Texas Women Sexually Assaulted By Police Over Marijuana Smell

Thanks to Radical Russ at Weed Blog for the following:

So you say you don’t smoke pot, so how could the War on Drugs affect me?

Watch the video [below]. It’s in Texas, but it could be anywhere in America… well, except now Washington and Colorado, because marijuana is not contraband there, and the smell of it in a car is not probable cause to search its driver and passengers.

In the video, reported by the UK Daily Mail and all over the national and international media, a trooper pulls over two women – a woman and her niece – for allegedly throwing a cigarette butt out of the car.

While talking to the women in the car over a littering charge, the trooper claims he smells marijuana. He then searches the car and finds no marijuana. He then administers a sobriety test, which the woman who was driving passed. No marijuana, no impaired driving, and the observation of a police officer that they might have littered from a car that smells like pot.

Tommy Chong talks about the DEA

If the DEA Can’t Tell Us the Difference Between Marijuana and Heroin, Who Can?

From Huffington Post

Last week, DEA chief Michele Leonhart got quite a bit of attention with congressional testimony that left a lot of people shaking their heads in frustration. Here’s what everyone is talking about:

“Is crack worse for a person than marijuana?” Polis asked Leonhart.

Moms Say, “No More Drug War!”

“Mothers throughout history have come forward for the sake of their children,” says Gretchen Burns Bergman, executive director of Parents for Addiction Treatment and Healing (PATH). “We’re coming forth saying that the drug war has been more damaging to our families than the drugs themselves.”

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union is well-known for helping push forward Prohibition in the United States. But perhaps less well-known are groups such as the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform, who were instrumental in the effort to repeal the 18th Amendment.

In that the tradition, Moms United to End the War on Drugs gathered on the steps of the Los Angeles Superior Courthouse to deliver a message this Mother’s Day: no more drug war. Reason.tv was on the scene to talk with mothers who’d had their families torn apart by U.S. drug policy.

“You don’t realize the drug policies in this country until they have an effect on you,” says Lorraine Rebennack. “And when you lose a child, your life is never the same. Nor is your family.”

Produced by Zach Weissmueller.

Visit http://reason.tv for HD, iPod and audio versions of this video and subscribe to Reason.tv’s Youtube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

Hundreds of Economists: Marijuana Prohibition Costs Billions, Legalization Would Earn Billions (via ACLU)

Posted on UCLU website by Ezekiel Edwards, Criminal Law Reform Project & Rebecca McCray, Criminal Law Reform Project April 26, 2012

Over 300 economists, including three Nobel Laureates, recently signed a petition that encourages the president, Congress, governors and state legislatures to carefully consider marijuana legalization in America. The petition draws attention to an article by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, whose findings highlight the substantial cost-savings our government could incur if it were to tax and regulate marijuana, rather than needlessly spending billions of dollars enforcing its prohibition.