Drug WarRant

The Economics Behind the US Government’s Unwinnable War on Drugs

Benjamin Powell, in this essential article, has explained the basics of economics and the drug war in plain English. This is a great piece to share with people.

One of the biggest problems with those who support supply-side drug policy is a basic lack of understanding of simple economics. Once you understand the trade-offs that are a necessary result of the laws of economics, then it’s impossible to support the drug war if your goal is really to do what’s best for society.

‘Nobody racially profiles’: Bloomberg on the Council’s two ‘bad’ NYPD bills

“The racial profiling bill is just so unworkable,” he said today. “Nobody racially profiles.” […]

In that case, incidentally, I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little.”

Change in approach to drugs could lead to more arrests at Banks School District

At the request of city law enforcement, the Banks School District is changing its approach toward drugs, […]

Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Hanlon, who is contracted by the city of Banks to patrol the community and schools, announced the change at a Banks City Council meeting on June 11. […]

Although Hanlon said the district always called at some point, Banks schools handled discipline internally. By time he got involved, it was too late to arrest the student. His job was only to seize and destroy the material.

Now, Hanlon wants to be contacted as soon as the school finds drugs.

“I hate coming in on the tail end of stuff,” he said.

Humorless Ohio AG mugs ‘prescription’ coffee cup

Here’s the issue: does a coffee mug that mimics a prescription bottle and says “Prescription Coffee, RX#: VRY-CAF-N8D, Drink one mug by mouth, repeat until awake and alert” make fun of prescription drug abuse?

DeWine thinks so.

“People die from accidental drug overdoses in this state every day, and these products make light of the problem,” DeWine said in a May press release.“We don’t find these products funny at all.” […]

May was when DeWine and 22 other state attorneys general asked the company to pull the Prescription Line of glasses, coasters, mugs and drink holders.

Tweet from Rafael LeMaitre at ONDCP:

Did you know that we’re supporting research to treat cocaine addiction w/ a vaccine? The future of #DrugPolicyReform http://t.co/IVHrKsPCeT

Yingluck proposes drug-free Asean by 2015

BANGKOK, June 26 (Bernama) — Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has announced her government’s policies on anti-narcotics, concrete protection of community dwellers from drug addiction and support the Association of Southeast Asian nations (Asean) to become a world drug-free region by 2015.

Legalizing marijuana is hard. Regulating a pot industry is even harder. by Mike Konczal in the Washington Post.

It’s hard to slog through all the hand-wringing in this article — fears about making the wrong decisions in regulating marijuana, as though legalization involved suspending a massive anvil above the population and you only had one opportunity to get the suspension system correct.

But the fact is, of all the substances or activities that you might have government regulate, marijuana is one of the least scary. It’s also one of the hardest to contain.

Just legalize it. Slap a few regulations to mostly keep it away from kids and to insure that commercially sold marijuana isn’t moldy and isn’t grown in ecologically damaging ways, and see what happens. Wait until the spike from the novelty wears off and then tweak as needed.

But of course that won’t happen. They’re going to argue and argue over what will ultimately be irrelevant: how to use regulation to prevent addiction (hint: that’s not one of the powers of regulation).

Nice editorial in the New York Times: American Mayors – Let Them Smoke Pot

What the Conference of Mayors resolved seems appropriate — and sensitive to the reality that public attitudes toward marijuana are liberalizing rapidly. In 1969, the Pew Research Center found that only 12 percent of Americans favored legalizing the drug. By 2010, that figure was 41 percent. In 2013, it was 52 percent, a majority.

At any rate, Mr. Holder’s dithering helps no one. The status quo is chaotic and untenable. If you live in Denver or Seattle and you are thinking of applying for a license to sell marijuana, you have a right to know whether federal prosecutors will move to seize your property and jail you.

Kudos to Tom Angell and the Marijuana Majority for their tremendous work organizing this wonderful resolution and getting so many people to write their Mayor (I did). It makes for a very strong argument that marijuana should be a local and state issue.

So this showed up today from Amazon. I’m looking forward to reading it, as soon as I get some time. I’d hurry up and review it, but it doesn’t really seem that Radley needs my review – he’s already got rave reviews on the cover from Norm Stamper, Anthony Romero, Arianna Huffington, Ron Paul, and Glenn Greenwald (who calls it a “must-read”).

I’d trust that.

As always…

Link

Chinese authorities have once again commemorated the UN International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking by stepping up their drug enforcement efforts.

Ahead of the UN anti-drug day on Wednesday, Xinhua News Agency reports that six men were executed in China on Tuesday for separate drug-trafficking charges. Another four individuals were given death sentences, the report said.

So why are we doing this again?

Oh, yeah…

“We have to admit that, globally, the demand for drugs has not been substantially reduced and that some challenges exist in the implementation of the drug control system, in the violence generated by trafficking in illicit drugs, in the fast evolving nature of new psychoactive substances, and in those national legislative measures which may result in a violation of human rights.” – Yuri Fedotov

Thought I’d share with you a post I made on Facebook.

…

It would be a mistake to assume that the Voting Rights Act in any way ensured that all African Americans were able to vote. The biggest factor in suppressing minority vote is not even addressed by the Voting Rights Act — felony disenfranchisement.

5.8 million Americans are unable to vote because of our obsession with over-incarceration and the drug war, and it hits minorities hardest by a long shot. 1 in 13 African-Americans nationally are unable to vote. Given current rates of incarceration, three in ten of the next generation of black men can expect to be disenfranchised at some point in their lifetime. In states that disenfranchise ex-offenders, as many as 40% of black men may permanently lose their right to vote (source: Sentencing Project).

Drug war incarceration has been referred to as the “New Jim Crow,” and built right into our drug laws are enforcement incentives that make racist outcomes certain.

Despite the fact that blacks and whites use drugs at roughly the same rate, in our enlightened northern state of Illinois, blacks are 7.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites (see ACLU report released this month). Federally, blacks now make up 82% of crack defendants, up from 79% in 2009. In every aspect of the drug war you find similar results, with African Americans (and Hispanics) bearing a dramatically disproportionate share.

So go ahead and mourn the death of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which provided some useful election oversight in certain states and counties determined 40 years ago. Howl at the injustice of the Justices.

But if you really care about making sure all Americans are enfranchised, then you might be better off working to end this racist drug war.

The DEA just can’t contain itself. I’ve gotten multiple press releases from them about a special press conference today, where they’re going to get to show off their latest big bust. Must be a doozy, because they’re milking it (and teasing it) for all the publicity they can get.

DEA PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY ON MAJOR ENFORCEMENT OPERATION

The DEA and other federal law-enforcement partners will hold a press conference TODAY, Wednesday June 26th, to present the results of a significant law enforcement operation taking place throughout the United States and abroad. Because of the sensitivities and timing of these enforcement actions, details of this operation will not be available until the press conference.

When: Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 at 3 p.m. Eastern time

Please arrive early to allow time to be processed through security, particularly television crews. Only credentialed media may attend.

The World Drug Report for 2013 was released this morning by the UNODC. This is actually a useful report in terms of all the international information it contains, but of course it is also a product of the UNODC, and so any commentary within tends to hew to the standard pro-drug-war rhetoric.

In the preface by Yury Fedotov, I found this paragraph absolutely stunning:

We have to admit that, globally, the demand for drugs has not been substantially reduced and that some challenges exist in the implementation of the drug control system, in the violence generated by trafficking in illicit drugs, in the fast evolving nature of new psychoactive substances, and in those national legislative measures which may result in a violation of human rights. The real issue is not to amend the Conventions, but to implement them according to their underlying spirit.

Read that again and realize the enormity of what he is saying.

In essence, he is admitting that the UNODC’s drug war regime has absolutely failed to accomplish anything, that it is unworkable, that it causes enormous violence, leads to development of unsafe drugs, and results in human rights abuses. However, that doesn’t mean we need to change anything about it — we’ve just got to figure out how to implement it better.

Wow.

For an alternative World Drug Report that deals with the costs of the drug war, go to Count The Costs

As you may have heard by now, the US Conference of Mayors unanimously passed a resolution on Monday urging radical change of federal involvement in marijuana laws. The resolution includes:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors reaffirms its support of fair and effective criminal justice and drug policies and reiterates its previous call for the reclassification of marijuana under federal law; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors recognizes that its members have differing views on how to treat marijuana in their cities, and believes that states and localities should be able to set whatever marijuana policies work best to improve the public safety and health of their communities; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors believes that federal laws, including the Controlled Substance Act, should be amended to explicitly allow states to set their own marijuana policies without federal interference; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that until such time as federal law is changed, the United States Conference of Mayors urges the President of the United States to reexamine the priorities of federal agencies to prevent the expenditure of resources on actions that undermine the duly enacted marijuana laws of states.

Powerful stuff and a pretty strong indictment of the federal government and this administration.

So… what was the ONDCP’s response?

Twitter:

Thank you, @USmayors, for unanimously supporting the Administration’s approach to #DrugPolicyReform. More: http://t.co/QihhsHmQvR #uscm2013

As Dan Riffle noted: “It takes a special brand of cynicism to operate the ONDCP twitter feed.”

Update: It appears that the Mayors also somewhat contradictorily unanimously endorsed the drug czar’s overall drug policy statement. That could be explained by the fact that the administration’s drug policy document is full of good-sounding things that have little to do with actual drug policy.