Drug WarRant

I realized today that I missed something from the government’s most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Of course, they distributed the results they wanted known widely through press releases — lots of statistics about various changes in drug use patterns, and some play on the fact that there were 19 million current illicit drug users.
However, I had not seen any reports that showed lifetime illicit drug use, but I knew it had to be in the report. Sure enough, in Table C.13 we discover:

That’s right. Over 100 million people have used some illicit drugs in their lifetime and almost that many have used marijuana. Practically 1/2 of the population.
So what does this tell us? (of course these are things that most of us in the drug policy reform field already know)

1. Over 80% of people who have used drugs are not current drug users, let alone abusers (so much for the certain enslavement properties of drugs).
2. Arresting drug users is futile, since you’d have to arrest half of all U.S. citizens.

This inspired my latest design for the Drug WarRant merchandise at CafePress:

Of course, if we actually put all those who have used illegal drugs in jail, it would cost over two trillion dollars a year to do so (just imagine the tax rates for the remaining population!)

In my in-box today from the Drug Policy Alliance:

If you could slash the amount of your tax money being spent on absurd TV ads comparing marijuana smokers to terrorists, would you act right now?

Is the pope catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods? Is the Drug Czar an unethical taxpayer-funded lobbyist?

You have an opportunity today to cut those ads and save taxpayers $50 million a year. Right now Congress is debating how much of your money should be spent on the anti-drug ads next year. The House wants to spend $150 million, but the Senate only wants to spend $100 million. Your Senator, Richard Durbin, is on the committee that will make the final decision.

And I can pretty much count on him doing the right thing, but I’d like to follow up anyway. What do I do?

1) Call Senator Durbin’s office TODAY. Call the Capitol Switchboard for free at 1-800-839-5276 and ask for Senator Richard Durbin. Tell him you strongly oppose wasting taxpayer money to support government advertising campaigns that are ineffective and can be produced privately. Tell his office, “I want Senator Durbin to save taxpayers $50 million by only spending $100 million on the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, part of the Transportation-Treasury appropriation bill. In a time of war and deficit spending he should go with the Senate spending level, not the $150 million the House wants to spend”.

Actually, he should go with the spending level of $0, but I guess you gotta take what you can get.
For more on this, visit the Drug Policy Alliance.
Oh, and by the way, the new anti-marijuana ads produced by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Partnership for a Drug- Free America, will utilize sarcasm. Right.

The effort launches with a pair of 30-second spots. In “Pool,” a toddler carries an inflatable raft to a swimming pool and places it in the water. As she teeters on the edge, a voiceover says: “Just tell her parents you weren’t watching her because you were getting stoned. They’ll understand.”

The other ad, “Pick Up,” shows a group of young boys leaving a baseball field. One sits on the curb, waiting to be picked up, as day turns to dusk. The voiceover says, “Just tell your little brother that you forgot to pick him up because you were getting stoned. He’ll understand.”

I can’t wait. Thankfully they’ll be out in time for Thanksgiving. (via TalkLeft)
What’s that phone number to call my Senator again?

Again, via TalkLeft (as always on top of everything and incredibly prolific), the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that nervousness alone cannot support a vehicle search when police stop the car for a traffic violation. The court invalidated a consent to search that was obtained during the stop.

Noting that innocent people are frequently nervous when confronted by a law enforcement officer — a phenomenon Judge Rosemary Barkett said is shared by lawyers presenting cases to appellate judges Ö the court said more is necessary to change a traffic stop into a drug search.

Via TalkLeft and NORML:

Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds

Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report, released yesterday afternoon. The total is among the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States.

If only we could convince Osama to smoke some pot…

Via Vice Squad, this article by Deroy Murdock at NRO

All seriousness aside, as funnyman Steve Allen often said, federal drug warriors keep embarrassing themselves by enforcing pointless, oppressive policies that merely ignite tax dollars as if with a Zippo lighter. Like every White House since Nixon’s, the Bush administration continues the collective, bipartisan hallucination that Uncle Sam’s heavy hand can crush the desire of millions of Americans to alter their states of consciousness. Fortunately, some judges, states and cities have soured on the costly and cruel war on drugs as it grinds through its 30th futile year.

I decided to open up a store at CafeShops with Drug WarRant T-shirts, mugs, underwear, and more.
Here’s a few of the designs available on Drug WarRant products:

A tribute to the pharmaceutical industry.

My own response to the Drug Czar’s annoying commercials!

OK, I really don’t know who will want to walk around with a picture of a cup of pee on their shirt, but it’s bound to be an attention-getter.
There’s more there, and more will be coming eventually. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Welcome to the folks from Matthew’s Are You Outraged? blog. It’s always great when another blogger opposed to the drug war stops by. You can get a feel for his posts by checking out The evil of Ashcroft and the DEA knows no bounds

Caring is a very long way down the list of the things the DEA does.

Yep.
DRCNet is offering a new instructional
video, “BUSTED: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police
Encounters,” as their new premium gift to members donating at the
$35 level or above. Produced by the Flex Your Rights Foundation
and narrated by retired ACLU executive director Ira Glasser,
BUSTED realistically depicts the pressure and confusion of
common police encounters.

