Drug WarRant

Well, I’m off to New York, taking about 80 folks for a week of Theatre and walking tours. Should be a good, and exhausting, time. We’re seeing 6 shows (and every one of them won at least one Tony award last night- can I pick them or what?) Posting will be light during the next week. I’ll be checking email when I can, so continue to send me stuff.

At LewRockwell.com:
A Letter to My Friend Who Supports the Drug War by James Muhm
Nicely organized points.

[Link]

The Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil, aged 62, said that he smoked marijuana until he was 50. In addition he defended the decriminalization of drug’s consumption.
Gil took part in a press conference with journalists of Folha de SÑo Paulo on Monday (May, 30). During the interview the Brazilian minister asked:”Why do they [drugs] should be forbidden?” He added that the drugs problem should be handled as a matter of public health.

What? An honest politician?

Out of Joint by Jeff Hornaday, in today’s New Times San Luis Obispo. It’s a really wonderful article about a man and his dad, searching for answers to deal with his severe medical problems.

Dad tried about every combination of prescription and over-the-counter drugs we could get away with, including Vicodin, Oxycontin, Dilaudid, and a host of other dangerous narcotics.

But then Dad got real cloudy in the head. I can’t say whether the drugs did anything to alleviate his pain, because it was so hard to get a straight answer out of him, even when he was awake – which was seldom.

Pretty soon Dad’s side effects got even worse. He developed severe constipation, which led to an incarcerated umbilical hernia, several trips to ER, and, well, you get the idea.

Where to turn?

That’s when it hit me: magic brownies. A few days later we whipped up a delicious batch of Alice B. Toklas brownies (my 64-year-old dad prefers that term to the derogatory “pot brownies”), and he ate them with gusto. It was the best night’s sleep he’d had in weeks, and now no evening meal is complete without his chocolate brownie.

Nobody claims that we’ve found the panacea to eliminate my dad’s spasms, tremors, and chronic pain – we’re still searching for alternatives – but with the cannabis cookies, he already sleeps better and consumes far fewer pharmaceuticals. And the only side effect: euphoria.

The article continues with the trials of getting the medicine that helps his dad. I really enjoyed it the whole story.
And it brought back to mind one of my frustrations… no. It brought to mind how pissed off I get at the drug warriors and their arguments against medical marijuana:

• A cruel hoax
• Insufficient medical evidence…
• Medicines are supposed to cure you, not just make you feel good

Bull.
Here’s the story. Marijuana (as it’s being used by medical marijuana patients) has never been touted as a cure for disease. It’s not like laetrile – a drug that was touted to have the ability to cure cancer, and was widely believed to be dangerous quackery because people would follow that course of treatment instead of ones that had scientific support.
While there is promising research on the ability of marijuana extracts or chemicals to be used to cure a variety of illnesses, smoked medical marijuana is generally used not as a cure, but for the relief of symptoms… eg., relief of pain or nausea or to stimulate appetite.
Whereas there was the need to “prove” that laetrile could cure cancer in order to justify allowing it as a form of treatment, there is no such need in proving relief of symptoms. The proof is self-evident. You have pain and you take something and the pain stops. You have nausea and you take something and the nausea stops. You have wasting syndrome and you take something and your appetite increases. If it doesn’t work, then you try something else. For very many people, marijuana works. Period. If it was a sugar pill that you took and it made your pain go away, then fine, take a sugar pill.
But the drug prohibitionist says, “Oh, you feel better? Well, that’s a cruel hoax.”
No. It’s truth. It can be nothing else.
The whole notion that medicine is supposed to cure you is ridiculous. Sure, that would be nice, but a great portion of the pharmaceutical field is just there to change how you feel. If you feel better, then the other treatments you are pursuing for a cure are more likely to work. Or maybe your pain is not curable, but the medicine makes you feel better so you’re able to have an active life.
If a substance works to relieve symptoms, then all that remains is whether that substance is dangerous. Clearly marijuana is safer than any other drug that the doctors will prescribe for you.
The only cruel hoax is telling patients that they must not use a safe treatment that eases their pain.

First there was this bizarre article about how Andrea Barthwell and John Pastuovic (who just happen to represent GW Pharmaceuticals, makers of the liquid version of marijuana called Sativex¬) happened to offer their services to promote drug testing in a school in Virginia.
Then Charles Darlington responded in a very well-written letter.
Well, yesterday, the paper printed a letter by… DeForest Rathbone, Chairman, National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug Policy.
Wow — they brought out the big guns. Except I had never heard of him or of National Institute of Citizen Anti-Drug Policy (would that be NICAP?) So I did a little research. Well, it’s definitely not NICAP. Turns out DeForest and his organization have been around for some time (although they’re a bit slow in developing their own web site), advocating for DeForest’s personal obsession — having young children pee for them.
Rathbone was involved in the Supreme Court case that allowed additional drug testing in schools. In reference to that hearing, he said, “Thanks be to almighty God, who has guided us, protected us and comforted us in this effort.” Apparently God is also in favor of peeing in a cup to prevent people from using one of His plants. Rathbone’s group also worked with Mark Souder to sneak a provision into a 700 page education bill that allows block grants for drug testing. As reported by Mark Boal in Rolling Stone Magazine:

It was months before anybody in the drug reform movement noticed it was there. “We snuck it by those druggie liberals!” gloats Rathbone.

“Druggie” appears to be Deforest’s favorite word.
So now that we know who he is — back to the letter in yesterday’s paper.

We also agree with Barthwell that smoked pot will never be anything other than another snake-oil medicine to cheat desperate sick people. That is also our rationale for defeating the Illinois bill to virtually legalize smoked pot as medicine, which was proposed by drug legalizers. It is not hypocrisy to support the official evaluation of Sativex by FDA while opposing unapproved smoked pot snake-oil medicine.

It is also a phony claim that Barthwell ducks public debate on so-called “drug law reform.” She and I and many other drug prevention activists are more than willing to debate drug legalizers and their legal profession supporters at any time, […]

So what else have we learned here?

• Rathbone also likes to say “snake-oil.”
• Despite his apparent friendship with Andrea Barthwell, he hasn’t discussed debating with her recently. Ever since she got her ass handed to her on the Montel show, she’s avoided any kind of debate.
• Rathbone has had some run-ins with the “legal profession.”

Of course, he never addressed the real issues that Darlington brought up in his letter, but that’s par for the course.
But I appreciate his letter. For now I feel like I know one more character in this circus.

… and gain an additional $2.4 billion to $6.2 billion if they taxed it. That’s a budget swing of close to $14 billion a year at a time when we’re broke.
The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition, by Boston University professor of economics Jeffrey A. Miron (June 2005)
Check out the long list of economists who have endorsed this letter:

An Open Letter to the President, Congress, Governors, and State Legislatures

We, the undersigned, call your attention to the attached report by Professor Jeffrey A. Miron, The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition. The report shows that marijuana legalization — replacing prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation — would save $7.7 billion per year in state and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of at least $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like most consumer goods. If, however, marijuana were taxed similarly to alcohol or tobacco, it might generate as much as $6.2 billion annually.

The fact that marijuana prohibition has these budgetary impacts does not by itself mean prohibition is bad policy. Existing evidence, however, suggests prohibition has minimal benefits and may itself cause substantial harm.

We therefore urge the country to commence an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition. We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods. At a minimum, this debate will force advocates of current policy to show that prohibition has benefits sufficient to justify the cost to taxpayers, foregone tax revenues, and numerous ancillary consequences that result from marijuana prohibition.

Update: Forbes has the story this morning.

MILTON FRIEDMAN: LEGALIZE IT!

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – A founding father of the Reagan Revolution has put his John Hancock on a pro-pot report.

Milton Friedman leads a list of more than 500 economists from around the U.S. who today will publicly endorse a Harvard University economist’s report on the costs of marijuana prohibition and the potential revenue gains from the U.S. government instead legalizing it and taxing its sale. […]

At 92, Friedman is revered as one of the great champions of free-market capitalism during the years of U.S. rivalry with Communism. He is also passionate about the need to legalize marijuana, among other drugs, for both financial and moral reasons.

“There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana,” the economist says, “$7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven’t even included the harm to young people. It’s absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes.” […]

“I’ve long been in favor of legalizing all drugs,” he says, but not because of the standard libertarian arguments for unrestricted personal freedom. “Look at the factual consequences: The harm done and the corruption created by these laws…the costs are one of the lesser evils.”

Nice. When you get people of the stature of Milton Friedman talking about legalization in Forbes… Well then maybe a few more people will sit up and realize “Hey, this isn’t just about some stoned hippies — there appears to be more to it.”

A couple of notable segments on NPR today. First was an interview of John Walters by Ed Gordon: U.S. Drug Czar on the ‘War on Drugs’ and Race — a somewhat vapid interview with Gordon asking the Czar if we’re spending enough money to make a dent in the problem.
The second segment was much better — a delightful musing report by Courtland Milloy: America’s Drug War Targets Blacks Unfairly — a testimony to the fact that the government doesn’t have the right answers to drug problems.
But… back to that first segment. The Drug Czar, of course, spouted his usual nonsensical string of talking points throughout the interview, but one exchange caught my attention.
The drug war has clearly had racist elements to it — not only in terms of sentencing disparities (crack/powder), but also in terms of pure numbers. African Americans make up approximately 12% of the population and use drug to the same degree or less than whites, yet they account for 38% of drug arrests, and 60% of drug convictions.
So the question got asked in the interview [this is my own transcription from the audio]

Ed Gordon: Let me ask you this as it relates to the African American community and it’s a strange question based on the fact that oft-times people you’re talking about are, quite frankly, not doing the right thing. But it is very clear that disproportionately the African American community is A: beseiged by the problems of — not necessarily drug use, but drug dealing — 60% as we said of all convicted drug dealers — or drug convictions I should note — are of African Americans. 38% of all drug arrests are of African Americans. There are those who will say, it is a simple target — an easy target to go after the Black community as it relates to this. What do you say to that?

A very timid way of asking if the drug war is intentionally racist in its targeting, but still an understandable question. So how does the Drug Czar respond to a question regarding whether the massively disproportionate arrest and conviction rates of African Americans (as opposed to their actual involvement in drugs) is policy? Watch closely.

John Walters: Well I think that we have to take it in its reality. I’ve met with many citizens in African American community. They want what everybody wants in the suburbs — they don’t want their kids to walk to school past open-air drug markets. They don’t want generation after generation of young African American males sucked into drug use, drug dealing, and prison. And I think that’s what every American wants for their child. They have felt that they don’t get the public safety — there’s too much of this that continues in their neighborhood. What we’re working in – and we’re working in the major cities, my office are now around the country – Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, Miami – and we’ve been working with city government there to make sure the resources that we’re applying are applied where the problem is — so that we look and we map what’s happening here so maybe communities who don’t have the biggest political voice sometimes in these communities receive the attention because the federal programs ask that that happen – and we’re trying to work in partnership here. [at that point he moves to another subject]

Yes, we’re mapping our efforts in order to intentionally disproportionately target African Americans, and the excuse we’re using is that we’re doing it for their own good.
Can you say “racist”? Good. I knew you could.
Update: Walters has a slightly different take on the interview at his fantasy blog:

Director Walters Sets the Record Straight.
Listen to Director Walters on News and Notes with Ed Gordon on NPR. He appeared on the program this morning to dispel “drug war” myths and discuss how drug use takes away our freedoms.

Uh, sure. And putting people in jail gives them their freedom back, right? (I’m almost getting the hang of Drug-Czar-speak.)

By now, everyone reading this site should be fully aware of Senselessbrenner’s travesty of a bill HR 1528. Defending America’s Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment
and Child Protection Act of 2005. (see my earlier post)
If you haven’t taken action on it yet, you need to — and Students for Sensible Drug Policy have an Action Alert site on this bill as well (along with others I’ve mentioned earlier). So take a moment and tell your representatives.
The interesting thing about this bill is that it appears to be almost universally hated:
On the left? Check out these reactions by various commenters at Daily Kos:

Jeebus, that just sucks way hind tit.[…] Sensenbrenner, like many before him is grandstanding to divert people’s attention from his complicity in war, in the lousy economy, and in Tom DeLay’s continued presence as majority leader. […] When I first heard this one, I actually had to check Snopes.[…] I think we all ought to light up a joint right in front of the school, the jails will be clogged, and just refuse to pay any fines, and they will stay clogged, we need to make the “war on drugs” a monumental failure, waste of time and energy, and an even bigger waste of money

Now let’s go way over to the right and check out Free Republic:

Are you serious? Who proposed this bill, Senator J. Stalin? […] They should rename the act. Release child molesters and murderers early act. […] What has happened to the idea of a smaller federal govt.? […] 1984 is now…inform on your neighbor…like a good citizen. […] Insanity is being generous. The issue is making sure that there is a steady stream of “customers” for the prison industrial complex. […] Thought crime alert… […] Does it strike anyone else as odd that they are proposing making it a felony to not report a misdemeanor? […] Funny how some think that individual-as-cog-of-the-state is a ‘conservative’ position.

So I did a search on Google. Spent quite some time looking through the results and found some very… creative insults for Sensenbrenner and the bill. A lot of blogs warning people about it. Not a single site supporting it. There may be one out there, but I couldn’t find it.
Larger media sources have generally given it extremely limited coverage (although Yahoo news had it in the “Outrageous Outtakes” column).
I’ve begun to believe that Senselessbrenner and the people who testified at the hearing are the only ones who support it (and even those testifying had some reservations).
And yet…
How many times (particularly when it comes to the drug war) have I thought: “Well, certainly they wouldn’t pass a bill that stupid/horrible/outrageous,” only to be proven completely wrong.
So, if you don’t mind. Take a moment and let your Representatives know for sure how you feel.

Not today. 183 days and counting since the oral arguments in Raich v. Ashcroft.
Here are the decisions that came from the Supreme Court today. Next day is Monday, June 6.

In this article: Addiction Worker Warns Abuse Is Deadly, Norma Medulun, Hotel Dieu Hospital’s director of addiction, autism and developmental services, delivers one of the most stupid statements I’ve heard from a prohibitionist in some time.

“Ongoing use of marijuana will lead to diseases of the lung such as you get with tobacco because of the high nicotine and THC,” said Medulun.

Can you believe it?

• High nicotine in marijuana? (There is no nicotine in marijuana. Zero, nada, zip. There are roughly 315 compounds in marijuana, and none of them is nicotine. If you took all the marijuana in the world, and extracted all the nicotine and put it into an empty container, you’d have an empty container.)
• THC causes lung disease? (Not possible. Even if the assumptions by some are right that prolonged smoking of marijuana can cause lung disease, which is still very much unproven, it would be the tars that would be the problem, not the THC.)

I’ve written a letter to the editor, and also to Kevin Vallier, the manager of public relations and development at the hospital (the hospital should be considering whether having a person like Norma Medulun on staff is good for their reputation — I know it would make me think twice about using their services — and she’s in charge of a program for assessing children).
Be polite if you write.

Update: Eric in comments informs me that it’s more like 483 compounds in marijuana. And still none of them are nicotine.