Drug WarRant

With this year just about over, what do we have to show for it? It’s certainly been an interesting year for drug policy reform, and I’d say one possibly our best in terms of progress made in the most important area: building critical mass for reform.

Here are some re-cap stories (and similar items) from various places…

Drug War Chronicle: Top 10 Domestic Drug Policy Stories

• Marijuana Goes Mainstream
• Medical Marijuana: The Feds Butt Out and the Floodgates Begin to Swing Open
• The Reflexive Prohibitionist Impulse Remains Alive — Just Ask Sally D
• “We Must Drug Test Welfare and Unemployment Recipients!”
• Rockefeller Drug Law and Other State Sentencing Reforms
• Swatting SWAT
• America Finally Notices the Drug War Across the River
• Congress Ends Ban on Needle Exchange Funding, Butts Out of DC Affairs
• Questioning the Drug War: Two Congressional Bills
• The Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

Tony Newman, writing at Alternet, has a slightly different approach to a top-10 for the year: 10 Signs the Failed Drug War Is Finally Ending
2009 will go down as the beginning of the end of America’s longest running war. Here’s 10 reasons why.

1. Three Former Latin American Presidents Call Drug War a Failure (February)
2. Michael Phelps and the Bong Hit Heard Around the World (February)
3. Obama Justice Department Says No More Raids on Patients and Caregivers in States with Medical Marijuana Laws (March)
4. Drop the Rock! NY’s Draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws Finally Reformed (April)
   Governor Arnold Calls for Debate on Legalizing Marijuana: Voters to Decide in 2010 (May)
5. Drug Czar Calls for End to the Drug War (May)
6. Mexico and Argentina Move to Decriminalize Marijuana and other Drugs (August)
7. The Results Are In: Portugal’s Decriminalization Law of 2001 Reduced Transmission of Disease, Cut Overdose Deaths and Incarceration, While Not Increasing Drug Use. (August)
8. Coming Out of the Closet: “Stiletto Stoners” Explain Why They Like Marijuana (September)
9. The Marijuana Legalization Debate Hits the Mainstream (Fall )

Note: With both stories above, be sure to go to the original article to read the full description under each item.

This item in The Nation really threw me for a loop. I was rather shocked to come across this poll in a major political magazine:

What was the best political moment of 2009?

• Obama’s inauguration. It marked the end of the Bush years and set a hopeful tone for the year.
• Iran’s revolutionary moment. A new generation of activists’ tweets are heard around the world.
• Obama’s progressive drug policy reforms. A first step towards an exit plan for the ‘war on drugs.’
• The confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor. Obama’s appointment broke with precedent; gave the court its first hispanic woman chief justice.
• America’s renewed outreach to the international community. The Cairo speech heralded a renewed embrace of diplomacy.

Wait. Really? That item stunned me on multiple levels. First, for those of us working on drug policy reform, it’s extremely hard to think of Obama as a leader in drug policy reform. Second, for a major political mag to consider working toward an exit plan for the ‘war on drugs’ to be an important political goal — well, that’s pretty exciting in itself.

Of course, good things have happened this year — some may say that those things happened despite Obama. After all, his Drug Czar (and all his other appointees) has been no friend to true reform. And didn’t Obama himself derisively laugh at us internet drug policy reformers… more than once?

And yet… and yet… I am willing to posit that Obama’s Presidency has been, if not a friend to reform, in many ways less of an obstacle to reform than past Presidencies. During the Presidential campaign, I said that I felt Obama’s value to drug policy reform would not be as a supporter of reform (that no President who could become elected would be a reform supporter), but rather through “benign neglect” — through not completely shutting down the doors that others might go through — and I believe that has been the case. In fact, everything from his Drug Czar’s bumbling vocabulary limitations to Obama’s derisive laughter has actually helped us in a backhanded way (I’m not giving him credit, just saying that the actions of the administration have done nothing to shore up the reputation of the drug war, allowing us to effectively chip away at it).

