Drug WarRant

I briefly mentioned the MPP report on Monday (Laws don’t curb teen marijuana use), and I wanted to point out a couple of less-than-stellar reviews that it got from drug policy reform fans.

• Jacob Sullum has a thoughtful analysis at Reason
• The Drug Law Blog takes me to task for being inaccurate with my characterization of the report, and does a fine job of criticizing the report for its reliance on big-picture rather than specific statistical support.

Thing is, I agree with both of them and yet still stand by my approval of the MPP report.
How can this be, you ask?
Here’s my thinking.
First, there’s no real way to definitively answer the question as to whether laws reduce or increase or have no affect on marijuana and teens, for a number of reasons.

1. It’s an impossible question, given that a myriad of factors can be involved, including trends, fads, effects of education, substitution factors, etc.
2. Reporting data is extremely unreliable. Survey results when getting people to self-report illegal behavior are prone to intentional error (in both ways).
3. The definitions are ineffective — since the government allows no difference in the definition of use and abuse, someone who uses occasionally with no ill effects (the equivalent of wine with a dinner) is treated the same statistically as a heavy or problem user).
4. No laboratories. The federal government has, through international treaty, and interference with state initiatives, actively worked to stop any attempt at a current day laboratory situation in a country or state to have a situation where we could legitimately compare the effects of marijuana laws versus marijuana regulation only.

The fact that there is no way to definitively answer the question has not prevented the government from doing so — at every opportunity, and largely unchallenged. And its answer has been that drug laws reduce marijuana use. Period. That has become the de-facto assumption that everyone operates under, despite the fact that the onus of proof should be on the government, and they have been unable to prove it. Sure, they trot out meaningless micro-statistics (like “Marijuana use from 2002-2004 went down 4% by teens aged 15-17 — a clear indication that the drug laws are working” [note: don’t check that figure, I just made that one up]) And so every time the Drug Czar puts out one of those figures, the press eats it up and dutifully reports that the drug war is working.
It is in this context that the MPP report must be viewed. On its own, it has minimal statistical value or confidence. However, it was never intended to be viewed as a stand-alone item. Note the press release when MPP issued the report on Monday:

A new report from the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington, D.C., challenges the key assumption underlying present U.S. marijuana laws: that marijuana must be prohibited for adults in order to deter teens from using it.
MPP’s report, available at www.mpp.org/teenuse, comes as the federal government prepares to release its annual “Monitoring the Future” survey of teenage drug use, which is traditionally released in mid-December. [emphasis added]

It’s clear that the purpose of the MPP report is to provide context to the federal government’s misuse of data.
We cannot continue to allow the government to establish the factual base when it is, in fact, not factual. One thing that we can do is convince the press to question the underlying assumption. I believe that was the purpose of this report, and it works.
No, MPP did not come out with any startling new information, or clear data results that say “Look! Marijuana laws cause marijuana use!” nor did they specifically represent it in that way. Sure, they were perhaps a little over-confident in their interpretation (though not even close to what comes from the federal government [no excuse, I know]), but again the way this report is to be used is primarily to force the press to question, and it’s particularly aimed at the press who don’t otherwise know enough to question the government’s contentions.
Now, when a member of the media prints the regurgitated data from the ONDCP, they have the ability to add “although critics contend that drug laws have limited effect on teen marijuana use, and may even have a reverse effect in some situations.”
This report isn’t for Jacob Sullum — he knows a lot more by himself than is revealed in the report. It’s for the reporter who has only a peripheral view of drug policy and assumes that what the government puts out must be true.
One additional note: On the “Gateway” effect. Drug Law Blog notes:

I’m also kind of amazed that the MPP in this study invokes the so-called “gateway effect” of marijuana when, in other contexts, I’m quite sure that they would deny (reasonably) that the use of marijuana is necessarily a gateway to harder drugs.

MPP in this situation invokes the gateway effect of black-market prohibition, which is different than the gateway effect of marijuana. The marijuana gateway effect says that marijuana use leads to other drugs. The black-market prohibition gateway effect says that the prohibition of marijuana puts people who use marijuana in greater proximity with other drugs since they have to buy it on the black market. There is absolutely no evidence for the marijuana gateway effect — if there is a gateway effect at all (uncertain), it’s more likely to exist as a black-market prohibition gateway.
Of course, the word “gateway” is a problematic one, since its definition has become so muddy. Some assume that it means “causal condition” while others use it to simply refer to an “anecdotal sequence.”

I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but it’s true.

It’s a busy week for me, so I’m just going to send you to some other reading today. Here are a few highlights that I wanted to talk about and are definitely worth checking out:
“bullet” Drug Law Blog has the first part of its Top 10 Drug Law Stories of 2006 and I’m thrilled to have made number 10.
“bullet” Kevin Zeese channels Milt Friedman in The Futility Of Drug Prohibition
“bullet” Neal Peirce has another great OpEd — The other war we can’t win
“bullet” Brooke De Lench has an OpEd in a number of papers around the country: Let Them All Play about putting resources into sports activities for kids rather than drug testing.
“bullet” Nick Gillespie has a good piece on the “infantilization of adults” in The Race to Ban What’s Bad for Us
“bullet” For an interesting international politics take, check out Garry Leech in the Colombia Journal: How the EU and Canada could work for peace in Colombia (essentially by rejecting the U.S. drug war approach to foreign policy)
“bullet” Update: Almost forgot — Bill Piper does a really nice job with his OpEd Anti-drinking ads: Give it to ’em straight

Dennis announced his candidacy for Presidency in 2008. That’s good news because it means there’s a chance that the drug war will be a topic for discussion.
As a reminder to folks, here’s some information about Kucinich from 3 years ago.

Via Scott Morgan comes this in the Miami Herald

A federal jury in Miami found the Drug Enforcement Administration discriminated against Sandalio Gonzalez, the former second-in-command of the DEA’s South Florida field office, by retaliating against him with a transfer to another job in Texas in 2001.

This is significant for a number of reasons. It validates Gonzalez’ earlier whistleblowing and verifies the DEA’s method of dealing with it. Gonzalez was also the whistleblower in the House of Death scandal in Texas (the DEA probably really regrets the transfer). This court decision also is going to make more people pay attention to the House of Death.
An interesting side note: speculation by Bill Conroy at NarcoNews as to why DEA head Karen Tandy cancelled her plans to testify on behalf of the DEA at this trial.

It continues to amaze me how much the Drug Czar and his puppets are willing to bend and mutilate data in order to attempt to make a case for the dangers of drugged driving.
The drug czar’s “blog” touts some supposedly important new information:

But in West Virginia, the regular testing has enabled the CDC to determine that drugs are found in 25.8 percent of people killed in wrecks. That’s similar to the percentage of victims found with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit — about 27.7 percent.
“These results suggest that drug use contributes substantially to driver impairment in West Virginia,” the report says.
President Bush has declared December National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month.

Notice how they attempt to conflate the drugged percentage with the above the legal limit alcohol percentage?
OK, now note that this is a complete crock. And you don’t even have to read the study. Just read the linked article with more than a 5 year old comprehension and you discover the following:

• In this study, drugs were found in 25.8 percent of those killed in wrecks. That includes passengers, pedestrians, drivers who weren’t at fault, etc. There’s no way of knowing how many of the drivers (or for that matter if any at all) were drugged.
• The most prevalent kind of drugs found were prescription drugs.
• There was no way to identify whether the prescription drugs were legally obtained or prescribed.
• The fact that marijuana was the most commonly found illicit drug is not a surprise at all — it’s the most commonly used and stays in the blood the longest. The fact that it came in well below prescription drugs just shows how prevalent prescription drug use is in the population.
• The study had no information about impairment, and therefore could not offer a single, solitary bit of evidence regarding the connection between drug use and fatal car accidents.

Once again, the drug czar lies.
And yes, I am at war with government officials who technically say truthful things with an intent to deceive. That practice is lying, pure and simple.

