Drug WarRant

This is great. The more people who read about jurors exercising their absolute right to question the law, the better. There are still too many people out there who don’t know that it’s OK for a juror to wonder whether it’s appropriate to waste taxpayer resources going after marijuana.

Marijuana fans are calling it the Mutiny in Montana.

Well, actually no. It was the deputy district attorney who called it a mutiny. Marijuana fans were calling it the proper job of jurors. However, I’ve got to admit that “The Mutiny in Montana” has a nice ring to it.

Mr. Cornell did plead guilty to the felony, but by Wednesday, what appeared to be a case of juror revolt, which was first reported by The Missoulian, was being trumpeted by pro-marijuana Web sites as yet another sign of the nation’s increasingly liberal attitude toward the drug.

Again, no. Not a sign of increasing “liberal” attitude toward the drug. A sign of increasing knowledge about the drug, the drug war, and the problems with our criminal justice system.

Link

The Senate unanimously confirmed Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart as the agency’s top agent Wednesday. Leonhart has been the DEA’s acting chief since November 2007.

She has proven her leadership to be anti-science, pro-lying, pro-death and destruction, and devoid of competence, so the Senate decided she was perfect for this job.

Leonhart said in a statement: “I am dedicated to meeting the challenges that DEA faces, from disrupting and dismantling extremely violent Mexican based drug cartels; to defeating narco-terrorists operating in Afghanistan and around the world; and doing all we can to reduce prescription drug abuse, our nation’s fastest growing drug threat.”

Yes, that Pat Robertson. Check the video proof.

“We’re locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana and the next thing you know they’ve got ten years – they’ve got mandatory sentences and these judges, they throw up their hand and say ‘What can we do, it’s mandatory sentences.’ We’ve got to take a look at what we’re considering crimes, and that’s one of them. I mean, I’m not exactly for the use of drugs, don’t get me wrong, but I just believe criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of just a few ounces of pot, and that kind of thing, I mean it’s costing us a fortune, and it’s ruining young people. The young people go into prisons, they go in as youths, and they come out as hardened criminals.”

I’ve actually been using the parental control on my cable to block the “700 club” so I don’t accidentally tune in to it (I do the same thing with a couple of those 24 hour “news” channels), but am I going to have to re-think this?

This is actually true conservative thinking. I thought that was dead.

Related: Radley Balko has a column at Reason discussing a new public policy website called Right on Crime, a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation aimed at changing the way conservatives think about criminal justice.

“While the growth of incarceration took many dangerous offenders off the streets,” says an introduction to the website, “research suggested that it reached a point of diminishing returns, as recidivism rates increased and more than one million nonviolent offenders filled the nation’s prisons. In most states, prisons came to absorb more than 85 percent of the corrections budget, leaving limited resources for community supervision alternatives such as probation and parole, which cost less and could have better reduced recidivism among non-violent offenders.”

I’d really like to see this take hold. With Democratic politicians, for the most part, too afraid (and too beholden to special interests) to actually follow the wishes of their voters, it would be fantastic to have a strong conservative faction looking for policy that is fiscally responsible, results accountable, liberty based, and limits big government waste.

It could mean a powerful coalition of Democratic voters, principled conservatives, libertarians… and Teapot Partiers. Not bad.

Update:

– I completely agree with what Ilya Somin said:

Moreover, he cites several good reasons for this stance, including the high cost of prohibition, and the fact that imprisonment of small-time drug dealers and users is “ruining young people.” I suspect that Robertson has begun to realize that the War on Drugs is bad for family values. […]

…the opposition of social conservatives is one of the biggest political obstacles to curtailing drug prohibition. Hopefully, more conservatives will come to the same realization as Robertson and, before him, the far more intellectually respectable William F. Buckley.

— David Boaz misses the point at Cato@Liberty.

But I do have this question for Republican members of Congress: Do you really want to be to the right of Pat Robertson on the issue of marijuana prohibition?

The actual point is clearly that marijuana prohibition has never been a right or left issue. Sure, it’s sometimes gotten more of a boost from one side or the other, but in its core, it defies right-left labels. This is why we see ordinary politicians on both sides overwhelmingly favoring prohibition, and why we can see smart people throughout the political spectrum (Walter Cronkite, Barney Franks, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, William F. Buckley, etc.) in favor of legalization.

(To be fair to David, he probably was using the “right of Pat Robertson” meme as a clever goad, rather than an analysis of the political position of marijuana policy.)

This disturbing video from the always excellent Hungarian Civil Liberties Union documents some of the abuses in China and Southeast Asia regarding drug users.

The governments of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand received millions of dollars from Western governments to build camps to treat drug addicts. Tax payers in donor countries had no idea what is happening in these camps before Human Rights Watch documented the widespread human rights abuses.

Some people enter voluntarily in the hope of kicking their drug habit, others are sent there by their families who pay for their “treatment”; but in some cities, it often happens that the military police just collect street children, drug users, sex workers and other groups on the street considered “deviant” by the authorities and detains them in a camp for years, without any due process or right of appeal. It’s easy to get in – but it’s hard to get out. Detainees are often forced to work for free, starved, beaten, tortured and raped – but they don’t get any treatment or rehabilitation.

Some of these abuses have stopped and a couple of camps have been closed down, but that hasn’t been because of any proactive efforts by western governments or the UNODC (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime); rather, it’s only happened because human rights and harm reduction advocacy groups have convinced entities like UNICEF to stop funding these abominations.

In fact, Cambodia appears poised to actually increase the problems, based on new laws that the UNODC actually helped draft.

Among the concerns are provisions defining a drug addict as any person who “consumes drugs and is under the influence of drugs” (Article 4). The draft also contains no provisions exempting needle exchanges and other harm reduction organisations from prosecution under six articles relating to the “facilitation” of drug use. […]

Of greatest concern, however, are sections of the draft dealing with the involuntary treatment of drug users.

In January, Human Rights Watch reported on the conditions in seven Cambodian drug-detention centres, documenting the “widespread beatings, whippings, and electric shock[s]” of detainees. Under Article 109 of the draft, drug users can be forced into involuntary treatment for up to two years.

“In its current form, the draft law is worse,” said Joe Amon, director of HRW’s health and human rights division. “Drug users will be detained longer and there are inadequate guarantees that they’ll get appropriate treatment for drug dependency.”

While Article 101 of the draft claims treatment and rehabilitation can only take place with the consent of drug users, it says treatment can be compelled in “special cases”, for the “benefit of the drug addict” or for the “common interest”. Naly Pilorge said that considering the government’s track record in arbitrary detention, such vague terms were “bound to be abused”.

Gee, I wonder what kind of treatment people will be getting at these centers?

This month, the Council of Ministers approved plans for the country’s largest drug rehabilitation centre. Moek Dara, Secretary General of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, said the facility would be built on 20 hectares of land in Preah Sihanouk province donated by tycoon Mong Reththy, and would have a capacity of 2,000.

“We’re not forcing them to be bad, we’re forcing them to be good,” he said at the time. Mong Reththy added that internees would be invited to work on plantations that he owns nearby.

Invited. Ah.

So this was a set of laws that the UNODC actually helped draft? Was it one of their interns? Or, more likely, were they just there as a point of show… part of a larger interest that they have in Cambodia. In an internal document, the UNODC implied they had an entire legal team working on it…

The same document, however, also pointed out that the agency had not been able to ensure “that the penalty threshold for drug offences was lowered, that human rights were protected and that the law was consistent with harm reduction principles”. Despite these concerns, it only recommended that the law be reviewed three years after its passage.

“UNODC has made public statements that Cambodia’s centres should be closed, while simultaneously working up a law to increase periods of compulsory ‘treatment’ in the centres,” HRW’s Amon said.

“Despite what they’ve said in public, the real behind-the-scenes technical assistance to the Cambodian government follows an old-fashioned ‘war on drugs’ mentality in which human rights concerns are an afterthought.”

The UNODC has always (and especially in recent years because of the pressure of human rights and harm reduction groups) given lip service to the notion and importance of human rights yet they never seem to make that a priority compared to their interest in pushing for enforcement.

In this way, they’re very much like the ONDCP — they talk about good things, but put their money and time into the same old failed prohibitionist strategies.

Obviously, we’re in much better shape here in terms of the nature of our treatment facilities (although we’ve certainly had some very bad experiences historically.

Yet this troubling notion of compulsory treatment tied to an enforcement arm is prevalent here as well, often disconnected from any real individualized assessment of actual treatment need. In fact, we have well-respected academics who will put up with all the damage and abuse of prohibition just so the government can maintain the power to force people into coerced treatment for no greater crime than being a drug user.

There are some outstanding international harm reduction organizations that can help us develop effective needs-based treatment without coercion that will be more cost-effective and also provide better benefit to the individual and society.

We need to dismantle our prohibition machine and implement something that’s effective without the destruction. Then we need to be an example and take that out to the rest of the world, instead of exporting a drug war that causes death and abuse.

Keith Humphreys at The Reality-Based Community poses a provocative suggestion.

Sending this language to the dustbin of history would be a worthy goal for policy reformers.

Some people would respond “I will not stop calling it a war on drugs until war-like policy X is stopped!” (Where X is overcrowded prisons, no knock raids by police in riot gear etc.).

This may be a logical fallacy however, in that it assumes that the language itself doesn’t justify the objected-to policy. As any careful student of politics knows — and as cognitive psychology research teaches — words can cue us consciously and unconsciously to think that certain actions are more or less justifiable. […]

If everyone simply stopped using “drug war” language, doors that are closed to us might swing open, including in places we that were literally unthinkable “in a time of war”.

Obviously, it’s an idea that has some personal impact as my blog even has the “drug war” words in its name and url, but I don’t want to dismiss it out of hand. And yes, there’s a certain attractive logic to this line of reasoning. If we stopped calling it a war, maybe people would stop treating it like one.

The first thought that came to mind was a little police action in a country called Vietnam that we were involved with back in the 60’s and 70’s. I tried to think whether not calling it a war helped end it.

I don’t think so. In fact, it was the fact that young people considered it a war that finally led to a drop of overall public support.

The second thought that came to mind was the eagerness with which Drug Czar Kerlikowske acted to banish the “war” language. “I ended the war on drugs, if you didn’t know this war was over. That was last May,” he said.

And yet, it seems to me that the whole reason for his semantic approach has been to avoid talking about how much the U.S. government continues its enforcement and supply side emphasis in budgeting, while going around pretending that treatment and prevention is the “new” approach.

The drug war machine requires, demands, and will get its loot, and even though everyone knows that supply side interdiction and enforcement is a complete waste of money, the Drug Czar doesn’t have the power to cut off the gravy train. All he can do is banish the words in the hopes that people will ignore the truckloads of cash going down the sink hole of a militarized drug war industry.

And the third thought that came to mind… It seems unlikely that changing the terminology will do anything about More than 30,000 drug war deaths in Mexico since 2006

The 12,456 gangland killings reported in Mexico between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30 brought to 30,196 the number of drug-related murders since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and militarized the struggle against the cartels, the Attorney General’s Office said Thursday.

I think we’ve got a war.

Something interesting happened in a Montana courthouse. Court officials were given a lesson — that this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The government can try to hide the truth from the people, but when they do, it will find its way out (whether it’s WikiLeaks acting as a release valve for excessive secrecy, or Drug WarRant telling the truth about the drug war).

And eventually, if the government continues to push a lie, people will exercise their Constitutional duty to be the final check on government.

The tiny amount of marijuana police found while searching Touray Cornell’s home on April 23 became a huge issue for some members of the jury panel.

No, they said, one after the other. No way would they convict somebody for having a 16th of an ounce.

In fact, one juror wondered why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, said a flummoxed Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul. […]

“I thought, ‘Geez, I don’t know if we can seat a jury,’ ” said Deschamps, who called a recess.

And he didn’t. […]

“Public opinion, as revealed by the reaction of a substantial portion of the members of the jury called to try the charges on Dec. 16, 2010, is not supportive of the state’s marijuana law and appeared to prevent any conviction from being obtained simply because an unbiased jury did not appear available under any circumstances,” according to the plea memorandum filed by his attorney.

“A mutiny,” said Paul.

“Bizarre,” the defense attorney called it.

In his nearly 30 years as a prosecutor and judge, Deschamps said he’s never seen anything like it.

Not a mutiny. As commenter Kaptinemo notes:

No, this was no ‘mutiny’. This was an application of the principle behind jury nullification as it was meant to be applied against unjust laws.

There was an important point raised in the article:

“I think it’s going to become increasingly difficult to seat a jury in marijuana cases, at least the ones involving a small amount,” Deschamps said. […]

“It’s kind of a reflection of society as a whole on the issue,” said Deschamps.

Which begs a question, he said.

Given the fact that marijuana use became widespread in the 1960s, most of those early users are now in late middle age and fast approaching elderly.

Is it fair, Deschamps wondered, in such cases to insist upon impaneling a jury of “hardliners” who object to all drug use, including marijuana?

“I think that poses a real challenge in proceeding,” he said. “Are we really seating a jury of their peers if we just leave people on who are militant on the subject?”

That’s an important point. Sort of like death-qualifying a jury on a capital case, there is a real Constitutional issue when summarily eliminating any potential jurors because of their beliefs about the drug war. It makes a mockery of the notion of a jury of peers and attempts to short-circuit the legitimate role of citizens as judges of the law.

I’m hoping we’ll see a lot more of this in the future.

Nice job by Sensible Washington — north- and south-facing billboards on I-5.

Yesterday, John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, distributed a long-awaited memo to all agency and department heads on Scientific Integrity. This 21-month effort was the result of a pledge by President Obama on March 9, 2009 to, within 120 days, develop recommendations for Presidential action designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch” as well as “emphasizing the importance of science in guiding Administration decisions and the importance of ensuring that the public trusts the science behind those decisions.”

The memo lays out some excellent principles that agencies and departments should follow…

Ensure a culture of scientific integrity. Scientific progress depends upon honest investigation, open discussion, refined understanding, and a firm commitment to evidence. Science, and public trust in science, thrives in an environment that shields scientific data and analyses from inappropriate political influence; political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings. […]

Open communication among scientists and engineers, and between these experts and the public, accelerates scientific and technological advancement, strengthens the economy, educates the Nation, and enhances democracy/ […]

Establish principles for conveying scientific and technological information to the public. The accurate presentation of scientific and technological information is critical to informed decision making by the public and policymakers. Agencies should communicate scientific and technological findings by including a clear explication of underlying assumptions; accurate contextualization of uncertainties; and a description of the probabilities associated with both optimistic and pessimistic projections, including best-case and worst-case scenarios where appropriate.

This is, while merely a memo, refreshing, and the kind of thing that has been sorely lacking from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and its director.

There’s much more in the memo which, if followed, would open the door to a realistic and open national conversation about drug policy.

But there’s one catch.

At the end of the memo…

Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof…

And, of course, the current law authorizing the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy specifically states:

Responsibilities. –The Director– […]

(12) shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that–

1. is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and
2. has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;

If the science says that legalization is even a viable option, the Drug Czar is required by law to ignore, obfuscate, lie, or whatever else is necessary to oppose any attempts to legalize.

By definition in the memo, scientific integrity requires an open analysis of the issue, including looking at best and worst-case scenarios. Yet the law specifically prohibits that kind of openness.

The law trumps the memo’s guidelines, leaving the Drug Czar and the ONDCP specifically exempt from the government’s Scientific Integrity policy.

A Ron Allen train wreck.

Bishop Ron Allen: “It’s a deadly and dangerous mantra that marijuana is safer than alcohol. I’ll offer you, sir, a cobra or a rattlesnake. Which one would you say is safer? Neither one.”

What I’m thinking: “Get your snakes away from me, crazy man. I’ll take a drink and a joint, and be safer than hanging out with you.”

Bishop Ron Allen: “We as a society are trying to say that ‘Hey, look. Let’s smoke marijuana and let’s not drive drunk..’ Look, they just had a bad accident in Italy. Come on and let’s look at that…” [was mercifully cut off] […]

“But now, we have a very serious problem on our hands. We have drug dealers and drug pushers such as the Drug Policy Alliance…”

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

— John F. Kennedy