Drug WarRant

Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., data show

Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While most major causes of preventable death are declining, drugs are an exception. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes. By contrast, traffic accidents have been dropping for decades because of huge investments in auto safety.

Public health experts have used the comparison to draw attention to the nation’s growing prescription drug problem, which they characterize as an epidemic. This is the first time that drugs have accounted for more fatalities than traffic accidents since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979.

So with traffic fatalities decreasing dramatically overall, the Drug Czar has been spending a lot of the government’s policy capital making a big deal about “drugged driving,” pushing for “per se” laws that have nothing to do with traffic safety and making evidence-free pronouncements about what appears to be a non-existent epidemic of impaired drivers.

When it comes to fatalities from illegal drugs like heroin or cocaine, prohibition is what’s usually to blame, due to dangerous additives and uncertain purity.

Of course, the biggest increase in fatalities has been from prescription drugs, and, to be fair, the drug czar’s office has been giving this issue a tremendous amount of attention.

However, giving a problem a lot of attention is not the same as good policy, and the ONDCP has been seriously lacking useful policy to help the problem.

Sure, there have been some PR stunts like prescription drug turn-in programs, which probably bring in (helpfully) a lot of useless junk, but are less likely to reduce the availability of OxyContin or Xanax.

Then there’s marijuana, which could in some cases handle the anxiety or pain relief of much more dangerous prescription drugs, but is kept illegal, while pharmaceutical companies push to prescribe their drugs.

Chronic pain is politicized, with too much being under-treated or being pushed under the radar, leaving patients forced to take risky approaches to dealing with pain.

Finally, there isn’t a coherent national approach to harm reduction. Everything is about abstinence outside of prescribed uses, and so there is very little mass education about the specific dangers of dosage and interaction for off-label/recreational/addictive uses.

I’m sure the Drug Czar’s office has a way to paint this data as a complete vindication of everything that they’re doing. It’s about the only thing they’re good at.

The desire for recreational drugs is an ongoing part of human nature, and people will go to great lengths to obtain them, including manufacturing these drugs themselves in their homes.

Of course, governments go all out in their zeal to crush these attempts, from summarily cutting off the power of homes even suspected of using too much electricity, to taking away their children or seizing their home.

Now, in rather startling news, it’s been discovered that the occupants of the White House in Washington, DC have been secretly manufacturing recreational drugs, and even have a staff of specialists to work on it.

Apparently, this has been going on since last January, but they’ve managed to escape discovery so long by sharing with only a select few.

Only special guests have sampled White House homebrew.

As the lights are still on, it appears that the power has not yet been cut to the White House, and no word has been forthcoming from law enforcement and social agencies as to whether Malia Anne and Natasha will be placed in foster homes or whether forfeiture proceedings have begun on the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue property.

Happy Constitution Day.

… so that they have to harass people not only following state law, but even federal law.

Oregon State Police harass Federal medical marijuana patient Elvy Musikka

Early Thursday morning, Oregon State Police detained Elvy Musikka, one of four remaining federal medical marijuana patients, along with other state medical marijuana registry cardholders following a town hall meeting on medical marijuana in the eastern Oregon / Idaho border town of Ontario.

According to Joey Nieves, clinic manager at 45th Parallel, a medical marijuana cardholders co-operative, a state trooper had staked out the co-op to harass cardholders as they left the building. […]

Nieves reports Musikka was detained for over an hour in a squad car as the trooper did not believe Musikka’s federal paperwork entitling her to possess and use her federally-produced medical marijuana anywhere in the United States. […]

Patients on the scene recorded the encounter on video, which has been seized by the state police. […]

An AP reporter was already working on a story about Elvy and in the process of getting the return of Elvy’s prescription and ID, they learned that the state troopers were being ordered by the federal Department of Justice to engage in these seizures from state-legal patients.

President Obama has issued the annual Presidential memorandum where countries are chastised for failing to win our failed war on drugs.

Pursuant to section 706(1) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003 (Public Law 107-228)(FRAA), I hereby identify the following countries as major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries: Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Burma, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela. […]

Pursuant to section 706(2)(A) of the FRAA, I hereby designate Bolivia, Burma, and Venezuela as countries that have failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months to make substantial efforts to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements and take the measures set forth in section 489(a)(1) of the FAA. […]

I have also determined, in accordance with provisions of section 706(3)(A) of the FRAA, that support for programs to aid Bolivia and Venezuela are vital to the national interests of the United States.

Seems to me that there’s one major drug producing and transit country that isn’t on the list. Big country, perched right on top of Latin America, consumes more illegal drugs than the rest of the world. Wonder how it got left off the list?

Drug WarRant has been a big fan of LEAP member David Bratzer. Well, he is taking a leave from his work as a police officer in Victoria, BC in order to run for School Board Trustee in Victoria.

His campaign theme is “Schools Not Prisons.” It recognizes education as a major factor in determining whether a young person ends up in jail.

The interesting thing is that he is not hiding his involvement with LEAP and his views about the failed war on drugs, but rather making that part of his positive candidacy. Very refreshing.

I’ll keep you updated on his campaign.

Update:

Taking swift action, a federal district court judge last night granted an ACLU request and temporarily halted an unconstitutional policy at a public college in Missouri requiring all incoming students to submit to mandatory drug tests. Judge Nanette K. Laughrey ordered officials at Linn State Technical College in Jefferson City, Mo., to stop analyzing urine specimens that have already been collected and to instruct the drug testing company not to release any results it may have already compiled.

The ACLU is on fire.

Got Urine? ACLU Sues College Over Mandatory Drug Testing

Today the ACLU filed suit in federal court to stop Linn State Technical College, a public college in Missouri, from drug testing all of their incoming students with no suspicion of wrongdoing. Six brave students have stood up to administrators to demand that their Fourth Amendment rights not be violated, and that this senseless intrusion must end. […]

Our complaint demands that Linn State rescind their unconstitutional drug testing policy, refrain from testing anymore students, halt any analysis of the urine samples already collected, and return the $50 they charged all students.

But this case goes beyond Linn State. We filed our complaint in federal court not to just stop Linn State, but to stop any other college that thinks they can drug test their student body. It is illegal and they cannot.

Coming right on the heels of taking on the Florida welfare drug testing law, the ACLU is really stepping up to the plate here. These lawsuits are essential.

…

In other drug testing news, Hawaii Teachers Defeat Random Drug Testing

In an agreement reached Monday, the state agreed to end its insistence on random drug and alcohol testing for teachers.

Negotiators for Gov. Abercrombie agreed to the settlement “to avoid further expense and risk of litigation,” according to KITV-4 in Honolulu.

“For the past four years, the HSTA the ACLU have been challenging the random drug testing,” said HSTA President Wil Okabe, who added the issue had become one of teachers’ rights and the constitutionality of random suspicionless drug tests.

Link

Police and FBI agents arrested a drug suspect in Alameda on Wednesday, but not before mistakenly trying to raid a home across the street belonging to a network TV reporter and her political consultant husband.

Harm Reduction International has released a new report: The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2011

One of the key findings of the report is:

There are likely to be more than a thousand people executed every year for a drug offence and in many environments the majority or even totality are non-nationals of the executing state.

The countries that do the most executing particularly like to execute people who come from other countries (don’t assume that being an American will protect you).

Harm Reduction International points out the state of international law regarding execution, particularly for drug offenses:

The lawful application of capital punishment is significantly restricted under international law. Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that the penalty of death may only be applied to the ‘most serious crimes’. Over the past twenty-five years UN human rights bodies have interpreted Article 6(2) in a manner that limits the number and type of offences for which execution is allowable under international human rights law. While many retentionist governments argue that drug offences fall under the umbrella of ‘most serious crimes’, this is not the perspective of the UN Human Rights Committee or the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, both of which have stated that drug offences do not constitute ‘most serious crimes’ and that executions for such offences are therefore in violation of international human rights law. This is supported by international State practice given the small minority of countries retaining capital punishment for drugs. In recent years there has also been increasing support for the belief that capital punishment in any form violates the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, as enshrined in numerous UN and regional human rights treaties, and customary international law.

I’d like to see the UNODC focus more on this area. When UNODC head Yury Fedetov recently visited Iran and praised them effusively for their drug seizures, saying:

“Iran is our important partner in the war on drugs,” he said, adding, it is a “good and reliable” partner for the international community as well.

“We will make efforts to increase international support for Iran,” he added.

Where was the admonishment for their execution of drug offenders in violation of UN law? According to reports (including from Iran government sources) as detailed in the HRI document, Iran executed at least 590 last year for drug offenses and has executed over 10,000 for drug offenses since 1979.

I’ve heard that Kevin Sabet is planning on leaving the Drug Czar’s office next week to take a job in the private sector. He’s been a prime behind-the-scenes player in the ONDCP and is likely to have had a strong hand in the extremely late National Drug Control Strategy.

Kevin’s a bright young opportunist, and has done quite a job of building a career for himself using the drug war as a resume builder. He’s also good at creating catchy sound bites without needing any evidence…

And legalization remains (rightfully) the stuff of dreams (nightmares, really, when you take into account the heavy social costs that would result from a free, commercial market for illegal drugs).

I haven’t heard yet where he’ll be working. What are your guesses?