Drug WarRant

The Drug Czar has not only been pushing school drug testing here, but our government has been trying to influence other countries, starting with Bush ally Tony Blair. Fortunately, not everyone in the UK is willing to roll over and fund the testers. Professor of Public Health Woody Caan wrote in the British Medical Journal:

Last month the prime minister, Tony Blair, lent his weight to random drug testing in schools in an interview for a downmarket newspaper. He proposed a national programme be implemented soon, adhering to unspecified central directives.

The Department of Health has 19 criteria for introducing new screening programmes.2 At least 18 of these 19 criteria are not met for widespread, wide spectrum drug urine analysis in schools. The remaining criterion is that the condition is an important health problem.

Drug use in young people is indeed associated with many health risks,3 but a single, positive urine test, for any illicit drug, is probably not meaningful in a clinical sense. Each schoolchild’s context of use (family history, social and emotional development) is crucial to interpreting any supposed “drug career.” Use by a homeless pregnant teenage runaway from local authority care with a history of deliberate self harm and high risk sex work to pay for her drugs may be very different from a single experimental use at home with adults during a family party.

I find this to be a refreshing point of view. Not only does Professor Caan point out technical shortcomings, but he also asks the question that is not being asked in this country: What does a positive test mean? He notes that it is different in different situations, and that a plan needs to be developed to determine how you work with people who test positive.
But in this country, we’ve looked at testing as absolute — as zero tolerance — as if the test was more important than any actual drug problem. Who cares about impairment? — we just test for the presence of the drug. Who cares whether some drugs have different affects than others? Who cares whether somebody has a medical drug problem? — we just lump all positive tests together.
We could learn something from the Brits here (not including Tony, of course).

Check out this investigative report by Gwen Filosa in today’s Times Picayune.

For years before his retirement as Orleans Parish district attorney, Harry Connick beat the drum for a Massachusetts company [Psychemedics] that uses hair samples to test people for drug use. He spoke out publicly in favor of testing students’ hair and on occasion escorted its officers to meetings with officials and opinion-shapers in the media. …

In December, Connick was made a Psychemedics board member at an annual stipend of $20,000. Last month the pot was sweetened further when Psychemedics gave Connick stock options for 5,150 shares…

Several private New Orleans schools, such as De La Salle High School, have been testing students for drugs for several years. De La Salle was one of the first schools that Connick helped acquire grant money for drug testing by Psychemedics.

But Orleans Parish school officials scrapped a program that started in two schools in 2002 after many parents expressed a distrust of the tests’ accuracy. Jefferson Parish stepped up to take the grant money Connick had put together for drug testing. The Jefferson program is managed by Connick’s nephew, Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick.

The article also noted that when he was named to the board, Connick “– never known to by shy with the media — kept the news to himself.”
This points out a fact that often gets neglected in this whole testing issue: Drug Testing has become a huge business. There are thousands of companies, plus drug testing associations and advocacy groups, campaign contributions, and corruption.
1990 drug testing was estimated to be a $300 million industry (Zimmer and Jacobs “The business of drug testing: technological innovation and social control.”). In 2001, Sandard and Poors estimated the industry at $5.9 billion, and it’s been growing exponentially since then.
The recent push by the Drug Czar for drug testing in schools means untold new profits for this industry — all paid for by taxpayers at the expense of education programs. I can’t wait to see how much he earns when he leaves the White House.
The ACLU has also questioned some of the workplace research on increased productivity and lowered absenteeism touted by drug-testing enthusiasts as being scientifically tainted by funding from the drug-testing industry. “My impression, quite frankly, is that it has been the government and the testing industry that have driven this thing, more than the employers,” said Lewis Maltby, director fo the ACLU’s national task force on civil liberties in the workplace.
The article in New Orleans is about one possibly corrupt former district attorney. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in this industry.

Even this youngster gets it:

I think drugs should be legal because of all the people that use drugs.æ The war on drugs takes a lot of money from the government that could be used for other purposes, such as education.æ Cops spend time trying to bust drug users instead of real crimes like rapes, murders and child abductions.

Since drugs are illegal, smugglers must smuggle the drugs into our country and that would cause violence.æ But if drugs were legal, there wouldn’t be a need to smuggle drugs in and have conflict about the drugs.

Government could tax the drugs if they were legal.æ If companies make drugs, it will make the drugs safer because of better and cleaner equipment and supplies.æ There would still be an age limit if drugs were legal.

– Tony Wang, eighth-grader, Pershing Middle School

TalkLeft has a post on handling drug dealers in Vietnam.
Our lawmakers seem to think if they just pass some harsher laws, they’ll be able to deter drug dealers. And yet, in Vietnam, despite 18 executions already this year, it didn’t deter this 48-year-old woman from transporting 3/4 of a pound of heroin, even though she knew she’d be tied to a stake and shot by a firing squad.
You want to deter criminal drug dealers? Eliminate their profits by ending the drug war.

LastOneSpeaks discusses more of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources hearings on medicinal marijuana (see my report on Kampia’s testimony) and gives the link to the detailed transcript of oral hearings.
You get a real sense of the intent of the hearings when you read the opening statement:

SOUDER: Subcommittee will now come to order.æ Good afternoon, and thank you all for coming.æ This hearing will address a highly controversial topic: the use of marijuana for so-called medical purposes. [emphasis added]

This is from an important organization you should visit called FEAR (Forfeiture Endangers American Rights):

Today a new FEAR member called and related his story.æ He was driving across the South with a group of friends on their way to Las Vegas on vacation.æ They were stopped by cops in Texas for some obscure traffic infraction — driving in the passing lane, as I understand it.æ The police searched and found cash money, and seized it.æ A drug dog was brought and he alerted to the money — that was the official excuse for seizing it.æ No one was arrested or even cited for the traffic infraction.æ The hapless vacationers stayed in Texas for days fighting the system to try to get the money back. All they got was the “run around.”æ The local authorities kept claiming they were on the verge of giving it back, and then decided instead to turn it over to the Feds for forfeiture under the Federal Adoption* program.æ (*This program, called “Equitable Sharing” by the Justice Department, allows state and local police to seize property — even if they couldn’t forfeit it under the requirements of their state’s forfeiture law.æ The local agency gets up to 90% of the profits of the federal forfeiture.)

They must have been drug dealers — what other reason would there be for carrying cash on your way to Las Vegas? (Note: Cocaine contamination spreads between bills from banks’ bill-sorter belts, so its most likely that the cash in your wallet would test positive for cocaine. The drug dog could have alerted to that, or it could have been one of the 80% or so times that drug dogs false alert.)
Although some laws have been passed to reduce forfeiture abuses, this kind of thing goes on all the time.
It is unconscionable to have schemes that allow law enforcement to seize assets and keep the profits for their budget. It makes corruption way too tempting.
For those who haven’t been following asset forfeiture, here’s the quick primer:

1. Law enforcement identifies something they want (cash, car, plane, house)
2. They tie it to a drug activity (sometimes that tie could be “only drug dealers would have that much cash”)
3. They do this neat little trick that essentially involves charging the property with being part of a drug crime. This means several things:
   • They don’t need to actually charge the owner of the property or prove that the owner was involved in anything illegal
   • The property, not being human, is not afforded the “innocent until proven guilty” principle, so instead, you have to prove that the property is innocent.
   • The Fourth Amendment rights of the property owner are conveniently bypassed.
4. If the state has laws to limit asset forfeiture abuse, law enforcement will get a federal agent involved and make it a federal forfeiture, thus avoiding those pesky state laws. The feds will take a small percentage and give the rest back to the locals who seized the property. The feds like to encourage this kind of corruption and love sticking it to the voters who tried to end the abuse in their state.

From Eugene at the Volokh Conspiracy, this analysis of Ashcroft’s new crackdown is worth reading. Some strong parallels with the drug war.

Note that I’m not asking whether porn is bad, or whether porn should be constitutionally protected. I’m certainly not asking whether we’d be better off in some hypothetical porn-free world (just like no sensible debate about alcohol, drug, or gun policy should ask whether we’d be better off in some hypothetical alcohol-, drug-, or gun-free world). I’m asking: How can the government’s policy possibly achieve its stated goals, without creating an unprecedentedly intrusive censorship machinery, one that’s far, far beyond what the Justice Department is talking about right now.

I guess the question is, is Ashcroft really delusional enough to believe he can somehow create a drug-free or porn-free world, or is he just willing to destroy lives and the constitution to look like he’s doing it?
Bonus question. Did I add this post just because I’m trolling for search engine traffic?

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 8, 2004, as National D.A.R.E. Day

Well, I guess we should celebrate! So let’s observe D.A.R.E. day with some appropriate reading.

• DARE fact sheet at Drug Policy Alliance
• Just say no again: The old failures of new and improved anti-drug education from Reason
• Report: “The Economic Costs of DARE” (pdf)
• The Education Issue: The ReconsiDer Quarterly (pdf) – lots of articles on DARE’s ineffectiveness
• Drug Prevention Placebo: How DARE Wastes Time, Money, and Police from Reason
• DARE Leaders Acknowledge Program’s Ineffectiveness
• GAO Report Finds DARE Ineffective
• DARE’s 20th Birthday Shows No Sign of Progress

Check out Grass Roots Buzz with an excellent post on drug warrior Mark Souder’s outrageously outraged comments on Peter Jennings’ Ecstasy exposÚ.
klotlikar also rightly points out that we should be contacting ABC to thank them for airing the Jennings special. You can do so directly at ABC’s site or through Drug Policy Alliance’s Action Alert (or both).

Mark A.R. Kleiman talks about his report (pdf) on drug dealing, drug control, and terrorism.
He has valuable information that is worth reading, but in the end, he completely misses the forest for the trees.
In his post, he states:

One issue I was careful not to address in the report was whether the links between drugs and terror constitute a sufficient reason for making cocaine a licit commodity on more or less the same terms as alcohol.

There is no doubt that cocaine dealing contributes to terrorism in Colombia, and that it does so only because it is illicit. Whatever contribution cocaine dealing makes to the terrorist threat domestically is similarly tied to its illicit status. Therefore, if terrorism were the only thing we cared about, we probably ought to legalize cocaine.

However, since it isn’t — since we also care about the damage long-term, heavy cocaine users do to themselves, and since the number of long-term, heavy cocaine users would likely soar under legalization on the alcohol model — the question becomes whether the gains in terrorism control, added to the gains in reduced domestic crime, law enforcement costs, and incarceration levels, are enough to counterbalance the losses on the addiction side.

My judgment is that a world with legal cocaine would probably be, on balance, somewhat worse than a world without it. But if a convincing case were made that cocaine trafficking was, or could become, a significant source of funding to terrorist groups threatening the United States, that judgment might have to be revised.

There are so many holes in his argument. Let me try to point out some of the biggest.

1. Mark talks about what long-term heavy cocaine users do to themselves, but there’s no indication about how large a group that is. The government certainly hasn’t been interested in noting that (just like other drugs) some abuse cocaine, but there are many people who use cocaine without problems (other than its illegality or uncertain purity).
2. There’s no evidence “the number of long-term, heavy cocaine users would likely soar under legalization” as Mark says. This is an improper assumption that is constantly made in the drug war. In other countries that have liberalized or legalized drugs, abuse has generally gone down. It’s also possible (although he avoids discussing it) that casual use would increase without an increase in addictive use (those with addictive personalities have no problem scoring the drug of their choice under prohibition). Without criminal dealers, there’s less push to “enslave” new addicts. With every drug we’ve seen, increases in use and abuse have come from prohibition, not legalization.
3. Also look at the longer version of the quote: “the number of long-term, heavy cocaine users would likely soar under legalization on the alcohol model.” Even if you don’t agree with my last point and assume this to be true, what requires us to use the alcohol model? Can we not come up with different approaches to different drugs? Must they all be treated the same (either jail, or on the shelves of your convenience store)?
4. Mark says “the question becomes whether the gains in terrorism control, added to the gains in reduced domestic crime, law enforcement costs, and incarceration levels, are enough to counterbalance the losses on the addiction side.” Even assuming I’m wrong on the addiction side (which I’m not), it seems clear to me that the gains in all those areas above are more than enough to weigh on the side of legalization.
5. However, if you still can’t see the scales tipping, add the following items into the equation (all of which are part of the prohibition model):
   1. Veronica and Charity Bowers and all the other Drug War Victims. Or do you contend that the death of innocents is OK in the quest to keep people from damaging themselves with drugs? (“Stop hurting yourself or I’ll shoot this innocent bystander.”)
   2. The destruction of Columbia, its land, its people, and its ecology in the name of eradication.
   3. Political unrest in all of Latin America.
   4. Official corruption caused by drug war profits internationally and locally.
   5. Tulia.
   6. The breakup of families, destruction of the inner city, loss of productivity, and increase in welfare that accompany a policy of incarceration.
   7. Racist sentencing policies (crack/powder).
   8. The destruction of civil liberties that have accompanied the drug war.
   9. The increase in government lying to the people in order to justify the drug war.

So on the one side of legalization, you have this huge pile of benefits. On the other side, you have the unsupported assumption that an unknown additional number of people will, because of legalization, choose to harm themselves by improperly using the drug.
Care to revise your judgment, Mark?