The Speakeasy Blog
Delaware Suspends Medical Marijuana Program
Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D) Friday suspended the regulation-writing and licensing process for the state's medical marijuana dispensaries, essentially killing medical marijuana in a state whose law does not allow patients or caregivers to grow their own. Chronicle story here.
Crazy Anti-Drug Ad Tells Kids to Do Parkour Instead of Drugs
As I've discussed previously, Drug Czar is just one of the worst jobs you can have. You don't get to use cool weapons or go on missions or do anything exciting, ever. Your job is to convince adults that the drug war is good and convince young people that drug use is bad. It hasn't gone well for anyone, no, not at all.
If anybody needs a quick exhibit in why the government's anti-drug propaganda has become such a joke, you're in luck, because the Drug Czar's office continues to release some of the straight-up stupidest advertisements I've ever seen, and this is one of them right here:
The message of this ad is, "Hey kids, don't do drugs. Jump from rooftops! It's better somehow." That's exactly what the message of this ad is, and it's the only message the ad even contains. If I am mistaken, if the message of this ad isn’t that leaping from dangerously high places is better for you than smoking marijuana or tripping on silly-pills, then please explain to me what it is that I don't understand about this.
As Pete Guither points out, it's all just a sad attempt by the Drug Czar's office to associate their messaging with something cool, and it's true that parkour is A) hip, and B) not drugs. But that's about as far as this idea gets before literally landing flat on its face. You see, parkour is, well, let's just say it's not a very good way for young people to avoid injuring themselves.
The very idea that the Drug Czar would endorse this particular pastime as an alternative to pot is incredible. Is it necessary for me to continue to pointing out that a lot of the people responsible for manufacturing anti-drug messaging in America are nothing more than professional drug war cheerleaders who don't have a clue what they're talking about, don't give a crap about the safety of children, and wouldn’t know where to begin even if they did?
We've come a long way from the days when the government warned everyone that taking drugs would make you go crazy and jump off a building. Now, our young people are being encouraged to jump off buildings in order to distract themselves from the alluring dangers of drugs. The whole thing is so pure in its irony, so perfectly and completely absurd, that it could come from only one source. The Drug Czar's advertisements pose a continuing threat to the safety of the nation's youth, and parents will have to take an active role in protecting their children from the dangers of ill-conceived anti-drug propaganda until these reckless messages are removed from the airwaves once and for all.
Update: In response to comments from parkour fans, I have zero problem with parkour and I think it's awesome when young people learn how to do cool backflips and stuff like that. It's just an unusual thing for the government to endorse. Given that the Drug Czar can see no safe way to use marijuana, I'm surprised he would have anything nice to say about jumping off buildings either. It's ironic, and more powerfully so if you're as familiar with the history of government anti-drug propaganda as I am. I'm sorry if, in my eagerness to make that point, I appeared to paint parkour in a negative light. If necessary, I would defend vigorously your right to do it, and I hope no one in the parkour community ever faces the kind of ruthless and systemic government persecution that responsible marijuana users have endured for decades.
Detroit Marijuana Legalization Measure to Get Vote
A marijuana legalization initiative in Detroit was improperly barred from the ballot in 2010, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Friday. The appeals court decision overturned the ruling of a Wayne County judge, who had sided with the Detroit Elections Commission's decision to keep the measure off the ballot because they thought it conflicted with state and federal law. Chronicle story here.
Washington Voters to Decide Marijuana Legalization
An initiative that would legalize the limited possession of marijuana in the state of Washington and tax and regulate its commerce is headed for the November ballot to be decided by the voters after the state legislature Thursday punted on the matter. Chronicle story here.
Welfare Drug Test Bills Fail in South Dakota, Virginia
The push to mandate drug testing for recipients of public benefits is sweeping statehouses across the country this year, but in two states, those efforts hit a roadblock this week. In South Dakota and Virginia, bills were either defeated or deferred. Chronicle story here.
