We had some fun here yesterday with Dennis Kucinich’s hearing, putting Drug Czar Kerlikowske on the spot.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it here
Ethan Nadelmann’s testimony is after the jump.
I’m spending a couple of days doing all-nighters with a four-square marathon to raise money for student scholarships, so I’m counting on you to keep the discussions going.
This is an open thread.
Good morning. I’m Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the nation’s leading organization advocating alternatives to the failed war on drugs. I want to thank the subcommittee for inviting me to testify on ONDCP’s priorities and objectives. It is hard to talk in detail about ONDCP’s overall strategy when their 2010 Strategy is not yet out, but there are certain things we know based on their proposed FY11 Budget Highlights and recent statements and remarks by Director Gil Kerlikowske and others.
I want to highlight four issues — ONDCP’s flawed performance measures, the lop-sided ratio between supply and demand spending in their budget, the lack of innovation in their proposed strategies, and their failure to adequately evaluate drug policies. But first a little context is required.
The predominant role that criminalization and the criminal justice system play in dealing with particular drugs and drug use in this country is unsustainable in both fiscal and human terms. Police made 1.7 million drug arrests in 2008 alone, including 750,000 for nothing more than possession of marijuana for personal use. Those arrested were separated from their loved ones, branded criminals, denied jobs, and in many cases prohibited from voting and accessing public assistance for life.
The United States now ranks first in the world in per capita incarceration rates, with less than 5% of the world’s population but nearly 25% of the world’s prison population. Roughly 500,000 people are behind bars tonight for a drug law violation. That’s ten times the total in 1980, and more than all of western Europe (with a much larger population) incarcerates for all offenses. More than half of federal prisoners are there for drug law violations; relatively few are kingpins and virtually none are queenpins.
Yet, despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars and arresting millions of Americans, illegal drugs remain cheap, potent and widely available throughout the country and the harms associated with them continue to mount. Meanwhile, the war on drugs is creating problems of its own – broken families, racial disparities, and the erosion of civil liberties. Few government policies have failed for so long without any serious effort to question or revise them.
U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) said recently, speaking about our country’s uniquely high incarceration rate, “either we have the most evil people in the world or we are doing something wrong with the way we approach the issue of criminal justice.” He went on to say “the central role of drug policy in filling our nation’s prisons makes clear that our approach to curbing illegal drug use is broken.” Unfortunately, ONDCP seems unwilling to reassess this role in any meaningful way.
Performance Measures
When it comes to performance measures, ONDCP historically has pointed to increases or decreases in the total number of Americans who admit to using an illegal drug within the last year as the most important criteria for judging the success or failure of U.S. drug policy. The agency sets two- and five-year goals based on annual surveys of drug use. It is not evident yet what performance measures ONDCP will lay out in its forthcoming Strategy, but when speaking before the 53rd UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs last month Director Kerlikowske said, “[t]he U.S. Strategy will emphasize and focus on our commitment to reduce U.S. drug consumption.”
Drug use rates tell us surprisingly little, however, about our nation’s progress toward reducing the actual harms associated with drugs. If the number of Americans using illegal drugs decreases, but overdose fatalities, new HIV/AIDS infections, racial disparities and addiction increases, the Drug Policy Alliance would consider that failure. In contrast, if the number of Americans using illegal drugs increases, but overdose fatalities, new HIV/AIDS infections, racial disparities and addiction declines, the Drug Policy Alliance would consider that success. Key performance measurements should focus on the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drugs and our drug policies, not drug use per se.
Simply stated, ups and downs in how many people say they used marijuana or other drugs last year are far less important than ups and downs in drug overdose fatalities, or new HIV and hepatitis C infections, or expenditures on incarceration of non-violent drug offenders.
If this subcommittee advances only one drug-related reform it should be to require ONDCP to set objectives for reducing the harms associated with both drugs and the war on drugs. ONDCP shouldn’t just set short- and long-term goals for reducing drug use; it should set specific goals for reducing fatal overdoses, the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, racial disparities, the number of nonviolent offenders behind bars, and other negative consequences of both drug use and drug control policies.
Ideally, ONDCP will use their 2010 Strategy as an opportunity to set a new bottom line in U.S. drug policy, but if they fail to do so Congress should set it for them. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, and the National Latino Congreso have all called for setting new performance measures in U.S. drug policy that focus on reducing both drug- and drug-war-related problems.
Supply vs. Demand
In terms of the broad strokes of ONDCP’s proposed FY11 drug war budget, it is largely a continuation of the failed drug policies of the last three decades, with most of the money dedicated to ineffective supply-side programs, relatively little going to treatment and prevention, and almost none going to harm reduction. Director Kerlikowske told the Wall Street Journal last year that he doesn’t like to use the term “war on drugs” because “[w]e’re not at war with people in this country.” Yet 64% of their budget – virtually the same as under the Bush Administration – focuses on largely futile interdiction efforts as well as arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating extraordinary numbers of people. Only 36% is earmarked for demand reduction – and even that proportion is inflated because the ONDCP “budget” no longer includes costs such as the $2 billion expended annually to incarcerate people who violate federal drug laws.
The U.S. is never going to significantly reduce the problems associated with drug use and misuse as long as most of the drug war budget is dedicated to supply reduction instead of demand and harm reduction. Drug strategies that seek to interrupt the supply at its source have failed over and over again for cocaine, heroin, marijuana and virtually every drug to which they have been applied – including alcohol during alcohol Prohibition. The global markets in marijuana, coca, and opium products operate essentially the same way that other global commodity markets do: if one source is compromised due to bad weather, rising production costs, or political difficulties, another emerges.
In contrast, experts have known for years that increasing funding for treatment is the most cost-effective way to undermine illicit drug markets and reduce substance misuse. A 1994 RAND study commissioned by the U.S. Army and ONDCP found treatment to be 10 times more effective at reducing drug abuse than drug interdiction, 15 times more effective than domestic law enforcement, and 23 times more effective than trying to eradicate drugs at their source. A 1997 SAMHSA study found that treatment reduces drug selling by 78%, shoplifting by almost 82% and assaults by 78%. More recent studies have reached similar conclusions.
In 2000, voters in California approved the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act – also known as Proposition 36 – which had been drafted and sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance and allied organizations. That initiative requires the state to provide drug treatment, rather than jail, for nonviolent drug possession offenders. It also doubled previous annual state funding for drug treatment. A recent evaluation by UCLA found that California taxpayers saved nearly $2.50 for every dollar invested in the program. Of people who successfully completed their drug treatment, California taxpayers saved nearly $4 for each dollar spent. In all, Proposition 36 is estimated to have saved the state government and localities roughly $2 billion dollars.
The problems with ONDCP’s FY11 proposed drug budget involve more, however, than the bias in spending in favor of supply reduction. Most of the programs being funded are not all that different than those funded by previous administrations, yet the Bush Administration’s assessment of roughly half of federal drug war programs found just one that could be rated moderately effectively, a few were rated adequate, and most were rated ineffective or results not demonstrated. Not one was rated truly effective.
The solution thus involves more than re-balancing the proportion of funds spent on supply vs. demand reduction. Drug education and prevention may be underfunded, but existing expenditures are also poorly spent. The federal government continues to waste tens of millions of dollars each year on D.A.R.E., the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, student drug testing and other scared-based prevention programs repeatedly proven to be ineffective. More funding for treatment is needed but those expenditures will prove most beneficial if they are no longer inappropriately circumscribed by drug war politics and ideology.
Lack of Innovation and Missed Opportunities
Most indications suggest that ONDCP is unlikely to propose any new initiatives that differ in significant ways from those of preceding administrations – although there are some modest steps in the right direction such as requesting funding to train physicians to identify and respond to substance misuse in their patients and better coordinating treatment and prevention services. ONDCP is requesting needed money for the Second Chance Act and other programs designed to reduce recidivism and help offenders reintegrate into society, but the prison door will remain a revolving door as long as police make 1.7 million drugs arrests each year. Reintegration will also be difficult so long as federal and state laws prohibit formerly incarcerated individuals from accessing public housing, student loans, and other public assistance.
Director Kerlikowske has said in several recent speeches that U.S. drug policy should be “evidence-based” and “balanced” but there is little reason to believe that ONDCP’s 2010 Strategy will be either. U.S., foreign and international agencies that focus on preventing HIV/AIDS domestically and internationally routinely rely on harm reduction interventions and employ the language of harm reduction. Deputy ONDCP director Tom McLellan appeared to break new ground in 2009 when he stated that “we support all harm reduction efforts that also reduce drug use.” But that acknowledgement of the important role of harm reduction in drug policy was repudiated last month when Director Kerlikowske declared that “we do not use the phrase ‘harm reduction’ to describe our policies because we believe it creates unnecessary confusion and is too often misused to further policies and ideologies which promote drug use.” Dozens of foreign governments that employ harm reduction language and policies reportedly found the statement foolish, although they welcomed the United States’ belated support of needle exchange and other science-based policies.
Congress’s recent repeal of the ban on federal funding for sterile syringes to reduce HIV represented an important step forward in elevating science over politics. It is a shame that ONDCP appears to have played little to no role in accomplishing that important reform and has yet to articulate a plan for working with states to improve syringe availability to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. Their FY11 Budget Highlight contains no dedicated funding for syringe exchange. This is a missed opportunity to create a continuum of care linking syringe exchange and other harm reduction programs with treatment and rehabilitative programs in ways that blur the boundaries among programs and truly focus on helping people manage or even stop their dependence on illicit drugs.
Director Kerlikowske has spoken eloquently and forcefully in support of reducing fatal drug overdoses from legal and illegal opiates. ONDCP, however, has yet to demonstrate any leadership in advancing the most effective (and cost-effective) means of reducing fatal ODs – increasing access to the overdose antidote, naloxone. Dedicated funding appears to be absent from their Budget Highlight and there is no indication it will be part of their Strategy. Thousands of lives a year could be saved if ONDCP prioritized this intervention.
Fatal drug overdoses increased more than 400 percent between 1980 and 1999 and more than doubled over the last decade. Overdose is now the second leading cause of accidental death (second only to automobile crashes) and the leading cause of accidental death in 16 states and among Americans aged 35 to 54. More Americans died last year from drug overdoses than firearms.
Naloxone is a highly effective opioid antagonist that rapidly reverses an overdose when administered by a peer or medical professional. Participants in overdose prevention programs are trained how to administer naloxone, perform CPR, initiate rescue breathing and put a victim in the recovery position until emergency help arrives. Naloxone distribution programs are commonplace abroad and can also be found in a growing number of U.S. cities including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York City and San Francisco; New Mexico and Massachusetts have statewide programs. Many more would be available if federal funding were available.
ONDCP has also dismissed two other highly successful, evidence-based harm reduction strategies – supervised injection facilities and heroin assistance treatment. Their FY11 budget contains no funding for even trial or research programs on them, notwithstanding abundant evidence that they have succeeded in a diversity of foreign locations.
An estimated 90 supervised injection facilities currently operate in forty cities around the world. To date, 28 methodologically rigorous studies on the impact of supervised injection facilities have been published in leading peer-reviewed medical journals. These studies demonstrate that supervised injection sites are associated with reductions in overdose fatalities, syringe sharing, public injecting, and publicly discarded syringes, increased uptake of drug detoxification and addiction treatment programs, and no increases in drug-related crime or rates of relapse among former drug users.
There is but a single supervised injection facility in North America – Vancouver’s Insite program. Director Kerlikowske visited that program during his tenure as Seattle police chief and wrote a brief but straight-forward memo on it for his command staff. Public health officials in San Francisco and other U.S. cities have considered establishing pilot supervised injection sites in the U.S., but are wary of attempting to proceed in the face of federal opposition. The mixture of arrogance and fear with which ONDCP officials dismiss even the possibility of supporting research in the area is sadly reminiscent of past ONDCP opposition to syringe exchange programs notwithstanding the scientific consensus in their favor. Their opposition provides a powerful reminder that President Obama’s mandate that politics no longer trump science does not extend to federal drug policy.
Evidence in support of heroin assisted treatment is equally strong. These programs enable people addicted to street heroin who have not succeeded in other treatment programs to be prescribed pharmaceutical heroin as part of a broader treatment regimen. Heroin assisted trials have now been conducted in six countries – Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Spain, Germany, and Canada. Denmark recently decided to skip pilot projects and go straight to offering heroin assisted treatment for those who need it because the evidence from elsewhere was so conclusive.
Peer-reviewed studies around the world have concluded that heroin assisted treatment is associated with reductions in crime, overdose fatalities, risky behavior and other problems as well as improvements in physical and mental health, employment and social relations. Cost-benefit studies demonstrate that the relatively high cost of heroin-assisted treatment is more than covered by reductions in criminal justice and health care costs. Some of these results were reported in an evaluation of the Canadian research trial (known as NAOMI – the North American Opiate Medication Initiation) published in the distinguished New England Journal of Medicine. By contrast, few reports can be found in refereed scientific journals demonstrating any significant failures or harmful consequences of heroin assisted treatment.
Professor Peter Reuter at the School of Public Policy and Department of Criminology, University of Maryland, College Park published a report last year that analyzed heroin assisted treatment programs around the world and considered whether Baltimore should establish a pilot project. He concluded:
The potential for gain…is substantial. Even in the aging heroin-addict population, there are many who are heavily involved in crime and return frequently to the criminal justice system. Their continued involvement in street markets imposes a large burden on the community in the form of civil disorder that helps keep investment and jobs out. If heroin maintenance could remove 10 percent of Baltimore’s most troubled heroin addicts from the streets, the result could be substantial reductions in crime and various other problems that greatly trouble the city. That is enough to make a debate on the matter worthwhile.”
The same could well be said of dozens of other U.S. cities where heroin is used illegally by significant numbers of residents. For those who hesitate to allow the legal prescription of heroin, it is worth pointing out that two research trials found that longtime users of heroin could not distinguish it, in controlled double blind studies, from hydromorphone (more commonly known by its trade name, Dilaudid), which is widely used in pain management both here and abroad.
During his speech at the UN Commission on Narcotics Drugs, Director Kerlikowske told representatives from other nations that “We [the U.S. government] support evaluating individual programs and policies on their own merit, not on whether they do or do not fall under any particular ideological label.” Yet ONDCP’s persistent refusal to support even trying what has worked so well in every foreign research trial cannot help but call into question its commitment to science over ideology.Need for Reassessment
Finally, ONDCP’s request for $15.5 billion in drug war expenditures for FY11 includes virtually no allocation for rigorous assessment of the efficacy of U.S. drug policies. This continues a long ONDCP tradition of spending enormous amounts of taxpayer money on demonstrably failed policies without examining alternatives. Even a modest allocation to commission the National Academy of Sciences (or a similarly objective, non-politicized entity) to assess alternative drug policies both here and abroad would represent an important breakthrough in holding U.S. drug policies accountable to more objective evidence-based criteria. So would a requirement that federal agencies involved in the drug war devote a portion of their budgets to evaluating the efficacy and unintended consequences of their policies and programs.
Congress and the Obama administration have broken with the costly and failed drug war strategies of the past in some important ways – by allowing federal funding of syringe exchange to reduce HIV, by allowing state governments greater latitude to regulate the availability of marijuana for medical purposes, by moving forward on reducing racially discriminatory crack/powder mandatory minimum sentences, and by working more diligently to integrate effective drug treatment into ordinary medical care. But the continuing emphasis on interdiction and law enforcement in the federal drug war budget, the persistent preference for typically futile supply reduction initiatives over demand and harm reduction efforts, the refusal to jettison federal programs that show no signs of success, the arrogant rejection of harm reduction initiatives that have proven successful abroad, and the absence of any commitment to rigorous evaluation of current policies and alternative options – all suggest that ONDCP’s plans for the future are far more wedded to the failures of the past than to any new vision for the future.I urge this committee to hold ONDCP and federal drug policy accountable to a new set of criteria that focuses on reductions in the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drugs and drug prohibition.
Ok we got good words, now how bout some action from congress. Action or they can get the hell out of our house.We’ll find someone with stones to do the job.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-469), reauthorized ONDCP through FY 2010. When is the next Reauthorization Act going to be introduced?
This is the most exhaustive treatise on why I fight against the drug war that I personally have ever seen. Thanks Pete for posting this, and thanks to Ethan Nadelmann and the good folks at the DPA for putting this together. I’ve been wanting to compile something like this myself for a while. I’ll be using some of the facts quoted in this testimony in my efforts. Ooh-freakin-Rah!
can I just say something off topic, that the automatic avatars on this site are F’KIN AWESOME! lol
“More Americans died last year from drug overdoses than firearms.”
Why on Earth is the least toxic substance the one that is banned? And why on Earth would you expect Americans to tolerate tyranny? Allow me to boil it down for you, Skippy: To keep Cannabis illegal while tobacco and alcohol are dispensed freely would be *MURDEROUSLY STUPID*.
ANY questions?
http://tinyurl.com/Henningfield-Benowitz
http://tinyurl.com/Tashkin
http://www.google.com/search?q=Top+10+Cannabis+Studies+the+Government+Wished+it+Had+Never+Funded
-Richard Steeb, San Jose California
Every time I see Gil, I always think of Droopy, the dog, from the 50s cartoons. Talk about a spittin’-image!
Am an hour 20 minutes in. Ethan Nadelmann’s testimony is very compelling in writing, but in person he comes across as too shouty and angry. Its unfortunate, but the nature of politics is such that this vastly diminishes the strength of his comments. His recommendation in the text, “If this subcommittee advances only one drug-related reform”, was less forceful in person.
Better second comment on Afganistan. Telling a story (relatively calmly) works much better than dry statistics.
@FD – wouldn’t you be mad if you came up after Kerlikowski’s complete bafflegab? I almsot feel sorry for him, having to lie about pretty much everything in order to protect his empire of deceit and oppression.
What corruption! What outright fraud! What a parasitic, actually a predatory infliction upon the American people. And all to fund a secret police and provide a pretext to funelling money and weapons to authoritarian regimes.
The War on Drugs is a project of the evil empire.
Darryl Issa is a tool.
It would almost seem like Gil was saying “You give us our budget first and then we’ll release our new strategy.” And from the glares and stares of the committee, I think he walked away knowing he’s gonna be working late tonight and a whole bunch of nights. “I’ll see that you get that information” is NOT what he was called to testify about.
If congress had any brains they’d realize that legalization of cannabis could save the entire U.S. economy. The billions wasted by the DEA every year could do it alone.
Ethan Nadlemann is a man in full command of his issue. I thought it was refreshing to see some passion, although I did wonder about it’s effectiveness in this venue. Kusinich did make a point of agreeing with him on how Gil could not define Harm Reduction. hmmm
saw c-span …………what a bunch of drivel…..obamas second term or ron pauls fisrt in 2012 we will see dismantling of the drug war…..oh yea congressman bill foster of illinois is brillant and if he is the future of politics the DEA INCL ONDCP should be very concerned about there future.
I like Mr. Nadelmann,well intentioned,passionate and able,keep up the good work.
well thats my 2 cents.
oh yea congressman issa and the loser from ohio do not have a clue ,they are mental masturbaters dwelling on drugs in prison,they will be out of office because they have no solutions!
Great testimony by Mr. Nadelmann!
However, I think this is also a good example of why focusing on the end of cannabis prohibition is better.
It’s a simple, clean, easily-understood solution that’s patently obvious to anyone with common sense. It couches reforms in terms that most people are comfortable with, instead of dropping h-bombs left and right (heroin).
The best thing for marijuana reform is to get as far away ideologically from the other illegal drugs as possible.
It’s medical marijuana reform that’s led to legalization in CA. It’s 2010 legalization in CA that will lead to end of the rest of the drug war.
A Bit of Bad News
The Hemperor, Jack Herer has Died
http://salem-news.com/articles/april152010/jack_herer_died.php
(SALEM, Ore.) – The sad news has been confirmed. Jack Herer, author of Emperor Wears No Clothes and renowned around the world for hemp activism, has died at 11:17 a.m. today, in Eugene, Oregon.
Thank You, Jack, for ALL you contributed. You’ll be missed.
That is sad news EZ. Love ya Jack, you will be missed.
Requiescat In Pace Jack Herer
‘Hemperor’ Jack Herer Passes Away at 70
Jack Herer, Dies at Age 70 in Eugene
Good grief, DdC. I’m glad you’re ok. I was worried about you.
Ethan did a fantastic job. If the message was too strong, so what.
We’re tired of being jacked around by liars.
As far as Jack … You did your work friend and you’ve gained a significant amount of Good Karma, you will be rewarded.
With that said, Kerli-Boy, VERY Bad Karma.
Good-bye to the Hemperor. So sad to he went when we seem so close to his dream.
My internet went down when Nadelman finished his opening statement,so now I have to watch it again. The sp came back up as the Latin-American woman was finishing up her statement.
Interesting that none of the speakers,tmk,spoke of the importance of the illicit drug market to the world economy.
I am sure that when Kerli gives his written answers to the committee,he will cover that aspect.
After all,the black market is the only cash and carry enterprise left,with no loan papers for bankers to juggle or any part of the trade used as collateral.
“Ethan did a fantastic job. If the message was too strong, so what. We’re tired of being jacked around by liars.”
One thing that has been missing for far too long on our side has been the simple human element of expressing just how much of a godawful effin’ tragedy drug prohibition is.
Those people on Pete’s memorial page aren’t electrons, they were flesh and blood that lived, loved , laughed, cried, dreamed…and died for the stupidest of reasons.
And those are the ones we know of.
Far too much of what we’ve had to do is engage in ‘dueling studies’, in which a comma or a period or a decimal point out of place is treated with as much seriousness as the ancient argument about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin once was.
Cold, flat, tasteless facts are hurled back and forth like dud artillery shells…while real, live people suffer, bleed and die in the trenches. All too often, we let the prohibs steer us away from that human element, giving the impression to the public that this isn’t a life or death struggle, just a bunch of bloodless academics arguing about those previously mentioned angels.
What needs to happen is for the prohibs to be grabbed by the scruff of their rhetorical necks and, just as I was taught how to housebreak a puppy, rub their noses in the horrible human tragedy they’ve made. Ethan did a better job than I could have at restraining from expressing the full-bore, acid-gut, bloody-eyed outrage we all have had to keep inside to prevent our opposition from using anything they could against us.
Angry? We have every freakin’ right to be angry. And the public ought to know why, since they are paying for the maintenance of this insanity.
Totally agree, after the zombie-like, sullen testimony of Droopy Dog (totally correct metaphor!), Ethan’s passion came across as a clear symbol what the REAL issues are in the debate! Not just him but the whole panel just seemed to have more than their own self interests at heart, they were all obviously giving real insight about facts on an issue that they truly care about, where Gil seemed to be just “doing his job” (and not well to boot).
I thought it clearly demonstrated a win. I do understand that in front of some conservative panels this approach would come across as cocky and condescending, but with Kusinich leading the panel I think he has MUCH respect for passion.
And as to Jack Herer, I wish I had had the opportunity to meet with him, as it was partly because of my reading a very early printing of his Emperor that jump-started my renewed activism.
Ave atque vale (“Hail and farewell”, traditional Latin salute for the fallen), Jack. You will be greatly missed. You led the way; now it’s up to us to finish the job…
I just watched the whole thing. Gotta give Kucinich (the committee chair) credit for pressing the czar. He kept asking for specific data to show the effectiveness of our current drug policy, and the czar could not provide a single statistic to show any successes. In fact, he had no justification whatsoever for his proposed new budget (virtually identical to the current one). He could not say which programs, if any, were cost effective or produced results. He even admitted that if we were to eradicate ALL poppies in Afghanistan, that it would have virtually no effect on heroin use in the US. That sure is money well spent. Interestingly, the other panel members (including Ethan Nadelmann) had plenty of statistics to show what a colossal failure our current drug policy is.
Any bets on who the House Committee will listen to? My money’s on the Drug Czar. After all, if something’s not working, you stick with it until it does (or until you run out of money)
What exactly is the purpose of or power held by this committee? Can they lower the ONDCP’s budget? Do they have “strategy approval?” What?
im starting to think that Obama finds more difficult ending the WOD than closing Guantanamo.
The committee is for the approval of ONDCP’s budget.
Before they can approve it,Kerli has to present them with a 3 month late outline of the goals and expected expenditure of the 2011 budget.
If you watch the video closely towards the end,the committee requested that all the panelists make themselves available for further,and there will be many,hearings.
I would hope that NORML,ASA,MPP and,even Pete are preparing papers to be submitted to this committee with information that shows the efficacy or lack of the ONDCP
and it’s continued prohibition of drugs.
Pete could send them his “Drug War Victims” to this committee.as a very good example of social impact by the policies of the ONDCP.
And as the chairman said,any American can send information regarding the harms done by the present policies,this is where we can get more changes in ONDCP policy initiated than by the one state at a time legalization we are having to use because our legislators are too busy protecting their special interest groups to pay attention to what America wants.
I have been waiting on this committee for a long tome.
They are our best and possibly quickest way of getting out of the WOD.
Thank you, Kaptinemo. Many of us feel the same way.
“Ethan did a fantastic job. If the message was too strong, so what. We’re tired of being jacked around by liars.â€
One thing that has been missing for far too long on our side has been the simple human element of expressing just how much of a godawful effin’ tragedy drug prohibition is.
Those people on Pete’s memorial page aren’t electrons, they were flesh and blood that lived, loved , laughed, cried, dreamed…and died for the stupidest of reasons.
And those are the ones we know of.
Far too much of what we’ve had to do is engage in ‘dueling studies’, in which a comma or a period or a decimal point out of place is treated with as much seriousness as the ancient argument about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin once was.
Cold, flat, tasteless facts are hurled back and forth like dud artillery shells…while real, live people suffer, bleed and die in the trenches. All too often, we let the prohibs steer us away from that human element, giving the impression to the public that this isn’t a life or death struggle, just a bunch of bloodless academics arguing about those previously mentioned angels.
What needs to happen is for the prohibs to be grabbed by the scruff of their rhetorical necks and, just as I was taught how to housebreak a puppy, rub their noses in the horrible human tragedy they’ve made. Ethan did a better job than I could have at restraining from expressing the full-bore, acid-gut, bloody-eyed outrage we all have had to keep inside to prevent our opposition from using anything they could against us.
Angry? We have every freakin’ right to be angry. And the public ought to know why, since they are paying for the maintenance of this insanity.
Bizarrely, the Czar didn’t seem prepared in the least. Like he didn’t think it mattered or it wasn’t important. He came asking for a huge amount of public money and couldn’t answer one single question about handling the money.
Also, he forgot to lie as quickly and brazenly as most past czars could, as per his job description, when asked about wiping out poppies in Afghanistan. He was supposed to come back quickly with something like… “If we can save one life from drugs… it will have been worth it all.”
Hail and farewell, Jack Herer. He did a lot of good.
Has anyone run across a listing of what’s going on in the States regarding reform and the upcoming election? I know there are a multitude of bills and propositions out there but can’t find where they’re all listed in one place.
[OT] Pete says he’s doing a ‘four-square marathon’. I hate to sound ignorant, but what the heck is a four-square, and why would anyone want to marathon one?
Whatever it is, hope he’s having a good time.
On Jack Herer. He had a {stroke?}{heart attack} just minutes after completing a presentation onstage at Portland, Oregon’s Hempstalk gathering. This was back in September ’09 (if I recall correctly).
He will be greatly missed.
I had the pleasure of meeting Jack back in the early ’90s when he came to our college talking about “Emperor” – I bought several copies and shared with my friends and family, though my dad is still a neocon… Jack was a true patriot.
“I would hope that NORML, ASA, MPP and,even Pete are preparing papers to be submitted to this committee with information that shows the efficacy or lack of the ONDCP and it’s continued prohibition of drugs.
Contrast this with 10 years ago. A panel convened by arch-prohibs publicly insinuates that drug law reformers called to testify are in the same league with murderers, rapists and pederasts (that’s a fancy name for child molesters) for wanting to change the laws and have an opportunity to make that testimony.
Now compare that with what happened earlier this week. A largely pro-reform panel is the majority. The questions to the reformers are intelligent, not borderline moronic infused with sneering condescension and stippled with self-serving references. The cogent and concise responses are respectfully accepted by the chairman. And the persons put on the spot are the pathetically, woefully unprepared head of the Federal agency that oversees ‘anti-drug’ operations and a DrugWar economic parasite.
Clearly, the adults are finally in charge. About frakkin’ time…
Our side lost one. Their side lost one.
Los Angeles, California (CNN) — Daryl Gates, former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, has died at age 83 after a battle with bladder cancer, Los Angeles police said.
EZ – truly yin and yang – I remember Gates saying “casual drug users should be taken out and shot”.
Kaptinemo said, “Contrast this with 10 years ago. A panel convened by arch-prohibs publicly insinuates that drug law reformers called to testify are in the same league with murderers, rapists and pederasts (that’s a fancy name for child molesters) for wanting to change the laws and have an opportunity to make that testimony.”
That was Souder in particular, wasn’t it? One of those times you realize you have hackles… and they can be raised.
Speaking of Souder. Why isn’t he throwing his two cents worth in? Or has he and no one picked it up? He’s got to be up to something. Grassley. Sennsenbrenner, Souder. They have to be working furiously, somewhere, on a cunning plan to keep jack booted prohibition in high gear.
I hope you’re right, Claygooding.
“I have been waiting on this committee for a long tome.
They are our best and possibly quickest way of getting out of the WOD.”
Doors that have been held secure against sanity, for so long now, seem to be opening all over the place.
McLellan Resigning as ONDCP Deputy Director
Hope, yes, I’m sure it was Mad Markie Souder.
I am attempting to locate the transcript of that particular Congressional testimony, and haven’t had much luck, but I do recall it from memory of watching it on C-SPAN, and the smug self-righteousness of the prohibs really rankled, especially when one of them (Souder, I believe) lumped Rob Kampia and other drug law reformers with the above-mentioned murderers, rapists and child molesters. It was a variation of the usual theme of equating drug use with those perfidies, and thus the Congresscritters shouldn’t have to parley with reformers, as they didn’t have to ask the advice of murderers on laws against murder.
Given the bald-faced nature of the insult, said Congresscritters were lucky not to have been hit with lawsuits for character defamation. Given a day or two, I may find the transcript.
Wow that McLellan resignation is pretty big. Wonder if it was for similar reasons to the David Nutt sacking in the UK. Perhaps his goals of more science-based drug policies were not going to happen and he just gave up.
And WRT McLellan’s resignation, all I can think of are rodentia evacuating submerging maritime transports.
Why leave such a cushy feather-bed as being the Number 2 of a do-nothing-and-get-paid-a-six-figure-salary-a-year-post? As my Da’s generation used to put it very cynically, ‘it’s nice work, if you can get it’.
Methinks the SS ONDCP is seen by those aboard it to be heading at flank speed towards a very sharp coral reef. Sickening crunch sound of keel shattering and hull being breached to follow shortly…I hope.
Since Gates is the origin of DARE, one has to ask the question: How many kids were introduced to drugs via DARE presentations by LEOs that would have probably never encountered drugs in their lives?
Talk about someone needing to be taken out and shot?!!
When watching Kucinich’s facial expressions, it appeared to me, that his eyes lit up when Nadelmann was speaking. Maybe I’m just projecting what I want to see but it did strike me as that way.
Kerli-boy hasn’t got a leg to stand on and the second of “many” hearings will provide further enlightenment in how to beat these chumps at their own game.
The drugged driving that Kerli-boy brought up in the beginning of his ill prepared testimony was debunked by someone recently, can’t remember where I read it.
The debunking of his driving under the influence of drugs claim is done by our highway statistics. The death rates are down on our nations highways. How can drugged driving be blamed for increased danger when statistics indicate that we are driving safer? Maybe he should try to get more people to drive stoned on marijuana,the death rates on our highways would probably be the lowest in history.
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Just had to scroll down this page to find out, and remember, where I read the drugged driving thing.
http://bit.ly/b1A2oT
April 9th, 2010 by Pete
ONDCP Information Quality Update
Politifact also caught the drug czar playing loose with the drugged driving statistics.
Here’s some sounds to get you fired up for the weekend.
http://bit.ly/dAMqic
http://bit.ly/9xXpIM
http://bit.ly/aw9RAs
And, if you remember these from the theater, consider yourself “old.” LOL Have a great weekend, Team!
I hate to piss on the parade but what will most likely result is we’ll just get a new czar who can better “explain the benefits and strategies of the ONDCP”.