Drug WarRant

It’s interesting how Mr. Sabet’s “friends” end up being so… passionate.

I’ve been having a fun exchange with “Brian C,” who purports to be merely an interested reader checking out Kevin’s book, and yet feels the need to go to extreme lengths to criticize my review.

Yesterday, the voters in Portland, Maine legalized the possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana for recreational purposes. The measure passed overwhelmingly with 70% of voters in favor.

Note: it doesn’t legalize the sale or growing of marijuana, so it’s only a partial “legalization,” but still, pretty impressive.

Note: The police say they will continue to arrest people for possession based on state laws, and yesterday, Kevin Sabet’s Project SAM set up shop in Portland.

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Meanwhile, in Colorado, 65% of voters approved the new marijuana taxes – a 15% excise tax and a 10% sales tax. While those taxes are significant (and significantly higher than alcohol taxes), and I’m concerned that the state do what it can do encourage legal channels at the beginning rather than discouraging them, still I think that smart producers will still be able to achieve a price point that will satisfy purchasers who would like to buy legally. And the taxes will help the political future of legalization.

Literally.

Traffic Stop Nightmare

This is just too, too much.

Go read it, and come back.

Fortunately, the comments there are pretty much unanimous — the police, the doctors, and the judge involved in this all deserve to be put away.

This is the kind of complete loss of… humanity… that comes from the drug war.

Update: Turns out this same scenario has happened before here. 4 On Your Side reveals another traffic stop nightmare

Again, Leo the K-9 alerts on Young’s seat.
Young is taken to the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, and just like Eckert, he’s subjected to medical procedures including x-rays of his stomach and an anal exam.

Again, police found nothing, and again the procedures were done without consent, and in a county not covered by the search warrant.

Here’s an interesting tidbit:

The doctors from the Gila Regional Medical Center have been turned over to the state licensing board. It’s possible they could lose the ability to practice to medicine.

And then…

And the police officers will be answering to a law enforcement board.

Yeah, we know how those work.

The November 2013 issue of ‘The Nation’ is stuffed full of articles about marijuana and legalization. It also marks that magazine’s official endorsement of marijuana legalization for the first time. Katrina vanden Heuvel explains:

If Clinton, Bush and Obama, ex–pot smokers all, were deemed responsible enough to lead the world’s most powerful nation, largest economy and strongest military (with thousands of nukes), why are we still arresting young men and women—especially young African-Americans and Latinos—for doing what these men did? Why do countless people languish behind bars for nonviolent drug crimes? And why is pot still classified as a dangerous drug?

This is especially astonishing when you consider that almost half of all Americans—myself included—admit to having at least tried pot. As a parent who has had the substance use-and-abuse talks with my 22-year-old daughter, I’ve had a hard time explaining why she can freely purchase cigarettes, which can certainly kill her, but not marijuana, which will surely not.

If you follow the link above, you’ll be able to access a large number of the articles in this edition. However, some of them are only available to subscribers or those who have purchased the issue. If you have a Kindle (or a Kindle app) you can purchase the digital issue for just $1.99.

I’m still working my way through the articles. Overall, I think it’s a pretty good mix.

I do have a little quibble with Carl L. Hart’s article: Pot Reform’s Race Problem. He starts out by pointing out that scientists, and agencies like NIDA, have mostly ignored the racial aspect of the drug war in their studies. True.

But then he goes on to say that the reform community has ignored the race issue as well. He specifically mentions NORML and MPP (and I don’t know what their actual record is) while giving a partial positive nod to DPA (for which he is a board member).

I call on our allies to break their silence on this issue and make racial justice a central part of the fight against pot prohibition.

The way he words it makes it seem that he is claiming that the entire drug policy reform community is silent on this issue (though the wording makes that vague and it may just be me reading that into it). However, my 10+ years of writing about this issue gives me a little different perspective. My recollection is that it has been the mostly white drug policy reform community that has ironically been a leader in promoting awareness about racial disparities in the drug war, even back when many African-American advocacy organizations were still calling for greater drug war enforcement in their communities (fortunately, that has changed in recent years).

Additionally, it’s odd that Mr. Hart fails to mention the great work that has been done in this area for years by both LEAP and the ACLU.

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Feel free to talk about any of the articles in comments.

Ross Douthat has a particularly odious OpEd in the New York Times: Pot and Jackpots

Yes, he’s talking about marijuana and casinos.

But both have been made possible by the same trend in American attitudes: the rise of a live-and-let-live social libertarianism, the weakening influence of both religious conservatism and liberal communitarianism, the growing suspicion of moralism in public policy.

And both, in different ways, illustrate the potential problems facing a culture pervaded by what the late sociologist Robert Bellah called “expressive individualism” and allergic to any restrictions on what individuals choose to do.

So he feels that he needs to express his concerns, and (as a conservative concern troll) the concerns all liberals should have regarding the impact of such a thing as marijuana legalization.

But liberals especially, given their anxieties about inequality, should be attuned to the way that some liberties can grease the skids for exploitation, with a revenue-hungry state partnering with the private sector to profiteer off human weakness.

This is one reason previous societies made distinctions between liberty and license that we have become loath to draw — because what seems like a harmless pleasure to the comfortable can devastate the poor and weak.

Ah, yes, because the poor and the weak have been doing so well under prohibition. It’s just been a walk in the park for them, dodging SWAT teams and drug dealers and having parentless children.

Ross is a conservative trying to get liberals to take his bait — tap into their often reflexive anti-libertarianism, and appeal to their concern for the poor and the weak — but he’s done so in a manner that’s a bit too obvious.

However, there are liberals (and I can think of some who we’ve discussed here) who actually would be quick to take the bait – the arrogant do-gooders who think that the unwashed masses are incapable of making their own decisions, and therefore should have a strong well-off person make those decisions for them. Interestingly, if someone made the exact same argument about women needing men to protect them from themselves, those same liberals would probably be appalled.

The sports world treats marijuana use too harshly by Patrick Hruby at Sports on Earth.

I love seeing drug policy reform articles in media aimed at other interests, because it helps reach new audiences, and certainly the sports crowd is one we’d like to get motivated.

It’s one thing for voters and politicians alike to make and cling to bad laws. That’s kind of what both groups do. It’s another thing entirely for what seems like the whole sports world — the same oft-progressive place that gave us Jackie Robinson standing up to segregation, Billie Jean King battling sexism and Muhammad Ali just saying no to the Vietnam War — to blithely and counterproductively follow suit. […]

Marijuana policy across sports should follow suit. The Houston Texans and Florida Atlantic can’t force the federal government to decriminalize pot. But they could be less uptight within their own organizations. So could leagues and governing bodies. There’s no need to test athletes for weed (most employers don’t); no need to punish them for use (leave that to the actual legal system); no need to play part-time Crockett and Tubbs when even Attorney General Eric Holder admits that federal prosecutors have no plans to go after marijuana smokers in states that permit recreational use. At the very least, the sports world could adopt a don’t ask, don’t tell approach — one that pays lips service to traditional anti-marijuana laws and social mores while recognizing those same laws and mores are rapidly shifting. […]

Once upon a time, racially integrated competition was unthinkable. So were openly gay athletes. Things change. Marijuana already is legally considered medicine in 18 states and the District of Columbia. Three years ago, an ABC News poll found that 8 of 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use. Just last month, a Gallup poll found that 58 percent of the country favors legalization for recreational use as well — the first time ever that a majority of the country has supported legalization, and a 10 percent rise in a year’s time. Again, things change. Sports should, too. The alternative is shortsighted. Behind the curve. Just plain dumb. Enough with the Reefer Madness. The real problem with the Texans’ trio isn’t that they (allegedly) smoked pot; it’s that they did so a decade too soon. For Florida Atlantic’s sake, I hope Pelini robbed a bank.

It’s time for the sports world to stop their own additional misguided war against marijuana.

NoMoreDrugWar Photo Project

During the drug policy reform conference, they took pictures of people posing with their own anti-drug-war message. Nice idea.

