Drug WarRant

Last week, I wrote about the excellent discussion on the war on drugs going on over at Cato Unbound. I’m pleased to see that discussion has recently been picked up by El Paso’s Newspaper Tree.

Remember the Heritage Foundation “economist” that I talked about last time — James Roberts? Well, he returned with a new response called To the Barricades — for Freedom!, which is apparently his way of saying that we must all band together to incarcerate massive segments of our population for participating in consensual activity, so that we can be free… to… band together to incarcerate…

I know, I don’t understand it either. But he thinks it’s important.

…a culture war [has] been raging against western civilization with increasing intensity for decades. In fact, the entire 233-year history of the United States is a testament to the fight against the dark forces that would enslave humanity. Now is not the time to give into them.

He starts out the piece whining that people have been mean to him in this series.

When the ad hominem attacks begin, it is a cue to the reader that the debate opponent is finding himself on the losing end of the argument. I would expect the assaults if they were coming from the left, but it is disappointing to see them coming from an ally on the right.

The “ally on the right” is presumably Ted Galen Carpenter, a VP at Cato Institute. Here Roberts shows something remarkable — that he believes all conservatives are supportive of government imposed morality. Sure, the sado-moralists have grown in power and number on the far right, but there’s still a huge core of conservatives with fiercely libertarian beliefs.

But Roberts can’t believe that anyone with principles would fail to join in his condemnation of some drugs, and his sure sense that a massive criminal bureaucracy (and a massive criminal justice bureaucracy) is the way to deal with them.

I love the way he finds to defend alcohol, while maintaining his zero-tolerance certainty about other drugs.

The drugs differ greatly from alcohol, with which people have had centuries of experience. Indeed, beer and wine were drunk in European towns and elsewhere in the Middle Ages because the water back then gave people dysentery. So over hundreds of years, people built up a tolerance for alcohol and created social institutions that could deal with its consequences. Many even developed DNA resistance to alcoholism. However, the citizens, social organizations, and cultures of Mexico and the United States have no collective behavioral or physiological experience to draw upon in order to deal with the effects that psychotropic drugs will have on society, especially the young, if taken by masses of people on a routine basis.

Moreover, while alcohol can damage one’s health in many ways, it is not likely to lead to lung cancer and emphysema. How will governments condone marijuana smoking while maintaining sanctimonious campaigns of opprobrium against the use of tobacco, which poses a far lesser threat to social order?

Wow. Eat your heart out Fred Astaire. That’s some fancy footwork, there, Jim.

And, of course, nothing he says has a bit of evidence attached to it, such as when he imagines the “newly disabled and diseased drug addicts (and their broken families) that legalization will create.”

Ted Galen Carpenter does a great job of responding with Cracks in the Drug War Fortress

The allegation by James Roberts that he has been the victim of ad hominem attacks is bizarre and unhelpful. Until his latest post, the discussion on Cato Unbound has been both civil and substantive. Since I seem to be the principal target of his complaint, I want to point out that I criticized his use of logic and evidence, not his character.

One persistent, troubling feature of his essays is his tendency to counter arguments that no one has made.

Carpenter’s essay is an excellent rebuttal, worth reading.

Link

Michael Skinner, a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado, said warning signs of possible drug trafficking include “tortilla packaging, beer cans, Spam, Tuna, Tecate beer cans,” and campers who play Spanish music. He said the warning includes people speaking Spanish.

What’s next, warnings to hike out quickly and call police if you’re in town and discover fried chicken, watermelon and hip-hop music?

I was raised in the church and studied the Bible extensively. So this kind of thing really pisses me off.

Legalization of drugs leaves addicts helpless, priests in Argentina warn

While the priests acknowledged “the good intentions of those who do not want addicts to be criminalized,” they warned that in the case of the most vulnerable people, legalization means “leaving the addict helpless and ignoring his right to help.” […]

They went on to recall that the Gospel invites us to be present at the fringes of society and human existence, “to enter into communion with the poorest of the poor and from there to reach out to all.”

