Freedomshift

On Saturday we introduced readers to the “ Ferguson Effect ”. The idea is that the recent spate of prosecutions and instances of social unrest that followed a series of events involving perceived police misconduct directed at African Americans have made police officers gun shy — literally. Here’s what Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of “Are Cops Racist?” Heather Mac Donald wrote in a WSJ piece: Here

An internal  Drug Enforcement Administration  report showed the agency gave its agents a mere slap on the wrist for purchasing the services of Colombian prostitutes, sometimes with taxpayer money and sometimes as they let local police watch their weapons and personal property. A summary of the internal report shows the  DEA  doled out punishments to 10 of its agents, which ranged from a letter of caution to a two-week suspension. None of the agents who participated in the parties was fired. In one instance, money to pay prostitutes at a farewell party for a high-ranking  DEA  official was included in an “operational budget” that used government funds for the party, the report said. Lawmakers expressed concern during the hearing that some of the government-funded sex soirees may have included teenagers. Read more: here

It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him, wielding a baseball bat. Before hospital staff realized how sick he was—the alcohol-induced hallucination was just a symptom—the man died. So did another holiday partygoer. And another. As dusk fell on Christmas, the hospital staff tallied up more than 60 people made desperately ill by alcohol and eight dead from it. Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season. Read more: here

CHILLICOTHE, OH — The American Drug War claimed another casualty when a woman was shot in the head while sitting on a couch by an incompetent police officer, who fired his weapon through an exterior wall prior to raiding the home. Krystal Barrows from Chillicothe, OH. (Source: Myspace ) At about 10:30 p.m. on December 11th, a group of cops calling themselves the U.S. 23 Task Force swarmed the residence and prepared to break in and capture people for possessing drugs.   One of the officers, Sgt. Brett McKnight, an 11-year-veteran of the Ross County Sheriff’s Office, negligently handled his weapon and fired a round through the exterior wall of the mobile home. The bullet traveled into the residence and struck a woman sitting on a couch.  Krystal Marie Barrows , 35, of Chillicothe, was “in critical condition” and flown by helicopter to Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, where she died the following day . Read more: here

A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house.  Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door.  The two officers, 25-year-old Kyle Shedran and 24-year-old Greg Day, were placed on administrative leave with pay. Read more: here

Utah police shot and killed a man within seconds of storming his parents' home, video of the raid shows. The police had a warrant to search for drugs, but found only a small amount of pot and an empty vial that had apparently contained meth.  Local media report that Todd Blair, 45, was a drug addict rather than a dealer, according to friends and family.  In the video , Blair can be seen holding a golf club above his head as police smash through his door. Within seconds, without demanding Blair drop the iron or lay down, Weber-Morgan Strike Force Sgt. Troy Burnett fires three shots into him. The local prosecutor has deemed the killing justified, but his family is planning a federal lawsuit, arguing that police had plenty of alternatives.  Blair's death raises the question of why multiple heavily-armed officers were sent to raid a drug addict -- and why Weber and Morgan counties in Utah would even need a "Narcotics Strike Force." Read More: Here

By Eric Peters on 5.12.10 @ 6:07AM I don't support drunk driving -- just to get that out of the way. But the idea that you're "drunk" at the current .08 BAC threshold is a bit much. Push them a bit and proponents will say you're impaired at .08 in terms of a medically observable decline in reaction times -- and that's true, as far as it goes. But this slight reduction in reaction times has not been shown to correlate with a higher accident rate. Proponents merely assert that it does, with no facts (such as a greater number of car wrecks) to back it up. On the other hand, we know that a .10 BAC, which used to be the legal threshold defining drunk driving in most states, does correlate with a higher accident rate. There is actual evidence (more car crashes) to support this. Therefore, it seems reasonable to target people with BAC levels at .10 or higher because they pose an objective, real threat to other motorists (and pedestrians). That's what ...

Marijuana's addiction potential may be no big deal, but it's certainly big business. According to a widely publicized 1999 Institute of Medicine report, fewer than 10 percent of those who try cannabis ever meet the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of "drug dependence" (based on DSM-III-R criteria). By contrast, 32 percent of tobacco users and 15 percent of alcohol users meet the criteria for "drug dependence." Nevertheless, it is pot – not booze or cigarettes – that has the federal government seeing red and clinical investigators seeing green. As I reported for Alternet last year, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) – which overseas more than 85 percent of the world's research on controlled substances – recently appropriated some $4 million in taxpayers' dollars to establish the nation's first-ever "Center on Cannabis Addiction." It's mission: to "develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment ...