Drug WarRant

In Today’s Washington Post, an article by Dan Eggan, with some excellent information, a couple of lies, and some clueless comments.

The focus of the drug war in the United States has shifted significantly over the past decade from hard drugs to marijuana, which now accounts for nearly half of all drug arrests nationwide, according to an analysis of federal crime statistics released yesterday.

The study of FBI data by a Washington-based think tank, the Sentencing Project, found that the proportion of heroin and cocaine cases plummeted from 55 percent of all drug arrests in 1992 to less than 30 percent 10 years later. During the same period, marijuana arrests rose from 28 percent of the total to 45 percent. […]

“In reality, the war on drugs as pursued in the 1990s was to a large degree a war on marijuana,” said Ryan S. King, the study’s co-author and a research associate at the Sentencing Project. “Marijuana is the most widely used illegal substance, but that doesn’t explain this level of growth over time. . . . The question is, is this really where we want to be spending all our money?”

Of course, the White House Drug Czar’s office was there to spread the usual lie.

Bush administration officials attribute the rise in marijuana arrests to a variety of factors: increased use among teenagers during parts of the 1990s; efforts by local police departments to focus more on street-level offenses; and growing concerns over the danger posed by modern, more potent versions of marijuana. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy released a study yesterday showing that youth who use marijuana are more likely to develop serious mental health problems, including depression and schizophrenia.

“This is not Cheech and Chong marijuana,” said David Murray, a policy analyst for the anti-drug office. “It’s a qualitatively different drug, and that’s reflected in the numbers.” [emphasis added]

And did Dan Eggan do his job as a reporter and ask David Murray if he had any evidence regarding the claims that it’s a different drug today? Did he ask if there is any evidence that marijuana today affects people in any different way than it did in the past? Did he ask why the drug czar’s office won’t put this claim in print where it would be subject to Data Quality Act review? Nope. Dan dropped the ball and just continued on.

The study released yesterday by the Sentencing Project found that arrests for marijuana account for nearly all of the increase in drug arrests seen during the 1990s. The report also found that one in four people in state prisons for marijuana offenses can be classified as a “low-level offender,” and it estimated that $4 billion a year is spent on arresting and prosecuting marijuana crimes.

In addition, the study showed that although African Americans make up 14 percent of marijuana users generally, they account for nearly a third of all marijuana arrests.

Among the most striking findings was the researchers’ examination of arrest trends in New York City, which focused intently on “zero tolerance” policies during Rudolph W. Giuliani’s mayoral administration. Marijuana arrests in the city increased tenfold from 1990 to 2002, from 5,100 to more than 50,000, the report said. Nine of 10 of arrests in 2002 were for possession rather than dealing.

Winner of the Clueless award goes to Jonathan Caulkins, a criminology professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

“There’s been a major change in what’s going on in drug enforcement, but it clearly isn’t something that someone set out to do. It’s not like anyone said, ‘We don’t care about cocaine and heroin anymore.'”

Jonathan, let me introduce you to John Walters, and his campaign to meet superficial goals through the demonization of marijuana, and his spreading of lies to state and local law enforcement.

Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog does some guesswork on who might be authoring the four remaining cases from the December calendar (including Raich), based on past history of the court.
Some brief excerpts:

Three Justices have not published majority opinions from the December sitting and therefore are presumably the authors of three of the four remaining cases: Stevens, Kennedy, and Souter. […]

Stevens, Kennedy, and Souter were among the most active Justices at all four arguments. Each of them has expertise or recent experience with the issues in more than one of the cases. […]

[Kennedy] is a likely author for Raich if, as most people assume, the government is going to win, because in the predecessor Oakland Cannabis case Justice Stevens wrote and Justice Souter joined an opinion expressing some sympathy for medical marijuana use.

Here is my best bet, emphasizing it is just a guess. I bet that Justice Souter has Raich and is writing a lengthy, historical discussion of the Commerce Clause. […]

Interesting. 13 days until the next possible decision date. Maybe we’ll find out then.
Note: Here are some of Stevens’ words (joined by Souter and Ginsburg) from his concurrance in US v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Collective. (The court ruled 9-0 that there was no federal medical necessity defense for distributors of medical marijuana within the CSA, but Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg wanted to keep the door open in other ways.)

