When one of your cities has more Drug War murders than California, it refocuses your attention on ending the Drug War

The marijuana internets are abuzz with the latest headline about world leaders declaring the War on Drugs to be a failure and calling for the legalization of marijuana. Here are a few:

World Leaders: Time to End Marijuana Prohibition

Who’s Who of World Leaders Call Global Drug War a “Failure”

World Leaders Recommend Ending The ‘Failed’ Drug War

These headlines cover the report released by the Global Commission on Drug Policy yesterday.  However, I think the preceding headlines fail to make an important distinction, one that was not lost on the editors at NPR (emphasis mine):

‘Global War On Drugs Has Failed,’ Former World Leaders Say

MEMBERS OF THE GLOBAL COMMISSION ON DRUG POLICY

– Asma Jahangir; human rights activist, former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions; Pakistan.
– Carlos Fuentes; writer; Mexico.
– Cesar Gaviria; former president of Colombia.
– Ernesto Zedillo; former president of Mexico.
– Fernando Henrique Cardoso; former president of Brazil.
– George Papandreou; Prime Minister of Greece. [The exception that proves the rule? --"R"R]
– George Shultz; former secretary of state.
– Javier Solana; former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy; Spain.
– John Whitehead; banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial; United States.
– Kofi Annan; former secretary general of the United Nations.
– Louise Arbour; former U.N. high commissioner for human rights; Canada.
– Maria Cattaui; member of the board, Petroplus Holdings; former secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce; Switzerland.
– Marion Caspers-Merk; former state secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health, Germany.
– Mario Vargas Llosa; writer; Peru.
– Michel Kazatchkine; executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; France.
– Paul Volcker; former chairman of the Federal Reserve.
– Richard Branson; entrepreneur; founder of the Virgin Group; U.K.
– Ruth Dreifuss- former president of Switzerland.
– Thorvald Stoltenberg; former minister of foreign affairs and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees; Norway.

It’s rarely current world leaders expressing these sentiments.  They seem to only speak out after they are out of office and lacking the power to help end that “failure”.  I’ve been reporting on the “former leaders” who call for an end to the Drug War since 2008:

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox calls for debate on marijuana legalization

Latin American ex-presidents urge US to decriminalize marijuana, rethink drug war

Former UK Drug Warrior: “What harms society is the illegality of drugs…”

Fortunately a few brave leaders speak out while they are still in office:

Argentine president calls for decriminalization of drug use

Jamaica lawmaker calls for legalizing small amounts of marijuana for private use

And when they succeed in decriminalization of drug use, they get amazing results:

United Nations backs drug decriminalization

The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal

The report itself makes many of the same recommendations NORML has been touting for four decades now.  The former world leaders recommend that we stop ”the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others.”  They point out that “models of legal regulation of drugs” should be instituted by governments to reduce the power of organized crime and protect the health of citizens and that this “applies especially to cannabis.”  They explain that a realistic government drug policy would avoid “simplistic ‘just say no’ messages and ‘zero tolerance’ policies in favor of educational efforts”.  It’s nice to finally have world leaders, even former ones, recognizing we were and are right.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

Unfortunately, it’s the current ones – the ones who have the power to make these changes – we have to convince… and they’re not budging from their “Schedule I dangerous drug what about the children?!?” rhetoric:

(Los Angeles Times) ”Making drugs more available — as this report suggests — will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe,” said Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

More available?  Almost 1 in 4  high school kids can get a bag of weed within an hour and say it’s easier to buy than beer and prescription drugs.  Twenty-five million American adults are using cannabis annually and fifteen million use monthly.  Marijuana is already quite available, it’s just a question of who controls and profits from the market – regulated businesses or violent criminals.

“Legalizing dangerous drugs would be a profound mistake, leading to more use, and more harmful consequences,” drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said this year.

Administration officials dispute the idea that nothing can be done to reduce the demand for drugs in the United States. A spokesman for the White House drug agency said U.S. consumption peaked in 1979, when surveys showed that 14% of respondents had used illegal drugs in the previous month. Now that figure has dropped to 7%.

Remember that when Gateway Gil says “drugs”, he means “marijuana”.  Among 12th graders, monthly use of marijuana peaked in 1978, but amphetamines peaked in 1981, cocaine use peaked in 1985, ecstasy use peaked in 2000, hallucinogen use peaked in 1975, heroin use peaked in 2000, and sedative use peaked in 1975.  Since marijuana is far more popular (15 million annual users) than all other drugs combined (6 million annual users), any movement of the marijuana numbers moves the “drugs” numbers.

And since he brought it up, I’d remind Gateway Gil that his claim of that monthly drug use dropped in half since 1979 came as sixteen states passed medical marijuana laws and two states decriminalized marijuana possession.  Your predecessors warned us that if we legalized marijuana, even in those very specific and limited ways, it would be a profound mistake, leading to more use, and more harmful consequences.  It’s understandable, since you and your predecessors are bound by law to oppose any move toward legalization, so you can understand when we completely ignore your Chicken Little warnings about legalization.

Alcohol and Prescription Drugs are real bad, so marijuana shouldn't be legal. Huh?

Buffalonews.com As director of the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy, Kerlikowske made his position clear Monday during a Buffalo visit. He spoke about the issue at a meeting with the Editorial Board of The Buffalo News.

He noted that, while alcohol use is legal in the United States, “hundreds of thousands of people” are arrested each year for driving while intoxicated, illegally selling beer to underage drinkers and other offenses.

Yes, hundreds of thousands of people who break the laws regulating the sales of alcohol and the commission of vehicular crimes are arrested.  However, tens of millions of people who drink alcohol responsibly are not arrested or harassed at all.

What kind of stupid argument is that, Gateway Gil?  If we legalized marijuana we’d just have to arrest people for driving stoned and selling to minors, so we should just arrest everyone who uses it?  Could your arguments be any more nonsense?

And while prescription painkiller drugs also are legal, Kerlikowske said, abuse of those drugs is skyrocketing throughout the nation, causing a major public health problem.

“Prescription drug use is legal . . . and we can’t control it,” Kerlikowske said during the hourlong session.

I guess yes, they could be more nonsense.  Prescription drugs are legal and we can’t control them so we should continue to arrest everyone who uses cannabis?  One critical difference you fail to acknowledge is that alcohol and prescription medications are toxic, side-effect laden, and addictive!  If cannabis were legal, many of those people who become addicted to opiate painkillers would never have had to take the opiates in the first place and those who require opiates for medical purposes can take fewer of them for the medicinal effect.

He has found no easy answers but said he strongly feels that drug treatment is just as important as arresting drug dealers.

“You can’t arrest your way out of this problem,” he said during a wide-ranging discussion of drug issues.

Not that we’re going to stop arresting people, mind you; we’re just acknowledging that it’s ineffective.

Gateway Gil even re-used his weak one-liner that he ended the War on Drugs two years ago (or as we think of it, 1.7 million marijuana arrests ago).  He then invoked the people in the “inner city” who think that a phrase like “War on Drugs” feels like a war on them, that you can say it’s a war on a substance but that’s not the way it’s taken.  He also said “War on Drugs” implies that there is some sort of final goal, some surrender that could eventually be achieved, and the battle against drugs will be forever ongoing.

So we retired the phrase “War on Drugs”.  You know, like how Vietnam became a “police action”.  We didn’t change the policy, we just slapped a new coat of paint on the old warship.

The little red police cars show you the zero-tolerance states. If there is a time next to it, like 24h, that's the mandatory jail time you serve immediately.

(UPDATED with helpful research from Paul Armentano.)

The headline from the Associated Press reads “Gov’t: Drugs were in 1 in 5 drivers killed in 2009“.  The lede for the story is:

About 1 in 5 drivers who were killed last year in car crashes tested positive for drugs, raising concerns about the impact of drugs on auto safety, the government reported Tuesday.

Other outlets like USA Today give it a more chilling headline “U.S.: Third of tests on motorists killed shows drug use“.  The discrepancy results from the AP considering all drivers who were killed when not every driver killed was drug tested.  The USA Today considers the “tests on motorists killed”, thereby discounting the roughly 40% of killed drivers who were never drug tested.  Whatever – 20% of all drivers or 33% of all drivers tested – they’re dead, they drove, there’s drugs, be afraid!

The AP then follows with a second paragraph that points out the obvious logical fallacy of “correlation = causation” – just because dead drivers had drugs in their system doesn’t mean drugs caused the accident that killed them - something the USA Today article never addresses:

Researchers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the new data underscored a growing problem of people driving with drugs in their systems. But they cautioned that it was not clear that drugs caused the crashes and more research was needed to determine how certain drugs can hinder a person’s ability to drive safely.

However, while AP doesn’t get around to distinguishing what exactly “drugs” refers to until paragraph seven, USA Today opens by explaining we’re talking about all drugs, prescription and recreational:

One-third of all the drug tests done on drivers killed in motor vehicle accidents came back positive for drugs ranging from hallucinogens to prescription pain killers last year — a 5 percentage point increase since 2005, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration reported Tuesday.

Nobody recommends driving while impaired by drugs – legal or illegal.  NORML has maintained this as a core Principle of Responsible Use for years.  But there are many legal prescription drugs that will cause impairment that bear the warning “Until you know how you may be affected by this drug, do not drive or operate heavy machinery,” which suggests to me that once you do know how it affects you, it’s your judgment call.  In fact, one of those drugs is prescription dronabinol, the synthetic cannabinoid THC marketed as “Marinol”.

AP’s seventh paragraph also points out that presence of a drug in your system may have no bearing on whether that drug was impairing you in the first place:

The tests took into account both legal and illegal drugs, including heroin, methadone, morphine, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, LSD, prescription drugs and inhalants. The amount of time the drug could linger in the body varied by drug type, the researchers said, so it was unclear when the drivers had used the drugs prior to the fatal crashes.

Cannabis metabolites can be detectable in urine for weeks and THC itself can be detected blood for at least six hours.  Most illegal drugs can be detected for a few days in urine and a few hours in blood.  Prescription drugs are just as varied.  So we’ve got 20% or 33% of killed drivers who had a drug in their system that may or may not have contributed to the crash that killed them and they may or may not have taken that drug before driving.

For comparison’s sake, USA Today links to the stat that drowsiness was a factor in 17% of all fatal crashes.  You just may be more likely to die in a crash caused by lack of a nap as by taking the pill to get a good night’s sleep.  Are you scared yet?  Well, you should be, because the whole point of scaring you about the drugged drivers is the push for nationwide zero-tolerance DUID laws.  Back to the USA Today:

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, called the numbers of fatalities involving drugs “alarmingly high,” and called for more states to pass laws making it a crime to have illegal drugs in the body while driving, no matter how much. Seventeen states already have such laws.

The lack of research also presents a problem for lawmakers to develop laws. They can outlaw the use of all illegal drugs while driving, but what about someone who took a prescription sleeping pill a few hours ago?

Since they can outlaw the illegal drugs and there is no political cost in doing so, they will.  These “zero tolerance” laws means if they detect any metabolite of any illegal drug, you are guilty of driving impaired.  Since that joint you smoked could be detectable long after its effects had worn off, you’d be an impaired driver in the eyes of the law even if you were completely sober and unimpaired.  Since marijuana is detectable for much longer periods than most any other drug, legal or illegal, “zero tolerance” laws amount to witch hunts for cannabis consumers behind the wheel.

The irony here is that compared to the threat from drinking drivers, drowsy drivers, texting drivers, and prescription drugged drivers, the threat from drivers using cannabis is negligible.  Just last week we took a look at a study in the Netherlands that showed that experienced users can develop a tolerance to the psychomotor impairing effects of cannabis.  This summer we examined a study performed in Iowa and Connecticut that showed cannabis-using drivers performed as well on a driving simulator after smoking marijuana as they did before smoking marijuana.  (If you’d like the full examination of marijuana and driving, please see Paul Armentano’s impeccable white paper, Cannabis and Driving: A Scientific and Rational Review.)

As for the prescription drugs, there isn’t much political benefit in threatening a majority of your constituents, especially the older ones who do most of the voting, with a DUI charge for the pills they’re required to take every day.  Also consider the lobbying money and clout of Big Pharma that won’t look kindly on strict new driving laws that might cause people to use less pills.

No, the per se limit on prescription drugs isn’t coming to your state anytime soon… but maybe the end of driving privileges for cannabis consumers in your state is.  The seventeen states with current per se DUID laws are:

• Arizona (except for medical marijuana patients), Utah, South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, Delaware, and Georgia already have these zero tolerance laws for any THC or metabolites of THC – if you toked within the past week, you could already be an impaired driver.
• Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island have zero tolerance for THC in the blood – if you toked before bed you might be an impaired driver in the morning.
• Nevada and Ohio consider you impaired if they detect 2 nanograms (2 billionths of a gram) of THC per milliliter of blood (2ng/ml) and Pennsylvania raises that limit to 5ng/ml.
• Virginia, Minnesota, and North Carolina have zero tolerance laws for drugs that do not include cannabis or its metabolites.

Learn what the DUID laws are in your state.

The number of people willing to admit on the telephone to an anonymous pollster representing the federal government that they are breaking state and federal marijuana laws has increased by 8% this year.

(National Survey on Drug Use and Health 2009) This report presents the first information from the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual survey sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The survey is the primary source of information on the use of illicit drugs, alcohol, and tobacco in the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States aged 12 years old or older. The survey interviews approximately 67,500 persons each year.

Marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug. In 2009, there were 16.7 million past month users. Among persons aged 12 or older, the rate of past month marijuana use and the number of users in 2009 (6.6 percent or 16.7 million) were higher than in 2008 (6.1 percent).

The rate of current marijuana use among youths aged 12 to 17 decreased from 8.2 percent in 2002 to 6.7 percent in 2006, remained unchanged at 6.7 percent in 2007 and 2008, then increased to 7.3 percent in 2009.

In 2009, the average age of marijuana initiates among persons aged 12 to 49 was 17.0 years, significantly lower than the average age of marijuana initiates in 2008 (17.8 years), but similar to that in 2002 (17.0 years).

I always take these numbers with a grain of salt, because they come from a survey where a total stranger calls you on the phone, tells you he’s doing a survey on drugs for the government, and then asks you which state and federal drug laws you’re violating.  I think increases and decreases in these numbers may have a lot to do with political climate – how safe does someone feel admitting to being a pot smoker?  With the Obama Administration (insincerely) pledging to keep hands off medical marijuana, maybe we just have more people willing to admit to the cannabis use they’ve been enjoying all along.

But our Drug Czar Kerlikowske seems to think it is all the fault of medical marijuana, which is leading more people to smoke the devil’s lettuce:

Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, called the 9 percent increase in drug use disappointing but said he was not surprised given “eroding attitudes” about the perception of harm from illegal drugs and the growing number of states approving medicinal marijuana.

“I think all of the attention and the focus of calling marijuana medicine has sent the absolute wrong message to our young people,” Kerlikowske said in an interview.

So reported monthly marijuana use has gone up by 9.8% in 2009… but only Michigan passed a medical marijuana law in 2008.  I wonder what message was being sent in 2006 when use dropped 2.5% in 2007?  And what the hell happened in 2001 and 2002 to see increases of 13.1% and 20.3% respectively?  Was it Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Maine, Nevada, Hawaii, and Colorado passing medical marijuana laws?  Or was it the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 that caused 36.1% more people to smoke pot monthly in a two-year span?

However, I do have to agree with the Drug Czar, somewhat, except that it isn’t a “wrong message” but rather a “truthful message” we are sending to our young people:

The survey found the number of youths aged 12-17 who perceived a great risk of harm from smoking marijuana once or twice a week dropped from 54.7 percent in 2007 to 49.3 percent in 2009.

Because there is not a “great risk of harm” from smoking marijuana once or twice a week.  While it is not harmless, it is far less damaging to a teenager to attend a pot party on the weekend than to attend a kegger.  The internet has facilitated the dissemination on truthful information about cannabis, to the Drug Czar’s chagrin.  We can no longer tell young people they’ll be stupid (Carl Sagan) amotivated (Barack Obama) slacker (Willie Nelson) losers (Michael Phelps) if they smoke pot.

