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Bobby Scott and Panel on Higher Education Act drug provision
Visit http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/hellc030807.shtml and fast forward to 1:15:25 in the video to hear discussion of the HEA drug provision (also known as the "Aid Elimination Penalty"). According to SSDP's Tom Angell, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) raised the issue with panelists testifying before the committee, and got a strong response to the effect of how we are shooting ourselves in the foot by taking college aid away from these people.
Bitter, who's bitter? On the New Mexico medical marijuana vote.
The New Mexico House killed the medical marijuana bill there today on a vote of 36-33. The debate was filled with the usual bigotry, hypocrisy, and ignorance parading as expertise. I'm particularly irritated with Rep. John Heaton (D-Carlsbad), who, because he works as a pharmacist, apparently thinks he is an expert on medical marijuana. Here's what he had to say as reported in the Santa Fe New Mexican: Opponents disputed that marijuana was an effective medicine. "Medically it just really has no value. For us to approve a drug like this tells our children and tells the rest of the people in this state that we, somehow as leaders, give tacit approval to the use of this drug," said Rep. John Heaton, D-Carlsbad and a pharmacist. "That is absolutely wrong for us to do." He described marijuana as "the No. 1 gateway drug to abusing other drugs in our society." Heaton, who makes a living pushing pills, tells us authoritatively that marijuana has no medical value. Does he cite the scientific literature? No. Has he ever read the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics? Not as far as we can tell. What is the basis for his claim of no medicinal value? There is none, except for his appeal to authority as a pharmacist, and therefore, someone who presumably knows about such things. Heaton also argues that approving the medicinal use of marijuana "tells the childrenâ¦that we, somehow as leaders, give tacit approval to the use of this drug." Oh, really? Does that mean when he is dispensing prescription opiates like Oxycontin he is giving "tacit approval" of their recreational use? Or does he mean that his opposition to medical marijuana is so ideologically driven that he would rather forego its healing and ameloriating effects than risk having young people know it can be used medicinally? If it's the former case, Heaton is a hypocrite of the highest order. If it's the later, he is a demagogue pretending to be an expert. Take your pick. The New Mexican also noted another argument often trotted out in opposition to state medical marijuana laws: Opponents of the bill said marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and patients in New Mexico could be subject to potential federal prosecution. I really donât understand why this argument should sway anyone. My response is, "Okay, let the DEA come in and start arresting patients, then." My second response is to wonder incredulously at the concern displayed by people who make this argument. Let me get this straight: They are so concerned that patients could be arrested under federal law that they would rather have them be arrested under state law? Gee, thanks for all that concern. If I sound just a bit grumpy, it's because I am. I spend my working life trying to end this stupid drug war. Every week, I write stories like the following about a Brazilian governor who wants to legalize drugs to fight crime, a high-level British panel calling for a complete rewriting of the drug laws, or a Scottish politician calling for the decriminalization of drugs. There are also similar stories from the US (although not this week)âa politician or an academic or an ex-cop calling for the end of the drug war. Yet although our anti-prohibitionist position is well justified both pragmatically (in terms of policy results) and philosophically (in terms of morality and ethics), not only do we seem not to be progressing toward our goal of a sensible and compassionate policy surrounding the use of drugs, we can't even get a goddamned measly little medical marijuana bill passed in a state where the public says it wants it, the governor says he wants it, and the state Senate voted for it. Sometimes I just want to chuck it all and move to my own sovereign island republic. But since there donât seem to be too many of those available right now, I guess I'll keep slogging away. Today, however, I remind myself of Woody Harrelson's Woody the Bartender character in the 1980s sit-com "Cheers." At one point, when Woody is feeling betrayed by his rich girlfriend, Kelly, Sam accuses him of being bitter. "I'm not bitter, Sam," Woody replies. "I'm just consumed by a gnawing hate that's eating away at my gut until I can taste the bile in my mouth."
Cory Maye Catastrophe Copied in Canada
Basile Parasiris is the latest seemingly innocent person to fire on police who he mistook for burglars during a drug raid on his home. He's now charged with 1st degree murder among other things, for the apparent act of attempting to defend his family. From The Montreal Gazette:Lawyer Frank Pappas said his client was trying to defend himself and his family when he grabbed a loaded gun and shot Laval Constable Daniel Tessier - whom Parasiris mistook for a crazed thief."If he would've believed it was the police, do you think he would have taken them on?" Pappas said in an interview. "They have more firepower than him."â¦According to Pappas, police didn't find anything in the Parasiris home."There was no body, no drugs, no large quantities of firearms," he said. "They may have found one or two pills of Viagra that he didn't have a prescription for.â¦According to Pappas, the son called 911 after the police barged into the family home and bullets started flying."Do you think that if they knew they were police officers, they'd call 911?" Pappas said.Much remains unknown at this point. But the apparent absence of drugs and the 911 call sound like strong indications that we're looking at another terribly misguided prosecution. Unfortunately, as we've learned from the Cory Maye case, there seems to be a mental block that prevents police, prosecutors, and judges from understanding that normal people are prone to shoot at intruders who burst into their homes. The otherwise forgivable instinct to defend one's property becomes totally unacceptable when the intruders turn out to be police who mistakenly believe you've got drugs in there. It's mind-boggling that despite all the evidence to the contrary, police continue to insist that they must raid homes suddenly and unexpectedlyâ¦because doing otherwise would be dangerous.How many innocent people must be tricked into shooting police officers before law-enforcement figures out that behaving like burglars is not a safe way to initiate contact with citizens? As Radley Balko has often pointed out, these deaths occur in the course of a completely unsuccessful effort to stop people from getting high. As the frequency of these raids-gone-wrong increases, it's chilling to think that this ongoing theater of unnecessary death and destruction won't stop until the pile of bodies is too tall to ignore.
University of Maryland Students Get Support from State Rep for Campus Drug Reform Effort (plus some DRCNet strategy thoughts)
Our friends at the University of Maryland's (UMD) SSDP chapter have been working on a campus drug policy reform measure, seeking to have marijuana's classification in the school's disciplinary code downgraded to a less serious level than its current status. A campus-wide referendum was passed, and now a resolution by the RHA Student Senate. Maryland Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez, the same Delegate with whom we are working on trying to fix the state financial aid/drug conviction problem, has provided a letter of support for the measure, sent to the school's Director of Residence Life. Click here to read it in PDF form. This seems like a good time to talk a little bit about a part of DRCNet's "big-picture" strategy and strategic thinking. Last year we published a report, under the auspices of the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform, on the issue of state financial aid bureaucracies denying college assistance to students who have lost their eligibility for financial aid because of drug convictions -- not because the states have their own laws saying to do so (extremely few states do), but only because the federal government is denying them aid, and the states have chosen to make use of the federal financial aid processing system (FAFSA), to be able to do less work themselves or out of habit or mistaken assumptions about their obligations or for other reasons. It is this report that led to the Maryland financial aid bill that has been discussed in other posts here. For a lot of our members, restoring college aid to students with drug convictions is an issue that is good but in the grand scheme of things small -- we're StoptheDrugwar.org, our goal is to end the war on drugs, the financial aid work is worthy but what about sentencing, police raids, forfeiture, ending prohibition itself? The smaller chunk of college aid provided by the states, or for that matter by any one state, is a smaller issue than that, and with fewer people being affected now that the federal law affects fewer people, the numbers make it even smaller. Still a good thing if we can do it, but end the whole drug war and these smaller problems will be fixed in the process too. All true. That said, however, politics is a process, and the steps we take today can enable further steps later. For example, if we had not issued that report, the issue would never have come to Del. Gutierrez's attention, and we would never have met her. If we had not supported her efforts in the state house last year and again this year, Stacia Cosner at UMD and Kris Krane at SSDP National would never have met or gotten to work with her either. And with that relationship never having been established, Gutierrez's letter to the official at UMD would never have been written, one less piece of support provided for an effort to make marijuana policy at a major state school less harsh. Will the letter make the difference? That sort of question is usually impossible to definitely answer, but possibly. What new reforms may be made possible if this one happens, and what effect might a victory for the chapter have on its ability to mobilize students to support our issue? There is probably no issue out there for which it is easier to build bridges like that than the financial aid/drug convictions issue; it's almost embarrassing how easy it is to bring allies in with that issue. It's also time to branch out, to be sure. Over the next two years or so it is our goal to do coalition-building -- with organizations, legislators and other supportive individuals -- on a range of drug war issues. The welfare and public housing drug provisions are one logical next step (see our Chronicle review of the topic here), because many of the 300+ organizations we are in contact with who have support the financial aid efforts will also be willing to help us with those. But it won't stop there. Eventually we will have a network of thousands of organizations around the country, all of them helping to chip away at the drug war in whichever aspects of it they are individually willing and able. This model has already succeeded in getting one federal law (financial aid) scaled back significantly, and that happened when Congress was still controlled by the Republicans! What will having thousands of them accomplish? If you like this vision -- and if you like the fact that we do so much to promote and support the work of our allies in the cause like SSDP -- for that matter if you like our newsletter and this blog -- I hope you'll support those efforts with a generous donation, which can be done online here. - Dave
Drug War: The Ride
While Karen Tandy touts triumphs against traffickers, taxi drivers are treating drug-trade terrorism like a tourist attraction. From Reuters: Streetwise cabbies in northern Mexico are cashing in on the chaos of a violent drug war by whisking wide-eyed visitors about town in macabre tours of seized narco properties and famous murder scenes, Mexico City's Reforma newspaper reported on Sunday.Taxi drivers in the Pacific coast city of Mazatlan satisfy tourists' ghoulish fascination with a battle between cartels that killed 2,000 people last year, for about 200 pesos ($18) a trip, the newspaper said.This is great. But we must extend these tours to more fully represent the worldwide horrors of the drug war. From the overflowing prisons in Texas to the barren fumigated hillsides of Colombia, the drug war touches everything and infects everything it touches with hopelessness and decay. Spring for the deluxe package and you can see a drug addict get executed in Thailand.
Obligatory Comment on the Toddlers-Smoking-Pot Video
I'd just as soon not touch this with a 10-foot pole, but I fear that ignoring it could make us look scared. We're not.The highly publicized video of toddlers being forced to smoke marijuana is disgusting. It's child abuse, and when confronted by such provocative images it's important for reformers to remember that we're the only people with a plan for protecting children from drugs. After all, the drug war certainly didnât protect these children. There's nothing the drug war can do to prevent outrages like this, but there are a few ways in which it makes them more likely to occur. The drug war eliminates age requirements for drug purchases by creating a black market. The drug war has incentivized drug dealers to actually employ children, and it creates new job opportunities with each arrest.More importantly perhaps, the drug war has broken up families at alarming rates, creating vast opportunities for events like this to occur. Perhaps widespread media coverage of this story will reveal more about the circumstances surrounding it. We've heard from a grandparent, but we donât yet know anything about the parents. Whether incarceration plays a role here remains to be seen, but the odds of that are unfortunately quite good.Still, for all its failings, the drug war provides no excuse for the conduct of the teenagers depicted in this video. They're criminals and they're exactly the sort of people we want police going after. Now if we could somehow manage to stop arresting so many people who don't deserve it, perhaps we could better attend to creeps like these.
ONDCP Gloats Over Ken Gorman's Death
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 AbuseToday'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.
Social Contract
Underlying free societies in western Europe and North America is the "Social Contract". This concept is defined by various constitutions and bills of rights and describes the relationship between the government and the citizens. The Social Contract can be summed up in one statement: Citizens will live their lives as they wish, unfettered or restricted by government, as long as their activities do not have a negative impact on other peoples' rights to live as they wish, and government will enact no laws which unreasonably restrict the activities of the citizenry. This is the philosophy which is generally called conservative. This provides us with a litmus test of all activities, whether by the government or the citizens.
Two Bolivia Reports from Phil
Phil is en route back home. Read two major Bolivia reports he wrote in the latest issue of the Chronicle here. More will be posted over the coming weeks.
CNN Terrorism Analyst Peter Bergen on Afghan Opium Conundrum
Last week I promised to post comments by Peter Bergen (CNN terrorism analyst) responding to a question I asked of him last week about the Afghan opium conundrum.
The drug war is everywhere, even in my mailbox...
