Drug WarRant

In yet another boneheaded ruling – this time unanimously – the Supreme Court has ruled that mistakes made by dogs in the field don’t count and that police have no interest in going on fishing expeditions in your car.

Wow.

We cannot depend on the Supreme Court for protecting citizens at all when it comes to the drug war. All we can do is make them irrelevant by legalizing drugs.

Jacob Sullum does a fine job of discussing 3 myths that Justice Elena Kagan and the rest of the Court accepted without… thought.

That’s the intriguing question posed by John Ford in Marijuana Legalization: Why the Pot Business Needs Unions to Survive

Though the image of straight-laced hard-working blue-collar labor collaborating with hippy stoners doesn’t quite seem to match up, it is actually a match made in heaven. Labor union memberships have been flagging for some time, and they are in desperate need of a growth industry to latch on to. Meanwhile, marijuana dispensaries have both a branding problem (lacking legitimacy) and a lobbying problem (inability to organize), both of which unions can be of great help.

Another seemingly contradictory aspect of this situation is that labor is courting business owners, as opposed to fighting them. The simple explanation is that unions need new blood, and marijuana dispensaries are a fairly easy industry to work with. True to their hippy stereotype, trust-busting is not really something most dispensary owners are all that interested in. Plus, hundreds of thousands of new (labor) jobs, and billions of dollars, could be added to this industry in the next decade if legalization continues to reach new states and the federal government gives in on the issue. That’s a lot of new union dues to collect.

Drug policy reform has faced some uphill battles because of other unions (law enforcement, prison, etc.). Might be useful to have some of that organization on our side.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Those who don’t learn from history…

Marijuana legalization bill may threaten fabulous Prohibition II profits by Paul Carpenter

The next time they designed such a system, the gangsters and their allies were more clever. With Prohibition II, they skillfully made Americans believe the war on drugs was in the public’s interest.

The consequences of Prohibition II, which targets drugs other than alcohol, have been exactly the same as those of Prohibition I, including bloodshed and the widespread corruption of public officials. The main difference is that the cabal has been far more effective in keeping it going.

The Drug Laws That Changed How We Punish by Brian Mann

Persico, the aide who helped push through Rockefeller’s drug laws, says new scrutiny for the policy is overdue.

“I concluded very early that this was a failure. It’s filling up the prisons, first-time offenders,” Persico says. “This was obviously unjust — and not just unjust, it was unwise; it was ineffective.”

This debate is far from over. Supporters of mandatory minimums say the policy has helped reduce crime in some cities, including New York, and they point to modest declines in the use of some drugs, particularly cocaine. Persico says Rockefeller himself never expressed any second thoughts or reservations about the policy that carries his name.

This account of Mayor Bloomberg’s opposition to legalizing marijuana sure seems to indicate that he’s trying for the record.

Bloomberg: I Oppose Legalizing Marijuana

Bloomberg says he opposes legalizing marijuana because it’s stronger than it used to be. He added that if marijuana were legal, those dealers would just start selling something else, like cocaine.

Senator Ron Wyden has just introduced the Senate companion bill to H.R. 525, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013, today.

The original cosponsors are:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) – Yes, the Senate Republican Minority Leader

Press Release from Senator Wyden

This is actually looking kind of real.

The House version, introduced by Thomas Maassie (R-KY), already has 28 cosponsors:
Amash, Justin [R-MI3]
Benishek, Dan [R-MI1]
Blumenauer, Earl [D-OR3]
Bonamici, Suzanne [D-OR1]
Campbell, John [R-CA45]
Clay, Lacy [D-MO1]
Cohen, Steve [D-TN9]
DeFazio, Peter [D-OR4]
Ellison, Keith [D-MN5]
Farr, Sam [D-CA20]
Grijalva, Raúl [D-AZ3]
Hanna, Richard [R-NY22]
Lee, Barbara [D-CA13]
McClintock, Tom [R-CA4]
McDermott, Jim [D-WA7]
Miller, George [D-CA11]
Moran, James “Jim” [D-VA8]
Nadler, Jerrold [D-NY10]
Norton, Eleanor [D-DC0]
Peterson, Collin [D-MN7]
Pingree, Chellie [D-ME1]
Pocan, Mark [D-WI2]
Polis, Jared [D-CO2]
Rohrabacher, Dana [R-CA48]
Schakowsky, Janice “Jan” [D-IL9]
Schrader, Kurt [D-OR5]
Yarmuth, John [D-KY3]
Yoho, Ted [R-FL3]

Some concern has been expressed regarding this ThinkProgress piece

Federal prosecutors will crack down on recreational marijuana dispensaries and growers even in states where they are legal, U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told a Canadian news magazine this week. The statement appears to be the first from a federal official to state explicitly that the federal government will prosecute dispensaries and producers once they are licensed in Washington and Colorado.

This makes it seem like it’s some kind of official government pronouncement, but I think that’s really reading too much into the statement.

Sure, it’s not hard to imagine our government being so pathetically dysfunctional as to have the President duck the question, the AG unable to discuss it frankly with the Governors of the states involved, and then have Kerlikowske announce it to a Canadian magazine.

But in reality, if you read the actual interview, I don’t think the Drug Czar has any more of a clue than you or I and is just frustrated.

After all, this is the same interview in which he slammed the administration:

“The administration has not done a particularly good job of, one, talking about marijuana as a public health issue, and number two, talking about what can be done and where we should be headed on our drug policy.”

The Drug Czar has very little real power or information. He is primarily a propagandist, there to oppose legalization (as required by law), deflect criticisms of the government’s war on drugs, and wrap up our completely corrupt drug policies in pretty paper by talking about the focus on treatment and our move toward some mythical “third way.”

He has no idea what the U.S. Attorneys will do.

Strong smell of marijuana reported inside Colorado Capitol Wednesday morning

A strong smell of marijuana was reported inside the Colorado Capitol Wednesday morning, 7NEWS Reporter Russell Haythorn confirmed.

The entire Senate chamber smelled like marijuana, said Doug Schepman, Communications Director for the Senate Democrats.

Senate President John Morse cracked up fellow lawmakers during the session by asking: “Do you smell marijuana in here, or is it just me?”

On the recording of the morning’s proceedings, Morse can be heard asking, “If the Sergeants would please douse all the doobies in the area.”

David Bratzer is a LEAP speaker in Canada (and a really nice guy). For some good news today, check out this speaking engagement he had yesterday:

‘Groundbreaking’ conversation as Halifax police chief hosts session with drug law reformer

Canadian president David Bratzer said it’s the first time a Canadian police chief has asked a LEAP representative to address serving officers.

“It shows a police chief who’s open-minded and willing to engage in dialogue about complex issues,” said Bratzer. “It is groundbreaking. In my view, what he did is national police leadership. I can’t say enough about it, I’m so impressed.”

Blais said he invited Bratzer to speak in the interests of being open to a range of new ideas on policing.

“As we continue looking at the sustainability of policing practices here in HRM…overall, what are we doing? Does this make sense?” he said. “We may not agree with his points…but it doesn’t mean we can’t listen and learn from there.”

Bratzer, a police officer in British Columbia, said the presentation seemed well-received.

“These senior officers are very experienced and they asked some good questions,” said Bratzer, adding that his views do not represent those of his employer. “It’s exactly what we need, to be having a national discussion about this issue.”

Blais said Bratzer made some compelling points, and said he’d recommend a LEAP presentation to other police chiefs in Nova Scotia.

Wow! A police chief who really wants to listen and learn. Of course, that’s basic common sense, but it’s so incredibly rare that it’s quite laudable.

Congrats to David and Canadian LEAP for all their hard work that is clearly making a difference.

The federal government would like all companies to drug test all their workers, and so, of course, would the companies who make billions of dollars each year from the drug testing boom.

And yet, what value does suspicion-less drug testing actually serve? In most cases, less than none. Oh, sure, I know some defend the pre-employment drug test as a kind of intelligence screener (if you’re too dumb to figure out how to get clean long enough to pass one planned test…), but really? Do you need to pay a drug testing company for that information?

If your management can’t tell whether their workers are showing up impaired (whether from alcohol or other drugs, or sleep deprivation, or…) and unable to do their jobs, then you need to fire your management and get some competent people in there.

As I’ve indicated before, I’ve had the luxury of never working for a company that required drug testing. And I never will. Oh, I can understand that not everyone can do that, depending on the job market, and when I was younger, I might have worked temporarily for someone who required testing, but for a career? No way. Why would I want to spend my life in a career where my employer had so little respect for me as a person?

Ellen Comp has a nice piece on this topic focusing on another aspect of the downsides of workplace drug testing: Drug Testing Robs Workforce of Talent and Creativity

Second, by pre-screening away marijuana smokers, we’re weeding out (so to speak) some of our most creative and, I would argue, productive employees. If you doubt that marijuana smokers have contributed to our society, see VeryImportantPotheads.com. In the case of someone using marijuana for medical purposes, it’s downright discrimination to deny them employment for using what a doctor has legally recommended under state law.

Silicon Valley, the brainchild of entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (who both admittedly smoked pot in their youth), notoriously does not drug test its employees, knowing they’d lose much of their talent that way. Yet the region is responsible for much of California’s economic productivity, in one of the few non-military industries the US has. Pot-friendly Hollywood is another shining example of an industry that exports instead of imports to the US, like most of our consumables.

Smart employers know that on-the-job impairment is better handled by proper supervision than suspicion-less drug testing, and that creating a workplace that welcomes and encourages talent and creativity is much more important to their success than tired federal drug-free-workplace slogans.

….

Note: I realize that many companies are required to have a drug free workplace policy if they have contracts with the federal or state government, but in most cases, those policies are not required to include suspicion-less testing, but merely an awareness program with rules against workplace drug use.

Rafael Lemaitre, Communications Director for the Drug Czar’s office, made this post recently: Drug Laws: Why Do We Have them, and Do They Work?

For an office that claims to want to follow science, they go out of their way to bend not only science to fit their ideology, but language as well.

Here’s how it starts:

It’s a question often raised in today’s heated discussion about the efficacy of drug policy in America: Do regulations outlawing certain drugs actually work?

Right off the bat, he tries to bend language to his purpose. Let’s be clear here. If they’re outlawing drugs, then these are laws, not regulations. I know the ONDCP doesn’t like talking about “prohibition,” but that’s what these laws are. One of the major points about drug policy reform is that outlawed drugs are not regulated at all, but turned over to the black market to distribute. We want appropriate regulations. The Drug Czar does not.

Let’s go to the data. Here’s what the Nation’s largest, longest-running, and most comprehensive source on the state of drug use in America shows:

As you can see, the use of legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco far outpaces the use of illegal drugs. It is clear, then, that laws discouraging drug use do have an effect in keeping rates relatively low compared to rates for other drugs that are legal and therefore more available. Even beyond this one-year snapshot, we know that significant progress has been made in the long term. Since 1979, there has been a roughly 30 percent decline in the overall use of illicit drugs in America.

“… laws discouraging drug use…”? Really? So SWAT teams that shoot your dog and your kid are just your way of wagging your finger and saying “tisk, tisk”? Why are you so afraid of the language?

We have done a great job of discouraging tobacco use, through regulation, education, and societal disfavor. That would be an appropriate use of the word “discouraging.”

But of course this chart says absolutely nothing about the effect of laws on the use of different drugs. Science would tell you that there are a host of different factors that can affect usage. And science will also tell you that worldwide, there is very little evidence that increased enforcement of prohibition laws has significant effect on use, and even less evidence that it has a positive effect on abuse (Note, of course, that as part of Lemaitre’s sloppy abuse of language, he seems to see no distinction between use and abuse.)

There is, on the other hand, plenty of scientific evidence to show that increases in drug law enforcement result in an increase in criminal violence, something the Drug Czar’s office isn’t keen to discuss.

So our challenge is not that we’re powerless against the problem of substance use in America.

What problem of substance use? Substance use is not a problem. Or are you claiming that all the people in your chart who drink wine with dinner are a problem to be dealt with? Substance abuse is the problem.

The challenge is that rates of drug use – a behavior that harms too many of our fellow citizens — are still too high.

Again, the rates of drug use are not a problem.

That’s why the President’s National Drug Control Strategy supports innovative and proven programs that aim to reduce drug use and its consequences through a combination of public health and public safety interventions.

And just what are the consequences of responsible drug use?

It boils down to simple arithmetic: The more Americans use drugs, the higher the health, safety, productivity, and criminal justice costs we all have to bear.

That’s not simple arithmetic, it’s not science, and it’s just not true.

And if sensible drug laws (in combination with a wide array of prevention, treatment, and other health interventions, of course) help keep those numbers down, then the answer is yes, they are working.

If we had sensible drug laws, we probably wouldn’t care so much about your dishonesty.