“The Blonde’s Ambition”: an update

 

It makes perfect sense that arguably the first member of the law-enforcement community to implement any serious maneuvers to offset the spike in violent crime on the streets of this beleaguered country is a woman. Cathy Lanier, age 40, is Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia. She dropped out of ninth grade to have a baby, worked two jobs and got her GED, joined the department at 23 and has since held command of Major Narcotics, Vehicular Homicide, the Special Operations Division, the (incredibly shady-sounding) Special Threat Action Team and the Office of Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism—all while earning a BA and MA at Johns Hopkins and a second Master’s from the Naval Postgraduate School.

           

Yeah. She’s a serious figure, with serious problems. Her 3,800 officers—of whom 25% are also female—are now pressed for a response to an already hot, bloody summer in Washington DC. It’s hard to tell from all the hype, but homicides are actually on pace to decline from 2007’s total of 181. The district made incremental gains over the years; homicide totals have been under 200 per annum since ’04, after holding in the mid-200s from 1998-2003. Not even the most cynical observers expect anything like a return to the early-‘90s, when 400-500 people were killed there yearly.

 

After seven people were shot dead a few weekends ago, Lanier and DC mayor Adrian Fenty announced a plan for “Neighborhood Safety Zones,” where police would restrict access to certain areas on a supposedly limited basis. Of course, they know no limits in Washington, so the project has been tarred with brushes labeled “racial profiling” and “martial law.” Local pols, who misappropriate police resources with one hand while begging for more with the other, should scrutinize it themselves, since they will be adapting the policy to our city soon enough.                 

 

There are obvious and substantive questions worth asking, in terms ranging from the individual to the collective. The project will certainly inconvenience some residents, though hardly any more than twice-weekly funeral processions, and many will feel more threatened by the police than by the criminals. It is unclear how any police force could do such things under their current (i.e. shrinking) budgets without revising their mandates—which they would do if the civilian pols allowed them to. The potential for abuses is hard to discredit, as well. Lanier’s critics at the ACLU, the NAACP and other organizations that once mattered, make more useful points than their gangsta mascots can count. One might even be sympathetic if their childish infatuation with the criminal class didn’t put them in direct conflict with their clients’ many victims.

 

The worst-case scenario, unfortunately, is probably unavoidable: a major shoot-out between police and criminals that leaves people on all sides dead and civilians caught in between. We all hope nothing like that ever happens, but it’s been common in places like Italy, Mexico and Colombia for 30 years. Domestic cases have been so far limited to small groups of individuals who engage the cops only as a means to escape, and who rarely do so with the kind of deliberation they might apply to planning their crimes. It is the lingering nightmare in the heart of many cops: the moment when they cease to be mere obstacles to their adversaries and become the primary target. The public reaction would be volcanic, and careers would be ruined.

 

Lanier’s initiative (defined however you like) presents a difficult set of choices for law-enforcement officers and the politicians, led by Fenty, who must try to maintain at least the appearance of oversight. Fenty, 37, is a rising young star of the Democratic Party who could become a national name if he is able to escape his current job without heavy scandal. His first year in office included a battle with federal courts over revisions to the district’s gun laws and a fire chief who was trading lucrative overtime assignments for sexual favors from his male underlings—allegedly. Fenty chose Lanier for police chief, and if all goes well she will succeed him. But if the crime thing gets out of their control, a factional split could occur. They aren’t like our local Johns, Peyton and Rutherford, whose public personas are equally powerless and thus equally secure. It is far too rare that we are presented with opportunities to look at the policies coming out of our nation’s capital with anything other than flat contempt or, increasingly, fear. Cathy Lanier has stepped up on behalf of the common people, and put her own ass on the line in what may be an ill-fated effort to save some lives. Let’s give her some credit now, while she’s still around!

 

sdh666@hotmail.com           

June 10, 2008

Update: The debut of “Neighborhood Safety Zones” in Washington DC had results that can be interpreted in multiple ways. There was no serious violence in the Trinidad neighborhood where Cathy Lanier’s crew had posted up. There were eight people shot in adjacent areas, which opponents of the project can attribute to crime being pushed out of one region into another. However, on the crucial point Lanier can claim success: no one died there. That might count, in some metric or another.

Drug Hysteria continues!

A recent report in the occasionally useful New York Times spotlights the harsh contradictions related to the execution of drug policy in this country, with the halogens focused squarely on the Sunshine State. According to autopsy results released this week by the state’s medical examiners, marijuana played no role in any of the deaths documented by state authorities last year. On the other hand, prescription drugs, which have been certified as contributing to the deaths of people like Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith and Chris Benoit, are being abused at a rate roughly double that of ten years ago.

Quoting (in bold print) from the NYT story: “The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328. […] Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0). […] The study also found that while the number of people who died with heroin in their bodies increased 14 percent in 2007, to 110, deaths related to the opioid oxycodone increased 36 percent, to 1,253.”

It goes on to state that “Florida scrutinizes drug-related deaths more closely than do other states, and so there is little basis for comparison with them.” This is good news for anyone supporting this ridiculous state of affairs; imagine having such data compiled from all 50 states to confirm what is suggested by the study out of Florida. A cynic might wonder aloud if the MEs will be allowed to continue such research this year. It seems like the kind of things that could be eliminated through budget cuts.

