AP Slams the Drug War

The Associated Press has hit the drug war hard with a piece that examines U.S. drug policy's efforts and claims that 40 years and $1 trillion later, we're actually worse off than we were before this thing started.

Even ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske admits that "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified." Attempting to grasp onto his fading limelight and defend the drug war is Kerlkowske's predecessor John Walters, who firmly disagreed.

"To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous," Walters said. "It destroys everything we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcment, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided."

That's exactly what is being said. Though he's simply lumping in treatment and prevention professionals to try and save face. Many people involved in that field feel that the war on drugs has been misguided and that it makes their jobs, which is to help people overcome addictions and get back on their feet, much harder. 

 

The money spent on law enforcement of the drug war dwarfs what is spent on treatment and prevention leaving many facilities understaffed. Treatment and prevention specialists have long criticized the far reaching implications of having a drug conviction. After completing treatment, one of the most important things a person can do to help avoid relapse is to stay busy. That's kind of hard to do when you've lost your job after being arrested and can't get a new one because of the conviction on your record. If you were getting financial aid for college at the time of your arrest you can forget about going back to school. Need food stamps or public housing? You can forget about that too.

Walters continues to live in a fantasy world for people who believe that the devastating drug war violence occurring in Mexico is actually a victory for U.S. drug policy. He lives next door to Michelle Leonhardt, acting DEA Director and they both get their paper delivered by Andrea Barthwell while they watch a TV station where Asa Hutchinson actually wins debates. Living in this drug war utopia, they're able to ignore and distort facts like the ones the AP dug up:

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

- $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico - and the violence along with it.
- $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.
- $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.
- $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.
- $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

Does the new drug control strategy and budget go far enough to make the changes that we need to reduce drug abuse and the violence associated with the illegal drug trade? No. But did anyone really expect it to? It is a step in the right direction with modest increases in funding for treatment and prevention and we have an administration that is at least able to acknowledge the fact that drug war hasn't solved the problem. 

 

Our focus now should be to urge the Senate to not confirm Michelle Leonhart as DEA administrator.  

SSDP Board Member Gov. Gary Johnson on the Colbert Report!

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Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was on the Colbert Report yesterday and he wasted no time giving his opinions about marijuana prohibition.

SWAT Raid Comes Under Fire

Judge Napolitano, host of Fox News' Freedom Watch has got to be TV's most outspoken opponent of the war on drugs. Check out the video above where he even calls for the arrest of the police officers that raided the home of a Columbia, Missouri family in February only to find a "small amount of marijuana."

SSDP and our friend Dave Borden were quoted in the Columbia Tribune's Sunday paper about the raid.

Advocates with Students for a Sensible Drug Policy — a national organization with a University of Missouri chapter — have taken notice of the Feb. 11 raid of Jonathan Whitworth’s home, where a SWAT team found a misdemeanor amount of marijuana and shot two dogs, one fatally. Associate Director Jonathan Perri said the war on drugs is a failure because of the violence associated with the illegal activity of distributing marijuana. The legalization of the drug would take the criminal aspect out its distribution, he said.

“By making it illegal, you are making it criminal,” Perri said. “If a local liquor store breaks a law, you are not going to see a SWAT team raid the place and kill a dog. … You still have the alcohol abuse but don’t have people killing each other over it.”

David Borden, the executive director of Americans for Swat Reform, said his organization’s philosophy is that SWAT teams should be used rarely. SWAT’s participation in the execution of search warrants, he believes, is an abuse of authority.

“The idea of SWAT was created for hostage situations and when military-style power is required and there is no other choice,” he said. “When going into a situation that the purpose is to preserve evidence, it’s not a good enough reason to put these thousands of people that are served search warrants each year through the aggressive and traumatic experience of a para-militarized police squadron entering your home.”

Obama Drug Strategy to Focus on Prevention and Treatment

The Office of National Drug Control Policy will release its new drug control strategy tomorrow.

The new drug control strategy to be released Tuesday boosts community-based anti-drug programs, encourages health care providers to screen for drug problems before addiction sets in and expands treatment beyond specialty centers to mainstream health care facilities.

"It changes the whole discussion about ending the war on drugs and recognizes that we have a responsibility to reduce our own drug use in this country," Gil Kerlikowske, the White House drug czar, said in an interview.

The administration has made it crystal clear that they are not going to embrace marijuana legalization but they have made some positive drug policy moves:

• Repealed the federal ban on needle exchange funding
• DoJ issued a memo instructing that people or dispensaries in compliance with state medical marijuana laws not be prosecuted by the federal government.
• Obama and Biden support ending the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity

These are clearly steps in the right direction but how much further will the Obama administration go? Despite Kerlikowske calling for an end to the war on drugs, the administration's drug control budget calls for twice as much spending on law enforcement than it does on treatment and prevention. It does propose a 13% increase in funding for alcohol and drug prevention programs and a 3.7% increase for addiction treatment.

We're looking forward to reading the new strategy. 

SWAT Team Kills Family Dog with Child Present

If you needed something else to push you toward accepting marijuana legalization, here you go.

A SWAT team in Columbia, MO executed a narcotics search warrant in mid February. It was your typical smash the door down in the middle of the night and kill the family pets while the house is ransacked for a few grams of marijuana drug raid. When 100-150 of these raids occur every single day, incidents like the one that happened at Jonathan Witworth's home in Missouri mostly go unnoticed.

Unless they're caught on tape.

The whole raid took place in front of a 7 year old boy and according to a police spokesperson the police discovered a grinder, a pipe and a small amount of marijuana. They then charged the father with child endangerment because, clearly, marijuana possession has the potential to cause a child more physical and mental harm then ramming down the front door in the middle of the night, firing 4 gun shots inside the house and killing the little boy's puppy.

What's even more typical about these raids is the lack of responsibility the police take. Here is the police chief's explanation of what happened: 

The chief, who is personally conducting the internal investigation, walked reporters through his understanding of the incident. Three officers shot at the pit bull, and the first missed completely, which is when the corgi is believed to have been shot in the paw, he said. The pit bull acted aggressively toward a SWAT member again as they pushed into the home, which resulted in the animal being shot, he said. After being shot, it moved to attack a SWAT member, which is when the dog was killed.

That sounds like a little kid lying to his mom about how that antique china collection ended up smashed on the floor. "Uhh, well. I was trying to sweep the floor for you mommy but I missed the floor completely and killed your dog instead."

Before I watched the video I already knew what was going to happen. I was aware that a dog dies. But that still doesn't prepare you to listen to this man's agony when he realizes that the officers have shot and killed his pet.

Amidst the screaming and yelling of orders by the officers, the confused suspect asks "What is happening?"

SEARCH WARRANT! NARCOTICS SEARCH WARRANT!

"Ok. Search. I don't care. Why does it have to be like this? Please don't hurt my dogs. They're nice dogs."

How to write your representative...

Watch the above video to learn the most effective way to tell politicians how you feel about drug policy. It's a with a good ol' fashioned pen and paper.

I wrote my CA Senator today and asked for him to vote yes on S.B. 1449 which would lower the penalty for possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a civil infraction.


I also sent a thank you card to Sen. Mark Leno who introduced such a sensible bill. 

Start writing!

What did SSDP do on 4/20?

April 20th has become infamous for it's association with "pot culture" over the years and students who advocate for an end to the war on drugs (including, of course, the end of marijuana prohibition) have to work extra hard to dispel stereotypes about members of the drug policy reform movement. We all know that hosting smoke outs or tie-dye making events on April 20th of all days won't help to change that.

So what exactly did SSDP do on 4/20? We made some noise.

Our chapters at the University of Connecticut and University of New Hampshire, Durham were each featured in front page news articles in their campus newspapers on 4/20 this year. The focus of each article was on the work SSDP is doing to reform drug policies on their campuses and in their states. Not the amount or type of marijuana being smoked.

Ashley Rennebu, our chapter leader at UNH has been working on a campus Good Samaritan or Medical Amnesty policy from her position as a student Senator.

Rennebu has been working to have the Good Samaritan Policy implemented here on the UNH campus since January of last year. Her work with the student senate has garnered much attention on the Facebook group, “Bring a Good Samaritan Law to UNH,” of which 2,034 users have become members. On Sunday, the student senate passed a resolution urging the Office of Conduct and Mediation to implement a Good Samaritan Policy here at UNH.

The news at UNH on 4/20 had nothing to do with marijuana, since their Good Samaritan policy resolution only addressed emergencies involving alcohol, not other drugs. This is an excellent sign that the public opinion of drug law reform is becoming more favorable and less focused on marijuana.

And at the University of Connecticut, the campus paper's coverage of SSDP was focused on the chapter's efforts to impact statewide marijuana policy, as they were fresh off of a strategy summit they hosted last weekend to bring Connecticut drug policy reformers together to discuss state level legislation.

The chapter is currently discussing state Raised Bill 476, An Act Concerning Nonviolent Drug Possession Offenses, which seeks to downgrade the status of drug possession from a Class C Misdemeanor to an infraction. The substitute for Senate Bill 349, An Act Concerning the Penalty for the Possession of a Small Amount on Marijuana, which was defeated last May, was also discussed.

Katlin Tyrol, outgoing SSDP chapter president, also mentioned the relationship between marijuana policies and student financial aid eligibility, campus drug law enforcement, and the power of student political involvement.

...at the drug summit meeting Saturday, [Katlin] said that students have testified in front of state committees and that students are a formidable force in creating change in shaping drug policy in the government. “As students we’re a powerhouse. We can do anything that we set our minds to…All the political process doesn’t happen in Congress,” she said. “It’s us.”

