Drug WarRant

Wonderful holiday wishes to all Drug WarRant readers, and especially to the regular couch-mates who make this place special.

I just finished my last day of work yesterday, and look forward to discovering what retirement will bring. But first, I’m hitting the road for the holidays to visit family and friends.

For those sticking around, there’s some of Alton Brown’s aged eggnog in the refrigerator (make sure Matt doesn’t O.D. on it), and I believe there’s still a fruitcake being used as a doorstop (and no, Mr_Alex, it wasn’t made by the Semblers, so it’s OK).

Have a great time. I’ll stop in during the holidays when I can.

We’ve often talked here about the fact that suspicionless drug testing in most situations is wrong, and doesn’t actually work, whether it’s in high schools, for welfare recipients, or on the job. And, of course, it’s a big business.

It’s bad enough at the high school level, but college?

Here are two pieces from StopTheDrugWar.org’s Chronicle

Drug Testing

University of Alabama Subjects All Frat Members to Mandatory Drug Tests. Every fraternity member at the school was required to pass a drug test at the beginning of the academic year, and now, fraternity members are being randomly selected each week for more drug tests. If students test positive, they get several warnings before they are expelled from the fraternity and a university anti-drug program intervenes to “help students get back on track before the school doles out harsher penalties. The drug testing program has been criticized by fraternity members and others as invading the privacy of students, but no one has yet challenged it in court.

ACLU to Appeal Federal Court Ruling Allowing Drug Testing of All Students at Missouri Tech College. The ACLU of Missouri said it will appeal an 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding the suspicionless drug testing of all students at the State Technical College of Missouri. The ACLU is seeking a rehearing of the case before the same three-judge appeals court panel that ruled in the school’s favor or by the entire bench in the 8th Circuit. The ACLU had filed suit in 2011 to challenge the policy and won at the district court level, but the appeals court last year reversed the lower court decision. The federal courts have held that, with a handful of exceptions, mandatory suspicionless drug testing violates the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against warrantless searches and seizures. The ACLU said the appeals court decision is “poorly crafted and departs from the 8th Circuit and Supreme Court precedent.”

I remember when the Missouri Tech College case originally came up and thinking that it should be a slam dunk to stop that in the courts (and it was initially). But I don’t remember hearing about the appeals court. This needs to be stopped so it doesn’t give any other colleges ideas.

As far as the one at University of Alabama, I see where they’re going with it – using the idea that worked in high schools, of targeting those who participate in extra-curricular activities – in this case as a requirement to participate in frats. What a colossally stupid approach. In my experience, the biggest problem in frats is alcohol, something that will not be caught by drug testing. If anything, it’ll drive the frats to focus solely on alcohol, which is not necessarily a good thing.

When I was in college, we didn’t have frats, but we had similarly structured “social groups” (just without separate housing). The one social group least likely to put their fist through a wall, hurt someone, or cause problems on campus was the one whose drug of choice was pot rather than alcohol.

Via Huffington Post Weird News comes this remarkably absurd anti-marijuana campaign out of Australia.

Supposedly, it’s the work of Australia’s New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet.

And there’s a website.

Thanks to Tom Angell for the info:

This is regarding the lawsuit against Colorado by those states, because they feel harmed by the cost of having to arrest people in their own states for possessing marijuana.

Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae

The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint should be denied because this is not an appropriate case for the exercise of this Court’s original jurisdic-tion. Entertaining the type of dispute at issue here—essentially that one State’s laws make it more likely that third parties will violate federal and state law in another State—would represent a substantial and unwarranted expansion of this Court’s original jurisdiction.

Well said.

Hard to think about the year being over soon, but we are starting to see year-in-review pieces.

Phillip Smith has one at Alternet: The People Are Rising Up Against the Destructive Drug War: 8 Key Developments

The items he notes are:

1. The sky hasn’t fallen on legal marijuana states.
2. The marijuana majority solidifies.
3. Monopoly marijuana is rejected in the Heartland.
4. Black Lives Matter’s policing critique implicates the drug war.
5. Overdoses kill tens of thousands, harm reduction responses emerge.
6. Asset forfeiture reform picks up steam.
7. Six thousand federal drug war prisoners come home.
8. Canada elects a marijuana-legalizing prime minister.

“I want there to be a thousand Kevins,” he exclaims. “There can’t be just one Kevin. Kevin is not going to be able to do this alone. Kevin can’t just do this year after year, he is going to have a heart attack.”

Sure, I understand the argument for just not talking about him, but this article has so much worth discussing…

Kevin Sabet Is The Marijuana Movement’s Biggest Threat, But Can He Really Stop ‘Big Pot’? by Joel Warner

Here’s the most damning bit of the entire article:

It’s why Project SAM opposes any form of legalization. But then what does the organization want in its place? Sabet has repeatedly promised to develop model laws, but so far, policy proposals encapsulating Project SAM’s preferred legal reforms, such as reduced marijuana arrests and increased public health campaigns and treatment options, haven’t materialized.

“What do they want as a policy?” says Tom Angell, chairman of the pro-legalization group Marijuana Majority. “They make these assertions, how it’s something in the middle, but it’s very vague.”

Sabet says his organization has been working with drug-law experts and political consultants on the matter, and Project SAM-backed policy initiatives are coming soon. “We have to go on the offense,” he says. “I am sick of saying, ‘Vote no, vote no.’ We want to be ‘yes.’”

Coming soon… yes, we’ve heard that for quite a while, now.

Here’s another interesting bit in the article:

The sky hasn’t fallen in Colorado or Washington State since marijuana became legal, concludes Jonathan Caulkins, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who studies marijuana policy. But that’s because, he says, it’s too soon to determine the social impacts of the policy change. He thinks that anyone who tries to spin the short-term data to either promote or condemn legalization is missing the bigger question: What happens years from now to the first generation to grow up not just with legalized but potentially mass-marketed cannabis?

