Drug WarRant

FDL’s Jane Hamsher did a great job of re-directing a segment on Arizona’s immigration laws to ending the war on marijuana.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK0nFq2Al24

Via Scott Morgan

Georgia becomes first country to sign Vienna Declaration

The First Lady of Georgia announced at a breakfast event at the AIDS 2010 conference today that Georgia would sign the Vienna Declaration, the first country to do so.

Good for them! (Have you signed it yet?)

Several organizations, including Drug Free America Foundation, have released a ridiculous statement opposing the Vienna Declaration. They basically claim that prohibition is for the most part working just fine and only needs some tweaking, that it’s the drug use, not prohibition, that’s causing problems like:

Marijuana also contains bacteria and fungi that put users at risk for infection.

Oh, and yeah… balanced approach.

We are committed to efforts to improve current drug policy to further reduce illegal drug use by building on a balanced strategy that includes the criminal justice system.

More Politicians, Strategists See Opportunity in Supporting Marijuana Reform by Mike Meno in the Huffington Post. Good piece demonstrating that supporting reform is no longer a political liability.

Mike Meno also has this important, but unsurprising, bit of data: Marijuana Use Rarely Leads to Emergency Room, Study Shows

Researchers at the University of Michigan have sifted through nationwide data to determine the prevalence of different drug-related emergency room visits and (surprise, surprise!) their recently released results show that “marijuana dependence was associated with the lowest rates” of emergency room visits.

A lot of fuss has been made regarding how Mexican cartels are getting their guns. What about hand grenades? They’re not likely to be picking those up in sporting goods stores in the U.S. Turns out they don’t need to.

There have been more than 72 grenade attacks in Mexico in the last year, including spectacular assaults on police convoys and public officials. Mexican forces have seized more than 5,800 live grenades since 2007, a small fraction of a vast armory maintained by the drug cartels, officials said. […]

One of the most common hand grenades found in Mexico is the M67, the workhorse explosive manufactured in the United States for American soldiers and for sale or transfer to foreign militaries. Some 266,000 M67 grenades went to El Salvador alone between 1980 and 1993, during the civil war there.

Methinks Russia is just a little bit defensive about Fedotov being named head of the UNODC. Moscow Times

But Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko waved the complaints aside.

“It’s no secret to anyone that there are powerful and active forces interested in presenting the situation with HIV and AIDS in Russia as nearing a catastrophe,” he said, without identifying the forces.

“We believe this approach is absolutely unfounded,” Nesterenko said in a statement published on the Foreign Ministry’s web site.

He acknowledged at a news conference that authorities have failed to slow soaring HIV rates but said there was “every reason to believe that we will achieve that sooner or later,” Interfax reported.

Pravda reacted even more strongly

As for the first accusation, in Russia, buprenorphine and methadone are considered drugs and therefore their circulation is limited and is under strict control. In the West, these substances are used to treat drug addiction. However, the Russian authorities are against methadone treatment, pointing to the conclusions of Russian medical professionals who believe that its effectiveness is not proven by science. […]

Besides, where is the guarantee that when we “crack open the doors” to semi-legal drugs, we can ensure that the number of drug addicts will not increase as a result? There is a suspicion that foreign NGOs are openly lobbying for the interests of the producers of drugs”legalized” in the West. […]

And secondly, what are the other ways to fight against illicit drug production and drug trafficking besides stringent measures?

Surprise! Woman Gets 2 lbs of Marijuana in the Mail

Now, something like this should be a pleasant surprise, yet in today’s regime of bust-down-the-door, shoot-first-investigate-after policework, it’s a frightening prospect to get an unexpected shipment of marijuana — especially since the fake address ploy is a common one for shipments, and since some militarized police seem to be unaware of that (see Cheye Calvo incident).

An additional concern I have is that I don’t have any dogs. So what are the police going to shoot?

This is an open thread.

Powerful new article in Time by the always excellent Maia Szalavitz: Does Teen Drug Rehab Cure Addiction or Create It?

Increasingly, substance-abuse experts are finding that teen drug treatment may indeed be doing more harm than good. Many programs throw casual dabblers together with hard-core addicts and foster continuous group interaction. It tends to strengthen dysfunctional behavior by concentrating it, researchers say.

But these researchers Maia talked to, they’re probably pro-drug folks, right?

“Just putting kids in group therapy actually promotes greater drug use,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Oops. This is one of your hard-core prohibitionists saying that group therapy for teens “actually promotes greater drug use.”

The article points out the problems involved with putting teens in therapy (particularly for those who are not experiencing severe problems from drug abuse).

1. Group therapy puts casual users in proximity with hard core users and gives them enticing descriptions of hard drug use
2. Teen therapy reduces positive time with families
3. Therapy focuses on surrendering to helplessness to addiction (12-step), and for teens that’s a negative path.

So here with a system that, instead of focusing on those with problems (harm reduction), uses incarceration and treatment to turn casual use young people (in particular) into networked drug criminals with reduced family support and damaged self-esteem.

Add to that a national anti-drug advertising program that has actually been found to increase interest in drugs, a school D.A.R.E. program that has been shown to increase the likelihood of using drugs unsafely, and a prohibition program that insures that young people will be able to purchase at any age through contact with criminals, and you have a government system that should absolutely scare the crap out of parents.

Oh, and the winners in all this?

The rehab industry.

The outspoken head of Denver’s DEA operation that clashed with medical marijuana laws in that state, is leaving Colorado for a new assignment. He has been considered by many to be an over-zealous anti-marijuana fanatic, who ignored the new Attorney General’s guidelines.

However, he points out that any replacement is likely to be as bad.

“The person who takes my place is going to have the same mission I have,” Sweetin said.

DEA agents are sworn to uphold the constitution, and marijuana remains illegal under federal law, he said.

Ummm, hate to break it to you, but federal law is not the Constitution. And in fact, putting “marijuana,” “federal law,” and “the Constitution” in the same sentence is likely to cause it to explode from the inherent contradictions.

There’s been some discussion about the piece regarding the “panic” over sound that gets you high.

Of course sound can get you high. And you don’t need special tones playing in static. Just listen to the right album when you’re in the right mood…

And somewhat lost in the discussion is the fact that we’ve unfortunately come to the point where some people think that getting high is a bad thing.

And yet, humans are always getting high. They like it. They get high from caffeine; they get high on sex (oh yeah, that definitely stimulates some chemical receptors); they get high on running; they get high on religion; they get high on chocolate and on smelling the roses. They get high on adrenaline. They get high on patriotism and team spirit. They get high on meat cooked on the grill. They get high on laughter or on poetry.

I guess we’d better get busy outlawing stuff.

Let’s start with Mark Kleiman’s new OpEd in the Los Angeles Times:

California can’t legalize marijuana

There’s one problem with legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis at the state level: It can’t be done. The federal Controlled Substances Act makes it a felony to grow or sell cannabis. California can repeal its own marijuana laws, leaving enforcement to the feds. But it can’t legalize a federal felony.

Well, duh. Thanks for letting us know that marijuana would still be illegal at the federal level. There’s a newsbreak.

When California passed medical marijuana, it was illegal at the federal level as well. That didn’t stop them from actually, relatively successfully (despite the challenges of federal government intrusion), implementing a licensed medical marijuana system.

But Mark helpfully explains why that could work, while recreational marijuana wouldn’t…

True, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. has announced that the Justice Department will not prosecute people who are selling medical marijuana in compliance with California’s law. But that’s an entirely different matter. The attorney general could cite good legal and constitutional reasons for that policy, because the regulation of medical practice is a state and not a federal responsibility. And if the medical justification for most of the pot sold through dispensaries is sketchy at best? Well, that too is a state problem.

This is just a bizarre statement. Maybe the Attorney General “could cite good legal and constitutional reasons for that policy,” but he didn’t — he merely said that prosecuting medical marijuana in compliance with state law was not a particularly good use of limited resources. How would that be different from prosecuting millions of recreational users?

And “because the regulation of medical practice is a state and not a federal responsibility”? More bizarreness. Yes, under today’s fatally strained Supreme Court interpretation of the Commerce Clause, medical “practice” is mostly a state function, but the drugs used in medical practice (including marijuana) are considered to be under federal control (re-read Raich). The implication that somehow medical drugs are constitutionally the domain of the states (don’t I wish), but recreational drugs are not is an even more unusual Constitutional notion (I’m imagining a bizarro-land Kleiman version of the 10th Amendment reading “The powers not delegated to the States, or to the people, are reserved to the United States”).

