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Drug WarRant
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Saturday, September 27, 2003 |
A cowboy hero rides into the sunset
 Howard Woolridge and his one-eyed horse Misty are nearing the end of a 3,100 mile journey across the United States to promote drug policy reform. The trek started in Savannah, Georgia and will end on the coast in Newport, Oregon.
This former police officer rides with a homemade T-shirt that reads:
"Cops Say Legalize Pot. Ask Me Why."
Woolridge was a detective for 15 years and is now retired. He is a founding member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
A nice article in today's Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal presented some of Howard's views:
"Law enforcement is a mosquito on the rear end of an elephant," Wooldridge said. "We make zero difference whether you or your community are going to have drugs or not."
He goes so far as to say that marijuana should be right there on store shelves with Jack Daniels, Budweiser and cigarettes.
Howard has gotten his drug reform message across in a casual way by striking up conversations with people he meets on his journey (and those who ask about his T-shirt):
The subject of legalizing drugs knocked Wendy Slonecker, who has two teen-age children at home, right out of her comfort zone this week. Although she didn't agree with everything Wooldridge said, she had to admit that some of his arguments made sense.
She has a feeling that the man she just met is going to make a difference and wouldn't be surprised to see him someday lobbying in Washington, D.C., upon the saddle of Misty.
"We aren't winning the war against drugs," Slonecker said. "Something has to happen."
 This is why I call Howard a hero. It takes this kind of individual contact to eventually turn around our failed drug war. Howard is reaching people, one at a time, and making a lasting impression. It may not seem like Wendy Slonecker was completely convinced, but that's because there are decades of ingrained propaganda and misconceptions to fight off.
I challenge you... If you read this blog and feel that something needs to change, make a difference. I know you don't have time to ride across the country (although it sounds delightful to me). But, pick a person -- a friend or relative or co-worker -- and talk to them about the drug war. Just have a nice friendly discussion, and express your views. If they come up with questions you can't answer, email me, and I'll try to help. Don't expect an overnight change, but plant the seed. Let me know how it works -- I'd love to post some more success stories here.
With 80 miles to go in his journey, Howard Woolridge left Salem, Oregon this morning and will be heading up Route 20 through Albany, Corvallis and Philomath on his way to Newport. If you're in the area, I'm sure he and Misty would love to see you. Or visit his little site: America on Horseback.
11:00:01 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Friday, September 26, 2003 |
Another Victim of the Drug War -- Severe Pain Care
 "Something is terribly wrong with the way some criminal justice authorities have begun to enforce the law against physicians and pharmacists who prescribe and dispense high dose opioids to treat chronic pain. The necessary balance in pain policy... has tipped drastically in the direction of ruthless drug control and away from compassionate collaboration. This is a recent development. The past five years has generated an unprecedented list of health care providers charged with murder for allegedly providing inappropriately large quantities of opioids to pain patients."
-- Dr. David Brushwood, Mayday Scholar with the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics, September 4, 2003
That's the beginning of a disturbing article in this week's Drug War Chronicle.
Dr. Deborah Bordeaux used to be a pain management specialist. Now she's a convicted felon facing a 100-year prison sentence as a drug dealer. Bordeaux was arrested when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and South Carolina law enforcement raided the Myrtle Beach clinic where she once prescribed opioids to severely ill patients... And there are more, a growing number of physicians indicted and sometimes convicted of being drug traffickers but who say they were only doing what was best for patients.
In some cases, doctors are even being charged with murder when terminally ill patients receiving pain medication die. The result is that more and more doctors are afraid to prescribe appropriate dosages of pain medication, and patients suffer.
The Pain Relief Network (PRN) is a new organization which has formed to fight for patients' right to pain care. Their site notes:
The DEA reports that 410 doctors were prosecuted in 2002, representing an 800% increase in physician prosecutions over the last three years. American citizens, as a result, by the thousands are being forced into suicide by untreated pain.
The PRN has taken the unusual step of asking the FDA to quit cooperating with the Justice Department in classifying drugs under the Controlled Substances Act.
PRN's [Executive Director Siobhan] Reynolds told the FDA committee the process was fraught with mischief since the Justice Department, through its prosecutions of physicians, had proven it was not interested in the scientific or medical evidence.
As a followup, the Drug War Chronicle notes a breaking story:
Retired McLean, Virginia, pain specialist Dr. William Hurwitz was arrested Wednesday morning and sits in jail pending a Monday bail hearing after being indicted on federal charges related to his use of high doses of opioid pain relievers in the course of his medical practice. A 49-count indictment charges the nationally known specialist with drug trafficking resulting in death and serious injury, engaging in a criminal enterprise, conspiracy and health care fraud. The most serious charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.
The drug warriors have continually shown that they have no respect for those who are seriously ill, through their harrassment of terminally ill medical marijuana patients, through their attempts to prevent doctors from discussing medical options, through their suppression of medical research and through intimidating doctors into underprescribing for pain.
11:17:21 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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My 2nd Illinois Senate Candidate elimination...
 Estella Johnson-Hunt (D)
OK, sometimes it's just too easy. Sure, I admire the fact that Ms. Johnson-Hunt wrote "Hail To Thee, Chicago." I am, uh, intrigued by her plans to require the state song at all official and school functions, to "introduce legislation requiring removal of fashion labels from the necks of garments," to modify the 5th amendment to allow double jeopardy, and to "help develop and enforce stronger moral/dress code standards for performers' attire and language on regular television programs and for on-duty employees in public places (no transparent/tight fitting clothing, exposed cleavage, or mini lengths)."
She is also a fan of mandatory drug and alcohol testing for a variety of people, and "Increased law enforcement efforts... that will result in capture and punishment of producers and suppliers of illegal drugs."
If we can just arrest enough people, we'll get rid of that pesky drug problem... So I guess we can eliminate Estella from consideration for a Drug WarRant endorsement.
8:49:13 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Is It Live, Or Is It Happy Furry Puppy Story Time?
Welcome, and thanks for the link to "Drug War Rant: Give me a hit off that gravity bong or give me death!"
8:31:28 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Guest rant
Look, it's this simple. Drugs are evil. And yet there are people in this country calling for legalization of marijuana. Why send a message to children that intoxication is a birthright? Do you think it's right for children to be hooked on heroin?
It's just anti-American. You're hurting your country. It's simple logic.
Drug are a crime against humanity. And they support terrorism. Some of these individuals are of Russian and Georgian descent and have Middle Eastern ties.
Why are so many Americans blind to the truth? Possibly because they're too high to see it. If nobody sold drugs, there would be no drug problem. And that's no spin. Now some people point to the fact that the Netherlands has a lower rate of marijuana use than the United States. Well, that's because Holland has a smaller population! We need to send the Marines to the Mexican border and stop this once and for all. If you do the crime, you'd better be prepared to do the time.
And to the guy who writes this Drug WarRant blog... you're a pinhead. Shut up!
[Note: this blog is participating in "Talk like Bill O'Reilly Day."]
9:30:38 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Thursday, September 25, 2003 |
What is Canada sending US?
MARIJUANA DISCOVERED IN GARBAGE HEADED FOR U.S.
What?
 That's right. A garbage truck, delivering garbage from Canada to the United States was discovered to be smuggling marijuana.
The driver, who was arrested, clearly has something to learn about hiding marijuana in a garbage truck.
"Upon opening the rear of the garbage truck, a plastic garbage bag filled with marijuana fell out," Ms. Miles said, adding that an ensuing search revealed multiple plastic and hockey bags full of marijuana.
I have three responses to this story...
- Why is the United States taking in other countries' garbage? Don't we have enough?
- We want your solid waste, but don't you dare send any of those green plants that can provide excellent medicine or nutrition and make people happy. We don't want any of that
trash crap leafy plant material.
- Maybe it was, in fact, all trash. What they found in the truck might have been Health Canada's pot.
9:41:32 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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When scientists go bad
The Billings Gazette gave a free pass to the DEA's Big Sky Illicit Drug Conference, by giving lots of article space to failed researcher and professional DEA shill Susan Dalterio. Her claim to fame is over 10 years of research on stoned mice with highly disputed results so that even NIDA cut off her funding back in 1982.
She now teaches biology and goes around the country spouting such scientific pronouncements as:
People who smoke pot tend to have the same emotional maturity level as when they first smoked a joint, she said. Dalterio cited Austin, Texas, as a living example. It's a place full of old hippies "stuck in the '60s," she said. "They're interesting, but they're still stuck."
The article has so many factual errors or outright lies that it's not worth giving a full point-by-point response. Most of them are already addressed elsewhere in this blog.
Articles like this just make me tired.
9:24:19 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Jack Ryan for Senate? No.
I've got to admit I haven't started looking over the Illinois Senatorial candidates yet, so I really don't know anything about them. I plan at a later date to do a little research on their views regarding the drug war. However...
 I'm ready to make my first elimination, based totally on guilt by association.
Steve Neal of the Chicago Sun Times reports that Ryan is a fan of William Bennett. According to Neal:
[Bennett] is breathlessly touted by the Ryan campaign as ''one of America's most important, influential and respected voices on cultural, political, and education issues"; ''one of the nation's most prominent political figures,'' and an ''extraordinary influence on America's political and social landscape.''
In actuality, William Bennett is a moralist and one of the chief cheerleaders of the war on drugs, a former drug czar, and mentor to current drug czar John Walters. He is a compulsive gambler who constantly appears on TV to preach about others' vices.
Now I hate to nail Jack Ryan (as a Clancy fan I love the name) simply by association, but in this case, there are only two options:
- He agrees with Bennett, which makes his views unacceptable.
- He's praising Bennett and inviting Bennett to his fundraiser without knowing about him, which makes him too stupid.
Read the entire Neal article for more about William Bennett.
9:00:32 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Wednesday, September 24, 2003 |
Lucrative New Markets
This New York Times article via Hit and Run (in case you didn't know, New York has high cigarette taxes):
"A lot of people who were selling pot or heroin are now selling cigarettes," said a 25-year-old struggling actor from East Harlem who said that he needs to dabble in cigarette dealing to make ends meet. "You can make the same amount of money,'' he said, "and you don't get locked away as long."
 What should be most startling about this news item to the drug warriors is that, despite billions of dollars spent on interdiction and extremely oppressive drug laws in New York, illicit drug supply and dealer market competition are vigorous enough to make the switch to illegal tobacco sales economically attractive.
But then again, the drug warriors clearly slept during economics class, since they don't understand supply and demand or elasticity.
(Plagiarizing myself from Hit and Run's comments)
10:38:57 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Luize Altenhofen
I want to give a warm welcome and thanks to the folks from FSU's Warchant, where there were some very nice comments about this blog (including my favorite: "That blog is definitely most excellent, dude.").
I have never gotten a review that was displayed in such an appealing way (see screenshot). Sorry, guys, Luize isn't here.
10:17:55 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Education and Drugs
 It's worth checking out: "In Search of the Anti-Drug" by Elizabeth Armstrong of the Christian Science Monitor. This is probably the most honest mainstream article on the subject of drug education I've seen.
While I don't agree with everything in the article, Armstrong understands the problems with the traditional "Just say no" approach to teaching children about drugs. She discusses the failure of everything from "Reefer Madness" to "Brain on Drugs" to D.A.R.E. And she points out:
But what happens when they don't want to say no? What happens when the reason isn't peer pressure or what they have or haven't learned, but curiosity?...Just when many children are beginning to wonder what drugs feel like, they are learning little more than how to avoid them.
