The National Black Police Association, in coalition with AIDS groups, medical marijuana activists, drug reform networks, gay and lesbian groups, and more, has called pre-emptively for President-elect Barack Obama to not pick Jim Ramstad as his drug czar. From their open letter:

We are concerned… about media reports that you may choose Rep. James Ramstad (R-MN/3rd) to be your director of national drug control policy or “drug czar”.

In his twenty-eight years in the U.S. House, Representative Ramstad has consistently opposed policies that seek to reduce drug-related harm and create common ground on polarizing issues.

Representative Ramstad voted in 1998 in favor of making permanent the federal funding ban on syringe exchange, voted in 2000 to prohibit the District of Columbia from spending its own locally raised funds on syringe exchange programs and voted in 2007 against lifting the same DC ban, despite decades of research showing that syringe exchange programs reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS without increase drug use. Rep. Ramstad has also consistently opposed congressional efforts to stop the arrest of HIV/AIDS, cancer and other patients who use medical marijuana to ease their pain and suffering in states where it is legal.

Unlike you and Vice President-elect Biden, Rep. Ramstad has also failed to cosponsor any legislation eliminating the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, despite the fact that there were four different crack/powder reform bills before the U.S. House in the 110th Congress.

We urge you to nominate for drug czar someone with a public health background, who is committed to reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and other infectious diseases, open to systematic drug policy reform, and able to show strong leadership on the issues you believe in.

Read the full letter and all the endorsers here.

Maia Szalavitz: Obama Drug Czar Pick: No Recovery from War on Drugs?
Unfortunately, Ramstad may be a drug warrior in recovering person’s clothing. There is one issue that has consistently separated those who put science and saving lives in front of politics. That is needle exchange programs for addicts to prevent the spread of HIV and other blood borne illnesses.

Even President Clinton now says he was “wrong” when he ignored the recommendations of every scientific and medical organization in the world that has examined the question — from the AMA to the World Health Organization — and refused to lift the federal ban on funding.

While Obama has said that he favors federal funding, the last thing we need is another drug czar to talk him out of it.

Ramstad looks like that person. I am awaiting comment from his office to see if he has changed his position, but his history on the issue isn’t good. In 1992, he said, “Federal funds should be used to get people off drugs not facilitate drug abuse…let’s support programs that save lives, not destroy lives.” By then, dozens of studies from around the world already suggested that clean needle programs not only reduce HIV, but attract addicts into recovery.

Ramstad also — again, against the evidence — opposes medical marijuana and supports federal policing and prosecution of providers and patients in the states that have made it legal. These states have not seen the rise in teen drug use that opponents like the Congressman predicted.

There’s simply no evidence that allowing sick people to get needed medication conflicts with helping addicts. Obama has said he does not support these prosecutions — will Ramstad push him in the wrong direction here, too? In an economic crisis, do we really want to spend federal time and money locking up medical marijuana providers and sick people?

While Ramstad has opposed some interdiction efforts and called for more treatment funding, someone who doesn’t even believe that addicts have a right to life if they aren’t in treatment is not the kind of recovering person that I want representing me as drug czar.

That’s not change, President Obama — that’s more of the same. Don’t make the mistake that Bill Clinton did and install a drug czar who will ignore science and push dogma.

The Big Question » Blog Archive » Ramstad: Obama’s new Drug Czar?
Rep. Jim Ramstad’s name is being bandied about in D.C. as a possible “drug czar,” or head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.President-Elect Barack Obama is filling out his team, and Politico, a respected Washington tabloid that covers all things Washington, has mentioned the retiring Minnesota Republican as a potentially popular and bipartisan pick.

Sources close to Ramstad, a recovering alcoholic and longtime proponent of mental health and drug treatment, say he might be interested. Although Ramstad cited fatigue with the weekly Washington commute in his decision to retire after 18 years in Congress, sources say that could be trumped by his passion for helping addicts like himself.

Ramstad’s spokesman, Dean Peterson, told Politico that it’s “gratifying to hear Jim’s name being mentioned for drug czar.” Peterson noted that Ramstad has worked for 27 years on anti-drug efforts in Congress and the Minnesota Senate.

“As a recovering person, he’s worked every day to help those suffering the ravages of chemical addiction,” Peterson told Politico.

Let’s just see how Jim Ramstad has worked in the US Congress to help all us ravaged cannabis consumers:

• Voted against the Hinchey Amendment in 2007 and 2005 that would have suspended funds used by the Department of Justice to conduct raids in medical marijuana states.
• Voted in 1999 for the DC Appropriations Bill (Section 167) that said that even though 69% of the residents of the District of Columbia approved medical marijuana, DC couldn’t spend any money to enact the initiative.

“We are honored to have Congressman Ramstad join our board of directors,” said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s chairman and president and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. “He is an outstanding and tenacious leader in the effort to obtain parity in health insurance reimbursement for substance abuse and mental health. With Representative Ramstad’s support we hope to begin a cultural change potent enough to prompt a revolution in the way our government addresses substance abuse and addiction.”

…by declaring responsible adult cannabis users “addicts” and using workplace drug testing and mandated rehab to funnel their health insurance money into the drug treatment industry.

So, for a new Drug Czar, for the “change we can believe in”, we might get an anti-medical marijuana recovering alcoholic who serves on a board for a group that shamelessly promotes the “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” debunked cannabis potency arguments and trumpets the drug-court-mandated cannabis treatment as proof there is an epidemic of marijuana “addiction”.  That’s who we get to go with Attorney General Eric “Tough on marijuana crimes” Holder, Vice President Joe “Mandatory Minimums” Biden, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm “Silence Doctors on MedMJ” Emanuel.

Gee, are you sure John Ashcroft’s not available for the job?