Most notably, whether the defense might be available to a seriously ill patient for whom there is no alternative means of avoiding starvation or extraordinary suffering is a difficult issue that is not presented here. […]

The overbroad language of the Court’s opinion is especially unfortunate given the importance of showing respect for the sovereign States that comprise our Federal Union. That respect imposes a duty on federal courts, whenever possible, to avoid or minimize conflict between federal and state law, particularly in situations in which the citizens of a State have chosen to “serve as a laboratory” in the trial of “novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). In my view, this is such a case. By passing Proposition 215, California voters have decided that seriously ill patients and their primary caregivers should be exempt from prosecution under state laws for cultivating and possessing marijuana if the patient’s physician recommends using the drug for treatment. This case does not call upon the Court to deprive all such patients of the benefit of the necessity defense to federal prosecution, when the case itself does not involve any such patients.

That sounds like a position that would be open to carving out a place in the commerce clause for medical marijuana.

A must read:
The Agitator demonstrates that the DEA is “more interested in ensnaring trophies than curbing drug abuse”

Press Release from MPP:

Television talk show host Montel Williams, who uses medical marijuana to treat the debilitating pain of multiple sclerosis, will join U.S. Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Sam Farr (D-CA) at a Capitol Hill press conference on May 4 at 2 p.m. to introduce bipartisan legislation to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest. Also speaking will be Angel Raich, the California medical marijuana patient whose lawsuit seeking protection from federal prosecution could be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this month, and Irvin Rosenfeld, one of seven patients who still receives a monthly supply of medical marijuana from the U.S. government under a program closed to new enrollment in 1992.

After the press conference, Raich will lead a group of patients to visit members of Congress to lobby on behalf of the legislation; a leading opponent of medical marijuana will be presented with a list of patients who have died in the wake of a federal raid on their medical marijuana garden. The press is invited.

Let’s hope the press shows up.

Is it my imagination, or are we starting to see more of this kind of editorial?
From the Daytona Beach News Journal

Every 11 minutes, prison doors slam shut behind another American. The combined population of state and federal prisons and local jails reached 2.1 million last year, a number that keeps growing.

Florida accounts for a sizeable portion of that growth, incarcerating nearly 85,000. Here, as in the rest of the country, the inmate population is mostly young, mostly male, disproportionately minority. Corrections will claim more than $2 billion of the state’s budget for the coming fiscal year. That doesn’t include the money the state pays to support the court system, or the substantial sums each county spends on jails. And the inmates keep coming — the growth of Florida’s prison population far outpaces the increase in the general population.

Experts attribute the growth nationwide to the harshness of drug laws, a trend to give prison time for other convictions and the fact that inmates are more likely to serve longer sentences. Nearly half the inmates in this country are doing time for drug offenses.

The numbers are inescapable, and not without a noticable effect…

With so many people in prison, neighborhoods are losing the cohesion that provides an effective barrier against crime. The problem is fueled by the dead-end fate awaiting recently released convicts, who struggle to find jobs and re-establish family connections. Frustrated, many turn to crime again.

…leading to the inevitable conclusion…

But a smarter approach would look at the policies that have put so many behind bars. Mandatory sentencing laws that strip discretion from judges are a dismal failure, sending people to prison for relatively minor crimes at massive public expense. The nation’s drug laws are a shambles, assessing arbitrary penalties that hit hardest at low-income criminals who use inexpensive, highly addictive street drugs like crack cocaine. Most prison programs aimed at rehabilitation have fallen victim to budget cuts or political posturing.

The growing prison numbers — and public expense — show that this is a course the United States can no longer afford to follow.

Exactly.

In the New York Times, via Jacob Sullum at Hit and Run:

Five years and $3 billion into the most aggressive counternarcotics operation ever here, American and Colombian officials say they have eradicated a record-breaking million acres of coca plants, yet cocaine remains as available as ever on American streets, perhaps more so.

“It’s very disturbing,” said a senior State Department official traveling here with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is on a five-day tour of the region.

Colombian traffickers still provide 90 percent of the cocaine used in the United States and 50 percent of the heroin, just as they did five years ago, the government says. “Key indicators of domestic cocaine availability show stable or slightly increased availability in drug markets throughout the country,” the White House drug policy office acknowledged in February. Officials added that prices have remained stable and purity has improved. …

Even with the contradictory results from the first five years, the Bush administration is asking Congress to extend Plan Colombia for at least one more year. The president’s budget proposal asks for another $734 million next year on top of the $2.9 billion already spent.

A senior State Department official who is involved in the Colombia program said, “Give us another year or so and see if there is any effect.”

At a news conference [in Bogota] on Tuesday, Ms. Rice said Washington had no intention of reassessing the program, adding that such a move would most likely take a long time to see results in the United States…

[Dan] Burton, the subcommittee chairman, said he was inclined to favor the president’s request to renew Plan Colombia financing.

This is five times as much as the federal government spends on the arts. Now you may disagree with arts funding, and you may not like all the art that comes from arts funding, but arts funding at least doesn’t destroy the rainforest, increase international violence and terrorism, spread poison on poor farmers’ crops with nothing to show for it — at least with the arts funding you can get a pretty good symphony and some excellent arts in the schools now and then.
So yes, really. I want to know. Are they really that stupid?
A prominent blogger recently accused me of being a fanatic because I assumed my opponents were either dishonest or uninformed. OK, then, I’m a fanatic. For what choice do I have when my opponents fail to provide any logical explanation for their positions, while at the same time refusing to even seriously consider alternate solutions?
I cannot, and will not, sit here and say “Well, they must have some good reason for this that they’re not sharing.” Nor can I say “Well, they’re entitled to their opinion.” This isn’t about opinion; it’s about facts.
I will continue to be a fanatic until the prohibitionists can make some kind of showing that they are both honest and well informed — something I don’t expect anytime soon.

Apparently the Supreme Court will not be releasing any opinions this Monday (May 2) after all. This means that the next possible date for decisions is Monday, May 16.
Via SCOTUSblog:

The remaining scheduled dates for issuance of opinions are May 16th, 23d and 31st, and each of the four Mondays in June. (If needed, the Court might add further dates between June 21st and June 30th.)

Here’s the Supreme Court Calendar (pdf).
I had earlier assumed that the May 2 and 16 dates were the last possibilities for Raich — given that there are only 4 cases left from the December arguments (Raich was argued Nov. 29 but that was part of the December arguments).
At this point, I have no idea how long the Court will take with Raich. I expected it before now. While it’s frustrating to continue waiting, I can only think that the delay is a positive thing.

Tomorrow (Friday, April 29), M.A.S.H. (Mobilizing Activists and Students for Hemp) at Illinois State University will be holding their Spring Hempfest out on the quad, from noon until about 7 pm. Music, speakers, jewelry-making and just hanging out on the quad.
If you’re in the area, stop by. I’ll be speaking around 2:30 pm.

Karen Tandy:

Over the past decade, drug policy in some foreign countries, particularly those in Europe, has gone through some dramatic changes toward greater liberalization with failed results. Consider the experience of the Netherlands, where the government reconsidered its legalization measures in light of that country’s experience.

Reality (Mayors Back Legalization of Cannabis):

Amsterdam — A majority of the mayors of the 30 largest Dutch cities support the legalisation of cannabis, backing a controversial call from Democratic Reform Minister Alexander Pechtold.

John Walters:

“The number of Americans admitted to hospital emergency wards because of marijuana use has doubled to 120,000 annually in the past five years,” said a recent news story in this newspaper, paraphrasing Mr. Walters at a Washington news conference.

Reality (NORML, via Cannabis News):

Louisville, KY: Use of cannabis is not independently associated with injuries requiring hospitalization, according to clinical data published in the March issue of the Journal of TRAUMA Injury, Infection, and Critical Care.

A research team at SUNY (State University of New York) Buffalo’s Department of Family Medicine conducted a logistical retrogression analysis of approximately 900 trauma patients with positive toxicology screens for drugs and alcohol. Authors found, “Alcohol and cocaine use is independently associated with violence-related injuries, whereas opiate use is independently associated with nonviolent injuries and burns. … Associations of positive toxicology test results for … cannabis … with injury type, injury mechanisms, and outcomes were not statistically significant.”

NORML Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano said that the findings countered allegations from the Drug Czar’s office that cannabis use is a leading “factor in emergency room visits.”

Armentano said: “Among trauma patients requiring hospitalization, cannabis is rarely mentioned independent of other drugs. More importantly, cannabis use alone is not associated with the sort of serious or violent injuries that are typically correlated with the use of alcohol and cocaine – two substances that, unlike marijuana, often increase aggressive or risk-taking behavior among users.”

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