Drug WarRant

Big thanks to NORMLinFL in comments for pointing us to Congressional Research Service Report RL33211: Medical Marijuana: Review and Analysis of Federal and State Policies by Mark Eddy, Domestic Social Policy Division, November 10, 2008.

CRS reports are compilations and summaries of existing information, and are commissioned by Congress to provide background information to be used in helping them formulate policy. Ideally, they are intended to be a straightforward presentation of the available facts, without bias or political agenda (although some CRS reports I’ve read end up with perhaps unintended bias due to incomplete research methods and/or failure to ask the right questions).

This CRS report is one of the best I’ve read, and stands on its own as an excellent summary of the history, science and politics of medical marijuana.

Here’s an important part of its methodology:

In the ongoing debate over cannabis as medicine, certain arguments are
frequently made on both sides of the issue. These arguments are briefly stated below
and are analyzed in turn. Equal weight is not given to both sides of every argument.
Instead, the analysis is weighted according to the preponderance of evidence as
currently understood. CRS takes no position on the claims or counterclaims in this
debate.

What follows is an attempt to analyze objectively the claims frequently made
about the role that herbal cannabis might or might not play in the treatment of certain
diseases and about the possible societal consequences should its role in the practice
of modern medicine be expanded beyond the places where it is now permitted under
state laws. [emphasis added]

An excellent approach which, since the evidence leans toward medical marijuana, leads any reader of the report to naturally see the reason and logic in supporting medical marijuana.

The report notes that it is unlikely for Congress or the Administration to reschedule marijuana out of schedule 1, but that puts them at odds with vast public opinion, the Supreme Court, and science.

It’s really something to read all the points in history of medical marijuana and see how narrow political self-interest in the DEA, FDA, HHS, etc. trumped science and medical/legal opinion at every turn.

And then, matter of fact statements sprinkled throughout, such as:

Many patients have found that they benefit more from the whole plant than
from any synthetically produced chemical derivative.87 Furthermore, the natural plant
can be grown easily and inexpensively, whereas Marinol and any other cannabisbased
pharmaceuticals that might be developed in the future will likely be expensive
Ö prohibitively so for some patients.88 […]

The federal government‰s own IND Compassionate Access Program, which has
provided government-grown medical marijuana to a select group of patients since
1978, provides important evidence that marijuana has medicinal value and can be
used safely. […]

The therapeutic value of smoked marijuana is supported by existing research and experience. […]

Smoking can actually be a preferred drug delivery system for patients whose
nausea prevents them from taking anything orally. Such patients need to inhale their
antiemitic drug. Other patients prefer inhaling because the drug is absorbed much
more quickly through the lungs, so that the beneficial effects of the drug are felt
almost at once. This rapid onset also gives patients more control over dosage. […]

Concerns that medical cannabis laws send the wrong message to vulnerable groups such as adolescents seem to be unfounded. […]

Marijuana grown for medical purposes, according to DEA and
other federal drug control agencies, can be diverted into the larger, illegal marijuana
market, thereby undermining law enforcement efforts to eliminate the marijuana
market altogether. […] GAO responded that in their interviews with federal officials regarding the impact of state medical marijuana laws on their law enforcement efforts, ‹none of the federal officials we spoke with provided information that abuse of medical marijuana laws was routinely occurring in any of the states, including California.Š116 The
government also failed to establish this in the Raich case. […]

The situation that Grinspoon and Bakalar described in 1995 in the
Journal of the American Medical Association persists a decade later: ‹At present, the
greatest danger in medical use of marihuana is its illegality, which imposes much
anxiety and expense on suffering people, forces them to bargain with illicit drug
dealers, and exposes them to the threat of criminal prosecution.Š131 […]

As for the charge that politics should not play a role in the drug approval and
controlled substance scheduling processes, medical marijuana supporters point out
that marijuana‰s original listing as a Schedule I substance in 1970 was itself a
political act on the part of Congress.

