You know what would be interesting? If someone---perhaps in response to accusations that a group of cops was framing innocent people---spent months setting up a fake drug house to attract police suspicion. Then, after the police raided the place and found no drugs of any kind, asked to see the sworn search affidavit, so they could check it for accuracy against their own heavily documented activities.
You'd have to be crazy to try something like that. You'd have to want to get in cops' faces and not be afraid of what they'd do to you. You'd have to have a hatred for the drug war verging on madness.
You'd have to be Barry Cooper.
Yes, the madman behind the Never Get Busted Again videos has set up a sting operation to snare a bunch of cops ...
Do we think we can stick our bicuspids under the pillow and the national tooth fairy will leave $800 billion? No? Then what about legalizing and taxing one of our biggest, oldest vices?
That notion arose because Friday is the 75th anniversary of the end of a nationwide ban on a substance that millions of Americans broke the law and bought anyway: liquor. Criminalizing it turned out to have complications so enormous and expensive that in 1933 a new president, faced with a profound economic crisis, wanted it legalized and taxed again.
Now, as we're desperately trying to reinvent the economy, should we consider marijuana? [...]
Sacramento would be doing the backstroke in black ink. With all the new parks and health clinics, we'd have more ribbon-cuttings than a baby shower. Is this just a pipe dream?
So, to find out, she turns to Rosalie Pacula, Co-director, RAND Drug Policy Research Center; Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research. Now, you might think that someone like that might know what they're talking about on this subject.
But apparently you would be wrong.
Is this just a pipe dream?
Rosalie Pacula says that in all likelihood, yes. She's a senior economist at the Rand Corp. and co-director of its drug policy research center. Here's how she burst my bubble:
First, you have to consider that legalizing it would have its own costs. Recent research, Pacula says, shows marijuana to be more addictive than was thought.
Really? What recent research? Care to mention some? It turns out that NIDA is currently funding a study which has been billed as the "first comprehensive study of marijuana addiction." That won't be done for four years. The only other new study on the subject I know of is the laughable one that studied a whopping "12 heavy users of both marijuana and cigarettes." Otherwise, we're looking at the same information we've always had -- a small percent of marijuana users do have problems with dependency, and their marijuana-related dependency tends to be mild compared to other drugs.
Because marijuana is illegal, and because its users often smoke tobacco or use other drugs, teasing out marijuana's health effects and associated costs is almost impossible.
Actually, no. There have been so many studies trying to find marijuana's negative effects, that we have a pretty good idea by now (after all, that's all that NIDA will fund). No lung cancer, some other lung-related problems in long-term heavy smokers of marijuana, and... that's about it. What we have yet to find more of is some of the potential positive effects, such as the impact on reducing Alzheimer's disease, or stopping cancerous growths. Plus the potential for dramatically lowering prescription drug costs as marijuana substitutes for more dangerous and expensive prescription drugs.
And more people would smoke it regularly if it were legal -- Pacula estimates 60% to 70% of the population as opposed to 20% to 30% now - -- and the social costs would rise.
Really? And from just what orifice did you pull that figure? Do you have some historical evidence? Perhaps you took a look at the states that previously decriminalized marijuana to get some guidance. Did they shoot up to 60%? No, they actually declined. How about the Netherlands? It's legal there to consume. Usage must be up around 70%. Right? No, it's dramatically lower than in the United States. So tell me, Rosalie, where do you get your numbers?
She takes issue with figures from Harvard's Jeffrey Miron, among others, who says that billions spent on enforcing marijuana laws could all be saved by legalization.
So Ms. Pacula takes issue wIth Jeffrey Miron's research. Why is Rand's research better? Have they done better digging into the nuts and bolts of legalization? Let's take a look at their major report on drug policy - How Goes the "War on Drugs"? An Assessment of U.S. Drug Problems and Policy by Rosalie's colleagues Jonathan P. Caulkins, Peter H. Reuter, Martin Y. Iguchi and James Chiesa, where they state:
Nor do we explore the merits and demerits of legalizing drugs, even though legalization is perhaps the most prominent and hotly debated topic in drug policy. Our analysis takes current policy as its starting point, and the idea of repealing the nation's drug laws has no serious support within either the Democratic or Republican party.
