Drug WarRant

From Reason.

I know we’ve gotten a bit excited about the excellent hearing conducted by Representative Kucinich this week.

Some have wondered what it will mean.

One powerful hearing like that one will not mean the end of the ONDCP, or the DEA, or the drug war, or even this Drug Czar. It won’t even mean a significant change in this year’s drug policy budget. This subcommittee doesn’t have that power (or imagine what Mark Souder would have done with the subcommittee he chaired).

But it still is a sea change. As Kaptinemo noted in comments, it’s a long way from when Congressional hearings were about whether we can arrest drug policy reformers…

Suggesting the depth of hostility toward the notion of legal drugs, Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., asked whether anti-racketeering laws could be used to prosecute people conspiring to legalize drugs.

Oh yeah. That happened.

Mostly this is big because it opens the discussion on the Hill. Staffers have been getting regular visits from LEAP and COP lobbyists, softening them up. Now, the Drug Czar looks weak and vulnerable — not someone to line up behind. That makes some kind of reform much more possible.

So what reform might Congress enact? Particularly when it comes to the reauthorization of the ONDCP?

Here, in my mind, is the most important part of Ethan Nadelmann’s testimony before the committee:

When it comes to performance measures, ONDCP historically has pointed to increases or decreases in the total number of Americans who admit to using an illegal drug within the last year as the most important criteria for judging the success or failure of U.S. drug policy. The agency sets two- and five-year goals based on annual surveys of drug use. It is not evident yet what performance measures ONDCP will lay out in its forthcoming Strategy, but when speaking before the 53rd UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs last month Director Kerlikowske said, “[t]he U.S. Strategy will emphasize and focus on our commitment to reduce U.S. drug consumption.”

Drug use rates tell us surprisingly little, however, about our nation’s progress toward reducing the actual harms associated with drugs. If the number of Americans using illegal drugs decreases, but overdose fatalities, new HIV/AIDS infections, racial disparities and addiction increases, the Drug Policy Alliance would consider that failure. In contrast, if the number of Americans using illegal drugs increases, but overdose fatalities, new HIV/AIDS infections, racial disparities and addiction declines, the Drug Policy Alliance would consider that success. Key performance measurements should focus on the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drugs and our drug policies, not drug use per se.

Simply stated, ups and downs in how many people say they used marijuana or other drugs last year are far less important than ups and downs in drug overdose fatalities, or new HIV and hepatitis C infections, or expenditures on incarceration of non-violent drug offenders.

If this subcommittee advances only one drug-related reform it should be to require ONDCP to set objectives for reducing the harms associated with both drugs and the war on drugs. ONDCP shouldn’t just set short- and long-term goals for reducing drug use; it should set specific goals for reducing fatal overdoses, the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, racial disparities, the number of nonviolent offenders behind bars, and other negative consequences of both drug use and drug control policies.

This is almost exactly what I would tell Congress if I had the opportunity.

You see, as much as we might want to tell Congress that they have no right to be involved in drug consumption, or that they simply shouldn’t be involved, any such attempt would be ignored at best. More likely, we’d be seen as kooks. These are the folks who feel like they should meddle in every aspect of our lives, and as wrong as that is, they’re not going to have their sense of paternalistic right changed overnight.

If, however, we can convince them that the metrics they use must be changed to actually do any good (and we’ve demonstrated that past), then that could seem to be a mere positive technical correction — not anything ridiculously “radical” like legalization.

One of the biggest problem with federal drug policy has been the emphasis on “use” rather than “harm.” That’s why the feds spend so much time on marijuana. Since it’s the most used illicit drug with a lot of casual use (and easy to quit), it’s a much more attractive target for getting quick numbers.

The other thing is that when “use” is the only metric, there’s no reason to track, or even acknowledge, the vast harms from prohibition.

Converting the ONDCP’s mission to a “harm” metric would force a complete restructuring of data collection related to the drug war and open up an entirely new dialog at a governmental level about the relative harms of drugs and prohibition.

We would suddenly see the Drug Czar’s office heavily promoting needle exchange (and maybe even heroin maintenance programs) in a desperate attempt to generate some numbers that show reduced harm. And the harms of prohibition, while certainly understated by the government, would have to be at least acknowledged.

This would be a huge step forward for the country as it would take us out of the automatic prohibition mindset that comes from the meaningless directive to “reduce use.”

They’re certainly not getting honest, but at least they’re learning that they can’t get away with the obvious lies.

It’s been over 30 days since I submitted my Petition for Correction Under teh ONDCP Information Quality Guidelines regarding their misuse of NHTSA study data to claim numbers of impaired drivers. They haven’t yet responded, but it appears that they got the message.

On the Drug Czar’s “blog,” they report about soon-to-be-resigning Deputy Director Tom McLellan speaking at an event about drugged driving. Note the caution:

Speaking at the closing luncheon of the national conference, Deputy Director McLellan stated that according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s 2007 Roadside Survey, 16% of weekend, nighttime drivers tested positive for the presence of an illicit or licit drug, the most common of which are marijuana and cocaine. This Study marks the first time that a Roadside Survey included a test for the presence of drugs among drivers.

All true. Carefully avoided this time were words like “impaired” or “under the influence.” And, of course, the paragraph is completely useless for making any kind of conclusion about drugged driving. But, pathetically, it’s the best they’ve got. So they just have to hope the listener will make his/her own false assumption.

It also says something about the character of the ONDCP staff that, faced with a correction of fact, they choose to weasel around it rather than face it.

I know if I worked in such a place, I wouldn’t want to stick around long. I’d probably make some sort of comment about how I was just “ill-suited to government work.”

From Drug War Chronicle:

A coca-based soft drink went on sale in Bolivia this week. Coca Colla, made from the coca leaf and named after Bolivia’s indigenous Colla people, is the latest manifestation of President Evo Morales’ quest to expand legal markets for coca products.

The first batch of Coca Colla, about 12,000 half-litre bottles going for $1.50 each, went on sale in La Paz, Santa Cruz, and Cochabamba. Like Coca-Cola, it is black, sweet, and comes in a bottle with a red label. Unlike Coca-Cola, which originally used full-fledged coca leaf extract but began de-cocainizing it early in the company’s history, Coca Colla is the real thing.

Comedian Lewis Black starts talking about the legalization of marijuana

Enough is enough. And I don’t even smoke the stuff, but if we are going to pay for anything we have to find ways to raise money, and here’s one. Marijuana is a huge industry, and people are not going to stop smoking it. Critics are concerned that kids will get a hold of the stuff. Like the kids don’t already get a hold of it! It’s insane.

Crack babies leading ordinary lives. It’s been some time now since the hysteria over crack babies has been dispelled, but it’s good to remind people that such destructive media over-reaction is more damaging than the drug itself. Sure, pregnant women shouldn’t take certain drugs, but that doesn’t mean that you doom a generation (or, for that matter, over-react in crafting oppressive and racist legislation).

“Honestly, I had the perception that crack babies were born messed up, that they went through their life having problems,” said Jeff, who was a B student in high school, played sports and has worked part time since he was 14. He works at Starbucks and attends Howard Community College, aiming for a degree in accounting. “I don’t see other kids doing things that I don’t see myself capable of doing.”

Researchers say the hysteria that surrounded crack-exposed babies teaches lessons on how to deal with the increasing number of children being born with prenatal exposure to methamphetamine. “We think everyone has learned from looking at the cocaine-exposed kids not to get in a uproar before we have data,” said Nicolette Borek, of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which oversees 15 studies of children exposed to cocaine before birth.

Many of those babies were born prematurely, with low birth weights and unusually small heads, but overall, they are “doing a lot better than we thought,” she said. “One of the messages of this is really how resilient children are and the brain is. Your exposure does not doom you.”

Petition to Reschedule ‘Marijuana’ to Recognize Medical Benefits in Final Stages of Review by DEA – a press release from DrugScience.org

As scientists and researchers from Israel, Brazil, Canada and the US participate in the Sixth National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics, a coalition of medical marijuana advocates is calling on the Obama administration for prompt action on an eight-year-old petition to reschedule marijuana for medical use. The petition, filed in 2002, argues that marijuana should be classified as a drug with “accepted medical use” based on growing scientific evidence and acceptance in state law. Since the petition was filed, even more scientific studies and state laws have recognized the medical efficacy of marijuana.

