Drug WarRant

Quote of the day:

Time is the great legalizer, even in the field of morals.

– HL Mencken

It’s a fair point, but we’re still going to do our part to speed it along a bit.

Pot-smoking driver in Saskatoon deemed not impaired

A woman who admitted to using marijuana before getting into her car has been acquitted of impaired driving, with the Saskatoon judge saying he was not convinced her ability to operate a vehicle was affected. […]

In his decision, the judge said he was left with several unanswered questions, including:

1. What signs of impairment would one expect to see in someone who has been using marijuana?
2. How long after using marijuana would you expect to see these signs and how long would they last?
3. Can the results of drug evaluation tests taken over 1½ hours after the time of driving be reliably related back to the time the woman was stopped?
4. Was the woman’s performance in some of the tests an indication of poor balance or poor co-ordination?

On the other hand, the judge found there was plenty of evidence to suggest the woman was not impaired, noting:

1. The officer did not observe any problems with her driving as she came to the check stop, when she was directed into the check stop or when she was directed to drive out of the line of cars to a nearby parking lot.
2. She had no problems understanding the officer or answering his questions and did not slur her speech.
3. She was able to provide him with her licence without any problems and had no difficulty following the officer’s instructions or getting out of her vehicle.
4. When he asked her to take her hand off her vehicle and step away from it, she did so without problem. She did not have to hold on to anyone or anything for balance and after he handcuffed her, she had no problems walking to his police car and getting into the back seat.
5. She was polite and co-operative with the officer.

What a unique concept. Don’t convict someone for being impaired unless there’s actually some evidence that they were… impaired.

Nuevo Leon: 48 hours, 33 executed (Google translation of page in Spanish)

Apparently, this series of murders was a coordinated effort to make a statement responding to military claims that the Zetas had been weakened in the area.

It has come to my attention that there’s some kind of gathering going on in Florida. I haven’t bothered paying any attention to it because I assume that nothing of substance will be discussed.

Have I missed anything?

How about the TV news? Are they covering the Caravan for Peace (which is actually relevant) or the nonsense in Florida?

Update: This, from Glenn Greenwald today is particularly relevant:

The reason I write so little about the presidential election is that it’s the ultimate expression of the CNN-ization of American politics: a tawdry, uber-contrived reality show that has less to do with political reality than the average rant one hears at any randomly chosen corner bar or family dinner. That does not mean the outcome is irrelevant, only that the process is suffocatingly dumb and deceitful, generating the desire to turn away and hope that it’s over as quickly as possible. […]

The election process is where American politicians go to be venerated and glorified, all based on trivial personality attributes that have zero relationship to what they do with their power, but which, by design, convinces Americans that they’re blessed to be led by people with such noble and sterling character, no matter how much those political figures shaft them. […]

The election process is where each political party spends hundreds of millions of dollars exploiting the same trivial personality attributes to demonize the other party’s politicians as culturally foreign, all to keep their followers in a high state of fear and thus lock-step loyalty.

It’s the supreme propaganda orgy, devoted to aggressively reinforcing the claim to American exceptionalism: the belief that even when things look grim, America will forever be that special God-favored land of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity, and all citizens should therefore be deeply grateful – quietly and passively so – for the privilege of residing in such a land, no matter how wretched are their circumstances and how pervasive is the corruption.

It’s what inculcates many Americans to believe that they enjoy vibrant political debate and stark democratic choice, even as so many of the policies that are most consequential and destructive for their lives – the “war on drugs”, the supremacy of the covert national security and surveillance states, vast inequalities in the justice system, crony capitalism that rapidly bolsters the oligarchy that owns the political process – are steadfastly ignored because both parties on those matters have exactly the same position and serve the same interests. […]

It’s where the handful of important issues on which there are genuinely sharp and clear differences – social issues, reproductive rights, jurisprudence philosophy, a few social program and tax policies – are endlessly exploited to heighten cultural divisions and, more importantly, to obscure the similarities on everything else.

The election year process could and should be a meaningful opportunity for real political debate: the one time every four years when the majority of the population that is too busy or uninterested to pay much attention becomes engaged and thus informed. Instead, the process is the ultimate deceit. And the ultimate distraction.

The Yes on 64 Campaign got a nice boost with this Letter of Support from the Academic Community

As professors in the fields of law, health, economics, and criminal justice, among others, we write this open letter to encourage a sensible, evidence-based approach to marijuana policy, and to endorse Amendment 64, the initiative on this year’s ballot to regulate marijuana like alcohol in Colorado.

It’s an impressive group of more than 100 signers. Signer Ilya Somin, who writes at Volokh Conspiracy makes a great point:

In my view, Amendment 64 would leave in place more regulation than is ideal, and I am not fully comfortable with some of the praise for regulation in the draft letter (which I signed, nonetheless, because it does not actually say that this regulated system is superior to more complete deregulation, merely that it’s better than the status quo). That said, the best should not be the enemy of the good, in this case the very good. Amendment 64 would be a huge improvement over the status quo in Colorado.

Coincidentally after the last post (but not in response to it), ONDCP’s Rafael LeMaitre tweets:

We’re serious about supporting a #publichealth approach to policy – one based on science, not a ‘war on drugs’ or ‘legalize it’ ideology.

Right. So if the ONDCP isn’t supporting the war on drugs, who is? Becuase that is clearly the policy of this country. Is the ONDCP some fringe group?

I asked Rafael “@RafaelONDCP Where do responsible adult users (non-abusers) of currently illicit drugs fit within that approach?” I’ll let you know if he answers.

The drug czar can claim all he wants that the drug war is over. Tell that to the people every day in this country who have their doors broken down by armed militarized forces.

Oh, yeah, and tell the Marines, too.

Marines vs Zetas: U.S. Hunts Drug Cartels in Guatemala

The war on drugs just got a whole lot more warlike. Two hundred U.S. Marines have entered Guatemala, on a mission to chase local operatives of the murderous Zeta drug cartel.

The Marines are now encamped after having deployed to Guatemala earlier this month, and have just “kicked off” their share of Operation Martillo, or Hammer. That operation began earlier in January, and is much larger than just the Marine contingent and involves the Navy, Coast Guard, and federal agents working with the Guatemalans to block drug shipment routes.

It’s a big shift for U.S. forces in the region. For years, the Pentagon has sent troops to Guatemala, but these missions have been pretty limited to exercising “soft power” — training local soldiers, building roads and schools. Operation Martillo is something quite different.

One of the big discussions on the internet (and here in comments) yesterday was this study from New Zealand that was reported in the media as proving that use of marijuana by teens resulted in lowered IQ.

Check out the “reporting” by NBC’s Tia Ghose:

Teens who smoke marijuana see their IQs drop as adults, and deficits persist even after quitting, according to a new study.

“The findings are consistent with speculation that cannabis use in adolescence, when the brain is undergoing critical development, may have neurotoxic effects,” study researcher Madeline Meier of Duke University said in a statement.

The study followed 1,037 New Zealand children for 25 years. Subjects took IQ tests at age 13, before any of them had smoked marijuana, and again at age 38. Throughout the study, participants also answered several surveys about their drug use.

My first reaction was “New Zealand? Why is it always New Zealand when they find something bad about cannabis?”

And it does seem to be true. New Zealand was where they did the tiny study that seemed to find a lung cancer connection despite the huge study in the U.S. finding no negative links at all. And there have been others.

Maybe it’s a difference in how the rigor of research is applied in Kiwiland.

Or could it have something to do with New Zealand in general? Maybe things are just really different there. After all, it’s a part of the world where some mammals have pouches, where a cute bear-like creature spends its entire life stoned on eucalyptus leaves, where birds that look like crows sound like babies crying and another bird laughs at you, where a vine can eat a tree and become a new tree, and where hobbits and wizards alike extoll the virtues of the local smoking materials. Who knows what that does to pot or pot-smokers?

Of course, the truth is that the study isn’t quite as big a deal as some of the reporters would lead you to believe. For instance, the lead sentence by Ghose: “Teens who smoke marijuana see their IQs drop as adults” is false. The implication is that 18 or 19-yeaar-olds who tried marijuana could see a drop in IQ, whereas the study only found differences in younger teens (ie, those under 18), who were regular or heavy smokers.

Maia Szalavitz explains why the breathless reporting is out of place here. Does Weekly Marijuana Use By Teens Really Cause a Drop in IQ?

Not all experts agree, however. “Scientifically, these are extremely preliminary findings,” cautions Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University, who has studied the cognitive effects of marijuana in humans in the lab and was not associated with the research.

Hart notes that because only 38 people in the study— around 8% of those who ever tried marijuana— used it heavily enough to get diagnosed with dependence during several follow-up periods, he is skeptical about how generalizable the results are. He says that in his studies of people who smoke at least three times a week, “When you compare these people’s scores to a normative database on a wide range of domains including executive function, memory, and inhibitory control, they score dead smack in the middle, in the 50th percentile.”

Of course, Tia Ghose never mentioned that only a small group in the study actually fit the criteria. (Just as they seldom mention that only a handful met the cancer criteria in the infamous New Zealand cannabis/cancer study).

Also:

Reacting to the study, Wim van den Brink, Professor of Psychiatry and Addiction at the University of Amsterdam said it was interesting research but its findings should not be overestimated. Speaking to Dutch daily de Volkskrant he pointed to the results from a sub-group in the study who stopped smoking the week before being tested. The effect on their IQ’s was much less pronounced. “The researchers are right to warn of the consequences of cannabis use at a young age,” he said, “but their results are probably being exaggerated.”

So, at this point, this is really nothing more than interesting research that should be viewed with caution in terms of any actual results.

However, even if the research is fully on target. If it is, in fact, true that heavy marijuana use by those under 18 can lead to lowered IQ, then it is an argument for legalization and regulation with age limits, not the status quo. I don’t know of any in the reform community who are pushing for heavy use of marijuana by children.

The more we have ramped up marijuana emforcement, the more we have ceded our ability to control age use of marijuana. School zones are a joke, because they have nothing to do with limiting use by children, but rather are a means of piling on charges for drug deals that didn’t involve them at all.

When I was in college in the 1970s, marijuana was illegal, but enforcement was much more lax. People regularly smoked pot in the dorms, and campus police walking by would merely sometimes ask that you close the door to limit the amount in the hallways. However, it was made very clear that if anyone sold pot to the High School students in town, there would be hell to pay. It was a clear line and one that was followed scrupulously. Oh, sure, I bet some High School students found a way to get some pot ocassionally (you’ll never be able to eliminate that entirely), but you can set up systems that say “above this age is deemed OK, and below this age is not” and make a real difference.

The best way to do that, of course, is through regulated legalization.

The one thing we know for sure from this study is that there is nothing in it that justifies arresting responsible adults.

Sorry for the recent lack of posts! It’s been a real whirlwind.

A 750-mile drive to Rochester on Thursday, then dry tech and set up the stage on Friday. The cast arrives late afternoon, and we re-block the show to fit the new stage and make several adjustments to the order before performance at 10 pm. Three more shows on Saturday, and then we drive back on Sunday. Great fun and a very successful trip with wonderful audiences.

Rear lug stud broke off on the trip back, but fortunately the wheel stayed on. Getting that fixed tomorrow.

Anyway, I’m back and looking forward to getting back up to speed on what’s going on in the drug war.

Some major action over at Huff Post tomorrow. A series of live web chats as a Shadow Convention. I believe most of these are in the noon to 4 pm Eastern time range.

• Shadow Conventions 2012: The Drug War
• What Happened to the War on Drugs? with Mark Kleiman.
• Politics of the War on Drugs
• Too Many Non-Violent Offenders in U.S. Jails
• Opportunities Lost – people whose lives have been derailed by the war on drugs.
• Skin Color Matters – racial disparity in the war on drugs
• The New Jim Crow
• Warzone U.S.A. – The Militarization of American Police

We need a drug dog so we can seize more property and raise more money – a town that’s very up-front about their need to steal from citizens.

Think a non-fiction version of “The Wire”

Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines — “Baltimore: Anatomy of an American City”

So… how come we can’t get Al Jazeera on American cable systems?