Kids also are smarter than most drug education programs credit, and become very skeptical when burned with misinformation, lies, or exaggerations.
"Teenage disbelief and suspicion of drug prevention programs is rooted in scare tactics," [Meredith Maran] says. "When I was 16 and started reading stories about drugs I was taking, and compared my reality to that, I said 'that's that.' To this day I don't trust anything from those sources."
While I am firmly in favor of legalization and ending the costly and failed prohibition policies, I recognize the importance of limiting drug use by children. There will, of course, always be curiosity and experimentation by young people. Having some drugs illegal does not change that (when I was a kid, I knew two boys who died from sniffing gasoline). So what are some good approaches?
- Legalization. It is now easier for most kids to get illegal drugs than alcohol. (When's the last time you heard about a Bacardi or Philip Morris salesman pushing his drug in the schoolyard?) The fact that some drugs are illegal can also add to the allure. Legalize and regulate.
- Reality-based and science-based education. No more lies. It will take a while to get kids to believe anything you say again, but work at it. Discuss the difference between use and abuse (acknowledge that there is a distinction).
- Positive alternatives. Encourage and fund extra-curricular activities (sports, music, theatre, chess club, etc.). Job opportunities.
- Respect. Kids won't trust the message if you're making them pee in a cup or sending drug dogs through their classrooms.
Of course, this won't be easy. The failed methods have too much momentum and investment. As Armstrong notes, even though its failures are well documented, "D.A.R.E. remains the program of choice in 80 percent of US public school systems - and the curriculum has yet to be replaced or improved upon."
1:04:03 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Tuesday, September 23, 2003 |
Phone Slam!
 Make a telephone call today for medical marijuana.
Today is the Cheryl Miller Memorial Project phone slam.
On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, as patients and supporters visit congressional offices in Washington, medical marijuana supporters across the U.S. will be calling those same offices to thank supporters and lobby others to cosponsor HR 2233, the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act.
Follow the link above for more information and strategies of what to do when you call. But if you don't have time for that, simply go to the U.S. House site to find out who your rep is, or get a complete list of phone numbers. Take a moment today to make a phone call. Tell the staff person who answers that you support HR 2233, the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act.
Update: Even though the day is over, you can still make the call. It's valuable anytime.
12:32:20 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Monday, September 22, 2003 |
This just makes me mad
 John Ashcroft is at it again.
Ashcroft not only wants to be your Attorney General. He wants to be your prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. The latest is a memo to all federal prosecutors requiring them to seek the greatest possible sentence in all cases, including any sentencing enhancements that might apply, reducing any discretion related to the individual case. This means that the small fish who has no information to give prosecutors gets the book thrown at him or her.
Keep in mind that this will cost a lot of money. Prison time. Trials instead of plea bargains. Lots of money.
Ashcroft is continuing his attempts to make the judiciary branch irrelevant. He has been working steadily to tie the hands of judges. Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice
Breyer spoke out against mandatory minimums (something Justice Kennedy did last month).
All above links from the fabulous TalkLeft, which is all over this today.
10:19:34 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Pot doesn't kill
 An editorial in September 20th British Medical Journal: "Comparing cannabis with tobacco -- again: Link between cannabis and mortality is still not established"
This editorial examined two large studies in the United States and Sweden, and determined:
"...published data do not support the characterisation of cannabis as a risk factor for mortality"
The editorial then went on to examine the use of marijuana as it relates to mortality factors:
No acute lethal overdoses of cannabis are known, in contrast to several of its illegal (for example, cocaine) and legal (for example, alcohol, aspirin, acetaminophen) counterparts. Deaths due to chronic diseases resulting from substance misuse generally result from the use of that substance (for example, tobacco and alcohol) over a long time. Importantly, and in contrast to users of tobacco and alcohol, most cannabis users generally quit using cannabis relatively early in their adult lives.
