Drug WarRant

Link

KABUL, Afghanistan – NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan said Sunday the country was at a tipping point and warned Afghans would likely switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban militants if there are no visible improvements in people’s lives in the next six months.

I’m going to take a wild guess here that sending troops to destroy the people’s crops won’t be seen as visible improvements in their lives…
More in thehim’s Drug War Roundup

“bullet” Check out the current issue of DrugSense Weekly (One of my posts here was featured). It’s a great source for catching up with the news of the past week.
“bullet” The current issue of The Drug War Chronicle asks “Do We Really Want to Help Kids Find the Drug Dealers?”
“bullet” Link: “Clinical trial data… demonstrates that the administration of cannabis extracts can reduce feelings of neuropathic pain, as well as spasticity and incontinence in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and other diseases.”

Yeah, like that’s a surprise…
From National Journal (subscription only)

The effectiveness of government-produced ads in curtailing drug use has long been a matter of debate. At the start of its media campaign in 1998, the ONDCP hired Westat, a firm that specializes in research for government, to gauge whether the advertisements were decreasing drug use among youth. Westat analyzed parents’ and teenagers’ responses to the ads and concluded that the messages did not lead young people to disapprove of drug use. In fact, researchers concluded the opposite, finding that in some cases the ads increased first-time marijuana use.
Westat released the results to the White House office in 2004. But the report went no further for a year and a half, until the Government Accountability Office demanded its release in August 2006. According to John Carnevale, the former director of budget and planning for the ONDCP, the office did not like the report’s conclusions and chose to sit on it — even though Congress had appropriated $1.2 billion between 1998 and 2004 for the ONDCP’s media campaign, according to GAO data. [emphasis added]

Just another routine part of the Drug Czar’s main job — lying to America.

There have been a rash of medical marijuana dispensary raids by the feds in California recently. And each time, the government comes out with statements about how much they’ve seized in cash and other points to improve their public relations by making the public feel that all these dispensaries are nothing but fronts for criminal activity.
The Drug Czar’s “blog” in its post: So Who Profits from so-called “Medical” Marijuana? seems to make much of the fact that one of those arrested (Sparky Rose) had a Porsche.
What are you driving, Mr. Walters? (That is, when you’re not being chauffeured in a taxpayer-provided limo?) And what of leaders of pharmaceutical companies? Don’t they have a few bucks to spend on cars?
If Mr. Rose provides medical marijuana to patients at a price they can afford and is able to make a good living at it, I am much more sympathetic to the deservedness of his earnings than I am to the Czar, who makes money from lying to and harming people.
Sparky Rose may be a scumbag who is manipulating the medical marijuana situation for his own profit. I don’t know. What I do know is that I won’t take the Federal government’s word for it, because they have proven time and time again (particularly in regards to medical marijuana) that their word is worthless.
As long as the Federal government continues its unreasonable war on medical marijuana patients (as part of a larger strategy to protect its drug war budget and pharmaceutical company patronage), every action they take is suspect, and the most base criminal’s word seems… cleaner.
Unfortunately, the mixed legality of medical marijuana has the potential of attracting criminal activity. But the only way to solve that is through clarity. Give the state of California the power to manage their medical marijuana programs without interference and they’ll have a better chance of doing it well. Better yet — legalize and regulate and take all the value away from criminals.
Anthony Gregory has a great OpEd on this subject yesterday at Lew Rockwell: Medical Marijuana and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments

However, none of this should have to be argued. The fact is people have a human and Constitutional right to control their bodies: self-medication is a Ninth Amendment right “retained by the people.” And since there is no enumerated power of the federal government to regulate drugs and medicine, the federal government certainly has no right overthrowing local medical marijuana laws and imposing its centralized authoritarianism in their place. With the latest disgrace of the Bay Area pot club raids, individual rights and federalism have once again been demolished by the DEA. If ever we are to restore anything resembling a working Bill of Rights, of which the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are perhaps the crowning jewels, the DEA should be one of the first agencies to go.

While you’re in the Anthony Gregory mood, he’s got another major OpEd today on libertarianism and the drug war: The Drug War’s Immorality and Abject Failure:

Although it is a politically incorrect point, we must recognize that people have a right to put what they want into their bodies, and no one has a right to forcibly stop them. Not only does this truth flow axiomatically from any proper understanding of the human rights to life, liberty, and property; it offers the best explanation of why the drug war has been such an abject failure. Something as abjectly immoral, as contrary to human nature as the drug war cannot bring about happiness or order or civilization or progress. It can, however, effectively destroy lives and turn the country into a much worse place to live.
Americans may not think they’re ready to end the drug war, but the immoral crusade is doomed to fail. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can begin the process of restoring the precious American freedoms that have been eroded in this very evil war.

CNN

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) — Good news for aging hippies: Smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer’s disease.
New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.
Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana’s active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, can prevent the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down more effectively than commercially marketed drugs.
THC is also more effective at blocking clumps of protein that can inhibit memory and cognition in Alzheimer’s patients, the researchers reported in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

This is potentially huge news, for one very practical political reason: old people vote.
Also check out the tone of this article. None of the usual obligatory “marijuana is bad for you” caveats or uninformed rebuttals from the ONDCP. Simply a statement of fact at the end regarding its legality. Refreshing.

