Drug WarRant

This article helps point out the absurdity of some people’s thinking when it comes to drug prohibition. Trenton is considering reducing the size of drug free school zones from 1,000 to 200 feet. Here’s the predictable idiotic response:

“Reducing the zones would have our children pass through a ( phalanx ) of drug dealers every day,” said school board Vice President Alexander Brown. “This would bring drug trafficking 800 feet closer to our schools. Some legislators believe the zones have placed a hardship on drug dealers. To me, I say ‘tough.'”

Of course, that’s a lot of absurd nonsense. Here is the actual story:

“If 96 percent of the people incarcerated under the drug-free zone law are black or Hispanic — groups that only make up 20 percent of our state’s population — it’s not a fair system,” said Roseanne Scotti, director of the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance New Jersey.
“Plus, there is no evidence that drug-free zones hinder drug sales,” Scotti said. “Basically, this law amounts to two different penalties being given for the same exact crime — the only differences between the two penalties are geography and race.”

Nobody actually knows where the zones are, so it isn’t a deterrent. It’s just a way of tacking on punishment for a certain class of people. It doesn’t in any way affect the availability of drugs to children. Because inner cities are so dense, the zones practically blanket the entire area — well of course that won’t stop drug sales, but it does mean that when black people are caught selling drugs, the DA can add on the zone charge.
And it certainly doesn’t make a zone “drug free.” You arrest one dealer and you’ve just put out an ad for a high-paying tax-free job for someone else (in a poor neighborhood — gee, you think anyone will bite?)
So the question is, do these officials know what they’re saying?

Officials across Mercer County said they would support changing the penalties for dealers caught in a drug-free zone, but reducing the zones to 200 feet would be disadvantageous to students.
Drug-free zones “should be everywhere,” said Lou Goldstein, spokesman for Princeton schools.
“To narrow it to 200 feet doesn’t make any sense,” Goldstein said.æ “In my personal opinion, the (legislators) are going in the wrong direction.æ They should be expanding the zones out as far as they can.” Sen.æ Shirley Turner, D-Lawrence, said she also favors expanding the zones.
“I think the entire city of Tren ton should be a drug-free zone, that’s my position,” Turner said.æ “Every municipality should be drug-free.”
Trenton City Council President Paul Pintella would also like to see drug-free zones expanded.
“I understand the challenge behind urban districts where schools are directly in the heart of neighborhoods; but we shouldn’t make exceptions for the people who live there,” Pintella said.æ “They shouldn’t be selling drugs in the first place, especially to our kids.”

I’ve written City Council President Pintella to ask him if drug trafficking is legal in Trenton except in drug free zones (which certainly seems to be his implication). I’ll let you know if I get a response.

Should medical marijuana be kept from minors at all costs? Why is it that pharmacists can dispense amphetamines without getting busted, but legal operators who dispense medical marijuana face prison time? Why do armed federal agents persist in raiding California?

Drew Carey with a heartbreaking video

Vincent Hodgkiss, dead, from a paramilitary-style drug raid. Details are still sketchy, but it’s clearly a death that didn’t have to happen.
People are finally starting to ask the right questions, though.

“bullet” Radley Balko has discovered some potentially earth-shattering information in the Ryan Frederick case. If the police were, in fact, directing or encouraging criminals to break into private homes in order to search for evidence, then some major heads need to roll — particularly when that action resulted in a death.
“bullet” Bruce Mirken does a nice job with the Potent Pot nonsense. See also Jacob Sullum.
“bullet” DrugSense Weekly
“bullet” “drcnet”

“bullet” Scott Morgan has the surreal posts: Vietnam Orders Police to Win the Drug War by August and People are Getting Themselves Arrested Just So They Can Sell Drugs in Jail
“bullet” Grant Smith at D’Alliance has a wonderful account of attending the drug testing summit held at the ONDCP HQ. I would have loved to be there.
“bullet” Radley Balko on the drug raid death of Gonzalo Guizan
“bullet” Transform notes Scotland looks to a new future of drug control

’77 per cent of young people surveyed by the Forum were doubtful that Scotland would ever be drug free and only 45 per cent of respondents felt we should even be trying to become drug free.‰
‘There should therefore be a more honest approach to alcohol and drug policy, with the primacy of effort concentrating on prevention, harm reduction measures and treatment, supported by enforcement activities.‰

While the headline and overall tone of this AP article — Study: Marijuana potency increases in 2007 — is typical fear mongering and parroting of Drug Czar press releases, the Associated Press gets a point for at least talking about marijuana use titration and mild withdrawal of pot in the article through interviewing Dr. Mitch Earleywine.

While the drug’s potency may be rising, marijuana users generally adjust to the level of potency and smoke it accordingly, said Dr. Mitch Earleywine, who teaches psychology at the State University of New York in Albany and serves as an adviser for marijuana advocacy groups. “Stronger cannabis leads to less inhaled smoke,” he said. […]
But there’s no data showing that a higher potency in marijuana leads to more addiction, Earleywine said, and marijuana’s withdrawal symptoms are mild at best. “Mild irritability, craving for marijuana and decreased appetite Ö I mean those are laughable when you talk about withdrawal from a drug. Caffeine is worse.”

Bloomin’ Idiot of the day: Alan Lupo in the Boston Herald.
Look at this — he has it. It almost appears that he understands it…

“It doesn’t matter how many millions the government pours in here to stop drugs,” a Mexican lawyer told a New York Times [NYT] reporter.
“As long as Americans keep buying them, this business is never going to stop.”
The fellow said that in 1986.
One need not have majored in economics to understand that if a market exists for a product, entrepreneurs will show up to sell to and profit from that market. Al Capone, after all, used to insist that he was nothing more than a businessman as he peddled illegal hooch to willing buyers.
Even if Mexican drug dealers were somehow stopped at our southwestern borders, they and others would find a way into our lucrative market, just as, during Prohibition, Irish, Jewish and Italian mobsters shipped and trucked in booze, and the Scotch-Irish of Appalachia cooked it up in back country stills.

Exactly, you’ve got it! It’s the same issues as alcohol prohibition. So…
So…
Come on, you can do it…
And the very next paragraph is:

If we Americans were serious about the drug war, we’d be fighting it not only aggressively at our borders and beyond, as we do, but also at home by treating our addicts with every manner of medical, psychological and social program we could invent.

What a moron.

If you support drug prohibition policies that make black market drug sales profitable, then you are encouraging violent behavior by criminals and supporting the funding of terrorists. This directly results in the deaths of thousands.
You are a death enabler.
If you support drug war enforcement, you are giving your government a green light to use military tactics against its own citizens, resulting in the deaths of both cops and citizens, often in the name of the impossible eradication of a drug that has harmed nobody.
You are a death enabler.
If you support the criminalization of pain medicines and medical marijuana patients, you are preventing doctors from doing their jobs, you are shortening lives, and sometimes, you are driving people in pain to suicide.
You are a death enabler.
If you support the stigmatization of drug users through criminal laws, then you deny people the information they need to make safe choices about drugs, and you scare people from getting help when they need it, which may result in overdose death or fatal disease.
You are a death enabler.

Over at ACLU blog, Jag Davies talks about George Soros’ speech at the ACLU Membership Conference this week. Soros is, of course, a lightning rod for hatred from some on the neocon right — but he understands freedom better than they do.
Here are a couple of quotes from Soros’ speech:

The War on Terror exploited a combination of the War on Drugs and the fear of death.

The War on Drugs is one of the most repressive aspects in American life.

Bob Barr gives a rare (for a poliician) public mea culpa in I Was Wrong About The War On Drugs — It’s A Failure over at the Huffington Post.

I’ll admit it, just five years ago I was “Public Enemy Number 1” in the eyes of the Libertarian Party. In my 2002 congressional race for Georgia’s Seventh District, the Libertarian Party ran scathing attack ads against my stand on Medical Marijuana. […]
For years, I served as a federal prosecutor and member of the House of Representatives defending the federal pursuit of the drug prohibition.
Today, I can reflect on my efforts and see no progress in stopping the widespread use of drugs. I’ll even argue that America’s drug problem is larger today than it was when Richard Nixon first coined the phrase, “War on Drugs,” in 1972.
America’s drug problem is only compounded by the vast amounts of money directed at this ongoing battle. In 2005, more than $12 billion dollars was spent on federal drug enforcement efforts while another $30 billion was spent to incarcerate non-violent drug offenders.
The result of spending all of those taxpayer’s dollars? We now have a huge incarceration tab for non-violent drug offenders and, at most, a 30% interception rate of hard drugs. We are also now plagued with the meth labs that are popping up like poisonous mushrooms across the country.
While it is clear the War on Drugs has been a failure, it is not enough to simply acknowledge that reality. We need to look for solutions that deal with the drug problem without costly and intrusive government agencies, and instead allow for private industry and organizations to put forward solutions that address the real problems.

It’s a conversion, all right, but the rest of the article is anecdotal and doesn’t really say anything about where he would go specifically. In fact, the anecdotal example he uses is about private industry implementing tougher drug policies.
It’s an important admission by Barr that he has changed his views, but so far it seems weak, especially compared to what we heard from Ron Paul (not that we’ve heard any better from Obama, and particularly not from McCain).
I’m not one of those who feels that Barr has to somehow make up for every past mistake before he’s given any support, but I’d like to have some clear sense that he’s not just “looking for a better way to handle prohibition.”
I’ll be curious to see how much the drug war factors in the Barr campaign (I’m sure Daniel will help with that) and how that translates into a national discussion. That would be welcome no matter what.