Drug WarRant

Drugs for Sale! A Discussion of Post-Prohibition Drug Markets

Tim Lynch is very pessimistic about what seems to be happening so far with the Obama administration, given his early appointments.
He asks a very good question: What will the Obama administration do about the recent case when an FBI officer was killed in a drug raid. It should be self-defense. Will the administration pursue a conviction against the woman who defended her home?
Tim is more optimistic in the medium and long term about overall drug policy reform, in part based on looking at what alcohol prohibition reformers faced. It took less time to reform than they thought it would.
Difference between the alcohol and drug prohibition is that alcohol prohibition was repealed at the federal level and the states kept, in some cases, prohibiting until ready. However, in drug policy, the states and other countries will lead, and the feds will bring up the rear.
He talked about different models for a future policy

• Full legalization
• The alcohol model
• Decriminalization (he talked about the Portugal model of decrim, which I need to analyze further (and is apparently going very well), although it doesn’t change my position that decrim ignores the elephant in the room– the black market)

Good point: If politicians are unable to come up with the courage to change laws themselves, then what they need to do is step aside and let states and other countries do so (serve as the laboratory, so to speak).
Keep the nirvana fallacy in mind when debating — don’t let prohibitionists compare potential problematic legalization options with a nirvana of drug free America. The comparison must be with the horribly flawed realistic situation that exists in our prohibition world.
Nice job by Lynch. Very smart and knows his stuff.
Ethan Nadelmann talked about his early history as a reluctant legalizer and how he moved to the necessity of legalization, then trying to identify a model that would work.
What naturally comes to mind is that:
The best policy is the one that most successfully

• reduces the harms of drugs AND
• reduces the harms of drug prohibition

And so he talked about a group he worked with analyzing models from various sides, such as starting with things like the health model on one side and starting with the Supermarket (everything available at any time to anyone) model on the other side and see if there was a way to make them meet.
The question is, should there be some kind of gatekeeper (perhaps in government) to in some way control access.
This is the compromise model that his group came up with.
The Right of Access Model

1. Everybody has the right to possess and use any drug in any form
2. Everybody has the right to obtain this substance from a reliable provider who is civilly liable for providing safe and clean substance.

(For more detail, read the linked article)

I got to meet Peter Moskos at the conference. He’s there with his book — I’ve been meaning to talk about it more and will later, but suffice to say right now that it’s an excellent book about policing and the drug war.
So go buy it.
He’ll be at the Conference the whole time and he’s happy to sign his book for anyone who buys it.
And now I have an autographed copy.

Representative Danny Davis (D-IL)

Plenary: Race, Inner Cities, and the Drug War
It was great to have Danny Davis speak. He did a great job of summarizing the ills of the drug war nationally, internationally, and racially. To hear his words coming from a member of Congress means so much.

(l-r) Kris Krane, Students for Sensible Drug Policy; Courtland Milloy, Washington Post (Moderator); Kevin Sabet, Students Taking Action Not Drugs

The debate started with Kevin Sabet. He really worked on being reasonable-sounding, but a lot of what he said we’ve heard before — we need a balanced drug policy, not everything is perfect, but some things work, and with the damage caused by legal drugs, it shows the potential for danger.
Kris Krane: Pretty good list of problems with the drug war. Drug abuse is a problem, but the war on drugs is worse. “The war on drugs has been nothing short of a failure.”
That last statement by Kris is a mistake, in my mind. It takes the debate the wrong direction. It opens up a debate on the goals of the war on drugs and whether it works as a deterrent, etc., rather than talking about the war on drugs as separate from the issue of drug use/abuse.
Great quote by Kris: “People are being judged not on the content of their character, but the content of their urine.”
Both got derailed in the debate arguing about sentencing. Are a lot of people serving time in jail for this or is it really that, etc. Fortunately, the moderator stepped in and got them back on track.
Sabet talked about programs he thinks works, like Project Hope, which is basically a heavily drug testing based criminal justice system. He said it’s a way of reducing drug problems. Quote I didn’t understand: “These people are causing 90% of the problems of drugs.”
Scott Morgan, sitting at my table: “Kris loses. He said ‘rape’ first.”
Kris: Usage rate should not be the measure of success. Should be about whether “abuse” is being affected not “use.”
Sabet: “The human rights of individuals to put whatever they want in their bodies should not be infringed” Me: (!!!!) Sabet: “but there’s more to it than that– it affects other people.” Me: (????) Sabet: “If you’re in your dorm room smoking pot bothering nobody and the RA doesn’t care, nobody’s going to come knocking on your door.” Entire audience: (!?!?!?!)
Courtland Milloy (excellent moderator) did a great job bringing up the Calvo raid and SWAT problems. Sabet didn’t have a very good response to that and moved into a series of meaningless platitudes about common ground.
Discussion got to human rights and Sabet talked again about the damage to others (mentioning driving).
Krane: Text messaging while driving is dangerous. But we don’t ban text messaging. We ban text messaging while driving.
Sabet: I agree. [caught completely off guard]
[Standing Ovation]
Kris finally got into the black market argument that should have been brought up earlier when he was asked whether all drugs should be legalized. Good statement.
Of course, you’re not getting the whole debate, because I’m listening, not writing the whole time. I am impressed by the level of the debate overall, and given the natural problems inherent in Sabat’s positions.
OK, I take it back. He just talked about crack being available in a legal market at a cost available for a kid’s lunch money. Scott’s wrong. Kevin loses for that one.
Kris should have talked more about alcohol prohibition. He missed a cue there – got derailed on tobacco taxes.
Sabet dissed medical marijuana. Krane came after him hard with a history of governmental abuse of process. Excellent.
This debate will be available to college campuses, and I suggest that colleges consider bringing them in. It’s a good debate.

Breakout session: Shots fired: The Casualties of No-Knock Police Raids in America
(l-r)Alison Grimmer (SSDP board), Radley Balko (Reason Magazine), David Borden (Stop the Drug War), Cheye Calvo (Mayor, Berwyn Heights)

Radley was great. I’m not going to regurgitate what he said — you all know the material, but his presentation was full of great and disturbing quotes and anecdotes. Here’s a couple of the many that caught my attention:
Radley quotes Lawrence Korb about the military: “We train them to vaporize, not Mirandize.” The problem is that we’re training police to act like soldiers in a war.
Radley: When you use a SWAT team on a hostage situation or bank robbery, you already have a violent situation, and the SWAT team is there to ameliorate it. When you use SWAT teams on non-violent drug busts, you add violence where there was none.
Mayor Calvo then talked about his experience that awful day, and the perspectives he’s picked up since then. He’s wonderfully articulate and, while new to drug policy reform, he understands the true issues — that accountability has to be required not just of the police officers, but of the system.

Was drug czar taking bribes?

Opening session (l-r) Kris Krane, Matt Palevsky, Rob Kampia, Bill Piper, Caren Woodson, Adam Wolf, Aaron Houston

Kris Krane (SSDP Executive Director) started out with a stirring opening about how this generation of college students is going to make the difference.
Aaron Houston (MPP Government Relations Director) talked about the election. The good news is we lost a lot of bad drug warriors in government (including the fact that every Democrat that lost was strongly opposed to reform). He tried to speculate whether 2010 elections would be like 1994 (Democratic over-reach and blowback) or like 1934 (his take — 1934, based on economic crises).
Adam Wolf (ACLU staff attorney) talked about what the immediate priorities will be in the new administration for ACLU. Naturally, some of the top items will be things like torture, rendition, Gitmo, etc. Other items that relate to drug policy:

1. Stop denying that there is medical benefit to marijuana and re-schedule it.
2. Allow Lyle Craker to grow marijuana for research purposes (end the government monopoly for research marijuana
3. Stop selective prosecution of marijuana patients in an attempt to disrupt state programs — call for the AG to issue a directive not to pursue medical marijuana cases in medical marijuana states.
4. Abolishing the crack-powder sentencing disparity
5. Ban racial profiling
6. Judicial appointments (not Supreme Court necessarily, but the Courts of Appeal, where most cases end). Look for privacy as a value (which helps drug policy reform).
7. Other sentencing issues
8. Students’ rights (he talked some about the girl who was strip-searched in her school because they thought she might have some ibuprofen). Also drug testing cases (including teacher drug testing cases).

Caren Woodson (Americans for Safe Access – ASA – Director of Government Affairs) talked about the fact that the Democratic Congress will be extremely cautious (many are in conservative districts) and may be afraid to embrace reform. Change won’t happen quickly — it’ll be extremely subtle. She is optimistic long term, partly because of the increase of factual studies supporting medical cannabis so that it is harder and harder for anybody to even claim that there is no such thing as medical cannabis.
Her priority areas:

1. Stop the raids
2. Permit affirmative defenses
3. Get NIDA out of the business of monopolizing marijuana research
4. Create a national medical cannabis strategy

Bill Piper (Director of National Affairs for DPA) talked about Prop 5 in California and its loss. He played one of the nasty ads against it that ran on TV featuring Dianne Feinstein.
Bill is optimistic, and excited, about the election (other than the Prop 5 loss, of course) and feels good about the chances for federal sentencing reform and needle exchange, in particular, but other areas as well.
Rob Kampia (Executive Director, MPP) talked about the efforts in Michigan and Massachusetts that resulted in decrim (Massachusetts) and medical marijuana (Michigan). He also played some ads they developed (I showed one or two of them here some time ago). Quote: “Medical marijuana is more popular than our past three Presidents” (referring to several medical marijuana referenda that won by a larger vote than the President in that state).

Well, we made it to College Park, Maryland, after a much too long drive. There were multiple accidents on the freeway near Washington, Pennsylvania that tied up traffic for hours, and then we ran into lots of snow in the higher altitudes in Maryland (hills and curves and darkness and ice aren’t my favorite mix of driving conditions).
But we made it and I’m thrilled to be here. I’ve already seen tons of SSDP folk. As you can see below, the folks are having a great time late tonight, with drums and a didgeridoo and dancing and conversation.

I’ll report more from the conference on Saturday.

I’ll be on the road all day Friday on my way to D.C. for the conference.
“bullet” Radley collects drug policy reform group reactions to Holder as Attorney General.
“bullet” Bolivia’s Morales says U.S. DEA bugged his phone

On his “blog”

Those who enjoy and care about our planet‰s natural resources should be troubled by the environmental consequences of the drug trade. The billions of dollars worth of illegal drugs produced here and abroad take a horrific toll on some of the most fragile and diverse eco-systems on the planet. Indeed, concerned young people and adults should think about the global impact of the drug trade the next time they and their peers discuss what they can do to sustain a healthy environment here in the U.S. and abroad.

This is a wonderful statement, and very true. And when concerned people discuss what they can do, the only smart and logical choice will be to fire the drug czar and legalize and regulate drugs to take the business out of the hands of those who destroy the environment.