Drug WarRant

In the State Journal-Register

The conflict reached a head this week, when Rep. Larry McKeon, D-Chicago, challenged Dr. Andrea Barthwell to a public debate about medical marijuana. Barthwell declined the challenge. …

McKeon charged that Barthwell’s seminars appear to be a smear campaign against his proposal. The lawmaker – who is living with AIDS – said House Bill 407 attempts to improve the quality of life for terminally ill patients struggling with the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy and other treatments.

Drug warriors are afraid of being in the same room with someone who has the facts.

Well, I spent some time looking over President Bush’s budget request, and my head hurts. The government spends so much money that it takes thousands of pages just to lay out the main categories of spending. And, of course, this will all change once Congress gets its hands on it and adds all the pork.
The short story: Bush ignored my suggestion to reduce the deficit by eliminating the drug war budget.
The Good News: Most of the “Byrne Grant” fund that supports some of the worst of the drug task forces around the country has been cut in the President’s budget (see Scott at Grits for Breakfast who has been following this very closely. There will be efforts to reinstate this budget.
Bad News: The vast majority of drug war functions will continue with no reduction, or even slight increases in the President’s budget, despite meeting the criteria of ineffective programs.
DEA – Increase of 4% in their budget, including some adjustments:

1. DEA’s plan for rightsizing its overseas presence, including additional resources to address the threat of Afghan heroin and to operate effectively in Central Asia and the Middle East;
2. vital
   resources to enhance intelligence capabilities to more fully
   exploit DEA’s ability to gather, analyze, and share intelligence
   information; and
3. investigations of drug trafficking and
   money laundering PTOs.

Yeah, send the DEA to Afghanistan. That’ll work.
Some offset will be provided by reductions in some areas:

• elimination of vehicle support
  for the State and Local Task Forces;
• transfer of the
  Marijuana Eradication program to the Office of Justice Programs
  (OJP) to be managed as a grant program [at a cost of $19 million];
• elimination
  of the DEA’s Demand Reduction Program;
• reduction
  of the Mobile Enforcement Teams by approximately 50 percent;
• reduction to non-operational administrative training
  resources; and
• savings associated with implementing Etravel.

Of course, that’s only one part of the drug war in the budget. In fact, the entire budget is riddled with drug war costs. Things like the Southwest Border Prosecutor Initiative (increased), Andean counterdrug initiative (increased), Drug Testing Initiative (increased), Drug-free communities program (increased), High intensity drug trafficking areas (transferred, with budget, to Justice), International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (increased), National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign (increased).
Total Federal Drug Budget: Increase of $268 million.
Yeah, that’s the way to show those costly, ineffective, federal programs who is boss!

From the Journal Gazette (Indiana):

SOUDER REJOINS EDUCATION PANEL

Lawmaker Cites Drugs, Evolution As Key Issues

WASHINGTON – Rep.æ Mark Souder, R-3rd, will join the House Education Committee for the next two years, temporarily giving up a seat on the committee that oversees national parks.

Souder, who was a member of the Education Committee for his first six years in office, said he is keen to participate in discussions about the teaching of evolution vs.æ creationism; the rewrite of a bill that includes a provision he wrote to restrict student loans to people with drug convictions; and legislation that includes provisions that allow federal grants to faith-based organizations.

Souder will keep a seat on the Government Reform Committee, where he chairs a subcommittee that oversees the nation’s anti-drug programs.æ He will also remain on the Homeland Security Committee, a panel created after the Sept.æ 11, 2001, terror attacks.

This means that Souder will be positioned to block true reform to the HEA Drug Provision, while pushing for increases in the Drug War elsewhere.

Via South Knox Bubba, this travesty reported in the Knox News:

They launched the attack with a stunningly simple message.

“It’s (expletive) over, son.”

For two hours, authorities say, that message would be pounded into Lester Eugene Siler’s head and body, reinforced with the barrel of a gun and echoed in threats of electrocution.

Handcuffed and surrounded, Siler was now a prisoner of the war on drugs in Campbell County.

Seven months later, five former Campbell County Sheriff’s Department lawmen are poised to plead guilty to federal charges they conspired to violate Siler’s civil rights by beating, threatening and torturing him. …

In those documents, Atchley details a plot by the former lawmen to force Siler to put his signature on a form they could use in court as proof the convicted drug dealer agreed to let them search his home in the White Oak community in search of drugs and money.

Atchley lists in the documents disturbing examples of the lengths he alleges these former lawmen were willing to go: threats to electrocute Siler, drown him and break his fingers, beatings and gunplay.

Siler’s wife happened to turn on a tape recorder at the beginning of the confrontation and captured 40-45 minutes of the actual atrocities. Here’s a sample:

“Just sign it,” Monday orders Siler.

Siler refuses.

“Git (sic) up,” Monday responds. “Git (sic) up. I said get the (expletive) up.”

Beating sounds follow.

“Now git (sic) up, (expletive) it,” Monday says.

Siler responds, “Oh, alright.”

“No, git (sic) the (expletive) up,” Monday says again.

“Let me ask David (Webber) something first,” Siler pleads.

“Look, you sign this (expletive) or I’m gonna hit you again,” Monday says. “One. Two.”

Slaps and blows are again documented on the transcript, with Monday continuing to order Siler to sign.

By now, Siler is crying.

Threats come next. The lawmen tell Siler they will jail his wife and have his children taken away from him. The transcript details more beating sounds, more moaning from Siler, who repeatedly asks to talk to Webber.

“You ain’t talking to nobody,” Green responds. “You’re gonna sign this (expletive) paper.”

Siler screams. More blows are heard. The lawmen continue to order Siler to sign. He responds with moans and more screams. But there would be no reprieve.

“Eugene, it’s just beginning, buddy,” Webber says.

Siler is going to die, the officers tell him.

“I want to help you,” Siler says.

Webber responds, “No, I don’t want your help. I want you to sign that form ’cause you’re the one we want and we got ‘cha (sic), and if you don’t sign it, you probably won’t walk out of here.”

Siler is next threatened with electrocution. Webber tells him that they could take a battery charger, hook some wires to it and attach it to Siler’s testicles. The federal informations allege that the lawmen later rigged up such a device and used clamps to attach it to Siler’s body.

There’s much more. The entire article is a bombshell.
The war on drugs. This time, it was taped.

I had a nice trip up to Chicago this weekend, to see the fabulous Chicago Dance Crash (of which I am a board member), and take care of a few other things in the area.
On the way up in the car with some friends, discussion naturally turned to the drug war. And as often happens, one of my friends stated a fairly popular sentiment that goes something like this…

Of course, I agree that marijuana should be legalized. That’s just common sense. But certainly you’re not advocating legalizing or decriminalizing hard drugs like heroin?

I fully understand why people think this way — they’re looking at relative dangers, rather than the underlying speciousness of prohibition.
And quite frankly, when they think of taking heroin out of the criminal justice system, they tend to immediately imagine a legalization scheme that would allow it to be sold to young children at every corner convenience store, with a shrink-wrapped syringe and vial of heroin in a colorful package right next to the Butterfingers. Well, of course it’s ridiculous in that scenario.
However, each drug should be dealt with in a way that is appropriate to the drug. So I always respond that, in my view, heroin should be given away for free. This usually shocks the other person to silence, giving me time to explain.
The problem is that prohibition makes it profitable for dealers to hook people with heroin. Once they’ve got them hooked, they have a perfect return customer who will always come up with whatever money is being charged for their fix. The addict spends their entire existence doing whatever is necessary to get their next fix. If that lifestyle doesn’t kill them, then overdoses, doctored drugs, or dirty needles will get them. Prohibition, jail, loss of familyl and friends, and cold-turkey-abstinence-only-style treatment just add to the cycles of despair, and feed the profits of the dealer.
What most people don’t realize is that another approach has been tried that is hugely successful:

Switzerland is now leading the way out of prohibition.æ In 1994, it started prescribing free heroin to long-term addicts who had failed to respond to law enforcement or any other treatment.æ In 1998, a Lausanne criminologist, Martin Kilias, found that the users’ involvement in burglary, mugging and robbery had fallen by 98%; in shoplifting, theft and handling by 88%; in selling soft drugs by 70%; in selling hard drugs by 91%.æ As a group, their contacts with police had plunged to less than a quarter of the previous level.æ The Dutch and the Germans have had similar results with the same strategy.æ All of them report that, apart from these striking benefits in crime prevention, the users are also demonstrably healthier ( because clean heroin properly used is a benign drug ) and that they are more stable with clear improvements in housing, employment and relationships. [The Guardian]

The nice side benefit when you open this idea to a wider group? It drives the dealer out of business. Why hook someone new on heroin, if they’ll be able to get it for free afterward? So it reduces the number of new addicts, while helping existing addicts build their self-esteem and health, and even get a job, which then makes it easier to kick the habit when they’re ready.
Of course, people don’t want to hear that heroin can be benign, and yet, in addition to anectodal information to that effect in places like Jacob Sullum’s excellent “Saying Yes,” a new study shows the same thing:

The study, by Dr David Shewan and Phil Dalgarno, focuses on 126 long-term heroin users not being treated for their drug use, recruited in the Glasgow area.

Dr Shewan says the study shows that “while there are heroin users with problems, there are also heroin users without problems.

“It should not be assumed that heroin inevitably leads to addictive and destructive patterns and that all users suffer negative social and health consequences.”

(Naturally, that study upset some of the drug warriors in England.)
Well now, there will be a limited trial of free heroin in North America (no, not the U.S., you silly person — in Canada, of course). It will be for a small number of hard-core addicts only, but even that is better than nothing.
[Thanks to Nicolas for sending me this article in the Globe and Mail:]

“What if you could say to an addict, ‘For the next little while, you’re not going to have to get your drugs from Al Capone. You can get your drugs from Marcus Welby,’ ” said Dr. Martin Schechter, the project’s lead researcher.

“You don’t have to worry about this afternoon and this evening. And therefore, you don’t have to go and break in to cars or be a prostitute. You could actually come and talk to a counsellor or . . . get some skills training.”

It’s a landmark study in North America, one that turns its back on abstinence as the goal.

Nice.
Wait for it… and the reaction to this planned trial from our Drug Czar?

As expected, the plan has rankled U.S. drug officials, specifically the office of White House drug czar John Walters, where an official called it an unethical and “inhumane medical experiment.”

Wankers.

A reminder that Andrea Barthwell will be continuing her marijuana disinformation campaign in Southern Illinois on Monday and Tuesday. She had an unadvertised (at least on her website) lecture visit in Geneva/St. Charles yesterday.
I don’t know how dangerous she’s going to be to the medical marijuana movement in Illinois. She’s certainly trying hard, but it may be that the denseness of her two-hour lectures will turn people off (or at least confuse them). This is partly her effort to not make her lies quite as obvious as the Drug Czars’ so she hides her disinformation in a bunch of irrelevant scientific information.
One of the things she returns to often in her lecture is the whole Super-pot myth. Of course, this has been touted by the government for quite some time, without a single bit of evidence that pot with higher levels of THC is, in fact, more dangerous. What actually happens is that people smoke less. (Just like during alcohol prohibition, they smuggled whisky instead of beer). Also, they use the extremes, without noting that the THC in average pot has not increased very much in the last 30 years.
After pushing the “super pot” myth, she gave it a little geographical flavor by noting that Mexican brick weed was getting more potent all the time, and the super high-tech wizards in Canada were using their advanced systems to grow bud that’s even stronger. Then, of course, she does the same trick — follow the statement about super-pot, with figures about the high number of young people in treatment because of marijuana. Always inferring a connection when there is none. While she admits that half of the referrals for marijuana come from criminal justice, she downplays many of the other referrals. None of the figures she uses (these, or the misleading DAWN emergency room figures) have anything to do with separately measuring real marijuana problems.
Andrea really leaves the reservation when she starts talking about “brain science” — she talks about receptors and drives and rewards and various kinds of memory. It’s mostly garbage, but she makes it sound like it leads to something and while she carefully avoids saying the lie herself, she gets the audience member to suggest that the details it remind them of.. Alzheimers. And she just gives a knowing nod. What crap! (Interestingly, there’s a study that has actually used cannabinoids in treatment of Alzheimer’s anorexia [190 Volicer L, Stelly M, Morris J, McLaughlin J, Volicer BJ. 1997. Effects of dronabinol on anorexia and disturbed behavior in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 12:913Ö919.])
She made a number of outrageous statements throughout the rest of the presentation, including the notion that even discussions about such issues as the relative dangers between alcohol and marijuana are not appropriate within communities that want to fight drugs. She also said:

Minimal clinical studies [on medical marijuana] do not exist.
This will destabilize modern medicine.

Ridiculous. But now you know a little of what to expect in the opposition to the medical marijuana bill in the legislature, so you can be better prepared to answer it.

TalkLeft notes that Phoenix police are starting to fingerprint people at ordinary traffic stops (voluntarily) — [See Grits for Breakfast too]. This, along with the recent bad Supreme Court Caballes (drug sniffing dogs deciding on their own when you get searched), reminded me how important it is for everyone to understand and actively use their rights. Yes, you still have some, and the important thing is not to give them away.
One of the best ways to do this is to purchase the dvd “Busted” here or or here, or watch the free movie clips at FlexYourRights.org. It’s a very useful video
Even if you don’t, there are a few useful things to remember.

1. Never volunteer information. Officer: “Do you know why I pulled you over?” You: Is there something wrong, officer?” Confession is done in church and the courtroom, not by the side of the road.
2. Never consent to a search of any kind. Doesn’t matter if you’re guilty or innocent. You have the right to be secure in your person and effects (which includes your car) from unreasonable searches. If you consent to a search, you have given up that right. Be polite. Don’t interfere with what they end up doing. But never agree to a search. Even if you are the most law-abiding citizen in the world, are you absolutely sure that the last person who rode with you in your car didn’t leave something wedged somewhere underneath the seat?
3. Never volunteer to get fingerprinted or take a breathalyzer test, or a DNA test, or a rectal exam, or whatever it is that they’re offering. If the question is confusing, ask if you are required to do it, and state that you don’t volunteer to do so.
4. Regularly ask if you are being detained and if you are free to go. The police understand those terms and realize that you know your rights and that they either have to have some cause to detain you that they can justify, or they have to let you go.
5. If the police offer to make it better for you if you cooperate, realize that it is an attempt to get you to admit to something. Suggest that you should check with a lawyer to see if their offer is appropriate. Then ask if you are being detained or if you’re free to go.

Note: This is not meant to be legal advice. And laws are different in different states and localities. But the concepts above should be valid in most situations.

I still have not heard anything from Americans for Safe Access, or any news reports regarding the deadline extension that should have expired on Friday for Health and Human Services to respond to the Data Quality Act challenge. (Background)
If anyone hears anything, please let me know.

I think that just about everyone who has a blog enjoys taking a look now and then at how people get to their site. I know I have done some additional writing based on the Google questions that have driven people here (to help answer common questions such as “Why is Marijuana Illegal?“).
Sometimes, referrals are puzzling, and sometimes humorous, just from the names of the referring sites. Todays referrals, along with all the usual sites, included, godquad.org, vioxx45.info, stalinism.com, sensibleerection.com, jehovahs-witness.com, hannity.com, thestraights.com, and anti-war.com. Glad to have a wide range of political and philosophical visitors!

February 4 is an important deadline for Health and Human Services, and I’m curious to see what will happen.
Here’s the background: As I’ve discussed at length in previous posts (here’s one example), the government has unfairly blocked and delayed approval procedures for medical marijuana for years and years. They developed practically circular systems of review that allowed them to put off appeal after appeal without even exiting the DEA structure. However, a new law was put into place — The Data Quality Act — that “gives people the right to challenge scientific information disseminated by federal agencies.æ The law demands that agencies respond to petitions within two months.” Nice. Finally a way to get a fast response to something. Not approval for medical marijuana, but perhaps a way to make the government own up to their lies.
On October 4, 2004, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), filed a petition to Health and Human Services charging the agency with spreading inaccurate information about marijuana’s medical value.
On December 4, 2004, Health and Human Services filed for a 2-month extension to answer the petition. Of course. Now, that extension is up tomorrow. I’m not sure if they’re allowed to file for more extensions, but eventually that’s got to stop or a judge is going to step in and stomp on them.
But just to be sure, let them know at HHS that you’re paying attention. Send them an email telling them to answer the petition. (It’ll only take a few seconds.)
And quite frankly, I have no idea how HHS will answer it, although I can’t wait to see their answer. ASA was pretty gutsy with their petition. The petition also contains lots of reference materials backing up their position, but here is the actual petition request:

RELIEF REQUESTED: ASA requests the following corrections:

1. HHS states that “there have been no studies that have scientifically assessed the efficacy of marijuana for any medical condition,” which is disseminated on federal government websites (http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a010418c.html, http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/fed_regs/notices/2001/fr0418/fr0418a.htm ) and in the Federal Register, 66 Fed.Reg. 20038, 20052 (April 18, 2001).
   ASA requests that HHS replace this statement with the following statement: “Adequate and well-recognized studies show the efficacy of marijuana in the treatment of nausea, loss of appetite, pain and spasticity.”
2. HHS states that “a material conflict of opinion among experts precludes a finding that marijuana has been accepted by qualified experts” and “it is clear that there is not a consensus of medical opinion concerning medical applications of marijuana,” which are disseminated on the government websites and in the Federal Register, 66 Fed.Reg. 20038, 20052 (April 18, 2001).
   ASA requests that HHS replace this statement with the following statement: “There is substantial consensus among experts in the relevant disciplines that marijuana is effective in treating nausea, loss of appetite, pain and spasticity. It is accepted as medicine by qualified experts.”
3. HHS states that “a complete scientific analysis of all the chemical components found in marijuana has not been conducted,” which is disseminated on the government websites and in the Federal Register, 66 Fed.Reg. 20038, 20051 (April 18, 2001).
   ASA requests that HHS replace this statement with the following statement: “The chemistry of marijuana is known and reproducible.”
4. HHS states that marijuana “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” which is disseminated on the government websites and in the Federal Register, 66 Fed.Reg. 20038, 20039 (April 18, 2001).
   Based on the corrections above, ASA requests that HHS replace this statement with the following statement: “Marijuana has a currently accepted use in treatment in the United States.”

Will there be an answer, or another extension?