Drug WarRant

Another video from TrueHigh (the maker of the ONDCP Propaganda response videos)

Another relevant video: Medical marijuana ad refused by radio station. Former Senator Gordon Humphrey owns WKXL radio in Concord, New Hampshire. The station refused to accept a radio ad promoting medical marijuana legislation.

“bullet” Last week’s ridiculous “apology” in the Independent (UK) has generated some attention this Sunday, with a series of articles and letters to the editor. Quite a mixed bag.
On one side you have:

I have been a productive, happy citizen my entire adult life and have regularly consumed cannabis since I was 13 ( I am now 40 ). How is it that I have not suffered from the pernicious effects you cite? Simply, I have used cannabis responsibly.

… and on the other you have:

I can’t thank you enough for Sunday’s articles on skunk. My 18-year-old son is currently awaiting trial for his last violent outburst fuelled by his six-year addiction to the drug. I have watched helplessly as he has spiralled into self-destruction. He has transformed from a sharp-witted loving child into a monster. It is the hardest thing in the world to ask the police to take your own child away and thrust him into the criminal justice system when you know what he really needs is drugs counselling. I am delighted that, at last, hordes of terrified parents have been given a voice.

And then you have an OpEd that suggests:

The “old” type of cannabis that used to be available in the 1960s and 1970s is worlds apart from much of the stuff that is easily acquired nowadays. People will argue about the precise difference in strength ( the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol – THC ), but, indisputably, skunk is often 15 times stronger than that which used to be available. If I had my way I would legalise the old stuff and make skunk a class A drug. […]
If you see lawless groups of young kids in the street or teenagers who threaten passers-by with knives, there is a strong chance that they have used skunk in the previous 24 hours. I am not saying that skunk has caused the lawlessness, but it definitely won’t have helped. If you see a sheet-white young person who looks lost and mentally ill, then the same is probably true.

Now this is the first time that I’ve heard someone suggest making marijuana legal, while at the same time making marijuana a Class A illegal drug! Wouldn’t it make more sense to say that you’re in favor of legalizing and regulating marijuana? After all, alcohol has legal limits on how it can be sold in terms of strength.
But there’s a bigger problem here and that’s this rampant reefer madness. What’s going on that’s causing these people to foam at the mouth? (and I’m talking about the writers, not the pot smokers) I’m beginning to think that it all comes down to the use of the name “skunk.” If they’d call it something proper, like “dope” or “weed,” then maybe journalists and quacks wouldn’t be hallucinating about the madness of youth.
“bullet” And if you want some more madness, you can always turn to Bill O’Reilly, whose OpEd ‘Medical’ MJ for Teens is in papers all over the county today. He gets to push all the hot buttons: George Soros… and our youth.

The biggest bankroller of the referendum was George Soros, the billionaire who champions drug legalization. He pumped about $350,000 into pro-medpot ads, according to published reports.
Since the act was passed into law, thousands of pot “clinics” have opened across the state. In San Francisco, things got so out of control that Mayor Gavin Newsom, a very liberal guy, had to close many of the “clinics” because drug addicts were clustering around them, causing fear among city residents.
In San Diego, there’s another problem: Some high school kids have found a loophole in the Compassion Act. Incredibly, there is no age requirement to secure medical marijuana in California – and no physical exam needed, either. So some kids tell a doctor they have a headache, pay him $150 for a card, and then buy all the pot they want. Unbelievable, but true.

Interestingly, he makes a point that I’m not sure he fully realized.

If marijuana can help those suffering with debilitating diseases, then doctors should have the power to prescribe it and licensed pharmacies should carry it.

Marijuana does help those suffering with debilitating diseases. So, Bill, are you going to push for federal legalization of medical marijuana? We’d be happy to have you promote it on your show. Get your listeners to lobby Congress to remove it from Schedule 1. When you’re ready, we’ll help you out.

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I haven’t had to bring up this liar for awhile. Joseph Califano, and Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), you may recall, is known primarily for falsifying numbers about teenage drinking. They’re ba-ack.
In the Daily Tar Heel, we see Report: Half In College Abuse Drugs Or Alcohol:

Experts Find the trend alarming
Drug and alcohol use is a chronic problem for college students across the country, a recent report found, and one that UNC students and officials say needs to be addressed.
Nearly half of all full-time college students binge drink and/or abuse prescription and illegal drugs, according to a study released March 15 by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

The report is Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America‰s Colleges and Universities (pdf). The actual report (even if you could believe the numbers, which I don’t, given that CASA is promoting this), is actually more alarmist than alarming.
And check out Califano’s statement:

Accepting as
inevitable this college culture of alcohol and
other drug abuse threatens not only the present
well being of millions of college students, but
also the future capacity of our nation to maintain
its leadership in the fiercely competitive global
economy.

What nonsense!
Not only is there very little in the report to support some major shift, what’s really intellectually dishonest is that the report, while claiming that the problem is binge drinking and drug abuse spends pages upon pages pushing for abstinence and enforcement efforts (which, of course, have no impact on bingeing or abusing). Not once do they mention the notion of managing use.
I went to college in the 1970’s and I work at a University now. College students experiment with drugs and try out their limits with alcohol. In any time and any place.
When I was in college, my roommate and I decided to find out what it was like to get drunk, so we loaded up with Bacardi 151, Sloe Gin, and Boone’s Farm Apple and got puking drunk (yes, we were idiots, but mostly in terms of our lack of knowledge of good drink choices). However, after that one bad night, we rarely did any binge drinking, for one simple reason. We did most of our drinking in bars (the drinking age was lower) and they stopped serving you when you got drunk (and we learned to make better choices — today I stick with good single-malt Scotch).
These days, the students in college do all their drinking at unsupervised parties because the drinking age is 21. Drug use occurs, but is driven further underground, where people who might have problems are less likely to seek out help.
There are potential lessons to be learned from analyzing college alcohol and drug use patterns, but not with Califano and CASA distorting the numbers and the message.

thehim, over at Blog Reload eviscerates a poor San Diego State University student drug warrior.
Come on, Lee, isn’t it unfair to use facts and logic and stuff?

