(Raw Story) A woman serving a short sentence in a Houston, Texas, jail for possession of marijuana died in custody over the weekend, and officers are not saying how or why.

The 29-year-old, identified as Theresa Anthony, had expected to spend just two and a half weeks behind bars in the Harris County lockup. On Saturday, Cynthia Prude, Theresa’s mother, received a phone call from the jail’s Chaplain informing her that her daughter was dead.

Theresa Anthony, victim of prohibition

Prude has not been allowed to see the body, nor has the Harris County Sheriff’s Department even spoken with her, according to area media.

On 4 June 2009, the Justice Department concluded a 15 months-long investigation into the Harris County facility and determined in the subsequent 27-page report that over 142 prisoners had died there since 2001. Most expired due to lack of medical care, the report claims.

The Associated Press noted that after the Justice Department declined to make its findings public, The Houston Chronicle was able to obtain a copy, which it released on the Internet.

Wait a minute, how is this possible? According to our last Drug Czar, John Walters, finding a non-violent offender in jail or prison for simple possession is like finding a unicorn.

Theresa Anthony could be you or me.  Or could have been a young Barack Obama.  Just another dead unicorn, expiring in a cage for the crime of preferring the safest choice of social relaxant or therapeutic medicine.

President Obama, if you can stop giggling for a moment, could you please put “legalization” back on the table?  Director Kerlikowske, could you please find the time to add “decriminalization” to your vocabulary?  You have the power to see to it that Theresa Anthony is the last unicorn to die in a cell.

You’ll recall former drug czar John Walters once said:

Download audio file (john-walters-mj-prisoners-like-unicorns.mp3)

“The fact is today, people don’t go to jail for the possession of marijuana,” Walters alleged on C-Span. “Finding somebody in jail or prison for possession of marijuana is like finding a unicorn. It doesn’t exist.”

Following that statement we in drug law reform started referring to the between 40-50,000 people in jail or prison for non-violent first time marijuana possession “unicorns”.  It looks like the people making advertisements for Denny’s have followed our lead:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

UPDATE!!! You can also read and leave feedback on this post at The Hill’s influential Congress blog here.

“This ain’t your grandfather’s or your father’s marijuana. This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you.”- Mark R. Trouville, DEA Miami, speaking to the Associated Press (June 22, 2007)

Government claims that today’s pot is more potent, and thus more dangerous to health, than ever before  must be taken with a grain of salt.

Federal officials have made similarly dire assertions before. In a 2004 Reuters News Wire story, government officials alleged, “Pot is no longer the gentle weed of the 1960s and may pose a greater threat than cocaine or even heroin.” (Anti-drug officials failed to explain why, if previous decades’ pot was so “gentle” and innocuous, police still arrested you for it.)

In 2007, Reuters again highlighted the alleged record rise in cannabis potency, proclaiming, “U.S. marijuana grows stronger than before: report.” Quoted in the news story was ex-Drug Czar John Walters, who warned, “This report underscores that we are no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s – this is Pot 2.0.”

Predictably, in 2008 the mainstream news media ran with yet another set of ‘news’ stories alleging that the pot plant’s strength had reached all-time highs. According to a June 12, 2008 Associated Press story:

“The latest analysis from the University of Mississippi’s Potency Monitoring Project tracked the average amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in samples seized by law enforcement agencies from 1975 through 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared with 8.75 percent the previous year.”

Or not. An actual review of the 2008 U-Miss data revealed this nugget of information: The average THC in domestically grown marijuana – which comprises the bulk of the US market – is less than five percent, a figure that’s remained unchanged for nearly a decade. (See: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/pdf/FullPotencyReports.pdf, page 12)

Which brings us to this year. Naturally, the Feds are once again sounding the alarm, as reported today by CNN: “Marijuana potency surpasses 10 percent, U.S. says.”

I suppose, if nothing else, the government’s annual “new and improved pot” claims are good advertising for marijuana dealers. As for the rest of the public, it’s time for a reality check.

First, it’s worth noting that police and lawmakers made these same alarmist claims about the suddenly not-as-dangerous-or-strong-as-we-once-said-it-was pot of the 1960s, ’70s, and 80s. These allegations were false then and they are still false now.

Second, THC – regardless of potency – is virtually non-toxic to healthy cells or organs, and is incapable of causing a fatal overdose. Currently, doctors may legally prescribe a FDA-approved pill that contains 100 percent THC, and curiously, nobody at the University of Mississippi or at the Drug Czar’s office seems to be overly concerned about its potential health effects.

Third, survey data gleaned from cannabis consumers in the Netherlands-where users may legally purchase pot of known quality-indicates that most cannabis consumers prefer less potent pot, just as the majority of those who drink alcohol prefer beer or wine rather than 190 proof Everclear or Bacardi 151. When consumers encounter unusually strong varieties of marijuana, they adjust their use accordingly and smoke less.

Finally, if US lawmakers and government researchers were truly concerned about potential risks posed by supposedly stronger marijuana, they would support regulating the drug, so that its potency would be consistent and this information would publicly displayed to the consumer. (Anyone ever been to a liquor store that sold a brand of booze that didn’t post its alcohol content on the label? Didn’t think so.)

So let’s review, shall we? Our federal government ostensibly wants fewer Americans to consume pot. So they spend billions of dollars outlawing the plant and driving its producers underground where breeders, over time, clandestinely develop stronger and more sophisticated herbal strains than ever existed prior to prohibition. The Feds then inadvertently give America’s marijuana growers billions of dollars in free advertising by telling the world that today’s weed is more potent than anything Allen Ginsberg, Tommy Chong or Jerry Garcia ever smoked in their heyday. In response, tens of millions of Americans head immediately to their nearest street-corner in search of a dealer (or college student) willing to sell them a dimebag of the new, super-potent cannabis they’ve been hearing about on TV. The Feds then demand more of your hard-earned tax dollars so they can get more Americans “off the pot.”

Then next year we do it all over again: same time, same station.

Any questions?

Click here to view the embedded video.

John Walters once said, “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.”

When the US taxpayers no longer fund your demonizing of the sick, disabled, dying, and sense-threatened people who use medical marijuana, what do you do?  If you’re former drug czar John “Marijuana Unicorns” Walters, you get yourself a cushy job at the Hudson Institute, a think tank founded by Herman Kahn.  Kahn’s work was part of the dogma of cold war ideology, having coined the term “mutually assured destruction” regarding nuclear capabilities of the US and then USSR.  (He also coined the term “megadeath”, meaning “one million deaths”, which since has been appropriated and misspelled by the band Megadeth.)  Kahn is reportedly one of the inspirations for the character of Dr. Strangelove in the 1964 film of the same name.

In recent months, more Americans have learned what those living on the border have known for several years: the Mexican government is in a deadly fight with extremely violent gangs.

The administration should be fighting for full funding of the Merida Program of assistance from the United States. Our vital equipment and training will protect innocent lives in both our countries. But the White House has been unengaged as Congress is on a path to cut $100 million in support beyond the $100 million reduction of the last Congress. At a time when Mexico knows as well as we do that Congress is recklessly stimulating and earmarking billions, slashing funding for our national security is grossly irresponsible.

On the key issue of illegal drugs–the widely recognized source of criminal power in Mexico–the Obama administration is lurching dangerously in reverse. In his first statement on drug policy, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested he may no longer enforce federal law against trafficking marijuana if the traffickers call their marijuana medical. Both U.S. and Mexican officials at all levels know that medical marijuana is an utter fraud used to undermine drug enforcement in the United States. Mexican officials also know (as does the Justice Department) that much of the marijuana sold in the “dispensaries” of California funds the mafias of Mexico.

Marijuana sales are the single largest source of drug profits for these criminals–on top of funds from kidnapping, protection rackets, alien smuggling, and car theft. Not enforcing our marijuana laws makes these terrorists stronger. Pretending to take legalization seriously makes them stronger still. What do we think the brave officers risking their lives in Mexico feel when our attorney general sounds like he is going to do less to help? Is it too much to expect him to make clear that enforcing our marijuana laws reduces addiction here and saves lives in Mexico?

I hope that this will change. The recently released Forbes list of wealthiest people in the world includes one of Mexico’s most dangerous criminal leaders. President Obama should make it his goal to help President Calderon apprehend this man and those like him as soon as possible.

John P. Walters is executive vice president of Hudson Institute and former director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George W. Bush.

via PREVIEW: Up In Smoke.

Walters offers no proof that California dispensary medicine is funding Mexican mafias, but evidence and proof were never his strong suit, anyway.  I find it interesting that a stimulus package intended to reverse the economic damage from eight years of laissez-faire policies of the previous administration – Walters’ administration – is considered “recklessly stimulating”, but throwing another $100M-$200M at the failed Meridia policies is “vital equipment and training”.  I’d say something about pots and kettles, but considering this blog’s subject and the president’s race, that’s too many puns for one day.

But suppose that Walters is right and some Mexican-grown and Mexican-trafficked marijuana makes it onto dispensary shelves.  What’s keeping American farmers from supplying those dispensaries, John, and cutting the Mexicans out of the marketplace?  “Pretending to take legalization seriously” scares the hell out of Mexico’s drug criminals!  Do you suppose Al Capone circulated many petitions in support of the 21st Amendment?

Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy advisor for presidents Clinton and Bush, penned the following op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle last week about Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s bill to legalize pot in California:

It’s a tempting idea: Legalize and tax a commodity that a lot of people like, collect the revenues, and reap the budgetary benefits. In economic times like these, that might be just the formula we need to pull us out of the red. In this case, the truth does not live up to the hype.

Now how many examples of Reefer Madness do you think Dr. Sabet can fit within 600 words of newspaper type?  Read on, dear Stasher, for the answer!

Legalizing marijuana will not solve our budget woes, nor will it be good for public health. Introducing marijuana into the open market is very likely to do some other things, however: increase the drug’s consumption, and with it, the enormous social costs associated with marijuana-related accidents, illness and productivity loss.

Legalization will increase the drug’s consumption?

• “In sum, there is little evidence that decriminalization of marijuana use necessarily leads to a substantial increase in marijuana use.” – National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). 1999. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. National Academy Press: Washington, D.C., 102.

Legalization will increase costs from accidents, illness, and productivity loss?

• Recent research into impairment and traffic accident reports from several countries shows that marijuana taken alone in moderate amounts does not significantly increase a driver’s risk of causing an accident.  (Is there any reason to believe, then, that marijuana taken alone in moderate amounts off-hours away from the work site would increase workplace accidents?  It hasn’t in Oregon, where 1 in 8 people smoke pot annually and we just recorded the lowest workplace accident rates ever in this state.)
• A pair of studies at Utah Power and Light Co. and Georgia Power Co. purporting to show that drug users pose a high risk of accidents and absenteeism only looked at users who had exhibited problem behavior on the job. Not surprisingly, this population had worse than average work records. Nonetheless, Utah Power found that drug users cost $215 less in health insurance benefits, while Georgia Power found lower rates of absenteeism in workers who tested positive only for marijuana!
• Lost productivity studies claiming that drug users cost up to $100 billion each year are based on vague comparisons of household drug use and income, with no analysis of actual productivity data.

The example of legal alcohol and tobacco reveal an unsettling pattern. Legal drugs are by definition easy to obtain, and commercialization glamorizes their use and furthers their social acceptance.

Legalization of alcohol and tobacco show how legalizing cannabis will make it more acceptable?

• The number of U.S. adults who smoke [cigarettes] has dropped below 20 percent for the first time on record.
• Alcohol use among the underaged and those of legal age has declined steadily since 1990.  Conversely, alcohol use rose to record levels during Prohibition.

Their price is low, and high profits make promotion worthwhile for sellers. Addiction is simply the price of doing business. Any revenue gained from taxing these drugs is quickly offset by the heavy costs associated with their increased prevalence.

I’ve debunked this “increased costs” argument in a previous Stash.  Basically, this argument only works if you ignore the fact that any costs attributable to marijuana use are already being absorbed and that just about everyone who wants to use marijuana is already doing so.

Because today’s high-potency marijuana is much more harmful than once thought, a spike in use from legalization would result in a financial burden California cannot afford to bear.

Today’s high potency marijuana is more harmful?

• Claims made in the public domain about a 20- or 30-fold increase in cannabis potency … are not supported currently by the evidence.

It is almost universally accepted in the medical community that marijuana use is linked with mental illness. Since the appearance of the British Medical Journal’s famous 2002 headline, “Marijuana and psychiatric illness: the link grows stronger,” the research showing marijuana’s link with illnesses like psychosis and schizophrenia has become frighteningly commonplace. In fact, researchers from Kings College in London have shown that eliminating marijuana use would decrease the incidence of schizophrenia in the American population by more than 8 percent. That means that marijuana use is responsible for the schizophrenia suffered by more than 19,000 Americans.

Universally accepted that marijuana use is linked with mental illness?

• Investigators reported no statistically significant “differences in syptomatology between schizophrenic patients who were or were not cannabis users” after controlling for patients’ age, sex, and ethnicity. Researchers also failed to find “any evidence that cannabis users with schizophrenia were more likely to have a family member with the disorder.”  These findings “argue against a distinct schizophrenic-like psychosis caused by cannabis,” authors concluded.

Other research has shown the drug’s connection to lung damage, as well as to head, neck and testicular cancers.

Smoking pot will hurt your lungs, head and neck, and testicles?

• Long-term smoking of cannabis is associated with an elevated risk of respiratory complications, including an increase in cough, sputum production, and wheezing, but not a decline in pulmonary function, according to a review published in the February issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
• Smoking cannabis, even long-term, is not associated with an increased risk of developing cancers of the head or neck, according to the results of a case control population-based study published in the March issue of the journal Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.
• Men who self-reported having “ever used” marijuana had no statistically significant risk of testicular cancer compared to healthy controls who never used pot.  Men who reported currently using marijuana at least once per week, and who had started smoking pot prior to age 18, had an elevated risk compared to controls of contracting a type of testicular cancer known as nonseminoma.  However, nonseminomas account for fewer than one half of one percent of all cancers among American men and since the 1970s, the percentage of American males smoking pot has climbed dramatically. By contrast, incidences of nonseminoma have risen only nominally during this same time period.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s justification for AB390 relies on the myth that marijuana laws are costing taxpayers millions of dollars and wrecking the lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Marijuana laws don’t cost taxpayers millions of dollars?

• State and local justice costs for marijuana arrests are now estimated to be $7.6 billion, approximately $10,400 per arrest. Of this total, annual police costs are $3.7 billion, judicial/legal costs are $853 million, and correctional costs are $3.1 billion.

But a closer examination of the facts reveals a very different reality. Although there are thousands of arrests for marijuana possession every year in our state, most of these arrests result in little or no consequences. Most of those who are charged with possession plead down from more serious charges, such as trafficking. Researchers from Rand report that many marijuana arrests result from drinking and driving violations at alcohol checkpoints. “The police also find joints, and then (the offender) is in jail for both offenses. People’s images of the casual (marijuana) user getting hauled off to jail are not true,” a Rand researcher recently commented.

Marijuana arrests have little or no consequences?

• If you’re convicted or enter a plea, you’ll be on probation and mandatory Urinalysis Tests will be performed.
• A conviction could impact child custody issues in family court.
• An arrest for Possession with Intent to Distribute or an arrest for the Manufacture of 5 or more plants may result in the State attempting to Forfeit your home, your car, your cash and other assets which they can do even if charges are later dismissed or you are acquitted at trial! This heinous law is know as “Asset Forfeiture”.
• A conviction can impact Federally insured student loans
• A felony conviction deprives you of the right to vote
• A felony conviction deprives you of the right to possess firearms
• A conviction can get you tossed out of government subsidized housing
• A conviction can impair your ability to obtain food stamps and other welfare benefits
• Your ability to ever adopt children will be jeopardized
• You will be denied entry into Canada and possibly other countries
• A misdemeanor conviction remains on your record and available to the public for three years before it can be expunged, which may have an impact on current or future employment
• A felony conviction remains on your record and available to the public for five years before it can be expunged, which may have an impact on current or future employment.

Most marijuana arrests are pleaded down from more serious crimes or concurrent with arrest for other crimes and the casual marijuana users are not hauled off to jail?

• Jack Riley, the Rand study’s lead author, said, “We cannot say, however, whether large numbers of low-level offenders may be in jails, as opposed to prisons.“
• “Although many thousands of offenders receive jail sentences for low-level drug offenses, we examine only prison sentences in this report.“
• Of those imprisoned on low-level drug charges… 68 percent were found to have a previous drug conviction. In addition, 72 percent of those imprisoned on charges of drug use or the possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia had previous drug convictions.  (Read: “three strikes” laws that get you prison time for a joint because you were convicted of two other crimes in your past.)
• Researchers found that more than half of offenders possessed hard drugs, including cocaine and heroin, at the time of their arrests. Just 3 percent of the cases sampled involved marijuana only.  (So, then, there are people in prison for marijuana only, right?  Currently, some 68,500 Americans are either incarcerated or on probation for marijuana violations, the Sentencing Project report determined. Of these, an estimated 11,200 were first time marijuana offenders serving time in state or federal prison.)

