Drug WarRant

Nice little video take-off on the anti-drug commercials, with an excellent message.

Every now and then, one of these quacks surfaces — usually in England, for some reason — at an inquest.
You see, 23-year-old Paul Dumville, after suffering from severe headaches for over a month, collapsed and died.
Well, the mallard utterance in question, Dr. Colin Hunter-Craig, has it all figured out, and explained it to Paul’s father and girlfriend:

“He was a fit and healthy 23-year-old with no hardening of the arteries of the brain.
“In the back of the brain he had a haemorrhage which caused swelling of the brain, but there was no sign of any defects there.
“The cause of death was a haemorrhage due to cannabis abuse.
“We don’t understand why it causes this, it just does. It takes about a month for THC (the psychoactive ingredient of cannabis) to build up in that part of the body.
“This is incredibly rare in young people, but in old people we would recognise this as a stroke.
“The fact that people say they only take cannabis every so often does not mean it should be recommended.”
West Sussex coroner Dr David Skipp asked Dr Hunter-Craig to explain why the build up would effect Mr Dumville but not other users.
“There is a lot we don’t know about this,” he said.
“It is rather like running across a deserted country road with your eyes shut. Most of the time you get away with it but I still wouldn’t recommend it.”
The coroner said: “This may not have been a natural cause but I’m not prepared to say that it was definitely due to cannabis.
“I’m going to record a narrative verdict, and the fact is that Paul Dumville died of a cerebral haemorrhage augmented by the use of cannabis.”

Dr. Hunter-Craig then returned to his practice of applying leeches to remove the demons that cause lung cancer.

Will we see another spate of alarmist headlines from this?

Marijuana tied to precancerous lung changes
Smoking marijuana can cause changes in lung tissue that may promote cancer growth, according to a review of decades of research on marijuana smoking and lung cancer.
Still, it is not possible to directly link pot use to lung cancer based on existing evidence.

No evidence of cancer. Never has been. Despite numerous studies and millions of users.
Now check out this stunning train of reasoning.

“We must conclude that no convincing evidence exists for an association between marijuana smoking and lung cancer based on existing data,” Mehra and her team write.
Nevertheless, they add, the precancerous changes seen in studies included in their analysis — as well as the fact that marijuana smokers generally inhale more deeply and hold smoke in their lungs longer than cigarette smokers, and that marijuana is smoked without a filter — do suggest that smoking pot could indeed boost lung cancer risk. It is known, they add, that marijuana smoking deposits more tar in the lungs than cigarette smoking does.
The failure to find a marijuana-lung cancer link may have been due to methodological flaws in existing research, rather than the absence of such a link, the researchers say. Doctors should advise their patients that marijuana does indeed have potential adverse effects, they conclude, including causing precancerous changes in the lungs. [emphasis added]

So, despite the fact that there is no evidence for marijuana causing cancer, the researchers have this gut feeling that it might anyway (plus all the other research might be flawed). Thus, based on the chance that their gut feeling is right and all the other scientific evidence is wrong, they want doctors to warn their patients about something they are supposed to call precancerous changes in the lungs, despite the continued and overwhelming lack of any evidence of a cancer link!
Now there are actual things that doctors could warn their patients about — such as the danger of bronchial conditions from marijuana smoke, without confusing them with this ignorant claptrap.
Update: Here’s the review article.
Further update: From daksya in comments:

The study takes into account only 4 studies which checked on “Marijuana (MJ) Use Exposure and Other Lung Cancer Outcomes” i.e. actual outcome of lung cancer, as opposed to precancerous changes. Of these 4 studies, two didn’t take tobacco use into account, and the low study quality score reflects that. Of the other 2 studies, the familiar Sidney study of nearly 65,000 participants did not find an increased risk of any cancers, and finally a case-control study of 353 male patients in Morocco (Sasco et al.) found a odds ratio of 1.99 (incorrectly reported as 1.93 in this paper) among consumers of hashish/kiff. Now there were 15 hashish/kiff users among cancer cases and 12 among controls, hardly enough to inspire confidence. More importantly, this review claims that tobacco use was controlled for in this study. Incorrect, “smoking status” was accounted for. Now, it turns out that kiff itself is a mixture of 2/3rd dried cannabis powder and 1/3rd tobacco. In other words, all smoke but no fire.

