Drug WarRant

It doesn’t matter what Biden says. He obediently trotted over to Latin America because they demanded a discussion about legalization. And he had no choice – if he didn’t do it now, Obama would have to face the discussion himself when he visits. Nothing can now change the fact that the Vice President of the United States has flown to Mexico and Central America to discuss legalization of drugs.

In Mexico, Biden shoots down talk of drug legalization

Despite Biden’s emphatic rejection of moves toward legalization, analysts of counter-drug policy say policymakers in Washington may no longer be able to halt demand for broader discussions.

“What’s clear is that for the U.S. to continue to say, ‘There is no debate and discussion to be had. It’s a settled matter’ — that won’t fly anymore,” said John Walsh, drug policy program coordinator at the Washington Office on Latin America, a social justice and human rights advocacy group.

Demands to address failures in U.S.-designed counter-drug policies have been stimulated, ironically, by the posture of Washington’s closest ally in the region — President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, who said last fall that he would welcome discussion about legalization but would be “crucified” if he led the charge.

So, yes, while Biden shot down legalization, he added legitimacy to it.

Biden, on a two-day swing to Mexico and Central America, said a sour mood over violence from powerful narcotics mafias has led to a desire in some corners of Latin America to debate legalization.

“It warrants a discussion. It’s totally legitimate for this to be raised,” Biden said, adding that he’d spent “thousands of hours” at Senate hearings over the issue.

Wait. What?

He’s spent thousands of hours at Senate hearings over legalization? Right. I’d be willing to bet he’s spent thousands of hours at Senate hearing figuring out more ways to incarcerate people for drug crimes, but probably the only discussions related to legalization involved asking if there’s a way to jail people who advocate legalization.

Check this out at Huffington Post: Rep. Jared Polis burns Colorado’s new DEA Chief Barbra Roach over strict anti-marijuana stance

We’ve had a number of discussions recently regarding Drug WarRant’s position on legalization and the definition of legalization so I thought it was a good time to re-cap the official stance of this site (individual readers’ mileage may vary).

Drug WarRant supports and fights for the legalization of all recreational drugs.

Ah, but what does that mean? Here are our definitions.

Legalization: A status where responsible adults may legally acquire, possess, and use a particular drug, although there may be restrictions on time, place and manner.

Legal does not mean unregulated. In fact, when it comes to drugs, most supporters of legalization call for some regulation and control.

Consider gasoline. It is an extremely dangerous substance — it can cause severe health problems or death if inhaled, can be fashioned into an explosive and can cause damaging fires. It is a legal substance (responsible adults may acquire, possess, and use it), but it is subject to control and regulation. It can only be sold by licensed dealers, and there are regulations as to how it may be used, in what kind of containers it may be stored, and so forth.

Legalization of drugs is fully compatible with regulatory efforts restricting access to children, forbidding use while driving or while working in safety-sensitive jobs, banning use in certain locations or situations, controlling the means for manufacture and distribution (including taxation and labeling), and creating standards for purity and potency.

Criminalization: A status where the manufacture, distribution, and/or possession of a particular drug is likely to result in criminal penalties if caught (ie, felony or misdemeanor charges, jail, fines, probation, criminal record), regardless of time, place, or manner.

Prohibition: The combined efforts by government entities and others to enforce and promote criminalization.

Decriminalization: American Heritage dictionary defines it as “to reduce or abolish criminal penalties for.” Theoretically, decriminalization could mean legalization (and is preferred by some drug policy reformers), except for the “reduce” option. Decriminalization is sometimes used to describe contradictory legal situations where marijuana, for example, is legal to possess and use, but not to acquire — this is a partial legalization that leaves intact certain destructive aspects of prohibition’s side-effects. Because of these confusions, for the purpose of this site, we tend to prefer the terms criminalized and legalized.

The default status of any substance is legal.

Obviously, this means that legalization is a huge field. There is everything from completely unrestricted to extremely heavily regulated within the realm of legalization. While we certainly have opinions as to what the proper set of policies may be for any particular drug, the one certain thing is that we must start with a position of “legal.”

Drug WarRant supports and fights for a legal regime that dramatically reduces the destructive effects of prohibition.

While we have opinions as to the ideal set of regulations for any particular drug, the most important thing is to reduce the many harms of prohibition. A legalized regime is only proper if it makes the black market largely unprofitable. This doesn’t mean that we have to eliminate the black (or grey) market altogether, but regulations must not be so strict (or taxes so high) as to be, from a market perspective, indistinguishable from prohibition.

Even ridiculous taxation on cigarettes by some states has largely managed to avoid a black market explosion. Most people prefer to buy legally and are willing to pay a premium to do so, and the black market has costs that the legal market does not.

This leaves a fairly large set of options open regarding taxation and regulation without returning to the violent black market fueled by prohibition. We look forward to the day when we can have the inevitable discussions (and arguments) about what the appropriate amount of regulation is for each drug.

But first, legalization.

Eric Sterling has a good piece at Forbes: The War On Drugs Hurts Businesses and Investors

This is something that we need to be getting on the radar more — the fact that the drug war actually hurts business, damages the labor pool, reduces productivity and buying power within the legitimate economy.

Every now and then we hear the government talk about the billions in “lost productivity” due to drugs, when in fact it is lost productivity due to drug policy.

It’s time for business to start grumbling about the unfair burden that the drug war puts on their ability to recruit trained employees, and increase productivity and profits, and how the violence and corruption of the drug war poisons the market.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is a rogue organization loosely connected to the UNODC, with essentially no oversight and operating in secrecy. It’s on the list of organizations that I will designate as terrorist organizations when I become President.

As many of you know, Bolivia recently withdrew from the Single Convention because they were going to be required to outlaw non-cocaine uses of coca leaves in contradiction of Bolivian heritage and Constitution. They intend to re-ratify the convention with an exception for traditional coca usage.

Well, the INCB recently made a bunch of noise about how Bolivia is essentially wrecking drug policy for the rest of the world (even though all Bolivia wants to do is live up to their cultural commitments to aboriginal rights, etc.).

This prompted this rather strongly worded letter from Bolivia to the INCB.

The fact that, according to your note, the purpose of the mission was to analyze “the grave consequences for international drug control” of our political decision makes it clear that the mission apparently arrived in our country already prejudiced. This is the same prejudice which was publicly expressed by the INCB in its press statement of 6 July 2011, where it is mentioned that “such approach would undermine the integrity of the global drug control system”. Your letter simply repeats the position that the President of the INCB had already embraced, without examining in a serious manner the arguments which have been explained to you in great detail during your visit. […]

The Plurinational State of Bolivia regrets that the Board has failed to understand and reflect the firm will of the Bolivian government to continue to be part of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961. This is why it feels forced to express its utmost rejection of the disqualifications expressed in your note, which fail to ponder on the conclusive and unprecedented results of the Bolivian commitment to control the surplus coca cultivation and the illicit drugs trade. […]

We categorically reject the claims and erroneous opinions expressed in your note in the sense that the Plurinational State of Bolivia has the intention of undermining the integrity of the international drug control system, as it has been wrongly interpreted. […]

Moreover, I am obligated to categorically object to the erroneous inference on the part of the Board when confusing the unilateral accession-with-reservation procedure with a supposed intentionality regarding the reclassification of the coca leaf in List I of the Convention of 1961. In this manner, the INCB seeks to discredit and convolute the intention of the Plurinational State of Bolivia that is well aware of the legal dispositions established in the Conventions for this purpose and the difference between these, and the process begun in June with the denunciation.

This may sound like complex and dry, but it really is quite blistering in foreign-policy-speak.

With Latin America speaking up almost in one voice in favor of talks about legalization, forcing the U.S. to send Joe Biden down there in some futile attempt to quash a rebellion of ideas.

Danny Kushlick, who heads the London-based Transform Drug Policy Foundation, said the region is “on the verge of a tipping point that will begin when the Latin Americans raise the issue within earshot and in full view of the Americans. Ultimately this is about allowing democratic conversations to take place without being leaned upon by the U.S.”

Latin America is feeling bolder, and Bolivia has no reason to act subservient to the INCB.

The U.S. hold on the drug war is noticeably slipping. It still holds the high ground in power, but has definitely lost the moral high ground that it once appeared to have, and the grumbling is getting louder (and it won’t be completely silenced by Joe Biden and the checkbook he’ll be bringing).

I’ve noticed that Biden’s been almost invisible so far in the Obama Presidency, and so has stayed out of trouble. This little trip to Latin America would be an interesting time for one of his trademark gaffes.

A very interesting debate in four parts between Sean Dunagan (former DEA analyst and LEAP member) and Kevin Sabet (former ONDCP staffer and prohibitionist).

Has Obama Challenged the ‘War On Drugs’ Assumptions’?

One of the nice things about this particular video debate is that they also have the transcripts available, in case you prefer to read than listen/watch (usually my preference).