Note: it is interesting that I don’t recall Mark mentioning this point about the regulation of medical practice being the domain of the states when it came to discussions about federal health care.

But Mark goes on to give a reason why the federal government could not sit by with legalization of recreational marijuana in California — treaties.

For one thing, allowing Californians to openly grow cannabis for non-medical purposes would be a clear violation of international law; that’s why the Netherlands, which tolerates retail cannabis sales through “coffee shops,” still bans marijuana production.

So, apparently, the United States government would be willing to undertake a massive military action against the entire population of its largest state, in order to avoid looking bad to other countries?

[Side Query: Just what has been the U.S. track record at obeying all international treaties and laws?]

Now if the Netherlands broke the treaty, they’d be in for some international problems (mostly from the U.S. — the country most heavily pushing the drug treaties). What would happen if the U.S. broke the treaty? Would the United Nations expel us? Make us pay our dues? Issue a resolution? Decertify us in some kind of international report of countries that play ball regarding drug policy, and give us less foreign aid?

The point is that the federal government has to be pushed into doing the right thing, and merely writing your Congresscritter ain’t going to do it. It takes pressure from a lot of directions, and California passing legalization is one of those directions that could have a lot of push.

The final reason that Kleiman says the feds can’t allow California legalization (and apparently therefore will commit its entire national resources to busting people for possession of cannabis) is… the black market.

… the legal California product would still be a screaming bargain by national standards, at less than one-third of current black-market prices.

As a result, pot dealers nationwide — and from Canada, for that matter — would flock to California to stock up. There’s no way on earth the federal government is going to tolerate that.

So… the federal government, unhappy that marijuana profits have stopped going to murderous Mexican drug cartels, and instead are going to California citizens, will start cracking down on marijuana trafficking?

Of course, the “statistics” about what the price of cannabis would be in legalized California are from his friends with the infamous RAND report.

He then finishes his OpEd with the statement that he’d support marijuana legalization… as long as it’s done his way.

It’s an odd OpEd, but nothing really that we aren’t used to from Mark Kleiman.

He’s convinced that prohibition (as it has been practiced in every way to date) is a failure, and he thinks marijuana should be “legal” in some way, but there’s no way he’ll ever support “legalization,” partly because he ironically wants to be recognized and accepted as a “Villager,” and partly because of his ingrained prejudices.

Kleiman has worked hard to establish himself as the go-to academic on drug policy, along with the almost incestuous group of think-tank folks whose name appears on every drug policy paper that comes along (and of course, on his list of favorite books on drug policy). Well, if you want to be in the inner circle, it just won’t do to promote legalization publicly. If you want to be invited to chat with the drug czar, you can criticize prohibition, but you can’t suggest that there should be an alternative.

This puts Kleiman in the rather ridiculous position of opposing every aspect of prohibition, yet still looking around for some way to make it work better (like doing it “less”). Or, instead of really dealing with the whole problem, picking one tiny aspect and focusing totally on it (like his promotion of the HOPE program — a worthwhile program that should be promoted, but which has as much likelihood of solving prohibition’s destruction as increasing the budget for the USO would have in instituting world peace).

Regarding his prejudices… the biggest one is against the people who are for legalization.

Let’s take a look at his post promoting the OpEd:

Why Prop. 19 is a crock

…I may vote for the proposition anyway, just as a protest against the current laws. Too bad the California ballot initiatives don’t permit you to vote for “a pox on both your houses.”

Ignore the strange juxtaposition that it’s a crock and then saying he may vote for it anyway… Let’s look at his desire to vote for “a pox on both your houses.” This is a recurrent theme. He doesn’t support the results of the prohibitionists, but he doesn’t like the legalizers. It’s not that he wants to vote against legalization; he wants to vote against the legalizers.

And yes, he’s done this before. In a piece where he clearly dismantled the prohibitionists’ arguments against medical marijuana, he concludes:

If you guessed from the above that neither side of the drug-policy debate actually gives a rat’s ass about sick people, you’re a remarkably good guesser.

No evidence that our side didn’t give a rat’s ass about sick people; he just wanted to slam both sides.

It’s really got to bug him every time that NORML, LEAP, MPP, SSDP and others get press (and it’s happening more and more), because he and his friends have worked so hard to be the voice of proper drug policy.

But quite frankly, by being intellectually dishonest in order to be “politically” acceptable and ignoring the facts of drug policy in order to push personal pet views, he is ironically proving himself to be irrelevant to the real and dynamic conversation that’s going on now regarding drug policy.

I am saddened that we lack a true drug policy think tank here in the United States anywhere near the caliber of Transform Drug Policy Foundation in England, where real research and concrete proposals are being put forward, instead of our academics’ pathetically intellectually empty efforts to “fix” prohibition and sabotage reform.

And that’s the real reason I care enough about what Mark Kleiman says to write such a long post.

….

Oh, by the way, guess who else suddenly discovered the black market? The drug czar.

Mr. KERLIKOWSKE: Well, we know that certainly California is poised to and will be voting on legalizing small amounts of marijuana. And that vote is scheduled for November of this year.

There are a number of studies and a number of pieces of information that really throw that into the light of saying that, look, California is not going to solve its budget problems, that they have more increase or availability if drugs were, or marijuana, was to become legalized. That in fact you would see more use. That you would also see a black market that would come into play. Because why wouldn’t in heaven’s name would somebody want to spend money on tax money for marijuana when they could either use the underground market or they could in fact grow their own.

Wow. A “black market” would come into play. Who knew? Did any of you imagine that conditions could ever occur where there would be a black market in marijuana? Good thing we’ve got criminalization, where you don’t have black markets.

And that whole business about who would want to buy marijuana legally if they could get it on the black market? That must be why everyone grows their own tobacco and brews their own beer, and why nobody ever buys tomatoes in the stores, because they can grow their own without taxes.

A reminder to the drug czar…

Despite the fact that a lot of places have ridiculously stupid high taxes on cigarette packs (like New York City’s $4.25 per pack tax), somehow enough people actually buy them to generate billions in tax revenue.

Dr. Julio Montaner, President of the International AIDS Society supports the Vienna Declaration

Remarkably, there is also a critical mass of scientific evidence regarding the unintended negative consequences of policies based exclusively on drug law enforcement. We have to recognize that the war on drugs has not only failed to reduce illicit drug supply and use, but it has also resulted in a range of human rights violations, drug market violence and HIV and HCV epidemics among users.

That being said, this wealth of evidence we have generated over the last couple of decades are being systematically neglected and ignored in favor of a highly prevalent ideologically driven war on drugs.

I’d love to be in Vienna for the conference that starts tomorrow. Last time (the only time) I was there… when I arrived, there was a street fair going on in front of my hotel and an Austrian band was playing “Sweet Home, Chicago.” Sweet, indeed.

‘Drug law enforcement has entirely failed’ — Dr Evan Wood, founder of the International Centre for Science in in Drug Policy, explains why he is calling for a “dramatic reform of drug policy” on BBC.

Legalising marijuana: The law of the weed — an article not up to the Economist’s usual standards, with an absolutely ridiculous photo.

Oh, yeah, that’ll solve it. Schwarzenegger mobilizes National Guard to border

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday mobilized members of the California National Guard as part of a federal effort to deter drug trafficking and illegal immigration along the border with Mexico.

His order supports President Barack Obama’s plan to have 1,200 National Guard troops assist with federal border protection, customs and immigration agents.

Good to know that both the Governor and the President have a bunch of extra cash laying around.

This one at officer.com has been around for a little while, but it’s quite an amazingly stupid read. Nice to see it taken apart in the comments there. Legalizing Marijuana by Chris Watkins, Narcotics/K9 Ops Contributor. [Link Fixed]

Oh, Nos! You can get high from listening to sound!!!

As Radley says…

Someone needs to tell News 9 and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics that as far as facepalm-stupid attempts to scare the crap out of parents with hysterical “next new drug” stories go, the “digital drugs” thing is so 2008.

Thanks to the regular Drug WarRant readers who came to my show last night and found me and said “Hi.” Sorry I didn’t get to talk to you more!

This is an open thread.