Unless someone can enlighten me further on the press release, this appears to be merely a reminder that the petition is out there, waiting for the government to act.

It’s also a reminder that with marijuana, the DEA has stacked the deck against the statutory provisions that allow procedures for petitioning for rescheduling. The built-in tactics and procedures are intended to allow for surreal levels of delay and obstruction.

The first petition was filed in 1972. It was finally killed by the DEA in 1994, 22 years later. A 1995 petition was killed in 2002. The one from drugscience, mentioned above, is the third petition.

I guess we’ve been over-reacting to all the thousands of deaths in Mexico. Turns out they mostly had it coming.

President Felipe Calderon insisted Friday that few innocent civilians have fallen victim to Mexico’s bloody drug war, saying nearly all those killed are people tied to cartels wrestling for power.

Speaking during a tourism conference, Calderon said criminals constitute more than 90 percent of drug war’s death toll, which stands at nearly 23,000 in just over three years.

Fascinating. I wonder how he knows? Perhaps all criminals in Mexico carry ID cards. But then, there’s all those deaths that involved dismemberment of naked corpses… maybe they have “I am a criminal” tattoos?

ONDCP’s McLellan to resign

Thomas McLellan, the former Penn professor whose appointment last year as the top federal official on addiction treatment was widely seen as signaling a dramatic shift in drug policy, is planning to resign.

“There’s no deep dark secret here – I’m just ill-suited to government work,” McLellan said in an interview with the newsletter Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly.

McLellan was supposed to be the big treatment guy for the ONDCP, the one to show that they really meant their supposed switch to treatment over enforcement. This doesn’t look good for the drug czar’s office, particularly with the grilling in Kucinich’s committee, and the long delay of the drug strategy report.

The release of the National Drug Control Strategy, a detailed blueprint for how the federal government deals with issues of illegal drugs and underage drinking that is written by McLellan and Kerlikowske, has been expected for more than two months but repeatedly delayed. Both men have talked in bits and pieces about its emphasis on treatment, and it was not known whether the delay had anything to do with McLellan’s decision.

DrugSense Weekly – a weekly review of the most interesting or relevant articles in the press and on the web related to drug policy reform.

Drug War Chronicle – weekly update of drug war news and analysis from Stop the Drug War.org.

RIP Jack Herer (in case you missed the good discussions in the comments in our open thread, or the link to the coverage by NORML).

…

Sorry for being off-line for the past few days. A student group that I advise was having a four-square marathon to raise money for student scholarships. It went for 65 straight hours, and now I’m trying to catch up on sleep.

This is an open thread.

Update: To those who write with assumptions about me based on my lack of including some major piece of news on my blog…. This is not a news aggregator — go to MAPinc if you want to read about everything (and help them out — they could always use some more newshawks). I write about and share things of my choice — that may be some insignificant tidbit that I find of interest at the moment, and not include some major piece of news that everyone else is talking about. I value all the tips and suggestions I receive immensely. Some I use, and some I don’t. There isn’t necessarily a dark design involved in that process. It’s a blog, and it’s the nature of blogging. </vent>

We had some fun here yesterday with Dennis Kucinich’s hearing, putting Drug Czar Kerlikowske on the spot.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it here

Ethan Nadelmann’s testimony is after the jump.

I’m spending a couple of days doing all-nighters with a four-square marathon to raise money for student scholarships, so I’m counting on you to keep the discussions going.

This is an open thread.

Continue reading →

On Wednesday, April 14, 2010, the Domestic Policy Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled: “ONDCP’s Fiscal year 2011 National Drug Control Budget: Are We Still Funding a War on Drugs?” The hearing will take place at 10:00 a.m. in room 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

You’ll be able to watch a Live Webcast

This is Dennis Kucinich’s committee, and the hearing is going to include Ethan Nadelmann. According to the Drug Policy Alliance’s press release:

The Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (also known as the drug czar), Gil Kerlikowske, and the executive director of the anti-drug-war Drug Policy Alliance, Ethan Nadelmann, will both be testifying.

