The worst circle you could pass a joint to in America. (America's Drug Czars, from HW Bush to Obama, clockwise from left in chronological order - Bennett, Martinez, Brown, McCaffrey, Walters, Kerlikowske - with their ideological progenitor, Harry J. Anslinger, Federal Bureau of Narcotics head from FDR to JFK.)

The LA Times printed an op-ed written by the former and current drug czars of Presidents (pot smoker) Barack Obama, (pot smoker) George W. Bush, (pot smoker) Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush. In the case of the current drug czar, Kerlikowske, this is no surprise, because it would be illegal of him not to oppose marijuana legalization:

(Drug WarRant) According to Title VII Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998: H11225:

Responsibilities. –The Director– [...]

(12) shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that–

1. is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and
2. has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;

Read that again.  Not only must Gil Kerlikowske take actions to oppose legalization, but he also has to ensure that federal money doesn’t go to scientists attempting to prove medical efficacy of cannabis.  Once marijuana was declared to be “bad”, the government is required to spend your tax money to tell you it is “bad”, spend your tax money to rebut the people who say it is “good”, and stifle any research using your tax money that would prove it is “good”.

It costs sixteen times more to keep pot illegal than the social cost of pot smoking. Drinkers cost society eight times more and smokers forty times more than tokers do.

Paul Armentano has already done a fantastic job slamming their thesis, which presents the following premises:

• “the Dutch have dramatically reduced what at one time were thousands of shops to only a few hundred” – OK, but did they decide they should shut them all down and criminalize anyone caught with even a joint?  No, they maintain a system where adults can possess and use personal amounts of cannabis… because it works.
• “legalizing marijuana would lead to more accidents and fatalities involving drivers under its influence” – even though all available studies show marijuana-using drivers to drive more slowly and take less risks.  Meanwhile, drunk drivers caused 11,773 deaths in 2008, yet nobody (but me) ever suggests mandatory breathalyzer valet parking at taverns or prohibiting alcohol altogether.
• Legalization wouldn’t raise tax money because marijuana “is easy and cheap to cultivate… Why would people volunteer to pay high taxes on marijuana if it were legalized?” – you mean like the tomatoes and carrots I pay tax on at the grocery store?  Or the beer I pay tax on that I could easily brew at home?  Drug czars always think it is easy to cultivate marijuana; I’d like to see them deal with a spider mite outbreak.  I’d much rather buy weed at $100 an ounce than deal with spider mites… and so would the majority of tokers.
• “For every dollar society collects in taxes on alcohol, for example, we end up spending eight more in social costs.” - so, then, you’re arguing to repeal the 21st Amendment, I guess?  It is no surprise alcohol and tobacco cost society more than they reap in taxes, because alcohol and tobacco are toxic and addictive; marijuana is not.
• “Law enforcement officers do not currently focus much effort on arresting adults whose only crime is possessing small amounts of marijuana” - so, then, if you guys really put your hearts into it, you’d arrest more than 850,000 adults each year, 89% of them for mere possession of marijuana?

We don't really spend much time busting people who smoke pot... except for the 20 million we've arrested since 1970...

So let’s meet the authors – what else do they have to say about marijuana?

Gil Kerlikowske (Obama) – Was Seattle police chief, a city where his officers had been directed by voter initiative to treat marijuana as “lowest enforcement priority”, leading to an 80% decrease in marijuana arrests with no attendant increase in pot smoking.  He also served while Seattle Hempfest was gathering 200,000 people in a park every year, telling his officers to ignore the open pot smoking, with no serious public safety incidents.  The Seattle Times noted in 2003, “Kerlikowske said the number of cases his department handles has declined, down from 600 cases in 1998 to 418 cases in 2001.” If it is so innocuous you feel no need to arrest people for doing it, why should it remain a crime?

John P. Walters (W Bush) – Famous for saying “The fact is today, people don’t go to jail for the possession of marijuana. Finding somebody in jail or prison for possession of marijuana is like finding a unicorn. It doesn’t exist.” During his tenure, 6.2 million marijuana users were arrested nationwide… most of whom at least saw a holding cell as they were booked and some of whom spent significant time in a jail.  A few, an estimated 40,000 to 50,000, are still serving time.

States currently allowing, or considering to allow, Cheech & Chong to practice medicine.

Barry McCaffrey (Clinton) – McCaffrey, a former general, was infamous for calling medical marijuana “Cheech & Chong medicine”, despite the now 14 states that recognize it and groups like the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians (you know, doctors, not generals).  Though he did say last year he was “100 percent for” medical marijuana, kinda, and that he’s cool with my outdoor grow (“If you’re 40 years old, and you’re living in Oregon, and you have 12 giant pot plants in the back of your log cabin, knock yourself out.”)

Lee P. Brown (Clinton) – Rebutting the “myths” of legalization, Brown wrote in 1994: “In fact, effective enforcement serves to reduce drug supply, drive up prices, reduce the number of users and decrease the effects of chronic hard-core use.” In 1994, there were 4.83% of the American public using marijuana monthly.  Today, that percentage is 6.09%.  Around the beginning of Brown’s term, DEA estimated nationally about 3,000 metric tons of domestic marijuana production.  In 2006, California alone produced about 3,900 metric tons.  How’s that effective enforcement working out for ya?  (But he was right about that price.  I was buying eighths of an ounce of weed for $25 back in the Nineties – some folks are spending $75 an eighth now.)

"Me So Horny" - nearly as dangerous smoking a joint!

Bob Martinez (HW Bush) – After Martinez’ stint as Florida governor, where he tried to outlaw abortion, tried to execute 90 death row prisoners before their appeals had cleared, and succeeded in arresting rap group 2 Live Crew and arresting record store owners who sold their albums, Martinez became drug czar.  In 1999 he called on Florida mayors to oppose medical marijuana, saying “You can’t allow a foot to get through the door, because the whole body will go through eventually.” The theory here must be that you can’t let the foot of a dying puking elderly Floridian on chemotherapy through the door to smoke a joint so she can eat a meal, because it might lead to the body of some teenager smoking a joint at a 2 Live Crew concert (which he was going to do anyway, whether granny got her medical marijuana or not).

Bill Bennett (Clinton) – This is the guy who thinks you shouldn’t have the right to use medical marijuana in a state where it is legal, but had no problem gambling away $8 million in states where gambling is legal.  That $8 million came from proceeds of books like The Book of Virtues and The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family. He defends his gambling addiction by claiming he’s a responsible adult who spent his own discretionary funds to engage in an enjoyable habit serviced by a profit-making business that caused him, his family, and society no harm.  Meanwhile, in 1989 on Larry King Live, he was agreeing with a caller who said we should “behead the damn drug dealers,” replying “I mean what the caller suggests is morally plausible. Legally, it’s difficult. But somebody selling drugs to a kid? Morally, I don’t have any problem with that at all.”

In case you're wondering, white folks are statistically more likely to be marijuana users than blacks and Hispanics.

I guess our drug czars have improved their lying about, er, I mean “actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize” marijuana since the days of the first federal anti-drug preacher, Federal Bureau of Narcotics head Harry J. Anslinger (FD Roosevelt – Kennedy).  None of the recent drug czars says things like:

“Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….”

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”

“Two Negros took a girl fourteen years old and kept her for two days under the influence of hemp. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis.”

“Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy”

Today the ideological heirs of Harry J. Anslinger continue to support the prohibition that makes murderers out of Mexican drug trafficking organizations that have killed 28,000 in three years. The Six Drug Czars support the prohibition that locks up “Negroes” and Hispanics at rates far greater than their use of drugs compared with whites. Bennett, Martinez, Brown, McCaffrey, Walters, and McCaffrey have been peddling the same lies and half-truths for over two decades to support a war over four decades based on a prohibition for seven decades that is, as President (pot smoker) Obama once declared “an utter failure, and I think we need to re-think and decriminalize our marijuana laws.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

(Mother Jones) AMONG OUR LEADERS in Washington, who’s been the biggest liar? There are all too many contenders, yet one is so floridly surreal that he deserves special attention. Nope, it’s not Dick Cheney or Alberto Gonzales or John Yoo. It’s a trusted authority figure who’s lied for 11 years now, no matter which party held sway. (Nope, it’s not Alan Greenspan.) This liar didn’t end-run Congress, or bully it, or have its surreptitious blessing at the time only to face its indignation later. No, this liar was ordered by Congress to lie—as a prerequisite for holding the job.

Give up? It’s the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a.k.a. the drug czar, who in 1998 was mandated by Congress to oppose legislation that would legalize, decriminalize, or medicalize marijuana, or redirect anti-trafficking funding into treatment. And the drug czar has also—here’s where the lying comes in—been prohibited from funding research that might give credence to any of the above. These provisions were crafted by Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Bob Barr (R-Ga.) and pushed for by then-czar Barry McCaffrey, best remembered for being somewhat comically obsessed with the evils of medical marijuana. A few Dems complained that the bill, which set “hard targets” of an 80 percent drop in the availability of drugs, a 60 percent decrease in street purity, and a 50 percent reduction in drug-related crime and ER visits, all by 2004—whoops!—was “simplistic” and “designed to achieve political advantage.” Though the vote count was not recorded for history, it got enough bipartisan support to be signed into law by Bill “Didn’t Inhale” Clinton.

But then, the drug war has never been about facts—about, dare we say, soberly weighing which policies might alleviate suffering, save taxpayers money, rob the cartels of revenue. Instead, we’ve been stuck in a cycle of prohibition, failure, and counterfactual claims of success. (To wit: Since 1998, the ONDCP has spent $1.4 billion on youth anti-pot ads. It also spent $43 million to study their effectiveness. When the study found that kids who’ve seen the ads are more likely to smoke pot, the ONDCP buried the evidence, choosing to spend hundreds of millions more on the counterproductive ads.)

Like Stasher Jillian wrote: “the ONDCP is required by law to forever oppose legalization, and when they do our legislators say ‘look, the ONDCP opposes legalization so it must be a bad thing’, so they continue to vote against it.”  Yup, when it comes to legalizing marijuana, our three branches of government are quick to point fingers.  The Judicial branch, when we take medical marijuana to the Supreme Court, points to the Legislative and says, “Congress has the power to change it”.  When we look to the Congress, they point to the Executive and say, “The ONDCP, NIDA, and FDA all say medical marijuana is bad, so we can’t change it.”  When we appeal to the President and the Drug Czar, they point to the Judicial and say “The Supreme Court ruled we can control marijuana,” and they point to the Legislative and say, “and Congress has mandated that we do so.”

Regarding medical marijuana, there is no other policy (save perhaps foreign policy toward Israel) where the American people have have such overwhelming support for one side, regardless of party affiliation, and the leaders in Washington have the complete opposite stance, again, regardless of party affiliation.  And you know – you just know – that if any Congressman’s spouse was stricken with cancer, that regardless of whether they serve in a medical marijuana state or have ever voted against medical marijuana, one of their aides would magically find a joint or two to get the spouse through chemo.

Because it doesn’t matter if 70% of the American people support medical marijuana.  100% of Merck, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, and others don’t.

Well, thank YOU! Mr. Ret. Gen. Fmr. Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey!  I’m actually 41 and my home in Oregon is not made of log, but thanks nonetheless.

Council on Foreign Relations
The President’s Foreign Policy Inbox: U.S.-Mexico Relations
Speakers: Barry R. McCaffrey, President, BR McCaffrey Associates LLC; Shannon K. O’Neil, Douglas Dillon Fellow For Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Presider: Scott Malcomson, New York Times Magazine
February 23, 2009

Download audio file (barry-mccaffrey-says-knock-yourself-out.mp3)

QUESTIONER:  Hi, I’m — first, General, thanks for your excellent presentation today and for your long record of public service.

My question is, I infer from what you say — shouldn’t infer, it’s probably obvious — that at the root of the corruption in Mexico, including the lack of law enforcement, and the crime and violence, is the flood of drug money coming largely from the United States.  Is there any change in U.S. drug policy that would dry up that profit?

… I’d just take it one step further, why not just legalize drugs? …

MCCAFFREY:  There’s a 10-minute answer, there’s an hour answer, there’s a three-day answer.  And, fortunately, since I’m not in public life, I actually don’t care.  I care about 6th graders through 12th graders.  If you’re 40 years old, and you’re living in Oregon, and you have 12 giant pot plants in the back of your log cabin, knock yourself out.

(Laughter.)

