Drug WarRant

Phillip Smith has a good discussion piece up at StoptheDrugWar: Third-Party Candidacies vs. Voting for the Lesser Evil
It’s certainly a topic worth talking about — there are a few races out there this time with third-party candidates that have strong drug policy reform views, so what do you do?
My view?

1. If you’ve got a third-party candidate that’s doing the right thing, vote for them. The fear of the “Nader” effect is overblown, in my opinion, and it’s good to keep the third party door open.
2. If you’re in one of those rare situations where you have someone in Congress who really supports drug policy reform (Hinchey, Frank, Paul) vote for them, regardless of party.
3. Otherwise, when it comes to Congress, vote Democrat. This is not an endorsement of the Democratic party as much as it is an understanding that the current version of the Republican party is exceptionally dangerous to freedom in our country. There are two additional factors: a Democratic Congress is more likely to pass the Hinchey amendment (stopping the feds from harassing medical marijuana states); and a Democratic Congress means that Mark Souder loses his subcommittee chairmanship.
4. When it comes to state and local races, vote for the person that is best on drug war and freedom issues regardless of party.

Certainly, the Democrats, as a whole, have not acted responsibly in the drug war — in some cases they’ve been atrocious, with their “me, too!” approach to the drug war bandwagon. And it’s quite possible that in two years, or four years, I’ll be advising you all to vote Republican.
But now, there are too many reasons for advocating for split government, and for sending a strong message that government based on fear, lied, demonization, and restricting the freedom of Americans is unacceptable, whether it’s the Drug Czar’s activities or government wiretapping of U.S. citizens.
While the following doesn’t specifically mention the drug war, it’s relevant and important, written by the excellent conservative blogger John Cole at Balloon Juice:

We need to get rid of the authoritarians, we need to get rid of the big-spenders, the religionists and the gay-bashers, the liars, con-artists, crooks, and thieves, and we need to start over. I really look forward to the day where I have the high ground on tax related issues because my party is not spending us into bankruptcy. I look forward to the day when my party, when faced with difficult scientific questions, turns to the experts (rather than turning on them) instead of Sen. Inhofe and James Dobson and Randall Terry. I look forward to the day when my party once again has enough of a moral standing that we should even be allowed to discuss human rights and torture in foreign regimes. I look forward to the day when we can, with a straight face, argue that we are the party of small government — after, of course, we get rid of the religionists who are trying to dictate who we can love, who we can sleep with, who gets to determine what we watch on tv, and who gets to determine our end of life decisions. I look forward to the day when it is once again the Democrats who look crazy.
But for right now, it is the GOP that is out of touch, out of control, and drowning in its own hubris. It is time to throw them an anchor, and it looks like there are a lot of people lining up on the docks to do just that.

I’m ready to help throw that anchor.

Link

SSDP is excited to announce that speakers for this year’s SSDP conference include Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune), Terry Michael (former DNC Press Secretary), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (invited), Radley Balko (Reason Magazine), Pete Guither (Drug War Rant), Ethan Nadelmann, (Drug Policy Alliance), Rob Kampia (Marijuana Policy Project), Steph Sherer (Americans for Safe Access), and more! Register now at http://www.ssdp.org/conference.

I’m looking forward to it!

Yes, I turn [insert large number here] today.
The best present I could get would be for all of you to vote in two weeks and get rid of some of the bums in Congress, or at least get them out of their committee chair positions. And to help get the initiatives passed in Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota…
But if you’re still looking for something, it’s another excuse to contribute to the Drug WarRant laptop fund. I’ve already raised about $300.

Of course, it’s still too early to know for sure how marijuana may be used to combat Alzheimer’s, but the indications are that it shows much more promise than the current corporate drugs.
Fred Gardner has a nice piece on this topic at CounterPunch, with a recap of the scientific reports on this from Paul Armentano.
One of Gardner’s comments (a suggestion to study the effects of cannabis on Alzheimer’s rage in Oregon) reminded me of one of the most outrageous aspects of the federal government’s war on medical marijuana — their refusal to fund or allow research while claiming that there isn’t enough research to support marijuana’s medical claims. They now have 11 states that could be research laboratories for this very thing, yet they refuse to find out (because they already know the answer — marijuana works). Just like the fact that they refuse to study the patients that they have supplied marijuana to for decades.

In Dumaguete City in the Philippines, it will soon be illegal to display a picture of a marijuana leaf. This is, of course, in order to “protect the morality of society.”
The notion is laughable, because all this will do is create an increased interest in finding ways around the law. I’m betting that by the time this ordinance is enacted, some enterprising individual will be selling stickers with a single green maple leaf (or some other multi-pointed leaf), and everyone will know what it represents.

thehim’s Drug War Roundup is a must-read this week. He discusses the controversial Kos case for the libertarian Democrat in a way that defines what to me has been the major conflict within the blogosphere’s definition of libertarianism.
I agree wholeheartedly with thehim’s statement:

I believe that there’s one absolute in libertarianism, that human beings have a right to free will and that society progresses most when no entity has the ability to impose a particular morality on others. Each person should be free to dictate their own choices in life, and those entrusted with law and order can only get involved if those choices interfere with someone else’s freedom.

