Drug WarRant

More words of wisdom from the rat-speakers.

Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction

A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.

Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers “crash,” and achieving the same pleasure–or even just feeling normal–requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study.

“People know intuitively that there’s more to [overeating] than just willpower,” he says. “There’s a system in the brain that’s been turned on or over-activated, and that’s driving [overeating] at some subconscious level.”

Guess what. If I was a rat trapped in a cage, set to be experimented on until I died, I’d take all the heroin, cocaine, and fatty foods they gave me.

But I’m not a rat. I’ve got a pretty decent intellect, unlimited opportunities of interesting and stimulating activities and pursuits, a fairly strong sense of self-awareness, and, yes, some will-power.

And what about the scientists who work with the rats? They have access to all that cocaine and fatty food. Why aren’t they addicted?

Perhaps the real truth is that scientists cause cancer in white mice and that caged rats will become addicted to anything their handlers desire.

Oh, wait! Wait a second! Clear at the very bottom of the article almost hidden under a dozen advertisements within the text for health.com articles, is this tiny little disclaimer…

Although he acknowledges that his research may not directly translate to humans,

So why the huge picture of an upscale slice of cheesecake nicely on a plate with a raspberry garnish with the caption “Cheesecake and other fatty foods overload the pleasure centers in the brain.”?

Is that what they fed to the rats? No, of course not. It’s just typical bad journalism from the rat-speakers.

With the marijuana legalization vote coming up in November, I’m hearing some people say that it’s practically a sure thing — after all, the logic is there, and everybody in California smokes pot already.

Well, I thought I’d take a little more realistic look at what reformers are facing.

Caveat: I’m no expert in voting trends or California, so this is not intended to be anything definitive; rather it’s a set of points to consider, or a jumping-off point for further discussion.

The latest Gallup poll shows 44% of Americans support legalization — an all-time high — and in the west, that number goes up to 53%. Not bad, but far from a sure thing.

While it’s certainly an over-simplification, there’s some truth to the notion that those who have tried marijuana at some point in their lives are more likely to be sympathetic to legalization (since they realize first hand that much of the hype is false). So let’s take a look at those numbers.

Pacific West Marijuana use (2008 SAMHSA)

Now, based on past use, 45-50% (lifetime use) may be sympathetic, but is that a powerful enough factor to actually get them out to vote in November? Uncertain. Past month is more of an indicator of strong motivation.

Now, let’s take a look at midterm voting trends.

Californians voting in 2006 election

The old people are more likely to vote. The young people are more likely to support legalization.

Now the good news is that mid-term elections tend to have low turnout, so a motivated group getting out the vote can have a more significant impact. That could change, however, given the level of public interest in the financial woes of the state and the country, or if there is a hotly contested race for Congress.

But as you can see, it’s about far more than getting the marijuana enthusiasts to vote. (In fact, even within the marijuana enthusiasts, you may have to contend with the bottom-feeders who prefer to keep it illegal, either through financial interest or some misguided “I don’t want the government taxing my pot” nonsense.)

The key is going to be motivating the casually sympathetic (all those lifetime marijuana users who haven’t touched it in years and have kids of their own), and those who may not be sympathetic to marijuana use at all.

That probably means focusing on arguments that do not require an affinity of use, such as:

• Economic value of legalization (reduced costs, increased tax revenue)
• Practical value of regulation (age limits, place and time restrictions)
• Reduction of violence (street and Mexico)
• Environmental protection (illegal grows in public lands)
• The Economic self-interest of those opposing legalization (law enforcement unions, prison guard unions, cartels, DEA, etc.)

Opponents will do everything they can to get us sidetracked arguing over whether marijuana is dangerous or not.

Given the cognitive distortion factor I’ve discussed before, it’s going to take a lot of repetition to get people to actually hear the right message. To begin with, there will be a lot of discussions like this:

Reformer: It’s time to stop giving in to the criminals and lobbyists at the drug war trough and begin the legal regulation of cannabis so we can take back control, set appropriate age limits, and de-fund the criminals. As a side benefit, we could also dramatically help the budget.

Listener: Marijuana bad.

