Drug WarRant

This is a screen shot of Fox News’ Happy Hour, featuring Rebecca Diamond, interviewing Ethan Nadelmann about marijuana legalization in California.
Note that this takes place in a bar with tons of booze on the shelves behind Rebecca, and a screen tag saying “Legalizing Marijuana: High Times or Buzz Kill?”

Right at this point, Rebecca is saying:

Yeah, but, Ethan, I mean you know exact desperate times call for desperate measures, but should it because they’re desperate for money, then sacrifice your standards and sayin’ “Hey yeah, we’re just going to let anybody smoke pot” – what could that do long term to the productivity of this state?

That’s right – in front of bottles of gin and whiskey, and sounding a little bit like this wasn’t the first place she’d been to that night (Listen to her attempt to say “We shall see” later in the piece.)
The full video is available on YouTube.

“bullet” A Freakonomics Quorum. What Would Happen if Marijuana Were Decriminalized?. Strong opinions from Joel W. Hay, Robert Platshorn, Jeffrey A. Miron, Paul Armentano, and Mike Braun. (breakables warning when reading Hay and Braun).
“bullet” Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee continues his effort to do something about marijuana laws, in a slightly unrelated hearing yesterday (one on crack and powder disparity), and goes off on another rant on Anslinger and jazz musicians. I love this guy. His questions were directed toæ Reps. Rangel, Jackson Lee and Waters. Here is the video. His part comes 53:50 into the video. (Thanks, Eric!)
Here’s a youtube version of that section:

“bullet” New Scientist: Get real, drug czars

International drug policy has become absurd: it’s time world leaders abandoned their futile pursuit of a drug-free world

“bullet” UNODC pushes bad laws onto other countries. Nigeria:

The United Nation’s Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) has challenged the Federal Government on the lapses of its constitutional provision for immunity of public office holders, pointing out the need for it to institute the non-conviction based asset forfeiture legislation.
Senior Project Manager of UNODC, Oliver Stolpe, said the non-conviction based asset forfeiture which is a relatively new concept which is already in operation in some countries is important in countries where stolen assets are difficult to recover.
His words, “Non-conviction based asset forfeiture can provide a procedure that allows for confiscation of stolen assets without the need for a criminal conviction…

“bullet” DrugSense Weekly
“bullet” “drcnet”

ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske was interviewed this morning on KUOW in Seattle.
The audio is available here. It’s a nice extended interview, and gives you a chance to get to know Kerlikowske’s style a little bit.
It’s a mixed bag, with lots of pretty offensive stuff (of course) and some odd material where he puts on his tap shoes and dances up a storm.
Here are a couple of the exchanges…

Q: Is the DEA going to stop raiding medical marijuana facilities?
Kerlikowske: The medical marijuana issue was one that Attorney General Eric Holder briefly discussed, and I have not had my first meeting — ’cause I’ve only been on the job two weeks — with the Attorney General
Q: What have you accomplished, sir?
Kerlikowske: I know, I know, and, well I’m ending the phrase “War on Drugs, so I think that was my…”
Q: What’s it going to be, police action on drugs? Preemptive strike?
Kerlikowske: I don’t have a new term for it, but I can tell you that, that having a different conversation is important — but I haven’t had a chance to talk to the Attorney General, and spend time in depth on the medical marijuana issues and the statements he made, but I certainly plan on doing that.
Q: I notice that there was already, there was another raid in California by the DEA just, I think, in April. I think I saw one in April that happened. Are these — I know that the DEA is not under your purview, but, what’s your opinion?
Kerlikowske: Well, I think that there – the one thing we can say about using law enforcement resources…
Q: March 25th, I should clarify…
Kerlikowski: … is that the law enforcement resources are finite, there’s just this limited number. Law enforcement agencies use their personnel for the most dangerous offenders, for the violent crimes, for the drug traffickers, etc. Medical marijuana doesn’t quite rise to that level. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t illegal, and it doesn’t mean that in cases it’s not a front for some other type of activity, but I think that when I sit down with the Attorney General, and we actually get a chance to put this together in a more formalized fashion, we’ll have answers for you.

Then he danced around needle exchange for awhile, concluding:

KerlikowskeIn the next nine months, we’ll have the President’s drug strategy put together. I’ll have the opportunity to weigh in on the 2011 budget, and that’s where we want to see where we’re headed.

So the interviewer tried to nail him down, noting he had supported needle exchange in past jobs. Check out this move:

Kerlikowske: Needle exchange in Buffalo and needle exchange here in Seattle were not a law enforcement problem. They didn’t cause difficulties from a law enforcement standpoint. It’s much more complex than certainly just the law enforcement viewpoint, so that’s one of the issues too, along with medical marijuana that I’ll be spending time on.

— ie, it’s politics.
Marijuana legalization:

Q: Marijuana. Do you support legalization of marijuana?
Kerlikowske: No.
Q: And why is that?
Kerlikowske: It’s a dangerous drug.
Q: Now, why is it a dangerous drug?
Kerlikowske: It is a dangerous drug. There are numbers of calls to hotlines for people requesting help from marijuana. A number of people that have been arrested, and we test people and have data on this, that are arrested throughout the country, come in to the system with marijuana in their system, as arrests.
Q: But that’s — you were talking to me before about causality and correlation.
Kerlikowske: Right
Q: So why is — I mean, you could probably say that about sugar, caffeine, and, I don’t know, bubble gum. Maybe not bubble gum.
Kerlikowske: I would tell you this – that the legalization vocabulary doesn’t exist for me, and it certainly was made clear that it does not exist in President Obama’s vocabulary.

