The Speakeasy Blog
ONDCP Staffer Makes Threatening Phone Call to SSDP Office
Peterson, the author of this ironic typo, accused Tom of being childish and threatened to respond with similar tactics. Incredulous, Tom replied "so does that mean you guys are going to start mentioning us in your blog?" Peterson declined.
Now I've got to admit to some sympathy for the other side here. This was a simple mistake, the severity of which pales in comparison to numerous things ONDCP does deliberately. Tom has previously humiliated the federal government with FOIA requests, so the idea of scrupulously drafting responses to perceived harassment from him must surely frustrate and distract these busy bureaucrats from their book-cooking.
Unfortunately for ONDCP, the unintentional irony of the error makes for good fun in the blogosphere. Stalling, you see, has become a trademark of the federal drug war; a necessary tactic whenever facts come in conflict with the status quo. We've seen this with regards to ASA's Data Quality Act lawsuit, MAPS's marijuana research lawsuit, sentencing reform, needle exchange and marijuana rescheduling. Heck the entire federal drug war is really just a few agencies constantly stalling in the hopes that we'll eventually stop asking so many questions and learn to live with false promises and fake progress.
So when Daniel Peterson tells SSDP that he'll respond to their FOIA appeal in 200 years, it's a perfect Freudian slip. Once again, ONDCP's most truthful and candid remarks occur entirely by accident.
Did John Belushi die from cocaine?
[F]or a generation that has not had its John Belushi to drive home the dangers of drug abuse, references and even use [of cocaine] are open, casual, even blatant.Did Belushi actually die from cocaine, though? Sullum quotes addiction psychologist Stanton Peele on the topic:
John Belushi did not die from cocaine and heroin use, and our saying he did is a feeble way of trying to suppress the horrible conclusions his death suggests. This man did everything he could to guarantee he would not survive. It is at least as correct to say that he died of cigarettes, overeating, and alcohol as to blame his death on one or another—or more than one—illicit substance.Bottom line, there is more than one way to destroy yourself -- it's not always the drugs, even if drugs are in the mix. By the way, former CASA #2 man Herb Kleber figures prominently in the NYT piece. This is a bit of minor history about Kleber from a 1996 article I put together for our original print newsletter, The Activist Guide:
In the June 2 edition of the Jellinek Quarterly, a book review of a Ph.D. dissertation on HIV among drug users in Amsterdam referred to comments made by Dr. Herbert Kleber, of the Center on Addiction & Substance Abuse at Columbia University, that the author felt were motivated by ideology and conflicted with objective scientific findings. In a speech titled "Harm Reduction or Harm Production," Kleber said that HIV rates among drug users in the Netherlands had increased, and attributed it harm reduction programs like low-threshold methadone programs, needle exchange projects that he claimed "extended the addiction." An audience member pointed that HIV among drug users in the Netherlands had gone down, not up, and cited articles published in some of the most prestigious international journals. Dr. Kleber admitted that he was not familiar with those articles.Check back soon for a Chronicle review of the new book by continuing CASA #1 guy, Joe Califano.
Just a typo, presumably...
Airport Narcs Fired For Peeing on Luggage
Ok, they were dogs, but it's still funny…
Two of Thailand's top canine agents in the country's war against drugs have been fired for "unbecoming conduct" that included urinating on luggage and rubbing up against female airport passengers.
Despite having two of the highest seizure rates on record, the sniffer dogs working at an airport near the notorious "Golden Triangle" opium-producing region were fired after passengers complained about their behaviour. [CBC News]
So in Thailand, police dogs pee on luggage and get fired. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., an utterly incompetent human narc can terrorize innocent people and get off with a one-day suspension.
It's particularly galling considering that dogs are expected to pee on stuff, whereas police officers certainly aren’t expected to terrorize the innocent. Or are they? The way today's public officials react to gratuitous police violence, you could easily expect more concern from a pet owner who finds a mess on the rug.
Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the punishment for police peeing on someone's belongings during a wrong address drug raid were remarkably lenient. And unfortunately, at this pace, I'm sure we'll have a chance to find out what it is before long.
Q: Which is worse, an incontinent dog or an incompetent cop?
