Turns out cocaine and coca leaves have been getting a bum rap. A Peru firm, National Coca Co., exports coca leaves and says if the U.S. allows Coca Cola to use the leaf, it should allow it for other uses.

ENACO, as [the company] is known for its Spanish acronym, is the Peruvian government's official buyer and merchandiser of coca leaves and one of only two companies in the world to produce refined cocaine for medical uses.

We have used coca in this country for 4,000 years. It is not a drug, but because of the negative image associated with one product it is considered evil,'' [General Manager] Hinostroza said in a recent interview. ``We are ready to export and have our products already in English for the U.S. market. We just have to get this prohibition lifted.''

What's good about coca?

Peasant farmers in the high Andes traditionally chew coca as a nutritional supplement and energy booster and use it in religious and fortune-telling rituals. Besides cocaine, which is one of 14 alkaloids in the leaf, coca has a long list of vitamins and minerals. Medically, cocaine is used as an anaesthetic in eye surgery.

Who can get some?

Cocaine, coca leaves and teas are all available for sale on ENACO's website. But there are strict controls on the cocaine, which ENACO sells for $1,000 a pound but which would bring about $50,000 on the illegal market. ''Purchase of cocaine has to be approved by drug-enforcement agencies in the importing country. We are very careful with the lab and with the exports,'' Hinostroza said.

A New Jersey multinational company, Stepan Co., also produces cocaine --from coca leaves it purchases from ENACO. Stepan has a special license from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration allowing it to import coca leaves. The company says it uses the leaves to make cocaine for ocular surgery. ENCAO says it does more, and wants a piece of the action.

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Who knew? Dell Computers has been using prison labor in its recycling program. Now, follwoing complaints by environmental advocates, the company has promised to stop.

Dell, the world's largest seller of PC's, said it had canceled its contract with Unicor, a branch of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that employs prisoners for electronics recycling and other industries.

Last week, an environmental group in California released a report criticizing Dell's reliance on prison labor. The group, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, said in its report that inmates who work at the prison recycling operation were not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act and were paid from 20 cents to $1.26 an hour.

The organization's report, entitled "Corporate Strategies for Electronics Recycling: A Tale of Two Systems," commended Hewlett-Packard for using "state of the art" practices in cooperation with the commercial recycling industry.

While promising to halt the use of prison labor, Dell still defends it:

The company said that prisoners involved in the work program, which is entirely voluntary, have a far lower rate of recidivism.

That's the best they can offer as an excuse for paying $.20 an hour?

Update: The Rocky Mountain News carries an editorial Saturday, Don't Scrimp on Prison Labor. It has nothing to do with Dell, but with the Colorado legislature's budget-cutting move of reducing prisoner wages from $.85 a day to $.60 a day for jobs such as cooking, sewing uniforms, and building furniture. As a result, the inmate-cooks at the Sterling Correctional Center staged a walkout. They were punished with solitary confinement, where they remain.

A new website, in association with the MIT Technology Lab will keep tabs on government. The program, aptly called the Government Information Awareness Program (GIA), debuts today. You can access its website here.

Its creators hope it will become a Google of government, a massive Internet clearinghouse of information to help citizens track their leaders as effectively as their leaders track them.

GIA hopes to create an enormous but self-sustaining community where users do the work of keeping it running and credible. Its creators at Media Lab -- a research center whose eclectic projects bridge technology, the arts and media -- view the project not just as a way to pool the collective wisdom of government watchdogs but also as a tool to counter new government technologies that are consolidating information about citizens.

Many in blogtopia (yes, Skippy coined that phrase) are talking about the life sentence imposed on an Oklahoma man for spitting on a police officer. See, Eugene at Volokh Conspiracy, Ken Hammers at CrimLaw and Matt Rustler at Stop the Bleating.

All three have updated (although happily not entirely disavowed) their original criticism of the sentence, having learned that the offender had prior convictions for rape and burglary, and bit the officer when spitting on him. They point out that the life sentence was allowed by the state's repeat offender laws. Allowed, yes. Required, no. We'd point out there's a big difference.

This Houston Chronicle article makes it clear that it was not a mandatory repeat offender sentence, but rather, one imposed by the Judge, who followed the jury's recommendation, made after 15 minutes of deliberation, despite the prosecutor's and defense attorney's requests for a lesser sentence:

Creek County Associate District Judge April Sellers White followed the recommendation of a jury for the maximum sentence against John C. Marquez under a law that makes it a felony to place bodily fluids on law enforcement officers. White rejected a prosecution request for a 25-year prison term and a defense request for a four-year term.

Yes, biting and spitting is bad. But both the officer and defendant were tested for communicable diseases after the incident and both tested negative. Also, according to the officer's testimony, the biting occurred while the officer was physically attempting to restrain the defendant from spitting a second time. Thus, it was a defensive gesture.

The sentence is excessive, and we are offended that a judge would give credence to a jury who voted for life in prison after 15 minutes of deliberation given the facts of this case--especially when the lawyers on both sides asked for a lesser sentence.

Even though this isn't a three-strikes sentence, we will take this opportunity to direct interested persons to Families to Amend California's Three-Strikes, which is filled with horror stories of inmates receiving undeserved life sentences.

An audio tape purportedly made on June 14 by Saddam Hussein has surfaced on Al Jazeera in which "Saddam" claims he is alive in Iraq and fighting.

No confirmation was immediately available that the voice on the tape was indeed that of Saddam, who has not been seen in public since he and his government were ousted from power on April 9 during the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

The poor-quality recording, which sounded very much like Saddam, urged Iraqis to support resistance against the "infidel" U.S. presence and not to aid the occupiers. It also warned the Americans of more bloodshed to come.

The tape is 20 minutes long. Al Jazeera played ten minutes of it on tv. Here is the text of the tape.

Will Bush and Rumsfeld listen?

The European Commission urged the United States on Friday to avoid applying the death penalty to six foreign captives designated by President Bush to be tried before U.S. military commissions.

The 15-nation bloc is a fierce opponent of capital punishment and the EU's executive Commission said use of the death penalty could undermine international support for the so-called U.S.-led war on terrorism.

``The death sentence cannot be applied by military courts as this would make the international coalition lose the integrity and credibility it has so far enjoyed,'' said Commission spokesman Diego de Ojeda, recalling comments by External Relations chief Chris Patten.

Reuters reports here that two British citizens are among those targeted by Bush for military trial and possible execution.

Britain's Foreign Office said Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi were among six prisoners at Camp X-ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whom President Bush designated on Thursday for military trial.

....Human rights campaigners questioned whether they would receive a fair trial. "The U.S. Department of Defense will appoint the judges and prosecutors, control the defense and make up the rules of the trial," said Stephen Jakobi, Director of Fair Trials Abroad. "We have got to the point where the hallmarks of the Cuban exercise are those of a failed and cynical public relations stunt," he added.

The Mirror reports that pleas to Bush to eliminate the death penalty as an option for the British men have "fallen on deaf ears."

Is it just a coincidence that Bush makes this announcement on July 3, when Americans are embarking on a weekend long celebration of their independence and less attuned than usual to the news? No. This is the sneakiest and most secretive Administration in recent times, if not in history. We'd put nothing past them.

Retired General Wesley Clark was interviewed this week on his presidential aspirations. He's thinking hard about it, promising a decision by the end of the summer.

Clark would be "honored," he said, to be considered for the No. 2 spot, but right now he is pondering the presidency. "Those young kids who organized the draft movement, I have to give them an answer," he said.

We think Clark is a strong possibility for the VP slot. If he attaches himself to one declared candidate now, and that candidate doesn't get the Democratic nod, it might lessen his chances of being chosen by the winning candidate.

By launching his own presidential bid, he remains available to be chosen for the VP slot by any one of the others. So, we're leaning towards thinking Clark will announce his run for the Presidency.

This gets our vote for injustice of the day, but it's just noon. Keep in mind the man is in jail only for violating probation in a drug possession case:

A judge has denied a request from a drug offender dying of AIDS to be released early from jail to spend his last months with his family.
Jean Felix, 41, was sent to jail until Sept. 5 for violating probation in a drug possession case. But doctors say he will die in anywhere from a few days to two months.

The defendant's lawyer made the request at the suggestion of the jail. The prosecutor didn't oppose it.

If you live in Florida, remember this Broward Circuit Judge's name: Cheryl Aleman. This decision apparently is typical of her rulings:

Since joining the bench in January 2002, Aleman has been criticized twice by the Fourth District Court of Appeal for decisions in dependency cases in which the appellate court found she was too strict with her rulings.

Maybe a law student or other person with Lexis access will post some details of those prior rulings. If we get the time, we might as well. We're curious --are Florida judges elected? Do they face retention by election?

The Gainesville Sun has a series of articles on the Florida death penalty today. Here are the statistics, year by year. Here are the stats on current death row inmates. Here are the facts about Florida's death row.

Virginia Lazarerle is the only woman inmate on Florida's death row. She continues to proclaim her innocence.

In Stacking the Deck, the Gainesville Sun editorializes that if Florida insists on keeping the death penalty, it needs to make sure that defendants get adequate lawyers. Commenting on last week's Supreme Court decision granting a new trial to a death row inmate because of ineffective assistance of counsel, the paper writes:

The court's ruling is an important one in that it will oblige lower courts to give more scrutiny to the quality of a death row inmate's defense. "We know that the death penalty is generally not reserved for the prisoners who commit the worst crimes, but rather for those with the worst lawyers," says Bonowitz. "Maybe this ruling will change that a little bit."

Hopefully, it will also prompt Gov. Jeb Bush to reconsider his "cost-saving" plan to begin firing the state-employed lawyers who now handle capital appeals in favor of turning that work over to private attorneys. Death penalty cases are complicated matters that require considerable expertise and experience. The notion of subcontracting that work out in piecemeal fashion to private lawyers who may or may not specialize in death penalty case law is truly penny wise-pound foolish public policy.

John Kerry on medical marijauna Tuesday night :

After the opening of his New Hampshire campaign headquarters last night, U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) told medical marijuana advocate Linda Macia, who suffers from nerve damage, fibromyalgia, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, and degenerative arthritis, that he favors legal access to medical marijuana for seriously ill patients and a study to determine appropriate federal policy.

That makes two of the Democratic contenders (Kucinich is the other) who support medical marijuana. On the other side....

Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who worked to kill a medical marijuana bill in Vermont last year, has said he favors an FDA study but has refused to protect patients from arrest. In May, U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) told the San Francisco Chronicle he has no objection to the Justice Department's arresting patients. U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-MO) have previously supported legislation condemning state medical marijuana laws. The rest of the Democratic field has yet to take a position.

President Bush has designated six prisoners for possible trial by military tribunal.

Unlike traditional criminal trials, the proceedings of military tribunals can be kept much more secret. The United States has not convened such a tribunal since World War II. The prospect of secret trials drew criticism from the chairman of the American Bar Association's task force on the treatment of detainees in the war on terrorism.

"The State Department issues a report every year in which it criticizes those nations that conduct trials before secret military tribunals," said Neal Sonnett, also a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "What I'm hearing sounds alarmingly like something similar."

"If they're going to be charged by military tribunals then they have a right to full due process and the public has a right to know who's being tried and what the charges are and the government has an obligation to run these tribunals in a fair and transparent way."

Bush won't identify the six. It's possible they could go to trial and be convicted without anyone knowing who they are. The Defense Department will only say they are all in U.S. custody.

"It's a Draconian system of justice that is almost guaranteed to get convictions, including a possible death penalty," Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights said Thursday.

Update: Don't miss Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Electrolite on the decison.

Law Professor Eugene Volokh, of the very popular Volokh Conspiracy, fills in for vacationing Glenn Reynolds on Glenn's MSNBC weblog, devoting an entire column to his opposition to the Victim's Rights Amendment. Volokh says he is generally a Republican law and order type, but this Amendment is wrong.

We agree entirely, for the same reasons, and more.