Rand-sponsored research reveals that in the Netherlands, where the drug is sold openly at “coffee shops,” marijuana use among young adults increased almost 300 percent after a wave of commercialization. The country has also become a haven for producers of high-potency marijuana, and other drugs like ecstasy and methamphetamine. These unintended consequences have led many Dutch officials to advocate for rolling back the status quo.

Once the Netherlands began tolerating marijuana sales, use increased dramatically?

• Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Liberalizing marijuana laws is not associated with increased cannabis use among the general public, according to a scientific review published this month in the journal Current Opinion in Psychiatry.  (Use of marijuana did increase in Holland… as it did everywhere in Europe around the same time as the coffee shops came into existence.  Still, the Netherlands has half the drug use rates as the United States.)

To be sure, restricting marijuana use by law – especially because some people find it extremely pleasurable – is not without its costs. But legalizing this addictive substance would only exacerbate our problems by increasing the harm that greater levels of use will cause. Given the heavy costs associated with our two legal substances, and the relatively minor costs associated with our current restrictive marijuana policy, the case for a commercial market for marijuana remains weak and unconvincing – even in this uncomfortable economic environment.

It seems like the argument for a commercial California marijuana market is convincing at least six out of ten people who hear it.

By my count that’s seventeen examples of Reefer Madness packed into 598 words, for a score of 2.84 Anslingers (an Anslinger is my newly-coined measurement of Reefer Madness, indicating the average number of reefer mad propositions offered per 100 words.  So far, 2.84 is the upper benchmark… but I’m sure Barbara Kay or Calvina Fay or John Walters will top it sometime soon.

MEXICO CITY — As drug violence spirals out of control in Mexico, a commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point.

“The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war,” said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro. “We have to move from this approach to another one.”

The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy “taboo” and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts. The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana.

This Wall Street Journal article also cites work by the Brookings Institution that confirms that there is as much supply and demand for drugs as ever, despite declaring all-out war on drugs.  Naturally, the prohibition addicts who got us in this mess say that the decapitated dead bodies in the streets of Tijuana and Juarez are just signs that total victory over drugs is just around the corner:

John Walters, former director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said, “It’s not true that we’ve lost or can’t do anything about the drug problem,” and cited security improvements in Colombia.

Mr. Walters said increased violence in border areas of Mexico was partly a result of criminal organizations compensating for reduced income from the supply of drugs by turning to other activities, such as people-smuggling, and continuing to fight over turf.

U.S. law-enforcement officials — as well as some of their counterparts in Mexico — say the explosion in violence indicates progress in the war on drugs as organizations under pressure are clashing.

“If the drug effort were failing there would be no violence,” a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. There is violence “because these guys are flailing. We’re taking these guys out. The worst thing you could do is stop now.”

Yes, I see.  It’s just a few dead-enders.  We’re in the last throes of the narcotrafficante insurgency, if you will.  The surge is working.  We just have to have patience.  We’re turning a corner in the Drug War.  All we’re missing is a “Mission Accomplished” banner on a boat in the Rio Grande.

Mr. former Drug Czar Walters, how many dead innocent Mexicans do there have to be before we’re sure we’ve finally won?

Drug Czar John Walters recently answered a series of questions in an “Ask the White House” session.  Steve Clay caught the sessions and does a phenomenal job of knocking down the Lies, Fallacies, Deceptive Phrasing, Unsupportive Facts, Unsupported/Arguable Opinions, and Unproven/Contradictory Statements uttered by the Drug Czar.  (And those are capitalized because he actually went to the trouble of categorizing the Drug Czar’s blather.  Bravo, good man, rarely do I find someone with both the stomach to endure the chatter and the mind to sort it all out.  Rarer still is the person who will type out and fact-check and link their rants to such a degree.  Click the link and read it all. — “R”R)

Latest Drug Czar Lies | Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
It does not bother me that John Walters, Director of National Drug Control Policy, is passionate about his positions on drug addiction and how it is best treated; with opinions I can always respectfully disagree. What is unacceptable are lies, fallacies, and deceptive wording in federal government publications. He recently answered a series of questions posed on Ask the White House.