Drug WarRant

It’s the time of year for family, and carols, and eating, and football on widescreen, and a whole lot more.

I’m spending the week on the road — currently with my Mom in Indianola Iowa, and later with my Dad in Quincy, Illinois (both are 87). These are important trips — time with family is precious.

Perhaps you’ll have some time with family this week as well. So I’d like to give you two seemingly contradictory pieces of advice.

1. Talk to them about drug policy. If you’re afraid to talk to your family about drug policy, then who can you convince? They’ll take it easier than you think. They’re already partway there, they may just need the extra push – that bit of data, that story about the environment, or the drug war victim, or the violence in Mexico, or Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. (Show them the video below if you’re afraid to start things off.) You’ll be glad you did.
2. Stop talking about drug policy. You come here every day and get worked up. Sometimes that gets overwhelming and the frustration builds that you can’t solve it as quickly as you’d like, and nobody will listen to the plan of action you have. It’s true, and it’s important, but it’s also important to put it aside and take some time to breathe. Go look at the Avenue of Lights. Watch one of those silly Christmas movies that make you cry even though you know it shouldn’t. Play a board game with the step-nieces you don’t know that well. Sit down at the piano and work out how to play that Christmas carol with the wicked chord structure by Liz Story that sounds so damned cool. Maybe a couple of days this week, you don’t even stop by Drug WarRant. You have my permission. Who knows, maybe I won’t either.

Happy Holidays.

Seattle: The ‘green’ mayor? McGinn wants to legalize pot and tax it, too

McGinn asked for the public’s help identifying the issues he should tackle as mayor. Topping the list was light rail expansion. The second slot went to legalizing pot. […]

“I think if every elected official who ever smoked marijuana voted to legalize it, it’d probably be legalized in an instant,” he said.

And the state could be one step closer to legalizing marijuana. State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, is sponsoring a bill that would do just that.

“Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol, and it’s not working for marijuana,” she said.

Looks like everyone’s in agreement.

An interesting thing happened in the killing of Arturo Beltrán Leyva (one of Mexico’s drug lords), and it had nothing to do with him. It had to do with how his death was reported.

Here is the story by Elisabeth Malkin as it currently exists on the New York Times website: Mexico Deals a Blow to a Cartel but Warns of Continued Drug-Related Violence

It talks about his gruesome record and how special forces surrounded his apartment, etc. It also talks about how his death is perceived.

Mr. Beltrán Leyva’s death is a public relations victory for Mr. Calderón, who is facing criticism from the opposition over what they say is a lack of progress in his crackdown on drugs. Despite thousands of arrests and the capture of several gang leaders, drug violence keeps increasing.

Speaking from Copenhagen, where he is attending the United Nations climate talks, Mr. Calderón called Mr. Beltrán Leyva’s death “a convincing blow against one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in Mexico and on the continent.”

But Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez said that violence would continue. “Getting the leader of a cartel is a very strong blow and this will surely force restructuring,” Mr. Chávez Chávez said. “Violence inside the cartel can’t be ruled out until the chain of command is defined.”

Ah, yes, we’ve seen it before. Look — a victory in the drug war! Expect increased violence, but that’s because we’re winning. It’s convincing. It’s victory.

It’s bullshit, but it’s what we’re selling in Mexico.

However, this is not what the original article by Elisabeth Malkin said. There was an earlier version, complete with the same URL on the NYT website. And it had a subtle difference. Here is how that section above read in the original version:

The raid came as skepticism has risen about the success of Calderon’s crackdown on drug trafficking. Despite the arrests and the slaying of drug cartel leaders, the drug-related violence has only increased, as traffickers battle each other and the government.

In the past, the capture or death of a top drug lord has meant only a momentary victory, as the level of violence rises again when other organizations try to move in on territory after one group is weakened.

A little more real. A little less B.S. In fact, a very good and true statement. But perhaps it was a little too real for the editors at the New York Times, so they had the author shift to how increased violence means we’re winning. Or did Calderón himself cause the shift by giving the reporter a quote. It would be interesting to know how it got changed.

