Drug WarRant

As you may be aware already, Special Agent Jaime Zapata, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was killed in Mexico. It’s a tragedy, of course, and it was murder, which is reprehensible, and I would like very much for those who committed the murder to be brought to justice.

On the other hand, it’s important to remember that over 30,000 others have been killed in this drug war in Mexico, and important to avoid making wrong conclusions and bad policy based on the tragedy of a death.

In 1985, Drug Enforcement Administration agent Kiki Camarena was kidnapped and killed by drug traffickers. That was also a tragedy. It was turned into an annual celebration of the drug war (and a fictional “Drug Free Youth” called Red Ribbon Week, promoted heavily by the DEA.

The tragedy of one man’s death, instead of making us reevaluate the policies that led to it, led to cheering on those same destructive policies.

We face the danger again with the death of Jaime Zapata. Already, some are quickly finding the wrong lessons, and beating the drums of ratcheting up the very drug war that fueled this violence…

Security Advocates Call for Greater Offensive Against Mexico Cartels After Murder of ICE Agent

Advocates for stronger border security on Wednesday called for stepping up the U.S. offensive to stop murderous drug cartels terrorizing Mexico after an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent was killed a day earlier.

“This tragic event is a game changer. The United States will not tolerate acts of violence against its citizens or law enforcement and I believe we must respond forcefully. This should be a long overdue wake-up call for the Obama administration that there is a war on our nation’s doorstep,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

U.S. Govt. Hopes Agents Death Leads to Changes

some are predicting the brutal ambush of two ICE agents in Mexico, will change the way U.S. law enforcement operates in Mexico, possibly allowing agents to carry weapons across the border. And those familiar with the drug war say changes will be vital, because it looks like the cartels won’t be falling anytime soon. […]

Mayor Raul Salinas says he strongly supports attorney general Eric Holder’s suggestion to ask Mexico’s government to consider allowing U.S. agents serving in dangerous territory to carry weapons.

ICE Agent Zapata’s Murder Deepens U.S. Involvement in Mexico’s Drug War

Surely, the death of an American official on Mexican soil raises the stakes in the ongoing U.S.–Mexican battle against Mexico’s cartels and criminal organizations. […]

Yet there is fresh concern that help for Mexico will fall victim to the budgetary ax as the Obama Administration moves to cut key security and anti-drug assistance in order to protect domestic pork. [That’s from the Heritage Foundation, which is just fine with securitization pork!]

Fortunately, there are occasional voices of sanity…

Portales, New Mexico, News-Tribune

Let’s hope that reassessment actually takes place. Many questions need to be answered regarding the level of violence in Mexico, and the U.S. involvement that many refuse to recognize. […]

Sadly, people focus on the violence and ignore the cause. Too many Americans refuse to recognize the link between U.S. demand and those in Mexico who are fighting over the supply.

What will it take to convince people that interdiction is a lost cause? Billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been lost, with little effect on the drug trade. Spending even a fraction of that amount on treatment, to lessen the demand, could be a much more effective investment.

Most importantly, what will it take for people to recognize that the drug war itself is a major contributor to all this carnage? We tried the same experiment with alcohol in the 1920s, and saw the same results. Remember Capone, Dillinger and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre? Today’s crime in the streets of Mexico merely echo of what happened in Chicago and other U.S. cities 90 years ago.

Within 15 years of banning alcohol, officials recognized that prohibition itself contributes to the violence by raising the price of the product and ceding control to those who, by definition, are willing to break the law. It didn’t work with alcohol, it isn’t working with other drugs.

What will it take for officials to see the futility of their policies, and replace them with something more sensible?

If we want to provide a legacy to remember Special Agent Jaime Zapata, then let’s do so with policy that will really change the dynamic in this war.

This is probably the strongest, most well-written newspaper editorial that I’ve ever seen for the legalization of marijuana.

The Washington Legislature should legalize marijuana in the Seattle Times.

MARIJUANA should be legalized, regulated and taxed. The push to repeal federal prohibition should come from the states, and it should begin with the state of Washington.

In 1998, Washington was one of the earliest to vote for medical marijuana. It was a leap of faith, and the right decision. […]

It is time for the next step. It is a leap, yes — but not such a big one, now.

Still, it is not an easy decision. We have known children who changed from brilliant students to slackers by smoking marijuana at a young age. We have also known of many users who have gone on to have responsible and successful lives. One of them is president of the United States.

Like alcohol, most people can handle marijuana. Some can’t.

There is a deep urge among parents to say: “No. Don’t allow it. We don’t want it.” We understand the feeling. We have felt it ourselves. Certainly the life of a parent would be easier if everyone had no choice but to be straight and sober all the time. But an intoxicant-free world is not the one we have, nor is it the one most adults want.