Scientists on both sides of the issue say more research needs to be done, yet
some researchers charge that the federal government has all but shut down marijuana
clinical trials for reasons based on politics and ideology rather than science.143 […]

The report concludes with a discussion about the politics of medical marijuana…

Is it cynical or smart for NORML and other drug reform organizations to
simultaneously pursue the separate goals of marijuana decriminalization for all, on
the one hand, and marijuana rescheduling for the seriously ill, on the other? It is not
unusual for political activists tactically to press for Ö and accept Ö half-measures
in pursuit of a larger strategic goal. Pro-life activists work to prohibit partial-birth
abortions and to pass parental notification laws. Gay rights activists seek limited
domestic partner benefits as a stepping stone to full marriage equality. Thus is the
tactic used on both sides of the cultural divide in America, to the alarm of those
opposed. […]

Rescheduling marijuana and making it available for medical use and research is not necessarily a step toward legalizing its recreational use. Such a move would put it on a par with cocaine, methamphetamine, morphine, and methadone, all of
which are Schedule II substances that are not close to becoming legal for recreational use. Proponents of medical marijuana ask why marijuana should be considered differently than these other scheduled substances.

It is also arguable that marijuana should indeed be considered differently than cocaine, methamphetamine, morphine, and methadone. Scientists note that marijuana is less harmful and less addictive than these Schedule II substances.

Acceptance of medical marijuana could in fact pave the way for its more generalized use. Ethan Nadelmann, head of the Drug Policy Alliance, has observed, ‹As medical marijuana becomes more regulated and institutionalized in the West, that may provide a model for how we ultimately make marijuana legal for all adults.Š151 Medical marijuana opponents have trumpeted his candor as proof of the hypocrisy of those on the other side of the issue. Others note, however, that his comment may be less hypocritical than astute.

This would be a good report to print and send to your Congressional Representatives (at both the state and federal level). Just to make sure they’ve seen it.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security is planning hearings on southern border violence (ie, the drug war).
And now there are some House Hearings as well that may come up in the next week as well. Commenter Pat Rogers is all over this on his blog, along with providing lists of House Committee Members and Senate Homeland Security Committee members.
I’ve got to say that at first glance, the makeup of these Homeland Security Committees is pretty horrible. Chairman Lieberman? Pryor, Coburn, McCain, Burris? And Souder in the House? These are names unlikely to demonstrate even a glimmer of intelligence regarding the drug war.

I’ve always thought of Al Roker’s DEA as a form of drug war pornography.
But apparently, it’s just soft-core porn compared to Chris Ryan’s Elite Police (DVD out on Monday)

And they‰re about ‹knock down the doorŠ of a cocaine-making lab . . . big time.
KABOOM! A searing blast of heat scorches Chris‰s cheeks as the hut VAPORISES before his eyes, sending a 3,000ft plume of smoke into the air thanks to plastic explosives planted by the JunglasÖColombia‰s frontline cops in the war against drugs.
‹We left the coke lab a blast site of scorched metal stinking of napalm,Š says Bravo Two Zero hero Chris who worked with the squad for his dramatic TV series, Elite Police, about the South American cocaine trail. ‹Then we needed to get out fast.Š

This is drug war action so intense, it even spontaneously breaks out into CAPITALS!
But of course, this isn’t about making money. It’s got a more important message:

‹There was a story where 14 gangsters‰ bodies turned up without heads. Their gang then chopped off the rival gang‰s heads a week later. There‰s no end to what they will do.Š
Now Chris hopes his programme will make cocaine users in the UK sit up and take notice. ‹Despite cocaine being so addictive, some Brits see it as relatively harmless,Š says Chris.
‹But as I discovered, the facts behind it are horrifying. And the misery it causes on its way to our streets is shocking.Š

Lots of good reading today
“bullet” Marijuana’s Manhattan Project — fascinating five-page article about a couple of medical marijuana entrepreneurs who, at some risk, are developing lab testing protocols for medical marijuana to improve growing safety and to provide better information to patients about the pot they’re purchasing.
“bullet” Tranform’s Danny Kushlick really lays into the UNODC and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs:

Every state that signs up to the Political Declaration at this Commission recommits the UN to complicity in fighting a catastrophic war on drugs. It is a tragic irony that the UN, so often renowned for peacekeeping, is being used to fight a war that brings untold misery to some of the most marginalised people on earth. 8000 deaths in Mexico in recent years, the destabilisation of Colombia and Afghanistan, continued corruption and instability in the Caribbean and West Africa are testament to the catastrophic impact of a drug control system based upon global prohibition.
It is no surprise that the Declaration is unlikely even to mention harm reduction, as it runs counter to the primary impact of the prevailing drug control system which, as the past ten years demonstrate, increases harm.

“bullet” Great rant in a student newspaper. All The Cool Kids Forfeit Their 4th Amendment Rights…. and why you shouldn’t

Always refuse searches.æ You have nothing to gain and everything to lose when you allow an officer to search your belongings.æ Why people routinely waive their fourth amendment rights is completely beyond me.æ I don’t know what kind of marijuana students at KSU smoke, but I’m guessing it must be pretty strong to make them forget a 222-year-old document that they learned about in third grade.

“bullet” I have a message for John Walters. We had to listen to you for 8 years, now shut the fuck up. You have nothing valid to add to any conversation. Note: Jacob Sullum actually goes to the effort to fisk this nonsense. He’s a more patient man than I.
“bullet” Via Kaptinemo in comments comes this heartbreaking story:

In July 2007, Teresa Ortega stood solemnly in a field of wilting corn and pineapple crops as tears streamed down her cheeks. She had taken it upon herself to start a farm with 100 widows – women who lost their husbands and children to Colombia’s war and were fighting against poverty. Together they had purchased this small farm and worked it on the weekends to make ends meet. Now – after a plane sprayed chemicals over their farm – all was lost.
To bureaucrats in Washington, Teresa and her friends are simply additional collateral damage at ground zero of Washington’s drug war in South America.

“bullet” Libby Brooks in the Guardian: Never mind the evidence – a drug-free world is nigh

The harm caused by prohibition is staggering, yet still politicians cling to the blinkered ambition of a global ‘war on drugs’

“bullet” LEAP’s Howard Wooldridge visits the Conservative Policital Action Conference and finds people agreeing with him.
“bullet” Via Grits for Breakfast: Texas legislators are impressed by “compelling” evidence of the need to outlaw salvia: a YouTube video about driving while on Salvia. They missed, however, that this was a comedy video made by a guy who also made videos called “Gardening on Salvia and Writing A Letter To Congress on Salvia.
“bullet” Point-Counterpoint: DUST-UP
Medical marijuana in California: a history Have the state’s efforts to legalize and regulate medical marijuana been successful? Scott Imler and Stephen Gutwillig debate.
“bullet” DrugSense Weekly
“bullet” “drcnet”

The Economist has come out with another series of powerhouse features on the drug war
“bullet” Dealing with Drugs: On the trail of the traffickers

This article is mostly a detailed review of the situation in Mexico, complete with the usual quotes from Mexican officials that the violence is proof that the war is working. The Economist doesn’t take a strong obvious position here, but notes that there’s no evidence that the cartels are in danger, concluding “And the drug business, ever supple, will adapt and survive.”
This chart was a particularly interesting addition to the article, showing that nothing we do to attempt to eradicate coca can possibly work. Certainly in the last 20 years, we have been funding and actively participating in immense eradication efforts. The effect? Absolutely zero. In fact, production went up.
“bullet” Levels of prohibition: A toker’s guide
This article gives a brief overview of enforcement differences around the world, noting tha, while the UNODC would like to hold Sweden up as an example of oppressive drug policy that works, the real story doesn’t support that as a world-wide model:

A survey last year by the World Health Organisation examined drug-taking in 17 countries and found no link between the strictness of prohibition and the amount of drug consumption. (The lenient Netherlands, interestingly, has one of the lowest rates of ‹problemŠ drug use in Europe.) ‹Countries with more stringent policies did not have lower levels of such drug use than countries with more liberal policies,Š the researchers concluded. For every strict regime like Sweden, there is another such as Britain or America where a tough approach co-exists with widespread drug use.

“bullet” The cocaine business: Sniffy customers
This article focuses mostly on the smuggling of cocaine to England, noting that “as one route closes, another opens up” but noting that many of the criminals lack market sophistication making the job a bit easier for the police at the current time.
“bullet” Drug education: In America, lessons learned
This is an overview of drug education efforts here (complete with a paragraph on DARE), with this fine conclusion:

It may seem odd that the campaign against tobacco, a legal drug, has displayed so much more Úlan than the war on illegal drugs. Yet this is natural. Making a drug illegal may discourage some people from taking it, but it also discourages frank conversation and clear thinking. It is much easier to attack something if it is brought into the light.

“bullet” But the best piece in the entire issue was the lead story:
Failed states and failed policies: How to stop the drug wars (with the subhead: “Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution“)
The article starts out talking about the failures of the drug war, even using the phrase “Al Capone, but on a global scale.” And then they get to their recommendation:

Legalisation would not only drive away the gangsters; it would transform drugs from a law-and-order problem into a public-health problem, which is how they ought to be treated. Governments would tax and regulate the drug trade, and use the funds raised (and the billions saved on law-enforcement) to educate the public about the risks of drug-taking and to treat addiction. The sale of drugs to minors should remain banned. Different drugs would command different levels of taxation and regulation. This system would be fiddly and imperfect, requiring constant monitoring and hard-to-measure trade-offs. Post-tax prices should be set at a level that would strike a balance between damping down use on the one hand, and discouraging a black market and the desperate acts of theft and prostitution to which addicts now resort to feed their habits.

Selling even this flawed system to people in producer countries, where organised crime is the central political issue, is fairly easy. The tough part comes in the consumer countries, where addiction is the main political battle. Plenty of American parents might accept that legalisation would be the right answer for the people of Latin America, Asia and Africa; they might even see its usefulness in the fight against terrorism. But their immediate fear would be for their own children.

That’s why we, in the consumer countries, need to fight harder to convince people. And then the article made another critical point:

That fear is based in large part on the presumption that more people would take drugs under a legal regime. That presumption may be wrong. There is no correlation between the harshness of drug laws and the incidence of drug-taking: citizens living under tough regimes (notably America but also Britain) take more drugs, not fewer. Embarrassed drug warriors blame this on alleged cultural differences, but even in fairly similar countries tough rules make little difference to the number of addicts: harsh Sweden and more liberal Norway have precisely the same addiction rates. Legalisation might reduce both supply (pushers by definition push) and demand (part of that dangerous thrill would go). Nobody knows for certain. But it is hard to argue that sales of any product that is made cheaper, safer and more widely available would fall. Any honest proponent of legalisation would be wise to assume that drug-taking as a whole would rise.

And we do generally assume that drug-taking as a whole would rise, even though there is, in fact, no hard evidence even of that. But the point is that’s OK, because then we can focus our efforts on reducing the harm of the abusive drug taking and not worry about the responsible drug taking.

There are two main reasons for arguing that prohibition should be scrapped all the same. The first is one of liberal principle. Although some illegal drugs are extremely dangerous to some people, most are not especially harmful. (Tobacco is more addictive than virtually all of them.) Most consumers of illegal drugs, including cocaine and even heroin, take them only occasionally. They do so because they derive enjoyment from them (as they do from whisky or a Marlboro Light). It is not the state‰s job to stop them from doing so.

What about addiction? That is partly covered by this first argument, as the harm involved is primarily visited upon the user. But addiction can also inflict misery on the families and especially the children of any addict, and involves wider social costs. That is why discouraging and treating addiction should be the priority for drug policy. Hence the second argument: legalisation offers the opportunity to deal with addiction properly.

Exactly. The fact is that we can never, in a prohibition regime, effectively deal with those who have problems with drugs.
The final conclusion:

A calculated gamble, or another century of failure?
This newspaper first argued for legalisation 20 years ago (see article). Reviewing the evidence again (see article), prohibition seems even more harmful, especially for the poor and weak of the world. Legalisation would not drive gangsters completely out of drugs; as with alcohol and cigarettes, there would be taxes to avoid and rules to subvert. Nor would it automatically cure failed states like Afghanistan. Our solution is a messy one; but a century of manifest failure argues for trying it.

I sure do love listening to people who understand economics talk about the drug war.

So this is how we spread democracy…

Mrs. Mary Carlin Yates, a former United States Ambassador to Ghana, has asked journalists to assist traditional chiefs, fishermen and the security agencies to fight the illicit drug trade, […]
Mrs Yates said though challenges confronting the media were enormous, ‹you should not give up because you give a voice to your own people who cannot speak for themselves.Š
‹If you allow drug cartels to take over your country, it will take a long time to rid the society off the effects of the menace, adding, already Ghana is an example in democratic principles in Africa and the world, and she must, therefore, take control of its territorial security to safeguard the interests of the citizenry.
Mrs Yates noted that the media‰s role in the fight of the drug war was crucial and would go a long way to complement the efforts of the military and other international partners.

Apparently, telling people the truth missed her list of media roles.

“bullet” Illinois: Illinois Medical Marijuana Bill Passes House Committee for the First Time Ever, 4-3
“bullet” Minnesota: Senate Committee Passes Medical Marijuana, 4-3

Wallace Gilby Craig writes in the North Shore News (Vancouver): Drug Legalization Lobby Lacks Business Plan
I don’t know who this guy is, but the depth of his stupidity is truly astonishing.

But according to our local drug-legalization crowd, led by marijuana’s false prophets, those feds just don’t understand the way we choose to live in la-la-land. This clutch of deceitful addicts and their myopic supporters propose legalization of cannabis and other illicit drugs, and the introduction of a bureaucratic system of drug regulation and distribution.
Their dream-world fantasy is based on a misty notion that illicit drugs could be produced and distributed like alcohol; that by the stroke of a pen the multi-billion dollar gangland drug manufacturing/importing/exporting business would be transformed into a legal, manageable and taxable government monopoly. Yet to be explained by marijuana’s false prophets: How a pussycat government monopoly hopes to persuade gangsters to trade in their guns for bongs, become choir boys, and refrain from continuing to sell drugs in an inevitable black market.
Fat chance, I say.
Marijuana’s false prophets send a steady stream of misinformation about a supposed similarity between the brief period when alcohol was prohibited and our hundred years of criminalization of illicit drugs, always ending with the same catchphrase: Let’s take control of marijuana — tax it, standardize and regulate it. […]
It is a false message. Gang violence and murder will not end with fairy-tale legalization. International crime syndicates, coupled with source countries around the world profiting in the production of narcotics, will continue to target Canada and the United States. Legalization would cause them to increase their activity to accommodate an increase in the numbers of addicts in Canada.

Forget all the other stupidity in those paragraphs. How does a sentient being come up with a thought process wherein criminal syndicates continue to sell illegal drugs at high profit when they’re available legally? Is Wallace unable to imagine a human who buys drugs? Does he think that the average drug purchaser would say “Well, I could purchase this legally at the corner and it would be safe and inexpensive. No, I think I’ll go get it from a criminal instead.” ? Does he not know that the black market cannot exist unless goods are illegal or over-regulated?
It gets worse. Wallace Gilby found the writings of Anthony Daniels, writing under the pseudnym of Theodore Dalrymple (probably because he had an inkling that he was writing complete crap). He shares some quotes with us, including:

“Analogies with the Prohibition era, often drawn by those who would legalize drugs, are false and inexact: it is one thing to attempt to ban a substance that has been in customary use for centuries by at least nine-tenths of the adult population, and quite another to retain a ban on substances that are still not in customary use, in an attempt to ensure that they never do become customary. Surely we have already slid down enough slippery slopes in the last 30 years without looking for more such slopes to slide down.”

What nonsense. Prohibition of substances is prohibition of substances. Period. And regardless of historical use, the laws of economics control. If there is demand, there will be supply, and prohibition won’t work.
Wallace Gilby Craig is a wanker, no doubt. But I’ve got to admit he can turn a colorful phrase, even if it is meaningless:

Dalrymple’s observations are apropos to today’s campaign of drug legalizers, including marijuana’s false prophets, to destroy the moral and ethical integrity of our precious individual liberty by including in it an absolute and unfettered right to dally with marijuana, chemical drugs and narcotics.
Wake up Canada! Dedicated narcissistic marijuana users and psychosocial hard drug abusers are parasitical citizens, engaged solely in their own interests and pleasures.
Their creed: I care for nothing but myself.

I particularly love that our push for legalization will destroy our precious individual liberty.

False Positive Drug Tests Exposed – National Press Club

Drug arrest goes haywire
Drug bust in a Wal-Mart parking lot at 1:30 in the afternoon with shots fired, cop cars ramming cop cars and overall chaos and mayhem.
Can you count the number of things that went wrong here?