Jordan Smith in the Austin Chronicle has Top 9 Joints

1. Patients Free to Inhale
2. Some Like it Pot
3. Don’t Know What He’s Smoking
4. Frustrated Farmers Jailed
5. Cracking the Cocaine Disparity
6. Pricks Kill Needles … Again
7. We Don’t Talk Like That in El Paso
8. Pot From Coast to Coast
9. Your Choice: Treatment or Jail

The last one caught my eye… Full text is:

After years of hearing the nation’s drug czar jaw on and on about how potent pot is sending more tokers in search of medical help to quit their habit, the feds this year released a new set of statistics showing that – surprise, surprise! – 56% of people admitted to rehab for pot use have actually been sent there by the criminal justice system, as an alternative to going to jail for drug possession. Back to the drawing board, Mr. Czar.

Actually, of course, we’ve known and have been trying to get that information across for some years. But I’m always happy to have someone discover it anew and talk about it.

What are your top stories for 2009? Any that weren’t listed here?

The New York Times came out with a very strong, even harsh, editorial last week that’s worth noting.

Righting a Wrong, Much Too Late

Public health advocates held an understandably muted celebration when President Obama signed a bill repealing a 21-year-old ban on federal financing for programs that supply clean needles to drug addicts.

The bill brought an end to a long and bitter struggle between the public health establishment — which knew from the beginning that the ban would cost lives — and ideologues in Congress who had closed their eyes to studies showing that making clean needles available to addicts slowed the rate of infection from H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, without increasing drug use.

But the shift in policy comes too late for the tens of thousands of Americans — drug addicts and their spouses, lovers and unborn children — who have died from AIDS and AIDS-related diseases. Many of these people would not have become infected had Congress followed sound medical advice and embraced the use of clean needles.

It’s good for the New York Times to bring this level of condemnation to such horrific Congressional policy. Yet it means less after the fact. Surely, there are other horrific Congressional policies related to drugs that could be condemned now, and thereby avert needless loss of life, rather than merely bemoaning the loss later?

This is probably of little significance, but I found it interesting.

Altria Group, the parent company of tobacco company Philip Morris USA, has filed an arbitration proceeding to get the domain names AltriaMarijuana.com and AltriaCannabis.com.

Is the company getting ready for the day pot becomes legal? Perhaps, but the company is probably more concerned about the content on the web sites. Both sites invite visitors to “Fight Against the Legalization of Marijuana” and ridicule tobacco companies as beneficiaries of legalization of the drug.

Yep, these are sites that proclaim themselves to Fight Against the Legalization of Marijuana. Not very well designed, and with limited content (and probably more visitors based on this link than any other source). Curiously, the site designer included, in the links section, under “To find our more on the dangers of Marijuana…” the Marijuana: Myths and Facts page from Drug Policy Alliance!

Apparently not a reader.

Despite great gains in so many ways, every now and then, we run into the fear, the… taboo of even including factual representations of drugs or drug policy. Recently, there were two prime examples.

1. Chased.

Chase conducted an online contest to award millions of dollars to the top hundred vote-getting charities. As part of the effort, non-profit groups worked hard to get individuals to vote for them, which included becoming online “fans” of Chase bank.

It appears certain that three of the top 100 vote-getting organizations were denied the chance to win. Two of these were Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and Marijuana Policy Project.

More info at the Boycott Chase site.

As Radley Balko says:

It’s Chase’s money, of course. They can do what they want with it. But they got free advertising from these groups who promoted the contest. And I’m also free to call Chase a bunch of cowards for not backing their promotion because some of the winners were too controversial.

2. Smoked

It’s Complicated. No, that’s the name of the movie — the situation involved isn’t complicated at all.

The MPAA has embarrassed itself an untold number of times over the years for its prudish attitude toward sex and its wildly permissive attitude toward violence. But what’s it’s done to Nancy Meyers’ upcoming comedy, “It’s Complicated,” is perhaps the ratings board’s biggest boneheaded move yet.

[…] the MPAA has given Meyers’ fluffy comedy about a middle-aged love triangle an R rating because Meryl Streep and Steve Martin’s (who star in the film along with Alec Baldwin) characters are seen sharing a joint while on a date.

