Drug WarRant

I think they did a good job of narrowing down the 800 submissions into a reasonably good set of choices for their campaign at FireDogLake

Just Say Now
Just Say No – To Prohibition
Vote Green
Stop Supporting Cartels
Marijuana Never Stole Your 401k
Liberty. Legalize Marijuana
Prohibition; Stupid Then, Stupid Now
Stop Funding Criminals. Legalize Marijuana
Marijuana: Pass it
Prohibition Kills
Campaign for Sensible Cannabis Reform
End Prohibition Again
Legalize Marijuana
Grass is Greener

Go and vote.

It’s nice to have FireDogLake working on this project.

It’s also nice to see some stirrings at other progressive sites, such as this mention by Marcos at Daily Kos, when talking about the Arizona issue:

The drug smuggler infestation (whether white or brown) at the border is at true crisis levels. But the drug issue has nothing to do with the immigration issue. Drug runners aren’t crossing the border looking to get jobs mowing lawns, and demanding to see immigration papers at a Tucson bus stop won’t make a dent in the drug cartels. […]

There are two broken policies here — the immigration system, which desperately needs reform, and the drug war, which is costing people their lives and essentially turning Mexico into a narco state in order to irrationally keep people from smoking freakin’ weed.

In Columbia, Missouri, SWAT teams storms into house, kills one dog in front of the 7-year old kid, wounds another, terrorizes the family. Cops find grinder, pipe and a small amount of marijuana and charge the father with possession plus child endangerment.

I think you can decide if the child was in danger and from whom.

See if you can make sense out of this:

Because the SWAT team acts on the most updated information available, the team wanted to enter the house before marijuana believed to be at the location could be distributed, she said.

“If you let too much time go by, then the drugs are not there,” she said.

Drug distributors traditionally have a history with firearms, which is why the SWAT team is used when executing such warrants, [police spokeswoman Officer Jessie] Haden said. If the SWAT team believed they could have executed the warrant successfully during the daytime when the wife and child were not present, they would have, she said.

So apparently, if they had waited until the next day, even with surveillance, the “drugs” would have been gone, presumably through underground tunnels, I guess.

Interestingly, in another article:

[Deputy Chief Tom] Dresner previously said that intelligence gathered before the raid did not indicate the child was in the home.

The video is disturbing to watch, but the really disturbing things are what happened before the video — the truly warped thinking that created the laws and the procedures that made people think this was a good idea.

Referring to a medical marijuana bill in Illinois…

“The passing of this bill is going to lead to more crime and drug use. Street gangs will open marijuana dispensaries and they’ll use the profits for selling that marijuana to buy guns and drugs and bail out fellow gang members,” said Phil Cline, former Chicago police superintendent.

The entire statement is absurd. The really outrageous part, however, is that Phil Cline believes that criminals will not only take over some dispensaries, but despite being listed in the phone book, and having a sign over their door, Chicago cops will be too stupid to find them.

When are the cops going to grow a set of balls and start pushing back at the insults given them by their union leaders and bosses, who keep claiming that medical marijuana laws are too hard for dumb cops to enforce?

… nor do they want to.

After claiming that they wanted to communicate with the public on a more regular basis, they started an ONDCP Update Newsletter in January. Then they had an issue in February. Then nothing. Finally, on May 3, they had a March/April issue.

A little embarrassing, particularly since hyping their new Open Government Plan in April.

But you’ve got to give them a break. They’ve been busy — it take a lot of work and time to find more creative ways to lie to the public.

Take a look at the latest “blog” entry: Drug Use in America — it’s a doozy.

Research and data serve as the foundation of ONDCP’s programs and recent statistics show that we need to act now to address this public health and safety issue and reduce the devastating effects of drug use.

Note the emphasis on research and data; then the sneaky mention of drug use (not abuse).

But how do they present that data?

The use of illicit drugs—including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, PCP, ecstasy, inhalants, methamphetamine, and the non-medical use of prescription drugs—is a significant public health problem. The use of these substances led directly to the death of 38,000 Americans in 2006—nearly as many as died in motor vehicle crashes that same year (43,000). In monetary terms, the use of illicit drugs cost the United States billions of dollars in health care, lost productivity, and other costs.

That is a truly diabolical paragraph. Based on the grammatical structure, when I first read it, it appeared that illicit drugs alone (including marijuana, of course) directly caused 38,000 deaths (particularly with the bookended “illicit drugs” phrase at the end of the paragraph).

But no. See how they improperly snuck in “and the non-medical use of prescription drugs” into the dashed clause that was detailing the kinds of illicit drugs? Impressive.

Lying through misdirection and implication. That was a hallmark of the John Walters ONDCP. Looks like the Kerlikowske ONDCP is really getting up to speed.

There are a lot of pathetic, selfish reasons to want the continuation of the destruction caused by prohibition — protecting drug war jobs, for example — but one of the worst is the celebrity drug addict who sees prohibition as his own personal intervention service.

I haven’t read the full article, but Robert Downey, Jr. (who I consider to be an occasionally brilliant actor) is interviewed in this month’s Rolling Stone.

During an introspective day on the beach where Kirn and Downey play word association (and coin the term “vaginal parfait”), the actor opens up about his opposition to drug legalization… […]

“All those years of snorting coke, and then I accidentally get involved in heroin after smoking crack for the first time. It finally tied my shoelaces together. Smoking dope and smoking coke, you are rendered defenseless. The only way out of that hopeful state is intervention.”

And in the Daily News

The bad boy actor admits he felt the safest he’s ever been when behind bars.

“When the door clicks shut, then you are safe,” says the veteran actor, who spent a good amount of time between 1996 and 2001 in prison for drug use and possession. “There is nothing aside from a rogue correctional officer that can do you harm if you have the right cellie. You are actually in the safest place on Earth. Safe from the intruders.”

For Downey, those intruders were his addictions…

Isn’t that nice.

All the dead people in Mexico, the recipients of prison rape, the overdose victims from unregulated drugs, the families torn apart by racist drug laws, all those who could handle their drugs but were made to pay anyway — I’m sure they’re all just pleased as punch that their lives were sacrificed in order to provide Robert Downey, Jr. with a celebrity intervention and safe house service.

Mark Kleiman is asking Who leaked the drug strategy to Michael Isikoff? and has a conspiracy theory.

So far, I don’t know the entire chain of leakage, but the path clearly runs through John Walters, the Bill Bennett sidekick who served as ONDCP director (“drug czar”) under Bush II. Walters’s tenure marked a low point in the non-entirely-glorious history of ONDCP. Walters and his staff behaved as if they were playing the English version of Charades and had been told to act out “epistemic closure.”

Walters seems not to have noticed that when he made a formatting change in the document on his computer that edit would be recorded in “Track Changes.” But p. 9 of the .pdf version of the document Isikoff posted has a box showing a change by “John Walters 4/29/10 3:02 PM.”

That timestamp, just one day before Isikoff’s story went up, strongly suggests that Walters was the direct source, though it’s barely possible that Walters gave it to some third party who in turn gave it to Isikoff.

A phone call to ONDCP confirms that Walters was not among the very small group of people outside the agency who had access to the document. No one I know had it, and I asked to see it and was told that I would get the executive summary only, 24 hours before the release time, under strict embargo. But it was available to everyone inside the agency on the ONDCP intranet.

Here’s the part he’s talking about:

Well, as conspiracy theories go, it’s interesting. And who knows, he may be right. But I doubt it.

First of all, this theory depends on Walters being upset enough with today’s ONDCP to want to sabotage it. I haven’t gotten a sense of that from Walters’ speeches since he joined the Hudson Institute, or any real reason for him to be all that upset with today’s ONDCP.

Second, it depends on the notion that Walters, who did not have access to the document, somehow got hold of it surreptitiously, and then decided to turn on “Track Changes” and make a font change.

