Washington Pot Party

Hey, look at that! Right on the front page of CNN.com, a big story about decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level. I wrote a column about this a while back.

Update: Hey, look, the government sent three people to the presser to complain!

Phila. To Clean Up City, Starting With Pot

Hey, remember Charles Ramsey’s hot crime plan that was going to send Pac-Man to restore the city’s crime wave? Well, apparently not.

According to a column in the Inquirer, the police are going to arrested every black pot smoker in town until they finally have no more KKK posters in the department and the city is free and clear of crime.

No, really! The Inky article follows Officer Henry Schoch, who has arrested four people for drugs and one for bootleg DVDs in recent days. Oh, the residents of the 35th no longer have to deal with drugs or copyright infringement in their neighborhood, praise the Lord. Proven-to-work no-arrest drug crackdowns? Pshaw!

Some officers say the effort invested in making a case like this - Schoch and Leva spent two hours processing paperwork and evidence - removes officers from the street to hunt for worse offenders. But Schoch said such arrests sent a strong message of intolerance for all crime. And it’s impossible to say, until the arrest is made, when a minor stop might yield a bigger fish - somebody with a warrant for a violent crime, or somebody carrying an illegal weapon.

Sometimes these small arrests lead to information about bigger crimes, Schoch added.

“Some cops tell me I’m wasting my time with these arrests,” he said. “I say I wouldn’t want that stuff going on in my neighborhood.”

And if he keeps arresting people over and over, maybe drugs will no longer be sold in North Philly. Busting people for pot will surely make this city safer.

See also: Broken windows, broken record, Young Philly Politics

Klan Poster Found In Officer’s Locker

Hey, know what’s a good idea to do if you’re a cop? Put a Klan poster in your locker. Oh, wait, that’s not quite a good idea, even if you are a white supremacist.

And now the story: The police department is investigating an officer who had a poster that said “Blue by day, White by night” in his locker. He wasn’t a Penn State fan; this was a poster symbolizing a cop by day and a Klan member by night.

Scott Schweizer says the poster wasn’t his — again, white supremacists are pretty stupid by definition, but could this guy be dumb enough to bring a Klan poster into work? — and he’s been moved from undercover narcotics to a desk job at the Roundhouse. Investigators are now exploring whether this little good old fashioned police racism is limited to just this poster; the new commish says it looks like it’s just limited to this one officer.

The Daily News reports Schweizer “has arrested countless drug suspects in predominantly African-American neighborhoods.” By the way, 78 percent of those arrested for marijuana offenses in Philly in 2006 were black.

Cop probed over racist poster [Daily News]
[Img via some hardcore website]

Mint Prohibition Doesn’t Work!

What have I been telling you people? When you try to ban mints, the only people helped are the illegal mint sellers. How else to explain, a day after Hershey’s pulled the plug on Jill Porter’s crack cocaine mints, the plethora of listings on eBay for the “discontinued, limited edition” mints. On the street, Hershey’s mints go for about $2.19. But now that they’ve been forced to the black market, the mints are selling for close to 10 bucks (plus shipping) with several auction days to go.

Now our children are going to buy the mints online, replace them with real drugs and sell the fake mints to their friends, who will respond with a hail of bullets. Sound far-fetched? This was one of the reasons the company banned the mints that somehow “glorify the drug trade.” Really. People actually said that.

Apparently the crusade wasn’t limited to Philadelphia, although Philly was apparently the only city to call for Hershey’s to remove “Ice Break Pacs,” whatever they are. The Daily News gloats today over its great triumph for humanity.

Meanwhile, the activists are not happy, and are still boycotting Hershey products. I urge all good Philadelphians to smoke a little crack for ol’ Milton Hershey and his crack cocaine mints tonight. RIP, Ice Breaker Pacs.

Rep. Cruz Wants You To Get AIDS And Die

State Rep. Angel Cruz, who has passed much important legislation like a bill urging major league baseball to retire Roberto Clemente’s number, now hopes you get AIDS and die.

It’s a strong position for a politician to take, but what else is he going to do? There are needles on the ground! Cruz claims his constituents are clamoring for the removal of life-saving needle-exchange programs because there are needles all over the city. While nobody wants needles on the ground, it’s always odd the reaction to this is to shut down the program instead of making sure needles don’t get on the ground.

And so, despite needle-exchange programs preventing new cases of HIV and Hepatitis C (and therefore saving money) and, ahem, students studies showing they do not increase drug use, Cruz’ bill would prevent needle-exchange sites from within 500 feet of schools and residences. This means you could pretty much put the needle-exchange sites only next to the casinos. Oh, and the law wouldn’t grandfather in old sites, so they’d have to move.

The Public Record, a newspaper so bad it’s even off my radar, writes “The needle exchange receives over $375,000 from the City yearly… it hasn’t work.” Three-hundred seventy-five grand? That’s it? That’s less than the city pays for someone to wipe Bob Brady’s ass.

Anyway, Cruz is doing this for some Republican ward leader. It’s nice to see that in an age of partisanship, Republicans and Democrats can work together to give people AIDS.

Drug Problem Eliminated By Hershey

Rejoice, Americans! A loosely-affiliated coalition of newspaper columnists, corrupt drug prohibitionists and other various annoying people have finally succeeded in outlawing Hershey’s Jill Porter brand crack cocaine mints, as the company announced for some reason today it wasn’t making any more. Don’t worry, these people will most certainly take credit for Hershey’s 65% fourth-quarter profit drop.

Even though that had already been decided, I thought, Porter’s crack cocaine mints are now officially done for as Hershey’s CEO announced on a conference call they wouldn’t be made ever again. So now these things-look-like-drugs people can turn their attention to oregano and chalk, and these mints that somehow “glorify the drug trade” will no longer terrorize our communities.

I’m sure the narcotics officers are gleeful. Now they can breathe easy and go back to arresting black people like they usually do!

Hershey Pulls Mints That Look Like Illegal Drugs [Fox News]