Don’t get cocky. California is a tricky state and doesn’t fall in line in the ways that some people think. After all, it seemed a sure thing that if any state would protect gay marriage at the polls, it would be California, but the last election showed that to be a miscalculation.

“Your gun control policy doesn’t have anything to do with public safety, and it’s certainly not about personal freedom. It’s about, you don’t like the people who do like guns. You don’t like the people.” — Ainsley Hayes, “The West Wing”

I’m not quite sure how to say this, but there’s a sociological phenomenon that sometimes results in a backlash factor in situations where a type of social change becomes publicly visible. Let’s call it the “uppity” factor. “Good” people may say that they support rights for blacks/gays/potheads in general, but become annoyed when they become uppity — flaunting their blackness or gayness or dope-ness in public as if they were equals, rather than keeping it hidden behind closed doors where it belongs.

Let’s face it. California cannabis culture can appear uppity. That doesn’t mean that people should stop being who they are — that’s impossible (and wrong). But awareness of the phenomenon can help with strategy.

So, maybe “Free the Weed” and “Ganja Rulez” may not be the best slogans for the legalization movement. Public appearances by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition will have an extra powerful impact. People in suits going door to door will lend the movement credibility. Professional-looking printed materials that are well-designed (and proofed!), focusing on facts (preferably sourced), are essential. These are obvious things, but still important to remember.

Again, I’m no expert, and these are just some ruminations on what the California legalization effort may face. I’m sure others have thought this through even more thoroughly, but this might help get some discussions going. With enough effort and the right message, I think success is possible, but certainly not easy.

This really is about perfect:

An unconventional cure for Mexico’s drug violence: Legalization of marijuana is the cartels’ worst nightmare by Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune

Criminal organizations would no longer be able to demand huge premiums to compensate for the major risks that go with forbidden commerce. If the referendum passes, some 39 million Californians will have access at lower prices, from regulated domestic producers.

So the drug cartels would see a large share of their profits go up in smoke. Those profits are what enables them to establish sophisticated smuggling operations, buy guns and airplanes, recruit foot soldiers and bribe government officials. Those profits are also what makes all those efforts — and the murderous violence the merchants employ — worth the trouble.

By now, it should be clear that using force to wipe out the drug trade is a task on the order of bailing out the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon.

The whole thing is that good. Just go and read it.

Here’s the ending:

On a recent trip to Mexico City, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that Americans’ demand for drugs helps sustain the Mexican merchants and resolved to address the problem. “We are looking at everything that can work,” she said.

Well, almost everything.

The most viable option is the one that is considered unthinkable. The head of Obama’s Office of National Drug Control Policy has said that “legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary nor is it in mine.”

No, but failure is.

The logic is so clear that you wonder how anyone could fail to follow it… and then I read the comments and about 5 of the first 6 failed. Fortunately, saner minds followed.

So what if thousands die in Mexico. It’s a small price to pay to make you feel reassured when you go in for eye surgery.

Good video piece on the Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC (it’s MSNBC, so the video is a pain to load, but if you can, it’s probably worth it).

Dylan’s guests are Paul Armentano of NORML and former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey. The impressive part of this piece is the work done by the host. Ratigan does an incredible job setting up the story and really pointing out the host of negatives that might be solved by legalization. His piece is smart and reasoned. He doesn’t give Paul Armentano much time, but that’s because he was busy taking on McCaffrey himself.

McCaffrey’s participation was pathetic. He failed to answer any of Ratigan’s direct questions, kept throwing in irrelevant issues, and this was his big argument:

“What it will do, undoubtedly, is create a credible situation where California truck drivers, and eye surgeons, and teachers in theory could be smoking pot, standing around the corner from students or their jobs. It doesn’t make any sense. Or airline pilots! So I don’t think it’s going to pass, I hope.”

That’s not the first time I’ve seen the ‘truck drivers, eye surgeons and teachers’ bit, and I think they’re going to try to use that a lot. It’s nonsense, of course. Your eye surgeon isn’t going to operate on you while stoned because marijuana is legal any more than he’s going to operate on you while drunk because alcohol is legal.

The guest host for Shepard Smith’s Studio B on Fox had Fox News Judicial Analyst former Judge Andrew Napolitano, who is a libertarian in favor of legalization, on the show to talk about the proposed law in California.

