Drug WarRant

Excellent editorial in the New York Times: Police Powers in New York

Attorney General Eric Holder is rightly reviewing the constitutionally suspect surveillance practices that the New York City Police Department has employed against law-abiding Muslims. The Justice Department should also review other practices — chief among them, stop-and-frisk — that have virtually eliminated the presumption of innocence and that treat citizens, and even entire communities, as suspect even after they are proved innocent.

What the New York Times editors get is that it isn’t just one practice that got some press that’s the problem, but rather a whole series of practices by the police.

The Police Department’s tendency toward blanket surveillance is on vivid display in its stop-and-frisk program, which results in the stopping of more than 600,000 mainly minority citizens on the streets every year. The department credits the program with reducing crime, but there is no proof that it does. […] In addition to criminalizing the victims of these stops, the program has undermined respect for law enforcement in the very communities where it is most needed. […]

Like stop-and-frisk, the city’s marijuana arrest initiative has also raised profound civil rights concerns. […] The department tacitly admitted wrongdoing last year, in a memo telling officers to arrest people only if the drug was in plain public view. But it could take years before the rank and file embrace the change. […]

The dangers associated with the program were underscored last month in the Bronx when an overzealous drug detail pursued an unarmed teenager into his home and shot him to death. A packet of marijuana was found at the scene.

Since 9/11, courts have broadened the Police Department’s investigative authority in the vital interest of protecting the city from terrorist attack. The department should not interpret that as a license to run roughshod over the Constitution.

This is important. 9/11 greatly hampered our ability as reformers to make the case that enforcement as a means of drug policy is damaging both to individual rights and to society as a whole. People were so consumed by the fear (whipped up by those who sought to exploit it) that they blindly acceded to any enforcement outrage as if that would give them safety.

It’s good to see a major media outlet calling for proper, restrained, and yes, even… Constitutional policing.

[Thanks, Tom]

The Air Force, the Army, the Senate…

Voice of America

Two high-ranking U.S. military commanders say Mexico’s violent war against drug cartels has moved into other parts of Central America.

Air Force General Douglas Fraser, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that transnational organized crime rings are threatening to overwhelm law enforcement and are “seriously impacting civilian safety” in the area.

“Senator, it is – is an effort that we see is moving down through Central America,” Gen. Fraser said. “As Mexico increases their pressure, we see that the networks from especially Los Zetas and Sinaloa are moving into Central America. Guatemala is obviously that first location, but we see their – their footprints further down into Central America as well.”

More than 50,000 people have been killed since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a massive military crackdown against the cartels in 2006.

But U.S. Army General Charles Jacoby, the head of the U.S. Northern Command, told the committee the violence has risen despite Mr. Calderon’s strategy of strategy of targeting the leaders of the cartels.

“I also believe the decapitation strategy – they’ve been successful at that: 22 out of the top 37 trafficking figures that the Mexican government has gone after have been taken off – taken off the board, but it has not had an appreciable effect – an appreciable positive effect,” he said.

I was particularly amused by the ironic “Related Articles” blurb at the end…

Yep. The government knows that our drug war is bad drug policy and causes harm to the world, but is not about to change it for anything. Not for 50,000 deaths. Not for a million.

And it is this disconnect between reality and policy that leads to the most amazing abuses of logic and the English language that you could ever imagine.

Just read Gil Kerlikowske’s offensively ugly presentation to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs this week. Read the whole thing (breakage alert).

It is staggering dishonesty to break the drug policy debate down as he does:

So what should drug policy look like moving forward? Surely it should chart a middle course—we do not have to choose between the extremes of harsh punishment and labor camps on the one hand, and acceptance of destructive and dangerous drug use on the other.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition reports from the UN Drug Policy Meeting in Vienna.

Even while several Latin American presidents are calling for an outright debate on drug legalization, delegates at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting this week failed to even discuss a change in the global prohibitionist drug treaties, reports a group of judges, prosecutors and jailers who were at the meeting in Vienna to promote reform.

During consideration of a U.S.-sponsored resolution to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first laws banning opium, Norway’s delegation attempted to insert the phrase “while observing human rights,” but even this move encountered resistance from the US delegation, which preferred not to mention human rights.

“Fundamentally, the three UN prohibitionist treaties are incompatible to human rights. We can have human rights or drug war, but not both,” said Maria Lucia Karam, a retired judge from Brazil and a board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).

Richard Van Wickler, currently a jail superintendent in New Hampshire, adds, “I suppose it’s not shocking that within the context of a century-long bloody ‘war on drugs’ the idea of human rights is a foreign concept. Our global drug prohibition regime puts handcuffs on millions of people every year while even the harshest of prohibitionist countries say that drug abuse is a health issue. What other medical problems do we try to solve with imprisonment and an abandonment of human rights?”

The UN meeting, the 55th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, comes amidst a rapidly emerging global debate on the appropriateness of continuing drug prohibition and whether legalization and regulation would be a better way to control drugs. In recent weeks, Presidents Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala, Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica and Felipe Calderon of Mexico have added their voices to the call for a serious conversation on alternatives to drug prohibition.