So, Rand, in a major drug policy study, cannot be bothered to even "explore" legalization, while Jeffrey Miron of Harvard has actually spent lots of time, you know, studying it. So why should we listen to Ms. Pacula?
Rand's research, Pacula says, finds that many marijuana arrests are collateral -- say, part of DUI checks or curfew arrests -- and many arrestees already have criminal records, meaning they might wind up behind bars for something else even if marijuana were legal.
OK, that's just bizarre. We won't save money from arresting 800,000 marijuana users a year, because we'll probably just have to arrest them for something else? (And that collateral stuff doesn't wash either -- in many cases, the DUI checks or curfew arrests are excuses to search for pot.)
Legalization also wouldn't do away with pot-related crime entirely. There would likely be a black market, just as there is in other regulated substances, such as cigarettes and liquor. That means police and prosecution, which cost money.
This is just a downright dishonest argument that we hear time and again. Start out with the implied straw man: "Legalizers claim that legalization would eliminate the black market entirely." Then find the small exception: Sales tax differential black market. Conclude therefore, legalizer's argument that legalization would reduce the black market is wrong.
She's actually comparing the police activity to ferret out illegal smuggling of cigarette cartons from a low sales tax state to a high sales tax state, to the entire drug war apparatus! She studied economics? Was she awake?
As to the tax benefit, that's partly a function of the price point for legalized pot. If everyone could legally grow and consume dope, then the crop probably wouldn't be worth $35 billion and the taxes wouldn't be anything to write home about.
This is also ridiculous. Certainly, some people will choose to grow their own pot if it's legal. But most won't. You could legally make your own beer or grow your own tobacco now, but most people don't. You can even legally buy tobacco cheaper and roll your own cigarettes to save money, but people don't. Sure, if you taxed marijuana at a rate of $10 a joint, you might lose your benefit, but you can still tax it pretty dramatically without having any significant loss in consumers (particularly compared to the actual cost of producing it).
"I have a hard time believing the tax revenue would offset the full cost of regulating and enforcing the legal market," Pacula concludes
Again. Really? What are the actual costs of regulating and enforcing other legal markets compared to their tax revenue? Miniscule. We make tons of money off alcohol and tobacco taxes. Why wouldn't we off marijuana taxes? Do you have any reason for your statement, Rosalie?
Even then, the actual question involves the elimination of all the marijuana enforcement costs (OK, except for sales tax smuggling), which is (still) in the billions of dollars and the addition of sales tax revenue (which, yes, would be in the billions of dollars). Would we bring in significant savings financially? Clearly, yes.
But Pacula seems to be willing to simply make up stuff, put it under the heading of "words from an economics and drug policy researcher" and shove it out there for public consumption.
And Patt Morrison dutifully laps it up, concluding with an even more bizarre statement:
No golden pot tax in the pot at the end of the rainbow, then? Pacula left me thinking that the unintended consequences of legalizing marijuana in 2009 might match the unintended consequences of outlawing liquor in 1919.
That has got to be an award-winning example of up-is-downism.
Note: in this analysis, I am assuming that Morrison correctly represented Ms. Pacula's positions. And I would be happy to hear from either Patt Morrison or Rosalie Pacula regarding my critique and any defense of their positions. I'd be happy to print their replies.
A judge in St. John's recently decided that a man found with 14 grams of cocaine, 62 ecstasy pills and $11,000 in cash had an expectation of privacy when he checked his luggage prior to a flight in 2006. [...]
Crown prosecutors argued Mr. Crisby gave up all his privacy rights when he voluntarily checked his baggage, because he knew air travel is subject to strict controls, including security screening.
The problem with that, Justice Robert Hall ruled, is that airport security laws are designed to protect travellers against weapons and explosives, not to catch illegal drugs. He described the Crown's argument as an "incremental intrusion upon privacy rights."
Wow. That's the way it should be. What a contrast to the United States, where a drug sniffing dog has the right to call for a search of your car with no suspicion (see Caballes v. Illinois). Here in the States, we pass laws, or create rules, supposedly for security purposes, and then, without even attempting to disguise it, blatantly use the law to search for drugs.
This is the land of the free?
It's about time for people to wake up and realize that the answer to the final question in our national anthem is "No" and not "Play Ball" as some people assume.
A coalition of advocacy and nonprofit organizations, including the National Black Police Association, sent a letter today to President-elect Barack Obama preemptively pushing back against the nomination of Rep. James Ramstad (R-Minn.) to be head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or "Drug Czar."
Ramstad has not been nominated for the position, but his name has been mentioned in Democratic circles and he has expressed gratification at the prospect of his consideration.
"While we applaud Representative Ramstad for his courageous and steady support for expanding drug treatment access and improving addiction awareness, and honor his own personal and very public triumph over addiction, we have strong reservations about his candidacy for the drug czar position," reads the letter.
The coalition, which includes civic and drug-policy reform organizations, cites his past opposition to medical marijuana, needle exchange and sentencing reform as reasons for concern.
The list of signers is impressive, as is the letter:
While we applaud Representative Ramstad for his courageous and steady support for expanding drug treatment access and improving addiction awareness, and honor his own personal and very public triumph over addiction, we have strong reservations about his candidacy for the drug czar position. In his twenty-eight years in the U.S. House, Representative Ramstad has consistently opposed policies that seek to reduce drug-related harm and create common ground on polarizing issues. [...]
We urge you to nominate for drug czar someone with a public health background, who is committed to reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and other infectious diseases, open to systematic drug policy reform, and able to show strong leadership on the issues you believe in.
Matthew DeLong, at the Washington Independent also picked up on it:
Admittedly, I know almost nothing about Ramstad. If the letter accurately states his positions, he's probably a poor choice to direct the new administration's drug control policy.
However, if Obama is determined to put a bipartisan face on his anti-drug efforts, reformers may have several reasons to remain optimistic. [...]
Finally, and most important, there is this comment Obama made Monday at a press conference in which he named his foreign policy team:
"I will be setting policy as president. I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made. As Harry Truman said, "The buck will stop with me."
Presumably, this will apply to all aspects of the new administration's domestic and foreign policy, including drug control.
Related to this, the SSDP petition to President-elect Obama (making a similar request) is up to around 9,000 signatures already.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition held a press conference yesterday to tie the 75th Anniversary of the repeal of prohibition (Friday) to today's equally damaging prohibition, and to show how legalizing drugs could boost the economy.
They're also rolling out the website: WeCanDoItAgain.com. Check it out and get involved.
It's early to tell if they get a lot of press from it, but they already got one outstanding OpEd from Reuters' Bernd Debusmann: Einstein, insanity and the war on drugs
Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. His definition fits America's war on drugs, a multi-billion dollar, four-decade exercise in futility.
The war on drugs has helped turn the United States into the country with the world's largest prison population. (Noteworthy statistic: The U.S. has 5 percent of the world's population and around 25 percent of the world's prisoners). Keen demand for illicit drugs in America, the world's biggest market, helped spawn global criminal enterprises that use extreme violence in the pursuit of equally extreme profits.
Over the years, the war on drugs has spurred repeated calls from social scientists and economists (including three Nobel prize winners) to seriously rethink a strategy that ignores the laws of supply and demand.
And the connection between Capone and today's prohibition is an obvious one:
"In the 20s and 30s, we had Al Capone and his gangsters getting rich and shooting up our streets," said Nelson, who spent a 32-year government career fighting drugs in the U.S. and Latin America. "Today we have criminal gangs, cartels, Taliban and al-Qaeda profiting from the prohibition of drug sales and wreaking havoc all over the world. The correlation is obvious."
The before-and-after sequence is so obvious that the U.S. Congress passed a resolution in September noting that the 1933 repeal of alcohol prohibition had replaced a "dramatic increase" in organized crime with "a transparent and accountable system of distribution and sales" that generated billions of dollars in tax revenues and boosted the sick economy.
That's where advocates of drug legalization want to go now, and some of them hope that the similarities between today's deep economic crisis and the Great Depression will result in a more receptive audience for their pro-legalization arguments among lawmakers and government leaders.
Ben Kubic, a junior government and politics and operations management major at the University of Maryland, attempt to apply his studies to drug policy (as a response to the recent SSDP conference hosted at U of MD) and fails miserably.
