Drug WarRant

“bullet” Ethan Nadelmann makes a splash. His cover article: Think Again: Drugs in Foreign Policy is garnering a lot of attention, including this story on FOX news that actually wonders whether legalizing drugs might be better than prohibition (watch the video).
“bullet” Obama joins the other Democratic candidates in promising to end federal medical marijuana raids.
“bullet” Not only is drug warrior Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) leaving, he’s leaving before the election, allowing a Democratic governor to control the special election timing. He must be wanting to spend time with his family really bad (or is something else about to bite him in the ass?) Curious.
“bullet” Steve Tucker has had to start again from scratch. He’s free now, a decade after he was put away for the crime of selling light bulbs. The drug war strikes in cruel and surreal ways.
“bullet” Mo Rocca wants to know if he should get baked. The mere fact that he asks the question means that he still doesn’t get it. It’s not about somebody else telling you what you should do.
“bullet” I’m one who gets extremely upset with government waste, and find the excessive use of no-bid contracts in government to generally be a violation of trust. That said, this oddly doesn’t bother me much. Since I consider all drug war spending to be a corrupt waste, I find myself apathetic about whether a no-bid contractor stuck it to the ONDCP.
Update:
“bullet” Drug warrior Joseph Califano gets trashed in Financial Times’ Economists forum

…It is depressing that this combination of hysteria, misrepresentation, intellectual confusion and mindless moralism continues to foist upon our countries a policy with such catastrophic consequences.

Misha Glenny’s outstanding article in the Washington Post: The Lost War has continued to get some attention (although I’d love to see it picked up by more than just the Daily Herald (Utah)).
The web has picked up on it pretty well, including some interesting comments from Ilya Somin (Volokh), Pete McCormack, and Dr. Tom O’Connell.
And, of course, the Washington Post felt obligated to seek out someone to rebut the piece, so they dredged up former ONDCP spokesman Robert S. Weiner for The War is Not Lost

With a comprehensive anti-drug strategy in place, involving foreign policy, enforcement, education, treatment and prevention, overall drug use in the United States has declined by roughly half in the past 25 years […] Do we want to go back?

Notice several sleights of hand, here.
First — Misha Glenny’s piece was specifically about prohibition. Weiner wants the drug war to get credit for education and treatment. Nobody opposes those. In fact, reformers believe that education and treatment are part of the necessary replacements for enforcement. But Weiner has no way of claiming any positive results of the drug war by just talking about enforcement, because none exist. And nowhere does he justify the concept of “comprehensive.”
Second — Statistics. Drug use statistics wander all over the place (partly due to the difficulty of getting reliable information from a survey about committing illegal acts). If you look at the government data, you’ll see that it all depends on what years you pick, what populations, what drugs, etc.
Third — Drug “use.” It is ridiculous to assert that some arbitrary reduction in drug “use” is a benchmark for drug war victory, particularly if you’re trying to promote the idea that the drug war is supposedly providing some benefit to society. Reduction of “use” is meaningless, because it ignores the real problems.
Let’s say you have two drug users — Joe and Larry. Joe likes to do a couple lines of cocaine once a month or so for fun (or maybe smoke a joint). Larry is a pretty hard core heroin addict and spends much of his time working to get more. Strict enforcement might actually affect Joe. His drug use isn’t that big a deal to him, so the risk of jail may just cause him to switch to tequila. Presto! A 50% reduction in drug use by Weiner’s standards. (Of course, no way is Larry going to be deterred from drug abuse by prohibition. He’ll keep at it until some criminal laces his heroin with fentanyl and his friends are too afraid of the cops to take him to the emergency room.) Net value to society from a 50% reduction in use: negative.
Fourth — Completely left out of the Weiner’s equation, of course, are the costs of the drug war — prohibitionists never talk about them. And that was Glenny’s primary point, totally ignored in rebuttal.
But Weiner has to find some way to put a positive spin on a total disaster.

If any other problem — hunger, poverty, illiteracy — were reduced by half, we’d call it major progress.

Now there’s an idea — maybe we should lock up a couple of million poor people. Make students pee in a cup while conjugating verbs to reduce illiteracy. Smash down the doors of hungry people, kill their dogs, set off flash bombs, throw them to the floor and force nutritious food down their throats.
I guess we could win all these wars if we try hard enough.
Note: Also see Pat Rogers’ rebuttal.

Well, the attempts by the government to avoid the comparison of the proposed Mexico drug war funding with the disastrous Plan Colombia aren’t working too well.
The media are quite comfortable calling it Plan Mexico

Known as “Plan Mexico,” the new measure would be aimed at curbing escalating drug violence along the border with Mexico. The majority of the funding will come from taxpayer money and will enable the Mexican government to bolster it’s telecommunications capability and it’s ability to monitor airspace to fight the Mexican drug cartels more efficiently.

And at a press conference today with President Bush, Prime Minister Harper of Canada and President Calderon of Mexico, a reporter asked:

Q Good afternoon, President Bush and Prime Minister. And I thought that
this summit would be the — actually Plan Mexico would come out of this,
the combination of three governments to combat the effects of drug
trafficking. What is the obstacle? What is causing the delay? Why don’t the
societies of each country know what this plan is about? And can you
actually confirm the support of the United States to Mexico? Apparently it
will increase tenfold, and the levels will be similar to Colombia. We hear
very often the United States wants to take part in this situation against
drugs, this war on drugs, and we see it very clearly in Mexico. Now, what
is it all about? Could you tell us?

Of course, President Bush clarified everything…

PRESIDENT BUSH: Man! Hombre! (Laughter.) We discussed a common strategy to deal with a common problem, and that is narco-trafficking and violence
on our border. First, let me say that in order to develop an effective
common strategy there needs to be serious consultations between our
respective governments. It’s one thing to say, we’re interested in working
together; it’s another thing to develop a package on both sides of the
border that will be effective in dealing with the problem. That’s what our
people expect us to do. They expect us to see a problem and to develop an
effective strategy to deal with that problem.
President Calderon and I met in Mexico, and we had a serious discussion
to get this initiative on the table. This is an interim meeting, a meeting
for us to make sure that the strategy that’s being developed is — will be
effective. So we reviewed where we are in the process.
The United States is committed to this joint strategy to deal with a
joint problem. I would not be committed to dealing with this if I wasn’t
convinced that President Calderon had the will and the desire to protect
his people from narco-traffickers. He has shown great leadership and great
strength of character, which gives me good confidence that the plan we’ll
develop will be effective. And the fundamental question is, what can we do
together to make sure that the common strategy works? And that’s where we
are in the discussions right now.
There’s all kinds of speculation about the size of the package, this,
that and the other. All I can tell you is the package, when it’s developed,
will be robust enough to achieve a common objective, which is less violence
on both sides of the border, and to deal with narco-trafficking. And we
both have responsibilities. And that’s what the package is entailed to
develop. It’s to develop how do we share our joint responsibilities.
It’s in our interests that this program go forward. You mentioned Plan
Colombia– this is not like Plan Colombia. This is different from Plan
Colombia. This is a plan that says we’ve got an issue on our own border. We
share a border and, therefore, it’s a joint program that will mean — that
won’t mean U.S. armed presence in your country. Mexico is plenty capable of
handling the problem. And the question is, is there any way for us to help
strengthen the effort? And so that’s what we’re studying.
And I can’t give you a definitive moment when the plan will be ready,
but we’re working hard to get a plan ready. And it’s a plan that, once it’s
proposed and out there, I strongly urge the United States Congress to
support. It’s in our interests, it’s in the U.S. interests that we get this
issue solved.

Wow. That really answered all my questions about Plan Mexico.
What did he say?

“bullet” Samhita at Feministing asks:

is pot culture sexist? And is smoking weed a feminist act?

“bullet” Tanya at Blame the Drug War suggests: I’m a better mother when I’m stoned
“bullet” Rogier van Bakel writes a letter. A Drug War and a Toothless Press
“bullet” More drug war heresy in the Washington Times? Arnold Trebach steps up to the podium

American drug laws and strategies have managed the majestic alchemy of converting relatively worthless plants into substances often worth more, ounce for ounce, than gold and diamonds. […]
But is there a way to make the plants cheap again? There is of course an obvious but politically unpopular answer: It is to treat the plants and the derivative powders as legal articles of commerce. If, say, marijuana and cocaine were worth roughly as much as alcohol and tobacco, there would be no Mexican gangs involved with these legal substances […]
To those who say that we will all be destroyed by drugs if we make drugs legal articles of commerce, I have several responses. For starters, I won’t be destroyed by them because the very thought of using them bores me. Moreover, based upon research, I estimate that perhaps 95 percent of the American people feel the same way. We are not a nation of suicidal fools. Millions of American recently drastically reduced their consumption of readily available red meat, alcohol and tobacco for reasons of personal health. […]
It is high time in this perilous era that we say to these dedicated officials in the DEA and in hundreds of other police agencies that we as free citizens accept the personal responsibility to save ourselves and our families from drugs (and red meat, alcohol and tobacco).

Jacob Sullum perfectly describes this AP story as “a confusing jumble.”

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – People in the United States are living in a world of pain and they are popping pills at an alarming rate to cope with it.

Obviously, to drug policy reformers, the war on drugs is one of the critical issues of our time — it affects everything, from criminal justice and fundamental Constitutional rights to education to foreign policy to poverty and the inner cities, and on and on.
So it can be baffling to note the degree to which serious discussions about the drug war tend to be missing from the major political blogs on the right and the left. They talk about everything else — abortion, gun control, gay marriage, etc. — but not the drug war, except maybe in passing. [Note, this post is a generalization. I have not read all the blogs all the time, and would be happy to be corrected on this, but it appears to me to be true.]
Drug testing in schools and the workplace? Nothing. Harm reduction? Zip. Medical marijuana? Well, Raich got a bit of play, but where’s the outrage from the left about the jack-booted thugs raiding medical marijuana dispensaries? Where’s the outrage from the right about states’ rights? (Oh, I forgot, that was the old right.)
Mexico? As far as the left is concerned, there is no drug war in Mexico. Some of the right-wing blogs bring it up, but usuall only as an added element to justify a hard-line immigration stance (Mexicans bring disease. And drugs, too.)
Afghanistan? Mostly a side-issue to bash the other side about the war. (“See, the war planning was incompetent.” “See, we need to support the war even more.”)
Criminal justice and sentencing disparity gets some play, mostly due to the tireless efforts of Jeralyn Merritt, the original TalkLeft blogger.
Consider the powerful article by Misha Glenny in the Washington Post yesterday. As of this writing, 40 blogs link to it, but there are no real A-list bloggers there (and you know they all read the Post).
It was interesting, then, to see Brad Plumer concerned (and rather perplexed) in Why the Prison State? He mentions the excellent Daniel Lazare and Glenn Loury pieces I’ve covered regarding incarceration, race, and the drug war.
And it got him thinking…

That’s persuasive, but it still seems incomplete. The War on Drugs, which has contributed more to our mass-incarceration orgy than anything else, strikes me as more than just Jim Crow for the 21st century. […] There seems to be a mass frenzy at work here that goes beyond race, even if that’s how it started.

And then Matthew Yglesias picked up on it, too (although briefly). And both seemed to express some concern over the fact that liberal leaders have been behind much of the historical support of the war on drugs.
I think reading between the lines in the Plumer and Yglesias posts (and the comments) gives a little insight into why so few of the major left or right blogs talk about this — You can’t use the immorality or the injustice of the drug war to score political points. Both sides have been complicit. Both sides have been dupes.
Update: Scott Morgan comments.

Governor of New Mexico (and Presidential candidate) Bill Richardson is not allowing his state to simply be scared by the DEA’s bullying (or to use that as an excuse to not implement its medical marijuana law).
He’s directed state officials to continue to work toward finding a way to implement the law, and has written a letter to the President urging him to end the “White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s misguided priority and wasted resources spent to intimidate states trying to implement medical marijuana programs.”

Misha Glenny has written an amazing article for tomorrow’s Washington Post. It’s extremely rare to see this degree of… reality… in a mainstream publication.
Read the whole thing, but here are a few quotes just to give you an idea:

Thirty-six years and hundreds of billions of dollars after President Richard M. Nixon launched the war on drugs, consumers worldwide are taking more narcotics and criminals are making fatter profits than ever before. The syndicates that control narcotics production and distribution reap the profits from an annual turnover of $400 billion to $500 billion. And terrorist organizations such as the Taliban are using this money to expand their operations and buy ever more sophisticated weapons, threatening Western security.
In the past two years, the drug war has become the Taliban’s most effective recruiter in Afghanistan. […]
The trade in illegal narcotics begets violence, poverty and tragedy. And wherever I went around the world, gangsters, cops, victims, academics and politicians delivered the same message: The war on drugs is the underlying cause of the misery. Everywhere, that is, except Washington, where a powerful bipartisan consensus has turned the issue into a political third rail.
The problem starts with prohibition, the basis of the war on drugs. The theory is that if you hurt the producers and consumers of drugs badly enough, they’ll stop doing what they’re doing. But instead, the trade goes underground, which means that the state’s only contact with it is through law enforcement, i.e. busting those involved, whether producers, distributors or users. So vast is the demand for drugs in the United States, the European Union and the Far East that nobody has anything approaching the ability to police the trade.
Prohibition gives narcotics huge added value as a commodity. […]
The drug trade is so lucrative, he said, that when police seize growing operations in houses worth $500,000, suspects simply abandon the properties. “They are making so much money that they don’t care about losing that investment,” he said. […]
In one particularly revealing conversation, a senior official at the British Foreign Office told me, “I often think we will look back at the War on Drugs in a hundred years’ time and tell the tale of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ This is so stupid.”
How right he is.

Bonus: — Another good article this weekend: Total reform key to war on drugs by Bill Kaufmann

“bullet” Drug Sense Weekly
“bullet” “drcnet”

Joseph Califano is stinking up the place with his lies once again. He specializes in shocktoids — meaningless alarmist “statistics” (often false) with a purpose to shock the public into demanding even more drug war excesses.
There is a long and rich history of Joseph Califano and his organization CASA (Columbia University‰s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse).
Richard Cowen may have described him best:

Joseph Califano is “a very well-funded prohibitionist propagandist.”

(and he will certainly be in the running for our Anslinger Propaganda Award)
He and CASA have been caught numerous times falsifying statistics or simply making them up out of thin air — but their stock in trade is finding survey questions that will yield answers that sound shocking when presented out of context.
I’ve written out Califano before here and here.
But every year, he trots out some new shocktoid and the press, hearing the name Columbia University, dutifully prints his nonsense exclaiming “Boy that is shocking!” without even critically analyzing.
What sort of irresponsible media outlets give him a voice?
Places like CNN and MSNBC…

Teenagers say drug problems at school are getting worse, and parents express doubts about ever making such schools drug free, a new study says.

Califano also shows up in the Financial Times to try to influence the UK: ‘Drug legalisation is playing Russian roulette’.
Fortunately, Steve R at Transform was on hand to give a point-by-point rebuttal (which is a challenge — I know from experience — when you’re sometime forced to respond to nonsense that has been created from whole cloth) — check it out.

Update: More from Jacob Sullum and Scott Morgan