Remembering our "drug" war victims this holiday season

Honorable Rep Nancy:

First let's remember our fellow citizens who paid the ultimate price because of the immoral war of aggression upon my people ("my people" = humans who wish to live peacefully in freedom).

RIP, gentle souls:

Labor Day weekend, 2001, in Vandalia, Michigan, Rainbow Farm owner Tom Crosslin, 46, and his partner, Rolland Rohm, 28, were killed by police during a four-day standoff with state police and FBI.  Crosslin was shot to death Sept. 3 by two FBI agents, allegedly after he pointed a gun at them.  Rohm was killed by Michigan state police in a similar scenario early the next morning.  Police surrounded and assaulted their home to force compliance with Michigan "drug" laws.

On June 14, 2000, Peter McWilliams, a widely read author and successful publisher, weak from lack of nourishment, died from choking on his vomit.  Peter, suffering from AIDS, needed marijuana to keep down his medication and food.  The federal government had arrested Peter, confiscated his property, and charged him as a drug kingpin (because he had helped a friend produce medical marijuana in California).  He was bankrupt, awaiting sentence, and denied the lifesaving herb.

Police in Belpre, Ohio, got a tip that Albert Bonar was growing and selling marijuana.  On October 15, 1998, they raided the house where Albert lived, and shot to death his father, Delbert Bonar, a janitor.  Police found less than an ounce of marijuana, and no plants.  Delbert Bonar, holding a water bottle, died instantly from eight bullet wounds.  In his 57 years, he had never been arrested.

On July 12, 1998, Pedro Oregon Navarro, a 22-year-old father of two, was shot to death in the bathroom of his home by at least six Houston (TX) police officers.  On the word of an inebriated drug suspect/informant who claimed drugs were being sold there, the officers made a military-style raid on Navarro's home.  No drugs were found and, blood tests on Navarro's corpse came back negative.  Agents fired at the bleary-eyed Navarro 30 times, hitting him in 12 places.

On the afternoon of May 20, 1997, Esequiel (Zeke) Hernandez, a high school student from Redford, Texas, near the Mexican border, was tending his family's goats on their desert ranch.  He wandered too close to a camouflage ambush position of US Marine Joint Task Force 6, a special unit designed for drug interdiction, and a corporal in the task force shot Zeke dead.

Donald Scott, 62, a wealthy man living on a 250-acre ranch in California, refused to sell acreage to the park service.  Federal agents flew over the land, claimed they saw marijuana, and obtained a warrant.  Next morning, 10/02/92, a narcotics task force broke down the door, seized Scott's wife, pointing a gun to her head.  She screamed for her life.  Scott armed himself with a pistol and ran out of his bedroom, and was shot and killed instantly by police.  (There were no "drugs.")

In January 1992, a $30.00 informant told police drugs were being sold in a home in Tyler, Texas.  The officers obtained a warrant, and at 2:00 a.m. smashed down the front door with a battering ram, and swept into the ramshackle dwelling, entering a room where invalid Annie Rae Dixon, 84, lay presumably trying to sleep.  An officer broke down her door, then allegedly fell and accidentally discharged his firearm, killing her.

Note  -  In all of the cases above, no official wrongdoing was acknowledged by any government body, the killers were cleared, and the killers and/or their accomplices retained their jobs as police, prosecutors, or judges.

Nancy, I realize not all of the deceased were Michigan citizens, but they were people, and, even if they had had "drugs," they did not deserve to die.  Literally, hundreds of Americans and untold foreigners have been killed and maimed as so-called "collateral damage" in United States' religious wars on personal biochemistry.  Check out some of the other higher-profile killings on the Internet. (http://home.earthlink.net/~ynot/victims.html)

Jailhouse rot:

In the present context, killing someone for liking a substance you don't like is the ultimate inhumanity.  But it is also inhumane to incarcerate people for sins against sanctioned pharmacology.  Let us consider the stories of roughly 325,000 people in America who are in prison-federal and state-solely because of "drug" law infractions. (http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm) In the interests of brevity, I'll submit only three:

In July 1990, Chrissy Taylor, was 19 years old.  She and her 35-year old boyfriend, Alan Roark, traveled from their home in Texas to a chemical company in Alabama to purchase chemicals used to make methamphetamine.  They were stung by the DEA, and a conviction of "conspiracy to manufacture," carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years, was ramrodded through a docile jury.  She will be in jail, as a minimum, until she is 36.

In 1976, Charles Cundiff was arrested for possession of cannabis and marijuana paraphernalia.  Eight months later he was arrested for selling eight ounces of marijuana.  He received a two-year sentence for each offense, which he served concurrently, then released on parole after seven months.  In 1985, he was convicted of growing 100 marijuana plants, and received 47 days in prison with three years probation.  In 1992, the feds convicted Charles of taking part in a large marijuana transaction.  The prosecutor filed for a career criminal enhancement based on Charles' history, making the mandatory sentence for Charles life in prison, which he serves today.

Paroled in 1999, Detroiter JeDonna Young, 44, was imprisoned for 20 years under the Michigan 1978 law that mandated life imprisonment without parole for anyone convicted of delivery or intent to deliver at least 650 grams of cocaine or heroin.  (The legislature in 1998 allowed parole for those who have served 15 to 20 years or more.) She was convicted of carrying bags of heroin that belonged to her boyfriend, who died in prison.  The boyfriend had said Young did not know there were "drugs" in the bags.  In Michigan, more than 160 people (!!) are serving life sentences for violating the 1978 law.

These three examples are representative of the 325K prisoners.  Even dealers and growers in this prison population have committed no act of coercion, i.e. they have harmed no one, they did no (true) crime.  If one abides by the nonaggression principle, as one must as a civilized human being of any moral stature, then one sees immediately the TRUE criminals (qua aggressors) are those who participate in a system that imprisons 325 THOUSAND (!!!!) innocent men and women and kills hundreds more.  Sorry, did not mean to scream at you, Nancy. (http://www.famm.org/)

In his timely book, Drug War Addiction, Bill Masters-sheriff of San Miguel County in Colorado- argues the decent, competent American peace officer never liked enforcing drug laws.  Indeed, Masters, with other people in his profession, recently formed an organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) to "educate the public, the media, and policy makers, to the failure of current drug policy by presenting a true picture of the history, causes and effects of drug abuse and drug related crime."  (http://www.leap.cc/)

No honest, competent, self-respecting police officer wants to arrest people for consensual, peaceful acts.  No honest, competent, self-respecting prosecuting attorney wants to prosecute people for consensual, peaceful acts.  No honest, competent, self-respecting judge wants to send people to prison for consensual, peaceful acts.  No honest, competent, self-respecting political representative wants to pass prohibition laws that enable the above violations to occur.

So there we are.

Unfortunately, the "drug" war has gone on so long it's become big business.  Economic and political beneficiaries of the "drug" war will resist change.  Do you think the legislature can take away the power of the drug warriors, now?  Or, as suggested by Richard Lawrence, in Drug Warriors and Their Prey, do the warlords have enough guns and power to simply ignore/disband your legislature and impose a complete Puritanical police state?

I don't blame you for being afraid, Nancy.  The "drug" warriors are scary people-there are simply too many political prisoners and corpses for "drug" enforcers to be considered "well-meaning idealists"-and they will threaten you politically and even physically should you call their holy emperor naked.  But you must stand up these neo-Calvinist bullies, now.  Help my people by taking away this evil war on drugs and the horrible psychopaths who prosecute it.

In the elegant words of Pastor Niemöller, on the threshold of Nazi Germany:

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me." -- 1945

To paraphrase the good reverend per the imminent threat to American Liberty:

First they came for the amphetamine users and heroin addicts, but I was not into those drugs, so I said nothing.  Then they came for the medical marijuana smokers, but I was perfectly healthy, so I did nothing.  Then they came for the dairy farmers (obscene fat producers), but I was a city boy.  And then they came for cherubic, white, middle-aged Republican women in the state legislatures, but I was a yellow dog Democrat, so I did little.  Then when they came for me, no one was left to object (except the Libertarians, who had been carted away months before the dairy farmers… and no one ever listened to them anyway).

Read:  Open Letter #1  Open Letter #2  Open Letter #3