side he is on. Any young people thinking of making the mistake of voting for him again this November should take that under consideration.

All in all, the arbitrary indefinite detention of citizens for minor offenses in inhumane conditions is one of the key hallmarks of any authoritarian regime. While it is hyperbolic to say that America has already become a dictatorship, the overall trend could not be more alarming. Chong’s lawyer was absolutely right to conjure up visions of Abu Ghraib, and he might have mentioned Guantanamo as well. We citizens are now reaping what we have sown by not loudly condemning the crimes of the empire around the globe. It was inevitable that the evil at first being perpetrated against brown skinned foreigners overseas would eventually find its way back to our shores, and that by the time it did it would be far too late to stop it from beginning to consume us all.

Addendum: After I wrote the initial post, it was reported that the DEA apologized to Chong. Sorry, but there are times when merely saying your sorry just doesn't fucking cut it. This is one of those times.

Addendum 2: Another news report indicated that a large stash of Ecstasy was found in the
house where Chong was arrested, but that the DEA agents who detained him quickly realized he was not involved with the drug stash.


Bonus: Roll another number

Drug War FAIL: Cocaine Is Cheaper Than Ever

If one of the goals of the asinine war on drugs is to make them less available to users, then this is yet another example that it has been a dismal failure. Here is Slate with the details:

In laying out an argument for drug legalization in his Washington Post column Tuesday, George Will notes that the price of cocaine has dropped between 80 and 90 percent over the last three decades. Why has coke gotten so cheap?

Economies of scale. Cocaine prices are indeed much lower than they were in the early 1980s, but that’s mostly because of a precipitous change in the drug market during the Reagan era. Until then, cocaine was a small-time business, with coca leaves’ being processed in the basements of rickety houses in Colombian suburbs. Trafficking was a usually one- or two-man operation. In their early days, even legendary drug kingpins like Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers had to smuggle their cocaine out of the country in their own suitcases. With the surge in demand that began at the end of the 1970s, however, the kingpins built out their empires, modernizing processing, transport, and retail networks, and managed to lower prices by more than 60 percent over the next 10 years.

It took traffickers a little while to ramp up production at first. Within two or three years, many owned small planes that could transport a metric ton of cocaine in a single shipment. (You can’t fit much more than 50 kilograms of cocaine in a suitcase.) By the end of the 1980s, cocaine was traveling on submarines and cargo ships, too. Kingpins owned sprawling processing complexes that employed hundreds of workers and could churn out several tons of cocaine per week. They concocted clever risk-spreading mechanisms. Multiple producers broke their shipment into segments and pooled them together, so that a single interdiction couldn’t deliver a devastating economic blow to any one of them. Escobar offered insurance to smaller traffickers: For a 10 percent fee, he would replace any seized drug shipments. All of these moves drove down the cost of delivering drugs to the market, and the drug lords passed those savings on to the consumer.

Since then, the price has dropped more slowly, down to approximately $140 for a gram of pure cocaine in 2007. (That’s almost 80 percent less than it cost in 1982.) Some of the continued decline is attributable to increased production and softening demand, but a large component likely has to do with changes on the retail end. According to figures compiled by Jonathan P. Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon University and Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland, around 33 percent of the price of cocaine went toward compensating smugglers and dealers for the risk of violence in 1990. Gun violence is way down since that time, so dealers likely aren’t demanding the same risk premium. (The recent surge in violence in Mexico, however, may have partially offset this trend on the smuggling side.) Technology has also contributed to the labor savings. Dealers used to have to stand on street corners hoping to make a deal. Today, they arrange their transactions in advance using cellphones. That innovation enables them to make more sales per day, and reduces their exposure to violence and arrest. Another factor is that people who have been arrested a few times for dealing have a hard time finding other work. After 30 years of widespread arrests, incarcerations, and releases, there may be a surplus of labor in the drug industry.

It should be noted that enforcement of drug laws has added substantially to the cost of street drugs, but those increases haven’t been enough to outpace efficiency gains in the industry.

