Drug WarRant

Deputy Drug Czar Andrea Barthwell (she’s the one in charge of health disinformation) made a recent trip to Peoria, and the Journal-Star reported her visit this week, and the article almost made me sick. Here’s how it started out:

Barthwell Promoting Program To Provide Funding For Treatment

PEORIA — The Bush administration is seeking a balance between helping and punishing drug abusers.

The president has devoted additional money to identifying and treating those addicted to drugs, said Andrea Barthwell, the deputy director of National Drug Control Policy for Demand Reduction, or the nation’s deputy drug czar.

“The president has said ‘A nation that is hard on drugs must be compassionate to drug users,”‘Barthwell said while meeting with the Journal Star editorial board Monday.

Yes, that’s certainly the description of this administration’s war on drugs… if you’re living in an alternate reality.
I decided to write them a letter and it was published today. I’ll share it with you.

Deputy Drug Czar Andrea Barthwell’s recent trip to Peoria was reported in the Journal Star as an effort to prevent drug abuse. It was nothing of the kind. It was, in fact, another opportunity for that office to promote disinformation.

The administration knows that treatment is more popular than enforcement, but despite Barthwell’s claims, it has had no intention of giving up any of its enforcement cash. Andrea’s boss, John Walters, is on record as deriding the need to embrace treatment.

In the May 11 article, Andrea Barthwell is quoted as saying, “About 45 percent of the $12 billion federal anti-drug budget is for treatment and prevention. That is up from past years.” What she neglects to mention is that the treatment percentage is up due to a dishonest shift in budget reporting. The Bush administration changed the percentages by simply removing from the drug war budget the $4 billion spent each year to prosecute, try and imprison federal drug offenders. It’s still spent, but is no longer considered part of the cost of the drug war. Change the rules and make the numbers look better.

For Andrea Barthwell to claim the administration cares about treatment and prevention is absurd, particularly when federal agents are still stepping all over state law to harass sick medical marijuana patients in California, plus jailing doctors and going after water pipes and hemp foods. The administration’s push for enforcement has actually hurt treatment opportunities by overwhelming treatment centers with criminal justice referrals for simple marijuana possession. Most of these mandatory treatment offenders do not have a dependence problem, but they end up taking beds away from those who really need treatment.

Finally, the administration pushes for drug testing in schools – demonstrated in studies to be costly and ineffective – instead of pushing for, and funding, after-school and extracurricular activities that have been shown to reduce drug use.

The Government Accounting Office, in response to a request by Rep. Ron Paul, recently noted that providing misinformation is part of the mission of the drug czar’s office. Deputy Drug Czar Barthwell does her job well.

Peter Guither
Editor, DrugWarRant.com
Bloomington

Thanks to Jeff for letting me know that it got published.
I welcome any new readers coming from the Journal-Star article. Feel free to look around, particularly if you’re uncertain or skeptical about drug policy reform or if you think drug testing in schools might be a good idea (more here and here.) More on Andrea Barthwell is available here, here, and here.

“bullet” Connecticut Legislature ducks medical marijuana and gets called on it in the press.
“bullet” Last One Speaks has the scoop on: Sri Lanka’s intent to legalize marijuana; drug warrior moron extraordinaire Mark Souder’s attempts to deny the existence of science; and the fact that the government is still stupidly considering appealing the unanimous court decision regarding hemp foods. As to her thoughts on marriage… well it’s certainly the best offer I’ve had in some time!
“bullet” Michael at ViceSquad has an interesting post on new Russian drug laws changing the possession minimums. Hit and Run has coverage as well.
“bullet” The Toronto Star, in An Ugly Prison Record, is not surprised by the Iraq prison abuses, given the U.S. track record with its own prisons.
“bullet” I missed this one earlier. Bruce M of Bullshit, Hypocrisy & Stupidity has an excellent detailed rebuttal of the claims we constantly must endure, in the stupidity of anti-drug “studies.”
“bullet” Drug War Chronicle has Canada Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Dying as Government Prepares to Call Elections, Few Mourners as well as promotion of another interesting sounding book in “The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the Drug War” — New Compendium by Sheriff Masters Features David Borden and Numerous Other Thinkers on Drug Policy
“bullet” Drug Sense Weekly Newsletter is out with lots of info.
“bullet” An excellent letter in reponse to the violation of students’ rights mentioned below is in the comments.