“Unfortunately, none of these powerful Latin American voices were heard during the official sessions of the UN meeting,” says Judge Karam. “In the halls of the UN building in Vienna we did speak to delegates who agree that the drug war isn’t working and that change is needed, but these opinions were not voiced when they counted the most. During the meetings, all the Member States remained voluntarily submissive to the U.N. dictates that required that all speak with a ‘single voice’ that mandated support for prohibition.”

Apparently the U.N. drug policy discussions have forgotten the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which supposedly is to have supremacy over all other U.N. treaties…
Continue reading →

I am running myself ragged in New York, but having a splendid time. Giving walking tours each day to the students and then last night spend three hours as an audience member in a mask chasing performers at full speed up and down flights of stairs through 100 rooms on 5 floors of a warehouse (“Sleep No More“).

So I don’t have anything more for you right now, but you folks are doing great in comments. Thought you needed a new thread. 🙂

Very early tomorrow morning, I’m heading for New York. I’m taking 19 students for a week of theatre and walking tours. They’ll be seeing “Sleep No More,” “Death of a Salesman,” “War Horse,” “Newsies,” and I’ll be scouting out “Best Man,” and “Once” as possible shows for my community trip in June. In six days, I’m giving 8 walking tours and seeing five shows along with hosting an alumni gathering and working hard to eat my way through my favorite restaurants in Manhattan (and Brighton Beach).

So, I may not have a lot of time for posting, but I’ll try to add a new one when I can.

But I can always count on you folks to keep each other up to speed with the latest travesty that needs commenting and important news in drug policy.

As always, I’ll certainly be reading.

In the debates today and Tuesday (listed below), here are some prohibitionist tricks and traps to watch for…

Numbers of use

They like to cherry-pick certain numbers to show the success of criminalization (use of x is down among y population…) and then use other numbers to show use is up when asking for funding.

The fact is that this debate is irrelevant. “Use” is unhelpful because it includes all non-problematic use. The real actual debate is whether the overall harm to society (from drug use and the drug war) is greater under prohibition than under legalization.

Perfect Solution Fallacy

“Legalization won’t eliminate the cartels, therefore we shouldn’t do it.” “Legalization won’t eliminate drug abuse, therefore we shouldn’t do it.” “Legalization won’t eliminate corruption, therefore we shouldn’t do it.”

Obviously, legalization will not solve everything, and at once. With the “cartels,” for example, they are entrenched because of decades of being fueled by prohibition. Cutting off the major source of funding will hurt them dramatically over time, because it will eliminate their funds for hiring new soldiers and bribing government agents. As that continues, the government can more easily fight them (if they remain in violent crime) because the cartels will no longer control the government.

As Peter Christ said (paraphrased) “Legalization is about solving our drug war problem. Then we can actually deal with our drug problem.”

The Irrelevant Lies

Watch for the common lies that are trotted out. “Marijuana has more carcinogens than tobacco. It’s more harmful than people think.” Sorry, but that dog won’t hunt. It’s an attempt to get people to believe that marijuana causes cancer, and despite the fact that they’ve love you to believe a tiny, improperly done study in New Zealand, the truth is the science is not out on this. Marijuana does not cause head, neck or lung cancer.

“More people are in treatment for marijuana than any other drug. It’s dangerously addictive.” Another lie. They’re in treatment because they were sent there or signed up to avoid jail, not because they’re addicted.

There are a few others like these, and not only are they lies, but they’re also irrelevant. Even if marijuana was more cancer-causing and addictive than tobacco, that still wouldn’t justify criminalization as the way to deal with it. Legal regulation and education is the solution (as it is with tobacco).

What about the Children?

I don’t know anyone who says we should legalize drugs and promote their use for children. In fact, most legalizers want regulations to control use by children that are more restrictive than what criminal dealers follow.

Talking about children is an intentional distraction from the real issues in the discussion about legalization.

The roads

You’ll probably hear that with legalization we’ll face a fiery Armageddon on the highways from all the stoned people crashing.

Yesterday, the Illinois House of Representatives passed a ban against using cellphones while driving a car. Interestingly, they did not criminalize the ownership, manufacture, sales of cellphones or the use of cellphones outside the car. Because that would be stupid.

Pass laws that address the actual problem.

Drug abuse versus Drug war abuse

You may get a smart prohibitionist who admits that the drug war has its problems, but asserts that the problems of drug abuse outweigh those problems, so that it’s a necessary evil.

That’s a false dichotomy. It’s not “drug abuse problems” on one side and “drug war problems” on the other side. You do, in fact, have drug abuse problems under prohibition. Here’s what it really looks like:

Legalization: drug abuse problems
Criminalization: drug war problems AND drug abuse problems

And there’s absolutely no evidence that drug abuse problems are significantly less under criminalization (quite a bit of evidence that they are not).

….

So, for those who are able to watch the debates, how many of these distractions did the prohibitionists use, and how well were they countered by our side?

Friday, March 9

The War on Drugs Has Failed. Is Legalization the Answer?
James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University

Friday (tomorrow) at Noon Eastern: Russ Belville vs. Kevin Sabet (should be interesting!)
Live Stream

Here’s the rest of the schedule.

Tuesday, March 13

(Via Transform) Transform will take part in the most high-profile public drug reform debate we’ve ever been invited to (and as far as we can tell, that has ever been staged). The event, “It’s Time to end the War on Drugs”, is being hosted by Google+ and the world’s largest debating forum Intelligence². Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst and Danny Kushlick, head of external affairs, will join an eclectic mix of celebrities, public figures and politicians, speaking either for or against the title motion. Among them are Sir Richard Branson, Russell Brand, Julian Assange (unclear what his position is on this), author Misha Glenny, former president of Mexico Vincente Fox, Peter Hitchens from the Mail on Sunday, two senior figures from the UNODC, Geoffrey Robertson QC, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, and former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair. (For the full list of participants, see the event page.)

The debate begins at 2 pm Eastern.

Joe Biden brings the checkbook.

US offers more aid to fight Central America drug crime

Mr Biden said the US had supported Central America under a regional security initiative with some $361m (£230m) since 2008.

“We’re asking our Congress for another $107m next year,” he said. […]

The drugs issue is likely to surface next month when regional heads of state, including US President Barack Obama, gather in Colombia for the sixth summit of the Americas.

Joe’s writing checks on money we don’t have in order to try to keep President Obama from having to face tough questions about failed policy.

Update: Even writing checks isn’t going to silence the region. Check out this outstanding article by Laura Carlsen that was picked up in Honduras Weekly: Upping the Drug War: Doing Biden’s Bidding

His message is that the administration that presides over the nation with the largest illegal drug market in the world and actively funds a global war to enforce ineffective prohibition policies will not consider any form of legalization. But it supports “dialogue.”

Can that position really qualify as dialogue? A dialogue on how to “be most effective in confronting transnational criminal organizations” must start from the recognition that the current US strategy has increased violence, done nothing to reduce crime or illicit drug flows and had a devastating impact on “people’s daily lives and daily routines” in Mexico and Central America.

A real discussion on effective strategies has to include the option of legalization. […]

Biden appears to have been charged on this trip with deterring any move toward legalization in the region and aligning nations in the war on drugs.

He has a tough road ahead of him. Latin American citizens and government leaders are openly protesting a model where their nations pay in blood and lives to fill US defense contractor’s pockets and spread the Pentagon’s global reach — with few, if any, positive results.

Biden may have taken the checkbook with him and these countries will probably take the money offered, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anymore that it will buy their silence.

To use that influence to suppress debate on innovative and very possibly effective alternatives to the bloody drug war is bad politics and the opposite of the kind of “equal partnership and mutual respect” the Obama administration promised at the Trinidad and Tobago Summit in 2009. Part of the purpose of Biden’s trip was to prepare for the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena in April. At that summit, the hemisphere’s nations will be able to judge whether Obama’s presidency changed relations as promised three years ago.

If Biden’s trip was only about locking in policies of drug war militarization and discouraging independent regional initiatives, the Obama administration will arrive in Cartagena having broken those promises and dashed hopes of a more just realignment of relations in the hemisphere.

I’m thinking that the Summit of the Americas is going to be something to watch.

Mexico Kills Cartel Big Shot, But Drug Violence Worsens

Drugs factory raided

A total of 90 cannabis plants, with a street value of between £20,000 and £30,000, were seized from the property […]

Ian Hodge, who lives in Berryfield Road, Cottingham, saw officers loading the cannabis plants into a police van.

He said: “Everyone in the village is talking about the raid and some people are really stunned. I’m not surprised a cannabis factory has been found in Cottingham because, with all the activity to shut down drugs houses in Corby, the problem is likely to move outside the town.

I really find the word “factory” to be bizarre when referring to growing some marijuana plants. It’s a garden. Even if it’s indoors, it’s not a “factory.” Do UK residents actually say “cannabis factory”? Or is the reporter putting words in his mouth.

Here’s the real fun stuff:

Police are warning that when cannabis plants reach the final stages of maturity the odour they release has carcinogenic properties.

Officers who deal with the plants use ventilation masks and protective suits and people who have plants in their home, especially anyone with young children, may be exposing their family to a health risk.

Wow! Just completely making things up now.

It’s so outrageous that the police inspector interviewed in the article actually wrote in the comments section that he said nothing of the sort and he had no idea where the reporter got the idea.

Interestingly, no reporter’s name is given with the article.

Update:

Thanks to Daksya in comments…

Check out this delightful follow-up by Ben Goldacre — really nice job by Ben at digging into this story and finding the faults from both the police and the press. Be sure to read the comments there — that’s where the real action takes place.

And thanks to Jake for letting me know that the word “factory” is commonly used in the UK to refer to grow-ops.