Drug WarRant

At U.S. News and World Report, there’s a Debate Club segment on Is it Time to Scale Back the War on Drugs? – featuring Aaron Houston (Yes), Neill Franklin (Yes), Paul Armentano (Yes), Kevin Sabet (No), and David G. Evans (No).

So far, in the debate club voting, the “Yes” arguments are clearly winning (no surprise, there).

The Internet was abuzz today with talk about a radical notion put forward by machinist George Taylor about the man who ate a face.

“Maybe he was, well, insane,” offered Mr. Taylor, who works for a living making things and doesn’t even have a blog.

“That’s just crazy talk,” said Noura Ibrahim, science blogger and cadaver enthusiast.

George responded, “Well, I don’t know, but it seems to me that sometimes people are just wired wrong — completely nuts, and it isn’t bath salts or Twinkies or anything specific that makes them do something crazy, but just the fact that they’re… crazy.”

This led to heated calls from media leaders for Mr. Taylor to stop this unsupported speculation and leave it to those who do unsupported speculation for a living.

“The notion of people doing things because they’re crazy, or, for that matter, because it’s who they are or what they want to do, is absolutely abhorrent,” said celebrity media spokesperson Grandy Nance. “If we don’t have “triggers” — things to demonize for every bad event that happens — then what do we talk about? It could mean the end of news reporting as we know it!”

“Science” blogger Noura Ibrahim (who is participating in cadaver dissection at Victor Valley College) brings us some first-class stupidity with Was Miami Face-Chewing Attack Caused by Cannabis-Induced Psychosis? at Huffington Post.

Of course, the question in the title of her piece is a likely giveaway that it’s completely unsupported sensationalism aimed at getting attention rather than actually sharing any real, you know, information. And, in fact, that’s all that’s there.

You can put just about anything in an article when you make it a question.

“Is Noura Ibrahim a flesh-eating zombie who is trying to divert attention from her species?” More research is needed for us to know for sure, but she is spending an awful lot of time with dead people…

With the passing of Andy Griffith this week, we were reminded of this amazing clip of Sheriff Andy teaching about the 4th Amendment.

Also check out these two police department recruitment videos (at Radley Balko’s The Agitator)

In which town would you like to live?

Numbers tell of failure in the drug war — in the New York Times.

Mexico’s President-Elect: Legalization Should Be Part of Drug Strategy Debate

MEXICO CITY | The president-elect of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, said Tuesday Mexico should have a debate about legalizing and regulating the sale of drugs here, an approach advocated by some other Latin American leaders to take marijuana sale profits out of the hands of the drug cartels.

While insisting he was not in favor of legalizing drugs himself, he said, “I’m in favor of opening a new debate in the strategy in the way we fight drug trafficking. It is quite clear that after several years of this fight against drug trafficking, we have more drug consumption, drug use and drug trafficking. That means we are not moving in the right direction. Things are not working.”

“I’m not saying we should legalize,” he repeated. “But we should debate in Congress, in the hemisphere and especially the U.S. should participate in this broad debate.”

“So let the debate begin, but you’re not taking a position yet?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he said.

Regardless of what you think of this study about spanking leading to drug abuse later in life, if you’re writing for the Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF), you probably shouldn’t be going on record as being in favor of hitting children.

Too many people still remember Straight, Inc., and the horrific systematic abuses of young people, and also remember the direct connection between that organization and DFAF through Mel and Betty Sembler.

I received this wonderfully cheery email today from Alicia Sherman:

Hello!

Hope you are have a wonderful start to your summer! I wanted to show off an Infographic my agency just rolled out about Drugs in the Work Place. I was taking a look at your site and I think you might be interested in it so take a break from your morning and take a quick peek: 

http://rehab-international.org/blog/drug-abuse-in-the-workplace

If this is something that you feel could double as content for those readers of yours, I’ve included an embed code below the Infographic for an easy copy & paste onto your site.

Please let me know If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding the Infographic and/or its data.

Thanks for not deleting me and enjoying this Infographic break!
 
Regards, 

Alicia 
Killer Infographics 

(image after the fold)

Well, that’s a very friendly letter and made me want to check out this killer infographic.  And boy, is it pretty.  These people can use graphic design in such a delightful way.  Makes you almost want to believe the information they’re presenting.

Except, of course, that it’s complete hogwash.

This infographic is porn for the drug-testing industry — a massive, growing, and extremely profitable industry that depends on employers being scared of not drug-testing, and on convincing legislatures to expand drug testing mandates.

Of course, many of the statistics are meaningless. One on the infographic that is also mentioned at almost every drug testing site is the fact that 70% of illegal drug users (some say 75%) are employed.

And?

To me, that says that the vast majority of illicit drug users don’t let their illicit drug use affect their employment. It says nothing about their performance on the job.

And many of the other figures are bandied about on various websites as if they’re solid fact, but nobody really knows where they originated.

Let’s take a look at the sources for Killer Infographics’ killer statistics. First thing we might want to watch out for is financial self-interest…

Sources (listed at the bottom of the infographic):

• USA Mobile Drug Testing “Anyone~Anytime~Anywhere”
• Employment Screening Resources “The Background Check Authority
• Summa Health Care’s Mobile Drug Testing Program for Corporations
• Minneapolis Drug Testing – a division of USA Mobile Drug Testing

Hmmm…

Then we have an article on Treatment Solutions.com that refers to other articles, and a poll at the Society for Human Resource Management conducted on behalf of the… Drug and Alcohol Testing Association.

Finally, we have a blog post at Workplace Ethics Advice by a Professor of Accounting with 29 Twitter followers!

He refers to data at NCADI which no longer exists, and is suspiciously similar (as is much of the data in the infographic) to the infamous Firestone Study data (see The Safety Myth of workplace drug testing)

Thanks, Alicia! You infographic was very entertaining, and, as an infographic, was, at least… graphic.

Maybe you should try your hand at something even more likely to get people infographcially worked up – like… bath salts!

…

Oops…

Hey Pete, 

Happy Monday. After seeing your blog, I thought this Infographic my agency just rolled out might be of interest to you. It is about the recently talked about drug known as Bath Salts. Take a break from the Monday morning work load and check it out: 

http://rehab-international.org/blog/bath-salt

 – If this is something that you feel could double as content for your readers, I’ve included an embed code below the infographic for an easy copy & paste onto your site.

Please let me know If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding the infographic and/or its data.

Thanks for taking a look, 

-Libby 
Killer Infographics Social Media and Marketing Manager

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Presidential election today in Mexico.

Jury Nullification Law Signed by New Hampshire Governor

Here’s the new language that has been passed:

519:23-a Right of Accused. In all criminal proceedings the court shall permit the defense to inform the jury of its right to judge the facts and the application of the law in relation to the facts in controversy.

As Tim Lynch notes in the article, it doesn’t go far enough, but it’s a very positive development. Read the entire article for a good background on jury nullification and how it might be presented in an enlightened court.