Drug WarRant

I didn’t even know if I wanted to tackle this one (it can be tiring hitting the same points over and over), but it’s a major editorial and it needs to be taken down a peg.
Christian Science Monitor Editorial Board: Legalize marijuana? Not so fast.

The push toward full legalization is a well-organized, Internet-savvy campaign, generously funded by a few billionaires, including George Soros.

Thanks for the compliments — yes, we’re definitely internet-savvy, much more so than our opponents. And then, yes, that generously funded swipe. Sure, all the funding that drug policy reform groups get is generous. But compared to the entire federal budget aimed at promoting prohibition? It is mere peanuts.
Now the Monitor takes aim at marijuana itself.

A harmless drug? Supporters of legalization often claim that no one has died of a pot overdose, and that it has beneficial effects in alleviating suffering from certain diseases.
True, marijuana cannot directly kill its user in the way that alcohol or a drug like heroin can. And activists claim that it may ease symptoms for certain patients — though it has not been endorsed by the major medical associations representing those patients, and the Food and Drug Administration disputes its value.
Rosalie Pacula, codirector of the Rand Drug Policy Research Center, poses this question: “If pot is relatively harmless, why are we seeing more than 100,000 hospitalizations a year” for marijuana use?
Emergency-room admissions where marijuana is the primary substance involved increased by 164 percent from 1995 to 2002 — faster than for other drugs, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network.

First of all, why does Rand continue to employ this lying embarrassment — Rosalie Pacula? She makes Rand look like some third-rate political action group rather than a research institution. This isn’t the first time she’s blatantly lied to promote marijuana prohibition.
We are NOT seeing 100,000 hospitalizations a year for marijuana use. That is an outright lie.
Radical Russ over at NORML stash takes Pacula on:

The way Rosalie puts it, you‰d think 100,000 people were running into the ER and screaming, ‹Quick, doctor! I need help! I‰ve taken marijuana and I think I‰m going to die!Š (in four years of doing this, I‰ve only heard one such caseá)
But the fact is that these DAWN statistics just survey the drugs people admit to using or what is detected in their body when they are admitted to the emergency room. DAWN doesn‰t measure the cause of why someone‰s in the hospital. If you smoked a joint, went to a restaurant, sat down for dinner and had the server accidentally drop scalding hot coffee in your lap, and you went to the hospital for the burns, and when asked, admitted you had smoked a joint that day, cha-ching, that‰s a ‹marijuana [as] the primary substance involvedŠ in that admission. You might as well say iPods are harmful, because the number of people admitted to hospitals that own an iPod has skyrocketed since 1995.

The Monitor continues…

Research results over the past decade link frequent marijuana use to several serious mental health problems, with youth particularly at risk.

Was that with legal marijuana or illegal marijuana? Were there age restrictions? How large a percent of the population? Can you prove causation? Ahhh, you don’t want to talk about that, do you?

And the British Lung Foundation finds that smoking three to four joints is the equivalent of 20 tobacco cigarettes.

Wait a second! Studies have shown that smoking marijuana doesn’t lead to lung cancer. Is the British Lung Foundation claiming that smoking 20 tobacco cigarettes won’t lead to lung cancer? Interesting.

While marijuana is not addictive in the way that a drug like crack-cocaine is, heavy use can lead to dependence — defined by the same criteria as for other drugs. About half of those who use pot daily become dependent for some period of time, writes Kevin Sabet, in the 2006 book, “Pot Politics”

Sounds ominous. But it’s completely ridiculous. You could as well say:

While video games are not addictive in the way that a drug like crack-cocaine is, heavy use can lead to dependence – defined by the same criteria as for other drugs. About half of those who play video games daily become dependent for some period of time… While chocolate milk is not addictive in the way that a drug like crack-cocaine is, heavy use can lead to dependence – defined by the same criteria as for other drugs. About half of those who drink chocolate milk daily become dependent for some period of time…

Just as valid.

He adds that physicians in Britain and the Netherlands — both countries that have experience with relaxed marijuana laws — are seeing withdrawal symptoms among heavy marijuana users that are similar to those of cocaine and heroin addicts. This has been confirmed in the lab with monkeys.

Now that’s just hilarious.

Dr. Smallwood, I believe that marijuana user may have just exhibited a symptom similar to that of a cocaine or heroin addict.
Blimy, Dr. Van Wijk, you may be right, but I can’t tell for sure. Let’s go to the lab and ask the monkeys.

Similar symptoms? What does that mean?

Today’s marijuana is also much more potent than in the hippie days of yesteryear.

Ah, those hippie days of yesteryear when we smoked stems. Didn’t anybody watch
Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In? Somebody on the writing staff back then had to have had some pretty potent pot.

But that doesn’t change what’s always been known about even casual use of this drug: It distorts perception, reduces motor skills, and affects alertness.

