Drug WarRant

… in Little Rock on Sunday:

Clark said he doesn’t condone widespread use of marijuana but would consider allowing it for pain relief.æ “We need to look at that and make some allowances one way or another,” the candidate said of so-called medicinal marijuana usage.
Clark also said the only hope of winning the drug war is dealing with demand, and that he is concerned about criminal sentencing policies, saying that American prisons seem to be overflowing with prisoners serving time for relatively minor crimes.

A fairly positive statement from Clark. And from Paul Barton of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, tacking on the phrase “so-called” is inexcusable journalism.

I have to admit that I’ve had a hard time getting very excited or passionate about the California Governor’s recall election. Amused, yes. Involved, no. (other than the fact that just about all the contenders support medical marijuana).
So for me, the news I’ll be watching today is the expected decision from the Ontario Court of Appeals. This ruling could have a dramatic effect on the future developments regarding medical marijuana supply, as well as marijuana decriminalization/legalization plans in Canada.

The decision could effectively recriminalize marijuana or it could confirm that the law does not exist because of deficiencies in the medical program..

I’ll let you know when I hear anything.
Update: I may not be available to post when the decision is released, but you should be able to check yourself at this link. It’s expected that the decision will be posted there around 10:00 AM EDT.
Further Update: The decision has been released. It appears to be a fairly narrowly tailored decision. I’ve only been able to give it a cursory analysis, but here are the basics:

• The court affirmed that there was, in fact, no valid prohibition against marijuana possession between July 9th and the present due to the government’s failure to properly provide a legal means of supply for medical marijuana.
• Due to the present ruling, which makes certain requirements of the government regarding medical marijuana, the prohibition against possession of marijuana for recreational purposes is back in effect (as of today, I believe).
• The government must allow medical marijuana providers (such as compassionate use clubs) to operate (although they may regulate them), including their ability to be compensated and provide marijuana for more than one patient.
• Medical marijuana patients are not required to get a second specialist’s recommendation

So, to recap… Good news for medical marijuana patients, who will not be prosecuted, and who will have options for supply other than Health Canada’s junk. Bad news for recreational users whose 3 month vacation from prosecution is over.
Now we’ll have to see what the legislature decides to do regarding decriminalization.

This is the slogan on one of the ads from Change The Climate, a marijuana policy reform organization. The current repertoire of ads (available at their site), include the slogans

• Enjoy Better Sex! Legalize and Tax Marijuana
• Save our Taxes! Legalize and Tax Marijuana
• Protect our Children! Legalize and Tax Marijuana

They’ve now been expanded to include 10 subway stations in Washington, DC starting today.
The ads are very controversial and have generated some heat.

D.C.æ Council member Jim Graham, chairman of Metro’s Board of Directors,
said, “These ads are intolerable, and we need to review our policies so
that First Amendment considerations are not allowed to compel us to accept
this type of advertising.”

Wow! Upsetting enough to be worth trying an end run around the 1st Amendment!
To be honest, I wasn’t sure at first if I liked the ads, but after Graham’s comment, I like them a whole lot more.
As I think about it, the drug policy reform movement has been operating in a difficult position. The drug czar issues a statement about marijuana that is utterly false, and we’re put in the position of responding with a complex set of true facts and figures. He gets the sound bite, while we are on the defensive.
For example:

Drug Czar: “A recent study of reckless drivers showed that 1 in 3 tested positive for marijuana. Marijuana – it’s more dangerous than we thought.”
Us: “The citation of this study (Brookoff, D.; et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 331:518-522) is extremely misleading for a number of reasons: This study screened out all alcohol impaired drivers before selecting the sample. No information was given as to the percentage of those eliminated from that sample, only that after eliminating alcohol-related reckless driving, there were only 150 subjects who were tested; Information on positive marijuana testing is meaningless as a factor in reckless driving, since marijuana gives positive tests for up to two weeks after use, and the data did not say that any of the drivers were impaired as a result of the use of marijuana…”… Well, you get the idea. People have fallen asleep by the time we’re done, and all they remember the Drug Czar’s false sound bite.

The thing I like about the “Change the Climate” campaign is that drug policy reformers are in the position of giving the sound bite, and the Drug Czar has the harder task of countering. I mean, how does he respond to “Enjoy Better Sex! Legalize Marijuana”? I suppose he could join council member Graham and try to overturn the 1st Amendment.
The ad campaign will infuriate some people and intrigue others. But it will get them talking about marijuana in a different way, and that’s not bad.

Maybe it’s because I’ve only been doing this blog for just over 2 months, but I still get a kick out of milestones and new links/visitors, because it means that more people are reading about the failed Drug War. So bear with me while I brag a little and thank some of my new visitors.
Dave Pollard at How to Save the World has the new stats for last month’s Salon Blogs (an interesting read), which puts Drug WarRant in the top 50 for the first time (debuting on the list at #13). Dave is a great supporter of the Salon blogging community. Drug WarRant also hit the top 100 all time Salon Blogs page views this week.
Recent new guests of Drug WarRant include a number from …för att jag är Fri!, where they are also concerned about “Folk som dött pga kriget mot droger,” plus visitors from a delightfully bizarre range of sites including: Advice Goddess, Strike the Root, The Daily Irrelevant, The Shrubbloggers, ArtMachine, Waterloo Wide Web, Anorakish, freakyjesus, The Memory Hole, Dave’s World, TadSpot, Sparkwood & 21, NeuroAtomik, VJ & Cindy’s Forums, Angry Harry, and 100 Monkeys Typing. Welcome all (I’m sure there’s some I’ve missed).

I get a lot of visitors to Drug WarRant. It can be a bit of a roller coaster, from the over 2,000 on Saturday when Metafilter gave this blog a mention, to 0 yesterday and earlier today when salonblogs’ server was down.
While many of my visitors are already convinced that the drug war is a failure and that radical change is needed, others certainly feel that I’m out of my mind. Some are open to learning more, but have not come to a conclusion as to how drug policy reform would fit within their beliefs, and may not be ready to agree with some conclusions I have made.
In my new Frequently Asked Questions section, I am attempting to address the specific failures of drug war to a wide range of particular philosophical and political interests. I expect that this page will expand over time, and welcome suggestions for additional questions (or answers).
Go there now.

A big hello to Vice Squad — a relatively new blog of “Explorations of public policy concerning alcohol, nicotine, other drugs, prostitution, gambling, pornography, ….” where you’ll find some excellent academic analyses and well thought out reponses to the prohibitionist mentality.
Vice Squad is by Jim Leitzel, who, I discovered, is just a couple of hours down the road from me. I look forward to more of Jim’s work, and his goal of adding more vice policy experts to join in. Check it out.

Via NORML today:
One-Third Of Docs Back Prescription Cannabis, Survey Says (pdf)

Wellington, New Zealand: One out of three New Zealand doctors say they would prescribe medicinal marijuana if it were legal to do so, according to a random survey of 500 doctors conducted by the national Green Party. Among physicians who reported their knowledge of medicinal cannabis as “high,” 42 percent backed prescribing marijuana. “The more knowledge a doctor holds, the more favorable their opinion of medicinal cannabis is,” the survey noted.

Cannabinoids Modulate Epileptic Seizures, Study Says