ONDCP

(Click here to read about DRCNet's book offer for members.) Reviewed by Randall G. Shelden, UNLV Looking back on my career and what I have learned there is a rather consistent theme in my thinking and writing about the subject of crime and justice. It might go something like this: we have a system in place that has a vested interest in keeping crime (including drug use) at a certain level. All sorts of careers and a lot of money (literally tens of billions of dollars each year) are dependent upon a steady supply of offenders - even if they have to pass new laws creating new categories of offenders (this especially applies to drugs). This is why many have used such terms like "crime control industry" or "criminal justice industrial complex." Agencies within this complex can sort of "have their cake and eat it too" in that they can have it both ways: when what they do is clearly failing they can merely claim that the problem still exists and they need to continuing doing the same thing (with more money of course). Obviously when things are going well they can take responsibility. This is the pattern with local police departments and in fact the entire system, namely that when crime is down they take credit because of some program in place; however, when crime goes up, they can shift responsibility to all sorts of variables. Favorites include a growing population in their jurisdiction (which is not usually that relevant), a growing youth or "crime risk" population (again, not that critical), "broken" or "dysfunctional" families and, two of my favorites, "outside influences" (e.g., gangs moving) or "liberal programs." Another way of putting this is that, as Jeff Reiman has observed, nothing succeeds like failure! A friend once told me something he learned when studying for his MBA. It is called "optimal starting and stopping points." What this means is that in order to bolster your argument or to make a case that what you are doing is working you pick out a time period that best represents your success and avoid time periods that do not. So it has been with the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and Matt Robinson and Renee Scherlen do an exceptional job of showing exactly this in Damned Lies and Drug War Statistics. They do this by critically examining six years (2000-2006) of the National Drug Control Strategy. They read through each and every annual report, looking especially for both accurate and inaccurate use of statistics and evidence of honesty and dishonesty in each report. They examined each and every claim made by ONDCP and evaluated ONDCP's stated goals (e.g., reducing drug use and drug availability). What they found for each year, almost without exception, was an almost total misuse of some very simple statistics (e.g., from various annual drug surveys, such as NHSDA, ADAM, MTF). They discovered that in many instances ONDCP employed the "optimal starting and stopping points." For instance, Robinson and Scherlen found that for the 2000 strategy report ONDCP uses a baseline of 1985 that shows a decline in drug use from that year to 1999. Yet the ONDCP was not started until 1988 and the largest drop in drug use was between 1985 and 1988, with the rate remaining steady for the rest of the decade. Other reports use 1979 as a starting point (the peak of drug use). On another occasion the ONDCP claims to prove that George Bush's goal during his 2002 "State of the Union speech of a 10% reduction of drug use by youth within two years was met, but uses a time period that started one year prior to Bush's speech! The authors also found numerous instances where they cite declines in youth drug use during a certain period, but ignore the fact that drug use was increasing among adults. In some cases the ONDCP reproduces a chart that clearly shows drug use increasing, but fail to comment on this rather obvious evidence of failure. On the other hand, on some occasions the ONDCP readily admits "disturbing trends" such as the fact that throughout the decade of the 1990s drug use among 8th, 10th and 12th graders (Monitoring the Future) is "close to record highs." Yet in this case, the ONDCP sort of ignores such an obvious failure and instead uses this as evidence of a need to get tougher in the war on drugs! Nothing succeeds like failure! Robinson and Scherlen note that ONDCP tends to "celebrate declines even when they are short-term or occurred a