If You Want to Get At Somebody, You Get At Their Children

The war on drugs is a war on us.

In case you didn't read the New York Times this weekend, there was a grueling and heart-wrenching story about the families along the border in Mexico caught in the middle of their current political nightmare. When five houses in your neighborhood are set on fire by well-funded and well-armed men, you run - and many people are looking to the US for asylum. "Some of the families who are fleeing from Mexico are doing it because...if you want to get at somebody, you get at their children" said one terrified citizen.

There's a raging battle next door that the US government is responsible for waging and the first wave of refugees have arrived. Towns and cities all along the US border in Mexico are being abandoned as our neighbors flee for their lives.

Why?

To protect the children. To save the lives of the children.

We have created a war that kills children in order to save the children.

On January 31st, there was a massacre of students in Juárez straight out of Al Capone's days. Cartel mercenaries burst into a party filled with mostly high school students celebrating a soccer win and a birthday, and murdered 13 teenagers and two adults. Blood and bodies poured onto the street and the outrage poured out of Juárez and El Paso. In response, the US and Mexican governments have vowed to continue the same failed approach with a little extra aggression on top.

Earlier this month, two graduate students at the Monterrey Institute of Technology - the Harvard of Mexico - were murdered when they walked into a showdown between the military and a local cartel. They made the mistake of staying too late at the library to study. The Mexican government denies any real responsibility - but at least they did finally apologize under pressure.

A few days later in Durango, several students on their way to pick up their government scholarship checks were stopped at a cartel check point - stopped from ever breathing again. 10 young people were bombed and killed by the ruthless criminals in control of their part of the country. The victims ranged in age from 8 to 21, half of them under 16. (Apparently the military sometimes stays away from these roadblocks because it's not safe for them - the ones with guns who are hired to protect their citizens.)

So what is the message we are sending to the children?

According to one mother who has managed to escape to Texas with her life, '“All the children, the only thing they know how to play is sicarios,” she said, using the Spanish word for hired killers.'

Last week the LA Times reported the death toll in Mexico is more than previously estimated, and has topped 22,000 since the start of President Calderon's war on drug cartels in December 2007.

You know, it makes me absolutely ill every time a prohibitionist says, "Well if our drug policies save even one child's life, it's worth it."

Great attitude - but can you look at reality yet?

Roosevelt University SSDP Students Advocate for Fair Sentencing

One of the most important things SSDP chapters can do is to create a public space for dialog to effect real changes in the community. Roosevelt University SSDP did an awesome job this week highlighting the work they have been doing and getting others engaged in the current drug policy debate - and they even got some press out of it.

Specifically, students came together to discuss the importance of the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act after meeting with US Senator Dick Durbin's staff to discuss the topic. (Durbin, D-IL, introduced the bill in 2009 - S. 1789.) On March 17th, it passed the US Senate by unanimous consent! We do still need this to pass in the House as well, but the outlook is positive.

The Fair Sentencing Act would do away with the 1986 Mandatory Minimum Sentences for crack cocaine possession. Currently individuals in possession of crack cocaine must serve a minimum sentence 100 times that of those in possession of powder cocaine. This act would reduce that disparity to 18-1. Not ideal, but at least a little better.

According to Laura Reichel, President of Roosevelt University SSDP, “The rates of drug use across racial groups is pretty equal. But the previous law has contributed to the disproportionate number of African-Americans that are in prison to whites.”

The racial implications of our failed drug policies is blatant. Kudos to Roosevelt SSDP for doing something about it!

Western Michigan University Hosts LEAP Speaker

Western Michigan University SSDP hosted Law Enforcement Against Prohibition speaker Greg Francisco. Check out the article in their campus newspaper about the event.

It's great coverage of the event I hope it inspires other chapters to put on events like this and reach out to their campus paper each time they do so. It provided the WMU chapter with a way to get the word out about SSDP to their entire campus.

I particularly like this part:

SSDP also used the event to introduce themselves to the student body and begin to achieve some of their organizational goals. Led by President Alexander Lanning, the group both registered voters and gathered petition signatures to place a measure on the ballot to give marijuana possession a lower law enforcement priority in Kalamazoo.

Lanning also gave a short address to the students in attendance, contending that SSDP was motivated by political beliefs and goals, not by personal gain.

“We’re not just a bunch of smokers looking to legalize weed,” he said.

The title of the article, "Retired law enforcement officer calls for relaxed drug laws," seems to miss the point of the presentation though. What LEAP is actually discussing is that our drug regulations are currently relaxed enough that young people report purchasing marijuana in school easier than they can purchase alcohol at a store. They're calling for heightened regulation and increased control around drugs.

Want to book a LEAP speaker? Join us on Cinco de Mayo for SSDP's Day of Action where chapters around the country will draw attention to the drug war's impact on Mexico. Sign up here and indicate that you would like to bring a LEAP speaker to your campus and we'll help you make it happen!