A: The cop. He'll shoot your dog, at which point it will inevitably release its bowels anyway.
Mexico is Bleeding
Police deliberately crash truck into car, and then steal car -- in order to search it.
Crack Cocaine Sentencing Headed to Supreme Court
Charlie Rangel on Reentry, Crack Cocaine Sentencing and the Vote
Why do we let cops be our "drug experts"?
The police investigator told the group that " Young people are actually taking this frog and licking it." The students couldn't believe their ears. Then the investigator explained how licking a certain kind of frog has the same effects as using LSD. He also said there were people willing to do it to get high. "Are you serious? A frog?" asked one boy. "That's nasty," a girl chimed in.The cop is referring to the Sonoran Desert Toad, which indeed excretes an hallucinogenic substance when agitated. I am unaware of any contemporary reports of a psychedelic toad-licking trend, but thanks, officer, for making the kids aware of this bizarre drug-taking possibility. The second "truth" I discerned from the article is this one:
Richard Robinson said the most surprising thing he learned was "That crack kills."It's not quite so simple. Yes, one can die from a cocaine overdose, typically from cardiac arrhythmia, but I'm unaware of any wave of crack-related heart attack deaths. (Am I wrong? Anyone?). I did find one five-year study of Brazilian crack users that looked at 124 chronic users. After five years, 40% reported not using within the last year, and 23 of the original cohort had died during the five-year interim, a mortality rate above average. But the study noted that the most common cause of death was homicide, not drug overdose. Crack kills? Sometimes, maybe. But far, far more often, not. Finally, the third "truth" I discerned from the article:
"We try to help them to determine what's real and what's not real. What's falsehood and what's a myth," said Sgt. Jackie hodes. "There's a myth that marijuana doesn't hurt you but it does. It definitely hurts you. It destroys your brain cells. So we just try to give them some truth so they can make more informed decision."Truth, huh? Here's the skinny on the tired old "marijuana kills brain cells" meme, courtesty of the Drug Policy Alliance's marijuana myths pages:
Myth: Marijuana Kills Brain Cells. Used over time, marijuana permanently alters brain structure and function, causing memory loss, cognitive impairment, personality deterioration, and reduced productivity. Fact: None of the medical tests currently used to detect brain damage in humans have found harm from marijuana, even from long term high-dose use. An early study reported brain damage in rhesus monkeys after six months exposure to high concentrations of marijuana smoke. In a recent, more carefully conducted study, researchers found no evidence of brain abnormality in monkeys that were forced to inhale the equivalent of four to five marijuana cigarettes every day for a year. The claim that marijuana kills brain cells is based on a speculative report dating back a quarter of a century that has never been supported by any scientific study.I ask again: Why do we let cops pose as "drug experts"?
Flawed "Drugged Driving" Bill Under Consideration in Canada -- Testimony from BCCLA Online Here
"Snow Fall" Atlantic Monthly article articulates the sheer futility of the supply-side drug war
[P]olicing has a big impact on cocaine prices: On the streets of Bogota, a gram of cocaine can be had for under $2. Recreational users in America, on the other hand, typically pay upward of $50 a gram... Yet over time, cocaine prices per pure gram in the United States have steadily fallen, from $600 in the early 1980s to less than $200 by the mid-1990s.The government's stated purpose for engaging in supply-side drug enforcement measures is to drive up the price, in order to reduce use. Given that prices have fallen so dramatically, it is safe to say that the supply-side strategy of increase prices has not decreased use (because the price increases never happened). Prohibition itself drives up the price of drugs (with calamitous effects on the people who are addicted to the drugs, indeed driving many of them to commit crimes that affect the rest of us, but that's a separate issue), but supply-side enforcement appears to have failed completely by its own measures. The period of time Dermota cited is about a quarter century, by the way, enough time to conduct a pretty conclusive test, IMHO. Dermota explains why the seizures of illicit drugs that government officials like to hype so much may actually illustrate failure, not success:
In March, the US Coast Guard intercepted a freighter off Panama laden with 20 tons of cocaine, in the largest maritime bust ever. That was followed in April by Colombian authorities' seizure of a 15-ton cache most likely awaiting shipment to Mexico... Of course, the good news is soured by the fact that cocaine production remains robust enough to allow shipment in 20-ton batches.Drug policy reformer Judge James P. Gray of Santa Ana County in California has made this point as well. He should know -- as a prosecutor prior to joining the Superior Court he was involved in a seizure of heroin that at the time set the quantity record. When he delivered the speech that the link above points to in 1994, that record had long been dwarfed. (I helped to organize that conference, by the way, at Harvard Law School with the Civil Liberties Union of Mass., early during my activist career when I was still a volunteer. Afterwards I guided Judge Gray, former NORML director Dick Cowan and actor Michael Moriarty to the bed-and-breakfast where we put them up.) Dermota may be a legalizer, though not an optimistic one, and he doesn't directly say he is:
Sea changes in policy, such as decriminalization or legalization of drugs, look politically untenable.Unfortunately, the link above to the article only gets you the beginning, you need to be a subscriber to see the whole thing, or get a hold of a copy of the magazine. Anyway, there's at least one good drug reporter in the country. :) Besides DRCNet's Phil Smith, that is. :) Thanks to Steve Heath for the heads-up.
Oops, Wrong House. Sorry We Threw Grenades and Kicked You in the Crotch.
Via Radley Balko, yet another wrong address drug raid disaster:
This one's got it all. Terrified immigrants who don't speak English, a roughed-up pregnant woman, a man kicked in the groin, another woman with a heart condition, flashbang grenades, and assurances from the cops that this kind of thing happens "not very often." Fortunately no one was killed. Only terrified.
The police never contacted the landlord of the residence to verify. And when they raided the "right" address, the place was empty.
Of course, throwing grenades and kicking people in the nuts are highly questionable activities even when police invade the correct location. This issue goes way beyond just getting the address correct. Even when the police get it right, anyone inside is innocent until proven guilty, and should never be brutalized arbitrarily. When police conduct becomes remarkably similar to that of dangerous criminals, we've got a major problem on our hands.
As Radley so often points out, the purpose of these raids is to stop people from getting high, which isn't a legitimate or achievable goal to begin with. The failure of prohibition is never more obvious than when police enter the homes of innocent people and beat or kill them in order to protect us all from drugs.
Wish I were there...
Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Bill Vetoed, Override Anticipated
Rudy Giuliani Doesn't Care About Sick People
MURPHY: You talked about abortion rights and how you trust people to make their own choices. Do you support the choice of cancer patients to use medical marijuana?
RUDY: No, I don't think a cancer patient should use marijuana. There are other options.
Other options, he says. Well that's no surprise coming from a hired consultant for Perdue Pharma, manufacturer of Oxycontin. Rudy even helped Perdue fend off the DEA when Oxycontin became linked to widespread abuse.
To be fair, OxyContin can be a very effective option for many patients and there isn't necessarily anthing wrong with Rudy sticking up for Perdue in this context. Unfortunately, he fails to recognize that medical marijuana should be defended for all of the same reasons. Lots of sick people say it helps, and that's really all that matters.
If widespread abuse and even death associated with OxyContin don't bother Rudy, what's his beef with medical marijuana? The problem might be that Rudy Giuliani is a horrible person.
Don't Tell Anyone About the Narc Ambulance
Local law enforcement narcotics agents now have a new tool in the fight against drugs.
Med Life Ambulance Service has donated a used ambulance to serve as an enforcement vehicle for narcotics agents.
The unit will be used by the Bastrop Police Department and Morehouse Parish Sheriff's Office during narcotics investigations and in the course of executing search warrants. [Daily Enterprise]
Ok, rule number one for conducting narcotics investigations from an ambulance: don't tell everyone about it beforehand. I can't think of anything less discrete than doing a stakeout in a gigantic ambulance. Especially now that the ambulance is famous.
Moreover, ambulances with always be better equipped to help people with drug problems than tactical narcotics vehicles.
Academics on Unenforceable Laws
Connecticut Medical Marijuana Bill Passes Legislature, Needs Governor's Signature
Op-ed by patient Mark Braunstein editorial from Harford Courant (it’s about 90% good; the part about the kid in Rhode Island is bad) Danbury Times editorial Stamford Advocate article Hartford Courant article NY Times AP story
ONDCP: We Don't Care What You Dorks on YouTube Think
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said it expects its YouTube messages to be ridiculed, laughed at, remade and spoofed. And they are.
The irony here is that, predictable as it may have been, ONDCP had no clue that this was going to happen. They deliberately generated media coverage of their YouTube page, only to find their videos marred by harsh comments and dismal viewer ratings. ONDCP quickly disabled these options, but the damage was done.
If they had genuinely anticipated this level of hostility from viewers, they would have optimized their page before sending out press releases about it. Because they did not, most ONDCP videos are now permanently stamped with the lowest-possible rating of one star.
This is to say nothing of the countless parodies that are now drowning out ONDCP’s unpopular propaganda. Since YouTube automatically recommends similar videos anytime you watch something, viewers of ONDCP’s materials are unavoidably connected to these abundant counter-messages. It is almost certainly for this reason that ONDCP has not uploaded a single new video since the page was first launched back in September 2006.
In a case like this, the mature decision would be to ignore them. But I find it amusing that even something as perfectly logical as expecting ridicule on YouTube turns out to be a lie when it comes from ONDCP.
MP Libby Davies Speaking out on Conservative's Drug Strategy for Canada
Libby Davies, MP Vancouver East HANSARD, House of Commons June 4, 2007 Mr. Speaker, health and addictions professionals across Canada are bracing themselves for the worst when the Conservative government reveals its so-called new drug strategy that will sacrifice the successes of harm reduction and a balanced approach to drug use, for a heavy handed US style enforcement regime. Time and again, empirical evidence has proven that harm reduction works. Programs like needle exchanges and Vancouver's safe injection site, InSite, are reducing the transmission of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, and increasing the number of people accessing treatment. I am alarmed that despite this evidence, the government is accelerating the criminalization of drug users. The 2007 budget quietly removed harm reduction from Canada's new drug strategy. It now reads like a carbon copy of George Bush's war on drugs - which has seen drug use rise, along with skyrocketing social and economic costs of incarceration. In 2006, the Conservatives refused to renew the exemption that allows InSite to keep its doors open until pressure from the community forced them to grant a temporary extension. We know the Health Minister and the RCMP are now resorting to propaganda tactics to try and close InSite. Attacking InSite and adopting US drug policies will fail as dramatically here as it has in the US.Read our feature report about this published Friday, "Battle Royal Looms as Canadian Government Set to Unveil Tough Anti-Drug Strategy." Also, we have a fair amount published about Libby Davies, including interviews she's given directly to the Chronicle -- use this search link to review it.
Joe Biden Gets Stuck on the Fence
Well, that fence -- the reason I voted for the fence was that was the only alternative that was there, and I voted for the fence related to drugs. You can -- a fence will stop 20 kilos of cocaine coming through that fence. It will not stop someone climbing over it or around it.
And so -- but this bill has a much more reasonable provision in it. It has much -- much shorter fence, it does have the Border Patrol requirement, and it is designed not just to deal with illegals; it's designed -- a serious drug trafficking problem we have.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Biden, understand that he is not suffering from a stroke.* This guy just has a really hard time understanding drugs, but continues to bring them up whenever he’s under pressure. Biden’s unfortunate obsession/confusion regarding drugs has led him to create ONDCP, author the RAVE Act, and propose biological warfare in South America.
So does Biden dramatically misunderstand the role of actual people in physically transporting cocaine across the border? Is it really necessary to explain that some of the people who climb over or around the fence carry cocaine with them? Does he know that 20 kilos fits in a backpack?
Whether Biden realizes the absurdity of his remarks is beside the point. He got cornered for flip-flopping on the fence issue, so he cried “Drugs! If my positions appear contradictory, it’s because I was trying to fight drugs.” That’s what he does, because he knows there’s no accountability when you talk about “Drugs!”
*No offense to stroke victims. I’m not really comparing you to Joe Biden.
