Drug WarRant

Tel Aviv forbids marijuana legalization rally

On Sunday the demonstration’s organizer, Liora Gelber received a notice from Tel Aviv Municipality official Ruby Zelof reading, “I hereby inform you that your request to hold a rally for the legalization of cannabis has been rejected.”

“The police did not give us any trouble, but the municipality said it would cost us NIS 16,600 (about $4,300) to hold the rally at Rabin Square,” said Gelber. “We began to raise the money, and various artists confirmed their participation. The notice we received today infuriated us. The municipality did not even give us a reason for why it is not authorizing the rally.

A small thing to us, but in a way, we are responsible. It is our drug war that we promote and export to the world that gives all sorts of governments (from the more permissive to the most severe) the justification, the cover, the encouragement to cancel a rally, suppress political talk, imprison, and worse.

We can hope that other countries will rise up and collectively force global change despite the drug war bullying of the U.S. But it’s really our responsibility to fix what we’ve broken.

Happy International Anti-Drug Abuse day.

U.N. Says War Between Mexican Drug Cartels Benefits U.S.Another variation on the increased-violence-shows-we’re-winning theme.

A war between Mexican drug cartels is benefitting the United States by making black market drugs less accessible as gang members turn their efforts against each other, according to a new United Nations report.

“This struggle is a blessing for the United States because the drought of cocaine generates low levels of addiction, high prices and doses that are less pure,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N.’s Office of Drugs and Crime.

A blessing?

At least they’re not shooting offenders in Scotland… Drink drivers ‘to have cars seized and crushed for first offence’
They’re adding drugged drivers as well.

Bill O’Reilly Thinks of the Children (Again) Jacob Sullum does a nice job of taking apart O’Reilly’s attack on DPA and interview with Nadelmann.

This is an open thread

We always have idiots in this country who like to claim that if we only got tougher(!) on drugs, we’d end the drug problem.

Of course, all you need to do is point to countries like China who regularly execute drug traffickers, and yet still never seem to run out of traffickers to execute.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is the U.N.’s annual International Day Against Drug Abuse and Trafficking, known as Anti-Drug Day. It’s a day to dread, because just about every year, China likes to “celebrate” it by shooting a whole bunch more of their citizens in the head.

And how is that get as tough as it’s possible to be policy working?

China says drug cases shot up 16 percent last year from 2008 with courts convicting more than 56,000 people.

Chinese courts handled more than 50,000 drug trafficking cases in 2009 and about 17,000 people received severe sentences – from five years in prison to a death sentence – up almost 9 percent from the year before, the Supreme People’s Court said Thursday.

Police seized nearly 28 tons of drugs last year, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Drug prohibition, even at its most extreme, does not work. And the U.N. has been criminally culpable by not focusing on human rights abuse while it encourages and even pushes countries to get tougher on drugs.

With the UNODC’s director Antonio Maria Costa’s term expiring in July, there’s an opportunity, but also a danger…

New UN drugs tsar must be a leader on human rights by Damon Barrett in the Guardian

Unfortunately, the current frontrunner for the role of UN drug tsar is the candidate being pushed by the Russian government.

The candidate is Yuri Fedotov, current ambassador to the UK. But this is not about the individual except to the extent that he is a career diplomat of over 40 years’ service. It is about Russia’s disastrous drug policies, its appalling human rights record and despite this, a government official nonetheless taking a high-profile position of strategic importance to both issues.

Russia is no supporter of human rights scrutiny in drug control, and works to block any such progress in international political fora such as the UN commission on narcotic drugs. There are nearly 2 million people who inject drugs in Russia, and the government has abandoned them to HIV and abusive “treatments” such as “flogging therapy”. Moreover, the government regularly seeks to block political progress on public health interventions such as opioid substitution therapy and needle and syringe exchange intended to fulfil their human rights. It is now estimated that 37% of people who inject drugs in Russia are HIV positive and as many as 80% of all new HIV infections in the country are due to unsafe injecting practices.

A UNODC director from Russia would likely be a disaster.

The new director will soon be appointed by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

My condolences to the families of those who will likely be shot to death by the Chinese government tomorrow.

There’s a lot we don’t control, but the internet is ours.

The “Tax Cannabis in 2010” Facebook page as of Thursday afternoon had 101,386 fans (i.e., people who “like” the page).

The “Public Safety First — Against the Legalization of Marijuana in CA” Facebook page had six fans.

This was new to me…

The Desert Springs Equestrian Center in Tucson takes in horses used by drug smugglers to pack in heavy bales of marijuana.

After arriving in the U.S., the horses are often abandoned to die in the desert.

Just one more of the many destructive by-products of prohibition.

Desert Springs nurses the horses back to health, then trains them and looks for adoptive homes.

Good for them! Here’s the Desert Springs Equestrian Center site.

The horse at right is Homer, one of the former drug trade horses you can adopt.

Libertarian economist Jeffrey Miron will be the guest on Daniel Williams’ Opium Den tonight at 9 pm eastern.

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.