Drug WarRant

Whatever career you may choose for yourself–doctor, lawyer, teacher–let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. Make it a central part of your life. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellow man . Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.

— Martin Luther King, Jr. , 18th April, 1959

Although almost five times as many whites use illegal drugs as African Americans, nearly twice the number of black men and women are being put behind bars for drug offenses. At current rates, a black man has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime, compared to 1 in 17 for white males.

With the Iowa Caucuses coming up, it’s a good time to review the candidates again. Today, I’d like to remind you about the Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana Voter Guide. The Granite Staters have gone through voting records (and other actions) and public speeches regarding medical marijuana and graded each of the candidates. Go to their site for detailed analysis, but here are the quick current grades. (Remember this is specifically for medical marijuana and may not reflect other drug war issues)

Dennis Kucinich	A+
Carol Moseley Braun*	A
Al Sharpton	A
John Kerry	A-
Wesley K. Clark	B+
Howard Dean	D-
Bob Graham*	D-
George W. Bush	F
John Edwards	F
Dick Gephardt	F
Joseph Lieberman	F

*dropped out

“bullet” Drug WarRant has already endorsed Dennis Kucinich for the Democratic nomination for President.
“bullet” Drug WarRant’s endorsement for the Republican nomination – Blake Ashby – is not included in the Granite Staters’ grade book, but his grade would be good:

If a doctor believes that his or her patient would benefit from the responsible use of medicinal marijuana, then that doctor should be allowed to legally prescribe it.

After I endorsed Blake, I got a nice note from him, which included:

Thanks for the positive mention for my campaign.æ This started because I was so mad, but is slowly evolving into a protest campaign.

If you’re a Republican, be sure to write in Blake Ashby’s name in your primary.
“bullet” In our Guest Rants, Gregg Brown adds some additional comment on voting and hemp, including some startlingly positive statements from Central Illinois Congressional candidates on both sides of the aisle — Republican Tim Johnson and Democrat David Gill.
“bullet” Update: NORML has its own Presidential Scorecard which includes their up/down/neutral ratings on decriminalization, medical marijuana, and the HEA provision.

The Demonized Seed by Lee Green in tomorrow’s Los Angeles Times.

As a Recreational Drug, Industrial Hemp Packs the Same Wallop as Zucchini. So Why Does the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Continue to Deny America This Potent Resource? Call It Reefer Madness.

This article is not only one of the best overviews on Hemp I’ve seen for some time, but it’s an incredible indictment of the DEA. I’ve included some snippets from the article below, but you really should read all of it.

The article talks a little about Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of Cannabis and the Conspiracy Against Marijuana, which is where I learned tons about Hemp before I even got involved in the drug policy reform advocacy.

“How can they make the one thing that can save the world illegal?” he asks, no less astonished by this paradox now than he was three decades ago.

…snip…

If all or even most of the oft-cited claims for hemp are true, the substance may know no earthly equal among nontoxic renewable resources. If only half the claims are true, hemp’s potential as a commercial wellspring and a salve to creeping eco-damage is still immense. At worst it is more useful and diverse than most agricultural crops. Yet from the 1930s through the 1980s, many countries, influenced by U.S. policies and persuasion, banished cannabis from their farmlands. Not just marijuana, but all cannabis — the baby, the bath water, all of it.

…snip…

If an American farmer were to fill a field with this drugless crop, the government would consider him a felon. For selling his harvest he would be guilty of trafficking and would face a fine of as much as $4 million and a prison sentence of 10 years to life. Provided, of course, it is his first offense. This for a crop as harmless as rutabaga.

…snip…

The government’s motives for its attack on marijuana remain unclear. Researchers have proffered theories ranging from collusion with corporations threatened by hemp’s commercial potential to moralistic fervor and bureaucratic thirst for domain once Prohibition ended in 1933. Regardless of motives, the ensuing stigmatization, red tape, state and federal controls, punitive taxes and misconceptions about marijuana’s nature and its relationship to hemp doomed any chance that hemp would be resurrected as an agricultural crop.

…snip…

Unmoved by logic, accepted nomenclature or the realities of plant genetics, the DEA insists that all cannabis is marijuana. Does the agency also consider industrial hemp grown legally outside the U.S. to be marijuana? “Yes, we do,” says Frank Sapienza, the agency’s chief of drug and chemical evaluation. Since more than 30 other countries manage to distinguish between marijuana and industrial hemp and allow their farmers to grow hemp, one wonders what they know that the U.S. doesn’t. “I’m not going to comment on what other countries do,” Sapienza says.

…snip…

If you want to apply for a license to grow commercial hemp, you must solicit the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA consistently claims that no prohibition on hemp farming exists in this country, as if to suggest that all one need do is file the proper paperwork and make a reasonable case…

Nonetheless, the agency has rejected every application it has ever received. How many? There’s no telling–literally. The agency will say only that “the DEA does not have records of the number of applications received for such activities”–an extraordinary claim from an organization that documents every marijuana plant that it and cooperating law enforcement agencies uproot from U.S. soil.

Be sure to read it all. (Article mirrored at Freedom to Exhale).

“bullet”Last One Speaks gives us a Guardian Unlimited article which concludes that persecuting marijuana users may be un-Christian:

Jesus was almost certainly a cannabis user and an early proponent of the medicinal properties of the drug, according to a study of scriptural texts published this month. The study suggests that Jesus and his disciples used the drug to carry out miraculous healings.

“bullet”
Walter in Denver has more on Clayton Helriggle (one of our Drug War Victims)

Greene County Prosecutor Bill Schenck said he intends to meet with investigators Feb. 2 to discuss possibly reconvening a Preble County grand jury to revisit the Sept. 27, 2002, shooting death of Clayton Helriggle by a police officer.

“bullet”
Left Flank Shooters has a couple of interesting posts including this one with links to articles about heroin assisted treatment in Switzerland and Vancouver’s safer injection site, plus this one on Drug Enforcement and Crime, an excellent draft report that concludes from empirical data that drug enforcement efforts actually increase crime rather than reducing it.

It is well documented that many within government and the criminal justice system believe drug enforcement to be an effective crime control measure.[38] The empirical findings from this study stand in stark contrast to the traditional view.æ The results suggest that once you control for the effects of other determinants of crime, drug enforcement is positively (and significantly) associated with higher levels of both violent and property crime…

At a minimum, the empirical findings should raise serious questions about the effectiveness of drug enforcement as a crime control measure, and they suggest that significant social costs arise from existing approaches to drug control.

“bullet”
NORML provides this easy opportunity to tell CBS you don’t want them to run drug czar propaganda during the Super Bowl (particularly since they’ve already claimed they won’t run “controversial issue” ads).

Via NORML:

San Mateo, CA: Approximately one out of four patients suffering from
HIV has smoked marijuana within the past month to relieve symptoms of the
disease, according to clinical findings published in this month’s issue of
the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

Twenty-three percent of the 252 participants in the study responded
that they had smoked medicinal marijuana within the previous month.
“Reported benefits included relief from anxiety and/or depression (57%),
improved appetite (53%), increased pleasure (33%), and relief of pain
(28%),” authors stated.

A similar survey conducted in Canada and presented last November at
the Ontario HIV Treatment Network research conference concluded that 29
percent of HIV-positive Ontarians used marijuana therapeutically.

Presently, clinical trials examining the therapeutic potential of
cannabinoids in HIV patient populations are ongoing at the University of
California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.

According to a recently published study in the journal Annals of
Internal Medicine, use of inhaled marijuana demonstrates “no major,
short-term harmful effects and possibly some beneficial effects … in
HIV-infected patients taking protease inhibitors.”

Yep, this is the stuff that our drug czar calls a “fraud.”

More details on the story I mentioned yesterday are available from Americans for Safe Access.

In a stunning display of duplicitous double dealing, federal agents yesterday seized two medical marijuana patients from a California state courtroom after the local prosecutor lured the couple’s defense counsel into the judge’s chambers to dismiss the state charges filed against them.

Via TalkLeft:

Here we go….the federal government is overhauling the way it drug tests employees. It is moving from urine tests to saliva, hair testing and sweat tests. Major corporations are expected to follow suit. Here’s what’s planned:

Saliva testing, done using a swab that looks much like a toothbrush but with a pad instead of bristles, is best at detecting drug use within the past one or two days.
Hair testing, in which a sample about the thickness of a shoelace is clipped at the root from the back of the head, allows detection of many drugs used as far back as 3 months.
Sweat testing, in which workers are fitted with a patch that is worn for two weeks, is used to screen people who have returned to work after drug treatment.

Note that none of these intrusions test for the most important thing: impairment at the time of testing.
Now I’ve worked in quite a few jobs, and I’ve almost always been a supervisor — of everyone from casual day laborers to factory workers to student interns to professional government employees.
I’ve never used or needed urine, saliva, hair, or sweat drug tests for my employees. I had a very simple method that worked every time. If an employee didn’t do their job, I fired them. The amazing thing is — I apparently have some kind of magical ability that allows me to determine if someone is doing their job without making them pee in a cup. And my method worked for a whole range of problems, including drugs, alcohol, lack of sleep, apathy, and incompetence.
If only I could teach the government how to do that.
Have you peed in a cup for your government today?

Via Al Giordano’s BigLeftOutside:

The latest: a reform of the penal code that, while increasing penalties for drug traffickers like every other country, has just decriminalized possession. According to the oligarch’s daily El Universal, which leads its report in a panic over the reform’s simultaneous legalization of abortion and euthanasia, here’s what the new law does for drug users:

“As personal dose for consumption, the (allowable) quantity of the drug substance is extended to that which is necessary for average individual consumption for no more than five days; and as a provisional dose, the quantity of the substance that is employed for average individual consumption (according to forensics experts) for no more than ten days.”

In sum, the drug addict or user no longer faces prison or penalty in Venezuela if he possesses small amounts of his drug of choice (specifically mentioned by the law are marijuana, hashish, cocaine and its derivatives, opium and its derivatives, and synthetic drugs).

Giordano also notes:

Venezuela’s action, because of the size and influence of the country and its economy, and the context of its role in the current American drama, now provides cover for Brazil, Argentina, and the rest of the continent to do the same.

Be sure to watch for the re-birth of the fabulous Narco News, which will resume publishing shortly.
Note that Venezuela has not been particularly thrilled with the U.S. drug war or our Czar.
Also be sure to check out Last One Speaks for excellent coverage on this and other drug war issues (and a belated birthday wish to Libby, one week late).
Update:According to Drug War Chronicle, this reform is not yet finalized.

Tonight’s episode of The West Wing dealt with mandatory minimums and judicial discretion, with some very powerful moments. The episode included a scene with a fictional character from a real, and important organization: Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
At one point, President Bartlet said

If we’re going to be tough on crime, we must first learn to be smart on crime.

Ah, if only the real President would say that!

This tale of Feds stepping in on medical marijuana cases in California again comes from Hilary McQuie of Americans for Safe Access:

Today [Tuesday] in Sacramento, two medical marijuana patients in their 50’s were sitting in a California state court for cultivation charges: David Davidson and Cynthis Blake. Their attorneys, Omar Figueroa and Shari Greenberger of Pier 5, were filing motions for dismissal on the basis of their legal medical status, which the prosector had agreed to, and were called into judge’s chambers to work some details. Once there, the prosecutor (Lynn Strom, Tehama Co) told them she was agreeing to a dismissal of state charges ONLY because federal marshalls were at that minute arresting the defendants! This was an egregious misdirection by the prosecution, and an unacceptable handing over of a case to the feds by state officials.
Their attorneys are rightfully shocked and dismayed by this outrage, and our support is needed.

Americans for Safe Access is calling for emergency action response in front of Federal buildings this Friday, along with continuing to promote a national day of action at congressional district offices during Medical Marijuana Week (2-15 to 2-22) on Tuesday, Feb. 17 to demand that Congress change the law to protect patients.