Drug WarRant

Pot smokers still see it as harmless: study – By national medical reporter Sophie Scott

A national survey has found many people see cannabis as a soft drug, with nearly half underestimating the harmful impacts it may have.

May have? What does that mean? Cannabis may cause a shift in the space-time continuum. The fact that pot smokers underestimate the potential harmful effects that cannabis may have on the space-time continuum hardly seems dangerous. How can you possibly blame pot smokers for underestimating the harmful effects of hypotheticals?

A study of 1,000 Australians, by the Richmond Fellowship of New South Wales, found almost one-third admitted to using cannabis.

People aged 25 to 34 were the most likely to use cannabis and also the most likely to discount the harmful effects of the drug.

So which “harmful effects” did they discount? Inquiring minds want to know. National Medical Reporter Sophie Scott, however, does not have an enquiring mind.

Richmond Fellowship spokeswoman Pamela Rutledge says the findings reinforce many anecdotal views about cannabis and mental health.

“Anecdotally our workers see the terrible toll cannabis has on users on a day-to-day basis, particularly young users,” she said.

She says there is a long way to go to change attitudes that cannabis is a harmless drug.

So what is this major research facility that performed this important scientific study? I took a look at the Richmond Fellowship of New South Wales.

You probably won’t find the “study” anywhere on their web site (I couldn’t). You will learn, however, that they are a non-profit, heavily funded by the government, that provides treatment and recovery programs for mental illness.

So what does that have to do with pot smokers and underestimating dangers? Nothing really.

But you’ll also learn on the front page of their site that they’re about to host a special symposium, and they were probably hoping that they could get National Medical Reporter Sophie Scott to shill for them.

CANNABIS AND MENTAL ILLNESS: WHAT DO WE KNOW AND WHAT CAN BE DONE? […]

The Symposium will include a panel of experts and will be moderated by the ABC’s Quentin Dempster.

The RFNSW’s experience in working with young people has provided strong anecdotal evidence of the social, emotional and economic impacts of cannabis-induced mental illness.

How dare pot smokers underestimate the anecdotal evidence that may exist?

What anecdotal evidence exists regarding mental illness and National Medical Reporters?

There’s no doubt that the amount of attention being paid to marijuana arrests in New York is making a difference.

Bill would reduce charge for pot possession

ALBANY — In a rare show of bipartisanship and upstate-downstate agreement, freshman state Sen. Mark Grisanti is co-sponsoring a bill with Democratic Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries to reduce from a misdemeanor to a violation public possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The co-sponsors say many people, especially minorities in New York City, end up getting arrested for small amounts if they are stopped by a police officer and told to empty their pockets — at which point the possession becomes public.

“They are basically tricking them to show it,” said Tony Newman of the Drug Policy Alliance, who added that the arrests cost taxpayers in New York City an estimated $75 million annually.

Cue police lobbyists claiming that this bill will make the job of police officers harder and make the streets more dangerous in 3-2-1…

Fred Gardner writes Obama Never Promised You a Pot Garden

Drug-policy-reform advocates are complaining bitterly that they have been double-crossed by Barack Obama. “What’s Behind the Obama Administration’s About Face Regarding Medical Marijuana?” asked Paul Armentano of NORML in the Huffington Post May 5.

“Obama’s Sudden, Senseless Assault on Medical Marijuana,” was the headline on a piece by Scott Morgan, associate editor of Stopthedrugwar.org. According to Morgan, “Recent months have brought about what can only be described as the rapid collapse of the Obama Administration’s support for medical marijuana.”

This is way wrong. There is nothing “sudden” or unprecedented about the DEA raids and other oppressive measures emanating from the Department of Justice. And neither Obama nor the DOJ ever expressed unambiguous support for medical marijuana. It was the reform honchos themselves who misread and misrepresented Administration policy. How could they? And why did they?

Of course it’s true that Obama and the DOJ never expressed unambiguous support for medical marijuana.

And I certainly can’t speak for the reform movement, but I know that it was clear to me that Obama and Holder had not given support for medical marijuana in their memo.

In fact, even before the full text of the memo was out (which I then posted for everyone to read and judge for themselves), I had characterized it: “based on these preliminary reports, it still amounts to little more than a well meaning, but toothless, suggestion.” I later referred to it as the memo “that puts in writing the administration policy of not interfering with state medical marijuana operations unless they feel like it.”

I realize that Fred isn’t writing about me, but rather about the large organizations that depend on funding, and he targets his criticism of their “enthusiasm” regarding the memo on the funding aspect.

Why did the pro-cannabis reformers misinterpret and misrepresent Obama Administration policy so consistently and for so long? Why did Ethan Nadelmann afix his “kosher” seal to Obama’s baloney? Wishful thinking is not a good enough excuse. Political leaders owe the rank-and-file accurate information and analysis. Obviously it is advantageous for fund-raising purposes to report success, and this was certainly a factor. But it wasn’t just their own interests that the reform honchos were advancing with false claims of Administration support.

Above all, the honchos were serving the interests of Cannabis-industry entrepreneurs eager to attract customers and investors. Starting in the fall of 2008, the line “Obama is going to let it happen,” induced countless thousands of people to visit pro-cannabis doctors and then their local dispensaries. The most successful California dispensary operators developed franchising ventures and pitched investors, using Obama’s alleged hands-off approach as part of their pitch. “Money that was sitting on the sidelines came in after the election,” is how one of them summarized the boom that continued through 2009 and well into 2010,”

Again, unlike Fred, I can’t speak for the motives behind the various organizations. I also don’t have the time to sort through various statements to determine whether Nadelmann and others actually misrepresented Holder’s memo, or whether they merely emphasized a favorable interpretation. (I did question whether Steph Sherer’s claim of victory was “good strategy,” or whether it might “lead to disappointment.”)

I can, however, provide another possible and compelling reason for reformers to have promoted the memo as something that actually has meaning.

Fred likes to point out that if you watched the Obama Administration with any closeness at all, it was obvious that significant reform was not on their agenda, that there was no real change in policy. True. And we’ve pointed that out here often.

However, the memo was real, from a political perspective.

Again, lets’ go back to my first reporting on it:

It’s interesting that the administration chose to roll this out on a Monday, and even went so far as to advance prep the AP on the story. Rather than dumping it in the trash (ie, when the White House wants to downplay a story, they release it with a bunch of other stuff on Friday afternoon to reduce the coverage), they seem to be promoting it.

The administration was putting out a memo that actually said nothing, yet they were promoting it as a major policy shift. They were looking to get political value (with their base) from doing this while not actually changing policy at all.

They wanted a freebie.

They needed to find a way to mollify an increasingly vocal and powerful marijuana movement (yeah, they noticed the town hall questions). The memo, with the Monday flourish release was their attempt to make that happen.

They knew the media would promote it as a shift in policy (they prepped the AP!) So if reformers came out and said “there’s nothing there,” they wouldn’t be believed. The press would control the message for a few days and then forget it, and the administration could go back to doing the same old thing.

But the reformers jumped in to reinforce (not create) the perception that the memo did something real (and remember, in politics, the perception of reality can sometimes be as powerful as reality).

Even though the reformers knew the memo said nothing, they constantly reminded people about it in order to force it to assume more power than it had.

Shortly after the memo, I commented:

So far, the responses to the Holder memo (that puts in writing the administration policy of not interfering with state medical marijuana operations unless they feel like it) has gotten a lot of favorable press — so much so that it’s likely to help apply pressure on the feds to actually make good their… pledge to prioritize. So despite the lack of teeth in the memo, it has served up a powerful result.

I was wrong about it causing the administration to make good their pledge, but I was write right about it having a powerful result.

With the media being constantly reminded that the memo was an actual shift in policy, every time the Obama administration has made a raid, it’s been easy to paint it in the press as a betrayal — a flip-flop — an inconsistent policy that is impossible for law-abiding citizens to understand or follow.

Yes, it makes the Obama administration look bad for following their policy unchanged.

It’s quite possible this is an important reason for reform columns that Fred terms “whining.” It’s certainly a valid strategy, whether you agree with it or not.

Indiana

Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry. […]

This is the second major Indiana Supreme Court ruling this week involving police entry into a home.

On Tuesday, the court said police serving a warrant may enter a home without knocking if officers decide circumstances justify it. Prior to that ruling, police serving a warrant would have to obtain a judge’s permission to enter without knocking.

Link

Adopting what might be called the Qaddafi defense, the head of Bahrain’s military claimed that the country’s brutal crackdown on dissent was entirely justified because the kingdom’s security forces had been confronted by young protesters under the influence of mind-altering drugs.

Via Toke of the Town…

Raided medical marijuana providers sue U.S. government

Two medical marijuana providers have accused the U.S. government of civil rights violations in what may be the first lawsuit of its kind in response to a federal crackdown on pot operations across the nation. […]

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Missoula against the government, Department of Justice, Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Attorney for Montana Michael Cotter. […]

New Mexico attorney Paul Livingston, who is representing the plaintiffs, believes this is the first constitutional challenge of the government’s actions.

“I’m surprised nobody’s raised a 10th Amendment challenge,” Livingston said. “This is a process going on in all the states that have approved medical marijuana. They’re trying to set limits.”

District Court law clerks in Missoula were seen frantically searching for a copy of the text of the 10th Amendment.

While it sure seems like the 10th is deader than a doornail, I’d be absolutely thrilled if someone could find a spark of life left in it, so I’m happy to see the lawsuit.

Even if for no other reason that to remind people that the 10th Amendment exists.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It’s the Truth Enforcement Squad Car, number 420, of course, patrolling the streets in Dallas/Ft. Worth. This is a project of the Dallas/Ft. Worth NORML chapter, complete with green LEDs to replace the normal red and blue lights. Near the rear, it reads: “Legislate, Educate and Medicate”

More here.

I don’t recommend driving while stoned, but I’ve got to admit I’m enjoying the mental image of a Cheech and Chong or Harold and Kumar being followed by this car.

At Alternet, Can Psychedelics Make You Happier?

Research suggests that psychedelics may be better than antidepressants, which tend to dampen or suppress psychological problems without necessarily curing them.

Interesting article, and a lot worth exploring in this area – an area where research has been, of course, hampered by the usual forces.

But when the government made them illegal in 1968, research in the U.S. ceased. As Sgt. Joe Friday said that year in the cop drama Dragnet, “Don’t you con me with your mind expansion slop.”

Only in the late 1990s did federal regulators begin easing restrictions on controlled experiments with psychedelics. “It’s experiencing a rebirth after being pretty much totally dormant for 30 years,” Richards said […]

But while Doblin is pleased that scientists are once again able to legally study psychedelics, he said that obtaining funding for such research is still difficult. No federal agency will direct money toward experiments involving substances that the Food and Drug Administration classifies as illegal, and the obvious funding alternative — the pharmaceutical industry — isn’t interested: Psychedelics cannot be patented and are meant only to be taken in small doses.

“No one’s going to take one psilocybin pill before breakfast and another one after dinner for 30 years,” Doblin said.

We have a drug problem in our country. No, not that drug problem. I’m talking about the fact that we have a completely dysfunctional approach to determining which drugs people should take and which ones they shouldn’t, which is more guided by profit and politics than by health and science.

Pennsylvania

Nearly 400 students got to skip school Tuesday to be honored for their commitment to staying drug free. That’s because each of them made a promise at the beginning of the school year to volunteer to be randomly drug screened as members of the “Remembering Adam” program. […]

“It’s been fun. A lot of my friends are through the program,” said Freiwald.

This is just weird in a number of ways. Friendship through voluntary drug testing with a bonus of skipping school?

Every year in my theatre management class, we have a discussion on whether they would refuse a donation for their arts organization based on the identity or reputation of the donor.

Keep in mind that this is merely a donation — no strings attached to the donation other than listing the benefactor as a donor.

It always generates a good discussion, with questions such as:

• What if you personally disagree with some of the donor’s politics? (ie, would you accept money from George Soros? The Koch Brothers?)
• What if you think a company’s products are harmful? Would you accept money from them? (Philip Morris, maker of cigarettes, has been one of the best supporters of cutting-edge arts organizations.)
• What if a company’s image conflicted with that of your organization? (Usually someone brings up a pretty unlikely notion like Hustler Magazine wanting to donate to a Children’s Theatre Company.)

There’s almost always a split in the class with some students having a clear line that they won’t cross in accepting donations (although that might change if they were actually facing real-life budgetary challenges, rather than classroom theorizing), and other students who are happy to take anyone’s money and put it to better use (as long as there are no strings tied to it).

All this made me interested in a (continuing) debate regarding the church in Mexico and donations from drug traffickers.

Catholic Church under scrutiny for accepting blood money

HIDALGO, Mexico – The drug war in Mexico has forced the Catholic Church to confront allegations it accepts donations from drug lords.

In the tiny community of Tezontle in Hidalgo, Mexico there is a new building with an enormous silver cross.

A plaque on the wall identified the benefactor as Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano. He is a top leader of the Zetas which is one of Mexico’s most feared cartels.

He’s a native son who is a wanted man on both sides of the border, but people in the town say they know nothing of the generous donor.

Critics say the problem extends to the Catholic church hierarchy when it comes to drug money donations.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese in Mexico said the church warns parishes not to accept dirty money even if it’s to pay for good deeds.

Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano is attempting to buy salvation. Or perhaps he’s just trying to whitewash his image. Or maybe he really believes in the church and wants to support it now that he has a shitload of money.

The church is not offering salvation in exchange for the money — merely a plaque of acknowledgement.

Is it wrong?

(Personally, I would find it better if the Catholic Church spent less on fancy buildings and more in other areas, but that’s another discussion.)

I can understand the church hierarchy wanting to squelch the practice. Whether it is morally wrong or not, they see the problem of the appearance of impropriety (ie, they’re afraid the public might assume they’re somehow in cahoots with the drug lords, letting them hide cocaine in the bell tower, etc.).

But using tainted money for good purposes — even money that has been obtained through murder — Is that morally wrong?

How is the Catholic Church’s use of tainted drug money different from the use of seized tainted drug money by law enforcement? (Other than the fact that law enforcement took it and the Church had it given to them freely.)

And here’s another thing to ponder. What about all the money that is given to other countries by the U.S. to prosecute the drug war? Now that money actually does have strings attached, requiring the recipient to be involved in fueling bloody conflict. Where’s the morality in accepting that kind of blood money?