"There are times when it seems like we’re moving in the direction of sanity in the drug war, at least when it comes to marijuana. These cases are a good reminder that in most of the country, things are as bad as they’ve ever been"

Kafkaesque, Orwellian insanity.  In Texas, police search woman’s vagina for marijuana - The Washington Post: ""A Spring woman claims sheriff’s deputies violated constitutional protections by conducting a body cavity search on the concrete of a Texaco gas station parking lot during a routine traffic stop in late June. Charnesia Corley, a 21-year-old African American, was driving in northern Harris County around 10:30 p.m. on June 21 when a male deputy pulled her over for allegedly running a stop sign. He said he smelled marijuana, handcuffed Corley, put her in his vehicle and searched her car for almost an hour. He didn’t find any pot, according to her attorney, Sam Cammack...

Incredibly, a spokesperson for the Harris County Sheriff’s Department told a local TV station that “the deputies did everything as they should.” And so there you have it. Holding a woman down and forcibly penetrating her vagina to search for pot is official policy in Harris County. Keep in mind that under Texas law, it takes more than four ounces of marijuana to bring a felony charge... It seems doubtful that a woman could be casually driving around with that much marijuana stuffed into her vagina. So Corley was forced to the ground, stripped, and penetrated to search for evidence that at worst would have amounted to a misdemeanor. Which means that the Harris County Sheriff’s Department believes its perfectly acceptable to allow a stranger to forcibly probe a woman’s vagina in order to prevent her from possessing a personal-use quantity of marijuana. And even that happened without a warrant, based only on one deputy’s claim to have smelled the drug...

 There are times when it seems like we’re moving in the direction of sanity in the drug war, at least when it comes to marijuana. These cases are a good reminder that in most of the country, things are as bad as they’ve ever been. A majority of the Americans now believe that pot should be legal. In a few states, it already is, at least under state law. A majority also believe that even harder drugs should be treated as a medical condition, not a crime. Yet the government is still waging terrifying raids on people because of pot. It’s still performing sexual assault because pot. It’s still taking children away from their parents because of pot. And it’s still killing people because of pot."