Drug WarRant

I’ve long been disappointed that there hasn’t been more public interest shown from gun rights activists in ending the war on drugs. The war on drugs has affected them in two significant ways: as a back door method of restricting gun ownership, and as means of fueling gun violence leading to public backlash on gun ownership.

So I was pleased to see this good OpEd in AmmoLand: Gun Violence and the ‘War On Drugs’

What’s often deliberately ignored is the violence resulting from, or accompanying, “the war on drugs.” The real problem occurs on the mean streets of our inner cities […]

It’s rare to find a rational discussion relating to the amount of violence caused by the drug war, and the illicit use of drugs. We may not like to admit it, but it’s one war we cannot win. We know that legalizing drugs may not be the best public policy, but what damage has “the war on drugs” done to global and local society?

We need to have an open, objective dialogue about this unwinnable war, and discuss public policy options and implications.

Here’s a start. Dr. Jeffrey Miron, an economist and Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard University, explains that violence occurs when prohibitions against goods or services are enforced because there is an increased “inability of drug market participants to settle disputes using the official dispute resolution system.” This occurs globally, and is the cause of a great deal of global violence. However, this fact is frequently ignored and replaced by increasingly hysterical calls for international weapons controls. […]

We need to get the truth out about the roots of violent behavior. And part of that truth is that the global drug policy is a large part of the problem.

This is good to see.

In fact, if you look at almost any aspect of society – any argument for political activism – you can find a good argument for ending the war on drugs. Perhaps as we continue to help move the drug policy discussion out of the “whisper” phase and into the sunlight, we’ll find many allies out there willing to publicly help promote reform.

Washington State Selects Botec Analysis Corp. as Finalist for Marijuana Consulting Contract

The Washington State Liquor Control Board will announce tomorrow that it has tentatively selected Botec Analysis Corp. to provide cannabis-related consulting services tied to the emerging recreational marijuana industry, according to information obtained by MMJ Business Daily. […]

Little public information is available about Botec, at least on the Internet. A Botec Analysis Corporation based in Massachusetts has conducted studies on various issues – including substance abuse treatment and domestic violence – for several states. Mark Kleiman – a professor of public policy at the University of California in Los Angeles and co-author of the 2012 book “Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know” – reportedly heads up Botec, according to an author profile on Amazon.com.

More here

Back from an exciting trip to New York. Saw some great shows and ate some amazing food. As usual, walked all over the city, and the weather mostly cooperated.

A lot has been going on, and hopefully you’ve been following the comments where our team has been hard at work on the couch.

Here are a few random notes…

Some determined master thieves, caught in the act, appear to have given up trying to steal this particular item….

Feds Give Up Trying to Seize a Motel Based on Drug Offenses by a Few Guests by Jacob Sullum

Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston said it will not appeal a ruling that blocked the federal government’s attempt to seize and sell a family-owned motel in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, based on drug offenses committed by a tiny fraction of the people who stayed there. The government conceded that the owner, Russell Caswell, did not participate in those crimes and was not aware of them at the time, but it argued that he was “willfully blind” to them.

I’m sure they’re already scoping out other lucrative targets.

U.N. development chief slams War on Drugs

Even some U.N. officials are unhappy with what the U.N. is doing in drug policy.

Helen Clark, the head of the United Nations Development Program, has publicly slammed global strategies to combat drugs, claiming there is increasing evidence that “the war on drugs” has failed. The former prime minister of New Zealand urged Latin American leaders to develop new policies to tackle drugs, which she says should be addressed as a public health problem rather than criminalized. “I’ve been a health minister in my past and there’s no doubt that the health position would be to treat the issue of drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than a criminalized issue,” she told Reuters.

A View of the Drug War: Stop Blaming Police and Start Emphasizing Personal Responsibility

Sergeant John Bruhns wants us to stop blaming police for the problems of the drug war. Well, we don’t blame all police — after all, we’re big fans of LEAP, and we know that not all police are alike. So what’s his argument?

An anti-law enforcement sentiment currently exists in American society, particularly among those who are disconnected from the realities of inner-city areas that are plagued by crime. In these circles, I often hear law enforcement personnel blamed for the “prison industrial complex, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs.” […]

Like all wars, the drug war was started by policy makers. Law enforcement personnel had no say in when the war began, nor will they have a say in when it ends.

Oh really? We’ve heard that line before. How come every time I’ve been at a legislative hearing about drug policy, there have been police officers in uniform there to testify in favor of keeping the drug war as it is? Law enforcement holds an incredible amount of power over legislators, in terms of campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and public visibility. Why do you think the Byrne grants keep getting re-funded despite multiple administrations admitting they do no good? Bizarrely, we even see police officially commenting to the media on whether marijuana is an efficacious medicine.

Here’s the news that’s giving everyone a kick… Steve Katz Arrested: New York State Assemblyman Charged With Marijuana Possession

A New York State assemblyman who has opposed medical marijuana legislation was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of marijuana after he was pulled over for speeding this week.

Oops.

As Lee Rosenberg tweeted:

Anti-pot politicians getting busted for weed is going to be the new anti-gay politicians busted with gay escorts.

I don’t understand. Here’s an email I received (and I’ve received several like it over the years I’ve been doing this blog):

Subject: need help with dope dealing trashy neighbors

my new neighbors are obviously selling drugs, have parties and throw
trash into my yard.
I am happy to give any info i can including address, vehicle
descriptions, etc. thanks for any help

Why are you telling me? I don’t have a trash pickup service. Are your new neighbors a CVS store? About the parties – is it that they’re too loud, or you’re not invited? Have you asked them not to throw trash in your yard? I really don’t know how to advise you. Excuse me, but I need to go write Radley Balko and ask him what to do with the dog poo in my alley.

That’s the premise behind this excellent article in Alternet by Bill Fried: What Would It Be Like If Heroin Were Legal

It’s often been noted here that calling the drug war a failure is only true depending on what you consider to be the true goals of the drug war.

Kevin Carson does a nice riff on that with Fifteen Benefits of the War on Drugs

1. It has surrounded the Fourth Amendment’s “search and seizure” restrictions, and similar provisions in state constitutions, with so many “good faith,” “reasonable suspicion” and “reasonable expectation of privacy” loopholes as to turn them into toilet paper for all intents and purposes. […]

5. As a result of the way DARE interacts with other things like Zero Tolerance policies and warrantless inspections by drug-sniffing dogs, the Drug War has conditioned children to believe “the policeman is their friend,” and to view snitching as admirable behavior, and to instinctively look for an authority figure to report to the second they see anything the least bit eccentric or anomalous.

6. Via civil forfeiture, it has enabled the state to create a lucrative racket in property stolen from citizens never charged, let alone convicted, of a crime. Best of all, even possessing large amounts of cash, while technically not a crime, can be treated as evidence of intent to commit a crime — saving the state the trouble of having to convert all that stolen tangible property into liquid form.

7. It has enabled local police forces to undergo military training, create paramilitary SWAT teams that operate just like the U.S. military in an occupied enemy country, get billions of dollars worth of surplus military weaponry, and wear really cool black uniforms just like the SS. […]

A very powerful OpEd in the New York Times by Fernando Henrique Cardoso (former President of Brazil) and Ruth Dreifuss (former President of Switzerland): An Ugly Truth in the War on Drugs

This week, representatives from many nations will gather at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna to determine the appropriate course of the international response to illicit drugs. Delegates will debate multiple resolutions while ignoring a truth that goes to the core of current drug policy: human rights abuses in the war on drugs are widespread and systematic.

Consider these numbers: Hundreds of thousands of people locked in detention centers and subject to violent punishments. Millions imprisoned. Hundreds hanged, shot or beheaded. Tens of thousands killed by government forces and non-state actors. Thousands beaten and abused to extract information, and abused in government or private “treatment” centers. Millions denied life-saving medicines. These are alarming figures, but campaigns to address them have been slow and drug control has received little attention from the mainstream human rights movement. […]

The U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board has refused to condemn torture or “any atrocity” carried out in the name of drug control, claiming it was not its mandate to do so. This is both shocking and contradictory: oversight of international drug control treaties is the control board’s very mission.

Late last year, despite the evidence before it, the U.N. Committee against Torture failed to condemn the widespread abuse of people who use drugs in the Russian Federation. […]

You can’t have a drug war without human rights abuses, and the harder you prosecute it, the greater those abuses. This is a painful truth often carefully ignored by those who have chosen the drug war as their path.

Good to see this getting more visibility.

I don’t expect much from the upcoming CND sessions – the same posturing from U.S., Sweden, Russia, etc. – but it’s getting harder for them to pretend that they represent the will of the world (or what’s best for it).

…

Just hours ago, the sessions began with ONDCP’s Yuri Fedotov calling Iran “UN’s number one partner in the war on drugs.”

I’m heading out early Saturday morning for New York with a group of students for a week-long theatre trip. We’ll be seeing Matilda, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Kinky Boots, and Caveman.

I’ll check in when I can, and bring back some cheesecake from Junior’s (and maybe some pastrami from Carnegie Deli).

I’m not always aware of the various state-based or local-based reform groups, and sometimes forget that there are dedicated people working hard on changing state and local laws all the time whose efforts may not get national attention.

I just learned of Missouri’s Show-Me Cannabis Regulation group even though it looks like they’ve been around for a couple of years and I know some of the people involved.

What caught my attention was this news release:

On Thursday, Show-Me Cannabis Regulation announced that it has contracted with Gary Wiegert to lobby for the reform of Missouri’s marijuana laws in Jefferson City. Wiegert is a sergeant with the Saint Louis Police Department and has served on the city’s police force for over 32 years. He also represented his fellow officers as president of the Saint Louis Police Officer’s Association from 1999 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2009.

In his political life, Wiegert has long advocated for a more limited government. He hosted WGNU radio shows Bad Boys from 1999 to 2006 and Constitutionally Correct in 2012. Most recently, Wiegert has put his conservative principles into action as a lobbyist for the Saint Louis Tea Party.

“Our marijuana policies are the perfect example of a wasteful, big government program,” Wiegert said. “Arresting people for marijuana is a waste of my time as a police officer, a waste of taxpayer dollars, and has done nothing to reduce the use of marijuana.”

“We are very excited to have Gary on the team,” said Show-Me Cannabis Regulation Executive Director John Payne. “He can speak firsthand to the failure of cannabis prohibition, demonstrates the strong bipartisan appeal of the issue, and will be taken seriously by the legislature.”

Fascinating. An active-duty police officer and tea-party enthusiast as a paid lobbyist for marijuana legelizationn. I like it.

So today, Attorney General Holder is supposed to be grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee (going on right now). There’s a general sense that he will address the administration’s “response” to marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado.

There’s also a general sense that the timing of a couple of other things were not coincidental.

1. A ridiculous letter from a bunch of former DEA heads, Drug Czars and other drug warriors, released through an organization with a history of torturing children.
2. The release of a report from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) — a completely unaccountable organization through the United Nations that supports the killing and torturing of innocents through encouraging the ratcheting up of the drug war internationally.

Both of these destructive groups want to save the United States and the world from someone eating a pot brownie in Denver, and are hoping the Senate will push Holder into kicking some heads in.

Jacob Sullum does a great job of covering this so I don’t really have to: Totally Disinterested Drug Warriors Demand That Holder Stop Marijuana Legalization Before It’s Too Late

However, I thought some of you might be interested in reading the section of the intro from INCB president Raymond Yans:

We note with concern, however, that in this debate, some declarations and initiatives have included proposals for the legalization of the possession of drugs for non-medical and non-scientific use, that is, for “recreational” use, that would allow the cultivation and consumption of cannabis for non-medical purposes. Any such initiatives, if implemented, would violate the international drug control conventions and could undermine the noble objectives of the entire drug control system, which are to ensure the availability of drugs for medical purposes while preventing their abuse. Proponents of such initiatives ignore the commitment that all Governments have made to promote the health and well-being of their communities, and such initiatives run counter to the growing body of scientific evidence documenting the harm associated with drug abuse, including occasional
use, particularly among young people during their formative years.

Furthermore, such initiatives would create a false sense of security and would send a false message to the public, in particular children, regarding the health impact of abuse of drugs. Some have argued that these proposals would eliminate the illicit markets and organized crime associated with drugs of abuse. Yet, even if such initiatives were implemented, organized criminal groups would get even more deeply involved, for instance by creating a black market for the illicit supply of newly legalized drugs to young people.

I really love the phrase “undermine the noble objectives of the entire drug control system.” Wow. That takes some chutzpah.

And the notion that legalization would create a black market for the illicit supply of drugs to young people… Isn’t that what we have now?

I’m really kind of surprised that Forbes Magazine is giving space to an absolutely ignorant nut-job like Paul Johnson.

The War On Drugs: A Defining Moment

Johnson attempts to explain some of the terrible things that might happen if we legalize drugs…

Another possibility to consider is that a rogue state, such as North Korea, will enter the burgeoning drug market. North Korea’s evil regime survives by performing tasks no other government is able or willing to contemplate. For instance, it has supplied nuclear technology to other rogue states in contravention of all international law. Both Syria and Iran have paid North Korea in gold for its aid in their nuclear efforts. There is no way to stop these transactions as long as China refuses to take punitive steps against its former military and ideological ally.

Recreational drugs are comparatively easy for a ruthless and determined government to grow and/or manufacture. Supplying these drugs to Americans is precisely the kind of prospect that would appeal to the North Korean leadership. They’ve always claimed that capitalist democracies are essentially corrupt and decadent. This would enable them to “prove” it, especially if the release of vast quantities of cheap soft drugs into Western cities were followed by an increase in the supply and use of hard drugs, as many experts believe would be inevitable.

China, which has a drug problem of its own, might be prepared to act against North Korea in this context. But it would extract a high price from the West, which might result in the balance of power in the Pacific tilting in China’s favor.

I’ve been discussing possibilities. But in the world of highly dangerous drugs, it’s safer to treat possible outcomes as probabilities. If we allow this drug use to become legal, we’ll be embarking on a voyage into horror with our eyes open.

This has got to be the stupidest reason for not legalizing that I’ve heard yet. It doesn’t even make enough false sense to debunk. If marijuana is legal, why in the world would we buy it from North Korea?

Somebody at Forbes has got to have some egg on their face.