I was looking through the East Bay Express and came across a story they picked up from the Associated Press.

Welcome to Oaksterdam University, a new trade school where higher education takes on a whole new meaning.

The school prepares people for jobs in California’s thriving medical marijuana industry. For $200 and the cost of two required textbooks, students learn how to cultivate and cook with cannabis, study which strains of pot are best for certain ailments, and are instructed in the legalities of a business that is against the law in the eyes of the federal government.

I don’t think this is a good idea, it is teaching people how to run an illegal business. I already covered the take downs of some pot shops and brought up some legal questions last year.

It should be noted this thriving industry recently lost a quarter of its shops in San Francisco do to legal concerns. There is some information from an article in last month’s San Francisco Chronicle.

In late December, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sent letters to landlords of buildings that housed medical cannabis dispensaries in the city, telling them they face the loss of their property and possibly prison if the businesses stay open.

[As of early February], seven of the city’s 28 dispensaries have closed or are on the verge of closing, according to medical marijuana supporters and activists. They fear more will follow.

If laws are important enough to be on the books on the federal level, they need to be enforced. Then they can be challenged in court and overturned if they should be.

This week in San Francisco, an idea has been floating around to create and sterile place where drug users can safely use their drugs. The San Francisco Chronicle has a summary of the idea:

About 150 people gathered Thursday in the Mission District to discuss an idea that some say is crazy even for San Francisco: opening a city-funded, legal center where intravenous drug users can congregate, get free needles and inject themselves in a safe environment.

Momentum for such a center seems to be gaining strength among drug reform advocates and some public health workers, who say it will help stop the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, prevent deaths from drug overdoses and keep dirty needles off city streets.

A center like this exists in Vancouver and many have been operating in Europe for several years. However, the article reports no politicians are championing the idea.

I don’t like this safe drug use center idea. It tells people even though it is illegal to use drugs, we are going to make it as safe and easy as possible for you to do so. If drugs are going to be illegal, then the city should not encourage people to break the law.

I would also like to know who would pay for this center. I hope public funds will not be used to buy needles for people who chose to spend their money on drugs.

Even though the action against the marijuana dispensaries happened last week, there is a legal side I have not seen covered enough. (I also want to know if Mickey is around and will comment on this.)

The use of pot is popular in Berkeley. It is accepted, encouraged, and practiced by many people. Then there are those pesky federal laws. From The Oakland Tribune:

The Berkeley Patient Group was notified Monday that its bank account was frozen by the Los Angeles Police Department during a joint operation with the Drug Enforcement Agency. The operation targeted about 10 dispensaries in Los Angeles, including the California Patients Group, a sister organization to the Berkeley-based business.

The assets of the drug dealers were frozen. They are crying foul because they were in compliance with local and state laws. The federal law was not on their side. More from the Tribune:

The Berkeley Patients Group serves more than 5,000 medical marijuana clients in Berkeley and Oakland. It is one of three legalized dispensaries in the city and also provides community services such as a hospice and free delivery of organic fruit and vegetables to hospice clients.

City Council member Kriss Worthington said the city should do all it can to protect the group and the two other dispensaries now operating in the city.

Since there are conflicting authorities claiming the same power, which entity of the government (or no part of it at all) has the authority to set policy on drugs? When the federal government and the City of Berkeley are in conflict, my policy is to favor the federal government until compelled otherwise. However, I missed the part in the Constitution about Congress making drug laws.

If the laws are important enough to be on the books at the federal level, they are important enough to be enforced. If they are enforced, they can be challenged legally. If they are struck down, maybe similar unconstitutional bills can be stopped before they become law.

Medicine or Mischief?
I don’t know anyone who uses marijuana for medical reasons. All the people I know who use it do so for recreational purposes. There are also people who claim a medical reason for marijuana without the need. Lets not forget this report from the Patriot and the accompanying flyer.

The Daily Cal reports on Berkeley’s upcoming anti-underage drinking efforts:

A state alcohol agency that traditionally only funds city law enforcement has awarded UC Berkeley police a grant to combat underage drinking for the first time in campus history, while also handing Berkeley city police funds for the fourth consecutive year.

With the $40,000 grant, the UC Berkeley police department becomes the first university police force to receive a grant from the State Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s grant assistance program.

“We understand our responsibility being the first ones to get it,” said UC police Lt. Doug Wing.

What responsibility? Waste tax dollars?

The funds to campus and city police come as local and state officials report a rise in underage drinking, and local neighborhood associations lodge complaints about a spate of alcohol-related nuisances, including large parties, vandalism, litter and public urination…

Wing said the new funding will go toward a number of uses, including minor decoy operations, inspections of facilities licensed to serve or sell alcohol, and presentations to help alcohol servers identify fake identification cards and otherwise comply with state laws.

“What this does is give us money to bring officers in on over time that are specifically focused on these areas, so we can do more of it then we were able to do before,” he said, adding that campus police will continue collaborating with city police.

Great. The only thing worse than bad laws are when bad laws are mercilessly enforced. Besides killing the spirit of liberty, using resources to target victimless crimes takes away from targeting crimes that actually hurt people. Like theft. Or assault. Crimes that have actually affected me and my friends, and probably you and yours. The 19-year-old who uses a fake ID to buy some Smirnoff to drink with his roommates? Explain to me who the victims are.

Now there will always be people who are irresponsible with their alcohol. I happen to think that this problem has been exacerbated by the unreasonably high drinking age. Instead of making things worse by forcing the problem deeper into the underground, let’s try a different approach: Reduce enforcement of alcohol offenses to the lowest levels and increase programs for real campus safety. Let the alcohol establishments decide for themselves how strict to follow regulations. I’m sure this is all very illegal and will piss off the state and the feds, but isn’t that what Berkeley is known for?

None of this will ever happen, of course. I wonder how much narcs get paid…

The university’s press release is also available.

Anthony Gregory, Cal Libertarians alum and contributor to LewRockwell.com, holds no punches in criticizing the incarceration state in today’s Contra Costa Times.

Gregory starts off with some background info:

In response to a crisis of massive prison overcrowding, Gov. Schwarzenegger has called for the construction of two more prisons…

With about 170,000 inmates, it has a higher per-capita incarceration rate than the rest of the United States, which itself has the highest per-capita prison population in the industrialized world…

In a typical example of the failure of big government, we see that no matter how many prisons are built, no matter how much money the politicians throw at the problem, there is overcrowding.

Then he zeroes in on the culprit:

Surely America isn’t the most criminal culture on earth. Why does the United States have the most prisoners? The main reason is too many laws.

More prisoners are locked away for drug violations than all violent crimes combined. It used to be perfectly legal for anyone to walk into a store and buy heroin or cocaine. Then the progressives took over in the early 20th century and began waging a war on drugs, which blossomed under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, when marijuana became nationally illegal.

People have a right to liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. It is an affront to the founding principles of America to lock peaceful people into cages just because they consume or sell drugs…

At a cost of about $35,000 per inmate per year, not only is keeping them in prison enormously expensive, draining resources that could be used to pursue actual violent criminals, but it is downright immoral.

This all seems so obvious to the informed citizen, but a variety of groups have a vested interest in solidifying the status quo. Gregory goes on to attack prison labor, which has both distorted the free market and enticed corporations to support a never-ending flow of slaves inmates. Combined with the general inclination to legislate morality, we have a disgusting recipe for more state and less freedom.

Last week, I posted about how setting yourself apart from the political mainstream can put you in a position where people hate you, but only because you’re so different from the norm.

The response to Debra Saunders’ columns demonstrates my point. She is the Chronicle’s token conservative and penned a column questioning the “so-called war on drugs” last week. In the column before that, she wrote about the injustice of mandatory-minimum laws. In today’s letters to the editor, Howard Wise writes:

Has Debra J. Saunders lost her edge? Has she been working too long with liberal journalists, or is she is really a “liberal democrat” (to quote Tom Delay) in wolf’s clothing?

First, she wrote a column on the injustice of mandatory sentencing. Then, a few days later, a column on legalizing marijuana. As a confirmed and proud liberal, I agree with her on both counts.

I used to love to hate her, and now I may hate to love her. Must I now find another right-wing-supporting journalist to rant about over my morning coffee? Debra come back! All is forgiven!

And so begins the progression from “love to hate”, to “hate to love”, to just plain love. This guy may not be convinced all the way, but the most important thing is that he now realizes that the right is by no means uniform. Maybe if the right candidate comes around, he or she can capitalize on this phenomenon.

On a side note, Saunders spoke to BCR a few weeks ago and I thought she was pretty interesting. There is an interview with her in the upcoming Patriot.