decade ago, and downplay increases unless they are being used to create alarm" (p. 66). More examples like this are presented throughout this book. Perhaps more importantly, even when there are some decreases in drug use, ONDCP fails to provide any evidence that this is because of what they did. Moreover, like I said above concerning police departments, Robinson and Scherlen note that "ONDCP only takes credit when drug use trends decline, but takes no responsibility when drug use trends increase" (p. 68). One of the most important chapters in this book is chapters 5 and 6 where they examine ONDCP's claims of success in "healing America's drug users and disrupting drug markets" and claims concerning the costs of the drug war. In these two chapters Robinson and Scherlen also critically examine ONDCP claims about the nature of the drug problem itself. First, ONDCP fails to differentiate between drug use and drug abuse and instead claims that "Drug use promises one thing but delivers something else – something sad and debilitating for users, their families, and their communities. The deception can be masked for some time, and it is during this time that the habit is 'carried' by users to other vulnerable young people." This is an outlandish claim totally lacking empirical foundation. As Robinson and Scherlen correctly note, drug use does not lead to such outcomes and in fact the majority of youths who use drugs do so only a few times and quit completely in their early 20s (p. 96). Such a conclusion is a general consensus by drug experts – obviously a group ONDCP fails to consult! ONDCP also claims that drug testing is effective, yet can cite only anecdotal evidence (such as a statement by one woman based upon a one conversation with a grocery bagger – see p. 102) and ignore comprehensive studies that find that it clearly does not work (e.g., as cited on the Monitoring the Future web site). This is called "confirmation bias" – selecting evidence that supports your position while ignoring contrary evidence. The ONDCP clearly has failed to disrupt drug markets and there has been a steady decline in the price of illegal drugs, as Robinson and Scherlen clearly show with charts taken from ONDCP's report. Yes, you read this correctly: ONDCP reproduces charts that show prices falling yet fail to make any statement that suggests that their goal of raising prices by disrupting drug markets is not working! This is one of the best points about the Robinson and Scherlen book in that they use readily available data – some reproduced by ONDCP – which clearly contradict ONDCP's claims! Robinson and Scherlen also examined claims about the costs of drugs and the drug war. Once again, they demonstrate that ONDCP misuses statistics. Here the authors show that the bulk of the costs of drugs stems from the drug war itself and the fact that some drugs have been criminalized. I could go on and on with more examples. Suffice it to say that Robinson and Scherlen have provided a thorough critique of the claims made by those in charge of the drug war. This book will no doubt prove to be a valuable resource for those trying to make sense of a war that has created so much havoc within our society. Incidentally, the first two chapters provide the reader with an excellent overview on the how the drug war came to be, including a brief history of anti-drug legislation. For those not familiar with this history, these chapters will provide much needed information to fill this gap. Read it, learn from it, use it. Randall G. Shelden is Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, where he has been a faculty member since 1977. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Girls, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice (3rd edition), with Meda Chesney-Lind (which received the Hindelang Award for outstanding contribution to Criminology in 1992); Youth Gangs in American Society (3rd ed.), with Sharon Tracy and William B. Brown (both with Wadsworth); Controlling the Dangerous Classes: A History of Criminal Justice (2nd forthcoming, Allyn and Bacon); Criminal Justice in America: A Critical View, with William B. Brown (a revised edition of this book is forthcoming with Waveland Press). His most recent book is Delinquency and Juvenile Justice in American Society (Waveland Press). His web site is: www.sheldensays.com. (Click here to read about DRCNet's book offer for members.)

(Click here to read about DRCNet's book offer for members.) Reviewed by Randall G. Shelden, UNLV Looking back on my career and what I have learned there is a rather consistent theme in my thinking and writing about the subject of crime and justice. It might go something like this: we have a system in place that has a vested interest in keeping crime (including drug use) at a certain level. All sorts of careers and a lot of money (literally tens of billions of dollars each year) are dependent upon a steady supply of offenders - even if they have to pass new laws creating new categories of offenders (this especially applies to drugs). This is why many have used such terms like "crime control industry" or "criminal justice industrial complex." Agencies within this complex can sort of "have their cake and eat it too" in that they can have it both ways: when what they do is clearly failing they can merely claim that the problem still exists and they need to continuing doing the same thing (with more money of course). Obviously when things are going well they can take responsibility. This is the pattern with local police departments and in fact the entire system, namely that when crime is down they take credit because of some program in place; however, when crime goes up, they can shift responsibility to all sorts of variables. Favorites include a growing population in their jurisdiction (which is not usually that relevant), a growing youth or "crime risk" population (again, not that critical), "broken" or "dysfunctional" families and, two of my favorites, "outside influences" (e.g., gangs moving) or "liberal programs." Another way of putting this is that, as Jeff Reiman has observed, nothing succeeds like failure! A friend once told me something he learned when studying for his MBA. It is called "optimal starting and stopping points." What this means is that in order to bolster your argument or to make a case that what you are doing is working you pick out a time period that best represents your success and avoid time periods that do not. So it has been with the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and Matt Robinson and Renee Scherlen do an exceptional job of showing exactly this in Damned Lies and Drug War Statistics. They do this by critically examining six years (2000-2006) of the National Drug Control Strategy. They read through each and every annual report, looking especially for both accurate and inaccurate use of statistics and evidence of honesty and dishonesty in each report. They examined each and every claim made by ONDCP and evaluated ONDCP's stated goals (e.g., reducing drug use and drug availability). What they found for each year, almost without exception, was an almost total misuse of some very simple statistics (e.g., from various annual drug surveys, such as NHSDA, ADAM, MTF). They discovered that in many instances ONDCP employed the "optimal starting and stopping points." For instance, Robinson and Scherlen found that for the 2000 strategy report ONDCP uses a baseline of 1985 that shows a decline in drug use from that year to 1999. Yet the ONDCP was not started until 1988 and the largest drop in drug use was between 1985 and 1988, with the rate remaining steady for the rest of the decade. Other reports use 1979 as a starting point (the peak of drug use). On another occasion the ONDCP claims to prove that George Bush's goal during his 2002 "State of the Union speech of a 10% reduction of drug use by youth within two years was met, but uses a time period that started one year prior to Bush's speech! The authors also found numerous instances where they cite declines in youth drug use during a certain period, but ignore the fact that drug use was increasing among adults. In some cases the ONDCP reproduces a chart that clearly shows drug use increasing, but fail to comment on this rather obvious evidence of failure. On the other hand, on some occasions the ONDCP readily admits "disturbing trends" such as the fact that throughout the decade of the 1990s drug use among 8th, 10th and 12th graders (Monitoring the Future) is "close to record highs." Yet in this case, the ONDCP sort of ignores such an obvious failure and instead uses this as evidence of a need to get tougher in the war on drugs! Nothing succeeds like failure! Robinson and Scherlen note that ONDCP tends to "celebrate declines even when they are short-term or occurred a decade ago, and downplay increases unless they are being used to create alarm" (p. 66). More examples like this are presented throughout this book. Perhaps more importantly, even when there are some decreases in drug use, ONDCP fails to provide any evidence that this is because of what they did. Moreover, like I said above concerning police departments, Robinson and Scherlen note that "ONDCP only takes credit when drug use trends decline, but takes no responsibility when drug use trends increase" (p. 68). One of the most important chapters in this book is chapters 5 and 6 where they examine ONDCP's claims of success in "healing America's drug users and disrupting drug markets" and claims concerning the costs of the drug war. In these two chapters Robinson and Scherlen also critically examine ONDCP claims about the nature of the drug problem itself. First, ONDCP fails to differentiate between drug use and drug abuse and instead claims that "Drug use promises one thing but delivers something else – something sad and debilitating for users, their families, and their communities. The deception can be masked for some time, and it is during this time that the habit is 'carried' by users to other vulnerable young people." This is an outlandish claim totally lacking empirical foundation. As Robinson and Scherlen correctly note, drug use does not lead to such outcomes and in fact the majority of youths who use drugs do so only a few times and quit completely in their early 20s (p. 96). Such a conclusion is a general consensus by drug experts – obviously a group ONDCP fails to consult! ONDCP also claims that drug testing is effective, yet can cite only anecdotal evidence (such as a statement by one woman based upon a one conversation with a grocery bagger – see p. 102) and ignore comprehensive studies that find that it clearly does not work (e.g., as cited on the Monitoring the Future web site). This is called "confirmation bias" – selecting evidence that supports your position while ignoring contrary evidence. The ONDCP clearly has failed to disrupt drug markets and there has been a steady decline in the price of illegal drugs, as Robinson and Scherlen clearly show with charts taken from ONDCP's report. Yes, you read this correctly: ONDCP reproduces charts that show prices falling yet fail to make any statement that suggests that their goal of raising prices by disrupting drug markets is not working! This is one of the best points about the Robinson and Scherlen book in that they use readily available data – some reproduced by ONDCP – which clearly contradict ONDCP's claims! Robinson and Scherlen also examined claims about the costs of drugs and the drug war. Once again, they demonstrate that ONDCP misuses statistics. Here the authors show that the bulk of the costs of drugs stems from the drug war itself and the fact that some drugs have been criminalized. I could go on and on with more examples. Suffice it to say that Robinson and Scherlen have provided a thorough critique of the claims made by those in charge of the drug war. This book will no doubt prove to be a valuable resource for those trying to make sense of a war that has created so much havoc within our society. Incidentally, the first two chapters provide the reader with an excellent overview on the how the drug war came to be, including a brief history of anti-drug legislation. For those not familiar with this history, these chapters will provide much needed information to fill this gap. Read it, learn from it, use it. Randall G. Shelden is Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, where he has been a faculty member since 1977. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Girls, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice (3rd edition), with Meda Chesney-Lind (which received the Hindelang Award for outstanding contribution to Criminology in 1992); Youth Gangs in American Society (3rd ed.), with Sharon Tracy and William B. Brown (both with Wadsworth); Controlling the Dangerous Classes: A History of Criminal Justice (2nd forthcoming, Allyn and Bacon); Criminal Justice in America: A Critical View, with William B. Brown (a revised edition of this book is forthcoming with Waveland Press). His most recent book is Delinquency and Juvenile Justice in American Society (Waveland Press). His web site is: www.sheldensays.com. (Click here to read about DRCNet's book offer for members.)

