Drug War - What about the Constitution?

Tiassa

Tiassa

Let us not launch the boat ...
Valued Senior Member
I've been taking some time off. Terrorism, the Bush administration, and minor victories overseas had quelled the heaving of the drug war in my conscience, but I thought to check in on things tonight; nothing's changed. It's still absurd.

Check out this little quote:

Having failed to win any convictions, the attorney general is now going to prosecute me yet again on the same charges, this time before the state medical board. They will try to go after my license in an administrative venue this time. It seems to me that there is something slightly unconstitutional in the same prosecutorial agency trying a guy three times in a row on the same charges in different venues. (Dr. Frank Fisher)
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I mean, how many people get to make that last little sound bite? Ever?

Click one of the the links or be satisfied with the detail below:

The 1999 arrest of Fisher, along with local pharmacy owners, Steven and Madeline Miller, marked the beginning of a sensational, if ill-begotten, prosecution. Shasta County prosecutors indicted Fisher for the deaths of several patients, bizarrely including those of one patient who was a passenger in a fatal traffic accident and of one person who was not a patient but had stolen drugs from Fisher's patient.

When Fisher and the Millers were arrested, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said they had joined in "a highly sophisticated drug-dealing operation" that caused deaths, got hundreds of people hooked on drugs, and cost Medi-Cal about $2 million. After national publicity and much ridicule, those charges were dropped in January 2003.

Fisher has resolutely maintained his innocence all along, arguing that he was singled out for prosecution because he was one of the few physicians brave enough to prescribe high doses of narcotic pain relievers. His Westwood Walk-In Clinic in Redding served hundreds of patients in pain, including many poor people whose costs were paid by Medi-Cal. That Medi-Cal was footing the bill had something to do with charges being filed, too. "Prescribing opioids for pain is the most dangerous thing a doctor can do, particularly if he treats poor people," Fisher said.

It was Medi-Cal fraud charges that were at the core of Fisher's latest legal case. Prosecutors originally charged Fisher with 99 counts of medical fraud regarding Medi-Cal claims and improper prescribing, but a state court judge dismissed all but eight misdemeanor counts of improper billing earlier this year. Now, he has been found innocent.

"Prosecutors reactivated this case when their other case was falling apart," said Fisher. "The charges are seven or eight years old, and they basically amounted to allegations I stole $150 from the Medi-Cal program. The jury didn't buy it, but between the county and the state, they've spent tens of thousands of dollars on this case – and that's just for expert witnesses." (StopTheDrugWar)
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I mean ... at some point a prosecutor should just give up. The embarrassment only gets deeper, the snowball more ridiculous.
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• StopTheDrugWar. "Not With a Bang but a Whimper: California Pain Doctor Frank Fisher Exonerated in Last Criminal Case." May 21, 2004. See http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/338/frank.shtml
 
Tiassa, this is the ethics, morality and justice forum. A discussion about the drug war has no place here. It'd like mentioning a Super-Sized Big Mac on a fasting forum.
 
But we might get justice out of this one. That and a bus might fall from the sky and land on the prosecutors.

I mean, justice might come to Tulia.

The Drug War ain't down and out in this forum, yet. Not when victory is this close. I can smell it in the wind. Literally. In the strangest places, too. Like ... "Wow, the priest smokes dope?"

Well, okay. I haven't had that one. But when I can smell it in the streets ....

We're winning.

I mean, come on ... at least one "war" around me is going well. Okay ... better. If I live forever, I might figure out how to explain the drug war under the Clinton administration.

I would make a joke here about calling Kate Moss fat on a bulimia board, but some in this world might hold that against me.

Maybe I'll just go smoke ....

:m:
 
Tiassa ... look at the last two Presidents. A cokehead and a stoner. Neither of them did anything to reverse the War on Drugs. Hey, I wish that people would realize the 18th Amendment was a bad idea then, and a worse idea now, but I doubt it'll happen. The hypocrisy of the Beltway scum really knows no bounds: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8291.shtml
 
Tiassa ... look at the last two Presidents. A cokehead and a stoner. Neither of them did anything to reverse the War on Drugs
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I don't disagree at all. Nor do I disagree with your Big Mac consideration.

But that's the thing ... despite all that, we're still winning.

That's almost as tough to explain as the Drug War under Clinton.
 
Have you ever been to Vancouver?

That is winning.