Now, let me tell you, though, about drug policy, as a general tool.  There’s 300 million 0of us, overwhelmingly we don’t use drugs — overwhelmingly.  Unfortunately — again, pick a study you believe in, there’s probably 16 million of us that do, and have a chronic substance abuse problem.

It’s poly-drug abuse.  It’s dominated by the most dangerous drug in America, bar none — alcohol.  Or, would you prefer to say nicotine.  You know, nicotine maybe kills — pick a number you believe, 440,000 people; alcohol maybe kills 100,000; illegal drugs maybe kill 50,000.

And so it’s a problem, you know, and it dominates — I tell people, find something you don’t like about America, and, basically we like a lot of what goes on here: spouse abuse, dropping out of school, STDs, you name it — at the heart and soul of it you will find a contributing or dominant factor is the abuse of illegal drugs or alcohol.  So, all of us ought to say we’re against that.

And what do you do — and, by the way, it’s going down dramatically.  Peak year of modern drug use in America was 1979.  It was around — 13 percent of us were past-month drug users.  Now, probably, it’s 7 percent.

In the Armed Forces, Active and Reserve, it’s probably under 2 percent — to include the Guard.  And the reason for that, I might add — since half of our young people have used an illegal drug when they come in the Armed Forces, is because we got sergeants who act like parents are supposed to act.  And so they say, look, if you’re in this squadron, in this battalion, in this wing, and you use drugs, we won’t lock you up, we’ll throw you out of the Armed Forces — which is what we do.

So, I would tell you drug use in America has gone down dramatically.  Casual use of cocaine is down by 85 percent.  Chronic illegal drug use is around 5 million people, and probably is stable, although it’s changed forms — new drugs show up, methamphetamines, OxyContin, chemically-produced opiate — synthetic opiates.

So, the drug use thing changes but, you know, I — and, by the way, here’s the final point just to consider, there’s a lot of things in life that if you are really bright, like most of us in this room — possibly exception being me, there’s all sorts of things that are good intellectual arguments.  The legalization of drugs?  We’re not going to do it.  It’s not going to happen.  Parents aren’t going to do it, police chiefs, employers.  We can debate it all we want.

So, normally, people will retreat to marijuana.  Well, how about marijuana?  It’s already, de facto, a not-prosecutable offense everywhere in the country.  If we arrested you and locked you up in a federal prison system for possession of marijuana, you had a little over 200 kilograms on you when we busted you — and, by the way, there’s room for more — but, by and large, in this country, we don’t prosecute.

Matter of fact, we basically don’t prosecute simple possession of heroin if we know you’re an addict.  Go grab one of Ray Kelly’s cops — you got the best police force on the face of the earth here, probably — and, as a general statement, if you want to understand drugs, talk to an emergency room doc, a New York police officer, a local judge or a social worker, and they want to solve the problem with treatment, prevention, stabilization.  And that’s essentially what we’re trying to do, but it’s really difficult.

So, anybody — this is sort of an older group, anybody got kids that are under 19 still in the room?  A couple of you military guys do.  Kids at 6th grade are drug free.  By 8th grade they’ve seen and understand drugs, and there is probably higher rates of heroin abuse among 8th graders and 12th graders.  By the time they’re 12th graders, half of them have used an illegal drug, and one out of four are past-month drug users.  From that population comes the 16 million of us with a substance abuse problem.

You don’t want your kids to be a heroin addict when they grow up?  Get them to age 19, eating supper with their parents, going to church or synagogue, play an organized sport, and where they clearly remember they heard mother or dad say, “In this family we don’t drink beer and drive; we don’t smoke pot and we don’t use ecstasy.”  That’s the drug war right there.

And that’s the 10-minute, or five-minute — (laughter) — answer.

Great, Barry.  I’ll tell that to my friend out here in Oregon who, truly, lives out in the boonies (not quite a log cabin), was a registered medical marijuana patient, growing twelve big ol’ pot plants out in her back yard.  You sent your DEA agents to her back yard, ripped up those plants, held her at gunpoint, and terrorized her family.  They harrassed her and destroyed her property.  To this day a decade later she suffers from PTSD and cannot come to the city because of severe agoraphobia.

Glad to know that in private, you just don’t care, but in public, you had to wreck her life.