Part 5 of NPR's disappointing series "The Forgotten War on Drugs" takes aim at Drug Czar John Walters:

During the course of research for this series, it became apparent that many prominent players in the war on drugs don't have many compliments for the current drug czar, John Walters.
…

Though President Bush appointed Walters to be the public face of the war on drugs, some anti-drug activists say he's been the invisible man.

What, is he supposed to go around racially profiling people and asking for consent to search?

Gen. Barry McCaffrey was drug czar from 1996 to 2001. He says, bluntly, that as far as he can tell, there is no federal drug policy at present.

Really? Tell that to the half-million non-violent drug offenders sitting in prison this evening. Yeah, we all miss the good old days when Barry McCaffrey was in charge and America was drug free.

Four members of Congress — all prominent drug warriors — have asked for the drug czar's resignation. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) says Walters, even more than his predecessors, manipulates numbers to inflate the Bush administration's successes in drug policy.

"When it comes to statistics, I think it's fair to say they cook the books," Grassley said. "They use whatever statistics fit their public relations program."

The drug czar's office says that Grassley was "badly briefed."

Badly briefed by whom? This is hilarious. But to be fair, the drug czar's office is a "public relations program." ONDCP's resident doctor/scientist David Murray explains:

"My sense would be you're talking to the wrong people," Murray said. "You are talking with people who have a partial and mis-clarified sense of what the office does."

Exactly. ONDCP's purpose is to claim that the drug war works. You've got a better chance of getting stoned on marijuana-flavored lollipops than expecting candor or humility from this organization.  ONDCP is like a weatherman that always predicts sunshine. If you get soaked, it's your own fault for watching the fake weather report.