From Bruce Mirken with MPP:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new report from the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington, D.C., challenges the key assumption underlying present U.S. marijuana laws: that marijuana must be prohibited for adults in order to deter teens from using it.
When reformers propose regulating marijuana for adults in a manner similar to alcohol or tobacco, government officials typically argue that such a policy would encourage use by children, and such assertions are widely accepted by the press and the public. MPP undertook a thorough review of government data from the U.S. and around the world, as well as studies by think tanks and academic researchers. Key findings include:

• Marijuana prohibition has not prevented a dramatic increase in marijuana use by teenagers. In fact, the overall rate of marijuana use in the U.S. has risen by roughly 4,000% since marijuana was first outlawed.
• Independent studies by RAND Europe and the U.S. National Research Council have reported that marijuana prohibition appears to have little or no impact on rates of use.
• Since Britain ended most marijuana possession arrests in 2004, the rate of marijuana use by 16- to-19-year-olds has dropped.
• In the U.S., rates of teen marijuana use in states that have decriminalized adult marijuana possession are statistically equal to the rates in states that have retained criminal penalties.
• In the Netherlands, where adults have been allowed to possess and purchase small amounts of marijuana since 1976, the rate of marijuana use by adults and teens is lower than in the U.S., and teen use of cocaine and amphetamines is far lower than in the U.S. Indeed, some researchers believe it is the prohibition of marijuana that causes progression to hard drug use, sometimes called the “gateway effect.”

“The idea that prohibiting adults from using marijuana will keep it away from kids is a myth that isn’t backed up by the data,” said MPP Executive Director Rob Kampia. “We need laws that are based on facts and science, not faith-based myths.”

Full Report available for download
Now lets see if the press picks up on it. The report release is timed to coincide with the traditional release time of government’s annual “Monitoring the Future” report. Each year, the ONDCP cherry-picks some out-of-context set of numbers from that report and touts it as either a victory in the drug war or a sign that we need to spend more/arrest more, etc. With the new MPP report, the press will have the option of at least “balancing” those claims with the real in-context information in the MPP report.

Winning the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan: The top U.S. anti-drug official said Saturday that Afghan poppies would be sprayed with herbicide to combat an opium trade that produced a record heroin haul this year, a measure likely to anger farmers and scare Afghans unfamiliar with weed killers.

I guess we’ve screwed up Afghanistan so badly already that the administration has decided we might was well turn the whole show over to John Walters to finish destroying the country, and ending hopes of protecting our interests in the region.

The Afghan government has not publicly said it will spray, and President Hamid Karzai has said in the past that herbicides pose too big a risk, contaminating water and killing the produce that grows alongside poppies.
But Walters said Karzai and other officials have agreed to ground spraying.
“I think the president has said yes, and I think some of the ministers have repeated yes,” Walters said without specifying when spraying would start. “The particulars of the application have not been decided yet, but yes, the goal is to carry out ground spraying.”

Who’s in charge of this lunatic asylum?

Via Blame the Drug War, comes the story of a drug suspect in Canada who shot two policemen (a third was shot by friendly fire) during a drug raid when he thought the people busting in were home invaders.
So the head of the police union realizes that a change is in order. Not re-evaluating when home invasion is used in drug investigations (which would make sense), but rather…

WINNIPEG needs a full-time, heavily armed SWAT team to respond to drug busts and other potentially dangerous searches, says the boss of the local police union.
Loren Schinkel noted every other major Canadian city has a tactical team dedicated to that kind of situation, while Winnipeg is taking a big gamble by calling out its Emergency Response Unit on a case-by-case basis.
“The reality is, with 80 per cent of the warrants executed in Winnipeg by the drug unit, weapons are located,” he said. “We’re really rolling the dice.”

Idiot. Using a full-time, heavily armed SWAT team for routine drug busts is not going to make them safer. But then again, he probably just wants to play with the cool toys. How many will die because he’s a moron?

Radley Balko has the story.