Third, there may be an easier explanation. Is it possible that whatever computer Walters used when he was at the ONDCP is still there, at least with the same copy of Microsoft Word? If so, the identity of the Word user could have remained the same for whoever is using that computer now.

The conspiracy theory is more fun, but the fact is, there are probably plenty of people in the ONDCP right now that are dissatisfied and would be happy to leak to Isikoff, without needing Walters to get in the picture.

A draft of the delayed National Drug Control Strategy that was due in February has surfaced, and the Drug Czar is not looking good.

As Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff reports:

These have been tough times for White House drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske. After spending much of his first year in office crafting a new anti-drug strategy, he had hoped to unveil it two months ago with President Obama. But Kerlikowske couldn’t get on Obama’s schedule. When he pressed, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel directed him to Vice President Joe Biden, say two Kerlikowske advisers who asked not to be identified talking about an internal matter. But after agreeing to a joint announcement, Biden had to cancel at the last minute when the health-care bill landed on the president’s desk. Appearing before a House subcommittee recently, Kerlikowske got hammered for not having yet produced the drug-control strategy that his office was charged with releasing by last Feb. 1. […]

The new strategy, a copy of which NEWSWEEK obtained, sets a goal of reducing youth drug use by 15 percent in the next five years, and it asserts a commitment to “community-oriented” prevention programs and early drug-abuse screening by health-care providers. But even some administration officials say achieving these goals is unlikely given the budget’s modest prevention increases. “We are missing an opportunity,” says Kerlikowske’s chief deputy, A. Thomas McClellan, who is resigning after less than a year on the job. […]

Critics are raising questions about whether Kerlikowske’s office–with a staff of about 100 and a budget of $400 million–still serves a vital function.

Ouch.

Here’s the draft of the strategy. Check it out for yourself.

Let’s start with the Preface by Director Kerlikowske:

The development of this Strategy was informed by scientific breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment fields, innovations in law enforcement, and the thoughtful advice of Congress, Federal agencies, state and local partners, civic and professional organizations, and hundreds of concerned citizens around the country. In following President Obama’s charge to seek a broad range of input in the Strategy, I gained a renewed appreciation of how deeply concerned Americans are about drug use. It touches each one of us, whether we know a family member, a friend, or a colleague who suffers from addiction or is in recovery, a police officer working to protect the community, or a parent striving to keep a child drug free.

Of course, as you can immediately see, that “broad range of input” was strictly in the pro-prohibition field.

Drug overdose deaths surpass gunshot deaths in our country, and in 16 states, overdose deaths are a more common cause of accidental death than car crashes.

Of course, that’s only if you include all poisoning deaths of any kind (licit and illicit).

Drugged driving has now been identified at higher
levels than alcohol-impaired driving.

No, it hasn’t. Despite your attempts to make it an issue.

Once again, I’m feeling good about my successful challenge of the drug czar’s use of the NHTSA study to claim that he has data regarding “impaired” or “under the influence” drugged drivers.

Clearly, he intended to use this heavily in the Strategy. Even though his wording had to be carefully restricted, he still manages to use the study improperly to imply that it shows some information about drugged driving.

5. Preventing Drugged Driving Must Become a National Priority on Par with Preventing Drunk Driving

Americans know the terrible consequences of drunk driving and are becoming more aware of the dangers of distracted driving. Drugged driving poses similar threats to public safety because drugs have adverse effects on judgment, reaction time, motor skills, and memory. According to the latest National Roadside Survey conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 16 percent of weekend nighttime drivers tested positive for drugs. This troubling news demands a response on a level
equivalent to the decade-long, highly successful effort to prevent drunk driving. The Department of Transportation (DOT) has already taken some important steps, including publicizing the survey and adding drugged driving to its public discussions of drunk and impaired driving. However, considering the severe public safety risk posed by drugged driving, much more needs to be done to enhance safety on America’s roads and highways.

