Drug WarRant

Ben Kubic, a junior government and politics and operations management major at the University of Maryland, attempt to apply his studies to drug policy (as a response to the recent SSDP conference hosted at U of MD) and fails miserably.

Ms. Alexander argues marijuana is absolutely harmless, a ploy by the government to hold down minorities. Overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise. In Canada, crime syndicates sell marijuana and use the proceeds to support “weapons … trafficking, cocaine smuggling and stock market fraud,” according to Interpol. Both the Spanish and French governments have found that the proceeds from cannabis sales have gone directly into the pockets of groups affiliated with al-Qaeda. The group responsible for the March 2004 bombings in Madrid that killed 191 innocent civilians bought their explosives using money from marijuana sales. Another such group used the drug money to fund two bombings in Algiers that killed 30 people and injured 200.
Other drugs are even more closely linked with death. Every day in Afghanistan, our soldiers face rocket launchers, roadside bombs and AK-47s that were purchased with proceeds from opium poppy sales. In Colombia, drug lords kill farmers who fail to produce enough. […]
Environmentalists should also be concerned with marijuana use. To avoid border-crossing issues, many drug cartels grow marijuana in U.S. national parks. To meet demand, these cartels use weed and bug sprays that have been banned in the United States because of how they devastate the surrounding environment; ABC News reports that the areas of national parks where the marijuana is being grown are “the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America.”

Of course, all of you loyal readers could refute this in your sleep by now.
And boy did Benjamin get schooled in the comments. The readers commenting were pretty much unanimous (with the exception of Jeff, the racist) in their intelligent smackdowns.

The Georgetown chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy is hosting a debate between Marijuana Policy Project assistant director of communications Dan Bernath and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy chief counsel Ed Jurith at 6:30 p.m. tonight – Wednesday, December 3. The debate will take place at The Georgetown University Law Center in McDonough Hall. The topic of the debate will be medical marijuana.
Attendance is free and open to the public. Attendees must bring a valid photo ID. After the debate, there will be a question and answer session with the audience.
(I’m assuming the ID requirement is to get into Georgetown Law Center, not because of the topic of the debate.)
More details

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favourite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished. – H.L. Mencken

– from Radley Balko’s article at FOXNews: Repeal Day Serves as Reminder of the Folly of Our Drug Laws
There will be a number of activities this week celebrating the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the first prohibition. I’ll be reporting more as the week goes on.

Channelling Jacob Sullum, J.D> Tuccille in the Civil Liberties Examiner says “No.”

But, as many of us who have not just experimented with, but enthusiastically consumed various intoxicants know (Whoops! I bet I just blew my next job interview), the road to perdition is not usually lined with dried vegetation, white powder, pills or crystals. In fact, many a party, evening or weekend afternoon has been made more pleasant by “cocktail hours” that featured refreshments that would make John Walters weep. Some of us dabbled, a few of us indulged and there were occasional bingers, too. The vast majority of us, whether we still smoke or snort or not, suffered little or no harm — in fact, we downright enjoyed our experiences, improved our moods and released a lot of tension in the process. And then we went about our responsibilities just a little more relaxed than we might have been.

Your tax money paid for this.

NORML Stash has the story.

Tonight on the National Geographic Channel: Marijuana Nation

Scientists who study this plant consider it among the most complex in the plant kingdom with 400 active chemicals and compounds. And in California alone, the marijuana trade out paces the entire wine industry, placing it among the largest cash crops in the United States. Intertwined with culture, economics, law enforcement and perhaps medical miracles, this plant holds both peril and promise. Join National Geographics EXPLORER as we investigate the state of marijuana.

Preview here.
Showing is tonight at 10 pm Eastern/Pacific (9 pm Central), and on Saturday at 7 Eastern/6 Central.

So voters in Switzerland voted overwhelmingly today to formalize their excellent heroin prescription program, where they really lead the world in reducing crime and the ravages of addiction through implementing actual… ideas.
But, unfortunately, the cannabis decriminalization initiative failed. And it seems pretty clear why: cannabis tourism.

While the Swiss Government backed the heroin initiative, it opposed the call for marijuana legalisation because it feared that it could cause drugs tourism to Switzerland of the kind that is causing public disorder problems in border towns in the Netherlands. Oswald Sigg, a government spokesman, said: ‹This could lead to a situation where you have some sort of cannabis tourism in Switzerland because something that is illegal in the EU would be legal in Switzerland.Š

This is a real problem that will plague legitimate marijuana legalization opportunities in states and countries that are surrounded by repressive governments. The fear is that everyone will flock there, not to ski, or visit museums, or buy horribly overpriced trinkets, but to smoke pot. Now, personally, I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing, but tourism boards hate it (except, perhaps, in the Republic of Cheetos®).
So here’s my suggestion for the next initiative in Switzerland. Make it legal only for residents. You already have national id cards, so it would be easy. (I’m not a fan of national id cards, but if you already have it, why not have it be good for something… useful?) Then you could easily dispel the pot tourism concerns — after all, it’s illegal for foreigners. Then, if the government wanted to be really sneaky, they could simply turn a blind eye to non-native tokers, except when they wanted to get rid of some obnoxious foreigner.
Now, apparently, the cannabis organizers in Switzerland are already thinking about using id cards…

The cannabis supporters lost out but immediately came up with another suggestion – special microchipped identity cards for cannabis smokers, rationing their intake, cutting out criminal dealers.

… but they’re not thinking big enough — stop pot tourism! (and make everyone else so jealous that they have to pass their own cannabis decriminalization plans)

Students for Sensible Drug Policy have established a petition on Facebook that they wish to deliver to President-Elect Obama
The petition request is reasonable (and certainly not overly ambitious):

When you called the War on Drugs an “utter failure” in 2004, you were right. A 2008 Zogby poll found that 3 out of 4 of Americans agree with you.
When appointing the head of your Office of National Drug Control Policy, please select someone with health, science, or education credentials rather than a military general, law enforcement official, or “tough on drugs” politician. The next “Drug Czar” should base policy on proven methodology rather than counterproductive ideology. At a minimum, he or she should support these measures:
*Ending the racially unjust disparity in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine.
*Ending the practice of prosecuting patients in states with medical marijuana laws.
*Eliminating the federal law that denies financial aid to students with drug convictions.
We all know that the War on Drugs is failing because handcuffs don’t cure addictions — doctors do. You have the opportunity to bring us the change we need. Will you?

They’re working on getting 10,000 signatures. Give them a hand.
Update: If you’re not on Facebook, then by all means skip the petition (you apparently have to have an account to sign the petition). There are other ways to put forth your views (such as through change.gov). I’ve also added a new area on the messageboard for readers’ messages to the President-elect. [thanks, jackl]

Several readers have passed on the information about Switzerland, and with the holidays, I haven’t gotten around to posting about it until now.
Marijuana Smokers in Switzerland Pin Hopes on Support of Voters

The ‹Hemp InitiativeŠ would free the Swiss to use and grow cannabis for their own use, putting the country on a par with the Netherlands, which has the most liberal drug laws in Europe. Switzerland‰s ruling coalition parties are split over the plan, with opponents including the Swiss People‰s Party fearing such a law would spark cannabis tourism. About half of the country‰s voters oppose the proposal.

Naturally, the opponents are using the fear tactic:

Backed by the Free Democrats and the Social Democrats, two of the ruling parties, the initiative‰s supporters have been handing out free copies of the ‹Hemp JournalŠ on the streets of Zurich and Bern. Opponents are countering with a newspaper campaign featuring a syringe, a joint and a call for voters to keep their ‹hands offŠ drugs.

A syringe?

So far, those tactics are winning out. A minority of the 1,209 voters, 38 percent, surveyed by the Bern-based GfS research institute between Nov. 10-16 back the ‹Hemp Initiative,Š with some 50 percent opposing the proposal.

A reader from Switzerland writes:

This is not the first time the issue of cannabis legalization has been on the table, and it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if it’s rejected once again. Sadly, many people in favor of legalization will not cast their vote, even if they could vote by mail and there is no need to register or similar things. The ballot paper is automatically sent to all Swiss over 18 and in some regions, you even get a pre-paid envelope for sending it back! As everywhere else, the young are lazy and uninterested..

While the marijuana initiative seems likely to fail, another one is expected to pass: giving away heroin for free.
Well, actually, it’s a vote on putting a heroin distribution program on a permanent legal footing.

Patients show up each day to receive their treatment in small doses handed through a small window.
Then they gather around a table to shoot up, part of a pioneering Swiss program to curb drug abuse by providing addicts a clean, safe place to take heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory.

This is a powerful program that works, and so naturally the U.S. and U.N. has roundly condemned it.

Crimes committed by heroin addicts have dropped 60 percent since the program began in 1994, according to the Federal Office of Public Health says.
And, Zullino said, patients reduce consumption of other narcotics once they start the heroin program and suffer less from psychiatric disorders.
But, he added, “the idea has never been to liberalize heroin. It’s considered a medicine and used as such.”

Best of luck to Swiss voters today.

Update: Early voting results are showing up as expected. The heroin program is winning easily at 69 percent, and the cannabis initiative is going down to heavy defeat.

The headline got my attention: Outgoing U.S. ambassador to Mexico lashes out on drug war
Ah, I thought, someone ready to speak out about how we need to look elsewhere than the destructive prohibition model.
And there were hopeful indications in the article:

After six sometimes tumultuous years as ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza is speaking out forcefully about U.S. responsibility for Mexico’s widening drug violence. […]
It’s that kind of candor that over the years has won Mr. Garza both kudos and criticism on both sides of the border.

So what is this radical departure that Garza is recommending?

“The U.S. and Mexico must fight these criminal organizations together, or we will fail together.”

Oh.

More than 6,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006.
“You bet this is cause for concern,” Mr. Garza said. “The cartels and drug dealers have crossed that line from recklessly endangering civilians in their attacks on law enforcement officials and other criminals to deliberately targeting innocent men, women and children.”
He added: “President Felipe Calderon will not be intimidated. This is not a battle that they — or us, for that matter — can afford to lose. … We’ve got to stand shoulder to shoulder with them.”

So apparently, his maverick approach involves, uh, fighting the war better?

Mr. Garza’s Mexican counterparts applaud his work, though the relationship has had tense periods, such as when Mexico refused to support the U.S.-backed U.N. war resolution against Iraq. And Mexican diplomats objected to Mr. Garza’s vocal criticism about what he believed was Mexico’s slow response to drug violence during the administration of Mr. Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox.

Ah, it’s that the 6,000 deaths haven’t been enough. Apparently, we need more violence. That’s the radical departure from how we are conducting our drug war.
And this is the problem with saying that the drug war has failed. It assumes that there is some other way of conducting the drug war that would be successful. If only we did this, or tweaked this, or added drug courts, or mandated treatment, or gave police tanks, or…
It’s not that the drug war has failed. The war on drugs is in itself an impossible idea.
Its entire premise is based on the notion that we can overturn the laws of economics if we just get bigger guns. But we can’t. The economic laws always win. And so, even attempting to conduct a war on drugs is a mistake that causes more damage than it could ever hope to prevent.
In a free society, criminal prohibition of an easily-produced high-demand commodity cannot work and will always cause greater harm to the society.
So, while I am pleased to hear that 76% of the population believes the war on drugs has failed, the problem is we don’t know what that means.
We need Zogby to do another poll and ask:

“Is a drug war the right way to deal with drug problems?

…
Here’s another example of the failure of failure: U.S. war on drugs has failed, report says
While much of the story is good — it indicts a lot of the law enforcement mentality of the war — it still assumes that the problem is in the mix, rather than with the premise

In addition to disrupting drug-smuggling routes, eradicating crops and prosecuting dealers, the U.S. must confront the public health issue that large-scale consumption poses, he said.