Drug WarRant

Nicholas D. Kristof in the New York Times: End the War on Pot

Our nearly century-long experiment in banning marijuana has failed as abysmally as Prohibition did, and California may now be pioneering a saner approach. Sure, there are risks if California legalizes pot. But our present drug policy has three catastrophic consequences.

First, it squanders billions of dollars that might be better used for education. […]

The second big problem with the drug war is that it has exacerbated poverty and devastated the family structure of African-Americans. Partly that’s because drug laws are enforced inequitably. Black and Latino men are much more likely than whites to be stopped and searched and, when drugs are found, prosecuted. […]

The third problem with our drug policy is that it creates crime and empowers gangs. “The only groups that benefit from continuing to keep marijuana illegal are the violent gangs and cartels that control its distribution and reap immense profits from it through the black market,” a group of current and former police officers, judges and prosecutors wrote last month in an open letter to voters in California. […]

One advantage of our federal system is that when we have a failed policy, we can grope for improvements by experimenting at the state level. I hope California will lead the way on Tuesday by legalizing marijuana.

Financial Times Editorial (free registration required): High time to legalise marijuana

Just say no, the slogan says. But on November 2, California has the chance to say yes, at least to marijuana. Proposition 19 would legalise the production, sale and use of cannabis, abolishing an ineffective and socially damaging prohibition on a substance with fewer health risks than alcohol and tobacco. The Golden State should vote to legalise dope. […]

However California votes, marijuana will remain illegal in the US. Nor will Proposition 19 weed out all the social problems caused by narcotics use. But it will make a start at removing a failed policy that exacerbates these ills – an approach which could, if successful, perhaps in time be applied to other drugs. It is time to say yes.

This is an open thread.

LA Times blogger Dennis Romero has demonstrated a bit of a racist sense of humor in the past…

Surprise surprise. Latinos are getting behind the California ballot initiative to legalize pot. You mean the same folks who gave the world Cheech (not Chong), Acapulco gold and the very word marijuana? Orale!

Seems he loves to play with the Latino stereotype…

On Tuesday, he reported some excellent news (with his own special dig at the end)…

The National Latino Officers Association was scheduled to give pot legalization its thumbs up Wednesday morning at the William C. Velasquez Institute in L.A.’s Lincoln Park community.

At the same time, the Yes on 19 folks will release a study showing that Latinos have been disproportionately arrested under current marijuana laws.

According to the study, titled, “Arresting Latinos for Marijuana in California,” “In the City of Los Angeles, where one in ten Californians live, police arrested Latinos for marijuana possession at twice the rate of whites.”

It also states that from 1990 to 2009, “the marijuana possession arrest rate of Latino teenagers in California more than tripled.”

What’s the point? To scare the all-important Latino vote into approving Prop. 19, which would allow the 21-and-older set to possess up to one ounce of cannabis.

Note the picture and caption he came up with for that story:

Really?

Katrina vanden Heuval has an excellent OpEd in the Washington Post: Just say yes to common sense on pot policy

Because the reasons to support Prop 19 are so diverse, promising alliances are being formed that might be sustained beyond this election. Libertarians and progressives, civil rights advocates, law enforcement groups, unions and young activists all see the value of ending prohibition. (As editor of the Nation, it’s not often that I find the magazine in a bipartisan alliance with Reason magazine. And the National Review was on board for legalization when William F. Buckley Jr. served as editor a decade ago.)

So Prop 19 is good policy and good politics. States across the country struggling with these same issues are watching with interest, as are Democratic strategists who see the potential for similar ballot initiatives to drive people to the polls in 2012.

It’s interesting that we can have such intelligent OpEd and editorial writing nationally regarding Prop 19, and yet, as Matt Welch has been reporting in detail, practically every single daily newspaper in California has editorialized against Prop 19, usually with a whole lot of stupid. Why is that?

One of the major problems in the world is the fact that so many have the “war mentality” — the notion that war is actually an effective tool and that the only way to utilize it is to continue until you have “victory.”

The fact is that war isn’t an effective tool; it’s a destructive device that only works for the wielder in one of two situations: as a destructive device for organized aggression, or as a destructive device to counter organized aggression.

Wars particularly do not work when trying to deal with a market or an ideology. And that’s when the notion of continuing to “victory” is especially idiotic and damaging. In those kind of wars, there is no flag to capture, no dictator to kill in his bunker… no end to the war possible. When you have a war with no end because there’s no one on the other side who can surrender or be killed thus ending the war, then continuing on to “victory” merely means the endless use of a destructive device with no possible value received.

Calderon has the war mentality. He really has it bad.

‘No alternative’ to Mexico’s drug war – says Calderon

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has said he will continue his war on the country’s drug cartels until the country is safe, despite the tens of thousands of deaths it has already cost. […]

The recent massacres in the north “reinforce our determination to fight and defeat those criminals” he told me. “These are crazy and the government must act with the full force of the state against them. I will not rest until Mexico is safe”. […]

“It is painful,” the president concedes, “but there is no alternative”.

Marching on to victory.

Via press release…

(San Jose, CA) — A coalition of campus organizations at San Jose State University are hosting a public debate tonight on Proposition 19 – the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 – between former San Jose police chief Joseph McNamara and Ron Allen of the International Faith Based Coalition.

WHO: Joseph McNamara, former San Jose police chief & fellow at the Hoover Institute vs. Ron Allen of the International Faith Based Coalition

WHAT: Public debate on Proposition 19

WHERE: San Jose State University, Uhmunum Room of the Student Union

WHEN: Tonight, Tuesday, October 26, 6:00 pm PDT

“I’ve worked in law enforcement for 35 years, including 15 years as the police chief in San Jose. Over my career, I have seen firsthand how misguided our marijuana policies are for our state and our country,” says former San Jose police chief Joe McNamara. “California cannot afford to continue the same failed policies of the past. We need to pass Proposition 19 to tax and control marijuana like we do alcohol. Controlling and taxing marijuana will generate over a billion dollars in new revenue every year, in contrast to the current $14 billion criminally-controlled market for marijuana, the largest cash crop in California. This money will go to local communities, allow police to focus on violent crimes, and put drug cartels out of business.”

Proposition 19 has the support of law enforcement officials, judges, law professors, doctors, mothers, economists, politicians, the SIEU and other major labor groups, the California NAACP, and the California Council of Churches.

Tonight’s event will be hosted by Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and co-sponsored by a broad coalition of organizations, including the Silicon Valley chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the SJSU College Republicans, SJSU Democratic Caucus, The Economics Club, The Sociology Club, Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honors Society, and Students for Quality Education.

The event is open to the general public. Admission is free and refreshments will be provided.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen stormed two neighboring homes and massacred 13 young people at a birthday party in the latest large-scale attack in this violent border city, even as a new government strategy seeks to restore order with social programs and massive police deployments.

Attackers in two vehicles pulled up to the houses in a lower-middle-class Ciudad Juarez neighborhood late Friday and opened fire on about four dozen partygoers gathered for a 15-year-old boy’s birthday party.

The dead identified so far were 13 to 32 years old, including six women and girls, Chihuahua state Attorney General Carlos Salas said. He said 20 people were wounded, including a 9-year-old boy. Most of the victims were high school students, a survivor said.

So we have the opportunity now to start the process of defunding the violent Mexican drug trafficking organizations by eliminating prohibition. But if Prop 19 isn’t exactly what you want, no problem, we’ll wait 2 years, 4 years, 8 years to get started on it.

I’m sure the families of these kids won’t mind.

Why I Support Legal Marijuana by George Soros, in the Wall Street Journal.

…In many respects, of course, Proposition 19 already is a winner no matter what happens on Election Day. The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimized public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago.

These are the reasons I have decided to support Proposition 19 and invite others to do so.

What the Feds Can Do About Prop 19: The attorney general will have a tough decision to make if California legalizes marijuana. in Newsweek. A pretty good article.

For one, the administration’s cheapest course of action, a challenge to Prop 19 in the courts, looks doomed. Constitutional-law experts say California has no obligation to have the same criminal laws as the federal government, so Holder’s Justice Department can forget any lawsuit compelling the state to make marijuana use a crime. “Arguably a state could decriminalize murder” and the federal government could not force it to do otherwise, says Ruthann Robinson, a constitutional-law professor at the City University of New York. On the legalization question, then, Holder’s hands are tied.

One bit of stupidity in the article:

Prop 19 is, by many accounts, a flawed initiative. “I would rather be talking about the merits of legalization than the demerits of this cockamamie kluge of a bill,” says Kleiman, the UCLA drug-policy expert, expressing his frustration with the slew of media calls he’s received on the subject. “If a law is properly drafted, you know when it’s valid and you know what will happen if it passes. It seems to me neither is the case.”

That’s just nonsense. How many laws have you dealt with, Mark, that involved eliminating a decades-old prohibition against the active wishes of the federal government and replacing it with a brand new system of regulation built from scratch? Gee, could that have something to do with the uncertainties? Mark apparently wants… neatness.

ACLU Letter To Attorney General Argues There Is No Basis For Challenging California’s Proposition 19

Here’s the actual letter

Threats of federal interference, however, go beyond just poor policy; suggestions of a facial challenge to Proposition 19 misconstrue the preemptive reach of the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”) and ignore constitutionally-imposed limitations on the federal government’s authority to dictate state criminal laws. Politics should not confuse the legal analysis here. The express anti-preemption provision of the CSA and the anti-commandeering principles embodied in the 10th Amendment plainly foreclose any claim that Proposition 19, if enacted, would be void under the Supremacy Clause because preempted by federal law. […]

Californians have every right to enact Proposition 19 to stop this incredible waste of criminal justice resources and to dismantle one of the most shameful legacies of the war on drugs, the selective enforcement of these laws.

The Closing of the Marijuana Frontier
California is not just deciding whether pot should be legal. It’s determining the shape of a major new American industry. by John Gravois

Mendocino County’s second-largest product—wine—may provide the best alternative vision for dope. Thanks in part to a legal loophole that always allowed for home producers, wine has been much slower to consolidate than other industries, and no single winery has the political clout of an Anheuser-Busch. This has been better not only for small producers, but also—more importantly—for the public. So maybe we should all hope that Matthew Cohen is right: that Mendocino will become the Napa Valley of marijuana, and that the premium growers can charge for a sustainably grown, artisanal product backed by a helluva marketing narrative—America’s last frontier! Land of the organic outlaw!—won’t turn out to be too much lower, in the end, than the premium they charge now for growing a crop under conditions of abject fear. It’s not such a bad dream, anyway.

For those of you interested in the Stewart/Colbert Rally this weekend, Just Say Now is organizing a Prop 19 Day of Action to take place all over the country on Saturday, October 30.

This is an open thread.

Nora Volkow, Director of NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) guest posts at the Drug Czar’s “blog”: Marijuana Research: The Facts

When we come to the topic of marijuana, it’s easy to be stirred by the heat of the debate between Gate-busters and Gate-keepers. This fight is fought almost entirely on the basis of personal and cultural beliefs, many times without knowledge of the scientific evidence about the acute and chronic effects of marijuana use on the human brain.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) mission is to gather this evidence objectively.

And then she goes on to tell us what’s wrong with marijuana.

So NIDA’s mission is to “gather evidence objectively.” Really?

Let’s go back to 2006.

A study had just discovered that “Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance” and part of its funding had come from NIDA.

Nora wasn’t all that keen on objective evidence gathering then, when she apologized for NIDA funding being used to find something good about illicit drugs.

Nora Volkow: “As the nation’s preeminent drug abuse research organization, NIDA’s mission is to support research and provide information on the addictive and adverse health consequences of drugs of abuse.

So which is it, Nora?

Is the mission of NIDA to “gather evidence objectively,” or to promote “adverse health consequences” of certain drugs? Quite a difference there.

Let’s look further.

On NIDA’s website, we have this statement by NIDA on marijuana and cancer:

It’s hard to know for sure whether marijuana use alone causes cancer, because many people who smoke marijuana also smoke cigarettes and use other drugs. But it is known that marijuana smoke contains some of the same, and sometimes even more, of the cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke. Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per day may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day (15) .

Now that’s interesting. You know what’s really interesting about it? Not one word about the definitive 2006 study that was done on marijuana and cancer that was funded by NIDA — you know, the one that demonstrated conclusively that there was no additional risk of head, neck or lung cancers in even heavy marijuana smokers, and that, in fact, there was a slight reduction of risk.

So, NIDA’s so-called objective gathering of evidence actually involves footnoting an old 1988 NIDA-funded study, ignoring their own definitive 2006 study, and ominously implying a reality that is contrary to their own funded research.

Nora Volkow isn’t your friend. She’s also not a friend to science… or the truth.

Now running in California…

Make a contribution to keep the ad running all the way up to election day.

Russ Belville does a really nice job over at Alternet clearly explaining 19 good reasons to vote from Prop 19.

It also clearly counters some of the truly idiotic stuff I’ve heard from the stoners against Prop 19 crowd.

It includes categories of reasons such as “For the concerned parents,” “For the law and order crowd,” “For the medical marijuana patients,” “For the business community” “For the Latinos and African-Americans,” “For the people of all political ideologies,” and “For the Future…”

19. To change the world. Prop 19 is not just another California initiative. Prop 19 is being watched in all fifty states and throughout the hemisphere as the “shot heard round the world” in ending the prohibition of marijuana.

It’s up to you, California, to take that one small step for your state that will be one giant leap for the nation. Vote Yes on Prop 19!