Today our new federal and DC labor law posters showed up in the mail -- there are a lot of different posting requirements, and it's easier to just order a set, as opposed to figuring everything you need and taping it all together on the wall -- plus we have three organizations in the office and we can split the bill. None of that is very interesting for a drug policy blog, in and of itself. But stuffed inside the poster tube was a flyer advertising some additional posters they have for sale, including a "THIS IS A DRUG FREE WORKPLACE" poster. The poster, if we displayed it, would proclaim DRCNet to be a "DRUG FREE WORK ZONE" and explain that "Tests for use of illegal drugs and/or alcohol may be required prior to hiring and periodically during your employment." The blurb accompanying the poster graphic reads as follows: DRUG FREE WORKPLACE All employers should provide a Drug-Free Workplace program including a written policy statement. If an employee receives a positive confirmed drug test for illegal use of drugs or alcohol, or refuses to submit to drug or alcohol test, then the burden of proof is shifted to the employee. Substance abusing workers are: Five times more likely to file a worker's compensation claim; 3.6 times more likely to be involved in on-the-job accidents; and Late for work three times as often. Absenteeism: Substance abusers are 2.5 times more likely to be absent 8 or more days a year. Lost Productivity: Substance abusers are one-third less productive. This "data," if you can call it that, is problematic in a number of ways. First, there is no differentiation of use from abuse, no explanation of what exactly is meant by abuse, no clarity as to whether the numbers refer only to illegal drugs or if they also include alcohol. If they do include alcohol, is there some distinction between casual use and heavier use that can affect work performance? Presumably the alcohol tests they mention would not have the same kinds of standards as illegal drug tests, since there is no legal or prevailing cultural standard calling for teetotalism (abstention from alcohol use). It is really hard to say exactly what they are saying. What we do know, however, is that drug testing isn't worth the money or the collateral costs. According to the 1994 National Academy of Sciences report "Under the Influence: Drugs and the American Work Force" (as summarized by the ACLU): Research results indicate that drug use does not pose significant productivity or safety problems in the work force. In 1994, the National Academy of Sciences published results from a three year research effort compiling research resulting from all major studies of drug testing program effectiveness. The report concluded, "the data... do not provide clear evidence of the deleterious effects of drugs other than alcohol on safety and other job performance indicators." Though frequently inaccurate and ineffective, drug testing is extremely expensive. Texas Intruments reports that their drug testing program costs $100 per employee. Drug testing products and services are a multi-billion dollar industry. But the incidence of drug use in the workforce is very low. The federal government reported in 1990 that only 0.5% of tested employees tested positive. The same year, the government spent $11.7 million on its drug testing program. That works out to $77,000 per identified drug user. The NAS looked for and was unable to find evidence of drug testing programs' deterrent effects. Studies which appear to show a decrease in positive test rates since the implementation of drug testing programs usually don't adjust for the expansion of such programs' testing groups to include not only for-cause drug tests but also suspicionless drug tests. That is, as drug-testing programs have expanded, they have tested more and more people who aren't suspected of drug use, improving their numbers and subjecting thousands of non-users to invasive testing procedures. Needless to say, at DRCNet we consider our staff's personal choices about substances to be their personal choices, and we have no intention of instituting such a program -- our people know that if they show up to work sober, get their work done and don't create risk for the organization by carrying contraband into the office, they'll be okay. Isn't that the way it should be, anywhere? This company is called The Labor Law Poster Service, located in Lansing, Michigan. I don't think we'll be ordering from them again. If there are any employers out there reading this who can point us to another such outfit, one that has the labor law posters we need but does not attempt to profit from the drug testing scam, please drop me a line before next year. Otherwise, we may just have to find all the different forms we need separately and cobble them together here ourselves. The drug war is everywhere...
Treating Drug Addiction With Addictive Drugs
Jacob Sullum at Reason is incredulous over a new Vancouver program that administers maintenance doses to stimulant addicts:The government drives [stimulants] into the black market and then allows the select few who are sufficiently f#@ked up to get oral stimulants at taxpayers' expense. Meanwhile, doctors commonly prescribe stimulants to people who have trouble focusing and paying attention, a condition that used to be self-treated but nowadays is recognized as a disease requiring professional diagnosis. If you take these drugs without that diagnosis, you also have a diseaseâdrug dependenceâthat one day, if we're lucky, may be treated by giving you the drugs.The whole thing is mind-numbingly absurd. Try as we might to rein them in, drug policies continue to boldly defy the boundaries of logic at every turn. Still, Sullum's assessment of government sponsored maintenance programs gives me pause.This strikes me as exactly the wrong way to achieve drug policy reform, guaranteed to alienate people who might be willing to let others use drugs but don't want to pick up the tab for it. The message should be freedom coupled with responsibility, not government-subsidized drug addiction.I'm not saying he's wrong, but I sure hope he is. Though ideal, the freedom/responsibility model isn't exactly resonating either. To whatever extent such programs are bad because they piss off taxpayers, one hopes they'll earn their keep by mitigating the destructive conditions that necessitate counterintuitive ideas like stimulant maintenance in the first place. Demonstrating that such programs actually save money while reducing harm should eventually placate reasonable skeptics. As long as legalization is out of the picture, taxpayers must choose between subsidizing the addictions of sometimes unsympathetic characters, or subsidizing by default the black market profiteers who would otherwise provide for them. Anyone who canât come to terms with this will love Joe Biden's hilariously unworkable plan to eradicate drugs from the earth with biological weapons.
many pictures from the Chapare...