They recall the Gospel, yet seem not to have actually, you know, read it.

Did Jesus say “I’d like to help you, but I need to wait until the Romans arrest you and throw you in jail”?

“…ignoring his right to help.” Really?

Is the catholic church so weak that they cannot help people without first sending them to prison for pot?

Fortunately, there are other religious leaders who understand the true meaning of the Gospels.

After Monday’s roundtable in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Drug Czar Kerlikowske will continue through the midwest.

St. Louis, MO, Tuesday morning

On Tuesday (Sept. 1) at St. Louis City Hall, Kerlikowske will unveil a new, national meth advertising and prevention blitz. […] Next Tuesday’s event begins at 10 a.m. in the City Hall rotunda.

Southern Illinois, Tuesday afternoon

CARTERVILLE – White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske will visit John A. Logan College from 2:30 to 4 p.m. Tuesday for a methamphetamine round table discussion.

The discussion will be attended by representatives of law enforcement, drug treatment, drug prevention and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. The meeting will be closed to the public.

Given that a huge part of this tour is about meth, it’ll be interesting to see if Kerlikowske gets any questions about the new dangerous meth process that doesn’t require a lab (and has already been talked about in comments). Meth, in its various forms, is a perfect example of the side effects of prohibition.

….

Charles Homan has a great article: The Bushie Obama Can’t Fire about “Dr.” David Murray (I’ve written about him numerous times). It’s a great piece.

“He was brought in as a political hatchet man,” says Ross Deck, a former ONDCP analyst and a 16-year-veteran of the office who quit during the Walters years. Before joining in the ONDCP, Murray had no prior experience in addiction science, or law enforcement, or anything else particularly related to drug policy.

He is on the record questioning many of the drug policies espoused by Kerlikowske. Congress has spent three years trying to get him fired.

Why, then, does David Murray somehow still have a job in the Obama administration? The reason can be found in the fine print of the federal bureaucracy.

Homans destroys David Murray. It’s also interesting that, although Murray is at the ONDCP as chief scientist, we’ve heard nothing from him.

And now, right after Homan’s article, the Drug Czar’s “blog” touts the experts they have working on long-term policy goals for increasing the Nation’s focus on preventing and treating substance abuse. David Murray isn’t even mentioned.

Currently there are three experts on detail to ONDCP: Dr. Keith Humphreys, Professor of Psychiatry, Stanford University; Dr. Murray Kopelow, Chief Executive, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education; and Mike Lowther, Director of the Division of State Programs at Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration/Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

Apparently David Murray is not only consigned to the back room counting paper clips, but the Drug Czar wants us to know it.

Conan has a little fun with it [via Philadelphia Will Do]

Random thought. If we could harness all the people who cheer whenever drugs are mentioned in a late night talk show or stand-up comedy, we’d have quite a drug policy reform movement.

[Note: Sorry to non-U.S. readers. I know that Hulu tends not to be available outside the country, although this site may have a workaround.]

The Associated Press reaches a new low with this one: Mexico’s new drug use law worries US police

Mexico now has one of the world’s most liberal laws for drug users after eliminating jail time for small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and even heroin, LSD and methamphetamine.

Really? One of the world’s most liberal laws for drug users? Merely because an extremely tiny amount of possession has been decriminalized (not legalized) to reflect actual practice?

“All right!” said a grinning Ivan Rojas, a rail-thin 20-year-old addict who endured police harassment during the decade he has spent sleeping in Mexico City’s gritty streets and subway stations.

Oh yeah, that’s a good interview choice.

But stunned police on the U.S. side of the border say the law contradicts President Felipe Calderon’s drug war, and some fear it could make Mexico a destination for drug-fueled spring breaks and tourism.

Tens of thousands of American college students flock to Cancun and Acapulco each year to party at beachside discos offering wet T-shirt contests and all-you-can-drink deals.

“Now they will go because they can get drugs,” said San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne. “For a country that has experienced thousands of deaths from warring drug cartels for many years, it defies logic why they would pass a law that will clearly encourage drug use.”

Yep, the “worries US Police” and “stunned police” are… San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne and San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore. This is San Diego, where the municipal authorities fought all the way to the Supreme Court (and lost) to avoid obeying the state’s medical marijuana law.

“It provides an officially sanctioned market for the consumption of the world’s most dangerous drugs,” San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said. “For the people of San Diego the risk is direct and lethal. There are those who will drive to Mexico to use drugs and return to the U.S. under their influence.”

You’re kidding, right? Since when to Americans need to go to Mexico to have 4 joints or .015 milligrams of LSD?

Nobody from LEAP interviewed. No vast law enforcement numbers opposed to Mexico’s decrim bill.

Just a bunch of crap wrapped up with an AP byline, and disseminated in thousands of papers around the country.

Update: The News Tribune of Tacoma Washington did the right thing to this AP story. Changed the headline to read: U.S. cops fear Mexico drug law

Now that I can believe. After all, their future overtime could be in jeopardy.

Mark “Can I watch while you lock the cell door?” Souder meets Gil “Words aren’t in my vocabulary” Kerlikowske.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – U.S. Representative Mark Souder and Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Gil Kerlikowske will host a roundtable discussion on Monday, August 31 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. regarding national drug control policy and strategy.

The roundtable, which is one of eight regional meetings with public health and safety leaders from the community, will take place at the Landmark Conference Centre in Fort Wayne, Indiana. […]

Media are invited to attend the last 15 minutes of the roundtable discussion, from 3:15 to 3:30 p.m. Following the event, Souder and Kerlikowske will be available to the media to discuss the event and answer questions.

Any media in Fort Wayne willing to ask some real questions?

CNN

Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday it is unconstitutional to punish an adult for private use of marijuana as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. […]

Supreme Court Justice Carlos Fayt, who at one time supported laws that make personal use of marijuana illegal, told the state-run Telam news agency that “reality” changed his mind.

Boy, that’s some Constitution they must have there, to actually protect the rights of citizens against over-reach by government. Too bad we couldn’t have something like that here…

I thought it would be interesting to get the views of readers on different models of marijuana legalization (note: this is marijuana legalization only — we’ll explore other drugs in later polls).

Continue reading →

The New York Times has a very strange article on Mexico’s recent partial decriminalization law: In Mexico, Ambivalence on a Drug Law

That “ambivalence” apparently stems from the New York Times talking to two people: a drug addict and a former drug addict.

“No one should live like I live,” [cocaine and heroin addict Yolanda Espinosa] said. “It’s an awful life. You do anything to satisfy your urge. You sell your body. It ruins you. I hope this won’t make more people live like this.” […]

At one Tijuana drug treatment center, a former addict was not convinced that going easy on those found with drugs was the right approach. “With everything that’s happening, we need to distance ourselves from drugs,” said the former addict, Luis Manuel Delgado, 50, who is also the center’s assistant director. “Imagine if I told the people in here that it was now legal for them to have a little. No way.”

Jailing addicts helps them reach rock bottom and decide to turn their lives around, Mr. Delgado said.

Even putting aside the fact that today’s addicts got there despite (and maybe partly because of) massively repressive laws, and that evidence shows much better ways of helping those who abuse drugs than the “rock bottom” approach, does it make sense to turn to those who have problems with a substance for advice on policy for everyone else?

I have problems with certain types of food, in that I find them hard to resist, which makes me overweight, and could cause future health problems. What if I said that anybody who eats those foods should be thrown in jail as a way to force myself to stop?

Or should a video game addict call for anyone who plays Zelda to be imprisoned? Or maybe someone with a sexual fetish should call for a complete prohibition on women’s shoes?

I’m not saying that those who abuse drugs shouldn’t be allowed to speak about drug policy — of course, everyone should. But the New York Times seems to be pretending that drug abusers are the only ones with a dog in this hunt, which is ridiculous.