Drug WarRant

George Monbiot, has a column in the Guardian: Yes, Addicts Need Help. But All You Casual Cocaine Users Want Locking Up
It’s a piece with some really good stuff, but you have to hunt for it. He starts out by railing against his friends who recreationally use cocaine.

I believe that informed adults should be allowed to inflict whatever suffering they wish on themselves. But we are not entitled to harm other people.
I know people who drink fair-trade tea and coffee, shop locally and take cocaine at parties.
They are revolting hypocrites.
Every year cocaine causes some 20,000 deaths in Colombia and displaces several hundred thousand people from their homes.
Children are blown up by landmines; indigenous people are enslaved; villagers are tortured and killed; rainforests are razed.
You’d cause less human suffering if instead of discreetly retiring to the toilet at a media drinks party, you went into the street and mugged someone.

This is old stuff, akin to the Drug Czar’s office Superbowl ads about smoking marijuana and funding terrorists. His friends aren’t revolting hypocrites, others are — for claiming to care about all this worldwide suffering, yet supporting prohibition, the real cause of all the damage. Sure, his friends could stop using cocaine recreationally as some kind of symbolic gesture at saving the world, but it would accomplish nothing (their impact on the global market would be insignificant), whereas ending prohibition would actually make a difference.
Unfortunately, most people who read this article will stop there and won’t get to the more complex parts below.
There is, however, a whole lot more truth within…

The other possible policy is to legalise and regulate the global trade. This would undercut the criminal networks and guarantee unadulterated supplies to consumers.
There might even be a market for certified fair-trade cocaine.

Exactly. And then he examines the recent arguments of UNODC’s Antonio Maria Costa, and thoroughly dismantles them.

Costa’s new report begins by rejecting this option. […]
The report argues that “any reduction in the cost of drug control … will be offset by much higher expenditure on public health ( due to the surge of drug consumption )”. It admits that tobacco and alcohol kill more people than illegal drugs, but claims that this is only because fewer illegal drugs are consumed.
Strangely however, it fails to supply any evidence to support the claim that narcotics are dangerous.

Monbiot slams Costa:

The devastating health effects of heroin use are caused by adulterants and the lifestyles of people forced to live outside the law. Like cocaine, heroin is addictive; but unlike cocaine, the only consequence of its addiction appears to be … addiction.
Costa’s half-measure, in other words, gives us the worst of both worlds: more murder, more destruction, more muggings, more adulteration. Another way of putting it is this: you will, if Costa’s proposal is adopted, be permitted without fear of prosecution to inject yourself with heroin cut with drain cleaner and brick dust, sold illegally and soaked in blood; but not with clean and legal supplies.

In the next part of the column, Monbiot again betrays his own journalistic effort by claiming that Costa has a good argument, when he doesn’t.

His report does raise one good argument, however.
At present the trade in class A drugs is concentrated in the rich nations.
If it were legalised, we could cope. The use of drugs is likely to rise, but governments could use the extra taxes to help people tackle addiction. But because the wholesale price would collapse with legalisation, these drugs would for the first time become widely available in poorer nations, which are easier for companies to exploit ( as tobacco and alcohol firms have found ) and which are less able to regulate, raise taxes or pick up the pieces.
The widespread use of cocaine or heroin in the poor world could cause serious social problems: I’ve seen, for example, how a weaker drug khat seems to dominate life in Somali-speaking regions of Africa. “The universal ban on illicit drugs,” the UN argues, “provides a great deal of protection to developing countries”.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
It’s not a good argument. It is a pathetically weak argument. How is cocaine or heroin going to become more widespread in its availability in the poor countries under legalization than it is now? Is heroin unavailable in Afghanistan? Is cocaine unavailable in Colombia? How are drug problems in the citizenry going to pose a heavier burden on poor countries than the violence and corruption of prohibition?
With legalization, Latin American countries can raise coca for its health-giving uses, providing a vibrant non-cocaine industry that will raise the standard of living, and they can have the U.S. stop interfering as much in their lives (hopefully). There won’t be as many severed heads on poles or dead cops. Just as in the rich countries, there will be drug problems, but they won’t be underground, so they’ll be easier to deal with.
This is pretty obvious stuff. The notion that the poor countries will be damaged by legalization is a patently obvious stunt by Costa to deflect the press from discussing the damage of prohibition. Monbiot gives it too much credence by calling it a good argument, when he knows better…

So Costa’s office has produced a study comparing the global costs of prohibition with the global costs of legalisation, allowing us to see whether the current policy ( murder, corruption, war, adulteration ) causes less misery than the alternative ( widespread addiction in poorer nations )? The hell it has. Even to raise the possibility of such research would be to invite the testerics in Congress to shut off the UN’s funding. […]
Until that happens, Costa’s opinions on this issue are worth as much as mine or anyone else’s: nothing at all.

Frustrating column. It’s all there. But few who need to understand it will notice.
(Note: This column is a focus alert at MAP.)

The latest in drug news – a federal advisory panel has recommended a ban on Percocet and Vicodin, and also reducing the highest allowed dose of acetaminophen, due to excessively high instances of liver damage and fatal overdoses.
My reaction to this news is twofold:

1. Marijuana has never caused liver damage or fatal overdoses. I forget – why aren’t doctors allowed to prescribe it?
2. An outright ban on drugs like Percocet and Vicodin, particularly in the absence of legal alternatives, could cause a lot of people to live in even more pain. Couldn’t we educate people as to the risks, rather than banning?

Worth noting: NORML makes a point about the upcoming legalization debate that should be obvious, but about which reformers will need to be vigilant.

Allowing for the legal, personal cultivation of cannabis provides consumers with the option to grow their own product should commercially available sources offer cannabis that fails to meet the consumers‰ needs because it is excessively expensive, too heavily taxed, or of inferior quality. The mere threat of consumers exercising this option should be sufficient to assure that the legal market for cannabis will be responsive to the needs of consumers, and will not be exploitive.
So when any organization or any state or federal legislator proposes legalizing cannabis, either for medical use or for personal pleasure, but forbids the consumer from growing their own cannabis, those of us who lobby on this issue must insist on amendments to permit personal cultivation.

Update: Alex disagrees.

I don’t care how tightly regulated regulate the market is as long as the controls are primarily civil rather than criminal. I don’t care if you can “grow your own” as long as somebody is allowed to grow it for you, legally, and sell it to you legally, and you are permitted to use it legally, as an adult. […]
Marijuana partisans should recognize this if their goal is to get legislation passed and not simply to spend time thinking about utopian alternatives to the status quo.

Junk science exposed again.
It doesn’t matter how good the scientific research is… it is still junk science if it results in implied conclusions, particularly when they are publicized based on political opportunism rather than waiting to follow through to real proof.
The whole connection of marijuana to schizophrenia and psychosis that has been touted worldwide was clearly in that category – no proof of causality, evidence of self-medication, and lack of certainty regarding diagnosing the onset of the conditions. Yet, all sorts of “serious” people have accepted as certain that marijuana causes schizophrenia and psychosis.
Paul Armentano analyzes the situation:

Most notably perhaps, a team of researchers writing in the July 28, 2007 edition of the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet, boldly proclaimed that smoking cannabis could boost one‰s risk of a psychotic episode by 40 percent or more. […]
Of course, there was a fatal flaw with The Lancet‰s argument Ö one that, oddly enough, every single MSM outlet failed to mention. Empirical data did not support the investigators‰ hypothesis that smoking marijuana was associated with increased rates of schizophrenia or other mental illnesses among the general public Ö a fact that even the authors begrudgingly admitted when they declared, ‹Projected trends for schizophrenia incidence have not paralleled trends in cannabis use over time.Š […]
Two years after The Lancet‰s dire predictions, a team of researchers at the Keele University Medical School have once and for all put the ‘pot-and-mental illness‰ claims to the test. […]

‹[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period. This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. á This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence.Š [Abstract]

Oops.
Just add it to the long list of scary marijuana stories… it’ll turn you into a bat/ax murderer/assassin, it’ll make black men look at a white woman twice, it’ll kill your brain cells, grow man-boobs, make you unmotivated, destroy your memory, cause cancer, make you get pregnant or shoot your best friend, fund terrorists, destroy your sperm, and a whole lot of other things.

