Drug WarRant

Raw Story: Whistleblower breaks 15-year silence to allege McCain hid wife’s drug abuse
Open Left: Did McCain Tamper with the Drug Enforcement Agency to Protect His Career?
There’s video of the whistle-blower, some revelations, and some conjecture. There’s also some potential controversy in the fact that apparently the Washington Post had a story on this and pulled it.
Now the fact that Cindy McCain had a drug problem should be of no concern to me or anyone else but her family and her doctor. Nor should the drug use of anyone else.
However, if Senator McCain interfered with the DEA, or called in a favor, then that’s a potential concern (or if political persuasion was used in other aspects of the case).
On one side, don’t forget… this is the political silly season. Anything can and will happen, and it’s reasonable (and smart) to be suspicious of any controversy that surfaces now.
On the other hand, the idea of a politician using political connections to give his/her own family better drug war treatment than the rest of us is so common as to be almost unremarkable.

Update: Full Washington Post story now up.

Regardless of what you may think about Venezuela and Chavez, you can’t fault him for wanting his country to not be under the thumb of the U.S., nor is his claim far-fetched that the DEA agents that he kicked out were spying for the U.S.
But this is what happens when you try to prevent the U.S. from pushing its drug war down everyone’s throat:

White House drug czar John Walters said Tuesday that Venezuela President Hugo Chavez’ policies toward the cocaine trade represents a “global threat” that puts Europe, especially, at risk.

That’s right, he’s claiming that Chavez is a danger to Europe because he isn’t doing a good enough job preventing cocaine from Colombia from getting through.
Cocaine from Colombia, that the U.S. has been spending billions of dollars spraying, eradicating, interdicting and preventing from leaving Columbia in our supposedly “successful” war against drugs there, is pouring out of the country in such massive quantities that the amount making its way via Venezuela is a threat to Europe. And that’s Chavez’s fault. And, of course, the only way to solve that is to let the U.S. drug war apparatus, that couldn’t stop the cocaine from leaving Colombia to begin with, run things for Chavez in Venezuela.
Right.

“bullet” At the Cato Institute today, at 4:00 pm (Eastern)

Should No-Knock Police Raids be Rare-or Routine? (POLICY FORUM)
Featuring Cheye Calvo, Mayor, Berwyn Heights, Maryland, Radley Balko, Senior Writer, Reason and author of Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America, Peter Christ, Co-founder, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Moderated by Tim Lynch, Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute.
Watch the Event Live in RealVideo
Listen to the Event in RealAudio (Audio Only)

“bullet” Radley Balko took questions at Art of the Possible last night. The discussion is in the comments of the post.
“bullet” The Last King of Potland. An interesting article. Canadian accused of major shipments of pot is caught when the U.S. convinces Mexico to turn back his plane with a stop in Texas, where he can be arrested. Now he can’t hire a lawyer, nor can his parents on his behalf, because the U.S. will seize the lawyer’s fee, so he has to apply for a public defender.
“bullet” Marijuana Could Be a Gusher of Cash If We Treated It Like a Crop, Not a Crime by Steven Wishnia
“bullet” I may talk about this more later — An article at MSN titled What if we legalized all drugs? at least brings up the question in a mainstream media article. And it poses some of the reasons why it might be worth considering. So it’s a step forward. At the same time, it is woefully incomplete as to the costs of prohibition, and the academics interviewed in the article (Peter Reuters and Mark Kleiman) as usual fail to engage the primary discussion and instead get trapped in one of their favorite side loops — one that is only partially relevant.

The first salvo of responses to the Erowid article — Towards a Culture of Responsible Drug Use — is now up.
It is Jonathan Caulkins, Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University‰s Qatar Campus and Heinz School of Public Policy, with Is Responsible Drug Use Possible?
It is a singularly ignorant piece of argumentation, that defies basic logical analysis and completely sidesteps the concept of responsible public policy! I can’t even count how many ways I am offended by this piece of academically dishonest tripe.
He says:

While avoiding a full rehash of the by-now dull legalization debate, two points bear mention. First, American drug policy is easy to criticize as intrusive, ineffective, and mean-spirited. However, it does not follow that prohibition is necessarily a bad policy. […] The problems with America‰s prohibition stem primarily from particulars of its implementation, not from prohibition per se.
Second, the challenge is not in criticizing prohibition, but designing something better.

He finds the legalization argument “dull.” How quaint. The last decades have been about preventing even a proper discussion about legalization. There has been no legalization argument, because the prohibitionists (and the academics) say we can’t discuss it.
Note that Jonathan Caulkins is one of the co-authors of the Rand study “How Goes the War on Drugs” which I wrote about here, which stated:

Nor do we explore the merits and demerits of legalizing drugs, even though legalization is perhaps the most prominent and hotly debated topic in drug policy. Our analysis takes current policy as its starting point, and the idea of repealing the nation’s drug laws has no serious support within either the Democratic or Republican party. Moreover, because legalization is untested, any prediction of its effects would be highly speculative. […] For the purposes of this book, we think it is more productive to concentrate on policy alternatives that are politically imaginable, and for which it is possible to reach more confident conclusions about likely consequences.

In other words, in a prominent think-tank’s paper about drug policy, legalization wasn’t even allowed to be discussed or considered. And now, without having discussed or considered, Jonathan considers it “dull” and not worth considering. How convenient. And how academically dishonest. Caulkins is in the science of public policy. How would this attitude look in other sciences?

Some people say we should stop bleeding patients to purge them of bad humours. They say that the practice is not only ineffective, but dangerous. However, ending the use of bleeding patients is just not politically popular right now, so us doctors should merely study how to better use bleeding to cure people. Maybe we need to do a little more, or a little less, or bleed them in a different way…

Without even refuting legalization or defending criminalization with any logical arguments or… facts, Jonathan can simply state that prohibition simply needs to be… done better, and we should move on.
There are so many flaws in this overall article, I hardly know where to start, from the offensive opening straw man:

What distinguishes the Erowids is their assertion that modern humans must integrate psychoactive use into life. Apparently from their perspective, choosing abstinence, at either the individual or societal level, is inherently inconsistent with being modern.
Denying or denigrating an individual‰s right to choose temperance is an extreme position not worth engaging.

I have to assume that Caulkins has deliberately distorted the meaning of the Erowids’ discussion about how psychoactives, in one way or the other, legal or not, have permeated the fabric of all our lives, and that it behooves all individuals and society to be better informed. The only other option is that Caulkins is dumb as a rock.
Notice once again that, by misrepresenting the original argument, then denigrating the misrepresented argument, he says that there’s no point addressing it.
He then has some interesting speculation regarding various drug using categories, but without a frame of reference — ie, denying any possibility of discussing legalization and denying any responsibility for justifying criminalization — he’s just floating around on a free ride.
None of his discussions have any framework, because he has ignored the basic structure of a proper argument about the legal status of drugs. Throughout his piece, he assumes prohibition, refuses to entertain options other than prohibition, and yet refuses to defend criminalization based on a proper argument. Here’s what that proper argument must look like:
It’s not enough to say that certain drugs should be illegal because they’re dangerous to individuals or society. One must show:

• that they are dangerous,
• that criminalization actually significantly reduces the danger (and not merely use),
• that criminalization is the best way to reduce the danger, and
• that the side effects of criminalization won’t be worse, such as:
  • Corruption of Law Enforcement
  • Putting Drug Safety and Control in the hands of Criminals
  • Over-incarceration and the influence of the Prison-Industrial Complex
  • Enormous Black Market Criminal Profits
  • Drug War Violence
  • Damage to the Environment
  • Destruction of Families
  • Damage to Inner Cities and Poor Communities
  • Militarization of Law Enforcement and the Victims of Drug War Tactics
  • Racism and Civil Rights
  • Erosion of Civil Liberties
  • Foreign Policy Disasters
  • Financial Cost
  • Loss of the Truth

Otherwise. defense of prohibition is meaningless. [Note: The above is also the outline of a new website under construction and a book being written.]
Caulkins ends his piece with the age-old prohibitionist’s self-defining prohibition.

The responsible decision is to obey the law, even if doing so forecloses some pleasures, and in that respect responsible drug use is not possible in today‰s society, even ex post.

It’s bad because it’s illegal.
No discussion available yet at Cato’s site (there will be a full online debate later, I understand), but feel free to discuss at will here.
Jonathan is welcome to join in as well. I’m interested if he is willing to actually justify criminalization as good policy, rather than as good political policy.
Update: Alex at Drug Law Blog (who I don’t link to often enough) has reactions as well. He’s more polite to Jonathan than I am, but still notes that Caulkins “isn’t even attempting to seriously consider the broad range of possibilities.”
… it made Scott Morgan cringe

I‰m just amazed that Caulkins has shown up today to write about drug policy on the Cato website if he finds the drug policy debate boring.

I don’t know if you’ve followed the comments section on this post regarding Karin Litzcke’s article about Insite.
I came down pretty hard on Karin Litzcke, and I still think her article deserved it, but I’ve got to say that I admire her greatly for coming here and participating in the discussion. She did so with grace and good manners and a sincere attempt to understand a different point of view.
Kudos also to Steve and Jim in particular for their excellent, intelligent engagement with her on this subject. They did better than I could, as the unfortunately necessary “neither fish nor fowl” status of Insite is something I have not spent enough time exploring, although I do know enough to see that it is inextricably linked to the prohibition discussion (as became clear in the discussion, though it was a surprise to Karin).
Again, we so rarely have people with differing views willing to test us in discussion, that it’s a joy to have such a visitor (perhaps it’s because Karin did not truly consider herself part of the prohibition debate).
We welcome anyone who wishes to talk with us or debate us. If it seems that we have our knives sharpened, it’s just that we’re so… eager.

More on Towards a culture of responsible drug use…
Daksya has started a discussion on the topic over at MetaFilter that’s worth checking out.
And we’ll be following Cato’s discussion all week.

Now, all I have to do is send that statement to James Kinsella, Managing Editor of Cape Cod Today, and he’ll print it, merely “balancing” it by getting someone else to say “No, marijuana won’t wash your clothes, do your taxes, and walk your dog.”
Thus, readers will be left knowing only that there is some controversy regarding marijuana’s dog-walking, tax-preparing, clothes-laundering capabilities.
How do I know this? Merely look at yesterday’s article

“This is not your father’s marijuana of 20 or 30 years ago,” the district attorney [Michael O’Keefe] said. He said marijuana now is far more potent, and contains substances designed to addict the user.
He also said the rates of automobile and industrial accidents go up when marijuana is involved.
[Whitney] Taylor said statements that current marjuana is much more potent and is infused with addictive substances are “completely untrue.”

See, that’s true journalism. You don’t bother to ask the district attorney to back up his claims with citations or… facts. You don’t say “I can’t print that unless you give me some proof that it’s not a complete lie.” No, you go ahead and print it and turn it into a he-said/she-said piece. After all, it’s not your job as a journalist to inform people, but merely to entertain them and keep your sources happy, regardless of whether they are lying scumbags.
Congratulations James Kinsella on a job well done. Now, about marijuana’s ability to repair potholes…

I must admit… I never thought I’d see an effective political ad that advocated a 15-year-old’s use of marijuana.

The lead essay over at Cato Unbound this month is outstanding: Towards a Culture of Responsible Drug Use by Earth and Fire Erowid.
There will be reaction essays coming out later this week by Jonathan Caulkins, Jacob Sullum, and Mark Kleiman, and a week of online discussion.
Should be quite interesting.

The Agitator/Reason’s Radley Balko will be appearing live online at The Art of the Possible on Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern, and will be taking real-time questions from readers in the comments.