Lou Dobbs Sucks Live
I don't have cable, so the only way to catch the latest edition of Lou Dobbs' appalling series "The War Within" was to attend a live filming at George Washington University. The value of actually being there was limited, although it was comforting knowing I could disrupt the live broadcast if I felt I had to.
To be fair, tonight's episode was a bit less offensive than previous installments. The focus was on addiction, and despite periodic outlandish Dobbsisms about "winning the drug war" and so forth, there were many valid concerns raised. Still, for a show that promises "News, Debate, Opinion," Lou Dobbs entirely failed to provide any debate. He brought out recovering addicts and school administrators, but his primary expert guests were Nora Volkow (NIDA), Joseph Califano (CASA), and Terry Klein (SAMHSA). As far as I can tell, these people completely agree on everything from public health policy to pizza toppings.
Having just discovered that the drug war isn't working, Dobbs would do well to consult some of the experts who've been predicting failure for decades. Califano offered the startling statistic that the U.S. has 4% of the world's population, but consumes 2/3 of the world's drugs. It is of course mind-boggling to contemplate how such an observation doesnât lead to an immediate referendum on the policies that have gotten us here.
Thus, Lou Dobbs has become a curious and increasingly common character in the drug policy discussion. He can see that nothing's changed. He wants to talk about "how to win," yet he insists on having that conversation with people who havenât had an original idea about drug policy in their wildest dreams. Bizarrely, he interrupts the discussion of treatment to complain that our interdiction efforts are ineffective and under-funded, quickly snuffing out my faint hope that Dobbs' newfound interest in treatment would lead him to question the value of buying more helicopters to chase speedboats across the Gulf of Mexico.
Dobbs' insistence that the drug war is failing stands in stark contrast to recent ONDCP propaganda about how "America's drug problem is getting smaller," thus it's interesting to consider how a John Walters appearance on the "The War Within" would play out. If Walters could get over any potential objections to the premise of the program, he and Dobbs might have a blast plotting how to double our drug war losses.
Lou Dobbs, self-proclaimed champion of the middle-class, seems to think the solution to drug abuse is inside the wallets of American taxpayers. Guess he's got a "war within" going on right up there in his giant, ignorant head.
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Law Enforcement: The Drug War Dominates Grand Jury Action in One Ohio County
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Law Enforcement: Atlanta Police Change Policies in Wake of Fatal Drug Raid
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STATS is a resource you should know about.
I want to bring to your attention a great resource for debunking bad science posing as policy analysis. The Statistical Assesment Service (STATS) at George Mason University says its mission is "correcting scientific misinformation in the media resulting from bad science, politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge; and to act as a resource for journalists and policy makers on major scientific issues and controversies." And it is very good at what it does.
STATS got on my radar again this week with a nice report on the British "skunk" controversy, the dispute in the British press over just how much stronger skunk is than regular weed and whether skunk is causing teens to turn into schizophrenics. "Do Skunk Stats Stink? examines the controversy and the often overheated claims swirling around it. Check it out.
The skunk article was written by Trevor Butterworth, but much of the examination of statistical claims related to drug policy is done by Maia Szalavitz, an uncommonly gifted and acute observer of the statistical drug wars. This month, Szalavitz has gone after Joe Califano's National Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse, which recently raised alarms over college student drinking and drugging. "Is There a College Substance Abuse Crisis?" Szalavitz asks, or is this yet another example of CASA's manipulating the numbers? Read it and find out. She also blogged on the Huffington Post on the Richard Paey case. Paey is the Florida pain patient doing a 25-year sentence as a drug dealer for trying to obtain sufficient pain meds. And Szalavitz took on CNN's Lou Dobbs, who has lately been on a crusade to revitalize the drug war. In addition to gallantly appearing with the populist poseur, she took him to task in print with "Lou Dobbs on Drugs. Check out any or all of these pieces to see how statistical analysis and careful argumentation is done right.
STATS is a valuable resource for all of us.