Drug WarRant

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about a very poor article by Jennifer Johnson in the Pioneer Press: Legalization talk cited in teen pot use spike. In it, Margaret Polovchak, executive director of the Maine Community Youth Assistance Foundation (Chicago suburbs, not the state of Maine), claims that an increase of pot use among high school students has occurred, that it’s the result of talking about medical marijuana in Illinois and that medical marijuana should be opposed for that reason.

We shouldn’t really be surprised by this kind of ignorant talk — the MCYAF is a tool of the drug war machine (even their website is paid for by grants from ONDCP and SAMHSA), and we know that those entities have shown little actual interest in the welfare of children.

But Margaret’s statement demonstrates the sickness of the drug war’s interaction with youth. The very notion that we need to reduce or eliminate public discussion about current events (assuming such an absurdity would work) in order to protect children (!) demonstrates that she considers young people to be somewhat akin to hamsters.

And guess what? Young people are smarter than that. You can pretend all you want that if you shield them from discussions about sex they’ll remain blissfully and naturally celibate, but then you’d better be ready to be a grandparent. And you can pretend that if we talked less about medical marijuana then they wouldn’t use marijuana, but if you really want that to work, you’d better raise them in a big cage with a wheel.

So what happens when you treat young people this way? They immediately realize that you’re lying to them. They don’t like it, and they see you as the enemy rather than someone who is there to help. They become suspicious of all attempts to help them and tend to disbelieve even important truths.

Once they realize that they’ve been lied to about marijuana, then they assume that everything else has been a lie (often leading to fatal results). When they aren’t given reality-based education that teaches them the truth, then they are forced to try to discover it on their own, through trial and error, again often with disastrous results.

What people like Margaret Polovchak are doing is destroying the safety net of experiential wisdom for young people that should be provided by the family, the village, society.

Instead, children are treated as though they cannot be trusted with what we know. We turn them into suspects by making them pee into cups, and we send dogs through their schools sniffing their belongings. We lie to them and withhold information that is critical to them and have the gall to wonder why they rebel.

Does that mean we have to roll over and just accept any level of drug use by young people? Of course not. We’ll never be able to stop all of it, but we can control it and reduce the harm of it by regulating drugs, teaching young people the truth about them, and explaining why we want them to wait until a later time to experiment with them.

Now there are other ways that Margaret Polovchak harms children, too. Some of the children at these schools certainly have family members who now, or in the future, could benefit from medical marijuana. Those children are harmed by Polovchak’s efforts, either because their family member is denied valuable medicine or because their family member ends up incarcerated in order to obtain their medicine.

By attempting to reduce the level of public discussion of matters of public policy in general, Margaret harms children because then public policy isn’t getting the proper analysis, and more bad policy ends up as law, harming everyone.

And by supporting prohibition, Margaret Polovchak harms children by being part of a system that fuels violence and voluntarily puts drug regulation in the hands of criminals.

So if your child is ever offered a Margaret Polovchak, be sure to tell them to just say “no.”

That’s the only conclusion I can gather from this article in the Pioneer Press: Legalization talk cited in teen pot use spike

A discussion of legalizing medical marijuana in Illinois is likely fueling an increase in the number of Park Ridge teenagers using the substance, the Maine Community Youth Assistance Foundation contends.

Margaret Polovchak, executive director of MCYAF, said increased dialogue about marijuana legislation in the state leads to a greater public perception that the substance is not harmful, resulting in a growing number of users.

“It has impacted our students’ use rate, as we anticipated,” Polovchak said. […]

During recent meetings MCYAF has been encouraging members to contact state legislators to express their opposition to the bill.

What a bizarrely un-American view! Because Margaret Polovchak thinks (without any causal evidence) that discussions of medical marijuana have caused an increased of marijuana use among teens, we not only shouldn’t pass medical marijuana (regardless of its value or the lives that can be saved), but we shouldn’t even talk about it.

What other conclusion can there be?

Not only is Polovchak opposed to the 1st Amendement, guaranteeing free speech, but she feels that our legislators shouldn’t be allowed to talk about it either.

If Ms. Polovchak really gave a damn about any of those kids at Maine Township, she’d learn enough to realize two critically important things:

1. Keeping children from learning is not the job of our educational system.
2. If you really want to reduce availability of marijuana to kids, you need to regulate it.

Oh, and a note to Jennifer Johnson, who wrote the article. I’m guessing you must have studied at Maine Township yourself given your ignorance of proper journalism. To allow Polovchak’s bizarre and unsupported (in terms of causality) assertion to stand unopposed is some of the worst journalism I’ve seen.

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to water down Miranda just a little bit more in Berghuis v. Thompkins.

Here’s how it used to work…

1. Police inform you of the right to remain silent.
2. You remain silent.
3. Police must stop questioning you.

Here’s how it works with the new ruling…

1. Police inform you of the right to remain silent.
2. You remain silent.
3. Police keep questioning you for hours if they wish and if you finally break down or get frustrated and say something, that can be used against you.
4. If you unambiguously inform police that you wish to observe your right to remain silent (other than just remaining silent), then questioning must stop.

So the ironic thing is, in order to get them to shut up, you must speak up to say that you want to remain silent.

It makes it all the more critical that people understand their rights, and learn the simple phrases that are so well presented in FlexYourRights.org’s excellent video: 10 Rules for Dealing with Police:

• I don’t consent to searches
• I’m going to remain silent. I’d like to see a lawyer.
• Are you detaining me or am I free to go?
• I can’t let you in without a warrant.

Interesting article today in the Washington Post. I admit to not being up as much as I’d like on the science of the content of cannabis as it relates to medicinal properties (and that’s largely the fault of federal government suppression of such research), but I’ve been very interested in learning more about the difference between strains that are bred more for CBDs as opposed to those bred for THC.

One of the natural side-effect of prohibition has been the almost total focus on THC and less research on various combinations of elements in cannabis.

Form of medical marijuana won’t get you high, but it’s creating a buzz by Karl Vick

The singular peculiarity of Courtney’s “pot doc” practice here in Northern California is what he recommends: Don’t smoke the stuff, he tells patients. Eat it.

And no, he’s not talking about brownies — he’s talking raw. It’s bitter, and won’t get you high, but still has strong medicinal properties.

Fascinating stuff, and goes to show how much more research we need to do on this useful plant without the stigma and repression of prohibition in the way.

“Twenty years ago it was just cannabis,” [Addison DeMoura] said. “The bridge to legalization is medical marijuana. I believe the bridge from medical marijuana to real science will be CBDs.”

Partly because it’s just so satisfying to give Mark Souder another kick in the pants… Lee at HorsesAss reminds us why it’s so right to publicly enjoy and point out Mark Souder’s fall from “grace”: Abstaining from Reality – The Mark Souder Legacy.

Analysis: the awesome power of the illegal high — mostly a great headline and lede, but still a good article

BOGOTA, Colombia — “Drugs win drug war.”

That was the prescient headline of a 1998 dispatch in The Onion. “Despite all our efforts,” the satirical newspaper reported, “the U.S. government has proven no match for the awesome power of the illegal high.”

Funny stuff. But a dozen years later, serious news outlets are writing pretty much the same story.

Department of bad sources of advice… The U.S. and England have been taken to task for being too soft on their supply side drug war…. by Iran… by a policeman from Iran. Police Chief Unveils US, Britain’s Support for Drug Rings

This call for more effort in the proven unworkable supply side drug war approach from a country that is unable to control its own drug use despite the fact that Iran (with the population of about three large U.S. states) executes 100-200 people a year for drugs (that’s 2-4 people per week)!

Via NORML — Beer company attempts to cash in on marijuana’s reputation through spoof ad.

MPP gets mayor to back off a bit on statement

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak recently made some pretty outrageous statements about gang violence in that city:

“When you pay for marijuana, you are paying for the bullet that goes into the head of someone on the streets,” he said. “Too many people have winked sideways without being honest that it’s white middle class Minnesota that’s paying for the drugs that put profit into gangs that kill people.”

MPP put out a statement reminding him that it’s prohibition — and any elected official who supports it — that is to blame.

The mayor was apparently pissed… but also open to discussing it, which is a good thing.

