Drug WarRant

‘Kettle Falls 5’ case tests marijuana laws

Clearly the feds are not done going after people in states where marijuana is legal. Now, I don’t really know the specifics of this case, what all the charges are, or which of them are true.

But it’s this passage in the article that really makes my blood boil:

The five defendants won’t be allowed to argue they were obeying state laws on medical marijuana, or even mention it to the jury, U.S. District Judge Fred Van Sickle ruled last week, citing several precedents.

The continuing use of this federal gag order, still pretending that marijuana doesn’t have a medical use simply because Congress once said so, and preventing defendents from defending themselves with the truth… that is a blight on our justice system.

Five times since 2003, the “Truth in Trials Act” has been introduced in Congress. It would simply allow for an affirmative defense in federal court, allowing defendants to show that what they were doing was in full compliance with state law.

The fact that we have to pass a law to allow defendants to tell the truth in their trials is absurd. The fact that the bill has never progressed beyond being introduced and referred to a subcommittee is unconscionable.

The hosting system I use has gotten new servers, and over the past couple of days, they’ve been migrating DrugWarRant and others to new hardware. Because of this, there may have been a couple of downtimes for the site, and it’s also possible that there may have been a glitch or two in the transition. Let me know if you see any problems.

Ultimately, this should mean a more reliable server in the long run.

…

I’ve also been busy with end of the year activities at work. Our Fine Arts Commencement ceremony, which I help organize, was last night, and it went beautifully. We’re sending some very good young people out into the world.

How bad is marijuana for your health? What recent press coverage gets wrong.

In an otherwise good critique of the media’s coverage of health issues of marijuana, Slate’s Brian Palmer includes this paragraph:

If you are considering smoking pot—or quitting—here is what you need to know. Smoking marijuana once is very unlikely to harm you. It takes at least 15 grams of cannabis to kill a person, and probably much more than that. A healthy person would have to smoke dozens of joints in a single session to risk death from overdose. People who do die from the acute effects of marijuana die in accidents: A recent study suggested that more than 10 percent of drivers killed in car accidents test positive for cannabis.

What’s wrong with this paragraph?

The regulars here should see a couple of things immediately.

I have written to Brian asking him to address these, but haven’t heard back yet.

This is big.

Minnesota Now Requires A Criminal Conviction Before People Can Lose Their Property

In a big win for property rights and due process, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill yesterday to curb an abusive—and little known—police practice called civil forfeiture. Unlike criminal forfeiture, under civil forfeiture someone does not have to be convicted of a crime, or even charged with one, to permanently lose his or her cash, car or home.

The newly signed legislation, SF 874, corrects that injustice. Now the government can only take property if it obtains a criminal conviction or its equivalent, like if a property owner pleads guilty to a crime or becomes an informant. The bill also shifts the burden of proof onto the government, where it rightfully belongs. Previously, if owners wanted to get their property back, they had to prove their property was not the instrument or proceeds of the charged drug crime. In other words, owners had to prove a negative in civil court. Being acquitted of the drug charge in criminal court did not matter to the forfeiture case in civil court.

Let’s hope the idea of this law spreads far beyond Minnesota.

The bill faced stiff opposition from law enforcement

Yeah, no kidding.

Lots of media coverage about the new report out from the London School of Economics. Check out Time to rethink the war on drugs by Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch at CNN, for example.

How bad is it? The London School of Economics this week publishes a report that attempts to quantify some of these consequences of the war on drugs.

The report has been endorsed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists who write, “It is time to end the ‘war on drugs’ and massively redirect resources towards effective evidence-based policies underpinned by rigorous economic analysis. The pursuit of a militarized and enforcement-led global ‘war on drugs’ strategy has produced enormous negative outcomes and collateral damage.”

This report is an opening salvo for a battle that will take place in the U.N.

There’s a reason why these calls are being directed at the United Nations. In 2016, at the request of several Latin American presidents, the U.N. General Assembly will hold a special session to review the functioning of the drug control system. The London School of Economics report is being delivered to a representative of the Guatemalan government – Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina inspired the 2016 session and has said he will use it in negotiations with other governments.

The coverage is good new, and the overall thrust of the report is good news. However, the report itself is a mixed bag.

Probably the worst is the incoherent and bizarre chapter by Jonathan Caulkins, where he admits that the drug war is bad and should be eliminated, but still claims that by pulling completely invented future statistics out of his ass, he can prove economically that there are benefits to keeping prohibition.

But… why should I critique it when Jacob Sullum has already done a thorough job? Can We End the War on Drugs Without Repealing Prohibition?

The main impression left by Caulkins’ discussion is that you can make calculations like this demonstrate anything you want about prohibition, depending on which costs and benefits you decide to include, the way you measure them, and the weights you assign to them.

Very interesting video from a local news program interviewing Dennis Flaherty of the Minnesota Peace and Police Officers Association. This is a group that opposes and testifies against any medical marijuana bill in the state and which the Minnesota Governor has said must approve the law.

Flaherty is an outright liar throughout the segment, claiming gateway effect for marijuana, etc.

Where it got interesting was that the reporter actually asked if enforcing illegal marijuana benefitted the police.

His response?

Absolutely not. That is a myth and a total… actually very irresponsible that anyone would suggest that law enforcement profits out of marijuana busts.

But just a bit later she got him to say…

Any monies, revenues that may be generated through forfeiture are just used to pay the salaries or getting further tools to focus on the problem.

Uh, yeah. That would be profiting. And she nailed him on it.

This is notable in that a local news station didn’t just let the police officers association control the message, but they actually questioned their motivation.

Oh, and by the way… prominently displayed on the desk in front of Flaherty was Kevin Sabet’s SAM manifesto, which Flaherty appeared to be using as a guide to his lies.

Fascinating article in The Japan Times by Jon Mitchell: Cannabis: the fabric of Japan

It’s about Junichi Takayasu – a man who has spent his life working to preserve knowledge of cannabis culture in Japan – a history which dates back to the Jomon Period (10,000-200 B.C.).

It was interesting (and saddening) to read about how that culture was changed after World War II, and the speculations about U.S. motivation.

Following the country’s defeat in 1945, however, the U.S. authorities occupying Japan brought with them American attitudes toward cannabis. Washington had effectively outlawed cannabis in the United States in 1937 and now it moved to ban it in Japan. In July 1948, with the nation still under U.S. occupation, it passed the Cannabis Control Act — the law that remains the basis of anti-cannabis policy in Japan today.

There are a number of different theories as to why the U.S. outlawed cannabis in Japan. Some believe it was based upon a genuine desire to protect Japanese people from the evils of narcotics, while others point out that the U.S. allowed the sale of over-the-counter amphetamines to continue until 1951. Several cannabis experts argue that the ban was instigated by U.S. petrochemical interests in a bid to shut down the Japanese cannabis fiber industry, opening the market to man-made materials such as polyester and nylon.

Takayasu locates the cannabis ban within the wider context of U.S. attempts to reduce the power of the Japanese military.

“In the same way that U.S. authorities discouraged kendo and judo, the 1948 Cannabis Control Act was a way to undermine militarism in Japan,” he says. “The wartime cannabis industry had been so dominated by the military that the Cannabis Control Act was designed to strip away its power.”

Yet another example of how the U.S. has exported its destructive drug war as a means of furthering foreign policy goals.

This is nothing but a silly letter to the editor, but the headline caught my attention: Marijuana legalization is truly indefensible

Wow! Indefensible? Strong stuff.

The letter was nonsense, but I loved this sentence.

Law enforcement has a hard enough time policing drunks, yet alone a plethora of potheads.

Such a delightful phrase. I’m trying to imagine this plethora of potheads roaming the streets and what would be required to “police” them.

If I were the police officer in such a situation, I would ask this gang of peacefully mellow folks to say the phrase “police a plethora of potheads.” I would then consider that I had successfully entertained them, doing a public service, and move on to real police work.

For years, suspicionless drug testing has been used to demonize people, not make workplaces safer. And now, we’ve got some idiots in the cannabis business who are jumping on the drug testing bandwagon. This is really pathetic.

O.penVAPE, the Nation’s Largest Cannabis Brand, Will Test Employees for Dangerous Drug Abuse

O.penVAPE, the largest brand in the cannabis industry, has announced it will begin testing its employees for dangerous drug abuse.

Todd Mitchem, O.PenVAPE’s chief revenue officer and public spokesperson, said the company wants to lead by example and reinforce the important differentiation between cannabis and other scheduled drugs.

“Unlike dangerous drugs, cannabis can be part of a healthy lifestyle that promotes wellness,” Mitchem said. “We always encourage consumers to use cannabis responsibly, and, as such, we have implemented a stringent drug policy for our own employees. O.penVAPE understands that, as the largest brand in the cannabis industry, our view holds weight — and our view is simple: we won’t tolerate dangerous drug use by our employees.” […]

“We don’t want any misconceptions about the goals of our company. We promote wellness and a healthy lifestyle,” Mitchem said. “Dangerous drugs have no place in the workplace, and we maintain the right to drug test any of our employees. But we accept a person’s right to choose cannabis for recreation or medicinal benefit.”

What a stupid move.

Marijuana Majority’s Tom Angell called them on it and got this response:

Totally classless, and totally clueless as to the efforts that got him to a place where he can sell cannabis legally.

This is someone who has no principles whatsoever and is just looking to cash in on the cannabis boom. We need to show him that treating people this way didn’t work when alcohol was the “good” drug, and it isn’t acceptable when cannabis is the “good drug,” either.

Maia Szalavitz has another excellent article, this time in Salon: How NBC and our reactionary media perpetuate the war on drugs

Journalists are no less likely to take drugs than anyone else—indeed, in my admittedly anecdotal experience, they’re morelikely to use. You’d think that this would make us especially skeptical both about federal policies that failed to prevent our own drug-taking and about extreme claims about drug users.

But the press may actually be one of the biggest obstacles to reform. Instead of asking tough questions, reporters tend to simply parrot conventional wisdom—and reinforce the idea that the drug war is the only way, even when drug warriors’ claims contradict the evidence of the writers’ own lives.

In the last month alone, we’ve seen several particularly egregious examples of mindless reporting—including one that is explicit in propping up longtime racist stereotypes about drug users. If we want better care—and, especially, less incarceration—for addicted people, we can’t just sit by while the media stirs up frequent drug panics. If we don’t challenge the stale formula that “crackdowns” are the best response to drug-related harm and that “typical drug addicts” are black, reform will remain marginal, at best.

In a way, it’s kind of like the movies. When the cold war ended, movie makers needed bad guys, and drug dealers were the easy choice, so we saw an explosion of movies involving drug cartels or drug dealers, in order to have unsympathetic characters that the hero could vanquish.

For the media, for decades, drug panic stories and drug war “victories” have been the easy way to get a quick story. The government was willing to do most of the heavy lifting, practically writing it for you, and it fit the age-old truth that scaring the people is the surest way to get them to read your “news.”

Whenever I can, I try to educate/admonish reporters who take that easy way.