Drug WarRant

“Follow the money.” Always good advice when considering the motivations of prohibitionists. Certainly it’s true with the true drug warriors, including DEA, police unions, etc.

And, while the treatment industry is comprised of both the truly caring and the avariciously opportunistic, the general sense has been that most of their vocal opposition to legalization has come from those who see legalization as a threat to their revenue.

Well, Kevin Sabet has been pushing back against that with his own notion that legalization will actually result in an increase in profits for the treatment industry (and even for the enforcement industry).

Kevin Sabet tweet:

Repeating this for the uninformed: if drugs were legal, I, and the treatment and enforcement sectors, would be MUCH richer. > use = > need

He seems very sure of himself, but I’d advise you not to take any financial advice from him, ’cause assuming he actually believes what he says, his analytical skills are crap.

The notion that enforcement would profit from legalization is so laughable it’s not worth my time to address, but let’s look at treatment.

if drugs were legal…

– Which drugs, how regulated?

> use = > need

– Unspoken assumption that legalization leads to greater use, which may not be true in all situations.

– Conflation of use and abuse.

– What about all those referred to treatment by criminal justice and others, including many for cannabis who don’t need treatment?

– What about the fact that addictive illegal drugs have more uncertain dosages/purity causing serious problems for addicts? How would that differ with regulated drugs with controlled purity?

– What about substitution? Legal pure amphetimines would cause less treatment problems than homemade meth.

– No thought is given to the notion that those who wouldn’t use while a drug is illegal, but would when it is legal, are less likely to become addicted.

…

Now personally, I don’t think that Kevin is in this racket for the money. My sense is that he’s hitched his career wagon to the anti-legalization movement and likes being a “leader” in it, regardless of whether he benefits financially (although he wouldn’t mind getting both).

_____

For more on Kevin Sabet and SAM, see Where now for opponents of cannabis law reform? at Transform.

… he does.

Remember the tragedy that I posted about a little while ago? A young man had been caught with a tiny amount of marijuana, and, aggravated by a police mistake, was in jeopardy of losing his career plans, so he committed suicide.

Well, Peter Hitchens responds with: If the law had been strongly enforced over the last 40 years, schoolboys like Edward Thornber wouldn’t risk toying with cannabis

Yeah, that’s right. Hitchens says that the problem is that the drug war wasn’t enforced enough.

If the law had been strongly and consistently applied during the past 40 years, schoolboys would never take the terrible risk of toying with this dangerous, mind-bending substance, increasingly correlated with severe and irreversible mental illness.

And many lives, not just that of Edward Thornber and his family, would have been spared tragedies of many different kinds.

Weakness is not the same thing as compassion.

A very powerful and fascinating read in Spiegel Online: Failing Drug War: When Cops Become Criminals

When you follow the story of Martinez and his journey from fresh DEA agent to prison convict, what’s really fascinating is his own perception of right and wrong…

In prison, Martinez developed his own opinion of his actions. Today, he says that he was innocent. What he did wasn’t right, but it also wasn’t wrong, he says. He was simply applying the methods he had learned.

It really points out how little difference there is between the hard liners on both sides of the drug war. The drug war corrupts them both, making them believe that what they’re doing, while maybe not right, isn’t really wrong.

And we keep pouring fresh meat into that grinder.

Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones: Marijuana Legalization May Be Unstoppable

On Tuesday, US Attorney General Eric Holder told America to expect a decision “soon” on how he’ll respond to the recent legalization of pot by Colorado and Washington state. To which the rest of the country has basically said, “Whatever, dude.”

Exactly.

It takes continued work on our part, but as the people we have the potential power to make any decision by functionaries in the federal government irrelevant.

Holder promises marijuana verdict coming ‘soon’

I have no idea what that means.

“We’re still in the process of reviewing both of the initiatives that were passed,” said Holder, speaking at the National Association of Attorney General annual conference in Washington, D.C.

“You will hear soon. We’re in the last stages of that review and we’re trying to make a determination as to what the policy ramifications are going to be, what our international obligations are — there are a whole variety of things that go into this determination — but the people of [Colorado] and Washington deserve an answer and you will have one soon.”

I’m sorry. What was the question?

Lessons from some free Americans, taught on American soil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Ku17CqdZg&feature=player_embedded

For many decades, part of the prohibition tactic was to make illegal drugs so taboo that even discussing them was considered improper. People even whispered when they said the word “marijuana” as if some Orwellian hidden government microphones might catch that they were talking about drugs.

Of course, if people couldn’t talk about them, it was tougher to educate them about drugs except in the specific terms pushed by the propagandists. They knew that if people started talking about marijuana, they might start asking why it’s illegal.

So I enjoy little moments when I see how much that taboo has shattered in recent years…

I’m a foodie. I admit it. I watch the Food Network and love programs like “Chopped” and “Iron Chef America” and I also love to cook (and eat).

Recently, I watched the “Top Chef” series on Bravo. At one point, the chefs are taken to a beautiful remote mountaintop in Alaska, and chef-contestant Sheldon says, “I really wish I had some reefer right now!”

In another episode, chef-contestant Kristen is given a smoke gun with tiny wood chips for adding smoke flavor to food. She’s never used one before, and the clock is ticking as she tries to figure it out. Finally she does and exclaims “Oh, it’s just like lighting a bong!” and the audience of chefs cheers the bong reference. The producers of the show not only left that in, but used that clip as re-cap footage so it was seen multiple times.

These are little things, but it’s the little things (even more so than an entire series like “Weeds”) that demonstrate the shift in thinking.

Speaking of a shift in thinking, it was interesting to wrap my head around the fact that the New York Times chose to devote an entire feature article in Fashion & Style on Marijuana Etiquette, raising interesting and important questions about how to handle marijuana when entertaining.

Lee Rosenberg makes sure we continue the important discussion of the nuances of cannabis and impaired driving in a post that discusses both what’s happening in Washington, and his own experiences driving.

It’s well-written and worth reading. I know we’ve had quite a few similar discussions here, and it will be a tricky battle that we’ll continue to have as we work through legalization.

A critical part of the discussion, as Lee notes, is that there are fundamental differences between alcohol and cannabis impairment, and attempts to treat them, or measure them, the same way will not serve the goal of public safety.

The point of my story wasn’t to argue that stoned driving is good or bad, but to recognize that the issue is a lot more complicated than many people initially assume. From a regulatory standpoint, doing things that have worked or been accepted for drunk driving may not be the correct approach at all for stoned driving.

Teenage sports star hanged himself over 50p worth of cannabis

Edward Thornber, 17, played lacrosse for England and planned to teach it in the US, an inquest heard.

But he feared a court appearance would ruin his American dream after he was caught smoking cannabis on holiday in Newquay, Cornwall.
He originally accepted a warning, which would not mean a criminal record.

But his case was put in the wrong file by cops. They sent him a court summons, which should have gone to his parents because of his age.
Edward’s body was found at a park near his home in Didsbury, Manchester. The summons was found nearby.

Coroner Nigel Meadows said: “Young people are particularly vulnerable.” Verdict: Suicide

Now this tragedy is merely a single anecdotal item and it can’t be fully laid at the feet of prohibition — the police screwed up, and young people are often susceptible to feeling things are hopeless when they are not.

However, this is an example, a data point, of millions of people whose lives have been ruined, or dramatically damaged, by the criminal prohibition of cannabis, even though they did not go to prison.

So when someone says to you “Why are you so concerned? Hardly anyone goes to prison for pot,” you should tell them about the people who lost their financial aid, their careers, their children, their possessions, or their lives due to criminal prohibition.

The Economist has always been better than most on drug policy, and this piece – Illegal Drugs: The Great Experiment – is really outstanding.

The Economist has long argued that prohibition is illiberal in principle and harmful in practice, and that the least-bad way of dealing with drugs is to legalise and regulate their production and consumption. But we recognise that it takes a brave politician to face down the moral panic that surrounds the issue. This new thinking, though limited, is therefore welcome. Legalising consumption allows drug use and addiction (by no means the same thing) to be treated as the public-health issues they are. That in turn means applying the principle of harm reduction, for example by providing clean needles to addicts to prevent the spread of HIV.

But decriminalising consumption does nothing to break the grip of gangsters over the drug business. For that to happen, production and distribution also need to be legalised. That is why the experiment under way in the United States is so important. Colorado and Washington now have the chance to create a legal but regulated market in marijuana, similar to those for tobacco or alcohol.

[…]

One immediate consequence is that the United States will be in breach of the UN Convention. Good. It should now join Latin American governments in an effort to reform that outdated document to allow signatories room to experiment. Imposing a failed policy on everybody benefits nobody.

Read the whole thing.