The danger of a lunatic like Kerlikowske is not just that he invents problems to fit the solutions he wants to use, but that he actually can create harm if his solutions are followed. Take a look at the heading: “Preventing Drugged Driving Must Become a National Priority on Par with Preventing Drunk Driving.” In reality, that means that we would be giving less relative priority to drunk driving, which is proven to be very dangerous, in order to focus on an area with no statistics demonstrating a significant problem.

The word “driving” appears 41 times in the Strategy.

The biggest problem, of course, with the entire National Drug Control Strategy, is made clear when identifying what guides the strategy at its basic level:

All of these strategies will support the two policy goals specified by Congress in the authorizing legislation of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP): (1) reducing illicit drug consumption, and (2) reducing the consequences of illicit drug use in the United States. These are the Administration’s policy goals because they focus on practical results that are comprehensible and important to the American people.

No, what the American people want is a reduction of harms and reduction of cost to society from drug abuse and the drug war. You don’t address that in any meaningful way by focusing on numbers of “drug consumption.”

As long as the ONDCP operates under its current mandate, any Drug Control Strategy it puts out is going to be irrelevant.

Update:

Mark Kleiman (who generally abhors the excesses of prohibition while believing it can be saved if only we implement better probation policies and adjust marijuana laws) has a clearly different view of the Strategy and takes Isikoff to task.

While Kleiman admits that the strategy contains a lot of objectionable programs and goals, many of which are required by law or politics, he thinks that if we read between the lines, we’ll find gems of improvement. For example:

* “Provide information on effective prevention strategies to law enforcement” seems anodyne until you think about it. Right now, law enforcement is heavily invested in a single, ineffective prevention strategy: DARE, one of the sacred cows of drug abuse control. The implication is that the Feds are going to tell law enforcement agencies with information on programs that actually work.

Really? The strategy itself can’t or won’t tell the truth about programs, studies, or policy. It’s hard to believe that they would provide effective information (which must be fact-based to be effective) to law enforcement.

Is this the strategy that I would have written? Not by a long shot. But is it the best strategy produced since the process started in 1989? Incomparably. It deserved better treatment than Newsweek chose to give it. What it shows is a White House that has gotten over the “drug war” and is ready to think about managing the drug problem.

I disagree. All Kerlikowske has shown is that he’s ready to talk about managing the drug problem as a means to deflecting real concerns about the drug war that the government is unwilling to face, and that he’s willing to pretend that this shift in talk (without true reform) will actually be different in some way that matters.

Jeralyn at TalkLeft points out that the Strategy clearly indicates its opposition to the legalization of marijuana.

Keeping drugs illegal reduces their availability and lessens willingness to use them. That is why this Administration firmly opposes the legalization of marijuana or any other illicit drug.

It’s a point that I missed, in part, because I’ve just gotten used to the fact that the Drug Czar is required by law to oppose legalization in any way.

In a speech on the Senate floor last week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that the failure to secure that border between Arizona and Mexico “has led to violence – the worst I have ever seen.”

He reiterated that Saturday after speaking at the West Valley Military Family Day event in Glendale, saying the concern that drug violence could spill across the border remains intense because Mexico’s political situation is volatile.

“The violence is on the increase,” McCain told The Arizona Republic.

Except that it’s not.

Violence is not up on Arizona border

Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez shakes his head and smiles when he hears politicians and pundits declaring that Mexican cartel violence is overrunning his Arizona border town.

“We have not, thank God, witnessed any spillover violence from Mexico,” Bermudez says emphatically. “You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America.”

FBI Uniform Crime Reports and statistics provided by police agencies, in fact, show that the crime rates in Nogales, Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade, even as drug-related violence has spiraled out of control on the other side of the international line. Statewide, rates of violent crime also are down.

Radley Balko has already noted that illegal immigration (while it may have other issues) does not automatically lead to crime, and the article points the numbers out on that as well.

While the nation’s illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records, the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent.

But how about the drug war? Why is there so much violence on the Mexican side and so little on the U.S. side?

It has to do with the nature of the business. It’s on the Mexican side of the border that the control of the business is established. Once drugs are smuggled across the border, there’s little interest in sticking around — they keep on going inland.

Bermudez said people unfamiliar with the border may be confused because Nogales, Sonora, has become notorious for kidnappings, shootouts and beheadings. With 500 Border Patrol agents and countless other law officers swarming the Arizona side, he said, smugglers pass through as quickly and furtively as possible. […]

“It almost seems like Yuma is more of an entryway” for smugglers rather than a combat zone, he said.

Note the rather casual admission that, even with all the border law enforcement, there really isn’t an expectation that smuggling will be stopped or significantly impeded.

Of course, all this doesn’t change the fact that the drug war is causing a lot of violence in Mexico, and that we could dramatically reduce a lot of collateral damage here in the United States as well with legalization and regulation, but this is an interesting side story in political over-reaction.

I was quite pleased to receive the following: Drug War Economic Report – A Compilation of Local Costs of Connecticut’s Current Drug Policies, prepared by the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy at Central Connecticut State University. Dr. Robert L. Painter. M.D. Research Assistant, and Susan E. Pease, Dean, School of Arts and Sciences.

Among the participants joining in the consensus were many Yale students and Clifford Thornton (pictured), a longtime legalization spokesperson, who ran as the Green Party gubernatorial candidate on a pro-legalization, anti-drug war platform back in 2006.

This report does a nice job of isolating drug war figures when it’s really difficult to do so effectively, and I think it could serve (as Cliff hopes) as a model for other states.

It’s certainly far more accurate than the kind of figures the other side uses, when they tout their “cost of drug use.”

I also believe, as the report states, that it is a conservative estimate of the cost to local communities in Connecticut of waging this ridiculous war on drugs.

A couple of minor quibbles.

It costs the United States about $60 billion per year in state and federal money to interdict the supply of drugs from outside US borders. The US population is presently 307.7 million, so this represents an expense of $195 per person per year. For its 124,512 Hartford residents, that represents $24,279,233 per year.

I believe the $60 billion (which appears to come from the War on Drugs Clock) represents a slight overlap with some other costs that are being mentioned in this report. But then again, it’s such a loose estimate, that I don’t think that’s particularly significant.

And then, there’s this:

Homicides are a downstream cost that is not easily measured in money terms. In 2008, 35 people were murdered in Hartford. 75-80% of homicides across the country are drug-related. The Hartford Police Department has opined that Hartford’s percentage is much higher. If, however, 75% is the correct figure, 26.25 homicides per year are one of the downstream costs of the drug war in Hartford. According to Corso et al , the average cost per homicide is $1.3 million in lost productivity and $4,906 in medical costs for a total of $1,304,906 per homicide. That is equal to $34,253,783 total cost each year attributable to homicides in Hartford.

Overall, the detailing is fine. I just have a personal issue with using “lost productivity” in these kinds of reports. I know that the other side does it all the time, and so it’s perfectly appropriate for it to be used here. I just don’t like it.

I find lost productivity to be a rather arbitrary and meaningless statistic that is always presented outside of any kind of useful context. Why don’t we come up with a number for the “reduced negative impact on the economy” because the dead person is no longer producing garbage? There are all sorts of variables when determining how a person might have affected the world had they lived.

Sure, lost productivity is a real thing, and it shouldn’t be ignored, but I would prefer to see it as a side-bar, rather than part of the computations. But that’s just me.

Anyway, this is a pretty good report and an excellent model. Check it out.

It’s the last week of classes, and a host of fascinating (and time-consuming) activities. Yesterday was a 16-hour work day.

So what’s going on that interests you? Is it California? Medical Marijuana? The inability of Arizona to come to grips with borders? Russia wanting to go back into Afghanistan to fight the drug war? Renn Fayre at Reed College?

This is an open thread.