Sterling on Justice & Drugs

Pre-Grammys, Tony Bennett calls for drug legalization

2012-02-13T10:50:00.005-05:00

At a pre-Grammy gala, noting the deaths of Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and Whitney Houston, singer Tony Bennett appealed for drug legalization. What strikes me is that in this context the argument is implicitly a public health claim, not an argument grounded in opposition to legal injustice, favoring individual liberty, saving taxpayer's money, or fighting crime. Given the very different circumstances of the deaths of Jackson, Winehouse and Houston, it seems to me Bennett seems to have an understanding of the negative ways drug prohibition abuse affects so many features of drug use patterns and treatment.

It is also striking that on the occasion of Whitney Houston's death, instead of simply lamenting drugs or substance abuse, or endorsing the importance of treatment, Bennett felt moved to endorse a policy change, namely, drug legalization. Bravo Tony Bennett!

UPDATE:

Katharine Celentano of SSDP Columbia University and Neill Franklin of LEAP have a terrific discussion of Bennett's comments in Huffington Post.

Women: The invisible victims of the drug war in Mexico

2012-02-03T09:47:00.003-05:00

Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy, a liberal reform organization, writes about the terrible impact of the current drug war on women in Mexico.

Her report on a recent conference of women stresses that the greatest number of those killed -- now more than 50,000, and those who have disappeared in the course of the Mexican government's assault on the power of the drug trafficking organizations are civilians who were not involved in the drug trade.

She says murder of women has increased dramatically. When the military comes to a town, rape and sexual assault increase dramatically. Women who seek investigations into the murder, disappearance or rapes of family members are subjected to harassment, threats, violence and sexual assault, according to the report.

Cuts in the Obama anti-drug budget under sequestration

2012-02-01T21:52:00.005-05:00

Brad Schlesinger writing at examiner.com has the scoop on John Carnevale's analysis of December 2011 on the Federal anti-drug budget for FY 2012 if the broad cuts take effect that Congress ordered in the event Deficit Supercommittee reached no agreement. (And you recall there was no agreement.)

Relying on highly experienced assumptions about the federal budget process, Carnevale's fear is that prevention will get much bigger cuts ( -40%) than interdiction ( -6%). Treatment could be cut by - 16%, domestic law enforcement by -18% and international programs by -21%. These are guesses, just informed guesses.

Obama again ducks questions on marijuana from American Internet public

2012-01-30T18:19:00.005-05:00

Once again the President invites the public to submit questions to him and vote on the most urgent or important ones for him to answer in a live YouTube interview. Once again questions regarding marijuana legalization, the costs of marijuana prisoners, the use of marijuana in medicine, hemp, marijuana and taxes, marijuana and the economy, etc. received far more votes than any other topic. This question from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition was the second highest vote getter.
And once again the President's handlers make sure that the questions are not asked! Indeed, the White House deleted a question from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Open White House? Pathetic!

UPDATE:
John McWorter at the New York Daily News blasts Google and YouTube for not asking about marijuana, noting that New York City Police are making over 50,000 marijuana arrests per year -- even though marijuana possession was decriminalized as a violation with a maximum $100 fine in 1977.

Rhode Island legislator arrested for DUI and possession of marijuana

2012-01-23T11:38:00.003-05:00

Robert A. Watson, a former Republican minority leader in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, was arrested for driving under the influence and possession of marijuana in South Kingston, RI over the weekend. It is reported that he has entered in-patient substance abuse treatment. He is awaiting trial for similar charges in East Haven, CT from last year.

On some listserves there has been mirthful commentary about his arrest, particularly about the report that he was released from custody at 4:20 a.m. Sunday.

This case is sad. It is likely that Representative Watson has an alcohol problem and may have a marijuana addiction. I don't believe it is appropriate to make fun of people who have illnesses, disabilities or addictions -- even if they are politicians.

There are more than 10,000 state legislators in this country. Almost certainly hundreds have alcohol abuse problems. It would be statistically amazing if many legislators did not have other chemical addictions.

Legislators are at high risk for alcoholism. During legislative sessions they work very long hours, away from the structural support of home and family, and are constantly being invited to receptions and meals at which free alcohol is offered and being consumed. The job is stressful and full of conflict. The decisions and votes are frequently not easy, and are always subject to intense public scrutiny and criticism. Let's remember that legislators come from a wide variety of backgrounds. We should not be surprised that many use marijuana and other controlled substances illegally.

Some drug policy reformers might look at a Republican marijuana-using legislator and assume quite naturally (relying on the statistical evidence of Republican opposition to marijuana law reform) the he opposed marijuana law reform and is thus a hypocrite. Perhaps so.

But we should not be shocked that many legislators who use marijuana might oppose marijuana law reforms that might appear to be contrary to their direct personal interest. An adult marijuana smoker might believe that decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana may encourage teenagers to use marijuana, and feel that potential result outweighs the benefits to adults. Drug policy reformers may be convinced that this is the wrong conclusion to draw, but the belief is not irrational.

In fact, we should expect that legislators make legislative decisions for public policy and political considerations.

Consider an analogous situation. Assume there is a vote on other legislation that would personally benefit a legislator as much as a bill to legalize their marijuana use might. Would we desire that legislators vote for legislation that benefits them personally, let's say financially, even if the legislator felt the bill was not in the public interest? Of course we would not!

It is easy for reformers to gloat and smirk when a Republican legislator is arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and marijuana. But it is not especially mature or thoughtful. I expect joking from professional comedians who are always hungry to make a joke at the expense of some public official. But I don't see that gloating about such sad circumstances is either politically sophisticated or beneficial to the drug policy reform movement.

Dana Beal profiled in The New York Times

2012-01-22T13:19:00.003-05:00

The New York Times of Jan. 21, 2012, has a very nice profile of Dana Beal in the New York section.

Dana may be best known to the contemporary drug policy reform movement as the irrepressibly persistent promoter of ibogaine for treating addiction. At the conferences of NORML, the Drug Policy Foundation and the Drug Policy Alliance over the past 25 years, he has invariably sought the microphone to inform all present about ibogaine's remarkable therapeutic potential.

At Dana's persistence, one of my first efforts to influence federal policy after I left the House Judiciary Committee staff was to bring Dana and Howard Lotsoff to meet with key officials of the Food and Drug Administration to try to initiate support for ibogaine research and clinical trials.

Dana has been a promoter of legal marijuana for even longer. He and his colleagues have organized countless meetings, conferences, protests and marches, such as the Million Marijuana March.

Crack hyperbole about tragedy in Brazil in Wall Street Journal

2012-01-21T17:34:00.005-05:00

"Hundreds of zombie-like [crack] addicts who by night wander a downtown no man's land known as Cracolandia." That's the second sentence of the breathless, hyperbolic Wall Street Journal page one story, "Brazil's Emerging Market: Crack." Not until the end of the 19th paragraph, out of 22, do we learn why the crack addicts wander: "The simple reason is they have nowhere to go: Most treatment centers are full."

Practically leading with "zombies," a reader may suspect the story is likely to be the common stew of cliches and fright mongering. You won't be disappointed --

* The fiendishly clever drug traffickers "seek the path of least resistance" because the risk of prosecution in Brazil is less than in the U.S. No mention that 100s of thousands of American and other drug traffickers have ignored long U.S. penalties for 25 years.

* Bad countries (with governments not to the liking of the U.S. or the publisher, in this case, Rupert Murdoch) are complicit. In this story the villains are Bolivia and Peru "where populist leaders have less interest in combating [cocaine production]." But conveniently, no mention of the fact that for some time Bolivia, Brazil and the U.S. have been negotiating an anti-cocaine cooperation agreement -- which was signed yesterday, the BBC reports.

*Fiendish ploys of dealers "to market their wares" -- "confiscated crack rocks in packaging emblazoned with the face of Rondaldinho, one of Brazil's most prominent [soccer] stars," the better to lure innocent soccer loving youth to the deadly drug. Oh, how shamelessly evil. (Is it worth mentioning that tobacco and alcohol are routinely marketed in conjunction with celebrities and sports?)

*Frightening images: "Mobs of skeletal figures ambled in darkened streets. Some draped filthy blankets over their heads in the drizzly chill. They swarmed when a dealer arrived. Flames flared from crack pipes in the darkness."

This style of journalism is at least a century old. In the early 20th century, the Hearst newspapers also ran nearly identical front page stories about dope using exactly the same themes, according to historian Susan L. Speaker (For example, see her article,"The Struggle of Mankind Against its Deadliest Foe": Themes of Countersubversion in Anti-Narcotic Campaigns, 1920-1940. JOURNAL OF SOCIAL HISTORY, 2001, VOL 34; PART 3, pages 591-610.)

This is a sad departure from the usual sober reporting of the Wall Street Journal.

Police pepper-spray public school students in Birmingham

2012-01-20T15:03:00.002-05:00

NPR reported just before the holidays about the frequency with which Birmingham, AL students are subjected to pepper spray by local police. The Southern Poverty Law Center had brought suit in Federal court in 2010 against the Birmingham Board of Education, and a hearing on whether to classify the suit as a class action was held in early December 2011.
Change.org is circulating a petition asking the Birmingham city officials to address the problem in a manner consistent with what the SPLC complaint seeks.

Newt Gingrich's surprising mis-educational moment about hemp

2012-01-05T02:19:00.003-05:00

At the Concord, NH Holiday Inn Wednesday morning at about 10:45, I was leaning through a doorway into the absolutely jam-packed Newt Gingrich event. Newt was in full blown professorial form elucidating our liberties from our founding texts. At one point, after noting Jefferson's soaring ode to liberty "that [all Men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," Newt said God gave us the right to bear arms. Really? Was this in the time of Adam, or of Moses, or the Prophets? Was this left out of the New Testament? Perhaps, God only gave us the right after the first firearms were invented -- anticipating the American revolution. Did God give the right to bear arms to all other persons in all other countries? Do the God-given rights mentioned in our Bill of Rights apply to all persons in other countries too? Or did God only give these rights to the American people? How did the Members of Congress and the Senators at the First U.S. Congress get the message?

But I am digressing. Newt Gingrich started taking questions from the New Hampshire public. Typically he stuck to talking points.

But one question, drew a howlingly inaccurate answer from the acclaimed historian and former professor. One of the students from among a dozen Students for Sensible Drug Policy present in New Hampshire for the political activity asked about Washington and Jefferson growing marijuana at Mount Vernon and Monticello, and why it is illegal today. The student, of course, used the current popular term for the hemp plant to avoid potentially mystifying Dr. Gingrich.

According to The Washington Times, Mr. Gingrich replied,

"I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana, and their techniques of dealing with it would have been more violent,"

which is pretty absurd since we were talking about hemp. (There is no record of Washington or Jefferson growing any varieties of the hemp plant (i.e. marijuana) to get high.)

Here's an excellent 90 second Video of the official guides at Mount Vernon providing a tour of hemp production there under George Washington's expert and profitable management. It made me wonder if Newt Gingrich ever did "the tourist thing" and visited Mount Vernon while he served in Congress.

Sam Stein at Huffington Post provided a more detailed report of the whole exchange.

Should Gingrich have known about Washington and Jefferson's hemp cultivation?
Since Federal law has since 1937 forbade "hemp" cultivation (since it "looks" like marijuana), we could expect that many Americans and Members of Congress would be completely ignorant of the fact that marijuana, then called hemp, was widely cultivated in 18th and 19th century America.

Newt's Ph.D. from Tulane University was in Modern European History, so if his study of history ignored early U.S. history to favor his academic specialty, his ignorance of Jefferson and Washington would be perfectly excusable.

But in his campaign stump speeches he purports to be an expert on the founding fathers: what they believed, how virtuous and industrious they were, how they knew the value of a profit and how to make one, etc. I may be used to an unusually high standard in History professors since I took courses with Roger Lane at Haverford College. But I think it would be unlikely that a well educated historian concerned about the lessons of Revolutionary times would be ignorant that hemp was a widespread major crop in America, one of the "Naval Stores" (cordage, tar, pitch and timber) that were important to build wooden 18th century sailing ships for trade and war.

In 2010 Newt Gingrich wrote two novels about George Washington and the Revolutionary War. Perhaps he is not a particularly curious researcher.

Or perhaps he was just trying to B.S. his clever way around a question that he want to sneer at.