Napolitano was great. But does anybody know who the schmuck host was? [The schmuck guest host was Rick Folbaum.] Check out his response to the idea of legalizing marijuana:

“I’m just not sure. I’m not sure and I worry that you get these drugs in the house. We’ve seen what happens with legal firearms that are in a house that are not stored properly. Kids get their hands on them. Terrible, terrible tragedies take place, and I worry what happens when you start allowing people to have pot in their house.”

Radley Balko‘s take on this…

“It would be dangerous to legalize pot because… kids might shoot each other with joints?”

This is a huge story that’s been developing for awhile, but I just haven’t had a chance to address it. But this is really blowing up:

DA on verge of mass drug-case dismissals

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco prosecutors told judges Friday that they could not “ethically go forward” with 46 narcotics trials because of evidence problems arising out of the scandal at the Police Department’s drug lab – signaling that the district attorney is likely to dismiss nearly all 750 pending drug cases in the city.

“Based on what the district attorney’s office knows about the issues within the narcotics division of the crime lab, we cannot ethically go forward with this prosecution,” Assistant District Attorney Nancy Tung told a judge overseeing a case that was serving as a test of how much police and prosecutors had to disclose to defense attorneys about problems at the drug lab.

Prosecutors dropped that test case, a cocaine-sales trial, after having been deluged with 1,500 pages of police files about the lab that a spokesman for the district attorney called “troubling” and said pointed to possible larger problems in the Police Department.

DrugSense. I often link to DrugSense Weekly and the Drug War Chronicle at the end of weekend Open Threads. They’re always worth reading.

I have an extra interest in DrugSense Weekly this time —

• Their Letter of the Week is my letter to the editor that I recently had published in the Pantagraph
• Their Feature Article is my post about Cognitive Distortion (discussing the reaction to my letter)
• And one of their Hot of the Net stories is my post: “Department Of Justice – We Have Met The Enemy, And He Is Us”

Thanks for the nice recognition and the wider distribution!

There’s going to be a lot of stories like these coming out now that marijuana is on the California ballot:

High Anxiety: Pot Growers Fear Legal Weed

“The legalization of marijuana will be the single most devastating economic event in the long boom-and-bust history of Northern California,” said Anna Hamilton, 62, a Humboldt County radio host and musician who said her involvement with marijuana has mostly been limited to smoking it for the past 40 years.

Local residents are so worried that pot farmers came together with officials in Humboldt County for a standing-room-only meeting Tuesday night where civic leaders, activists and growers brainstormed ideas for dealing with the threat. Among the ideas: turning the vast pot gardens of Humboldt County into a destination for marijuana aficionados, with tours and tastings – a sort of Napa Valley of pot.

Unusual alliances form in California to legalize pot

SAN FRANCISCO – Now that a proposal to legalize marijuana is on the ballot in California, well-organized groups are lining up on both sides of the debate. And it’s not just tie-dyed hippies versus anti-drug crusaders.

So far, the most outspoken groups on the issue are those affiliated with California’s legal medical-marijuana industry and law-enforcement officials who vehemently oppose any loosening of drug laws.

But the campaign that unfolds before the November election could yield some unusual allies: free-market libertarians joining police officers frustrated by the drug war to support the proposal, and pot growers worried about falling prices pairing with Democratic politicians to oppose it.

The trick will be sorting through the hype, and the reporters willing to cut corners for an interesting story.

Here was an interesting item in the second article:

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said it was too soon to speculate on whether federal authorities would sue to keep the measure from becoming law.

What does that even mean? Who would they sue? And I can’t see any court procedure they could use to prevent a state from passing a law. After it’s passed, there could be a court case examining the Constitutionality of the law given its conflict with federal law, but that’s different.

Marijuana Legalization on the CA Ballot: Separating Fact from Fiction by Stephen Gutwillig.

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.

This is an Open Thread.

The Department of Justice just released the National Drug Threat Assessment 2010 and reading it is a Kafkaesque experience.

I started with the ironically titled “Impact of Drugs on Society.” Ironically, because just about all of it was really about the impact of the drug war on society.

The Consequences of Illicit Drug Use

The consequences of illicit drug use are widespread, causing permanent physical and emotional damage to users and negatively impacting their families, coworkers, and many others with whom they have contact. […]

Colombian Cocaine Producers Increase Use of a Harmful Cutting Agent. Since late 2007, cocaine has increasingly contained levamisole, a pharmaceutical agent that typically is used for livestock deworming.

Reality check… That’s pretty clearly an example of damage caused by prohibition and unregulated drugs, and a good argument for legalization.

Impact on Crime and Criminal Justice Systems

The consequences of illicit drug use impact the entire criminal justice system, taxing resources at each stage of the arrest, adjudication, incarceration, and post-release supervision process.

Reality check…. Uh, how is drug use taxing the system? Are the drugs making you arrest people? Then stop taking them. Are you simply arresting too many people who use drugs? Then stop arresting them. It’s really pretty simple, and a good argument for legalization.

Impact on Productivity

There is a great loss of productivity associated with drug-related premature mortality. In 2005, 26,858 deaths were unintentional or undetermined-intent poisonings; in 2004, 95 percent of these poisonings were caused by drugs.

Reality check. Really? You’re counting the lost productivity of dead people. But wait—it gets better…

The approximately one-quarter of offenders in state and local correctional facilities and the more than half of offenders in federal facilities incarcerated on drug-related charges represent an estimated 620,000 individuals who are not in the workforce. The cost of their incarceration therefore has two components: keeping them behind bars and the results of their nonproductivity while they are there.

Reality check… Wow. They’re actually blaming the loss of productivity of drug war prisoners and the cost of prison itself on drugs. Amazing. And another good argument for legalization.

Impact on the Environment

The environmental impact of illicit drugs is largely the result of outdoor cannabis cultivation and methamphetamine production.

Reality check…. And why is that? Oh, yeah, because of prohibition. And yes, yet another good argument for legalization.

Some years back I was visiting an agrarian planet in the Delta Pavonis system, and they had an unusual policy that made being a redhead illegal. Whenever a ginger was spotted, they would send out government operatives to hit the person in the head with a glard (similar to a baseball bat but used for cooking). About once a year (7 earth months), the leaders would hold a special gathering of citizens and talk about the evils of redheads. This mostly involved stories of how their beatings wasted the time of government operatives, plus the problems of damaged glards, and the need to constantly clean up the scattered brain matter of glarded gingers.

None of them even considered the possibility of changing the policy, and when I tried to explain to them that their law made no sense, they sent for the glards, so I hoofed it out of there.

One month later, they were wiped out by a passing comet.

So, anyway, back to earth… just how is that drug war going according to the Department of Justice? Since they’ve been giving argument after argument for legalization, they must have some conclusion that shows that the drug war works. Right?

The growing strength and organization of criminal gangs, including their growing alliances with large Mexican DTOs, has changed the nature of midlevel and retail drug distribution in many local drug markets, even in suburban and rural areas. As a result, disrupting illicit drug availability and distribution will become increasingly difficult for state and local law enforcement agencies. In many of these markets, local independent dealers can no longer compete with national-level gangs that can undersell local drug distributors. Previously, state and local law enforcement agencies could disrupt drug availability in their areas, at least temporarily, by investigating and dismantling local distribution groups. But well-organized criminal gangs are able to maintain a stronger, more stable drug supply to local markets and to quickly replace distributors when individual gang members or entire distribution cells are arrested. Significantly disrupting drug distribution in smaller drug markets will increasingly require large-scale multijurisdictional investigations, most likely necessitating federal law enforcement support.

Without a significant increase in drug interdiction, seizures, arrests, and investigations that apply sustained pressure on major DTOs, availability of most drugs will increase in 2010, primarily because drug production in Mexico is increasing.

Congratulations to the U.S. Department of Justice. You are masters of self-delusion, completely oblivious to the obvious fact that you have met the enemy.

And he is you.

Calif. voters to decide whether to legalize pot

It’s been pretty clear for awhile that this was a sure thing, but it’s nice to get the confirmation.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified that the petitions seeking to place the question on the ballot had more than 433,971 valid voter signatures, the minimum number needed to qualify.

If approved, the initiative would allow those 21 years and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana, enough to roll several marijuana cigarettes. Residents also could cultivate the plant in limited quantities.

I love this one:

“How can our kids say no when the adults around them are saying yes?” asked Aimee Hendle, a spokeswoman for Californians for Drug Free Youth.

Really? OK, let’s think about that for a moment.

How can our kids say no to drinking when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to driving a car when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to watching an adult movie when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to smoking a cigar when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to running for President when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to taking prescription drugs when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to moving into retirement communities when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to having kids when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to touching a hot stove when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to owning a gun when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to having a mortgage when the adults around them are saying yes?

How can our kids say no to using power tools when the adults around them are saying yes?

There are kids and there are adults. There are differences. And it’s monumentally stupid to think you can require adults to live their lives as if they were 12.

Some of you may have heard that Congress passed some kind of health care reform bill. I’m not sure if it’s been discussed much publicly (I don’t watch the cable “news”) — in fact, I don’t know a single person who’s read it, so I’m sure they wouldn’t have much of an informed opinion to share. [Note: This is not an invitation to discuss the merits of health care reform — there are other places for that.]

One thing that I found interesting in the aftermath of passage was the fact that eleven state attorneys general are filing lawsuits claiming that the new law is unconstitutional before the ink is dry.

Those of us in drug policy reform would only need one word to explain to these attorneys general why their chances lie somewhere between slim and none. That word is:

Raich

Their claim is that the federal government doesn’t have Constitutional authority under the commerce clause to require individuals in states to participate in a national health insurance mandate. Well, that may have been true once. That may even have been the intent of the founders.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Raich that an activity involving purely non-commercial activity entirely contained within a state where that activity was legal (growing a medical marijuana plant and giving it to a sick person for free) somehow affected interstate commerce sufficiently to allow the federal government to interfere.

In light of that decision, it would be pretty hard for them to argue that health insurance didn’t affect interstate commerce, especially since allowing some to opt out would have a direct effect on the cost for others.

I’d love to see Raich reversed, but that’s not going to happen in a court that gives such uncritical deference to the executive and legislative branches. It’s unlikely that the case will even make it to the Supreme Court, but it would be kind of fun if it did, just to watch all the people come out of the woodwork calling for the overturning of Raich.

Analysis on this available from American Progress and from Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy.

It’s been kind of nice the amount of attention my recent local letter to the editor received (including some very nice emails from acquaintances in the community). The letter has been in the top 10 most commented recent stories for the paper, with over 130 comments.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that all the comments have been particularly intelligent — this is the letters to the editor section of a central Illinois newspaper. And a lot of the volume has come from some strange back and forth exchanges in the nature of “You need to prove why marijuana should be made illegal.” “No, you need to prove why marijuana should be legalized.”

What’s interesting to me is that my letter had purposely avoided any discussion of the relative benefits or harms of marijuana and focused solely on the harms of prohibition versus the benefits of regulation. And yet, the discussion immediately was all about whether marijuana was bad or good. Several attempts in the discussion thread to force anti-legalizers to address prohibition were simply ignored.

It’s as if they can’t see past their… hatred(?) for marijuana (or marijuana users) to even reasonably discuss the facts surrounding prohibition.

I just found it interesting.

I think the most humorous moment for me in the comment thread was when one very vocal anti-marijuana legalization advocate decided to show how absurd legalization was by giving “ridiculous” similar examples…

Then why not legalize prostitution? After all, it’s between consenting adults, and one could make the argument that you pay for it anyway – dinner, entertainment, gifts, etc. This would put all pimps out of business, or at least regulate and tax them, require them provide insurance to their whores.

Why not legalize all drugs, including cocaine? After all, it’s my body and I should be allowed to shoot up, snort, sniff, smoke, etc., as much as I want! The government could tax and regulate the drug dealers who would be required to provide insurance in their pre-teen lookouts and other junkies.

I’m sure none of this would cause any legal, political, moral, ethical, or medical issues in the least, and I’m sure that by having it taxed and regulated, there will be no cause for alarm for anyone abusing the system to get their fix, or have any sort of increase in crime as drug use increases.

Although completely unintentional, it was the most logical and reasonable argument he made in the entire thread. Other than some of the snark thrown in there, that’s a fine argument for legalization.