Of the more than 100 anti-drug professionals across America interviewed for this series — in overseas operations, domestic law enforcement, treatment and prevention — very few share the rhetoric of this drug czar: that we are "winning the drug war."

Are we witnessing the beginnings of a major rift within the drug war establishment? ONDCP's fraudulent routine of claiming progress in the drug war is no longer impressing its core audience. As a result, confused drug war supporters like NPR's Burnett, along with Lou Dobbs and others, have found themselves in the awkward position of articulating the failure of our current policies while simultaneously demanding their expansion.

This is terrible reporting to be sure, but at least the "how to win?" crowd isn't proposing specific policy solutions. Dobbs and Burnett are amplifying the message that the drug war is failing, and turning to ONDCP for answers it can't give.

These frustrated observers might want to begin by learning that it isn't ONDCP's fault the drug war doesn't work. But I'm all for firing John Walters on the off-chance that he bugs out like Michael Douglas in Traffic and admits the whole thing is a sham. That would be grand.

At tremendous risk to my sanity, I read ONDCP's blog Pushingback.com so you don’t have to. Keep in mind that the following was posted sequentially within a 24 hour period:

First ONDCP criticizes Gov. Bill Richardson for signing New Mexico's medical marijuana law:

Medical Marijuana in New Mexico: A Triumph of Politics Over Science

Next, it reports that prescription drugs now kill almost as many people as murderers:

Report: Prescription Drugs Deaths Nearly Equal Murders

Then it follows up with this:

"Anti-pot Message Needs to be Louder."

The announcement that prescription drugs are killing people at alarming rates is sandwiched between two hysterical posts about medical marijuana. Apparently, it requires massive loss of human life to distract ONDCP even briefly from its frantic campaign against patients with pot.

Meanwhile, murderous FDA-approved medicines are massacring Americans left and right, a fact to which the ONDCP pays lip service before exclaiming, in its very next post, that medical marijuana must really be very dangerous precisely because it hasn't been approved by the FDA.

ONDCP's mantra that FDA-approved medicines are safe and effective and that non-approved medicines are dangerous and unpredictable is exposed as utterly hollow and meaningless right on the front page of its own blog. And they have no clue because the actual human consequences of various medical decisions are the furthest thing from their minds when they write this malicious drivel.

Only by ending the fraudulent campaign against marijuana can the anti-drug movement salvage the credibility necessary to warn people about drugs that can kill you. But they're not ready for that. ONDCP is still busy touting these very same killer drugs as alternatives to medical marijuana. If attempting to comprehend the unintended irony of all this makes you nauseous, you're not alone.

Via DrugWarRant, John Walters had a tough time answering questions from the Dallas Morning News. Pete Guither already covered this effectively, but I can’t resist.

Q: It's interesting that you emphasize a public health approach, because there's a perception in the academic community that studies drug policy that there's too much emphasis on interdiction and not enough on treatment.

A: The academic community that works on drug policy is almost uniformly second rate. They're fighting battles over dogma that doesn't really exist anymore, that's in the past.

Walters is right, but for the wrong reason. As Pete analogizes perfectly, it's "the equivalent of an "F" student accusing a "C" student of being dumb." After all, if Walters was even familiar with or remotely capable of refuting these accusations, he'd have attempted to do so rather than categorically dismissing the notion that academics have anything to contribute to the discussion of drug policy.

Q: What about drugs coming out of South America, mostly heroin and cocaine? Figures from your office show a decrease in supply and purity, but other studies contradict that. Illegal drugs remain cheap and widely available.

A: I certainly recognize that there are particular places in the United States that won't see the same performance as the aggregate. That's true of education performance and crime and consumer prices. We're a big country, and there are variations. But we have seen declines, through a combination of eradication of both poppy and coca, and record seizures.

Hilariously, the Dallas Morning News links this story on the failure of cocaine eradication right next to his deliberately confusing (and utterly false) explanation.

Pete Guither suggests that Walters isn’t trying as hard anymore, which is interesting to consider. These are weak answers from Walters and the rest of the interview isn’t much smarter. Particularly to accuse the academic community of incompetence before launching into a comically unscientific discussion of "regional variations" is tragically ironic.

Still, this strikes me as the sort of incoherence that only a reasonably intelligent person can produce. Ultimately, the problem with Walters isn't that he doesn't try. It's that he's a flagrant liar who experiments with various ways of saying things that aren’t true.

I'd like to think that Walters is trying as hard as he can and that the reason he sounds exhausted is because he's running out of material.

The New York Times reports on the death of Ken Gorman, a Colorado medical marijuana provider who was murdered by thieves. It's a fair story, though NORML's Allen St. Pierre is misquoted as saying that 20 medical marijuana providers have been killed in robberies (the correct figure is an unfortunate but much smaller 6).

Shamefully, the ONDCP blog blames Gorman's death on medical marijuana laws:

Drug Violence: State Medical Marijuana Laws Creating More Confusion and Abuse

Today's New York Times covers the latest murder generated by the passage of State-based "medical" marijuana laws. For years, marijuana legalization groups have worked to bypass the Supreme Court's decision, the FDA's official Interagency Advisory, and Federal law regarding medical marijuana. Symbolic medical marijuana laws which have been passed in some U.S. states have given too many citizens the false impression that growing and distributing marijuana is safe and legal.

One cannot possibly overstate the appalling falsity of ONDCP's attempt to paint the medical marijuana industry as inherently violent and chaotic, particularly in light of ONDCP's ongoing commitment to undermining the safety of medical marijuana patients. The rank dishonesty of this notion even compares unfavorably to the typical bile churned out by this organization on a daily basis.

Fortunately, widespread public support for medical marijuana ensures that concern over such violence will often tip in favor of regulation. The safeguards necessary to prevent deaths like Gorman's will be viewed by many as the responsibility of government; a responsibility the government continues to reject at every turn.

Persecuted and abandoned, patients have instead turned to the democratic process for relief, mobilizing state legislatures and millions of voters to their aid. They have built and now operate their own institutions, withstanding remarkable pressure as they push away the recreational marijuana economy with one hand and fight off the DEA with the other. Problems with medical marijuana laws are both wildly exaggerated and entirely attributable to interference and false propaganda from government officials whose utter lack of credibility necessitates the celebration of murder.

Ken Gorman's blood now stains the hands of the liars and quacks whose belligerent resistance to medical marijuana is truly the primary destructive force at work here.

It all started when The Politico's Ryan Grim called ONDCP's Tom Riley for a quote to include in this story about Bush's attempt to increase funding for ONDCP's counterproductive National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

The story itself is definitely worth reading, but this side-column is priceless:

Ryan Grim, who wrote today's story on the anti-drug campaign program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), previously worked for the Marijuana Policy Project, which lobbies to legalize marijuana. Grim worked at the project from June 2004 until May 2005, a fact that has been on his official bio since he joined Politico.com.

Grim called the ONDCP for comment for his story early Wednesday. Instead of returning Grim's call, Tom Riley, the agency's spokesman, called The Politico's senior publisher and editor, Martin Tolchin, to point out Grim's previous work with the Marijuana Policy Project. He then threatened to complain to Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz about a conflict of interest.

The ONDCP did not return Grim's call Wednesday.

This is a rare glimpse into the frustrated mind of a drug warrior scorned. In Riley's world, Ryan Grim's association with drug policy reform is some sort of dark secret; a mental defect that clouds his judgment, rendering him incapable of reasoned analysis. Grim's superiors should be warned, lest he should poison impressionable minds with his mischievous pen.

Riley's McCarthian finger-pointing is typical drug warrior subterfuge, but it's usually done publicly in an effort to discredit contradictory sources. In this case, however, Riley acted surreptitiously in what can only be described as an attempt to undermine an opponent's employment status.

The best part is that Riley obviously believed his ploy would work. That his complaint would provoke amusement and find its way into the paper never entered his mind.

Further hilarity will ensue when Riley tries to rat out those hippies at the GAO.

The Columbia Tribune reports on the ongoing challenges faced by North Dakota farmers seeking to grow industrial hemp. Though the state of North Dakota has passed legislation authorizing hemp cultivation, farmers must obtain approval from DEA, which isn't exactly fast-tracking this.

Monson plans to raise hemp on only 10 acres at first, a demonstration crop, but under federal regulations, the acreage still must be completely fenced and reported by GPS coordinates. All hemp sales also must be reported.

"That’s a per-acre cost of about $400, and that would be prohibitive," Monson said.

So basically the DEA hasn't decided for sure, but in case they do allow hemp cultivation, they've created roadblocks to make it unprofitable.

Here's ONDCP's Tom Riley explaining the logic of this:

Growers could hide pot plants in hemp fields, complicating agents’ efforts to find them, said Tom Riley, of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy.

"You have legitimate farmers who want to experiment with a new crop," Riley said. "But you have another group, very enthusiastic, who want to allow cultivation of hemp because they believe it will lead to a de facto legalization of marijuana.
…

"The last thing law enforcement people need is for the cultivation of marijuana-looking plants to spread," he said. "Are we going to ask them to go through row by row, field by field, to distinguish between legal hemp and marijuana?"

After being humiliated in The New York Times, it's impressive that they still have the nerve to raise this backwards argument. Cross-pollination would decimate any commercial marijuana in proximity to a hemp field. You can't mix them, Tom Riley. Stop saying that. Seriously, stop.

For a period of time, I assumed that they were simply ignorant of the cross-pollination issue. Perhaps upon coming to understand it, they would endorse hemp cultivation, which more or less ensures the absence of commercial marijuana growing in its vicinity. But now that this issue has been exposed in The Times, it seems much more likely that they're willfully ignoring it and proceeding with their usual nonsense.

The question, therefore, is why? They have one argument against industrial hemp, and it makes absolutely no sense. It's been proven to be comically wrong, and they have no other anti-hemp talking points to fall back on. When legitimate farmers with no interest in the drug culture ask for permission to grow hemp as an agricultural commodity, why do ONDCP and DEA grasp in desperation for even the most pitiful justifications to oppose them?

The answer is that for decades they've arbitrarily denied American farmers the right to participate in a multi-billion dollar industry. They are drug warriors waging battle against economic activities over which they hold no constitutional authority. As with so many other colossal drug war errors, to stop now would be to acknowledge the childish stubbornness and rank incompetance that have motivated their actions from the beginning.

Just another thing we shouldn't even be arguing about. It's not even a goddamn drug.

Here's ONDCP's Bertha Madras from an online debate over student drug testing:

Newsweek: Is there a risk that kids who test positive for drugs will be stigmatized?

Madras: The thing that I have heard is that everyone knows who's using drugs; there are no surprises amongst the kids. Kids know who are the users, their friends know, so when a kid is not engaged in sports for one game, nobody is surprised. I've been a parent all my life, and I knew which one of the kids I didn't want my kids near.

This level of incoherence is an ONDCP specialty. Leaving aside the matter of whether Madras already had kids when she was born, there's still a lot of good stuff here.

Madras claims to know which kids use drugs, which basically undermines her whole point throughout the debate. If this information is widely available, who needs a urine collection program? Why waste precious educational resources to confirm what super-mom Bertha Madras already knows?

Obviously, she delights in stigma rather than refuting it. She admits to having a very negative impression of certain kids, and encourages her children to avoid them rather than offer support. Her statement is an endorsement of stigma and an unambiguous admission that singling out students is part of her agenda.

What a coward. Bertha Madras is as yellow as the urine she wants to collect from innocent children.