Ms. Alexander argues marijuana is absolutely harmless, a ploy by the government to hold down minorities. Overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise. In Canada, crime syndicates sell marijuana and use the proceeds to support "weapons ... trafficking, cocaine smuggling and stock market fraud," according to Interpol. Both the Spanish and French governments have found that the proceeds from cannabis sales have gone directly into the pockets of groups affiliated with al-Qaeda. The group responsible for the March 2004 bombings in Madrid that killed 191 innocent civilians bought their explosives using money from marijuana sales. Another such group used the drug money to fund two bombings in Algiers that killed 30 people and injured 200.
Other drugs are even more closely linked with death. Every day in Afghanistan, our soldiers face rocket launchers, roadside bombs and AK-47s that were purchased with proceeds from opium poppy sales. In Colombia, drug lords kill farmers who fail to produce enough. [...]
Environmentalists should also be concerned with marijuana use. To avoid border-crossing issues, many drug cartels grow marijuana in U.S. national parks. To meet demand, these cartels use weed and bug sprays that have been banned in the United States because of how they devastate the surrounding environment; ABC News reports that the areas of national parks where the marijuana is being grown are "the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America."
Of course, all of you loyal readers could refute this in your sleep by now.
And boy did Benjamin get schooled in the comments. The readers commenting were pretty much unanimous (with the exception of Jeff, the racist) in their intelligent smackdowns.
Medical Marijuana Debate Tonight at Georgetown Law
The Georgetown chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy is hosting a debate between Marijuana Policy Project assistant director of communications Dan Bernath and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy chief counsel Ed Jurith at 6:30 p.m. tonight - Wednesday, December 3. The debate will take place at The Georgetown University Law Center in McDonough Hall. The topic of the debate will be medical marijuana.
Attendance is free and open to the public. Attendees must bring a valid photo ID. After the debate, there will be a question and answer session with the audience.
(I'm assuming the ID requirement is to get into Georgetown Law Center, not because of the topic of the debate.)
Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favourite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished. - H.L. Mencken
There will be a number of activities this week celebrating the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the first prohibition. I'll be reporting more as the week goes on.
But, as many of us who have not just experimented with, but enthusiastically consumed various intoxicants know (Whoops! I bet I just blew my next job interview), the road to perdition is not usually lined with dried vegetation, white powder, pills or crystals. In fact, many a party, evening or weekend afternoon has been made more pleasant by "cocktail hours" that featured refreshments that would make John Walters weep. Some of us dabbled, a few of us indulged and there were occasional bingers, too. The vast majority of us, whether we still smoke or snort or not, suffered little or no harm -- in fact, we downright enjoyed our experiences, improved our moods and released a lot of tension in the process. And then we went about our responsibilities just a little more relaxed than we might have been.
Scientists who study this plant consider it among the most complex in the plant kingdom with 400 active chemicals and compounds. And in California alone, the marijuana trade out paces the entire wine industry, placing it among the largest cash crops in the United States. Intertwined with culture, economics, law enforcement and perhaps medical miracles, this plant holds both peril and promise. Join National Geographics EXPLORER as we investigate the state of marijuana.
So voters in Switzerland voted overwhelmingly today to formalize their excellent heroin prescription program, where they really lead the world in reducing crime and the ravages of addiction through implementing actual... ideas.
But, unfortunately, the cannabis decriminalization initiative failed. And it seems pretty clear why: cannabis tourism.
While the Swiss Government backed the heroin initiative, it opposed the call for marijuana legalisation because it feared that it could cause drugs tourism to Switzerland of the kind that is causing public disorder problems in border towns in the Netherlands. Oswald Sigg, a government spokesman, said: "This could lead to a situation where you have some sort of cannabis tourism in Switzerland because something that is illegal in the EU would be legal in Switzerland."
This is a real problem that will plague legitimate marijuana legalization opportunities in states and countries that are surrounded by repressive governments. The fear is that everyone will flock there, not to ski, or visit museums, or buy horribly overpriced trinkets, but to smoke pot. Now, personally, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing, but tourism boards hate it (except, perhaps, in the Republic of Cheetos®).
So here's my suggestion for the next initiative in Switzerland. Make it legal only for residents. You already have national id cards, so it would be easy. (I'm not a fan of national id cards, but if you already have it, why not have it be good for something... useful?) Then you could easily dispel the pot tourism concerns -- after all, it's illegal for foreigners. Then, if the government wanted to be really sneaky, they could simply turn a blind eye to non-native tokers, except when they wanted to get rid of some obnoxious foreigner.
Now, apparently, the cannabis organizers in Switzerland are already thinking about using id cards...
The cannabis supporters lost out but immediately came up with another suggestion - special microchipped identity cards for cannabis smokers, rationing their intake, cutting out criminal dealers.
... but they're not thinking big enough -- stop pot tourism! (and make everyone else so jealous that they have to pass their own cannabis decriminalization plans)
Students for Sensible Drug Policy have established a petition on Facebook that they wish to deliver to President-Elect Obama
The petition request is reasonable (and certainly not overly ambitious):
When you called the War on Drugs an "utter failure" in 2004, you were right. A 2008 Zogby poll found that 3 out of 4 of Americans agree with you.
When appointing the head of your Office of National Drug Control Policy, please select someone with health, science, or education credentials rather than a military general, law enforcement official, or "tough on drugs" politician. The next "Drug Czar" should base policy on proven methodology rather than counterproductive ideology. At a minimum, he or she should support these measures:
*Ending the racially unjust disparity in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine.
*Ending the practice of prosecuting patients in states with medical marijuana laws.
*Eliminating the federal law that denies financial aid to students with drug convictions.
We all know that the War on Drugs is failing because handcuffs don't cure addictions -- doctors do. You have the opportunity to bring us the change we need. Will you?
They're working on getting 10,000 signatures. Give them a hand.
Update: If you're not on Facebook, then by all means skip the petition (you apparently have to have an account to sign the petition). There are other ways to put forth your views (such as through change.gov). I've also added a new area on the messageboard for readers' messages to the President-elect. [thanks, jackl]
The "Hemp Initiative" would free the Swiss to use and grow cannabis for their own use, putting the country on a par with the Netherlands, which has the most liberal drug laws in Europe. Switzerland's ruling coalition parties are split over the plan, with opponents including the Swiss People's Party fearing such a law would spark cannabis tourism. About half of the country's voters oppose the proposal.
Naturally, the opponents are using the fear tactic:
Backed by the Free Democrats and the Social Democrats, two of the ruling parties, the initiative's supporters have been handing out free copies of the "Hemp Journal" on the streets of Zurich and Bern. Opponents are countering with a newspaper campaign featuring a syringe, a joint and a call for voters to keep their "hands off" drugs.
A syringe?
So far, those tactics are winning out. A minority of the 1,209 voters, 38 percent, surveyed by the Bern-based GfS research institute between Nov. 10-16 back the "Hemp Initiative," with some 50 percent opposing the proposal.
A reader from Switzerland writes:
This is not the first time the issue of cannabis legalization has been on the table, and it certainly wouldn't surprise me if it's rejected once again. Sadly, many people in favor of legalization will not cast their vote, even if they could vote by mail and there is no need to register or similar things. The ballot paper is automatically sent to all Swiss over 18 and in some regions, you even get a pre-paid envelope for sending it back! As everywhere else, the young are lazy and uninterested..
While the marijuana initiative seems likely to fail, another one is expected to pass: giving away heroin for free.
Well, actually, it's a vote on putting a heroin distribution program on a permanent legal footing.
Patients show up each day to receive their treatment in small doses handed through a small window.
Then they gather around a table to shoot up, part of a pioneering Swiss program to curb drug abuse by providing addicts a clean, safe place to take heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory.
This is a powerful program that works, and so naturally the U.S. and U.N. has roundly condemned it.
Crimes committed by heroin addicts have dropped 60 percent since the program began in 1994, according to the Federal Office of Public Health says.
And, Zullino said, patients reduce consumption of other narcotics once they start the heroin program and suffer less from psychiatric disorders.
But, he added, "the idea has never been to liberalize heroin. It's considered a medicine and used as such."
Best of luck to Swiss voters today.
[Thanks Antonio, Tom, Mats]
Update: Early voting results are showing up as expected. The heroin program is winning easily at 69 percent, and the cannabis initiative is going down to heavy defeat.
Some assorted coverage of the 75th anniversary of repeal
