Drug WarRant

This has been discussed a fair amount in comments, but I wanted to address it in a regular post.

This Tuesday, September 10, at 2:30 pm Eastern, there will be a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee: Conflicts between State and Federal Marijuana Laws

Witness List

Panel I

• The Honorable James Cole, Deputy Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC

Panel II

• The Honorable John Urquhart, Sheriff, King County Sheriff’s Office, Seattle, WA
• Jack Finlaw, Chief Legal Counsel, Office of Governor John W. Hickenlooper, Denver, CO
• Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D., Co-founder and Director, Project SAM, Director, Drug Policy Institute, University of Florida, Cambridge, MA

That last name on the list surely provokes a WTF? from a lot of folks. I mean, really. Kevin Sabet? What makes him a relevant witness on the subject of the conflicts between state and federal laws? Nothing. He’s not knowledgeable about the legal or political issues. He’s not an expert on the states involved, and certainly not one on marijuana.

But he’s got a credit of having worked for the ONDCP, is willing to whore himself out whenever marijuana is mentioned (and seems to have unlimited time to do so), and has an opinion that is in relatively short supply these days (that marijuana should remain illegal). He also has the ability to present himself as a sane person, as opposed to a majority of the other prohibitionists out there. I’ve seen Peter Bensinger testify — you expect there to be a nurse handy to change his diaper. Crazies like Betty Sembler and Calvina Faye? Lots of historical baggage. Kevin may be peddling shit, but it’s shit in a suit.

I know there are some who feel that ignoring him is the best approach, but as long as he is interviewed in every mainstream media piece about marijuana, that’s really not an option. Check out this recent piece

Kevin Sabet, who served as an adviser on drug issues to President Obama and former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, said the drug czar could serve as “a powerful conduit for the direction of drug policy.”

He said the czar must make sure the nearly dozen federal agencies that deal with drug issues work in sync, but that the position had clear limits and no drug czar could legalize a drug Congress had banned.

“Even if they wanted to, no one in the executive branch could legalize drugs … because the Controlled Substances Act is the law of the land,” Sabet said.

That last statement is an out-and-out lie. In fact, the CSA was set up so that executive branch agencies were the ones to add or remove drugs from the list. Or maybe Kevin actually is that stupid — after all, he’s not interested in the truth — he’s simply going to use anything in his arsenal to make a point.

Recently, Kevin got a major piece in the Christian Science Monitor: 7 big myths about marijuana and legalization. This is essentially a condensed version of his book: “Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana

Yes. I have read his book. If I’m going to continue criticizing him, I’ve got to know what he’s saying. I’m certainly not suggesting that anyone else do so, however, because it’s not a pleasant experience.

Here are his seven myths in a nutshell;

1. Marijuana is Harmless and Nonaddictive. Complete straw man.

2. Smoked or Eaten Marijuana is Medicine. He takes a diferent approach here, but never actually addressing the so-called myth. He doesn’t even attempt to disprove marijuana’s medicinal qualities when smoked or eaten, but rather focuses on a host of things that have nothing to do with the subject.

3. Countless People are Behind Bars Simply for Smoking Marijuana. He starts off with a straw man, then admits that way too many people are negatively affected by marijuan aarrests, etc., thereby proving the “myth” and then randomly and bizarrely suggests that more people will be arrested after legalization.

4. The Legality of Alcohol and Tobacco Strengthen the Case for Legal Marijuana. This is straw man in the way he presents it. It really is an excuse for him to improperly claim that marijuana is the same as alcohol and tobacco and therefore every bad outcome from either of those two in past history should be expected from any form of marijuana legalization.

5. Legal Marijuana will Solve the Government’s Budgetary Problems Straw man.

6. Portugal and Holland Provide Successful Models of Legalization. This is also a straw man, as legalizers know that neither is a case of true legalization, but rather the fact that they have each followed a significant path of depenalization without serious negative consequences is useful information.

7. Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment are Doomed to Fail – So Why Try?. This one’s a complete mess – a combination of straw man, failing to address the so-called “myth” and making the unfounded assumption that marijuana use is a priori “undesirable.”

In his conclusion, he addresses his third way approach with its “no to legalization” and “no to incarceration” approach. The question we always ask is “What about the non-problematic user who doesn’t need treatment?” This appears to be his answer.

“If carried out correctly, however, arrests can serve two good purposes. A smart arrest policy can both provide a societal stamp of disapproval and provide an opportunity to intervene and stop the progression of use. The current policy of simply arresting and fining marijuana users represents a missed opportunity for drug education and intervention.”

So yes, it would appear that Kevin Sabet, by his own arguments, wants to actually increase law enforcement efforts against marijuana.
Some third way.

Someone at the Baptist Press has got their panties in a bunch. Feds surrender on marijuana policy

WASHINGTON (BP) — The Obama administration has waved the white flag in the war on drugs by deciding not to challenge state laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use, a Southern Baptist public policy expert says. […]

The Obama administration’s ruling is “extremely unsettling,” said Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

“For it to decide to let the states establish their own laws on drug use signals its surrender on the war on drugs,” Duke said of the administration. “All the other states in the union should be concerned about the federal government’s willful disregard of federal drug laws and for the threat it poses to their ability to prevent the rise of drug use in their own states.”

More info on the upcoming hearings with Senator Leahy…

King County sheriff to testify before U.S. Senate

King County Sheriff John Urquhart will appear in Washington, D.C., before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 10, his spokeswoman Sergeant Cindi West said Wednesday. […]

“I supported I-502 last year because, as a former narcotics detective, I can say with full confidence that the war on drugs has been a failure,” said Urquhart. “There has to be a better way. And as far as marijuana is concerned, the citizens of Washington have decided legalization for personal use appears to be that ‘better way.’ Law enforcement needs to respect their decision.” […]

In addition to Urquhart, U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole and Jack Finlaw, chief legal counsel to Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, will appear before the committee.

Careful what you say if you’re in Malta. No possession of drugs reguired for drug possession charges

No illegal drugs were however traced to Stoyanovich, but this did not stop the police from pressing charges of possession, based only on his verbal admission of having previously smoked the substance. […]

“I would say a good 50% of all drug possession cases do not involve drug possession at all but are in fact based only on admissions by the accused,” he told MaltaToday, adding that the police have a standard formula for how to extract such confessions from unwitting suspects.

“The law as it stands is that possession of cannabis is illegal. The legal reasoning behind such possession charges is that an admission of having smoked cannabis implies that one would have had to be in possession of the drug in order to smoke it, and this is considered enough evidence to base a prosecution on.”

Video Jury Nullifcation v. The Drug War NJ Weedman (Ed Forchion) discusses how he did it.

SAM sends a letter to the DOJ: Re: State Laws Legalizing Marijuana

We represent tens of thousands of people working in drug prevention, drug and mental health treatment, medicine, criminal justice reform, and millions of individuals and families in recovery from alcohol and drug dependence.

Right.

And, of course, it’s signed by a Who’s Who of people who profit from marijuana prohibition. Patrick Kennedy, Kevin Sabet, Peter Bensinger, Robert DuPont, Calvina Fay, Howard Meitiner, Steven J. Pasierb, Betty Sembler, and some others in the treatment industry.

Well, no, not really, but it’s fun to actually see articles suggesting that the U.S. should withdraw…

To Make Marijuana Legalization a Reality, This Should be Obama’s Next Step by Jessie Bullock at PolicyMic

Firstly, the U.S. should withdraw from the convention. Withdrawing from the convention is an action recognized by international law, and means that the country no longer wishes to abide by the international guidelines set forth, such as criminalizing the sale or production of marijuana. […]

Secondly, the United States should select which clauses they wish to opt out of. A forward-thinking president, knowing that legalization of marijuana is imminent, might consider opting out of not only the clauses that prohibit the production, sale, and consumption of marijuana, but also opting out of the clauses that require marijuana possession to be punished. Opting out of all clauses that require marijuana possession to be punished means that the United States wouldn’t have to substitute a criminal penalty (i.e. time in jail, on a criminal record) for a civil penalty (i.e. a ticket or civil fine, which is what most individuals receive when caught using marijuana in states that have decriminalized weed).

Of course, that’s true — a forward-thinking President might do such a thing, and it would be great, but I can’t see it ever happening. Considering that the United States heavily dominates international drug policy even to the point of being the world’s drug cop, it seems much more likely that if and when the U.S. reached a point where the single convention was in its way, change would be done by amendment rather than withdrawal. Sure, Sweden and Russia would oppose amendments, but by the time the U.S. was ready to go there, I can’t imagine that they’d have much trouble making the changes.

I do, however, enjoy with some amusement the image of a United States that has exempted itself from the marijuana provisions of the single convention while the rest of the world still follows it. But if withdrawal for this purpose is going to occur, it’s much more likely that it’ll be done by Latin American and European countries.

Oh, and by the way… the opening paragraph of this piece:

Last week, the Department of Justice announced that the federal government will not prosecute marijuana-based offenses in states that have already legalized marijuana. This is a victory for the marijuana legalization movement, but it does not go far enough.

Um, yeah, you might want to go back and look at what the Department of Justice actually said. It wasn’t this.

‘Pot Czar” Mark Kleiman Packs Up

When it hired Kleiman last March, the LCB said it had budgeted an initial $100,000 for the much sought-after consulting work. The state ended up paying much more–$814,000, as of last week, with one payment still pending, Smith tells SW.

Andres Oppenheimer A turning point in the U.S. drug war

“This puts the United States in an awkward position in respect to its drug war export policy,” says John Walsh, a drug expert with the Washington Office on Latin America, a group that supports pot legalization. “The United States is going ahead with a policy that is quite different from what it tells other countries to do.”

It’s a policy decision that is likely to have a big impact in Latin America, where many countries are debating their own drug legalization laws.

Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A’s – NY Times

The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.

Andrea Barthwell Watch — Here she sells her misguided and wrong-headed advice to grieving parents.

Barthwell said families must focus on raising drug-free children, not managing drug use. She advocates families using random drug testing to prevent use.

“It comes to your taking a look at exactly how you set up your household to support a non-drug using norm,” she said, “because you have the most efficacy with your young people, more than any other institution of society, in helping them reach the age of 18 without ever having used tobacco, alcohol or any other drug, based upon the behaviors that you support and allow in your own household.

“If you have a liquor cabinet at home, and you are worrying about whether your child will die of a heroin overdose, pour the liquor down the drain tonight, and don’t bring another bottle home.”

Barthwell lashed out at Gov. Pat Quinn about recent medical marijuana legislation and linked marijuana use with other drugs.

“While I think that heroin is the problem that’s killing your young people, marijuana is the problem that the state … that’s creating an expansion of this epidemic, and I’m so, so terribly ashamed of and angry with our governor for not having had the courage to turn aside the medical marijuana bill.”

The cops depend on drug war money from seizures and drug war funding… prisons, treatment centers, drug testing companies, federal agencies, politicians, and more all profit from prohibition.

So it should be no surprise…

New Study Finds That State Crime Labs Are Paid Per Conviction

Funding crime labs through court-assessed fees creates another channel for bias to enter crime lab analyses. In jurisdictions with this practice the crime lab receives a sum of money for each conviction of a given type. Ray Wickenheiser says, ‘‘Collection of court costs is the only stable source of funding for the Acadiana Crime Lab. $10 is received for each guilty plea or verdict from each speeding ticket, and $50 from each DWI (Driving While Impaired) and drug offense.’’

In Broward County, Florida, ‘‘Monies deposited in the Trust Fund are principally court costs assessed upon conviction of driving or boating under the influence ($50) or selling, manufacturing, delivery, or possession of a controlled substance ($100).’’

So much potential for corruption. So many people benefitting from drug war money. Lost in that river of cash is any sense of justice or human rights.

Prohibitionists depend on a lack of conscious thought and sweeping generalizations. Here’s someone who took the impossible notion of “drug-free” even a step further…

Hudson Summer Fest to showcase positives of being drug free

“We’re trying to show the positive side of not using substances. You can be as cool as the band leader and not use substances.”

sub·stance n.

1. 1. That which has mass and occupies space; matter.
   2. A material of a particular kind or constitution.
2. 1. Essential nature; essence.
   2. Gist; heart.
3. That which is solid and practical in character, quality, or importance: a plan without substance.
4. Density; body: Air has little substance.
5. Material possessions; goods; wealth: a person of substance.

Good luck in your quest to not use substances.

…

The truth, of course, is that the world is filled with an infinite number of substances and we’re using them constantly. And, as far as I can tell, every one is both potentially beneficial and potentially harmful depending on how they are used.

Delightful article from Ryan Grim on the reaction from some police groups… Police Groups Furiously Protest Eric Holder’s Marijuana Policy Announcement

WASHINGTON — A broad coalition of law enforcement officers who have spent the past three decades waging an increasingly militarized drug war that has failed to reduce drug use doesn’t want to give up the fight.

Organizations that include sheriffs, narcotics officers and big-city police chiefs slammed Attorney General Eric Holder in a joint letter Friday, expressing “extreme disappointment” at his announcement that the Department of Justice would allow Colorado and Washington to implement state laws that legalized recreational marijuana for adults. […]

Local law enforcement agencies rely heavily on the drug war for funding. Police departments are often able to keep a large portion of the assets they seize during drug raids, even if charges are never brought. And federal grants for drug war operations make up a sizable portion of local law enforcement funding.

The letter warns that marijuana can cause suicidal thoughts, impairs driving and is a “gateway drug.” The missive does not, however, address the failure of law enforcement generally to reduce drug use, even while tripling the number of people behind bars.

Obama won’t sue Colorado or Washington state over pot laws

Nearly a year after Washington state and Colorado voted to legalize recreational marijuana, the Obama administration announced on Thursday that it won’t sue the states to comply with federal laws, though it reserves the right to in the future.

Update: Reactions To DOJ Marijuana Memo: Dismay, Exuberance, Skepticism

Dismay: Kevin Sabet

Skepticism: Tom Angell

Update 2:

Some of you surely are questioning the sanity of those who are releasing statements of exuberance about this announcement. However, I do understand at least one reason for doing so. Since the administration is playing the “game” of appearing to be reasonable while not actually committing to anything real, a tactic by the other side can be to publicly accept that “appearance” as something real, in order to cement that impression with the public. Thus, when the administration acts in a contrary manner, the public will view the administration as double-dealing once again.

The game doesn’t always work, and I certainly have no need to pursue such things here, but I understand it as a legitimate political tactic.