I discovered it because a reader sent me the original quote with a link to the article. When I went there, the article had a new title and the quote was gone. But it’s hard to make something disappear completely on the internet.

Video from NY Magazine is a little slow to load…

Jonathan Ayers was a pastor at the Shoal Creek Baptist Church. One of the people he had been helping was a woman who had a history of problems. One day he gave her a ride and talked to her to see how she was doing. She said she needed some help with back rent, and he gave her $23 — all the cash he had on him.

Ayers didn’t know the woman was being targeted by an undercover plainclothes drug operation. When he dropped her off, they decided to follow him. Ayers immediately went to the convenience store to get some cash from the ATM. Walking out with cash from the ATM, he saw some guys with guns get out of a car. Fearing for his life, he got in his car and pulled out (remember, these were plainclothes cops). The cops shot and killed him as he drove off.

Here’s the blurry video from the Convenience store showing officers shooting at him as he drives away. Here’s the update back in October from Radley Balko.

Now we have a new update on the case:
Grand jury clears officers in minister shooting: Officials claim law enforcement fatally shot pastor after he drove car in threatening way

“Concerning the actions of the officers involved in the death of Jonathan Ayers on Sept. 1, 2009, we find that the use of deadly force by Agent Billy Shane Harrison was legally justified based upon his objectively reasonable belief that such use of force was necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or others,” a statement signed by the grand jurors read. “Based upon this finding, we the Grand Jury believe that the officers involved in this incident would be immune from criminal prosecution pursuant to Official Code of Georgia Annotated 16-3-24.2.”

Surprised? I thought not. Happens all the time in the drug war. Officers create a dangerous situation where none existed and then blame the victim for being in that dangerous situation.

The family of Jonathan Ayers isn’t giving up. They’re suing.

“We are in the process of gathering all the facts surrounding this terrible incident,” [family attorney] Stroberg said. “Once all these facts are in public view, we feel it will be abundantly clear that there was no legal justification for the undercover drug agent to shoot and kill Jonathan Ayers in broad daylight on the streets of Toccoa, Ga.”

Stroberg has been critical of how the case was presented to the grand jury. He said the panel that convened this week was charged with deciding only whether the case should go to a separate grand jury for possible criminal prosecution.

Follow-up on the Ashley III Halsey story… As a reminder, Halsey reported, as the main point of his story, that a government study said something which it clearly did not. This is not a he-said-he-said situation, or something that’s open to interpretation. Either he was duped or he was lazy, but he clearly wrote something that was factually wrong, and then got angry when asked to correct it.

It appears now that the Washington Post ombudsman isn’t going to do anything to correct it. It’s a small thing in the big picture, but it would have been nice to hold a reporter accountable, if for no other reason than to get them to be more wary of being duped by the Drug Czar.

One additional story to give you a look into the world of the reporter… A friend of mine wrote Ashley and the Ombudsman about this whole thing, and instead of actually reading the study that he had reported on, Ashley defended himself in an email exchange by claiming (to Andy Anderson, the Ombudsman) to have gotten the information directly from the Drug Czar and by demonizing his critics as drug policy reformers.

Andy,

Just so you know, Mr. Allured is a drug decriminalization advocate, former president of his college’s chapter of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws and the Students for Sensible Drug Policy. It’s not clear to me whether he’s actually read the story or just the excerpt presented by a blogger who writes something called the “DrugRant.” In any case, as the story said, the 11 percent figure came from Gil Kerlikowske, the current Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, who spoke at the event I covered. Kerlikowske’s number actually was lower than the number contained in the report that Allured would have you read. Judging from a quick look at the writings of Allured and other advocates, there seems to be general agreement among them that figures presented by federal officials are distorted.
Below is a bit of background from Allured’s undergrad days.

Best,
Ashley

He then included an old news story from 2005 about Ryan Allured helping organize a marijuana legalization event.

Ryan responded the only proper way.

