The Trebach Report THE WESTERN MEDIA AND WESTERN GOVERNMENTS FLUNK HISTORY TEST RE GEORGIA These are sad days for those who care about the survival of Western democracy.  I could have said that our media and governments have flunked a gut check as well as a history test. August 19, 2008 [COMMENTS] NO ECONOMIC WINDFALL FOR CHINA Whenever an argument is being made for the spending of public money on sporting events the economic benefits that will accrue to the community as a whole is the foremost reason for dunning the taxpayer. This is especially true for the Olympics when civic leaders go after this prestigious event they always promise the citizens a big payday during the games. Well, as the Economist reports in the case of this year’s Beijing games not only has there been no financial windfall but normal business activity has been affected in a quite negative way. August 18, 2008 [COMMENTS] ISLAMIC CENSORSHIP IS HARMFUL Johann Hari, a columnist for The Independent in Britain, has written about the novel The Jewel of Medina. The book concerns the marriage of a six year old girl to the Prophet Mohammad when he was fifty. Random House was going to publish it but instead decided to pulp it and it is now gone. Hari puts forth two reasons for the decision, fear of violence and the desire not to be labeled an Islamophobe. He then asks, where would the world be today if criticism of Christianity had been forbidden? He argues that the internal censorship, now so prevalent, with regard to Islam is pernicious and incompatible with our ideals of free expression. Hari also contends that this imposed silence is harmful to Muslims too. He states that, “I live in the Muslim majority East End of London, and this isn't Weimar Germany. Muslims are secure enough to deal with some tough questions. It is condescending to treat Muslims like excitable children who cannot cope with the probing, mocking treatment we hand out to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. It is perfectly consistent to protect Muslims from bigotry while challenging the bigotries and absurdities within their holy texts.” August 14, 2008 [COMMENTS] SOROS ON THE U.S. MORTGAGE CRISIS When George Soros talks finances he makes a lot of sense. Writing about the recent bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac he points out that, "they are public/private partnerships in which the risks are borne by the public sector while profits accrue to the private sector: management and shareholders. The companies have been plagued by accounting problems and other irregularities; their managements have spent enormous sums lobbying Capitol Hill. This is not a business model that deserves to be perpetuated." The essay is not all negative as Soros discusses the possible solution of using covered bonds. This system, created in 1795 after a fire destroyed much of Copenhagen Denmark, offers certain advantages. Soros explains that, "these mortgages are transformed into instantly tradable bonds. Cover for the bonds is provided by both the mortgages and the credit of the financial institutions issuing them. The mortgages remain on the balance sheets of the issuers, eliminating the moral hazard inherent in the US system, which is based on earning fees from selling them on to the market." August 13, 2008 [COMMENTS] WHAT IS A RATIONAL POLICY FOR DEALING WITH MUSLIM OFFICIALS IN WESTERN GOVERNMENTS? Even to talk about this issue makes me, an old so-called liberal and a former federal civil rights official, very, very uncomfortable.  I have discussed that state of discomfort many times in past writings and speeches. However, we must come up with some policy that makes sense, that protects the rights of people of all religions, and that preserves great Western traditions. Yet, every time I read about the extent of radical Muslim penetration of Western police and intelligence agencies I worry that we are unable to face certain uncomfortable truths.  Here is the latest on this matter from Daniel Pipes.  How far off base is he in recommending that Muslim officials be subjected to extra scrutiny? August 12, 2008 [COMMENTS] A MESSAGE FROM IRSHAD TO BARACK Get a reform-minded Muslim in your corner!  A must read. August 11, 2008 [COMMENTS] THE ABUSE OF CHILDREN IN THE NAME OF SAVING THEM At times I am amazed at the stories I keep discovering of how we in this wonderfully free country abuse so many of our children in the name of saving them from a whole variety of perceived evils. Usually it is drugs, but often it can be sex, or the wrong type of religion.  Here is yet another story of abuse in the form of a new book by Michele Ulriksen. August 10, 2008 [COMMENTS] WAFA SULTAN ON SHARIA The apt caption under this short video reads “the great Wafa Sultan speaks truth to power.” In it she states that she was born with certain capabilities and she thanks America for allowing her to employ these capabilities, which would not have been possible if she had continued to live under Sharia law. She also points out that Sharia law is fundamentally incompatible with the principles that underlie our Constitution. August 10, 2008 [COMMENTS] HARVARD STUDENTS SEEM AS CONFUSED AS THE WHITE HOUSE ON DEALING WITH TERROR A fascinating set of insights culled from Peter Bergin's last class at the Kennedy School. Read it and weep for Western civilization. August 9, 2008 [COMMENTS] REVENGE: A LARGELY FORGOTTEN STORY OF JEWISH EXECUTIONERS OF NAZIS WHO EXECUTED JEWS This is one of those tales that brings mixed feelings to those who reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust. Was this moral?  Should it have been more harsh and widespread? July 30, 2008 [COMMENTS] WELCOME BACK SENATOR KENNEDY For many years the Kennedy family has represented a vision of a better America, Camelot if you will. So it should come as no surprise that when Senator Ted Kennedy, who has been battling a brain tumor, returned to cast a vote on Medicare legislation he received an enthusiastic standing ovation from his colleagues. An icon is back at work. July 30, 2008 [COMMENTS] OBAMA IN THE BEST LIGHT POSSIBLE Over the past months I have often gone back and forth in my assessment of Barack Obama, and just recently posted a satirical item about him. Many aspects of his background and policies bother me immensely. (How in the name of all that is holy did he stay with that bigoted nutcase of a preacher for 20 years?)  On the other hand, I have often stated how much I admired him and how proud I was that my country seemed about to elect a minority person to the highest office in the land, indeed in the world.  Here is a mainly positive take on the man. It is based primarily on my watching his recent press conference with Prime Minister Sarkozy of France and his solo appearance on Meet The Press, hosted by Tom Brokaw.   In both appearances he showed just how intelligent, articulate, well-briefed, and confident he was in a tough situation where there were no cue cards.  He was on his own on the world stage and he handled himself wonderfully.  This is a gutsy guy who knows the issues and was not cowed by questions from reporters or by Brokaw's sometimes tough questioning.  He did not bumble once -- that I saw -- unlike W or McCain, who often look like deer caught in headlights when hit with an unexpected tough question Moreover, his recent flip-flopping on some keys issues may in the end be a blessing. It may well mean that he is ready to adjust his lofty rhetoric to deal with the realities brought to him by his aides.  Two big issues that he must face more vigorously are Iran and black crime.  I worry that he will use only vapid rhetoric to deal with them, but this guy is brilliant and gutsy -- and perhaps when he confronts the cold realities of each, he will respond well from the Oval Office.  I do not propose nuking Tehran nor do I advocate locking up more black males, but President Obama must come up with some brilliant new approaches to deal with both. I may add that we all should pray that this positive assessment is borne out by future history, especially within the first few months when he is in office. July 29, 2008 [COMMENTS] July 28, 2008 IS THIS REALLY A SURPRISE? The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that a former high ranking State Department official, Thomas Schweich, has asserted that, “Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been stymieing US anti-opium efforts in southern Afghanistan, as many of his political supporters are amassing wealth through the drug trade.” Mr. Schweich makes his accusation in an article published in the Sunday New York Times Magazine titled Is Afghanistan a Narco-State? arguing that, “the trouble is that the fighting is unlikely to end as long as the Taliban can finance themselves through drugs — and as long as the Kabul government is dependent on opium to sustain its own hold on power.” This poses a problem in that the U.S. government, as was demonstrated in Fatal Distraction: The War on Drugs in the Age of Islamic Terror, must choose between its devotion to drug prohibition and its devotion to ending terrorism. These two goals are clearly in conflict here because Taliban funding depends on the drug being illegal. It was good to see in this CSM article that extensive coverage was given to the remarks of our colleague David Borden who argued that perhaps the actions of President Karzai showed that he was neither evil nor crazy, maybe he just knows that, ”eradication doesn't work, it drives farmers into the hands of the Taliban, security has to come first, you can't just tell a hundred thousand people in the world's fifth poorest nation to give up their primary income source with no viable replacement.” [COMMENTS] July 25, 2008 YEA, VERILY, HE CAME FORTH TO BRING LIGHT TO THE SUFFERING WORLD I do not believe that the mighty Barack deserves all of this satire but it is, after all of the adulation in an American media largely in the tank for him, refreshing. Kudos to a Brit. [COMMENTS] July 23, 2008 THE STATE OF AL-QAEDA The Economist has published a comprehensive and balanced special report on the present state of Al-Qaeda. There are seven articles and a sources section in the assessment which is decidedly mixed. In the first article the tone is set with this paragraph, which argues that, “Nearly seven years into America’s ‘global war on terror’, the result remains inconclusive. Al-Qaeda lost a safe haven in Afghanistan, but is rebuilding another one in Pakistan; Mr bin Laden is at large, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who masterminded September 11th, has gone on trial in Guantánamo Bay; many leaders have been captured or killed, but others have taken their place; al-Qaeda faces an ideological backlash, but young Muslims still volunteer to blow themselves up.” Besides a general evaluation the articles cover a wide range of specific topics including the geographic disposition of Al-Qaeda, formation of Muslim public opinion, Europe as a battlefield, U.S. counter actions, measures taken by Saudi Arabia, and the self-destructive nature of Al-Qaeda. [COMMENTS] July 22, 2008 SYMBOLISM MADE OF STEEL One of the U.S. Navy’s newest vessels, the U.S.S. New York LPD 21, is being constructed with steel salvaged from the destroyed World Trade Center. While it has been suggested that this story is another urban legend, Navy.mil has reported that the shipyard is indeed using such symbolic material. They told us back in 2003 that “steel salvaged from the World Trade Center (WTC) wreckage will be used to build New York. The steel was recently shipped to Northrop Grumman Ship Systems in Pascagoula, Miss., and will ultimately be transported to its Avondale Operations shipyard in New Orleans, where the ship will be built.” Here is the text of an e-mail that is being circulated about the ship: USS New York It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center. It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft. Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, 'those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,' recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. 'It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.' Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the 'hair on my neck stood up.' 'It had a big meaning to it for all of us,' he said. 'They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back.' The ship's motto? 'Never Forget' [COMMENTS] July 21, 2008 HUMANITARITARIAN CRISIS, BLAMING THE WRONG SIDE The Seattle Post-Intelligencer provided a good example of mainstream media bias against Israel when it published an article by Bill Dienst, a rural family and emergency room physician from Omak, who writes about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In the information about the author there is link to a website which makes clear his bias. According to Dienst the fault lies entirely with Israel and of course there is no mention in his essay of the fact that the elected Hamas government denies Israel the right to exist, the fact that rocket barrages aimed at Israeli towns are launched from Gaza on a regular basis, or the fact that the Egyptians could mitigate any crisis by opening their own closed border with Gaza. The purpose of his piece is to promote a relief project sponsored by the Free Gaza Movement involving two ships sailing from Cyprus to Gaza with relief supplies. Dienst suggests that, “it is possible that we will have an uneventful trip, where minimal medical assistance is needed. However, it could happen that Israeli forces block our passage, or even attack us.” The former is far more likely than the latter because the Israeli government’s actions are not motivated by “Israel's desire to make Gazans as miserable, and therefore submissive, as possible,” as Dienst asserts, but rather by a desire for self-preservation. [COMMENTS] July 16, 2008 DEBATING FAILED DRUG POLICIES One of the true stalwarts of the drug policy reform movement is Dave Borden, Executive Director of StoptheDrugWar.org, and he is also a skilled debater. You can see for yourselves as on the occasion of the UN’s annual International Anti-Drugs Day he debated Deirdre Boyd, CEO of the London based Addiction Recovery Foundation. The program was carried on Press TV and hosted by Shahab Mossavat from Tehran of all places. [COMMENTS] July 16, 2008 DRUG WAR PRECEDENTS One of the most insidious aspects of drug prohibition is the tendency of its tactics to spread to other areas and issues. Take for example Morse et al. v. Frederick, the famous Bong Hits 4 Jesus case, where the Supreme Court allowed school administrators to punish a student for displaying a banner with that saying on it. They did this even though the student was not on school property. It is difficult to believe that the ruling would have been the same if the banner had said Save the Whales or even Lower Taxes Now. Once again a drug war exception to the Constitution was carved out. Well, as Frank D. LoMonte, an attorney and executive director of the Student Press Law Center, informs us, the above case is now being used to further restrict the 1st Amendment rights of students. Citing a case in Pennsylvania and one in Connecticut where a student created a Blog on her own computer at home, Lo Monte asserts that school administrators, “are asking courts to declare that a high school student has no protected First Amendment right to speak or write about the school -- even off school property and on personal time -- if the student can anticipate that the speech will provoke controversy at the school.” Of course the speech they are trying to eliminate is any criticism of themselves and because of a drug war precedent they may well succeed. [COMMENTS] July 14, 2008 NOT EVERYONE WILL ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE CENSORED In the commentary section of The Washington Times Frank Gaffney Jr. asks us to “try a little thought experiment. What would have happened in this country during the Cold War if the Soviet Union successfully neutralized anti-communists opposed to the Kremlin's plans for world domination?” He then goes to explain that is precisely what the Islamists are attempting to do and that they are having an alarming amount of success in this endeavor. Gaffney offers evidence including a UN resolution by the 57 Muslim-state Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) forbidding criticism of Islam, Jordan’s attempt to prosecute Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders for his film Fitna, and the fact that officials in Britain, Canada, and the United States are refusing to acknowledge the true threat of Shariah law. When we take into account the craven response of the Western press to the Danish cartoon controversy and the fear rampant in Western business circles of failing to practice "Shariah Compliant Finance", it is clear that there is a great deal of censorship taking place. One person who will absolutely not be muzzled is British comedian Pat Condell. His original website is headlined with “Faith Hope and Sanity: A few jokes about RELIGION before it kills us all” and he has a must see video More demands from Islam that presents a devastating attack on the Islamist presumption that they can tell us what to say and what to think. In it Condell makes the important point that, “there is no dialogue with radical Islam. It does not want to be agreed with, it wants to be obeyed.” [COMMENTS] July 12, 2008 WE CAN FORGIVE JESSE HIS CRUDE COMMENT BUT NOT THE CONTENT OF HIS POLICY POSITION The crudity of his comment about Obama is really not that important but what truly is indeed important is that Jackson is upset with our presumptive new president because he is allegedly talking down to black people.  Yet, Mr. Obama was simply taking the same position that Bill Cosby did and that other honest black opinion leaders have taken, to wit: take responsibility for your own actions and personally correct your own moral and ethical shortcomings.  Victims no more! Yet, Reverend Jackson wants to continue the demeaning victim culture of too many blacks and puts most of the blame for black misbehavior on the government.  A sharply worded rebuke to that line of thinking, by Ben Johnson, just appeared in FrontPage Magazine.  In my view it goes too far and blames the left in totally blanket terms but it contains enough good points to be worth the read. [COMMENTS] July 11, 2008 IT IS NOT GOOD TO READ ABOUT AN IMMINENT MAJOR WAR EARLY IN THE MORNING BUT I JUST DID The news is not good because it is becoming clearer with each passing day that (1) Israel's leaders truly believe that their country's existence is at stake now, this morning; (2) a new President Obama will not support a strike on Iran; (3) as the former head of German intelligence said the only thing worse than an Israeli strike on Iran is Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb; and (4) an Israeli attack on Iran, very likely with US support, seems almost certain in the weeks ahead.  If there is an alternative scenario I wish I could understand what it is.  Read here what the newsletter of a Christian Zionist group has to say on this matter.  Are they wrong? [COMMENTS] July 10, 2008 THE DRUG TRUTH NETWORK Because the mainstream media so seldom discusses issues surrounding drug use in a serious balanced way, a very valuable resource for understanding the unfair, ineffective, and destructive nature of drug prohibition is The Drug Truth Network (DTN) based in Houston at KPFT radio. The network features interviews with a wide range of voices that support drug law reform including myself. Dean Becker of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (L.E.A.P.) interviewed me July 2nd and you can listen to it here or read the transcript here. I also appeared last August and you can hear the audio here. [COMMENTS] July 10, 2008 DRUG WAR WINNERS AND LOSERS In an essay published by the Los Angles Times the always eloquent Judge James P. Gray, author of Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed: A Judicial Indictment Of War On Drugs, and lawyer David W. Fleming, the chairman of the Los Angeles County Business Federation and immediate past chairman of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, delineate who wins and who loses when it comes to the war on people who use certain kinds of drugs. They list six categories of winners; drug lords in the producing countries, street gangs here at home, the bureaucrats who administer drug prohibition, politicians who use fear of drugs to win election, those such as prison guards who benefit from increased crime, and the worldwide network of terrorists. The losers are everyone else. They conclude with the assertion that, “the mission of the criminal justice system should always be to protect us from one another and not from ourselves. That means that drug users who drive a motor vehicle or commit other crimes while under the influence of these drugs would continue to be held criminally responsible for their actions, with strict penalties. But that said, the system should not be used to protect us from ourselves. Ending drug prohibition, taxing and regulating drugs and spending tax dollars to treat addiction and dependency are the approaches that many of the world's industrialized countries are taking. Those approaches are ones that work.” [COMMENTS] July 9, 2008 AMERICA IS NUMBER ONE A student in a class on the history of drugs was asked the following two questions; “Do more arrests and more people in prison necessarily lead to less drug use? Also, does a policy producing fewer arrests and less people in prison necessarily lead to more drug use?” Last week the World Health Organization (WHO) answered both queries with a resounding no. Ever since the Progressive Era the United States government has pursued a policy relying primarily on punishment to curb drug abuse, with abuse and use being considered largely synonymous. While the program has always been a mixture of state coercion and drug treatment, the bulk of the funding has gone into maintaining prohibition. As a result, this country has a racially biased overcrowded prison system on the verge of collapse. We have a law enforcement system employing often very brutal tactics which accomplish very little in way of ending drug use. Our medical system is denying people in pain the medication they need to ease their suffering. And, the nation’s economic system must come up with billions of dollars each year to pay for this activity. We are told these sacrifices are necessary to keep drugs in check but what do we really get for our money and our pain? Well, U.S. News and World Report, writing about research done by the WHO, tells us that the United States has “the highest percentage of people who reported using marijuana or cocaine at least once in their lives.” We have achieved this distinction despite the fact that many other countries have much more liberal and humane policies than us. Writing on AlterNet Bruce Mirken argues that this study shows the punitive approach to be ineffective and that the people in charge of the policy know this. Mirken quotes the WHO researchers; "The U.S., which has been driving much of the world's drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies. ... The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the US, has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in nation level rates of illegal drug use." [COMMENTS] July 7, 2008 THE CURRENT ABSURDITY OF SOME RACIAL DISCRIMINATION CHARGES Because I dealt with true, gut-wrenching, violent racial discrimination and because I fought it for years wherever I confronted it, I find some of the current allegations of racial discrimination are truly ludicrous and also damaging to common sense.  