Drug WarRant

Medical marijuana: ‘Safe medicine’ or crime magnet?
Milk: ‘Nutritious drink’ or delinquency enabler?
Apples: ‘Fruit’ or an element in the discovery of gravity?
Cars: ‘Transportation’ or economy destroyers?
Headline writers: ‘People who don’t know when to use internal quotes’ or people who don’t know the meaning of the word “or”?

I know I’m late getting to this, but I just watched “Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey” with my parents tonight. I had not seen it yet, and it’s a really excellent DVD. It’s also great to sit down and watch with your family and friends.
You can get your own copy at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition for only $19.95.

Still on the road with very limited internet access.
“bullet” A Patriot’s Guide to Legalization by Kevin Drum in Mother Jones. Not a bad overview. I think he significantly understates the costs of prohibition, but still good.

“bullet” Mike Gray’s book “Drug Crazy” is now available for free online at Libertary.com.

Drug Crazy: How We Got Into this Mess and How We Can Get Out

Read this eye-opening book free at Libertary.com

“bullet” My close friend coralsbey wrote a stranger about Glenn Beck’s support of marijuana legalization under certain conditions.
“bullet” It’s amazing how people are afraid to talk about marijuana. Some California TV Stations consider a discussion that the Governor has asked for to be too controversial.
“bullet” Copping to the Poppy Crop Flop – Jacob Sullum discusses the administration’s drug war policies in Afghanistan.

Interesting Study

Previously, DaugÚ and her colleagues had shown that rats deprived of their mothers at birth become hypersensitive to the rewarding effect of morphine and heroin (substances belonging to the opiate family), and rapidly become dependent. In addition, there is a correlation between such behavioral disturbances linked to dependence, and hypoactivity of the enkephalinergic system, the endogenous opioid system.
To these rats, placed under stress from birth, the researchers intermittently administered increasingly high doses of THC (5 or 10 mg/kg) during the period corresponding to their adolescence (between 35 and 48 days after birth). By measuring their consumption of morphine in adulthood, they observed that, unlike results previously obtained, the rats no longer developed typical morphine-dependent behavior. Moreover, biochemical and molecular biological data corroborate these findings. In the striatum, a region of the brain involved in drug dependence, the production of endogenous enkephalins was restored under THC, whereas it diminished in rats stressed from birth which had not received THC.

Obviously, this is not a definitive statement about humans, but it’s a very promising line of research.
Gee, I wonder… Will the mainstream media will jump all over this, like they do when studies with much flimsier support conclude some negative effect of cannabis?
Marijuana: the anti-gateway

My show opened very successfully this weekend, and now I’m off to visit the folks. My Dad is in Quincy, IL and my Mom is in Indianola, IA, and both turn 87 this week.
My internet access will be spotty this week, so blogging is likely to be light. Have at it in comments.
Here’s something to kick things off. I’m not really sure what to make of this: Police Crackdowns May Encourage Drug Use. It’s interesting, but I don’t quite understand where they’re headed with their conclusions.
Or if you’d rather have something to get upset with, try this fun piece: OPED: It’s Actually Very Easy To Argue Against Legalizing Marijuana. You should have no trouble dismantling it.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

“bullet” Norm Stamper in Huffington Post: Progressives Push Against Drug War: Will Dems Listen?

The lesson here? While many of our elected representatives privately support serious changes to our failed drug laws, they believe they are alone. They think if they stick their necks out they’ll be handed their heads come election time.
Which is why we must rise up and let our elected officials know they are safe to support drug law reform. And in considerable political danger if they do not.

“bullet” California’s 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled that medical marijuana patients can sue the police for illegally raiding their properties and destroying their plants. If upheld, this is very good news, as it will help deter state police from ignoring state law.
“bullet” New Hampshire Editorial: Memo to Governor: Sign marijuana bill

Governor, the time has come to do the right thing. Supporters of this bill have done everything you have asked. There is only one thing left to do.
Sign the bill.

“bullet” Could Medical Marijuana Have Saved Michael Jackson? I don’t know, and quite frankly, it means very little to me, because MJ isn’t really a place to look for anything that could be extrapolated successfully to the rest of the human race. I do know this, however – getting the DEA involved is just going to make things messy.
“bullet” Things have certainly changed since The French Connection days

Remember the 1971 movie ‹The French ConnectionŠ? That was a true story about what was then the largest heroin bust made in the US. Remember the car that had the heroin hidden in the rocker panels? There were about 40 kilos hidden in that car. 40 kilos, about 88 poundsá the largest quantity of the drug ever imported into the country at one time!

“bullet” “drcnet”

My show — “The Living Canvas: Nocturne” — opens tonight at National Pastime Theater in Chicago (4139 N. Broadway). Thirteen performers, clothed only in intense projected images, tell the story of one man’s journey back through the dreamscapes and fairy tales of his youth, in this powerful and fantastical performance piece.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 10 pm, July 3 through August 1. Tickets are $20, available online or at the door. Show runs about an hour, followed by an opportunity for audience participation, and an open Q&A with the cast (and me). For more information about my photography and performance art works, see TheLivingCanvas.com.
Reviews of past shows…

“Stoners, Dali fans, sensualists of every stripe, this show’s for you. Sober or otherwise, you’ll find the visual pleasures of Guither’s idiom considerable, the kinetic sculpture consistently engrossing…” – Chicago Reader
“intriguing and fanciful… feast for the eyes… recommended” – Chicago Sun-Times
“intensely peculiar and mesmerizing… it’s riveting” – Chicago Tribune
“Pete Guither’s high-def projections of intricate patterns across naked actors is eye candy on the order of a laser-light show…” – Time Out Chicago
“… sensual and visceral performance art piece done with craft and good taste…” – Chicago Critic.com

The Living Canvas: Nocturne is part of National Pastime Theater’s Naked July: Art Stripped Down festival.

I think I’ve finally figured it out. Apparently, in the UK, the position of “coroner” is a make-work position given to the mentally challenged to make them feel useful. It clearly isn’t a real job.
Once or twice a year, there’s a new story where a UK “coroner” claims that they have discovered a death directly attributable to cannabis, usually with the most bizarre “evidence.” Here’s one from last year, where the coroner made his diagnosis by “hearing” about the case.
Well, we’ve got another winner.
A 17-year-old with a history of drug use, who was cleaning up his life and had gotten a new job, died of a heart attack when leaving work.

Geoff Roberts, the deputy coroner for Cheshire, said: “People use cannabis and think that it is a harmless property. We have heard clear evidence in this case that it is not. Very sadly, Hadrian died as a result of the direct toxic effects on the heart that the use of cannabis had. As such, it was an avoidable death.
“This case highlights that cannabis use is potentially life-threatening.” Mr Roberts added: “We have heard how over a period of time, for some years, he had used cannabis and perhaps other illegal substances.
“This is a very sad case because, despite his turbulent past and cannabis use, he had got a job as a trainee chef. The post-mortem showed no findings of recent drug use.
“But his body was left a legacy of using cannabis in the past, which directly led to his death.
“My conclusion is that Hadrian died as a result of using drugs.”
Dr Sally Hales, who carried out the post mortem examination, said the teenager had inflammation of the heart and that “a history of using cannabis, amphetamines and cocaine would appear to be the most likely cause”.

No drugs in the system, but obviously nothing else could have been involved in his heart problems because once they found out he used drugs, that naturally negated the need to actually look into other conditions. And when considering the effects cannabis, amphetamines, and cocaine might have on heart condition, the natural assumption is to blame the cannabis.
Gotta say that I’m not sure I go along with this UK coroner job welfare program for the mentally deficient. Sure, it’s better than having them operate on live people, but couldn’t you just have them sweep the streets or something?

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.)