More Border Blues--Canadian Mom Searching for Missing Daughter Denied Entry
Congress Should Let DC Fund Needle Exchange
Washington, D.C., is one of America’s AIDS hot spots. A significant proportion of infections can be traced back to intravenous drug users who shared contaminated needles and then passed on the infection to spouses, lovers or unborn children. This public health disaster is partly the fault of Congress. It has wrongly and disastrously used its power over the District of Columbia’s budget to bar the city from spending even locally raised tax dollars on programs that have slowed the spread of disease by giving drug addicts access to clean needles.The Times titled the editorial "Congress Hobbles the AIDS Fight." The activist paraphrase of that, which is how the editorial was first presented to me, would be "Congress has blood on its hands." Last week the Times also ran a news feature about DC's needle exchange, and an online "slide show" featuring the program's Ron Daniels. The larger legislation in which the DC funding ban could get repealed is expected to move quickly, with markups scheduled for Serrano's subcommittee tomorrow and the Appropriations Committee of which it is a part next week -- you never know how quickly something will really move in Congress, but that's how it looks right now. Stay tuned.
If You Like CSI: Miami, You’ll Love the Westwood College of Criminal Justice!
There’s something rather disturbing about TV ads for trade school criminal justice degrees. You may have seen them: “Call now to begin your exciting career in this growing industry! Help put the bad guys behind bars!”
As the proud owner of a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, I find it more than a little unnerving to see this complicated subject reduced to a flashy 30-second TV commercial. Unlike most career opportunities, the field of criminal justice ideally shouldn’t be a “growing industry.” Everyone knows criminals are bad, and the brand of justice getting administered these days is often a crime in itself. America’s ongoing crime problems are more depressing than “exciting,” and the solution is not for more people to get up off the couch and start cracking skulls.
This weekend I saw a new ad for Westwood College, which begins with a man in the shower reading Miranda rights to an imaginary suspect. An announcer then says something to the effect of "do you fantasize about a career in law-enforcement? Call Westwood today…" I’m left wondering if I really want this crazy idiot who plays cop in the shower running around my neighborhood with a badge and a gun.
Westwood College’s criminal justice page does little to placate my pessimism:
Why are there so many TV shows about the criminal justice system? Because it's exciting. All the dynamic elements that make for great TV also make for a great career.
Are you taking notes, class? Lesson 1: being a police officer is just like being an action hero on TV. So if you’ve been watching enough CSI Miami, you’ll ace Forensics and probably Firearms, too. You could take engineering if you want, but then you’d be wasting all that career experience you absorbed inadvertently by watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Did you know Vincent D’Onofrio and Chris Noth are team-teaching the section on homicide interrogation?
Seriously though, comparing any activity to being on TV automatically appeals to the lowest common denominator. It should go without saying that anyone who’s apt to believe that a career in policing is as exciting as watching The Shield probably shouldn’t be enforcing laws in real life. It’s a particularly disturbing prospect in this context since police on TV are often trigger-happy and prone to habitual misconduct. Surely these aren’t the “dynamic elements” Westwood has in mind, but if they have a clue what kind of crap passes for crime drama these days, they ought not to invite the comparison.
Mexico's President is Half Right
"Our problem is the demand for narcotics in the US market, which significantly affects Mexico," the Mexican president said. Calderon stressed that no strategy from the Mexican government against drug cartels will be sufficient unless demand is reduced. "It is evident that as long as there is a market, as long as there is drug consumption in the United States, this problem will persist in Mexico," he said.Calderon is, of course, absolutely correct on that score. I've often noted that the prohibition-related violence plaguing our southern neighbor--there have been 1,046 killed in Mexico's drug wars so far this year--is Mexico paying the price for our war on the drugs we love to consume. Where he is wrong is his implicit assumption that the US government can meaningfully reduce demand and that the war on drugs could somehow succeed if--gosh darnit!--we Americans only tried harder. We spend about $40 billion and arrest nearly 2 million people a year in the drug war, and the drug use numbers fluctuate at the margins. The US drug market will never go away. If Calderon wants to see an end to the prohibition-related violence in Mexico, he would be much better off calling for the regulation and normalization of the illicit drug business than waiting for Americans to quit using drugs. The only thing less likely than the US government ending drug prohibition is that Americans are going to change their ways.