Although, I will say ... the increasingly desperate tones of anti-drug ads do give me hope.
 
Well, it's a slow going. But we're getting there. The situation looks far more hopeful than it did when I started smoking pot. And not because of politicians. But rather because of the fact that you just can't make people stop getting high.
 
Most states today have relaxed the laws pretaining to possession of "small amounts" of pot for ones own consumtion to a misdemenor with only a small fine and no prison time. So that is a lot better than 30 years ago when you could get up to 5 years in prison just for one joint!
 
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Across-the-board legalization and the reclassification of drugs as a social health problem and not a criminal issue promises a better future than the present course.
 
I dunno about that. Cocaine would be worse legal then illegal. It's be cheap, easily accessable, and still just as addicitive. That doesn't sound like a good idea.
 
Roman said:
I dunno about that. Cocaine would be worse legal then illegal. It's be cheap, easily accessable, and still just as addicitive. That doesn't sound like a good idea.
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But the major reason that so many people have taken up cocaine is that America's drug of choice, marijuana, is such a hassle.

It's not nearly as easy to get as it used to be (at least not for adults, I understand kids can buy it in school), it costs a bloody fortune (as much as $600 an ounce), it's bulky and smelly and therefore difficult to keep a secret, and every time you turn around somebody is telling you to pee in a cup if you want to get or keep a good job, and THC is stored in your fat cells and can show up in a test weeks later.

So since people want to get high they try coke, which is a stupid choice because it's practically the exact opposite of marijuana in so many ways, but it's cheap, easy to find, and washes out of your system in a day or two.

If marijuana weren't illegal, a whole lot less people would be using cocaine.

Coke was easy to get in the 1960s and practically nobody used it. Why bother when pot was so easy to get, so much better of a high, so much less addictive, and so much less dangerous to your health?

As for the constitutional question. . . . (I'd better get back on topic and be a good SciForums member) I haven't read this whole thread yet. But before the government even tried to make alcohol illegal, they recognized that they didn't have the constitutional authority to do it. So they got the states to pass an amendment giving them that authority.

Now they've declared pot, coke, acid, meth, ecstasy, heroin, and a zillion other drugs illegal, and nobody bothered with the constitutional amendment. Where the hell is the court system in all this? It's their job to protect the Constitution!

The Constitution does not grant the government the right to stop people from doing stupid or dangerous things. The authority simply is not there, no matter how much the would-be nannies think they know what's best for us.
 
Fraggle, I've tried marijuana and coke. I'll never do coke again because it FUCKS YOU UP. I can't think of many bad things about cocaine, except that it's physically addictive. You can become dependent on cocaine, like you can become dependent on food.

Pot is a pretty mellow drug. It's nothing compared to coke. Coke is way more expensive than pot! It costs 100 dollars for a gram. A gram man. That's like 8 lines.
 
We will win. It ain't gonna be easy, but we will win.

We have one huge advantage on our side: truth.
 
Tiassa,

From the article you posted I don't see any reason why they continue their assualt on this person. Something is missing from this story.

If the law is just, and if this person broke the law are really two different discussions. Which do you wish to have?
 
tiassa, what happens when you win the war, what happens when drugs are easily available, what happens when OD's are common occurances and children can access drugs? when youve won the war, will you be any better off?
 
Alain, if that's the case, shouldn't we reinstute the 18th Amendment, and ban alcohol again?

Drugs will probably become safer when they're legal. Look at the Prohibition. People didn't know what the fuck they were drinking ... might be gin, might be gasoline, might as well find out. Now, when people buy a fifth of Jack, they know exactly what's in it, and exactly what the alcohol content is. Similarly, when people a ball today, it could be coke, but it's definitely cut with something, and who the fuck knows what this?

There's also an economic law, known as the iron law of prohibition, stating that prohibition tends to increase the potency of a drug, since the more potent a drug, the more dense the monetary value.

Remember ... it was Utah that cast the vote clinching the repeal of the 18th Amendemnt. Think about that ... the most sober state in the Union, and even they wanted to abandon the failed logic of the temperance unions.

Finally, Persol ... why are you assuming that the actions of the government need to have any rational basis? Look at HUAC or Stalin's purge of the Red Army. And no, I'm not saying that the drug war is as bad as the gulags, although it could be, if Ashcroft remains attorney general. My point is that governments are composed of humans, and like humans, they can take action for no greater purpose than a petty, vindictive attempt at revenge.
 
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