http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong The NYT ran a terrific opinion piece this week about how the White House Drug Czar ignored an alarming spike in drug-induced fatalities last year, and instead gave himself a pat on the back for a marginal decline in teen drug use. Even worse, we've been addressing drug problems by focusing on the wrong people. Few experts would have suspected that the biggest contributors to California's drug abuse, death and injury toll are educated, middle-aged women living in the Central Valley and rural areas, while the fastest-declining, lowest-risk populations are urban black and Latino teenagers. Yet the index found exactly... Copyright 2008 Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:24:01 -0800 Sat, 06 Jan 2007 12:15:42 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Well said, Dominic. Unfortunately, the major media play along with the drug war far too often. In my opinion, they do it as a sort of trade-off for information. They don't attack the drug war because it angers police and prosecutors (ill-informed ones, anyway) who are seeing astronomical profits from the drug war and who do childish things like not returning phone calls, favoring one media outlet over another and denying access to public records whenever someone steps on their toes. It's no surprise to see the authorities act childish when someone threatens their golden goose, but it's sadder to see the media playing along (and becoming complicit) in a human rights travesty. I used to really believe in newspapers, but I've lost faith in the majors over the drug war. Look what the Los Angeles Times did to Gary Webb. They hung him out on a limb. Fortunately there's Dan Savage, who pulls no punches, and there are a few people like you. You are a drug-war-fighting son of a gun. It's good to read you on Slog. Together we will end the war on drugs, which hangs around like old dead Nixon's old rank fart, stinking up this, the future.

]]> brentandrews http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong#c583881 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong#c583881 News Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:16:33 -0800 Hmmm...guess I better stop watching Weeds while I'm still ahead, huh?

]]> JAM http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong#c584328 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong#c584328 News Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:19:20 -0800 Have heard the drug war called many things, but a Nixon fart, that's a new one. Let's just hope that this, too, shall pass.

]]> Ronald Holden http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong#c584365 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong#c584365 News Fri, 05 Jan 2007 21:17:47 -0800 I wonder how many of those middle-aged women have sons and daughters fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd get waisted too.

]]> elswinger http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong#c584611 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/01/dead_wrong#c584611 News Sat, 06 Jan 2007 12:15:42 -0800