Drug WarRant

Continued silence from the administration. I really don’t know what that means and would love to be on the inside to hear what discussions are going on.

I’m also torn on the issue of forcing their hand – part of me thinks that forcing them to respond would mean they’d have to respond negatively (mostly from the position of interfering with state plans to set up distribution methods). On the other hand, ducking the issue entirely means that it’ll be up to the U.S. Attorneys and DEA to “set” federal policy.

Barney Frank and Ron Paul have sent President Obama a letter asking him to back off (too bad we’re losing both of those freedom-loving folks). Others in Congress are now developing bills to get the feds to leave the states alone. Several state legislatures are now considering their own legalization bills. Numerous countries are having serious legalization discussions…

And several conservative pundits have proposed that conservatives take up the legalization banner, both in an effort to attract younger voters, and because legalization fits both the limited government and states’rights concepts of conservatism.

Interesting times.

Oops, sorry, my bad. That was from 2004.

The silence from the administration has been deafening. And other states and countries have been stepping into the void to make a case for legalization. The genie is definitely out of the bottle.

It’s interesting to watch the silence on Twitter. Rafael Lemaitre, the Communications Director or the ONDCP hasn’t tweeted since October 14, except to re-tweet some posts by others that had nothing to do with marijuana legalization. And the other ONDCP twitter account has joked about Director Kerlikowske secretly desiring to guest host NPR’s show “Wait, Wait,” and yet hasn’t commented on the Washington and Colorado votes. The ONDCP blog talked about drugged driving legislation in California, and a Veteran’s Day message, but nothing on the elections. Clearly, the ONDCP has been told in no uncertain terms to keep its collective mouth shut.

I actually found this rather humorous…

Link

The Dunedin Returned and Services’ Association (RSA) is upset after drugs paraphernalia was found marring a war memorial.

Last week, a Keep Dunedin Beautiful Adopt-A-Spot volunteer discovered some bongs at the Highcliff Rd war memorial on the Otago Peninsula.

Four bongs used to smoke marijuana were found while the volunteer was tidying the area.

Dunedin RSA president Jenepher Glover said it was really saddening to hear about the bongs.

“It’s a desecration,” she said.

“To think that someone would disrespect the people who fought by smoking drugs there is abhorrent.”

I’m sure that some of the veterans who regularly visit this blog would agree that there may be no finer tribute to the fallen than to bring some bongs to a war memorial on a high cliff overlook.

And the significance of leaving the bongs there? …. Well, how is leaving a wreath any better?

This sounds outstanding. Ricardo Cortes gave us “It’s Just a Plant: a children’s story about marijuana” and also illustrated the extraordinarily popular “Go the Fuck to Sleep.” His latest project is one that has taken years of research, development and artistry.

A Secret History of Coffee, Coca & Cola is an illustrated history of coffee, coca leaf, kola nut, Coca-Cola, caffe-ine, coca-ine, secret formulas, special flavors, special favors, and the future of prohibition. It’s a tale of cocaine factories in Peru and New Jersey; secret experiments at the University of Hawaii; and a peek at the files of U.S. Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry J. Anslinger (infamous for his “Reefer Madness” campaign against marijuana, lesser known as a collaborator of The Coca-Cola Company).

“This book is an incredible work of artistic journalism. Armed with color pencils and an eye for detail, Cortés has produced a beautiful and subversive history of how that bottle of Coke ended up in your fridge. Cortés weaves his people’s history with meticulously and gorgeously crafted drawings—many of them recreations of the primary documents he uses to tell his story. The end product is a damning, epic tale of hypocrisy: while the US government leads the charge to criminalize the 10 million people who chew coca, it has simultaneously conspired with a multinational beverage giant to ensure an endless supply of coca to fuel its profits.”

—Jeremy Scahill

Link

Vienna, 15 November – The President of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), Raymond Yans, has voiced grave concern about the outcome of recent referenda in the United States of America that would allow the non-medical use of cannabis by adults in the states of Colorado and Washington, and in some cities in the states of Michigan and Vermont. Mr. Yans stated that “these developments are in violation of the international drug control treaties, and pose a great threat to public health and the well-being of society far beyond those states”.

No softening of anti-drug war

Singapore explains its new adjusted death penalty plans.

SINGAPORE – Singapore’s move to introduce changes to its mandatory death penalty for drug offences will boost its agencies’ ability to fight the growing scourge both at home and abroad, said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean.

With the changes, agencies like the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) will be better able to get more information from drug mules, he added.

The reason: These criminals will be spared the gallows only when their information leads to the arrest of drug traffickers or the destruction of a syndicate.

That’s right. They know that the ones they’re executing are only mules, and they’ll continue to execute them unless they know enough to get someone higher to take their place.

