Drug WarRant

Keith Humphreys has apparently decided to go all out with this bizarre rant about dead tobacco consumers.

It apparently goes like this:

• Tobacco companies cause 40,000 deaths per year from cigarette smoking; therefore, don’t legalize marijuana.

Apparently, part of this strange equation involves big businesses that are unhappy with the low numbers of consumers that they’ve killed and want to increase that number. They will then hijack the legal marijuana business, make everyone want to buy an inferior product through advertising, and poison the product so that people, who have never died from marijuana, will start dropping dead all over the place.

To Keith (in an otherwise good post), it’s like big business is worse than the combination of Mexican Drug Cartels and Al Qaeda.

The other possible outcome is that AG Holder (and note this is rank speculation, I have not discussed this with him and have no idea what he will decide in the end) does not intervene at all. In that case the coming years will see either Big Tobacco having a line of lucrative, well-marketed cannabis products, or, a new industry created that more or less conducts itself like Big Tobacco.

and that links to…

“This law hands another product to market to tobacco companies or creates a doppelganger that will lobby with them,” Humphreys said. “I don’t want to see some 16-year-old kid who smokes a joint have his life ruined, but . . . this law is not just legalized use, it’s legalized corporate ownership [and] legalized marketing.”

Humphreys predicts that tobacco companies, which have been poised and ready to accept cannabis into their product line since the 1970s, will align their aggressive marketing tactics and billions of dollars in lobbying power to gain control of cannabis in California.

“It’s taken us 40 years to bring tobacco companies even modestly to heel, and tobacco still kills 40,000 people per year,” he said. “How about let’s show we can regulate one industry that sells an addictive plant before we take on another.”

What a scary concept: “legalized corporate ownership [and] legalized marketing.” That sounds like something that some kind of Capitalist Society might have. Not like a nice benign Nanny State that tells its citizens what’s best for them, and that sends armed and hooded peacemakers through the front door of their homes to make sure they don’t do something that’s bad for them.

Thank God we have Keith Humphreys here in the states to protect us from the horrors of consumer choice.

If you haven’t donated to Prop 19 yet, you still have time (see the link above), and you’ll be in some pretty darned good company.

Why We Donated $100,000 to Prop 19

I am President and co-owner of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, a 60-year-old company founded by my German-Jewish grandfather, Emanuel Bronner in 1948. Our family and over 60 employees in California produce the best-selling natural brand of soap in the United States. We use certified organic and fair trade vegetable oils, including non-drug hemp seed oil to super-fat the soaps for smoother lather and moisturizing after-feel. […]

Dr. Bronner’s buys 20 tons of hemp oil for our soaps from Canada annually. For nearly ten years the Bronner family has financially supported bringing back non-drug industrial hemp farming in the US as an environmentally sustainable crop that can be made into a wide variety of products including food, cosmetics, clothing, building materials and more.

I have decided to personally give a $75,000 donation to Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) for “Get Out the Vote” efforts to pass Prop 19 in California, the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. Adam Eidinger and Alan Amsterdam, co-founders of Capitol Hemp Clothing and Accessories, have donated an additional $25,000 as well. Dr. Bronner’s will also provide the company’s promotional fire truck to “sound the alarm” on college campuses across California. We hope to mobilize younger voters who are the primary victims of the war on cannabis who know first-hand the lies of cannabis prohibition.

There’s a number of incredible stories in this one statement.

• One is the donation of $100,000, ten times what the alcohol distributors gave to the other side.
• One is the fact that the primary need for Dr. Bronner’s is industrial hemp, but he’s willing to put his money there for the sake of the future, even though this bill won’t directly do anything for the industrial hemp problem.
• And one is the fact of the heavy involvement of SSDP in campaigning for Prop 19. These young people are our future, and under the terms of the Prop 19 law that they are working hard to pass, they won’t even be able to smoke pot legally. Instead of whining about it like some of the anti-Prop-19 potheads, these young people know that the important thing is to change the paradigm — to stop prohibition. That’s the first step is breaking the beast, and then, eventually, we’ll find a way to treat those of an age to be sent off to die in wars as though they were human beings.

… but that’s not all!

Facebook’s Sean Parker Outdoes Moskovitz With $100K For Marijuana Bill

Sean Parker, co-founder of Facebook and Napster, has joined his former colleague Dustin Moskovitz by cutting a large check towards the legalization of marijuana.

Not to be outdone by America’s youngest billionaire Moskovitz, who gave $70,000 to California’s Proposition 19, Parker has donated $100,000 to the ballot initiative that would make it legal to possess the drug for personal use.

That’s right. The two founders of Facebook… $170,000. Not bad.

According to Sasha Horwitz, the New Media Coordinator for Proposition 19:

Founding fathers of the biggest social networking site in the world, Parker and Moskovitz’s contributions represent another sign that political influence in California is skewing younger and in the direction of Silicon Valley. The next wave in political organizing will begin with youth, and that may mean it will be born online. Parker and Moskovitz’s technical leadership taps into the generational shift in attitudes toward the failed drug war, which costs the state hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

…goes to Maia Szalavitz, in a very interesting analysis in Time Magazine: Prop 19 Analysis: Will Marijuana Legalization Increase Use?

Many questions remain about what will happen if Proposition 19 passes, but the only result I can unequivocally predict is that drug policy debates will finally become less theoretical — and much more interesting.

The case for legalizing marijuana by Gary Mason

There was a time, particularly when my children were young, when I wasn’t sure legalizing pot was such a good idea. But that old-school approach doesn’t hold up any more. The fact is, the war on marijuana has done far more harm than the substance itself. And every reason for legalizing it in the U.S. applies to Canada as well.

If I were to sum up one of our biggest challenges, it is helping people distinguish between the harms of (legal and illegal) drug misuse and the harms of drug prohibition.

There is justifiable fear and terror around the drug trade. Everyday we read and hear about the bloody drug war in Mexico that has taken the lives of at least 28,000 people in a little over three years. We see and hear about shootings, murders and violence in our cities because of the drug trade.

For too long, people have associated the violence with the drugs themselves, rather than the policy of prohibition.

Some very good stuff in there, and a nice job of laying out the options (although the “Fight it out in the courts” paragraph is a glib throwaway that shows a complete lack of understanding of Constitutional law).

Personally, I think Obama will follow the “Make some examples” option, just enough to make it appear that he’s tough, while trying to paint the “examples” as being distributors of drugs to kids, so as not to overly enrage the general pot-smoking population.

As Tom Angell from “Yes on 19” put it when I spoke to him, “If the president wants to further demoralize his base, stepping in and overturning the will of the voters of California on marijuana reform would be a great way to do that.”

This is an open thread.

Nice little story in southern Illinois about a sheriff who was being interviewed for a story about selling off seized cars.

According to sheriff Mearkl Justus…the most common drug resulting in property seizures…is marijuana.

But after thirty years as sheriff in St. Clair County, Sheriff Justus has reached a conclusion.

“It’s just a merry-go-round. I think some day, and I don’t think it’s very far off, I think maybe we’re going to see in Illinois, I think one day they’ll de-criminalize small amounts of marijuana. And I’m not too certain with what that won’t be a good idea.”

The video is worth watching as it expands on the story, and you get an actual feel for how one sheriff is coming to a realization.

And this isn’t in some enlightened community where it might be easy to make statements like that. Far from it. For example, one of the few comments to the story was:

who cares…..I hope it never happens…all it will do is to cheer up some n*&&#$

Via Phil Smith at Stop the Drug War

Peruvian President Alan García said Monday he is absolutely opposed to drug legalization and warned that legalizing marijuana will take society down the path toward euthanizing the elderly.

That’s right! It’s another tomato raid. This time, in the greenhouse of a Montessori school.

“We were all as a group eating outside as we usually do, and this unmarked drab-green helicopter kept flying over and dropping lower,” she said. “Of course, the kids got all excited. They were telling me that they could see gun barrels outside the helicopter. I was telling them they were exaggerating.” […]

Then other vehicles arrived and four men wearing bullet-proof vests, but without any visible insignias or uniforms, got out and said they wanted to inspect the school’s greenhouses. Pantano said she then turned the men over to the farm director, Greg Nussbaum.

And that’s how the heavily armored men discovered the tomato plants.

Patricia Pantano, the education director, said it best when she…

…questioned why such a commotion was necessary when anyone who asked would have been given a tour of the greenhouses.

“We’re sitting here as a teaching staff, always short on money, and we’re thinking, ‘Gosh, all the money it takes to fly that helicopter and hire all those people, it would be great to have this for education.’ ”

Kudos to Illinois State University chapter of SSDP for a very nice Hempfest event today out on the quad (and a beautiful day for it).

While I was out there, one of the students asked me what, if anything, Prop 19 had to say about industrial hemp. “Nothing, really.”

Of course, I suppose that any of the provisions of the act could apply to industrial hemp (you could grow and keep as much of it as you wanted to within a 5’x5′ plot, and you could transport an ounce of it), but that’s fairly meaningless within the context of the kinds of amounts that you’d need to, say, build a hemp home.

It’s an unfortunate fact, but industrial hemp will not be solved through state referendum. Why? It’s too big.

The problem is that, while recreational marijuana state law creates a situation where there’s no possible way for the feds to arrest even a tiny fraction, a hemp farm is too easy a target, since the feds could even come in and seize the land.

The prime example of this is in North Dakota, where the state actually did legalize the growing of industrial hemp and issued licenses to farmers. But no farmers were willing to proceed without permission from the DEA (or at least assurance that they wouldn’t be hassled), so no hemp has been grown.

This train of thought led to another…

For those people who fear that Proposition 19 will lead to marijuana big business, the fact is that federal law pretty much insures that it won’t.

If there’s anyone that the feds can go after once Prop 19 passes, it’s anyone making a big business out of it. That gives the advantage to the small guy — the 25 square foot do-it-yourself grower — the person with an ounce. The ones the feds can’t touch.

I sometimes forget that we’re not the only ones with them…

This stunning public policy communique from the home office as a result of a fact-finding international trip…

Home Office minister James Brokenshire has warned of the severe consequnces of smuggling drugs when he visited Sarita Colonia jail in Peru.

During his visit, part of a week-long trip to South America, including Columbia and Venezuela, the minister spoke with UK citizens convicted for drugs offences about their experiences and harsh conditions in the prison. They included Nick Jones who is serving six years and eight months for trafficking cocaine.

James Brokenshire said the inmates’ experiences should send a message to would-be smugglers: ‘Think twice, because the consequences are quite significant’.

‘The chance of being caught is very high’, he added.

Now there’s a government with a plan.

Of course, then there’s our own drug czar…

Preventing drug use before it starts and having programs in place to assist substance abusers before they become addicted simply makes sense.

Actually, it makes no sense at all. Are you suggesting we should steal prescriptions from people so they don’t use drugs? Is all use abuse?

When they don’t have an agenda that actually, you know, works, politicians end up with nothing to say but the silly and banal.

As the prohibitionists scramble to come up with every weak argument to bolster their position that they can find, and the stink of fear permeates their scribblings, it’s been interesting to see the re-appearance of the old argument that alcohol is the only drug that is consumed without “getting high.”

This is, of course, the argument that Art Linkletter brought up in his famously recorded personal conversations with President Nixon.

Linkletter: “Another big difference between marijuana and alcohol is that when people smoke marijuana, they smoke it to get high. In every case, when most people drink, they drink to be sociable. You don’t see people –”

Nixon: “That’s right, that’s right.”

Linkletter: “They sit down with a marijuana cigarette to get high –”

Nixon: “A person does not drink to get drunk.”

Linkletter: “That’s right.”

Nixon: “A person drinks to have fun.”

Linkletter: “I’d say smoke marijuana, you smoke marijuana to get high.”

Nixon: “Smoke marijuana, er, uh, you want to get a charge of some sort, and float, and this, that and the other thing.”

Of course, this is just bizarre, but it keeps popping up. Even recently in comments here, we got:

The difference between alcohol and drugs is that one can consume 1-2 drinks and still maintain total lucidity, whereas other drugs have immediate damaging effects.

Of course, the first objection I have to these arguments is: What’s wrong with getting high?

To quote myself from a few years ago…

It’s an important, even essential, part of life.

We all spend much of our time trying to get high. The rush when you have a particularly rich piece of chocolate — you’re getting high. That perfect coffee drink in the morning. Three-inch thick filet mignon that’s charred on the outside and still red in the middle. Sex.

(And I’m not just speaking metaphorically here. All these activities actually cause the body to produce chemicals that make you high.)

Jogging does it for some people (not me, but bike-riding can get me high). Tiramisu with Sambuca and double espresso at Ferrara’s. A sunset. The smell of fresh air. The smell of fresh baked bread.

Solving a puzzle, winning a game, taking a bow at the end of a great performance in a packed theatre with hundreds of people on their feet.

A photograph. A poem. Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”

Getting an “A”. Getting a raise. Being employee of the month.

Helping someone out.

Getting high is not only part of life — life without it is no life at all.

And these highs are not always consequence-free. Try eating all the chocolate you want.

Then there’s the drug that gives you the most intense highs and crashing lows — the most dangerous addiction of all…

Love gives you wings. It makes you fly. I don’t even call it love. I call it Geronimo. When you’re in love, you’ll jump right from the top of the Empire State and you won’t care, screaming “Geronimo” the whole way down. I love her so bad, I just… whoa, she wrecks me. I’d die for her.

Getting high isn’t always good for you. But don’t you dare tell me that it’s wrong.

The thing is, of course, that even when they say “high,” that’s not what they really mean. They mean “stupid.” The kind of high when you’re no longer able to communicate clearly. And yes, you see that with some folks with pretty much all drugs (very much including alcohol, of course).

But pretty much every drug can be used in a sociable way, where you’re not getting “wasted.”

Now, it’s possible that someone without any firsthand knowledge (and pretty poor secondhand knowledge) might think that illegal drugs are primarily used to get “wasted.” But that’s a function of prohibition.

During alcohol prohibition, it’s been reported that per capita consumption increased 500%. When it became illegal, there was a push toward binge drinking, (and also prohibition meant that it was unprofitable to provide low-potency options).

Today, with the 21-year-old drinking age, we have unhealthy binge drinking on college campuses, due in part to the partial prohibition.

Drug prohibition has similar effects in that some people will tend to consume as much as they can when something is illegal.

Today, there is plenty of (non-wasted) social use of marijuana and other illicit drugs. But I do look forward to legalization when it becomes easier to consume drugs that way.

When I was in college (some years ago), there was a bit of a tradition of some of my friends going to the soccer games and bringing a couple of joints to enjoy along the sideline while watching the game (they didn’t do this at the football games, because the alumni were there, and the soccer team was grateful to have an audience at all). It was the equivalent of having a couple of beers with a game, and it was a wonderful way to enjoy beautiful weather and a great game on a sunny afternoon.

There are so many ways that cannabis can be used to enhance a sociable and non-wasted experience, from a gourmet meal, to a good movie, to hanging out with friends, to hiking in the mountains, to putting on some tunes and cleaning house!

It’ll be nice when people have more non-legally-threatening options to enjoy it that way.