Drug WarRant

In El Paso

“Some think legalization will reduce the violence,” Kerlikowske said. “It will not. If drugs were to become legal, I doubt very seriously that (the criminals) would take up jobs at Microsoft or Intel. Criminals are not going to change.”

Such a bizarrely ignorant world-view. It requires:

1. A finite and unchanging number of “criminals” world-wide – that everybody is specifically either a criminal or non-criminal for life and that can’t change, and that no enticements could turn a non-criminal into a criminal.
2. That criminals would have the same power to bribe officials (and entire countries), and buy guns if all their money supply was cut off, and
3. That they would still want to kill people on the border even if they had nothing to smuggle across.

This guy got a Master’s Degree? Somebody better talk to the Board of Trustees at University of South Florida.

Update: Lots more from Kerlikowske here. Some really amazing stuff.

The North American Leaders Summit concluded today. Naturally, it would seem that the drug war in Mexico would be a major item of discussion.

If it was, solutions were not part of the conversation. Obama’s remarks were remarkably lacking in substance — keep sending the money, keep up the “police action,” oh, and say bad things about the cartels to deflect concerns about human rights abuses.

Regarding the U.S.-Mexico agenda, Obama stressed his support for the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative – aimed at bolstering the battle against drugs in Mexico and Central America – and for Calderon’s efforts on that score, even though human rights groups have criticized the Mexican president’s militarized approach to the problem.

“I have great confidence in President Calderon’s administration applying the law enforcement techniques that are necessary to curb the power of the cartels, but doing so in a way that’s consistent with human rights,” Obama said in response to a reporter’s question.

“The biggest, by far, violators of human rights right now are the cartels themselves that are kidnapping people and extorting people and encouraging corruption in these regions,” he added.

Really? That’s what you’ve got? First of all, who needs to be told that the cartels are bad people?* I don’t really think that there’s a cartel fan club in town.

The point isn’t the dastardly nature of the cartels. The point is coming up with policy that actually improves things rather than making things worse.

And it’s clear that nothing resembling good policy showed up at the summit.

---

* When I first read the linked article about Los Zetas, I thought they had mistakenly put a picture of a Star Wars convention with the article. Then I blew up the picture and looked closer and it scared the crap out of me.

Mark Kleiman and Jon Caulkins get it — that any of the solutions the U.S. comes up with regarding the business of poppies in Afghanistan are doomed to failure.

See

• Careful what you wish for, and
• Targeting the Taliban’s Drug Dealers

As usual, it’s a good analysis of what won’t work, and why, but fails to note the really big picture, and ignores the one option that lacks the failure characteristics of all the others.

The really big picture is that the combination of demand and the black market guarantees there will be massive illicit profits going to somebody. The option left out, as usual, is regulation (legalization) in some form.

Yes, I know that legalization is not a politically feasible option currently, but it’s leaving it out of the discussion that I find intellectually objectionable. It simply insures that the only option that has a chance of success will never get discussed.

I haven’t talked much, if any, about Michael Jackson’s death. Now they’re reporting that he died of an overdose of Propofol. That’s a drug that’s used for general anesthesia, and is rarely abused recreationally — the DEA hasn’t even bothered to schedule it.

And yet our drug czar has been salivating over the opportunity to make Michael Jackson the poster child for prescription drug abuse (calling his death a wake-up call).

First of all, the notion that Michael Jackson, in life or death, ever was a representative sample of anything, is absurd.

And of course, the results of such overzealous campaigning are likely to be two-fold.

1. Emboldening the DEA to continue to act as if they have medical training and the right to determine what doctors prescribe (and arrest them if they believe differently).
2. Making doctors afraid to prescribe the required medicine to really help the sick.

If there is prescription drug abuse, then fine, let’s deal with it. But just looking for opportunities to propagandize regardless of relevance — that’s just irresponsible.

Feel free to keep playing in comments on the new site to get used to them. I’ve updated the “About” page (see far upper left of this page) to include what html is allowed in comments and how to use it. If you want an avatar, you can go to gravatars and upload the image you’d like and associate it with the email address you use to log in here.

I love the commenting features (and especially the fact that the dreaded 403 Forbidden screen of death is gone!)

Bear with the Google ads. It’ll take a while before they settle down in the new location and figure what we’re about (and that most of us are not looking for a stay at the Betty Ford clinic).

Be sure to note the two items on the top right of the page – Posts and Comments. These are rss feeds, and allow you to subscribe to all Drug WarRant posts or all Comments to Drug WarRant posts in your newsreader.

U.S. Plan Raises Ire in Latin America in the Washington Post. The development of military air bases in Colombia (for the drug war, of course) is just not good foreign policy. Regardless of what you think of Chavez, it’s natural for him to suspect such a move, and for the people of Venezuela to support him and turn against us at the mere thought of such bases.

It’s nice to see that the fact that the Drug Czar is required by law to oppose us is gaining wider traction. More people (and media) understanding this fact dramatically reduces the power of the Drug Czar’s office to disseminate propaganda.

The Senate Friday confirmed University of Pennsylvania psychologist A. Thomas McLellan as deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

More proof that life as a politician kills brain cells: Legalized pot a tough sell in governor’s race

“If the whole society starts getting stoned, we’re going to be even less competitive,” Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown […] said on a recent radio show.

“Like electing Jerry Brown as governor, the idea of legalizing drugs is one more bad idea from a bygone era,” said Jarrod Agen, spokesman for Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner

DrugSense Weekly

Drug War Chronicle

If you’re reading this, you’re at the new location of Drug WarRant.com.

Our home for the past 6 years was at blogs.salon.com using radio userland software. Radio hasn’t been upgraded in ages, and they’ve announced that the blog hosting will go away in December of this year. This is a big change (and a difficult transition).

I have moved the blog to a server at DreamHost and adapted a WordPress theme to be close to the old look of Drug WarRant. All 3,500 radio posts were exported to MT and then imported into WordPress relatively intact (with some formatting errors). Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do with the old comments — they can’t be retrieved from the Salon server (except manually — over 20,000 of them).

Good news is that I’ll have full control over the future of this blog and all of its content and comments. It also means that we’ll be able to try commenting software that works best for the readers (right now we’ll start with WordPress’ built-in comment software, but we may also try Disqus or IntenseDebate). There will be other features that may be useful that I’ll add on as well.

To begin with, comments may require moderation for your first comment, but should be automatic after that.

I’ve got a lot to learn about WordPress and I’m doing this by myself, so bear with me. Please let me know about problems and give any suggestions. There still needs to be some tweaking in appearance and features, but I wanted to get the transition accomplished.

The old site will continue to exist (complete with comments, etc) until December. I’ll be adding forwarding information to specific pages over there in order to make the transition better.

Thanks for your patience. I depend so much on the readers of this site — you really make it possible for me!

Consider this an open thread and an opportunity to experiment with comments. Note: You can use most standard html tags including links, bold, italic, blockquote, etc. (no images).

Thomas Black and Jens Erik Gould have written a curiously bizarre article for Bloomberg.com: Calderon’s Waning Power Lends Urgency to Obama Meeting on Drugs
This article dramatically demonstrates the disconnect when people are unable or unwilling to discuss the options available. The article is about the fact that Calderon may lose power and how that will affect the “success” of the drug war.

“My concern is that Calderon has three years left,” said Michael Braun, who stepped down last year as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief of operations. “Everyone has to work as hard as we can, to make as much headway as we can, because we don’t know what’s coming next.”
Time may already be running out after Calderon’s party lost its leading role in Congress in mid-term elections in July, said Jorge Chabat, a political science professor at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City.

Check out the next passage:

Should the National Action Party lose the presidency in 2012, Mexico might revert to its traditional nationalism, pulling back on collaboration with the U.S. and halting the bloody war on drug cartels unleashed by Calderon, he said.

The supposedly scary news is that there might be a halt to the bloody war. Do they realize what they’re saying?
Ah, but then, if you remember, according to our drug warriors, violence is a sign that we’re winning…

The crackdown also has stoked almost 10,000 drug-related murders in the past 18 months as weakened gangs battle for drug routes and retaliate against police.

Weakened. Right. Hmm… Their ability to corrupt the military and police doesn’t make them look all that weak to me. And as long as there is demand, there will be supply, which means that no matter how many cartels are taken down, more will be there to replace them. So this violence solves nothing.
What about other ideas?

“We should rethink a strategy that’s more effective,” Manlio Fabio Beltrones, Senate leader for the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI

And how do the article’s authors react to the notion that there might be another approach?

A PRI victory would probably reverse Calderon’s steps drawing closer to the U.S. to curb the $17.2 billion of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs the U.S. Justice Department estimates cross the border annually.

Because, of course, in their minds there can be no option other than fighting the drug war (despite its failures), so any other option is unacceptable by definition, without even hearing it.
The conclusion of the article is really astonishing. Check out the pathetic plea, here:

Mexico’s only choice is to “grind this out,” Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said last week in Mexico City.
“What are the alternatives?” he said.

Oh, my. Can you believe that? He knows that the current strategy is horrible, but plaintively wishes that someone would give him an alternative. We’d be happy to, but unfortunately, the answer isn’t in his vocabulary.
….
Things are a little crazy in my neighborhood right now. There’s a fire about three blocks away that’s been raging out of control. After work, I carefully drove over near there to check it out. Not pretty. The firefighters are hard at work, armed to the teeth with assault weapons, fighting the flames. Yet the fire continues to spread.
A block away from the fire, I spotted the fire czar, who was overseeing the attack on the fire, and I asked him how it was going.

“It’s really tough. We’ve been laying down a lot of firepower, yet the fire keeps lashing out and causing more destruction. It’s got to be weakened — nothing could take that kind of punishment unscathed — and it must be that weakened condition that’s causing it to become more violent.”

I asked if he had tried anything else besides shooting at the fire.

“Of course! We’ve tried everything. Grenades seemed to have some good impact and the fire would temporarily subside, but then it would build right back up, and we were losing a lot of people due to the shrapnel.
“Nothing seems to be working. If only there was some other solution.”

So I asked him. Had he tried… water.

“That’s not in my vocabulary…. Seriously, anything at all,” he pleaded in between burst of automatic weapon fire. “Doesn’t anybody have any ideas? We’re losing ground here every minute.”

So I sighed and went home. The fire should reach here later tonight.

“bullet” Don’t Smoke It by Peter Gorman in the Fort Worth Weekly, is an extensive article about industrial hemp.

In fact, he said, traditionally independent Texas farmers could come to see hemp-growing as a right they’re being denied. “Texans don’t like their personal rights abridged,” he said. “And once they understand the difference between marijuana and industrial hemp, your average Texas farmer would probably demand the right to grow it.
Daniel Leshiker, who farms near Ralph Snyder in North Central Texas, agreed with Snyder that hemp sounds intriguing.
“We already need another crop, that’s for certain. I just planted 200 acres of sunflowers for their seed for the first time,” he said. “So while I don’t know much about hemp except they used to make rope with it, well, you tell me I could make money with it, and I’ll grow it. That’s what we are in the business to do.”

“bullet” Where will Christians fall when the marijuana debate lights up?

But younger Christians might be a different story. In late April, the evangelical blog Burnside Writer‰s Collective quizzed its young-ish readers on a series of pot-related questions. Should marijuana be legalized? Fifty percent of responders thought so, and the next largest percentage said it should at least be decriminalized. Have you ever smoked marijuana? Fifty percent said yes, 40 said no. The 10 percent in the middle respond, in uniquely young evangelical fashion, that they have smoked once or twice. (Doesn‰t that just mean ‹Yes?Š)

“bullet” This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever seen. The Wheel of Justice? Spinning to see what drug dealer you’ll arrest next. If that isn’t proof that the drug war is idiotic in itself, I don’t know what is.
“bullet” Dr. Joycelyn Elders: Americans need to be more healthy. The former Surgeon General writes:

“To me, [marijuana is] not nearly as toxic for our bodies as tobacco or alcohol. It should be legalized.”

