Drug WarRant

I’m taking some time off work and I’m in Chicago this week working on the final touches for “The Living Canvas 2005” — a show that I’m producing and directing.
It opens on July 22 at Victory Gardens Theater and runs through August 28. It has absolutely nothing to do with the drug war (even though one reviewer last year said “Stoners, Dali fans, sensualists of every stripe, this show’s for you.”), but I think it’s a great show, and I encourage you to see it if you’re in the area.
Posting will be light this week as I focus on the myriad details of getting a production up and running, so please visit the sites on the left to keep up with the news if I fall behind.

Thanks to Dan for sending me this story on NPR Friday: A Shadow in the City, part 3.
Very powerful words from two former undercover drug cops. One talks about how he discovered that many of the people he was working undercover to bust were honorable, good, family people and how they wouldn’t even give his name up to the cops. The other former drug cop talks about coming to the conclusion that drugs should be legalized.
Definitely worth a listen.

So a survey of sheriff’s departments in 45 states found that most of them think meth is the biggest problem they’re facing.
The White House, however, is not particularly interested in adjusting their high-profile, expensive national campaign to demonize marijuana.

…the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy restated its stance that marijuana remains the nation’s most substantial drug problem. Federal estimates show there are 15 million marijuana users compared to the 1 million that might use meth.

Yep, better focus on those marijuana users. Wonkette puts it into perspective:

And that numbers thing? You know, there sure are a lot of jaywalkers compared to people who molest children…

So why is the Czar acting this way? Simple. Dealing with meth is messy and complex and it doesn’t help his numbers [and actually, the ONDCP would take the wrong approach with meth if they were more involved, but that’s a different post].
You see, back in the 90’s the DEA and ONDCP got failing grades by the GAO for their inability to show that they were actually accomplishing anything (because, of course, they weren’t). So the White House set a new goal for the ONDCP: reducing (by specific percentages) the number of illegal drug users in the United States.
Of course, to a lot of people, that sounds like a wonderful goal. But how do you actually accomplish a goal with such wording? Let’s say you wanted to help heroin addicts. Well, probably not a good idea — there aren’t that many of them, and it takes a lot of work to get them completely off drugs. Even if you’re successful with a lot of them, it would hardly register as far as a percent of drug users.
So where can you get huge numbers and get them to quit easily? Marijuana. It’s the one most people use, and it’s not even addictive, so quitting is no problem. All you have to do is demonize it and spread the propaganda, and promote drug testing, and you can get a whole lot of people who were just using it now and then for fun to stop. You won’t do a thing for people who really have a drug problem, but you’ll reach your percentage goals of reducing drug users in the U.S.
This has been driving the entire ONDCP’s agenda. Even including blocking medical marijuana (medical marijuana use counts as federal illicit drug use for the purpose of statistics).
An entire national policy based on demonizing people who are causing no harm, and ignoring people who need help. Is that what they call “compassionate conservatism”?

Last week, China admitted that it is losing the war on drugs.
This week, Taiwan said that it needs China’s help in winning the war on drugs (Taiwan apparently doesn’t read the news).
So what happened? China officials blame “globalization and freer trade.” On the other hand, Jeordie White, a clueless English teacher in Beijing who’s allowed to write for newspapers claims that China has been silent on the cause, and goes ahead himself to blame… globalization and freer trade, particularly because of the Chinese government’s cooperation with Nigerians (blaming Africans for use of drugs – what a novel concept).
Remember that China is a country that still regularly executes drug traffickers and sent 273,000 people to compulsory drug treatment last year.
Sure, to some extent globalization helps the knowledge of the latest trends in illicit drugs to propagate, but the fact of the matter is — people use drugs. Not all of them, but a lot of them. And they will use drugs no matter how oppressive the efforts are to suppress them. And no government (even one that is as oppressive as China’s) can stop it. Period.
What they can do is make the overall use of drugs less dangerous to society by eliminating prohibition and instituting harm reduction policies and regulation.

An excellent OpEd from Ruth Blauer, executive director of the Maine Association of Substance Abuse Programs, in the Sun Journal. Link
I admit that I have sometimes questioned the motives of some drug treatment professionals (see anything I’ve said about Andrea Barthwell), but Ruth seems to be the real deal, and she nails the HEA drug provision that prevents students from receiving federal financial aid if they’ve had a drug conviction.

Perhaps the most detrimental legislatively erected barrier is the law that denies college financial aid to people with drug convictions on their records. Blocking access to education is both senseless and harmful to those who are in recovery, as well as to their families, friends, neighbors and society at-large.

This policy, which has barred more than 160,500 would-be students from receiving aid, is the result of a provision added to the 1998 Higher Education Act. Lawmakers from Maine and around the country should work to repeal the HEA drug provision and help affected students get back into school as soon as possible.

Preventing people from higher education does nothing to prevent drug abuse or help people get over their addictions. Actually, being enrolled in college reduces the likelihood that people will head down the path to drug abuse. […]

Additionally, receiving an education reduces the likelihood that individuals coming out of prison will return to engaging in illegal activity, including drug use. […]

Lawmakers should encourage people returning to communities from prison or struggling with addiction to move beyond their stumbling blocks, but the HEA drug provision threatens their chances of becoming productive members of society. Graduating more college students means increased tax revenue from greater economic productivity, whereas incarcerating more prisoners means that taxpayers must pay the bill for increased criminal justice spending.

Quote of the day:

The drug provision is not a deterrent to drug use; it’s a deterrent to recovery.

I admit that WorldNetDaily is not my usual first place to turn for news (or anything), but Steve Young pointed out a fascinating/bizarre article by conservative author Jim Rutz.
Now obviously it’s no big deal for conservatives to support drug policy reform. William F. Buckley, Jr. and many others have been leading voices for change. But I don’t recall seeing many far-right American Fundamentalists calling for drug policy reform.
I think Rutz qualifies. This founder of Megashift Ministries has already confidently stated that the entire world is going to become Christian and wipe out the liberals, and noted:

…let me wave my tiny set of conservative credentials: I stand somewhere between Joan of Arc and Wyatt Earp, I support any conspiracy theory that can be explained in Basic English with a straight face, and I will enter any contest in which first prize is dinner with Ann Coulter.

So what does Rutz have to say about drug policy reform? Check this out:

We now have a way to halt the illegal drug trade.

It will require twin solutions — one at the supply end of the pipeline, the other at the demand end.

Let’s look at the demand problem this week. That’s the easy one because it can be solved by government decree: Just get Congress to pass a law legalizing drugs and setting up super-discount outlets for heroin, pot, and other flavors of dunce drugs, and — poof! — the game is 90 percent over.

He has some… interesting… suggestions (clearly tongue-in-cheek):

The magic of the forbidden fruit will evaporate, especially if President Bush decides to skip the government emporiums and sell exclusively through churches. (At least that would beat bingo and bake sales as a fund-raiser.) Envision this remark in a circle of teens slouched around your TV set on Saturday afternoon: “Hey, guys, let’s go buy some crack from Father O’Toole and get high tonight.” Approximately 12 seconds after the sale, your phone would ring with the news, and you and the other parents would come down on your kids like an avalanche down Everest.

That’s assuming the kids were desperate enough to go ask the pastor to sell them some dope — and look like drooling idiots.

The thing is, he really does understand. If you can wade through his references to liberals and sin, and get to the meat of his statements, they make sense.

One big factor that keeps drugs attractive to the young is the excitement of getting away with something forbidden. […] Drug dabbling is going to be with us for awhile. But that doesn’t mean regular drug use will continue to be a problem. […] The main force that keeps drugs so popular in the United States is the war against drugs. […] So let’s change the law.

Yep.

Fabulous news from Students for Sensible Drug Policy:

SSDP Executive Director Scarlett Swerdlow, also a member of the National Organization for Women’s National Young Feminist Task Force, spent the weekend in Nashville with Deborah Small of Break the Chains, Jean Marlowe of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform, Angelyn Frazer of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and Wyndi Anderson of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Deborah moderated an amazing session exposing the War on Drugs as a stealth attack on women, children, communities of color, and other traditionally underrepresented and -served populations.

Most importantly, though, NOW adopted a resolution that opposes the War on Drugs and in its stead supports an approach to drug use, abuse, and addiction that fosters compassion, health, and human rights. Plus, the resolution obligates NOW to educate its leadership and membership about the unique impact the War on Drugs has on women through the use of the organization’s site, resources, materials, and literature, as well as through regular legislative updates, especially on pending drug laws and policies that impact women. Finally, SSDP and others will work with NOW to convene an ad hoc committee to research current drug laws and policies with a particular impact on women and develop an action plan to be implemented locally and nationally by NOW chapters and the NOW National Action Center.

This is extremely welcome news. It is so vitally important that we continue to increase the involvement of all kinds of groups in fighting against the excesses of the drug war. We need groups on the left and the right and everywhere between.
We’ve got cops. We’ve got churches and other religious groups. We’ve got women. We’ve got teachers and students. We’ve got lawyers and other professionals. And that’s just scratching the surface.
Every bit we do to educate people adds to the collective intelligence of the population regarding the drug war. And more groups and individuals join the call for reform. Eventually, we’ll reach critical mass, and the drug warriors will have no base.

Joe Baker in the Newport Daily News does a marvelous job of ridiculing Governor Donald Carcieri, who vetoed the medical marijuana bill: Carcieri way off on pot facts.
Just go read it. It’s loads of fun.

Both the New York Times and the Dallas Morning News discuss the failures of the drug war in Mexico. Both are interesting, and give a clear sense of the futility of current drug policies.
The Times article focuses mostly on the corruption of the police…

Not one of the officers denied that there were abuses and corruption in their ranks. […] The starting salary for the typical municipal police officer is less than $350 a month, better than a factory worker but less than the average cab driver. They get only basic medical treatment if they get hurt on the job. And their families get just enough to bury them, less than $6,000, if they are killed on duty.

One officer described how he would handle an encounter with a drug trafficker:

“I would tell them: ‘I do not want to work with you. But I am not here to fight you, either. They do not pay me enough for that,’ ” the shift commander said. ” ‘Just do not bother me, or my family. I will not bother you, and we can all live in blessed peace.’ “

The Dallas paper took it further, going into an in-depth picture of the entire messy situation in Mexico

Mexico finally is fighting the war on drugs that the U.S. government has demanded for decades: a frontal assault on drug barons, their organizations and their merchandise, using the police and military in concert with U.S. intelligence. […]

But a rising chorus of voices in Mexico and the U.S. says the real results are record levels of violence, instability and corruption in Mexico, resurgent drug cartels, nearly 200 dead police officers and soldiers, along with millions of wasted dollars in a country where half the population of 105 million is poor. Mexico receives almost no aid from the U.S. government.

And the result in the U.S.? No noticeable drop in the supply of cheap drugs — and an actual decline in the price of cocaine, according to a new U.N. report.

What makes this article particularly interesting is that a couple of times they voice the unspeakable:

The Americans pressure us to carry out a head-on drug war, and when the situation starts to get out of control, the Americans complain that there is violence on the border,” said political commentator JosÚ Antonio Crespo. “There is no way of making them happy because they always have some reason not to be.”

Before the violence spirals out of control, as it has in Colombia as a result of similar policies, Mr. Crespo said, Mexico should go back to pretending to fight an unwinnable war rather than fighting it in earnest.

“If the United States is not going to legalize drugs, then Mexico has to come to terms with the narcos,” he said. “There were agreements in the past to let 80 percent of the drugs through, to allow some seizures for the Americans and for the media, and there was a lot less violence.”

And…

U.S.-inspired drug policies have been “a negative in terms of cost” to such countries as Mexico and Colombia, said Gary S. Becker, economics professor at the University of Chicago. He said the drug war has hindered Colombia’s economic growth rate and “the preoccupation with cartels has hurt the country.”

“Mexico may be moving in that direction,” said Dr. Becker, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1992. “This is a very expensive process for the U.S. and other countries, and there’s little bang for the buck, as it were.

“My conclusion is that we have to look at more radical solutions such as legalization of drugs.”

Dr. Becker acknowledged, however, that such a development is unlikely any time soon, noting that “the vast majority of politicians are unwilling to take on legalization in any serious way.”

This is a big step in journalism. Not only pointing out the horrible futility of the current policies, but actually having the courage to at least mention the “L” word is a serious context.

Here’s another amazing example of drug war gone crazy. Yorkshire Post reports of five men who just had their sentences formally quashed due to being set-up by a bizarre customs enforcement scheme in England.
Here’s how it worked: British customs officials would find a professional informant to buy drugs in Pakistan and then fly them to Britain to deliver the drugs to a “customer,” who would be arrested. The informant would get a nice reward, out of which he would pay his drug supplier in Pakistan. Both the informant and the drug supplier could continue to get this income as long as they found people to set up.

Defence lawyer James Wood QC earlier told the court: “Significant quantities of heroin were permitted to be distributed on to UK streets.
“Such rewards were paid to informants that the international trade in heroin was, in part, funded.

“All the while, the courts of the UK, and the authorities in Pakistan, were kept in ignorance of the true role which officers of Customs and Excise and informants were playing.”