As it happened, seven hours later on Wednesday evening, another SSDP student, Brian Broom-Peltz, caught Governor Romney leaving his rally in Peterborough, NH to ask him about "industrial hemp." Governor Romney said he didn't know what that was. Oh well, perhaps if Brian had said industrial marijuana or cannabis hemp or something.

The role of the jury in a marijuana prosecution

2011-12-21T10:55:00.002-05:00

George Washington University law professor Paul Butler has an important op-ed in The New York Times, Dec. 21, 2011 in defense of Julian P. Heicklen, a retired Penn State professor, who has been an indefatigable marijuana legalization crusader for years. Heicklen distributed information about the jury nullification power to passersby near the court house in New York City. Federal prosecutors are prosecuting him for the felony of jury tampering and insist that the First Amendment has nothing to do with his conduct.

Young, Black and Seized in New York

2011-12-20T15:19:00.006-05:00

Nicholas K. Peart writes in The New York Times about being stopped and frisked by the New York city police five times in the five years since his 18th birthday. He's Black. Sometimes a horrid truth is so simple, so eloquent and so heart-breaking.

I was stopped and frisked by the police in Philadelphia while simply walking down the street a block from my house. It was 1969, I was 19, and I had long hair and beard.

Today, some of my best friends are former cops. I greatly admire cops who are professionals and respect the very hard, challenging work that many of them do in serving the public. But as I look inside in my heart, I see I harbor a deep seated contempt for cops as a stereotype.

Now, I am very safe from cops. My silvery gray hair is neatly barbered, my white face is clean-shaven, my clothes are in good repair, as is my car. I live in a "good neighborhood," and, at my age, I am rarely out late at night. As I say, now, I am safe from cops -- because of my race, my class status, and my age.

But to state what should be obvious: the protection of the U.S. Constitution of "the right of the people to be secure in their persons. . . against unreasonable searches and seizures" (4th Amendment) which are among "the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States (14th Amendment) not to be abridged by any State law are NOT supposed to kick in only for the old, white, conformist-looking or middle class!

Today, we mark the passing of Vaclav Havel, and honor the courageous man who challenged the Communists in Czechoslovakia; a man sent to prison four times before he became that nation's first modern democratically elected President. Throughout most of my life, during the "Cold War," Americans were keenly aware of the evils of the Communist police states.

As a young man, I imagined that everyone behind the Iron curtain was also keenly aware of and resentful of their police state, and looked forward to replacing it. Who would continue to tolerate the invasion of liberty of an arrogant police arbitrarily seizing people? However, perhaps I was as naive about this? (Perhaps as naive as was Vice President Richard Cheney imagining the turning of the Iraqi people against the regime of Saddam Hussein upon an invasion by American troops.)

My reaction to Nicholas K. Peart's op-ed reveals how much I have inured myself to the constancy of police abuse of their power.

It is a mark of triumph that the American police have so veiled their invasions of our dignity, our privacy and our liberty that the invasions are blurred and come into our focus only rarely, such as with publication of an op-ed such as Nicholas K. Peart's.

Wisconsin politician uses veterans as stage props, won't provide medical care

2011-12-10T15:33:00.002-05:00

Gary Storck has a strong op-ed published in The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin criticizing Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald for not supporting a medical marijuana bill that includes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a condition for which marijuana may be recommended. But he and the governor "adorned" their Christmas tree lighting ceremony with veterans, and the tree is dedicated to veterans.

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio accused of failing to investigate sex assaults

2011-12-10T15:09:00.003-05:00

The office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is being criticized for failing to investigate reports of sexual assault in Arizona municipalities that it policed in recent years, according to The New York Times. Arpaio prided himself on degrading and humiliating the prisoners held in his custody. He maneuvered to acquire the title, "America's Toughest Sheriff," and used the sobriquet to sell books and attract publicity. His mistreatment of prisoners has brought investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

I debated him on a radio program about 20 years ago regarding his indifference to the inhumane treatment of prisoners in his custody.

27-years in prison, but declared innocent!

2011-12-07T07:59:00.004-05:00

Thomas Haynesworth, 46, was the declared innocent by the Virginia Court of Appeals on Dec. 6, 2011, reports the Washington Post. He was released from prison last year after being imprisoned for 27 years having been convicted in three cases of rape and acquitted in a fourth (charges in a fifth case had been dropped), always insisting that he was innocent.

In 2005, former Virginia governor Mark Warner (D) ordered a review of cases in which DNA analysis of biological evidence might clarify the identity of offenders. Evidence in two of Haynesworth's convictions cleared him, and pointed to convicted rapist Leon Davis, who resembled Haynesworth and lived in the same neighborhood. After that, prosecutors agreed to review the other cases and concluded that the victims had wrongly identified Haynesworth.

This is a tremendous achievement by Virginia's system of justice. In many, if not most, jurisdictions, the attitude to correcting wrongful convictions is that expressed by former Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry (D), "Evidence of innocence is irrelevant."

I commend Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) for joining Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project in the effort to ask the court to declare Haynesworth innocent.

Drug advertising mocked in good parody

2011-12-07T07:56:00.001-05:00

A new wonder drug is hyped on a well-executed mock website complete with funny diagnosis and weird side effects!

DEA launders or transports millions in cartel cash, says New York Times

2011-12-04T11:28:00.004-05:00

The New York Times reports on the top of page 1, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, that agents of DEA and other federal agencies have laundered or transported "millions" of dollars in drug proceeds. Agents have "handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders..."

This is not news nor is it shocking. This is basic undercover work of counter-narcotics investigations. In 1986 and 1988, Congress authorized law enforcement agencies to create fake entities and otherwise engage in stings to fight narcotics trafficking and other crime.

The sums mentioned in the New York Times story, compared to the tens of billions in illegal proceeds that the cartels have to transport and launder every year, are quite insignificant. That some drug traffickers may have benefited from this investigative technique is an intrinsic price of this investigative technique.

Perhaps this is news because of the political "scandal" that BATF allowed weapons that were illegally purchased get transported to Mexico in an attempt to gather intelligence to investigate illegal weapons trafficking in "Operation Fast and Furious." Republican Members of Congress have assumed a mantle of indignation about letting "weapons walk" to attack BATF and Attorney General Eric Holder, and by extension, the Obama Administration.

Law enforcement participation in weapons trafficking or money laundering is little different from the long-time practice of counter-narcotics agents participating in drug transactions in which the drugs get through to the streets and to users as part of an investigation. If DEA seized the drugs in every transaction in which an undercover agent or informant were gathering evidence, those investigations would be infinitely more dangerous and ultimately less successful in reaching their high-level targets.

Allowing the criminals to operate, and working with criminals and assisting in their crimes, is an inherent feature of undercover investigations on the axiom that this is key to earning the trust necessary to burrow deeper into a criminal organization to gather evidence need to identify and convict the criminal leadership. This "collaboration with criminals" is also carried out investigating organizations that are fencing stolen goods, investigating illegal gambling, prostitution, pornography or trademark piracy. Such investigations are inherently "tainted" by their collaboration with criminals. They always have an element that the criminals benefit. Evaluating them always involves a process of balancing evils.

Cops routinely tell lies to suspects. Any interrogation involves misrepresentation, withholding information, bluffing, making false promises and almost every other type of deceit. Officers need to know that they must be, and must be in fact, truthful in their internal reporting and whenever they make a statement under oath or in court. Obviously distinguishing when lying is permissible and impermissible is critical. Developing the ability to resist the temptation to lie when convenient or advantageous when impermissible must be taught and reinforced regularly. Officers are, of course, human beings, and when they fail in this, they must be punished. Norm Stamper writes about these challenges in his excellent book, Breaking Rank.

Is such "collaboration with criminals" necessary? I think so. Sophisticated criminals know that they need to minimize their connection to the evidence and the criminal conduct that they direct. The most powerful, most wealthy criminals are the most insulated. The dangers that they present to to public safety and to the functioning of a democracy and free economy are extensive enough and grave enough that these tools are necessary.

What most of us would find disturbing is when such seductive and trust-winning-betraying techniques are employed against minor offenders or when there is no consensus that the conduct is wrongful and should be punished. And certain kinds of trust winning roles should not be used. Should the government deploy women to seduce criminals into love affairs to learn their secrets and to betray them? I think not. Should the government deploy agents to pretend to be attorneys, priests and clergy, physicians or journalists to gather secrets from their enforcement targets? I don't think so. Trust is an essential glue of any community. And the integrity of certain professions is critical to a functioning democracy and a functioning society.

Drug policy reformers are right to be worried about the democracy-endangering activities of undercover police operations. We are justified in being indignant that unjust or unwise laws are enforced with the most extreme techniques. But we also must concede that society must combat the most dangerous criminals, and that undercover techniques are an essential tool that society must authorize and deploy.

UPDATE, Dec. 5, 2011

Section 1352 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-570) created a new federal crime of "Laundering of monetary instruments" (18 U.S.C. 1956) and provided that "(e) Violations of this section may be investigated by such components of the Department of Justice as the Attorney General may direct, and by such components of the Department of the Treasury as the Secretary of the Treasury may direct, as appropriate. Such authority of the Secretary of the Treasury shall be exercised in accordance with an agreement which shall be entered into by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General." (100 Statutes at Large 3207-20).

Section 6465 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-690), "Undercover 'sting' operations in money laundering cases," amended 18 U.S.C. 1956 to create in subsection (a) a new crime in new paragraph (3) of conducting or attempting to conduct a financial transaction involving property represented by a law enforcement officer to be the proceeds of specified unlawful activity [which includes all manner of controlled substance offenses], if the conduct was carried out with the appropriate criminal intent.

Having helped Congress write these provisions in 1986 and 1988, I can say confidently that 25 years ago, Congress contemplated that DEA would be engaged in money laundering investigations.

Bush Pardons demonstrate racial disparity, says Washington Post

2011-12-04T09:15:00.003-05:00

The Washington Post has a huge front-page story analyzing pardons by President George W. Bush from 2001 to early 2009.

The story does not look at commutations of sentence, typically an early release from prison such as the pre-Christmas 2000 releases of Kemba Smith and Dorothy Gaines by President Bill Clinton. Pardons and commutations of sentence (reprieves) are both elements of the broad power granted to the President under Article II, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation has been advocating for the President to increase the number of commutations of sentence since 2000 when it created the Coalition for Jubilee Clemency, and provides advice to prisoners and their families on its website.

Pardons almost never shorten the sentence. Typically they are granted to restore rights to vote, possess firearms, serve on juries, or obtain a business or other license. The published guidelines of the Department of Justice on the pardon process provide that petitions for pardons are not considered until at least five years have passed since a person was released from confinement, or if no prison term was imposed, at least five years from the imposition of sentence. No pardon will be considered for a person on probation, parole or supervised release.

The granting of pardons is important to individuals and can relieve ex-offenders of serious burdens. They are important politically, for example, when granted to former President Richard Nixon by President Gerald Ford, or to former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby by President George W. Bush. Large scale pardons have been very important for national healing after wars, such as the pardons of Confederate officials, officers and soldiers after the Civil War, and deserters, war protestors, draft resisters, etc. after wars in the Twentieth Century.

But today, the critical issue in the proper use of this power is to commute sentences. The federal prison population was about 25,000 prisoners for most of the Twentieth Century, but began to grow in the 1980s as the war on drugs expanded under President Reagan, and it exploded after the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act.

Today there are almost 200,000 convicted Federal prisoners, over 100,000 of them serving drug sentences. Most commentators -- especially most Federal judges (as surveyed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission) -- think that these sentences are too harsh, much too harsh.

The President would be serving the interests of justice by commuting the sentences of thousands, if not tens of thousands of sentences. This would save hundreds of millions of dollars in the costs of operating the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Instead the President is asking Congress to fund hundreds of millions of dollars of new prison construction.

It would be interesting to see The Washington Post analyze the use of this power to commute sentences.

Governors push U.S. to reschedule marijuana as medicine

2011-11-30T17:28:00.003-05:00

The governors of Washington and Rhode Island have written to the Obama Administration and submitted a 99-page petition pursuant to the Controlled Substances Act requesting that DEA reschedule marijuana to Schedule II, a classification that would allow it to be prescribed by doctors under strict controls, according to The New York Times. Under Schedule II, marijuana could only be grown, processed and distributed by persons who have obtained "registrations" from DEA, like drug companies and pharmacists. This is slightly different from the approach in H.R. 1983, a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, that would direct the Administration to reschedule marijuana to a schedule other than Schedules I or II.

This petition by the governors puts significant pressure on DEA and the Obama Administration to begin moving away from its head-in-the-sand approach to medical marijuana. The petition, in calling for Schedule II status, urges the result recommended in September 1988 by the DEA's Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young, as the result of the long litigation and fact-finding initiated by NORML, and assisted by the old Drug Policy Foundation.

The governor's petition will also help undercut the crusade initiated by the four U.S. Attorneys in California to attack all medical marijuana dispensaries. However, if DEA does reschedule marijuana to Schedule II, all the dispensaries in California and other states would continue to be in violation of federal law because they do not have registrations. It is hard to imagine that DEA would modify their regulations to permit the current dispensaries to be registrants.

All registrants have strict inventory control requirements and must keep careful records on where their controlled substances come from and how they are distributed.

Study: Medical marijuana laws reduce traffic deaths

2011-11-29T14:59:00.002-05:00

Two American researchers have concluded that medical marijuana laws are reducing traffic fatalities in this paper. Check out this very interesting, brand new paper by Dr. D. Mark Anderson, Montana State University and Dr. Daniel I. Rees, University of Colorado, Denver.

How to write like a good lawyer

2011-11-29T09:21:00.002-05:00

The American Bar Association on-line Journal has a great article on how good lawyers should write. Everyone should take 5 minutes to read this straight forward advice.

Obama's Pardons

2011-11-23T10:05:00.003-05:00

The White House "live" internet feed at 10:30 am EST, Nov. 23, 2011 will feature President Obama pardoning turkeys. (The image is from last year.) To defuse the criticism that he is misusing his power under Article II, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution to pardon turkeys and not any of the 200,000 human beings in federal prison, he pardoned five (that's right, five) persons of old crimes this week, and shortened the sentence of a mother serving 22 years in prison for selling 13 grams of crack cocaine about ten years ago.

Pardon me, but I won't defuse my criticism! Article II, section 1 of the Constitution says that there shall be a President and how the President is elected. Section 2 spells out the powers. The first sentence has the three powers that the framers of the Constitution recognized were most important of the new executive: Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy and military forces; directing the executive departments; and "Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States."

The framers of the Constitution saw a critical role for the President in the justice system. Congress writes the laws (Article I). The executive takes care that the laws be faithfully executed, that is crimes are investigated and prosecuted (Article II, section 3). The "trial of all Crimes" shall be conducted by the judicial branch (Article III, section 2). And the President shall correct injustices through the Reprieve and Pardon power.

Sadly, while Obama freely uses his Article II, section 2 power as Commander in Chief (for example, to bomb Pakistan, Libya, or Yemen without explicit authority from Congress), he uses his Article II, section 2 power to correct injustice with a stinginess that is either uncaring or cowardly.

In August 2010, Congress sent Obama the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 to tweak the mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine enacted in the frenzy after Len Bias died from cocaine in the summer of 1986. Congress recognized that the sentences that had been imposed for the previous 25 years were unjustly long. Obama signed the bill. Tens of thousands of people are serving these unjustly long sentences for crack and other drugs.

There are now 200,000 people serving sentences in federal prison, the largest prison system in the free world. Half of them are serving drug sentences. Most of them are serving mandatory minimum sentences that most judges believe are "manifestly unjust." Many of them have already served decades in prison -- very long sentences -- and yet are facing decades, or even a life time, for being small-scale dealers but sentenced to king-pin sentences because of Congress's hasty, numerical blunders in 1986. (I was the counsel to the House Judiciary Committee who processed that legislation. I was at the table and on the floor of the House when these laws were written and passed. I know exactly how badly they were written and how wrong they are!)

In three years in office, Obama has been able to find one person, only one person, in that 100,000 who he thought deserved a shorter sentence. Obama knows about the injustices. He is a former law professor. He cosponsored legislation as a Senator to fix these mandatory minimums. Either he now simply doesn't care to do anything about it, or he is afraid of the potential that someone he might free might commit another crime and it will be turned into a "Willie Horton" moment. To protect his political butt, Obama seems to be perfectly prepared to tolerate injustice on a massive scale. For shame!

What are parents afraid could happen to their kids?

