Friday, August 10, 2007

Legalization proposal I found a very interesting proposal regarding a comprehensive scheme for legalizing and regulating drugs. While I'm not sure I agree with every particular, it's really not bad at all. What do you think? Does North have what it takes to be Drug Czar? Of course, it wouldn't do any good. The problem, as I noted over at StoptheDrugWar.org, is that the ONDCP's authorization from Congress prevents, by law, having a drug czar that is reform-minded (unless they want to break the law and just try to destroy the agency). For example, this part of the job requirement of the Drug Czar: (12) shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 812 of this title and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that-- (A) is listed in schedule I of section 812 of this title; and (B) has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration; The ONDCP needs to be eliminated or changed. Otherwise merely appointing a new drug czar (even the blogger referenced above) won't help. 6:09:24 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Moralism and the United States Gulags In The Nation, Daniel Lazare has an amazing piece about the drug war and incarceration in the United States: Stars and Bars How can you tell when a democracy is dead? When concentration camps spring up and everyone shivers in fear? Or is it when concentration camps spring up and no one shivers in fear because everyone knows they're not for "people like us"... This is a powerful indictment of the incarceration by-product of the drug war (and its racial emphasis), and Lazare doesn't let anybody off lightly: Several of the leading Democratic candidates, for example, have recently come out against the infamous 100-to-1 ratio that subjects someone carrying ten grams of crack to the same penalty as someone caught with a kilo of powdered cocaine. Senator Joe Biden has actually introduced legislation to eliminate the disparity--without, however, acknowledging his role as a leading drug warrior back in the 1980s, when he sponsored the bill that set it in stone in the first place. At a recent forum at Howard University, Hillary Clinton promised to "deal" with the disparity as well, although it would have been nice if she had done so back in the '90s, when, during the first Clinton Administration, the prison population was soaring by some 50 percent. Although he is not running this time around, Jesse Jackson recently castigated Dems for their hesitancy in addressing "failed, wasteful, and unfair drug policies" that have sent "so many young African-Americans" to jail. Yet Jackson forgot to mention his own drug-war past when, as a leading hardliner, he specifically called for "stiffer prison sentences" for black drug users and "wartime consequences" for smugglers. "Since the flow of drugs into the US is an act of terrorism, antiterrorist policies must be applied," he declared in a 1989 interview, a textbook example of how the antidrug rhetoric of the late twentieth century helped pave the way for the "global war on terror" of the early twenty-first. In other words, cowardice and hypocrisy abound. The article draws a lot of powerful material from Sasha Abramsky's book: American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment -- a book that details how the prison system came to be more about punishment and vengeance (without any real legitimacy) than about rehabilitation. Lazare's conclusion is depressingly vivid: American mass incarceration is not what social scientists call "evidence based." It is not a policy designed to achieve certain practical, utilitarian ends that can then be weighed and evaluated from time to time to determine if it is performing as intended. Rather, it is a moral policy whose purpose is to satisfy certain passions that have grown more and more brutal over the years. The important thing about moralism of this sort is that it is its own justification. For true believers, it is something that everyone should endorse regardless of the consequences. As right-wing political scientist James Q. Wilson once remarked, "Drug use is wrong because it is immoral," a comment that not only sums up the tautological nature of US drug policies but also shows how they are structured to render irrelevant questions about wasted dollars and blighted lives. Moralism of this sort is neither rational nor democratic, and the fact that it has triumphed so completely is an indication of how deeply the United States has sunk into authoritarianism since the 1980s. With the prison population continuing to rise at a 2.7 percent annual clip, there is no reason to think there will be a turnaround soon. 8:45:12 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Plan Mexico (and other drug war fun and follies) Heh. It looks like it won't be too hard to get the "Plan Mexico" label out there. Why is TIME such a clueless rag? Tim Padgett's The War Next Door is really reaching for a way to avoid the real truth: Why is Mexico's drug war worsening? Democracy may be one culprit. That's right... Ignore the natural economic consequences of a black market, the escalation of violence through the idiocy of the U.S. and Mexican governments, and the fact that some of these violent drug lords that were directly created and trained by those governments... and blame it on Democracy? Anthony Papa at Huffing Post: The Upside Down Flag -- Art, the war on drugs, and a country in distress. Last week I pointed out the moronic giggle writing of Gareth McGrath in the July 27 Wilmington Morning Star. This week, the Charlotte Observer ran the same article, but without the opening and closing Cheech and Chong lines. Either somebody in Charlotte practices better journalism, or the ridicule of this blog made a difference. If I left right now, I could make it in time to hear Willie Nelson at Austin Freedom Fest. Boy, I'm tempted. Transform's Tools for the Debate is now available for download. An excellent resource. Nice feature on Showtime's excellent series 'Weeds' at USA Today Kohan, a veteran producer and writer who wanted to do a show about an outlaw, says Weeds' pot-selling-mom premise was a novel but relatable concept. With government estimates that 96 million Americans have tried pot, Weeds "crosses all social, ethnic, political and economic lines." [...] The show's pot-centric theme hasn't drawn much ire outside of anti-drug advocacy groups, says Showtime entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt... Scott Morgan has an excellent piece at StoptheDrugWar.org: Cocaine Shortages Don't Prevent Violence, They Cause It 1:19:54 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []