Drug WarRant

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.

BuzzFeed has a hilarious/horrifying piece: The 14 Most Ridiculous Things Police Bought With Asset Forfeiture

Just of few of them…

Michael McDougal, then district attorney for Montgomery County, Texas, spent over $400 on tequila, rum, and kegs and $139 on a margarita machine. The DA’s office even won first place at a county fair for best margarita. […]

A sheriff in Virginia was convicted for bribing two police officers with $420 in asset forfeiture proceeds. […]

Sheriff Bill Smith in Camden County, Georgia, spent $90,000 on a Dodge Viper for the county’s Drug Awareness and Resistance Education (DARE) program. […]

[the same] Sheriff Bill Smith spent over $35,000 in forfeiture funds to pay prison inmates, including building a “very nice party house” for the sheriff.

Getting ready to open a show in Chicago Saturday, which has kept me busy and on the road, and the NSA leaks story has been getting a lot of my attention, so I don’t have much today.

Should Pot Be Legal in Barrons.

Whether Congress realizes it or not, a good number of citizens want the problem fixed. The same Pew study that found a majority of people favoring legalization also found that 60% of Americans think the federal government should not enforce its prohibition in states that permit marijuana use. And 72% agreed with the proposition that federal enforcement of marijuana laws is not worth the cost.

Rep. Rohrabacher’s plan is as good a fix as any. It’s straightforward and sensible: The federal government can help enforce antipot laws in states that want them, but it must mind its own business in states that don’t want marijuana to be criminal.

Eventually, the federal government may repeal all of its laws against pot use, pot production, and pot dealing.

They could be replaced by laws no tougher than those that apply to liquor. Just as it was with the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Congress could allow states to continue pot prohibition by local option, or to draft their own regulatory systems.

Given the unwillingness of many in Congress to even talk about marijuana, the day of full repeal is probably far off. But tending to the clumsy conflicts between state and federal governments is something that can and should be addressed right now.

We’ve been talking about Patrick Kennedy. Here’s another article about him.

Recovering drug addict Patrick Kennedy now leads fight against legalizing marijuana

By year’s end, Project SAM expects to be operating in 13 states, said Kevin Sabet, the group’s executive director and a former White House drug policy adviser. It already has affiliates in North Carolina, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Kennedy’s trips will take him to two big pro-marijuana states: In 1996, California became the first of 18 to legalize medical marijuana, and in November Washington joined Colorado as the first to approve marijuana for recreational use. Kennedy will announce new affiliates July 1 in San Diego and July 10 in Seattle. After that, Sabet said, more affiliates will follow in Missouri, New York, Oregon, New Hampshire, Indiana and Maine.

I sure am curious to know where their funding comes from.

Patrick Kennedy and Kevin Sabet sink to a new low in their letter in the New York Times responding to the Times editorial about the racial disparity that exists nationwide in marijuana arrests, which is all out of proportion to how marijuana is used in the population.

Kennedy/Sabet:

Second, legalization would exacerbate, not reduce, racial disparities in both our criminal justice and health care systems.

We can expect the legal marijuana industry to target minorities in the same way the alcohol and tobacco industries do today. There are eight times as many liquor stores in poor communities of color versus upper-class white areas. Additionally, even though they use drugs at roughly the same rate as whites, African-Americans are more likely to need treatment because of reduced access to health care and social supports. Communities of color will bear the brunt of marijuana legalization.

This is what it sounds like they’re saying (are they channeling Anslinger a bit?):

You don’t understand… if we legalize marijuana, those black people won’t be able to resist Big Marijuana and they’ll just go crazy smoking that reefer. And it’ll make them commit crimes and it’ll make them sick with nobody to help them. It’s just the… humane… thing to do — arresting black people. For their own good, you know.

Stay classy, guys.

It certainly seems that a tipping point has been reached regarding marijuana and prohibition, although it’s way too early to relax as the opposition has a lot at stake in the game and will not give up easily.

However, it’s important to remind ourselves that our destructive drug war is damaging to society and people regardless of the drugs being prohibited.

Tony Newman: Beyond Marijuana: Gearing Up For the Battle to Decriminalize All Drugs

But what about the other drugs? My colleagues and I at the Drug Policy Alliance are committed to ensuring the decriminalization of all drug use becomes a political priority.

Criminalization is not only failing to effectively control drug use, it’s a barrier to protecting individual and public health. As long as drug use is a crime, people are going to be afraid to get help.

John Stossel: The War on Drugs is Worse Than NSA Spying

It’s true that some Americans destroy their lives and their families’ lives by using drugs. Others struggle with addiction. But if illegal drugs are as horrible and addictive as we’ve been told, how come the government’s own statistics say millions try those drugs but only a small percentage continue using?

Ninety-five percent of those who have tried what we think of as “hard drugs” report not using the substances in the past month. […]

“The data simply shows that the vast majority of people who use these drugs don’t go on to become addicted,” he said on my show. “In fact, some of these people go on to become president.” […]

In fact, Hart says, the drug war is worse than [alcohol] Prohibition. It costs more, has lasted longer and doesn’t just kill people in the U.S.: From Afghanistan to Colombia, American helicopters try to destroy drug crops. Foreigners gain one more reason to hate Yankees.

Arrogant and ignorant politicians do more harm than the social problems themselves.

The DEA is back to pushing against the bill to legalize hemp farming with a set of talking points, which mostly boils down to, as we’ve said here before, that law enforcement is too stupid to figure out the difference.

Ryan Grim reports: DEA Wages Hemp War Behind The Scenes In House

The Drug Enforcement Administration has kicked its lobbying against legalizing industrial hemp into high gear, hoping to block an amendment in the House that would decriminalize the crop for research purposes.[…]

The Huffington Post has obtained a copy of talking points the DEA is circulating among members of Congress to press them to oppose the amendment — raising the seemingly incongruous specter of the government using its resources to lobby itself.

The talking points, paradoxically, represent a step forward in the debate. In the Senate, hemp advocates were left only to counter vague “law enforcement concerns” that senators told HuffPost were a factor in their willingness to support reform. By laying out those specific reforms, hemp backers will attempt to rebut them point by point.

Broadly, the DEA’s case focuses on the supposed inability to easily distinguish between hemp and its cousin, marijuana. The similarity, the DEA argues, would allow pot growers to shield their plants behind rows of hemp plants. But the DEA appears not to have gotten the talk about the birds and the bees. […]

The DEA also says that there’s already a system in place for growing industrial hemp…

The CSA permits the cultivation of cannabis for industrial purposes, provided the grower has obtained a DEA registration to do so.

Yeah, good luck getting one of those.

Update: Amendment #37 passed the House 225 to 200!

Further update: However, the farm bill itself didn’t pass. Good news is that when it does, better odds that this amendment will be able to ride with it.

By the way, in response to several commenters, my understanding is that this amendment actually bypasses the DEA approval process for university research purposes (someone correct me if I’m wrong).

We haven’t talked much directly here about the ongoing NSA/FISA and related scandals in the news. After all, one could say, it’s not directly about drug policy. And yet, it seems pretty obvious to me which “side” the vast majority of my readers is likely to find themselves.

This article helps to articulate it. NSA scandal separates liberty lovers from poseurs

Most Americans who pay any attention to politics believe the nation’s great chasm is between “Red State” Republicans and “Blue State” Democrats. While the nation’s two major parties have their differences, the real divide is and always has been between those who reflexively trust the authorities and those who recognize that their own government poses the gravest threat to their liberties.

The latest scandal, in which a whistleblower revealed two National Security Agency programs that gather the phone and computer records of Americans in a fishing expedition designed to find links to terrorists, has jump-started this debate. As the Associated Press reported, this has “reinvigorated an odd-couple political alliance of the far left and right. A number of Democratic civil liberties activists, along with libertarian-leaning Republicans, say the government actions are too broad and don’t adequately protect citizens’ privacy.”

And that’s correct. Drug policy reform has a lot less to do with red vs. green than between authoritarians and those who value liberty.

For those who have seen the destruction of the drug war, who could possibly trust the government to be responsible with our communications while operating in total secrecy? Being concerned with these revelations is a no-brainer.

The real disturbing part of the story is the large number of sheep who are willing to give up their freedom for some vaguely imagined undefined benefit, and who strangely trust government officials to not abuse power.

Finally, I’m a huge fan of the incredible journalistic work done by Glenn Greenwald, who has always been more concerned with performing critically important government watchdog functions than propping up some political party. There are a lot of people in power trying hard to tear him down right now. I hope he gets through this unscathed.

Update: See also Diane Goldstein on this topic. The Surveillance State: How The War On Drugs And The War On Terror Go Hand In Hand

Powerful piece by LEAP’s Neill Franklin in the Baltimore Sun: Another needless death in America’s long, failed war on drugs

As long as we continue with the failed drug war and prohibition, the losses will continue to mount on all sides. Families will continue to lose fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, nieces and nephews; some to prison, some to murder and too many to both. Neighborhoods like Reservoir Hill will remain captive to violence and decay, and residents will continue to question what happened to the security and prosperity they once enjoyed as a community.

Great speech by Stephen Lewis at the International Harm Reduction Conference. Starts off slow, but really gets going. He rips into the INCB and the UNODC big-time. Here’s a taste:

“You know what I’d like to do?  I’d like to criminalize the International Narcotics Control Board.  Not to criminalize the use of drugs, but to criminalize the International Narcotics Control Board, and I’d like to put all of them in drug detention centers for a year, and let them understand what they’re doing to so many perfectly innocent people who have a health problem in other parts of the world.

“And then it strikes me that we should go after the members of the Board individually – there’s only a dozen of them […] I think we should go after them by way of OpEds and by way of letters to the editor and by way of press conferences, and just nail these hypocrites to the mast.”

Matthew Cooke: How to End the War on Drugs

Call me crazy but I find it absurd to claim we’re a free country while our government dictates what adults can or can not do in the privacy of our own homes. We’ve accepted a massive blow to a fundamental expression of individual freedom if our own minds and bodies are off-limits to personal exploration. […]

My recommendation would be to allow pharmacies to sell recreational drugs to adults-only, along with plenty of warning information. We regulate and cap the prices at cost — so they’re viewed as cheap and the black-market incentive is eliminated along with the tendency for corruption.

You may disagree with his specific recommendation, but at least it’s a recommendation. It bothers me a bit that we have to turn to Transform in the UK for an actual set of post-drug-war regulatory options. We need a group in the U.S. to put together a version of it (perhaps just adapting Transform’s document) so it can be promoted through our media just how many viable options there are for different drugs other than drug war.

‘That’s Some Pretty Good Weed’: Paul McCartney ‘Halts Concert After Smelling Marijuana From Crowd’

“That’s some pretty good weed I can smell up here,” he said halfway through his set, adding “Whew! What are you doing to me?”

It just so happens that two very good friends of mine were in the front row for the concert… Hmmm….

We’ve been making fun of Patrick Kennedy here, for good reason. This doesn’t help. It’s a well-intentioned-sounding piece unless you know what Patrick is spending most of his time these days doing, in which case the irony is unbearable. And no, Patrick, you are not your uncle.

The New York Times editorial board has come out with a powerful and scathing editorial: Racially Biased Arrests for Pot

Regardless of laws in individual states, federal officials and local police departments need to abandon policies that evaluate officers based on numerical arrest goals, which encourage petty arrests, along with illegal stops that violate the Fourth Amendment.

This also means restructuring a main federal program that finances state and local efforts to enforce drug laws so that petty marijuana arrests are no longer counted as evidence of effective police performance. Beyond that, law enforcement agencies need to put an end to what is obviously a widespread practice of racial profiling.

Interesting little court case in Illinois with the silly title traditional in forfeiture cases: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS v. $280,020 in UNITED STATES CURRENCY. This was one of those cases where police were tipped off that someone bought a one-way bus ticket in cash, searched the luggage, found a bunch of cash, had a drug dog sniff it and dutifully alert, and seized the money. The court ruled that buying a one-way ticket isn’t probable cause, and without the owner’s consent to search, the officers had nothing and must return the money. Good call on the profiling, and good reminder to never consent to a search.