Drug WarRant

Jack Marshall has a site called “Ethics Alarms” and has posted Distracted Driving, Pot, and “The Great Debate” — a reaction to the Barney Frank, George Will, et al debate.

First, he takes up the issue of federal regulations against distracted driving.

Talking on a cell phone, texting, reading a Facebook update and other forms of distracted driving do endanger others, and making laws that punish fools who think keeping up with the Kardashians is worth risking the lives of my family is an easy call, ethically speaking. So a driver has to pull off the road and park before answering a call or reading a text…big deal. George needs to get out more: if he was behind the wheel with any frequency, he would know that the number of inattentive drivers weaving in and out of traffic, shifting speeds and missing lights and signals because of the Blackberry in their hands is frighteningly high.

Ethically, the trade-off is minor inconvenience—-in most cases, minor to the point of irrelevance—versus human lives saved.

He then demonstrates his scientific/ethical/analytical bona fides by stating:

Ethics, in the end, are determined by rational conclusions, based on observation, experience and analysis, about what kind of conduct and standards most benefit individuals, society and civilization. Doctrinaire elevations of minor infringements of principle to priority over undeniable risks to human life are not ethical. Ideological purity divorced from reality is no friend of ethics.

This is to show that he’s taking a rational calculus to determine the proper balance of risks and inconvenience (not sure who gets to set the scales, though).

However, this is also where his arguments turn as dumb as a box of rocks.

Let’s say he was able to show that all the various items discussed (texting, cell phone use, checking email, etc., while driving) are actually dangerous to lives, and we, for the moment, won’t bother with little technicalities like differences between people, technical solutions, etc.

In that case, I’d be perfectly happy to agree that not doing those things is worth the inconvenience.

However, that has absolutely nothing to do with a federal law.

Acting ethically is not equal to passing a law requiring people to do so. Marshall acts as though it is.

To play on his own words: laws should be determined by rational conclusions, based on observation, experience and analysis, about what kind of impact that they’ll have on the risky action, what other separate impact they’ll have, unintended consequences, and whether the risky action can be addressed in another way (such as reducing tobacco use without criminalizing it).

Unfortunately, most risk-prevention laws have no rational analysis, and this kind of idiocy is far too common. A law against doing something is actually seen as equivalent to not doing something. It is never considered that the law may have costs of its own, that it might not work, or that something other than a law might work better.

It may be that an education campaign is a better approach – getting people to choose not to ride with distracted drivers, or expressing disapproval (friends don’t let friends drive distracted). It may be that the law is unenforceable in any fair way (how will police tell the difference between GPS use and texting, etc.) or that new technology can play a part.

But saying “I’ve seen people weaving around, therefore we need a federal law” is not only irresponsible, it’s as dumb as a box of rocks.

This whole rant is just to set up the real stupidity of the piece. Next, he talks about marijuana, and it really gets surreal.

I’ll let you guys in comments have first crack at that. I may play around with it later. There’s way too much fun here to leave alone.

Some of these have already been discussed in comments, but are too good to pass up…

Priceless. Barney Frank Goes After George Will Over Marijuana Legalization On This Week

In quite a surreal moment, Barney Frank asked George Will his position on marijuana and if it should be legalized.

Will admitted that he was a supporter of the internet gambling legalization bill Frank has fought for in Congress, but admitted that regarding marijuana, he would need to learn more about its effects on the human body and how government would regulate it. Frank responded to the notion of marijuana being a gateway drug by saying “anything is a gateway to anything.” Will argued his position was a “quest for information,” and Frank asked how long it would take because marijuana has been around for a long time already.

Later…

Frank [interjected] to say that if Ryan and Will were arguing that big government is wrong, they should be intellectually consistent by not taking the position that government should prohibit people from doing what they wish to their bodies or telling people who they can marry or not.

I’m going to miss him in Congress.

There’s a really badly headlined article at the Washington Post (as noted by Malcolm) Latin American leaders fault U.S. drug users (the web page title is a bit better: “Latin American leaders assail U.S. drug ‘market’)

But the article points out some important things.

With transit countries facing some of the highest homicide rates in the world, so great is the frustration that the leaders are demanding that the United States and Europe consider steps toward legalization if they do not curb their appetite for drugs.

At a regional summit this month in Mexico, attended by the leaders of 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries, officials declared that “the authorities in consumer countries should explore all possible alternatives to eliminate exorbitant profits of criminals, including regulatory or market options.”

“Market options” is diplomatic code for decriminalization.

The complaints are not exactly new but are remarkable for being nearly unanimous. The critique comes from sitting presidents left to right, from persistent U.S. antagonists such as President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and from close U.S. allies such as President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, which has received almost $9 billion in aid to fight the cartels.

Naturally, the usual U.S. government officials say not to worry, we’re winning the war on drugs.

Nice piece by Bill Varble: Legalize pot: It’ll dry up drug cartels’ market, save forests

Of course, there is a sure-fire way to end the reach of drug gangs into Oregon’s forests: End pot prohibition. Just declare defeat in the pot theater of the War on Drugs and move on.

This has been clear to a growing number people for a long time, but now it’s truly an idea whose time has come.

Neal Pierce in the Seattle Times: President Obama’s puzzling silence on marijuana policy

Obama’s Drug Policy Office claims the drug war is over, replaced by a focus on shrinking demand, “innovative, compassionate and evidence-based drug policies.” But Obama has not once singled out marijuana — a substance arguably far less harmful to the human body than alcohol — for special consideration. Nor has he spoken to the harm to youth caused by 800,000 yearly arrests. Or moved to stem the billions of dollars a year spent on marijuana-related arrests.

This is clearly not the “change” Obama’s enthusiastic supporters of 2008 expected. And it’s deeply ironic. Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance notes that if local police departments had been enforcing marijuana laws as harshly in the early 1980s as many do today, “there’s a good chance a young Columbia student named Barack Obama could have been picked up — and not be in the White House today.”

Kevin Sabet continues to embarrass himself. In a letter to the New York Times, he complains about advocates attempting to bypass the government’s drug approval processes and using referenda for marijuana. He then agrees that the federal government is partially at fault:

The federal government could certainly speed up research into marijuana’s components by giving incentives to scientists who study the drug and loosening marijuana’s strict research requirements.

So who should we blame for that? We keep reading and at the end of the letter we see: “The writer was an adviser on drug policy in the Obama, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.”

So he was the federal government. Ah, I guess his message is that we should be patient because now that he’s left, the government will become competent.

Breaking: Congress Votes to Kill People

Shocking headline, but true, as Congress votes to restore the ban on funding for needle exchange programs.

Congress’s action this week means misery and death for large numbers of people. As the eight federal reviews of the research on this issue demonstrate, needle exchange programs reduce the spread of HIV without increasing the use of drugs. According to the Harm Reduction Coalition, needle sharing by injection drug users accounts for 8,000 new cases of HIV and 15,000 new cases of Hepatitis C each year. Of course the diseases spread from them to other people on occasion, including people who have no involvement in illegal drug use. As HRC points out, New York City has seen a 75% reduction in new HIV cases as a result of instituting such programs, according to a 2005 study.

Must read: Clean Needles Saved My Life. Now Congress Wants to Ban Funding for Needle Exchange by Maia Szalavitz

Christian Science Monitor: Government isn’t lying loudly enough to young people.

Government needs to send a clear, loud message about marijuana’s dangers.

Legalizing marijuana: Police officers speak out

This has been discussed a bit in comments… fascinating column in Police One – a site not known for its tolerance for legalization.

I’ll be heading up to Chicago tomorrow to play piano for a burlesque show, and then I’ve got lots of final projects to grade this weekend.

Sometime, I’ve got to find time to do a little Christmas shopping. I was hoping to get some of this panettone as gifts, but apparently it’s only available in parts of Bolivia.

Sometimes even major media outlets let a few silly typos slip by now and then, and you have to correct them. Take this New York Daily News article, which needed some fixing. I’m pretty sure they must have heard the feds wrong – maybe a garbled phone connection – so I’ve taken the liberty of fixing…

U.S. cocaine habit failed drug policy funding Mideast terror via Mexican drug gangs: Feds

WASHINGTON — America’s cocaine habit destructive drug war not only funds drug violence in the West, it also supports Iranian-backed terror and wars waged against Israel, prosecutors charge. […]

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who filed the suit, said it “puts into stark relief the nexus between narcotics trafficking bad government policy and terrorism.”

Joking aside, this is an ugly and scary thing, as the U.S. continues to suspend human rights and Constitutional rights merely upon the arbitrary invoking of the “terror” word, for the duration of a by-definition infinite “war.”

…

Regarding media mistakes, Washington Post writer Courtland Milloy had an interesting article about the benefits of pot for athletes: For pro athletes, the risks of smoking pot are high — but so are the benefits.

One downside of the article was the casual mention: “The health risks cited are already pretty well known, including an increased risk of lung cancer and accidents and the potential for abuse and addiction.”

I wrote Mr. Milloy and pointed out the Washington Post’s own coverage of the study proving no lung cancer from marijuana use.

He was nice enough to write back:

Thanks for sharing this, Pete. I have recieved quite a few emails to that effect and may write another column exploring how a substance that chemists say has all of these carcinogens gets such a clean bill of heath regarding lung cancer. Courtland

I hope he does.

This does, of course, point out the perniciousness of the lies from the Drug Czar and NIDA. They know that they can’t say that marijuana causes lung cancer, so they regularly point out that marijuana smoke contains carcinogens (so do many commonly used substances including Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Talcum Powder, Tide Laundry Detergent, Lysol, Oscar Meyer beef hot dogs, and whole milk). Then they let other people make the non-existent marijuana-lung cancer link for them.

And yes, they are deliberate lies by the Drug Czar and NIDA as they are intended to deceive.

Count the Costs has a new briefing out today: The War on Drugs: Creating crime, enriching criminals

This briefing summarises the crime-related costs stemming from the war on drugs, which include:

• Organised crime arising from the illicit drug trade, and its knock-on effects in terms of money laundering, corruption and violence

• Street-level crime committed by drug gangs and by
dependent drug users attempting to support their habits

• The criminalisation of users, excessive levels of
incarceration, and crimes committed by governments
under the banner of the drug war

• The economic costs of drug war-related crime, and the
criminal justice response to it

Prohibition Isn’t Free, folks.

Malaysia

The government needs more voluntary workers to complement its effort to fight drug abuse, said Sibu Municipal Council chairman Datuk Tiong Thai King.

Tiong said this would enable the nation to achieve its target of a drug-free society by year 2015 as envisioned by former prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Good luck with that. Unless your plan includes the forced emigration of 28 million people, it ain’t gonna work.

Maia Szalavitz in Time:

The latest update to the annual Monitoring the Future survey of drug use in American youth bears mainly good news, at least if your interest is in reducing drug-related harm: both teen drinking and cigarette smoking are at historic lows; in fact, past-month marijuana use is now more commonly reported by high school seniors than smoking cigarettes.

Rafael Lemaitre and Gil Kerlikowske

Glenn Greenwald has a very strong piece: The growing menace of domestic drones

Whatever else is true, the growing use of drones for an increasing range of uses on U.S. soil is incredibly consequential and potentially dangerous, for the reasons I outlined last week, and yet it is receiving very little Congressional, media or public attention. It’s just a creeping, under-the-radar change. Even former Congresswoman Harman […] has serious concerns about this development: ”There is no question that this could become something that people will regret,” she told the LA Times. The revelation that a Predator drone has been used on U.S. soil this way warrants additional focus on this issue.

There is always a large segment of the population that reflexively supports the use of greater government and police power — it’s usually the same segment that has little objection to Endless War — and it’s grounded in a mix of standard authoritarianism (I side with authority over those they accused of being Bad and want authorities increasingly empowered to stop the Bad people) along with naiveté (I don’t really worry that new weapons and powers will be abused by those in power, especially when — like now — those in power are Good). This mindset manifests in the domestic drone context specifically by dismissing their use as nothing more than the functional equivalent of police helicopters. This is a view grounded in pure ignorance.

Glenn is one of the true voices sounding the alarm of authoritarianism, and understanding the mindset of those who would assume that power.

It’s beyond obvious that policy planners and law enforcement officials expect serious social unrest. Why wouldn’t they: when has sustained, severe economic suffering and anxiety of the sort we are now seeing — along with pervasive, deep anger at the political class and its institutions — not produced that type of unrest? Drones are the ultimate tool for invasive, sustained surveillance and control, and one would have to be historically ignorant and pathologically naive not to understand its capacity for abuse.

So where do we go from here?

No matter one’s views, the escalating addition of drones — weaponized or even just surveillance — to the vast arsenal of domestic weapons that already exist is a serious, consequential development. The fact that it has happened with almost no debate and no real legal authorization is itself highly significant. One thing is for certain: this is a development that is going to continue and increase rapidly. It needs far more attention than it has thus far received.

Update: One answer: