Drug WarRant

“Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know” by Jonathan P. Caulkins, Angela Hawken, Beau Kilmer, and Mark A.R. Kleiman

This is part two of my review. Please read part one to see where I talk about some excellent things that are in this book, along with some general problems. Today, I want to take a closer look at one particular small passage.

It has to do with whether or not most of those who are likely to be pre-disposed to dependent drug behavior will have already found their opportunity to become dependent prior to legalization, meaning that even if legalization results in a large increase in the number of users, it won't necessarily result in a large increase in the number of abusers.

This is something I've talked about often as a response to those who fear the unknown spike in post-legalization usage (for all currently illicit drugs), and the book addresses it, sort of…

But isn't everyone with an addictive personality already addicted to something?

Sorry, but this argument for legalization is mere wishful thinking. While it's true that people with drug addictions tend to have some personality traits in common, many of those traits (such as secretiveness) tend to develop and become entrenched only after the addictions–as effects, not causes. Certainly there are differences across individuals and population groups in susceptibility to specific addictive behaviors, and some of those differences seem to have a genetic basis. But those are tendencies, not the irrevocable decrees of fate.

The answer fails to address or (perhaps) understand the question.

As the authors note, there are certain people who, due to genetics or due to their “situation” in life, are more susceptible to dependent behaviors. These people don't need legalization for those behaviors to surface. Alcohol is legal and readily available to anyone. Illicit drugs are also far from difficult to obtain. There are very few Americans who haven't had opportunities to partake in some kind of drug, and therefore, the opportunity to feed any latent dependent tendencies.

It is highly unlikely that marijuana legalization, for example, will result in someone with a predisposition to dependency trying drugs for the first time.

Take a look at the same thing from the reverse side. What are the marginal effects of prohibition? Are drug abusers likely to be easily deterred by prohibition? Of course not. The most likely to be deterred are the casual users – the equivalent of wine-with-dinner-and-a-drink-with-friends-after-the-show-Friday-night users. Illegality deters the people who are the least problematic, and has very little effect on the problem users. So when you legalize, you are lifting the deterrence specifically for the least problematic users.

This means that while an increase in post-legalization use may result in some increase in dependency, it would likely be a far, far smaller group.

Let's say, for example, that 10% of those who currently use marijuana have some kind of dependency issues (which, as we know, are very mild with marijuana). The book uses 9%, but 10% will be easier. Now, let's assume that legalization will result in a 50% increase in the number of marijuana users. Clearly, based on the above arguments, there's no way that 10% of that increased group will be abusers. It would be a fraction of that. But let's say, for the purpose of argument, that a full 6% of that increased group will be abusers (way too high, in my opinion, but let's look at it anyway).

See the chart below. The first bar shows that for every 100 users, 10 are dependent (the remainder are labeled “recreational”). The second shows when you increase the number of users by 50% (with 6% of the increased population portion as abusers) that for every 150 users, 13 are dependent.

As this graphically demonstrates, even in a pessimistic analysis, even large increases in users post-legalization are unlikely to result in a world full of zombies.

Add to this the fact that post-legalization, all efforts can be directed at helping those who are dependent, as opposed to the prohibition sledge hammer of going after all users. There are benefits to regulated legalization that can actually reduce the number of dependent drug users. We could even theoretically see a net savings. This is critical, as that would undermine the only weak argument left for the paternalistic prohibitionist.

To be fair, the authors of the book (for the most part) do not seem overly concerned about a massive explosion of dependent marijuana users, even while overestimating the numbers. They note that marijuana dependence is significantly milder. But their inflation of likely dependent numbers is very concerning to the overall analysis in the book, and additionally, the marginal effects will be even more important to understand as we get into discussions down the road of legalized and regulated cocaine and heroin.

The author who appears most concerned about increased numbers of marijuana users is Jon Caulkins, who seems to fear an epidemic of damaged children of stoned parents.

I'm not sure where he gets that fear. It's not something you hear much about, except in ridiculous over-the-top ONDCP-funded television commercials.

It makes me wonder if there are a lot of those damaged kids who have now grown up…

Yeah, my childhood was horrible. My parents laughed a lot, and they made us listen to jazz and Pink Floyd and then we'd eat ice cream. And we had to go to music festivals…. I don't want to talk about it.

…

Still to come– I'll talk about the section on marijuana and alcohol.

“Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know” by Jonathan P. Caulkins, Angela Hawken, Beau Kilmer, and Mark A.R. Kleiman

This is part one of my review. I hope to address some additional specific areas in future posts.

First of all, let me start by saying that this is probably the best writing about marijuana legalization that has ever been done, that wasn't written by an outright legalization advocate.

This may be a surprise to regular readers of Drug WarRant, who know that I often take (even vehement) exception to many positions held by the so-called “academics” of U.S. drug policy writing.

But it really is good, for the most part. It's garnered some rave reviews, including this one from Philip Smith at StopTheDrugWar.org.

In a world where the official state position is Reefer Madness, a book like this is a breath of fresh air, in that it really does take a look at the facts of the subject in a balanced way. Even in little ways, that's refreshing. In a section about the uncertainties of the respiratory effects of marijuana smoke, for example, the authors take the time to remind the reader that smoking isn't the only delivery method. Can you imagine that even being mentioned by Drug Czar Kerlikowske?

The incredible strength of balance is also ultimately its weakness, in a way–particularly when it comes to analysis. Balanced is generally good, but trying to present balanced arguments about the relative positions regarding whether the earth is flat or round would be completely absurd in today's world. And to those of us fully informed about marijuana prohibition and its effects, some “balanced” arguments about legalization can seem just as awkward.

But first, let's take a look at some more good stuff. Check out this passage from Chapter 8 of the book:

Why even consider legalizing a substance whose use creates harm?

The liberty to make our own decisions about our own lives–including decisions that seem unwise to other people–is valuable, and allows us to learn from our own mistakes and those of others. Intoxicating drugs are hardly the only potentially dangerous consumer items of recreational activities. People get killed and crippled climbing mountains, jumping out of airplanes, sailing, scuba diving, playing football, and riding motorcycles. Marijuana use may well be less risky than any of those other forms of recreation, yet a proposal to ban any of them would generate outrage.

It isn't obvious that the majority of the users who do not, and would not, abuse the drug deserve to be inconvenienced–to say the least–to protect against the consequences of less responsible users.

Moreover, drug laws create risks and harms of their own–most of all, the harms associated with illicit markets.

Wow. That's some good stuff.

Be honest, now. How many of you regular readers expected such a passage to be in this book?

There's lots in the book like this, and tons of good, clear information. The section of marijuana and driving, for example, would be despised by the Drug Czar. There's even some enjoyable reading in the non-medical uses of marijuana, dealing with creativity and… the (gasp!) valuable pleasures of using it.

On the other hand, you can start to tell the influence of different members of the authorial team as you start delving further. In contrast to the clear statement of liberty above, just a little further in chapter 8, there is an excruciatingly long and torturous dance around John Stuart Mills' “Harm Principle,” that desperately argues for paternalism in drug policy for such bizarre purposes as addressing the “fashion” of drug taking. It seems clear that those two passages were written by different authors.

[Update: I was wrong. Mark Kleiman says: “But, as it happens, both of the passages in question originated on my keyboard.”]

There are also a few strange things in this book. For example, in the section entitled “Does Marijuana cause cancer?,” the authors note that there is nowhere near the level of proof needed to determine that marijuana causes cancer (I know… a strange way of wording it). And several studies are specifically mentioned–some that seem to disprove any cancer connection along with a couple that showed small risk–with the indication that “published research shows mixed results.” Yet, the major 2006 study by Donald Tashkin of UCLA, funded by NIDA, that conclusively determined that marijuana does not cause lung cancer, is oddly not mentioned.

There are also some passages that are really just plain bad. This one, at the conclusion of Chapter 11, for example:

In the end, all this fancy benefit-cost analysis boils down to a rather simple proposition […] If you think marijuana intoxication is, on average, a good thing–counting both the happy controlled users and the unhappy dependent users–then a benefit-cost analysis done in a way that reflects your values will probably conclude that legalization improves social welfare. If you think marijuana intoxication is, on average, a bad thing, then an analysis that reflects your values will probably conclude that legalization harms social welfare–because the dominant outcome of legalization will be more marijuana use.

That's outrageous, and, quite frankly, offensive. This is what passes for academic writing? The passage completely ignores the huge portion of the debate represented by folks like Law Enforcement Against Prohibition–people who do not take a viewpoint regarding the value of marijuana “intoxication,” but rather do an actual cost-benefit analysis that takes into account the real problems presented by the war on marijuana users. People who care about the outcomes of 800,000 arrestees (and what that means to their jobs, their education, their families, their income), even if they don't do marijuana themselves. People who want to at least reduce the black market in drugs. People who care more about liberty than paternalism and don't think it's right for government to harm someone who is doing no harm in a misguided attempt to prevent someone else from voluntarily harming themselves. It's a stupid effort that seems to try to turn the entire debate into one pitting marijuana enthusiasts against marijuana foes as opposed to actually talking about policy.

This particular mess appears clearly to be the work of Jon Caulkins, who writes (in the section where each author gives his own views): “If you like marijuana intoxication, you should like marijuana legalization; if you don't, you shouldn't.” A rather heavy paternalist, he also says that “the majority who would use responsibly ought to be willing to give up their fun to protect the minority who would not.” Nowhere, however, does he prove that criminalization has done anything of the kind.

These lapses take away from the overall good work done in the book, by having the authors' personal biases govern the analyses, instead of having the facts inform them.

More to come in a future post…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdpcggfIt0U

At Salon: A Tipping Point is Happening – an interview with filmmaker Eugene Jarecki

We became an enormous world power, and we’ve handled that power questionably, and ultimately, I would argue, to our own detriment. And certainly to the detriment of people who don’t benefit from the industrial system. And this [the drug war] might be one of the most pressing, and sort of inspiring, areas as a possibility for real reform. Whether we’re going to continue the kind of state-following and fear-mongering that we have had since the end of the Cold War, where we almost needed a new enemy, so into that pipeline we put the drug dealer and drug user.

Could we step back and say, there must be a better way for us to lead the world? Morally, spiritually and otherwise. We are now in many ways a laughing stock for the rest of the world due to the enormity of our prison population. We have outpaced every totalitarian country in the world. Not only proportionally, but in real numbers. China has five times the population, but it has a smaller prison population. So it seems to me that the moral bankruptcy of the war on drugs would be something that really should be a central topic of these upcoming elections.

Of course, it isn't a central topic of the upcoming elections.

Sure, it's done better than perhaps it ever has — particularly in the Republican debates — in terms of visibility, and we do have a number of state-wide votes of significance in the drug war, but it's still not anywhere near an “election topic.”

In particular, if you look at the partisan liberal and conservative websites and blogs, you find almost no mention of drug policy (it's all about attacking the other guy, and drug policy doesn't really fit since both sides are terrible).

This just makes it all the more important to find a way to get Gary Johnson into the debates.

One of my many involvements is as Artistic Director of The Living Canvas, and I've got a new show running in Chicago this summer at National Pastime Theater (941 W. Lawrence). It's “Living Canvas: Eureka!” and it runs Fridays and Saturdays at 10 pm through August 11.

Living Canvas is a very unique concept that utilizes projections as the only source of light on naked performers who are “clothed” with these powerful images. The show is powerful, funny, and moving. This is our 9th Living Canvas production in Chicago.

I can always count on the Chicago Reader for some snark in their reviews, but I got a kick out of it:

Living Canvas returns with a sumptuous set of nude pieces in which high-def projections are used to cast a surreal body-paint effect… This is popcorn-flick performance art, but take some drugs and see it anyway!”

This actually isn't the first time that reviewers have connected my show to a drug experience. From a previous review:

Stoners, Dali fans, sensualists of every stripe, this show's for you. Sober or otherwise, you'll find the visual pleasures of Guither's idiom considerable.

If you're in the Chicago area, please come and check it out. Tickets are $20 and available through Brown Paper Tickets. There's a Q and A after each performance, and even an opportunity for audience participation during the show.

There's also a possibility that we'll be taking the show on road to Rochester, New York in late August.

Continue reading →

A fascinating legal article is Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, Verse 2: A Close Reading with Fourth Amendment Guidance for Cops and Perps by Caleb Mason, Saint Louis University School of Law.

The author does a line-by-line analysis of the second verse of this hit rap song “from the perspective of a criminal procedure professor.” It’s a valuable and unusual exercise in brushing up on your Fourth Amendment rights as it relates to vehicle stops.

….

Somewhat related…

How America and hip-hop failed each other

The nation surely failed its black male citizens by targeting and imprisoning them when joblessness and the crack epidemic left them with few real options. They were conveniently villainized, arrested and warehoused to help politicians, judges, prosecutors and police win the public trust.

But hip-hop also failed black America, and failed itself. It’s unavoidable that hip-hop and the war on drugs would become intertwined. But the music could have been a tool of resistance, informing on the drug war’s hypocrisies instead of acquiescing to them. Hip-hop didn’t have to become complicit in spreading the message of the criminalblackman, but the money it made from doing so was the drug it just couldn’t stop getting high on.

I’ve got a copy of “Marijuana Legalization: What everyone Needs to Know” by Jonathan P. Caulkins, Angela Hawken, Beau Kilmer, and Mark A.R. Kleiman and hope to find time to read it soon (although I’m not looking forward to it).

I’m sure I’ll be talking about it here.

However, an excerpt has been printed at Huffington Post: Important Facts About Marijuana Legalization

If alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana, what’s the logical justification for one being legal and the other illegal?

If we were making laws for a planet whose population had never experienced either marijuana or alcohol, and we had to choose one of the two drugs to make available, there would be a strong case for choosing marijuana, which has lower organic toxicity, lower addictive risk, and a much weaker link with accidents and violence.

But that’s not the planet we inhabit. Here on this planet, alcohol has been an ingrained part of many cultures since the Neolithic revolution (which may have been driven in part by the discovery that grain could be brewed into beer). People have used cannabis plant products for thousands of years, but its widespread use as an intoxicant in the United States is a phenomenon of the last hundred years. Even today only about one in sixteen American adults used marijuana at all in the course of a typical year; for alcohol, that figure is more than half.

History matters. Custom matters. Practicality matters. Even if there were public support for it, going back to Prohibition wouldn’t work—without a truly ferocious degree of law enforcement—precisely because centuries of tradition and decades of marketing have left alcohol use a deeply ingrained feature of most social systems outside the Islamic world.

The technical term for this is “path dependence.” If alcohol had just been invented and no one was yet using it, it would go straight into Schedule I: high potential for abuse, and no accepted medical value. And that ban might make sense. But once there is an established user base, prohibition becomes impractical. Marijuana is not, or at least not yet, equally entrenched.

Really? Path dependence? That’s what you’ve got?

This sounds like the justification for deciding to go with VHS over Beta.

Yes, I know – it certainly is annoying since you have collected all those Beta tapes, but that’s the way it goes… VHS wins. Sorry.

The difference being, of course, that they’re not arresting people for having Betamax.

So this is what you tell the 800,000 people arrested each year for marijuana? Sorry, alcohol got there first?

It does, of course, allow one to neatly sidestep the historical racism, culture wars, and a whole lot of other factors.

It’s not a logical justification at all, nor is it an explanation. It’s a nonsensical and frankly offensive armchair statement made by an academic with no clue regarding the real world.

Justify:
1. to show (an act, claim, statement, etc.) to be just or right
2. to defend or uphold as warranted or well-grounded

I don’t think so.

For those of you who spend a lot of time researching and discussing drug policy, it can be very easy to fall into the trap of mostly talking to others who are knowledgable on the subject. This gives a warped perception regarding the overall level of knowledge/acceptance in the population. It’s important every now and then to talk to ordinary folks whose knowledge level is pretty much that some drugs are illegal and that some people use them anyway.

It’s not that they’re stupid. Just that they’re paying more attention to gay rights, or gun rights, or the cost of insurance, or whether Seventeen Magazine is using Photoshop. And that’s fine — everyone’s got their own interests and it’s impossible to be competently informed about every issue.

But it’s hard to get to know drug policy well when it’s only consumed as a side dish — particularly all the sordid details regarding the self-interest of prohibitionists. For years, this has been a major challenge for us. If people only pick up a smattering of info, they’re more likely to believe the government line (“They say marijuana causes cancer, so it probably does. What reason would they have to lie about that?”) And if you try to explain to them that the government is lying, you suddenly see the glazed look that says they’re imagining a tinfoil hat on your head.

We’ve done a great job of increasing the overall level of skepticism in the minds of the public. That’s a huge step. But we still shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing that they’re fully informed.

Most of my friends know I write about drug policy reform (I certainly haven’t been secretive about it), and some even read Drug WarRant on occasion.

I always find it amusing when one of them comes up to me and, in a somewhat conspiratorial whisper, indicates that they also support legalization, or that they’ve read something recently that talks about legalization.

You can tell that they think they’re being some kind of counterculture rebel espousing a risky viewpoint. And I’m thinking “Uh, no. You’re actually mainstream and don’t realize it.” This isn’t like saying you support NAMBLA. The legalization and regulation of illicit drugs is a position supported by most of the top thinkers in the world, including many former and current heads of state, an entire organization of former law enforcement officers and judges, and two Presidential candidates.

But I forget that they’ve been conditioned to think that supporting legalization is the same as supporting drugs and drugs are bad, M’kay?

So get out there and talk to some people who don’t know what you know. It’ll be good for you and them at the same time.

From: https://www.facebook.com/events/428094160568681/

MEDIA ALERT!
For Immediate Release:
July 11, 2012 11 AM

Thousands of Patients Threatened to Lose Safe Access
U.S. Attorney & DEA Threaten
Harborside Health Center Landlords
Property Forfeiture Filed in District Court of San Francisco
***
Invitation to Attend Press Conference
Oakland, California – Thursday July 12th at 9 AM – Oakland City Hall
With Appearances and Statements by Patients, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, State Board of Equalization & City Officials, Union Officials, Arturo Sanchez, LEAP Officers, Rebecca Kaplan and Other Statewide Officials

July 12, 2012 – Oakland, California – The federal attack on safe access for medical cannabis patients continues. Yesterday morning, taped to the front doors of the nation’s model medical cannabis dispensary, Harborside Health Center in Oakland and San Jose, was an official ‘Complaint for Forfeiture of Property.’ The complaint is signed by U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, Assistant U.S. Attorney Arvan Perteet, and DEA Agent David White, filed on July 6, 2012, in the District Court San Francisco Division and received by the court on Sunday, July 9. The complaint seeks forfeiture of real estate and improvements on the grounds that cannabis is being distributed on the premises, in violation of federal law.

This latest federal action to seize property flies in the face of promises made by Haag to exclusively target dispensaries less than 1000 feet from a school, and recent statements from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who stated that only those dispensaries out of compliance with state law would be subject to Federal enforcement actions. Harborside Health Center is neither close to a school, nor out of compliance with state law. The location at 1840 Embarcadero is more than 1000 feet from the closest school, and Harborside is widely recognized as the most legally compliant dispensary in the state, and renowned nationwide.

“Harborside has nothing to hide or be ashamed of,” said Steve DeAngelo, Executive Director of Harborside Health Center. “We will contest the DOJ action openly and in public, and through all legal means at our disposal. We look forward to our day in court, and are confident that justice is on our side.”

Harborside Health Center employs over 100 people, and is Oakland’s second largest retail tax payer. Last year, HHC paid combined taxes in excess of $3 million, over a million dollars of which went directly to the City of Oakland. Should Harborside be forced to close:

Our 100,000 patients will return to the illegal marketplace
Street drug sales and law enforcement costs will both rise
Over $3,000,000 in tax revenue will be destroyed
Our more than 100 current employees will become jobless

“This is a policy that hurts not only those who depend on cannabis for medicine. It will destroy tax revenue, endanger patients, increase unemployment, and empower criminals. Whoever thinks this is a good idea must be smoking something a lot more powerful than cannabis,” said DeAngelo.

——–

Some nice takes on the prohibitionists who contributed to the U.S. News Debate Club:

Dr. Kevin Sabet’s Kinder Gentler Drug War by Russ Belville

Reading the supporting pieces from Dr. Kevin Sabet and David Brooks makes me wonder if we’re talking about the same Drug War that has killed 60,000 Mexicans, arrested 850,000 American pot smokers, and done nothing to combat actual drug problems. […]

When he advocates all these Kinder Gentler Drug War axioms like “treatment” and “prevention”, always bring it back to the personal, casual pot smoker. Does a person who smokes a joint once a year at Willie Nelson’s Texas Jam need a mandatory 12-month drug treatment program? Should the government send SWAT teams into people’s homes in the middle of the night to prevent them from smoking a joint? He’ll try to play the “we don’t actually do that to casual users” card, which you can either follow up with concrete examples of people this has happened to (easy enough to Google) or by asking “Why not? Are you conceding that some people can be marijuana users without being abusers? And if so, why does the law treat them like abusers?”

A Comically Dishonest Defense of the Drug War by Scott Morgan

My favorite part is Kevin Sabet’s attempt to make the drug war sound about as wholesome as a hug from a nun, which he accomplishes by pretending no one ever gets arrested for doing drugs.

Seriously, just take for example this one item from Sabet’s list of things he likes about the drug war:

Intervention: If individuals do start to use drugs, we know that brief interventions (by doctors, coaches, parents, faith leaders, or others) do a pretty good job at stopping the progression of use from non-dependence to addiction.

Others!? Really, Kevin? By “others” did you by any chance mean “cops with machine guns, battering rams, drug sniffing dogs, and flash bang grenades? Cause if you wanna talk about intervention…well that’s who’s been intervening. When the government hears you might have MARIJUANA in your basement, they don’t send a “faith leader” to talk to you about it.

Governor Christie Calls ‘War on Drugs’ a Failure

He says the right thing about the war being a failure, and it’s good to see yet another major figure (who isn’t a “legalizer”) say so. He doesn’t, however, have the right solution — mandatory treatment for all first-time offenders.

Singapore scraps mandatory death penalty for drug couriers

Singapore is to change its law so that convicted drug couriers no longer receive a mandatory death sentence.

The deputy prime minister, Teo Chee Hean, told parliament on Monday the government will seek to give judges the discretion to instead award life sentences to drug couriers if they co-operate with authorities or have a mental disability.

Wow! What a wellspring of enlightenment! They’re looking to move up in their status to merely grossly uncivilized.

Mike Riggs on 3 Accounting Tricks the Obama Administration Uses to Hide the Cost of the Drug War

Interesting piece on just some of the deception used.