From WTOP News:

CHESTERTOWN, Md. (AP) – Authorities entered an “unclear” legal area when they sent four dogs into the local high school for a drug search without a warrant, patted down 16 students and ordered two female students to partially disrobe, the Kent County sheriff said.

“We were acting under what we thought was probable cause, and we still believe there was probable cause,” Sheriff John F. Price IV said Thursday of the search April 16.

“At the same time, it was an area that was unclear,” Price told The (Baltimore) Sun. “We didn’t know it was a gray area.”

Ah, so as long as you are ignorant of people’s rights, it’s OK to violate them?

Sixteen students were subjected to “pat-down” searches, while the other two received what the sheriff would describe only as “more thorough searches.”

One of the two, Heather Gore, 15, said Thursday that a female deputy ordered her to remove her skirt, then lifted her tank top, exposing her breasts. Gore said she was then told to spread her legs while the officer checked her underwear.

“I’m still just so embarrassed,” Gore said.

Her mother, Patricia Gore, said she would push for a change in policy regarding searches.

“I certainly have a lot of things besides lawyers’ fees I need to spend money on, but my daughter shouldn’t have had to go through all this, and neither should anyone else,” the mother said.

Maryland regulations bar police from searching a student unless the student is under arrest or believed to be concealing a weapon.
Additionally, the United States has a regulation in an apparently seldom read document called the constitution. It reads in part:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Drivers who test positive for marijuana in
their urine do not experience elevated risks for having a motor vehicle
accident, according to case-control data to be published in the July issue
of the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention.
From the abstract

The driving performance is easily impaired as a consequence of the use of alcohol and/or licit and illicit drugs. However, the role of drugs other than alcohol in motor vehicle accidents has not been well established. The objective of this study was to estimate the association between psychoactive drug use and motor vehicle accidents requiring hospitalisation.

A prospective observational case-control study was conducted in the Tilburg region of The Netherlands from May 2000 to August 2001. Cases were car or van drivers involved in road crashes needing hospitalisation. Demographic and trauma related data was collected from hospital and ambulance records. Urine and/or blood samples were collected on admission. …

All blood and urine samples were tested for alcohol and a number of licit and illicit drugs. The main outcome measures were odds ratios (OR) for injury crash associated with single or multiple use of several drugs by drivers.

The risk for road trauma was increased for single use of benzodiazepines (adjusted OR 5.1 (95% Cl: 1.8–14.0)) and alcohol (blood alcohol concentrations of 0.50–0.79 g/l, adjusted OR 5.5 (95% Cl: 1.3–23.2) and≥0.8 g/l, adjusted OR 15.5 (95% Cl: 7.1–33.9)). High relative risks were estimated for drivers using combinations of drugs (adjusted OR 6.1 (95% Cl: 2.6–14.1)) and those using a combination of drugs and alcohol (OR 112.2 (95% Cl: 14.1–892)). Increased risks, although not statistically significantly, were assessed for drivers using amphetamines, cocaine, or opiates. No increased risk for road trauma was found for drivers exposed to cannabis. [emphasis added]

Let me repeat that:

No increased risk for road trauma was found for drivers exposed to cannabis.

This adds more to the already significant body of information on this site regarding marijuana and driving.

Update: I suppose I should have given the normal disclaimer. I am not advocating driving while stoned. It’s a bad idea. (I don’t advocate driving while fatigued or talking on a cellphone either.) What the studies continually show, however, is that the hype from the Drug Czar’s office regarding the dangers of “drugged driving” is completely overblown and intended to attack marijuana users through zero tolerance laws, not increase safety.
What this study says is that there is no additional odds of being involved in an accident requiring hospitalization if you’ve smoked marijuana. And that fits with other studies that have shown that marijuana smokers realize that they’re impaired, and slow down and increase caution to compensate.

… is 7th Avenue between 28th and 34th Streets (outside Madison Square Garden) from 2pm to 6pm.

That’s when Russell Simmons and others are hosting a massive rally and hip-hop summit to protest the Rockefeller drug laws in New York and other mandatory minimum laws around the country. Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Nas, 50 Cent, Ludacris, Mariah Carey and Carly Simon are among those slated to attend the rally.
Russell Simmons declared, “This will be the biggest hip-hop gathering ever,
and we intend for our voices to be heard. We will not be silenced. The March
on New York is going down. It will be the illest march in history..”
Let’s see now… Checking Madison Square Garden’s reservation book… August 30.. Ah, here it is: the opening day of the Republican National Convention. Should be very interesting.

Via Hit and Run:
Carson B. Wagner, an advertising professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has studied the effects of anti-drug ads on viewers using a technique known as response latency measurement of strength of association:

“Rather than directly asking research participants to express their attitudes about drugs, response latency SOA measures allow researchers to gauge people’s attitudes without their direct knowledge, thereby yielding a more accurate measure of the research participant’s attitudes that better predicts behavioral decision-making under various conditions.” …

The results showed that people who self-reported their attitudes after viewing the anti-drug ads expressed strong anti-drug sentiments, as opposed to the weaker anti-drug sentiments measured in the response latency tests after viewing the same anti-drug ads. These findings suggested that, compared to response latency measures, self-report measures exaggerated the effectiveness of anti-drug ads… “Based on these findings, the self-report surveys may have produced inflated claims of the ads’ effects,” he concludes.

Not good news for the Drug Czar, who likes to fund his own studies to insure positive results and continued funding, so I doubt that the administration will be paying much attention to this study.
The study also notes that anti-drug ads may actually increase curiosity about drugs. This makes a lot of sense. I remember when I was a cigarette smoker and the Cancer Society would run nasty anti-smoking TV ads. Intellectually, I would watch the ad and say “I’ve got to quit,” but at the same time I would reach for a cigarette, triggered by the ad.

The San Jose Mercury News had an article by Mark McDonald on Sunday; Heroin Trade Booms in Afghanistan: New Wealth Helps Terrorists Rebuild, Threatens Neighbors
This is more of what we’ve already talked about — the heroin trade is really the only hope for significant economic activity in Afghanistan, but unfortunately, since it’s illegal, all the money goes to the criminal sector, including terrorists. But this article also talks about the neighbors:

At particular risk is Tajikistan, a desperately poor, predominantly Muslim nation of 7 million.

Tajikistan produces almost no opium or heroin of its own, but it has become a natural pathway for traffickers because of its 900-mile border with Afghanistan. …

Tajikistan, isolated and landlocked, has almost no industrial economy other than a state-controlled aluminum smelter.æ Foreign investment is minuscule; not a single American firm is operating in the country.

The national budget is barely $300 million a year, a pittance compared with the size of the drug economy.æ The heroin trade alone, Yuldashov said, is 10 times as big.

10 times as big as their entire national budget! That’s a recipe for disaster, and enforcement ain’t gonna help.
We’ve got to look toward new international drug policies.

Some good ones.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Mayor Larry Campbell has proposed legalizing and taxing marijuana sales … to raise money for treatment of the effects of more dangerous drugs. …

Campbell said regulation should be similar to that of tobacco and alcohol, citing the example of Amsterdam, where cultivation and sales of marijuana are legal within certain regulations.

Studies indicate fewer residents of the Netherlands than, for example, Americans, have tried marijuana, and cannabis use among Dutch schoolchildren has fallen, he said.

“The conclusion is pretty clear,” he said. “Legal, regulated sale of marijuana may actually produce less consumption.”

Looks like that new study I’ve been talking about is getting around.

Joel Miller, senior editor of World Net Daily Books, is coming out with a new book: “Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America.”. Today at WND, he talked about it:

Drug laws only have public support so long as drugs are deemed extremely dangerous. Every time an effort to crack down on drugs is made with new laws, politicians hype the threat caused by narcotics and other psychoactive substances in an attempt to whip the public into a frightened tangle of angst-ridden nerves.

More fear means more support for whatever is supposed to alleviate the fear, and more support means bigger budgets. Every politician knows how to exploit this peculiar form of calculus.

This doesn’t mean that drug abuse does not cause problems. It only means that pols have every incentive to inflate problems and stoke dread to get what they want, namely tougher prohibition measures.

But as I argue in my forthcoming book, “Bad Trip,” these measures amplify every problem drugs are supposedly the cause of: crime, corruption, destructive abuse, the whole nine kilos. It’s a bureaucratic make-work program — a self-justifying and self-perpetuating system that both deceives and bilks taxpayers to keep going.

Joel nails it. I look forward to reading the book, which I’ve added to my wish list.