Drug WarRant

So I come across this OpEd by Denny Freidenrich with the headline How To Ensure Teen Drivers Are Drug-Free. Now that’s a bold and amazing promise, so I eagerly read on to see how this magic could occur.
It starts out nostalgic:

Before 1967, ubiquitous teen drug use hardly existed. But after the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Doors released their seminal albums later that year, the pharmaceutical floodgates opened wide. For the past 40 years, parents coast to coast have struggled with their sons and daughters smoking pot, popping pills, snorting coke and more.

Ah, yes, it’s all the fault of the hippie music, apparently causing young people to lose the ability to differentiate between substances. And of course, prior to 1967, teens didn’t use drugs — they stuck to alcohol and cigarettes, which are… food?
The OpEd continues on an interesting note…

Since the war on drugs officially began in 1970, tens of thousands of teens have been busted for using drugs. For those unlucky enough to have been caught while in high school, most were expelled in the early days of the drug war. If that wasn’t bad enough, hundreds of teenagers every year for decades have been shipped off to juvenile hall or sentenced to prison for drug possession.
Despite wearing their DARE tee-shirts to elementary school, and knowing virtually everything there is to know about drug use, today’s teens still are hell-bent on getting high.

Hmmm… that’s a pretty good condemnation of the drug war. Clearly it’s been destructive and hasn’t worked.
So what’s this magic solution to ensure drug-free teen drivers?

I believe there should be a federal law governing teen drivers who test positive for drugs.
To their credit, a few forward-thinking state lawmakers have floated similar ideas. However, this problem is national in scope. That’s why Congress needs to enact a law that prohibits teenagers from getting their learner’s permit or qualifying for a driver’s license if they fail a drug test. If that happens, the offending teen must wait another six months before reapplying. If drugs are detected the second time around, the teen must wait a year before reapplying.
Like drivers who are required to have their cars smog-checked, teens would be required to submit a urine sample at designated, secure locations near their homes. Tamper-free, computerized results would then be sent to their state’s Department of Motor Vehicles ( DMV ) database several weeks before the scheduled permit or license exam is to take place. If a teen tests positive for drugs, then he or she would be denied an application and told to reapply in six months.
Why add a heap of test results on a state’s DMV? Because the right of passage from pre-teen to responsible young adult lies right behind the wheel of a car. Driving is an earned privilege, not a constitutional right. One of the best ways a teenager can “earn” the right to drive is to be drug-free.

That’s it? You’re kidding, right? This will ensure drug-free teen drivers? The writer claims to have teens, so apparently what he’s missing is a brain.
If a teenager wants to use drugs and get a driver’s license, all they’d have to do is pass the idiot test: Stop using prior to the urine screening (or switch from pot to harder drugs that clear the system more quickly). Then, urine successfully passed, they could be stoned on the day they take their driver’s test and every day after.
This would do absolutely nothing other than add another federal bureaucracy, add costs and annoyance for parents, subject kids to yet another humiliating instance of being sub-citizen property, and further drive those teens who use drugs into hiding it, particularly from their parents.
Are we running out of drug laws to pass? There are so many idiots out there who seem determined to gain some kind of cred or importance by proposing a drug law. But we’ve passed so many already, and then doubled them and piled them on, and on and on… So now people come up with the most bizarre, idiotic ideas for laws, just to have something new, with the inevitable promise that, while those millions of other drug laws have failed, this one will do the trick.
But there’s another possibility in this case as well, on which I can only speculate. Denny Freidenrich is a bad parent.
He says he subjected his own son to a drug test.

We tested our 15-year-old son for the first time about two months ago. Tearfully, he told us he is one of a handful of teen-agers we know – out of more than 30 we have watched grow up over the years – who never has tried drugs.

Unable to establish a relationship of trust, and on no other suspicion than that other kids use drugs, he had his son tested, and the tearful implied accusation of that lack of trust had to have hurt. So why not have the federal government do the bad parenting for him? That might ease his guilt.
If only we passed another law…

Can you guess which American spoke these stirring words last night?

When the Founders drafted the Constitution, they had a clear understanding of tyranny. They also had a clear idea about how to prevent it from ever taking root in America. Their solution was to separate the government’s powers into three co-equal branches: the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary. Each of these branches plays a vital role in our free society. Each serves as a check on the others. And to preserve our liberty, each must meet its responsibilities — and resist the temptation to encroach on the powers the Constitution accords to others.

Was it:

1. Christopher Dodd
2. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
3. Ron Paul
4. George W. Bush
5. Dennis Kucinich
6. Hillary Clinton

Go ahead and guess. And then check to see if you’re right.

“bullet” “drcnet”

There’s a conversation going on around the blogs about the sometimes controversial term “states’ rights.” See Grits for Breakfast’s response to a Bob Herbert article touted by Big Tent Democrat and responses by Jeralyn Merritt and then Alex.
I’ll add my quick two cents.
First cent: At a time when federal authoritarianism is ascendant, I’ll take the pitfalls of states’ rights any day. It’s much easier to move to another state for justice than another country.
Second cent:

‹It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.Š

– Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

Via Hit and Run
John McCain on medical marijuana on a conference call

A questioner named Jonathan… asked “Should federal law supersede the will of the people in a given state when it comes to medical marijuana?”
McCain started chuckling. “The will of the people, my friend, is that medical marijuana is not something that the quote ‘people’ want,” he responded. “Certain people feel strongly about this issue, and they show up at most town hall meetings, obviously feel very strongly about it. There is no convincing evidenceáthere’s evidence, but no convincing evidence to me that medical marijuana relief of pain and suffering cannot be accomplished by prescriptions from doctorsá So, when you’re talking about the will of the people, you’re going to have to show me the will of the people besides the will of a small number of people who feel very strongly about the issue, as obviously you do.”
The questioner mentioned that voters approved of medical marijuana in a California referendum.
“There may be times when the will of the people, for example Iraq, the will of the people, unfortunately is that we withdraw from Iraq immediately or very very soon,” McCain shot back. “I don’t share that view of the will of the people.”

The will of the people isn’t the will of the people, except when it is the will of the people, in which case my will is really the will of the people, whether they know it or not.
Authoritarians.

On Wednesday, potential hemp growers take on the DEA in court with oral arguments in… Bismark, North Dakota. It’s likely to be an interesting time — I wish I could be there.
Here’s what makes it interesting. From any logical perspective and any reasonable interpretation of the Constitution, it’s a no-brainer — the DEA doesn’t have a leg to stand on. However, given the pathetic tendency of our courts to bend over for the government whenever the drug war is mentioned, even peripherally (Raich, Caballes, et al), it seems perfectly likely that the DEA will win.
I’m waiting for some kind of signal from the courts that there are limitations to government power. And we certainly can’t seem to turn to Congress for help.

Interesting…

The United Steelworkers union announced today that it opposes handing Mexico what amounts to a blank check for $500 million for border enforcement of drug trafficking because it‰s likely the American tax dollars will instead end up further undermining human and labor rights in Mexico. […]
Gerard noted that giving such an administration access to an unrestricted $500 million for law enforcement would make matters worse. ‹Indeed, the repression of labor unions and human rights organizations will likely lead even more Mexicans to conclude that their only future lies in migration to the U.S.,Š he wrote.

For a little light reading, check out Milkijuana? by John Wind Bell, which talks tongue-in-cheek (we hope) about the future war on… raw, unpasteurized milk.

The politician will soon have Raw Milk on their platform. Raw Milk will give the First Lady and her husband something to do with their royal time. An answer for them so they can start looking important and busy. Another scare tactic, another make-work project for them to fix the unbroken.
‹Say No to Raw Milk,Š will be the popular chant. ‹This is your brain on Raw Milk,Š will be on the TV screen. ‹It‰s a gateway drink,Š someone will be sure to preach from their pulpit. ‹It‰s stronger now than what it was in the sixties,Š a teacher will recite to your students in a M.A.R.E. program. ‹Beware of the Raw Milk pusher.Š ‹Raw Milk will make you go nuts and be violent.Š ‹There will be Raw Milk gangs.Š ‹Raw Milk will make men‰s breast grow and your children deformed.Š
And no there are not, as yet, police officers setting up road blocks and check points in your home town on weekends and holidays with breathalyzers and pupilometers in hand and at the ready to catch the Raw Milk Heads. But hey, in retrospect who would have ever thought our government would have their hands stuck in all that they do these days. And, oh yeah, the Constitution, remember that?

Full disclosure here…. I must admit that once, many years ago, in my reckless youth, I drank some raw milk when visiting friends on a farm. But I didn’t swallow, and I now see the error of my ways and will do my part to prevent others from making that same mistake.

Note: in a similar vein, if you haven’t read it before, check out my piece: Increase in Burger Abuse Seen.

Canada’s Larry Campbell is a former RCMP drug officer, former coroner, former Mayor of Vancouver, and now Senator. He’s got a must-read OpEd about marijuana in The Province

“The time is here that we should simply take this out of the criminal element and regulate it. The idea that marijuana is virtually any of the things that the drug warriors in the United States say is ludicrous.
“They’re much like the Conservative government — they don’t believe in scientific fact. […]
Campbell says one thing has convinced opponents marijuana should be illegal: ideology.
“It’s all ideology — if they’re wrong on this, then what else are they wrong on? They won’t even allow hemp. That’s how stupid these people are — and they are stupid. I describe [White House drug czar John] Walters as a moron, and he is truly a moron. […]
“If [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper gets his way, prisons, like the United States, will be a growth industry. We’ll start destroying families. [There will be] more crime, breakdown in society and loss of productivity from good people going to jail for nothing.”
Campbell says “there’s no question” Canada’s marijuana laws are dictated by the U.S. war on drugs.
“We dance entirely to their tune. We’re afraid of what will happen if we ever legalize marijuana.” [emphasis added]

For those who have been following Drug WarRant for awhile, you may know that I like to keep tabs on what former ONDCP Deputy Director Andrea Barthwell is up to — particularly since she has such a history of… lying.
Andrea will be presenting: “Risky Behavior: What’s at Stake and How to Prevent It” tomorrow night in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

Barthwell plans to talk to parents about why teens are attracted to drugs, what are the ramifications of using them, and to dispel common myths about drugs.
“Based on her research, her expertise, she really has what is the latest up-to-date implications on drug use in our teenagers,” said Gilda Ross, District 87 student and community projects coordinator. […]
The workshop topics include:
Explaining how false belief marijuana is harmless and not addictive contribute to its use and dependence.
[…]
Citing evidence for increased potency of today’s drugs and relationship to risky behavior.

It amuses me when I hear drug warriors talk about how today’s scientific approach eliminates the quackery of patent medicines. But in reality, it seems like they just want to keep the entire “snake oil” business to themselves.