Saturday, February 7, 2004

Kucinich on the Drug War - a reminder "Drug War / Marijuana Decriminalization" Animation Kucinich on the Drug War Kucinich on Medical Marijuana Kucinich on Marijuana decriminalization Kucinich on the Patriot Act 8:13:35 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

What to do in the Primaries... A lot of states with primaries fast approaching. Tough decisions to make. All sorts of reasons to look at different candidates on different issues. Well, I'm here to make it easy for you. If you're voting in a Democratic Primary, vote for Dennis Kucinich If you're voting in a Republican Primary, write in Blake Ashby Simple. Of the candidates in the two main parties, these have the absolute best positions on drug policy. No contest. Now perhaps you think that Dennis Kucinich or Blake Ashby are unelectable, or there's some other area that you disagree with their policies, or just that they don't have a chance of getting the nomination. My response: well of course they don't have a chance of getting the nomination! At this point, the odds are pretty extreme. But, every vote they get means another chance of their views on the drug war being heard or considered. Then once the nominations sort themselves out, you can take a look at your final choice then (without worrying about "throwing your vote away" in the final election). I'm serious. What will it hurt? If, on the other hand, you're a Democrat who is convinced that the primaries are over and John Kerry is going to be the nominee, BigLeftOutside has started to give detailed analysis on Kerry's positions on the drug war, including: The good: Kerry and Medical Marijuana Kerry and Marijuana Kerry, Mandatory Minimum Sentences, and "Crime Bills" Kerry and What He Already Knows About the Drug Economy The bad: Kerry as Overzealous Prosecutor in anything defined as "War" Kerry as Social Moralist Kerry and the Drug Plane Shoot-downs Kerry and his Rand Beers Problem Kerry and Plan Colombia: The Bad And the uncertain: Kerry and Plan Colombia: The Potential for Good Kerry's Environmental Passions and Drug Policy Dilemmas Kerry's Budget-Balancing Priorities and Drug Policy Dilemmas It's a wonderful start to a Kerry analysis, and it's clear that Al Giordano has great knowledge and useful advice. It's also clear that he's got an ego the size of Texas -- something he'll need to learn to temper if he really wishes to be effective in his self-appointed role as "referee" for upcoming strategy debates within the drug reform community. 4:51:51 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

The Drug War Chronicle This week's Drug War Chronicle is worth reading cover to cover. Some amazing articles including: Drug War Kills More Than a Cop a Month Yes, that's at least one policeman every month. Give this to your law-and-order-I-support-the-drug-war friends: "These police deaths are totally unnecessary," said Cole. "If we ended drug prohibition, none of these officers would have had to die. We're killing our police. All we have to do is legalize drugs and that would not be happening. Can't we learn from Alcohol Prohibition?" Cole asked. "We had the highest murder rate in our history and cops were dying right and left." "These are casualties of war," said LEAP member Peter Christ, a retired police captain with 20 years of experience fighting the drug war. "It's a war we shouldn't be fighting," he told DRCNet. "Drug prohibition creates an environment where we put cops in a job where they can't win, and you have to expect these kinds of results. The answer is a no-brainer, at least for me: You have to legalize drugs." Marijuana Rx for Methamphetamine? Hawaii May Give It a Try This is fascinating and I'd like to see if it catches on in medical marijuana states. Medical marijuana is "a multi-purpose therapeutic aid" that can do a better job of treating ice users than current programs, Adler said. ... While there are no studies of the therapeutic effect of marijuana on methamphetamine users, studies of its use in treating crack users have returned promising results. In a Brazilian study, researchers followed crack users who turned to pot to break their addiction. After nine months, they reported, "most of the subjects ceased to use crack and reported that the use of cannabis had reduced their craving symptoms, and produced subjective and concrete changes in their behavior, helping them to overcome crack addiction." In another study from Jamaica, researchers followed 33 crack-smoking women for nine months and found that "cannabis cigarettes ("spliffs") constitute the cheapest, most effective, and readily available therapy for discontinuing crack consumption." "It could work," said Dr. Ethan Russo, Senior Medical Advisor to British pharmaceutical company GW Pharmaceutical's Cannabinoid Research Institute. GW is the maker of Sativex, a sublingual cannabinoid medicine. "Cannabis is helpful for a variety of addictions, and the mechanisms of crack and meth are quite comparable." HEA Struggle Enters New Year as Bush Budget Pushes Souder Reform As you may be aware, a current heinous provision in the Higher Education Act denies financial aid to students who have had a drug conviction (not rape or assault or any other charges -- just drugs -- and it usually ends up damaging young people who got caught with pot at some point). For years, we've been fighting this provision and it looks like there's finally a better chance of getting it repealed in Congress. So Bush's current budget has done an end run around the reform efforts and joined with drug warrior Mark Souder to propose a modification to the provision (still bad) rather than repeal. Go to RaiseYourVoice to see how you can get involved in this. There's lots more good stuff in this issue of the Drug War Chronicle including a newsbrief about San Francisco giving an OK to possible city-supported medical marijuana co-ops. And you can also get fun stuff like Stop the Drug War strobe lights and ink stamps by donating. 10:43:09 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Around the web... Did Bush drop out of the National Guard to avoid drug testing? Eric Boehlert in Salon idly speculated about the fact that the questioned time period in 1972 was the year that the military started implementing random drug tests. Now, I'm opposed to drug testing for future Presidents. And since anybody can grow up to become President... well, you get the idea. For something entirely different, and just for fun in this election season, check out the Guns and Dope Party. Entertaining and informative. Equal rights for ostriches! (thanks to Tad) You might find this article about The Living Things, a performance group from St. Louis, interesting... "We aren't angry, we're frustrated." With what? "With our government," (Lillian says with a delighted laugh; "John Ashcroft came to the library in St. Louis and I shook hands with him -- I shook hands with the devil!). Prozac for teens --"It's refusal to deal with the issues of youth except by prescription. Prozac is just a gateway drug, " Lillian explains, "It will only lead to coke and other illegal substances because it trains people to treat their problems with chemicals." The education system: "The schools don't want you to talk, so kids come to our shows and they are so happy they can speak their fucking minds." This week's DrugSense Weekly is out with an excellent re-cap of the week, including this great feature article by Leah B. Rorvig on drug testing: Students find dialogue more effective than drug testing. You might think that we were the safest students in north Texas.  But you'd be wrong.  I knew classmates who drove drunk or high because they had no one to call who could pick them up in time to meet our strict curfew.  Instead of opening up an honest dialogue, administrators enforced a strict no-tolerance policy, giving us the impression that we couldn't talk to them about alcohol or other drugs.  10:42:13 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []