Drug WarRant

Pretty impressive list.

To the Voters of California:

As law professors at many law schools who focus on various areas of legal scholarship, we write this open letter to encourage a wholesale rethinking of marijuana policy in this country, and to endorse the Tax and Control Cannabis 2010 initiative—Proposition 19—that will be voted on in November in California.

For decades, our country has pursued a wasteful and ineffective policy of marijuana prohibition. As with alcohol prohibition, this approach has failed to control marijuana, and left its trade in the hands of an unregulated and increasingly violent black market. At the same time, marijuana prohibition has clogged California’s courts alone with tens of thousands of non-violent marijuana offenders each year. Yet marijuana remains as available as ever, with teens reporting that it is easier for them to buy than alcohol across the country.

Proposition 19 would remove criminal penalties for private use and cultivation of small amounts of marijuana by adults and allow California localities to adopt—if they choose—measures to regulate commerce in marijuana. Passage of Proposition 19 would be an important next step toward adopting an approach more grounded in reason, for California and beyond.

Our communities would be better served if the criminal justice resources we currently spend to investigate, arrest, and prosecute people for marijuana offenses each year were redirected toward addressing unsolved violent crimes. In short, the present policy is causing more harm than good, and is eroding respect for the law.

Moreover, we are deeply troubled by the consistent and dramatic reports of disproportionate enforcement of marijuana laws against young people of color. Marijuana laws were forged in racism, and have been demonstrated to be inconsistently and unfairly applied since their inception. These are independent reasons for their repeal.

Especially in the current economic climate, we must evaluate the efficacy of expensive government programs and make responsible decisions about the use of state resources. We find the present policies toward marijuana to be bankrupt, and urge their rethinking.

This country has an example of a path from prohibition. Alcohol is subject to a regulatory framework that is far safer in every respect than the days of Al Capone. Just like the State of New York did when it rolled back Prohibition 10 years before the nation as a whole, California should show leadership and restore respect for the law by enacting the Tax and Control Cannabis 2010 initiative this November.

So if they’re not so sure they should accept the vote of the people, then, as Paul notes, where is the validity in their election?

Heck, with Prop 19, voters are given a real choice. They can accept the proposition or reject it. With the Attorney General race, they only have a fake choice — they have to pick one of the candidates and aren’t allowed to reject them (I’ve always been a big fan of adding “none of the above” to ballots). That means that if Prop 19 passes, it is more likely the will of the people than the Attorney General’s victory.

At the end of the article, Paul Armentano asks:

Which ultimately brings up the question: If a government’s legitimate use of state power is based on the consent of the governed, then at what point does marijuana prohibition — in particular the federal enforcement of prohibition — become illegitimate public policy? Ready or not, California’s next attorney general needs to be able to answer that question objectively and definitively.

Oo, oo, I know the answer. Pick me! Pick me!

We done passed that point a long time ago…

It’s no longer in the rear view mirror…

We passed it so long ago it’s in a different time zone….

That point’s so old its clothes have gone out of style…

Oh, look! There it goes again — we just lapped it!…

I looked back with my telescope for it, but all I could see was the redshift….

We believe that legalizing marijuana in California would effectively eliminate Mexican DTOs’ revenues from supplying Mexican-grown marijuana to the California market. As we elaborate in this chapter, even with taxes, legally produced marijuana would likely cost no more than would illegal marijuana from Mexico and would cost less than half as much per unit of THC (Kilmer, Caulkins, Pacula, et al., 2010). Thus, the needs of the California market would be supplied by the new legal industry. While, in theory, some DTO employees might choose to work in the legal marijuana industry, they would not be able to generate unusual profits, nor be able to draw on talents that are particular to a criminal organization.

Jon Walker has the true story of the newest Rand report, and how some of the intellectually dishonest “academics” at Rand are trying to spin it.