Mexican Army Seizes 15 Tons of Methamphetamine
Mexican army troops seized an astounding 15 tons of pure methamphetamine in the western state of Jalisco, the Mexican military announced Wednesday night. That's an amount equal to half of all the meth seized worldwide in 2009 and would have supplied some 13 million individual doses worth over $4 billion on the street in the US. Chronicle story here.
Medical Marijuana Update
Busy, busy, busy, at every level from federal rescheduling through bills in the states to local decision-making. The medical marijuana world continues to be very active. Chronicle story here.
Marijuana Law Reform at the Statehouse 2012 [FEATURE]
This year is shaping up to be a busy one for marijuana legalization and decriminalization bills at state houses around the country. Chronicle story here.
Opponents of Marijuana Legalization are Wasting Their Time
In strictly political terms, this is a powerful combination: fast-growing support and solid majorities among the young, who represent where the electorate is headed. (Support for gay marriage polls similarly — which is why it is becoming law in more states.) In a few years, the national discussion may well turn from whether to legalize marijuana to how to do it in the most prudent way.
The political reality of the situation ought to be obvious to everyone by now, but it actually isn't at all. To those who bitterly oppose any change to our marijuana laws, every argument for reform is pure fiction, including the notion that more than a few people dislike our current approach to pot. They'll tell you that polls showing broad support are anomalous, ballot measures that succeeded were won by manipulation, and the debate's visibility on the web is the work of "internet trolls" mischievously disrupting civil discourse.
Yet their biggest mistake of all is telling everyone that marijuana reform will be unspeakably horrible, when you can just watch how well these changes are working wherever they emerge. The good outweighs the bad so obviously that a supposedly "controversial" concept like medical marijuana has nevertheless been replicated repeatedly around the country, gaining support as it goes.
The future of the marijuana debate is, rather clearly at this point, simply a question of how to structure the production and distribution of marijuana in a way that best addresses the flaws of the current system. That's where we're headed, and people who don’t like it are still better off accepting it and taking a seat at the table than continuing to defend the failed war that's falling out of favor right in front of them.
New Mexico to Study Supervised Injection Sites [FEATURE]
The New Mexico legislature has commissioned a study of emerging and evidence-based harm reduction practices, including supervised injection sites. That could lead the way to a pilot program there. There is also agitation for SIJs in San Francisco and New York City. Chronicle feature story here.
What if Day Care Workers Get Stoned on Marijuana and Kill Children?
What about the children’s day care workers? If they smoke it and their senses are dulled by its use and they drop little Johnny on his head, whose fault is it now? If it’s legalized, there is no crime and no recourse for problems it causes. You may be able to sue for a wrongful death or injuries incurred, but other than that there’s been no crime.
...
The same situation will apply if the driving under the influence of it causes an accident. The police can’t intervene on a situation that isn’t a crime. Please think about these things, it is a big deal and it opens a can of worms that we will pay for the rest of our lives. [emissourian.com]
If even one sentence of this impressively incoherent editorial made any sense at all, I suppose I'd be in a different line of work. Heck, I might even be dead. We might all be dead, slaughtered ironically by the very people whose job it was to care for us while our parents were at work. After all, at the risk of terrifying the above editorial's author, marijuana is already being grown, sold, and smoked in every neighborhood in America (except the South Bronx, where they've now captured every single offender).
Fortunately, things aren't actually that bad in real life, especially if you're not a paranoid idiot. For example, our foremost concerns about bad things happening at day care centers can be resolved satisfactorily in almost every case simply by choosing a facility with a good reputation for not killing the children.
What we have here, and it's hardly a rarity in the marijuana debate, is a bit of a mix up between the rather divergent concepts of legalizing simple possession of marijuana vs. legalizing extraordinary acts of recklessness or insanity whose perpetrator happens to have consumed marijuana prior to the incident. The idea is that walking down the street with a gram of pot in your pocket would no longer be a crime. Walking down the street throwing snakes at people and screaming voodoo curses would still be illegal, but the amount of pot in your pocket at the time would be considered irrelevant at trial.
