Monday, January 16, 2006

Maine officials explode from hyperbole All the Maine news outlets are covering the fact that, while final facts are not yet available, 2005 will be the year to see drug deaths exceed motor vehicle deaths. Politicians were quick to explode with wrath: Link Gov. John Baldacci took aim at the Bush White House, saying it continued to turn its back on the suffering of Maine families. He noted that federal funding to the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency has been cut by 40 percent. [...] Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara also blamed the federal government for "walking away" from its responsibility, citing that the drugs killing Mainers were federally regulated narcotics and were being trafficked across state lines, a federal offense. [...] Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe called Washington's response to the drug problem "shameful." So what do we actually know? There are projected to be 178 drug-related deaths. 140 of them were accidental overdoses. The majority of those were methadone, and the majority of those were from the pill form, prescribed by physicians for pain. And if we look further... Physicians have become cautious when prescribing OxyContin because of its potential for abuse, and have switched to drugs such as methadone and morphine for pain, Kim Johnson, director of the Office of Substance Abuse, said. "The drug of choice is still OxyContin, but it's not available," Johnson said. Hence, methadone and morphine deaths are on the rise. Oops. It looks like what they don't need is more federal government assistance. 10:19:37 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Mary-Louise Parker wins Golden Globe ... for Actress in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy Series, for her role as a suburban housewive making ends meet by dealing pot, in Showtime's 'Weeds', which has been picked up for a second season. Not a huge surprise to me. She really is outstanding (and so is the show). 8:12:54 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Morality and Lawmaking I was strolling through the blogosphere looking at drug war-related posts and I stumbled across a blog by Ron Gainey (WRONGAINEY) and yesterday's post about Risk, Reward, and Paternalism. In it, he quotes an unlinked statement from his friend Daniel Charles regarding the drug war and the paternalistic justification for prohibition that I found interesting. For any given thing that has no demonstrably irreplaceable good value and which does have demonstrable negative effects to a significant portion of a population of people, there can be no moral justification for permitting it. Now Gailey describes himself as a quasi-libertarian and does a fairly good job in the rest of the post in refuting this statement through analysis of relative risks, etc., (which is a good trick, since the words "demonstrably," "irreplaceable," "good," "value," "demonstrable," "negative," "effects," and "significant" are undefined, and who gets to define them is unassigned) but I kept going back to Charles' statement with a growing sense of outgraged astonishment. For any given thing that has no demonstrably irreplaceable good value and which does have demonstrable negative effects to a significant portion of a population of people, there can be no moral justification for permitting it. And quite frankly, I find the notion of even looking at comparative risk analysis to be... odd. My gut reactions were as follows: Such a political philosophy is one of the few justifications I can imagine for actually invading and overthrowing a radical theocracy (assuming that philosophy was held by their government). As a patriotic American, I would fight to the death to prevent the overthrow of our constitution and our system of freedom to such a political philosophy. Problem is, I can't just dismiss this, because it appears to me that this kind of thinking is influencing those who have hijacked much of the conservative "movement" in the U.S., including public figures like William Bennett, Mark Souder, John Walters, and others. Focus on that last section: "there can be no moral justification for permitting it." This is, in context, saying that there is a moral imperative to use government power to outlaw the action, and even leads to the notion that punishing others is a moral value. Sound familiar? This is an extremely perverse definition of morality that is nevertheless seductive to many. It's nice to think that if we pass a law, we're being moral, but in fact that is not a moral act. Take the obvious: Murder. If you choose not to commit murder, that is a moral act. If you teach someone else that murder is wrong so that they choose not to commit murder, then both you and they have committed a moral act. If you murder someone, you have committed an immoral act. The act of making murder illegal, on the other hand, may well be an appropriate element of a legal system and may be based on moral principles, but is not itself moral or immoral. Many people are confused about this and somehow think that making something illegal can, itself, be a moral act, under the assumption that the illegality will reduce the incidence of a supposed immoral action (far from certain), or are confused by the fact that law may sometimes get its inspiration from moral values. Attempting to legislate morality is not only incorrect, it is potentially dangerous. Those who believe that drug prohibition laws are moral acts will strongly resist alternatives, despite clear facts showing the lack of efficacy of those laws, or the increased harm caused by those laws. If someone wants to argue with me that drug use is immoral, fine. I may disagree with you, but I accept your right to your own moral views. But don't ever try to tell me that passing drug laws is a moral necessity. 7:22:12 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Odd definition for 'Beyond Resonable Doubt' Link A Wyoming man was arrested for selling "drug paraphernalia" in his store, but a jury acquitted him in just 30 minutes of deliberation, something that didn't set well with the Police Chief. But Police Chief Rich Adriaens worries that jury members looked more at technicalities than the reasonableness of the charges. Adriaens said there's enough leeway in the law that Gillette residents serving on the jury could have made an important stand against drugs, but they chose to act differently. "enough leeway in the law" to convict What a bizarre legal concept. 1:25:42 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Economics 101 Look, I took Economics in college at 8 am from a professor who droned in a monotone for 55 minutes. Needless to say, I mostly slept through it. And yet, I still was able to come out of it with a basic knowledge of supply, demand, and elasticity -- something that nobody involved in drug policy seems to have gotten. Via Marginal Revolution, I see that a new paper in the Journal of Political Economy by Gary Becker, Kevin Murphy, and Michael Grossman called "The Economic Theory of Illegal Goods: The Case of Drugs" will attempt to explain it to our political leaders. In an important new study, world-renowned economists--including a Nobel Prize winner and a MacArthur "genius"--argue that when demand for a good is inelastic, the cost of making consumption illegal exceeds the gain. Their forthcoming paper in the Journal of Political Economy is a definitive explanation of the economics of illegal goods and a thoughtful explication of the costs of enforcement. The authors demonstrate how the elasticity of demand is crucial to understanding the effects of punishment on suppliers. Enforcement raises costs for suppliers, who must respond to the risk of imprisonment and other punishments. This cost is passed on to the consumer, which induces lower consumption when demand is relatively elastic. However, in the case of illegal goods like drugs--where demand seems inelastic--higher prices lead not to less use, but to an increase in total spending. In the case of drugs, then, the authors argue that excise taxes and persuasive techniques --such as advertising--are far more effective uses of enforcement expenditures. "This analysis...helps us understand why the War on Drugs has been so difficult to win... why efforts to reduce the supply of drugs leads to violence and greater power to street gangs and drug cartels," conclude the authors. "The answer lies in the basic theory of enforcement developed in this paper." It's a nod to the sad state of the education of our politicians that I even quote this press release so extensively, instead of saying, "Well, Duh!" 1:06:26 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

ONDCP's First Full Podcast, Featuring... ... Al Roker. That's right -- the Drug Czar's office has stepped up to the plate and shown off their command of new technology by interviewing a weatherman. Maybe they decided that they wanted to start off with an authority, to show off their seriousness with facts and science and stuff, and someone in their office said: "Isn't weather a kind of science?" Or... Maybe they wanted to hit the kids with a popular celebrity, so they asked who's hot, and the 70-year-old cleaning woman said "I've always liked that Al Roker." Or... Anyway, it was clearly an interview designed for an audience that never heard the word "podcast." We did get some insight into Al Roker's past drug use... I tried pot, twice basically in college - and I didn't like the way I got very subdued and tired - and polished off, I don't know, a 55-gallon drum of cheetos - and "this isn't good" - and that was it, it didn't do anything for me. And then he addressed the issue of talking to your kids and hypocrisy. At this point in the interview, the discussion had been about marijuana. Notice how at the end of this segment, he realizes that his argument isn't that strong, so he changes the stakes. If you characterize it as that - that it was not something that you continue to do - it's not something that you condone - that you knew it was wrong, but, you know, you tried it, and that was that. I don't see that as hypocritical. Now if you're still doing it and you tell your kids not to - If they see you doing that - you have no moral leg to stand on. To say "Well don't do that" - it's like "Do as I say, not as I do." So that's a real issue. And there are those who say "Well, you tell your kids not to drink and yet you maybe have a cocktail" Well, it's not illegal - and it's a different - I don't think you can equate a glass of white wine with meth. How did comparing pot with hard liquor (cocktail), change to comparing a glass of white (why white?) wine with meth? I love how drug warriors (and their apologists) treat all illegal drugs as interchangable when it helps their argument. I can't count the times I've heard statements that are essentially like... "Those who say marijuana is relatively harmless are dead wrong. Drugs have consequences. If you don't believe me, just talk to a mother who lost her son to a heroin overdose." So, for switching drugs mid-argument, I call 'Shenanigans' on Al Roker. For interviewing Al Roker on a podcast, I call "Clueless" on the Drug Czar's office. 10:25:25 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []