Drug WarRant

Only in America can two men, who manufactured a fake penis, be charged with… conspiracy to defraud the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which administers federal workplace drug testing programs.
And yes, they face up to 9 years in prison.
The drug war is such a failure that the feds have to go after the Tommy Chongs and Whizzinators (not to mention grandma in her wheelchair), and legislators are constantly outlawing things like glass tubes and plastic bags and cold medicines and false compartments in cars and cash.
The drug warriors should be hiding in abject embarrassment. But apparently, they feel no shame.

Interesting lines in an OpEd by Ronald Fraser

Advertised as an effective drug control policy, America’s harsh drug laws only give the illusion of progress. […]
Perhaps the non-performing drug war programs are not really expected to deliver on their publicly stated goals, but continue because they serve a very different purpose.
They give the politically useful illusion of “controlling” crime and allow morally righteous members of society to impose their values on the actions of others. Instead of ending the drug war, each year Washington drug warriors issue a new round of optimistic forecasts to keep the illusion alive, to justify another round of funding from American taxpayers.

Taking a moment to recover…
“bullet” A very special thanks to those who chipped in to help out with the trip to DC. Every little bit is much appreciated.
“bullet” Must-read. Radley Balko’s response to a pretty ignorant post by Chris Roach, regarding the death of an FBI agent in a military-style drug raid.
“bullet” Police don’t find marijuana, so they take the Xbox.
“bullet” Drawing the line on drug testing.
“bullet” Dutch mayors call for Licensed Marijuana Growers

The remainder of the Sunday sessions have been useful advocacy workshops, including the Elevator Arguments workshop that David Guard and I conducted, and some lunch networking groups (I helped facilitate one on education).
I was too busy being actively involved to do much live-blogging today.
For those in my workshop who stopped by to get a copy of the information, you can download the Elevator Arguments page (pdf).
All in all, a great SSDP conference. Lots of dedicated and enthusiastic students working to make a difference. Go to it, folks!
Update: We made it back safe, despite dealing with about 8 hours of non-stop rain from Maryland to Indiana.

Eric Sterling (Criminal Justice Policy Foundation) started off the Sunday Advocacy Skills Training Day with a motivating talk to get students excited about being advocates.
A few of the points:

• Write succinctly
• Be entertaining
• Don’t be too self-critical
• Work as chapters to evaluate what you do
• Share with others (passion, praise, respect)
• Be persistent (bring it back up to the top of the in-box)
• Ask for help
• Talk to people who disagree with you

He says he had 11 points, so obviously I missed a few.

Party!
We had a great benefit party last night at Rob Kampia’s house in DC. Tons of people – lots of fun.
Sorry, no pictures or descriptions here.
…you’ll just have to imagine it.

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.