In the four parts, they cover a fair amount of ground. Parts 1-3 are the most predictable. Sean Dunagan does a good job getting the important points out there. Kevin is his usual self – often agreeing with his opponent at points to seem reasonable and then countering with a list of fallacious arguments a mile long.

One fallacy he likes to use is the Perfect Solution Fallacy, where he denigrates a proposed solution because it won’t solve all the problems.

Here’s one of the most extreme and obvious examples, where the host asks him a question of balancing costs:

JAY: Let me ask a question. Let’s for the sake of argument say that if there was decriminalization or legalization of some form, use would go up. So what? And what I mean by so what: is it worth—even if it has negative consequences (and I would say it would), is the consequences of, for example, the destruction of so many inner cities through gang culture based on drug control, the destruction of Mexico, what’s happening in Central America—like, if you’re balancing a complex problem here, is the war on drugs worth it?

SABET: Yeah, so there are two issues with that. One is that you just made an assumption that all that will go away if drugs were legalized.

What??? No, he didn’t.

SABET:…They’re making money from multiple things. To think with that assumption that you just made that they’re going to go away if only drugs were legal, because it would be like alcohol and tobacco, is to totally not understand and see what the economic impact and how these organizations are in our society.

That’s a really obvious disconnect from the question in a pretty offensive way.

Later on, he does it again

But one of the things, even if you end up taxing it, as have been many of the proposals, the idea that this underground market is necessarily going to go away is ridiculous. The profits they’re making are so big, they’ll lower their price to match—it’s worth it for them to lower their price to match or even go slightly below the government

The argument is not that the underground market will go away entirely, but it certainly is going to be radically diminished, and that’s a huge, huge benefit. But Sabet throws in the Perfect Solution Fallacy to avoid getting in a balancing the costs discussion.

There’s more…

The idea that we’re going to be able to legalize drugs and solve Mexico’s problem right now—which is, I would say we both agree, a huge issue—the idea that that’s going to happen under legalization is totally, again, missing the point. It’s simplistic in that it doesn’t get to the core issues of corruption and the core issues of what’s happening in Mexico.

Or his answer to serious questions about heroin maintenance programs and inner city problems…

I think we can do better than giving heroin to people in controlled settings and assume that their misery’s going to go away in a place like Baltimore.

He uses that several times more.

Unfortunately, Kevin’s use of these fallacies in arguments serves him well, because it often keeps the debate from getting to the real issues. I think Sean Dunagan actually should have avoided getting into the long discussion about numbers of use because that’s a distraction (I’m not blaming Sean, it would have been extremely hard not to get sucked into it) — it’s a distraction from the real balancing-the-costs issue and it ignores the fact that use is a rather meaningless factor when discussing harm.

Part 4 of the debate got into some interesting territory by bringing in Megan Sherman, who grew up on the streets of Baltimore, discussing the larger problem of policing in the inner city. Megan sees the destructive policing issue to be the important one to be solved prior to discussing legalization, but I think she fails to understand the degree to which drug policy allows and encourages bad policing practice.

One minor point from earlier in the debate. I got a real chuckle out of Kevin’s attempt to paint RAND as a completely independent source with “nothing to do with government.”

First of all, the RAND Corporation, which is a nonprofit, independent organization that has nothing to do with government, did a major study on the impact of legalization and what would happen in California when they were going for legalization of marijuana, and found that there would be a significant increase in use because of prices would fall. So, I mean, economics 101, drug policy 101: drug prices under legalization fall and use goes up. Youth are especially sensitive to price. So that—you know, and they who do not have a stake in the political or policy game said that that would happen.

Right. And the Heritage Foundation is bipartisan.

There’s a new thing called Versus Debates through Google and Youtube, and they’re kicking things off on March 13 at 7 pm GMT (which is 2 pm EST) with “The War on Drugs.”

Watch the live debate here on Tuesday 13th March, 7pm GMT. Richard Branson, Russell Brand, Julian Assange, Eliott Spitzer, Vincente Fox, and many more, will be locking horns on this age defining question.

This could be interesting. Mark your calendars.

AdvoCare, Inc., American Civil Liberties Union – National Prison Project, American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, Center on Policy Initiatives, Communications Workers of America, Detention Watch Network, Enlance, Grassroots Leadership, Human Rights Defense Center, In The Public Interest, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International CURE, Justice Policy Institute, Justice Strategies, Marijuana Policy Project, NAACP, National Employment Law Project, Private Corrections Institute, Private Corrections Working Group, The Sentencing Project, Service Employees International Union, Southern Center for Human Rights, Southern Poverty Law Center, Southern Region, Workers United, Service Employees International Union, Youth Transformation Center, Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs

Plus: the United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ/Justice and Witness Ministries and the Presbyterian Criminal Justice Network, among others.

All these organizations are calling for states to turn down the poisonous offer of Corrections Corporation of America to buy their prisons in exchange for guaranteeing 20 years of 90% capacity.

ACLU has the story and the letters

John Hughes is described as a former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, who writes a biweekly column.

However, when reading GOP candidates need to debate legalizing marijuana, I thought for sure that it was something written by a 7th grader. A stupid 7th grader.

It’s written in an extremely simplistic style, full of fallacies and downright nonsense, completely lacking in logic.

In the current debates among GOP presidential contenders about “values,” I have not heard any discussion about the legalization of marijuana. I think there should be.

Apparently, John Hughes is incapable of googling “GOP debate marijuana” or he’d see this or this. Sure, we’d like to see a lot more discussion about legalization, but to say there hasn’t been any? That’s ridiculous.

Of course, Hughes is a prohibitionist. Not a very smart one. He’s got one argument:

The words of a narcotics agent came back to me when singer Tony Bennett recently supported the legalization of drugs at a pre-Grammy gala where various Hollywood personalities were depicted smoking pot on TV.

The agent’s words were: “I can’t say every pot smoker goes on to get hooked on the hard stuff. But I can say every addict I know on the hard stuff got started on pot.”

If is a meaningless argument, and anyone with more than a 7th grade education should be able to instantly point out the fallacy of such an argument.

Come on, CSM — I know that your editorial policy is sadomoralistic, but can’t you do better than this crap?

First up, via Australia (Thanks Evert) we have The decriminalisation (or even legalisation) of drugs by Chris Berg.

It doesn’t take more than a moment of thought to recognise that the rulings on which drugs are legal or illegal are governed by no particular logic.

No theory from medicine or philosophy or psychology demands alcohol, tobacco and caffeine must be legal while marijuana, cocaine, and heroin must be prohibited.

[…]

Whether a drug is illegal is nothing more than an accident of history. Drug laws were not written dispassionately by a panel of the best medical and ethical minds in the world. The laws bear no relation to the damage those drugs could cause or their danger to society – they were not written to minimise harm or protect health.

Quite the opposite: the current schedule of drugs in the Western world has been driven by politics, expediency, prejudice, and sometimes outright racism.

[…]

But the biggest cultural barrier to such reform is the current status illegal drugs have. In the sort of circular reasoning that only popular discourse can manage, the prohibition of drugs is mostly justified by their pre-existing legal status. Why are certain drugs prohibited? Because they are illicit drugs.

But that status has been set by politics and moral panics, not dispassionate evidence-based risk assessments. Drug prohibition carries the legacy of the ugly politics of the past. Once we realise that, we may start to rethink the justice of a war that is, in truth, not against drugs, but against drug users.

Then, in Canada, we have our friend Eric Sterling trying to advise them from going down our destructive path. Canada is repeating U.S. mistakes on drug sentencing

As Canadian senators meet this week to vote on comprehensive anti-crime Bill C-10, they need to reflect upon the U.S. experience and reject the bill’s entrenchment of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences in Canada. As has been the case in the U.S., mandatory minimums can easily go wrong in Canada, too, in ways entirely predictable. Exploding court and correctional costs for resource-strapped national and provincial governments is one likely calamity that Canadians can expect from mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

In 1986, I played a central role helping the U.S. Congress write the federal mandatory minimum sentences. Soon we saw the devastating effects that this legislation forced upon unprepared court and correctional systems.

[…]

But the political temptation to promote harsh-sounding sentences was too seductive in 1986. Ironically, no opponent of mandatory minimum sentences has ever lost re-election on this issue. We have learned that imprisoning countless marijuana gardeners has no impact on organized crime leaders, doesn’t keep drugs away from kids or kids away from drugs, and actually increases criminals’ profits by driving up prices.

Countless lives have been ruined due to incarceration and criminal records for non-violent drug offences. Based on this irrefutable evidence, and the repeal of mandatory sentencing measures in numerous states, I can see only one reason why Canada’s federal government and some provincial governments would want to go down this wasteful route: the belief it is good electoral politics to parade as tough on drugs and crime. At this time of fiscal limits, taxpayers can’t afford the luxury of expensive and symbolic anti-crime measures.

Parliament must embrace only policies that are effective, respect the taxpayers’ pocketbook and are evidence-based. Mandatory minimums fit none of these important criteria.