Halsey is correct; I am an advocate of drug policy reform. However, this has nothing to do with my objections to the factual inaccuracies in his article. This is a classic example of an ad hominem fallacy. Instead of responding to my actual argument, he has done nothing but attack my character (if one subscribes to the fact that being a drug policy reform advocate is negative). My argument still stands. Halsey blatantly misrepresented the findings of the NHTSA report. If his primary source for the figure was the drug czar, then would it not be a good idea to check the facts behind the statement? I have always been under the impression that it is the responsibility of the media to check the government, rather than reporting their statements as absolute truths…

Good OpEd in the Sydney Morning Herald by Duncan Fine: Drug haze needs straight talking

Marijuana was legal in the United States until 1937. Meanwhile from 1920 to 1933 the sale of alcohol was banned under the US constitution.

Many people seem to take a good versus evil approach to illicit drugs. But then based on this quick history of drug use, how can they answer the question that I just know my son will ask me one day soon – how can a drug be evil one year and good the next?

And here’s another question I’m sure he’s going to ask me – if illicit drugs are such a scourge on society then why do so many seemingly respectable, intelligent people take them?

While you’re mulling over a response to that one, here’s another. Isn’t it hopelessly hypocritical to continue with the simplistic dichotomy of legal drugs good, illicit drugs bad, when out of the $40 billion economic costs of drug use, tobacco accounts for 60 per cent, alcohol 22 per cent, and illicit drugs merely 17 per cent?

The failure to come up with intelligent persuasive answers to these questions is the key reason the war on drugs has failed – because a smart 10-year-old boy can see it is totally disconnected with the reality of modern life.

Split Decision in N.J. Medical Marijuana Trial Good news, but with a nasty piece in it…

But any crack in the wall against medical marijuana does not go down well with many drug addiction experts. A block from the courthouse in Somerville, the feeling at the Somerset Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency is that medical marijuana may lead to increased recreational use of pot.
Executive Director Sharon Lutz quoted a recent study at the University of Michigan that draws that conclusion. “It’s(marijuana use) going to skyrocket once this occurs and you’ve seen it in other states that have passed it,” said Lutz. “There’s no way to monitor it and the message to the kids is ‘Yes, this is OK, it’s safe, it’s medically used, then I can do it,'” she added.

Another complete lie, this time promulgated by NIDA — there was nothing in that study that could possibly lead to that conclusion.

You Can’t Handle the Truth, by Mark Pothier in the Boston Globe. Worth reading.

Director Kerlikowske calls for “smarter” approach to address the Nation’s drug problems Unfortunately, it was unclear if the Drug Czar was listening, or actually understood the words Kerlikowske spoke.

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.

There’s nothing like marijuana to completely unhinge the integrity of science reporting. Any study that reveals some bit of information that could be interpreted in a way that could lead in a direction of eventually showing harmful effects about marijuana is hyped as if it had been proved conclusively.

One of the things that is most potentially controversial about marijuana is its effect on children and developing brains. Now, those of us in drug policy reform are all for more research, and if it does harm developing brains, we want to know it. But we want real science, real research, real results. Quite frankly, if it’s true, it makes our argument stronger — after all, we’re the ones for regulating. The criminals that work under the prohibition regime don’t check I.D.s.

And yet, a lot of “science” reporting seems just intended to scare people.

Take this article in Science Daily: Cannabis Damages Young Brains More Than Originally Thought, Study Finds

Canadian teenagers are among the largest consumers of cannabis worldwide. The damaging effects of this illicit drug on young brains are worse than originally thought, according to new research by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a psychiatric researcher from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. The new study, published in Neurobiology of Disease, suggests that daily consumption of cannabis in teens can cause depression and anxiety, and have an irreversible long-term effect on the brain.

Hmmm… OK. Sounds serious. I should look into this. I wonder what kind of research was employed…. Wait, let me read the article again. I still wonder what kind of research was employed! There’s all this talk about teenagers and adolescents, but nothing about how they studied them.

So I went to the study. But…. but the researchers didn’t study teenagers. Not one. They studied adolescent rats.

