Drug WarRant

Smoking cannabis causes lung damage. This inept Reuters report discusses a study done in England (it’s inept because of the extremely vague wording which I find often in Reuter’s reports). The study is of individuals who heavy smokers of tobacco or heavy smokers of tobacco and cannabis, and the article includes:

“Smoking cannabis on a regular basis actually depletes your lung of protective antioxidant substances…and this may have chronic long-term implications for young individuals,” said Dr Sarah Nuttall of the University of Birmingham in central England.

As correspondent Tim Meehan (who’s been on top of this story) pointed out, this is just plain dishonest, and he wrote Sarah Nuttall to tell her so. Her response:

Next time I suggest you get off your high horse and establish the facts before
labelling anyone or any work “dishonest” – apart from your own thoughts that
is.

Despite Nuttall’s desire to have us look at the facts, very little is provided by her. No online description of the study, the British Thoracic Society’s website (where the report was given) appears to be offline, and the University of Birmingham where the study took place gives no information about the study on its website and merely lists Nuttall as a doctoral student.
So let’s look at the facts as we’ve been able to discover them, partly from news reports and partly from Dr. Nuttall’s email response:

• Dr. Sarah Nuttall and her team studied 20 people aged 19 to 30. This is an extremely small sample to draw any kind of conclusions.
• These 20 participants were broken into three groups: complete non-smokers, tobacco smokers, and tobacco plus cannabis smokers. There was not a group of cannabis only smokers.
• They took blood samples, measured lung function and tested for antioxidant markers.
• Tobacco smokers had impaired lung function compared to non-smokers (yeah, that’s a surprise)
• Tobacco plus cannabis smokers had lower levels of antioxidant and nitric oxide than tobacco only smokers.
• There was no possible evidence in this study that cannabis smoking alone affected lung function in any way.
• No direct evidence that changes in antioxidant levels were caused by cannabis smoking (ie., as opposed to other factors such as differences in diet, etc.) or that they would happen without tobacco smoking.
• The head of the British Thoracic Society said that more research is needed.

So, Dr. Nuttall’s broad statement that “Smoking cannabis on a regular basis actually depletes your lung of protective antioxidant substances…and this may have chronic long-term implications for young individuals,” is not supported by any scientific evidence from her study, and is in fact, dishonest. I would be happy to change my evaluation if she would provide evidence from her study that actually scientifically proves her claim as stated, but the way her study was structured (as it’s been described), that’s not possible.
What she should have said, given the results of her study, if she was an honest or competent scientist: “Based on a small number of subjects, those who smoke tobacco and cannabis regularly have lower levels of protective antioxidant substances than those who just smoke tobacco. Further study is recommended to determine if there is a direct connection between antioxidant levels and cannabis smoking and whether these levels suggest a health risk.”
But no, she made provocative inferences instead.
So you take a small study by an unknown researcher, distort the reporting of the result to appear more dramatic regarding the dangers of smoking pot, and then let the press sensationalize it even further.
And voilà! Within hours you have the New York Post reporting on Pot’s ‘High’ Risk of Cancer

Smoking weed is not the harmless recreational activity it may seem because it can cause lung cancer, researchers in England said yesterday.

Disgraceful.
Of course, you got less reporting on studies of not 20 participants, but 45,000 subjects in Sweden and 65,000 subjects in the United states, that showed no connection between cannabis and mortality. (See my post from September.) But “Pot doesn’t kill” apparently makes for poor headlines.

Radley Balko’s excellent article at Fox News: Criminalization Doesn’t Curb Booze, Drug Use

The great journalist H.L. Mencken was a fierce critic of alcohol prohibition. He wrote in 1925:

“Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect:æthey have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.”

Mencken was right, which is why Prohibition was repealed in 1933

In the rest of the article, he blasts politicians’ love of prohibition, whether alcohol, drugs, or tobacco.

70 years ago today.
December 5, 1933.
The 21st Amendment to the Constitution was ratified,
ending the failed war on alcohol.
Prohibition was over.
The Constitution was restored.

Little did they know then,
That politicians today
Would fail so miserably
To learn from history.

A reminder to those in my neighborhood that Hempfest is today (Thursday) from 3-8 pm in the Bowling and Billiards Center Activity Room. I’ll be speaking around 6 pm. There’s bands, and activities, and even some raffles and door prizes (including some highly valued Drug WarRant frisbees!). I was interviewed in the student newspaper today.
I also wrote an extensive article titled “War on a Plant” for this week’s Indy (an excellent local weekly paper), but they decided not to publish a paper this week, so I’ve published the article here for your enjoyment.
Regular readers of this blog will recognize most of the material in the article, but you may still find it an interesting re-cap.
Here it is: War on a Plant.

According to WBBM newsradio

Beginning next fall, St. Patrick’s High School, on the northwest side, will become the first in Illinois to require drug tests of ALL its students.

A number of public schools require students who participate in extra-curricular activities to undergo drug testing, but are barred by Supreme Court ruling from extending such tests to all students. Principal Joseph Schmidt said he considers the all-boys school, at 5900 W. Belmont Av., the “catalyst” in Illinois for universal testing.

In the Washington Post: Marijuana Ad On Metro Infuriates Lawmaker.
You may remember my reporting on Change the Climate’s ad campaign.
Well, Oklahoma Representative Ernest Istook really didn’t like it. So..

This week, Istook inserted into a bill language that would cut Metro’s funds by $92,500 and prohibit any transit system that receives federal funds from running advertising from a group that wants to decriminalize marijuana.

Keep in mind that Metro was following policy in accepting the ad and would have had to fight a first amendment battle to deny it. However, Istook doesn’t seem to understand that part of it.
Why can’t we require that when public officials swear to uphold the constitution, they’re required to actually read it?
The most ignorant statement came from Istook’s press secretary:

“Metro is using taxpayer facilities to promote illegal activity,” said Micah Swafford, Istook’s press secretary.

This boggles the mind! First, Metro didn’t promote illegal activity, they accepted an ad as required by policy. Second, Change the Climate didn’t promote illegal activity, they advocated a change in the law. If that qualifies as illegal activity in taxpayer facilities, then Istook is guilty of it every day he’s in the House of Representatives.
You can contact Ernest Istook or Micah Swafford by email. If you live in Oklahoma 5th district, Istook is up for re-election in 2004.

There was plenty of reporting of the bad science by Ricaurte – the “oops we used the wrong drug” that ended up causing more bad law regarding ecstacy. It’s nice to see that the issue isn’t being dropped.
This excellent New York Times piece brings the issue back to the forefront and seriously questions all of Ricaurte’s work, and points out that some in the scientific community are concerned about this trend.
Ron Bailey, in a Reason Online article takes it a step further and calls for an investigation into the peer review process and the possible co-option of Science into the drug war.

Part 2: Each debater was given 2 minutes to rebut the first round comments.
What to watch for:
William Bennett: Trying desperately to dump his debating partner, and clinging to his one-statistic argument.
Gary Johnson: Bats around Bennett’s statistic, and gives a human interest story on mandatory sentencing.
Charlie Rangel: Still thinks he’s debating education policy, and then, apparently to his view, sarcastically suggests growing drugs in America.
Kurt Schmoke: Continues to push harm reduction and uses tobacco to show how ridiculous prohibition is.

Supreme Court rules in favor of police barging in.

The court ruled 9-0 that if police had waited any longer than 20 seconds, a drug suspect could be flushing evidence down the toilet…

Justice David H. Souter, writing for the court, said that because police believed there were drugs in his apartment, officers had more reason to rush. “Police seeking a stolen piano may be able to spend more time to make sure they really need the battering ram,” Souter wrote.

9-0. Because of potential toilet flushing. So instead, we’ll probably get more of this.

On Thursday, I told you about a debate that was scheduled on C-Span. It ended up getting pushed back due to coverage of a Thanksgiving Dinner, so I missed it when it aired, but the full audio is available at Drug Sense (RealAudio file) and I finally got a chance to listen to it. I planned to just give a report, but it was really quite interesting, so I ended up transcribing large sections of it for you.
The event: The Debate of the 21st Century on “The Future of American Drug Policy” (held in New York City in October).
The participants: Republican Activist William Bennett and Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel vs. Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and Former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke (moderated by drug war cheerleader Joseph Califano).

Each participant started with 6 minutes to make their presentation, followed by 2 minutes of rebuttal and then questions from the audience. Today, I’ll just give you the first section (the 6-minute presentations).
What to look for: