Monday, January 18, 2010

Open Thread

- The LEAP Facebook group is now more than 10,000 members. Thanks to everyone who encouraged people to join!

- Hot on the heels of the LEAP Hawaii Speaking Tour, two marijuana bills are going to be introduced to the state legislature by State Sen. J. Kalani English. The first will regulate and tax medical marijuana dispensaries (Hawaii's current medical marijuana law has no provisions for safe access, meaning that folks with cancer and HIV have no choice but to get their marijuana from criminal drug dealers). The second bill will decriminalize up to an ounce of marijuana.

- Vancouver's safe injection site will remain open. A major decision from the British Columbia Court of Appeal, which dismissed the federal government's appeal of a lower court decision ruling that InSite could remain open. The Globe and Mail has a great editorial on the subject. Here's an excerpt:
The war on drugs came to Canada, and it picked on a bunch of desperately ill addicts. Some war. Boldly, B.C.'s highest court, and before that a trial judge, have let Ottawa know that any war on drugs fought in this country should not endanger the right of addicts to get life-saving health care.

9 comments:

  1. Still CANNOT copy and paste here.
    This is beginning to bother me, a great deal.

    see: http://sensiblecolorado.org/costs/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi metabolism, have you tried "drag & drop?"

    Select the text you want to copy/move. Then click and hold the mouse button down like you are dragging an icon. Keep the button down and drag, like you are dragging an icon. Drag the text to the edit field where you want it to go.

    I run MS WIN XP in a virtual machine from time to time, and I think MS WIN does drag and drop similarly to Macs but I can't say for sure.. We've been dragging and dropping text bits (short cut for copy/paste) since System 7, way back in the day. :-)

    Hope that helps!

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://sensiblecolorado.org/costs/

    Drug War Costs in Colorado and the U.S.

    Every time a law enforcement officer responds to a call, issues a ticket, or arrests an individual for drug use, there is a cost to both that individual and the community as a whole. In most incidences, there is no violence or otherwise criminal activity involved, other than the individual’s possession of an illicit drug.

    * In 1999, there were 16, 761 adult drug arrests in Colorado. Eighty-eight percent of arrests were for drug possession—50% for possession of marijuana.1
    * In 2002, law enforcement reported 9,498 violations for marijuana possession, 2,764 of those were in Denver County.2
    * In 2003, there were 755,187 arrests for marijuana offenses in the United States, an 8% increase from 2002.3
    * At present, cultivation of even one marijuana plant is a felony in Colorado.

    We support an examination and subsequent reform of our current drug policy to fund prevention, treatment, and harm reduction programs which have proven more cost-effective than incarceration and law enforcement intervention in reducing the harm associated with drug use.
    Why change the policy?

    Eighty-three percent of Colorado voters believe that we are losing the war on drugs. The majority of voters believe the war on drugs has been ineffective in reducing drug use and supply in Colorado. These results were consistent across all demographic categories.4

    Eighty-eight percent of voters believe that we will never be able to stop drugs from coming into this country until demand is reduced. A similarly high 85% believe that the current war on drugs is dealing with symptoms of drug abuse but failing to solve the underlying causes.5

    When an individual is incarcerated for a drug-related offense, the costs increase exponentially. These costs include the extension of law enforcement resources and the overburdening of the judicial system, the prison system, and the public assistance programs, via the financial toll absorbed by the families of the incarcerated, many of which include children who are now without an income-providing parent.

    * In 2003, 10,191 drug cases were filed statewide (24.7% of all cases). In Denver, drug cases constituted 41% of cases filed in 2003.
    * As of June 30, 2002, there were 3,691 people in prison for a drug offense [in Colorado]. This costs taxpayers over $101 million dollars per year. Approximately 50% were convicted of simple possession.6
    * The average cost to house an inmate for one year in Colorado is $27,000.
    * There are an estimated 15,500 children in Colorado who currently have a parent in prison. This estimate does not account for the children who have parents serving time in county jails.7

    We support education of the public to call attention to the direct and the collateral costs of incarcerating non-violent drug users, both to the individuals and their families and to all Colorado taxpayers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you Drew. I had no clue it could be done that way. Call me dinosaur and old school when it comes to computers. Now I know something new!

    Notes

    (1) Colorado Bureau of Investigation, 1999 State Adult Drug Arrests. As cited in Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition Colorado Prison Facts 2004. http://www.ccjrc.org/pdf/Fact%20Sheets_All.pdf.

    (2) U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation as cited in Uniform Crime Reports County Data at http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/crime/.

    (3) Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Report. 2003. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm.

    (4) Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition Survey on Drug Abuse and Drug Policy. http://www.ccjrc.org/pdf/SurveyResults.pdf.

    (5) Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition Survey on Drug Abuse and Drug Policy. http://www.ccjrc.org/pdf/SurveyResults.pdf.

    (6) Colorado Department of Corrections. 2002, Statistical Report for Fiscal Year 2002 by Kristi Rosten. (2003). 70. Colorado Department of Corrections. 2001, “Profile of Drug Offenders in Colorado Department of Corrections.” As cited in Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition Colorado Prison Facts 2004. http://www.ccjrc.org/pdf/Fact%20Sheets_All.pdf .

    (7) Bosley, B., Donner, C., McLean, C., and Toomey-Hale, E. (Eds.)(2002). Parenting from Prison- A Resourced Guide for Parents Incarcerated in Colorado. Parenting from Prison Guide Committee. Denver, Colorado.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Metabolism, glad it worked for you. I've got a bit of "old school" in me too. :-) Back in the early 1980's my electronics class built a Heathkit computer from scratch, aka TRS-80. I hadn't dreamed of dragging and dropping text selections then, let alone copy/paste via menus or keyboard shortcuts.

    Although for some reason I never felt compelled to join Facebook. Not sure if it's old school, or being just plain old. ;-)

    David, great to hear today's trifecta of good news, here's hoping it gets better, that Hawaii passes both bills, and that Canada's Feds stop wasting your money and put it to better use.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Although for some reason I never felt compelled to join Facebook. Not sure if it's old school, or being just plain old. ;-)

    Hey I'm 26, and I've never had any use for Facebook. Nothing more than narcissistic navel-gazing if you ask me.

    Also, thanks for pointing out the drag-and-drop, that's a big help. Still, it would be nice to get Copy, Paste, Undo, Select All, etc enabled in the comment box. I'm so used to having those commands available that it feels really weird not having them.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Narcissistic navel gazing"!!! I love it! LOL

    ReplyDelete
  8. My Facebook account was "deactivated" after only a month or two.
    Wish I'd never started it to begin with.

    Drew: Yep, the TRS-80 computer models! Remember them! Heck, I remember computers before the internet. DOS was our only choice with a few software programs to pick from. Don't know if it exists anymore but when I was doing Technical Writing the software used was called Ventura Desktop Publisher.

    -------
    Thank you Rhayader for saying, "Also, thanks for pointing out the drag-and-drop, that's a big help. Still, it would be nice to get Copy, Paste, Undo, Select All, etc enabled in the comment box. I'm so used to having those commands available that it feels really weird not having them."
    Me too but I don't think anyone here is reading or listening to our request. (and that's not a dig in anyway, please don't take it as such).

    ReplyDelete

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