Mr. Nadelmann testimony will focus on:

• The drug war’s flawed performance measures;
• The lop-sided ratio between supply and demand spending in the national drug budget;
• The lack of innovation in the drug czar’s proposed strategies;
• The Administration’s failure to adequately evaluate drug policies.

When Congress needs to know the background on a particular issue — the history, the arguments on both sides, the facts — they turn to the Congressional Research Service. CRS reports are issued on a fairly constant basis on a wide range of issues.

There’s a new one called Medical Marijuana: Review and Analysis of
Federal and State Policies by Mark Eddy, Specialist in Social Policy

It really is worth reading the whole thing. This is a phenomenally good report, going back to the history of medical marijuana use prior to 1937, and following all the major developments. It doesn’t flinch from portraying government interference as unwarranted when true. It covers the Francis Young statement, and the Compassionate IND program, shows the positive polling for medical marijuana, and debunks many of the prohibitionist arguments against medical marijuana.

If Congress actually pays attention to it, we could see some major change. But don’t hold your breath — as the report itself notes, Congress’ actions have been more political than science-based in this area.

There’s been a lot of talk about Justice Stevens’ imminent departure from the Supreme Court, including some folks that seem to remember him as a champion of civil liberties.

I’ll admit that at one point, I felt quite strongly about Stevens, in a positive way. It was when he wrote this in the decision that shot down the horrible Communications Decency Act (which I fought hard against)

“As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.”— Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority

But that’s only one moment in his career.

Radley Balko does a great job of showing just how far around the map that Justice Stevens traveled.

Stevens wrote the majority opinion striking down the censorious 1998 Child Online Protection Act, yet voted with the dissent to uphold a Texas law prohibiting the desecration of the American flag. […]

In dicta from the 2007 case Morse v. Frederick (more commonly known as the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case), Stevens became the first Supreme Court justice to explicitly question the wisdom of marijuana prohibition […]

Stevens wrote the majority opinion in Gonzales v. Raich, the notorious case that upheld the federal government’s power to enforce its prohibition on medical marijuana[…]

He did author the Court’s opinion in 2009’s Arizona v. Gant, which limited the scope with which police can search a suspect’s car after making an arrest. […]

In the 2001 case Kyllo v. The United States, Stevens wrote the dissent, arguing that police shouldn’t need a warrant to use thermal imaging equipment to look through the walls of private homes in search of marijuana growing operations.

All over the place.

The one Radley left out is the one that currently leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. And that’s Caballes v. Illinois, where Stevens wrote the majority opinion stating that a dog alerting on a car was sufficient cause for a search even in the absence of any other suspicion.

The kicker was this statement:

“A dog sniff conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to possess does not violate the Fourth Amendment.”

In other words, because the substance found was illegal, the decision to search was OK. Classic ends-justifies-the-means thinking and an open invitation for police to go fishing, as long as the dog they trained will cooperate with them.

You’d think after a certain number of years in the Supreme Court, he could have had a staff person explain the Fourth Amendment to him.

The sad part is that I unfortunately agree with Radley:

It’s regrettable that a justice with a record like Stevens’ would be considered the Court’s last bastion of protection for the rights of the accused. Not only is it accepted as a given that Stevens’ replacement will be more deferential to government on these issues, the issues themselves won’t even be part of the debate.

Every now and then, it’s fun to check the logs and see whence some of my visitors hail. Today was a good day.

It appears that we’re getting closer to the confirmation hearings of Michele Leonhart for Administrator of the DEA. Her committee questionnaire has been posted.

Coincidentally, there were a couple of visits today from the U.S. Senate to my web page: DEA Bad Girl Michele Leonhart. Guess they’re doing some research.

Someone in the House of Representatives stopped by today to learn Why Marijuana is Illegal.

And the Department of Justice took the time today to stop by my Vigil for Lost Promise, remembering those who have died from the Drug War.

I’m glad to be there help out.