Drug WarRant

“bullet” I must have been asleep or something, because I missed the fact that Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) has a group blog! I’ve subscribed to their RSS feed in my newsreader, so I won’t miss out again. (For those who use newsreaders, you do know that Drug WarRant has an RSS feed, too, right?)
Anyway — go visit the LEAP blog. I’ve just read a few of the entries and they’re quite good, including entries from all the LEAP stars. And leave them a comment or two to give them some encouragement.

Remember how all the drug warriors always harp on the fact that marijuana can’t be medicine because it’s smoked? It’s been their way of glossing over the fact that there are so many studies that definitely demonstrate that marijuana has accepted medical value (and that would, by definition, remove marijuana from Schedule 1). So they say “Well, there’s no such thing as smoked medicine” (conveniently ignoring that you can ingest it in numerous ways, while dismissing the fact that smoked marijuana is more effective than Marinol, in part due to its fast delivery system).
In fact they try to make it sound ludicrous:
At a DEA site:

There are no smoked medicines. Have you ever heard of anyone who smoked medicine? After all we know about the dangers of cigarette smoking, why would the scientific community approve smoked marijuana?

John Walters:

I don’t support decriminalizing marijuana use. I do not support assertions that marijuana is a proven-effective medicine. We have the most sophisticated medical system in the history of humankind in Western civilization. Not a single one of the medicines used in that system is a smoked medicine.

But now, we have this enthusiastic press release of a Reuters news story: “Smokable” pain drugs promise faster action

For Alexza Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is developing drugs for migraine, pain, panic and agitation, “fast” has to mean “within seconds.”
The Palo Alto, California-based company is developing drugs that can be “smoked,” and, like nicotine in cigarettes, pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream almost instantly.
Investors like the idea.

So maybe smoked medicine is only medicine if it’s promoted by a pharmaceutical company…

“What makes this an exciting story is how broadly applicable the technology could prove to be,” said Charles Duncan, an analyst at JMP Securities, which helped take the company public for $8 a share a year ago.

The “technology”?

Alexza was formed by biotechnology entrepreneur Alejandro Zaffaroni, who also founded nicotine-patch developer Alza. His latest venture is not the only company that is developing inhaled therapies: Nektar Therapeutics and Alkermes Inc. develop powdered insulin.
But Alexza’s idea of heating up a drug to create a vapor, or smoke, is unique. [emphasis added]

WTF!??
You mean like what this company has been doing for 10 years? Or what this study was trying to accomplish for years while being blocked by the DEA and NIDA?
The fact that the Reuters article doesn’t even mention marijuana is downright ridiculous. Is reporter Toni Clarke completely clueless? Has she never heard of marijuana, or is she working for the pharmaceuticals?
When is a major reporter going to connect the rather obvious dots, and ask John Walters to explain how smoked medicine is OK for Alexza, but not for marijuana?
I’ll wait.

This is slightly off-topic, but I wanted to address this bizarre suggestion by Mark Kleiman in his mostly sensible article

If someone is convicted of drunken driving, or drunken assault, or drunken vandalism, or repeatedly of drunk and disorderly conductÖif, that is, someone demonstrates that he is either a menace or a major public nuisance when drunkÖthen why not revoke his (or, much more rarely, her) drinking license?
Of course, the ‹personal prohibitionŠ imagined here, like the current age restriction, would have to be enforced by sellers of alcoholic beverages, who would have to verify that each buyer has not been banned from drinking, just as they now have to verify that each buyer is of legal age to drink. Obviously, such a ban could not be perfectly enforced. But reducing the frequency and flagrancy of drinking behavior by problem drunks somewhat is far better than not reducing it at all. A ban on drinking by bad drinkers (unlike the current ban on drinking by those under 21) would have an obvious moral basis. Evading it, for example by buying liquor for someone on the ‹Do Not DrinkŠ list, would be clearly wrong and worth punishing. Moreover, offenders would not easily be able to drink in bars, restaurants or other public places, which means they would be less likely to drink and then drive or cause public disturbances.

Out of all the good stuff in Mark’s article, it was this bit of nonsense that attracted Matthew Iglesias, who, in an otherwise sensible post calls Kleiman’s license proposal “clearly on point.”
Just take a moment to think through the logistics. Mark admits that it could not be “perfectly enforced,” but the question is rather how it could be enforced at all.
With a driving license, since the licensing agency checks for age when issuing it, the license become a reasonably good proof of age for most purposes. And when people check it to see if you’re old enough to do something, they don’t know (or care) whether that driving license has been revoked. If it has been revoked, that doesn’t change what your age is, so it doesn’t matter. On the other hand, if you get pulled over by a cop on the highway, he’s not going to just look at your license — he’ll enter it into a computer to see if, among other things, your license has been revoked.
So picture a drinking license regime. Everybody who wants to drink or buy alcohol has to have a drinking license. And not only does every grocery store and liquor store checkout line, plus every bar and restaurant have to check to see if someone has a drinking license with them, but they also need to verify that it hasn’t been revoked (or the whole point of the system is worthless). This means that they have to compare it against a national database, most likely involving an expensive network of terminals placed in all those locations (including, of course, the beer vendors at football games and street fairs and the flight attendants on airlines, and….) Or, alternately, they have to use some kind of system of recording all purchases (like the registry in pharmacies) with your name and address to be later verified so you can be arrested later if you purchased alcohol on a revoked drinking license.
Does anybody really think that a system like this makes sense for alcohol?

For the third time in a week, Human Events Online has a drug war piece. I’m wondering if the new one is an attempt to repair their image after the John Hawkins disaster.
This one is Big, Big Government by John Stossel, and what a breath of fresh air it is after what we’ve been getting.

Whatever happened to America’s federal system, which recognized the states as “laboratories of democracy”? […]
The constitutional plan presented in the Federalist Papers delegated only a few powers to the federal government, with the rest reserved to the states. The system was hailed for its genius. Instead of having decisions made in the center — where errors would harm the entire country — most policies would be determined in a decentralized environment. A mistake in California would affect only Californians. New Yorkers, Ohioans, and others could try something else. Everyone would learn and benefit from the various experiments.
It made a lot of sense. It still does. Too bad the idea is being tossed on the trash heap by big-government Republicans and their DEA goons.
Drug prohibition — like alcohol prohibition — is a silly idea, as the late free-market economist Milton Friedman often pointed out. Something doesn’t go away just because the government decrees it illegal. It simply goes underground. Then a black market creates worse problems. [emphasis added]

Update: Oh, no. I spoke too soon. Here’s another extraordinarily stupid drug war article in Human Events, this time by Mac Johnson, titled Libertarians on Drugs. According to this idiot, the drug war is the only thing preventing us all from becoming slobbering addicts, since none of us have free will when it comes to drugs.

Mark Kleiman has a really outstanding piece at The American Interest Online: Dopey, Boozy, Smoky — and Stupid (although the title, which he didn’t pick, sucks).
This is Kleiman’s best piece to date, and finally does justice to his analyses of the failures of prohibition. For the most part, he avoids his usual unsupported attack on legalizers, with only the slightest obligatory mention…

…the standard political line between punitive drug policy ‹hawksŠ and service-oriented drug policy ‹doves.Š Neither side is consistently right; some potential improvements in drug policy are hawkish, some are dovish, and some are neither.

Some of his suggestions for policy reform are a little bizarre and unworkable (his drinking license, which he’s been promoting for over a decade if I recall right, is laughable).
But his discussions about the nature of drug use and prohibition are really quite good. Here are a few snippets:

Most drug use is harmless, and much of it is beneficialÖat least if harmless pleasure and relaxation count as benefits. […]
Not all drugs are equally risky or abusable. But since different drugs are abused in different ways and have different harm profiles, there is no single measure of ‹harmfulnessŠ or ‹addictivenessŠ by which drugs can be ranked. Moreover, the overall damage caused by a drug does not depend on its neurochemistry alone; the composition of the user base and the social context and customs around its use also matter. […]
Some pairs of drugs are substitutes for one another, so that making one more available will reduce consumption of the other. […]
Taxes, regulations and prohibitions can reduce drug consumption and abuse, but always at the cost of making the remaining consumption more damaging than it would otherwise be. […]
But once a drug has an established mass market, more enforcement cannot greatly shrink the problem; existing customers will seek out new suppliers, and imprisoned dealers, seized drugs and even dismantled organizations are replaced. Moreover, the effectiveness of enforcement tends to fall over time as the illicit industries learn to adapt. We have 15 times as many drug dealers in prison today as we had in 1980, yet the prices of cocaine and heroin have fallen by more than 80 percent. […]

And some of his suggestions include legalizing personal growth of marijuana, eliminating the drinking age, not relying on D.A.R.E., expanding opiate maintenance programs, and getting drug enforcement out of the way of pain relief.
I haven’t had time to analyze the full piece, but as a policy recommendation short of a full legalization regime, it’s one of the best ones out there.

Over at Human Events Online, which recently embarrassed itself by printing John Hawkins fetid In Defense of the Drug War, there is a new piece: Drug War Victories by Robert J. Caldwell.
Caldwell touts the recent extradition of Mexican drug lords with a kind of “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead” enthusiasm — you can almost hear the voices of munchkins in his writing.

Once among the most powerful and feared criminal syndicates in Mexico, the AFO is now a shambles. Its top leaders are dead or in custody. Most if not all of the AFO leaders now behind bars face trial in the United States, where bribery cannot buy the criminal justice system and intimidation doesn’t work. […]
A counter-narcotics war popularly disparaged as a chronic loser, yet vital to the national interests of both Mexico and the United States, is producing its biggest victories ever.

While he notes that this won’t mean an end to the “plague of smuggled narcotics,” the degree of his celebration seems to know no bounds, and really has no relevance to the real world.
By the time the trials of these drug lords are completed, the DEA will be soft-pedaling their significance, because a whole new structure of cartels will be fully in place and functioning smoothly, with ownership of much of the Mexican government. (Just like the conviction of the leaders of the Colombian Cali cartel this past September was such a non-issue, given the transition of cartel power in that country.)
The only true victory will come from ending the drug war.

