(Raw Story) A woman serving a short sentence in a Houston, Texas, jail for possession of marijuana died in custody over the weekend, and officers are not saying how or why.

The 29-year-old, identified as Theresa Anthony, had expected to spend just two and a half weeks behind bars in the Harris County lockup. On Saturday, Cynthia Prude, Theresa’s mother, received a phone call from the jail’s Chaplain informing her that her daughter was dead.

Theresa Anthony, victim of prohibition

Prude has not been allowed to see the body, nor has the Harris County Sheriff’s Department even spoken with her, according to area media.

On 4 June 2009, the Justice Department concluded a 15 months-long investigation into the Harris County facility and determined in the subsequent 27-page report that over 142 prisoners had died there since 2001. Most expired due to lack of medical care, the report claims.

The Associated Press noted that after the Justice Department declined to make its findings public, The Houston Chronicle was able to obtain a copy, which it released on the Internet.

Wait a minute, how is this possible? According to our last Drug Czar, John Walters, finding a non-violent offender in jail or prison for simple possession is like finding a unicorn.

Theresa Anthony could be you or me. Or could have been a young Barack Obama. Just another dead unicorn, expiring in a cage for the crime of preferring the safest choice of social relaxant or therapeutic medicine.

President Obama, if you can stop giggling for a moment, could you please put “legalization” back on the table? Director Kerlikowske, could you please find the time to add “decriminalization” to your vocabulary? You have the power to see to it that Theresa Anthony is the last unicorn to die in a cell.

In a revelation that I’m sure will come as a surprise to absolutely no one, it turns out that ex-Drug Czar John Walters is still full of s—-t.

Responding on CNN last night to California Gov. Schwarzenegger’s call to debate the merits of taxing and regulating the adult use of marijuana (E-mail the Governor here), Walters demonstrated that he remains an unrepentant liar — even though he’s no longer paid by the federal government to be one.

To summarize: in under five minutes Walters manages to falsely claim that:

Today’s marijuana is far stronger — and thus more dangerous — than ever before. Actually, the Feds’ own data indicates that the average strength of domestic cannabis hasn’t changed in over ten years; that marijuana — regardless of THC content — is relatively non-toxic and incapable of causing a fatal overdose; and that most folks — when given the choice — prefer to consume milder marijuana over highly potent pot.

More people seek drug treatment for pot than all other drugs combined. Technically true, but only because between 60 percent and 70 percent of individuals enrolled in substance abuse ‘treatment’ for cannabis are small-time pot offenders who were referred there by the criminal justice system. In fact, according to the latest federal data, nearly four in ten people admitted to substance abuse treatment programs for cannabis did not even use it in the month prior to their admission.

Nobody is actually in jail for marijuana-related offenses. Ah yes, the “unicorn” theory. Never mind those 50,000 or state and federal inmates serving time for pot offenses the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics talks about. In John Walters fantasy world, they simply don’t exist.

Consuming cannabis leads to violent behavior and other criminal acts. Apparently, when pot doesn’t make you “docile and unresponsive, to the point of helplessness,” it makes you unpredictably violent. Or not. Look, I asked this question on Monday and I’ll ask it again: Read about any gang-related violence surrounding the sale of alcohol lately? How about vicodin or paxil? Didn’t think so. Consuming marijuana doesn’t cause violent or criminal behavior, but criminals and violent people do engage in the black market trafficking of illicit drugs. The irony, of course, is that the very ‘violence’ that Walters claims to lament — that is, when he and his colleagues over at the DEA aren’t hailing the increase in drug-related violence as a good thing — is a direct consequences of the public policy (prohibition) he reflexively endorses.

**Side note: Maine Gov. John Baldacci just signed legislation into law on Friday making the possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana a civil violation, punishable by a fine and no jail time. (Read more about this law in this week’s NORML News stories.) Expect to hear Walters ranting and raving about marijuana cartels setting up shop in the Pine Tree state any day now.

