Drug WarRant

Phillip Smith suggests a somewhat daring notion:

a direction action protest to surround and shut down DEA headquarters in suburban Arlington, Virginia. …
Isn’t it about time to take concrete action against these latter day buccaneers? My activist friend suggested a national mobilization designed to bring thousands of people to DC to literally shut it down by blockading the entrances of DEA headquarters. Now, of course, such an action wouldn’t actually disrupt the agency’s business for more than a short period of time, but it would disrupt it. I’m for that. Personally, I’m tired of protest actions that don’t actually do anything. …
I, for one, would rather take the fight to their house than have them take the fight to my house.

An intriguing idea. Certainly the notion of protesting at the DEA is not new — medical marijuana activists have organized numerous protests at DEA offices around the country, with some success in getting media attention.
The small protest that we organized through this blog at the DEA exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago generated a Washington Post article and a Chicago Tribune feature.
Now imagine that we take all the various interests in the drug war, for whom the DEA represents destruction of American principles — medical marijuana, civil liberties, foreign policy, and more… and bring them together at the DEA headquarters.
The potential benefits

• Reaching more Americans with the message that drug policy reform is important.
• Making the media deal with drug policy reformers without laughing.
• Giving politicians cover to do something.
• Giving drug policy reformers a morale boost.

What do you think? Is it worth joining together with a bunch of organizations, raising the money and doing it right? Will people come? Not 12 or 20, or 100, but thousands willing to commit civil disobedience?

“bullet” In the Detroit News: Subject drug war to the Iraq War test by Nolan Finley

Yet while it only took three years for the American people to lose patience with the Iraq War, the drug war has been dragging on virtually unchallenged for three decades.

Given the cost, it’s baffling that taxpayers haven’t demanded more accountability. State and federal drug fighting efforts cost roughly $1 billion a week.

Here’s the return on that money: Zero.

“bullet” At Huffington Post: Time for Exit Strategy for Unwinnable Drug War by Tony Newman

It is time to encourage treatment providers, public health officials, law enforcement, drug users, educators, elected officials and others to come together and help us find ways to reduce the harms of both drug abuse and drug prohibition. We need to heal from this war on our fellow citizens.

“bullet” Via TalkLeft an editorial in the Houston Chronicle Smarter on crime: It’s time for Harris County to heed the message of a tough-on-crime judge about handling of drug cases.

…the ill effects on a community of committing huge numbers of prospectless drug addicts to lengthy jail sentences and felony records without dealing with their underlying drug dependence are well-documented and long-term. And those ill effects are suffered by everyone in this county.

I’m not sure what the Drug Czar’s “blog” is trying to say with this minimalist post:

Marijuana and Memory Loss
Here’s the latest science (from Scientific American).

It’s an article about the fact that marijuana can affect short-term memory.
Well… duh!
Scientific American reports

…rats that had been trained to follow a specific series of turns to get water–and did fine on the test before being intravenously injected with the drug–found themselves wandering in a daze under its influence…

Did anyone talk with the rats to actually see what they were experiencing? Maybe they were enjoying it. Maybe the rat was thinking “Dude. Look at the wall of this maze. I never realized how… grey it was before.” And is really such a bad thing that the rat decided not to mindlessly follow the same soulless path he was forced to repeat time and time again by the authorities? Is this a problem or a benefit?
To give the rats higher doses, they injected cannabinoids directly into the brains.
The one point in the article that was written with ominous tones was:

But the research also reveals that at the highest doses of synthetic cannabinoid, the rats failed to discover the right sequence of turns altogether. In other words, there may be a threshold level of the drug that entirely prohibits learning, and that is something worth remembering very clearly

That’s right — when you’re stoned (or at least when you’ve been injected in the brain with pot) — you may have trouble learning things. Again, we say, “well, duh!” Everybody knows that you should read the instructions to Chutes and Ladders before you get stoned (or just make up your own as you go).
Yes, pot affects your consciousness. That’s a feature.
And if the studies about pot and Alzheimers are true, then the pot smokers will have the last laugh as they help John Walters remember his own name in the retirement home.

Link
So, if I break into a woman’s house, fully armed and armored, and then shoot her in her nightgown in her bedroom — three times to make sure she’s dead — do you think I could get one of those nifty awards for bravery?

“bullet” Welcome to the SSDP folks who participated in the Elevator Arguments workshop. Feel free to introduce yourself in comments. And let us know (or email me) if you have any questions about material for your concise speeches. There is some useful information at my FAQ page.
“bullet” I’ve added a blog to the list — The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs. It’s a different kind of blog — one that is more a comprehensive repository of useful information, both current and historical.
“bullet” Via Jamie Spencer: Want to win the War on Drugs? Just change the definition of “winning” —

The war against drugs in Houston is heating up. It’s a war some believe we are losing, but a war we can’t afford to lose said Captain Steve Smith with HPD Narcotics. “As long as we are fighting it then we are winning. And as long as you adapt to that and understand that, then you never think that law enforcement is losing the battle.”

“bullet” No surprise:

1. We send lots of money to Colombia to supposedly fight a drug war.
2. The government of President Alvaro Uribe is being shaken by its most serious political crisis yet, as details emerge about members of Congress who collaborated with right-wing death squads to spread terror and exert political control across Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

That’s right. We paid for it.
“bullet” Trailer park feminist does a nice take-down of the ONDCP’s “I’m above the influence” ad campaign.

Today was a day of activism workshops — including the panel I was on with David Guard and Doug McVay. Our panel was a blast — great fun and a huge turnout of really bright students with tons of good stuff to contribute. We could have gone for another hour easily.
After the session, I was talking to a couple of the students out in the atrium and we got into this great discussion (they were really interested in learning), and there was this guy who joined in who seemed to really be on top of things. Every subject we touched on, he had tons of useful information. By this point, I’m really getting a kick about this, but I’m also getting curious — I’ve been meeting all these drug policy professionals, could this be another one I didn’t know? (there was no name tag)
Well, it turns out it was one of the Drug WarRant crew who took time out of his life to come to the Georgetown Law Center, find me, and say hello. That made my day. Thanks!

I’m only here for a couple of days and the conference is packed with such wonderful events, that I hadn’t really dealt in any coherent way with the fact that I’m in our nation’s capital (and I haven’t visited for about 15 years.
Quite frankly, I wasn’t very happy about being here. I’ve had a pretty sour view of politics and our nation’s “leaders.” And my first night here, I ate at a restaurant filled with pissant preppy political popinjays. I sat there quietly and listened to them talk — and to them, Washington was simply a big game of Monopoly, and the country was just a bunch of colored squares. I can’t imagine that they even care about drug war victims, or what mandatory minimums do to a community.
But late tonight I put my cynicism aside and took a little walk. From the hotel, I walked to the Capitol and then through the Mall to the Washington Monument. Past the fountains and the reflecting pool and up the stairs to Abe Lincoln’s Memorial.
I had to block the added security measures and construction from my mind, but very soon I started to feel the beauty and power. There was a presence. And I realized that the idiot politicians in office are ephemeral. They don’t have the power to destroy such historical power and significance.
And there was hope.

The final plenary session of the day.
Eric Sterling, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation

Many reformers have a problem with the word “decriminalization.” However, from his perspective, the definition of decriminalization has potentially undergone some change.
Original: Decriminalization means a minor sanction, users won’t be punished by we’ll still go after the traffickers. That doesn’t make sense.
However, new thought:
Using the word “legalization” puts the burden on the legalizer to define how that will be accomplished.
But new version of “decriminalization” puts burden of proof on the status quo to answer: Why should the state punish drug use? What in the conduct of drug users merits punishment?

Interesting point.

Drug use is a right. It’s hard to imagine anything more intimate than the control of our own neurotransmitters. …
If we want to make a big difference, we need to convince business that drug prohibition hurts their bottom line.

His proposals for ‘after prohibition’:

• Marijuana — growing license similar to getting a hunting license.
• Psychedelics — Psychadelic trip leaders who are insured and licensed professionals
• Other drugs — a Consulting Pharmacist (just like getting advice from a stockbroker) who would advise people on the effects, interactions with other things you might be doing. Might advise you to use a different drug based on what you want to do.
• Treatment on demand. You should be able to get treatment as easily as ordering a pizza.
• Parents and teachers should be able to tell you the truth.
• There will be challenges — we cannot say for certain what the market will look like, so we need to be able to respond and change.

Marsha Rosenbaum, Drug Policy Alliance
The drug prevention industry is impossible to penetrate. It’s a depressing situation. After all the proof, DARE is still out there.
Marsha and DPA has worked on trying to reach parents and get them the real information. That has been successful.
Marsha wrote this letter to her son when he entered High School eight years ago. She reported that two days ago, her son wrote a letter to her about how he took her advice…
It’s a beautiful letter and I hope you’ll get a chance to read it sometime. No way I could type fast enough to get it to you now. I just needed to listen. It’s a powerful letter that vindicates her initial letter to him.
Here’s a couple of pamphlets that you might want to get:

• Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs, and Drug Education
• Beyond Zero Tolerance

Marsha then showed a video upFront: A Reality-Based Approach to Drug Education about a program at Oakland High School — a fact-based/not fear-based program with real information. What a notion! (Also see UpFrontPrograms.org.)
Nick Gillespie, Reason Magazine

“Drug war screws with everything it touches and it touches everything.”
Why are kids being taken away from math and science to be talked to about drugs at all?
We need to create a post-prohibitionist mindset.
For 50 years, everything in America was geared and oriented to the cold war. From the olympics to chess. America became like the Soviet Union to defeat it.
Today, the prohibitionist mindset infuses everything in our lives Tour de France, baseball, foreign policy, education, … You can’t even take a piss in this country without being told “Just say No to drugs” at the bottom of the urinal.