Wow. Talk about a weak effort to defend not legalizing marijuana! It looks like he’s just going to say “it’s not an option” and not even try to really justify it.
Later on in the interview he gets detailed in talking about treatment and some international issues, showing that it isn’t really that he’s hamstrung about talking due to his short tenure — it’s just that he’s hamstrung talking about things like marijuana and needle exchange.

Note: After the interview, the interviewer took questions from listeners. I didn’t listen to all of them, but there were some very good ones who really nailed Kerlikowske on his points (including one who apparently had read The Drug Czar is required by law to lie and referenced the provisions.

All the recent talk of legalization is really bringing out the crazies. Check out this OpEd by James G. Harpring. I found myself picturing the propaganda newsreels in Starship Troopers as I read it…

By combating the production and use of narcotics, America is winning the war on drugs. By not capitulating to decriminalization and legalization efforts, America is winning the war on drugs. America is winning the war on drugs as society continues to recognize the extreme dangers posed by all forms of drug abuse. America is winning the war on drugs as we make continued efforts in interdiction, eradication, treatment and rehabilitation.
The war on drugs is one in which there are ever-changing fronts and, like a war on poverty or a war on disease, the war on drugs is one which is ongoing, long-term and without a specific end date. The production, importation and use of illegal narcotics constitutes a direct and imminent danger to the national security of the United States. Because international terrorism is inextricably linked with narcotics trafficking, there is no doubt that the investment in the war on drugs is both necessary and worthwhile.
Investing in the war on drugs must continue to be a national imperative. For the future of our society, America has no choice but to continue to fight and win each battle in the ongoing war on drugs. [emphasis added]

James G. Harpring is general counsel for the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office.

Did Kerlikowske just call President Obama dumb?

“Legalization isn’t in the president’s vocabulary, and it certainly isn’t in mine,” he told 300 police, federal agents and law enforcement officials.

Unfortunately, the USA Today report failed to explain how the drug czar managed to communicate that statement.

Watch this video now(no, it isn’t another promo for Showtime’s Weeds).
This is Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn) completely taking it to FBI Director Robert Mueller. He forces Mueller to admit that nobody has died from marijuana and jumps all over him when the Director tries to bring up the gateway theory.
Awesome!

Yes, I know that Showtime is blatantly manipulating me into giving free advertising to their show, but how can I pass it up?

“bullet” Scott Morgan has a good piece up What’s So Funny About Trying to Legalize Marijuana? where he takes issue with people like William Teach at Stop the ACLU who mock those looking to legalize marijuana and then essentially agree that pot should be legalized. It’s a syndrome that we see quite a bit.
“bullet” Alisson Kilkenny: Cops Say to Legalize Drugs at Huffington Post. Nothing particularly new here to us, but a good article and always great to see LEAP and their view getting more press.
“bullet” How about this for a promo for a TV show? To kick off its next season, Showtime’s “Weeds” gives us a brief history of… weed.

“bullet” The Drug War destroys what it touches.

Sheriff Raymond M. Martin has been the law for nearly 20 years in a struggling southern Illinois county. But federal prosecutors say he’s been breaking it lately by peddling pounds of pot, some seized by his own department, often in uniform and from his patrol vehicle. […]
The dealer grew unsettled over time and wanted out, but Martin would have none of that, Rountree wrote. At least twice, the sheriff pulled his service revolver and insisted emphatically to the dealer that making him “disappear” would be “that easy,” according to the affidavit.

“bullet” Drug Czar Kerlikowske testified on the budget yesterday.
I may have more on this later. It was a bit.. odd. I felt like I needed to be reading between the lines at times. Sure, there was a lot of the standard stuff that a drug czar would say in such a presentation (justifying all the budget items with the drug war language of the past), but then there were statements like this:

There continues to be much discussion in the media about whether personal use of drugs should be decriminalized. What we cannot lose sight of during this discussion, is that we all agree addiction is a preventable and treatable chronic condition.

Notice the use of a non-sequitur instead of denunciation, and the offhand acceptance of the idea of discussion.
He also made another statement that we need to hold up to him whenever possible:

During my tenure, debate will be continuous and inclusive of disparate ideas.

Whenever I take apart one of Mark Kleiman’s posts — when I take him to task for understanding the failures of prohibition, yet being unwilling to consider drug policy reform points, or being unwilling to give up his “we can make prohibition work better” philosophy — inevitably someone asks why I bother.
This is why.

In addition to his web journalism, Mark is one of the nation’s leading drug policy experts. His book Against Excess remains an essential reference. So he ought to know.

It is precisely because Kleiman is widely considered an expert, and is extremely knowledgeable, that I must hold him to account when his blind spots cause him to lose the ability for rational thought.
[Note: Kleiman’s referenced post is not bad in itself this time, other than the reflexive need to find away to mention his latest idée fixe/silver bullet at the end.]

Jesse has been tearing up the cable networks promoting his book, but mostly demolishing some torture-apologist pundits. He takes a break from torture to speak plainly about the stupidity of our war on drugs with Geraldo.

When you prohibit something, it doesn’t mean it’s going away. It just means it’s going to be run by criminals now, because it’s not above board. The criminals eventually become so wealthy, they become more powerful than the government, which is a great deal of what’s happening in Mexico right now.

Hey, I certainly don’t agree with everything Jesse says al the time, but I gotta admire the man for his ability and willingness to cut through the B.S.