Finally, for good measure, Walters even resurrects the claim that there are now more medical marijuana dispensaries in the city of San Fransisco than there are Starbucks — an allegation so absurd that the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper laughed it out of the room some six months ago.

So here’s my question: Gov. Schwarzenegger — as well as U.S. Senator Jim Webb — have called for a “debate” on whether or not to legalize the use and distribution of cannabis for adults. Webster’s dictionary defines “debate” as “to argue opposing views.” But as Walters’ comments so adeptly illustrate, the opposing side has no actual “views,” it only has lies and seven decades of bulls—-t.

Therefore, I say we skip the public debate and go straight to the public ‘debunk’ (verb: to expose the fallacy or fraudulence of). I’m sure we can find Mr. Walters a seat at the head of the table.

By Dominic Holden, NORML Board Member

Originally published by the Seattle Stranger’s Slog.

Last week White House appointee John Walters claimed on C-SPAN that finding people in jail for “first-time nonviolent possession of marijuana… is like finding a unicorn … because it doesn’t exist.” I had a hunch that some of the 775,138 people arrested for pot possession last year were actually unicorns…

But the drug czar probably assumed that it’s a freebie to call people with criminal convictions anything he wants, because they’re likely to be too ashamed to defend themselves. That’s certainly true, but it didn’t take me long to find credible people willing to vouch for the existence of first-time, non-violent marijuana offenders—excuse me, unicorns.

In just one hour, I’ve found five people who have seen the Drug Czar’s unicorns with their own eyes. Here are Slog’s exclusive unicorn reports:

Andy Robertson, criminal defense attorney for 10 years at the Rosen Law Firm in Seattle.I have had it happen where [my client] goes to jail where they have one joint on them, and they have never gone to jail before. This is their first and only brush with the law. I don’t think that I have ever had a case where the person charged for marijuana is anything but the most peaceful person you can imagine.

A judge who I spoke to recently said that about every afternoon, he’ll put at least one person a day in jail for possession of marijuana or paraphernalia. He’s bee pro tem-ing for at least five years.

Sunil Abraham, public defender for the King County Defender Association. When asked how many people he has personally encountered with no prior record who have served time in jail for a nonviolent marijuana-possession charge, here’s what he said: I’d say 50 people and they have all done time in jail. I’d guess that if you obtained the booking history for the last 100 marijuana arrests for somebody who has no criminal history, 80 percent of them do time in jail. It may be one day, but they serve time in jail. [Police] don’t commonly arrest for marijuana and release; you are going to go to jail.

Alison Holcomb, drug policy director of the ACLU of Washington.
According to data compiled by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and requested by the ACLU of Washington, Washington police agencies reported 11,553 arrests for possession of marijuana in 2007. Misdemeanor possession of marijuana carries a mandatory day in jail, and up to ninety. Data obtained from the Washington State Patrol’s Identification and Criminal History Section reveals that 3,588 convictions for misdemeanor marijuana possession were entered in Washington courts in 2007.

Muraco Kyashana-tocha, works in the law offices of Jeffrey Steinborn and Douglas Hiatt, the city’s leading marijuana-defense attorneys. I know of two cases that were handled … in the last year. They were both over in Redmond. I know both of them by name. One gram [possessed] by one of them, and 12 grams by the other one. They were squeaky clean: no record no juvenile record. I know a lot of people who went to jail while their case was processing. They may be in jail over the weekend for three days. A lot of the people charged with misdemeanor [possession] cannot afford $3000-5000 for legal representation, so they are doing time.

Jeffrey Steinborn, the city’s leading marijuana defense attorney. Walters is either shamefully ignorant, or intentionally lying to us. Sometimes we get lucky because a big shot in white shirt shows up. Sometimes the prosecutor will say the statute is mandatory, so they say, “Fuck you, your client’s going to jail.” Sometimes the judge will convert that to community service but the law says they can’t. To avoid that day in jail is the exception rather than the rule.

Surely, more of these magical animals walk among us. Have you seen a unicorn? Are you a unicorn? Put your unicorn-sighting story in comments or send me an email.