I also believe that this principle of individual libertarianism trumps all the various corporate and tax libertarianisms (often promoted by those identified with the conservative wing of libertarianism). And it is that core principle of libertarianism that demands an end to the drug war, regardless of whether it is wielded by democrats, republicans, or… Libertarians.

I went back to my undergraduate college this weekend for my 30th college reunion. It got me thinking about my days as a college student in the 70s and comparing it to the present, particularly in terms of the drug war.
This comparison only specifically concerns a small sub-set of society — college life. I had a good idea what was going on then, and I have a good idea what goes on now through my position as a university employee with close connections to students.
When I was a student, the drug war had started, but the focus was more… limited. College students smoked pot, or didn’t, as they wished, and everybody knew about it and nobody cared. I personally witnessed a situation where students were smoking pot in the common residence hall television room on the first floor when the campus police came by. They ducked their head in and asked if they could close the door — the smoke was getting a little thick in the hallway.
While it was certainly wrong for pot to be illegal (and we all knew that), there was a kind of treaty that existed. The campus and town police left the college students alone as long as they kept it indoors or out of general public view (you needed to be discrete at football games because of the public in attendance, but you could smoke obviously at the soccer games because really only college students attended). The only other rule was that the high school kids were off-limits. As soon as a college student sold to a high school student, the police came down hard.
Some students tried other drugs. Most didn’t. Pot and alcohol were the drugs of choice and they didn’t lead to harder drugs. The group of students that drank the most (the Owls), were known for getting drunk and smashing things or people. The group of students that smoked pot the most (the Delts) were the most peaceful. (In fairness, another group – the Milts — were major beer drinkers and almost as gentle as the Delts.)
Now move ahead 30 years. College students smoke pot, or they don’t, as they wish. Some try other drugs. Most don’t. The difference is that now we’ve escalated the war. We’re spending huge amounts of money on it, and occasionally, for no good reason, students get caught and their lives are ruined (financial aid revoked, kicked out of school or housing). Additionally, there’s no difference between selling pot to college students or to high school students.
Pot use appears roughly as prevalent today in college as it was 30 years ago. Pot use caused very little problem 30 years ago and it causes very little problem now. The drug war escalation, however, has made things worse in the little microcosm of college life, as it has in society as a whole.
The greatest fear of the drug warriors is not that pot will become legal in Nevada or Colorado. Their greatest fear is that after it becomes legal it will be not much of a problem. Because when people discover that fact, the drug war gravy train will come to an end.

There was a time when the Drug Czar and his minions could show up somewhere, spout their lies and misdirection, and the media would dutifully repeat it as established gospel. But it’s getting harder for them.
Check out this editorial by the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. ONDCP’s Scott Burns had been in South Dakota doing his usual act and it got a somewhat chilly response:

Burns’ position – and the federal government’s – isn’t just hypocritical. It’s contradictory. On the one hand, he says we can’t scare young people away from drug use; we have to give them scientific facts. Then he ignores the facts.
It’s a mirror of the 70-year-old classic anti-drug propaganda movie “Reefer Madness.” The beginning crawl calls marijuana “The Real Public Enemy Number ONE!!”
In the movie, a school principal tells the PTA of “a young boy … under the influence of drugs … who killed his entire family with an axe.
“… the next tragedy may be that of your daughter’s … or your son’s … or yours … or yours … (then, pointing to the camera) OR YOURS!”
No, by all means, let’s not try to scare people. Let’s give them the scientific facts.
There might be good reasons to vote against our medical marijuana measure on Nov. 7, but the science isn’t one of them. Neither are the government scare tactics.

By the way, be sure to check out the South Dakota for Medical Marijuana blog.

One of my favorite drug war liars, Andrea Barthwell, has shown up in Colorado to lobby against Amendment 44. She mostly gave some really lame arguments that were easily countered by Mason Tvert.
And then Tvert hit back, noting that Andrea has a potential financial interest in keeping marijuana illegal because of her job lobbying for Sativex.
Barthwell actually then claimed that Sativex “is so far removed from marijuana that it is not recognizable.”
Yeah, Andrea, in much the same way that carrot juice is so far removed from carrots that it is not recognizable.

“bullet” Via Phillip Smith, Peter Cohen’s A comment on ‘Sweden’s successful drug policy: a review of the evidence’ UNODC September 2006. This is an insightful look at how the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime cherry-picks statistics, changes term definitions and dishonestly manipulates the facts in order to justify its drug war.
“bullet” A very fun rant against the drug war by cyclist Patrick O’Grady.
“bullet” Between Nevada, Colorado, and South Dakota, the White House Office of Drug Propaganda and Drug War Lobbying is getting quite a work-out. Our tax dollars hard at work telling us how to vote.