They use the worst argument fallacies imaginable. The government comes out and says that 60% of the cartels’ income is from marijuana. Legalizers say that legalizing will hurt the cartels (true) and mention the government’s numbers. Rand comes out and says that the government was lying through its teeth, but they don’t really know for sure what the real numbers are, but probably lower, and therefore the legalizers’ argument for legalization is supposedly weakened. And yet they admit that the legalizers’ core argument is true (that legalization will hurt the cartels – see above). Then they word their press release in such a way that they know the newspapers will report it as a blow to Prop 19.

The fact is that Prop 19 will be the first blow of many to the profits of the cartels, and it will be significant.

I think most of you are aware that I have a day job (I don’t actually make any money blogging) that I really enjoy. Sometimes that intrudes on my ability to do much blogging.

Now is one of those times.

I am Executive Producer of a formal Gala being done in a 20,000 square-foot ballroom, with 600 attendees paying $75 each, and over 300 performers, two stages, a sword-fight going down the center aisle between the tables, two dance numbers (one with live accompaniment), two vocal ensembles, actors, a jazz band, a string quartet, a brass quintet, a guitarist, a pianist, live video feeds, a live projected data visualization, video collage, art exhibits, art sales… and a complete marching band. It’s this Saturday.

Additionally, I’m programming all the content for an interactive touch-screen Hall of Fame that will have pictures, text, video, and audio clips for 23 inductees in the inaugural class. That will be unveiled Friday.

So I might be a little bit slow in updating this blog.

Just sayin’

This is an open thread.

Mary Anastasia O’Grady is one of the bright lights in the media in actually understanding and discussing the economics of prohibition. She has an outstanding OpEd today in the Wall Street Journal: The Economics of Drug Violence: Competition in the narcotics trade is preferable to monopolistic syndicates.

It’s a very insightful article about the drug violence in Mexico and how it relates to policies in the U.S., as well as our new understanding of Colombia (she nails former DEA head Bonner).

I also enjoyed her apt description of the challenges of Prop 19:

The combination of conservatives who fear that legalization would transform us into a hash-happy heap of hippies, drug warriors who make a living off of the criminalization of pot smoking, and gangsters whose profits are tied up in prohibition could be enough to defeat it by a narrow margin.

We’ve been talking a lot about Proposition 19 here recently. That certainly doesn’t mean that it’s all we care about. It’s just particularly timely, and has real significance.

I don’t know if Prop 19 will pass or not. I feel quite optimistic about it (although that feeling certainly has failed me before). And I’m going to do what I can to try to help it along in these final days. In 23 days, we’ll know.

And just in case you weren’t sure how this would affect Drug WarRant…

• If Proposition 19 passes…
  … the drug war will still be going on, and we’ll have work to do here.
• If Proposition 19 doesn’t pass…
  … the drug war will still be going on, and we’ll have work to do here.

Via David Borden, an animated Taiwanese news report on Prop 19 with English subtitles, illustrating some of the arguments on both sides.

As Borden notes, if you’re not a west-coaster, you may need to be reminded that the bear is a symbol of California.

A good Sunday read: How to profit by expanding freedom by Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune.

Substance abuse is known to impair clear thinking and good judgment. But it’s the people pushing harsh drug laws who seem to be lost in a fog.

A frustrating article from the People’s Daily Online. Int’l community urged to join hands in addressing drugs problem

Consider the source, of course, but still — it’s a bit depressing reading this article and seeing the representatives of country after country, under the guidance of the UNODC, essentially come out and say: “The drug war is a destructive failure, so we all need to band together and have more drug war!”

Mid-Coast Forum on Foreign Relations has guest speaker Ira Glasser: The War on the War on Drugs. We don’t as often get to hear extended talks on this subject, so this is a nice opportunity.

You can listen to the entire one hour presentation. (I haven’t heard it all yet)

Ira is former Executive Director of the ACLU, and is now Board President of the Drug Policy Alliance.

He nicely starts out the talk by going over the lessons of alcohol prohibition.