US-funded FELCN (Special Force for the Struggle Against Narcotics) checkpoint between Cochabamba and Chapare, search being conducted for cocaine and precursors Site of major landslide produced by massive rainstorms. Buses and trucks by the dozens were backed up here. We had to leave the jeep on the near side, walk across the landslide, hire motorcyclists to carry us about a mile to where taxis were waiting, then hire a taxi for the afternoon in the Chapare. Click the "read full post" link or here for 20 more pictures chronicling Phil's visit to the Chapare coca-growing region.
Vermont Mayor Says Execute Drug Dealers, Legalize Marijuana
The increasingly obvious failure of the drug war is spawning some odd discussions this year. There's Joe Biden and Dan Burton calling for biological warfare in South America. There's a crazy former DEA agent promising a one-year turnaround if we bust all the "druggies" and force them to stop partying. Lou Dobbs is really frustrated too, and someone should talk to him before he starts racially profiling people and asking for consent to search.But the prize might go to Barre, VT Mayor Thomas Lauzon who wants to try some of everything. From The Times Argus:BARRE â Mayor Thomas Lauzon on Saturday said he hoped the Legislature would consider imposing the death penalty on convicted crack and heroin dealers, and to legalize marijuana.Failing that, the mayor said, he would call for a public forum in Barre to kick off a statewide discussion about the growing drug problem in Vermont and steps â including the death penalty and legalization â to control the situation.Sounds like an episode of South Park. If the citizens of Vermont indulge him, this could be a highly entertaining public forum. For my money, Vermont is much more likely to legalize marijuana than execute anyone (they havenât imposed the death penalty in 50 years).Expect to hear plenty more crazy talk of executing drug dealers and such this year. And don't be surprised to see more politicians calling for marijuana policy reform. The failure of the drug war is all around us and people are talking about it, for better or worse.The drug war isnât going to start working one day. Inevitably, the road to reform will be paved with crazy idiots. If they want to legalize marijuana and execute crack dealers, we'll help with the former and talk them out of killing people later.
Back from the Chapare
I'm now back from the coca producing region of the Chapare. Yesterday was a real grind: Get up very early, fly from La Paz to Cochabamba, take a taxi to the Andean Information Network office where I met up with AIN's Kathryn Ledebur and her husband, former Chapare human rights ombudsman ("defensor del pueblo) Gotofredo Reinecke, hopped in his jeep with him, stopped for gas and coca leaves (it's a tiring journey), then drove about two hours over an 11,000-foot mountain pass and down into the jungly Chapare. The coca leaf warehouse outside Shinahota. Here, local farmers bring their crops to be carefully weighed and sent on to legal markets within Bolivia. The entire process is controlled by the local growers' union. But first, we had to traverse a major landslide on the highway caused by incessant rains. (We were extremely fortunate to have a mostly sunny day, a rarity this rainy season). At the landslide, buses and cargo trucks were backed up by the dozens, as they had been for days. The smell of rotting fruit in the trucks was pervasive. Bus passengers had to gather their bags and make a mile-long trek over a muddy path to get to buses waiting on the other side, but we left the jeep on the near side and walked right down the roadway itselfâa shortcutâafter Godofredo explained to the soldiers that I was a photojournalist shooting the "derrumbe." My sandals, socks, and jeans were covered with mud (which made quite an impression at the Cochabamba airport this morning). Once across the washed out area, it was onto the backs of small motorcycles for hire for another half-mile to where the buses and taxis were waiting for travelers trying to continue their journey, and then we hired a taxi for the tour of the Chapare. In the miserably hot and humid lowlands, we stopped for lunch, where Godofredo spotted veteran newspaper vendor and scene-observer Don Jaime Balderrama, with whom we had an interesting chat. Then it was on to the local military base for a talk with the comandante, which proved absolutely fruitless. He refused to say a word of substance, saying it all had to be cleared with the military high command. Sadly, this seems to be the attitude throughout