Marijuana is available now. If your child doesn’t smoke it, maybe it is because your parenting works. But prohibition has not worked.

It might work in North Korea. But in America, prohibition is the pursuit of the impossible. It does impose huge costs.

The article goes on to detail those costs in ways rarely seen in the media, and then:

Some drugs have such horrible effects on the human body that the costs of prohibition may be worth it. Not marijuana. This state’s experience with medical marijuana and Seattle’s tolerance policy suggest that with cannabis, legalization will work — and surprisingly well.

Not only will it work, but it is coming. You can feel it.

Wow. Great stuff.

And this is just two days after Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes wrote an OpEd in that paper: Washington state should lead on marijuana legalization

MARIJUANA prohibition is more than a practical failure; it has been a misuse of both taxpayer dollars and the government’s authority over the people.

As the steward of reduced prosecutorial dollars, I am the first Seattle city attorney to stop prosecuting marijuana-possession cases and to call for the legalization, taxation and regulation of marijuana for adult recreational use.

We have long since agreed as a society that substances should not be prohibited by the government simply because they can be harmful if misused or consumed in excess. Alcohol, food and cars can all be extremely dangerous under certain circumstances, and cigarettes are almost always harmful in the long term. All these things kill many people every year.

But we don’t try to ban any of them — because we can’t, and we don’t need to. Instead, we regulate their manufacture and use, we tax them, and we encourage those who choose to use them to do so in as safe a manner as possible.

Remember, this is a city attorney speaking. Aren’t they supposed to be all gung-ho about prosecuting anyone who breaks the law and trying to pass more laws so you’ve got more tools to prosecute them? Here’s a city attorney who thinks on a broader scale.

My focus as city attorney is to ensure that we have ways to regulate the production and distribution of any potentially harmful substance so that we limit the potential risk and harm. Outright prohibition is an ineffective means of doing this.

Instead, I support tightening laws against driving while stoned, preventing the sale of marijuana to minors, and ensuring that anything other than small-scale noncommercial marijuana production takes place in regulated agricultural facilities — and not residential basements.

He even takes a pro-law enforcement position:

Ending marijuana prohibition is pro-law enforcement because it would enhance the legitimacy of our laws and law enforcement. As Albert Einstein said of Prohibition in 1921, “Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.”

Marijuana prohibition cannot be and has not been consistently enforced, and keeping it on the books diminishes the people’s respect for law enforcement. […]

Ending marijuana prohibition and focusing on rational regulation and taxation is a pro-public safety, pro-public health, pro-limited government policy. I urge the state Legislature to move down this road.

This is great stuff. Congratulations Seattle.

I’ve got a friend living in Seattle who has gotten more interested in drug policy reform partly in recent years, and he’s been quite excited by recent developments in his area, and these two articles in particular.

I think it is true that we are getting closer and closer to that critical mass level — the point at which public opinion overwhelmingly shifts to our side, not just in answering a poll favorably, but in demanding change. When that happens, the politician have no choice but to follow.

It may not happen as fast as we’d like (it certainly won’t), but I believe it’s inevitable, for two main reasons:

1. The more people learn about prohibition, the more they’re likely to shake off their propaganda blinds and support reform. That means as long as we’re out there educating more people, the support will always grow and never shrink.
2. Once brought on board to reform, the more people learn, the more angry and motivated and insistent they get (just check out the angst in the comments here now and then for a taste of that). This means that there will continue to be a larger subgroup of support that is not just in favor of reform, but considers drug policy reform a matter of critical importance (as opposed to the “oh, yeah, I favor legalization, but the time isn’t right and we have bigger things to do right now.”)

So bring it on, Seattle. Take another shot that will be heard round the country. Whether you succeed or not this time, you’re bringing us another step closer.

Danny at Transform Drug Policy Foundation blog has a fascinating and illuminating post on “securitisation.” Note: he does give the post a “policy nerd warning,” but despite the academic language, the thrust is easy to follow and so completely explains the world-wide expansion of the drug war and its exemption from the need to prove its value or efficacy (the same principles can be used to explain at a more local level the way the drug war has progressed in the U.S.)

Securitisation is described as “the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics” (Buzan et al. 1998: 23). By declaring something a security issue, the speaker entitles himself to enforce and legitimise unusual and extreme measures to fight this threat. Referenced from here.