The pathophysiological neural mechanism underlying the depressogenic and anxiogenic effects of chronic adolescent cannabinoid use may be linked to perturbations in monoaminergic neurotransmission. We tested this hypothesis by administering the CB1 receptor agonist WIN55,212-2, once daily for 20 days to adolescent and adult rats, subsequently subjecting them to tests for emotional reactivity paralleled by the in vivo extracellular recordings of serotonergic and noradrenergic neurons. Chronic adolescent exposure but not adult exposure to low (0.2 mg/kg) and high (1.0 mg/kg) doses led to depression-like behaviour in the forced swim and sucrose preference test, while the high dose also induced anxiety-like consequences in the novelty-suppressed feeding test. Electrophysiological recordings revealed both doses to have attenuated serotonergic activity, while the high dose also led to a hyperactivity of noradrenergic neurons only after adolescent exposure. These suggest that long-term exposure to cannabinoids during adolescence induces anxiety-like and depression-like behaviours in adulthood and that this may be instigated by serotonergic hypoactivity and noradrenergic hyperactivity.

Notice that their test results “suggest” certain vague conclusions. Yet in the ScienceDaily article, the study finds that cannabis damages brains. And yes, results in rats can suggest that certain things may be true in humans as well, but it certainly doesn’t prove it.

It would be nice to have integrity in science reporting. It would also be nice to have scientific researchers to have the integrity to refuse to feed these media morons.

You know you love ’em. You love to trash ’em. Sure, some of you complain that I even give space to these ravings, but I figure it’s part of our entertainment.

First up, from The Olympian in Washington is Jill Wellock with Marijuana Saps Initiative, Ambition and Responsibility

She starts out with the obligatory proof-by-example fallacy:

In eighth grade my friend started hanging out behind the portables with the stoners, which was weird because she was the school’s star softball pitcher. She could swing her arm around so fast that I thought it might dislocate and fly off toward the bleachers.

She smoked pot before school every day. Before long she started missing practice, which didn’t matter once her grades failed and she couldn’t play softball. She had spent years perfecting that pitch.

My friend and I attended different high schools, but I saw her at the end of freshman year at the mall, about 20 pounds heavier, with greasy hair and dirty clothes. I asked a guy from her school what had happened, and he just said, “Burn out.”

Gateway drug marijuana is now legal, used medicinally in Washington and 12 other states, with 15 states pending legislation for its medicinal use.

Yep. Because her friend followed a particular course, that will be true of every person who smokes marijuana. Barack Obama? Burnout. Carl Sagan? Burnout. Willie Nelson? Burnout. Michael Phelps? Burnout. See, I can use examples, too. Based on that approach, I can argue that everyone who smokes marijuana will win multiple gold medals in the Olympics.

Wellock’s other argument is that legalization will cause everyone to work stoned.

Most users likely work. If demand is so high that comedian Jay Leno framed a whole joke segment around the new medical marijuana industry on Dec. 3, then Californians can expect to encounter a lot of high workers.

Drivers, too. […]

Consider marijuana’s effects on workers who multitask, or who safeguard others. How about the staff at your child’s day care? Bus drivers? Construction workers?

No one wants their ER phlebotomist to smoke a joint before an IV start, but if Washington state follows California’s lead in legalizing dispensaries, health care facilities – and all businesses – will have to drug test workers with frequent signs of fatigue and red eyes.

What an image. Phlebotomists smoking joints. And day care/bus drivers — you knew there had to be some kind of “What about the children?” reference. Apparently, it’s OK if your phlebotomist chugs a bottle of Jack Daniels before drawing your blood or if the day care has a kegger. Interesting.

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Next up is a student OpEd in the Orion – Chico State’s Independent Student Newspaper. James Jelenko has Legal weed problems: Both sides take an all-or-nothing approach to marijuana legalization

He takes a rather unusual approach in his OpEd.

He’s doing that Journalism 101 thing of “it’s not black-or-white and the truth is somewhere in the middle” — an academically sound approach to journalistic investigation, but not to writing an OpEd, unless you can actually demonstrate that premise.

