Drug WarRant

On arguments for reducing the penalties for possession of cannabis…

A criminal record is a serious matter

A criminal record labels a person caught with possessing small amounts of cannabis as a criminal and severely limits their ability to find employment, professional certification and to travel to other countries. Criminalizing a behaviour has a number of effects: it may make it more attractive to some youth, and it may result in the further marginalization of some youth, making it more difficult to help them.

Reducing the severity of the penalty doesn’t seem to lead to increased use
… it is important that any change not result in increased use. Based on the experiences of those countries or states that have reduced their penalties, various reviews agree that there is no indication that this will happen. For example, the 11 US states that decriminalized marijuana possession in the 1970s did not see increases in use beyond that experienced by other states; neither did the Australian states that have introduced a civil offence model over the past decade.

Laws don’t seem to matter one way or another to young people
Over the past 10 years in most Western countries, the use of cannabis by young people has increased and attitudes have generally grown more tolerant toward the drug, with no difference between countries that had stiff or reduced penalties. For example in the Netherlands, where cannabis use is not a criminal offence, usage rates are lower than in the US, which has some of the toughest cannabis laws in the Western world. Young people who do not use cannabis generally say that their decision is based on health concerns or that they are just not interested. They aren’t as likely to mention the laws as being a factor in their decision. In fact, research with teenage students suggests that the criminalization of cannabis and the stigmatization of cannabis use as a dangerous and forbidden activity makes it even more attractive to some.

Resources could be better placed elsewhere
Cannabis offences can take one or two officers off the street for up to several hours + their time for court appearances + tying up other court resources. […] For example, laws cannot distinguish between levels of use, whereas educators can help young people by providing clearer messages (for example, all drug use contains some risk – heavy use can result in serious problems for young people, while light, infrequent cannabis use poses fewer risks).

This has been another edition of useful and true facts on the website of the United Nationals Office of Drugs and Crime that were deleted as soon as we pointed out that they were telling the truth for once.

• The archived UNODC page before they censored it.
• The new UNODC page, now missing section 4.
• The post from Transform noting the change.

Hilariously pathetic.

Yesterday, I noted that Transform had found a page on the UNODC site that was remarkably reasonable.

It actually talked about the effects of cannabis laws.

A number of countries are debating their marijuana laws, in most cases, trying to decide whether the penalties for possessing small amounts of cannabis should be reduced. Some advocate legalization of cannabis, that is, making it available through controlled, legal sources, as are tobacco and alcohol. However, most policymakers see that option as a huge social experiment, with outcomes that are difficult to predict. Others advocate that possessing personal amounts of cannabis should no longer be viewed as a criminal offence and penalties should be reduced. This is because, even though marijuana is not a harmless drug, an increasing number of health officials, researchers and politicians in these countries view the penalty to be out of proportion to the potential harm of using cannabis. The following are some of the arguments being made for reducing the penalties so that possession of small amounts of cannabis is no longer a criminal offence:

And it went on to talk about the damage that a criminal offense causes to people, the fact that changes in penalty don’t seem to affect amount of use, resources could be used better elsewhere, etc.

Great stuff. And true.

Well, it had been on their website for some time, perhaps years. The day after Transform found it and mentioned it, POOF!, it was gone. Wouldn’t do to have reasonable facts on their website.

Links:

• The archived UNODC page before they cleaned it up.
• The new UNODC page, now missing section 4.
• The post from Transform noting the change.

So what are we teaching our children in school? I don’t mean about reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic. I’m talking about what their role is as a citizen in a free country.

If we convince them that being a citizen means blindly following arbitrary authority, how will we ever stop abuses of authority in the future?

Already we force them to piss in a cup while authority figures watch, not as the result of legitimate suspicion, but merely as the entry fee to participate in chess club. We tell them they have free speech, but not if it has anything to do with bong hits (even outside school property).

And we teach them that authority doesn’t need to be logical, fair, or lead to a positive result. The mere fact of authority is all, and even innocent citizens should bow to it saying “Yes, sir, may I have another?”

On Tuesday at River Valley Middle School in Jeffersonville, Indiana, a 13-year-old student says someone handed her the prescription pill Adderall during gym and she quickly handed it back saying she didn’t want it.

But she was called to the office later and admitted she had the pills in her hand for a few seconds.

Patty Greer says her daughter is now facing a five day suspension because she had possession of the pills, even though it was only for a few seconds.

The district policy says even handling the pills for any period of time will land you a suspension.

The zero-tolerance nonsense has given us tons of stories like this one. What’s the lesson given? It’s not a lesson about drugs. It’s not a lesson about responsibility. It’s a lesson about being servile.

Or how about this one?

Robbins became aware of the surveillance in mid-November of last year when Harriton High School Assistant Vice Principal Lindy Matsko accused him of “improper behavior”—taking drugs—inside his bedroom. She warned Robbins that the school had the smoking gun against him: snapshots of him popping pills from the laptop computer’s webcam that he borrowed from the school. Robbins says the pictures show him eating “Mike & Ike,” his favorite candy.

Fortunately, that one is at least getting some attention. Feds are investigating. I guess the line of arbitrary authority maintained by school officials stops somewhere inside a child’s bedroom.

For your entertainment, a letter to the editor by Richard Douglas in California

Marijuana contributes to killings

There seems to be a lot of your readers who support “medicinal marijuana.” However, there are some who are against the allowance of dispensing marijuana and each seems to have their own idea as to the harm it causes in our society.
I too believe it is harmful. My main protest is that these people, and the other drug abusers, are assisting in the deaths of thousands of people. Many of them are American soldiers, fighting in Afghanistan and even more are Mexican citizens and American citizens, along our Mexican-American borders.

In Afghanistan, there is a civil war going on between the president (some guy named Karsi) and his opposition, called the Taliban. Their main product is a flower called poppies. These poppies are used to make a very potent drug called cocaine. There is a very lucrative market for this drug. The U.S. military is assisting Karsi because the other group, Taliban, are Muslims. It’s the lesser of two evils.

The other group of crooks that the cannabis cohorts are supporting are the Mexican drug lords. There is more than one group of these murderers and they keep trying to kill each other, the police or military and any innocent bystander who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So, if you don’t mind being called a murderer by proxy, go ahead and approve cannabis for everyone to use. Then every time you smoke another joint you can add another tattoo to your arm and show the world how many soldiers you killed.

Hilarious.

Fight the Power – Jacob Sullum takes on supposed “Constitutional Conservatives” who nevertheless support federal bans on drugs and other powers not given to the federal government in the Constitution.

UNODC makes the case for decriminalization? – Transform found this gem of a page within the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime site that actually makes a strong case for decriminalization! How’d that slip in?

David Sirota: Rogues are dominating President Obama

Rather than personnel changes reining in the out-of-control agency, the president has nominated the acting Bush-appointed DEA administrator, Michele Leonhart, to a full term.

The message, then, should be clear: If you’re looking for who is “in control” of our military and police forces, don’t look to the established chain of command and don’t look to constitutional provisions that mandate civilian authority over the government bayonet. Look to the most reckless rogues — it’s a good bet they’re the ones running the show.

Doug Bennett: The ‘drug war’ mentality still rules

To many medical marijuana patients and objective observers like myself, it appears that the “Be afraid, be very afraid!” hyperbole and “Drug War” mentality has permeated the cultures of Redding City Hall and other local governments.

This will end badly. U.S. to embed agents in Mexican law enforcement units battling cartels in Juarez by William Booth

This, however, is just mind-boggling stupid. Declare War on Mexico? – 760 Talk Radio

Reason.tv: Pot Wars—Battlefield California

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.

A recent exchange in comments got me thinking about the drugs and terrorism connection again. You know, the one you keep hearing about from public officials.

Of course, drugs and terrorism really have nothing in common.

• Drugs are designed to be part of a peaceful exchange between willing participants for private use.
• Terrorism is designed to be a violent action imposed on innocent victims for political gain.

On the other hand, the drug war and the war on terrorism have a lot in common.

• Both are structured so as to preclude an end to the war. They’re designed not to win, but to last forever.
• Both provide for the development of lucrative government structures that benefit from the war.
• In both cases, the war actually benefits the supposed enemy.
• In both cases, the entity declaring war actually creates and nurtures additional enemy soldiers. (In the drug war, arresting one dealer creates a job opening to bring in a new one. In the terrorism war, violent responses by us (such as bombings, torture and killings) actually work to recruit new terrorists.)
• Both wars depend on fear — not making the enemy afraid, but making their own people afraid.
• Both are tools for the government to convince the people to give up more of their rights, and give government more power over them.

I think that most informed drug policy reformers are likely to also oppose the war on terror, particularly as it is being conducted today. Just like the fact that we’re able to see the similarities between today’s prohibition and alcohol prohibition, we can see the dangerous similarities between the war on drugs and the war on terror.

We’ve watched for years as the government has said that they need to have more powers to fight the war on terror and use the powers that they’ve already stolen to fight the war on drugs as an excuse to grab even more power. Then later, we find that 90% of the use of the new anti-terrorism powers have been in the war on drugs. Each feeds the other, and the promotion of fear (of drugs, of street gangs, of underpants bombers) helps convince the people to shred the foundations of their freedom… in exchange for… nothing. Less than nothing.

It’s not that we support terrorism — quite the opposite. It’s that, just like with the drug cartels, we find that the war, the blunt instrument, and vastly increased government power, are not the right tools to use.

I’m guessing that not everybody was quite clear on the plan…

Members of the Interstate Interdiction Unit pulled over a tractor trailer on Feb. 10 that contained 1,700 pounds of marijuana, according to a Memphis Police Department travel memo obtained under Tennessee’s public records law.

Drug Enforcement Administration officials asked that the load be delivered to its destination in Louisville while officers trailed the shipment. MPD officers and two Shelby County sheriff’s deputies accompanied the load, according to the memo.

OK, I see where they’re going with this. Their idea is apparently to let the shipment continue under close guard and then try to arrest the people who receive it.

So I guess the way this would go down is that they’d deliver the truck, keep an eye on it, and when the bad guys arrived to take over the shipment, they’d move in and nab them.

Let’s see how it went…

According to law enforcement officials with knowledge of the delivery, officials watched the tractor trailer travel to its intended destination. Soon after, several vehicles pulled up, left and then came back. They stayed several hours and then left. When officials later checked the tractor trailer, the drugs were gone.

Oops.

Federal agents are on the hunt for more than 1,700 pounds of marijuana that disappeared during a controlled drug delivery from Memphis to Kentucky.

Yeah, um, no, I don’t think that’s the way the plan was supposed to go…

I’m sure they can explain what happened…

“DEA is conducting an investigation into drug trafficking, and I can’t comment any further than that,” said Keith Brown, resident agent-in-charge of the Memphis DEA office.

Tom Gorman, assistant special agent-in-charge of the Louisville district office of DEA, also had no comment. […]

Harvey Kennedy, chief administrative officer for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, said he has no records related to the case. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Shular referred calls to the local office of the DEA.

Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin said he didn’t think it was appropriate to comment on an ongoing DEA investigation and referred questions to the local federal office.

Well, it looks like they got Plan B down perfect: No Comment.

According to the Galveston County Daily News…

‘Major drug dealer’ taken down in La Marque raid

By T.J. Aulds
The Daily News
Published February 21, 2010

LA MARQUE — A man La Marque police said was one of the city’s “major drug dealers” was arrested during an early morning raid Saturday, Chief Randall Aragon said. […]

Kevin Germane Britton, 33, was arrested at his home in the 100 block of Porter Street in La Marque about 4 a.m. He was charged with manufacturing and delivery of a controlled substance

Wow. This must have been some bust. I wonder how much was involved?

Britton’s booking sheet showed his charge was for less than 1 gram of narcotics.

Oh.

When I whole-heartedly agreed to publishing Danny Chapin’s guest post on marijuana addiction (Marijuana Addiction – guest post and a discussion), I was looking forward to a strong and intelligent response in the comments section from my readers, and I wasn’t disappointed in the least.

If you haven’t had a chance, please go and read the comments (60 to date), and you’ll see what I mean (with a few exceptions).

But I promised to respond, and I will do so now, with the understanding that in many cases, I’ll be repeating what has already been eloquently pointed out by readers.
Continue reading →

And the winner is…

Roger Morgan, Chairman and executive director of Coalition for a Drug-Free California, with Drug czar’s office keeps drug use down

Before one throws the “drug czar” out with the bath water (“The drug czar should go,” Commentary, Feb. 8 ) he should look closely at the critics.

Teenagers who laugh at the anti-drug ads are probably part of the 33 percent of high school dropouts who will cost the nation $470 billion a year as they burden public health and welfare, turn to crime because they can’t sustain employment, fill our prisons and contribute to the 3,200 monthly drug-overdose deaths.

Wow, that’s quite fact-free accusation (and note that it’s aimed at least partially at “critics”).

It would actually be just as true (if not more) to say that teenagers who laugh at the anti-drug ads are probably part of those who get straight A’s and go on to become community leaders.

More teens smoke pot than tobacco in many places because of the hoax perpetuated on society by legalization proponents that marijuana is a medicine and legal in some states.

How do we perpetuate a hoax that medical marijuana is legal in some states? Did we just make it up and then hypnotize people into thinking that a referendum had passed?

Both pot and tobacco lead to an early grave and a rocky road getting there.

Pot may lead to Rocky Road but not an early grave.

Because today’s pot is 10 percent to 20 percent stronger than in the “flower power” days of the 1970s, it is a factor in 26.9 percent of accidents with injuries and sends more than 100,000 people a year to the emergency room. That’s about the same as cocaine.

I think he meant to say 10 to 20 times stronger — that’s the scare figure they usually like to use (not true, but that doesn’t stop them). 10 to 20 percent stronger is nothing — just a minor variance. If you have pot with 3% THC and make it 10% stronger, then it would have 3.3% THC. 20% stronger would be 3.6% THC.

The emergency room business always gets me. They love to say that marijuana is sending people to the emergency room, but they never say… for what? (Of course, we know that it’s not marijuana that sends them to the emergency room – it just gets mentioned as part of the visit.)

What is the treatment for a marijuana visit to the emergency room?

“Well, we gave the patient 250 CC’s of water in a cup to treat his dry mouth, showed him some pictures of gall bladders to stop the giggles, and then sent him with an orderly to the coffee shop for some rocky road ice cream.”

Back to Roger Morgan:

Because of the Office of National Drug Control Policy past and present, drug use actually has decreased. If the office has a shortcoming, it is its failure to focus on prevention and to stop the corruptive monetary influence that drives legalization efforts, with George Soros at the helm.

There’s that boogey-man George Soros again. I’d like to meet the man that has funded all my legalization efforts…. oh wait, that’s right, I haven’t gotten a penny from him. Yet, it seems to me that I did read about a corrupt monetary influence… right — that would be the $15 billion of taxpayer money that the drug czar gets each year to fight this stupid drug war.