Take a look at the latest absurdity from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), with thanks to the WSJ editorial page. [COMMENTS] July 2, 2008 AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON DRUG CONTROL On its homepage the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) describes itself as “a global network of national and international NGOs that specialise in issues related to illegal and legal drug use. We have come together to pool our knowledge and contacts to advocate for more humane and effective drug policies at national and international level. This website contains details of our work, and provides easy access to a wide range of drug policy reports and events produced by the IDPC, our members, and related organizations.” The organization is producing a wide range of valuable material including detailed reports on supply reduction as well as demand reduction, and crop eradication. Their other activities include organizing workshops, putting on conferences and publishing a newsletter. You can receive a bi-monthly e-mail alert by subscribing on the lower right side of the front page. [COMMENTS] July 2, 2008 A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE What follows is a portion of a lecture prepared by Keith Halderman for his online course titled The History of Drugs in America: The most important development in drug policy from the 1990s to the present is the rise of an energetic organized opposition to the government’s program. Much of the energy and expertise can be credited to The Drug Policy Foundation (DPF) founded in 1986 by Arnold Trebach. This organization put on conferences, funded other peoples’ work and helped educate a multitude of reformers who went on to start other advocacy groups. The DPF provided a crucial space for people to meet in and exchange ideas. In 1997 the DPF published a mission statement which outlined four areas of main concern: - harm reduction–policies that help drug users to help themselves, such as needle-exchange programs, which can lower the risk of spreading deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS - decriminalization–selectively enforcing the laws on the books to focus on major drug offenders, as in Holland - medicalization–allowing doctors to prescribe otherwise illegal drugs to patients under certain conditions, as is the case now in Arizona and California, or allowing doctors to maintain an addict (on the drug to which the person is addicted), as in Great Britain and Switzerland - legalization–making drugs available to adults in a regulated market, similar to U.S. alcohol laws. (Drug Policy Foundation Website, September 28, 1997) Eventually the DPF merged with The Lindesmith Center and became The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) which fulfills the same umbrella function today. Also concerned with the broad picture is The Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet) which maintains the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy and publishes the Drug War Chronicle. They received early vital support from the DPF. Also, coming out of DPF is the general information sharing Common Sense for Drug Policy founded by Kevin Zeese. However, most of the reform organizations tended to concentrate on one issue. One of the earliest issue oriented associations was the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) which began its work in the 1970s. In the wake of the Schaffer Commission Report they achieved a great deal of success by reducing criminal penalties regarding marijuana violations in a number of states and the decriminalization of marijuana possession in Oregon and Alaska. Later, also with help from the DPF, the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) came into being as an advocacy group favoring repeal of marijuana prohibition. MPP tends to concentrate on traditional lobbying activities with special emphasis on medical marijuana. In 1996 the reform movement had one of its greatest successes when the voters of California passed Proposition 215, a referendum legalizing marijuana for medical use. The win came about through the efforts of a number of reform groups and set an example for activists in many other states. Since then medical marijuana has been the focal point of a great deal of activity bringing new organizations such as American for Safe Access into the fray. Even though during 2005 the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich ruled that federal law trumped state laws regarding medical marijuana, other states continue to follow California’s lead. The issue remains play in various locations most of the time, although not without controversy within the movement. Many libertarian oriented reformers view medical marijuana as an obstacle to the more important goal of the legalization of marijuana for all users. Perhaps the second most discussed issue is the reduction of the harm done though mandatory minimum sentencing. Leading the way in this fight for reform is Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Also very active in this area is the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation founded by Eric Sterling who helped write the federal mandatory minimum law in the 1980s. A particular focus has been New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws. Another issue came to the forefront in 1998 when Congress amended the Higher Education Act denying federal student aide and loans to those with drug convictions. The new law inspired the formation of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). The organization grew very quickly and now has chapters on campuses all over the country. They of course focus on changing the HEA and have achieved limited success with a scale back in 2005. They are also working on issues surrounding government anti-drug ads, drug education, and student rights to privacy. Another relatively new group entering the reform movement is the police. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) produces material and sends out ex-officers as speakers nationwide to urge reform. Because of their expertise in the actuality of drug prohibition LEAP members produce some very powerful reasons for ending the drug war. In that they join literally hundreds of state and local organizations striving for reform on a multitude of drug related issues. [COMMENTS] June 30, 2008 THE SCOTUS GUN BAN DECISION: DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL. v. HELLER Answering a 217-year old constitutional question, the Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun in one’s home. The Court, 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession. Although times have changed since 1791, Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority, "it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct." Examining the words of the Amendment, the Court concluded "we find they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation". "The inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right," it added. Click here to read the entire decision and all opinions. In a recent Washington Post poll, 72 percent of all Americans said they believe individuals have gun rights under the Second Amendment, But 58 percent in that national poll supported a D.C.-like ban on private handguns and trigger lock requirements; 38 percent opposed those restrictions. (In a January Post poll in the District itself, even more, 76 percent, favored the law, including 60 percent who said they were "strongly" behind the city ordinance. June 29, 2008 MORE REFLECTIONS ON THE IRANIAN DRUG CONTROL SITUATION I am interrupting a quiet Sunday on Cape Cod to offer a few more reflections on the latest reports on what is happening in Iran regarding drug use and control. As I wrote a few days ago -- with the able assistance of my wonderful staff in digging out the latest facts -- evidence shows that in the midst of the horrible repression, imposed by the mullahs and other assorted nut cases in charge, there are found glimmers of rationality.These reports brought me back to my research over a quarter century ago that indicated that even the harshest methods, including summary executions of drug sellers and users by the roving executioner of the revolution, Ayatollah Khalkhali, did not seem to significantly reduce the availability and use of powerful narcotics. In the previous post, I do not believe I emphasized enough my explanation of what I called The Lesson of Ayatollah Khalkhali.  I first wrote about this in The Heroin Solution (issued by the Yale University Press in 1982, with a second edition containing all of the original text issued by Unlimited Publishing in 2006).  Even though the honorable Ayatollah applied brutal executions to the drug problem in ways that even decent Western opinion leaders sometime dream about, there was no indication that these harsh measures actually worked in any significant fashion.  The roving executioner was criticized not because he was harsh but because he was unsuccessful in curbing drug sales and use.  That is when he issued his immortal plea: "If we wanted to kill everybody who had five grams of heroin, we would have to kill 5,000 people and this would be difficult" (THS, page 16). Over the years I have returned to this lesson and to the Iranian situation in a number of essays and reports, one of which may be perused by clicking here.  I have observed that a number of colleagues disagreed with my position that even harsh methods did not significantly curb drug use in the general population.  I respect my colleagues but still believe that my basic argument remains accurate for the most part. I have been impressed by anecdotal stories of Western visitors to Iran at the very time that the wonderful Ayatollah was doing God's work so nobly.  These visitors told me that often they were offered drugs at the dinner table when in the homes of Iranian citizens.  More recently, my trip to China and quiet discussions with Chinese drug police experts again seemed to document that the vaunted harsh communist repression of opiate users has had no lasting impact.  Like experts in Iran, Chinese drug officials are trying a wide range of seemingly enlightened treatment and control initiatives, all in the midst of a generally repressive system. Much controversy and mystery remains in this arena and I welcome more information and views on the matter. [COMMENTS] June 27, 2008 EVOLVING DRUG POLICY IN IRAN For centuries opium has been an integral part of Iranian culture. Dr. Ali Alavi who works for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has said that, “opium in our culture is like Champagne in France.” Estimates of the number of Iranians using opiates range from 1.1 million to 10 million people and despite the zero tolerance policy pursued by the theocratic government that took power in 1979 prevalence of use continued. The drug has been readily available from neighboring Afghanistan even though the Iranian government has put a great deal of effort into stopping the traffic, including building a $6 billion thirteen foot high wall complete with barbed wire and a sixteen foot wide trench in 2006. The Drug War Chronicle reports this week, in a story about how confrontation between the U.S. and Iran over nuclear issues is threatening cooperation on drug issues, that, “burdened with a 560-mile-long border with Afghanistan, Iran has deployed some 30,000 soldiers and police to fight opium and heroin smuggling from its neighbor. Some 3,500 of them have been killed in the past two decades. Last year, Iranian officials reported seizing 660 tons of opium, nearly three-quarters of the total seized worldwide. Despite such efforts and a draconian Iranian response to drug trafficking offenses -- the death penalty -- Iran suffers arguably the world's highest opiate addiction rate.” The only time opium use declined was during the 2001 Taliban clamp down on poppy production, when the high price of opium in Iran caused many people to switch to the more powerful heroin. Many years ago I wrote about this situation in The Heroin Solution and in subsequent articles. I termed it the lesson of Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali who shouted during the brief trials of some alleged drug traffickers ”I shall exterminate you vermin!” Later taken aback by the storm of criticism his remark provoked Khalkhali lamely explained that, ”if we wanted to kill everybody who had five grams of heroin, we’d have to kill 5000 people, and this would be difficult.” However, according to an article in The New York Times by Nazila Fathi the Iranians are now pursuing a more enlightened drug policy that emphasizes treatment for addiction and the curbing of needle sharing. Fathi informs us that, “Iran’s theocratic government has encouraged and financed a vast expansion in the number of drug treatment centers to help users confront their addictions and to combat the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, through shared needles” and that Iran “has been more supportive of drug treatment than any other government in the Islamic world, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.” It is a sad commentary that the government of Iran may be moving towards implementing a more humane policy on drug use than our own. [COMMENTS] June 26, 2008 BRINGING BACK ALCOHOL PROHIBITION? It can be argued that the greatest public policy failure in U.S. history was Alcohol Prohibition. The great experiment provided an enormous increase in crime in return for a small decrease in the drinking of alcohol made more dangerous by the law. Nevertheless, there are elements in our society that want to bring it back. The individuals and groups that long for the good old days of Al Capone do not come out and just say so; instead they use the issue of drunk driving as their wedge. At the moment Seattle has become a battleground in this struggle where the reintroduction of sobriety check points has been proposed, despite the fact that the Washington State Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional in 1988. As is typical of all drug prohibitionists, those who favor this measure are using highly flawed statistics to advance their viewpoint. Sarah Longwell the managing director of the American Beverage Institute in Washington, D.C. asks us to “consider fatality statistics. The number of deaths that activists attribute to drunken driving is grossly exaggerated. Last year, federal statisticians classified almost 18,000 deaths as ‘alcohol-related.’ However, alcohol-related does not mean alcohol-caused. In fact, that figure includes anyone killed in a crash in which at least one person (driver, pedestrian, cyclist, etc.) was estimated to have any alcohol. (If a sober driver recklessly crashes into and kills a family whose driver had enjoyed one drink, statistics reflect all their deaths as ‘alcohol-related.’) In reality, the figure reflects a much broader spectrum of casualties: people under the legal limit, drunken pedestrians, impaired cyclists and others. After accounting for those people, actual, innocent victims make up only 12 percent of the widely reported statistic -- a considerably smaller amount than activists have led us to believe.” While it is clear that people should not be operating a motor vehicle if they are drunk and that such a situation is a legitimate concern of government, the zeal of the anti-drunk driving movement has led to increasingly lower blood alcohol levels being considered a crime. As a result ever larger numbers of citizens are being punished even though they pose no actual danger to others. And, the logical end argument of the anti-alcohol movement is that if no one is allowed to drink then no one will ever drive drunk. [COMMENTS] June 24, 2008 THE SCOTUS GUANTANAMO DECISION: LAKHDAR BOUMEDIENE, ET AL., PETITIONERS 06-1195 v. GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL. KHALED A. F. AL ODAH, NEXT FRIEND OF FAWZI KHALID ABDULLAH FAHAD AL ODAH, ET AL., PETITIONERS 06-1196 v. UNITED STATES ET AL. Click here to read the entire decision and all opinions. Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196), upholding a constitutional right for detainees to file habeas challenges to their continued confinement. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows - when the country faces rebellion or invasion. The Court also declared that detainees do not have to go through the special civilian court review process that Congress created in 2005, since that is not an adequate substitute for habeas rights. The Court also found serious defects in the process that the Pentagon set up in 2004 to decide which prisoners are to be designated as "enemy combatants" - the status that leads to their continued confinement. This process is the system of so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The procedures used by CSRTs, the Court said, "fall well short of the procedures and adversarial mechanisms that would eliminate the need for habeas corpus review." [COMMENTS] June 22, 2008 LONG STANDING TRADITION OF SUPPORT Lately, there has been considerable criticism of Barack Obama from the American political left for being too pro-Israeli. It has especially centered on the candidate's talk at a Washington D.C. conference put on by American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), in early June. In making that speech Obama was doing two things; agreeing with the majority of the American people and following a rich historical tradition of support for a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. In an article for the International Herald Tribune Walter Russell Mead provides a history lesson pointing out among other things that, “John Adams ‘longed’ for a Jewish state. In 1891 more than 400 American leaders, including Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller of the Supreme Court, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and the editors or publishers of several leading newspapers signed a petition to President Benjamin Harrison calling for the United States to use its diplomatic weight to promote the establishment of a free Jewish state in Palestine.” Mead also asserts that “both supporters and opponents of Washington's Middle East policies need to understand. The roots of U.S. support for Israel lie outside Washington and beyond the American Jewish community. The Arabist views of professional foreign policy elites have indeed often been overruled, but not because of the actions of a small, undemocratic lobby.” [COMMENTS] June 22, 2008 ENERGY POLICY FUNDS HATE SPEECH Back in January of 2007 Turki-Al-Faisal, ambassador from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia spoke at American University and was treated as an honored guest. The headline in the student newspaper read “Saudi diplomat encourages tolerance, openness.” No one protested the event or questioned anything he said and certainly the subject of the Islamic Saudi Academy located in Northern Virginia did not come up. It would have been natural to discuss the school since it is operated by the Saudi Arabian Embassy, sponsored by their government, and has a program based on the curriculum of the Saudi Ministry of Education. There should have been a controversy as the school used textbooks that asserted it was acceptable to murder adulterers, converts from Islam and polytheists and also stated that, "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people." A study issued by United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, on June 11th of this year, found that the Islamic Saudi Academy continues to use material that incites violence and intolerance. That this type of behavior is accepted by the American people is bad enough but it is also indirectly funded by us through energy policies which favor foreign oil over domestic. Fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, Deroy Murdock, points out that, “the Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia is operated by the Saudi Arabia Embassy and sponsored by the Saudi government. The Saudi state, in turn, is being funded quite lavishly today by average American motorists who purchase $4.08-per-gallon gasoline, partially refined from Saudi crude oil. U.S. airlines, shippers, factories and other petroleum buyers inadvertently underwrite such Saudi-inspired hate.” [COMMENTS] June 17, 2008 TIM RUSSERT AND THE LESSON’S OF HEART DISEASE The extensive coverage of Tim Russert’s death should include an in depth look at heart disease and what we can do to prevent it. Larry King has done his part in splendid fashion by presenting a detailed roundtable discussion of the causes of his demise. The panel includes Russert’s personal physician, Dr. Michael Newman, Amy Yasbeck the widow of John Ritter who also died of a heart attack, Larry King’s heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, and heart specialist Dr. P.K. Shah. Newman called Russert a very good patient saying; "He complied with almost everything that was asked of him." Still, that was not enough to save him. [COMMENTS] June 17, 2008 SCHISM IN THE JIHADIST WORLD This space has always maintained that the most important battle in the war on terrorism is the one being fought within Islam itself. Now, there are growing signs of schism within the jihadist community. This can only be viewed as a positive development. Lawrence Wright reporting in the June 2nd New Yorker talks about the recantation of Sayed Imam al-Shareef, formally close to Al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, who now argues that Islam does not support an ends justify the means philosophy and that Christians and Jews can only be killed if they are actively attacking Islam, not merely because of their religion. Wright quotes al-Shareef as saying that, “We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that.” The Central Intelligence Agency also agrees that there are significant points of contention. A recent editorial in The Economist defends CIA Director Michael Hayden’s statement indicating American success against terrorism by saying his main point concerned ideological setbacks. They cite Hayden as asserting that, "Fundamentally, no one really liked al-Qaida's vision of the future.” Also, in a piece for The New Republic Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank trace signs of division back to a 1998 Al Qaeda conference in Afghanistan attended by Noman Benotman, leader of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who warned against attacking the United States at that meeting. In November he penned an open letter to al-Zawahiri that was widely publicized and well received by the Libyan jihadists. According to the article Benotman contended in the letter that, “citizens of Western countries were blameless and should not be the target of terrorist attacks.” The authors reveal that Benotman told them that "the starting point has to be that jihad is legitimate, otherwise no one will listen” and that “The reaction [to my criticism of Al Qaeda] has been beyond imagination. It has made the radicals very angry. They are very shaky about it." The New Republic also reports the words of Sheikh Salman Al Oudah, a founder of the Sahwa, the fundamentalist awakening movement that swept through Saudi Arabia in the '80s, and a man with impeccable jihadist credentials, who called for attacks against American troops in Iraq.. In an address directed to Osama Bin Laden, shown on the Middle East television network MBC, Al Oudah said; "My brother Osama, how much blood has been spilt? How many innocent people, children, elderly, and women have been killed ... in the name of Al Qaeda? Will you be happy to meet God Almighty carrying the burden of these hundreds of thousands or millions [of victims] on your back?" [COMMENTS] June 14, 2008 MY CONTINUING AMBIVALENCE ABOUT PRINCESS OBAMA More and more, I find myself applauding the emergence of Obama as the likely occupant of the Oval Office.  What a great triumph for hope and glory for all the good people of the world, especially those in the US.  And then I reflect on all the questions that must be raised about him and his background.  Look at the latest from the unsinkable Melanie Phillips and you must be forced to pause in your adulation.  I remain happy and hopeful and ambivalent and unsure -- all at once.  Anyone who does not share that set of conflicting emotions has drunk the Kool-Aid that has been poured out by the mainstream American media which has been in the shameful tank for Obama from the start. [COMMENTS] June 11, 2008 POSSIBLY SERIOUS DIFFERENCES OF OPINION AMONG FRIENDS Columnist for the Boston Globe H.D.S. Greenway has written an article in which he discusses the recent address by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He sees tension between the government of Israel and some of its American supporters. After pointing out that, “Barack Obama received a thunderous ovation at AIPAC when he seemed to be tougher on Jerusalem than the Israeli government” Greenway then goes on to observe that, “Olmert, now clinging to his political life amid corruption charges, has claimed that some American supporters of Israel have spent a lot of money trying to overthrow his government precisely because he favors territorial compromises. Olmert is currently under investigation for accepting bribes - or campaign contributions, depending on your view - from the American businessman Morris Talansky. Some Israelis point out that the gifts were made when Olmert was a reliable opponent of territorial compromises, and say that the whistle blowing came after his change of heart.” [COMMENTS] June 11, 2008 MORE ON THE U.N. Supporters of the United Nations should not use its latest most expensive mission in Darfur as any kind argument in favor of that organization. Steve Bloomfield a writer for The Independent in Britain gives his assessment of the U.N.’s performance there and it is not pretty. He informs us that, “just one third of the military personnel and one quarter of the police have been deployed in what has been billed as the biggest and most important mission in the U.N.'s 60-year history. It is now threatening to turn into its most catastrophic failure. No new equipment has arrived. Peacekeepers have had to paint their helmets blue (or put blue plastic bags over them, tied on with elastic). To cap it all, the general leading the force, Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, revealed he had considered quitting because ‘I thought the world didn't care about us.’ Only after reading a self-help book, ‘Stop Worrying and Start Living,’ did he decide to stay.” [COMMENTS] June 10, 2008 TIME TO LEAVE THE UN? I have said it many times and I do not want to sound as if I have no other causes, but really is it not time to say goodbye to the UN, suggest it move to Saudi Arabia, give the nutcase diplomats six months to leave, and support new organizations centered on democracy? Read this latest anti-Semitic outrage as support for that move at long last. [COMMENTS] June 10, 2008 A VITAL ORGANIZATION Perhaps the most essential and authoritative organization challenging drug prohibition today is Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). In their Mission Statement they lay out two primary goals, educating the public about the failures of current drug policy and restoring respect for law enforcement. The organization’s “main strategy for accomplishing these goals is to create a constantly enlarging speakers bureau staffed with knowledgeable and articulate former drug-warriors who describe the impact of current drug policies on: police/community relations; the safety of law enforcement officers and suspects; police corruption and misconduct; and the financial and human costs associated with current drug policies.” A look at LEAP’s calendar shows that they are pursuing their goals vigorously. .You can join LEAP and receive e-mail updates on their progress here. You can schedule a speaker for an event here. Lastly, you can help this important work continue by donating here. [COMMENTS] June 9, 2008 NOW FOR SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT Rebecca Anna Stoil uses the pages of The Jerusalem Post to tell the true story of one of life’s great pleasures, cheesecake. [COMMENTS] June 6, 2008 THE TWO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ON ISRAEL The always interesting and perceptive Daniel Pipes gives his take on parallel interviews with Barack Obama and John McCain about their approach to Israel, conducted by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg for The Atlantic. Pipes concludes that, “Goldberg's twin interviews underscore two facts. First, major-party candidates for the U.S. presidency must still pay homage to warm American ties to Israel, no matter how, as in Obama's case, dramatically this may contradict their previously held views. Second, whereas McCain is secure on the topic, Obama worries about winning the pro-Israel vote.” [COMMENTS] June 5, 2008 CREATING VIOLENCE A GOVERNMENT PRIORITY If there is one defining characteristic of drug prohibition it is violence and if you do not think so just ask the people of Mexico. In a guest column for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Maria Elena Salinas, anchor of Noticiero Univision, asserts that, “headlines in the news are reminiscent of those from some of the most brutal days of the Iraq war. They speak of executions, beheadings, cryptic messages and dozens of people killed in a single day.” She reports that the Mexican government has made stopping drug use its number one priority and as a result “so far this year there have been more than 1,300 drug-related murders, more than 70 percent of them in the northern states. May was the deadliest month in the past five years, with 350 to 400 people killed.” Unfortunately, in typical journalistic fashion she did not even mention the only real and lasting solution to the violence problem, legalization. [COMMENTS] June 4, 2008 SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE COMMENT AND RESPONSE I have received several comments from readers on the story (June 3) concerning the marijuana study.  One from Ian Goddard cited a number of studies which appeared to support the theory that brain damage from marijuana use is slight or nonexistent when compared to similar damage from alcohol or tobacco use.  I made the comment in my original story that I do not agree that alcohol and tobacco abuse is always more damaging that marijuana abuse.  Note the word "abuse." By that I mean a massive amount of use in contrast to the usual levels. One major problem with the wonderful internet is that we can utter thoughts which get promulgated to the world instantly.  When we wrote in the old days -- just a few years ago -- it was possible to utter a thought and then reflect on it and send a letter by snail mail to colleagues asking for comments on the thought.   I sometimes wish for the old days.  Nevertheless, here are my thoughts on this brain damage issue. Over the years, even decades, I have made myself read the latest studies dealing with brain damage from any of the major drugs.  When I read through a pile of original research on this matter, I found a confusing welter of facts, many of which were in conflict.  Yet, one persistent finding was that it was extremely rare to find research that clearly supported brain damage from any of the drugs.  Some studies did indeed find some form of damage due to abuse of alcohol and tobacco but then other did not make similar findings.  I remain an agnostic on the subject but am willing to listen to the results of new research. In general, science would seem to support the finding that marijuana is the least toxic of almost any of the regularly used drugs.  At the same time, I have also concluded that heavy marijuana use must cause some organic damage to s some abusers.  This is consistent with the statements in Zimmer and Morgan who found generally almost all of the damaging claims about marijuana use were indeed myths.  Yet they stated: "THC does not cause cellular changes of the sort associated with cancer.  However, marijuana smoke -- like tobacco smoke -- does." Marijuana Myths. Marijuana Facts, page 115.  If so, then assumedly the cancer could metastasize to the brain. [COMMENTS] June 3, 2008 KEEPING UP WITH THE SECULAR HUMANISTS The progress in this arena is worth noting with great interest. You can keep up with the schedule for their conferences and other events by signing up for an e-mail newsletter here. [COMMENTS] June 3, 2008 ANOTHER HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE MARIJUANA STUDY The link and the headline for a Reuter’s story on Comcast.net reads “Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain.” However, the ninth paragraph also reads, “The researchers acknowledged that the study did not prove it was the marijuana and not some other factor that triggered these brain differences. But Yucetal said the findings certainly suggested marijuana was the cause.” The Australian researchers, led by Murat Yurcel from the University of Melboure, used a whopping sample size of 15 subjects smoking five joints a day for twenty years and 16 controls. The piece also quotes Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project as saying that, "these were people who were essentially stoned all day every day for 20 years. This study says nothing about moderate or occasional users, who are the vast majority -- and the (study) even acknowledges this. The documented damage caused by comparably heavy use of alcohol or tobacco is just off-the-charts more serious, and you don't need high-tech scans to find it." I have spent many years reviewing all of the conflicting evidence on marijuana and as a result disagree with the findings of the main study quoted above and I also disagree to a small extent with Bruce Mirkin. I agree with Mirkin’s key thesis that this is dealing with only a small piece of the marijuana user’s universe. At the same time, I do not see any evidence that alcohol and tobacco abuse is always worse than marijuana abuse. [COMMENTS] Bill Galvin Comments: This looks like more of the same BS I sent you before. I remember taking that same 15 word test at Montgomery College when I was 35 with people who were 18 and19. I'd been partying as long as they've been alive and I scored no different. Ian Goddard Comments: Seems there's a lot of prior research on cannabis and brain atrophy and according to this meta-analysis: "Most studies report no evidence of cerebral atrophy or regional changes in tissue volumes." A 2006 study found: "Analyses were performed on brain MRI scans from individuals who were frequent cannabis users [...] While differences existed between groups, no pattern consistent with evidence of cerebral atrophy or loss of white matter integrity was detected. It is concluded that frequent cannabis use is unlikely to be neurotoxic to the normal developing adolescent brain." That study is free. This next study examined brain atrophy in users of alcohol only or including cocaine and cannabis. Cannabis was apparently a null factor as it's use is cited as being included in subject but it's not even cited as affecting the results: Cross-sectional volumetric analysis of brain atrophy in alcohol dependence: effects of drinking history and comorbid substance use disorder. That study is also free. Effects of frequent marijuana use on brain tissue volume and composition. "There were no clinically significant abnormalities in any subject's MRI. Sex differences were detected in several global volume measures." Given the first study cited above, I suspect I could collect a lange number of such null fundings. With most or virtually all prior research contradicting this new 'headline' study, one wonders if bias didn't somehow affect subject selection. Did the study you cite control for alcohol and tobacco use? There's a lot of data (some below) showing they're both linked to brain atrophy. Cannabis users may use other drugs. Considering all the neuroprotective data on cannabinoids, one has to be skeptical of such a neurodegenerative effect. This study seems to have isolated alcohol out from other drugs as a promoter of brain atrophy: "The findings suggest that chronic use of alcohol, but not necessarily of other commonly abused substances, produces brain atrophy." This one finds cigarette smoking exacerbates alcohol's harm: "These human in vivo proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging findings indicate that chronic cigarette smoking exacerbates chronic alcohol-induced neuronal injury and cell membrane damage in the frontal lobes of RAs and has independent adverse effects on neuronal viability and cell membranes in the midbrain and on cell membranes of the cerebellar vermis." "Chronic alcohol dependence was associated with smaller volumes of frontal and parietal white matter, parietal and temporal gray matter, and thalami, accompanied by widespread sulcal but not ventricular enlargements." But here's an important study that notes brain-imaging studies of alcoholics have relied on small samples of treated alcoholics. So this study looked at a wider population and concluded: "Taken together, this suggests that the degree of brain atrophy, as well as neuronal and membrane injury in clinical samples of alcoholics cannot be generalized to the much larger population with alcohol use disorders that does not seek treatment." As you probably know, there are several long-term studies of heavy cannabis users that found little or no cognitive impairment, which makes it hard to believe the subjects experienced brain atrophy. - Ian June 3, 2008 RON PAUL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE It is becoming increasingly clear that the Ron Paul Revolution is here to stay. Despite the fact that John McCain has been the anointed presidential nominee of the Republican Party for quite some time Ron Paul continues to draw large crowds, media attention, and recently 24% of the vote in the Idaho primary. He also has a political book, The Revolution: A Manifesto, on the best seller lists. However, on LewRockwel.com Walter Block asserts that there is substantial misperception in the Jewish community about the movement. He states that Ron Paul take on foreign affairs causes “fear that if Congressman Paul’s policies are put into effect, they will be harmful to Israel. At first blush, this seems reasonable enough. The U.S. gives lots of money to the Israeli government for use by its military, and if this were totally eliminated, it is not unwarranted to think that this country would thereby be weakened. However, I contend that there are several good and sufficient reasons to doubt this popular belief.” I am not sure that I agree with anything Walter Block has to say, however, I am willing to keep an open mind. He attempts to presents a comprehensive answer to these concerns in An Open Letter to the Jewish Community on Behalf of Ron Paul. [COMMENTS] June 1, 2008 GOOD NEWS ABOUT HUMANITY Some good things do happen.  Major Leauge Baseball reports that, "like many of the Sox fans at Camden Yards on Saturday, Damon Woo pulled out his camera when Manny Ramirez stepped to the plate in the seventh inning. As long as Ramirez was stuck at 499 homers, all of his at-bats were must-see events. But Woo might have been the only fan who put down his camera at almost the instant Ramirez made contact. The ball was coming his way. And Woo made the catch." Manny hits 500 and a decent fan gives him the ball back and Manny is using it to raise money for charity. [COMMENTS] May 30, 2008 INCREASING MARIJUANA TOLERANCE No less than four out of eleven news stories in the latest edition of The Drug War Chronicle demonstrate significant progress in reforming marijuana laws. First, the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles made a ruling that the state legislature there acted unconstitutionally when it passed a law limiting the amount of marijuana any one patient could have. This finding is particularly good because the law allowing cannabis for medical purposes came about through the initiative process and the lawmakers were trying to overrule the people. Also in California, the state assembly acted tolerantly when it passed a medical marijuana employment rights bill. The law came in response to a decision by the State Supreme Court that employers could fire an employee for failing a drug test even though he or she legally possessed marijuana and used it for health reasons. To assume that someone who uses marijuana will be a poor worker and cause problems at the job site is both unjust and unfounded. Next, in Hawaii the Aloha State's Big Island Hawaii County Council did its constituents a huge favor by rejecting $441,000 in state and federal funds to continue “Green Harvest” a marijuana eradication program. Not only did their own budget increase by $53,000 but they ended a widely despised program which drew numerous complaints from it inception. The Drug War Chronicle citing critics points out that, “low-flying helicopters searching for pot fields disrupted rural life and invaded their privacy. Others argued that the program has done little to eradicate marijuana and even promoted the use of other, more dangerous drugs.” Lastly, in the Sun Valley town of Hailey, Idaho the population passed initiatives legalizing medical marijuana, legalizing industrial hemp and requiring city law enforcement to make marijuana arrests the department's lowest priority. These measures had passed in November but town officials would not enforce them. The Idaho Liberty Lobby organized the campaign on the theory that it would be harder for the politicians to ignore the will of the people when expressed twice. The Drug War Chronicle is an essential publication for understanding the war on people who us certain kinds of drugs. You can subscribe to the e-mail edition here and you can support the work of the vital organization, DRCNet, behind it here. [COMMENTS] May 29, 2008 ISRAELI ACADEMICS UNDER THREAT OF BOYCOTT AGAIN As discussed before, in Great Britain lecturers belonging to the University and College Union have once again voted for an effective boycott of Israeli Academics. They have done this despite the fact that in 2007 that organization’s leadership determined that such action was illegal under British law. Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) has responded by emphasizing and updating its petition which now states: "We are academics, scholars, researchers and professionals of differing religious and political perspectives. We all agree that singling out Israelis for an academic boycott is wrong. To show our solidarity with our Israeli academics in this matter, we, the undersigned, hereby declare ourselves to be Israeli academics for purposes of any academic boycott. We will regard ourselves as Israeli academics and decline to participate in any activity from which Israeli academics are excluded.” If you have not done so yet you can sign it here. Also, the National Union of Journalists in the United Kingdom has voted for a boycott of Israeli goods and imposition of sanctions, so much for objective coverage of the issue in England. [COMMENTS] May 29, 2008 LATEST WITCH-HUNT AGAINST THE JEWS The level of vicious anti-Semitism and hate of Israel among the Western left and elites is unbelievable. Thanks to Melanie Phillips for her constant challenges to these nut cases, those that dominate much of academia today. [COMMENTS] May 28, 2008 SPEECH POLICE VERY BUSY LATELY Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service has a column pointing out the absurd hyper interpretation of every remark made by the candidates during this election cycle. He maintains that,“people often say things differently than they mean them. It is excusable, particularly if there is no past record of insensitivity. In the heat of a campaign there will be any number of opportunities to make a mountain out of a molehill or to twist and misinterpret on both sides. The impulse to do that should be resisted if we are to get through this political hurricane without badly dividing the country. The speech police should go away.” [COMMENTS] May 27, 2008 OBAMA’S FLAWED COALITION David Beito at Liberty and Power calls attention to an interesting article on the Huffington Post by historian Sean Wilentz which discusses, in historical context, a fatal flaw in Barak Obama’s campaign strategy that just may cost the Democrats this next election. He argues that, “in fact, all of the evidence demonstrates that white racism has not been a principal or even secondary motivation in any of this year's Democratic primaries. Every poll shows that economics, health care, and national security are the leading issues for white working class voters - and for Latino working class voters as well. These constituencies have cast positive ballots for Hillary Clinton not because she is white, but because they regard her as better on these issues. Obama's campaign and its passionate supporters refuse to acknowledge that these voters consider him weaker -- and that Clinton's positions, different from his, as well as her experience actually attract support.” To Wilentz it seems that Obama is ignoring the concerns of white working class voters at the peril of his party. [COMMENTS] May 25, 2008 RACHEL HOFFMAN KILLED BY DRUG PROHIBITION The same national news networks that devoted countless hours of coverage to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway and the killing by her husband of Laci Peterson can not seem to spare even a minute for the murder of Rachel Hoffman. Why, is it because she was a marijuana user and therefore subhuman or perhaps this is due to the fact that the Tallahassee Police Department was largely responsible for her death? Because she tried to help mitigate the government black-market imposed high cost of marijuana for her self and her friends the Tallahassee police were able to blackmail her into participating in the very dangerous sting operation that took her life without informing either her attorneys or her parents. Upon discovery of her body the police immediately called a press conference with the intention of blaming Hoffman for her own death. Her attorneys responded to this cruel farce by stating that, “Bringing to light the victim’s criminal charges, her alleged faults during a sting operation, and repeatedly addressing the fact, in so many different words, that the Tallahassee Police Department is not responsible for the death of Rachel Hoffman did nothing to inform the public about what truly happened the night of the drug sting. It did nothing to inform the public about what is going to happen to the individuals who killed her. It did nothing to inform the public about what policies and procedures are in place to protect a confidential informant before they engage in a police drug sting. The only purpose this information served was to both attack a woman who has been taken away from society in a ruthless, reckless, and vicious manner, and to allow her family to watch it all on television while they are still reeling from the shock of their loved ones death.” Rachel Hoffman was more than just a marijuana user she was also an activist with organizations such as Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) trying to decriminalize marijuana and prevent the type of tragedies that took her own life. Despite the callous indifference shown by the national media and the public at large she will not be forgotten. Her mother has set up the Rachel Morningstar Foundation to continue her work. There is no better illustration that drug prohibition is a vicious, unjust, expensive, and evil policy than Rachel Hoffman’s story. [COMMENTS] Andrew Williams Comments: Cases like this make me weep. And the response of the TPD is just pathetic. Since when do cops blame the victim? Don't they have any balls? Can't even one of those SOB's commiserate with her family? Guess not. 'Twas ever thus in the WoD. May 21, 2008 RELIGION AND CULTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN Columnist H.D.S. Greenway has produced a thoughtful essay, which has provoked some thoughtful comments, on the subject of religious accommodation in Great Britain. He states the basic issue this way: “The multiculturalism in which Britain put its faith is under attack as having failed. Britons are wondering if they have gone too far to accommodate minorities, and if society should be instilling British ness instead? The focus, of course, is on British Muslims, and some Britons are asking, is this a community that British traditions can absorb?” [COMMENTS] May 20, 2008 OPTIMISM IN ISRAEL Walter Reich, the Yitzhak Rabin memorial professor of international affairs, ethics and human behavior at George Washington University, recently visited Israel and writes about that country’s psychological state on its 60th anniversary. He found that even though “a condition of existential siege” exists, “there's a remarkable spirit and courage here. Despite the rising tide of Islamism that surrounds the country and the constant threats to destroy it, Israel bustles with energy, commerce, science and the arts. And, most of the time, its people display a convinced optimism that Israel is here to stay.” [COMMENTS] May 19, 2008 LONG AGO ATROCITIES COMING INTO THE LIGHT A capacity for extraordinary and senseless cruelty with little regard for the justice or necessity of the acts seems to be a common human trait, constant over time, place, and ideology. This story about South Korea in 1950 illustrates the point. [COMMENTS] May 18, 2008 SENATOR KENNEDY IN HOSPITAL A central figure in the United States Senate since 1962, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, was struck ill yesterday and hospitalized. Right now it is not entirely clear how serious the situation is, hopefully not too bad. [COMMENTS] May 15, 2008 YES. EIGHTY TODAY Normally, I do not mention my birthdays but I will make an exception for this one, especially since I have received a number of messages of good wishes.  For some reason, this one has affected me more than any other.  It seems like a significant event, somehow.  In any event, I started the day as I often do by saying how lucky I am for my health, my good genes from Mom and Dad and a host of earlier ancestors, my family, and my good friends.  I sat on my front porch, looked at all the flowers in the hanging pots and in the garden, listened to the birds going crazy with happy songs, and I kept saying "Wow!" All my older kids and most of the grandkids will be here soon for various celebrations.  Wow!  I am also lucky in that I keep working and expressing my opinion on events important to me in books, articles and now more than ever on this site on the Internet.  Indeed, I have made a decision to upgrade the site and go to the next level.  Suggestions from my friends and readers would be most welcome.  I am lucky in another way in that I have just found and engaged a wonderful, pioneering Internet firm to help develop the site and to improve it.   Soon I will post on the site my reflections as I look back over 80 years. [COMMENTS] May 14, 2008 ANOTHER QUESTIONABLE MARIJUANA STUDY The headline links marijuana to an increased risk of heart disease but the article concerning work done for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) by Dr. Jean Lud Cadet describes highly questionable methodology. Reuters reports that, “the study did not look at whether the heavy marijuana users actually had heart disease.” and that, ”the marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week, based on self-reported drug history.” Once again the government is desperately trying to justify the evils of prohibition by producing research that does not prove what it purports to and that has no relationship with the way people actually use marijuana. This study is blatant propaganda with a veneer of science. [COMMENTS] May 13, 2008 BUCHANAN IS RIGHT ON THIS RACE BUSINESS Of course he is right in a sense on everything he does.  In any event, I find it an uncomfortable situation when I find myself in agreement with the likes of ol' Pat instead of the liberals I used to love.  The major race baiting has come not from the Clintons but from the supporters of Barack and at times from the inner workings of his campaign itself.  Who would have believed this would happen?  It is outrageous to call the Clintons racists in light of their long record on this score. As I have said many times I am now a political mongrel because I no longer fit into any recognizable political or ideological grouping.  Perhaps this should be a new party -- THE POLITICAL MONGRELS PARTY.  But what would our symbol animal be?  Donkeys and elephants are taken.  Suggestions please. [COMMENTS] May 13, 2008 A TOP PRIORITY FOR AMERICA: PROTECT OBAMA AND OTHER "APOSTATES" As I have made clear, I am not sure if Obama is actually an apostate but there is some evidence that he is -- and many radical Muslims would say that he is, and deserves the ultimate sanction.   In recent years I have been meeting and studying a whole range of apostates, dissenters, and reformers of Islam.  They are a wonderful group but they are often in a dangerous position.  It is vital for America to take the lead among Western nations to create an aggressive strategy to go after those who threaten or harm apostates and their related ilk.  In doing so we Americans will advance our most important group of freedoms, those enshrined in the First Amendment, the core of a free society.  Our approach should be broad and comprehensive -- using publicity, intelligence agencies and also the police and the special forces of our military.  If we start making inroads in this sphere, we will protect many decent people and also make great advances in taking the sting out of the excesses of radical Islamic practices.  This effort will not be easy because the federal government is now acting as if there is no real threat and is demanding that even the word "jihad" should not be used in its proper sense.  This would be a long road but we must start on it. [COMMENTS] May 13, 2008 COMMENT ON ISRAEL’S SITXETH ANNIVERSARY The sixtieth anniversary of Israel’s founding has elicited comment from a number of pundits. In the pages of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Kristol offers some profound quotations including one by Winston Churchill: “Whether the Right Honourable Gentleman likes it or not, and whether we like it or not, the coming into being of a Jewish state in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective, not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand or even three thousand years. This is a standard of temporal values or time values which seems very much out of accord with the perpetual click-clack of our rapidly-changing moods and of the age in which we live." Meanwhile, The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen asserts that “the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims” was a mistake producing “a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now.” However, Mark Steyn ably counters that argument pointing out that “Aaron Lazarus and every other ‘European Jew’ of his time would have had a mirthless chuckle over Cohen's designation. The Jews lived in Europe for centuries but without ever being accepted as ‘European.’ To enjoy their belated acceptance as Europeans, they had to move to the Middle East. Reviled on the Continent as sinister rootless cosmopolitans with no conventional national allegiance, they built a conventional nation state, and now they're reviled for that, too. The ‘oldest hatred’ didn't get that way without an ability to adapt.” [COMMENTS] May 13, 2008 OBAMA THE APOSTATE? In my mind, there is no doubt that Obama is a devout Christian and not a Muslim.  This does not answer a host of other questions, which have been raised by many commentators, including Daniel Pipes -- namely is he an apostate and subject to the pains and penalties of that status in the eyes of traditional Muslims?  I do not know the answer to that important question but it has just made the pages of the New York Times and has also been discussed on the Jihad Watch web site.  Here.  These are issues we never seriously dealt with in America until very recently.  We had better start learning to do so, and fast. [COMMENTS] May 12, 2008 IS THE MAYOR OF NEW YORK A HYPOCRITE? Further down in this space an editorial published in The New York Times calling attention to the racial disparity inherenet in the drug war is referenced to. It is appropriate that a New York paper run such a piece because under the regime of Michael Bloomberg such a race based drug arrest policy is practiced with zeal in that city. In a superb article Jacob Sullum, author of Saying Yes, describes a deplorable situation with regard to marijuana arrests and prosecutions overseen by admitted pot smoker and enjoyer Mayor Bloomberg. Hispanics are three times more likely to be arrested on a marijuana charge than whites, while the number for blacks is five times more likely. Also, Sullum does not neglect motivation in his essay. He quotes sociologist Harry Levine and drug policy activist Deborah Small as saying that, “busting pot smokers is a relatively safe and easy way to pad arrest figures, which creates the illusion of productivity, and generate overtime pay, a practice known as ‘collars for dollars.’” [COMMENTS] May 12, 2008 INSIGHTS FROM CHINA : SUPERLATIVES AND DIET There are many stories in the media these days about China , most of them focusing on the misdeeds of that nation and its leaders.  During three weeks in China a few years ago – which of course documents my claim to be an expert – I encountered many fascinating insights on all sorts of things having nothing to do directly with politics, or the Olympics or Tibet .   Most important, not once did I encounter hostility toward the US or its people expressed by any Chinese person, whether ordinary citizen or police officer or other government official.  Thus, in the midst of expressed official hostility on all sides I find much hope for the future.  Perhaps that is too naïve but there it is. Along that line, an American friend living in China periodically sends interesting tidbits of news and idea.  Here are excerpts from his latest email letter.   Chinese Superlatives: On May first, 2008, the world’s longest cross-sea bridge was opened to traffic.  The 36 kilometer (approximately 22 miles) long bridge spans the Hangzhou Bay in China and cuts the road trip from Shanghai to the port of Ningbo by 120 km.  Reading the announcement in the China Daily, I recalled reading just a month ago that the world’s largest airline terminal building just opened in Beijing .  Out of curiosity, I undertook some web searches to see what other “largest” things out there are Chinese.  My by-no-means-exhaustive findings include: ·        Although China is the world’s second largest shipbuilder in the world ( South Korea is largest), China is nearing completion of the world’s largest shipyard.  ( China Daily). ·        China has overtaken South Africa as the world’s largest gold producer, a title South Africa held for 100 years.  (ABC News).   ·        China is the world’s biggest air polluter with 16 of the top 20 worst air-polluted cities.  (Real Clear Politics). ·        China has become the world’s biggest internet user.  (Beijing-based research firm, BDA). ·        PetroChina is the world’s biggest company (worth more than Exxon Mobil and GE combined).  (U.S. News & World Report). ·        China Mobile is the world’s largest wireless carrier.  (China Daily). ·        China is the world’s largest shoe producer.  (People’s Daily Online). ·        The world’s largest bible printing and production plant is in China .  (Christian Post). ·        China is the largest exporter of trade goods in the world.  (Manufacturing News). ·        China is home to the largest dam, at the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River .  (CNN). ·        China is the largest miner of coal.  (China Stakes).   This list got me to thinking about consumption.  With the world’s largest population, (1,330,044,605 people, according to the CIA Factbook) it would be logical to find that China is also the world’s largest consumer of many things.  After all, China is being blamed for the run-up in prices on a number of commodities as they become a “developed’ nation in a very short time.   ·        Since 2005, China has been the world’s largest consumer nation.  Period!  (China Daily). Naturally, China is a huge consumer of energy: ·        China is the world’s largest consumer of hydropower.  (CIA Factbook). ·        China is the world’s largest consumer of solar energy.  (China Daily). ·        China is the world’s largest consumer of coal.  (The Washington Post). ·        China is the world’s largest consumer of petrochemicals.  (Plastermart). ·        China is the world’s largest consumer of grain, meat, coal, steel, TV sets, refrigerators and mobile phones.  (BBC). ·        China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of tobacco products.  (World Health Organization). ·        China is the world’s largest consumer of decorative stone.  (goliath-ecnext). ·        China is the world’s largest consumer of cement.  It is predicted that by 2010 they will be responsible for nearly half of the world’s cement consumption).  (Market research.com).     Food Combining:  I am intrigued by a small Chinese chart in my possession.  It features 40 little drawings showing mostly animals and plants in pairs.  Each pairing carries inscriptions in Chinese characters.  With the help of Chinese friends and a bookshelf of Chinese-English dictionaries, I determined that the chart warns against consuming certain types of food together.  It also suggests various types of poisoning that may result from consuming the proscribed food pairs.   This discovery led to a bit of research into the theory of incompatible foods and its opposite, food combining.  At the risk of exposing my breathtaking ignorance of biology, I offer my basic understanding of the theory:     When we eat, we metabolize different foods at different rates.  Our digestive system, consisting of the mouth, the stomach and the intestines, secretes chemicals to promote digestion.  Our bodies are even capable of producing specific chemicals directed at specific types of food we’ve consumed.  For example, our salivary glands emit alkaline enzymes and our stomachs produce pepsin which requires an acid medium.  These chemicals bring about the decomposition of acids, starches, proteins, and carbohydrates.  Some foods such as fresh fruits are metabolized quickly while others such as red meats may take hours to digest.   Problems occur, so the theory goes, when consumption of a slow-digesting food is followed by a fast-digesting food.  The fast-digesting food has to wait in line.  But it can’t wait so it begins to ferment in place, thus leading to discomfort.   The Chinese chart is entertaining in that we are warned against combining a number of ingredients not normally found on our tables.  While we may not have to worry about what to eat with donkey, dog, camel or horse, there are several other foods we eat every day.  Who knew that one shouldn’t combine oysters or clams with pumpkin?     One aim of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is to eat in such a way as to promote complete digestion as efficiently and quickly as feasible.  So eating chemically similar foods and avoiding mixing different foods at the same sitting are recommended.  Avoid mixing proteins and carbohydrates.  That is, avoid eating meats, fish or cheese in the same meal with bread, cereals, or potatoes.  Also, avoid combining proteins and fats.  Do not eat cream, butter or oil with your meats, eggs, cheese, nuts, etc.  Furthermore, it is risky to eat acids such as oranges, tomatoes, lemons and pineapples with meat, eggs, cheese or nuts.  According to the practitioners of TCM, the best breakfast consists of fruits; a good lunch includes a starch with salad and some non-starchy vegetables; and for dinner, a protein accompanied by a salad and some non-starchy vegetables.   Nobody I know eats like this.  Most Americans and even many Chinese enjoy a meal with several different courses representing all food groups.  It may be true that we experience occasional tummy aches.  Well, the TCM people have been methodically trying to identify the sources of our gastro-intestinal discomfort and eliminate it.  Fine, I say.  I wish them well.  I will remain ignorant and continue to enjoy my Italian cold-cut subs. Chinese Chart of Incompatible Foods     Spinach   Beef Baby Bok Choi Cabbage Celery Cilantro (Coriander)   Milk   Chives   Rabbit   Turtle