Drug WarRant

Former Deputy Drug Czar Andrea Barthwell (more about her here) is, as has been mentioned, the new spokesperson for getting GW Pharmaceuticals’ Sativex approved for use in the United States.
This is SO right for so many wrong reasons.

Drug Cops Seek to Use Monkey in Enforcement Efforts
at TalkLeft

One of the things prohibitionists love to go on about is protecting our youth. And how do they want to do it? By taking away the rights of young people (pee in a cup, get sniffed by dogs) and by passing harsh criminal penalties for drug crimes near schools and parks, etc.
None of these methods are very effective, and none even come close to paying off in value compared to the negative effects they have on society.
On the other hand, we have a system that is far from perfect, but could be useful for reducing youth marijuana use — it’s called regulated sale with age restrictions (used for products like alcohol and tobacco). It’s likely to be more effective than the methods we use now, without the negative effects.
But there’s one other point that people don’t talk about much.
Travis is a regular reader of Drug WarRant. He’s 17, and he wrote to tell me about a conversation he had recently with some of his friends of the same age.
One of them said:

“Yeah, but if they were to legalize it, it wouldn’t even be fun anymore. It wouldn’t even be worth doing.”

Taking away the lure of the forbidden.
There’s a whole lot of truth here. Kris Millegan recently noted:

Once a substance is banned and enters a black market, the age of the users goes down, the volume of abuse goes up, and civil and criminal corruption rises.

Part of that shift in the age of users is due to black market sellers targeting that group, but also part of it is the allure. And when you remove it from the black market, the reverse happens.
In the Netherlands, where you can legally buy marijuana at the local coffee shop, teen marijuana use rates have been lower than in the United States. I’ve read numerous stories of travelers and locals (including law enforcement officers) saying that since it’s legal, it’s perceived by young people as not being as “cool.”
That doesn’t mean that people don’t use it, but that there’s less of a reason for young people to join in.
Recently in The Guardian, Zoe Williams wrote about the changes in classification for marijuana in Britain:

Since it was reclassified from class B to class C at the beginning of last year, cannabis has lost its lustre, especially for the young. …

It has made everyone lose interest. You might just as well have dressed this drug up in a sailor suit and sent it on tour with Geri Halliwell. It just isn’t cool anymore.

Legalize it. You know — for the kids.

I’ve been holding off talking about GW Pharmaceuticals’ Sativex, but now I think Rob Kampia has written an excellent article – at Alternet – The Lesson of Sativex.

On April 19, the Canadian government delivered what should be the final blow to the U.S. government’s irrational prohibition against the medical use of marijuana. It approved prescription sale of a natural marijuana extract — for all practical purposes, liquid marijuana — to treat pain and other symptoms caused by multiple sclerosis. …

In short, the Canadian government has just certified that virtually everything our own government has been telling us about marijuana is wrong. In defiance of a large and growing pile of scientific studies, our government still claims that marijuana has no medical value. White House Drug Czar John Walters even compared medical marijuana to “medicinal crack.” …

Make no mistake: Sativex is liquid marijuana. It is nothing like Marinol, the synthetic THC pill sold in the U.S. and sometimes falsely touted as an adequate substitute for marijuana.

Sativex is a whole-plant extract, containing the rich variety of naturally occurring compounds called cannabinoids that are unique to marijuana. It also contains trace elements of other compounds contained in the plant, which scientists believe contribute to its therapeutic value. …

Now if Sativex makes it here, I haven’t been sure what that would mean. Would this be further reason for the government to say that medical marijuana (the plant we use now) is unnecessary because Sativex is available?
Rob addresses that question, too.

Sativex is to marijuana as a cup of coffee is to coffee beans. If Sativex is safe and effective, marijuana is safe and effective. And Sativex is safe and effective. Studies have shown significant effect against pain and other symptoms caused by multiple sclerosis and other debilitating conditions. Over 600 patient-years of research have established a remarkable record of safety. …

And even if Sativex is approved here someday, it won’t be the answer for every patient now benefiting from medical marijuana. For one thing, it has been clearly shown that different strains of marijuana — with different blends of cannabinoids — work better for some conditions and less well for others. Sativex just comes in one formula, and it won’t be right for everyone.

