Drug stamp taxes aren't new. But Iowa is making a killing on them. They've added some new twists and are raking in the dough.

Iowa law taxes all illegal drugs - from marijuana to cocaine. The state issues stamps, which vary in cost and color according to the drug, to be affixed to the drug to show the tax has been paid.

The stamps cost $5 a gram for marijuana, $750 per marijuana plant, $250 a gram for other drugs and $400 per 10 doses of drugs that come in tablet form, such as ecstasy. The minimum charge is $215.

Some may get a good chuckle out of the idea of drug users trotting down to the revenue department to buy a tax stamp - only seven batches of stamps have been sold (none were sold last year) - but the state is making a small fortune off of those who get caught without them.

In 2002, Iowa took in $1.3 million in drug stamp tax penalties and revenues.

In Iowa, failure to affix a drug stamp is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $7,500 fine - for those who aren't habitual offenders. The civil penalty is two times what the person would have paid to get a stamp; interest accrues at 7 percent a year from the day of assessment.

23 other states have a drug stamp tax but have not figured out how to implement it, without running into a probem with the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. In Iowa, it's not an issue: the purchasers of the stamps remain anonymous.

"If someone came in and purchased and it was obvious that they were making a purchase to actually put on their drugs, drug containers, we would not" call authorities, which the law prohibits, Mulvey said. "People come in to make a purchase, we keep our mouths shut

Iowa also wastes no money going after the indigent. They don't pursue those in prison or without assets. They did get $119k out of a college president. And they don't collect on out of state residents.

Protestors of the tax sound a familiar refrain: "No taxation without legalization."

Marijuana activist James Getman... attended "The Greater Mississippi River Valley Tea Party" held in Rock Island, Ill., about 10 years ago to protest the tax. "It was like the Boston tea party, we (were) rebelling against an unjust tax," said Getman, director of Iowa Norml, a nonprofit organization supporting the reform of marijuana laws.

However, Getman said, the group did not throw marijuana into the river in protest.

Martha Stewart's attempts to get higher-ups at the Justice Department to intervene with the U.S. Attorneys' Office in New York has failed. Justice Department officials refused to meet with her representatives.

Experts say it is likely the local federal proseuctors made Stewart a final plea offer, and that she wanted to go above them. They speculate the offer could involve jail time.

The terms of the proposed settlement have not been made public. But the government has been veering away from insider trading charges to the lesser offence of obstructing an investigation, according to people familiar with negotiations.

That would still have serious consequences: federal sentencing guidelines mean that Ms Stewart could face prison time. A criminal plea would also prevent her from serving as an officer of her publicly-held company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

The case could be settled this week. The prosecutors might yet elect to refer the case to the SEC for civil charges. We hope so. We can't imagine any benefit to the public of Ms. Stewart going to jail. Good luck, Martha.

Update: Several readers posted comments to this post, they got lost in the server move. Sorry about that. If you feel like, post some more.

[comments closed]

Here is more on the findings of the Inspector General's report released today concerning the Justice Department's treatment of immigrants following 9/11:

In general, the report found, every aspect of the system conspired to detain for long periods people who might have, at other times, been released on bond while they awaited hearings or quickly deported.

The war on terror," said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, "quickly turned into a war on immigrants."
The government used every procedural device at its disposal, the report said, including some of questionable legality, to ensure that people charged with immigration violations in connection with the attacks were not released until the Federal Bureau of Investigation "determined they posed no danger to the United States." They included delays in informing detainees of the charges against them, opposing bond and continuing detention long after judges ordered the detainees deported.

The general policy, which the Justice Department called "hold until cleared," might as well have been called "guilty until proven innocent," civil libertarians said. "It confirms our worst fears about what was going on," Professor Cole said. "At the highest levels of the Justice Department, the government made a conscious effort to exploit the immigration laws to lock up hundreds of people who ultimately proved to have no connection to terrorism whatsoever."

We'll end here with this finding:

The conditions under which some detainees were held, the report found, were quite harsh, particularly at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where 84 people were detained. Detainees and one corrections officer said it was common for officers to slam inmates against walls before videotaping their statements. Some were housed in brightly lighted cells around the clock. (emphasis supplied)

Once again, you can read the entire report here . A six page summary of the report bythe Justice Department is here. Our post earlier today on the report is here. Excerpts from the report are here.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear argument tomorrow on Zacarias Moussoui's claim that the Government has to allow him to interview captured Al Qaeda suspect (and alleged 9/11 coconspirator) Ramzi Binalshibh because Binalshibh has information that would show Moussaoui was not part of the 9/11 conspiracy with which he is charged. If convicted of that conspiracy, Moussaoui could get the death penalty.

Documents released today show that the trial judge, Lonnie Brinkema, has previously found that Binalshibh's testimony "could undermine the government's prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui and possibly prevent his execution."

The Justice Department has previously said Mr. bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni in his 30's, was the go-between for Mr. Moussaoui and the Sept. 11 hijackers.

But it is seeking to deny Mr. Moussaoui access to Mr. bin al-Shibh as a defense witness, asserting that an interview would endanger national security secrets and interrupt the government's campaign to pre-empt new terrorist attacks.

Judge Brinkema said in her opinion that in trying to deny Mr. Moussaoui access to captured terrorists , the Justice Department was seeking a "categorical, `wartime' exemption" to the Constitution's Sixth Amendment protections of criminal suspects, including their right to seek testimony from witnesses who might help prove their innocence.

She made clear she believed there was no such exemption, saying, "When the government elected to bring Moussaoui to trial in this civilian tribunal, it assumed the responsibility of abiding by well-established principles of due process. The government's good-faith interest in protecting national security does not categorically override a defendant's right to a fair trial."

In comments that could be referring to Mr. bin al-Shibh, Judge Brinkema said she was "fully satisfied" that testimony from at least one Qaeda figure now in American custody would be "both material and exculpatory" if believed by Mr. Moussaoui's jury.

We have written about Binalshibh and his relationship to Moussaoui since Binalshibh's capture. You can access all our posts here.

If the Government loses, it will likely drop its federal prosecution of Moussaoui and have him tried before a military tribunal. This was supposedly Ashcroft's showcase trial, the one that would establish that the U.S. could try terrorists in civilian courts.

The government and others boasted that Moussaoui would receive swift justice in an open courtroom as a showcase for the world about the fairness of the U.S. judicial system. Now those same people say privately that the system has been turned on its head.

Former Senator Gary Hart has an excellent op-ed in today's Boston Globe: Where is Bush Leading Us? We'll quote a little, but go read the whole thing.

....when the Bush administration decided to go after terrorism everywhere it fundamentally defined a new role for America in the world.

Iraq represented no immediate or unavoidable threat to the United States. We overthrew its government because key Bush administration officials convinced the president it was the next step in the war on terrorism. But they had decided Saddam Hussein must go a full decade before 9/11. The destruction of the World Trade towers, which Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with, simply gave them the excuse to resurrect an old agenda.

But the war on terrorism is now the excuse for America to assume imperial powers and to employ those powers even when our traditional allies oppose our actions....All this has transpired in the space of a few months without congressional hearings or review, any comprehensive statement by the administration, serious editorial discussion, or public debate over this new foreign policy. Throughout American history major departures in foreign policy have been the occasion for lively, even contentious debate. This has not been the case as the war on terrorism morphed into the centerpiece of a new imperial foreign policy.

[Thanks to Eric at Hamster for the link.]

Daily Kos and Nathan Newman debunk the GOP on 'states' rights'.

We agree. As the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ( NACDL) points out in its Legislative Priorities:

In recent years, crime bills have granted federal prosecutors greater and greater authority by creating more federal crimes out of historically state and local crimes. For example, domestic violence, carjacking and failure to pay child support are traditionally the prerogative of state and local governments; federal jurisdiction is unwarranted, unwise and contrary to the Constitution. Regarding these and other federalized crimes, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist observed that "one senses from the context in which they were enacted that the question of whether the states were doing an adequate job in this particular area was never seriously asked."

Before enacting federal criminal legislation, Congress should consider whether a federal interest is implicated and whether the state or local remedy is inadequate to address that interest. The impact on federal law enforcement and court resources should also be assessed.

For anyone not familiar with the term, "states' rights" refers to:

...a doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The term embraces both the doctrine of absolute state sovereignty that was espoused by John C. Calhoun and that of the so-called strict constructionist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, which reserves to the state governments all powers not specifically granted by that document to the federal government.

The Rave Act takes hold in Montana--read this email from a NORML member.

Well, you may or have not heard by now but the Rave Act has hit very close to home. On the 30th of May the Billings chapter of Montana NORML/SSDP had organized a highly publicized and expensive benefit concert featuring a number of local acts, the proceeds from which would have gone to help the medical marijuana campaign in Montana in 2004. Unfortunately, not only did my probation officer arrest me the day before, but the DEA came and shut things down the day of. The reason being of course that due to the RAVE Act anyone caught on the premisis with marijuana would automatically subjects our generous venue to a fine of $250,000.

Not only did this cause us to lose money, hope, and face, but it will seriously endanger the chance of trying anything like this again in Billings. What the hell happened to my first amendment?

The famous and mysterious blogger from Iraq, Salam Pax, is real. Journalist and author Peter Maas says Pax worked for him in Iraq as an interpreter and guide. [link via Instapundit]

Update: Salam Pax will be writing a bi-weekly column in the Guardian, beginning Wednesday. [link via Demagogue] You can read a profile of Salam here.

What's wrong with this picture, asks the National Coalition Against the Death Penalty?

Seven of the eight people facing serious execution dates in June are African American or Latino, demonstrating unfair bias in the way the death penalty is applied, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said today.

Between June 5 and June 27, eight people face serious execution dates in the states of Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. (A ninth person, Troy Kell of Utah, also has an execution date pending but is expected to receive a stay.) Of the eight people with serious dates, six are African American, one is Latino and one is white.

This just in:

DOJ Inspector General Thrown In Brig With Padilla, Hamdi Ashcroft, Rumsfeld Mum

Dateline: Washington, D.C.
June 2, 2003 3:24 p.m.

A few hours after the Justice Department's Inspector General, Glenn A. Fine, issued a 239-page report critical of the FBI and the INS in their handling of post-9/11 detainees, black helicopters landed on the lawn in front of Fine's office building. Minutes later Fine was bundled into one of the choppers by black-clad troopers. "They just barged in and grabbed him," sobbed Fine's secretary.

Responding to reporters' questions, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer confirmed that Mr. Fine has been designated an "enemy combatant" and would be detained without charges (and without the right to counsel) for the duration of the war on terror. "We can't afford to take any chances," stated Fleischer. "We took a second look at his resume and realized he had studied abroad at Oxford, in the U.K. Now, the Al Qaeda shoe bomber, Richard Reid, was also from the U.K., so you can see the obvious connection. If and when Mr. Fine is cleared of any and all connections with Mr. Reid and Al Qaeda, we will consider releasing him. But it could take a while to sort this all out."

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at an undisclosed location with Vice President Chaney, declined to comment.

* NOTE: This is a parody, courtesy of Immigration Lawyer Dan Kowalski -- but you weren't really sure, were you?

Today in Mother Jones: Forgotten in Memorial by Chris Appy

President Bush's Memorial Day address was suitably reverent, paying tribute to those Americans who have died fighting for their country. But, as Chris Appy writes, the president's rhetoric seems out of step with his administration's actual practice. Appy, who has been compiling an oral history of the Vietnam war, notes that the White House and the mainstream media seem to have little interest in keeping count of the GI's who continue to die in Iraq -- never mind the Iraqi civilians.

Bump and Update: The report is out and available here.
A six page summary of the report by DOJ is here. Time Magazine examines the report here.

Certain employees of the Justice Department have been advised to hire lawyers to defend them in a spate of lawsuits that could be filed shortly by people who were detained in the wake of 9/11.

CNN files this report.

******************

A new report by the Justice Department's investigatory arm, the Office of Inspector General, is scheduled for release Monday on "allegations by civil rights groups and private attorneys that those detained [in the aftermath of September 11] were being deprived of their rights."

The reported findings:

...Immigration and law-enforcement authorities were indifferent to civil rights in the frenzied effort to investigate suspects and to avoid another catastrophe, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

....One conclusion, according to a Justice Department official, is that several dozen people were held beyond the 90-day Immigration and Naturalization Service deadline for deporting or releasing detainees.

The official said that in some cases, the report concludes that the delays were the product of bureaucratic bungling. The official also said, however, that a number of violations may have been ''deliberate.''

[thanks to Patriot Watch for finding the link to the report]