Drug WarRant

Be sure to check out this week’s DrugSense Weekly
Lots of interesting information and a review of the most relevant newspaper articles of the past week. Also a great letter of the week and, DrugSense Weekly was nice enough to include my analysis/rant on the President’s SOTU.
Just a reminder that DrugSense and MAP are an incredible resource in drug policy reform.
They’re a great way to get involved. Sure, you read something on this site and it gets you pissed off. What do you do? Well, you could write your own rant and submit it to me for Guest Rants. Or, go to MAP, where you’ll get assistance in writing letters to the editor in newspapers all over the world, where you can make a real difference and reach thousands of people with your words. They’ll even give you current alerts with suggestions for writing letters.
Or you can donate and, for a short time, have your donation matched.

“bullet” Reason’s Jacob Sullom asks in Bush on Steroids, “Why must sports by drug-free?

The irony is that legal restrictions and league bans on steroids discourage athletes who use them from seeking medical guidance, so they’re more at risk than they would be if steroid use were permitted. As with recreational drugs, prohibition makes steroids more dangerous, not less.

An interesting article, and Sullom, as usual, is not afraid to ask the “taboo” questions.
“bullet” Talkleft has a couple of posts worth checking out, including

• Los Angeles is the latest city — and the largest one — to reject the Patriot Act
• Informants Who Set Up Fake Drug Busts Get a Sentence Break

“bullet” As most people know by now, Art Garfunkel was busted for pot possession. I really don’t have much to say on this, other than the fact that he’s one of over 600,000 people in the United States who should not have been arrested in the past year for marijuana possession.
“bullet” Damn Foreigner has an excellent post on US Ambassador giving unsolicited advice. Essentially Ambassador Paul Cellucci is threatening Canada again with border troubles if they don’t dispel the “perception” that getting marijuana is Canada will be easier.
One of the most bizarre parts of this is that he suggests something that would help: putting in criminal provisions for marijuana possession near schools — this in conjunction with decriminalization. So, if your house is within x feet of a school you could go to jail for smoking pot in your own home, but your neighbor would just get a fine. Yeah, that works. It would be interesting to see if that would raise or lower property values near schools.
“bullet” Vice Squad is on top of Chicago cops, drugs, and corruption.
“bullet” Mark Kleiman talks about the disturbing trend in drug abuse research — that all the funding is going toward the information that the warriors want to present — in Opting for Ignorance: ADAM program killed
“bullet” The fabulous Libby at Last One Speaks has the humorous story of the Detective who was ruled “too cute” in a drug bust!
“bullet” The new issue of Drug War Chronicle is available with some interesting items, including more on the hysteria in the UK that I’ve been reporting, and a Minnesota Sentencing Commission report that says the state could save $30 million per year with treatment instead of prison.

With just a few days until marijuana is downgraded from class B to class C in England, the attempts to scare people can get downright silly.
Yesterday as I reported, various papers covered the suddenly revealed inquest results (from over a month ago) that claimed to have found the first death from marijuana overdose (extremely unlikely).
Today, BBC News reports on a group calling for health warnings to be issued regarding schizophrenia, and other forms of psychosis, from cannabis use!
The Telegraph came out yesterday with How dangerous is Dope?, which included this ridiculous story:

The inquest last week into the death of Robert Dickinson, who shot dead his neighbour in a dispute over a garden hedge and then committed suicide in prison, heard that he had been “drunk and drugged” and had smoked “up to five cannabis cigarettes a day”.

The coroner told jurors: “I would want to stress…æ that cannabis is not a harmless drug and this case demonstrates how devastating its effects can be.” Outside the court, Det Insp Peter Bray, of Lincolnshire Police, said: “It does nobody any good to use cannabis and can lead to these sorts of things.”

Oh my God, cannabis causes garden hedge disputes!
This was the same media source that back in November ran CANNABIS USE CAUSES ‘HUNDREDS OF DEATHS A YEAR’, CORONER WARNS with the amazing:

Cannabis also contributed to the death of Dragan Radoslavjevic, 42, from Paignton, Devon.æ He died earlier this year after using a power tool to drill a hole in his head. An inquest in Torquay heard that he suffered from depression and relied on drugs such as cannabis and heroin.

[I’ve got to go to the UK and attend some inquests — they sound like a lot of fun.]
In yesterday’s article, however, the Telegraph provided some balance by quoting Dr Zerrin Atakan of the National Psychosis Unit, who rebutted the assertions in the BBC report with:

Cannabis psychosis is a very vague term.æ If we ever use the phrase, it is only to describe very short-term effects immediately following smoking, and it certainly doesn’t refer to users having a psychotic disorder.æ People may feel frightened or paranoid, but these feelings pass in a matter of hours or, more rarely, days, and practically never require treatment.”

and added this positive thought:

Children need to be taught the hazards at an early age, and it needs to be regulated so people know what they are getting.æ This can only happen through legalisation.”

We already know that the feds just go crazy over the issue of medical marijuana — they’re that afraid of it. Whether it’s federal armed raids on medical marijuana groups operating legally under state law, or the DEA’s refusal to return seized medicine, it’s clear that we have to remove the federal government from medical marijuana.
Here’s how surreal this gets. A school board in California is opposing local medical marijuana proposals under the excuse that they’re afraid of losing federal funding!

Board President Mary Scott said the proposed ordinance could affect schools’ federal funding.æSchools are required to abide by the federal Safe and Drug Free Schools Act, which mandates strict policies regarding employee use and possession of drugs and requires that schools teach students that illegal drugs are wrong and harmful.

Federal law does not recognize marijuana as legal in any circumstances.æ Schools which violate the federal law could risk losing federal funding, Scott said.

School districts are also federally required to certify “drug-free school zones,” meaning that there are no illegal drugs within 1,000 feet of school sites.

Get the feds out of medical marijuana in one easy step: Reschedule.

Ted at Women’s Hoops has some additional perspective on the State of the Union steroid section and why Bush would never go after supplements.

Orrin Hatch is one of the most powerful Republican Senators and also ahuge backer of the supplement industry. Many supplement companies are based in Utah, Hatch’s home. The industry has donated over $100,000 to Hatch over the past decade. And Hatch’s son runs a lobbying firm with supplement industry clients, who have paid the firm millions.

Hatch wrote in his memoirs: “I have taken dietary supplements almost my entire adult life and can attest to the benefits they provide.” He has argued that adults should be able to decide for themselves whether to ingest these chemicals, and that government regulation shouldn’t get in the way.

Ironically, Hatch is also the leading elected official fighting the War on Drugs. Unclear why he thinks adults should be able to decide for themselves whether to ingest kava, e.g., without any government regulation, but shouldn’t be able to decide to ingest marijuana, e.g., at all.

I’ve always watched Hatch carefully. He’s smart and articulate, with no conscience, particularly in his behind the scenes work regarding the drug war and civil liberties.

For those didn’t watch the State of the Union but wanted to know what he said about drugs:

One of the worst decisions our children can make is to gamble their lives and futures on drugs.

True. And it’s a decision upon which government will have little impact.

Our government is helping parents confront this problem, with aggressive education, treatment, and law enforcement.

Education programs like D.A.R.E. which don’t work, and others that insult the intelligence of kids. Treatment slots wasted on non-addicted marijuana users who are referred by schools and the criminal justice system, while hard drug addicts are turned away. And law enforcement that has demonstrated major corruption while leading us to being the most incarcerated country on the planet.

Drug use in high school has declined by 11 percent over the past two years. Four hundred thousand fewer young people are using illegal drugs than in the year 2001.

Sure, no problem, just pick your statistics. “Monitoring the Future” shows drug use down in High Schools, “Pride Survey” shows drug use is up. Oh, and by the way, the ads don’t work.

In my budget, I have proposed new funding to continue our aggressive, community-based strategy to reduce demand for illegal drugs.

Oh, sure. Let’s spend even more on a failed war on drugs! We’ve got lots of money! 30 years and billions and billions of dollars with nothing to show for it? (I’m sorry, actually there’s a lot to show for it – increased crime, addiction, and drug abuse.) Let’s spend even more! Yeah, let’s get aggressive. Here’s some folks that can attest to the value of an aggressive drug war (or they could if they weren’t dead).

Drug testing in our schools has proven to be an effective part of this effort.

Not according to University of Michigan researchers who last year looked at survey data from 1998 through 2001 drawn from 772 high schools and middle schools.æ They found virtually identical rates of usage in schools that test and schools that do not.

So tonight I propose an additional 23 million dollars for schools that want to use drug testing as a tool to save children’s lives.

Ah, yes. More money for stuff that does nothing. Boy, money must just grow on trees!

The aim here is not to punish children, but to send them this message: We love you, and we don’t want to lose you.

Yes, we love you so much that we’ll point guns at you in school, send dogs after you, take away all your rights, and get you so used to it, that when we take away your medicine when you’re old, you’ll just roll over and die like a good citizen.
… And then he said some stuff about athletes needing to be role models and they shouldn’t use drugs.

The Sun “reports” First death by dope. A more detailed version of the article is available at the Telegraph (requires registration): Cannabis is blamed as cause of man’s death. Here are some quotes from that article:

A man of 36 is believed to have become the first person in Britain to die directly from cannabis poisoning.
Lee Maisey smoked six cannabis cigarettes a day for 11 years, an inquest heard. His death, which was registered as having been caused by cannabis toxicity, led to new warnings about the drug, which is due to be reclassified this month as a less dangerous one. …
The inquest heard that Mr Maisey had complained of a headache on Aug 22 last year. Next morning he was found dead at the house he shared with a friend, Jeffrey Saunders, in Summerhill, Pembrokeshire.
Michael Howells, the Pembrokeshire coroner, said Mr Maisey was free from disease and had not drunk alcohol for at least 48 hours. Post-mortem tests showed a high level of cannabinoids in his blood.
He recorded a verdict of death by misadventure because Mr Maisey had died while taking part in an illegal activity. The death led to a warning about the changing strength of cannabis, which is to be reduced to a Class C drug on Jan 29.

Take a close look at the description. An inquest was held and no other causes of death were evident, so the mere fact of cannabinoids in the blood was determined that it must be the cause of death. Unless someone has a more detailed version of the facts presented at this inquest, I have to believe that this does not represent a proven and documented case of death by marijuana overdose.
The article then brings out the usual group of drug warriors who don’t realize how silly they sound when they use this as justification for jailing thousands of people.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said last night: “This highlights what we have been saying about the effects of cannabis all along. When will people wake up to the fact that cannabis can be a harmful drug?”

OK, David. Let’s just take a little look at that. Let’s assume that it really was an overdose (the first in recorded history). Millions of people have smoked pot for thousands of years. And now that we have one death, “Ooh, look at how dangerous that is!” Harmful drug? Aspirin poisoning causes 60 deaths a year in the U.S. Catastrophic liver failure from Tylenol overdoses causes 150 deaths a year, and Viagra causes death in 5 of every 100,000 prescriptions. We’re not locking those people up, are we?
Here’s a suggestion for the shadow secretary — put a warning on packages of marijuana cigarettes suggesting that if you smoke every day, you should limit it to five.
But the thing is, I’m still not convinced that you can overdose from marijuana. Let’s take a look at a piece of a report put out by the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Agency Administrative Judge:

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Drug Enforcement Administration
In The Matter Of MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION
Docket No. 86-22
OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE FRANCIS L. YOUNG, Administrative Law Judge
DATED: SEPTEMBER 6, 1988
Section 8 of Judge Young’s “Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision.”

7.æ Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50.æ The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity.æ A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana’s LD-50 rating in test animals, without success.æ Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.
8.æ At present it is estimated that marijuana’s LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000.æ In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette.æ NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams.æ A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.
9.æ In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.

Now, let’s say you believe everything the drug warriors say and think that marijuana is 30 times as potent today. How you’d smoke 6 joints a day of really potent pot is beyond me. Plus, pot smokers are able to regulate their intake. If they smoke really potent pot, they tend to smoke less. But, what the hell, let’s assume. Then it would only take 50 pounds of pot in 15 minutes.
First marijuana overdose? Yeah, right.
Update: Summary from Coroner lists “Probable Cannabis Toxicity” as medical cause of death, which tends to confirm the notion that it was a default choice rather than one based on any specific evidence other than the (duh) presence of cannabinoids.

So with Dennis Kucinich getting only 1.3% of the delegates in Iowa, is Drug WarRant changing its endorsement? No, I am not.
Kucinich is still in the race and still has, by far, the best position on medical marijuana, marijuana decriminalization and the drug war in general. Every day that he remains in the race is another chance for drug policy reform to have a stronger role in the future. And Dennis plans to remain keep going till the convention:

“This is the beginning of the campaign,” said Kucinich. “We’ve got 49 states left to go. The media had long ago predicted the winner of the entire process and even the loser of the general election, and tonight’s caucuses have the pundits scratching their collective scalps in bewilderment. I moved from ninth place to fifth and won delegates despite the 15 percent threshold.

Kerry’s surprise lead in Iowa is interesting, given that Granite Staters graded him with an A- regarding medical marijuana (see yesterday’s post), and I’m pleased that he’s taken a strong stand in favor of University of Massachusetts’ application to manufacture marijuana for FDA-approved medical marijuana research, but NORML gives him a neutral grade in all areas, and some of his position papers on crime and drugs are questionable, and although some former prosecutors have turned toward drug policy reform, I’m not yet completely convinced that Kerry has.
So please continue to support Kucinich (Democrats) and Ashby (Republicans). There’s lots of time before the conventions, and the more we can keep drug policy reform in discussion the better.
I can’t wait to see how well the Granite Staters continue to do in raising the medical marijuana issue in New Hampshire! Check out the MPP television ad that starts airing today in New Hampshire, highlighting four Democratic presidential contenders’ refusal to stop federal arrests of cancer and AIDS patients using medical marijuana.

Here’s the deal:

1. GRAMNET – the Grand, Routt and Moffat Narcotics Enforcement Team (which included a DEA agent) raided a Hayden, Colorado home in mid-October.
2. They seize two ounces of marijuana and some pipes.
3. It turns out Don Nord is a medical marijuana user and that was his medicine (legal in Colorado).
4. Charges are dropped, and the judge orders the marijuana returned
5. The officers had given the marijuana to the DEA, and the DEA refused to return it.
6. The judge cited the officers for contempt and directed them to appear in court at 1:30 pm February 2 “to show why they should not be punished for defying the court order.” So now…
7. The U.S. Attorney’s office will use taxpayer money and send lawyers to defend the DEA agent against the contempt citation.

So a federal officer goes into a man’s home in Colorado, in violation of state law, and probably in violation of the U.S. constitution, steals 2 ounces of a man’s medicine, keeps it, refuses to return it when ordered by a judge, and then gets us to provide a federal attorney to defend him.

(Story via Cannabis News. Earlier coverage available at Walter in Denver.)

Is there nobody with a sense of decency or democracy overseeing these morons? Certainly not the DEA Director, or the DEA Deputy Administrator, or the Drug Czar, or the Attorney General, or the President. It’s time to throw them all out and try some new idiots.

Friday in the New York Daily News, hack A.M. Rosenthal gives us I Kicked the Habit.

I was only a youngster at the time, but I still remember, to the precise moment, the day many decades ago when some rich kids who lived near a lush New York public garden offered some friends and me a fistful of smokes. Their cigarettes turned out to be marijuana – strong enough to twist a life. Or ruin it. …

I turned out to be a short-time pot addict. I cannot testify now how much I smoked or for how long or what those few days of smoking pot did to me. All I remember is that I smoked until I vomited. …

From the beginning of the foreign assignments, I saw the brown marijuana stubs of my sons and their friends, particularly in New Delhi, the capital of India. I, of course, had long ago quit using marijuana and spent a considerable amount of time shouting at my sons when I thought they were still puffing away. It is a good technique. …

Why am I writing this column? I keep asking myself. Probing myself even just a little, I understand that it is because I never hear my friends or the people at dinner tables talk about drugs, except sometimes as if it were funsy entertainment. I hope that they will talk with each other more often and more deeply, beginning right away.

Drugs must be faced. Let’s face them with the law. And most important of all, let’s face them with love for our children.

This article comes via Hit and Run, and the commments there are entertaining. Most are trying to decide whether A.M. just fabricated the whole story or actually smoked oregano that made him throw up. Others were less generous.
Just reading his editorial makes you realize how around the bend he is, but if you want to know more, check out my earlier article: A.M. Rosenthal, Drug War Stooge.