She will be difficult to replace, Iâm sure.Madras says the rescue programs might take away the drug userâs motivation to get into detoxification and drug treatment.
"Sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room, having that contact with a health care professional is enough to make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap into having someone give them services," Madras says. [NPR]
Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton said that he is not seeking a position in Washington, D.C., and has no intention of leaving the LAPD. "That is not something I am seeking, itâs not something I have been approached about," Bratton said. "No reason to leave Los Angeles â they pay me very well." [LA Times]
As we've noted previously, state "medical" marijuana laws breed confusion, abuse, and violence in neighborhoods and communities.
Here's our latest analysis of this phenomenon. In downtown San Francisco alone, there are 98 marijuana dispensaries, compared to 71 Starbucks Coffee shops
The Politico looks at rumored cabinet selections if Obama is elected and identifies Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton as a possible choice for drug czar. Of course, the election isnât over yet and this is just a rumor, the origins of which we know nothing about. So I donât want to go too far here, but if true, this could become big news and a source of concern for reformers.
Bratton is a proponent of the "broken windows" theory of policing which prioritizes enforcement of minor offenses in pursuit of a trickle-up effect on crime control. He served as New York City police commissioner in the 1990âs, overseeing a dramatic increase in petty marijuana arrests. On medical marijuana, Bratton has claimed to be "totally supportive," but has shown concern about profiteering by dispensary operators. While his views on medical marijuana would appear to be an improvement over previous drug czars, the question is whether heâd retain his respect for Californiaâs laws after moving to Washington, D.C. to lead the federal drug war.
Having said all that, I believe itâs quite likely that other names will emerge if Obama wins tomorrow and Iâm hopeful that his call for "shifting the model" in our drug policy would mean looking beyond law-enforcement circles when it comes to managing our national approach to drug abuse. In fact, it's really kind of hard to understand what he meant if not that.
(This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
Here we go again:
Pete Guither couldnât make it all the way through. Iâm not even going to try. Weâve heard all of this before. We heard the same thing in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Yet no one is demanding the repeal of those laws. Medical marijuana works and so do the laws that protect patients from arrest.
If youâre in Michigan, vote Yes on Prop. 1. Pass it on.
Fortunately, the drug czar remembered, which makes sense because itâs his third favorite drug war theme-week. And having burdened us with this annoying ritual, he goes on to explain unintentionally how unbelievably unimportant it is:
October 20-26th is Drug Free Work WeekThat means 97% of drug users donât go to work high. Seriously, these numbers show that the overwhelming majority of drug users have jobs and scrupulously avoid drugs on workdays. Thatâs not a problem, thatâs awesome.Every year, the Department of Labor sponsors a Drug Free Work Week to raise awareness of the consequences of drug use on the workplace. According to recent research this is a serious problem:
â¢Â   75 percent of the nationâs current illegal drug users are employedâand 3.1 percent say they have actually used illegal drugs before or during work hours.
â¢Â  79 percent of the nationâs heavy alcohol users are employedâand 7.1 percent say they have actually consumed alcohol during the workday.But nobody drug tests for that, so the workplace drug testing tyranny tinkles on, untethered by the towering absurdity of busting employees for smoking pot over the weekend, while vastly larger numbers get drunk on their lunch break with impunity. The whole thing is such a monument of stupidity and craziness, I suppose itâs fitting that the drug czar must set aside a whole week each year to bask in it.
U.S. drug czar John P. Walters, in Mexico City to reassure officials that aid to fight drug gangs is in the pipeline, said traffickers resort to "fear and horror" in their campaign to take over government institutions but will ultimately fail.
â¦
Ultimately, he said, the drug lords will face a stark choice: "They surrender, or they die." [LA Times]
Despite investing $1 billion in a massive anti-drug campaign, a controversial new study suggests that the push has failed to help the United States win the war on drugs.
A congressionally mandated study released today concluded that the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign launched in the late 1990s to encourage young people to stay away from drugs "is unlikely to have had favorable effects on youths."
In fact, the study's authors assert that anti-drug ads may have unwittingly delivered the message that other kids were doing drugs, inadvertently slowing measured progress that was being made to curb marijuana use among teenagers.
"Youths who saw the campaign ads took from them the message that their peers were using marijuana," the report suggests as a possible reason for its findings. "In turn, those who came to believe that their peers were using marijuana were more likely to initiate use themselves." [ABC News]