In other words, the answer to the question "whose fault is it now?" would be the same after legalization as before. If you drop a kid, crash a car, or throw a snake at somebody, it's your fault. If marijuana was involved, it's still your fault for consuming marijuana, not marijuana's fault for being consumed by you. That's the rule for alcohol, and in case anyone somehow managed not to notice, it has yet to turn our day care centers into drunken death camps.
This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories
Two of our four bad apples this week come from the Big Apple, one for planting drugs and one for transporting them. Of the other two, one picked the wrong friends and the other picked the wrong wife. Chronicle story here.
Missouri, Tennessee Ponder Legislator Drug Tests
Bills that would require state legislators to undergo drug tests have been filed in Missouri and Tennessee. They're an unsurprising extension of the drug testing mania that has gripped statehouses, but likely unconstitutional. Chronicle story here.
FBI Drug Squad Uses Chainsaw To Invade…the Wrong Apartment
FITCHBURG (CBS) – It’s going to be a while before things get back to normal for Judy Sanchez and her three-year-old daughter.
Last Thursday, a team of FBI agents swarmed her apartment building as part of a massive citywide drug and weapons gang raid.
Trouble is, Sanchez lives in apartment 2R.
The suspect they were after is in 2F.
…“I just happened to glance over and saw this huge chainsaw ripping down the side of my door,” she explains. “And I was freaking out. I didn’t know what was going on.” [CBS Boston]
I'm sure it's just a matter of time before some spokesperson comes along to explain to everyone why breaking out a f$%king chainsaw at a drug raid was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. Maybe their battering ram was broken from too many batterings. Or, gasp, maybe they chainsaw through people's doors all the damn time and we're only hearing about it now because they finally – inevitably – carved their way into somewhere they weren't supposed to be.
I could spend an extraordinarily long time enumerating all the ways that this is insane, but if I had to choose, I'd say the #1 most horrifyingly messed up thing about this is that they knocked first. It's protocol, I know, but that rule has to change now that there's a chainsaw in play. Imagine that you're doing what someone is theoretically expected to do when you hear a knock at the door and you actually go to answer it…and suddenly a screaming chainsaw rips through the door and you get your arm sliced off by the FBI!!!
Seriously, this is how they protect you from the people engaged in drug activity down the hall: by mixing up your addresses, knocking on your door, and then shoving a giant buzzing chainsaw right where your head would be. Would the appropriate authorities then come forward and encourage everyone not to let this regrettable accidental disembowelment distort our perceptions of an otherwise sound public policy?
I swear, every time I think we've reached the peak of berserk drug war demolition tactics, someone somewhere finds an excuse to do something still more stupid and insane. And they actually have the nerve to tell us that if we're afraid of cops smashing our doors down with various deadly weaponry flailing in every direction, then we shouldn’t break the law. Yeah, tell that to Judy Sanchez and her 3-year-old.
Obama Interview Ignores Marijuana Legalization Questions
As everyone is probably pretty well aware at this point, one of the most popular activities at the White House is the practice of organizing online forums for people to vote on questions for the president, getting everyone all excited about it, and then completely ignoring the vote totals and disappointing participants with predictable answers to generic questions. It happened yet again today:
WASHINGTON, DC -- President Barack Obama in an online "conversation" with American voters on Monday, failed to answer a barrage of questions about marijuana legalization or the drug war.
Although 18 out of 20 of the most popular questions submitted by voters via YouTube were about the drug war or pot, the president in his 45-minute post-State of the Union chat didn't address a single one. [Huffington Post]
Of course, the president has answered similar questions in the past, mocking legalization supporters on one occasion and calling it a legitimate topic for debate on another. What the president has never done is actually answer such a question completely or intelligently. At this point, it's rather hard to imagine that he ever will.
