Drug WarRant

Obama Drug Control Policy: Gets Called Out For Not Meeting Its Own Standards

Excellent article by Mayura Iyer at PolicyMic discusses the recent GAO report that found that the government has made no progress towards its drug policy goals, and also talks about the disconnect in the newest strategy.

Despite hailing his plan as a “Drug Policy for the 21st Century,” Kerlikowske’s reforms are incomplete, as it completely neglects the issues surrounding marijuana use. The administration has yet to take a stance on medicinal and recreational use of marijuana, arguably its most complex drug issue to tackle within the problem. The report doesn’t even mention marijuana once, despite the fact that the number of states that have legalized marijuana is approaching 40%. Additionally, while the approach the White House has taken claims to be “science-based,” the amount of bureaucratic red tape scientists must go through to perform research on the medicinal qualities of marijuana prevents any effective research from being performed, an issue the report also failed to address.

Moreover, the National Drug Control Budget for 2014 released by the White House seems to value drug punishment over treatment for addiction, as 58% of the resources allocated for its drug policies are used for punishment and interdiction, while 42% is allocated for treatment and prevention. While this is a slight improvement from the ratio presented in the 2013 budget (62% to 38%), it’s nowhere near enough for the nation’s drug control policy to be headed towards substantial improvement.

The drug czar is fooling a number of people in the media with his latest PR blitz claiming to be leading a huge shift in policy (which is nothing more than talking about treatment while keeping the same old prohibition), but it’s good to see that it’s not swallowed whole by everyone.

Poor Cliff Kinkaid. He’s such an incredible tool. Check out his latest: How Pothead Terrorists Almost Outsmarted the Police

You can tell he’s just salivating at the notion of a story that indicts marijuana use, terrorism and the Obama administration all at once, and he’s so pathetically, desperately, trying to make the pieces fit together to match his desires. He can’t even see how nonsensical it all is.

Here’s a prime example:

The dope aspect of the plot helps explain why they seemed to have no getaway plan, although we now learn they wanted to get to New York City to kill more people. Perhaps their minds were too scrambled to get to New York City. On the other hand, despite the reassuring claims from the media that authorities have found no evidence of foreign help, it is apparent that they did somehow master the art of making somewhat sophisticated bombs requiring timing devices. Perhaps other accomplices remain on the loose. We have no way to tell for sure, since the Obama Administration has read the captured brother his rights, making it less likely he will spill all the beans.

Jacob Sullum does a nice job with Obama Ends the War on Drugs… Again

Shepard, for example, considers this quote from Kerlikowske to be evidence of a real breakthrough: “Drug policy should be rooted in neuroscience, not political science.” […]

By describing drug use as a disease—as something that happens to people against their will, rather than something they choose to do—Obama and his underlings seek to persuade us that using violence to stop people from consuming certain substances does not interfere with liberty at all. To the contrary, such coercion promotes true liberty by freeing people from the slavery of their addictions. Seems pretty fucking political to me.

If Obama were as concerned about the racially disproportionate impact of draconian drug sentences as Shepard claims, wouldn’t he have managed by now, more than four years into his presidency, to have commuted more than one?

Link

Tamerlan Tsarnaev delved deeply into religion in recent years at the urging of his mother, who feared he was slipping into a life of marijuana, girls and alcohol.

So… how did that work out?

The Washington Post notes that the Drug Czar plans to outline the drug control strategy today at Johns Hopkins. Nation’s drug czar to outline drug policy reform emphasizing public health

“Drug policy reform.”

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — President Barack Obama’s new strategy for fighting the nation’s drug problem will include a greater emphasis on using public health tools to battle addiction and diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons, under reforms scheduled to be outlined by the nation’s drug czar Wednesday.

Well, the strategy is available online now: 2013 National Drug Control Strategy

And right there on the front page: Reform!

And all throughout, you see the standard buzzwords

“an approach that rejects the false choice between an enforcement-centric “war on drugs” and drug legalization.”

“evidence-based public health and safety initiatives”

“collaborative, balanced, and science-based approach”

“emphasizing prevention and access to treatment over incarceration, pursing “smart on crime” rather than “tough on crime” approaches to drug-related offenses”

“While law enforcement will always play a vital role in protecting our communities from drug-related crime and violence, we simply cannot incarcerate our way out of the drug problem. Put simply, an enforcement-centric “war on drugs” approach to drug policy is counterproductive, inefficient, and costly.”

Yes, it all sounds good unless you actually look at the budget and see that we’re spending just as much on enforcement and supply-side interdiction as we ever have, and we’re spending more on those than on treatment and prevention. (We spent 9.4 billion on domestic enforcement in 2012 and they’re asking for 9.5 billion in 2014. The FY 14 budget devotes 58% of drug-control spending to punishment and interdiction, compared with 42% for treatment and prevention. Link)

The administration wants to pretend to be drug policy reformers because they know full well that the public doesn’t like the drug war.

But all this administration can do is pretend, because apparently the drug war is too valuable to them (politically and/or financially) to even cut a little bit.

I’m reminded again of the line in “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou”:

Junior: A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some.

Yes, maybe you should. But this isn’t it.

A truly outstanding piece by Tony O’Neill: Why Good Parents Should Support Drug Legalization

As an ex-junkie, I know how harmful addiction is. As a father, I want to protect my daughter from harm. Making all drugs legal will help.

It’s a powerful piece that’s direct and to the point. It’s not only a message to parents, but to the community that deals with addiction and that has too often lined up on the side of harm. And he has no patience for the nonsense that comes from the Drug Czar and SAM.

The addiction community’s number one priority has to be convincing the powers that be to end drug prohibition. Only when drug use is classified as a medical rather than a legal issue can resources finally be focused on helping to solve, not worsen, our problems.

Drugs are either illegal or they’re not. Drug users are either criminals or they’re not. There is no “third way,“ and “compassionate prohibition” is an oxymoron. We have a moral imperative to speak out.

… or at least I hope not.

I have for you another ridiculous OpEd, this one from USC Annenberg. Against Marijuana Legalization

This particular OpEd focuses mostly on concerns regarding the inevitable commercialization of marijuana.

As with alcohol, the government will then have a vested interest in its continued distribution and sale in order to maintain the influx of revenue that it will provide. This means that intensive advertising will likely be permitted, leading to the commercialization of the drug and commodification of the culture around it in order to have more mass appeal.

Advertising agencies do not try to promote the consumer’s well being; their job requires them to use all means available to convince people to purchase their product. Just walk around any major city and you will see billboards telling you how drinking will make you cooler and more likeable. I doubt advertisers would have much trouble figuring out ways to make smoking weed seem like a necessary component to enjoy life and have fun.

When did this start being a real argument in this country?

And we’re not just hearing it in student newspaper OpEds.

The essence of this argument is:

Oh, we’re so sorry, but we’re stuck with this horrible First Amendment that lets people try to convince you to do things, so to make it better, we’re going to take away a lot of your other freedoms so you won’t accidentally be convinced to do something that might not be good for you.

When did we vote to make our country some kind of Benign Receivership? And who decided what busybodies were given our custodial responsibility?

I seem to recall that our country was founded on the premise of establishing a government that would secure for us the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, not one that would paternalistically fit us with a protective coccoon.

It’s bad enough that as a society we’ve become pathetically afraid of terrorists. Are we also going to live life in fear of… advertisers?

Tweet from Transform Drug Policy

Trying to blame the Denver 420 shootings on marijuana is like trying to blame the Boston bombings on running #growup

Sorry to subject you to reporting from The Mail (if you follow the link), but they’ve got the quotes from Susan Sarandon’s Huffington Post video.

[Susan Sarandon] said in a new interview that making the plant illegal is ‘racist’ and a ‘waste of money.’ […]

‘I believe in individual rights, I mean, I would like to see everybody be able to smoke pot. That’s a waste of our money to incarcerate all those people. I’m totally a libertarian in that sense,’ the actress said in a HuffPost Live interview on Wednesday. […]

‘It’s completely racist, you’re picking up everybody at the lower level because the mandatory drug laws let you trade in to get off,’ she said. ‘People at the bottom are filling up our jails, mostly people of colour… you’re wasting taxpayers money and allowing drug cartels to make money.’ […]

‘You never hear of anybody robbing stores when they’re too high, they don’t drive cars, alcohol causes more damage to your body, so it’s just a hangup from ignorance that’s become politicised.’

Sarandon is a fairly powerful very liberal celebrity activist, and her voice actively behind legalization could be good to help liberals stop putting legalization on the back burner.

I got to meet with Susan once — we both had some time to kill at LaGuardia airport and chatted for awhile. She was on her way to open her newest ping-pong social club (SPiN) – this one in Milwaukee. Quite delightfully personable.