After analyzing the differences between tobacco and marijuana in both ingredients and use, the article concludes:
Although the use of cannabis is not harmless, the current knowledge base does not support the assertion that it has any notable adverse public health impact in relation to mortality. Common sense should dictate a variety of measures to minimise adverse effects of cannabis. These include discouraging the use by teenagers, who seem to be most at risk of future problems from drug use, not using before or during the operation of automobiles or machinery, not using excessively, and cautioning in people with known coronary heart disease.
So far, this editorial has been picked up in The Age in Australia, and The Independent in England, but has not seemed to reach much of the mainstream press (other than as a footnote in an AP story on bad Canadian pot).
So, to recap...
You literally cannot overdose from marijuana. Marijuana seems to have little or no affect on mortality, and is certainly safer than many legal products. It's safer to drive while high than to drive while tired. Marijuana use does not cause use of harder drugs. Marijuana is an effective medicine, pain reliever and nausea suppressant for a variety of illnesses and treatments. Hemp is an environmentally-friendly crop which can be used for paper, rope, clothing, fuel, construction products, and has nutritional value that exceeds soy. And it makes you feel good.
So why is it illegal? Must be that last point.
9:51:01 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Sunday, September 21, 2003 |
Around the Web
 A nice OpEd in the Harvard Crimson, by Dr. Lester Grinspoon:
I was concerned that so many young people were using the terribly dangerous drug marijuana, so I decided to review the medical and scientific literature on the substance and write a reasonably objective and scientifically sound paper on its dangers. Young people were ignoring the warnings of the government, but perhaps some would seriously consider a well-documented review of the available data. As I began to explore the literature, I discovered, to my astonishment, that I had to seriously question my own understanding. What I thought I knew was based largely on myths, old and new. I realized how little my training in science and medicine had protected me against this misinformation. I had become not just a victim of a disinformation campaign, but because I am a physician, one of its agents as well.
You thought we had it bad? Singapore is relenting to pressure and is decriminalizing chewing gum (as long as you have a doctor's prescription).
Until recently, the penalty for being caught with a stick of gum in Singapore was $6,000 and 12 months in jail.
Singapore is a great example of the kind of society you get with law and order taken to the extreme.
This week's Drug War Chronicle has some good stuff. Check out the corrupt cop of the week and current action alerts.
Speaking of corrupt cops, nine Illinois officers arrested for ripping off drug dealers, via TalkLeft, which also notes that Tommy Chong may appeal his sentence on the grounds that the judge based the sentence on "the character he played and not the person he is." TalkLeft also points out this interesting item which indicates that MADD may have stepped beyond its original mission into prohibition activities (Walter in Denver has more.)
Last One Speaks continues with some nice pieces on bad science, bad economics, and bad foreign policy in the drug war.
Desert Cat explains how an evangelical Christian can be against marijuana prohibition.
Matrix Masters gives us more on the ecstasy study retractions. Also, be sure to check out this comprehensive page on the issue at MAPS, which provides tons of articles and letters and a full chronology.
DrugSense has a wonderful opportunity to have your donation to their cause matched dollar for dollar. This would be a great way to give a little in the cause against the drug war. DrugSense and MAP provide an extraordinarily important service -- the MAP archives themselves are an indispensable tool for those of us fighting the drug war cheerleaders.
Drug Policy Alliance releases a new State of the States report detailing drug reform activities in the states, including over 150 changes in state legislation from 1996-2002.
2:45:01 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Dare to Suck! Had a great time last night delivering one of my drug war rants at Theatre of Ted, and I'd like to welcome the Ted fans to Drug WarRant.
One of the issues that came up from another participant was the potential loss of financial aid due to a marijuana conviction. If you're in that horrible position, there may be hope: fill out an appliication for the John W. Perry Fund scholarship.
The soft hemp seeds I brought that many of you got to try are available from Ruth's Hemp Foods. Lots of great food to buy there! And the Tommy Chong story I mentioned is here.
2:08:43 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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