Drug WarRant

In Meridian, Idaho, Mayor Tammy de Weerd has taken it upon herself to use tax dollars to spread Reefer Madness to her constituents.

By Executive Order, Tammy established the Mayor’s Anti-Drug Coalition (MADC), which received $625,000 from a Drug-Free Community Grant through the federal government.

Tammy doesn’t like marijuana much. Note one of her recent blog posts (on the official city website).

It is clear that Idaho is a target of pro-marijuana organizations; as communities we need to take a stand against this occurring […] In addition, we are asking the State Legislature and Governor to send a Joint Memorial to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder requesting the federal government take appropriate action to enforce federal drug laws in all states and uphold international treaties relating to the control of illegal drugs in the world.

When the time comes, I hope you will stand with us against efforts to legalize marijuana.

Now a Meridian resident notes that the town has been distributing these anti-marijuana leaflets inserted in the water bill!

Front (click on images for larger version):

Inside:

The flyer is full of discredited nonsense, exaggeration, and misdirection. Remember, this is a city government, most likely using federal grant money, to send false information about a political issue in official communications to their citizens. We ought to be outraged.

If only we weren’t so used to being lied to by the government when it comes to the drug war.

… which is really becoming another word for “idiotic.”

Via Hit and Run

Paul said he believes in freedom and wants a “virtuous society” where people practice “self-restraint.” Yet he believes in laws and limits as well. Instead of advocating for legalized drugs, for example, he pushes for reduced penalties for many drug offenses.

“I’m not advocating everyone go out and run around with no clothes on and smoke pot,” [Rand] said. “I’m not a libertarian. I’m a libertarian Republican. I’m a constitutional conservative.”

“He made it very clear that he does not support legalization of drugs like marijuana and that he supports traditional marriage,” [said Brad Sherman of the Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville, Iowa].

You don’t have to advocate it. You just have to stop arresting people for it. (And there are times and places where running around with no clothes on and smoking pot is a perfectly acceptable thing.)

Tourist cannabis cafe ban leads to surge in dealing in the south

The government’s decision to turn the cafes into members’ only clubs in the southern provinces last May led to a sharp rise in street dealing, the paper says. It bases its claim on police and city council figures.

In Maastricht, at the forefront of efforts to reduce drugs tourism, the number of drugs crimes has doubled over the past year while in Roermond they are up three-fold with at least 60 active street dealers, the AD says.

Gee, who could have guessed that would happen?

Generally saner heads prevail…

Officials in Amsterdam and many other towns have already said they will not implement the ban on tourists and will instead take advantage of the legal provision for a ‘tailor-made’ approach to the marijuana trade.

The question has never been about whether people will buy and sell cannabis. The question is only who will be doing it and where. If you care at all about the second question, then you really have no choice but to be in favor of legalization.

There is a ton of nonsense floating around the media recently (a lot of it has been noted in comments here). Some of it is no doubt linked to blowback due to recent gains made by legalizers. But these dinosaurs are having a harder time finding new audiences for their nonsense. Sure, there are a few fossils who agree with them, but they’re becoming extinct.

Is There a Marathon-Marijuana Connection? by Steve Adelman, director of Physician Health Services, Inc., a corporation of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

This idiot is writing for a Medical Society Blog, no less, and yet can do nothing but wild conjecture in five different directions, all of which implicate marijuana, of course.

Numerous acquaintances of Dzhokhar describe the suspected bomber as something of a “stoner.” If he was getting high on a daily or near-daily basis, then he most certainly had THC in his brain at the time of the bombing.

On the other hand, when a chronic marijuana abuser decides to go clean, it can take 6 to 12 weeks for the THC to leave his system. As THC levels drop, chronic users can become anxious and irritable. Perhaps low-grade withdrawal symptoms played a role in irrational decision making.

But if chronic or intermittent pot-smoking remained in the picture until Patriots Day, then perhaps this most profoundly misguided of decisions was influenced by the suspect’s being under the influence. Heavy marijuana users shed IQ points, and don’t think as clearly as they did before they started bathing their brains in THC, which is there around-the-clock because of its ultra-long half-life.

Much of the reporting indicates that Dzhokhar functioned at a higher level in high school than he did in college. If so, marijuana may have played a role in “dumbing him down.” His academics may have suffered, and, in the words of his own uncle, he became, “a loser.” It isn’t easy to tolerate going from being a winner to being a loser. A pot-addled loser, with parents half a world away, might be particularly at risk for coming under the influence of a simplistic, radical ideology, foisted upon him by a domineering older brother.

Britain’s marijuana mafia: Two million users, £6bn worth of trade and 30,000 deaths. A leading author meets the men (and women) feeding the UK’s terrifying addiction

This is Daily Mail at its most outrageous (which is saying something). Of course, most of the problems they talked about were actually problems due to prohibition. But, are you curious about those 30,000 deaths? I was.