Radley Balko’s been tearing up the joint with a new six-part series on Utah, of all things. Worth checking out. How A Botched Drug Raid in Utah Sparked An Unlikely Movement — the first five parts are out.

Science for stoners: What is marijuana ‘abuse?’

Interesting article, pointing out that as we approach legalization, new discussions will be had regarding use and abuse of marijuana and that defining abuse may not be so easy, nor will it necessarily fit in the same way as seemingly natural comparisons (like with alcohol) want it to fit.

‘Joint war” against drugs declared — a coalition of hard-line countries in the war on drugs.

If Gallup Says Most Americans Want to Legalize Marijuana, Gallup Must Be Unreliable, by Jacob Sullum

Writing at The Huffington Post, anti-pot activist Kevin Sabet tries to piss on this parade, but his aim is not so good.

Nice Reuters Column: The militarization of U.S. police forces

So I ended up in a twitter exchange with Peter Hitchens…

It started with a note from Evert Rauwendaal…

@TransformDrugs @DrugWarRant Oh dear. Peter Hitchens in Australia to talk about the morality of drug taking http://t.co/7zg52v0UcA

Peter Hitchens noticed and chimed it.

@EvertRauwendaal @TransformDrugs @DrugWarRant Why’Oh dear’ ? Worried about the open expression of dissenting views , are we?

I tried to answer his question.

.@ClarkeMicah @EvertRauwendaal @TransformDrugs It’s not the expression of moral opinion, but the desire to impose the same on everyone else.

Hitchens replied, attempting to turn the tables…

@DrugWarRant Exactly.The imposition of your selfish moral opinion would endanger the health of millions, to suit a selfish few.

Up is down. Freedom is slavery. Tyranny is liberty.

So to Hitchens, it is free choice (legalization) that is the imposition of a moral opinion on the world. Once you believe that, then you believe that people as a whole are incapable of free choice and must be dealt with like livestock, with some self-appointed farmer (or guardian of morals) to care for them.

You see this delusion in people who have strong convictions that not only are their particular moral views the only correct choice, but that it’s acceptable to use power and violence to make others also “moral.”

Of course, that’s nonsense. Power and violence don’t make morality. They just make power and violence. (And it’s typical that they are uninterested in, or unwilling to believe, any information that shows either the failure of power and violence to achieve the stated moral goals, or the damage from that power and violence.)

There’s always someone with a moral opinion that they want to impose on others. There have been a ton of them out there, between people like Hitchens and the huge variety of religious prohibitions, such as

• No eating pork
• No dancing
• No playing pool
• No working on Saturday (or Sunday)
• No drinking alcohol or using certain other drugs
• No showing your face
• No watching movies
• No premarital sex
• No cooking a goat in its mother’s milk
• No tattoos
• No nudity
• No blasphemy
• No wearing clothing made of more than one kind of cloth
• etc., etc., etc.

Although some of these were grounded in practicality (not getting sick from eating undercooked pork), for any them (or any like them) to be enforced by the state for moral reasons (as opposed to scientifically supported public policy) is absurd in any kind of free society.

Which may be why you so often see advocates of legislated morality turning language on its head, like Hitchens with his tweet to me, or those who perversely demand religious freedom when what they’re really calling for is religious tyranny.

It’s startling to me how often these days tyranny against others is being described as a liberty right. In religious circles it turns up all the time as freedom to practice their religion… by imposing state-sponsored prayer on all children, by objecting to the teaching of science in schools that conflicts with their personal religious beliefs, by requiring that all people follow their own prohibition against making images of their religious leader, etc.

I have no problem if your religion requires you to not look at red hair, but that makes it your responsibility to avoid situations where you might see it, not my responsibility to wear a hat. Making me wear a hat in order to allow you the positive right of living in a red-head-free world is a complete bastardization of the notion of liberty.

Similarly, calling for the right to live in a drug-free world as a moral imperative is just as flawed. And this is why Evert Rauwendaal was right to say “Oh dear” at the notion of Peter Hitchens’ approach to drug policy, which is modeled on Professor Harold Hill’s discussions of pool.