Aside from the libertarian argument that what any adult chooses to ingest into their own body in the privacy of their own home should be their own damn business and no one else's, the war on drugs should be halted because of its sheer stupidity. As long as there is big money to be made by the contractors that support the war and drug companies that would lose sales if they had to compete with narcotics currently illegal narcotocs, however, that is unlikely to happen.


Bonus: Sing it, J.J.

The "Walmart of Weed" is Opening in Washington

When a government refuses to acknowledge either public sentiment or common sense in a certain area of the law, the people start finding creative ways to undermine the very same law. It happened during the prohibition years, and it is gradually happening again. Here is the Washington Post with the story:

A company dubbed the “Walmart of Weed” is putting down roots in America’s capital city, sprouting further debate on marijuana — medical or otherwise.

Just a few miles from the White House and federal buildings, a company that candidly caters to medical marijuana growers is opening up its first outlet on the East Coast. The opening of the weGrow store on Friday in Washington coincides with the first concrete step in implementing a city law allowing residents with certain medical conditions to purchase pot.

Like suppliers of picks and axes during the gold rush, weGrow sees itself providing the necessary tools to pioneers of a “green rush,” which some project could reach nearly $9 billion within the next five years. Admittedly smaller than a big box store, weGrow is not unlike a typical retailer in mainstream America, with towering shelves of plant food and vitamins, ventilation and lighting systems. Along with garden products, it offers how-to classes, books and magazines on growing medical marijuana.

“The more that businesses start to push the envelope by showing that this is a legitimate industry, the further we’re going to be able to go in changing people’s minds,” said weGrow founder Dhar Mann.

Although federal law outlaws the cultivation, sale or use of marijuana, 16 states and the District of Columbia have legalized its medical use to treat a wide range of issues from anxiety and back pain to HIV/AIDS and cancer-related ailments. Fourteen states also have some kind of marijuana decriminalization law, removing or lowering penalties for possession.

Nearly 7 percent of Americans, or 17.4 million people, said they used marijuana in 2010, up from 5.8 percent, or 14.4 million, in 2007, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. A Gallup poll last year found a record-high of 50 percent of Americans saying that marijuana should be made legal, and 70 percent support medical uses for pot.

Public sentiment is definitely swinging toward finally legalizing marijuana. In fact, one question I would want to ask the 20% of respondents to that poll with the inconsistent opinion about pot is why exactly do they favor the "medicinal use" of marijuana versus it being legal otherwise? How does someone enjoying a little weed in the privacy of their own home affect your life in any way whatsoever? So they should have to wait until they get a brain tumor before they can fire up a joint? That makes exactly no sense whatsoever.

It is long past time to change this country's insane marijuana laws and legalize it already. Taxing it like alcohol in cigarettes would also help cash strapped governments at all levels raise revenue. It's a win-win with very little downside. Except for the prudes, busy-bodies and fundie whack jobs who aren't happy unless they are all up in somebody else's business.


Bonus: Too bad Bill didn't live to see it

Oregon Planning Prison Closures, Up to 400 Layoffs

Back on January 19th, in my post, "Endgame: Close the Prison, Kill the Town," I highlighted a story about the economic blow being dealt to the Sunshine State by the planned closings of a number of prisons. Now comes word from the Statesman Journal.com that the same thing is happening on the opposite coast in Oregon:

The Oregon Department of Corrections is considering closing multiple prisons in the state’s 14,000-inmate, 14-prison corrections system, going far beyond previously disclosed plans to shut down one Salem facility.

Corrections leaders have drawn up budget-cutting plans that call for scrapping 1,500 to 1,800 beds and laying off 350 to 400 employees.

New corrections director Colette Peters outlined the potential cuts — totaling $17.2 million — in an e-mail sent to all DOC employees late Friday.

The big reason for these cuts is not a drop in the crime rate so much as it is because of budget cuts. It is just too expensive to continue to house millions of people as wards of the state:

The prospect of additional prison closures is rippling fear and anxiety through the 4,000-employee corrections agency, which has a two-year budget of $1.3 billion.

The budget crunch puts Peters squarely on the hot seat. She recently took the reins as corrections chief, moving from her post as director of the Oregon Youth Authority, the juvenile corrections system.

In her note to DOC employees, Peters said she had hoped to send out an introductory message to all agency employees without budget information.

“Unfortunately, this cannot be the case and I want (to) share information with you, as we are midway through the 2012 Legislative Session,” she wrote.

The DOC faced a $100 million gap in its budget prior to the legislative session, Peters said.

Of course, changing our insane drug laws and decriminalizing the possession of cocaine and marijuana would be a great first step towards lowering the prison population. The states have been slowly coming to their senses on this issue of late, but the federal government, under Obama no less, has actually been cracking down on those efforts. From this story and others like it, it's pretty obvious that something will soon have to give before the prison-industrial complex bankrupts every state government around the country.


Bonus: There aren't a lot of cool rock songs out there about Oregon for some reason, but here's one

Another Mission Accomplished: 12,000 Mexicans Died in the War on Drugs in 2011

Sigh. Another year has passed and the drug related violence in Mexico just keeps on increasing. Since 2006, about as many Mexicans have been killed in the war on drugs as Americans who were killed during this nation's entire involvement in the Vietnam War. Here is the Raw Story with the gruesome details:

Some 12,000 people died in drug-related violence in 2011 in Mexico and around 50,000 have been killed since the start of President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on drug gangs in 2006, media reported Monday.

The reports came out as brutal violence continued to rock parts of Mexico amid a military crackdown on organized crime involving tens of thousands of troops.

Reforma daily counted 12,539 drug-related killings in 2011, which it said was a 6.3 percent increase on the previous year.

It said the violence had become more brutal with increases in beheadings — to almost 600 — and more than 1,000 cases of torture.

Daily Milenio recorded 12,284 drug-related deaths in 2011 and underlined major hikes in violence in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero and the Gulf of Mexico state of Veracruz, where 35 bodies were dumped under a busy overpass in one incident alone.

Mexico's total population is around one-third that of the U.S., so this would be the equivalent of 36,000 Americans being killed in the past year and 150,000 slaughtered in the past five. Yet despite the carnage there has been exactly zero indication that the U.S. government is interested in reducing the violence by ending the drug war insanity. Sadly, as long as most of the killings are taking place "over there" most Americans just don't give a damn.

More Proof that the Drug War is a Failure

I've asserted here several times that the War on Drugs is a costly boondoggle and a bitter failure. Filling our prisons and clogging our court systems with non-violent drug offenders is the height of stupidity. Give these people treatment, not jail cells. Then hardcore drug usage might actually drop.

There is no better example of the insanity of the drug war than the case of the woman pictured in the mugshots above. Here is her story:

Sheriff's deputies arrived at a trailer on Monday and were shocked to find severely disfigured Heather Raybon there with another man, both surrounded by drug paraphernalia in the midst of a working meth lab, reported Fox10TV.com.

The 31-year-old had been permanently scarred when a drug den blew up in 2004 but even with her face left a distorted, melted mask she couldn't keep away from the addictive drug.

In the latest incident, narcotic detectives found materials and ingredients to cook up crystal meth, along with 13 grams of meth powder and 32 grams of meth oil. There was such a strong risk of explosion from the one-pot lab that police called the fire department to safely neutralize it.

Of all the illegal narcotics out there, crystal meth is arguably the worst. Cheap, easy to make, highly addictive and terribly destructive to the addict's health. You'll get no argument from me that it is not a scourge upon the earth.

And yet, what social good has come out of arresting the unfortunate Ms. Raybon four more times since that awful day when she melted her own face off? If that horrific experience wasn't enough to get her to quit, sticking her in a jail cell again certainly isn't going to do the trick. It is long past time for America to stop treating drug addiction as a crime, since doing so is nothing but counterproducutive and insanely expensive to boot.


Bonus: Crystal Meth really is as awful as this song is harrowing.

Lindsay Lohan: The Perfect Sex Symbol for a Crumbling Empire

Normally, I try to not pay any attention to the relentlessly publicized exploits of celebrities, especially vacuous no-talents like Paris Hilton and the Kardashian sisters who are famous for just for being famous. There is no doubt that the media uses them to serve as a massive distraction, and I refuse to play along with that particular game. But for some reason, the ongoing tragedy of actress Lindsay Lohan fascinates me, perhaps because her life’s story ties together so many threads of what ails the empire in the early stages of its death throes.