Rita Taureck of the University of Birmingham describes securitisation:

“The main argument of securitisation theory is that security is a speech act, that alone by uttering ‘security’ something is being done. “It is by labelling something a security issue that it becomes one.”(Wæver 2004a,) A securitising actor, by stating that a particular referent object is threatened in its existence, claims a right to extraordinary measures to ensure the referent objects survival. The issue is then moved out of the sphere of normal politics into the realm of emergency politics, where it can be dealt with swiftly and without the normal (democratic) rules and regulations of policy making. For the content of security this means that it has no longer any given meaning but that it can be anything a securitising actor says it is. Security – understood in this way – is a social construction, with the meaning of security dependent on what is done with it.” […]

The inherent nature of a securitisation is anti-democratic, in so far as it is “the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics”. That is why evidence is anathema and why the political rhetoric around drug policy is so irrational and populist in tone. Once an issue has been securitised, a system of propaganda must be maintained to hold it within that framework.

Which leads me to one last point. When a securitisation has been in place for as long as the one relating to the non-medical use of drugs, progressive reform in itself becomes a ‘threat’ – a ‘threat’ to a long standing mission and some very well resourced agencies, charged with fighting the drug war. Now we see that what is actually under threat is an inflexible world order. A world order, whose long standing international relations, and indeed, national domestic social policies are predicated on fighting a futile war on drugs, are fundamentally threatened by a reform process that undoes its foundations.

I think you’ll find the whole piece quite interesting.

The House is currently debating H.R. 1, which would fund the government for the rest of the current fiscal year. As part of this debate, Representatives Jared Polis (D-CO) and Ron Paul (R-TX) are introducing an amendment to eliminate funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, commonly known as the Drug Czar’s office.

Apparently this is going on right now.

You can send a letter to your Rep:

Researchers are looking to give lithium to marijuana users in an effort to help them quit in a new trial at the Riverlands Drug and Alcohol Centre in Lismore.

“When I first heard about this, I was a bit concerned about using lithium One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and all that,” Dr Johnston admitted.

“But we will only be administering lithium in low doses for seven days it’s long term, high-dosage lithium use that can be problematic for some patients. And currently we have no medications for use in cannabis withdrawal management.

“We’re hoping to attract a large number of people to take part in this.”

In related news, researchers are exploring the use of leeches to rid the body of excessive happiness, and limb amputations to cure the broken heart.

Who kidnapped these Indiana State Senators and replaced them with humans?

Ind. Senate panel backs bills for study on marijuana legalization, track drugs used for meth

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – A state Senate committee on Tuesday backed having the state crime policy panel study whether Indiana should legalize marijuana after hearing a legislator with multiple sclerosis say he wished he could legally try the drug to relieve his pain.

The committee also approved a bill requiring computerized tracking of cold medications used in making methamphetamine rather than mandating prescriptions, as some law enforcement groups urged.

The Senate’s criminal law committee voted 5-3 to advance to the full Senate the bill directing the criminal law and sentencing study committee to examine Indiana’s marijuana laws next summer and make recommendations.

Bill sponsor Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, said she was concerned about the undetermined millions of dollars state and local governments were spending each year on police, prosecutors, courts and jails to enforce marijuana laws.

“We need to be able to say to the citizens of Indiana, `This is how much it’s costing us and is this where you want to spend your money and your tax dollars?'” Tallian said.

Update: Apparently some similar attack of the body-swappers has happened in Kentucky.

FRANKFORT — The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday night approved the most sweeping changes to Kentucky’s penal code in a generation in an effort to reduce prison and jail crowding. […]

The result of much negotiation and compromise, the bill would steer many drug addicts into treatment and community supervision rather than prison. It drew praise from prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and local leaders. The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce endorsed it, warning that the state’s incarceration costs are draining resources that could better be spent on education. […]

One-fourth of Kentucky’s nearly 21,000 prison inmates are serving time for drug offenses. The state is spending $460 million this year on its Corrections Department.

Among many changes, the bill would maintain existing penalties for people caught selling the largest amounts of drugs while reducing penalties for people caught selling lesser amounts. It would reduce penalties for drug possession — often to misdemeanors — and allow courts to send minor offenders to addiction treatment and place them on an appropriate level of community supervision.

Simply locking up everyone convicted for drug offenses hasn’t worked, House Judiciary Chairman John Tilley, D-Hopkinsville, told his colleagues. Since 2000, Kentucky’s prison rate has grown by 45 percent, compared to 13 percent for the national average, with no reduction in the number of repeat offenders.

Kentucky needs to rethink who needs to be behind bars and who can be handled differently, said Tilley, the bill’s sponsor. […]

Also, any state legislator who filed a bill to establish a new crime or strengthen the penalty for an existing crime would have to identify a source of funding and list the cost in terms of housing or monitoring criminals.