The problem, according to people involved with the board’s hearing on the issue, isn’t that the actors are seen smoking pot — it’s that the scene “features pot-smoking with no bad consequences.” Apparently, everything would’ve been fine if only the characters had been killed in a gory car crash …

I just saw the incredible and wonderful movie “Avatar.” The final sequence has scene after scene of horrific violence, death and destruction. The movie received a PG-13 rating. So did “G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra” and thousands of other violent movies. One joint, however, gets you an R.

What a strange world in which we live.

And here, for your enjoyment, two people try to win the award for the most creative way to completely destroy the definition of something.

1. Mary Grabar over at Pajamas Media attempts to re-define libertarianism. Libertarians Need to Rethink Support for Drug Legalization

In abandoning the duty to enforce social order, today’s libertarians have made a devil’s pact with the pro-drug forces of George Soros and company. […]

[Marijuana’s] legalization is supported by the same forces that promote Kevin Jennings, one-world government, Gaia worship, and legalized prostitution. All these elements work against the traditional libertarian values of initiative, freedom, and honor. Libertarians need to rethink their position on drug legalization.

Wow. There’s no way you can re-define libertarianism and have it legitimately support drug prohibition, but she sure tries.

She also takes a walk on the wild side with her comparisons of alcohol and tobacco…

But I would argue that tradition should be a reason for [alcohol’s] continued legal status and for denying legal status to marijuana.

The sanction for alcohol use goes back to the Bible. In the New Testament, references to its use in ceremonies like the Last Supper and the wedding at Cana appear. But Jesus also warns about excessive use. In the Old Testament, alcohol is shown to cloud the judgment of Lot. The Bible, in this way, tells us when and how we can use alcohol.

This means very little, though, in the arid moral climate of today’s libertarianism.

But I would argue that it should, not only from my position as a Christian, but from my position as a citizen of a country whose foundational values spring from the Judeo-Christian heritage. The sanction for alcohol use has lasted for millennia. It has become part of our rituals at meals, celebrations, and religious services. That is a large part of why Prohibition failed.

Marijuana, in contrast, has always been counter-cultural in the West. Every toke symbolizes a thumb in the eye of Western values. So it follows that in order to maintain our culture, we need to criminalize this drug.

Ah, now we get to it. It’s the fact that marijuana has been counter-cultural that really gets her. Bingo.

2. Linda Taylor. Oh, my… our old friend Linda Taylor. Drugs Violate My Pursuit Of Happiness

Yep. She went there. She’s actually trying to claim that attempting to legalize marijuana is a violation of Constitutional rights.

I believe that Assemblyman Ammiano is violating the Constitutional rights of millions of Californians, and his own oath of office by introducing legislation to legalize marijuana. […]

While drug legalization advocates may portray themselves as victims, often espousing that they have a constitutional right to use marijuana. Our constitutionally protected right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is blatantly violated by marijuana legalization. Drug users can not insinuate that their right to use somehow trumps our right to live our lives, and bring up our children without exposing them to the shady underworld of drug use. In this instance the majority rules. I am stating that marijuana use, sales and legalization violates our constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness, under the 14th amendment.

Now, this is derangement, pure and simple.

I showed this letter to my friend George. He said:

You know, Pete, she has a point. I, for one, feel that we have the right to live our lives, and bring up our children without exposing them to the shady deranged letters of Linda Taylor. How does she insinuate that she has a right to write these letters that trumps our right to live free of her lunacy? Additionally, I find that as I think about my pursuit of happiness, it currently involves seeing Linda Taylor buried to her neck in a vat of cole slaw. Every day that the State of California fails to place Ms. Taylor in a vat of cole slaw is a violation of my Constitutional Right to my Pursuit of Happiness. At least that’s the way I understand it now that she’s so eloquently explained how the Constitution works.

I’m still in WiFi wasteland, and I’m not that agile blogging from my iPhone, but I didn’t want to wait til tomorrow to pass on this great article in the WSJ: Saving Mexico by David Luhnow.

Just go and read it.

(anybody know how to copy a block of text from a web page on an iPhone?)

… because you might as well chat while hanging out on Pete’s couch.

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.