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What does Sen. John Cornyn and Willie Nelson have in common?
Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican in the U.S. Senate who, when he was a state attorney general, gave an award to the infamous police officer who started the Tulia scandal, one of the most notorious incidence of racial injustice in the United States. Willie Nelson is a country singer who is very supportive of drug law reform. So what do these two have in common? The answer is, they are both from Texas. But I didn't discover this fact, in fact, the authoritarian, Bushie senator bragged about it after all: What do classical pianist Van Cliburn, country great Willie Nelson and rock legend Janis Joplin have in common? Theyâre all from Texas.If Senator Cornyn really has any respect of Nelson or Joplin (remember she was a heroin user), he would have advocated for the end of the drug war, and not like what he is doing now. But as a Texan Republican, a Nixonian "law and order" conservative, it takes a bit courage to have any positive word to say about Janis Joplin. Is he a closet hippie? I don't think so, but possibly his ghost-writer is.
Supporting Medical Marijuana Is Smart Politics
This exchange between Bill Richardson and Stuart Cooper of Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana shows the political wisdom of supporting compassionate policies. Richardson discusses his efforts to protect patients in New Mexico, and describes the broader drug war as a failure, then appeals to Cooper for support:Richardson: By the way, I hope you can get me some votes. I haven't won too many votes with that one. You should see the letter I got from the Sheriff's Association, but sometimes you gotta do the right thing. It's the right thing.Cooper: Sir, 80% of New Hampshire voters agree with you.Richardson: Do they?Cooper: Yes sir.Richardson: Will you tell them?Already on the presidential campaign trail, Richardson was nonetheless surprised to learn that his support for medical marijuana would resonate with a huge majority of voters.That was July 16. By August 17, Richardson had sent a letter to President Bush demanding that ONDCP stop threatening his state's new medical marijuana program. He also ordered the NM Dept. of Health to move forward despite federal intimidation. All of this is displayed proudly on his presidential campaign site.The point here isnât that Richardson is trying to win the favor of voters. He already supported medical marijuana, but stepped up his efforts after learning that it was safe and, in fact, smart to do so. By taking this message to the other candidates, we might get more than just a promise to end the federal raids.
"Marijuana Signature Project" Not as Cool as it Sounds
Watch out folks, the Marijuana Signature Project is not a legalization initiative. It's something far more sinister.ONDCP's latest blog post, delightfully titled "Relying on Science to Craft Drug Policy," boasts of using our tax dollars to a finance a series of science experiments aimed at figuring out where marijuana is grown:The drug control policy office is betting on stable isotopes to identify unique markers in marijuana, distinguishing it not just by geography but also by its cultivation method â for example, indoor versus outdoor."Itâs an epidemiological and forensic public health investigation," said David Murray, chief scientist at the agency and director of its Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center. [NYTimes]It is just hilarious that ONDCP is spending government funds to find out information that pot growers would gladly share if it wouldn't get them arrested. Dr. Murray, I know people that could tell you for free if your marijuana was grown indoors or out.For an added touch of cuteness, here's the scientist behind the project feigning agnosticism about the marijuana debate:Dr. West said his involvement in the project was not tied to any particular policy judgment. "I strongly believe that part of the picture in any policy development has to be the best possible science, and in cases where my work can contribute to that, I think thatâs great," he wrote in an e-mail message.Dr. West, you gullible dork, the point isn't to determine what our marijuana policy should be. They're trying to identify cultivation hotspots and send heavily armed narc-soldiers in there to slash and burn everything. If you're not trying to advance any "particular policy judgment," get the hell away from David Murray and stop collecting research grants from ONDCP.Honestly, I'm hugely in favor of the feds wasting drug war dollars to discover that marijuana is grown basically anywhere you could think of. This ain't exactly drilling for oil. People grow pot wherever there arenât a lot of drug cops around and make adjustments as necessary. It shouldn't take a laboratory in Salt Lake City to tell you this.It is typical drug war hypocrisy that ONDCP sits around conducting forensic research, while they can't find so much as a gram to enable meaningful research into the drug's hotly contested medical applications.
Why Isn't the Drug War a Mainstream Political Issue?
Pete Guither has a typically observant post noting the lack of serious drug policy discussion among top-tier political bloggers:Obviously, to drug policy reformers, the war on drugs is one of the critical issues of our time -- it affects everything, from criminal justice and fundamental Constitutional rights to education to foreign policy to poverty and the inner cities, and on and on.So it can be baffling to note the degree to which serious discussions about the drug war tend to be missing from the major political blogs on the right and the left.Worse yet, the reluctance of established political blogs to enter the drug policy debate is dwarfed by the longstanding refusal of mainstream journalists and politicians to do so. Drug reporting in the mainstream press is an ongoing abomination, with exceptions so rare that they provoke widespread fascination when they occur.Why then is America's political culture so desperate to avoid discussing this issue? Pete argues correctly that both parties have been so consistently bad on drug policy that neither side has moral standing to condemn the other. He's talking about bloggers, but this idea has broad implications. So long as both parties remain essentially comfortable wasting billions in tax dollars on a failed drug control strategy, there is no incentive to exhaust political capital challenging the status quo.D.C. radio personality Kojo Nnamdi offered a complementary theory this morning on NPR, which I find equally helpful. Referencing the same excellent Washington Post story mentioned in Pete's post, Nnamdi suggested that politicians realize something is wrong, but are unsure what else to propose. There's a lot to this when you consider how ignorant most politicians are about the finer points of the war on drugs. As obvious as it is to many of us that progress can't occur until the drug war ends, this conversation is dark territory for a politician with aggressive enemies and a flimsy grip on the subject matter. Nor are they eager to familiarize themselves with an issue that lacks apparent traction and is perceived (often erroneously, but still) as politically suicidal.Reformers struggle to explain how we'll overcome these obstacles, and I'm skeptical of anyone who thinks they've figured it out. Our watershed moment will arrive, I believe, through events beyond our control. Recent discussion of the drug war's role in financing terror provides just one example of how new priorities can raise doubts about the old ones. The future will bring many unexpected changes, but it will never redeem drug prohibition and its infinitely corrupting, ruinous legacy. I don't know what it will take to finally put this horrible war on trial, but I'm certain we'll find out.
Pain News
Pain Relief Network's Siobhan Reynolds and son are slated to appear on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet --- tomorrow morning, I think, Tuesday -- a Fox network talk program that airs at 9:00am in the New York area and on various Fox stations around the country. Dr. William Mangino is out on bail and able to work on his own appeal as was hoped. Richard Paey's clemency petition has been granted expedited consideration by Gov. Crist and the Florida Board of Clemency. Visit Alex DeLuca/PRN's War on Doctors / Pain Crisis blog for info. (See our pain archive here. Subscribe to our pain feed via RSS here.
"the hologram ripples with the cry of a thrush"
Joe Bageant cuts to the heart of why drugs are illegal in his essay "The Simulacran Republic":****As my late friend Timothy Leary put it, "An enormous industry, similar to the national projects of pyramid-building in Egypt, cathedral-building in medieval Europe, and prison-camp building in Stalinist Russia has emerged in America -- the production of political martyrs, fallen heroes and concept outlaws. ... The essence of 'news' is, of course, the modern version of Roman coliseum shows and gladiator combats."
The Lost War: How the "War on Drugs" is defeating the "war on terror."
From Washington Post Article The Lost War: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081701716.html?referrer=emailarticle 8/19/07 Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base," he told me. Within two weeks of his deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that "poppy is the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government."
Marijuana Clears Skins Rashes Therefore It Must Be Legalized!
The story is from fox news, apparently pot clears up dermatitis. The headline is my own. Pardon the hyperbole, I wanted to make a larger point. I have always stated that pot should be legal because we are free, not because it is healthy. My libertarian views are not reliant on the latest medical pot news. I believe in freedom, it's that simple.
Department of Childrens and Family Services can take
The reasons for taking kids away from parents are usually drug related and and this is only done by taking a urine sample or admition will be enough and you could never get your kids back, even when you have not abused or neglected them.
New Mexico Medical Marijuana Update -- Richardson Says Full Steam Ahead Despite Attorney General's "Prank"
Late Thursday night we reported in the Chronicle that New Mexico's Dept. of Health had balked at supplying medical marijuana to patients following a warning from state Attorney General Gary King that he wouldn't defend state workers if the feds prosecuted them. Gov. Richardson, who is running for president in the Democratic primary, has ordered the Health Dept. to comply with the law, and has urged President Bush to stop the medical marijuana prosecutions. I'm not surprised by Richardson's stance, given how hard he fought to rescue the bill last spring when its demise had already been pronounced. Looking at the text of the law, I really have to say I think King is full of it. The law does not tell the Health Dept. to have its own employees grow or distribute marijuana; it tells the department to license people to grow it. Then those licensees will be taking their chances with the feds, for their own individual reasons. But that's not the same thing as state employees being subject to federal prosecution themselves. There have certainly been federal raids of medical marijuana providers in states that have licensed them, but not of the state agencies who have issued them licenses to protect them from state prosecution. Good for Bill Richardson, shame on Gary King, did he really think he could put that one over?
Anti-Drug Researchers Claim That All High Schools are Either "Drug Infested" or "Drug Free"
Anti-drug activists are so desperate to infect society with their fears and anxieties that they routinely make up statistics designed to terrify parents and policy-makers. Such is the case with Joseph Califano of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) who announced today that 80% of high schools are "drug-infested."Only a moment's inspection is required to discover that the people behind this research are insane. They begin by defining two types of schools:Drug Infested: Schools at which the students surveyed had witnessed some form of drug activityDrug Free: Schools at which the students surveyed had not witnessed drug activityIt is just so obvious that most schools are neither infested with, nor entirely free of drugs. Everything in this report is based on a false dichotomy that prevents any meaningful analysis. Califano argues that parents should remove their children from drug infested schools; a surprising declaration given that he puts 80% of schools in this category. Jacob Sullum offers a typically superb refutation of the finer points of the study, but I want to emphasize one additional important point: the reason groups like CASA can do crazy things like claim that all schools are either drug infested or drug free is because the media never holds them accountable. The entire premise of this study is ridiculous on its face, and there is no excuse for the failure of the press to readily observe that something is wrong with this report.Protecting children from drugs and other safety threats is an important discussion. Yet, this conversation goes nowhere when it is based on transparently nonsensical propaganda from hardcore anti-drug extremists. If Califano were correct that 4 out of 5 schools were really this dangerous, we'd already know about it.It is also strange that Joseph Califano, who thinks the drug problem is worse than ever, advocates the continuation of the exact policies that got us here. He's a psycho, but he's right about one thing: something's got to change.
New Afghanistan Strategy is Exactly the Same as the Old One That Didnât Work
When I heard the White House was creating a new strategy for countering opium cultivation in Afghanistan, I was curious. See, the U.S. government only has one counter-narcotics strategy, which is to slash and burn everything, arrest lots of people, and tell poor folks to stop being so greedy. How could they create a new strategy if they only have one idea?Apparently, the new strategy it to try the old one again, in case it works this time:At the roll-out, the architects of the administration's revised policy -- John Walters, U.S. director of national drug control policy, and Thomas A. Schweich, acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs -- argued that the main principles underpinning the five-pillar Afghan counternarcotics strategy, announced two years ago, remained essentially correct. [World Politics Review]It's not the strategy's fault the strategy didn't work. It's these stubborn farmers and drug lords that won't cooperate with the damn strategy:Preliminary assessments of the data the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime plans to release next month indicate that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by 15 percent during the past year, making the country responsible for approximately 95 percent of the world's total production. Although acknowledging their disappointment, U.S. officials argued this staggering figure actually presented an opportunity since any reductions in Afghan opium would make a major contribution to reducing global supplies.Yeah, the worse things get, the more progress we could theoretically make! Just look how much room there is for improvement! Now all we need is the right strategy. Hmm, let's convene all of the eradication experts to decide how much eradication we'll need. Probably a lot.Seriously, nothing could ever happen to make these people lose faith in drug eradication. It is their religion, and if you suggest to them that it doesnât work, they will just look at you like you're speaking Chinese. They claim to promote crop substitution, even though they also want to spray poisons everywhere that would destroy the fields. And they still donât get it that if any of this works, people will just grow opium somewhere else.Only by claiming repeatedly that their ideas are "new" can the drug war geniuses in Washington, D.C. inspire any curiosity about whether their plans will succeed. They are putting lipstick on a pig, and it is an indictment of our press that such announcements are met with anything other than a yawn.
Who's Planting All That Pot in the Woods?
Long before the Drug Czar raised eyebrows by calling pot growers "violent criminal terrorists," police in California were blaming Mexican drug cartels for increased outdoor marijuana cultivation throughout the Golden State: â¦these aren't flower-power farmers growing a few stalks hydroponically for personal toking. They're organized criminal gangs â some with deep roots in Mexico â and pot helps fund their violence. [Merced Sun-Star]There's no limit to how far they'll go to promote this idea:"Ninety-nine percent of the plants seized in the national forests," [Special Agent] Stokes said, "were planted by members of the Mexican National Cartel which has a huge network throughout California and the west. "We've actually tracked the dollars back to Mexico," Stokes concluded. [Mountain News]Something doesnât add up here. For starters, the Mexican National Cartel doesn't seem to exist. And I donât know how you'd track dollars from a marijuana crop that was eradicated and never sold.And then there's this from the Merced Sun-Star:â¦it's extremely rare and difficult for law enforcement to bust the drug lords responsible for funding the large growing operations. Often, even the growers themselves do not know who is funding an illegal cultivation.So really, no one has any idea who's behind this. Arrests for outdoor cultivation are extremely rare, and yet local papers throughout California eagerly and repeatedly quote law-enforcement officials who blame the problem on Mexicans.Appeals to racial prejudice and hysteria have always been a primary propaganda tool in the drug war. Exaggerating the involvement of violent drug cartels glamorizes the process of looking for pot in the woods and casts marijuana users as funders of violence. Such claims also facilitate the Drug Czar's desperate attempt to link marijuana prohibition to the more-popular war on terror.Whether they're Mexican gangsters or white college kids, the people planting pot in the woods are a product of marijuana prohibition. They'll never stop growing pot in the woods because it's valuable and they never get in trouble for it. The only way to stop people from planting drugs in the forest is to let them do it somewhere else.
Police Often Lack Basic Knowledge About Marijuana
Every year at this time, police around the country start excitedly notifying local papers that they're getting better and better at finding pot in the woods. It's a tiresome ritual, but reporters just love it, and it would never occur to them that the police sometimes donât have a clue what they're talking about:[Merced Multi-Agency Narcotics Task Force Commander] Compston said more growers are cloning female plants, which produce the valuable buds with higher THC levels, in order to yield a product that will be more profitable on the street. "They are basically making hybrid plants," Compston said. [Merced Sun-Star]Maybe I'm being picky, but I think it's rather telling that a regional task force commander fundamentally misunderstands how marijuana works. All commercial marijuana is female. Male plants aren't just less profitable, they're worthless and not available for sale. So to suggest that cloning females is some sort of new trade secret is just ridiculous.Even more amusing is the claim that these plants are hybrids. Clones, by definition, are not hybrids. They are clones, which means they're genetically identical to the mother plant. If the plants are all female, as Compston says, there can be no cross-pollination and therefore no hybrids. It sure is fun to call them "hybrids" though. How scary that sounds.Of course, the most popular marijuana myth continues to be the pound-per-plant estimate:Most marijuana plants are valued at $1,000 to $3,000 per plant, based on the measurement that an average plant will yield one pound of finished product per season, according to Merced County Sheriff's Detective Scott Dover. With the newer varieties' higher THC content, however, Dover said it's not uncommon to find a single plant priced up to $5,000.Dover's right about one thing: it's not uncommon to find police estimating the value of marijuana plants at $5,000. But a marijuana plant capable of actually yielding a pound is hardly the norm. An average plant yields ¼ pound, far less than the standard one pound estimate by which police determine the supposed street value of every crop they eradicate.The point here isnât just that police are often ignorant about marijuana. That has been obvious for a long time. What's notable is that reporters continue to regurgitate factually incorrect statements from law-enforcement with no effort to verify the accuracy of their claims. This behavior is critical to maintaining support for marijuana prohibition, not only by reinforcing myths about the drug, but also by falsely portraying the effectiveness of efforts to eradicate it.
The purpose of Government
What is the purpose of government? The Declaration of Independence states it as this; "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed."
Plan Mexico: The Right Name for the Wrong Idea
Architects of a new plan to subsidize Mexico's brutal drug war with U.S. tax dollars are trying to avoid the name Plan Mexico. Obviously they don't want to invite the comparison to our disastrous Plan Colombia, even though a few desperate drug warriors are still calling it a success. The refusal to name anything after it might be the closest they'll come to admitting that Plan Colombia is widely â and justly â viewed as an utter failure.As Pete Guither notes, journalists and bloggers alike have already named the program Plan Mexico. So while the details remain to be announced, the stigma of our previous and continuing failures in this area will inevitably haunt any effort to expand our destructive drug war diplomacy. Although Plan Mexico will surely prioritize scorched-earth drug war demolition tactics, The New Republic notes the bizarre possibility that some funding will be directed towards drug prevention:One element of that aid package is likely to be funding for drug-use prevention, according to Luis Astorga, a drug policy expert at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City. This is a strange new twist in the complex partnership between the U.S. and Mexico to fight drugs. And the U.S. isn't in much of a position to tell anyone how to prevent drug use.Damn straight. Gosh, if we knew anything about drug prevention, these bloody wars over who gets to sell drugs to us wouldnât be such a mind-bending crisis in the first place. The irony is just staggering: When the U.S. cracked down on domestic meth production early this decade, Mexican cartels adept in trafficking cocaine and marijuana jumped at the chance to supply a new product.â¦The drug has traveled south, and is now available in every major city."Mexico's market is not big, but it has grown, mostly in urban zones," said Jorge Chabat, a crime and security expert at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City. "Availability has certainly contributed to consumption now that meth is produced in Mexico."Let me get this straight. The U.S. banned pseudo-ephedrine-based cold medicines, and domestic meth production declined. Mexican cartels stepped in to fill the void, resulting in increased availability and use of meth in Mexico. Now the U.S. is poised to give drug prevention funding to Mexico due in part to a meth problem that didnât even exist before we essentially exported our meth manufacturing problem to that country. Wow. Just wow.At the end of the day, it is and always has been the massive drug consumption of U.S. citizens that fuels violence and instability throughout Mexico, Colombia, and beyond. We could spend every dollar we have bribing foreigners to stop selling us drugs and it wouldnât make a difference. We could hire every man woman and child in these countries to help stop us from getting high, and they would just laugh all the way to the bank.Too many American drug users are already sending their paychecks to Mexico. It is sheer idiocy to suggest that we send our tax-dollars there as well.
Calling All Facebook Membersâ¦
Students for Sensible Drug Policy needs your help. Facebook has a cool contest where non-profits can win a $1,000 grant just by collecting votes. All you have to do is vote for them before tomorrow. If SSDP gets the most votes, they win $1,000 to help provide materials for their chapters this Fall.Click "read full post" to see the instructions. It's really easy.
Drug czar's doc wouldn't answer my question
http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/help/ask-the-doc.aspx I asked the above website, the drug czar's kids campaign, on the "ask the doc" section, that whether should non-violent drug users to receive tr
"Essential Civilian Demand" -- Cannabis Prohibition Could Be Over Tomorrow
This blog introduces what I feel to be the most direct and efficient way of ending Cannabis prohibition, in time to plant commercially in every state next Spring 2008. By recognizing the true value of Cannabis, and invoking our federally protected Article One "First Freedom" of religion, people who appreciate the spiritual dimensions of Cannabis operating in their lives can claim the right to grow it without being exposed to prosecution.
drug war killings
One of the articles we published in the Chronicle this morning is a newsbrief about investigations starting in Thailand about the 2,500 extra-judicial drug war killings. User "eco" has posted a couple of pictures in the comment section at the bottom of the page, with a link to a web site that has more. If you have the heart for it, you can see them here.