Drug WarRant

Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) will be on C-Span’s Washington Journal Thursday morning at 7:30 am EST.

Director Kerlikowske will discuss the National Drug Control Strategy.

Live streaming of the show.

Call in with your questions. They also take viewers questions and comments via e-mail (journal@c-span.org) and Twitter (@cspanwj).

We haven’t had one of these to make fun of for awhile…

Here’s Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom writing at Minnesota Public Radio’s website: Marijuana, America’s most dangerous illegal drug

Here are some lowlights:

Methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin may be America’s most addictive and destructive drugs, but marijuana is the most dangerous illegal drug in our nation. […]

More than 4 million Americans are estimated to be dependent upon or abusers of marijuana, more than any other illegal drug. Treatment admissions for marijuana abuse have been higher than for any other illegal drug in our nation since 2002. [..]

Marijuana is not the harmless substance many would like us to believe. Marijuana is an addictive drug that poses significant health risks to its users. Short-term effects of marijuana include memory loss, distorted perception, trouble with thinking and problem solving, and loss of motor skills. Long-term adverse impacts include loss in muscle strength, increased heart rate, respiratory problems, loss of appetite, trouble sleeping, impaired ability to fight off infections and risk of cancer (marijuana contains 50-70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke). […]

Even more troubling is that marijuana serves as a gateway to the use of other illegal drugs. […]

Last, but certainly not least, there are strong links between marijuana use, violence and other criminal activity. […]

The connection between marijuana use and gang activity and violence is inescapable. […]

We would be wise as a society not to underestimate the destructive nature of marijuana. It is a powerful and addictive substance that is a gateway drug to other controlled substance abuse. Marijuana use finances in large part the activities of gangs and drug dealers. It is by far the most frequently used illegal drug in America and its use is directly connected to crime and violence in our communities.

And the ghost of Harry Anslinger smiles.

Two new officials were confirmed for posts at the ONDCP: David Mineta as Deputy Director of Demand Reduction, and Benjamin Tucker as Deputy Director of State, Local and Tribal Affairs.

I was doing a little quick checking into these folks and when I googled Benjamin Tucker, I found some fascinating quotes….

To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. — Benjamin Tucker

Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy. — Benjamin Tucker

At first I thought, well, this is an interesting choice… but quickly realized that, unless they dug him up from the grave, this is a vastly different Benjamin Tucker.

NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) hosted a meeting in March called “Drugged Driving: Future Research Directions” and here is the summary of that meeting.

It’s an interesting read, though frustrating since, while supposedly part of the mandate is to determine the problem’s magnitude, the participants seem to have little interest in that area, and rather have predetermined that drugged driving is the new epidemic and are looking for data to support their view, and to help them “sell” that view to the public and politicians.

For example:

Dr. McLellan explained that drugged driving is a signature issue for ONDCP. If researchers can develop sensible, evidence-based ways to move forward in this area, the public will appreciate the severity of the problem and the importance of doing something about it. ONDCP needs the facts so that it can make policy.

Doesn’t really sound like they’re looking for facts in order to determine policy, but rather that they’re desperate for fact to bolster the policy on which they’ve already decided.

Dr. Zobeck reported that ONDCP’s national drug control strategy covers approximately $16 billion worth of federal resources across 12 federal departments and agencies. The strategy addresses a wide range of activities, including prevention and treatment. Drugged driving is one of the strategy’s three signature initiatives, showing how important this issue is to ONDCP. ONDCP is developing several action items on drugged driving and will ask other government representatives to join work groups to address these items. Many of the recommendations made at this meeting fall under these items:

1. Encourage states to adopt per se laws.
2. Conduct more research and collect more data on drugged driving.
3. Enhance the prevention of drugged driving by educating communities and professionals.
4. Develop standards for toxicology laboratories.
5. Increase training for law enforcement on identifying drugged driving.

Notice that the first item on that list is to pass laws. Second on the list is to do research. Hmmm.

Robert L. DuPont was there (shouldn’t this guy be put to pasture by now?!) and made it clear what we’ve been saying all along — that drugged driving policy has an added agenda.

No other initiative in highway safety has the potential for saving lives and reducing costs from crashes that is equal to that of dealing with the drugged driving problem. Furthermore, a major effort to address the drugged driving problem will have a significant effect on the demand for drugs and on drug use in the United States.

The first sentence is just nonsense that he pulled out of his ass. There’s absolutely no evidence to support that statement. The second sentence is where his agenda lies — criminalization of the internal possession of drugs as a demand reduction strategy.

Dr. Richard Compton explained that per se laws make possession of an illegal drug in the body while driving illegal.

Exactly. They don’t make driving impaired illegal. They use driving laws to criminalize internal possession.

There’s a lot more interesting stuff in that summary that I’m not going to go into right now, but it’s clear that this is a subject that is not going to go away.