This is the drug war. It is our drug war translated to places where freedom and human rights mean even less than they do here. This is the drug war that extremists like Peter Hitchens are talking about when they say we haven’t really fought the drug war.

This is why we fight to end the drug war. Not cheaper pot. There’s a much higher purpose. It’s about liberty and humanity. And life.

As the usual gang of academics in drug policy have, over the years, continually pointed out the uncertainties of legalization given the lack of any actual examples of legalization, I have often publicly wondered at the lack of interest in pushing for a Justice Brandeis-style “laboratory” to give us that actual data.

Now that Washington and Colorado have stepped up to the plate and voted for legalization despite the paralyzing reams of uncertainty that surely must be haunting their every waking moment, it’s nice to see Mark Kleiman appreciating this new laboratory: States as laboratories for marijuana policy.

So the obvious way to learn something about marijuana legalization would be to try it out one state at a time: relying on what Justice Brandeis called “the laboratories of democracy.” If Colorado’s legalization went badly, that would be a much easier problem to correct than if the mistake had been made on a national basis. […]

So why shouldn’t the federal government cut Colorado and Washington some slack? As long as those states prevent marijuana grown under their laws from crossing state lines and thereby subverting marijuana prohibition in the rest of the states, the Justice Department could step back and let the consequences of the new policies play themselves out. They might succeed, or they might fail. In either case, the rest of us could learn from their experience.

I’m pleased to see Mark engaged in this new opportunity for data.

From NIDA:

Huh???

Just doing some random thinking here…

One of the obstacles we’ve faced in the past is what we might call the “soft” support for legalization. By that, I mean that there were a lot of people who seemed to support legalization, but were either afraid to talk about it publicly, or considered it a kind of “future consideration” issue — one they supported privately, but didn’t consider important enough to give public support (“we can’t spend political capital on something like that right now when there are so many other important issues” was a common thread on liberal websites, for example).

It seems to me that we’ve done a pretty good job of breaking through that barrier. Partlly with groups like LEAP and SSDP and others, talking about legalization has become more… acceptable to people, and with the emphasis on violence in Mexico, etc., the immediacy of the issue has increased.

So now, with two states passing legalized marijuana, all those who have supported legalization, regardless of how soft their support, feel empowered, which will help dramatically with future efforts.

So, it’s time to look at the opposition to legalization, and I think we can show that it’s soft as well. Other than the die-hard prohibitionists and those who profit from prohibition, the general public that opposes legalization is unlikely to feel strongly about their opposition. They’re opposing legalization, for the most part, because they think they’re supposed to – after all, the government has told them to.

But we know that the opposition is soft — for proof, simply look at how wide the range of poll numbers is depending on how the question is asked. If people’s opposition changes based on the wording of the question, it’s very soft.

I’m already seeing some anecdotal evidence of friends who are speaking positively of the votes in Colorado and Washington as something important — and these are people who never talked about marijuana publicly before.

We could theoretically see a rapid growth in poll numbers for legalization nationally, simply because the voters in those two states validated the topic. It’s no longer some pot-head pie-in-the-sky dream, it’s state law.

Regardless of how easy or difficult it is for Colorado and Washington to implement their new laws, the laws already have major impact. They’ve emboldened countries around the world, validated the views of legalization supporters and may cause the dissolution of soft opposition.

…

What does this mean for those of us who are fighting for more than the legalization of cannabis? Well, I’m optimistic there as well.

While opposition to marijuana legalization has been soft, that hasn’t been true when it comes to opposition to legalizing other drugs. We’ve always known that legalization of other drugs will be a much tougher battle and will take more time to build support.

However, one of the great things about the cannabis legalization movement is that we have succesfully linked it to the evils of prohibition. I’m seeing so many articles that are essentially saying that we should support legalizing marijuana because the drug war is so destructive — not “the war on marijuana,” but “the drug war.” That’s a great foundation for future efforts.

At a raging fire consuming blocks of the city last night, Fire Chief Kil Gerlikowski pooh-poohed suggestions that they cut the gas supply that was fueling the fire. “That won’t stop the fire. It’ll still have wood and other materials that will keep it going,” said Kil. “It’s a bit naive to think that shutting off the gas is a solution.”

…

Legal drugs won’t stop cartels: expert

“People say, ‘gee if we could just legalise drugs, maybe we could stop violence in Mexico’,” Mr Kerlikowske told the First International Conference on Law Enforcement and Public Health on Monday.

But he said the cartels were also involved in so many other aspects of organised crime that ending their drug trade would not stop their violence.

“So I think it’s a bit naive for us to think that this issue around drug prohibition, as it’s often called, is going to reduce violence or reduce significantly the amount of money that will come into the transnational organised crime groups.”