Drug WarRant

Thanks to Dan for alerting me to these proposed bills in the Illinois Legislature:

HB 4713 sponsored by Constance Howard

Amends the Cannabis Control Act, the Illinois Controlled Substances Act, and the Methamphetamine Control and Community Protection Act. Provides that a person who calls the 911 emergency number to report an overdose of cannabis, a controlled, counterfeit, or look-alike substance, controlled substance analog, methamphetamine, or a substance containing methamphetamine and the person who overdosed are immune from criminal liability for a violation relating to the possession of cannabis, a controlled, counterfeit, or look-alike substance, controlled substance analog, methamphetamine, or a substance containing methamphetamine.

HB 4715 sponsored by Constance Howard

Amends the Cannabis Control Act and the Illinois Controlled Substances Act. Provides that whenever a peace officer has probable cause to arrest a person for a suspected misdemeanor violation of either of these Acts, the peace officer in lieu of making an arrest may issue a citation to the person. Provides that the person shall post bail or other security, as determined by the Illinois Supreme Court, which shall include the posting of bail by either cash payment, a bond card, or a charge to the defendant’s debit or credit card. Provides that if a citation is issued, a court appearance is not required if the person intends to plead guilty to the charge. Provides that if the defendant does not appear on the date set for appearance, or any date to which the case may be continued, the court may enter an ex parte judgment against the defendant assessing fines, penalties, and costs in an amount equal to the cash bail required by the Illinois Supreme Court and the clerk of the circuit court shall apply the cash bail or security in payment of the fines, penalties, and costs.

HB 5499 sponsored by Rep. Angelo Saviano

Creates the Illinois Medical Marijuana Act. Provides that when a person has been diagnosed by a physician as having a debilitating medical condition, the person and the person’s primary caregiver may be issued a registry identification card by the Department of Public Health that permits the person or the person’s primary caregiver to legally possess no more than 12 cannabis plants and 2.5 ounces of usable cannabis. Amends the Cannabis Control Act to make conforming changes. Provides that the provisions of the Act are severable. Effective immediately.

SB 2865 sponsored by Sen. John J. Cullerton

Creates the Alternative Treatment for Serious Diseases Causing Chronic Pain and Debilitating Conditions Act. Provides that when a person has been diagnosed by a physician as having a debilitating medical condition, the person and the person’s primary caregiver may be issued a registry identification card by the Department of Public Health that permits the person or the person’s primary caregiver to legally possess no more than 12 cannabis plants and 2.5 ounces of usable cannabis. Amends the Cannabis Control Act to make conforming changes. Provides that the provisions of the Act are severable. Effective immediately.

It’s the same everywhere you look. Drug war declared, great intentions, massive penalties for offenders, then organized criminals, corrupt cops, corrupt officials, government cover-ups, increased drug problems, calls for better oversight, and an absolute failure to understand that the drug war is the problem.

Read this story of the drug war in Nigeria: Drug war gone burst. The awkward translation actually makes it an oddly charming read, but the key thing is that it’s the same old story.

And it’s a painful reminder that prohibition always fails. The folks that defend prohibition with the “all we need to do is make prohibition better” chant fail to realize that its very foundation is fatally flawed. Can they even identify one place and time where a drug prohibition regime has actually worked?

In fact, here’s the challenge: Can anyone identify an effective prohibition regime of any kind involving an easily supplied, high-demand product or service? (And by effective, I mean one that dramatically reduces the activity without increasing the cost to society of prohibition over that of the prohibited activity.)

I’ve done a little bit of cleaning of my front page right column links.
I don’t use them much myself, since I depend on my newsreader for keeping up with the hundreds of sites I check daily. So I realized that I had a number of links that were no longer useful. Some were gone entirely, others had stopped posting, and some just weren’t really relevant (like TalkLeft, which I’ve taken down at least until after the election — it’s gotten pretty ugly over there).
What am I missing? Please let me know of any sites that are regularly updated and regularly deal with drug policy that I might be missing either for inclusion on the front page, or for reading on my RSS feed.

This is big news. This is “the nation’s largest organization of doctors of internal medicine, with 124,000 members.”

A large and respected association of physicians is calling on the federal government to ease its strict ban on marijuana as medicine and hasten research into the drug’s therapeutic uses. […]
In a 13-page position paper approved by the college’s governing board of regents and posted Thursday on the group’s website, the group calls on the government to drop marijuana from Schedule I, a classification it shares with illegal drugs such as heroin and LSD that are considered to have no medicinal value and a high likelihood of abuse.

The full paper is available here (pdf)
Here are a couple of their positions:

Position 1: ACP supports programs and funding for rigorous scientific evaluation of the potential therapeutic benefits of medical marijuana and the publication of such findings.

Position 1a: ACP supports increased research for conditions where the efficacy of
marijuana has been established to determine optimal dosage and route of delivery.

Position 1b: Medical marijuana research should not only focus on determining drug
efficacy and safety but also on determining efficacy in comparison with other available
treatments.

Position 2: ACP encourages the use of nonsmoked forms of THC that have proven
therapeutic value.

Position 4: ACP urges review of marijuana‰s status as a Schedule I controlled substance
and its reclassification into a more appropriate schedule, given the scientific evidence
regarding marijuana‰s safety and efficacy in some clinical conditions.

