Drug Laws

Raise Taxes for This?

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Alex Knapp is right on with this:

Don’t the cops in Cleburne have anything better to do with their time? Well, don’t get me wrong–I don’t really blame the cops. They’re just doing their job. It’s whoever assigned them to the damn job that deserves the blame.

He is referring to this story from Cleburne, Texas:

A Texas housewife is in big trouble with the law for selling a vibrator to a pair of undercover cops

You’d think Texans would have learned something from Lawrence v Texas (PDF). On the other hand maybe this one will go to the supremes as well and they will eliminate another bunch of laws that are both unconstitutional and unacceptable in a free country.
On the lighter side my first reading of Alex’s post had me wondering about the context of this police scam: were they raiding an adult products store? Or what?
You guessed it! I’ll bet both husbands and wives might find the demonstrations quite interesting:

For the past year, Webb has sold the company’s line of vibrators, gels, lubricants, strawberry-flavored nipple cream and “edible passion puddings.” The merchandise is offered for sale in private, Tupperware-style parties to women who may be reluctant to visit an adult novelty store.

I wonder if these sales folks use any special techniques to maximize audience participation.
Update (12/16): Howard Bashman has been covering this in detail and I learn from him that we don’t need this case to go to the supremes as there is already an Alabama case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Go check out Howard’s posts.

Limbaugh Special?

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Rush and his attorney seem to think that Rush is special:

Earlier, Limbaugh’s lawyer accused Palm Beach County prosecutor Barry Krischer of having political motives for investigating whether Limbaugh bought painkillers illegally.
“They are looking to publicly embarrass him and affect his radio program,” Roy Black said on NBC’s “Today Show.” “Why is Rush Limbaugh the only person treated like this in America?”

Apparently they live in a different America then the rest of us. I encourage them to visit the courts and jails that process and imprison the millions of Americans who have been victimized by the so called war on drugs.

Reason’s List

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Yea, I know this is the 3rd list in a row. It’s just the way the day has been going.
Reason Magazine pays tribute:

…to some of the people who have made the world a freer, better, and more libertarian place by example, invention, or action. The one criterion: Honorees needed to have been alive at some point during reason�s run, which began in May 1968. The list is by design eclectic, irreverent, and woefully incomplete, but it limns the many ways in which the world has only gotten groovier and groovier during the last 35 years.

I found this one most entertaining:

John Ashcroft. If Donny and Marie Osmond were a little bit country and a little bit rock �n� roll, the current attorney general is little bit J. Edgar Hoover and a little bit Janet Reno. Whether it�s prosecuting medical marijuana users, devoting scarce resources to arresting adult porn distributors, or using tax dollars to create USA PATRIOT Act propaganda Web sites, Ashcroft has managed to create an unprecedented coalition of conservatives, liberals, and libertarians around a single noble cause: the protection of civil liberties.

Via AnarCapLib.

Immigration Failure

This entry was posted in Capitalism Drug Laws Economics Immigration US Politics on by

Current immigration law and enforcement appear to be an utter failure. Jeanne D’Arc points out that:

Between 1994 and 2002, we spent $20 billion militarizing our southern border and trying to keep out or send back immigrants, and it’s hard to see that as anything but a complete waste of money.

and looks at an alternative approach to discussing the issue:

I wondered if maybe there was another way to frame the issue: Should we continue to pour massive ammounts of money into a policy that clearly doesn’t work (and also kills people)? Should we give up? Or should we spend that money in ways that will improve life for people in Mexico so that they aren’t forced to come here to work? What good could we do with $20 billion over the next eight years?

Perhaps money will talk. This same approach is starting to make inroads against the drug wars.