Drug WarRant

Occasionally in comments for newspaper articles, I’ll see some comment along the lines of:

We don’t need any more unmotivated zoned-out stoners, so let’s keep marijuana illegal.

Wow. What a concept. The “we-don’t-need-any-more” system of legislating. Forget analysis of whether the laws work, or whether they might affect other responsible people. No, this is much easier.

Let’s give it a try!

• We don’t need any more couch potatoes, so let’s outlaw TV.
• We don’t need any more red-neck fisherman leaving beer cans on the shore and pissing in our lakes, so let’s outlaw fishing.
• We don’t need any more overwhelming smells in elevators, so let’s outlaw perfumes and colognes.
• We don’t need any more reckless bicyclists weaving between our cars, so let’s outlaw bicycles.
• We don’t need any more litter, so let’s outlaw packaging.
• We don’t need any more loud sounds waking us up, so let’s outlaw street repair and emergency vehicles.
• We don’t need any more people with slow reaction times behind the wheel of cars, so let’s outlaw drivers over age 65. For that matter…
• We don’t need any more old people sucking up all the health care dollars, so let’s outlaw living past age 65.

What else can we outlaw?

“Think of the children” is one of the most maddeningly ridiculous mantras of the drug warrior, as if the entire world was intended to be some kind of padded child-safe cocoon. It’s certainly a terrible reason to lock up adults (for merely the “message” that their activity sends to children).

It’s nice to see an example of that turned on its head.

King County sheriff makes case for pot

For all the warnings to kids about how marijuana is as illegal and harmful as, say, heroin, the end result is that more kids smoke pot today than smoke cigarettes. And find pot easier to get than alcohol.

“With alcohol being highly regulated, we’re able to have a more reasonable discussion about it, in societies and in our families,” Strachan told The Seattle Times’ Jonathan Martin, in announcing his support for the pot-legalization Initiative 502 on this fall’s ballot.

With pot, “people are sort of winking at it,” he said. “It lives in this kind of limbo — it’s illegal, but also not.” So we have created an “ambiguous, confusing message we’re sending to our kids.”

Exactly. If you must think of the children, then you should support legalization.

Vote to end the insanity of marijuana prohibition in The Register-Guard (Eugene, Oregon)

Outstanding piece written by our own Allan Erickson

Some of the worst from around the world this week…

Can you identify the fallacies, assumptions, omissions (and outright lies) that make these pieces possible?

(Boston) Police warn of dire consequences if medical marijuana legalized – Say referendum could bring more crime and addiction.

Regional governments must stay the course on drug war by Jose Cardenas

Legalizing recreational pot — a bad idea for Colorado, Oregon and Washington by James Lambert, a real estate loan sales agent

Don’t go soft on drug abuse as doctors call for trial of safe injecting rooms Herald Editorial (Australia)

Letter: Pot not harmless by Eric Voth.

In Sunday’s Guardian: Legalising marijuana: most Americans get it, so when will our politicians? by Gary Johnson

After Prohibition’s repeal in 1933, kids didn’t start drinking in record numbers. Society didn’t collapse. Today, bathtub gin dealers don’t run amok on playgrounds; microbreweries don’t protect their turf with automatic weapons. Instead, a safe environment to drink was created when the government began regulating and taxing alcohol.

And yet, here we are in 2012, giving Prohibition another shot. For lack of a better word, that’s just stupid.

A new drug policy organization was launched today: Drug Policy Institute at University of Florida. It’s headed up by Kevin Sabet, and includes such luminaries as Robert DuPont, Keith Humphreys, and Tom McLellan. The rest of the list includes a bunch of former and current hard-core drug warriors. So, you can be sure their work will be balanced and evidence-based.

They’ll be teaching an online course, hosting an annual conference, and developing one-page drug policy papers for legislators.

The Drug War is a National Scandal That’s Getting Worse by Charles Pierce in Esquire. The Boston crime lab and more.

A Failing Drug War, by Stephen Gain

‘Significant’ outdoor bust in Lethbridge wasn’t weed

It’s amazing how many stories like this there have been over the years.

It’s blooming embarrassing, is what it is.

The best part: police still won’t admit the plants they seized in what was supposedly the biggest outdoor marijuana bust in Lethbridge history are plain old flowers — daisies, to be precise.

All police will concede at this point is the 1,624 plants torn from a suburban Lethbridge garden on July 30 isn’t marijuana, as first claimed after a phalanx of police marched in and starting plucking.

“This is a significant bust, given the size of this operation,” is how a senior officer put it at the time, while proudly displaying garbage bags full of the dastardly daises.

That same officer, Staff Sergeant Wes Houston, now admits the plant haul was a mistake.

“In any investigation, police count public safety as our top priority — our decision to seize the plants was made with the best information we had at the time,” said Houston, leader of CFSEU-Lethbridge.

That statement by Houston is hilarious. They had to seize the plants immediately to protect public safety. What were they afraid the plants would do – start marching on the town? I’m pretty sure the plants would have stayed there while they got a botanist (or a teenager) to identify them.

by Stuart McMillen. Good read.

There have been a few questions in comments as to whether it makes sense to vote for Gary Johnson. After all, is it possible that Obama/Romney is better than Obama/Romney when it comes to the drug war? So what if my wasted vote on Johnson causes Obama/Romney to win?

Let’s break it down.

1. Check the electoral maps to see what kind of state you’re in (Here’s one example). If your state is blue, dark blue, red, or dark red, then your vote isn’t going to make a bit of difference in the Obama-Romney question. You’ll just be one more on a vast winning or losing side for the state. After all, it’s the electoral votes that chooses the President, not the popular vote. So you might as well vote for someone who actually cares about you! No brainer.

2. Let’s assume you’re in one of those few swing states, and it actually comes down to the wire in the electoral vote and your state will make the difference, and after all the re-counts and hanging chads, it turns out that one vote makes the difference between Obama or Romney winning… You should still vote for Gary Johnson.

Ultimately, as we have found, Presidents are unlikely leaders in drug policy reform. Even more so with these two. There has been absolutely no interest in talking about drug policy by either candidate, so if they win with your vote, they won’t even have a campaign promise to break. There won’t be a single reason for them to care about you, and so many reasons to support the DEA, Law Enforcement, Pharmaceutical Industries, Drug Testing Industries, Prison Industries, and so on.

On the other hand, if one of them loses and it can be shown that Gary Johnson is why they lost, then that could make a real difference.

3. You must vote for Gary Johnson because he’s the only one giving your message. Johnson has, more than any other candidate in recent knowledge, run largely on his views of the drug war. Sure, he has other issues, but this is his signature issue, and it’s even reflected in his choice of running mate.

If Johnson has a strong showing and even has an impact on a state, then both parties will have to pay attention, and perhaps address drug policy in the future in order to prevent a third party candidate from challenging them. If Johnson does extremely poorly, then they’ll be able to say “He didn’t even get 1% of the vote. The voters don’t care enough about marijuana or drug policy for it to affect their votes, so we don’t have to address it.”

A brilliant blog post by musician Vivian McPeak. I’m not even going to quote from it. Just go read. And share.

Happy birthday, prohibition. Now die.