ICSDP Report on US Government Data on Cannabis Prohibition, set to music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FORm4aq9dzU

Oh, this looks like fun. Students to Rally with Yes We Cannabis Fire Truck to Sound Alarm For Prop 19

This is an Open Thread

A rather strange article by Shari Roan in the Health section of the Los Angeles Times titled A bit of tarnish on marijuana’s benign reputation

Ooh, I wondered, what dire medical study has been misinterpreted just in time for the final weeks before Prop 19? What is this “bit of tarnish,” then?

But, with a $5,000-a-year habit and chronic bronchitis, she tried repeatedly to quit. About a dozen times over the years she checked in alone to a hotel in Desert Hot Springs to white-knuckle herself through nausea, sweats and tremors.

Yep. They found some crazy lady with a $5,000-a-year pot habit. That’s not tarnish, that anecdote. Guess what? I found a crazy lady who has 130 cats. Doesn’t really say much useful about whether people should be allowed to own cats.

The meat of the article, if you can call it that, was another re-hash of the litany of health concerns while trying to strike a false balance in most instances.

Even Keith Humphreys made a cameo appearance as he chucked a random straw man into the article’s murky depths.

One particularly solid bit of research was the part about cannabis and driving:

The science of marijuana becomes murky when one steps beyond addiction statistics to examine effects on health.

A series of studies conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published in 1998 found that the effects of marijuana alone on driving were small or moderate, but severe when combined with alcohol.

But other studies show little impairment from a moderate dose: A 2004 study in the journal Accident, Analysis and Prevention found no increased risk of motor vehicle accidents causing traumatic injury among drivers using marijuana.

“Even after smoking, there aren’t any real deficits in driving ability that we can detect in the laboratory,” said Mitch Earleywine, an associate professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany who serves as an advisory board member at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Exactly. Other than the part about driving after drinking alcohol, it’s pretty much unanimous that marijuana and driving is not a serious issue.

Except the next line is:

The data on lung damage and smoking-related cancers are similarly mixed…

Wait. Similarly mixed? As in… not at all? Where was the mixed data on drugged driving in the article?

And then…

The data on lung damage and smoking-related cancers are similarly mixed, in part because a large portion of heavy marijuana users also smoke tobacco, which muddies the picture of marijuana’s effects.

No, the data on lung damage and smoking-related cancers are not mixed. Not unless you ignore the definitive study of its kind conducted by Tashkin at UCLA and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. That study accounted for tobacco use, unlike the tiny study in New Zealand that the drug prohibitionists like to quote, since their own big definitive study failed to produce the cancer they hoped for.

Like I said. A strange article. Not an all bad one, as there are plenty of good points in it. But to hang it on one woman’s addiction, and then use the false balancing technique, for each point (whether there existed balance or not).

It was.

“I hear bad noise, I thought somebody breaks in,” Jakymek told NBCChicago.com. “In that time, about 20 guys came in, and they said they were looking for guns and narcotics. They tell me to go into the bathroom. … They search everything. … I was scared. I thought it was gang.”

The men who burst into the home reportedly were members of the Cook County Sheriff’s Police Gang Crimes Unit, executing a search warrant for guns and narcotics.

The raid was based on information from a confidential informant.

Yep. That’s the level of police investigation required to have 20 men invade your home.

Just another day.

According to the sheriff’s office:

“Over the last four years, our gangs and narcotics unit has served more than 500 search warrants, and it is incredibly rare that those searches have resulted in this sort of outcome.”

“Incredibly rare” is still too much. And 500 search warrants in four years is about 1 every three days. That’s too much. It’s a broken system. If you served 5,000 narcotics search warrants or 5 in the same time period, it would have no difference on the availability of drugs. All you’re doing is pushing the odds. When you reduce the amount of investigation and, in mass numbers, use violent tactics for situations that shouldn’t even be situations, it doesn’t even matter how good you are. You’re playing Russian Roulette with peoples’ lives.

Colbert discusses Prop 19 with Joseph Califano and Gary Johnson