Can you imagine such a thing?
Via Tom Angell… The Rhode Island Senate unanimously passed a bill to create a nine-member study commission to ask these and other questions:

• “Whether and to what extent Rhode Island youth have access to marijuana despite current laws prohibiting its use…
• Whether adults’ use of marijuana has decreased since marijuana became illegal in Rhode Island in 1918…
• Whether the current system of marijuana prohibition has created violence in the state of Rhode Island against users or among those who sell marijuana…
• Whether the proceeds from the sales of marijuana are funding organized crime, including drug cartels…
• Whether those who sell marijuana on the criminal market may also sell other drugs, thus increasing the chances that youth will use other illegal substances?”

Of course, we know the answers to those questions, but to see politicians asking them? That’s amazing!
More info here.

It was just the sort of good news the British military in Helmand needed. Soldiers engaged in Operation Panther’s Claw, the huge assault against insurgent strongholds last week, had discovered a record-breaking haul of more than 1.3 tonnes of poppy seeds, destined to become part of the opium crop that generates $400m (£243m) a year for the Taliban. […]
A press release hailed the success of the offensive, and armoured vehicles were hastily laid on to allow the media, including the Guardian, to visit the site where the seizure was made, an abandoned market and petrol station that was still coming under sustained enemy fire when the reporters arrived.

They sure do love to show off when they get a major haul, don’t they? Even though it has very little impact on overall availability.
This particular haul, though, had even less impact on the availability of poppies in Afghanistan.

Major Rupert Whitelegge, the commander of the company in charge of the area, tugged at one of the enormously heavy white sacks.
“They are definitely poppy seeds,” he said emphatically.
Except they weren’t. Analysis of a sample carried out by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in Kabul for the Guardian has revealed that the soldiers had captured nothing more than a giant pile of mung beans, a staple pulse eaten in curries across Afghanistan.
Embarrassed British officials have now admitted that their triumph has turned sour and have promised to return the legal crop to its rightful owner.

The 1.3 tonnes of beans have a street value of around $1,300.

A contradiction in terms? Normally. But if anyone can accomplish both at the same time, it’s John Walters.
Marijuana Policy Project’s Steve Fox ran into the former drug czar on the subway. Here’s his report.

AP

The Obama administration is developing plans to seek up to 1,500 National Guard volunteers to step up the military’s counter-drug efforts along the Mexican border, senior administration officials said Monday. […]
Senior administration officials said the Guard program will last no longer than a year and would build on an existing counter-drug operation. They said the program, which would largely be federally funded, would draw on National Guard volunteers from the four border states. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not been finalized.

Take soldiers trained for war, seek out volunteers out of those who specifically would like to fight a drug war, arm them, and put them on American soil near a potentially volatile border.
Get ready for another Esequiel Hernandez — possibly many.

This is Your War on Drugs is a Mother Jones editorial by Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, that makes it appear that some of the things we’ve been talking about are getting traction.

AMONG OUR LEADERS in Washington, who’s been the biggest liar? […] This liar didn’t end-run Congress, or bully it, or have its surreptitious blessing at the time only to face its indignation later. No, this liar was ordered by Congress to lieÖas a prerequisite for holding the job.
Give up? It’s the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a.k.a. the drug czar, who in 1998 was mandated by Congress to oppose legislation that would legalize, decriminalize, or medicalize marijuana, or redirect anti-trafficking funding into treatment. And the drug czar has alsoÖhere’s where the lying comes inÖbeen prohibited from funding research that might give credence to any of the above. […]
But then, the drug war has never been about factsÖabout, dare we say, soberly weighing which policies might alleviate suffering, save taxpayers money, rob the cartels of revenue. Instead, we’ve been stuck in a cycle of prohibition, failure, and counterfactual claims of success.

Not bad. Mother Jones, which has been out on the edge on some progressive issues, has not really been there when it comes to drug policy. And now they are admitting it…

So why don’t we have a rational drug policy? Simple. Forget the Social Security “third rail.” The quickest way to get yourself sidelined in serious policy discussion is to stray from drug war orthodoxy. Even MoJo has skirted the topic for fear of looking like a bunch of hot-tubbing stoners. Such is the power of the culture wars, 50 years on.

I think the biggest progress we’ve made (and most of it, in my opinion, has happened in the past 5 or 6 years) is empowering people (and media) to “stray from drug war orthodoxy.” Mother Jones’ editors are, in this article, way behind, but finally getting the courage.
Even yet, their analytical skills are weak…

What would a fact-based drug policy look like? It would put considerably more money into treatment, the method proven to best reduce use. It would likely leave in place the prohibition on “hard” drugs, but make enforcement fair (no more traffickers rolling on hapless girlfriends to cut a deal. No more Tulias). And it would likely decriminalize but tightly regulate marijuana, which study after study shows is less dangerous or addictive than cigarettes or alcohol, has undeniable medicinal properties, and isn’t a gateway drug to anything harder than Doritos.

I’m not sure how leaving prohibition in place is “fact-based,” or why they’re afraid to use the “L” word for marijuana, but at least it’s more fact-based than today’s policies.
Over at The American Prospect, Eli Sanders has The Last Drug Czar – a fascinating article about Kerlikowske and the drug war in general.
He starts out talking about Kerlikowske’s statement that he’s going to stop using the rhetoric of the war on drugs (whether true or not, even the willingness to use the rhetoric of stopping the rhetoric is, oddly, still significant).

As far as statements from high government officials go, it was a radical declaration. Kerlikowske, and by extension Barack Obama, was rejecting four decades of federal government marching orders — a bold departure that would have been unthinkable in previous administrations. But even more striking than his announcement was the reaction: crickets.

Recognition of the futility of the war and the reality of economic laws…

To the dismay of decades of drug warriors, it turns out that the threat of arrest and, in some cases, harsh mandatory sentences has done nothing to halt the public’s demand for illegal substances. Nor has it lessened the eagerness of street dealers and drug cartels to deliver those illegal substances to markets large and small. Close to half of all Americans report they have tried illegal drugs. Given this kind of persistent demand, it’s no surprise that the targeting of suppliers hasn’t succeeded.

Of course, nobody really thinks Obama’s administration is going to dismantle the war on drugs. At best, there will be rhetoric with no action. At worst, there will be a running away from the discussion. But that opens the door for us… and the states… to take the lead on drug policy. I think that’s why Sanho Tree says “He’s the best drug czar we’ve ever had, which isn’t saying a lot.”
The article goes on to talk to reformers about what we might expect. Nadelmann says that, despite the “giant wave” we’re riding: “I don’t see the drug-war infrastructure crumbling quickly, if only because the old mind-sets have been there for a long time and there are powerful interests vested in the status quo.”
Tree follows up with a hilarious quote:

Sanho Tree, of the Center for Policy Studies, agrees. “It’s very difficult to predict tipping points, and when it happens it’s going to happen quickly,” he says. “We are already at the tipping point societally in terms of ending the drug war. But the people who have to act on this are in Congress, and they won’t do so because they have to face re-election. A lot of these politicians have fairly reptilian brains — you know, fire, burn, bad. … They think that because something was toxic a few years ago, it’s still toxic today.”

In a recent interview with Reuters, U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan:

The Western policies against the opium crop, the poppy crop, have been a failure. They did not result in any damage to the Taliban, but they put farmers out of work and they alienated people and drove people into the arms of the Taliban.
So I need to stress this: the poppy farmer is not our enemy. The Taliban are. And to destroy the crops is not an effective policy and the U.S. has wasted hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on this program, and that is going to end.
We are not going to support crop eradication. We’re going to phase it out and allow for very limited areas, where on a specific, case-by-case basis, it may be valid.

Does that mean that the U.S. has a workable solution? No, not really.

What are we going to do? We’re going to emphasize interdiction, precursor chemicals, and other things — going after drug lords. So we’re not downgrading our effort to fight the dreadful cancer which is the opium trade. But we are going to stop making the farmers the victims.

A real, effective solution that takes drug money away from criminals is outside the current political landscape, but at least maybe they’ll stop the incredibly stupid policy of eradication.