the Morales government when it comes to coca matters, and as a result, I am not making much progress in getting interviews with government officials (although I still have some feelers out and some hopes, fading as they may be). The army fort, bought and paid for by US tax dollars was nicely constructed, and the colonel's office featured the only air conditioning I ran across on the whole trip. Sweet for him. Sweet for us, too. I didnât want to leave, even though we were getting nothing from him. former cocalero leader Vitalia Merida with her daughter, in their coca field Then it was on to visit Vitalia Merida, a former coca grower union leader (and current member), who has a coca field way out in the middle of nowhere. After her family suffered during the repression of the forced eradication years, she now reports that there is peace, if not prosperity. I'll be writing about what she had to say in a feature article this week. I have to say that is was an absolutely brutal hike in the mid-day sun to her coca patch. When I complained, Vitalia said, "You see how we suffer," although she sweated not a drop. Next was Shinahota, a small town that was the center of the Chapare cocaine economy during the Wild West days of the "cocaine coup" back in the early 1980s. Main street there features a bunch of two-story buildings erected at that time. Downstairs you bought cocaine, guns, and luxury items; upstairs you rented prostitutes. It's much quieter these days, and much less profitable. Just outside Shinahota, we stopped at a coca leaf warehouse operated by the local growers' union and had a nice chat with some Six Federation leaders who, sadly, were camera shy, and just a little bit suspicious of this wild-looking gringo. (I was indeed wild-looking by then: mud-splattered, sweat-drenched, my hair blown into knots as I hung my head out the window of the taxi seeking relief). We had an interesting conversation, though, and I will report on that in the Chronicle, too. Between Shinahota and Villa Tunari, we stopped briefly at a new coca leaf processing plant, which is being financed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He has promised to import coca products to Venezuela, which would violate the UN Single Convention, but as AIN's Kathy Ledebur noted, "Who's going to stop him?" No one there but construction workers, though. Shortly past the new coca plant, in Villa Tunari, is a municipal hospital staffed primarily by dozens of Cuban doctors and nurses. I couldnât help but compare and contrast: The US builds forts and supplies the military, Venezuela helps Bolivia industrialize coca, and the Cubans heal the sick. So it goes. That's my report for today. I now have in essence a day and half left in Bolivia. I'm attempting to line up some last interviews, but I'm a little depressed by my lack of success with government functionaries, and just bad luck with some other people I hoped to talk to. But I still have 36 hours... More pictures will be posted here later today.
"Billion Dollar Bong" Becomes Buzzkill For Pfizer
Leave it to a major pharmaceutical company to completely forget about the drug war. From Brandweek Magazine:NEW YORK -- Last year, Pfizer paid Sanofi-Aventis $1.4 billion for Exubera, a new inhaled insulin product for diabetics that Pfizer forecast would produce $2 billion in sales every year.What Pfizer got for its cash was a device that looks a lot like a marijuana bongâand a brand that analysts, doctors, drug sales reps and some patients believe is a struggle to sell because it is so inconvenient to use.Yeah I can see it now: a diabetes sufferer, visibly disoriented from low blood sugar, fumbles with an awkward tubular device in a parking lot before huffing its fumes and breathing a sigh of relief. It's actually not that inconvenientâ¦unless you get detained and searched by police in the middle of a medical emergency.[Diabetes blogger Amy Tenderich] noticed a Pfizer instructional video on the Exubera Web site. It shows a man huffing on his Exubera tube at a restaurant table. The man âmust live in a city as tolerant or as jaded as San Francisco or New York because not one patron even glanced over as he cocked and sucked on his medicinal bong,â she wrote. Exubera âreally is as bad as it looks in the pictures.âOn the other hand, Pfizer could contact law-enforcement agencies across the country and convince them not to take action when they see people sucking on small bong-like devices. Surely that would solve the problem.In fact, that would solve all sorts of problems.
Phil is on the way to the Chapare...
Phil wrote me this morning that he was heading out to the Bolivian city of Cochabamba and the Chapare region of which it is part. The Chapare is one of the major coca-growing regions in the country. It is unclear whether he will be able to post to the blog today -- Phil will be out in the fields -- or if that will have to wait until he returns to La Paz. The Andean Information Network is an organization that monitors and reports on developments in Bolivia in general and the Chapare in particular, and they are helping Phil with this leg of his trip. I have met current and past AIN staff during their not-infrequent visits to Washington. The AIN web site is a great resource for people wanting to learn more about the relevant issues as well as keep up with the latest developments. Among other things, I just noticed that they have published a curriculum to help schoolteachers deal with US and Andean drug control issues in their courses. Of course the site discusses the state of the coca issue in the administration of Bolivian cocalero leader turned president Evo Morales.
This way to the Coca Museum...
pictures from La Paz, Bolivia: Calle Linares pedestrian mall, with Coca Museum sign (Click the "read full post" link or the title link for more pictures if you don't already seen them.)
Much to Blog About...
I have been a little under the weather the last few days, and so have not gotten the blogging online that I've intended to. I will be posting stuff later in the weekend or early next week, but in the meanwhile here are some "teasers": 1) I testified in Annapolis Tuesday, in support of HB 283, a bill by Maryland State Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez, before the House Ways and Means Committee, that would require the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) to provide college aid to any would-be students who qualify for it under the state's own standards -- e.g., if they've lost federal aid because of a drug conviction, a law to which the state does not have an analogue -- MHEC has to process their applications for state aid anyway, even if it means a little extra work to do so. (Currently MHEC simply using the federal FAFSA system, and so students with drug convictions
In Bolivia and Ready to Head for the Chapare
After an arduous two-day trek by bus from Cusco, Peru, across the Altiplano and over Lake Titicaca by ferry, I'm now sitting in La Paz, Bolivia, which is truly a spectacular city. It's located in a valley at 13,000 feet, and looming above is the majestic peak of Mount Illimani. The city is more than a million people, and the houses crawl up the slopes of the valley. The streets in the city center are teeming with people, many of them in full-blown indigenous attire. You know, the stuff of National Geographic specials. I'll be posting some pics from here after I wander around a bit. view of Lake Titicaca, Peru Today, I'll be going to the Coca Museum to talk to Jorge Hurtado, its curator and a leading defender of the coca leaf. Should be interesting. While I'm in the neighborhood, I'll also visit the witch's market, where you can buy all kinds of strange things, includingâI kid you notâdried llama fetuses, which people put in their houses to ward off evil spirits. Guys, how about one of those for the office? [Editor's note: NO - DB] I've been working the phone and email all day today trying to arrange interviews and visits with cocaleros, Bolivian officials, activists, analysts, and the US Embassy. It is a frustrating process; Bolivian government officials seem to rarely be in their offices, and the US Embassy, as usual, is not being especially helpful. Since I'm not an "official" journalist, merely a member of the "new media," the press office doesn't really want to talk to me, but I continue to hope I can wrangle at least an off-the-record sit down with the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS). I have firmed up a visit to the Chapare, the main non-traditional coca growing region, where Evo Morales has managed to bring peace through his cooperative eradication program, which allows each family to grow small plots of coca without regard to the official limit of 30,000 acres, all of which is assigned to the Yungas, the traditional coca growing region. I will fly into Cochabamba Monday morning (a half-hour flight versus an all-day bus ride), and meet with the good people of the Andean Information Network before heading out with them by jeep and then motorcycle to the coca zones. I will fly back to La Paz Tuesday morning. Tuesday and Wednesday, I hope to spend one day going down into Las Yungas (down "the world's most dangerous highway," although I suspect it can't be much worse than that road I took from Ayacucho to the VRAE) and the other day in meetings. I have to start heading back to Gringolandia on Thursday, arriving in Houston at 6am, and back home in snowy South Dakota by mid-afternoon. Coca is prevalent in La Paz. In addition to numerous street vendors sitting with their bags full of leaves, mate de coca is offered almost everywhere. A couple of nights ago, I went to a downtown bar and had a Mojito Boliviano, a mojito made with coca leaves instead of spearmint. Que rico! Traveler's Tip #1: Don't drink much alcohol at high altitudes. One mojito will do. Traveler's Tip #2: Get small bills. Making change is a real problem. A 100 Boliviano bill (worth about $15 US) is difficult to change in the city and almost impossible to change anywhere outside the city. Wow, talk about under-capitalized. This is a real problem, since ATMs and money exchanges always give you big bills. Some more pictures: