The Speakeasy Blog
Gateway Theory Debunked...Again
From NORML:
Investigators said that environmental factors (e.g., a greater exposure to illegal drugs in their neighborhoods) as well as subjects' "proneness to deviancy" were the two characteristics that most commonly predicted substance abuse.
"This evidence supports what's known as the common liability model ... [which] states [that] the likelihood that someone will transition to the use of illegal drugs is determined not by the preceding use of a particular drug, but instead by the user's individual tendencies and environmental circumstances," investigators stated in a press release. They added, "The emphasis on the drugs themselves, rather than other, more important factors that shape a person's behavior, has been detrimental to drug policy and prevention programs."
No kidding. It's such a perfectly logical conclusion, it's hard to understand why anyone thought otherwise. Especially since one study after another has shown the exact same thing.
It shouldn't take 12 years of research by respected social scientists to tell us that trying one drug can't possibly have the psycho-pharmacological effect of making you want some different drug you've never tried before. Marijuana grows on trees. It's ubiquitous. That's why people try it first.
As for the "environmental factors" that actually are useful in predicting behavior, much thanks is owed to drug prohibition for creating a criminal subculture through which illicit drugs are widely available to young people. As a high school student, I had potential access to a far greater variety of drugs than I do now as professional drug policy reform activist. Alcohol was the one thing you couldn't get easily.
Inevitably, the "gateway theory" will not die a sudden death today. It will live on in the form of anecdotal accounts from marijuana "victims" whose progression into addiction will be taken out of context. It's a shame that so many people who are genuinely concerned about the drug problems facing America's youth nonetheless insist on misunderstanding basic facts about drug use.
Imagine the progress that could be achieved overnight if research such the Pittsburgh study were used to make policy.
Alert: CALL CONGRESS Today to Stop Dangerous Mycoherbicide Bill!
A Slippery Slope
Just think of how many persons are killed and injured skiing and snow boarding each year nationwide – an average of more than 38 persons per year, according to National Ski Areas Association. One could ask, what does skiing accomplish? What good is skiing? Well, it is fun, it is exciting. Isn’t it exciting because the speed creates a sense of risk? If we focused our attention just on hospital emergency rooms, we might think that skiing ought to be outlawed.
It might be an interesting exercise to imagine what the world of skiing would look like if it were outlawed. Imagine who would make skis, how it would be taught, where it would be done. Does anyone doubt that while there would be much less skiing, it would be much more dangerous to those who do ski, than it is now?
I agree that the analogy is appropriate, and I therefore urge you Eric to shut up about the dangers of skiing, lest that too should be taken from us. Because you see, those who seek to save us from ourselves will not recognize the threat of black-market skiing. They will accept casualties as a necessary and temporary inevitability on the road to a world without skiing.
And when that doesn't work, they'll try to flatten out the mountains.
Readers, Thanks for Your Help. Keep Those Corrupt Cop Story Tips Coming!
Dawn of the Meth
From BostonHerald.com:
Deadly meth marching toward New England: DEA battles Midwest scourge before it hits
The Hub is winning the war on crystal methamphetamine thanks to lessons learned from battles waged in the meth-gripped West and Midwest, a top federal drug official said yesterday, but she warned that the addictive drug is on a destructive march toward the East Coast.
Should I start putting sandbags around my house?
If I didn’t know better, I’d be bracing myself for a narcotic sandstorm of crystallized chaos. I’d be plugging my nostrils with cotton balls and spray-painting "stolen" on my valuables so I can’t pawn them.
But I’m not stupid. I know that meth doesn’t "march" anywhere, or make decisions of any kind. Meth doesn’t arrive at your doorstep like a military recruiter or Jehovah’s Witness and try to talk you into choosing a new direction in life.
The Herald makes it sound as if meth arrives arbitrarily and just finds its way into your nose or something. Like it instantly turns your life into a horrifying before & after shot, and the survivors can see the trail of debris winding its way back to Iowa as they escape by helicopter.
Fortunately, meth only goes where people take it and people only take it where it’s wanted. There’s actually plenty of it on the east coast already, it’s just not that popular here because it actually can’t just climb up your nose and drag your sorry ass kicking and screaming onto America’s Most Wanted.
But the boundless alarmism of The Herald even has an answer to that:
Conniving drug dealers have also been known to sell crystal meth to buyers while claiming that they are giving them cocaine or ecstasy in hopes of hooking them on another fix, Stansbury said. "Greedy drug traffickers try to make a market," Stansbury said. "It’s buyer beware. You never know what you are getting."
Maybe I should start drug testing myself. This could explain why I get the same thing for lunch everyday. Perhaps there’s drug dealers at Baja Fresh putting meth in my nachos. Mmmm, tastes like chicken.
Update: This post is a stab a just one of many absurd articles to emerge as a result of National Meth Awareness Day. Eric Sterling highlights a particularly disturbing consequence of this peculiar celebration: the apparent practice of delaying meth lab raids for the purpose of conducting them on Meth Day.
Either there was a grave danger and DEA ignored that grave danger to the public in order to make a media splash, or DEA believes that the danger of explosion is greatly exaggerated but useful for snookering the news media.
Shameful.
What Will a Democratic Congress Mean for Drug Reform?
Readers, I need your help! Where are the corrupt cops?
How Did You Celebrate Meth Day?
Meth is the worst drug since marijuana, a fact worth considering on National Methamphetamine Awareness Day, which we’ll be celebrating every November 30th until everyone is aware, or we find something else to be hugely concerned about.
Meth was invented during the summer of 2004 by Al Qaeda bio-terrorists and quickly made headlines nationwide, mainly because it was cynically designed to only affect white people. When the Office of National Drug Control Policy got wind of the problem in 2005, they launched a three-prong strategy of creating a national holiday, arresting convenience store clerks who sell "cooking" materials, and campaigning against ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana, which causes meth use in children.
Bill Piper at the Drug Policy Alliance celebrated Meth Day with a great editorial. It’s kinda long though, so you might wanna pop an Adderall before attempting to read the whole thing.
Seven Million -- and Counting
Police Looking Worse and Worse in Atlanta "Drug Raid" Killing
UNODC Director Insults Entire World With Absurd Declaration
The discussion surrounding opium cultivation in Afghanistan has spiraled out of control as public officials who've accomplished nothing attempt to update us on their progress.
From the Washington Post:
"History teaches us that it will take a generation to render Afghanistan opium-free," UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement.
What the hell is he talking about? The history of what? I’m not aware of any historical event that demonstrates the effectiveness of drug eradication, yet Costa is offering us a time-table. Pete Guither says it’s pathetic and I agree. But it’s also insulting to anyone who has better things to do than read made-up nonsense in the newspaper.
Apparently, the surprising news that Afghanistan is on the way to being free of opium emerged from a UNODC and World Bank study, which has been widely covered in the press this week. Yet it remains unclear what on earth they were studying.
Meanwhile, Costa has more to say:
"I ... propose that development support to farmers, the arrest of corrupt officials and eradication measures be concentrated in half a dozen provinces with low cultivation in 2006 so as to free them from the scourge of opium."
He said this would help double the number of provinces free of the opium poppy, the raw material for heroin, next year.
Again, I’m utterly confused. He wants to focus on areas where the problem is small in order to increase the number of places where there isn’t a problem? How is he going to eradicate opium from Afghanistan by focusing on regions with low cultivation?
Fortunately, their strategy is multidimensional:
The U.N.-World Bank report also called for a "smart and effective" strategy to curb demand in consuming countries, mainly in the West.
Basically they’re saying, "we’ll implement the world’s first effective program for substituting crops and eradicating widespread corruption, while you guys focus on developing the world’s first effective strategy for convincing people to completely stop doing heroin."
It’s a 210-page report and these, I assume, are the highlights.
Press Release: Salt Lake City Conference Confronts the Meth Crisis
The War on Medical Marijuana Patients Continues...But Why?
The defense was prohibited from informing jurors that Costa is president of the Merced Patients Group and that his 908 plants were unquestionably intended for medical use.
Meanwhile, further north, the Washington State Supreme Court recently upheld the conviction of medical marijuana patient Sharon Lee Tracy.
From Northwest Public Radio:
Even the majority justices say Sharon Lee Tracy is exactly the kind of person Washington voters intended to help when they passed a medical marijuana initiative back in 1998. She suffers from a hip deformity, migraine headaches and endured eight surgeries to repair a ruptured bowel and colon condition. So why was she arrested and convicted of growing marijuana back in 2003? Because Tracy had permission to use marijuana from a California doctor, but not a Washington doctor as required by law.
As I understand it, the decision is legally sound in that Washington’s medical marijuana law does require an in-state recommendation. Dissenting Justices argued that other medicines are available with out-of-state prescriptions, but to no avail.
Either way, there’s no excuse for sending this feeble woman to prison. I can forgive these judges for upholding the law as it’s written, but the prosecutors who fought this all the way to the State Supreme Court should be ashamed. Tracy should never have been charged in the first place.
I shudder to think that some smug DA walked out of court grinning after successfully convicting a woman with chronic migraines, a deformed hip, and a ruptured bowel simply because she tried to relieve her pain. Let’s hope the State Legislature moves to close this loophole forthwith. And if she’s sentenced to even a day in prison, let’s make some noise.
I understand that local officials are still coming to terms with the reality of medical marijuana. I understand that federal officials have painted themselves into a corner and will not now admit that they've acted in bad faith. I understand that people who've had the fortune of good health are sometimes challenged by the notion that a popular recreational drug also has unique medicinal properties. But I do not understand why resources are still being used to bring criminal charges against sick people. I just don't get it.
Can anyone explain why this is still happening?
Latest on Atlanta Police Killing of Elderly Woman in Drug Raid
Joe Biden: We Don't Like Him Either
I wonder what he was thinking. Was Biden concerned that the drug war was all injury and no insults? If so, he certainly succeeded in making prohibition more annoying, what with the terrorism ads, the interference in local politics, the podcasts, the blog, Andrea Barthwell…the list goes on.
Either way, Biden can now take some credit for ONDCP’s numerous contributions to the drug war status quo, and should either be very proud or ashamed depending who you ask. It would be unfair not to mention that Joe Biden doesn’t like John Walters, who he says runs ONDCP "like an ivory tower." One might credit Biden with taking a stand for accountability, but you’d have to ignore the irony of his complaints that the "Drug Czar" position he created seems to lend itself to tyranny.
That drug war cheerleaders so often prove to have high political ambitions is probably no coincidence. From Harry Anslinger’s race-baiting demagoguery to Karen Tandy’s campaign against Tommy Chong (which swept her into the top office at DEA), drug war grandstanding is one way to get your name in the paper. Running for President is another.
Electioneering laws prevent us from opining on the merits (or lack thereof) of various presidential candidates. So I’ll just say this: if the 2008 presidential election comes down to a contest between Rudy Giuliani and Joe Biden, the prison industrial complex can’t lose.
(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.)
Rudy Giuliani: We Don't Like Him
It became clear last week that Rudy Giuliani intends to be our next president. Notwithstanding the possibility that a pro-gay rights, pro-choice Republican might not do so well in the primaries, it's worth noting that Giuliani is an absolute horror show with regards to crime and drug policy.
An adherent to the controversial "broken windows" theory of policing, Giuliani believes that aggressively targeting minor offenders will have a trickle-up effect in reducing the overall crime rate. He’s widely credited with reducing crime in New York City by half during the 1990’s, and many people consider him an expert on the subject.
Yet Giuliani’s seemingly successful experiment with 'zero tolerance' coincided with similar drops in crime across the country that began prior to his taking office. Other cities achieved similar outcomes without mass arrests, and experts have attributed the big crime drop of the 1990’s to a broad range of external factors such as increased economic opportunity and even 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
But while Giuliani probably doesn’t deserve much credit for reducing crime in New York, he certainly does deserve credit for this:
As the get-tough policy began to warm up, the stats soared. In 1993, there were 3,400 complaints of police brutality brought before the Civilian Complaint Review Board in New York. In 1994, 4,900. In 1995, 5,612. In 1996, 5,592. That's a 60 percent increase in those years.
Giuliani’s brand of 'zero tolerance' devastated race relations in New York. As NYPD excesses such as the sodomization of Abner Louima and the killing of Amadou Diallo began to occur with increased frequency, the Mayor remained smug and unyielding. Giuliani’s notoriety as an apologist for police homicide reached new heights when he released the sealed juvenile records of Patrick Dorismond, an innocent man killed by undercover officers, in a blatant attempt to discredit the victim only days after his tragic death.
Of course, the only thing worse than a Mayor who blames police brutality on the victim would be a President who does so. If George Bush hates black people, Rudy Giuliani dances on their graves for the cameras. And there are probably all sorts of horrible things he'd like to do that weren't possible as Mayor of New York City.
For starters, here’s Giuliani’s idea for an international drug control strategy:
We need to call on the on the federal government after having done our job effectively [on crime reduction] to make [drug reduction] an important part of our foreign policy, rather than a secondary part. After all it has to do with the future of our children and it is just important as international trade. And it’s just as important as wars that may be going on in different parts of the world, because it has to do with how productive America is going to be into the next generation.
Sounds like a prescription for worldwide bloodshed and wasted billions to me.
Another Raid Gone Wrong: 92-Year-Old Woman Killed, 3 Officers Injured
More importantly, a 92-year-old woman named Kathryn Johnston died defending her home against intruders who broke in without announcing themselves. She lived quite a long life only to die an innocent death at the hands of public servants.
Radley Balko sums it up best:
Paramilitary tactics don't defuse violent situations, as police groups and their supporters sometimes claim. They create them. They make things more volatile for everyone -- cops, suspects, and bystanders. Does anyone honestly believe that Ms. Johnson would have opened fire had a couple of uniformed officers politely knocked on her door, showed her a warrant, and asked if they could come inside?
Violating the sanctity of the home with a violent, forced entry -- all to enforce laws against consensual acts -- simply isn't compatible with any honest notion of a free society.
Police can have their submachine guns and bulletproof vests. They can have their blast shields and helmets. They may surround homes in order to prevent the escape of suspects, and if they have a warrant supported by probable cause to believe criminal activity is taking place inside, they may initiate contact. What more do they need? Why must they invade homes anonymously like burglars or rapists? Why, after so many innocent people have died, does this recklessness continue?
The sad answer is that the drug war accepts the death of innocent people as a necessary casualty. The drug war turns police into soldiers whose lives are valued above those of the innocent people they fight to protect.
It’s time to bring home the troops.
I Met Pete Guither!
Scott Morgan, Radley Balko, Nick Gillespie, Peter Guither Pete’s got some excellent coverage of the conference (scroll down to Saturday and Sunday’s posts).
Is It Time for Direct Action to Shut Down DEA Headquarters?
SSDP Conference Invigorates and Educates Students and Non-Students Alike
Thank You Milton Friedman
His Open Letter to Bill Bennett could easily be one of the best arguments ever written against the drug war:
This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes "on suspicion" can be seriously considered as a drug-war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations.
Hopefully, Friedman’s passing will provide an opportunity for many to reflect on his words.
Hoyer vs. Murtha on drug policy
Heading to DC for SSDP!
DEA: Mind-Altering Drugs are Available in Stores, But Don’t Buy Them
DEA Warns Over-The-Counter Drug Is Like Acid encourages people not to take salvia. It also identifies by name several stores you shouldn’t go to because they sell it and describes vivid hallucinations you can avoid by not smoking it.
The thing is, suggesting that a drug is "a lot like taking acid" and complaining that it is available "at the Head Quarters on South Marion Street in Denver" is a curious way of discouraging salvia experimentation. I wonder how the proprietors of Head Quarters feel about local news exposing them for selling potent legal drugs and giving away their location.
Dave Chappelle once did a skit in which he played a crack addict addressing a group of school children about the dangers of crack. During the course of his presentation, he inadvertently provided numerous details about where crack could be purchased, at which point the students all started taking notes.
This is just like that, except it’s not supposed to be funny.
What’s Up With People Putting Pot in Each Other’s Food?
Meanwhile, in New York, a judge has recommended the reinstatement of a police officer who failed a drug test for marijuana. It turns out the officer’s wife admitted serving him spiked meatballs in the hopes of ending his dangerous career in law-enforcement.
Leaving aside the question of whether the "I got drugged" excuse would work for anyone other than a cop, you gotta wonder what’s gonna happen to the wife. My guess is that she gets in considerably less trouble than the Burger King Three. In fact, my money says she doesn’t even get charged.
Either way, I hope we’ve all learned a valuable lesson about why you shouldn’t drug people against their will. It’s a waste of resources. Otherwise useful resources.