A strange game. The only way to win is not to play.

“bullet” Note: In regards to the Hawkins piece, I left out one rebuttal — from Mark Draughn of Windypundit.

While working on my new Bong Hits 4 Jesus Supreme Court page I’ve found some interesting quotes in some of the briefs.
For example, check out these from Ken Starr’s brief representing Principal Morse:

… the court of appeals substituted its unforgiving libertarian worldview for the considered judgment of school officials (and school boards) in seeking, consistent with Congress’ statutory mandate, to foster and encourage a drug-free student lifestyle. […]
As to both the First Amendment and the law of qualified immunity, the court of appeals’ uncompromisingly libertarian vision is deeply unsettling to public school educators across the country. The decision below is doubly — and dangerously — wrong.

Interesting that Starr thinks…

1. that libertarian principles are wrong and dangerous
2. that the 9th Circuit is wildly libertarian, and
3. that being opposed to libertarian principles will be attractive to the Supreme Court.

Additional note in the case. If you had any doubt about the government’s intentions in this case, it was cleared up in the government’s brief, which included:

… an effective anti-drug program must not only teach the dangers of drugs; it must also protect impressionable young people from the countervailing effects of peer pressure. At a minimum, such a program entails prohibiting student advocacy of illegal drug use in school or at school events, where students are entrusted to the schools’ care. […]
If schools permitted advocacy of illegal drugs, such speech could counteract, if not drown out, the schools’ anti-drug message, especially because of peer pressure. Permitting students to make light of the school’s anti-drug message or launch a pro-drug use campaign would undermine both that message and the school’s disciplinary authority generally. [emphasis added]

It’s not just speech advocating breaking the law that the government wants to ban, but any speech that interferes with or even makes light of their propaganda.

Another old person with a gun, living in a dangerous neighborhood. 80-year-old Isaac Singletary used to bring out his gun to scare off drug dealers, so when a saw a couple of low-lifes were on his lawn, he came out with it again and told them to get off his property. Except they were undercover narcotics officers so they shot him. Isaac managed to get a shot or two off in response, but the officers were able to finish him off.
See also The Agitator and the comments from Mary, Kaptinemo and Allan in this earlier thread.

James Gierach rocks in this OpEd in the Daily Southtown (Chicago): County cuts could mean less drug-war money — and that’s not such a bad thing

… These examples tell the folly of “staying the course” and hoping to win the drug war. It’s a bad policy that endlessly costs and gets us nowhere.
“Oh, but what about our drug courts, our drug-diversion program, our drug-treatment? What about drug testing, drug drops and drug counseling? What about our undercover drug cops, our confiscation programs, our prosecutors, our public defenders, our drug education programs and our sheriff’s police? Oh, my D.A.R.E.” the addicted public officials and employees cry.
The drug war is a cash cow for drug dealers and a patronage pig for public officials. Fly over the Cook County Jail and take a bird’s eye look at the drug-war prison sprawl. New jail after new jail — a patronage dream. Eight out of every 10 inmates who enter the Cook County Jail are there for a “drug crime.” Better to build pyramids or cathedrals.

“Addicted public officials.” That sure hits true.
Really nice job, James.

Mark Kleiman has an excellent post on last year’s study that demonstrated the enormous power for psilocybin mushrooms to generate meaningful mystical experiences in churchgoers who had no previous experience with hallucinogens.

The results have potentially large importance for both law and policy.
Though psilocybe mushrooms grow wild in much of the country and are fairly easily cultivated, the psilocybin they contain is a Schedule I controlled substance, contraband except for specially-approved research purposes, and therefore so are the mushrooms themselves.
But the Supreme Court recently held (Gonzales v. O Centro) that the use of hallucinogens in religious ceremonies is protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and must be permitted unless there is a particularized showing of harm. It is well-established fact that psilocybin is neither addictive nor physically toxic, though it is not without psychological and behavioral risks, especially when used haphazardly.
If taking a dose of psilocybin under controlled conditions has a better-than-even chance of occasioning a full-blown mystical experience, it seems fairly hard to argue that forbidding such use doesn’t interfere with the free exercise of religion. How the courts will deal with those who want to seek out primary religious experience on an individual rather than a congregational basis remains to be seen.

“bullet” In other news, Kleiman manages to bring his usual strong analysis of the failings of government prohibition, without his all-too-common unsupported put-down of reformers, in this LA Times article about the situation in Mexico.

Despite the praise, the U.S. drug war “is nowhere on the political agenda,” said Mark Kleiman, a professor and director of UCLA’s Drug Policy Analysis Program. Kleiman argues that lack of political attention to drug policy is a good thing. “Politicians are incapable of dealing with it,” he said.
Despite high-profile arrests and record annual seizures, he said, a steady supply of cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine has been available in the U.S. since President Nixon famously declared drugs to be America’s “public enemy No. 1.”