When the European drug policy and defense think-tank the Senlis Council in late 2005 unveiled its proposal to deal with illicit Afghan opium by licensing growers and diverting production to the global legal medicinal market for opioid pain medications, just about nobody thought the idea had a chance of going anywhere. Since then, as opium production there has continued to increase—Afghanistan now accounts for 90% of the global illicit opium supply—and Taliban insurgents have gathered strength, the licensing scheme has picked up support from politicians in Canada, England, and Italy, but still remains a long-shot. This week, as I will report in the Chronicle on Friday, the licensing notion gained new support, as the British Medical Association is suggesting that Afghan opium be used to produce medicinal diamorphine (heroin) for use in the National Health Service. The licensing idea also made it to the op-ed pages of the Washington Post last week, when columnist Anne Applebaum wrote a piece, "Ending an Opium War; Poppies and Afghan Recovery Can Both Bloom, arguing that the US should do in Afghanistan now what it did so successfully in Turkey under President Nixon. Then, faced with an influx of Turkish heroin (the stuff of the infamous French Connection), the US worked with the Turkish government and farmers to regulate poppy production. Now, Turkey is the main supplier of medicinal narcotics to the US. The current US administration, however, is adamantly opposed to any such effort in Afghanistan. Instead, drug war extremists in Washington are pushing the Afghans to make stronger efforts to eradicate the poppy crop and are even trying to push herbicidal eradication down the throat of the Karzai government. That idea has little support in Afghanistan or even among our NATO allies. Both groups fear a sustained attack on the country's economic mainstay will lead to political upheaval and end up benefiting the Taliban, a not unreasonable worry. But it seems like the Bush administration is starting to worry that the licensing scheme is gaining too much ground. Or, at least, it has bestirred itself to attack the notion. In a letter from James O'Gara, the drug czars deputy for supply reduction in today's Washington Post, the administration tried to fight back:

The Wrong Plan for Afghanistan's Opium Anne Applebaum's proposal to foster legal Afghan opium ["Ending an Opium War; Poppies and Afghan Recovery Can Both Bloom," op-ed, Jan. 16] is based on a misdiagnosis of the problem. First, there is no licit demand for Afghanistan's enormous supply of opium, currently more than 90 percent of the world's illicit market and almost double the world's entire licit production requirement. The United Nations reports a current global oversupply of opium-based products from existing licit producers. Pouring vastly more legal opium into the world system would cause prices to plummet, making the illicit trade that much more attractive to farmers. Second, Afghanistan produces opium because some regions remain under attack and lack security, to say nothing of the controls that are a prerequisite for any legal trade in narcotics. In the absence of such institutional controls, the distinction between legal and illicit opium is meaningless. Afghanistan needs peace, a flourishing economy and the rule of law. Each of these conditions is undone by narcotics production. Nowhere in the world do narco-warlords willingly relinquish their stranglehold on poor opium farmers, and nowhere in the world do such farmers become rich. The opium trade must be broken, not fostered, before it undoes the rest of Afghanistan.

O'Gara first claims there is no global need for more opioid pain relievers, citing the International Narcotics Control Board. That claim is debatable. In its proposal, the Senlis Council begged to differ, citing serious undersupplies, especially in the underdeveloped world. Second, O'Gara suggests that opium is being grown in Afghanistan only because of a lack of security and an effective national state. But the US government's insistence on attacking the poppy crop is precisely what contributes greatly to continued insecurity and political conflict within the country. Does he really think an all-out assault on the poppies is going to bring peace and tranquility? Whether the idea of licensing Afghan opium production is a good idea is open for debate. It is certainly as reasonable a response to the problem as heavy-handed repression efforts, and is much less likely to incite peasant resistance and support for the Taliban. But what is really interesting about all this is the fact that the drug czar's office feels a need to attack supporters of the idea. That suggests the idea is getting enough traction to pose a threat to the drug war as usual. We'll be staying tuned to this debate.