Drug WarRant

I was curious to see what George Will would say about the drug war in his new column in this coming Monday’s Newsweek: Prohibition II: Good Grief. It started out on track…

When government restricts Americans’ choices, ostensibly for their own good, someone is going to profit from the paternalism.
Perhaps Prohibition II is being launched because Prohibition I worked so well at getting rid of gin. Or maybe the point is to reassure social conservatives that Republicans remain resolved to purify Americans’ behavior. Incorrigible cynics will say Prohibition II is being undertaken because someone stands to make money from interfering with other people making money.

But then I got a little confused

For whatever reason, last Friday the president signed into law Prohibition II. You almost have to admire the government’s plucky refusal to heed history’s warnings about the probable futility of this adventure.

Huh? How did he sign the drug war into law when it’s already been going on for decades?

This time the government is prohibiting Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks or credit-card companies to process payments to online gambling operations on a list the government will prepare.

… Oh.
Well, I agree with much of what he says about the internet gambling ban, but…
How can you talk about Prohibition I and Prohibition II and never mention the drug war?

The drug czar’s office (along with major segments of the law enforcement community) has been getting pretty hysterical about the notion of the marijuana legalization initiatives in Nevada and Colorado. Gee, it’s almost as if their jobs were being threatened…
It’s fascinating to watch the melt-down and how far they’ll go to demonize marijuana. For Walters to trot out this dog-and-pony show is just bizarre (Marijuana causes you to drive 85 in a 45 mph zone and kill someone? I don’t think so. And the notion that they really couldn’t do anything to the driver because of the lack of drug laws is just… stupid.)
Of course, you always want to take advantage of the drug-fear-de-jour, so the drug warriors are working hard to tie marijuana legalization to… that’s right — Meth.
Perennial Nevada idiot Guy Farmer got into it early:

In 2004 Carson City Justice of the Peace John Tatro told me that at least half of the meth abusers who appear before him also tested positive for marijuana. And just last month the Appeal published a graphic example of how marijuana can lead to the use of hard drugs. It was the story of 17-year-old Cyndle Bell of Carson City and her personal battle against meth addiction, which she chronicled in a 15-minute documentary produced as her senior project at Carson High School.

There was also a law enforcement officer recently (see update below) who said that practically every marijuana case he saw also involved methamphetamines.
The drug czar’s office wouldn’t want to miss out on that kind of action, so we have “Plan called a meth gateway” in the Denver Post this week, with nonsense from ONDCP associate deputy director John Horton:

A proposal on the state ballot to loosen marijuana laws in Colorado would make it harder to fight the war on methamphetamine abuse, a federal drug official said Monday.
John Horton, a former Oregon prosecutor, said Amendment 44 – which would allow people 21 and older to legally possess an ounce or less of pot – would make marijuana accessible to more people and allow them to fall victim to the highly-addictive and destructive properties of methamphetamines.
“Many meth addicts say they started with marijuana,” said Horton. “So I don’t think we want Colorado to be a testing ground for new marijuana laws.”

Of course, the truth is that marijuana use does not lead to meth (or any other drug for that matter). The so-called gateway theory is dragged out and mis-used time and time again. Note Horton’s last statement: “many meth addicts say they started with marijuana.” That’s intended to lead you to believe that marijuana led them to meth and would lead others to meth, which is simple nonsense. Those who use the so-called “hard” drugs are more likely to try everything else (like alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, coffee) first. If marijuana wasn’t available, they’d take another path to get there.
The only other legitimate “gateway” effect is the connection that drugs have due to their illegality, and the potential that it is easier to buy one illegal drug if you’re already buying drugs from criminals (of course, marijuana legalization efforts actually remove this potential).
If you want a quick and easy method to see if marijuana leads to meth, just look at the government’s own figures. If marijuana caused meth use, then the people in the blue bars in this chart would be ending up in the red bars.

Hmmm… Doesn’t seem to be happening. Even if we assume that every single meth user is also a marijuana user, the percentage of marijuana users who end up using meth is practically insignificant.
But of course that won’t deter the drug warriors from their scare tactics.
Now all we need is a chart to determine if being a drug warrior is a gateway to lying.
Update: Sukoi found the video with the Nevada law enforcement officer’s quote. Amendment 44 Legal Marijuana Conference. It’s drug warrior Pete Hautzinger (Mesa County District Attorney):

“I virtually never see a possession of marijuana case that doesn’t also involve methamphetamines.”

“bullet” See Brian Bennett’s excellent charts on Methamphetamine usage that help give a bigger picture.

There are rumors out there that another Congressman may get nailed in the page scandals (this time involving a 16-year-old girl). Some of the rumors are pointing to a lesser-known Congressman from Illinois who is a real drug war cheerleader.
Interesting…

Over at Townhall (with a fairly spirited comments section) is the always excellent Sullum with: Potheads, puritans and pragmatists: Two marijuana initiatives put drug warriors on the defensive.

Library volunteers say no to drug testing.
Update: The question that comes to mind is — what kind of moron do you have to be to think that drug testing library volunteers makes any sense? And, according to the article, they don’t see their stupidity and are just trying to come up with a different means of testing!

Via Scott Morgan (read what he has to say) comes this:

The Chicago Crime Commission will hold its Stars of Distinction, 2006 Awards Dinner to recognize outstanding individual and organizational contributions in fighting crime. DEA Administrator Karen P. Tandy will accept the Education Award along with Museum for Science and Industry partners responsible for bringing “Target America: Opening Eyes to the Danger Drugs Cause” to Chicago.

Sigh.

Everybody in the entire world is in agreement that the international effort to deal with opium in Afghanistan has been a colossal failure. Everybody is blaming everybody else and nobody has a clue what to do about it, with one exception: The Senlis Council (a European think-tank) has developed and promoted concrete and workable plans, including: Opium Licensing for the Production of Essential Medicines: Securing a Sustainable Future for Afghanistan.
So when you have a complete failure on your hands, have no clue how to turn it around, and a bunch of very smart people come up with a comprehensive plan to solve your problems, what do you do?

The Afghan government has ordered the closure of all offices of a group that wants to promote new ways of dealing with the global drugs problem.
The Interior Ministry said the Senlis Council, had been “confusing farmers” and had been a factor in the increase in poppy cultivation.

Idiots!

Maybe I should say I want a new computer. My current laptop is still working, and I hope to get it to limp along until January at least, but it’s missing a couple of keys and is held together with tape. My 12″ Mac Powerbook has been phenomenal — it has been my workhorse for years, going everywhere with me (including Europe). I’ve dropped it, kicked it, done everything to it and it has been continually reliable. But it’s getting old, starting to feel a little slow, and also cannot handle some of the new photography and design software I need to use.
No, I don’t need a high-powered laptop to blog, but I use my one computer for everything I do, which includes blogging, photography, graphic design, and website management.
So I’m looking for some help. Check out the options I’m weighing and consider donating to the Drug WarRant laptop fund. I’m hoping to have enough raised to get a new computer by January or February (and I’ll have both a birthday and Christmas in between for added reasons to donate).
There are a lot of small costs that regularly come up with Drug WarRant (including server fees, domain fees, and research costs, etc.), but I’ve never been interested in doing much fundraising (and I don’t have any advertising revenue). I don’t do this for compensation (I have a day job that I love as well), but I could use help with a major purchase like the laptop.
Don’t feel obligated — if you can’t afford to donate, please don’t. If you think your donations could be better used to help a drug policy reform candidate or an established drug policy reform organization, please do so. But if you’ve got $5 or $50 or $500 sitting around with no plans…
Thanks.

Via Americans for Safe Access,
Senator James Jeffords (Vermont) sent a letter (pdf) to Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, asking why they hell it’s taking them so long to do their job in the legal process of evaluating a petition to reschedule marijuana (he worded it a little different than I did, but the polite language barely covers his annoyance).

follow-up on your answer to a question I asked during your
confirmation process. … the law requires the Secretary to conduct this evaluation “within a reasonable time.” … you stated that you “would make every effort to complete
the evaluation by August 2005.” Needless to say August 2005 has long since
passed … and yet no action has been taken … Please describe the factors that have led to this delay …

It’s good to have a Senator paying attention to the foot dragging by HHS. Eventually that agency is going to have to actually come up with something due to the accumulated political pressure or through a court order. Of course the problem (from the perspective of HHS) is that they’ll no choice but to

1. show that medical marijuana is viable, or
2. they’ll have to lie with specific detail that can be publicly and scientifically refuted.

Over at the Drug Czar’s “blog,” they have crafted an Ask the Expert “interview” with “Doctor” David Murray on needle exchange. This is their own pet doctor who they trot out whenever they want to sound like they have something medical to say.
It’s as bizarre as most of what comes out of the Drug Czar’s office. Though full of verbiage intended to sound erudite, in the end, it makes no sense at all.
Check out this passage, where Murray essentially says that, unless needle exchange actually reduces drug use, it doesn’t matter whether it saves lives.

We are faced with two epidemic diseases that destroy the health of individuals and communities. The first is the spread of blood-borne pathogens such as HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C through the sharing of contaminated injection equipment or by engaging in high-risk behaviors. The second is the scourge of drug use itself. An effective public health intervention must address both of these epidemics. The evidence is mixed as to whether needle exchange programs actually reduce the transmission of blood-borne pathogens; some studies have argued that they do, others argue that they demonstrably fail. But as to the second epidemic, the evidence is clear that distributing needles to enable continued drug injection does not reduce the continued drug injection. Finally, there is increasingly clear evidence that drug use itself, whether by injection or not, is associated with high-risk behaviors that lead to blood-borne pathogen transmission. The most comprehensive public health solution must be to reduce the incidence and prevalence of drug use.

Of course, I’m not sure why I even get worked up about any of this. I’m guessing that drug policy reformers like me looking for a laugh or something to get worked up about are pretty much the only ones who read Pushing Back.