The DEA, in their new “hip” drug website Stumble Weed, has this remarkable news:

Truth is, marijuana is not just a plant.

?
Um. What is it, then?

In today’s Chicago Tribune

Pete Guither’s attempt to criticize the war on drugs has become a war of its own.
When an exhibition sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration opened at the Museum of Science and Industry in August, Guither showed up with a sack full of pamphlets denouncing the government’s anti-narcotics strategy.[…]

Go read.

Some time ago, I talked about the fact (I can’t find the post right now) that some courts, employers and certification review boards were using a controversial testing system that measures the presence of ethyl glucuronide or EtG — a metabolite of alcohol that stays in the blood. People were losing jobs, children, and freedom over failed tests. The problem is that the test is subject to all kinds of false positives from things as silly as using a hand sanitizer or drinking apple juice.
Scientists have known for some time that the test was not reliable for this kind of use, yet the testing companies sold it to anyone who wanted to use it and touted its accuracy.
Take a look at just one of the many drug testing companies’ claims:

The presence of EtG in urine is a definitive indicator that alcohol was ingested…. Ideal for zero tolerance and abstinence situations… Expert witness and affidavit services available… provides highly accurate results.

Uh… not so much.
SAMHSA has now issued an advisory (pdf) about EtG testing:

Currently, the use of an EtG test in determining abstinence lacks sufficient proven specificity for use as primary or sole evidence that an individual prohibited from drinking, in a criminal justice or a regulatory compliance context, has truly been drinking. Legal or disciplinary action based solely on a positive EtG, or other test discussed in this Advisory, is inappropriate and scientifically unsupportable at this time. These tests should currently be considered as potential valuable clinical tools, but their use in forensic settings is premature.

In today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Whether the agency’s warning will help these people reclaim the jobs that some lost after flunking EtG tests is unclear. In any case, the warning is a blow to the credibility of the $4 billion-a-year urine-testing industry, which introduced the EtG test two years ago as offering fail-safe proof of alcoholic-beverage consumption.

This is an out-of-control industry that is using the government to insert itself into our lives for its profit.

I thought this might be a good time to remind people about Dennis Hastert, since many people seem to think that he’ll be resigning as Speaker of the House shortly over the Mark Foley scandal cover-up scandal.

Hastert’s voting record:

• 2006 Based on a point system, with points assigned for actions in support of or in opposition to National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws’s position, Representative Hastert received a rating of -20.
• 2005 Based on a point system, with points assigned for actions in support of or in opposition to National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws’s position, Representative Hastert received a rating of -3.
• 2005 Representative Hastert supported the interests of the Drug Policy Alliance 0 percent in 2005.
• Given a D rating by Vote Hemp (Dec. 2003)

Just a couple of the bills he has sponsored:

• H.AMDT.886 to H.R.4300 (1998) Amendment requires the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy to develop a 10-year master plan for the use of mycoherbicides to control narcotic crops in the United States and internationally
• HR2610 (1997) “Not later than March 1, 1998, the Director shall submit to Congress a long-term plan for reducing the population of illegal drug users in the United States by December 31, 2001, to 3 percent of the population of the United States or less.”

Hastert on medical marijuana:

“The recent dialogue on so-called ‘medical marijuana’ sends an ambivalent message to our kids about the dangers of marijuana…. The way some have constructed this debate sends the wrong signal to our kids about drug use.”

Ah, yes… Medical marijuana: bad signal to kids. Congressmen having IM sex with kids: no big deal.
In August, 2004, Hastert slandered George Soros on national television:

“You know, I don’t know where George Soros gets his money. I don’t know where – if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from,” Hastert mused. An astonished Chris Wallace asked: “Excuse me?” The Speaker went on: “Well, that’s what he’s been for a number years – George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he’s got a lot of ancillary interests out there.” Wallace: “You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?” Hastert: “I’m saying I don’t know where groups – could be people who support this type of thing. I’m saying we don’t know.”

I had my own dream rebuttal to Hastert (and it may have been prescient).
Lies about marijuana on the Speaker of the House website:

• More than 10,000 scientific studies show that marijuana is a hazardous, addictive drug.
• Among other symptoms, marijuana usage can cause premature cancer; coordination and perception impairment; mental disorders, including depression, hostility and increased aggressiveness; memory loss; reproductive disabilities; and immune system impairment.
• Smoking marijuana is more carcinogenic than smoking cigarettes.
• The marijuana currently sold on the streets is up to 25 times stronger than the versions sold a generation ago.
• Twelve to 17 year-olds who smoke marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than those who do not. Sixty percent of adolescents who use marijuana before age 15 will later use cocaine.

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.

We’re not just talking about religious groups supporting medical marijuana. This is pretty big.

A dozen Northern Nevada religious leaders plan to announce today they support the initiative to legalize marijuana.

And there are some pretty smart religious leaders involved…

The Rev. William Webb of Second Baptist Church, the largest black church in Reno, said he does not want to see drugs dealt on neighborhood streets.

“If there has to be a market in marijuana, I’d rather it be regulated with sensible safeguards than run by violent gangs and dangerous drug dealers,” he said.

Exactly.
More here.