His approach:

Smarter to regulate all drugs (including prescription drugs) something like beer and alcohol.
We need to move to a post-prohibitionist mindset.
We need to fight the drug war like the allies fought World War II. Everywhere and all the time. We need to be making moral, fiscal and every other argument.
We need to show the cost benefit ratio, including the fact that physical pleasure needs to be added to the calculation.
We have prisons dotting this country like concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
It would be hard to swing a dead bratwurst without hitting some kind of camp. And its true hear now with prisons and drug offenders.
We need to publicize the fact that the drug war is being fought at all times in all corners. And the drug war may be the forever war, because it’s a basic human impulse to alter your consciousness. Drugs are one of the tools of choice in that.
We’ll have to go beyond the cost-benefit ration analysis and move beyond that. Those of us who use drugs have to fundamentally alter the way we talk about drugs. Individuals have more power to remake themselves than ever before in human history.
It’s easier to be gay today than it was in 1940, 1950, 1960, etc. The same thing will be true with being a drug user.
We need to start re-conceiving the idea of drugs — collapse the arbitrary differences — as one tool toward becoming what we want to become. Drugs are like exercise and fashion and surgery….
We will need to stop imbuing inanimate objects with super-human powers.
The end of the war starts in our head.
We must take seriously the credo of the Whole Earth Catalog: “We are as Gods and we might as well get good at it.”

Rachel Kurtz, King County Bar Association
She talked about the wonderful work that KCBA has done. See their reports at King County Bar Association, including Effective Drug Control: Toward a New Legal Framework
We need to come up with even more alternatives to the drug war — She encouraged students to do more research in this area.

Scott Morgan (FlexYourRights), Radley Balko (Agitator and Reason), Nick Gillespie (Reason), Pete Guither (DrugWarRant)
Gee, I wonder if Mark Kleiman is going to want a picture with me?
[Update: He shook my hand, but was clearly not pleased to meet me, and laid in to me pretty severely for my accusations regarding his scholarship. When I said I have admired his critiques of prohibition, but have still been waiting for him to articulate his objections to legalization, he said that I should look at his paper in 1992 in Daedalus. So I have tracked it down and ordered a copy — I promised him that I would read it and respond and I will do so as soon as I get it.]

The mid-day plenary featured Bill Press (MSNBC), Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune) and was moderated by Ryan Grim (Capitol Leader and Slate.com).
Clarence Page: The #1 sin in journalism is being inaccurate. The #2 sin is being dull. He defends the fact that the press often treats drugs and the drug war as a funny thing on that basis.
Bill Press thinks reporters are afraid to talk about drugs, partly because they are afraid they’ll lose their jobs or reveal to much about their past. He talked about his own conversion…

I discovered I’m a conservative — I was opposed to big government programs that wasted a lot of taxpayer dollars and didn’t accomplish anything.

Clarence Page was interested in Kris Krane’s comment about the fact that the media reports on “drug-related” crime and not “prohibition-related” crime. I think he realized that there was a framing issue in the media. I get the impression that Page is not with us fully, but dipping his toes in the water. He wants a change, but isn’t sure how much, nor has he fully accommodated in his mind all the aspects of drug policy reform.
Bill Press called Bob Novak “The Prince of Darkness”
Bill Press (back to framing): Gingrich, during the Republican takeover, came up with lists of words to use to frame the issue. He mentioned some good words that we use:

• Reform
• Fiscal Responsibility
• Decriminalization (as opposed to “legalization”)
• State’s Rights

Both said that medical marijuana is the right approach to softening public opinion. So is the financial aid issue that SSDP has been pursuing. Both seemed to think that the incremental approach is the only way that it’ll work.
Reach out, inform, and educate the media. Don’t just complain about them. Make your case. Contact them. Meet with editorial boards. It’s easier if you’re a group, but it’s essential.
Ryan Grim gave props to Tom Angell of SSDP for his persistence in getting press releases out and keeping contact with the media. (Notes that it’s not just about the release, but the follow-up, and also getting some exclusivity.) Create personal interaction with the media.
Clarence Page: “If we’re going to have a Drug Czar who’s going to be dishonest, then there’s no point in having a Drug Czar.”