Drug WarRant

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.

A principled stance by Sierra Nevada beer (h/t to CelebStoner).

From Sierra Nevada – We’ve been getting lots of calls and email regarding our stance on California’s Proposition 19-which would legalize marijuana if passed. A beer industry group surprised us by linking our name in with their opposition. We had no idea it was happening and we disagree with their position.

This week, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors (CBBD) came out against California Proposition 19—also known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. The CBBD is an industry group that represents the interests of beer distributors and members. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and many other independent craft brewers are associate members of the CBBD.

Although we are members of this organization, we were neither consulted—nor informed of—their decision to take a stand against California Proposition 19. Sierra Nevada’s role as an associate member grants no access or influence on the political agendas of the CBBD, and we had no knowledge of the organization’s intention to fight this ballot proposition.

The CBBD does not represent Sierra Nevada’s political interests in any way, and does not represent the brewery’s stance on the issue. We’ve requested the CBBD to remove our name from their list of members, and also to disassociate the brewery from this and any future political actions.

Over the past three decades, Sierra Nevada has maintained neutrality concerning political issues. We feel that people have the obligation to choose what is right for themselves without influence from outside interests. We regret any implied association with this action by the CBBD, and maintain our independence and neutrality regarding matters of politics

Looks like it’s time for me to try a Sierra Nevada.

Bob Barr better read up a little more. You’d think by now, having been on both sides of the issue, he’d know better.

Five years ago, in a 6-3 opinion, in which only Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas dissented, the Court struck down California’s medical marijuana law that similarly had been passed by voter referendum.

No. Does it really look to you like California’s medical marijuana law was struck down? What the Supreme Court did in Raich was affirm the federal government’s ability to enforce its own law under the interstate commerce clause even when there was no commerce and no interstate. It had nothing to do with striking down a state referendum.

Mexico paper seeks drug gang guidance

“The loss of two reporters from this publishing house in less than two years represents an irreparable sorrow for all of us who work here, and, in particular, for their families,” the newspaper said.

Describing the drug lords as the “de facto authorities” within Ciudad Juarez, the newspaper asked the cartels: “We ask you to explain what you want from us, what we should try to publish or not publish, so we know what to expect.”

This is an open thread.

It gets harder and harder for the Onion to come up with stories that aren’t already happening somewhere in this strange world, so have a little fun with this one: Mexico Killed In Drug Deal

MEXICO CITY—In the latest incident of drug-related violence to hit the country, all 111 million citizens of Mexico were killed Monday during a shoot-out between rival drug cartels.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the violence was sparked by a botched drug deal involving an estimated 20 kilograms of marijuana […]

They have some fun with the DEA and Director Michele Leonhart:

“A four-gram bag of cocaine was also recovered by agents,” Leonhart added.

Leonhart said the DEA has sealed off the 761,606-square-mile crime scene, which is littered with bullet-riddled bodies and assault rifles, and splattered with blood. […]

“We are doing our best at the moment to locate any Mexican police or military officials who are still alive so that we may work hand-in-hand with them to combat the growing problem of drug violence in Mexico,” Leonhart told reporters. “Episodes like this are simply unacceptable and will not be tolerated by the United States government.”

The alcohol lobby hasn’t responded to press requests regarding their donation to the Prop 19 opposition, so the Mercury News, after getting quotes from MPP’s Steve Fox about alcohol’s fear of marijuana as competition, decided to go to Public Safety First spokesman Roger Salazar.

But Public Safety First spokesman Roger Salazar said it’s a public-safety issue, pure and simple.
Salazar also noted the beer and beverage industry owns and operates large truck fleets in California to bring their products to market. “I would think they would no more support allowing their drivers to drink beer before getting behind the wheel of their trucks or vans, than they would want them smoking marijuana.”

Am I the only one who sees the utter absurdity of that statement?

So… Roger is saying that, if marijuana is legalized, the alcohol industry is concerned that the drivers of beer trucks will be high on marijuana?

We’ve got these drivers, and they’re driving trucks full of legal beer, and they’re taking them to bars and liquor stores and convenience stores that have nice cold beer and probably the store/bar owners would be happy to give them a nice cold one for the road, but due to company policy, they’re somehow able to get these drivers to drive without drinking. But marijuana?

Wow.

Don’t you love political consultants? They don’t even pretend to tell the truth.

(Oh, and Malcolm Kyle has the connections Roger Salazar is spokesman for Public Safety First and is also working for the Jerry Brown for Governor campaign, for which Malcolm has shown the beverage contributions. It’s all about money and where the money is connected.)

Thoreau, writing at Unqualified Offerings, has a couple of interesting posts about drug legalization: Stop worrying and love the bong? and More on drugs.

There’s one part that caught my attention and I wanted to discuss…

If I say that the drug war enriches criminals, I am suggesting that without the drug war the criminals would make less money. I have no illusion that organized crime would vanish, but at least they’d have fewer revenue streams, and riskier revenue streams. If they get money by selling drugs, the people that they get their money from will not call the cops. If they get their money by identity theft, somebody will most definitely call the cops. Even if they get their money by trafficking sex slaves, at the very least there’s a person who wants to call the cops, and now and then somebody will get away and call the cops. But nobody calls the cops to report “Officer, that guy just sold me a joint.” (At least not before getting stoned. Once he’s sufficiently stoned, well, I suppose anything’s possible.)

My friends, however, do not believe that legalization will have any effect on crime, or at least no significant effect in the long run. I think it requires a great deal of cynicism to believe that organized crime will not be hurt at all if a major revenue stream is eliminated.

The problem with Thoreau’s friends (and a lot of other people out there) is that they have this bizarre and mistaken notion that there is an identifiable and discrete subset of the population that are “criminals,” and that this subset is apparently automatically refilled naturally. Perhaps at birth, these individuals are marked with an X on their foreheads showing that they are unable to do anything in society except criminal enterprises. In such a society, removing a huge source of criminal revenue might not make a big dent in crime.

However, our society is not so black and white. All of us are criminals in one way or another (who hasn’t broken some law somewhere, perhaps even unknowing?). And while circumstances of birth can, in some instances, increase the likelihood that someone may end up involved in criminal enterprises, there is no X on the forehead.

The truth is that prohibition creates criminals. Not all of them, but a lot.

Here’s a scenario that repeats every day in this country…

A young person helps out his friends by picking up pot for them when he’s getting his. No big deal. He knows it’s illegal, but it’s not like he’s hurting anyone. Soon he starts getting a few bucks doing this and that’s really helping out. The money is better than McDonald’s, so he starts doing this full time. Nothing serious, mostly pot. No violence.

One of his customers gets caught with some pot and rolls on this dealer. He’s able to get by with probation, but hates giving up the pot sales — plus, most of his friends now expect that he’ll be able to hook them up. So he gets caught again and does some time.

Now, he’s an ex-con with most of his contacts being criminals. Can’t get a lot of legitimate jobs, and there’s a real demand in something that he knows well. Run-ins with the law have hardened him and he’s maybe willing to do some things that he wouldn’t have before….

You see where this is heading….

Long term, the absence of a black market in drugs simply means that new people aren’t being recruited into the business.

The same factor is at work in the larger, more violent, markets. The cartel heads in Mexico may be the worst of the worst, and it’s reasonable to assume that they won’t go into working fast food, but the money they get from the black market allows them to hire complete armies of people from foot soldiers to government officials. There’s a huge infusion of capital that’s on the criminal side of the market, instead of the alternate: a huge infusion of capital on the lawful side of the market. When people need jobs, they’ll go to where the money is.

Long term, there’s no doubt that legalization will lead to a reduction in criminality.

Some fun from CRACKED.com

Laser ray guns, tanks, piranhas, bears, grenade launchers and more… If you can own them, why can’t you own a plant?

There’s an OpEd at the Dakota Voice: Legalizing Marijuana: Why Citizens Should Just Say No by Cully Stimson of the Heritage Foundation. The “Legal Memorandum,” as it’s called there, is also available at the Heritage Site and probably easier to read there.

Now this Cully Stimson is no ordinary bloke. This is a “serious” guy with “serious” credentials. Check out his bio and you’ll see. Not a lot of drug policy experience, true, but some real serious education and high-level world experience in a lot of areas including some major positions in criminal justice fields. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that he managed to do all that he has done in one lifetime.

I point this out to make it clear that what he puts in this legal memorandum is not the result of ignorance.

The only way this article happens is through intentional and malicious manipulation of the facts in order to come up with the conclusion desired by the Heritage Foundation.

Oh, in places it sounds good. Sure. Like it’s been written by someone who’s done some research. But any analysis of any section of it, and it all falls apart.

Start with his analysis of our approach…

The current campaign, like previous efforts, downplays the well-documented harms of marijuana trafficking and use while promising benefits ranging from reduced crime to additional tax revenue. In particular, supporters of the initiative make five bold claims:

1. “Marijuana is safe and non-addictive.”
2. “Marijuana prohibition makes no more sense than alcohol prohibition did in the early 1900s.”
3. “The government’s efforts to combat illegal drugs have been a total failure.”
4. “The money spent on government efforts to combat the illegal drug trade can be better spent on substance abuse and treatment for the allegedly few marijuana users who abuse the drug.”
5. “Tax revenue collected from marijuana sales would substantially outweigh the social costs of legalization.”[3]

As this paper details, all five claims are demonstrably false or, based on the best evidence, highly dubious.

Check out the things Stimson snuck in there…. “downplays the well-documented harms of marijuana trafficking and use.” Of course, the well-documented harms of marijuana trafficking are the result of prohibition and we haven’t been downplaying that at all, and the well-documented harms of marijuana use are not-so-well-documented.

As far as the 5 things he says we’re claiming, on 1 he’s right (although some of us would insert “when used responsibly.” Number 2? Absolutely. Same with number 3. Number 4 is badly worded and I’d bet some of us would wonder about wasting a lot of money on treatment for marijuana. But in general, yes, these are claims we make and can prove, and Stimson’s memorandum does nothing to disprove them.

But number 5? Nobody I know makes this claim. “Tax revenue collected from marijuana sales would substantially outweigh the social costs of legalization.” That’s because we don’t have to. What we know for a fact is that the savings in reduced criminal justice costs and the societal savings in black market violence way more than makes up for any supposed social costs of legalization (which nobody has been able to identify with any certainty), even if there is not a single penny in tax revenue.

Our opponents like to create this straw man, and then supposedly shoot it down by showing that the potential tax revenue is uncertain. From our perspective, tax revenue is just a carrot to stick in front of the nose to get the approval/attention of some, but we don’t need it to achieve a net benefit to society.

I could take his entire memorandum apart piece by piece, but it doesn’t really deserve it. I’ll be happy to address any part of it you request, or if he stops by, I’ll do the same. In the meantime, you can have fun with it in comments.

I do want to point out the most amazing section of this article, where Stimson practically has to alter the physical makeup of the universe in order for his argument to work…

Unsafe in Any Amount: How Marijuana Is Not Like Alcohol

Marijuana advocates have had some success peddling the notion that marijuana is a “soft” drug, similar to alcohol, and fundamentally different from “hard” drugs like cocaine or heroin. It is true that marijuana is not the most dangerous of the commonly abused drugs, but that is not to say that it is safe. Indeed, marijuana shares more in common with the “hard” drugs than it does with alcohol.

A common argument for legalization is that smoking marijuana is no more dangerous than drinking alcohol and that prohibiting the use of marijuana is therefore no more justified than the prohibition of alcohol. As Jacob Sullum, author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, writes:

Americans understood the problems associated with alcohol abuse, but they also understood the problems associated with Prohibition, which included violence, organized crime, official corruption, the erosion of civil liberties, disrespect for the law, and injuries and deaths caused by tainted black-market booze. They decided that these unintended side effects far outweighed whatever harms Prohibition prevented by discouraging drinking. The same sort of analysis today would show that the harm caused by drug prohibition far outweighs the harm it prevents, even without taking into account the value to each individual of being sovereign over his own body and mind.[7]

At first blush, this argument is appealing, especially to those wary of over-regulation by government. But it overlooks the enormous difference between alcohol and marijuana.

Legalization advocates claim that marijuana and alcohol are mild intoxicants and so should be regulated similarly; but as the experience of nearly every culture, over the thousands of years of human history, demonstrates, alcohol is different. Nearly every culture has its own alcoholic preparations, and nearly all have successfully regulated alcohol consumption through cultural norms. The same cannot be said of marijuana. There are several possible explanations for alcohol’s unique status: For most people, it is not addictive; it is rarely consumed to the point of intoxication; low-level consumption is consistent with most manual and intellectual tasks; it has several positive health benefits; and it is formed by the fermentation of many common substances and easily metabolized by the body.

You getting this? This is amazing stuff. But he’s not done.

Alcohol differs from marijuana in several crucial respects. First, marijuana is far more likely to cause addiction. Second, it is usually consumed to the point of intoxication. Third, it has no known general healthful properties, though it may have some palliative effects. Fourth, it is toxic and deleterious to health. Thus, while it is true that both alcohol and marijuana are less intoxicating than other mood-altering drugs, that is not to say that marijuana is especially similar to alcohol or that its use is healthy or even safe.

In fact, compared to alcohol, marijuana is not safe. Long-term, moderate consumption of alcohol carries few health risks and even offers some significant benefits. […]

To equate marijuana use with alcohol consumption is, at best, uninformed and, at worst, actively misleading. Only in the most superficial ways are the two substances alike, and they differ in every way that counts: addictiveness, toxicity, health effects, and risk of intoxication.

Not a single bit of that is connected to reality.

I find myself trying to imagine the discussion that went on in the Heritage Foundation when they assigned this article to Cully. “OK, here’s the deal… We really don’t like the people who like marijuana. This is a cultural battle, but we’re supposed to be a think tank, so we can’t say keep it illegal because it’s immoral or because we don’t like those people. We need to make it look like this is a researched academic paper that comes to this indisputable conclusion. Now we’re about small government, so you’re going to have to really lay it on about marijuana being so dangerous that we have no choice but to use government to outlaw it. And we all like to drink, so you’ve got to show that alcohol is OK, while marijuana is not. And… go!”

Wonder how it feels to sell your soul?