Ask the Drug Czar a Question!

True. Drug Czar John Walters will be replaced shortly. But lets not make these last two months any easier for him. Take just a few minutes to ask him a question or two about U.S. drug policy with this nifty form on the White House website. 

Some topics to ask him about: 

• Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity
• HEA Aid Elimination Penalty
• Prohibition Related Violence in Mexico
• Increasing Accessible/Affordable Substance Abuse Treatment
• Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
• Student Drug Testing
• State Wide Good Samaritan Policies 

Of course there is plenty more to ask and you'll want to be specific. It will only take a few minutes and SSDP would love for you to post your questions to SSDP talk, facebook, and the comments section of the blog! Feel free to contact me to strategize about questions if you'd like!

Have You Signed the Obama Drug Policy Petition?

Ideas are fantastic. So why not have an idea machine? SSDP has one and his name is Micah Daigle. His latest idea is a facebook petition that has generated nearly 17,000 signatures. What's this petition all about you ask? Well, its calling on President Elect Obama to reform U.S. drug policy. 

We petition that…

When you called the War on Drugs an "utter failure" in 2004, you were right. A 2008 Zogby poll found that 3 out of 4 of Americans agree with you. 

When appointing the head of your Office of National Drug Control Policy, please select someone with health, science, or education credentials rather than a military general, law enforcement official, or "tough on drugs" politician. The next "Drug Czar" should base policy on proven methodology rather than counterproductive ideology. At a minimum, he or she should support these measures: 

*Ending the racially unjust disparity in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine. 

*Ending the practice of prosecuting patients in states with medical marijuana laws. 

*Eliminating the federal law that denies financial aid to students with drug convictions. 

We all know that the War on Drugs is failing because handcuffs don't cure addictions -- doctors do. You have the opportunity to bring us the change we need. Will you?

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

*Note: By the time I finished writing this, the petition has exceed 17,000 signatures!

Please help us achieve our goal of 20,000 signatures by signing the petition here and inviting your friends to sign it. 

Yes we can... have sensible drug policies. 

Why Smoke One Blunt, When You Could Smoke At Least 5?

I'm in DC right now, gearing up for SSDP's 10th Annual International Conference, which I'm sure you already know all about. I'm actually burning the midnight oil with SSDP's eastern region outreach director Amber Langston. We can see Prince George's County from her house, a place where the county council just voted to do something very unlikely to achieve the goals the council hopes it will. I think it will do just the opposite.

The council voted 8 to 1 to ban the sale of single cigars, requiring stores to sell them in packages of at least five. The new law will also make it easier to charge someone possessing a cigar with a drug paraphernalia offense.

Yes, buying 5 cigars will cost more than buying one cigar, but its not likely to break the bank, even for a teenager. In fact, buying in bulk is a way to save money, not spend more. If a single blunt is $1.00, a package of 5 will probably not cost more than $5.00. And if you look at blunt wraps, which do not come filled with tobacco and often feature attractive individual packaging, you can bet that companies will be happy to create larger packages and advertise the new BONUS SIZE! It will no doubt increase production and possibly consumption (like most American consumers, if I buy the Family Size bag of chips, I'm likely to eat a larger serving per sitting than if I bought a single serving bag - but I'd be saving money by buying the bigger bag).

Maybe this isn't so silly after all. In these times of economic uncertainty, we need to teach youth about smart spending and how to get more blunts for their buck! Then we can arrest them for having a legal tobacco product, charge them with possession of drug paraphernalia, and deny them financial aid to college! Drug problem solved. Goodnight.

Vote today!!!

I don't care who you vote for. I really don't. Obama, McCain, Nader, Moore, whatever. Still holding out hope for Ron Paul? Fine, just vote.

Please make sure your voices are heard on this day. It will be exciting to watch the results come in, but it will be even more exciting to watch the drug policy reform movement, as a whole, gear up and make plans for 2009 and beyond.

VOTE. VOTE. VOTE.

How to Make a Drug Warrior Look Foolish

Calvina Fay, executive director of Drug Free America Foundation, recently leaped at the chance to make herself look absolutely foolish by attacking SSDP's ally Law Enforcement Against Prohibition on an email list of over 300 delegates and officials that attended the UN forum on Illegal Drugs.

"These guys in the videos are EX-law enforcement for a reason! Hundreds of thousands of current law enforcement find them to be a disgrace to the uniform" accused Fay before regurgitating common prohibitionist misinformation about drug prohibition and also insinuating that making alcohol and tobacco illegal will keep them out of the hands of youth.

Jack Cole provided a fantastic rebuttal to Fay's "facts". He addresses each one of her statements with professionalism and backs himself up with evidence and sources (far from Fay's childish attack).

You would think Fay might have something intelligent to respond, or, as the executive director of an organization that actually believes our country can be drug free, she would jump at the opportunity for discussion. But oh, no. She tops it all off by responding to Jack Cole's fantastic rebuttal only with "Message Blocked Due to Offensive Content."

Keep in mind that this went out to over 300 members of the international drug policy community. She proves once again, that reformers are level headed, concerned citizens, that are always eager to debate and discuss drug policy with the intention of creating more effective policies while drug warriors often refuse to debate or even meet with reformers. Because the misinformation they spew only provides one leg to stand on, they often rely on the crutch of attacking their opponents integrity, credibility, and in this case, the many years of service they have provided by putting their lives on the line and fighting this drug war as law enforcement officers.

I leave you Jack Cole's response:

Answer to Calvina Fay’s accusations and statement of “facts”:

My name is Jack Cole. I am the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). I am also a retired detectivelieutenant-26 years with the New Jersey State Police and 14 in their Narcotic Bureau, mostly undercover. I bear witness to the abject failure of the United States’ war on drugs and to the horrors produced by its unintended consequences.

In the last six years the current and former law-enforcers at LEAP have made more than 4,500 presentations on replacing the war on drugs with a system of legalized regulation of all drugs. This includes attending more than 35 national and international law-enforcement conferences. During that time our members have received nothing but respect from other law-enforcers, even those who do not yet agree with us. That is because we spent our entire careers trying to end drug abuse by using current policy. We have not changed our minds about wanting to end drug abuse, we have simply changed our minds about what policies will be effective in accomplishing that goal.

It is only from folks like yourself, Calvina, folks who never spent a minute as a law-enforcer, that we are rebuked with statements like, "These guys in the videos are EX-law enforcement for a reason!" (The reason is we finished our decades-long careers of protecting the citizens of our countries and retired).

Considering the fact that about 80 percent of the current law-enforcers who personally have spoken with us about this issue agree that the war on drugs is a failed policy, it is hard to reconcile your statement that "Hundreds of thousands of current law enforcement officials consider [us] a disgrace to the uniform."

As for getting facts straight, Calvina's “facts” are:

1. …enormous health problems with alcohol and tobacco because they are legal and socially acceptable.

Under the original prohibition, alcoholic products were no longer regulated, resulting in a 600 percent increase in alcohol poisonings treated in our hospitals. "Bath Tub Gin" caused people to go blind and die. Alcohol consumers not only increased in numbers but elevated their consumption to drinks containing more alcohol. In New York City the year before alcohol prohibition went into effect there were 15,000 salons but five years into Prohibition there were 32,000 speakeasies; saloons sold mainly beer, but Speakeasies sold almost exclusively hard liquor. Of course, we also had the highest rates of murder and corruption of public officials under Prohibition ever recorded in the United States-until, that is, the current Prohibition, where we have achieved levels of death, disease, crime, and addiction never before imagined possible.

(For tobacco see my last paragraph)

2. The U.S. may have a large prison population but, it is a much safer nation than most.

The below chart lists 29 countries for reported crimes per 1,000 population and the number of prisoners per 100,000 population. It appears that the United States rates behind 24 of those countries as far as safety from crime is concerned but it does rate number one for imprisoning our own people
3. Low level drug offenders are NOT sent to prison. They are sent to drug courts, community service, and treatment and put on probation.

The truth is, implementation of a policy of war on drugs is destroying people's lives. Police cast their nets so wide that many innocent people are caught in them. A car is stopped and five people are arrested because a bag containing a single serving of a hard drug or an ounce of marijuana (or less) is found under the seat; at least four of those arrestees may have been innocent. Innocent people die when police SWAT teams assault the wrong houses, but I'm sure Calvina would just see this as collateral damage in our drug war.

Even if I believed Calvina when she says, "low-level drug offenders are NOT sent to prison," drug courts are just one step removed from imprisonment, which comes when the probationer fails his or her urine test.

And arrest for nonviolent drug offenses are themselves terribly debilitating since the computerized arrest records track people for the rest of their lives, blocking their ability to be licensed by the state, their ability to be hired by many employers, their ability to attend colleges and universities, their ability to obtain apartments, their ability to travel from country to country, their ability to adopt children: basically their ability to have hope for the future.

4. The drug offenders who are serving time in prisons, BELONG there because they have committed serious crimes.

In fact, there are many people in prison who never committed a violent crime or for that matter any other crime than a drug-law violation. I put a lot of them there myself.

5. We could empty all of our prisons out if we legalized other crimes such as rape and murder, but most people would find that insane.

This is the kind of logic I expect from Calvina. There are two kinds of crime:, malum in se and malum prohibitum. The former refer to an act that is "wrong in itself." It is illegal because it violates the natural, moral or public principles of a civilized society. No one in their right mind would propose legalizing a malum in se crime.

An offence malum prohibitum, on the contrary, is not inherently evil, but becomes so as a result of being forbidden; as ingesting substances, "which being innocent before, have become unlawful in consequence of being forbidden."

Source: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Malum+in+se

Ingesting drugs may be stupid and self-destructive. But neither the drugs nor the user are thereby rendered evil—as are rapists and murderers. To confuse the two types of crime, to equate intoxication and rape tells us a great deal about the person making that claim—but nothing useful about the crimes.

6. Drug use has been reduced dramatically in the U.S. since the 70s -at one point reduced by greater than 50%.

According to DEA, before the war was implemented in 1970, there were 4million people in the United States above the age of 12 who had used an illegal drug (2 percent of that population) but by 2003, DEA was telling us there were 112 million people above the age of 12 who had used an illegal drug (46 percent of that population). Somehow that does not sound like a 50%reduction.

Specific drugs do in fact go in and out of fashion, and when a particular drug falls into disfavor, people like Calvina claim that the War on Drugs is “working.” When drug use rises, they claim we need more troops. But overall, it is ludicrous to associate the tactics of this War with anything resembling success.

7. LEAP, would be better served to help us reduce the supply and the demand for drugs in the world.

Legalized regulation of all drugs would reduce supply and demand for drugs. Legalization would remove the artificially inflated value of illicit drugs, which can increase from source country to sale country by more than 17,000percent! Those drugs come from weeds that will grow anywhere and are worthless until we prohibit them. Then marijuana becomes worth more than gold and heroin more than plutonium. If those drugs were legal their value would drop to the point that drug dealers would not find it worthwhile to sell them on the street or induce others to become addicted to guarantee a customer.

Further, prohibition guarantees that the best way to reduce demand among the addicted—treatment—is not only underfunded but frightening to those who fear that acknowledging their addiction will lead to punitive state action.

8. Science clearly shows that drugs are harmful and therefore, no matter how you sugar-coat it, there is no justifiable reason for making them socially acceptable and easier for people to use and harm themselves as well as put the rest of us at risk with their irresponsible behavior.

I don’t want to get into a "good drug-bad drug" debate with Calvina. Suffice it to say that drugs should not be legalized because they are harmless. Indeed, the more dangerous the drug, the more reason to legalize it because we can't regulate and control anything that is illegal.

Currently the control and regulation of illicit drugs is in the hands of criminals and terrorists. They tell us what drugs will be supplied to our communities, how much will be supplied, how potent it will be, what it will be cut with, what age groups it will be sold to, and where it will be sold. If the criminal wants to sell heroin laced with Fentanyl to ten-year-olds on our playgrounds, that is what will (and does) happen. You have to ask yourself why our children tell us it is easier for them to buy illegal drugs than it is to buy beer and cigarettes. You also have to ask yourself why, according to DEA, there are 900,000 teenagers in the United States selling illegal drugs-but not one selling beer or cigarettes. Legalized regulation removes those drugs from the realm of our children, whether for use or as a business, and places it in legitimate businesses run by and for adults.