Press Release from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition:

President Maintains Bush Administration Ratio Favoring Punishment Over Treatment

Just Weeks Ago, Obama Said We Need to “Shift Resources” But He Didn’t Do It

WASHINGTON, DC — A group of police officers, judges and prosecutors who have waged the so-called “war on drugs” is criticizing President Obama because his federal drug control budget, released today, doesn’t match up to his rhetoric on treating drug abuse as a health problem.

Obama’s federal drug control budget maintains a Bush-era disparity devoting nearly twice as many resources to punishment as it does for treatment and prevention, despite his saying less than three weeks ago that, “We have to think more about drugs as a public health problem,” which requires “shifting resources.” The president’s comments came during a January 27 YouTube interview, in response to a question from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition member MacKenzie Allen, a retired deputy sheriff. Video of that exchange is available at http://www.youtube.com/CopsSayLegalizeDrugs

“I don’t understand how the president can tell us with a straight face that he wants to treat drugs as a health issue but then turn around just a few weeks later and put out a budget that continues to emphasize punishment and interdiction,” said Neill Franklin, LEAP executive director and a former narcotics officer in Baltimore. “The president needs to put his money where his mouth is. Right now it looks like he’s simply all talk and no game.”

In releasing the drug control budget today, the administration did reverse a Bush-era accounting trick that hid some costs of the “war on drugs,” such as incarceration. But the drug control budget breakdown, available online at http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/policy/12budget/fy12Highlight.pdf, clearly shows that under both the new and old calculations, supply reduction receives far more resources than demand reduction does.

“The Obama administration does deserve credit for bringing to light some of the costs of the ‘war on drugs’ that the Bush administration tried to obscure from public scrutiny,” said Franklin. “But mere accounting changes aren’t going to reduce our prison population, improve our economy or put violent gangs and cartels out of business. Only real changes to drug policy, like legalizing and regulating drugs, can help us achieve those important goals.”

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represents police, prosecutors, judges, prison wardens, federal agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the “war on drugs” and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence. More info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.

Mexico Drug War Carnage: Nearly 40 Killed Over The Weekend

I haven’t mentioned drug war deaths in Mexico for a few weeks. It’s sad that this has become so… usual, that I find myself skipping over article after article with drug war death counts in a search to share something more… interesting.

Yet people keep dying.

In Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city, armed men opened fire and tossed grenades into a crowded nightclub early Saturday morning, killing six and wounding at least 37 people.

Also on Saturday, eight people died in a police shoot-out in the prosperous northern city of Monterrey. The city, which lies at the intersection of major drug smuggling routes, is the site of an ongoing turf war between the Gulf Cartel and its former allies, Los Zetas. Suspected drug hitmen kidnapped and killed a senior police chief there Sunday night, according to Reuters.

A drive-by shooting killed two women and six men on the outskirts of Mexico City Sunday. One of the women was found naked on a nearby street after she was shot in the head. A seventh man was severely wounded.

Eleven people were killed in separate incidents over the weekend in the deadly border city of Ciudad Juarez, just across from El Paso, Texas. Five more people were shot and killed on the highway between Juarez and Chihuahua City, the capital of Chihuahua state.

So what are we doing about it?

KERLIKOWSKE: In the Bush administration the Mérida Initiative focused — and rightly so — on reducing violence as much as they could and improving law enforcement and the technology and equipment.

This administration is moving beyond that initiative and saying it can’t be just about law enforcement and the quality of intelligence. It also has to be about building civil society, building trust and cooperation of Mexican citizens towards law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

And as Arturo Sarukhan, the ambassador to the U.S. will tell you, “Don’t think of Mexico as just a transit country. We’re also a consumer country.” They’re dealing with their own drug problems, also. And so we helped Mexico open up their first drug court in Monterrey. I think they’re going to open their second drug court in Tijuana. So I think that trying to use the same balanced approach the next couple of years will make sense.

That’s the title of this delightful read by Steven Kotler at Tru TV.

Nothing really that new to those of us who know the history of prohibition and the forces behind keeping it prohibited, but still nice to see someone else talking about it.

The Smart on Crime Coalition “is comprised of more than 40 organizations and individuals, who participated in developing policy recommendations across 16 broad issue areas. These organizations and individuals represent the leading voices in criminal justice policy.”

Well, this group has just released a report of recommendations for the Administration and Congress, and I like what I’m seeing.

The Summary of Recommendations has some wonderful suggestions. Of course, I’d go further in some areas, but getting any of this agenda passed would be a good thing.

Here are a few selected recommendations…
Continue reading →