Position 5: ACP strongly supports exemption from federal criminal prosecution; civil
liability; or professional sanctioning, such as loss of licensure or credentialing, for
physicians who prescribe or dispense medical marijuana in accordance with state law.
Similarly, ACP strongly urges protection from criminal or civil penalties for patients who
use medical marijuana as permitted under state laws.

One more major medical group supporting medical marijuana. And this might end up pushing the AMA to finally stop weaseling out on the issue.

It just keeps getting more and more difficult for the government to even attempt to maintain that “The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” which is a requirement for marijuana to remain in Schedule 1.

So instead, they just make stuff up, and their statements keep getting wilder.

But officials at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said calls for legalizing medical marijuana were misguided.

“What this would do is drag us back to 14th century medicine,” said Bertha Madras, the agency’s deputy director for demand reduction. “It’s so arcane.”

Arcane? [known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric]? Are you kidding me? Marijuana is one of the least arcane medical substances in existence.

Maybe Bertha is calling the American College of Physicians arcane? She better hope she doesn’t need medical attention in the near future.

The American College of Physicians paper is a great step. It isn’t perfect. There is one statement with which I strongly disagree.

Position 3: ACP supports the current process for obtaining federal research-grade medical marijuana.

They’re not going to be able to do a very good job of stimulating further research as long as the current federal bureaucracy regarding obtaining research marijuana exists.

And then there’s this interesting little dig in their conclusion:

The science on medical marijuana should not be obscured or hindered by the debate surrounding the legalization of marijuana for general use.

I agree. But keep in mind that it is not the “legalizers” who are obscuring or hindering the science on medical marijuana — we have fully supported further science and development. It is the prohibitionists who have blocked science because of their fears of it leading to legalization.

“bullet” Look, I’m no fan of Chavez, so it really says something that I am more likely to believe him regarding the drug war than the credibility of our own government.

President Hugo Chavez accused the United States on Sunday of sending Colombian right-wing paramilitary forces into Venezuela to destabilize border areas and arm shantytown gangs in the capital Caracas.
With his most concrete charge to date in a months-old diplomatic dispute with Colombia, Chavez said the U.S. ally supported the campaign that also included selling cocaine to buy support in slums.

“bullet” Travel guru Rick Steves creates a half-hour infomercial-style program: “Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation.” (Rick has long been a supporter of legalization.)
“bullet” How do you host an AIDS conference without including drug user communities? That question is becoming a major issue for an upcoming regional AIDS conference in Moscow, since Russia bans the use of methadone and buprenorphine.
“bullet” Shorter Mexican Bishops: People should stop being greedy for drug profits and instead give money to the church so the church can continue supporting the drug war that makes drugs profitable.
“bullet” “drcnet”

I have to say that I’m not a big fan of the bloggingheads concept. I just personally prefer to read at my own pace than watch bad video of people talking, and it’s so hard to skim video.
But I did want to check out this bloggingheads.tv piece: Crime and Punishment with Mark Kleiman and Glenn Loury. Mostly I focused on the last section on prohibition, where Mark, as usual, simultaneously slams and defends prohibition, in seemingly incoherent ways. Once again, he does his cocaine/alcohol dance when it comes to legalization, where he “demonstrates” that legalization of cocaine will cause the increase of cocaine abuse to the level of alcohol abuse, while also causing an increase in alcohol abuse.
Here was the closer — and the most bizarre argument against legalization possible.

But there are things we can do about drug policy that would reduce the number of people in prison, and the extent of drug abuse and drug related crime. Legalization isn’t one of them because there’s not public support for it. And if we acknowledge the fact that, from the point of view of the majority of the population it’s a loser, um, then it’s not as if we can talk them out of that, so I think the legalization debate is mostly a distraction from doing the real work of fixing our drug policies.

If the majority doesn’t support something, then there’s just no point talking to them about it? What kind of mindless crap is that? Apparently the only proper way to debate something is if people already agree with you.

As Bill disembarked today, we caught his eye, and I was close enough to shout, “You promised Jacki Rickert you’d get her Medical Marijuana in 1992.”

Some friends picket President Clinton.

I don’t write nearly as many Letters To the Editor as I should — I tend to get busy enough posting here, but now and then something spurs me to respond. This article by Judy Guenseth in the Galesburg Register-Mail did it. My letter in response: Legalizing pot adds control was published today.

Keep in mind that LTEs are a great way to get exposure for drug policy reform. If you need some suggestions, ideas, help in letter-writing strategy, good examples, etc. simply visit The Media Awareness Project. The equivalent advertising value of the letters published by MAP folks last year totaled over $2 million. Not bad for free.

The Marijuana Policy Posse has created a new video to address the age-old question my most popular page has been discussing for years: Why is Marijuana Illegal?

It’s telling that so many of us have discovered what a tremendous need there is out there for the answer to this question. In the past month, my Why is Marijuana Illegal page has had 123,192 pageviews, representing over 3/4 of all traffic to my site.

NORML’s Paul Armentano has a lengthy, detailed article at AlterNet: Making Pot Legal: We Can Do It — Here’s How. Definitely worth reading. What do you think of his roadmap/conclusions?
Update: Link working now. I got sloppy with my html.
P.S. I plan to do an extended response to this article at a later time, but I’m interested in getting your feedback first this time.