If anything, this report shows that cannabis use is very popular and most people start smoking pot before they turn 21.  That’s the result we have gotten after forty years of “war on drugs”.  I’ve never understood why, year after year, the drug czar trots out these survey numbers showing such failure to stop marijuana use among adults and teens, and then uses them as the reason why we need to keep doing what we’ve always been doing – arresting and drug testing people for marijuana use.  Meanwhile, we’ve taken the path of strict regulation and public education with a truly deadly and addictive product that used to be very popular with young people – tobacco.  How has that turned out, Mr. Kerlikowske?

(NSDUH) Between 2002 and 2009, past month use of any tobacco product decreased from 30.4 to 27.7 percent, and past month cigarette use declined from 26.0 to 23.3 percent. Rates of past month use of cigars, smokeless tobacco, and pipe tobacco in 2009 were similar to corresponding rates in 2002.

The rate of past month tobacco use among 12 to 17 year olds remained steady from 2008 to 2009 (11.4 and 11.6 percent, respectively). The rate of past month cigarette use among 12 to 17 year olds also remained steady between 2008 and 2009 (9.1 and 8.9 percent, respectively), but declined since 2002 when the rate was 13.0 percent.

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.

The fact that in a state the size of California you can get a doctor’s recommendation for marijuana for anything from cancer to a bad mood has changed the attitude toward pot nationwide, says Rose Ewing, a program director of drug courts in Tulsa, Okla.

Ewing says it has made it harder to help some of her clients.

“They’re like, ‘If we lived in another state we’d be able to use this medically for different conditions because they don’t consider it a bad drug or a hard-core drug,’ ” she says. “They really feel like it’s in a different class of drugs.”

Really?  That is so weird!  You mean people think that a non-toxic herb with medicinal uses that has never killed anyone is in a different class than highly addictive, extremely mind-altering drugs that can easily cause overdose death?  Go on…

Drug courts like Ewing’s work on a carrot-and-stick approach. Defendants get therapy and regular drug testing, and a judge monitors their progress. The success rate is high, but the defendants who fail to clean up their acts can go to jail. Yet even with so much at stake, it can be hard to convince marijuana users that they have a problem if few people around them see it that way, says Andrew Cummings, director of the drug court in Georgia’s DeKalb County.

So, you mean, aside from being pee tested regularly and threatened with imprisonment for failure, it is hard to convince marijuana users that their use is causing problems in their life?  And even under that “carrot-and-stick”, the success rate is high, so how difficult was it for them to quit, and therefore, how much of a problem was the pot smoking, really?

I also think they misunderstand the “carrot-and-stick” metaphor.  Here the carrot = “not going to jail”, the stick = “go to jail”.  That’s more of a “whether or not we beat you with a stick” metaphor, isn’t it?

These days it’s difficult for a lot of people to see marijuana as a problem, even if they have never touched the stuff, says Judge John Creuzot of Dallas, who has presided over drug courts and regular felony courts.

“When we get into guilt, innocence and punishment, you see a lot of pushback, especially on marijuana, from the citizens [juries],” he says. “They don’t think it should be a felony offense and … so it’s very difficult to get them to commit to sending someone to the penitentiary for possession of marijuana.”

It’s beginning to sound as if the only people who really think marijuana use is a problem aren’t the users and aren’t the people they live amongst, but the judges and rehabs who make a living on drug courts packed with marijuana users.

Cruezot says he thinks the people who don’t seem to care much about marijuana might become positively enthusiastic if California voters approve a measure on the November ballot to legalize and tax marijuana.

“When a state like California, a big state, moves in that direction — let’s say that becomes the law. If taxes can be raised and collected, if crime doesn’t rise or doesn’t change any, if jails are less populated, everybody else is going to look at it and see,” he says.

Gee, Judge, you think if California legalizes and the sky doesn’t fall that states like Texas might reconsider whether they ought to send otherwise-law abiding citizens to your drug court for using something that doesn’t seem to be destroying California?

But Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, says don’t even think about it.

“Legalization is a nonstarter,” says Kerlikowske, who addressed the drug courts meeting.

Medical marijuana, he says, is not only still illegal but also may not really be medical.

“Medical marijuana is still one of those questions that science should decide and not popular vote,” he says.

Yes!  Let’s let the science decide.  Seeing as we have over 20,000 published scientific studies demonstrating medical utility of cannabis, I feel pretty confident.  But I do wonder why in 2010 there isn’t enough scientific evidence for our federal government, but in 2003, there was enough evidence for them to secure patent #6630507 (cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants).  Or how there wasn’t enough evidence in 1978, but they created the federal medical marijuana program that is still sending 300 joints a month to four Americans.  Or how there wasn’t enough evidence in 1974 when the government was first discovering the anti-cancer properties of THC.

Cummings, the director of the drug court in Georgia, says he worries about what might happen if marijuana use becomes more acceptable.

“People often think about marijuana, and understandably so, as one might think about having a drink at the end of the day and relaxing, but it doesn’t stop there for a lot of people,” he says. “And as the potency increases, the likelihood of dependency increases.”

Cummings wonders how those people would be able to find help if abusing marijuana no longer forced them to go to court.

via Drug Courts Confront Relaxed Attitudes Toward Pot : NPR.

Ummm, maybe it might take as long as it takes alcoholics to determine they have a problem, since they aren’t forced to go to court unless they actually commit a crime, like DUI or domestic abuse.

What all of these people in the article are having a problem with is something all us marijuana smokers already know: There is a difference between “use” and “abuse”.  Just as most people can have a drink and we don’t send in the cops and force them all to go to “alcohol court”, the same should apply to cannabis.  If your use is causing a severe problem in your life then I am completely in support of your self-admission to a rehab.

But if a court is forcing you to go to a rehab, with your only cannabis problem being “you got caught”, then they are wasting your time and the resources that could be better allocated to people with real drug problems.

It was less than one year ago when acting U.S. DEA administrator Michelle Leonhart publicly declared that the escalating violence on the U.S.-Mexico border should be viewed as a sign of the “success” of America’s drug war strategies.

“Our view is that the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having,” said Michele Leonhart, who was recently nominated by President Obama to be the agency’s full time director. “The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.”

Well, if the DEA’s chief talking head thought that some 6,300 drug cartel-related murders in 2008 was an indication of progress, one can only imagine that she believes that this weekend’s south-of-the-border killing spree — which included the murder of a pregnant U.S. official and members of her family — must be downright victorious.

To the rest of us, however, these acts are nothing short of a senseless tragedy — a tragedy made all that much more heart-wrenching because it is U.S. policy that is helping to fuel this violence.

As I wrote last year in the commentary, “How to End Mexico’s Deadly Drug War”:

Wire-service reports estimate that Mexico’s drug lords employ over 100,000 soldiers — approximately as many as the Mexican army — and that the cartels’ wealth, intimidation, and influence extend to the highest echelons of law enforcement and government. Where do the cartels get their unprecedented wealth and power? By trafficking in illicit drugs — primarily marijuana — over the border into the United States.

The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy … says that more than 60 percent of the profits reaped by Mexican drug lords are derived from the exportation and sale of cannabis to the American market. … (By comparison, only about 28 percent of their profits are derived from the distribution of cocaine, and less than 1 percent comes from trafficking methamphetamine.) … Government officials estimate that approximately half the marijuana consumed in the United States originates from outside its borders, and they have identified Mexico as far and away America’s largest pot provider.

If the Obama administration wishes to once and for all reduce this unprecedented wave of Mexican drug-gang violence, then it needs to remove the drug lord’s primary source of income — and that’s marijuana trafficking.

Despite 70+ years of criminal prohibition in the United States (and countless billions of dollars spent attempting to interdict marijuana at our southern border), America remains the primary destination for Mexican pot. Why? Because like it or not, Americans consume cannabis; in fact, Americans lead the world in their consumption of pot.

According to a 2007 economic assessment, U.S. citizens spend $113 billion dollars annually to consume an estimated 31.1 million pounds of pot. According to the federal government, over 100 million Americans have used marijuana; over one in ten Americans do so regularly. In short, criminal marijuana prohibition does not, and will not, reduce demand. So then it’s time to regulate the supply.

It is time to remove the production and distribution of marijuana out of the hands of violent criminal enterprises and into the hands of licensed businesses, and the only way to do that is through legalization.

Or, I suppose, we could just keep on doing what we’ve been doing.

On Monday I joined Judge Andrew Napolitano on FoxNews.com to discuss how marijuana legalization — not increasing levels of government prohibition — would quell the violence surrounding the trafficking of Mexican marijuana. You can watch the video here.

The Judge ‘gets it;’ let’s hope that the administration will one day ‘get it’ too.

(Washington Post) The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana — a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year, “the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years.”

A 53 percent majority already does so in the West, according to the survey. The finding heartens advocates collecting signatures to put the question of legalization before California voters in a 2010 initiative.

Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he was astonished recently to be invited to contribute thoughts to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.  “I’ve been thrown out of the ONDCP many times,” St. Pierre said. “Never invited to actually participate.”

Anti-drug advocates counter with surveys showing high school students nationwide already are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco — and that the five states with the highest rate of adolescent pot use permit medical marijuana.

Really?  That’s the best you can do?  Let’s take a look at the actual numbers from the government’s own surveys:

National Survey on Drug Use & Health, 12-17 age group, 2001-2008 (see SAMHDA)

Indeed, it is impressive that we went from one-third (33.4%) of all minor teenagers having tried a cigarette to now less than one-fourth (22.7%) in just seven years.  How did we accomplish that?

Did we arrest those teenagers caught with cigarettes and subject them to a criminal proceeding?

Did we institute random searches of kids’ lockers at school to find cigarettes?

Did we require that any kid who wants to play sports or be involved with extra-curricular activities submit to a urine screening for nicotine and its metabolites?

Did we arrest and incarcerate adults that we caught with tobacco, because doing otherwise would “send the wrong message to the children”?

No.  We’ve engaged in terrific anti-smoking campaigns aimed at kids (like thetruth.com), vigorously enforced a law that allows adults to smoke while strictly carding teens, and fostered research and development of stop-smoking aids for those who wish to quit.

Now, another look at the chart shows that, despite the hysteria, the youth who have tried marijuana has steadily declined.  Not at the rate of the tobacco decline, but we’ve still gone from around one-in-five (20.2%) to around one-in-six (16.5%) in just seven years.  This is while we went from eight medical marijuana states to thirteen and while lifetime use by ages 12 and older increased from 83 million total and 36.9% of the population to 102 million total and 41% of the population.

As for the likelihood that teens prefer marijuana to cigarettes, the government surveys don’t bear that out, either.  In the past year, 15% of teens smoked a cigarette versus 13% that have smoked a joint.  In the past month, 8.9% have used tobacco versus 6.6% that have used cannabis.  So with lower usage rates than tobacco, shouldn’t these anti-drug advocates be arguing for the prohibition of tobacco like marijuana?  No, of course not!  If anything, their citation of the drastic reduction of tobacco use rates among teens is an argument for treating marijuana more like tobacco.

The federal government is not going to pull back on its efforts to curtail marijuana farming operations, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday in Fresno.

The nation’s drug czar, who viewed a foothill marijuana farm on U.S. Forest Service land with state and local officials earlier Wednesday, said the federal government will not support legalizing marijuana.

“Legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary, and it’s not in mine,” he said.

Dictionaries for Drug Czar Kerlikowske - click here to donate online to NORML and we'll remind Director Kerlikowske and President Obama that "legalization" needs to be in their vocabularies.

Kerlikowske said he can understand why legislators are talking about taxing marijuana cultivation to help cash-strapped government agencies in California. But the federal government views marijuana as a harmful and addictive drug, he said.

“Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit,” Kerlikowske said in downtown Fresno while discussing Operation SOS — Save Our Sierra — a multiagency effort to eradicate marijuana in eastern Fresno County.

Officials say the marijuana-eradication operation will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the exact amount won’t be known until agencies can add up staffing, vehicle and other costs.

Stashers RevRayGreen (right) holding tin of federal medical marijuana delivered monthly to George McMahon (left)

It is amazing to make the statement that marijuana has no medicinal value in the state that has hundreds of thousands medical users and thousands of doctors recommending it for medical use for thirteen years.  Even more amazing when you know the federal government Kerlikowske works for has patents on the medical use of cannabinoids and continues to deliver tins of marijuana joints for medical purposes to four Americans.

Mr. Drug Czar, your pants are on fire!

(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.