Drug WarRant

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.

“bullet” A Misguided ‘War on Drugs by Manfred Nowak and Anand Grove in the New York Times.

Anything goes in the ‹war on drugs,Š or so it seems. Governments around the world have used it as an excuse for unchecked human rights abuse and irrational policies based on knee-jerk reactions rather than scientific evidence. This has caused tremendous human suffering. It also undermines drug control efforts. […]
Too many lives are at stake for the current head-in-the-sand politics, and if the United Nations and member states continue to bury their heads, they will be complicit in the abuses.

“bullet” What if the President Smoked Pot? by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic.

The government’s effort to manage tobacco rather than make it illegal is exactly what belongs in the debate over pot and other illegal substances that could, at the very least, provide significant boons to medical pharmacology. The FDA has rejected the possibility of making cigarettes illegal by saying the underground product would be “even more dangerous than those currently marketed.” So when you make popular products illegal, it has the potential to make those products more dangerous. Gee, ya think?
I know that Gee, ya think is about as far as you can get from a comprehensive plan for the controlled legalization of marijuana and other substances. But let’s be adults here. Obama understands the limits of cigarette law because he understands the market for cigarettes. Maybe what the drug debate really needs is a joint in the West Wing.

“bullet” “drcnet”

Acting DEA Head Michele Leonhart on the UNODC World Drug Report:

“Today’s newly-released United Nation’s World Drug Report confirms DEA’s global enforcement strategy successes targeting the major drug trafficking organizations, particularly their leadership, financial infrastructure and transportation facilitators ,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “Working closely with our domestic and international counterparts , we have realized unprecedented victory in disrupting and dismantling criminal cartels worldwide and impacting the illegal drug market, as this report attests. The dangerous link between drugs and crime is irrefutable, and we continue to face challenges, however, we are certain our global partnership will prevail in defeating this world -wide threat.”

Somehow when reading that I imagined her on a stage full of red and black DEA banners speaking into a large microphone, in front of an obediently cheering crowd surrounded by armed DEA agents.

Link

The Supreme Court ruled today that school officials’ strip search of a then-13-year-old Arizona teen suspected of possessing a painkiller violated the girl’s constitutional rights, despite the school district’s zero-tolerance policy for drugs.
The court said, however, that school officials are protected from personal liability in the case.
The ruling is a partial victory for Savana Redding, who had been summoned from her middle school classroom and was asked to strip down to her underwear as school officials searched for prescription strength ibuprofen.

The one dissenter on the Constitutional right issue was Clarence Thomas, who, as usual, doesn’t think that students should have Constitutional rights. He’s all for them when you get out of school, but his views about how schools should be run are positively scary.
Stevens and Ginsburg would have made the school pay up.
The opinion is available here: Safford Unified School District #1 et al v. Redding.

Note: I don’t consider this a very big win (except for Savana’s specific rights), as the court limited their ruling and said that it might be just fine to search her backpack, or if it had been suspected illegal drugs, a panty raid might have been in order after all. Clarence Thomas wanted to inspect the girl’s panties so badly that he indicated the fact that the backpack search turned up empty was reason enough to search the panties.

I’ve been interested to see what how the media will characterize this report, and what they notice within it, since this one has some significantly differences (the attack on legalizers and the acknowledgement of certain prohibition flaws). A lot of early reports merely parrot back the drug use/seizure data contained about their particular country as if it really meant something without the larger context, but there have been some other approaches.
“bullet” Time Magazine’s Skimmer picked up on some of the more interesting shifts:

This year’s report from the U.N.’s Office on Drugs and Crime did something that last year’s did not: it addressed the “growing chorus” of people in favor of abolishing drug laws altogether. And though its authors maintain that legalizing narcotics would be an “epic mistake,” the office’s executive director, Antonio Maria Costa, does agree that loosening regulations might not be such a bad idea: “You can’t have effective control under prohibition, as we should have learned from our failed experiment with alcohol in the U.S. between 1920 and 1933.” […]

[Update: Turns out that quote was from LEAP’s Jack Cole, not Costa. Thought that sounded a little too good for Costa.]

On moving beyond “reactive law enforcement”: “Those who take the “drug war” metaphor literally may feel this effort is best advanced by people in uniform with guns [but] in the end, the criminal justice system is a very blunt instrument for dealing with drug markets … the arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of individuals is an extremely slow, expensive and labor intensive process.”

“bullet” On the other hand, the Associated Press really screwed the pooch with their article. It’s like they didn’t even read the damn thing and just asked somebody to give them some talking points.

Marijuana, or cannabis, remained the most widely used and cultivated drug in the world and it is more harmful than commonly believed, the report said.
As a result, the number of people seeking treatment is rising. Roughly 167 million people use marijuana at least occasionally.

Wow. What a mess.
“bullet” Ryan Grim has some great coverage at Huffington Post: UN Backs Drug Decriminalization In World Drug Report

In an about face, the United Nations on Wednesday lavishly praised drug decriminalization in its annual report on the state of global drug policy. In previous years, the UN drug czar had expressed skepticism about Portugal’s decriminalization, which removed criminal penalties in 2001 for personal drug possession and emphasized treatment over incarceration. The UN had suggested the policy was in violation of international drug treaties and would encourage “drug tourism.”
But in its 2009 World Drug Report, the UN had little but kind words for Portugal’s radical (by U.S. standards) approach.

“bullet” Jacob Sullum has The U.N.’s 10-Year Plan to Eradicate Drugs: How’d That Go?

The shocking (and encouraging) thing is that Costa, an economist with a Ph.D. from U.C.-Berkeley, is a pretty smart guy (though not quite as smart as he thinks he is). The fact that he ends up mouthing the same sort of non sequiturs, unsupported generalizations, obvious falsehoods, Orwellian redefinitions, and empty platitudes that you hear from the average ex-DEA bureaucrat is yet another sign that drug warriors are intellectually bankrupt.
But reformers shouldn’t get cocky….

“bullet” Over at Transform: UN Office on Drugs and Crime admits it is at war with itself

Danny Kushlick, Head of Policy at Transform said:

‹UNODC is officially at war with itself. The Executive Director has admitted repeatedly that the UNODC oversees the very system that gifts the vast illegal drug market to violent criminal profiteers, with disastrous consequences. The UNODC is effectively creating the problem it is claiming to eliminate. Mr Costa has identified five major ‘unintended consequences‰ of the drug control system. Is there a time limit on how long a consequence remains ‘unintended‰? Aren‰t they now just ‘consequences‰?Š

Also at Transform: World Drug Report Preface majors on legalisation

it is the same confused mix of misrepresentations, straw man arguments, and logical fallacies that we are used to hearing from the UNODC’s drug warriors. The particularly strange thing here though is that some of the analysis of the problem, the critique at least, is actually fairly good – it’s where it leads that is so extraordinary…. […]
it might be useful to view this preface as a barometer of the debate globally, and of Transform and other reform NGOs having a real impact on the international debate at the highest levels, including the UNODC. It is a reflection of the progress the reform movement has made that the legalization/regulation issue takes up so much of the space in the preface, and that the UNODC feels the need to go on the defensive this prominently.
Secondly, we would suggest that it is indicative of an institutional problem at UNODC, that something as internally inconsistent as this passes muster and is allowed into the public domain. They fully acknowledge that prohibition, under the auspices of the UN drug agencies and international drug control infrastructure, has been a generational disaster on multiple fronts – and yet then call for more of the same, brushing off those who call for a debate on alternatives with the offensive and childish smear of being ‘pro-drugs’.

At today’s Press Conference…