And Sativex will be expensive. Will we force patients to buy a pricey pharmaceutical version of a plant they could grow themselves for pennies? At a time when our health care system is drowning in rising costs, that’s insane. We could end up with a policy every bit as silly as telling coffee drinkers that they can buy a cappuccino, but they’ll be arrested on sight if caught in possession of coffee beans.

Of course, our government isn’t one to avoid a policy just because it’s silly.
It’s going to be interesting.

TChris at TalkLeft has two good posts about cases that the Supreme Court agreed to hear today.

1. Religion v. Drug Laws – about Hoasca Tea (used in ceremonies of the O Centro Espirita Beneficients Uniao Do Vegetal church). It has some impact on the Controlled Substances Act. Note: SCOTUS Blog has some excellent background on the Hoasca Tea case.
2. Supreme Court Tackles Consent to Search Issue. If you refuse consent to search your apartment, but your roommate agrees?

In today’s get underground reporter Jake McGee asked Ralph Nader:

Do you think John Walters [ONDCP “Drug Czar”] is insane?

Now personally, I think the answer is “No. Walters knows what he’s doing.”
However, I think the question is particularly good in that it’s polite. It’s a nice thing to do — asking if insanity might be an explanation for his actions — rather than immediately jumping to the only other possibility: that he’s a corrupt liar and a destructive force in American life who is only interested in furthering a special interest polital agenda, even at the expense of the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Yes, it’s a polite question.

That’s the title of an article by C. Spencer Beggs at Fox News today. It’s a very strong statement about how the government has stifled medical marijuana research, and points out some strong conflict of interest at NIDA.
Despite a couple of major gaffes by the author (calls marijuana the “most abused recreational drug” and doesn’t question the phony stats of the “rising trend in the number of people seeking treatment for marijuana addiction”), the parts of the article that deal with the interference with marijuana research are quite good.
Check it out.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article — Protecting an Independent Judiciary — where I talked about my concerns regarding the attacks by DeLay, Cornyn et al on the Judiciary, and as part of that, I mentioned by opposition to Senate Bill 520 – The Constitution Restoration Act.
That prompted a letter from reader mushroom blue. With his permission, I’m sharing his letter and giving my response.

hi. I’m a long-time reader of the site, finally felt compelled to write
you, though.

I don’t see why you have a problem with the Constitution Restoration Act
of 2005, and moreso, why you’re using this act as some sort of example
of the bad things congress is doing. if anything, someone who is an
anti-federalist (which is what those that promote federalism are called.
seriously.) would be nothing but happy for what the bill provides.

Of course, we know this, but it’s fun to see it in a newspaper now and then.
From the Bellingham Herald (Washington): Another view: Legalized pot would save money, by Dick Startz.

Washington state would save about $105 million a year if we legalized marijuana. …

The $105 million figure comes from a study by Boston University economist Jeff Miron. Miron put together two numbers: the savings to government from not locking people up for marijuana-related offenses, and the increased revenue from taxes we could collect if marijuana were treated just like coffee or chocolate. …

An extra $100-plus million would be nice for the state budget. But an even better economic argument for legalizing marijuana is that it would move the legal line, so that relatively safe drugs like caffeine, alcohol and marijuana are all on one side of the law and the truly dangerous drugs, such as crack and meth, are on the other.

Here’s an odd one (from the Idaho Statesman):

It began Aug. 7, 1997, when Hernandez was returning to his job at a potato shed in Aberdeen from Wyoming, where he’d dropped his kids with their mom. During a traffic stop in Soda Springs, a policeman saw Zig-Zag cigarette papers on the car’s visor. Hernandez says he admitted to having a small amount of pot. With the help of a drug dog, police also found a syringe, which tested positive for cocaine.

Hernandez insisted the coke wasn’t his, but signed a plea deal. Hernandez, his lawyer, the prosecutor and 6th District Judge Don Harding agreed he would serve at least one year in prison, but no more than two years.

The critical error occurred after sentencing on June 23, 1998. Because of a mixup with case numbers, Harding also sentenced Hernandez to up to seven years, a term intended for another offender…

To their credit, a Department of Corrections officer finally caught the mistake and they are releasing Hernandez after he served an extra four years.
He’ll finally get to meet his five-year-old son Andreas for the first time.