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Drug WarRant
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Saturday, February 28, 2004 |
Chicago Trib tells Drug Czar's pet "doctor" that the public knows better
Earlier this week, Andrea Barthwell of the Drug Czar's office had an OpEd piece in the Chicago Tribune attacking medical marijuana that I fairly thoroughly attacked here.
It turns out that, while the Tribune is willing to let Andrea spout off on their pages, they apparently are not taken in by her propaganda. In an editorial today, they made the point very clear.
Different people respond differently to the same treatments, which is why treatment decisions are better made in doctors' offices than in police stations. ...
On this, the public appears to be way ahead of the legislators. A 1998 poll by the Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University found 67 percent of Illinois residents believe "doctors should be allowed to prescribe small amounts of marijuana for patients." ...
Americans have taken a nuanced approach, according to polls. Most support legalizing marijuana for the ill, but not for other use. With that, the public shows admirable thoughtfulness on this issue. So should legislators.
To add insult to their failure to toe the Drug Czar's line, the Trib also printed a long letter (right next to the editorial), which responded to Barthwell's OpEd.
This, along with the earlier Sun Times piece, now means that both major Chicago newspapers have endorsed medical marijuana in Illinois!
Hat tip to Richard Lake and the always incredibly useful Media Awareness Project.
7:39:57 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Drug Czar Shares his Qualifications for the Job
The Drug Czar went to Akron to try to score some child urine. But local officials are skeptical of the push for drug testing.
The superintendent suggested that perhaps the Bush administration should test itself before requiring the same of students.
This is when our Drug Czar proudly showed his credentials:
Walters said some federal officials are being tested, including employees in his office, certain people under the president and vice president, and federal law enforcement officers.
"Nobody likes taking a drug test,'' he said.
The drug czar himself was tested before assuming his post.
He passed.
So Walters can pass a drug test. I'd rather he be able to pass a Constitution test. Or an intelligence test. Or a Social Studies and American History test (perhaps covering the prohibition era).
Of course, when it comes to our students, the Drug Czar would rather have them pass urine than the Bill of Rights.
4:21:21 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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I've added the Illinois Senate Candidates' responses to Vote-Smart's survey on drug issues to the Senate Candidates page.
Still not enough information for me to give endorsements, but I'm working on it. If any of the campaigns wish to contact me with more information about their views, I'd love to hear from them.
12:17:20 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Wednesday, February 25, 2004 |
Government agency spends our money, investigates self, says 'It's all good'
The Drug Czar's office has given out yet another self-congratulatory press release: New Survey Shows More Teens Recognize Harms of Marijuana: Exposure and Effectiveness of Anti-Drug Advertising Continues to Rise.
This comes from their release of the Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS), which has become the method by which the ONDCP has decided it should be evaluated, ever since it kept getting negative results from independent studies.
PATS is generated by the Partnership for a Drug Free America, which is essentially a private arm of the Drug Czar's office. The Drug Czar gets tons of taxpayer money to run advertising which gets special consideration and rates in the media, while the Partnership raises money to produce spots and run surveys that say the spots are working, which justifies bigger budgets for the Drug Czar.
Here are some of the results of the survey (pdf):
Teens in 2003 were significantly more likely than in 1998 to say there is a "great risk" of getting in trouble with the law, losing their driver's license, missing out on the good things in life, not getting into a good college, becoming a dealer, acting stupidly and foolishly, getting depressed, becoming lazy, being lonely, becoming boring, getting hooked on marijuana, and driving dangerously.
Additionally, the study claims the most important result for future funding -- showing positive results, yet still more work to do:
The PATS study also shows a steady decline in teen marijuana use since 1998. Despite these reductions in youth drug use, marijuana remains the most commonly used illicit drug among youth.
To understand this "study" better, let's take a look at the Partnership that runs it. According to their mission:
The Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) exists to help kids and teens reject substance abuse by influencing attitudes through persuasive information. Our mission unfolds primarily in the form of a research-based national advertising campaign, now in its 17th year.
In other words, the results of the survey they are running determine whether their existence is justified. Can you say "conflict of interest?" I knew you could. In addition, since they depend on all the taxpayer supplied advertising dollars from the Drug Czar, they have additional incentive to insure good results.
Any other incentives? Well let's look at the corporate and foundation support to the Partnership. Let's see... in the $25,000 and above category, we have: Bayer Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Consumer Healthcare Products Association, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark Foundation Inc., Novartis Consumer Health, Inc., Perrigo Company, Pfizer Foundation, Inc., Pharmacia Corp., The Procter & Gamble Fund, Schering-Plough Corporation, Wyeth/ Wyeth Consumer Healthcare. Recognize a pattern?
The full report itself is a joke in terms of scientific approaches to surveys (and reporting the results).
The report neglects to discuss the methodology or specific questions (although the use of some leading statements are obvious through the results shown, and we learn that the Partnership specifically was involved in creating the questions). The report itself is a piece of propaganda.
Check out the hyperbole in the intro:
No other organization in the country -
commercial, non-profit or governmental
- has the rich insights into consumers
and drugs that PATS has captured in its
16 installments.
Rich insights? Oh, come on.
Now this is supposed to be a formal detailed report showing the results of the study. Yet peppered constantly throughout the report are statements like:
Ecstasy can cause severe dehydration, seizures and strokes. It can cause dramatic increases in body temperature and can lead to muscle breakdown, which can cause kidney failure. It can lead to liver and cardiovascular failure, which have been reported in some of the Ecstasy-related fatalities....For more information on Ecstasy go to www.drugfreeamerica.org and visit the Drug Resource.
These are ads for the Partnership! The constant drug warrior statements throughout the study make it impossible to take seriously.
I was interested to note that they included questions about the internet. They asked "How often do you go to websites that encourage illegal drug use?" and "How often do you go to websites that discourage illegal drug use?" Hmmmm... How would they classify Drug WarRant? They don't have a question for "How often do you go to websites that tell the truth about the drug war?"
The Drug Czar needs to be held accountable. And telling us that his mistress thinks he looks good doesn't count.
11:44:24 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004 |
The new legalization tactics in Nevada
Despite a staggering loss in the last attempt in Nevada to legalize marijuana, a new attempt is being made (this is legalization, not decrmininalization or medical use). As the Las Vegas Review Journal notes in this article, the organizers have learned from the last attempt.
You could be excused for thinking that the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana was formed only to "establish a comprehensive system of strict regulation to reduce or eliminate teenage access to marijuana, driving under the influence of marijuana, and the smoking of marijuana in public places." After all, it sounds strict.
But read further, and you'll get to the heart of the matter: If the committee's proposed state constitutional amendment passes, those age 21 or older will be allowed to toke up, so long as they do it in private, buy the drug only at an authorized retailer and don't drive under the influence.
The new approaches have been designed to address every objection (real or imagined) brought up during the last campaign (and there were some ugly challenges). But they'll still have a battle:
And two, if the prohibitionists were willing to stretch the truth to their own ends last time, they're not suddenly going to play fair this time. There will still be lies, exaggerations and the inevitable visit of drug czar John Walters, campaigning at taxpayer expense. But the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana still has the right idea, no matter the changes made to persuade voters that prohibition doesn't work.
Maybe this time, the voters will see that.
7:31:49 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Sorting fact from bad science and government propaganda
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a good overview article on Ricaurte's false ecstasy studies.
The fallout from the mistake has brought not only Dr. Ricaurte's reputation into question, but also that of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has supported his research for years. "It kind of gives science a black eye because people start to question whether NIDA has an agenda," says Glen R. Hanson, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Utah and a former director of NIDA.
It's a good analysis of the situation in a publication that is widely read in the academic world, with some nice digs into the drug warriors:
"I'm now convinced that any information coming out of the government is suspect," says Ms. Rosenbaum, who is a staff member at the Drug Policy Alliance, which opposes current drug policy. ...
"We've got megamillions going into the demonization of Ecstasy," Mr. Doblin says, "and all we need is $5-million to do the clinical trials that will be necessary to provide the data to decide if this drug will be a helpful medicine to many, many people."
This comes to me via Brutal Hugs and Mark Kleiman, both of whom have interesting posts on the subject.
I was particularly interested in Brutal Hugs' take on the issue of the importance of better knowledge, as opposed to blanket drug war condemnation, as an necessary form of harm reduction:
If you shouldn't do several hits of ecstasy every night of Burning Man, can you do three Monday, some acid Tuesday and shrooms on Thursday? If so, where do you schedule the mescalin, the salvia and the meth? And what about the weird drugs with cryptic names you've never heard of? Should you take the gelcap filled with brown powder that somebody told you is called Care Bear 53? How about the pill stamped with a skull called "Fuck Me God"?
These questions seem funny, but they're actual questions people face. And in the absence of answers, they're just going to wing it. And a bunch of them will mess themselves up. We do honest research into the health implications of all kinds of potentially dangerous recreational activities-- from smoking to motorcycling to eating junk food to backpacking in Africa. Drugs are dangerous, but that's no reason not to find out how to minimize the dangers.
7:21:00 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Teachers: Not In Our Joint
The education system in England seems a bit more skeptical of climbing in bed with the drug warriors based on some of these reactions in Monday's Sun:
RADICAL plans for random drug-testing in schools triggered a furious backlash from teachers last night.
Premier Tony Blair has urged heads to put pupils through urine tests and to allow sniffer dogs to patrol corridors.
But teachers' leaders believe the controversial move is doomed to fail. They said staff should not be saddled with the task of rooting out drug takers. And they fear it could lead to teachers being sued by parents over human rights abuses.
Meanwhile experts warned testing could backfire -- by driving drug use among youngsters underground.
But while the teachers in England have some sense, The Sun has shown its stupidity by actually believing the lies of our drug warriors:
Figures from America show testing there has dramatically slashed drug abuse by pupils.
President Bush claimed drug users had been cut by 400,000 in a pilot scheme across 1,000 schools.
Oh, give me a break. Considering the only reputable study has actually shown no difference between those who tested and those who don't, I have no clue where The Sun, or John Walters' boss, got those completely fabricated numbers.
12:23:44 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Sunday, February 22, 2004 |
Tony Blair holds hands with our Drug Czar and seeks children's urine.
Link
Tony Blair was tonight facing a wave of opposition from across the teaching profession over his plans for random drugs testing in schools.
The move - which could see sniffer dogs in classrooms and pupils being ordered to give urine samples - was greeted with a mixture of confusion and dismay.
3:43:33 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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A phony war defeats free speech
Robyn E Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times writes an outstanding column about how drug warriors are so afraid of the truth, that they continually resort to censorship.
The beauty of Jefferson's marketplace of ideas is that it opens our society to all voices and all arguments, presuming the most persuasive will rise to the top.
But those who promote the War on Drugs find this a dangerous concept. Drug reform makes too much sense and in recent years has been too compelling to voters....
To combat this outbreak of common sense, the drug warriors have fought back with antidemocratic and repressive methods....
And now Congress has just approved a law blatantly censoring pro-drug reform messages. ...
So once again those who favor a less militant approach to the nation's drug war - and only want the freedom to make their case to the public - have been forced to trot back to federal court to secure their First Amendment rights....
This is not about upholding the law, but fighting a movement. The drug warriors are fiercely antagonistic toward the shift in public opinion on medical marijuana and other drug reforms; and their authoritarian impulse is to shut down the free marketplace of ideas.
Apparently, the competition is getting to be a bit too stiff.
The whole thing is worth a read.
3:39:02 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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