Drug WarRant

Heroic Uruguay deserves a Nobel Peace Price for legalizing cannabis by Simon Jenkins for the Guardian.

This is a beautiful piece worth reading.

The catastrophe of death and anarchy that failed drug suppression has brought to Mexico and to other narco-states makes the west’s obsessive war on terror seem like a footling sideshow. The road out of this darkness is now being charted not in the old world but in the new, whose heroic legislators deserve to be awarded a Nobel peace prize. It is they who have taken on the challenge of fighting the one world war that really matters – the war on the war on drugs. It is significant that the bravest countries are also the smallest. Thank heavens for small states.

This just struck me as odd…

Coalition reminds everyone to ride, drive drug-free

The Coalition for a Drug Free Dale County of SpectraCare Health Systems is joining other national, state and local law enforcement and highway safety officials to remind everyone this holiday season to drive and ride drug-free.

When did this happen? And why?

Has there been an epidemic of stoned people falling out of the back seats of cars?

This new development really complicates things.

What if the police arrest someone for driving impaired? How are they supposed to get him to the police station if people are no longer allowed to “ride” impaired? Do they have to walk him to the station?

Telling people not to drive impaired seems quite responsible, but riding?

One shouldn’t have to take every trip drug-free.

In an absurd OpEd in the Baltimore Sun, Gregory Kline hits us with this old chestnut:

Have we lost the War on Murder as well? If so, should we simply declare our surrender and legalize it? Why is that concept any less absurd than the legalization of drugs because drug use has not stopped?

Sigh.

All right. Once more for those who just can’t seem to get it.

1. If you don’t know the difference between murder and smoking pot, you’re not getting invited to any of my parties.
2. Learning that my neighbor is a pot smoker doesn’t make me concerned. Learning that he’s a murderer?…
3. Here’s the important one. The economics of illicit drugs guarantees that if you take a drug dealer off the street by arresting them, another will take his place. Supply and demand. Taking a murderer off the street doesn’t provide a demand for murderers to replace him. In fact, the economic realities of the black market in drugs is such that aggressive criminalization of drugs actually leads to murder as dealers use violence to protect their profits.
4. Legalization of drugs reduces violence. Legalization of murder does not.

While those of us with any background in drug policy know full well the game that S.A.M. and Kevin Sabet are playing, they’ve still been getting way too much of a free pass in most of the media.

They are, after all, offering up an alternative policy and working to convince people to follow this policy, without ever actually defining it.

All they do is repeat that they wish to avoid the “extremes of incarceration and legalization” without ever defining how you avoid incarcerating without it being legal. And then they say the word “treatment,” as if that explains it all. Which, of course, it doesn’t, since only a small portion of illicit drug users need treatment.

I will personally send $100 to the first mainstream reporter who nails Kevin down with the question: “What would you do with the vast majority of illicit drug users who don’t need treatment?”

So I’m always looking for those little moments when they let their guard down and reveal just a touch more…

Like this one.

Rob Chapman (@robchappy)
12/10/13, 2:34 PM
@julianbuchanan @MikeRiggs @KevinSabet forbes.com/sites/jacobsul… US #Druglawreform : ‘..public health issue not JUST a criminal justice issue’

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Kevin Sabet (@KevinSabet)
12/10/13, 3:39 PM
@robchappy @julianbuchanan @MikeRiggs @jacobsullum Yes, drug use can be a health AND justice issue-When 1 commits a non-drug crime bc of use

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Jacob Sullum (@jacobsullum)
12/10/13, 3:49 PM
@KevinSabet @robchappy @julianbuchanan @MikeRiggs Also when the drug “crime” involves producing or selling prohibited substances, right?

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Kevin Sabet (@KevinSabet)
12/10/13, 4:00 PM
@jacobsullum @robchappy @julianbuchanan @MikeRiggs Yes drug production should remain a crime – but proportional to circumstances.

In other words, incarceration. For growing a plant. Ah, but it should be “proportional to circumstances,” whatever the hell that means. I think that’s code for “kinder, gentler prohibition.”

Then Jacob tries for the gold…

Jacob Sullum (@jacobsullum)
12/10/13, 3:50 PM
@KevinSabet @robchappy @julianbuchanan @MikeRiggs Or when a drug user declines “treatment.”

…

…

 

<crickets>

Immediately following Uruguay’s legalization of cannabis, the International Narcotics Control Board and its president, Raymond Yans, issued this press release.

It’s full of really outrageous statements, and much of it is being picked up in media outlets all over the place, such as this article in U.S. News.

Let’s just look at one statement:

“Smoking cannabis is more carcinogenic than smoking tobacco.”

You can’t get any more blatant of a lie.

Lots of prohibitionists like to bring up carcinogens in cannabis, as a way of inferring a cancer risk without actually saying it. Still a lie because it’s intentional deception, but they seem to think that they can get away with it on technical points.

However, in this instance, the INCB is actually blatantly saying that smoking cannabis is more cancer-causing than smoking tobacco. There’s no study anywhere that supports that.

Still waiting for a media outlet to point that out in their coverage.

So many people act terrified of the notion of some apparently inevitable epidemic of stoned drivers on the road and that we’ll be unable to do anything about it unless we pass zero tolerance per se laws for any amount of metabolites in your system (that’s the ONDCP position).

And yet, as least this Washington State Patrol trooper seems to have figured out how to strictly police the roads without focusing on per se laws.

Hicks said before troopers ask for a blood test, they look at the totality of the circumstances including why they stopped someone, what they saw, heard and smell. Troopers also administer a field sobriety test just like they do with a suspected drunk driver. The test includes a test to see if a driver’s eyes will cross as they move a penlight closer to their nose. If they don’t cross, that could be a symptom of being high on marijuana. After all that, they make a decision on whether a motorist is impaired.

“You may smoke marijuana every day and your tolerance level and what you can function at may be above 5 nanograms,” Hicks said. “If I get you and I run you through everything that we normally do and I don`t see the impairment, then it`s irrelevant to me how much THC is in your blood. You could have 20 nanograms. I have no legal reason to arrest you.’”

So what’s the deal, ONDCP? Do you officially think that all police are incompetent? That they’re unable to perform this simple process of evaluating impairment?

Or will you admit that the policies you’re promoting have nothing to do with road safety or science and are just a back door way to punish marijuana users?

It happened.

Finally, a nation legalizes pot

Pure and simple:

Today, Uruguay became the first nation to make recreational marijuana legal for adults and to regulate its production, distribution and sale.

Update: here’s a nice infographic on how legalization is structured in Uruguay.

Oh, how the media love their drug scares. Recently, everyone was talking about the new drug krokodil, from Russia — some poison concoction that basically melts your flesh. It was the latest thing to hit the streets in the U.S. and was showing up all over the country.

Except… not so much.

Krokodil: This supposed new drug epidemic now seems faker than ever (and it already seemed very, very fake)

Disregard the American Journal of Medicine article, then [which was withdrawn], and we’re left with zero verified cases of krokodil abuse in the United States—some drug epidemic this is.

One of the things that had made me skeptical of the krokodil story was the question as to why people would want to use it, when there were other things available that didn’t, you know, eat your flesh.

The Dispatch piece goes on to explain why it’s unlikely that krokodil will ever catch on here. Krokodil is used in Russia and Eastern Europe because real heroin is scarce in those places, and, to an addict, a flesh-rotting heroin substitute synthesized from codeine and paint thinner is better than no heroin at all. But in the United States, heroin is not hard to find, and drug users here have no reason to resort to such desperate measures. As the Dispatch suggests, the only way that krokodil might become a thing is if the media keeps hyping it, thus leading curious people to try and acquire this famous new drug. Your move, journalists.

When someone running for Congress is advertising in this way, we know that there’s been a sea change in public opinion.

http://youtu.be/4qlqxL-J6-s

I admit to curiosity regarding the ONDCP’s strangely promoted “Drug Policy Reform Conference” that starts in a few minutes.

Join the first-ever ONDCP #DrugPolicyReform Conference at the White House. Monday, 9 AM EST: http://www.whitehouse.gov/live

Apparently, it’ll be continuing until 1 pm EST. I’ll be unable to follow most of the proceedings live, so if you’re able (and willing), let us know in comments what they’re covering. I assume it’ll focus on treatment.

This release should provide a little glimpse into how this was set up. Very little publicity by the ONDCP – most has apparently been through the select organizations it invited.