Note how he sets off the two sides:

The debate surrounding the legalization of marijuana is like a twisted NASCAR race. One machine — filled with pungent smoke and long-haired freaky people — blazes toward an ashy world constructed almost entirely of hemp byproducts. Another, piloted by Gil Kerlikowske, the chief of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, moves in the opposite direction toward a drug-free nation where marijuana simply doesn’t exist.

Ah yes, the “long-haired freaky people” (if you’re wondering why that phrase is sticking in your head, it’s probably because of the song “Signs” by Five Man Electrical Band). It would be interesting to see how he’d react if he met some members of LEAP.

Of course, he throws in some obligatory pot “jokes.”

Both sides are stuck to their perspectives like a stoner stuck to a couch.
But if any headway is going to be made on this issue, it needs to be a joint effort.

He actually scores some points against the prohibitionists (mention of the Compassionate IND program, for example), but his entire actual slam of the legalization side is:

The pro-legalization advocates claim marijuana has enormous medical potential, but conveniently ignore or refute the plain and simple argument that it is still a drug and has negative side-effects.

Huh? First of all, if we actually refuted it, then it’s not true. If it’s true, then it’s just like any other drug with enormous medical potential. And if we ignored it, that doesn’t change the truth of the claim.

What I really love is why he’s so upset by the fact that the two sides won’t compromise.

The problem with this status-quo is that taxpayers — many of whom have little or no opinion when it comes to the legalization of marijuana — get stuck footing the bill for this ideologically-charged debate.

When it comes to governmental action, nothing happens for free. There are many wheels in the machine of government and each one of them needs greasing. Every time legalization, decriminalization — or any other type of bill — goes to Congress for a vote, someone has to pay for it. If the conversation were going anywhere, I’d be fine with providing financial support because that is the responsibility of a citizen. However, it seems that whenever the issue arises, both sides try to bogart the conversation instead of listening and working together.

Congress just passed $2 billion for the DEA for one year without debate, and he’s worried about the cost of all the votes Congress is having regarding legalization and decriminalization? Did I miss something on C-Span?

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For some real discussions — well thought-out substantive ones about drug policy, stay away from the OpEds, and instead proceed directly to the comments section of this blog, where the best discussions are going on right now. If you’re only reading the blog entries here, you’re missing a lot.

Ben Morris at MPP points out that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has updated their information to reflect new policy from the American Medical Association, while at the same time actually leaving out that new policy.

Check out their new quote:

The American Medical Association: “To help facilitate scientific research and the development of cannabionoid-based medicines, the AMA adopted (a) new policy … This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product.”

Note that, as presented, it’s a nonsensical statement, because the policy itself is missing. The next words that would be in place of the ellipse in that statement are: “urging the federal government to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance.” (also note that the ONDCP misspelled “cannabinoid”)

The thing is, the AMA isn’t endorsing medical marijuana — they’re just saying we should review marijuana’s status. But apparently that’s too much for the Drug Czar’s office, while at the same time the qualifying parts of the AMA statement were too rich to pass up.

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Why is it that the ONDCP takes this approach to all their lying? I mean, they lie all the time, but they constantly use this game of being “technically” true (like some 6-year-old), when in fact, all that needs to qualify as a lie is the intent to deceive.

I mean, if they’re going to do this, why don’t they simply make up a quote from the AMA?

It was Bill’s birthday yesterday, and I forgot to mention it. Mr. Rights was born (ratified) on December 15, 1791, making him… oh, pretty old now (you do the math). His mind is clear and sharp as a tack, but his body is on life support at the nursing home. He’s been mugged so many times, it’s a wonder he’s alive at all. Some of his limbs are mere stumps now. Fortunately, he’s made of stronger stuff than you or I, and his body can regenerate — though it’s extremely difficult and would take all of our efforts to make it happen.

Bill’s a great guy. Keep him in your thoughts and remind people how important he is to all of us.