At a very young age, Lindsay Lohan was thrown by her parents into the Hollywood meat grinder that chews up and spits out many thousands of desperate young hopefuls every year. Author Jake Halpern described in his excellent book, Fame Junkies, how so many American children are completely deprived of a normal childhood in the quest to become the next Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. Their families drag them out to California, often taking on huge debts to enroll them in academies that are supposed to prepare them to be the next big superstar in movies, television or music. These kids spend their whole waking lives taking singing, dancing and acting lessons in between being dragged around from audition to audition where the competition is absolutely cutthroat. A lucky few get their big break and achieve what they are seeking. Most, however, are broken by the system and return back to where they came from having had their youth squandered by their stage parents.

Initially, Lindsay Lohan appeared to have won the fame lottery. She was already modeling at the age of three, and by age 11 was cast to star in her first featured film, the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap. By all accounts, despite appearing in Disney-produced, teen-oriented fluff, young Lindsay actually did have some natural ability as an actress and a singer. This could explain why her career soared to such meteoric heights during her adolescent years.

Unfortunately, instead of nurturing her burgeoning talent, our celebrity-obsessed culture placed her on a pedestal—throwing countless millions of dollars her way while the media stalked her incessantly, all at an age when the biggest worry for most girls is whether anyone will ask them to the prom. Lindsay could scarcely step out in public without her every move becoming a major headline. Seriously, how many of us could ever hope to stand up to that kind of scrutiny, especially at that age?

Sure enough, as the bright lights of fame turned into a white-hot, unending glare, Lindsay’s life began to spiral out of control. She became a habitual user of narcotics, which was bad enough, but then began to commit a series of petty criminal acts for which she’s been repeatedly arrested. And it is here where all of the hypocrisy and class-based injustice of the American legal system has been put on full display.

Because she is a famous Hollywood actress and not a single welfare mother living in a public housing complex, Lindsay’s drug busts have always resulted in her being allowed to go to cushy rehab centers rather than being sent to prison. I would argue that non-violent drug offenders SHOULD be given treatment rather than punishment, but they only are if they have the money to hire top notch defense attorneys. Even more telling is how the actress has so far avoided serious jail time for her other infractions, including twice Driving Under the Influence, driving with a suspended license, misdemeanor theft and repeated probation violations. In one notorious instance, she spent exactly 84 MINUTES in jail to fulfill her sentence on one of her DUI arrests.

Throughout it all, the paparazzi have continued to stalk her, gleefully documenting her many court dates and her rapid physical decline, which has become red meat for hungry tabloid readers desperately seeking an escape to feel better about their own shitty lives. If there is anything idiot Americans love more than breathlessly following the lives of celebrities, it’s heaping scorn and derision upon them should they prove to be frail and all-too-human. It’s even better when the celebrity is a young woman whose sexual exploits, both real and imagined, are the grist for endless speculation and gossip and she can then be condemned as a slut and a whore.

All of this stuff —celebrity worship, media irresponsibility, a broken criminal justice system and insane drug laws--is bad enough, but to top it off like a cherry on a shit sundae comes the unfortunate Lindsay’s parents to display another quintessentially modern American trait: an utter lack of responsibility for one’s own actions. Here’s a quote from a recent interview with her father about her most recent arrest:

"I hate seeing my daughter in cuffs. She belongs in rehab! Why don’t they institute drug testing? Get drug testing involved! Keep her straight! Make sure she’s in an outpatient program. They need to put a sober coach with her! A no nonsense sober coach! I’m sick of this, when she wants to be honest with herself and live up to her responsibility she’ll turn her life around. But she has learned too much of the opposite from her mother," says Michael.

Even though Michael is known about town as being low-key crazy and has willing appeared on Celebrity Rehab, for some reason he seems to think he's knows what's best for Lindsay.

"My mission is to get rid of all the people in her life that are kicking her down. I'm going to eliminate them from her life. I'm going to do all I can...not physically but I'm going to put them in a position where they can't be around her."

Not to be outdone, here is her mother in a separate interview:

“I blamed her friends, her career and her handlers for an (sic) newfound lifestyle of partying excessively. Drinking, drugging and behaving irresponsibly became Lindsay’s way of daily living–and it tore me up inside.”

“How could I deny my daughter the chance of a lifetime? How could I hold Lindsay back from her dream of becoming an actress? So, I listened to others and sent my daughter to Hollywood with a few pieces of luggage and a chaperone.”

Do those quotes not make you want to grab these two clueless morons and slam their fucking heads together? Really, it was Lindsay’s conscious choice to become a model when she was only three years old? For much of her professional career, Lindsay Lohan was a minor, and therefore raising her was their responsibility. They were perfectly happy to cash the big fat checks and bask in the reflected glory of their young movie star daughter. But actually being parents to her? Why, that’s way too HARD, don’t you know.

Despite having international fame and more money than most of us will ever earn in our lifetimes before she was even old enough to vote, Lindsay Lohan’s life is a complete wreck at the tender young age of 25. It will be a shock if she actually lives to see 30. When she does inevitably succumb to that final fatal overdose, you can bet moralists everywhere will be wagging their fingers while National Enquirer readers gleefully soak up every sordid detail of her death. The cable news shows will feature extended career retrospectives and her record label will no doubt release a posthumous album in order to cash in on the publicity. The funeral will be widely televised, and plenty of teary-eyed mourners who never even met her will say how sad her passing is, even if not one of them would have ever deigned to lift a finger to help her while she was still alive.

So there you have it, America. Lindsay Lohan: the perfect poster girl for the type of deranged society we’ve become. She is literally giving her life to keep you entertained and distracted so you won’t have to open your eyes and see how completely screwed you really are. Appreciate her now—revel in her transgressions, laugh at her misfortunes, speculate about who she’s fucking, embrace the feelings of moral superiority that come over you when you look at her mug shots—but be sure to do so soon before it’s too late.

Obama Cracks Down on Medical Marijuana

People talk about the expense and pointlessness of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the equally counterproductive War on Drugs--particularly marijuana--has been going on for much longer. The most recent battles have taken this war to unique new heights of sheer absurdity as the administration of President Hopey-Changey--who many of his naive supporters might have assumed would be ratcheting things down--is now sending in Drug Enforcement Administration agents to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries in California. Here is the Santa-Rosa Press Democrat with the story:

U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents on Thursday raided a medical marijuana cooperative that holds a Mendocino County sheriff's permit to grow medicinal pot, further demonstrating the gaping discrepancy between state and federal marijuana laws.

The seizure of 99 pot plants came less than a week after U.S. Justice Department prosecutors in California attorneys announced they would be cracking down on medical marijuana, which continues to be illegal under federal law 15 years after the state's voters approved it.

One would think that in this age of supposed federal budget "austerity" that the government would figure out a better way to expend its resources. Sadly, that is obviously not the case.

Lest you think I am being unfair to President Obama by implying that he is personally implicated in this effort, here is another tidbit from the story:

At a press conference Oct. 8 in Sacramento, the state's four U.S. Attorneys announced a crackdown on the medical marijuana business. “The California marijuana industry is not about providing medicine to the sick,” said Laura Duffy, the San Diego-based U.S. Attorney. “It's a pervasive, for-profit industry that violates federal law.”

The U.S. attorneys are political appointees who are named directly by the President. Whenever you see a coordinated effort like this among multiple U.S. Attorneys, you know that the White House has given either its implicit or explicit approval for their efforts.

So gaze for a moment upon the totality of Obama's sorry ass law enforcement record. No prosecutions for the war crimes or torture policies of the Bush Administration. No prosecution of the big banks and Wall Street for crashing the economy through fraudulent financial shenanigans. And yet he applies the full force of the law on people who grow a largely harmless natural substance to alleviate the horrible pain and suffering of cancer patients.

Once again, I'll ask the members of my former political tribe--the liberals and progressives--the key question: how the fuck would things be any worse had John McCain won the 2008 presidential election?

