Drug WarRant

The roots of the fiasco. John Sinclair takes a look at how we got to where we are today.

“An open and honest discussion” would lead first to an examination of what the War on Drugs is all about: Why do they have a War on Drugs? What are its goals? Who are the combatants? Why has there been no measurable success at all?

First off, it’s not a war on drugs per se, because all sorts of drugs are more prevalent than ever, and the pharmaceutical industry is indeed the most profitable of enterprises, but it’s a war on recreational drugs and their users.

The purpose of the War on Drugs is to persecute and punish users of recreational drugs in an effort basically to try to keep people from getting high on substances ruled illegal by a political process with little regard for medical or moral niceties — nor for due process of law, for that matter.

Recreational drugs like marijuana, cocaine and heroin were once legal. One day, through some mystical process that took place in the houses of Congress and in state legislative bodies in turn, each of them was determined to be illegal.

Frankly, I do not want to live in the drug-addled world advocated by those who protest the War on Drugs. Alcohol is a drug and should be all this society needs for “recreational use.” It has been proven that marijuana use leads to heavier drug use to keep those highs coming.

Williams was caught by TSA with a pipe commonly used for marijuana while going through a security checkpoint, a sheriff’s spokesperson said. He paid the citation of $484 and was released to resume his travel plans.

Williams suffers from multiple sclerosis and is a prominent advocate for legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Their call for fact-based policy:

“The administration of criminal justice as it interacts with drug-related crime should be reviewed, reformed and tailored to more effectively address and reduce systemic crime, economic compulsive crime and psychopharmacological crime. A broad societal debate considering every possible approach and all relevant evidence from other jurisdictions including those that have experimented with decriminalization and/or legalization is warranted to this end.

“New approaches must be informed by the most credible emerging evidence and international best practice.”

This is an open thread.

…as presented by Keith Humphreys at The Reality-Based Community (where “reality” is apparently protean) in The Mexican Crime Cartels

Keith is concerned by the violence in Mexico, but completely fails to understand it.

1. The violence has become to some extent self-sustaining because several of the cartels are fighting each other. Whether the government ramps up or rolls back its heroic efforts, there will be violence as the cartels battle for territory as well as perpetuate the we-commit-atrocities-as-vengeance-for-past-atrocities cycle.

“Heroic”? You’ve got to be kidding. Of course, much of the fighting will be as a result of cartels fighting each other, but that fighting intensifies exponentially when the government steps in and adds violence to the equation, as well as when the government (through “success”) causes instability in the cartels’ power structure. Note the intellectually dishonest argument structure: “Whether the government ramps up or rolls back its heroic efforts, there will be violence.” The implication is that there is no difference in violence regardless of military action, but that is blatantly false. Yes there will be violence in either situation, but with the government using military action, the violence is much greater.

2. Had Proposition 19 passed, the cartels would still be there and Mexico would still be enduring horrific violence. I personally expected a modest drop in violence if the initiative passed, although people who study the cartels tell me I am wrong about that. They forecast that the effect of a small loss of business would be akin to taking away a few street corners from a drug market, which tends to increase violence as the remaining players fight it out over the reduced territory.

Straw man. No serious reformer believed that Prop 19 would completely eliminate the cartels, nor did they claim it. And as to how much the marijuana business overall fuels cartels’ income and how much comes from California’s business in particular, that’s clearly an open question. The RAND “study” did not disprove the government’s original notion that a significant portion of their income is from marijuana. And post-Prop 19, the government at times has seemed to want to return (when it’s politically useful) to extremely large percentage claims (not to mention the embarrassment of those huge border seizures of marijuana after the vote).

Regardless, Prop 19 was the first step in a larger effort which clearly would dramatically reduce cartel income.

No matter who is correct about that issue, California’s marijuana business is just one of many lines of activity for the cartels. To wound them seriously the U.S. as a whole would have to legalize marijuana, heroin and cocaine (which isn’t going to happen and shouldn’t), and even then the cartels would have income from human trafficking, black market movies and cigarettes, kidnapping for hire, drug trafficking within Central and South America etc.

First, I believe that we could wound them seriously by merely legalizing marijuana. But he’s right that we could do it even better by legalizing all of them (except that it should happen).

But then he goes into one of the stupidest arguments that keeps showing up in this bizarro land of prohibition accommodation. Apparently we might as well let them keep their huge black market drug income because otherwise they’ll do other crime(!) Or maybe the point is that we should make sure that they have illicit drug profits to prevent them from going into other crime. I don’t know — it’s a bafflingly stupid argument.

If we cut off their drug profits, yes, the cartels will go into other crime. The real bad apples aren’t going to go to work at McDonald’s (although many of their employees way down the line will).

But really? Black market movies and cigarettes? Ah, yes, Los Zetas are going to keep the empire going by selling bootleg copies of Yogi Bear on the street corners.

Sure, they’ll do more kidnappings in a vain attempt to replace their accustomed riches, and an enraged populace will get behind law enforcement to take them out of business, and without the obscenely massive income from drug trafficking, they won’t be able to buy the police and the army any more.

The illicit drug trafficking operations take in as much as the national income of the country of Mexico. Nothing else will give them that much power, because there isn’t that much money anywhere else to get.

3. But even presuming national legalization in the U.S. of all drugs, the idea that the removal of the drug business would wipe out the cartels is an example of the “reversability fallacy” (which probably has a proper name in logic but I don’t know what it is). Reversability was also invoked during alcohol Prohibition in the U.S. Repeal advocates promised that re-legalizing alcohol production would eliminate the Mafia. But once a process has been put in place, removing an original cause does not logically imply that the process will stop. The Mafia was enriched by Prohibition, but by the time of repeal it had a life of its own and survived for decades afterwards as a force in American society. (Note, same fallacy applies to human activity and climate change…whether we caused it is irrelevant, all that matters is whether changes in our behavior now will make a difference…it’s entirely possible that we caused it to start but no longer have the power to stop it).

The fallacy here is not “reversibility.” It’s straw man. Whether it was with alcohol in the earlier prohibition or other drugs in this prohibition, the real reform argument has been that legalization would seriously weaken the criminal traffickers and take away a major source of their income. But Humphreys uses the straw man, claiming that our argument is that legalization will eliminate the criminals, and since he can show that they won’t be entirely eliminated, therefore our argument is wrong.

That’s complete nonsense.

What sane public policy would say that something is not worth doing unless the problem it is targeting would be completely eliminated? If that was the case, then every public policy that we have should be abolished.

The truth is that legalization will be a major blow to the large traffickers that will weaken them significantly, and dramatically reduce their ability to control governments, communities, and armies. And that’s just one of the reasons for legalization.

4. The basic problem in Mexico is not drugs but endemic corruption and weak governance in the states.

And until we take away the bulk of that black market payroll, it’ll be impossible to realistically address corruption and weak governance.

Some photos from my trip, including the Rockies in Colorado, Colorado National Monument, Arches National Park, and Southern Utah. I’m in Phoenix now for a couple of days and then will be heading back home through New Mexico.

More coverage of the revolt of jurors in Missoula.

“Martin Luther King” jurors, Butler calls those who nullify cases. “They would engage in strategic jury nullification designed to safely reduce the number of people in prison for nonviolent drug crimes, and to send the message that ‘we the people’ ain’t gonna take it anymore,” Butler wrote in Prison Legal News last year.

Jury nullification — when a jury opts for acquittal regardless of evidence — isn’t quite what happened here because the jury hadn’t actually been seated.

Still, Butler said what happened in Missoula fits into what he calls “Nullification 2.0,” when such protests move beyond race into larger philosophical disagreements with the law.

Outstanding and passionate OpEd by Froma Harrop: Waging war against war on drugs

She starts by welcoming Pat Robertson to the discussion in the hopes that other conservatives will follow.

Where are the foes of big government in this? They should note that the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s budget has more than quadrupled over the decade to $2.6 billion — without making a dent in the quantity of illegal drugs sold in this country. (The narcotics, meanwhile, are more potent than ever.)

But the DEA bureaucrats know how to expand a mandate. The agency now operates 86 offices in 63 countries and runs a shadow State Department that at times mucks up American diplomacy. It employs nearly 11,000 people.

And the DEA is but one expense in the drug war. Add in the costs of local law enforcement to round up suspects, courts to prosecute them and jails to hold them, and the war on drugs weighs in at about $50 billion a year. States and municipalities bear most of the costs.

Here’s one paragraph that really hit home.

No one here is advocating drug use. I have never touched hard drugs, but the “war” against them lost its romance the day that a drug addict pointed a knife at my gut, demanding money for a fix that should have cost him no more than a head of celery.

The reflexive non-thinking approach to that situation is to say “More laws, tougher sentencing.” But Froma is smart and realizes that it’s the drug war that created the situation to begin with. And…

Then there’s the rank hypocrisy. President Obama admits to having “tried” cocaine, and President George W. Bush all but did, refusing to answer questions about his previous drug use. Yet we still ruin the lives of teenagers caught using or dealing in far less dangerous marijuana.

While I’m on the road (I’m currently in the Phoenix area), you guys in comments have been having an incredibly good discussion on really serious and important drug policy topics, but I don’t know how you could have missed this huge drug war story…

Housekeeper finds marijuana in hotel room, Ann Arbor police say

A housekeeper found a small quantity of marijuana hidden in a room at the Red Roof Inn at 3505 South State Street on Saturday morning, prompting an investigation by Ann Arbor police.

According to police spokeswoman Lt. Renee Bush, the housekeeper found the bag of marijuana at 10:30 a.m. and turned it over to a front desk employee, who called police.

Officers responded and confiscated the drugs, Bush said. The most recent guest in the room had already left, Bush said.

So far, no charges have been filed.

Thank goodness the Ann Arbor police were there to conduct an investigation and Lee Higgins was there to write the breaking story.

Mexican police claim to have ‘dismembered’ La Familia drug gang

Mexico’s federal police has claimed a major victory over the ‘La Familia’ drug cartel – one of the most bloody gangs operating within the embattled country.

In what could be seen as a turning point in Mexico’s violent war against organized drug cartels, Mexican federal police claim to have “completely dismembered” the bloody La Familia narcotics gang, according to the Press Association.

Oh, yes. Another victory. Another turning point. And what will that give us?

Mexican federal police assured the public that La Familia has been broken into smaller pieces – and that these smaller operations are more desperate and prone to making mistakes.

Desperate violent drug traffickers fighting it out in public for control of multi-billion dollar drug smuggling business.

Gee, what could be better?

I’m on the road now with my Mom (who is 88), traveling to Arizona to see her brother (who is 94). I’ve got a lot of music and a clear road, and once I get out of these prairie states, there will be some delightful sights — going places that I’ve never been, seeing things that I may never see again.

With luck, I’ll have wifi in every hotel and be able to keep up with the blog a little bit over the next 10 days.

You probably have your own personal New Year’s resolutions, but if you are really committed to drug policy reform, why not set a few drug policy reform resolutions as well? (And if you’re reading this on New Year’s eve or New Year’s day, I think it’s fair to say that you’re pretty committed.)

What we really need is grass roots growth. Sure, write your Representative if you want, but that shouldn’t count toward meeting your resolutions. Change minds. Increase the knowledge and boost the courage of the vast population of potential allies out there.

1. Get involved in a conversation with someone new about drug policy reform. Aim for once a month. It doesn’t have to be a long conversation. Ask them if they heard about a particular article or issue. If you want to make this easy, wear a LEAP t-shirt.

2. Write a letter to the editor. Aim for once a month. Most newspapers will let you write again after 30 days. Plus, there are thousands of papers you can write. Getting a letter published is more valuable than an expensive advertisement.

3. Tell others about Drug WarRant. If you think that this is a valuable site and that you learn more about drug policy reform by reading it, then let others know. Send a link to a story you like to a friend, post it on Facebook or Reddit or Twitter, or bring it up on a discussion board.

4. Make a financial commitment. Give something. Doesn’t need to be a lot, but do your part. Pick a drug policy reform organization that you’d like to support (I’m a fan of LEAP, but there are other good ones as well). And at the absolute minimum, you should tithe. A tithe is one-tenth, and often refers to the practice of giving 1/10th of your earnings to your church. But I’m suggesting a different kind of tithing. Give at least 1/10th of what you spend on drugs (including alcohol) to organizations that are working on creating better policies.

These aren’t hard. But if everyone who read this blog followed these resolutions, it would make a huge difference.

A little bit of truth from a drug war series…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn2WfKUgTZU