Drug WarRant

Eric Sterling:

Before the nation’s governors, mayors and county executives propose furloughing or laying off police officers, school teachers, sanitation workers, doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, and recreation aides who care for our family members and protect public safety, there is one question that the public employee unions should demand answered: How much revenue from marijuana taxation are they throwing away in order to sacrifice those jobs and the families of public employees?

Road trip!
The national international SSDP conference is happening this weekend in College Park, Maryland. And while I hadn’t originally planned on making it, I’ve been asked to do my Elevator Arguments workshop again and to facilitate a luncheon discussion on education.
It looks like quite a line-up – here’s the schedule. Some really outstanding speakers and workshops.
It’s a particularly great opportunity for students. I’m thrilled that we’ve got 5 students from Illinois State University going (and there will be a couple alums of that group going as well). It’s important for students — great training and motivation, and SSDP does an incredible job of helping students out with scholarships to cover conference fees, lodging, travel, etc.

Which leads me to a small bleg. The emphasis is helping students, so a workshop leader like me pays full conference fees and lodging, etc. In any other conference, that would be backwards, but in this one, it makes sense. It was, however, an unplanned expense for me. And I’m driving some of the students 1600 miles round trip to the conference instead of flying in order to save the group some money.
So, if anyone would like to help out, I’ve set up a Pay Page for contributing to this little road trip.
Don’t contribute unless you have extra lying around. I’m serious. I can handle it and I won’t go broke. But if you’d like to vicariously go on a road trip with me, feel free to drop some change in.

There has been an incredible chorus of whining from law enforcement personnel since the initiatives in Michigan and Massachusetts passed. It reeks of desperation and, quite frankly, incompetence.
Here’s just one more:

East Lansing police Chief Tom Wibert said he worries people will abuse the constitutional amendment, which he said is unfortunate because the proposal was intended to play on people’s compassion for those in serious pain.
“There’s a lot of potential for abuse,” he said. “Another interesting part is who would hold a doctor responsible for the prescription he writes? What would prevent a doctor from handing out prescriptions to anybody who asks?”
Wibert, who said he was surprised the proposal passed, said he would have to train police officers on the system of documentation for people who can legally use marijuana.
“It strikes me that it should be somewhat confusing,” he said. “What type of documentation are people going to have? How would a police officer know whether it’s valid documentation?”

This is so hard! Somebody is going to have to come up with some kind of… system or something. We don’t know how to do that. Why are they making our jobs so difficult? Have you ever heard of law enforcement working with, like, documentation of some kind? It would be as if people who drive cars had to have some kind of pass or card or something.
Whine.
And gee, what if a doctor prescribed it to someone who wasn’t supposed to get it? Well, you know what? Doctors prescribe medicine every day. And they’re licensed. And of all the drugs to worry about, what’s the worst that could happen from prescribing marijuana to someone who needs it? The munchies?
I heard that the crime rate in East Lansing was down, but apparently it is so low that Chief Wilbert’s biggest concern is some people (many of whom are seriously ill) experiencing… mild euphoria.
And so he’s whining about it.
Pathetic.

Keep in mind that I really think this is really too early to be picking drug czars, but people can’t help speculating. The latest comes from Ryan Grim at the Politico.

Rep. Jim Ramstad’s name is bouncing around as a possible “drug czar” — the name given the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Ramstad, a Minnesota Republican, is in recovery himself and has been a longtime proponent of treatment for drug abuse.
Along with Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), he has been an advocate for mental health parity — the push to treat mental illness with the same effort as physical illness. Ramstad has consistently voted against medical marijuana in Congress, opposing an effort to prevent the federal government from raiding or arresting medical marijuana clubs in states where it is legal.

While certainly it could be a positive step to focus on treatment more than enforcement, as Radley says:

Fear the ex-addict who enters the public policy debate to ‹prevent others from making my mistakes.Š

“bullet” DrugSense Weekly
Lots of great stuff in this week’s edition of DrugSense Weekly. Also, a big congrats to Allan Erickson for being named MAP’s Letter Writer of the Month for October.
Also a pretty interesting issue of the Drug War Chronicle (below). The feature: Looking Forward — Who Should Be the Next Drug Czar?
“bullet” “drcnet”

Well, the delightful new ONDCP Burrito Taster / Couch Security Guard / TV Remote Control Operator ads I talked about have been ridiculed far and wide. Criminal justice and drug policy blogs around the country and overseas have laughed their heads off and it’s reached into mainstream political blogs as well.
It’s pretty much unanimous that these are unlikely to have any impact other than providing free decoration for dorm rooms.
I took some copies to a hempfest in a neighboring state and everyone wanted one. The owner of a head shop there took one of each to put on the wall and said “this looks like what we’d come up with.”
The only actual supposedly anti-drug message on the ads — “Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren’t many jobs out there for potheads.” — generated even more ridicule, with sites all over the web generating lists of people in the top jobs in the world who smoked pot (video and list).
So…
To give you an idea of the degree of delusional thinking emanating from the folks at the White House Office of National Drug Policy, check out this pat on the back they give themselves…

Here’s another print ad from the campaign that follows up on the much talked about “Burrito Taster” ad we posted on the blog last week. [emphasis added]

Yeah, it’s much talked about in the same way that the guy who stepped on a rake and hit himself in the balls on America’s Funniest Home Videos is much talked about.
Now, I figure they probably are thinking that the idea is to create a “culturally cool” ad that will attract the interest of stoners while giving them a subtle message that will reach them even as they enjoy the humor of the ad.
The problem with that is that they have no message. There is nothing they can say in an ad to convince people to not use marijuana because people aren’t that stupid. They already know the actual risks and benefits of using pot and will make their own decision. There is no big downside (other than the legal status) and they know it.
So it doesn’t matter what the ONDCP does in terms of advertising. The have no message. All that can actually happen with any ad they come up with is to bring up the subject of marijuana.
Because the ONDCP can’t outlaw reality, the taxpayers are, in fact, paying millions of dollars to remind people to smoke pot.

Just some random thinking…
It seems likely that Obama, when President, will end the raids on medical marijuana, particularly in states that have approved it.

“I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users. It’s not a good use of our resources.”

That’s pretty clear. And yet, if we go back 8 years, we find another Presidential candidate named George W. Bush talking, in his unique style, about medical marijuana…

“I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose.”

That was pretty clear, too. I don’t doubt that he believed it.
So what happened? Did he suddenly lose all interest in federalism when he was inaugurated? Was it as simple as that? It seems unlikely. That would, at most, have resulted in indifference.
Or did someone sit him down after he was elected and explain to him that there were important political reasons to stomp down hard and consistently on medical marijuana? Because, after all, the last eight years have seen a powerful, coordinated, federal attack against the concept of medical marijuana. If so, who sat him down, and what was that explanation? I’d really like to know.
Will someone sit down President-elect Obama and have the same conversation? Will his position suddenly and inexplicably reverse? I’m not expecting it, but given my uncertainty about what actually happens in the rarified circles of political decision-making, who is to know?
Obama’s position is, at least, seemingly grounded more in a sense of rightness about the issue (as opposed to just an abstract general feeling about federalism) so that may be a difference.
There is, I believe, also a stark difference in the public discourse about drug policy and the drug war in general between 2000 and 2008. We have come light years in terms of public views (76% now think the drug war is a failure) and the potential for political/press cover for drug policy reform views.
After all, today we see in papers all over the country, OpEds like this one from Bill Steigerwald, who has suggestions for Obama.

On the homefront, there’s another hugely important change you could quickly bring America: Call off the federal government’s bipartisan war on drugs.
You could get on TV some Tuesday night and tell your fellow Americans the truth most of them have known for decades: The dirty drug war waged by government on its own people has failed by every measure.
Then reassert your forgotten call for America to start treating all drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal justice issue. Then give your presidential blessing to the decision by Massachusetts voters last week to approve the country’s first marijuana decriminalization initiative.
Then make marijuana as legal as beer. Then pardon all nonviolent drug offenders. Then decommission the DEA. Then, using your best oratorical skills, declare a great victory in America’s never-ending war against too much government and too little personal freedom.

OK, maybe they’re not all as strong as Steigerwald, but still… it is a different world.
I recently got the entire The West Wing
series and have been watching it. In Season 2, Episode 15 (“Ellie”), the Surgeon General makes some innocuous true statements about marijuana (“Marijuana poses no greater health risk than nicotine or alcohol”, etc.) that sets off a political firestorm almost leading to her firing (possibly a comment on the Joycelyn Elders tenure). As the President’s staff tries to figure out what to do to limit the damage, we have this exchange:

President Bartlet: Who’s coming to her defense?

Josh: The Cannabis Society, the Cannabis Coalition, E Cannabis Unum, the American Hemp League, and Friends of Mary Jane.

[…]

President Bartlet: I’ve got to hand it to you guys… you’ve managed to win me the support of the Christian Right [separate issue] and the Cheech and Chong Fan Club in a the same day.

OK, it’s clearly written for entertainment value, but the stereotypes used point out how far we’ve come in just the last decade. That episode would be much less believable today.
So yes, clearly we’ve come a long way, and the political cover that brings gives me some guarded optimism about what might happen in a new White House.
And yet, I still go back to 2000 and newly elected George W. Bush’s reversal on medical marijuana, and I ask: Who set him down and what did they say to him?

.Some time ago, I reviewed the film High: The True Tale of American Marijuana by Drug WarRant friend John Holowach.
It’s an powerful and excellent film.
“High” is finally being released to DVD. There’s a premiere at Columbia College tomorrow evening, and it can now be ordered at Amazon.com.
More information is available at the High site.
Note: I’m pretty sure the film has been updated (and trimmed down some) since I reviewed it. The new trailer for the film is available here.
…
In conjunction with the release, John Holowach has also riffed off Radley Balko’s recent call for a list of famous and productive people who have used marijuana. Here it is:

The cost of the drug war is just simply overwhelming…

MIAMI — Public defenders’ offices in at least seven states are refusing to take on new cases or have sued to limit them, citing overwhelming workloads that they say undermine the constitutional right to counsel for the poor. […]

In September, a Florida judge ruled that the public defenders’ office in Miami-Dade County could refuse to represent many of those arrested on lesser felony charges so its lawyers could provide a better defense for other clients. Over the last three years, the average number of felony cases handled by each lawyer in a year has climbed to close to 500, from 367, officials said, and caseloads for lawyers assigned to misdemeanor cases have risen to 2,225, from 1,380.

Those are absolutely impossible, and ridiculous, numbers. And, you see, in America, we have a little thing called the Bill of Rights.

Amendment VI: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

The drug war completely destroys our ability as a nation to live up to our commitments as a nation.
This is just one more instance where the staggering financial burden of the drug war will clash with our national fiscal crisis.

Remember when Joseph Frederick lost his famous Bong Hits 4 Jesus case in the Supreme Court?

Well, there were a few extra issues lying around that didn’t get included in the first case (having to do with the school violating his free speech rights under the Alaska Constitution), and Frederick eked out a victory.

The district will pay Frederick $45,000. In exchange Frederick will drop remaining claims not heard by the U.S. Supreme Court […]

The settlement also calls for the district to spend as much as $5,000 to hire a neutral constitutional law expert to chair a forum on student speech at JDHS. This is to be done before this school year ends next spring.

Congrats, Joseph!