Drug WarRant

A really excellent OpEd at CNN.com by the Drug Policy Alliance’s Bill Piper.

It’s titled Time to end the war on marijuana, but clearly he’s talking about more than just marijuana.

Here are a couple of really outstanding quotes that give you an idea of the piece:

It is long past time to abandon the silly notion that America can be a drug-free nation. The inconvenient truth in drug policy is that Americans love drugs — alcohol, caffeine, marijuana, cocaine, and prescription drugs for everything from anxiety to fatigue. Although some people develop problems with their drug use, most do not. This holds true for both legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco, and illegal drugs like marijuana and cocaine. Decades of evidence shows that the average user of any drug doesn’t get addicted and doesn’t create problems for anyone else.

and…

What matters most is not how many people use marijuana, alcohol or other drugs, but what’s the best way to reduce the problems associated with substance misuse without creating more harmful social problems. Drug use rates rise and fall almost independently of what politicians say and do, but criminalizing drug use makes the situation worse. Prohibition doesn’t stop drug use; it makes drug use more dangerous while filling prisons with nonviolent offenders and making crime lords rich.

And again, nice to see such an OpEd featured at a place like CNN.

Why Parents Should Support Legalizing Pot

My son just started kindergarten. So naturally, I have been thinking a lot about the type of world and community in which I want him and our seven-year-old daughter to live. I am involved in a project to improve school lunches in our district to reinforce the nutrition lessons we teach in our home. I am a founding board member of a community group trying to improve our city’s parks. And I am working to help pass Proposition 19, the initiative to control and tax marijuana in California. It is important to me as a mother that my children grow up in a state—hopefully a country soon—that rejects the ineffective and damaging policy of marijuana prohibition. It may be counterintuitive, but legalizing marijuana will be better and safer for our children.

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Prop 19 Opponents Terrified by Centuries-Old Tradition of Local Ordinances

I’ve noticed a consistent but baseless distortion being spread by opponents of California’s Proposition 19, which would legalize, regulate and tax cannabis. They complain that Prop 19 is poorly crafted and/or would produce an unenforceable “patchwork” of regulation. The reality is that, compared with most propositions in California’s history, Prop 19 is very sensibly written, with the express purpose of giving state and local governments maximum flexibility to make legal marijuana workable. The fictitious, nightmarish “patchwork” of regulations caused by allowing local governments to craft local ordinances is no different than how local governments handle almost everything in our economy, including alcohol, parking, pizza ovens, farmers markets and building codes.

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Chaos Erupts Over Prop 19 at California Cannabis Expo

Apparently quite a ruckus. I still have nothing but contempt by those who are so shortsighted and selfish that they’re willing to throw away a chance at legalization, and starting a national movement because it’s not exactly what they wanted.

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What the pot legalization campaign really threatens by David Sirota

We are asked to believe that people drinking a daily six-pack for a quarter-century is not a lamentable sign of a health crisis, but instead a “lifestyle” triumph worthy of flag-colored celebration — and we are expected to think that legalizing a safer alternative to this “lifestyle” is dangerous. Likewise, as laws obstruct veterans from obtaining doctor-prescribed marijuana for post-traumatic stress disorder, we are asked to believe that shotgunning cans of lager is the real way to “support our troops.”

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We’re just over a month away. Why not give $25?

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Open Thread.

The organizations and web sites of those opposing Prop 19 have been really ridiculous — tired old nonsense that’s been disproved over and over. I was beginning to despair of finding a site that could possibly give us a decent challenge.

Well, there is one. Someone stopped by and gave us the link in comments, but it was caught by the spam filter (perhaps the spam filter is politically watching my back?) But I rescued it.

www.opposeprop19.com

California Prop 19 would have California treat marijuana much the same way we now treat alcohol following Prohibition. Adults would have the option of legally using marijuana in the privacy of their home. Prop 19 is nothing more than a crude attempt to undo over 70 years of Harry Anslinger’s enlightened approach towards marijuana.

The site includes the true story of how the narcotics squad got the hopped up killer, or this tragedy:

THE sprawled body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk the other day after a plunge from the fifth story of a Chicago apartment house. Everyone called it suicide, but actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic known to America as marijuana

The site’s conclusion is compelling…

If we can put every marijuana user in jail and we can find and kill every single marijuana plant, there would be almost no violent crime left in America. This fact is recognized by the liquor industry. That’s why the liquor industry supports our efforts to defeat Prop 19 with such generous financial contributions.

Keep the status quo by defeating Prop 19. Join with Rep. Lamar Smith, other self-interested politicians, a large percentage of law enforcement, prison guards, the liquor industry, Mexican cartels, and thousands of drug dealers in opposing Prop 19. Don’t let our prisons go under-utilized. Arresting marijuana users makes good sense and is just plain good business.

Somebody put a lot of good work into that site.

Update: Read this before commenting. The site I’m talking about here is a parody. Be sure to know what that means before you comment. You can always look it up on teh Google. This is part of a basic education, people. Breathe. Laugh. and…. Lighten up, Francis.

I swear if another person shows up in the comments all pissed off by the material from this site, I’m going to pass a law saying that everyone but you gets to smoke pot legally.

You know how difficult it is to get prohibitionists to agree to debates or to appear in a public forum? They’re usually pretty much afraid to face us.

Well, they finally came up with a format that was acceptable….

The Wednesday “Just the Facts” forum, sponsored by Coalition for a Drug-Free Nevada County and Grass Valley Chamber of Commerce, featured seven panelists who oppose the Nov. 2 ballot measure to legalize marijuana, Proposition 19.

They included Nevada County District Attorney Cliff Newell, Nevada County Sheriff’s Sgt. Bill Smethers, Grass Valley Police Capt. Rex Marks, Chip Arenchild of InterWest insurance, Michelle Gregory of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, Earle Jamison High School Principal Anita Bagwell and Aimee Hendle, a representative of the San Diego-based group Californians for Drug Free Youths.

Apparently the ironically named “Just the Facts” forum decided that Proposition 19 wasn’t a very good idea. Kudos to the participants for managing to counter the opposition so well.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger chastises the SEIU for endorsing Prop 19 because legalizing marijuana will bring risks to public safety, and…

“It would also make California a laughingstock.”

I was both busy and out of town the past couple of days, and need to catch up on reading the voluminous comments here. You guys certainly get some good discussions going….

There’s an interesting think piece in today’s Washington Post (thanks, Daniel) by Kwame Anthony Appiah: What will future generations condemn us for?

…Looking back at such horrors, it is easy to ask: What were people thinking?

Yet, the chances are that our own descendants will ask the same question, with the same incomprehension, about some of our practices today.

Kwame goes on to point out that by looking back, you can identify tip-offs that a practice may be a future past horror. Some sounded familiar, such as “supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they’re complicit.” Yeah, no kidding.

He pick the prison system as his first example, and it’s spot on.

He doesn’t actually use the drug war as one of his prognostications, although he does say “Whether a country that was truly free would criminalize recreational drug use is a related question worth pondering.”

However, I think it’s clear that the drug war is one of those travesties that will be reviled in some way by future generations. How is uncertain. Will it be like the horrible disgust we have hearing about the burning of witches? Or will it be like the Hayes code silliness, where we reminisce about how they used to have to show married couples in separate beds on TV?

Will the prohibitionists be considered “a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came,” or will subtly shifting attitudes and political forgetfulness blur the lines causing everyone to come out of it looking good?

How do you want to be remembered for your role in the drug war? Do you want to be one of those who sat in your living room looking out the window at the flashing lights thinking “Well, at least they didn’t come for me.”?

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Still fighting. Two years after its introduction, Good Samaritan still stirs passions among students, officials. Seeing the passion, intelligence and determination shown by young SSDP members often makes me think that there’s hope for the future.

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Brian Doherty on Medical Marijuana Supporters Against Legalization. Which reminds me: It’s Time for Unity in the Marijuana Reform Movement

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Has the Future Gone To Pot? Has CBS’ Harry Smith run out of interesting things to say? Harry, your pot puns are old, and, quite frankly, annoying.

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New Poll Results on Prop 19. Of course, the only poll results that really mean anything are the ones at the voting booth.

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Just Say Now has a new Store

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This is an open thread.

Remember that final scene in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, where Kumar convinces Harold to go with him to Amsterdam, reminding him that marijuana is legal in the Netherlands? Well, that might just get them thrown in jail for “conspiracy to commit, at any place outside the United States, an act that would constitute a violation of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act if committed within the United States,” under an extremely bad new law proposed by Representative Lamar Smith of Texas that might be voted on today.

The Drug Policy Alliance has an alert on it and is urging people to call Nancy Pelosi at 202-225-0100 and urging to stop the bill from going forward.

They note:

• The Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2010 (H.R. 5231), introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (the only House member to speak against reforming the racist crack/powder disparity), seeks to authorize U.S. criminal prosecution of anyone in the U.S. suspected of conspiring with one or more persons, or aiding or abetting one or more persons, to commit at any place outside the United States an act that would constitute a violation of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act if committed within the United States.
• These penalties apply even if the controlled substance is legal under some circumstances in the other country. An American treatment provider working with doctors in England, Denmark, Germany, or Switzerland to provide heroin assisted treatment and sterile syringes to heroin users in those countries could face arrest. As could an otherwise law-abiding American planning with some friends to use marijuana legally in the Netherlands while on vacation there.
• Even though this bill references drug trafficking in the title, it also criminalizes conspiring to possess and use marijuana or other drugs in other countries if more than one person is involved – even if drug use is decriminalized in that country. Thus, it imposes America’s harsh drug policies on other countries, and further criminalizes a health issue. The bill’s title is very misleading.
• Even when applied against drug traffickers, The Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act would likely perpetuate injustice. Under U.S. drug conspiracy laws a person can be found guilty even when there are no drugs or other physical evidence involved. The uncorroborated word of someone pointing fingers to get a reduced sentence is all it takes. Moreover anyone convicted of being part of a drug conspiracy is punished not for the offense they actually committed but for all the offenses committed by members in the conspiracy. This has led to very low-level, impoverished, first-time offenders receiving sentences that are decades long. Conspiracy laws drive the so-called “girlfriend problem” whereby thousands of women every year are sentenced to harsh sentences for the crimes of their abusive partners.
• The United States houses 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its incarcerated population. This excess of incarceration is a direct result of punitive and ineffective drug laws, which are currently crippling our social and economic resources. Trends in the U.S. are shifting toward alternative sentencing and away from the policies developed in the almost forty years since Nixon declared the “War on Drugs.” H.R. 5231 would be a detrimental step in the wrong direction.
• House Leadership should not bring this problematic bill up for a vote. It has only two cosponsors and wasn’t even considered in committee.

It would be nice to see a bill like this one completely trashed in Congress. I would hope that the public relations success of the recent crack/powder sentencing disparity adjustment bill would help Congress realize that they don’t have to vote in favor of every stupid draconian drug law. That in fact, it won’t make them more popular with their constituents.

We had some entertainment last week with Stimson’s bizarre screed at the Heritage Foundation. Some others have joined in the game with some good stuff

Steve Fox

I have been working in marijuana policy reform for almost nine years now. I think I have heard all of the arguments against creating a legal, regulated marijuana market more than a few times. While some arguments have some legitimacy, most are distortions of the truth, intellectually inconsistent, or flat out wrong. But this new piece from Charles Stimson, which just went up on the Heritage Foundation site last week, is batshit crazy.

Jacob Sullum

Last month I marveled at the inability of six former drug czars to muster a cogent argument against marijuana legalization in an 800-word Los Angeles Times op-ed piece. The Heritage Foundation gave Charles “Cully” Stimson eight times as much space, and the resulting hash further illustrates the intellectual bankruptcy of drug prohibitionists. […]

Cataloging every misleading, dubious, or flat-out wrong assertion that Stimson makes in the course of his excursion into marijuana policy is a daunting task. It would be easier to list all of the true things he says.

Yeah, sure. That’s why they gave $10,000.

Roger Salazar vs. Mason Tvert on CNN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYrt-t_Dzg4

And just for the record, we understand that there are beer makers who support Proposition 19 or are neutral to Proposition 19, particularly many of the smaller beer makers, who rightly feel that they were misrepresented by the California Beer and Beverage Distributors.

Don’t blame us for that misrepresentation.