“bullet” Via Scott Morgan: Police Will Do Anything to Arrest People for Marijuana

The Tigard Police Department has ended a sex-for-marijuana Internet sting because officers posting the online ads posed as promiscuous women, not prostitutes.
á
The officers posting the Craigslist ads posed as women willing to a have casual sexual encounter with men who had marijuana. No cash was involved. When the men showed up for the encounter, they were charged with prostitution and delivery of drugs.
Defense attorneys say the program was entrapment.

No kidding.
Also from Scott: Federal Prosecutor Drops Medical Marijuana Charges

And the universe didn‰t collapse. Not only that, the story has gotten no press whatsoever. Often, when the government refrains from doing something cruel to someone, there isn’t much of a news story left to report. This just goes to show how silly it is to assume that there’s a political imperative requiring us to continue aggressively enforcing bad drug laws. There isn‰t.
See how easy it is to just leave patients alone? Next time, try not arresting them in the first place.

Just for fun.

Tosh.0	Thurs, 10pm / 9c
Celebrity Video – Tommy Chong vs. Salvia Eric
www.comedycentral.com
Daniel Tosh Miss Teen South Carolina Demi Moore Picture

from Tosh.0 on Comedy Central

‘Reefer Madness’ Redux, Is Pot Addictive? at ABC News Health is a real piece of work.
It purports to be a balanced look at whether cannabis is addictive or whether current fears are mere Reefer Madness, yet it allows an awful lot of its own Reefer Madness nonsense through…

Studies dating back to 1984 have documented a clinical syndrome characterized by “restlessness, anorexia, irritability and insomnia” that begins within 24 hours of discontinuation and can last for up to 10 days.
Today, there are no FDA-approved drugs to counteract withdrawal symptoms, although the synthetic cancer drug Marinol shows some promise.

Really? Drugs to counteract cannabis withdrawal? Do we really need that? And are prescription THC pills supposed to be the answer (especially since, if we believe the fear-mongers, a big part of the problem is the increased level of THC in today’s pot)?

As the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, marijuana produces dependence and relapse rates comparable to other drugs some researchers believe.

Really? Even a cursory look at the difference between tobacco smokers and marijuana smokers will quickly disabuse you of that notion.

With stronger pot, emergency rooms have reported more associated accidents. Just this week, seven people were killed when the driver — drove the wrong way on a New York highway and collided head on with a pickup truck. Although the drivers family has disputed the results, toxicology tests showed high levels of alcohol and marijuana.

Give me a break! Combination of the conjoined statement lie, the out and out plain old lie (use of the word “accidents” in the first sentence), and attributing marijuana causation in an accident involving high levels of alcohol.

“The marijuana that is now out has been cross-bred like people breed flowers so what you have now is different from what you had 20 to 30 years ago,” said John Massella, regional program director for the Pittsburgh-based Gateway rehabilitation center, which treats 10,000 to 12,000 patients a year.
“They develop a tolerance and need more to get the desired effect,” he told ABCNews.com.

Bull.

Gateway has seen an increase in number of marijuana dependency cases, mostly adults who do not come of their own volition. Many have been referred by family or have had trouble with the law or have tested positive in an employment-related urine test.

Yeah. In other words, they aren’t addicted. They’re showing up because of referrals.

[Roger A. Roffman] argues that the reform movement makes a “tragic mistake” to convince the public that marijuana is relatively harmless.

Hmm…. that last sentence sounds familiar.
New York Times July 19, 2009:

[Roger a. Roffman:] However, our debates need more honesty. Those favoring liberalizing marijuana policy ought to stop inferring that marijuana is harmless; it is not.

Boston Globe, June 23, 2008:

“I think [both sides] do a disservice to the general public,” said Roffman, who has written papers and edited books on marijuana use and dependence. On websites of drug policy reform advocates, “you’ll find lots of information about the very adverse consequences of criminalizing marijuana and very little mention of the very real harm associated with marijuana among some people in some circumstances,” he said.

Exactly what I was talking about in my post Harmless?
Where Roffman gets the idea that it’s my job to say that marijuana isn’t harmless (particularly when every government and media lackey is willing to lie to do so) is beyond me, particularly when it isn’t even relevant to the discussion of whether criminalization is the best way to deal with drugs.