In today’s Los Angeles Times is a blistering OpEd by Arianna Huffington

Democratic presidential candidates crave the Latino and black vote, but ignore the Drug War’s unfair toll on people of color. […]
The silence coming from Clinton and Obama is particularly deafening.
Obama has written eloquently about his own struggle with drugs but has not addressed the tragic effect the war on drugs is having on African American communities.
As for Clinton, she flew into Selma, Ala., to reinforce her image as the wife of the black community’s most beloved politician and has made much of her plan to attract female voters, but she has ignored the suffering of poor, black women right in her own backyard. […]
Avoidance of this issue comes at a very stiff price (and not just the more than $50 billion a year we’re spending on the failed drug war). The toll is paid in shattered families, devastated inner cities and wasted lives (with no apologies for using that term). […]
Maybe the president will suddenly wake up and decide to take on the issue five days before he leaves office. That’s what Bill Clinton did, writing a 2001 New York Times Op-Ed article in which he trumpeted the need to “immediately reduce the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences” Ö conveniently ignoring the fact that he had the power to solve it for eight years and did nothing. […]
A 2000 study found that 1.4 million African American men Ö 13% of the total black male population Ö were unable to vote in the 2000 election because of state laws barring felons access to the polls. In Florida, one in three black men is permanently disqualified from voting. Think that might have made a difference in the 2000 race? Our shortsighted drug laws have become the 21st century manifestation of Jim Crow.
Shouldn’t this be an issue Democratic presidential candidates deem worthy of their attention?

Really powerful stuff. Read the whole thing. Print it out and mail it to the Presidential candidates.

If you haven’t been following recent developments in the UK, there’s been quite an upheaval and controversy over drug policy (the best coverage is at Transform Drug Policy Foundation blog).
Actual new and creative ideas are being discussed (although that is also causing backlash from the prohibitionists, who are attacking with renewed vigor).
And studies that actually trash entrenched thinking are not only being published, but reported in the media. In reporting the Lancet study published yesterday, the Associated Press and the Globe and Mail even shouted in the headline: Booze, smokes worse than some illegal drugs: study.

New ‹landmarkŠ research finds that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study. […]
Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was Ecstasy.
According to existing British and U.S. drug policy, alcohol and tobacco are legal, while cannabis and Ecstasy are both illegal. Previous reports, including a study from a parliamentary committee last year, have questioned the scientific rationale for Britain’s drug classification system.

To me, the interesting thing here is the discussion — the fact that conventional wisdom about the relative dangers of drugs is being questioned — not the specific rankings. The methodology, though interesting, is subjective and can’t really control completely for the effects of a drug’s legal status.

Prof. Nutt and his colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug’s potential for addiction, and the impact on society of drug use. The researchers asked two groups of experts Ö psychiatrists specializing in addiction and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise Ö to assign scores to 20 different drugs, including heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD.

Still, this is a great opportunity for dialogue, and even the U.S. press is carrying the story.
Update: Of course, the notion that illegal drugs can be less dangerous than legal drugs is not anything even remotely new, and is, in fact, a big yawn to drug policy reformers. However, it’s something that is still a bit of a surprise to many of those uneducated about drugs and drug policy.

“bullet” At Alternet It’s Been an ‘All Out War’ on Pot Smokers for 35 Years
“bullet” At Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer: A Government Agency Tells the Truth About Marijuana
“bullet” At the Agitator: Puppycide
“bullet”

“bullet” I was quoted reasonably well (they got a few things wrong) in this article in the Illinois State University newspaper.
“bullet” Big event locally on March 29 (a week from today). “Prohibition Kills: An Evaluation of the War on Drugs” featuring Greg Francisco (LEAP), Pete Guither (Drug WarRant), and George Pappas (IDEAL reform) at 7 pm on the Illinois State University campus (Bone Student Center, Old Main Room). If you’re in the area, please come.
“bullet” I’ve been busy recently with work and a bunch of other stuff, including putting together a girl band. (Yes, you heard that right.) It’s for a production of Caryl Churchill’s “Vinegar Tom” and the director (Deb Alley) wanted a girl band on stage for the 7 songs in the play, so I put the 3-piece band together (guitar, bass, drums), arranged the music and directed it. We’ve named the band “Succubi” and I think they’re great (but I’m biased, of course). The music is a combination of beautiful, yet horrifyingly creepy, ballads and complex rock that’s a little bit twisted (and definitely for mature audiences). “Vinegar Tom” opens Wednesday (March 28) in Westhoff Theatre (at Illinois State University) and runs through next Sunday.

This isn’t new, or startling, but it was interesting to see it in graph form. Via the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR)…

Marijuana Distribution Relies Primarily on Friends and Family

I think the point here is that efforts to attack marijuana through criminal enforcement are doomed to failure and also inevitably cause tensions between citizens and law enforcement.