Kate Scannell in the Oakland Tribune:

As a doctor, I am stunned by the intensity of the Bush administration’s obsession with medical marijuana.æ It boggles my mind to think that our government officials are spending so much time and money to obstruct the use of a medication that might actually help cancer patients tolerate their chemotherapy, AIDS patients gain a little weight, glaucoma patients suffer less.

Via TalkLeft: Anyone wishing to write to Tommy Chong may do so through this address:

Thomas Kin Chong
07798-068
Taft CI
UNIT A, #4B
PO Box 7001
1500 Cadet Road
Taft, CA 93268

Clearly at the Odd end:

Cops in Bogota, Colombia, are accustomed to finding drugs stashed on planes bound for the United States, but were surprised to find a cache of cocaine on a jet inbound from Miami.

In USATF announces “Zero Tolerance” anti-doping plan, the organization is looking to step up efforts to stop athlete cheating and the use of performance enhancing drugs. But…
… they’ve proposed a summit of major U.S. sports leagues be hosted by the Drug Czar’s office! Big mistake. Get John Walters involved and you can bet that the sports leagues will be encouraged to stop worrying about steroids and go after the horrible menace of marijuana use in sports. (You think I’m kidding? Let’s wait and see.)
To top it off, they’re looking for ONDCP expertise in another area in which the Drug Czar’s office has demonstrated abject failure.

In addition to expanding the reach and regularity of our anti-drug messaging, we need to seek the help of experts to make sure that we maximize the impact of these opportunities. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP – The Drug Czar) has spent considerable resources to figure out what kind of anti-drug messaging works and we should solicit their assistance in crafting the content of our publications and curricula.

The future of track and field is looking shaky.

That’s right – if you have a new Chrysler Sebring or a number of other new cars, they may have come complete with a supply of hemp.
Of course, hemp is the industrial version of the marijuana plant, and before you start ripping apart the door panels looking for the stash, the hemp is likely to be part of the material of the door panel itself.
For some years, the use of hemp in cars has been developing in a number of ways (there’s even a car that is fueled by hemp).
An article in the Ottawa Citizen — High on Hemp talks about the value of hemp in auto parts:

“The reason they’re looking at natural fibres like hemp and flax is that they’re cost-effective and they perform well,” he says. “Compared to glass fibre, the cost of production is lower but the strength and ratio is roughly comparable so we can get excellent mechanical properties at a much lower price.”

Hemp is typically less than half the price of glass and its light weight is also a benefit. To a smaller extent, manufacturers are drawn to the environmental benefits, a plus that played a much bigger role in Europe where, by 2005, every vehicle part has to be capable of being completely recycled.

Ford specialist Ellen Lee says this is “potentially a billion-dollar industry.” Good news for Canadian farmers, who supply the industrial hemp for the auto industry. It’s illegal to grow it in the U.S.

THE ESTIMATED VALUE OF Canada’s marijuana production-up to $7 billion-exceeds its farm receipts of both cattle ($5.63 billion) and wheat ($1.73 billion), or the $4.3 billion taken in by forestry and logging. Only oil and gas extraction, worth $15.8 billion, is worth more.

CANADA’S LEGAL farm operators have net margins of 5.5%. An economist in Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University figures pot growers have a 72% annual rate of return, after discounting for costs, labor, thefts and arrests.

It’s not a bad series of articles at Forbes, although I felt the depth and extent of reporting was a little thin for a cover story.

• Inside Dope (lead story)
• Breaking the Two-Pound Barrier (sidebar on the growth of the industry that supplies lights and nutrients for pot growers)
• Cash Crop (sidebar of statistics and definitions)
• That’s not Funny, Man (sidebar on Tommy Chong)

The Chong sidebar has a great line:

Chong plans to use his jail time to work on new material. “This is career-enhancing,” he says. “Still, I wish my character was going to jail, instead of me.”

Finally, while we hear how drug sales fund terrorism (although only because of prohibition), it’s interesting to see the importance of this illegal industry in the general economy:

“I know at least a hundred [marijuana growers], 20 years old to 70,” says Robert Smith, who isn’t part of the trade but indirectly profits from it at the furniture store he owns in Grand Forks, B.C., 110 miles north of Spokane, Wash. “Of the money coming through my door, 15% to 20% comes from cannabis–we’d be on welfare without it.”

Yep, today’s my birthday, which means I’m… Well, let’s just say that I’m old enough to remember when we weren’t declaring an all-out war on our citizens, when drug policy meant caring for those who were addicted, before the expansion of the drug war escalated the violence and fed the growth of large criminal enterprises and large criminal government agencies.
For a moment, I considered making a pathetic birthday pitch for contributions to this site or purchases on my wish list. But then I thought about my own wish to contribute more to some important organizations.
So, if you have any desire to recognize my birthday, consider making a contribution of any amount to my birthday designee this year:

DrugSense/MAP

At this page, you can easily make a donation with a credit card or through PayPal, and your donation will be matched dollar for dollar up to $250. You can also direct your contribution to assist any of dozens of other drug policy reform organizations.
Drug Sense/Map provides internet service for much of the drug policy reform community as well as providing the most extensive database of drug related newspaper articles in the world. I rely on this organization constantly for my research.
Help them out, and after you do, if you feel like it, I’d love to hear about it: email
. Thanks.