Cash-Strapped Topeka, Kansas, May Stop Prosecuting Domestic Violence Cases

Just at a time when economic stress is likely to cause a big increase in incidents of domestic violence, there was a report today that one municipality is considering dropping prosecutions of such cases to save money:

Cash-strapped Topeka, Kansas, has decided to stop prosecuting domestic violence cases in order to save money.

The City Council announced the proposal Oct. 4, after the Shawnee County District Attorney's office announced it could no longer prosecute misdemeanors, including domestic violence cases. The city's maneuver may even require repealing the part of the city code that bans domestic battery. Mayor Bill Bunten told the Topeka Capital-Journal city officials take domestic violence seriously, and it would be "dead wrong" to assume offenders won't be prosecuted. But the dispute is over who would pay for it, he said.

Shawnee County has already dropped 30 domestic violence cases since it stopped prosecuting the crime on Sept. 8. Some 16 people have been arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery charges and then released after charges were not filed.

I have an idea, Mayor Bunten. How about your city stop arresting and prosecuting non-violent drug offenders? That would save the money you need without letting scumbags who beat and terrorize their family members off scott-free.

Casino Massacre in Monterrey Shows that the Effects of the Failed War on Drugs in Mexico are Spreading

Most Americans don’t realize it, but there is a full-scale war going on just across our southern border. The latest atrocity was the gasoline bombing of a casino in Monterrey last week that killed at least 52 people. Like much of Mexico’s recent catastrophic drug-related violence, the attack appeared to make little sense. Sadly, as reported by Antiwar.com, American taxpayers are underwriting this awful conflagration:

The attack comes as the New York Times reports yet more American involvement in the Mexican government’s military attack on drugs. The US has allowed Mexican police to launch raids into Mexico from US side of the border, but says it doesn’t participate.

The US often has drug suspects extradited to stand trial from across the Americas as part of its various deals with Colombia and Mexico, and the Times also recently revealed that the CIA, DEA, and their contractors were operating inside Mexico.

These efforts have only served to ramp up the violence; some 42,000 people have been killed since the $1.4 billion Mérida Initiative began in 2006. Mérida funds the Mexican government to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, the Americas’ primary illicit-drug consumer.

As reported by Reuters, Mexican President Felipe Calderon is finally beginning to lose patience with the American-funded effort:

Lashing out at corrupt officials in Mexico and "insatiable" U.S. demand for drugs for fomenting the violence, Calderon urged Congress to stamp out drug consumption and stop illegal trafficking of weapons across the border into Mexico.

"We're neighbors, we're allies, we're friends, but you are also responsible," a somber and angry Calderon said to the United States in a speech after meeting his security advisers.

So why, after five years and tens of thousands of his own citizens being butchered is this American stooge finally beginning to get his dander up? Reuters goes on to report:

The casino attack is particularly bitter for Calderon because the victims were mainly well-to-do civilians with no link to the conflict, in an area that has traditionally been a electoral stronghold for the business-friendly PAN.

Monterrey, which lies about 230 km (140 miles) from the Texas border, is a relatively wealthy city of about 4 million people and is home to some of Mexico's biggest companies. It was for many years seen as a model of economic development but it has been ravaged by the drugs war over the past two years.

When it was merely poor and working class Mexicans being slaughtered on the streets of Juarez, as had primarily been the case to date, President Calderon was happy to take all that American largess despite the awful human cost of waging the War on Drugs. But as soon as the violence hits home and begins to affect his own well-to-do supporters, suddenly he finds his backbone and starts criticizing the U.S. policy.

It is absolutely pathetic that so many Americans insist upon blindly waving the flag and proclaiming that they live in The Greatest Country in the World, while their government engages in such despicable activity right on their own doorstep. It’s also telling that during the recent federal debt ceiling debacle none of the politicos suggested that maybe, just maybe, this counterproductive policy should be ended once and for all. Instead, funds that go to help average people continue to be on the chopping block, while money earmarked for more violence and destruction remains untouchable. It’s just another sad example of an empire in terminal decline, and for the Mexican people caught in the crossfire its demise can't come soon enough.