Note: The review was funded in part by NIDA.
Also: Can you believe the title of the review?

Reena Mehra, MD, MS; Brent A. Moore, PhD; Kristina Crothers, MD; Jeanette Tetrault, MD; and David A. Fiellin, MD should be ashamed.

Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance (pdf) by R. R. Griffiths &W. A. Richards & U. McCann & R. Jesse

This double-blind study evaluated the acute and longer-term psychological effects of a high dose of psilocybin relative to a comparison compound administered under comfortable, supportive conditions. […]
The participants were hallucinogen-naðve adults reporting regular participation in religious or spiritual activities. Two or three sessions were conducted at 2-month intervals. […]
When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences.

The study has elicited some glowing praise from people in the field:

The study by Griffiths et al. is noteworthy both for the rigorousness of its design and execution, as well as the clarity of its results. It demonstrates that psilocybin can be safely studied in normal human beings who do not have a history of hallucinogenic drug use. As would be expected, during the psilocybin session participants showed perceptual changes and labile mood. It is striking that majority of the participants reported 2 months later that the psilocybin-induced experience was personally very meaningful and spiritually significant. Indeed, most of them rated the psilocybin-induced experience as one of the top five most important experiences in their life. It is especially notable that participants reported that the drug produced positive changes in attitudes and behaviors well after the sessions, and these self-observations were consistent with ratings by friends and relatives.
— Charles R. Schuster, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience,
Wayne State University School of Medicine
The article by Griffiths et al. in this issue of Psychopharmacology should make all scientists interested in human psychopharmacology sit up and take notice. It is the first well-designed, placebo-controlled, clinical study in more than four decades to examine the psychological consequences of the effects of the hallucinogenic (psychedelic) agent known as psilocybin. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find a single study of psychedelics from any earlier era that was as well-done or as meaningful. Perhaps more importantly, despite the notion by many people that psychedelics are nothing more than troublesome drugs of abuse, the present study convincingly demonstrates that, when used appropriately, these compounds can produce remarkable, possibly beneficial, effects that certainly deserve further study.
— David E. Nichols, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Sadly, current NIDA director Nora Volkow felt the need to almost apologetically explain NIDA’s involvement in the research funding.

As the nation’s preeminent drug abuse research organization, NIDA’s mission is to support research and provide information on the addictive and adverse health consequences of drugs of abuse. [emphasis added]

She went on to say that the researchers had kind of gone off on their own.
Yeah, sometimes science happens despite the government’s best efforts.
More reading on this:

• Jacob Sullum at Hit and Run
• Washington Post
• Wall Street Journal
• L.A. Times
• ABC News
• Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (see also The Good Friday Experiment)

Before you rush out and get your own mystical experience, remember a few things:

1. Psilocybin is currently illegal (unless you’re in the Netherlands).
2. A supportive, safe environment is essential for a positive experience with hallucinogenic drugs. Attempting things like driving is dangerous and stupid.
3. Psilocybin can intensify current psychological states. Taking it while undergoing emotional problems can be extremely discomfiting. Same thing is true for those with a history (or family history) of psychological problems or schizophrenia.

Other than those points, Psilocybin is not addictive, and has generally mild physical effects, while the psychoative effects can be quite intense. More at Erowid.

Malyasia

A top Malaysian anti-drug official has urged for glamorous-sounding and hip names of party drugs to be dropped and replaced with names highlighting the effects of the drugs, a news report said yesterday.
Designer drugs such as Ecstasy and Ketamine gave the impression of a “trendy and divine” experience for first-time drug users, said northern Kedah state’s anti-drug agency spokesman Ariffin Man. Suggested new names for the drugs would be “agony” and “bamboozle”, said Ariffin. “Likewise, all opiate drugs should be called organised killers, cannabis as mind destroyers and ketamine as community-paralysing agents,” Ariffin was quoted as saying by the Star daily.

Dominican Republic

The head of the National Drugs Control Agency ( DNCD ) yesterday complained that sometimes his agents have difficulties in obtaining search and seizure warrants from judges and waste time in arresting drug-traffickers.

