DEA acting chief Michele Leonhart, and her boss, US Attorney General Eric Holder, are bragging about a major, DEA-led operation that has netted 2,200+ arrests, with pounds of drugs and millions of dollars seized. "Project Deliverance" involved more than 300 law enforcement agencies, more than 3,000 DEA agents, and took 22 months. According to DEA's press release, they captured 1,262 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.5 tons of cocaine, 1,410 pounds of heroin, and 69 tons of marijuana, plus $154 million. Michele Leonhart announcing ''Project Deliverance'' Operationally, Deliverance was certainly a big project -- it's easy to see why they're excited. And for the thousands of people throughout the US who were arrested in it, it's a life-changing event, though for the worse. But will Project Deliverance make any real difference in drug use and the drug trade? Is the operation really a big deal, when examined next to the reality of drug use and the drug trade in the United States today? I hate to be a wet blanket, but if history is a guide, Project Deliverance will have no long-term impact on the drug trade. Though notable in its scale, the operation is only one of many carried out by the US and allied governments over decades. During that time, the measure of drug availability -- price, an increase implies a product is less available, relative to its demand* -- has gone in the opposite of the intended direction, and dramatically. For example, the average US street price of cocaine is less than a fifth in real terms than it was in 1980. Previous drug sweeps have seen their temporary gains erased in just one or two weeks. The reason is that the big sounding numbers touted by Leonhart, while large for the agency and our government, are small compared with the drug trade. Deliverance's 2.5 tons of cocaine constitutes less than one percent of the 300 metric tons of cocaine the government estimates are consumed annually in the US. So does the 69 tons of marijuana. They did get a few percent of the heroin, if numbers don't deceive, but even that's still small. And the 2,200 alleged dealers and traffickers arrested in Project Deliverance make up a similarly tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of people employed in the US by the illegal drug trade. Some drug businesses will doubtless be extinguished by Project Deliverance, but others will have little difficulty replacing the lost supply or filling the open positions. And how much powder or weed did the investigators let go by during the 22 months it took to complete the operation? How much will they have to let slip by during the months or years it takes to mount the next one? In an uncharacteristically "big picture" review published a few weeks ago, the Associated Press declared the 40-year drug war a failure by every measure. Will media follow that lead and go beyond the surface in their reporting on Project Deliverance? I have a few suggestions for those intrepid reporters who would like to:

• Ask DEA or DOJ spokespersons if they expect the substances targeted in the sweep to be less available to US consumers of them, and if so for how long.
• Ask them if previous operations, individually or collectively, have had that effect. If they say yes, ask them to be specific as to what their evidence is, and compare it with numbers like the aforementioned cocaine prices.
• Do some follow-up, say two or three weeks from now. Ask government officials, cops who walk the drug beat, and drug users, what if any difference they saw in the supply of the targeted drugs, and if so if they see still any. Follow up again in one or two months. See if DEA will give you early access to the price data.

Be forewarned, though, DEA reps will probably be less excited to address those questions than they were for the press conference. * Nitpickers and drug war defenders may point out that demand for cocaine has also dropped since 1980, and that the price drop could be explained that way. No dice -- frequent, "hardcore" cocaine and other drug use remained roughly constant despite a drop in the number of "casual" users, and it's the frequent users who account for the vast majority of the consumption.

David Cameron He probably won't admit it now, but Britain's new prime minister thinks drugs should be legal. David Cameron, whose Conservative Party (the Tories) ousted Labor in last week's election, told the UK paper The Independent that the United Nations should consider legalization. He also wanted Britain to revive its former practice of providing heroin maintenance for addicts, and to open safe injection sites too. According to The Independent, which did the interview in 2005 when Cameron was vying for the Conservative's leadership spot, Cameron favored "fresh thinking and a new approach" toward British drug policy, adding "we have to let 1,000 flowers bloom and look at all sorts of treatment models." Cameron started off well as a parliamentarian, initially backing the government's downgrading of cannabis (marijuana) penalties from schedule B to C. But as a tabloid-driven hysteria over marijuana in the UK unfolded, Cameron (and The Independent) did a foolish about face. Still, Cameron's past comments are on the record, and his personal instincts on the issue at least seem to be good ones. I am not going to hold my breath waiting for the Tories to roll out legalization proposals, Cameron's past statements notwithstanding. But Labor under Gordon Brown was abominable on the drug issue, so whatever left-leaning Britons may miss about the former Labor government, they likely won't miss the drug policy. If Cameron does want to do something about this, Britain's Transform Drug Policy Foundation has a "Blueprint for Regulation" report ready and waiting.

The biennial international drug policy reform conference, which took place earlier this month in Albuquerque, included a candle light vigil for prisoners of the drug war. Peter Sarosi and István Gábor Takács of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union -- whose videos we have featured here several times -- were in attendance and produced an eight-minute video of it, "We Are the Keepers of the Light." Check it out:

In June we highlighted a bus advertising campaign, "Nice People Take Drugs," conducted by the British drug reform advocacy group Release. Some of the nice people from Release attended the big drug policy conference in Albuquerque last week, and they were nice enough to give us one of their new "Nice People Take Drugs" decks of playing cards, featuring politicians from the US, UK and elsewhere and the quotes they've given about their past drug use. (Whether all of the featured politicians are nice people is a subjective question, of course.) The front of the cards feature the organization's web site and a toll-free helpline, hard to see in the picture (0845 4500 215 if you're in Britain and need the help). Albuquerque's "British Invasion" also featured the Transform Drug Policy Foundation's new publication, After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation. Check Drug War Chronicle later this week for a conference report highlighting this and more. Here's a sampling of the Release cards: Last but not least, for now, a picture I snapped during the conference's closing plenary, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson delivering the keynote:

San Diego's ASA chapter protested outside the California Narcotics Officers Association awards ceremony this week. As well they should -- CNOA is a statewide drug police union that has a nasty habit of publishing some of the most warped propaganda about the drug war I've seen. Larger copies of the protest photos, and more of them, online here.

Heroin maintenance is coming to Denmark. And it's about time -- how about here too? The evidence is in, and it's only ideology that stands in the way of saving lives that now are being needlessly lost. In the meanwhile, watch the video from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union and the Danish Street Lawyers about the new program:

The Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act, a bill named after a well-known Wisconsin medical marijuana patient and activist, was mentioned here last week. Check out another article about from two days ago in the Express Milwaukee newspaper, Medical Marijuana Advocates Won't Wait. Good article -- and good title, why should they have to wait?

Carrie Johnson at the Washington Post has written a nice story on the Durbin bill to reduce federal crack cocaine penalties to the level of powder cocaine penalties. It quotes my colleagues Jasmine Tyler of Drug Policy Alliance (known inside the Beltway as "Jazz") and Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), the sentencing reform group that has led the fight to end mandatory minimums since the early '90s. I have a minor nitpick with the article, which is that it presents the issue as having civil rights and justice reform advocates and some politicos on one side, with law enforcement on the other, quoting a spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police saying that in the past their members have favored raising powder cocaine penalties instead. While the article doesn't say that all law enforcement is against reducing the penalties, it does fail to mention that there is also law enforcement support for lowering penalties. The press release from Sen. Durbin announcing the bill cites Los Angeles police chief William Bratton, Miami police chief John Timoney, and the National Black Police Association. I also have to comment on some of the comments I saw by Post readers. Most of the commenters were in support of reducing penalties as the bill does. But a few characterized it as "stupid," saying it would allow people to go on selling crack in inner city black communities, and thereby hurting those communities. As usual, it's the people throwing around words like "stupid" who've done the least thinking about the issue. If they had in fact stopped to think, they would realize that: 1) possession sentences are getting adjusted by this bill, helping people now going to prison for years for just for possessing tiny quantities of crack; and that: (2) incarcerating a drug dealer just creates a job opportunity for another dealer. Often the new would-be dealers fight it out over the old dealer's turf, hurting the community much much more.

Oakland's new cannabis tax was highlighted on the PBS Lehrer News Hour report last night. The tax, counterintuitively, was supported by members of the Oakland medical marijuana community who are now subject to it -- an effective demonstration of the value the quasi-legal marijuana trade has for the Oakland community as a whole, at least that's the idea. I haven't had a chance to review the footage yet -- talk amongst yourselves. Favorable, neutral or otherwise, it's very much a sign of the times.

Update: There's video footage from C-Span2 of a Tuesday Congressional briefing on this issue by the Crack the Disparity coalition, online here. First speaker, Chief of NAACP DC Bureau Hilary Shelton. In July we reported that a bill in the House of Representatives, the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act Fair Sentencing Act of 2009, had passed the full Judiciary Committee. Today Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced a Senate version of the bill. There's no bill number yet, but we'll post back with it when available. Click here to read the Durbin office's press release. The Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act Fair Sentencing Act would increase the quantities of crack cocaine that are needed to trigger certain mandatory minimum sentences. Currently one can receive a five-year mandatory minimum prison term for possession of just five grams of crack cocaine, vs. 500 grams of powder cocaine needed for the same sentence, for example. Passage of the Act will mean that it would take 500 grams of crack to trigger the mandatory. In addition to Durbin, seven other Judiciary Committee members are original cosponsors: Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT), Judiciary Committee Members Arlen Specter (D-PA), Feingold (D-WI), Cardin (D-MD), Whitehouse (D-RI), Kaufman (D-DE) and Franken (D-MN). Two other senators, John Kerry (D-MA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) are also original cosponsors. While these are all Democrats, some conservative Republican senators had indicated they were likely to or were considering also supporting it. We'll see what happens. We were one of many organizations signing a letter to the Hill supporting this reform. Groups cited in the press release as supporting the bill include the American Bar Association, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Black Police Association, and the United Methodist Church. The release also cites as supporters LA and Miami police chiefs Bill Bratton and John Timoney, and US Attorney General Eric Holder. All of these sentences should be repealed, of course, but in the meanwhile the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act Fair Sentencing Act will help a lot of people to avoid some terribly long prison terms. Crack sentencing has been an injustice since the laws were passed in the mid-'80s, and a political issue since at least the early '90s when I started tuning in, so it's taken awhile to get to this point. It is looking pretty good for this to finally happen, but we can't take anything for granted. Look for an action alert sometime next week after there's a bill number.

Some people think that Drug War Chronicle should be called the "Bad News Chronicle" or the "Chronicle of Misfortunes" instead. Though it's been noted that there's a lot more good news these days than there used to be -- this week's issue does have some good news -- so be sure to read it! Two late-breaking items came in after we wrapped up the issue -- neither of them good:

Los Angeles County's district attorney says they're going to start prosecuting dispensaries -- starting with Organica. Their legal basis is a ruling last year by the state supreme court. And, indictments have started in San Diego, after the mass raids last month.

Regarding LA, I don't know a lot of the dispensary operators down there -- there are so many -- but Organica is one of the very few where I do happen to know some of the people involved. They are activists and stalwarts for the cause, and they deserve less than almost anyone for this to happen to them. The luck of the draw is coldly neutral, I guess -- not that I would wish a drug war prosecution on anyone. Let us continue to hope for the best...

One of the articles we are finalizing for publication in Drug War Chronicle tonight deals with needle exchange, and the state of legislation in Congress to end the ban on use by states of federal AIDS funds to support needle exchange programs. A bill has passed the House of Representatives -- good news -- but it includes a provision that would render it nearly useless. This provision would require that needle exchange programs receiving federal funds not operate "within 1,000 feet of a public or private day care center, elementary school, vocational school, secondary school, college, junior college, or university, or any public swimming pool, park, playground, video arcade, or youth center, or an event sponsored by any such entity." I'm not sure how any program could track where all the different such entities decide to hold events. More importantly, the rule would basically prevent needle exchanges from operating at all, because the area encompassed is pretty much everywhere inside any city. Dr. Russell Barbour, at Yale School of Medicine's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, has produced several charts that advocates are using now on the Hill, illustrating the impact the provision would have on AIDS prevention efforts in Chicago and San Francisco. He graciously provided them to us. Check them out here: (more below the fold)

On Wednesday, October 14, 2009, at 10:00am in Room B2 at the State House in Boston, the Joint Committee on Revenue in the Massachusetts legislature will hold a public hearing on bill H. 2929, An Act to Regulate and Tax the Cannabis Industry. If passed, the new law would repeal existing marijuana prohibition laws at the state level and replace them with a system of regulation and taxation, similar to how wine is sold. The law, in fact, is largely modeled after the alcohol control laws. According to Northampton attorney Richard M. Evans, a former DRCNet board member and the petitioner whose Representative presented the bill, Wednesday will mark the first time a state legislature has considered a full legalization bill. The moment is also propitious because Massachusetts this year implemented its new, voter-enacted decriminalization law, and because Gov. Deval Patrick, while not prioritizing it, is on the record as being very comfortable with the idea of legalizing marijuana. So while we don't expect that H. 2929 will be enacted this year, it is a rare and important opportunity to forward the debate on alternatives to prohibition. And you can help: by showing up Wednesday if you can; by spreading the word and getting others to come out; by suggesting to your local newspaper that they cover the hearing; and by contacting your state legislators to express your support for H. 2929. Directions to the State House are available here. Please let us know what you're able to do to support H. 2929, and visit http://www.cantaxreg.com for further information about it. Visit http://www.masscann.org to find out about extensive activist opportunities in Massachusetts.

Okay, everybody stop, take a breath. Perhaps smile. Reforms to New York state's draconian Rockefeller drug laws have gone into effect today. State authorities have identified about 1,100 inmates who are eligible to apply for resentencing now -- I've also seen the figure 1,500 cited. The Legal Aid Society is already working with 270 of them. It isn't nearly enough. Our article published just before the legislation passed last April outlines some of its deficiencies. If all of those 1,100 gain earlier release than they would have gotten, that will leave another 13,000, and resentencing doesn't mean they'll all get out right away. Of course, the limited scope of the reforms passed by the legislature didn't stop prosecutors from trying to block their implementation. But they failed. This is the second time the legislature has modified the Rockefeller laws -- the first time was in 2004 -- and yet most of the work still lies ahead of us. But 1,100 people, potentially, will have their lives transformed, and another chink has been made in the drug war wall of injustice. To once again make use of a Churchill quote that drug reformers have used before: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." In the meanwhile, watch this video:

This new video by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union highlights the Danish group Gadejuristen -- "Street Lawyers" -- a 10-year old Copenhagen based organization that advocates for the human rights of drug users in Denmark and which has played an important role in the promotion of innovative harm reduction programs. Earlier this year, the Danish government commenced heroin maintenance programs for addicts. But according to HCLU, Denmark still has no safe injection sites, and the many users who therefore take heroin on the streets can face police harassment. A particular problem is that "no-go-zones" designated by local police can make it difficult for users to get to their needle exchange programs.

Update: Souder concession speech -- "... I was probably going to lose today." It's an interesting glimpse into the prohibitionist mindset. Today the US House of Representatives passed a student loan bill that includes language limiting the infamous "Aid Elimination Penalty" -- a law stripping students of financial aid because of drug convictions -- to include only sales convictions, not possession. The law was previously limited to offenses committed while attending school and receiving federal financial aid. If the Senate follows suit, on this reform or something similar, it will be limited yet again. Yesterday we alerted our members that Rep. Mark Souder, the author of the law, was planning to offer an amendment on the House floor to strip out the language and keep his law the way it is now. Souder withdrew the amendment before it came to a vote. Check back at Drug War Chronicle for further info tonight or tomorrow. It's not a done deal until it passes the Senate, until it survives the conference committee, and then until the larger bill it is part of passes both chambers of Congress in its final form. But things are looking good. We including me personally have been working on this for 11 years, and this is a big day for us. Thank you to everyone who took action, this week or before, to help make this possible.

Update: We won. Dear friend: Our nemesis in Congress, arch-drug warrior Mark Souder, is at it again. Earlier this year, the House Education & Labor Committee passed a student aid bill including language to scale back his infamous financial aid/drug conviction law. The new version of the law would only count sales convictions -- a great step forward, though we still want full repeal. More than 200,000 students already have lost aid for college because of drug convictions. Tomorrow, we're told, Rep. Souder will offer an amendment on the floor of the House of Representatives, seeking to have this good language stripped from the final version of the bill. PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND ASK THAT HE OR SHE VOTE NO ON SOUDER'S AMENDMENT TO THE STUDENT AID BILL. Students should not lose access to college because of drug possession convictions! The bill is called SAFRA, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, H.R. 3221. To reach your Representative (or find out who your Rep is), call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. When the receptionist in your representative's office answers the phone, politely say something like the following:

"My name is _____ and I'd like Rep. ___ to vote against Rep. Souder's amendment to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which would deny educational opportunities to students with minor drug possession convictions. Blocking access to education causes more drug problems and hurts the economy. Thank you."

When you're done, please forward this alert to all your friends, and please post it to sites like Facebook and Twitter too. A copy of this alert can be found at http://stopthedrugwar.org/alerts/college_aid. Also, please send us a note letting us know that you've taken action and if the staffer you spoke with told you anything that sounds important. Visit http://www.raiseyourvoice.com for further information on this issue and the hundreds of organizations that support repeal. Thank you for taking action! Please consider making a donation to support these efforts. Sincerely, David Borden, Executive Director StoptheDrugWar.org Washington, DC http://stopthedrugwar.org P.S. Find StoptheDrugWar.org on Facebook here and here, and on Twitter here.

The FBI has released its preliminary 2008 drug arrest numbers, collected as part of the Uniform Crime Reports program. The report verifies that the nation's police forces -- federal, state, county and local -- continued to pour vast amounts of limited police resources into the ineffective anti-drug effort. Arrested for drug abuse violations (as they call them) numbered 1,702,537 in 2008, out of a total of 14,005,615 non-traffic arrests -- 12.2%, more than one out of eight. This is a slight drop from 2007, when there were about 1.8 million, according to UCR, about 13%. 82% of drug arrests were for possession, and more than half of those were for marijuana. That slight percentage drop in the number of drug arrests means nearly 100,000 people who were spared the drug war shaft, so this is a good thing. The fact that it would drop at all provides some encouragement -- hopefully warranted, though only time will tell about that. Whichever way you look at it, it is a vast number of arrests affecting a vast number of people, and a whole lot of police time that could have been spent more usefully doing almost anything else. The reports points out that drug arrests were more numerous than any other category of offense that UCR tracks. Perhaps because of that, the front page of the arrest section has a useful table categorizing what the arrest types were, for which drugs, and where they took place. I've copied the table below; but you can see the original, and then explore UCR for '08 and many years past, at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/arrests/. Expect a more detailed analysis from Phil, if not in this week's Chronicle then in the next one. Drug abuse violations United States total Northeast Midwest South West Total1 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 Sale/
Manufacturing: Total 17.7 22.1 19.3 16.4 16.1 Heroin or cocaine and their derivatives 7.7 13.4 5.6 7.5 5.8 Marijuana 5.5 5.9 8.2 4.3 5.4 Synthetic or manufactured drugs 1.5 1.2 1.2 2.6 0.6 Other dangerous nonnarcotic drugs 3.0 1.5 4.4 1.9 4.3 Possession: Total 82.3 77.9 80.7 83.6 83.9 Heroin or cocaine and their derivatives 20.1 20.7 12.5 21.0 22.3 Marijuana 44.3 46.5 51.9 50.2 33.2 Synthetic or manufactured drugs 3.3 2.7 3.8 4.2 2.5 Other dangerous nonnarcotic drugs 14.6 8.0 12.5 8.2 25.9  

The New York Times "Room for Debate" blog has a series of comments on Mexico's new decriminalization law. Will it reduce violence, or police corruption? Will increase drug use? Is it really a decriminalization law? Former foreign minister of Mexico Jorge Castaneda is among the participants. Check it out . Also of interest today, Mary O'Grady in the Wall Street Journal on "Mexico's Hopeless Drug War." O'Grady points out that "[p]rohibition and demand make otherwise worthless weeds valuable," arguing that neither the decrim law nor Calderon's ongoing drug war will reduce the violence. Via Tony Newman...

I have an invited comment online at JURIST, explaining why the resignation of Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora won't change much. (Hint: It's Prohibition.) JURIST, which is published at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, is "the world's only law school-based comprehensive legal news and research service," according to its FAQ. It's also free, archives included. I've already added it to my Google Reader.