Archive for the 'Drug War' Category

Winding down the War on Drugs

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

Nevada voters approved medical marijuana at the polls, placing it in the state constitution in the year 2000 and instructing “The Legislature shall provide by law for … appropriate methods for supply of the plant to patients authorized to use it.” Now, sick Nevadans can pay a $150 fee and acquire a physician’s recommendation for [...]

Cops need warrants for dog searches … sometimes

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

By a disturbingly slim 5-4 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled March 26 that police cannot bring a drug-sniffing police dog onto a suspect’s property to look for evidence without first getting a search warrant. The ruling upholds a Florida Supreme Court ruling throwing out evidence seized in the search of Joelis Jardines’ Miami-area house. [...]

From the Mailbag

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

From the mailbag Another Fearless Drug Warrior is writing my boss at the daily Review-Journal, trying to get me fired. One “Scott Miller” wrote in on March 12: I must state upfront that I am not a regular reader of any Stephens publications and am not likely to become one in the foreseeable future. Because [...]

Making life worse for those in pain

Sunday, March 10th, 2013

During the Christmas season, 1994, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration put Las Vegas medical doctor Dietrich Stoermer, who had treated our troops in Vietnam, on trial here for writing “too many” painkiller prescriptions. Since other doctors worried about being “red-flagged” by the drug police if they took on the cases of chronic pain patients, Dr. [...]

Taxing the poor, seizing the homes of accused ‘pimps’

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

It’s a well known doctrine of economics that what you subsidize you get more of, and what you tax you get less of. Thus, the United States government in its infinite wisdom subsidizes poverty and out-of-wedlock birth, along with unmarried women raising children without any man in the home, and gets more of all three [...]

Too much time on their hands

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013

Not content with banning or at least fining those who traffic in cigarettes, trans-fats, salt, and big sugary soft drinks, New York City’s Mayor and millionaire chief busybody, Michael Bloomberg, last week set his sights on a new villain: Styrofoam. In his State of the City address Thursday, Mayor Bloomberg pushed for a ban on [...]

‘Fast and Furious’: what are they hiding?

Sunday, October 7th, 2012

Univision, the largest Spanish-language network in the U.S., aired a lengthy report on the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” Mexican gun-running operation on Sept. 30. Gerardo Reyes and Santiago Wills offer an English-language version at http://tinyurl.com/9jdp2gh: “On January 30, 2010, a commando of at least 20 hit men parked themselves outside a birthday party of [...]

How are we doin’?

Wednesday, July 4th, 2012

How are we doing, safeguarding those “unalienable Rights” with which we are “endowed by our Creator” — in support of which 56 patriots solemnly pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred Honor, 236 years ago? We remain free by many measures. Americans can still pretty much live where we want, work where we want, [...]

Layoffs here, layoffs there … now let’s shut down a thousand smoke shops!

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

Jeffrey Armstrong is a soft-spoken guy, of evident Caribbean origin. He’s the owner and sole proprietor of “The Smoke Zone,” a rented storefront next to the Quizno’s on Rancho Boulevard just north of Charleston — though it’s one of several similar “RYO (Roll Your Own) Filling Stations” in Southern Nevada. The basic pitch? Cheap cigarettes. [...]

‘Legal on Monday, go to jail today’

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Just as the promoters of the income tax swore in 1913 it would never be more than a few percent — and then only on millionaires — so the “Progressive” congressional pimps of the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Tax Act said it was just a truth-in-labeling measure, that the government would NEVER get between doctors and [...]