MarijuanaNews.com : Updates About Kubby, Overgrow.com, Mexico. When A Mexican City Becomes More Dangerous Than Washington, DC…

Posted February 24, 2006
Analysis by Richard Cowan
See

Kubby Update; Overgrow.com Overthrown; Italian Fascists Renew War on Cannabis;
New Canadian Justice Minister Is Ashcroft-lite; NORML Report on Reefer Madness.

and links

Michele Kubby emailed me earlier this week and reported
that Steve has lost 25 pounds since his arrest.
See Kubby.com
for updates.

Jail food is naturally a big part of the problem. (It is
reportedly even worse than hospital food.) He also has to cope with the pain of
an unusually persistent outbreak of shingles, which could be caused by stress,
or immuno-suppression from the adrenal cancer.

Legally, the case remains bizarre. The prosecution went
to great lengths to get Kubby’s misdemeanor conviction converted to a felony,
but they are trying to keep him from being sentenced as a felon, because that
could result in his being released under Prop 36, which requires probation for
the first two non-violent personal drug possession convictions. The next hearing
is still scheduled for March 3rd.

In some ways it is very regrettable – albeit
understandable – that this case is seen as being about medical cannabis. If
Steve were perfectly healthy, the abuse of his rights by the police, prosecutors
and courts of Placer County, and inescapably by the legal establishment of
California as a whole, should command the attention of anyone who cares about
“the rule of law.”

Indeed, if Kubby were a convicted murderer or terrorist,
his case would be getting more attention.

Earlier this week, California halted the execution of
Michael Morales, who confessed to the brutal 1983 torture, rape and murder of
17-year-old Terri Winchell.

Morales successfully argued that lethal injection could
theoretically cause pain, and won a last-minute reprieve on Tuesday when prison
officials could not have medical professionals
present to be sure that he did not suffer while being executed.

Acting on Morales’ appeal, U.S. District Judge Jeremy
Fogel ordered that medical professionals assist in carrying out the execution.
Two anesthesiologists agreed to observe but walked out, saying that even that
might violate their medical ethics.

Actor Mike Farrell, an anti-death penalty activist, said
the procedure “would have made Mr. Morales a medical experiment, a human guinea
pig…”

Perhaps like holding a man with cancer in jail and
giving him synthetic THC instead of allowing him to use the whole cannabis that
has kept him alive for decades???

In her last appeal to the Canadian courts before they
were thrown to the wolves, Michele Kubby said that Steve would be used in a
“medical experiment” by California. That is exactly what is happening, but there
are no famous actors or federal judges looking after Steve Kubby’s rights.

As for the organized medical profession… total silence.
It would be unethical for doctors to participate in an execution, but the jail
doctors in Placer County have no problem with putting Steve Kubby’s life at
risk. Similarly, the jail doctor in Seattle had no problem denying pain
medication to Steve Tuck – and all the other prisoners, who are still there.
See

Steve Tuck Is A Free Man. Vindicated. Recuperating from Five Year Ordeal. Will
Return to Mining Business in Canada After First Of Year.

California officials say they
will prove in court that lethal injection does not cause pain, so that
executions can resume. It would be simpler to just move them to Placer County
and say that they are medical cannabis patients and then no one will notice.

Meanwhile, the stories about the mystery of Overgrow.com
(“the world’s largest marijuana cultivation web site”) get more incredible.
Almost the only news report on Overgrow’s sudden disappearance was in the
Muskogeephoenix, (muskogeephoenix.com). Yes, as in Muskogee, Oklahoma. We
couldn’t make this up.

Leif M. Wright reported that the site’s owner in
Montreal, who went by the name Richard Calrisian, was really one Hratch
Baghdadlian. (By the way, I was amused to hear that some
people thought that the “RC” who ran Overgrow was Richard Cowan. No, the only
alias that I use is “Dick Cheney.”)

There are conflicting reports about whether RC or HB had
been arrested. Some people claim that he just decided to get out while he could.
Perhaps, but it would not make any sense simply to abandon a URL with that much
traffic, even if the nature of the site was completely changed. For example,
Internet porn sites would pay good money for the traffic. Or it could have
simply become an advocacy site. Right now it is losing value everyday.

Wright reports, “No one seemed to be able to find any
official records of his arrest, or even of an investigation.”

However, that really does not prove anything, especially
in Canada. Canadian courts can block the publication of information on criminal
cases, and the RCMP was mum. “We don’t confirm or deny if there is an ongoing
investigation…”

Nothing makes any sense, but what else is new? From now
on, I will take a pass on the rumors and the related unpleasantness.

Meanwhile on the warfront, you must have heard that the
streets are deserted because of the fear of violence. Yes, that is Iraq, but it
is also Nuevo Laredo. I have been writing about the problems in Mexico for
sometime.
Most recently, see

Lou Dobbs and the Second Mexican War. Has It Already Begun? Counting the Costs
of the Drugwar.

One reason that I have devoted so much attention to
Mexico, aside from its intrinsic importance to the US, has been my belief that
the media/political/business establishment would have to start counting the cost
of the drugwar when they saw the problems it is causing in Mexico.

On Tuesday of this week, there was an encouraging sign
from the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which distrusts every government
program except the drugwar.

George Melloan, a longtime columnist for the Journal
voiced some doubts. He is the “deputy editor, international, of The Wall Street
Journal, responsible for the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal Europe.”
Consequently, this is not just an Op-ed.

In “MUSINGS ABOUT THE WAR ON DRUGS” Melloan wrote, “Not only have the various efforts not stopped the
flow but they have begun to create friction with countries the U.S. would
prefer to have as friends.

As the Journal’s Mary O’Grady has written, a good
case can be made that U.S.-sponsored efforts to eradicate coca crops in Latin
America are winning converts among Latin peasants to the anti-American causes of
Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Their friend Evo Morales was
just elected president of Bolivia mainly by the peasant following he won by
opposing a U.S.-backed coca-eradication program.

Colombia’s huge cocaine business still thrives
despite U.S. combative efforts, supporting, among others, leftist guerrillas.

More seriously, Mexico is
being destabilized by drug gangs warring over access to the lucrative U.S.
market. A wave of killings of officials and journalists in places like Nuevo
Laredo and Acapulco is reminiscent of the 1930s Prohibition-era crime waves in
Al Capone’s Chicago and the Purple Gang’s Detroit...”

Prohibition-era? How quaint. When was that? It seems
like only yesterday. Come to think of it, it was yesterday, and today.

Nonetheless, let us be grateful that the WSJ is
noticing. When a Mexican city becomes more dangerous than Washington, DC… Well,
that is BAD FOR BUSINESS!

The serious point is that people are finally questioning
the cost of the war in Iraq, and the potentially counterproductive nature of the
so-called war on terror. When the business establishment asks the same questions
about the drugwar, and the war on cannabis especially, it is all over.
See

The Chaos of Cannabis Prohibition In France, DEAland and Latin America. More
Proof That It Is A Counterproductive Fraud.
and

Baghdad on The Bayou. Chernobyl for the American Political Class. Changing the
Context for the Drugwar. How Damaging This Fiasco Must Be To The Morale Of Our
Troops In Iraq.
and

Mexico, the Drugwar and the US National Interest: Never Mind Iraq; We Need To
Pay Attention to What We Are Doing to Our Southern Neighbor.
and

Bush Should Have John – Comical Ali – Walters Explain The Iraq War, Then The
Media Would Never Ask Any Embarrassing Questions. Doctrine Of Drug Czar
Infallibility? Blame Canada, Again.