That’s kind of the point.
The Monitor goes on to some of the other stale arguments brought up in recent days…

• Legalization of marijuana wouldn’t help Mexico because the cartels would still have the other drugs. Yep, no point in reducing their income at all, unless we can reduce all of it at once. That’s nonsensical.
• Nobody’s really in jail for marijuana possession so there’s no need to legalize it. Since most of those apprehended don’t go to jail, it can’t really be that much of a bother to them. More nonsense — just ask those who have lost financial aid, jobs, children, homes, cars, etc., etc.
• It’s unlikely that we’ll raise $1.3 billion in taxes from legalization, so why bother? Besides, the black market will undercut it and so you won’t reduce the black market (yeah, like the black market for avoiding cigarette taxes is as violent as the black market for illegal drugs.)

A government could attempt to eliminate the black market altogether by making marijuana incredibly cheap (Dr. Pacula at the RAND Organization says today’s black market price is about four times what it would be if pot were completely legalized). But then use would skyrocket and teens (though barred) could buy it with their lunch money.

Lunch money. Yeah, that’s a nice one. Why don’t you try something like “babies will be able trade their mashed peas for it”? And that skyrocketing use? Care to cite some proof?

Indeed, legalizing marijuana is bound to increase use simply because of availability. Legalization advocates say “not so” and point to the Netherlands and its legal marijuana “coffee shops.” Indeed, after the Dutch de facto legalized the drug in 1976, use stayed about the same for adults and youth. But it took off after 1984, growing by 300 percent over the next decade or so. Experts attribute this to commercialization (sound like alcohol?), and also society’s view of the drug as normal š which took a while to set in.

Experts? Commercialization? Coffee shops? Care to mention that rates are still well below the U.S.?

As America has learned with alcohol, taxes don’t begin to cover the costs to society of destroyed families, lost productivity, and ruined lives š and regulators still have not succeeded in keeping alcohol from underage drinkers.

Because marijuana behavior is just like alcohol behavior, right?

No one has figured out what the exact social costs of legalizing marijuana would be. But ephemeral taxes won’t cover them — nor should society want to encourage easier access to a drug that can lead to dependency, has health risks, and reduces alertness, to name just a few of its negative outcomes.

Well, since we don’t know what it’ll cost and whether problem use will increase at all, we should continue to spend billions of dollars arresting people who are not having a problem with marijuana and not actually address the issue of those who do. Sounds incredibly stupid.

[Parents] must let lawmakers know that legalization is not OK, and they must carry this message to their children, too. Disapproval, along with information on risk, are the most important factors in discouraging marijuana and cocaine use among high school seniors, according to the University of Michigan’s “Monitoring the Future” project on substance abuse.

Now this is really messed up. Parents should tell their children that legalization is not OK? Not that drugs are not OK, but that legalization is not OK? Wow.

Today’s youth are tomorrow’s world problem solvers — and the ones most likely to be affected if marijuana is legalized. Future generations need to be clear thinkers. For their sakes, those who oppose legalizing marijuana must become vocal, well-funded, and mainstream — before it’s too late.

Sorry, Christian Science Monitor, but it’s too late. All the clear thinkers are on our side.

I must confess to being confused by the amount of apparent surprise that has greeted Gil Kerlikowske’s recent statements that he is opposed to legalization.
Of course he is. He just got a new job – a government job that has Congressional oversight. And the job description for that new job, well, it wasn’t a handshake and a promise, it wasn’t a typed memo — no, it was written into law by Congress and specifically includes:

“… and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that … is listed in schedule 1…. and has not been approved for use … by the Food and Drug Administration”

So, of course he’s going to say he’s against legalization. It’s his job. I don’t know if it’s his personal view or not, but it certainly is his job to say it.
And, for the most part so far, Kerlikowske is treating the question like someone who’s job it is to answer a particular way. “Legalization isn’t in my vocabulary,” “Legalization isn’t on the plate,” “Legalization isn’t an option,” etc.
If Walters got the question, he’d go on at length with detailed plausible-sounding (but still full of crap) reasons why marijuana should remain illegal. Kerlikowske offers up weak-ass nonsense and then merely retreats into “I’m not going to talk about it.” Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have his repertoire built up yet, but it may also be that he just doesn’t care – and as long as he’s said legalization isn’t an option, he’s covered.
Take a look at this exchange again:

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.

Doesn’t sound like a true believer to me.
If we ever want the ‘drug czar’ to stop opposing legalization, we need to change the language in Congress, and Kerlikowske could be giving us the opening to do that.
Everybody these days is calling for the discussion — yes, even politicians!
If Kerlikowske was giving compelling reasons against legalization (assuming such existed), then it could be a problem, but by merely saying “I’m not going to talk about it” (or “it’s not in my vocabulary”), he makes it obvious (or gives us the opportunity to make it obvious) that the authorizing language is preventing the discussion that everyone wants.
It’s then easy to make the case to Congress that the Director can hardly “assist in the establishment of policies, goals, objectives, and priorities for the National Drug Control Program” if he doesn’t even have all the vocabulary.
Personally, I love the “not in my vocabulary” line — it’s a great one to ridicule, and, if the one person in this country who has the most direct and specific employment reason to oppose legalization can’t get any more enthused than that, then our opposition is pretty weak.

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.