Drug WarRant

Quite a buzz of excitement in the hotel this morning, with all sorts of people here for the 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference at the Astor Crowne Plaza in New Orleans.
Everybody’s mingling around the continental breakfast, getting registered, peering at nametags to see who they know. 1,000 people pre-registered for this conference, so it’s huge, and the grand ballroom is packed for the opening welcome.
Pretty much every reform organization is represented here — some with information tables in the lobby. LEAP is here in force, and the bold “Cops Say Legalize Drugs – Ask Me Why” T-shirts are everywhere around the hotel, including Howard Woolridge with his great cowboy hat. I saw Irv Rosenfeld – a great guy, and one of the very few medical marijuana patients actually supplied by the federal government. Of course, people from DPA, MPP, NORML, ACLU, ASA, and on and on, but also some excellent international groups, including Transform (their “Tools for the Debate” publication was included in our welcom packets).

As I blog this conference, I’ll be working without internet access during the sessions, and then coming out to the lobby to actually post (unfortunately, the only option). So I’m a bit handicapped without having access to links or being able to look up information online while blogging. Statements beginning with (-) dash are paraphrases of the speakers’ comments. Sometimes these will be less than coherent as a whole (if you want the whole speech, buy the CD). But I’ll try to provide some highlights and focus of major presentations.
Opening session led off (after housekeeping stuff) with Norris Henderson of Safe Streets, Strong Communities – a local partner for the conference. Norris works with people in NOLA and is hoping this conference will help “change the frame.”
He talked about the fact that New Orleans police brag about the number of people they arrest to show that they’re restoring order, but the vast majority are paraphernalia/marijuana/drug possession arrests.
There are drug problems in New Orleans, but they aren’t solved by the drug war.
As far as the bigger picture:

“The casualties of this war are greater than any other war we’ve engaged in.”

He also talked about the fact that New Orleans is in serious shape and is far from being a liveable city for many of its residents.
Ira Glasser, former head of the ACLU, was next.

The war on drugs has violated two main principles from the very beginning.

1. Personal autonomy and freedom
2. Racial Equity and Justice

He talked about the racial aspect to the beginnings and continuation of prohibition for all the major illicit drugs. Interestingly, the only major drug that was made legal was alcohol, the drug of the white majority.
With that opening, Glasser set up the fact that race and the drug war was going to be a key focus of this conference.
— In New York 92% of all the people in state prison for drug offenses are black or latino.
— In many states in the south, 30% of blacks are disenfranchised from voting, due to felony convictions. At the same time, they are counted toward population figures for getting the states more representatives in Congress.

“This war on drugs is the greatest source of the violations of both personal freedom and racial justice… It is long past time to end it, and it is long past time to be patient about ending it.”

Ethan Nadelmann, Drug Policy Alliance

– We need to build a movement for freedom and justice, for science and compassion, for human rights.
– There are so many different kinds of people here with different perspectives: cops and those arrested, those who love drugs and those who have been damaged by drugs. We can’t agree on anything, except the conviction and belief that the war on drugs, this policy of punitive prohibition, has got to go.
Ethan really gets on fire when he gets in front of an audience. You can’t help but getting a little bit swept up in his enthusiasm.
Ethan follows up with more on the race issue, following up on Ira’s start.
– Ignorance, fear, prejudice and profit drive this system. The thing that rises to the top is the element of fear. The war on drugs is a fear-based paradigm. It’s about fear. We need to uproot that fear.
– While the drug war is very much about race, it isn’t a struggle of white against black. This is a struggle of justice and freedom versus oppression.
– We’ve developed a theocracy of drug war prohibition in this country and around the world. An orthodoxy, and a set of rituals, and we forget why they were started.
– It’s not just enough to talk about harm reduction. We are fighting for freedom and liberty.
– What does the American flag mean? Doesn’t it represent our freedom? We have to stand up and say “Wait a second — this flag is ours, too.”
Ethan addressed the point of having a vision, yet having to talk the language of little steps.
– While I’d rather say ‘legalize,’ when talking to legislators, sometimes I have to say ‘That 20 year penalty should be 10 years, or 5 or 3.’
– We’re not just fighting for the bigger picture, but we’re also fighting for people today.
– But it’s not enough to just do that. We have to be careful that we do not lose sight of that ultimate vision. Freedom.
Ethan talked about the new surveillance society and how that may affect us.
He also talked about the fact that we must all be teachers.
We cannot carry prejudices into other areas (fighting for marijuana, but demonizing meth in the same way). We have to lose our own fears and prejudices. We should not say that my way is the right way and the only way in drug policy reform, but rather encourage and work with all the people in various areas of reform.

Most drug treatment does not work most of the time for most people. But dollar for dollar, it’s a far better investment that locking those people up.

– What every works for you is right.
– We have to, and must, fight amongst ourselves in the reform community about everything, and then hug each other at the end.
We must assert and fight for this fundamental principle:

We believe that no one deserves to be punished solely for what they put into their bodies if they don’t hurt another soul. We must be sovereign over our bodies. My body doesn’t belong to the state or to an employer.

… on to the next session.

“bullet” This is interesting… [link fixed]

Zogby polling data released today asked 1,028 likely voters, “If hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine were legalized, would you be likely to use them?” Ninety-ninety percent of respondents answered, “No.” Only 0.6 percent said “Yes.” The remaining 0.4 percent weren’t sure.
The results are similar to usage rates occurring under today’s “drug war,” as measured by the federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health (formerly the National Household Survey). The 2006 NSDUH found 0.3 percent of the population had used heroin in the past month and 2.4 percent had used cocaine. Even for cocaine, the numbers are compatible, because Zogby surveyed persons aged 18 years and up, while NSDUH begins with age 12; and because of the poll’s statistical margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

Sure it’s a poll, and sure, polls should always be taken with at least a few grains of salt (and who knows how attitudes would change post-legalization/regulation), but this clearly doesn’t support the prohibitionists’ claim that, with legalization, everyone will suddenly decide to immediately become some kind of druggie addict burden on society.
“bullet” Welcome to the more than 300 visitors that came to Drug WarRant today from this site
“bullet” I’m a little late for this, but happy End of Prohibition Day

On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment to the U.S Constitution is ratified, repealing Prohibition.

“bullet” Nice OpEd by David Servatius…

The dirty little secret that the big pharmaceutical companies fear most is that marijuana actually helps a lot of people with a lot of things that these companies would rather sell people an expensive pill for. It provides a lot of harmless enjoyment and social lubrication for a lot of people, without the added toxicity of alcohol.

A smooth 839 mile drive in just over 12 hours got me to New Orleans tired, but ready to start. However, a problem with internet service in the hotel, and in my room in particular (they thought there was a plug-in, but there wasn’t), has derailed my evening.
So right now I’m grabbing a little internet access from the wireless in the lobby before crashing. They may move me to a different room tomorrow.
I did get to have some rather tasty seafood gumbo from room service while waiting for the internet issues to be resolved.

Today I’m driving 839 miles to New Orleans, so posting will be… light. So far, I’ve been unable to master the skill of posting my blog while driving.
So talk amongst yourselves… and keep working on the questions for Costa. You’ve come up with some pretty good ones so far.
As soon as I get settled in the hotel late tonight, I’ll start filling you in on New Orleans
If you’re going to the convention, be sure to look me up.

The Justice Policy Institute will be releasing a study today “detailing the different treatment white and black drug offenders receive under the criminal justice system.”
It appears to be explosive from the first reports to hit the news…
According to the report, for drug offenses in San Francisco…

whites are incarcerated at a rate of 35 per 100,000 white people, while blacks are incarcerated at a rate of 1,013 per 100,000 black people

In Chicago

African-Americans in Cook County were imprisoned for drug offenses at 58 times the rate of white peopleÖthe seventh-worst racial disparity among large counties nationwide.

Also

The institute found that nationwide, African-Americans are imprisoned for drugs at 10 times the rate of white people.

The top major counties in racial disparity?

1. Forsyth County, NC
2. Onondaga County, NY
3. Dane County, WI

This report may add some critical material to some of the sessions at this week’s international Drug Policy Conference, where one major focus will be on African-Americans and drug policy.

Mark Kleiman and the Drug Czar both link approvingly to Physicians unlikely to embrace marijuana as medicine by Keith Humphreys.
We know the drug czar’s motivation — he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about sick people today and is willing to sacrifice them in order to demonize recreational marijuana. I’ll hold off characterizing Kleiman’s motivation.
Now to be sure, Mark properly refutes some of the more outrageous omissions and mischaracterizations in Humphreys’ OpEd (a dreadful piece lacking basic scientific knowledge about the state of medical marijuana research). And I commend him for that diligence. And he does go on to say:

If morphine is a medicine, there’s no reason why vaporized or nebulized cannabis extract can’t be a medicine.

But ultimately, the premise of Humphreys’ article is nonsensical.
Humphreys says that mainstream medicine is unlikely to embrace marijuana as a treatment. When it comes to reasons why he believes this, about all he can muster is:

1. Doctors are gun-shy because of the damage caused by cigarette smoking, and so are unlikely to accept a smoked medicine (this sounds like an indictment of the medical community — that they’d make decisions not based on facts, but on fears).
2. Doses are hard to regulate (this is an old one and may end up being important in some situations, but it’s completely irrelevant in others — in fact, smoked marijuana is easier to self-regulate than most pharmaceutical drugs, and doctors know full well that one pharmaceutically regulated cold capsule dose could have no impact on one patient while knocking another patient out completely.)

And Kleiman accepts the premise…

His basic point: medicines may be developed from cannabis, but American physicians simply aren’t going to have their patients smoke their medicine.
That seems right…

and his RSS teaser:

Can cannabis be a medicine?
Sure. But not smoked in joints or bongs.

Why not?
So let’s go back to the premise. Mainstream medicine will not accept smoked marijuana.
What does that mean? If it means that pharmaceutical companies will not accept smoked marijuana, then, yes, you’re absolutely right. They stand to lose billions of dollars of our money.
However, if you mean doctors, then that’s just hogwash.
Despite the lack of support from the medical establishment, and the harassment from the federal government, there are tons of well-trained, licensed physicians who are fully prepared to recommend smoked marijuana to their patients, and who do so on a daily basis, in accordance with state laws.
And that should be the story. Not what some mythical “mainstream medicine” may eventually decree.
To me, mainstream medicine is what happens between a doctor and a patient, not between a pharmaceutical company and a professor of psychiatry. Sure, some doctors may not wish to prescribe marijuana. Some patients may not wish to smoke it. For some patients, Marinol or Sativex may work better. Others may find brownies effective.
Those of us in the drug policy reform community want scientific research to continue — we want the drug companies to investigate cannabinoids in various forms, and develop pills, and sprays, and injections, and rectal suppositories, and whatever else they find is effective for various illnesses.
But in the meantime, there are patients who benefit from smoked marijuana, and there are doctors recommending it. And it is completely irresponsible for politicians and academicians to tell them they can’t or shouldn’t. Or that patients should just tell their pain or their nausea to wait until a “proper” medicine has been synthesized that they can buy at premium prices from the Rx Lords.
Because marijuana is so effective and safe (and by any human standards, marijuana has been proven both safe and effective beyond any doubt) and so easy and cheap to manufacture, and because it is associated with recreational use, it is going to make certain people uncomfortable. So be it. It’s past time to shake things up and say not that marijuana can become a medicine, but that it already is, and you’d better get on board or you’ll be left behind.
Full Disclosure: I am a legalizer. I believe that marijuana should be legally available for recreational use within a regulated system that takes it out of the black market. However, I also happen to believe that sick people should be able to take safe and effective medicine that has been recommended by their doctor. That’s not opportunistic; it’s merely consistent. Yes, I give a rat’s ass about sick people.

I’ve been doing a little more thinking about one of the Thursday keynote speakers at the Drug Policy Alliance’s 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference — UNODC’s Antonio Maria Costa.
I find myself wondering what I would say if I had a chance to talk to him. What question would I ask?
I admire prohibitionists who are willing to talk to their opposition. So few of them are. So it’s important to me that we treat him with respect. It’s also important that we try to understand them.
Certainly, over time, Costa has made some scattered overtures toward… sanity? He has said that treatment is more effective than incarceration. He appeared that he might even be personally interested in harm reduction (needle provision in 3rd world countries, for example) before political necessity made him change to zero tolerance for harm reduction.
But ultimately, his legacy is full-blown prohibitionist propaganda meant to feed authoritarian government approaches regardless of the facts.

“Today the harmful characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs such as cocaine and heroin,”

“Amid all the libertarian talk about the right of individuals to engage in dangerous practices provided no one else gets hurt, certain key facts are easily forgotten. First, cannabis is a dangerous drug – not just to the individuals who use it. People who drive under the influence of cannabis put others at risk. Would even the most ardent supporter of legalisation want to fly in an aircraft whose pilot used cannabis?

Governments and societies must keep their nerve and avoid being swayed by misguided notions of tolerance. They must not lose sight of the fact that illicit drugs are dangerous – that is why the world agreed to restrict them.”

He has set himself up as judge over whether countries were sufficiently pure in their prohibition.

“The law conforms with three main United Nations agreements on drugs,” he said.æ Under the proposed law, possession of marijuana would remain illegal.æ However someone caught with less than 15 grams would face only a fine.æ Mr.æ Costa said 15 grams is too high a threshold.

And he has pushed for eradication in Afghanistan despite the danger to the country and to our soldiers…

“History teaches us that it will take a generation to render Afghanistan opium-free,” UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement.

“It is possible to claw Afghanistan back into legality province by province, as was done in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, all of which were once characterized by large scale opium cultivation.”

What else do you know about Costa?
What question would you ask him in a Q and A session?
Oh, and yes, I will be blogging the Conference. Won’t be quite live-blogging — they don’t have wireless in the conference rooms — I’ll have to wait until I get to the lobby or my room to actually post, but I’m going to try to share a lot of the conference and New Orleans with you — including photos, so be sure to tune in Thursday through Saturday.

This is such an amazingly spot-on description of how politicians make decisions related to the drug war…

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson is pressing ahead with plans to create mandatory minimum prison terms for drug crimes in spite of two studies prepared for his own department that say such laws don’t work, and are increasingly unpopular as crime-fighting measures in other countries.
“Minimum sentences are not an effective sentencing tool: that is, they constrain judicial discretion without offering any increased crime-prevention benefits. Nevertheless, mandatory sentences remain popular with some Canadian politicians.”

It costs a lot and it doesn’t work. Let’s do it!

Ben Wallace-Wells’ extensive article in Rolling Stone chronicles a litany of failures in the modern age of the war on drugs — failures of politics, judgement, and personality.
While I’m not sure I agree with all of Wallace-Wells’ assumptions (such as whether, if smarter decisions had been made, significant “victories” in the war on drugs would have been possible), the article is an essential primer for understanding this war.

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“bullet” Drug Sense Weekly