“Only an idiot would predict that the problems would come in two years,” says Caulkins. “I think we are going to legalize this nationally, we are going to let Big Tobacco play, and 25 years from now we will say, ‘What were we thinking?’”

Um… I think the real ‘What were we thinking?’ moment has already come, and is was a reaction to criminalization, not legalization. This is where the public policy folks completely fucked up. If they wanted to make a difference in how marijuana was legalized, then they needed to get involved in suggesting strategies, not just acting as naysayers.

You may have heard that the USPS recently issued a memo to newspapers in Oregon stating that it’s illegal to mail pieces with advertisements for marijuana because it’s Schedule 1.

Now members of Congress are demanding answers.

Lawmakers Question Postal Service About Marijuana Ad Threats to Newspapers by Tom Angell

A group of members of Congress is demanding the U.S. Postal Service explain a memo it recently issued warning newspapers not to mail any publications containing advertisements for marijuana. […]

“Regardless of how you feel about our failed prohibition of marijuana, every American should agree that the U.S. Postal Service should not be censoring what is or is not published in newspapers,” Blumenauer, who has led House efforts to allow medical cannabis access for military veterans, told Marijuana.com via email. […]

The lawmakers say they want the postmaster general to answer several questions, such as whether USPS intends the memo to have legal effect in all 50 states. “If not, is it customary for individual districts to create their own policies that may contradict how other districts are operating?” they ask. “What discretion does a regional postmaster have in enforcing or implementing these policies, specifically in states where marijuana is legal?” […]

The letter ends with an ominous question possibly intended to uncover evidence the Department of Justice isn’t abiding by Congress’s medical marijuana interference ban. “Did the USPS cooperate with anyone at DEA or DOJ in establishing this policy? If so, please detail the nature of this cooperation.”

Yes, it’s Andrea Barthwell again, a lady who changes drug war scams more often than some people change clothes. A huckster, a shyster, a drug warrior (former deputy drug czar) with no interest in the truth. This site has shut down a couple of her enterprises (Illinois Marijuana Lectures, and End Needless Death on the Roadways) by exposing her lies.

You can read some of my stuff about her here:

• Andrea Barthwell, caught red-handed
• End Needless Death
• Andrea Barthwell, Snake Oil Salesman

Here’s her latest: Luxury treatment center.

The Manor, a Luxury Addiction Treatment Center, Opens in the Midwest

The Manor, an exclusive, highly confidential addiction treatment center nestled in the tranquil hills of Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine, has announced that it is now welcoming guests seeking treatment for the disease of alcoholism, and other dependencies, including individuals who desire a healthy, drug-free lifestyle. […]

“The work of recovery is mentally and emotionally demanding,” said Andrea G. Barthwell, MD, DFASAM, an internationally renowned physician who is a former U. S. Deputy Drug Czar and a pioneer in the field of addiction medicine. Dr. Barthwell is the Chief Medical Officer at The Manor, and the architect of The Manor’s holistic and intimate model of clinical and medical care. “To engage in one’s comfort zone is a privilege we extend to every guest, in an intellectually stimulating and emotionally safe place,” Dr. Barthwell said.

“When healing from the chaos of alcoholism and other dependencies,” Dr. Barthwell continued, “we seek peace, social connection, gentle guidance, and serenity. Our guests can walk along the running stream, engage in deep, restorative sleep and move their muscles in a myriad of ways that suit them to bring about gentle healing. These little amenities encourage openness, the key to the entire process,” said Dr. Barthwell.

In my other life on Facebook, I’m always on the watch for fake news – it’s become endemic to today’s online world. And I’m not talking about the good satire from The Onion that has the intention of giving you a good laugh while making commentary — there are a lot of sites that purposely make something just outrageous enough to get people to believe it and share it, in order to generate clicks and ad revenue.

Years ago, I temporarily helped spread a particularly embarrassing bit of false information, and vowed never to let it happen again.

I now regularly check on anything that seems too good to be true, and am particularly wary of anything of major importance that directly appeals to my interests. If I don’t know the site (and I already know not to believe anything on the Daily Current, or any apparent news source with .co added — like NBC.com.co), I’ll take a phrase from the story and put it in google to see what I can find.

Here’s a good article related to the recent fake news story about NIDA paying people $3,000 a week to smoke pot:

No, The Feds Won’t Pay You $3,000 Per Week to Smoke Marijuana

It’s very important for us as activists to be reliable and trustworthy sources of information.

We’ve talked a lot over the years about the impact that the drug war has had on the over-incarceration in the U.S. And inevitably someone responds by saying that there aren’t all that many in prison (or state prison, or federal prison, or those convicted of possession only, etc.) as if somehow the fact that not all prisoners were a direct result of the drug war negated the argument.

Here’s an interesting article that sheds a little more light on the subject:

Drug offenders in American prisons: The critical distinction between stock and flow

There is no disputing that incarceration for property and violent crimes is of huge importance to America’s prison population, but the standard analysis—including Alexander’s critics—fails to distinguish between the stock and flow of drug crime-related incarceration. In fact, there are two ways of looking at the prison population as it relates to drug crimes:

1. How many people experience incarceration as a result of a drug-related crime over a certain time period?
2. What proportion of the prison population at a particular moment in time was imprisoned for a drug-related crime? […]

Snapshot pictures of prison populations tell a misleading story

Violent crimes account for nearly half the prison population at any given time; and drug crimes only one fifth. But drug crimes account for more of the total number of admissions in recent years—almost one third (31 percent), while violent crimes account for one quarter.

Interesting data.