And so the cycle is certain to repeat itself again and again, as one web forum after another is dominated by marijuana and drug war questions that will continue to go unanswered (though some may occasionally be acknowledged and sidestepped). The "legitimate debate" to which Obama says we're entitled is something he nonetheless refuses to actually engage in, and the frustration that drives this issue to the front of the line in every such forum will be well fed for the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, it ought to be obvious to everyone that something is very wrong when this many people keep asking the same question and the president has nothing to say.
Marijuana Legalization Question Takes First Place Again in Obama YouTube Forum
This video question about marijuana legalization from Stephen Downing, former Deputy Police Chief in Los Angeles and member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, finished first place today in voting for the White House's "Your Interview with the President" contest on YouTube:
Missouri Drive to End Marijuana Prohibition Gets Going [FEATURE]
A Missouri campaign to place an initiative to end marijuana prohibition on the November ballot has entered the signature-gathering phase, and petition-toting volunteers across the Show Me state are hunting for registered voters as the campaign looks for funds to help it get over the top. Chronicle feature story here.
What's So Funny About the War on Drugs?
For all the progress that's been made towards bringing the drug policy debate into the political mainstream, there remains a tragic tendency among many in the press to burst out laughing at the idea of fixing our disastrous drug laws. The latest embarrassing example comes courtesy of Al Kamen in The Washington Post:
Yes, we know that jobs and the economy are the marquee issues for this campaign. Even major topics such as war and education are getting short shrift among the wannabe nominees.
But those reefer-mad kids over at Students for Sensible Drug Policy are trying to, uh, smoke the candidates out on their favorite subject.
...Pass the chips, dude. This is some entertaining TV.
Pass the chips? Wow. I can't speak for Al Kamen, but there's nothing about the War on Drugs that makes me hungry for junk food. Eric Sterling didn't like Kamen's tone very much either and responded with a deservedly harsh letter to the editor:
Regarding Al Kamen’s Jan. 18 column “ ‘Reefer Madness’ for the YouTube Generation”:
This article is consistent with my hypothesis that the rules of professional conduct of journalists or some style manual require that articles about drug policy include a joke about chips, brownies or junk food. Can reporters and editors be so humor-deprived that they always have to joke about laws and policies that every year put hundreds of thousands of cannabis users in handcuffs, give them a criminal record and cost hundreds of millions of dollars on pointless police overtime. Ha, ha, ha, “pass the chips”; I’m dying with laughter.
Kamen's childishness is meant to be cute, I assume, but it plainly belittles a gutsy effort by a concerned group of young Americans to ask valid questions of candidates on the campaign trail. How odd it is that he calls attention to these young activists bravely confronting prominent politicians, only to turn around and insult them. For what…caring about something?
Is the arrest of close to a million Americans a year for marijuana a strange or entertaining thing to be upset about? For that matter, is our world-record incarceration rate and the spiraling costs that go along with it? Is the escalating violence in Mexico amusing to anyone? If these things aren't funny, then we should be applauding rather than laughing when someone works to ensure that we don't ignore these issues entirely when choosing our next president.
Mexico Drug War Update
Although is was a relatively quiet week in Mexico's drug wars, it's probably now safe to say that 50,000 people have been killed in prohibition-related violence there since President Calderon sent in the army in December 2006. Chronicle story here.
Saying "Ron Paul Can't Legalize Marijuana" Is Stupid and Misses the Point of his Candidacy
A growing number of marijuana activists are embracing Paul as a pot-friendly alternative to President Barack Obama, whose Justice Department has done more to dismantle state-legal medical marijuana than George W. Bush's crew ever did.
These supporters ignore a key point: If Paul were president, he wouldn't be any better for legalizing marijuana than President Obama -- or worse than Romney or Santorum.…
Marijuana was criminalized by the feds in 1970, when the Controlled Substances Act was passed by Congress (under pressure from Richard M. Nixon's administration). Only Congress can repeal an act of Congress, just as only Congress can amend the Constitution, raise taxes, and wage war (legally).
The whole thing is a pretty embarrassing mischaracterization of the executive branch's critical role in setting national drug policy priorities. Heck, even the above paragraph points to Nixon as the protagonist in the story of how modern drug prohibition was born. Electing a president who is committed to correcting that mistake is one of the most powerful forward steps this movement can take, and this is true for several reasons that ought to be obvious:
- The president appoints the nation's top drug policy officials, including heads of the ONDCP (the Drug Czar) and the DEA, and can exert tremendous influence over their budgets and enforcement priorities.
- The president has the power to veto bad laws. If anyone is concerned about congress passing dumb anti-drug legislation in the future (a legitimate concern if ever one existed), they would be wise to support candidates who would reject our continued decent into endless drug war oblivion.
- The president can pressure congress to implement sensible reforms, including the passage of legislation to fix problems created by congress in the past. Not a walk in the park when it comes to drug policy, not even close, but technically true nevertheless, and certain to become critically important as the movement for drug policy reform continues its present momentum and exerts increasing influence over both the executive and legislative branches of government.
- The president has the loudest microphone on the planet and can use it to change the way people think about the issues facing our nation. This alone suffices to illustrate unequivocally why putting a marijuana reform advocate into the White House would be the greatest watershed moment in the history of this movement. One can't even begin to calculate all the ways in which the president's influence could be used to advance the cause of reform. I can’t believe it's even necessary to explain this, because honestly, when has anyone ever seriously suggested that the president's opinion on any matter of intense political debate was somehow irrelevant because the president lacks the powers of congress? That notion is too plainly absurd to justify further refutation.
- The mere act of electing a president who openly supports marijuana legalization or other drug policy reform positions makes a devastatingly powerful statement about the potency of those political ideas. This is known as the concept of a "mandate," wherein the electorate's choice of a certain candidate, particularly when made decisively, is seen as a message to our political culture that this candidate's platform reflects the values of the American people. When marijuana reform is included in that package, it speaks to the tone of the political climate on that issue and sends a message to congress that their constituents are ready to see real changes considered in a serious way.
All of these points, and I'm sure I missed several more, serve to illustrate why it is just stupid to even suggest that the president cannot serve as a powerful champion of marijuana legalization and other drug policy reforms. And yet, the assertions to which I respond here weren't leveled against the perceived front-runner in the republican primaries. All of these plainly farcical distortions of the president's power to influence national drug policy were directed at Ron Paul.
Ron Paul, though I know some will disagree or hope otherwise, is really a protest candidate, albeit a very popular and effective one. His goal is primarily to introduce into our political discourse ideas which he and his supporters feel have been unduly dismissed and disregarded by the political establishment. Ron Paul and his supporters already consider the campaign a success, because it's done exactly that.
His advocacy for the reform of marijuana laws ranks among the most popular aspects of his candidacy, resonating with his base of hardcore libertarian-minded supporters, while simultaneously piquing the interest of many on the left, who've been disgusted by Obama's brazen assault on medical marijuana. For anyone who cares about making long-term political progress on these issues, it makes absolute sense to cheer for the only candidate who is talking about it.
Publicly supporting politicians who publicly support marijuana reform is a necessary step towards demonstrating the political viability of the issue on a larger scale, so that future candidates for any elected office will have more reason to consider including this position in their platform. Simultaneously, the process of raising the profile of the debate over marijuana and other drug policy issues during a period of intense campaign season press coverage is an obvious and very effective way of marketing this idea to the public, increasingly support for it, and convincing future candidates to adopt it.
I really don’t know how much more completely one can misunderstand the significance of Ron Paul's marijuana advocacy than by arguing that it is pointless unless he A) gets elected President of the United States, and B) immediately legalizes marijuana throughout the nation. That is a standard so preposterous, so plainly unreasonable and bizarre, that, if taken seriously, it could call into question the importance of drug policy reform efforts in general. That's why I took this much time to respond, and why I hope Ron Paul's critics, regardless of their motives, will dispense with this particular brand of nonsense permanently.
Update: And, of course, there's also the president's power to pardon people for drug crimes. The president can just send anyone home from jail and erase their charges. That's kind if a big deal, yes?
(This article 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.)
Medical Marijuana Update
Here's our weekly look at medical marijuana news from around the country. There's plenty going on. Chronicle story here.
This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories
Jailers smuggling drugs in burritos, cops planting drugs, cops doing security for drug deals, and evidence walking out of the evidence room. It's just another week of police misconduct in the drug war. Chronicle story here.
Drug Policy Reform Gets Standing Ovation in New Jersey Statehouse
Something amazing happened in New Jersey yesterday. It's not the kind of news that's likely to make national headlines, but I think it says a lot about where our nation is heading when it comes to our attitudes about drug use and the criminal justice system.
The highlight came after Christie called for a revolution in New Jersey’s approach to the drug war that would divert non-violent addicts from prison and put them in treatment programs instead. And he did it with characteristic Christie style, in big bold strokes.
"I am not satisfied to have this merely as a pilot project," the governor said. "I am calling for a transformation of the way we deal with drug abuse and incarceration in every corner of New Jersey." [NJ.com]
Those are strong words, especially from a man who many believe represents the future of the republican party. But more impressive than Gov. Christie's words was the way they were received:
[Former Gov.] Jim McGreevey, sitting perhaps 10 feet from Christie, jumped out of his seat to try to start a standing ovation.
And it worked. Within five or six seconds, the entire Assembly chamber, Democrats and Republicans, followed the lead of the humbled former governor, giving sustained applause from their feet.
"Addiction touches so many lives, and destroys one family at a time," McGreevey says. "The governor stated the obvious."
And yet much of what Gov. Christie has to say about drug policy is far from obvious to the leadership of his own party. In a noisy and high-profile republican presidential primary season, only Ron Paul has lent his voice to the message of a more measured and sensible approach to drug policy.
Meanwhile, the runaway front-runner, Mitt Romney, has achieved what many are calling an early lock on the nomination, and he did so without sharing any actual ideas about drug policy at all. The powerful right-wing political infrastructure that now rallies around Romney is oblivious to this conspicuous intransigence, even as he sets his sights on a showdown with Obama, where the youth vote is going to matter and concerns about issues ranging from marijuana reform to over-incarceration are increasingly resonant.
That's why it's just so weird to see a roomful of politicians clapping for drug policy reform, while so few have done anything to market that message to their supporters. If they don't yet understand that we're clapping too, we need to start clapping that much louder.
(This article 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.)
Drug Testing for Public Assistance Bills Proliferate in New Year [FEATURE]
We are only a few weeks into the new year, but statehouse politicians across the country are already racing to see who can be next to introduce a bill that would require drug testing of people receiving public benefits. Within the last month, measures that would impose drug testing requirements have been introduced or are being contemplated in at least eleven states. Chronicle story here.
Police Refuse to Release Description of Toxic Ecstasy Pills, Increasing the Danger of More Deaths
A string of recent overdose deaths in British Columbia has a lot of people deeply concerned. But this reaction by law enforcement is certain to make the problem worse.
VANCOUVER — Police in B.C. are reluctant to tell the public what unique markings are on ecstasy pills suspected to contain a lethal additive linked to five deaths in the province.
That's because they don't want users thinking they're sanctioning the rest of the pills. [CTV]
That is some sick logic right there. Listen, if you don't want people to think you're sanctioning the other pills, then say something like, "we're not sanctioning the other pills." What's so hard about that? But for the sake of saving human lives, at least tell people what the poison pills look like.
Drug users are people, you know. They don't want to kill their friends. If everyone knows what the poisoned pills look like, they can help get them off the street. Everyone in the ecstasy scene will be on the lookout for the toxic doses and the people supplying that garbage will be strongly incentivized to toss it, or face serious consequences within their own social circle. This will work like 900% better than just telling everyone to stop taking ecstasy altogether.
We'll save for another day the conversation about why poisoned ecstasy exists in the first place (hint: the manufacturing process is dangerously unregulated).