Let me be absolutely clear. I have no problem with going after impaired drivers, whether it’s because they’re drunk, tired, drugged, or texting. But it is improper and counterproductive to use driving laws to fulfill another policy agenda, and it is bad policy to promote laws and then try to find the facts to support them.

As we’ve known for some time, the Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has gotten a real hard-on for promoting drugged driving as some kind of big epidemic, despite the lack of evidence showing it to be a significant problem (particularly compared to drunk driving). In fact, if we didn’t keep a close eye on him, he’d be making up evidence of the problem just to support his pet policy.

He’s has a couple of guest writers at the ONDCP “blog” to talk about drugged driving policy.

The first is Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle with The terrible toll drugged driving takes on our communities.

What are his statistics to demonstrate this “terrible toll”? The death of an unborn baby named Luke by a driver, caused in a car crash with a driver who may have been impaired by cocaine. This led to a horrible law (ghoulishly named “Baby Luke Law”) which allows a driver who tests positive to certain drugs (including marijuana) to be charged with homicide by drugged driving (up to 40 years sentence) if a death is involved in a crash, even if they weren’t impaired in any way (and hadn’t even used drugs recently).

Check out the perverted pride in Jim Doyle’s next statement:

In less than the seven years since “Baby Luke Law” passed, more than 4,000 drugged drivers have been convicted who might otherwise have escaped successful prosecution under Wisconsin’s drunken driving law because a prosecutor would have had to prove that drugs caused impairment.

Wow!

Why should prosecutors have to prove guilt, he asks. Let’s just convict people of something they haven’t done without all that bother of deciding guilt or innocence.

What utter contempt for the rule of law, for justice, for even a sense of being part of a free nation of people.

He’s proud of the fact that they’re taking two unrelated things and crafting a crime that doesn’t exist. Sort of like saying that if you’re in an accident where a death is involved and you’ve also got unpaid parking tickets, then you’re suddenly guilty of murder, by definition.

Wisconsin’s law recognizes that driving under the influence of illegal drugs is unacceptable and ensures that justice is served when irresponsible people decide to get behind the wheel.

Actually, Wisconsin’s law insures that justice will not be served. Certainly not for those who were unimpaired, yet are convicted of being impaired.

Additionally, the efforts expended on trying to hang serious charges on unimpaired drivers with drugs in their systems, will distract from the needed focus on actual impaired drivers on the road. And that just makes the roads more dangerous.

In fact, unborn Baby Luke will certainly end up causing more deaths than are ever caused by drivers high on marijuana.

Moving away from the ugly grandstanding of Jim Doyle, we have another guest poster at the Drug Czar’s “blog” who shows a marked contrast in approach.

This one is Robert Darbelnet, the President and CEO of AAA, with Addressing the Drugged Driving Challenge

He pay lip service to the drug czar’s efforts regarding drugged driving, but when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of policy, Darbelnet’s approach appears to have an entirely different focus:

As this body of knowledge improves, public policy will need to evolve—states will need to establish enforceable laws that deter drugged driving. Not only does law enforcement need to be able to detect the presence of potentially-impairing drug use among motorists, but they also must be able to distinguish between drug presence and driver impairment.

“to distinguish between drug presence and driver impairment.”

What a night and day approach to policy. The Drug Czar and the Governor of Wisconsin don’t care if their policies make sense, if they work, if they save lives or cause death… all they care about is politics, people be damned.

On the other hand, Robert Darbelnet is head of a company that provides services to consumers. To him, an extraordinarily punitive policy that doesn’t provide safety is stupid and wasteful. He, on behalf of his customers, certainly wants increased safety on the highways. He may not always be right in determining the best way of achieving that, but he’s certainly not going to support the stupidity of a Jim Doyle policy.

I’ll be curious to see how AAA updates information on their site about drugged driving as planned (at this writing that page is not functional). But I think it’s worth letting Robert Darbelnet and AAA know that we appreciate them working to develop good policy based on actual evidence.

Last night. (Via Meidaite)

Al Martinez: Do we need one more drug to shield us from reality? — L.A. Daily News

I predict that by the end of the year the sale of marijuana will become so common in L.A. that Mom will be able to say, “Timmy, run down to Vons and get me a quart of milk, a loaf of sourdough bread, a pound of tomatoes and two ounces of pot.” […]

Kids who don’t already have the habit will pick it up from their friends and parents and before you know it every third person in L.A. will be wearing a dim smile and calling everyone Dude; beggars will carry signs that say “Will work for Weed.”

Ah, yes, the fantasy that liberalization of pot will somehow require everyone to spend their lives completely stoned, wearing a “dim smile and calling everyone Dude.”

At least Martinez is honest about his prejudices.

Marijuana has never been my drug of choice even though the very air reeked of burning hemp during the 1960s when I was covering the student uprisings in Berkeley. You could get stoned by just breathing. I was a martini man then and I’m a martini man now and I rarely smile, dimly or otherwise, and I call no one Dude. […]

I don’t believe you necessarily go from one or two hits to becoming a serial killer. But I do wonder if our culture, already a little screwy, needs one more drug to shield it from the realities of the world we should be moving to face head-on before it’s too late. To cure or relieve pain, sure. But where there’s money to be made, I can’t help but believe that the whole humanitarian process is going to be ridden like a drunken horse over the wishes of the people and we’ll all go to hell smiling dimly and calling everyone Dude.

Translation: I have my own extremely limited view of potheads that has little connection to reality. I also already have my own drug of choice that doesn’t really make me happy, and I’m sure as hell not interested in letting anyone else have a good time.

It’s sad, really. Fear of smiling, fear of something out there that his martini doesn’t understand, fear of using the word “Dude.”

That would be some bonfire.

Nice job by the medical marijuana folks in Illinois to turn this marijuana seizure into an opportunity…

“Depending on its purity, [the seized marijuana] represents a lot of medicine that could have helped so many Illinoisans,” Julie Falco, a North Side woman who uses marijuana to ease the symptoms of multiple sclerosis told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Lisa Lange, another area woman who uses marijuana for medical purposes, agreed with Falco–and said she would rather see the department take another approach.

“Incinerating it is a waste,” Lange told the Sun-Times. “I would prefer to see it tested and then, if safe, distributed to compassionate care clubs.”

There are so many ways that the drug war is destructive, but here’s another — the use of the death penalty for drug crimes in a number of countries around the world.

The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has often claimed to be “concerned” about the use of the death penalty in drug crimes, yet has failed to do anything about it. And drug policy reformers have noted that countries like China routinely execute large numbers of drug offenders on the global anti-drug day.

Now the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) is making a case for the complicity of the U.N. and individual countries that support the drug war in those deaths.

The United Nations, the European commission and individual states including Britain are flouting international human rights law by funding anti-drug crime measures that are inadvertently leading to the executions of offenders, according to a report seen by the Guardian.

The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), a non-governmental organisation that advocates less punitive approaches to drugs policy globally, says it has gathered evidence revealing “strong links” between executions for drugs offences and the funding of specific drug enforcement operations by international agencies.

It says programmes aimed at shoring up local efforts to combat drug trafficking and other offences are being run “without appropriate safeguards” that could prevent serious human rights violations in countries that retain the death penalty.

The report concludes that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime ( “are all actively involved in funding and/or delivering technical assistance, legislative support and financial aid intended to strengthen domestic drug enforcement activities in states that retain the death penalty for drug offences.

It’s an interesting (and, I think, valid) point. Not sure how much effect the argument would have here in the states, where so many still have a love affair with the government killing people, but in more civilized countries, the notion that drug policy props up execution regimes could be a little disturbing.

Britain joins Canada in approving liquid marijuana as prescription medicine.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — It was announced today that Sativex, a cannabinoid-based liquid medicine sprayed under the tongue, has been approved for use in Great Britain to help treat the muscle spasticity suffered by multiple sclerosis patients. Sativex is a natural marijuana extract that is produced by British-based GW Pharmaceuticals. It has been approved for use in Canada to treat neuropathic pain since 2005.

“Once again, the scientific community has confirmed that marijuana is medicine and it can provide safe and effective relief to patients suffering from certain conditions,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “Sadly, our federal government, through the Drug Enforcement Administration, has blocked effective research into the therapeutic effectiveness of marijuana. The United States could be leading the world in the development of cannabinoid-based medicines, but instead our government has ceded this industry to the U.K., while intentionally prolonging the agony of patients in this country.”

Economist promotes legalization debate. Via Transform

As part of its latest promotional campaign The Economist magazine has launched a series of ‘where do you stand?’ debates built around a billboard poster campaign outlining opposing views on a series of contentious issues. One of the issues they have chosen is whether drugs should be legalised and regulated, perhaps unsuprising given their prominent interest in this debate, and indeed support for the reform position

Danish police officer refuses to arrest pot smokers

Interesting development in the case of drug war victim Rev. Jonathan Ayers.

GBI agents have arrested the Training Coordinator for the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office in connection with an ongoing investigation into the status of training records of the drug task force officer involved in the shooting death of Jonathan Ayers in Toccoa last September. […] The charge stems from false statements Lt. Wilson allegedly made to agents last Friday related to training records of Billy Shane Harrison, an officer with the multi-jurisdictional drug task force in Toccoa

Calderon defends drug war, many Mexicans skeptical

Gunmen slaughter 19 men at a rehab clinic. Sixteen bodies are dumped in a northern city. Twelve police officers die in an ambush. Soldiers kill 15 gunmen outside a tourist town.

All this in less than a week, yet President Felipe Calderon believes Mexico is getting a bad rap and wants to hire a public relations firm to improve its image. He might want to start with convincing his own countrymen, who are frustrated by assurances that the drug war is going well.

Yeah, that’s what the drug war needs. A public relations firm.

This is an open thread.