Drug WarRant

At the Drug Czar’s “blog”:

Medical Marijuana Laws Create Confusion, Problems For Cities
Another news report regarding the confusion created by State-based “medical” marijuana laws. From the San Gabriel Valley Tribune:

[…]

“What the local agencies are grappling with is this discrepancy between federal and state law,” said Ray Hamada, the planning director in Irwindale, which has a moratorium. The problem, he explained, is that while California voters legalized medical marijuana with Proposition 215 in November 1996, federal law still bans all marijuana use.

Monterey Park’s city manager, Chris Jeffers, said his city had a moratorium for the same reason. The city is leaning toward a ban in order to comply with federal law, but hasn’t finished studying the issue, he said.”

It’s nice of them to realize that they’re the problem, and if the federal government got its nose out of something where it has no business, the states could do a much better job of managing medical marijuana laws (although I doubt they even realize what they’re saying).

One of the challenges of getting good media coverage for drug policy reform is trying to educate the media. That’s made more difficult when they are lazy, incompetent, or just plain stupid.
Check out the writing in this piece at News Channel 6 in Wichita Falls…

The War on Drugs, is a battle fought daily by the Wichita Falls Police Department. Who’s winning that war, the police or the people on the receiving end? and what is the choice of drug– circulating in our town? News channel six’s Ashley Fitzwater takes an inside look and finds out who’s controlling the battle?
When it comes to popularity and quantity, two different drugs take the number one slot, here in the Falls.
“It’s about 50/50 split with crack cocaine and meth,” says Police Sgt. Larry Robinett .
Sgt. Robinette says the W.F.P.D. Put a major dent in the crack cocaine trade recently.
“Guys like Cedric Grey, and Empra Holt, these were major drug dealers here in the Falls. They have all been prosecuted federally.”
Police say the major arrests slow down the process, but someone else is always there to step in and take charge.
But with departments like the Organized Crime Unit in place, police are able to keep drugs from taking over.

The bad grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure almost overwhelm the bad reporting and logic.

Thanks to Kaptinemo, here’s the Asylum Street Spankers with “Winning the War on Drugs”

And here’s a YouTube illustrated reading of the world’s first children’s book about medical marijuana: “Mommy’s Funny Medicine”

The 1986 crime bill set into law the “fact” that America would be drug free by 1995. Later Newt Gingrich wrote that the goal was for America to be drug free by 2001. There is an organization still in existence today called Partnership for a Drug Free America.
People really believed this nonsense. As if drugs were like some finite group of enemy soldiers who would march down a field dressed in red coats and our loyal warriors backed by all the forces of good would fire until they were all destroyed and that would be the end of drugs.
These days you don’t hear so much of that. Most people know that if it was really a war, it’s not even theoretically possible to “win” it. But the drug warriors can’t give up or actually look at alternatives, so they come up with some surreal justifications to continue as they have.
Stephen Colbert described them quite well in his tongue-in-cheek comment last night:

Sir, we have lost the war on drugs when we withdraw from the war on drugs. While we’re still in it, we haven’t lost it.

Funny, but also on the mark. Almost as funny is an actual serious quote by a new sheriff I reported recently:

The drug war is a war we’ll never win and it’s time to attack it on a daily basis and concentrate on drugs.

And then there’s this from Amarillo that really struck me…

The drug war of 2007 is off to a good start as troopers made two separate drug busts along I-40 this weekend.

“The drug war of 2007”? It’s an annually named drug war now and we get to start over fresh each January?
I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

It’s hilarious — both Ethan and Stephen are hyped up and having fun going after each other.

Colbert: You think we have lost the war on drugs and we should just give up on it.
Nadelmann: Oh, we have lost the war on drugs.
Colbert: Sir, we have lost the war on drugs when we withdraw from the war on drugs. While we’re still in it, we haven’t lost it. I say we send 20,000 more troops in. That’ll do it.

Good. Ethan used the figures on U.S. having 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prison population. “We lead the world in locking up our fellow citizens.”

Colbert: I’m thinking about cutting off your mic. …
Nadelmann: “You gotta get drunk to watch O’Reilly, but half your audience probably lit up a joint before they turned on your show tonight.”

Colbert: Look. I can’t control what they do. All I can do is pass judgement.

Ethan calls Colbert a communist.
Colbert calls for making Smith Brothers throat lozenges illegal.
The whole thing was over so fast it was hard to keep up.
Here’s the link to watch it online (Thanks, Celeste).

Via TalkLeft — Drug agents mishandled seized cash, audit finds

WASHINGTON – Drug Enforcement Administration agents routinely disregarded agency rules on the handling of seized cash, jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars taken in drug raids, a Justice Department review found.
In an audit published Friday, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine examined thousands of seizures between October 2003 and November 2005.
Fine’s report states that drug agents rarely counted the cash they took, often didn’t provide receipts for seized money, rarely recorded the seizures in agency ledgers and often didn’t ask their colleagues to witness their counting and handling of the money.

Unintentionally humorous line in the piece:

The lack of internal controls over the seized cash leads to accusations of theft by the agents, the report states.

Leads to accusations of theft? Yes, the most important thing is that the public not suspect that you’re stealing the money.

Do they just keep posting fecal material to keep me diverted from dealing with real issues? How else can you explain the ONDCP staff posting this nonsense on a Sunday at their “blog”? Is somebody there actually doing this on their own time?
Here’s the stupidity:

United Press International reports on a new study from the United Kingdom linking marijuana use and criminal behavior:
“A British survey finds that half of all crime suspects and 57 percent of young offenders admit recent smoking of marijuana. The Home Office, for the first time, questioned people who had just been arrested, the Daily Mail reported. The rate of marijuana use was significantly higher than expected.”
Marijuana: Harmless?

I am at a loss to explain how somebody as clearly retarded (in the Lewis Black definition of the word) as the person who posted this for the ONDCP can actually press the keys of the computer in such a way as to make words appear.
I wonder if any study asked criminals if they’d recently worn blue jeans or drunk whole milk, and whether that would be evidence of the harms of jeans or milk.
Honorable mention in stupidity goes to the Washington Times for their unquestioned regurgitation of British Conservative Party David Davis’ propaganda.

Remember the story of Janet Lee? She had some condoms filled with flour as a fun stress reliever/phallic gag and took them on the plane with her.

In the space of a few hours on Dec. 21, 2003, Janet Lee landed in a Philadelphia jail cell, where she would remain for three weeks, held on $500,000 bail and facing 20 years in prison on drug charges.

She filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the police (after all, holding her for three weeks for possession of flour?)
She just settled for $180,000. As part of the settlement, she’ll be allowed to meet with the police and ask them how they managed to be so incredibly stupid.

That’s the headline now at the Drug Czar’s “blog”.
Yes, I know. I can’t stay away, but I have an excuse — they taunted me.

Turns out, the widely-used argument used by drug legalization groups that Europeans are much “more open and accepting of marijuana legalization” just isn’t true.

Whoa. The drug czar is bringin’ it! Accusing me and my ilk of playin’ fast with the facts. Of course, their characterization of the view of legalizers is a little bit off — generally, we’ve said more that European countries have led the way (in terms of their laws) in being more accepting of marijuana, and such acceptance has not shown ill effects — rather the opposite, as a matter of fact. I don’t recall that much has been said about the public’s view of marijuana legalization being more open and accepting in Europe. Our view is that the public view of marijuana legalization is more open and accepting here in the U.S. than is reflected in the laws.
But let’s take a closer look at this new EU poll (pdf, page 44, data is on page 79 of the pdf document). Once again, we find that the Drug Czar takes data that ranges somewhere between insignificant and irrelevant and touts it as total vindication.
The poll, including dozens of questions on a whole long list of attitudes about a variety of topics regarding participation in the European Union, includes one question about cannabis:

Personal consumption of cannabis should be legalised throughout
Europe.
Totally Agree/Tend to Agree/Tend to Disagree/Totally Disagree/Don’t Know

The conclusion reached by the report’s authors is:

The high level of opposition to the idea that personal consumption of cannabis
should be legalised throughout Europe provides further evidence that Europeans feel
that there is too much tolerance nowadays.

Wait a second. Read the question again. How could any answer to that question provide evidence for that conclusion? First problem: without noting the fact, the authors are referring back to an earlier question about whether criminals are treated too tolerantly (and the authors should have clarified that they weren’t talking about tolerance toward marijuana). Second problem: The question gives nothing that could support such a conclusion anyway. People could very well think that marijuana should be further decriminalized and yet be opposed to legalization.
The fact that the authors chose to make the assumption they did in their conclusion casts serious doubt on their credibility and makes you wonder if they had an agenda.
Other problems with using the results of the poll in the way the Drug Czar does:
1. Context. The question is part of a large number of questions regarding peoples’ attitudes about the European Union. There’s a lot of concern over how much autonomy the countries of the European Union will be required to surrender. Answers to the question “Personal consumption of cannabis should be legalised throughout Europe.” could easily be swayed by people’s views as to whether it should be an EU issue or a local issue. They could very well be in favor of legalization and yet answer in the negative because they don’t feel it should be discussed in terms of overall EU consideration (perhaps because there are more important things, or because it should be up to the individual countries).
2. The word “legalised” has baggage. As we often see here in the United States, legalization is equated in some people’s minds with a complete absence of regulation. I’ve had people tell me “I’m opposed to legalization, but I think they should stop arresting people for marijuana.” When I ask them if they think there should be fines, they say “No. But I don’t want to see it freely available to children.” In fact, they are in favor of legalization and don’t know it. I don’t know how much this misconception is prevalent in the EU, but obviously that would color the poll.
3. The question is too limited to really tell you anything. Just one question, with questionable context and meaning. If you really wanted to have that poll provide some meaningful results, you’d want to include more questions. Possibly something like “People should be jailed for personal possession of cannabis throughout Europe.” and “Laws regarding personal possession of cannabis should be made the same throughout Europe.” The fact that you’re mixing “personal consumption of cannabis” and “throughout Europe” makes the equation so complex that you need a number of questions to really triangulate people’s views in any kind of meaningful way that the drug czar would like to have you believe.

Here’s this week’s issue.