Here’s how they come up with it:

Cannabis is far from ‘safe’ despite its reputation. […]
It is also carcinogenic. The British Lung Foundation says smoking three joints a day causes similar damage to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. That would suggest that up to 30,000 people a year contract cannabis-related cancer.

Well, they’re off by about… 30,000.

Just in case you needed more proof than already exists that marijuana smoking does not increase your risks of lung cancer, here’s another study at the Oncology Report that looks at all the other studies, and finds…

Marijuana habit not linked to lung cancer

Regular cannabis smokers are no more likely to develop lung cancer than are people who indulge occasionally.

The finding of no significant increased risk held true whether the smokers imbibed once or twice – or more – each day, and regardless of how many years they had smoked, Dr. Li Rita Zhang reported at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research.

The study included data from six case-control studies conducted from 1999 to 2012 in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, with a subject pool of 2,159 lung cancer cases and 2,985 controls. All of the studies were part of the International Lung Cancer Consortium (ILCCO), an international group of lung cancer researchers with the aim of sharing comparable data from ongoing and recently completed lung cancer studies from different geographical areas and ethnicities.

No surprise here, but it seems to still be news that some folks just refuse to absorb.

I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistics Manual) that is used almost universally for mental health issues and pretty much everything having to do with drug dependence and addiction.

When the controversy over the new DSM-5 was brewing and people were saying that this could significantly affect the number of people with specific mental health issues, that sent up red flags: How could a person’s mental health condition change based on rewriting a manual (unless you were actually stuck on the committee re-writing it, of course)? It started to sound to a layman like me that the entire field of mental health diagnosis (and thus all discussions about potential psychiatric harms of drug use and abuse) were based mostly on semantics.

Thus I was particularly interested in this article by Dr. Harold Kopleicz: The National Institute of Mental Health Declares Independence from the DSM-5

The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” — each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure.

It is no secret that the DSM is a clinical tool more than a scientific one, designed to compensate for the often unknown “etiology” or cause of psychiatric illness. This has been true since we began perceiving mental illnesses as real diseases of the brain. Lacking objective diagnostic tests — for now — the manual creates a set of clinical categories so that doctors are on the same page, and so that research into treatments could be effectively compared.

Dr. Insel’s “abandonment” of the DSM is in fact a symptom of his optimism that we are now or will soon be able to discover the “real,” biological causes of mental illness. The DSM is inconsistent with this science. “We cannot succeed if we use DSM categories,” he writes. “The diagnostic system has to be based on the emerging research data, not on the current symptom-based categories.”

This really helps me put the DSM into perspective. It also points out the fact that we should be wary of statistics showing numbers of people dependent on, or addicted to, various drugs, as these are also based on arbitrary DSM categories, not actual biological science.

Some of you may recall that former Senator Jim Webb had been leading a charge to create a blue-ribbon commission to take a look at our criminal justice system – a much needed and long overdue task.

Well, this week there were some hopeful signs in the House…

… ten House Judiciary Committee members joined together to pass a resolution to form the Over-Criminalization Task Force of 2013 to examine and make recommendations for paring down the federal criminal code, which has expanded rapidly in recent years. The Task Force will conduct hearings and investigations on over-criminalization issues within the Committee on the Judiciary’s jurisdiction, and has the opportunity to issue reports to the Committee on its findings and provide policy reform recommendations. This is the first review of the expansive federal criminal code since a Department of Justice review in the 1980s.

It’s not quite the same as Jim Webb’s commission, but it has a similar apparent intent.

The Drug Policy Alliance also notes that the task force will address mens rea issues. Supposedly all our criminal law is reuired to demonstrate criminal intent, but in fact in recent years, the mens rea requirement has been dramatically watered down (particularly in drug “conspiracy” cases).

Of course, just because there’s a task force doesn’t mean that we’ll end up with positive results. This is Congress, after all. They could decide that we’re over-criminalizing banking fraud and leave the rest as is.

That would be really cool.

They have one in Brazil, and seven former ministers of justice have sent a letter to the Supreme Federal Court.

Rio de Janeiro, April 16th, 2013.

To His Excelency Mr. Gilmar Ferreira Mendes
Minister of the Supreme Federal Court

Subject: Manifest for the unconstitutionality of the penal repression of drug possession for personal consumption.

Your Excelency Mr. Minister

Considering that Brazil is a constitutional State founded on the principles of human dignity and pluralism and that every citizen has the freedom to live as they deem, so long as said freedom does not interfere with that of a third, the criminalization of a behavior that is practiced within the sphere of an individual’s personal privacy and does not harm a third party is not legitimate.

For this, we the subscribers of this document- all having served as State Minister of Justice – manifest our position on the unconstitutionality of the penal repression of drug possession for personal consumption.

The failures of the war on drugs, based on the criminalization of the consumer, reveal the impropriety of the strategy used to this day. Treating drug users as citizens and offering them treatment and support by means of harm reduction, is more adequate than stigmatizing them as a criminals.

Experiences in Portugal, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Italy, Germany, amongst others, have shown that the decriminalization of the use of narcotics is an important step towards rationalizing a policy that combats drug traffickers without transforming the primary victim of the illicit product into the object of penal persecution. Drug users deserve respect and access to dignified treatment, not time behind bars.

In response to the above, the subscribers of this document stand united behind the manifests stated in the case of Extraordinary appeal number 635.659, requesting this Court the recognition of the incompatibility of the crime of drug possession for personal consumption with the present constitutional model, which is based on human dignity, pluralism and the respect for personal privacy and that of the private lives of its citizens.

Tarso Genro
Ministro da Justiça, between 16/03/2007 and 10/02/2010
Mandato do Presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Aloysio Nunes Ferreira Filho
Minister of justice, between 14/11/2001 and 03/04/2002
Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso

José Gregori
Minister of justice, between 14/04/2000 and 14/11/2001
Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Márcio Thomaz Bastos
Minister of justice, between 01/01/2003 and 16/03/2007
Presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Miguel Reale Júnior
Minister of justice, between 03/04/2002 and 10/07/2002
Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso

José Carlos Dias
Minister of justice, between 19/07/1999 and 14/04/2000
Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Nelson Jobim
Minister of justice, between 01/01/1995 and 08/04/1997
Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Impressive.

I wish our founding fathers had had the foresight to set up some kind of system that granted only limited powers to the government and preserved basic human rights.

Good article by Mike Krause, regarding Colorado Senate Bill 250 A Net Reduction in Drug War Stupidity. He details both the good and the bad in the bill.

It’s a shame that’s the best we can hope for from our leaders – a net decrease in stupidity – but that’s better than we’ve had for so many years, where the political impulse has been to double down.

Mike Krause also points out some of the important aspects of the drug war often neglected in political discussion:

Longer sentences for certain classes of crime are fine as a tool of incarceration and separation. But placing drug offenses, including sale and manufacture, in the same sentencing scheme as violent and property crimes is counter-productive, since incarceration does not affect the use or availability of drugs outside of prison. For example, imprison one serial burglar and there is one less burglar committing burglaries. There is not another burglar waiting to take over the newly vacant burglary territory. The same holds true for other predatory criminals. But the imprisonment of one drug dealer (or even an entire drug network) only temporarily disrupts the flow of illegal drugs. As soon as one supplier is gone, another quickly moves in to take his place.

It also consumes the criminal justice system’s most valuable resource; prison beds, distracting prisons from their primary mission of incapacitating violent and predatory criminals.

Ending “extraordinary risk” sentencing enhancements for drug offenses: One of the most irrational theories propping up the failed war on drugs is that illegal drug sales and use are inherently violent and constitute a threat to public safety, this despite the fact that the DOC lists all drug offenses as “non-violent.” Under current law, most manufacturing and sales drug offenses in Colorado are labeled as “extraordinary risk of harm to society” crimes, which automatically increase sentences in Colorado’s presumptive sentencing scheme. But in reality, much of the violence related to illegal drugs is due mostly to drug laws themselves. Violence from disputes between dealers (turf wars) is engendered by prohibition, just as alcohol prohibition caused violence in another era. Robberies and other crimes committed by drug users to support a drug habit are caused in part by the “risk premium” charged by drug dealers as part of their risk of going to prison.

The people are ready for reform. The politicians are cautiously dipping their toes into the waters of slightly less stupid.

Busy time here with the last week of school and finals.

Had an interesting and somewhat frustrating set of discussions dealing with people who seemed to think that attempting to prohibit substance use for college students during their final weekend of school was a practical (or even possible) idea. Clearly, however, harm reduction, reducing binge drinking, and providing safe and supportive environments is the far smarter approach if you really care about the well-being of the students.

I wish marijuana was legal so substitution could be actively encouraged.

It’s not only a police state, it’s an incompetent police state.

So in August, 2011, a member of the Missouri Highway Patrol spots Bob Harte doing something suspicious. He was leaving a store with a small bag of merchandise that he bought from that store. It happened to be a hydroponics store.

Bob Harte didn’t think he was doing anything suspicious. He thought he was doing a father-son project to grow tomatoes and squash.

Seven months later, the Missouri Highway Patrol passes on that “tip” to the Johnson County Sherriff’s Office, which then puts together an investigation spanning several weeks involving early-morning searches of the Harte’s trash, but apparantly not involving any actual… investigation.

Using notoriously unreliable field testing kits and a complete lack of intelligence, they determine that plant matter in the trash is marijuana, and get a warrant to serve a SWAT-style search of the home, terrifying the family.

They found… tomatoes and squash.

Here’s the story

There are several things to take away from this story. One is, of course, the incredible amount of incompetence displayed by law enforcement.

Another is the disconnect involved in expending this much effort on a chance of arresting somebody for something that most Americans think should be legal. Is there no other crime to combat?