Drug WarRant

The TV is showing ads for an upcoming show by blue collar comedian Ron White, including this clip of him talking about his drug bust.

They found seven-eighths of a gram of marijuana. Now, when I have seven-eighths of a gram of marijuana, I consider myself to be out of pot.

In a comment over at Hit and Run, Pat Rogers takes me to task for leading the sheep who read my blog down the dangerous hope path when I should apparently be automatically condemning everything that the Obama administration does without investigation or analysis.

Second, for those blaming the folks who honestly thought that Obama would be different and so voted for him, it was not their fault. They were led by commentators in the reform community who idealistically rephrased and misrepresented everything that Obama actually said leading reformers by their hopes rather than informing them of the reality. And this continues today. I got the Holder quote from Pete Guither’s Drug WarRant where Pete and Eric Sterling dissect the Holder quote, deny what he actually said. And then proceed to fantasize about what they think he really said. “Sometimes, I’m clueless“

Pat’s not the only one to imply that I’ve drunk the cool-aid, so I should probably make this clear…
Yes, I admit that I personally like President Obama. I think he’s intelligent and I like having a President with an I.Q. above 20. I think that he has the potential for improving our ability to work with the rest of the world (which is in our direct interest), and I think that he has the potential to be better (not in any way good, but less bad) on drug policy than Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or John McCain (which still isn’t saying much). On the other hand, his record on civil liberties is atrocious and dangerous, and I’m in full agreement with Glenn Greenwald in this area. Others may have different opinions in all these areas and I welcome the diversity of opinion that shows up at this site in the comments section.
Those who think I give Barack a free pass clearly haven’t read this blog. My ‘bama-bashing bonafides go back almost five years, when I rather pointedly endorsed Kohn for U.S. Senate over Obama. I have regularly criticized him and I have also constantly told people that reform will not come from the President (any President), but from the people. However, I have no interest in the vapid emptiness of reflexive Obama hatred.
Back to the topic in question. A New York Times reporter claims that Holder said (and she did not quote him, but paraphrased) that he wants to look into prosecuting more lower quantity marijuana possession cases at the federal level.
Now, someone could read that and say “The feds want to bust regular marijuana users. Fuck Obama!” And that might feel good. But I don’t know what it actually accomplishes.
To me (and clearly to Eric Sterling), it didn’t pass the smell test.
It just doesn’t make sense.
I don’t mean that it doesn’t make sense in the sense that the drug war doesn’t make sense. Of course I don’t expect politicians to say things that make actual sense.
But I do expect them to make sense within the perverted and corrupt context of their own political self-interest. And you don’t have to be a theatre major (although I was) to be able to play-act the part of a prohibitionist pandering politician and try to imagine their self-interest.
It isn’t that it doesn’t make sense because it’s Obama’s AG. This wouldn’t have made sense if it was John Ashcroft or Janet Reno, or Michael Mukasey or Alberto Gonzales. It wouldn’t have made sense if it was John Walters or Karen Tandy. What political value do you get from actively pursuing an increase in federal prosecutions of marijuana possession cases?
Even more so, it doesn’t make sense now. Not when the larger discussions are about recommending that the feds increase the quantities of crack/cocaine needed to trigger federal prosecution. Not when Webb is calling for a re-evaluation of the entire drug war. Not when public opinion is exploding regarding marijuana legalization. Not when more states are poised to pass medical marijuana.
And finally, it doesn’t make sense when talking with the Attorney General of Mexico (which Holder apparently was). How does it help Mexico if the feds are spending their time prosecuting small-time marijuana possession cases in the U.S.?
Maybe there is a way that it makes political self-interest sense. I just don’t see it. That’s why I questioned it. That’s why I attempted to analyze it. Not because I wanted blindly to believe in hope, but because I have a blog and I was trying to understand something that wasn’t making sense to me.
If Holder attempts to expand federal prosecution to go after small-time marijuana possession cases, then I’ll be on the front lines condemning him.
But in the meantime, I’m going to continue trying to understand. And I’m sorry if some people don’t like that.
Update: Scott Morgan has some backstory that helps to explain Holder’s comment.