Moreover, legalizing drugs does not equate with making them socially acceptable. Tobacco, even though widely promoted and highly addictive, has been made far less socially acceptable through education and regulation. Cigarette use rates are falling faster among our youth than illegal marijuana use rates. In fact, the 50 percent decrease in the overall use of nicotine, the most addictive social drug known, has been the only success story in a hundred years of United States drug policy. The point LEAP makes is that we didn’t have to arrest or imprison a single user or distributor of nicotine in order to achieve this wonderful success story and we didn’t spend well over a trillion tax dollars in the process. There are better ways to spend our taxes than continuing the failed policy of a war on drugs.

Peace,
Jack

If it might work, Drug War policy makers probably won't give it a try

Gulab Mangal, the governor of an Afghani province, Helmand, wants to try a new approach to controlling opium poppies in his land. Helmand is the largest poppy producing province in Afghanistan, a lot of which goes to fund groups such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. He wants to stop the farmers from planting poppies, rather than destroy it once they plant it. His plan involves actively working with the farmers in his region to provide them with the seeds and training needed to grow new crops and improving their road systems so that farmers are actually able to get their product to the market.

To me, this seems like a pretty effective way of reducing heroin production, if that is your goal. One might think this would be a program the US would really want to get behind.

So far, Mangal has secured over $8 million from the United States and Britain for seeds and fertilizer for 26,000 farmers, as well as for a public information campaign to let farmers know of his plans. But just weeks before the planting season, he was still fretting that they would not arrive in time.

"Four months ago I raised my voice, but we have been delayed by bureaucracy," he said. "We have to get to the farmers within one month."

The US funneled hundreds of millions of dollars a year into Plan Colombia, which consisted primarily of aerial fumigation tactics and other military-like activities. The best we could come up with is $8 million between us and Britain?

I’m not advocating spending more money (any money, actually) on eradicating potentially intoxicating crops. I’m merely pointing out that this Afghan governor most likely knows the farmers in the area better than the US government. He has a plan that is much like policies many activist and scholars have been arguing for in coca producing areas since Plan Colombia began and before, and yet the White House continues to push for a similar eradication plan for Afghanistan.

Yet more proof that the US War on Drugs is illogical and destructive at its very core.

If you want to tax it, just legalize it!

North Carolina is one of 23 states that have a tax on illegal drugs. I can’t speak to the way the others work, but in North Carolina the tax on illegal drugs is considered a purely civil issue. Thus, you can be acquitted of a drug crime and still be taxed on the drugs. The burden of proof is on the defendant, and the tax can be applied retroactively. Meaning if the state can reasonably demonstrate past drug possessions as well, then the tax can be levied on drugs long come and gone.

A few days ago Darwin Bisping, a pizza delivery man who says he uses marijuana for medicinal purposes, and his housemate in Asheville, N.C., were sent a bill of $88,866 as the tax on the 114 marijuana plants seized from their home this summer. WRAL reported:

The state law specifically says that more than 42.5 grams of marijuana can be taxed at $3.50 per gram.

Bisping and McCart each were taxed on 18,053 grams of marijuana and also were charged $25,274 in penalties and $406 in interest.

Bisping said he uses the drug to calm nerve problems and to help him swallow food after esophagus surgery. He also disputes the weight of the marijuana that was seized.

"This ain't about justice, this is about money," he said.

These taxes are ridiculous and hypocritical. Only a quarter of the money raised through this tax goes to education and the other 75% right into the pocket of the arresting agency. That money is probably a nice addition to the cash cow of asset forfeitures they get. When there is this much money on the line for police, is anyone actually surprised when they choose to arrest medical marijuana patients and peaceful suppliers rather than focusing on the dangerous, but less lucrative, criminals? I’m not.

That’s a lot of money for one pot bust. Imagine if all the marijuana growers in North Carolina (there are a lot) paid even half the current tax in order to safely and legally grow marijuana. Police would require fewer resources (probably why they are usually vehemently against decriminalization initiatives), and we could pump a ridiculous amount of money into education, one of the few things proven to actually reduce drug use.

And, you know, allowing people in severe physical pain to alleviate their sufferings without fear of prison; financially crippling, bullshit taxes; ineligibility from food-stamps and public housing; disqualification from participating in the Big Brother/ Big Sister program; or inability to find work would be some nice perks as well.

Life in prison for a single dose

This is a slightly old story but I think it needs to be discussed. There are several key points that I feel are important to make.

Eugene Atkins, a 21 year old man from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was convicted in 2006 of selling a lethal dose of heroin to a 17-year-old boy. Matthew McKinney and his friend, Christopher Perrin, bought the heroin from Atkins, and Perrin administered heroin to McKinney. Perrin was sentenced to 2 years for lying to authorities about his involvement. Check out the coverage of the original conviction here.

Tuesday, Atkins’ conviction was upheld.

Eugene Atkins II claims he shouldn't be blamed for Matthew McKinney's death because another person [Perrin] could have called for medical help. He says the jury that heard his case in 2006 should have been given that instruction.

Where is the trial for the pharmacist who gave Heath Ledger his sleeping pills? Why was there no hunt for Chris Farley’s supplier? There are quite a few people in Grand Rapids who claim that the prosecution of Atkins is a racially charged witch hunt.

Whatever the reason, the fact of the matter is, if heroin were legal and regulated properly, it would have been a lot harder for those kids to get those drugs. They would be packed to indicate where the drugs came from, and the cashier would probably have said, “Hey kid, you look young, let me see some ID.” I’m sure that phrase is rarely uttered by drug dealers.

Personally, I don’t believe anyone should be in jail because of this situation. It wasn't bad heroin, just a bad reaction. If this kid hadn’t died, neither his friend nor the dealer would be in jail, and those two being in jail will certainly not bring Matthew McKinney back. And it definitely will not do anything to help prevent similar tragedies in the future.

It’s very sad that this young man died, but it’s even more depressing to think that he might still be alive had his friend called for professional medical help. I don’t know the specifics of what Perrin did or did not do, but I can only assume that he was terrified about what would happen if the cops came and found the two of them in possession of an illegal substance. If Michigan had a publicized Good Samaritan law to protect people from criminal prosecution when calling for medical help for drug overdoses, perhaps Matthew might still be alive. You have the power to help prevent tragedies such as this. Please visit http://ssdp.org/campaigns/ccc/goodsamaritan/ to learn how you can take action to implement Good Samaritan policies in your community.

Also, watch this video and share it with your friends by posting it to Facebook and Myspace. Also Digg it at http://digg.com/health/Calling_for_help_shouldn_t_be_a_crime

SSDP on MTV Think!

SSDP is now a group on MTV think. Create a profile and join the group right here.

I know what your thinking. MTV? Involved with something that isn't lowering the quality of popular music and convincing the average 16 year old that they are entitled to a Mercedes Benz and a birthday party that is incomplete without flame throwing trapeze artists and Siberian Tigers? Yes actually.

MTV think is super cool and promotes that young people should organize, speak out, vote, and have a say in policies that affect them. By joining the SSDP group you can promote discussions, upload videos and audio, complete goals and earn badges/prizes, and network with plenty of other organizations and young people from around the world. Groups are broken up into issues such as substance abuse, poverty, health, education, human rights and environment (unfortunately each group is only allowed to pick 2 issues and SSDP is related to just about all of them). One important part of think is that it allows us to bring the reform message to young people that are concerned about substance abuse but haven't heard our side of the story yet. Check out this forum.

Please create a profile and join the group (we only have one member right now and its me!)

DARE Conference Wrap Up

Update: The UStream broadcast mentioned below has been canceled. It will be rescheduled.

Friends,

I'd like to let you know that I'm alive and well -- albeit intellectually exhausted -- following my attendance at the DARE conference this week.

I have video clips and insights to share, but I'll save those for my UStream broadcast next week. I hope you can tune in:

WHO:
SSDP members everywhere.
Hosted by yours truly (Micah Daigle, SSDP Associate Director).

WHAT:
Recap of the DARE conference and discussion of SSDP's role in promoting effective drug education programs.
(UStream allows participants to discuss topics within a chat room, while the host leads the discussion via video feed.)

WHEN:
Wednesday, August 20th
9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific

WHERE:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ssdp-chat

In the meantime, I'll be editing my footage together into a video to post on the internets and YouTubes. The footage varies from interviews with genuinely good-hearted DARE officers talking about the relationships they've built with young people through their time teaching the program, to die-hard zealots preaching about their disdain for evidence-based education programs and harm-reduction.

Although the latter footage is much more damning (and thus valuable to those who oppose the DARE program), I'm going to do my best to portray my experience at the conference in a fair light. We may score quick points by being selective about what we see and hear, but we'll never win this fight if we become zealots like the prohibitionists who oppose us.

Until next time...