Yeah, getting warrants really puts a cramp in your style.
Scotland

DRUG addicts will only get treatment and benefits if they agree not to have children, under a plan put forward by a Labour MSP.
Duncan McNeill wants addicts to sign a contract agreeing to stop taking drugs before having a family.

Australia (via Blog Reload) — here the idiots are a combination of the police and the reporter.

HOMICIDE squad detectives are investigating whether a mix of marijuana and mental illness was a factor in four murders in the past month.
Two young men and a couple who left behind a young child were the victims of fatal stabbings in the space of nine days.
It is suspected psychosis brought on by marijuana may have been a factor.
Drug counsellors have warned super-potent, genetically modified dope grown in suburban houses is severely affecting some users.
There are strong concerns among senior police at the links between cannabis-induced psychosis and killings and other violent crimes.

Very nice article by Marjorie Preston in the Atlantic City Weekly on the effort to legalize medical marijuana in New Jersey.
This is partly due to the way the article is crafed, but when you read the entire thing, the prohibitionist argument sounds so incredibly pathetic.
The article also indicts the pharmaceutical industry.

Don McGrath believes the biggest obstacle to medical marijuana in New Jersey and across the country is not the federal government but the pharmaceutical industry. “If you legalize marijuana, then maybe you don’t need all these heavyweight drugs,” he says. “You can grow marijuana yourself. It’s a weed!”
“The biggest thing lobbying against this is the drug companies,” agrees Dan Carroll. “And why? They don’t want drug sales to go down.” Carroll says one of Jason’s anti-nausea drugs — just three pills a day — cost $2,800 a month. One of Sean’s medications, “a Martha Stewart-type” drug manufactured by Imclone, was “$10,000 a pop,” says his father.

A very strong quote as a conclusion:

Legal or not, Deidre Carroll says she would not hesitate to get marijuana for Jason if his cancer recurred. “I would do it again. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed. Hell, no. My son is standing right in front of me.”

And that really says it all. If anybody should be embarrassed or ashamed, it’s those who would turn Deidre Carroll into a criminal.

If you’re in the Chicago area, here’s your chance to meet Judge James P. Gray, author of the outstanding Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs

The Heartland Institute will host a reception for Judge James P. Gray on July 14, 2006 at the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel (Prince of Wales Room) at 163 East Walton Placein Chicago. The reception will begin at 5:30 PM and end around 8:00 PM. Hors d’oeuvres are free but the booze costs money.

Wish I could be there.

Warning: meandering political philosophy ahead…
I’ve been continuing to think about DEA head Karen Tandy’s lies as well as the constant lies of other drug warriors (mostly political officials). Again, it’s not that I’m surprised that they lie. I’m not. It’s also not particularly new. But I couldn’t stop thinking about… what it means.
Now, I understand selective truth telling in an argument. If you’re trying to promote one side of an debate, you don’t feel obligated in every case to tell everything you know that might be favorable to the other side. I also understand exaggeration and misleading simplification as argument techniques. However, the idealist in me believes that even such behavior should be extremely limited among public servants who are working for us (just as my boss would expect me to be both honest and complete with him on any issue of importance at work).
I have rarely known a drug policy reformer to lie about drug policy (at most, they’re usually guilty of hyperbole or exaggeration, as I’ve been at times), despite the fact that the “threshold of integrity” should theoretically be lower for volunteer activists than for appointed or elected officials.
However, our public servants involved in the drug war go way beyond selective truth telling, exaggeration, and misleading simplification. They even go beyond simply telling lies. They go all the way to blatant organized campaigns to push people into believing things that not only are not true, but are in fact the opposite of the truth.
As far as I can tell, there are only two possible explanations for this behavior:

1. They are personally corrupt and don’t give a damn about the impact of their actions on the public.
2. They think they have the answers, but don’t believe that the public will make the “right” decision if they know the truth.

Either way, the actions are antithetical to the very concept of Democracy, and are strong symptoms of Authoritarianism.
This came to mind again tonight watching John Dean on the Daily Show talking about his new book Conservatives Without Conscience in which he claims that today’s conservatism is veering dangerously close to authoritarianism. And make no mistake about it — John Dean is definitely a conservative, but he’s not part of the new authoritarian group of conservatives that have largely neutralized the libertarians and Goldwater conservatives in their midst. I don’t know how good the book is, but it seems likely that he’s on to something real.
Certainly anything that moves us from Democracy toward Authoritarianism is a serious concern. And I see the lies by Karen Tandy and John Walters, and Mark Souder, and…, as actual attacks on Democracy.
When you think of it this way, you realize that Karen Tandy isn’t just an embarrassment. She’s a threat to our nation. And every time she lies, those lies must be exposed to the public.

— they received the right to be treated as citizens of a free country.

GOOSE CREEK, SC — The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that a federal court has approved a landmark settlement in its lawsuit challenging police tactics in the high-profile drug raid of Stratford High School in Goose Creek, South Carolina. The settlement includes a consent decree that sets a new standard for students’ rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.
Absent a warrant, police will now need either to have probable cause and pressing circumstances or voluntary consent in order to conduct law enforcement activity on school grounds – effectively granting Goose Creek students the essential privacy rights enjoyed by all Americans.
“Goose Creek students now have a unique place in our nation,” said Graham Boyd, Director of the ACLU’s Drug Law Reform Project. “They are the only students in the nation who have complete protection of their Fourth Amendment rights of search and seizure.”
The November 5, 2003 police raid of Stratford High School was recorded by both the school’s surveillance cameras and a police camera. The tapes show students as young as 14 forced to the ground in handcuffs as officers in SWAT team uniforms and bulletproof vests aim guns at their heads and lead a drug dog to tear through their book bags. The ACLU represents 20 of the nearly 150 students caught up in the raid.

My earlier posts on Goose Creek are here and here. Here’s the terms of the settlement, and you can also view the video of the raid with narration by the principal.

For those late to the game, in Ravin, the Alaska State Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution’s privacy provision took precedence over the government’s “need” to search people’s homes for small amounts of marijuana. In other words, marijuana is not dangerous enough to justify an invasion of privacy for small amounts. This got Governor Frank Murkowski’s knickers in a twist, and he’s been going all nuts trying to find a way to get the police back into people’s homes, so he held some ridiculous show hearing trying to claim that marijuana is more dangerous now, and finally got the legislature to pass a law “re-criminalizing” small amounts of marijuana.
The ACLU has led the charge to fight this despicable back door effort to overturn Ravin (joined by anonymous plaintiffs Jane Doe and Jane Roe).
Today, Superior Court Judge Patricia Collins granted summary declaratory judgment in favor of the ACLU, meaning that unless and until the State Supreme Court overturns it, Ravin is the law in Alaska, not Frank Murkowski.

The state suggests that, in effect, Ravin does not extend constitutional protection to the personal use of small quantities of marijuana by adults in the privacy of the home, but, rather, provides a framework for trial courts to determine, apparently on a case-by-case basis, whether current data about marijuana establishes that the government has a sufficient interest in prohibiting possession of small amounts of marijuana by adults in the home. As did the Alaska Court of Appeals in its opinion on rehearing in Noy v. State, this court rejects that interpretation of Ravin. […] As the court of appeals found in Noy, “both in the Ravin opinion itself and in the supreme court’s later description of Ravin, the Alaska Supreme Court has repeatedly and consistently chararacterized the Ravin decision as announcing a constitutional limitation on the government authority to enact legislation prohibiting the possession of marijuana in the privacy of one’s home.
Ravin is a decision by this state’s highest court on the government’s authority to enact legislation prohibiting the possession of small amounts of marijuana in the privacy of one’s home. That decision is the law until and unless the supreme court takes contrary action. […]
Plaintiffs’ motion for summary declaratory judgment is GRANTED to the extent set forth in this decision. […]

Today’s full ruling (pdf large file, about 1 meg)
Other files:

• The ACLU’s legal complaint
• The ACLU’s motion seeking to immediately block implementation of the law
• A memorandum in support of the motion
• A letter previously sent by the ACLU to Alaska Attorney General Marquez explaining the constitutional basis for its legal challenge