The officials who met with Holder today quizzed him on a variety of local concerns. For example, Barbara LaWall, the Pima County, Ariz., attorney, said that federal prosecutors in her state were refusing to take cases involving cross-border marijuana seizures of 500 pounds or less.
The result, she said, has been no convictions for hundreds of smugglers caught with about 490 pounds of marijuana. [Baltimore Sun]

So when Holder says he’s “exploring ways to lower the minimum amount required for the federal prosecution of possession cases,” he’s responding to complaints that major traffickers are currently being allowed to walk.

This makes sense. Not that I think Holder is right to be ratcheting up the drug war – of course not. Marijuana should be legal. Period. But what Eric Sterling and I were speculating appears to be, in fact, correct. The New York Times reporter is not clear about the definition of the word “possession” as used in law (and as is known to most marijuana users). None of use would refer to the federal prosecution of a smuggler bringing 490 pounds of marijuana into the country as a marijuana possession case.
It may be easier for our outrage to assume that Holder has decided to send the feds after people with an ounce, but I’d rather know what’s really going on. Thanks to Scott for tracking it down.

Drug WarRant regular Daniel Williams’ new online talk show the opium den goes live tonight at 9 pm Eastern.
Check it out.
Daniel is also the author of “the Naked Truths about Drugs”

Just as an ongoing reminder:

Barack Obama: “It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

This excellent quote is going to serve as a kind of touchstone for evaluating various administration activities.
So let’s check in on that philosophy:

Today we honor D.A.R.E. for its important work. The efforts of D.A.R.E.’s instructors and supporters benefit our Nation’s children and are deserving of praise and appreciation. D.A.R.E.’s renewed efforts to implement science-based programs and to strengthen partnerships among law enforcement, families, and their communities are particularly worthy of commendation. Through effective teaching methods and broad participation, D.A.R.E. can help ensure that every child in America enjoys the opportunities he or she deserves.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 8, 2009, as National D.A.R.E. Day. I call upon our youth, parents, educators, law enforcement personnel, and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs and activities.

Ah, notice the insertion of the words “renewed efforts to implement science-based programs.” That must be what he was talking about.
Still seems like we’re throwing a birthday party for a pig with brightly colored lips.

I haven’t generally considered myself a fan of Tom Tancredo in most political areas, but apparently he’s looking to become a new force in drug policy reform.
Vincent Carroll: Tancredo’s next crusade? in the Denver Post…

What do you talk about at lunch with Tom Tancredo? I thought I knew, but to my surprise (and relief), we spent much of the hour discussing the wisdom of legalizing drugs rather than rehashing our disagreements over illegal immigrants.

“The status quo isn’t working,” Tancredo says, meaning the war on drugs has failed Ö spectacularly. And while that’s hardly a novel insight, most people who reach it don’t take the next step of questioning the drug war itself. […]

Meanwhile Ö and you already know this from a slew of news reports Ö the ferocity of international drug cartels is simply breathtaking. Cartel-related violence and terror Ö including beheadings and torture right out of al-Qaeda’s playbook Ö snuffed out 6,000 or so lives last year in Mexico alone, with 1,600 murders just in Ciudad Juarez. Tancredo worries about this corruption seeping northward if we don’t de-fund the drug lords by legalizing at least some narcotics.

Tancredo’s also established a think tank – The Rocky Mountain Foundation – and one of its major thrusts appears to be to discredit the war on drugs.
The more allies we get from an ever wider range of political homes the better.
I’d love to see Tancredo go on Lou Dobbs and tell him that drugs should be legalized, just to see Dobbs’ head explode.

Glenn Greenwald’s excellent report (on the successful decriminalization of all drugs in Portugal for personal use) was picked up by Scientific American: Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results
What really caught my attention in this article was that they got the UNODC to agree that it seemed to work, but the response was Kafkaesque.

Walter Kemp, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, says decriminalization in Portugal “appears to be working.” He adds that his office is putting more emphasis on improving health outcomes, such as reducing needle-borne infections, but that it does not explicitly support decriminalization, “because it smacks of legalization.”

Yes, decrim works, but we don’t support something that actually works because it sounds like something we’re afraid want to talk about. Right.

A spokesperson for the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy declined to comment, citing the pending Senate confirmation of the office’s new director, former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs also declined to comment on the report.

Well, I guess no policy is better than what we’re used to.

The inestimable Transform Drug Policy Foundation has done it again.

Their newest report is A Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs (pdf), which is that, plus a kick in the pants.

In a field where governments have gone out of their way to avoid and even prevent useful efficacy studies, Transform is stepping up to bat and doing (to the best of their ability) the work that should be done by the prohibitionists — actually looking at whether prohibition is cost-effective. And the result of their extremely conservative analysis (they even chose to not include a number of potentially controversial topics such as tax income or improved safety in drug preparation) shows that a regulated legalization of cocaine and heroin would save money over prohibition in all of four usage change models (50% decrease in use, no change in use, 50% increase in use, 100% increase in use).

But this report not only is a powerful jumping off point for future study, it is a scathing indictment of all the weasels who have defended prohibition by saying that legalization would be too “expensive” to even consider while refusing to justify the cost-effectiveness of prohibition or prove any actual deterrence — the UK Government, the UNODC, the US Government, and yes, even the prohibition apologists.

Despite being such an important issue, there has never been a cost-benefit analysis at the level of sophistication required, either of prohibition (its legislative instruments and their enforcement) or of policy alternatives, carried out anywhere in the world and certainly not for the UK. Furthermore, and disappointingly, the comparatively scant relevant research that has been undertaken by Government departments has frequently been suppressed.

The whole report is full of useful information and quotable material, so what I discuss here will only be a taste of some of the things that particularly caught my attention.

The report takes some important space to address the important understanding that drug policy causes harm.

Yet despite these issues being apparently understood and frequently acknowledged at the highest level, in the majority of political, media and public discourses no such distinction is made between the harms that result from drug use per se and those that are either entirely or partially the result of policy, specifically the overarching policy paradigm of prohibition. The result is that both sets of harms are conflated and then simplistically blamed on drugs or, by default, drug users. The failure to disaggregate drug use harms from drug policy harms or, specifically, prohibition harms, is a major obstacle to meaningful evaluation of existing policy and consequently, to the rational development of potentially more effective policy responses. […]

This conceptual problem has also had direct political consequences. Logical fallacies flow from this error, such as the inclusion of the epidemic of HIV/AIDS amongst injecting drug users as an example of ‘drug harms‰ to defend the prohibitionist status quo. In this case a specific drug-related harm that is almost exclusively the result of the high risk behaviours, rituals, products and environments that stem directly from prohibition and the default underground drug cultures it creates, is perversely being used both to justify the continuation of the very policy that has fostered it in the first instance, and also to argue against the policy that would largely eliminate it.

There’s a fair amount of discussion about the lack of evidence for the deterrence factor that all prohibitionists claim is the holy grail of criminalizing drugs (and the notion that regulated legalization would open the flood-gates to an entire population of drug-addicted zombies).

The relatively small amount of independent research that has been done in this area suggests that the law and enforcement are, at best, marginal factors in drug taking decisions. This especially holds true for the socially excluded groups who are most vulnerable to problematic use, including young people, those with mental health problems, and those from socially deprived communities. Dependent users of heroin and crack in particular, who are both highly likely to have a criminal record already and whose demand is generally resistant to any interventions, are also – as discussed above – the population creating the vast majority of social and economic costs. Thus the group that creates most of prohibition‰s costs are also the group least likely to be susceptible to its deterrent effects.

One of the things not specifically figured into Transform’s cost-effectiveness study is the significant potential health savings from regulated legalization.

One concept that this paper does not explore nor attempt to cost is the impact that the shift from illicit to legally regulated supply might have on patterns of use in terms of shifts in choice of drug and preparation of drug. One observed effect of prohibition is that the economic pressures of the illicit market tend to cause increased concentration of available drug preparations, which are more profitable per unit of weight. Just as under alcohol prohibition the trade in beers and wines gave way to more concentrated, profitable and dangerous spirits, the same trend has been observed over the past century with opiates — from opium (smoked or in drinkable preparations) through to snorted, smoked and injectable heroin, and more recently with the cannabis market being increasingly saturated with more potent/profitable varieties. With coca-based products the transformation has been dramatic from coca leaf, through coca based
drinks (tea, wines, and other drinks, once including Coca Cola) through cocaine powder and ultimately to smokable crack.

It seems likely that users, if a range of drugs and preparations are available, will tend to make rational decisions and shift towards the less harmful drugs, less harmful preparations and less risky behaviours and modes of administration. This phenomenon was observed following the repeal of alcohol prohibition when the market shifted away from spirits back towards beers and wines. Such a shift would be actively promoted and encouraged by a public health guided policy involving targeted education about drug risks combined with differential application of regulatory controls i.e. stricter controls (e.g. higher prices, restricted availability) for more dangerous drugs or preparations. Evaluating potential impacts of such approaches is beyond the remit of this paper but is again a potentially useful arena for future study.

Good stuff. A must-read for all policy leaders and politicians dealing with drug policy. It’s a challenge and a starting point for a difficult, but essential field of study.

Many of the “academics” in this country have said that such study is impossible, so there’s no point in discussing legalization. The truth, however, is that justifying prohibition without undertaking such study is irresponsible and dishonest.
Update: The UK Government actually managed to prove both its incompetence and its inability to read with its response:

But a Home Office spokesman said: “Drugs are controlled because they are harmful. The law provides an important deterrent to drug use and legalisation would risk a huge increase in consumption with an associated cost to public health.

“The legalisation of drugs would not eliminate the crime committed by organised career criminals; such criminals would simply seek new sources of illicit revenue through crime. Neither would a regulated market eliminate illicit supplies, as alcohol and tobacco smuggling demonstrate.”

I’m watching a documentary about the musical Hair, and it included this quote:

The hippies really had a philosophy of their drugs. There were good drugs and bad drugs. Bad drugs shut your mind down — alcohol, cocaine, heroin. Good drugs opened your mind up — pot, peyote, LSD.

Discuss.

Updates to yesterday’s post
“bullet” A big thanks to Dano regarding the postponement of Ammiano’s legalization bill (AB 390). A note from Dale Gieringer posted at Mendocinocountry’s Blog says:

Contrary to the article by Richard Johnson, Assemblyman Ammiano did NOT withdraw his bill AB 390 (which is for legalization, NOTŠ decriminalizationŠ). I just spoke with him today, and he is pursuing it vigorously.
He had it extended into a two-year bill in order to give us more time to lobby the legislature. The Speaker had been pressing to kill the bill quickly by bringing it to an early hearing in a hostile committee. At Ammiano‰s request, the bill was kept alive and postponed for extended consideration. Hearings are expected next January or December.

“bullet” Regarding the Holder attribution in the New York Times:

And with marijuana sales central to the drug trade, Mr. Holder said he was exploring ways to lower the minimum amount required for the federal prosecution of possession cases.

I asked reporter Ginger Thompson whether Holder had been talking about distributing or importing rather than possession.
Her reply:

Thanks very much for your query.
Mr. Holder said he thought that too few marijuana possession cases were prosecuted by the federal government, and that he was exploring lowering the minimums to prosecute more.

Still clueless as to what that really means, but I hold to my analysis from yesterday.

This isn’t the first year that Illinois has discussed medical marijuana. So you’d think that the media would be better able to report on it by now.
“bullet” Charity Bonner reports in the Elgin Courier News.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the pill [Marinol] has been found to relieve nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy for cancer. The USDA says the drug is a safer alternative since it does not contain the chemicals or carcinogens found in smoked marijuana. The USDA also reported that some states that have legalized medical marijuana, such as California, have seen an abuse of the system.

Dear Charity,
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is the DEA, not the USDA. The USDA is the United States Department of Agriculture. Neither the DEA nor the USDA are trained in medicine or have any reason to be commenting on the medical efficacy of drugs.
“bullet” In another article about medical marijuana in Illinois, the Southtown Star’s Maura Possley does a decent job, but is then sabotaged by her headline writer with “Springfield legislators weighing dope proposal”
Really? Dope proposal?
It made me wonder whether, if they wrote an article about breast cancer, they’d title it “Springfield legislators weighing hooters proposal.”
And you wonder why newspapers are shutting down…