Poor Charlie Crist, in his misguided zeal for a national name, has quickly undone whatever good will he had among the regular people of his state. He has gone against his citizens by reversing himself in favor of off-shore oil drilling, which will only increase the environmental instability in the super-heated waters off our east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, for the benefit of multinational gasoline firms who will ensure that most of the profits flow like liquid away from taxpayers of the state. 

Any casual observer understands that the prohibitions against marijuana only ensure that the profits to be obtained from this most beneficial crop are concentrated in the black market, where there are no taxes and no accountability. The current policy has the effect of simplifying the nature of the various substances and their effects, and leaves authorities increasingly powerless to counter the international criminal syndicates that are taking up more and more of the drug business in the US.

The insipidly named “Operation D-Day” (column reprinted below) shut down over 100 alleged grow-houses across Florida, netting 130+ arrests and upwards of $40 million worth of the dreaded herb. The bust was timed to coincide with the passage of a draconian escalation of penalties for pot-growers, which Governor Crist signed into law this week. One struggles to see how the state benefits from adding to an already overextended criminal justice system, while simultaneously subtracting from the rolls of tax-paying citizens and property owners.

Florida had just under 100,000 prisoners in 2007, up 2.3% from 2006 and 4.5% from 2000; expect to see a recorded increase of about 3% when this year’s numbers come out, next year. Of course, this counts only those held in state or federal custody, and not the thousands more being held in local jails, juvenile facilities or mental-health centers related to charges. Perhaps if the government hadn’t allowed such wholesale rapacity as was seen in the bad-faith manipulation of interest rates in recent years, and not tied down so many people with bullshit possession convictions that undermined their ability to earn legal livings, maybe some of those owners and renters wouldn’t be need extra income that badly. But that’s just speculation.

America’s Most Blunted

 

In these rapidly changing economic times, even drug dealers are feeling the pinch—literally, in some cases. Take, for example, the ridiculous Operation D-Day, months in the making, where state and local law-enforcement executed simultaneous busts in 48 counties across Florida. They shut down about 100 suspected marijuana grow houses, made 135 arrests and seized at least $41 million worth of that sticky green.

 

It says something about the state of leadership in Florida that they would dare to cheapen the legacy of the Allied invasion of France—a truly necessary undertaking that cost thousands of American lives but probably helped save millions from certain doom at the hands of the Third Reich—by attaching the name “D-Day” to their latest assault on individual liberty. If there are any WWII veterans still alive to read this column, one can only apologize, on behalf of our government, for pissing all over their sacrifice.

 

The operation was timed to maximize publicity for the “’Marijuana Grow House Eradication Act,” which was already being hyped through a series of alarmist stories that ran on local Florida stations that week, including the resolutely straight-edge First Coast News. The same willing dupes who claim that buying drugs supports terrorism are the ones who have made sure that America’s dope market is controlled by foreigners. 

 

The fallacious and foolhardy nature of the Drug War is borne out by the simple fact that if the current laws were to be applied retroactively, at least one President—George Washington, a pioneering pot grower—would be sent to prison for the rest of his life. Imagine DEA trying to run up on Mount Vernon! Given that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and many of the founders’ personal papers were printed on hemp paper, and that our first flags and some uniforms of the Continental Army were crafted from hemp cloth, a case could be made that today’s laws against the cultivation of hemp amount to a repudiation of America itself.

 

The silliness of it all becomes most apparent as we traverse the national political landscape of 2008, where at least one presidential contender—Barack Obama—is on record with a history of drug use that would have automatically disqualified either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, had rumors to that effect been proven. The governors of two of our biggest and most profitable states, California and New York, are controlled by men (Schwartzenegger and David Paterson, respectively) who openly admitted to having smoked pot. History now leans in the direction that the sainted JFK smoked, too. Now, if the point of the Drug War is make sure that no one like Bush, Clinton or Kennedy is ever able to become president again, that would make sense, but it would not explain Obama, whose past is apparently out-of-bounds since he obliges the Drug War too.

 

Honestly, now: if the Drug War is legit, then why has Snoop Dogg never taken a possession rap? A cynic would argue that, since his work has consists of leading young black men down a road that leads directly to prison or death, he is performing a service to the government, and thus roams free. But as for the rest of you, don’t expect mercy from government unless you’re a child molester or a terrorist. The authorities know the limits of their power, and are careful not to press anyone who might press back. Parents, take heart: if you put a bag of marijuana in your kids’ backpack before school, the cops will follow him around all day, and he might actually live long enough to graduate!

 

It can never be said often enough that the political leaders of today are so far beneath their predecessors in every single possible category—from intelligence to physical strength, to say nothing of intangibles like wisdom and experience—that their only option for retaining their spots is to aggressively destroy any possibility of dissent. And that is why the criminal penalties against marijuana have been progressively jacked up while the rest on the world has moved in the other direction.

 

There is not much sense in making a decriminalization argument based on civil libertarian or humanitarian grounds. No case can be made on William Buckley-esque conservative grounds, since the folks who bullied us into Iraq have done to conservatism what Pope Benedict and the perverts who serve under him have done to Catholicism. In the old days, one could at least quote the founders, but as America cedes its place in the global hierarchy, the founders’ appeal has begun to wane, as well. Besides, the political leadership of today (especially in Florida) appears to derive more inspiration from Tom of Finland than Thomas Jefferson. I’d call them traitors, if I could afford a lawyer.           

 

sdh666@hotmail.com

May 5, 2008