Drug WarRant

The inaugural issue of the new International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy is now available in full online.

The first issue starts off with an incredible editorial: ‘Deliver us from evil’? – The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 50 years on

In recent years there has been growing attention to the human rights implications of the international narcotics control regime among non-governmental organisations and UN human rights monitors. Human rights violations documented in the name of drug control in countries across the world include: the execution of hundreds of people annually for drug offences; the arbitrary detention of hundreds of thousands of people who use (or are accused of using) illicit drugs; the infliction of torture, or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, in the name of ‘drug treatment’; the extrajudicial killings of people suspected of being drug users or drug traffickers; and the denial of potentially life saving health services for people who use drugs.

While all of this work is significant, with some notable exception this emerging body of commentary has tended to focus on the documentation specific human rights violations linked to drug enforcement laws, policies and practices, rather than interrogating the drug conventions themselves, and the practices that emerge from their domestic implementation, from the perspective of international human rights law. Yet bringing such a human rights law perspective to the international drug control regime is a crucial exercise, both to promote consideration of international drug control law in the context of overall State obligations under the body of public international law as a whole, but also to further promote human rights-compliant implementation of the international drug conventions at the national level.

Powerful stuff for an opening editorial. Lets you know where they’re going with this journal.

The editorial continues with a fascinating discussion of the wording within the Single Convention’s preamble, that starts out with noble goals of ensuring ‘adequate provisions’ of medicines, but then…

However, whatever the intended appeal to a greater humanitarian mission expressed in the Single Convention’s opening lines, such sentiments are immediately undermined, if not contradicted, by those that follow, which describe ‘addiction to narcotic drugs’ as a form of ‘evil’.

Recognizing that addiction to narcotic drugs constitutes a serious evil for the individual and is fraught with social and economic danger to mankind,

Conscious of their duty to prevent and combat this evil,

Considering that effective measures against abuse of narcotic drugs require coordinated and universal action,

In the context of international treaty law, this wording is notable in that the Single Convention is the only United Nations treaty characterising the activity it seeks to regulate, control or prohibit as being ‘evil’. […]

Indeed, the unique nature of the use of the language of ‘evil’ in the Single Convention is particularly glaring when considered alongside that used in other treaties addressing issues that the international community considers abhorrent.

For example, neither slavery, apartheid nor torture are described as being ‘evil’ in the relevant international conventions that prohibit them. Nuclear war is not described as being ‘evil’ in the treaty that seeks to limit the proliferation of atomic weapons, despite the recognition in the preamble that ‘devastation that would be visited upon all mankind’ by such a conflict. The closest one finds to the language contained in the preamble to the Single Convention to describe drugs is that found in international instruments in the context of genocide.

The editorial goes on to describe how that word has since then proliferated to describe individuals (as opposed to states), and how that contributes to the international excesses in the war on drugs.

The presence of such ‘tendentious and highly inflammatory absolutist talk’, to use Gearty’s phrase, within discourse of both UN bodies and domestic courts is not only worrying, it contributes to an environment in which human rights violations in the name of drug control flourish around the world. Indeed, it can be argued that this rhetoric of ‘evil’ goes so far as to provide ideological justification for, and defense of, such abuses. As noted by Robin Room, it is this language of drugs as ‘evil’ that ‘serves as a justification of the…Convention regime of control and coercion’.

Very good stuff. Points out so clearly the urgent need to get rid of the Single Convention.

I haven’t read the entire issue, but based on the opening editorial, I’m very impressed.

The latest from the Supremes

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled against a Kentucky man who was arrested after police burst into his apartment without a search warrant because they smelled marijuana and feared he was trying to get rid of incriminating evidence.

Voting 8-1, the justices reversed a Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that threw out the evidence gathered when officers entered Hollis King’s apartment.

The court said there was no violation of King’s constitutional rights because the police acted reasonably. Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.

Officers knocked on King’s door in Lexington and thought they heard noises that indicated whoever was inside was trying to get rid of incriminating evidence.

Justice Samuel Alito said in his opinion for the court that people have no obligation to respond to the knock or, if they do open the door, allow the police to come in. In those cases, officers who wanted to gain entry would have to persuade a judge to issue a search warrant.

But Alito said, “Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame.”

In her dissent, Ginsburg said her colleagues were giving police an easy way to routinely avoid getting warrants in drug cases. “Police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant,” she said.

Now even the noises of getting up to answer the knock on the door could be interpreted by police as an attempt to destroy evidence, allowing them to enter without a warrant (making Alito’s pathetic excuses irrelevant).

I wonder how many Marines have had to face down 71 bullets at once aimed personally at them in mere seconds?

William Norman Grigg does a potent job of telling the story of the death of Jose Guerena by SWAT

‘Why Did Police Kill My Dad?’

This is nice to see…

At Health News Digest: Would Legalizing Pot be Good for the Environment?

(The answer is “yes”)

It’s a short article, but it hits the high points.

Fact is, not only would legalizing pot be good for the environment, but legalizing all drugs would be good for the environment.

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.