Drug WarRant

Nice to see an OpEd like this in the Financial Times. Written by Willem Buiter, professor of European political economy at the London School of Economics’ European Institute.
It’s not the best writing. But the content is well reasoned and takes the bold steps regarding overall legalization and regulation of illicit drugs.
He addresses dealing with drug problems through regulation, education, and rehabilitation rather than criminalization and takes on the so-called health care arguments for prohibition:

The argument that countries with publicly funded or subsidised healthcare have the right to proscribe the use of drugs likely to cause harm to the user is a ludicrous misuse of the concept of an externality. Should we ban rugby because it is more dangerous than tiddlywinks?

But the biggest part of this OpEd (while it does require some slogging through dense passages), is his view that full legalization will cut out profits to the Taliban.

Following legalisation, the allies in Afghanistan could further undermine the financial strength of the Taliban and al-Qaeda by buying up the entire poppy harvest. If a sufficient premium over the prevailing market price were offered, the Taliban/al-Qaeda middle-man could be cut out altogether, and thus would lose his tax base. Winning the hearts and minds of poppy growers and coca growers is a lot easier when you are not seen as intent on destroying their livelihood.
This proposal for legalising poppy growing regardless of what the poppy is used for is much more radical than the proposal from the Senlis Council to license the growing of poppy in Afghanistan only for the production of essential medicines. The Senlis Council proposal would not end the problem of illicit poppy cultivation co-existing with licensed cultivation. With the illicit price likely to exceed the licit price, the Taliban would retain a significant tax base.

He then goes on to explain why full legalization is the only way to eliminate the availability of black market profits to terrorists, and finishes with the part that will be the most difficult for people who are not prepared to wrap their minds around legalization — the actual legal distribution of drugs like heroin.

If opium and heroin were legalised, the allies’ stash could be sold to regulated producers/distributors of opium, heroin and other formerly illegal poppy derivatives. Our chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and indeed our cigarette manufacturers, would be well-positioned to enter this trade. The profits made by the allies on the sale of the stash could be turned over to the Afghan government. It surely makes more sense for the government to tax the poppy harvest than for the Taliban to do so.
So legalise, regulate, tax, educate and rehabilitate. Stop a losing war, get the government off our backs, beat the Taliban and deal a blow to al-Qaeda in the process. Not a bad deal! [emphasis added]

Three years ago I mentioned a pretty horrific, unjustified school strip search.

CHESTERTOWN, Md. (AP) – Authorities entered an “unclear” legal area when they sent four dogs into the local high school for a drug search without a warrant, patted down 16 students and ordered two female students to partially disrobe, the Kent County sheriff said. […]
Sixteen students were subjected to “pat-down” searches, while the other two received what the sheriff would describe only as “more thorough searches.”
One of the two, Heather Gore, 15, said Thursday that a female deputy ordered her to remove her skirt, then lifted her tank top, exposing her breasts. Gore said she was then told to spread her legs while the officer checked her underwear.

Well maybe now, schools will decide that they need, at the very least, a little probable cause before subjecting students to such humiliation in the name of the drug war.

2 Women Get Apologies, Are Awarded $285,000 For Experience During High School Drug Sweep

Kudos to Heather Gore and Jessica Bedell, who showed remarkable strength in dealing with a very uncomfortable (and public) situation (at a time in their lives that can be extremely traumatic). Instead of trying to hide and pretend it didn’t happen, they and their families fought for their rights and for an apology. (The money to pay for college is a nice bonus.)

“I told our clients that the apology might actually be the most rewarding aspect because it’s the hardest to get,” said Deborah A. Jeon, the state ACLU’s legal director. “We think this is very significant.”

The Washington Times has given the Drug Czar a platform to defend one of his pets — the spectacularly disastrous Plan Colombia.

Drug czar John P. Walters yesterday praised a long-standing anti-drug initiative in South America known as Plan Colombia, calling efforts by Democrats in Congress to cut funding for the program “silly beyond belief.”
“It’s hard to explain what they’re thinking,” Mr. Walters told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

Um. Is it really that hard?
Let’s see… spending billions upon billions for years in Colombia (because of course we have no need for such money here) with absolutely nothing to show for it. No reduction in overall cocaine availability.
Oh wait — but I’m wrong — we do have something to show for it:

• Poisoning farmers’ crops (and families)
• Destruction of rainforests (as profitable trafficking is merely displaced to environmentally sensitive areas)
• Corruption of government officials
• Increasing the profits to major criminal organizations
• Human rights abuses

Yeah, those Democrats are silly beyond belief…

…for only threatening to temporarily withhold the money or to reduce it, rather than eliminating it outright.
It’s hard to explain what they’re thinking.

“bullet” Fascinating story of jury duty on a “big-time” drug trial.
“bullet” Black Agenda Report says that the very white Green Party is leaving Democrats behind in actually caring about the treatment of blacks in the drug war.
“bullet” Bill Conroy has more on the House of Death scandal that won’t go away.
“bullet” Via Scott Morgan — Cliff Shaffer and Marijuana Dealers Offer Schwarzenegger One Billion Dollars
“bullet” Are you on Facebook? Here’s an free and easy way to help SSDP get a $1,000 grant.
“bullet” Jacob Sullum ridicules Romney’s medical marijuana statement.

Drug WarRant commenter Kaptinemo has often talked about the financial aspects of the war on drugs within the context of seriously endangered federal and state budgets.
Well the implications of the collapse of a bridge got me thinking about that some more. While I have no interest in using the bridge disaster as some kind of political finger-pointing weapon, I believe that it is useful to discuss how the bridge collapse makes us think about priorities.
This article by Robbie Gennet in Huffington Post has some interesting (and disturbing) material as a discussion jumping-off point.

Our National Debt is about $9 trillion. That’s almost $30,000 for every man woman and child in the US. The National Debt is owed by the “General Fund” which is funded by our income tax. Most of that goes to the ever-rising interest on that debt and to the military.
The three largest holders of that debt are (in order) Japan, China and the UK. As long as they hold our debt, they OWN us. Interest to Japan alone is $30 billion. […]
Our nation’s infrastructure is underfunded, sometimes dangerously so. Our government can’t afford to fix roads and bridges at the rate that they are deteriorating, leaving us open to more Minneapolis-like disasters. It’s only a shock that it’s taken so long for this to happen. But our government has been put under so much debt that it can’t afford the things that affect us all, rich and poor alike: maintaining our nation’s infrastructure (roads, bridges, sewers, etc), securing our borders, guarding our chemical plants, nuclear plants, refineries, ports and airports adequately (if at all), protecting our food supply, funding the public education system, getting off the oil teat and becoming energy independent or even helping it’s struggling citizens after a disaster like Katrina. People think these things just magically work without realizing that the money to make it all happen comes from somewhere and right now, that somewhere does not exist.

And that is the problem, of course. People seem unable to connect the cost of government with the source of the funding. Everybody says “don’t raise taxes” but nobody complains about government spending (in fact, they seem to want it in unlimited amounts for just about everything), so debt and hidden taxes become the politicians’ friends.
The question is whether, prior to some kind of financial disaster, the people can be persuaded to demand fiscal responsibility (which seems unlikely). How many bridges have to collapse?
Of course, while I fantasize about fiscal responsibility, my thoughts inevitably turn to the criminal justice system. What a bizarre fiscal fairyland! It often seems that accountability is based almost solely on the amount of money you can spend.
Take prosecutors. You’ll hear prosecutors brag about how many people they put behind bars and how long the sentences were — in other words, that they managed to spend as much of the taxpayers’ money as possible. And if they put away more people than there are prisons, well, we’ll just build more prisons. Same with the police. There’s no incentive to find alternative solutions to prison.
Imagine another world — where prosecutors would run for office by bragging about how efficient they were — a world where they were given a limit on overall resources used (and I’m not talking office supplies). Let’s say that a prosecutor was given a maximum of _x_ prison-bed-years to utilize each year. The pressure would be on to use them wisely — you wouldn’t want to use them up on long sentences for pot smokers and not have any left for the murderers, or you’d have hell to pay when it came time for your evaluation (the voters would demand that you and the police focus on the dangerous criminals).
Yeah, I know. I’m dreaming. But it’s a nice dream.
Here’s a start, though. Could not communities or states mandate the publication of an estimated total-cost-per-successful prosecution? This would be a ballpark number including all the projected public costs in current dollars (prosecution, imprisonment, parole, etc.). So, for example, when the newspaper publishes a story about somebody sentenced to 40 years for drug trafficking, they would include “estimated costs in 2007 dollars, assuming serving 80% of time sentenced, comes to $1,385,500.00 for this case.”
I wonder if that would make the costs seem more like real money.

Perhaps because I’m a preacher’s kid, it bothers me especially when I see so-called “Christians” who appear to have never read Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
Link

Becknell — a devout Christian known to many as “Brother John” — pulls out a pen and an inch-thick docket, mostly of drug and alcohol cases. For the next three hours, he takes diligent notes on the judge’s actions, the attendance of police officers, repeat offenders making another appearance, and so on.
The purpose? To make sure drug offenders in eastern Kentucky are getting what they deserve. […]
The Community Church of Manchester is leading the way through “Court Watch,” a program in which volunteers attend court hearings to monitor judges overseeing drug-related cases. […]
Becknell began to work with Operation UNITE, a federally funded drug task force that covers 29 counties in southeastern Kentucky and which created Court Watch. He said that during his first few sessions as a court observer, he noticed officers not showing up, cases getting dismissed, judges doling out lenient sentences and the same defendants appearing before the same judge. [emphasis added]

I’ve heard my dad talk about his times working with prison ministry, so I can definitely connect better with Rev. John Rausch, director of the Catholic Committee on Appalachia…

Churches should focus on drug counseling and ministering to inmates, he said, citing part of the Gospel of Matthew (25:36) concerning the final judgment: “When I was in prison, you came to see me.”
“It isn’t ‘I was up for charges and you made sure they threw the book at me,”‘ Rausch said.

Link
It doesn’t help that he’s a bit vague on the order of the recent Presidents.
More at the New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy

If they decide to participate… and if this question gets selected… I’d love to see how the candidates (other than Ron Paul, of course) squirm around this one.

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

I’m a day late in this… celebration. But 70 years ago Thursday, the Marijuana Tax Act was signed into law by Roosevelt.
Jacob Sullum has a nice reminder: Return With Me Now to the Thrilling Days When Marijuana Was Spelled With an H
And ABC news wonders: Is the Nation’s Marijuana Policy Misguided?
For more on the history of the Marijuana Tax Act, see The Schaffer Library