Drug WarRant

Last time on Kids Say the Darndest Things, we had Shane Smith of TCU. Today, it’s Frannie Boyle at Vanderbilt University with Legalized marijuana? You must be high.

Some really astonishing items in this piece.

Legalization would cause use of marijuana to go up, and as a result, health care costs associated with the drug would rise as well.

And what health care costs are those?

In areas of the world where the drug is decriminalized, there are still high rates of violence and crime as a result of trafficking.

How is that an argument against legalization?

Also, the RAND Corporation did a study that says 60 percent of people arrested in the U.S., England and Australia test positive for marijuana use.

Another absolutely meaningless statistic.

Weed would never boost the economy. The cost of marijuana would drop considerably if it were legalized, giving most distributers a major incentive to stay on the black market or to start dealing other drugs.

Wait. What?

Also, the FDA hasn’t approved marijuana, even for medicinal purposes. This means that marijuana could come from unknown, dangerous sources.

Actually, it’s criminalization that means that marijuana would come from unknown sources. Legalization would solve that.

A common argument is that problems associated with weed can also be associated with alcohol, a legal substance. This may be true, but marijuana users are much more likely to become addicted to the drug than alcohol users.

Coffee spit number 1.

Unlike alcohol, marijuana has no known health benefits.

Coffee spit number 2.

Marijuana is usually consumed to the point of intoxication. Alcohol usually isn’t.

Ironically, that was the erroneous argument put forth by Art Linkletter in his discussions with Nixon, and Art Linkletter started “Kids Sat the Darndest Things” on his television show.

Alcohol can be harmful, yes, but our government tried to make it illegal during the Prohibition and found that crimes and deaths went up as a result. Alcohol has been a part of this world since before Christ, and it is too ingrained in this culture to take away.

Um. How is this an argument against legalization?

Weed, on the other hand, has never been fully ingrained in American culture, and it never will be. College is fun and all, but the real world will meet us with drug tests and rewards for good character, productivity and efficiency — the antithesis of what marijuana is. Music artists and movies stars make smoking weed sound like it’s a mainstream thing, but it is simply the minority’s addiction to escape.

Ah. Drinking is part of good character, productivity and efficiency; marijuana is not.

Almost as scary as Frannie Boyle’s ignorance about marijuana is her conception of what the “real world” is supposed to be.

Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?

Drug Czar

Director Kerlikowske called attention to new information reporting the alarmingly high percentage of fatalities on America’s roadways involving drivers with drugs in their system. He called on communities to act immediately to prevent drug use before it starts in light of these new findings. […]

In an ONDCP News Release, Director Kerlikowske stated that “drugged driving is a much bigger public health threat than most Americans realize and unfortunately, it may be getting worse.

So what’s the significant impact that this increase in the presence of drugs of unknown breakdown in the bloodstream of tested drivers has had on society?

U.S. Traffic Deaths Drop to Historic Low

U.S. traffic fatalities are at a record low despite drivers traveling farther than they did in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study of traffic injuries and fatalities in 2009 found that 33,808 people were killed in vehicular accidents, which is a decline of 9.7 percent from 2008’s figures. In fact, you’d have to go all the way back to 1950 to find a year when fewer people were killed.

Keep in mind that there were only 44.7 million cars on U.S. roads in 1950 and a population of 150 million compared to today’s 255.9 million cars and a population of 310 million, according to the DOT. Which means that the probability of being involved in an auto fatality is dramatically lower than it was nearly 60 years ago.

Drugged Driving. Obviously it has more impact than we thought.

I’m strongly in favor of the efforts of WikiLeaks to help create some transparency in our Government.

Unlike the authoritarians that seem to dominate much of our media, many of whom appear to want to kill or imprison the leakers and yet have no desire to hold government officials accountable for their crimes, I see WikiLeaks as a balancing force.

Sure, the ability of government to conduct delicate affairs in secret sounds attractive until you have a situation where practically everything is classified and the government routinely lies to its own citizens.

So I’m, as usual, in agreement with Glenn Greenwald:

Nonetheless, our government and political culture is so far toward the extreme pole of excessive, improper secrecy that that is clearly the far more significant threat. And few organizations besides WikiLeaks are doing anything to subvert that regime of secrecy, and none is close to its efficacy. It’s staggering to watch anyone walk around acting as though the real threat is from excessive disclosures when the impenetrable, always-growing Wall of Secrecy is what has enabled virtually every abuse and transgression of the U.S. government over the last two decades at least.

In sum, I seriously question the judgment of anyone who — in the face of the orgies of secrecy the U.S. Government enjoys and, more so, the abuses they have accomplished by operating behind it — decides that the real threat is WikiLeaks for subverting that ability. That’s why I said yesterday: one’s reaction to WikiLeaks is largely shaped by whether or not one, on balance, supports what the U.S. has been covertly doing in the world by virtue of operating in the dark. I concur wholeheartedly with Digby’s superb commentary on this point yesterday:

My personal feeling is that any allegedly democratic government that is so hubristic that it will lie blatantly to the entire world in order to invade a country it has long wanted to invade probably needs a self-correcting mechanism. There are times when it’s necessary that the powerful be shown that there are checks on its behavior, particularly when the systems normally designed to do that are breaking down. Now is one of those times. . . . .As for the substance of the revelations, I don’t know what the results will be. But in the world of diplomacy, embarrassment is meaningful and I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing for all these people to be embarrassed right now. Puncturing a certain kind of self-importance — especially national self-importance — may be the most worthwhile thing they do. A little humility is long overdue.

I am quite interested to see what we will discover in the coming days regarding the drug war.

Of all the information contained in the WikiLeaks files about Mexico, 80 percent refers to the issue of drug trafficking and communications made from the Embassy during the governments of Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon.

All told, there are 8,300 documents in the current WikiLeaks dump (not yet released) with the tag “narcotics.”

I’m sure most of them will be embassy communications discussing how to fight the drug war “better” and there will be minimal new revelations. There could be an embarrassment or two regarding just what we did provide in Plan Mexico.

What I’d really like to see is a WikiLeaks dump of DEA administrative files and internal ONDCP memos. That would be a treasure trove. Any whistle-blowers out there?

It really is pretty pathetic to continue to hear such this nonsense.

This latest moron is Adam Yamaguchi in a promo at Huffington Post for Current TV’s Vanguard.

My team decided to do this story after we’d come across a pretty startling piece of information – that Mexican drug trafficking organizations derive most of their operating profit not from heroine, cocaine or meth, but from marijuana. In fact, according to Tommy Lanier, Marijuana Initiative director at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, marijuana funds the organizations’ capacity to traffic heroin, cocaine, meth, humans, arms, and all their other criminal enterprises.

So while you may not think a little bong hit has the same impact as a hit of coke, it’s time Americans admit a recreational habit could have larger ramifications.

It might be hard to inhale, but it’s hard to ignore the connection.

First of all, is this some new revelation from the ONDCP? Or is Adam Yamaguchi that far behind the times? After all, it was the ONDCP under Walters that came out with notion that the cartels were primarily dependent on marijuana for their income. Then when we started using that as an argument for legalization, they worked exceptionally hard to walk that back and attribute it to crazy Walters pulling it out of his ass. They even got RAND and the other academics to downplay the marijuana connection in the lead up to the Prop 19 vote. So now that the vote’s over, it’s the cartels’ primary source of income again?

Second…

It takes some kind of first class idiot to believe that you can defund the cartels by suggesting that people voluntarily stop smoking pot. It’s like saying that you could eliminate all sexually transmitted diseases if people just gave up sex. True, but only happening in your fantasies.

Thus, trying to assign blame to the person taking a bong hit is delusional. Especially when you’d have to be deaf, dumb, blind, and braille illiterate (tough traits for a so-called correspondent and producer to hold) to have missed the fact that legalization would solve all those problems, and unlike abstinence, is actually possible.

Unlike Adam, the people taking those bong hits know the truth.

Adam Yamaguchi — moron of the week.

William Michael Smith at Houston Press has a delightful column: Willie Nelson’s Pot Bust: A Milestone In Marijuana Policy?

We’ll bet Gov. Rick Perry’s anus puckered up tighter than an unfracked shale formation when some aide walked up and whispered in his ear, “Willie Nelson’s been busted for pot.” Terrorists inside the Alamo couldn’t have been a worse scenario for the Governor.

Will Willie’s bust be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back regarding legalization? Wouldn’t it be great if high-profile politicians like former president George W. Bush, Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison got together, called a press conference and said, “OK, enough is enough”?

Or, even better, looked into the camera and screamed “Free Willie Nelson! And while you’re at it, bring us the head of that nincompoop agent who boarded Willie’s bus.” […]

Politicians with balls would realize this bust is an opportunity to alter public policy in a constructive way to benefit all Texans. Want to reduce drug-related violence up and down the Texas border and across the Rio Grande in Juarez? One of the key strategic moves would be to legalize pot. […]

Let’s take this one step further, since we’re all pro-entrepreneurial spirit here in the Lone Star State. Put the state in charge of the growth, sale and distribution of marijuana, just like the state controls liquor stores in Utah or the government-controlled ganja shops in India.

​Then – and here’s the kicker – earmark some of the revenue for research so we can develop an ass-kickin’ strain of Texas Tea that could then be exported by the bale to places like Thailand, Nepal, Holland, Bogota, and Humboldt, Calif. The revenue possibilities are endless, and the marketing slogan can be “Tea From Texas: If It’s Good Enough For Willie, It’s Good Enough For You.”

Read the whole column – it’s worth it.

If you’re on Facebook, you can join Willie Nelson’s Teapot Party.

The drug czar is once again pushing his ridiculous drugged driving crusade with more meaningless data, and while the press isn’t completely rolling over dead, they’re comatose and the fact that they even print this stupidity is an insult to journalism.

Let’s take a look at CNN. In an article posted by CNN Medical Senior Producer David Martin, we have:

The meaningless data

A first-ever drug analysis of drivers killed in car crashes found one in three tested positive for drugs in 2009, the Office of National Drug Control Policy reported Tuesday. […]

The presence of all types of drugs in fatal crashes has increased 5 percent in the past five years, according to 2005-2009 data, compiled and analyzed for the first time by NHTSA. Of the 12,055 drivers tested in 2009, 3,952 tested positive for drugs.

The meaningless hype

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, said the percentage was alarming and should serve as a wakeup call.

“We have not paid very much attention to the drugged driving issue,” Kerlikowske, President Obama’s so-called drug czar, told CNN. “It is a significant problem.”

The meaningless quote from a clueless “expert”

David W. Kaufman, associate director at the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University, said the results were not inconsistent with surveys he and his colleagues have conducted.

“There’s no question that people are taking a lot of drugs, and some of these drugs might affect their ability to operate motor vehicles,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say there’s more to worry about than people drinking too much.”

The partial disclaimer buried deep in the story so CNN can pretend that they’re responsible journalists

The Office of National Drug Control Policy figures released Tuesday do not suggest drug use was responsible for the fatal accident, nor do they implicate the driver who died. The report also doesn’t determine whether the increase might be the result of Americans taking more medications, generally.

The AP has more. They note that the researchers at NHTSA tried to downplay the hype, and yet they added a category of their own to the story:

The meaningless and irrelevant anecdote

In July 2009, a New York mother sped the wrong way for more than a mile with a minivan full of children, leading to a crash that killed her and seven others. The woman had a blood-alcohol level 2 1/2 times the legal limit and had smoked marijuana within an hour of the crash.

In Phoenix, the driver of a dump truck struck a group of motorcycle riders in March, killing four people and injuring five others. Initial tests found the driver had methamphetamine in his system.

That’s right. Out of the entire two stories they came up with to show that drugged driving (supposedly separate from drunk driving) is a problem, one of them involved someone with a blood-alcohol level 2.5 times the legal limit.

OK, now let’s take a look at this story as if we were, oh, real journalists with integrity.

1. Has there been an increase or decrease in overall traffic fatalities nationally? Story doesn’t say. Drug Czar doesn’t say. Shouldn’t this be the first question asked? If there’s an increase in drugs showing up in fatalities, how is it an issue if there’s no corresponding increase in traffic fatalities? For all we know, an overall increase in drug use could be reducing fatalities.
2. What is the rate of drugs present in the non-fatality drivers? Without that as comparison, there’s nothing to indicate… anything. What if it turns out that drug presence is less prevalent in fatalities than non-fatalities?
3. “Researchers said the numbers could be higher because only about 3 in 5 drivers who were killed in car crashes were tested for drugs after the crash and testing varied from state to state.” Hmmm… The numbers could also be lower because only 3 in 5 drivers were tested for drugs after the crash. In fact, wouldn’t it be even more likely that drivers were tested for drugs in cases where drugs were believed to be involved? That might actually skew the results.
4. What about the change in drug usage in the general population? I just visited my Dad. He’s the safest driver I know, and yet he takes about 16 pills every day as part of what his doctor prescribes for various issues related to getting older. Not all prescription drugs cause impairment, and our population is aging. Old cautious drivers with drugs in their systems may be safer than young inexperienced sober drivers trying to impress a date.
5. What about relevance of the data?
   1. We know nothing about whether the crashes were caused by drugs.
   2. We know nothing about whether the drugs involved cause impairment.
   3. We know nothing about whether the drugs were merely in the system (as marijuana remains for days) or whether they were “active.”

So, what do we have, here?

Absolutely nothing.

Interesting research, sure. But absolutely nothing of validity regarding the connection between drugs and driving fatalities.

If Kerlikowske shows up at a press conference in DC with nonsense like this, you don’t print it and then say “well, we really don’t know for sure.” The responsible thing to do is laugh in his face, tell him to come back when he has some science to share, and then turn around and walk out. Especially if you’re CNN Medical Senior Producer David Martin.

…

What I wish is that they’d start testing for the stomach contents of drivers in fatal crashes, so I could look at the data and then put out this press release:

A first-ever stomach analysis of drivers killed in car crashes found one in three tested positive for beans in 2010.

Pete Guither, Executive Director of the Prohibition Isn’t Free Foundation, said the percentage was alarming and should serve as a wakeup call.

“We have not paid very much attention to the driving while under the influence of beans issue,” he told CNN. “It is a significant problem.”

David W. Doofus, associate director at CEMQ (Center for Expert Media Quotes), said the results were not inconsistent with surveys he and his colleagues have conducted.

“There’s no question that people are eating a lot of beans, and some of these beans might affect the environmental integrity of automotive atmospheric systems, thereby distracting the driver in potentially dangerous ways.” he said. “I think it’s fair to say there’s more to worry about than people drinking too much.”

Guither noted that a recent incident had involved a truck driver crashing because of pork rinds. “Imagine if it had been beans,” Guither intoned ominously. “Children might be dead.”

OK, now that we’ve decided that banning everything is the way to go, rather than regulating products or educating people, what’s dangerous combinations will we be going after next?

Oh no!!! It’s alcohol and… dessert topping. My God, they’ll get drunk and fat at the same time. We must ban this immediately!!!!

Though the packaging resembles a standard canister of Reddi-wip, these creamy toppings pack between 15-18% alcohol by volume, making one container as powerful as three or four beers. While that’s a lot of whipped cream to consume in one sitting, Dr. Anita Barry, director at the Boston Public Health Department told the Boston Herald there is still concern about the potency of the products. “They can get a significant amount of alcohol in one shot,” she said, adding that there questions about whether the packaging sufficiently revealed the products’ high alcohol content.

What about the children????

…public health officials have also expressed concerns that the sweet flavor and familiar packaging will make the products appealing and dangerous to children.

Certainly this is a non-issue, right? I mean, it’s not like the dangers of alcohol and caffeine. They wouldn’t actually ban it. I’m just crying wolf, right?

Apart from the delisting in Michigan, as of now no other states have banned the products, but a source indicated to the Herald that the Massachusetts Alcohol Beverages Control Commission is closely monitoring the whipped toppings.

.

Next up: rum cake

Via Grits for Breakfast, there was an excellent piece at NPR last week about the Richardson family in Clarksville, Texas and their run-in with the drug war: Civil Rights, Judicial Bias Surround Texas Drug Case by Wade Goodwyn.

It’s a bizarre (yet too true) story, including a warrant signed after the house was forcibly entered, the District Attorney (complete with flak jacket) participating in the raid, an entire family being charged for conspiracy even though it was clear that drug sales were limited to one step-son, and a judge refusing to drop charges even after the Attorney General’s office said there was no case.

Lawsuit pending.

Important news on the medical marijuana front.

SB 1381 is to be called for a vote tomorrow, Tuesday the 30th. Patients & Supporters are at the Capitol lobbying lawmakers right now for the final push.

During this veto session we still only need 60 votes, and there has been a confirmation that Sen. Cullerton can get the bill back through the Senate. It seems like we’ve got the go ahead Green lights to make this happen.

For those who cannot make it to Springfield please call your State Representative and politely and kindly tell them to “Vote Yes on Senate Bill 1381.” By calling 217-782-2000 you will be connected to the Capitol switchboard and the operator will be able to connect you with your State Representative’s office in Springfield.

Even this late in the game, it still matters that they hear your voice. Just like voting for your favorite on Dancing with the Stars and American Idol, you have to vote to. Also notify all your friends voting in Illinois.

The Illinois General Assembly website offers live streaming of floor debates and votes for legislation in House of Representatives and that would be the best way to stay up to date for when this bill will be called for a vote. If the bill is not called for a vote tomorrow then the next possibility will be December 1st.

Update: Medical Marijuana Measure Fails in Illinois House

Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Troy, a pharmacist, argued the legislation does not provide enough regulation.

… a pharmacist.

Enough said.

Based on the excellent, though occasionally derailed, discussion we were having at Opposing prohibition is not designed to be a simple solution to the drug problem, it appears that it would be good to talk definitions again.

The definitions of “legalization” and “prohibition” are sometimes used as ways to create straw men arguments, by essentially claiming that your opponents are for something else entirely.

“Legalization” has been used that way a lot. Prohibitionists will use the L word as though it necessarily means that we would need to allow major corporations to place Superbowl ads touting the self-esteem benefits for pre-teens shooting up heroin, and that pre-filled needles would be sold in shrink-wrap containers in the impulse display by the cash register at 7-11.

And then, when we say that legalization can include regulation, we get comments like:

Every regulation is a prohibition of something. … Meaningful regulation is a prohibition of some kind.

If we want to get into parsing dictionary entries, fine, but it’s pretty disingenuous to claim that regulation is equal to prohibition in a discussion about drugs being legal or not (thereby if you’re opposed to prohibition, you’re also opposed to regulation). Conflating regulation and prohibition in a discussion of legalization is nothing more than a dishonest attempt to re-define the position of those opposed to prohibition.

Consider alcohol. Would you say that prohibition never ended? After all, alcohol has been heavily regulated for every moment of time since the years of what the history books call “prohibition.” Did the 21st Amendment end prohibition or not?

Tobacco is heavily regulated. Is it prohibited? No. Driving is heavily regulated. Is it prohibited? No.

Here are the definitions I often use:

Legalization: A status where responsible adults may legally acquire, possess, and use a particular drug, although there may be restrictions on time, place and manner. Legal does not mean unregulated. In fact, when it comes to drugs, most supporters of legalization call for some regulation and control.

Consider gasoline. It is an extremely dangerous substance — it can cause severe health problems or death if inhaled, can be fashioned into an explosive and can cause damaging fires. It is a legal substance (responsible adults may acquire, possess, and use it), but it is subject to control and regulation. It can only be sold by licensed dealers, and there are regulations as to how it may be used, in what kind of containers it may be stored, and so forth.

Legalization of drugs is fully compatible with regulatory efforts restricting access to children, forbidding use while driving or while working in safety-sensitive jobs, banning use in certain locations or situations, controlling the means for manufacture and distribution (including taxation and labeling), and creating standards for purity and potency.

Criminalization: A status where the manufacture, distribution, and/or possession of a particular drug is likely to result in criminal penalties if caught (ie, felony or misdemeanor charges, jail, fines, probation, criminal record), regardless of time, place, or manner.

Prohibition: Criminalization as public policy.

Decriminalization: American Heritage dictionary defines it as “to reduce or abolish criminal penalties for.” Theoretically, decriminalization could mean legalization (and is preferred by some drug policy reformers), except for the “reduce” option. Decriminalization is sometimes used to describe contradictory legal situations where marijuana, for example, is legal to possess and use, but not to acquire — this is a partial legalization that leaves intact certain aspects of prohibition’s dangerous side-effects.

The default status of any substance is legal.

Now it’s true that regulation, if used to improper extremes, can be indistinguishable from criminalization. For example, if the law said marijuana sales and possession were legal, but only on February 29, and not within a mile of any trees, sand, airplanes, or bodies of water, then it’s not regulation, it’s prohibition disguised as regulation.

When we have legalization, I believe that we’ll have to be vigilant to watch for the correct balance of regulation (tailored to individual drugs), evaluating potential harms, and the significant reduction (although probably not complete elimination) of the black market.