Obama repeating the mistakes of the drug ‘war’ by Rhonda Swan in the Palm Beach Post (and picked up elsewhere)

Mexican drug cartels wouldn’t exist if the U.S. decriminalized drugs. There would be no drug wars. And far less drug violence. Sure, it sounds radical. But isn’t it insane to keep doing what we’ve been doing and expect different results? […]

President Obama promised to “reduce drug use and the great damage it causes” with a new policy that, like Portugal’s, treats drug use more as a public health issue than a criminal justice one. It’s also been a stated priority of Gil Kerlikowske […]

The Obama administration, however, has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels – $10 billion of the $15.5 billion drug-control budget. Where is the change Mr. Obama promised? I don’t expect him to call for the decriminalization of drugs. That would be too bold and politically risky. I do expect him to put our money where his mouth is.

This is an open thread.

I’ve been peripherally following the hysteria the Brits have been having over mephedrone — a legal synthetic stimulant that started gaining some popularity with clubbers.

In March, two young men died (aged 18 and 19) and the media widely reported the cause of their deaths as mephedrone. This, of course, led to national hysteria (directly led by the media) and within a month the government (over the objections of its scientific committee) had taken action to ban the drug.

And now… the toxicology tests on the two teenagers have just come out and show that the youths had not taken the drug.

Professor Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience at the University of Oxford, said: “This shocking news should be a salutary lesson to tabloid journalists and prejudiced politicians who held a gun to the heads of the ACMD and demanded that this drug should be banned before a single autopsy had been completed. The only good that might emerge from this fiasco is a long-overdue review of drug control policy.

“The politicians talk about using drug classification as a way of sending ‘messages’ to young people. I fear that the only message that will be sent by the hasty decision on mephedrone is that the drug laws deserve no respect.”

Exactly.

…

One of the things that makes it hard for me to report on drug news from the U.K. is the tendency for the media there to make up the most bizarre names for drugs.

The use of “skunk” for high-potency marijuana was primarily a media invention, and the term for mephedrone is… “miaow miaow.” Yep, that’s right. miaow miaow. As Wikipedia notes, it was a term that UK newspapers started using in late 2009 — “a name that was almost unknown on the street at the time.”

It makes it really hard to take news reports seriously when everybody is bent out of shape over miaow miaow. Of course, then again, it’s really hard to take anything the Mail says about drug policy seriously.

San Jose union begins organizing pot workers

A major California labor union is organizing medical cannabis workers in Oakland, a move that analysts say will help efforts to legalize marijuana and open the door for the union to organize thousands more workers if state voters pass a measure in November to allow recreational marijuana use by adults.

The 26,000-member United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 in San Jose is believed to be the first union in the country to organize workers in a marijuana-related business. It is considering new job classifications including “bud tender” – a sommelier of sorts who helps medical marijuana users choose the right strain for their ailment.

Mmmm…. jobs.

If California voters in November approve the Control and Tax Cannabis initiative, which would legalize marijuana possession and use of small amounts of marijuana for those over 21 and tax it, there could be thousands of new workers ripe for unionizing, said Dan Rush, a Local 5 organizer. […]

Getting unions involved may help destigmatize the legalization issue for union members who don’t already support it.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if marijuana — the plant that’s supposedly single-handedly destroying productivity in this country — could end up helping solve the economic crisis by creating jobs?

Oh, and something I’d really like to see… an unemployed prison guard standing in line for an application to be a union bud tender.

Norfolk, Virginia

Two Norview High School teachers were placed on paid administrative leave this week after a parent complained that they distributed classroom materials that gave advice on how to deal with police if stopped.

What material did they show these High School Seniors in government class? The movie Busted from flexyourrights.org.

Let’s see now. Senior year in High School. Government class. Nope, that’s not the time to teach them about their Constitutional rights as American citizens. We need to wait until… never?

The really disturbing part for me was reading the comments to the article (and I did not read all of them). Fortunately, there were a number of good commenters about the situation (and more joining in all the time), but a disturbing number of early commenters seemed to feel that teaching this material was completely inappropriate.

Now, I’ll say that the teachers probably should have found a slightly better vehicle, given their geographic location and the volatility with which people deal with controversy in the public school system (I would have recommended flex your rights’ new film, which is more professional in appearance than “Busted” and less likely to be able to be described as a video that “teaches kids how to avoid getting caught for pot” (it isn’t, I know, but it’s going to be described that way).

I would never teach anywhere but in College, because I don’t want to put up with the bullshit of oversensitivity (or zero tolerance policies, for that matter).

Still, this is teaching the Bill of Rights in a government class!

I grew up believing that the Bill of Rights was the default position — that everybody (except a few weirdos) at least believed in that… it was so… basic, so true, so logical, so critical to freedom.

Yet it’s been said that the Bill of Rights wouldn’t pass if brought up for a vote today, and after years of political reading and writing, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. Sad, scared, and depressed, yes. Surprised, no.

It’s why we can’t depend on simply telling people that the drug war is a violation of their rights and expect them to come running to our side. We have to find the buttons to push to get them involved (whether it’s the environment, medical marijuana, harm reduction, prison reform, violence in Mexico, etc., etc.), and then, once they realize that everything they’ve been taught about the drug war is wrong, we can teach them more (like how rights are not given by the government, and how rights make us safer, and how rights are for the innocent, and how rights are essential to freedom).

It is also another reason why our battle is so important, because the drug war is one of the prime mechanisms for dismantling the Bill of Rights. If we allow the drug war to win, our rights are in further trouble. If we can stop the drug war, then we have a chance of at least partially reversing the damage to the Constitution over time.

And it’s why we should be supportive of others who keep an eye out for authoritarian over-reach in a wide variety of areas (why Glenn Greenwald is often a must-read, for example).

Keep an eye on Flex Your Rights for more details on this story as it develops.

The AP has a piece out about fences on the Mexican border: Fence isn’t a cure-all for America’s porous border

The best known TV spot features Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain kicking along a dusty road in this hilly border city, fuming to his companion, the Pinal County sheriff, about drugs and immigrant smugglers and kidnappings. Wearing his Navy baseball cap and squinting into the sun, McCain could be rounding the corner to the gunfight at the OK Corral.

“Complete the danged fence,” he spits, his jaw drawing into a knot.
The government has spent $2.4 billion since 2005 to build the fence as it presently stands. And the prevailing political sentiment would appear to be, build it faster and higher.

But what McCain and other politicians often fail to point out is there’s no shortage of ways to get past the fence. Immigrants scale it with ladders. Smugglers use blowtorches and hacksaws to penetrate it. They use trucks with retractable vehicle ramps to roll pickups full of marijuana over the fence. They knock down vehicles barriers and erect lookalikes that are made out of cardboard and easy to move.

There are two reasons people clamor for fences along the Mexican border: immigration and drugs. Since this is a drug war blog, I’ll address the second.

1. Beginning economics lesson: when there is demand, supply will follow. It’s a law of nature. No matter how you try to build the fence, they will go under, over, around, or through it.

2. There are 1,969 miles of border between the U.S. and Mexico, and if you somehow covered all that, there are 5,525 miles of border between the U.S. and Canada to worry about, plus 12,479 miles of U.S. coastline.

3. Even if you could fence it all and somehow make it impenetrable, the drugs would come in through the legal entry points — the amount of international trade needed to keep this country going requires too much quantity each day to inspect it all.

4. For those who think a fence will keep drugs out, just remember that we have been unable to keep drugs out of prisons.

There’s an excellent post by washunate at the progressive blog FireDogLake: The 2010 Drug Control Strategy is still Anti-Science

The article picks apart the new drug control strategy and also takes a look at the media coverage (and government spin) around it.

The perspective I want to bring tonight is the specific assault on science enshrined in the drug war. We Democrats like to condescendingly snub our noses at those ignorant backwater redneck moran hillbillies – aka Republicans – who are so gosh darn awful for their scientific silliness of [insert view here]. We reference studies like the one conducted recently by the Pew Center which found that only 6% of scientists openly identify as Republican.

But the trouble is, that comes off as pretty elitist, and ridiculous, when we have such blind spots ourselves on certain policy areas when it comes to science. And the drug war is particularly interesting for this kind of perspective because it involves absurdities in both the ‘hard sciences’ and the ’social sciences’.

It’s heartening to see this kind of self-awareness building within pockets of the progressive community (particularly at FDL). Democrats have had a history of being portrayed as more progressive on drug laws, when in fact their actions have generally been little different than Republicans. For decades, liberals have been demonized by social conservatives as being soft on drugs, yet they’ve been afraid to speak out about drug policy lest the social conservatives demonize them for being soft on drugs. If you can’t win the perception battle anyway, then perhaps it’s time to just support good policy based on science.

The “Oh yeah? Well, we’re as tough on drugs as the Republicans.” approach hasn’t worked. It hasn’t worked politically and it’s been disastrous in terms of policy.

Anyway, this post at FDL is definitely worth reading. Some very nice work.