2011-11-22T14:30:00.004-05:00

A University of Michigan survey, released in August 2011, showed a remarkable difference among parents of different racial or ethnic backgrounds about what they think threatens the health of their children.

Top 10 health concerns for children in 2011 by race/ethnicity:

Blacks:
1. Drug abuse, 44%
2. Childhood obesity, 44%
3. Smoking and tobacco use, 36%
4. Gun related injuries, 36%
5. School violence, 35%
6. Unsafe neighborhoods, 34%
7. Alcohol abuse, 33%
8. Teen pregnancy, 33%
9. Sexually transmitted infections, 31%
10. Sexting, 31%

Hispanics:
1. Drug abuse, 49%
2. Teen pregnancy, 44%
3. Childhood obesity, 44%
4. Child abuse and neglect, 38%
5. Stress, 38%
6. Driving accidents, 37%
7. Bullying, 37%
8. Smoking and tobacco use, 35%
9. Internet safety, 34%
10. Sexually transmitted infections, 33%

Whites:
1. Childhood obesity, 30%
2. Drug abuse, 28%
3. Smoking and tobacco use, 22%
4. Internet safety, 21%
5. Bullying, 21%
6. Teen pregnancy, 19%
7. Stress, 18%
8. Alcohol abuse, 17%
9. Sexting, 16%
10. Driving accidents, 16%

First, Black and Hispanic parents have much greater fear for their kids than white parents. The percentage of Black and Hispanic parents who fear the 10th ranked danger for their kids is greater than the percentage of white parents who fear the Number One danger threatens their kids. The 4th ranked danger of white parents, Internet safety, is not on the list for Black parents. Similarly, the highly ranked dangers feared by Black parents -- 4. Gun related injuries, 36%, 5. School violence, 35%, 6. Unsafe neighborhoods, 34% -- are not on the top 10 list for white parents.

Drug abuse however tops the list -- 49% for Hispanic parents, 44% for Black parents, and 28% for White parents. How should we interpret these fears when drug use data shows that white kids use drugs at higher rates than black kids? Matthew Davis, M.D., the director of the poll, begins his analysis by talking about increased use of marijuana. Drug policy reformers should consider the implications of this claim for their work. Drug policy reform in the early 1970s, which seemed a shoo-in after the Shafer Commission reports in 1972 and 1973, and the endorsement of marijuana decriminalization by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, vanished in the 1980 election.

The White House Drug Czar reports the data this way:

According to a recent survey, African American parents now consider youth drug use as the top concern for young people, ranking higher than gun related crimes, school violence, or bullying. We look forward continuing leading the Federal government’s collaborations with the African American community to reducing disparities and ensure that we can prevent drug use before it starts and work together to break the cycle of drug use and crime.

Colombia's President Santos: "I would talk about legalising marijuana and more than just marijuana."

2011-11-16T15:55:00.003-05:00

Colombia's wildly popular new president, Juan Manuel Santos, told The Observer in the United Kingdom, that regarding global drug policy, "The world needs to discuss new approaches... we are basically still thinking within the same framework as we have done for the last 40 years."

Santos took office in the summer of 2010, winning a very strong mandate to succeed former president Alvaro Uribe.

The comments in this interview, by a sitting president whose national popularity and global prestige is steadily growing, are enormously important to the advance the cause of drug policy reform.

Reefer Madness: In the Obama Administration?

2011-11-07T16:12:00.003-05:00

Ethan Nadelmann writes in The New York Times Nov. 7, 2011 about the numerous serious attacks on state medical marijuana programs by agencies of the Obama Administration, contrary to Obama's 2008 campaign finances.

Ethan's well-written op-ed is an indictment of Obama which can be dismissed if Obama soon takes the stand he said he would take in 2008.

Holder and U.S. Attorney sued by Americans for Safe Access for violating 10th Amendment

2011-10-27T16:23:00.003-04:00

On October 27, Americans for Safe Access filed suit against Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of the Northern District of California as the representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice accusing it of acting in violation of the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for threatening California cities that were implementing the California's medical marijuana laws.

The Tenth Amendment provides, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved the the States respectively, or to the people." Various powers prohibited to the States are set forth in Article I, section 10.

The Tenth Amendment has rarely been the ground for litigation and the Supreme Court has said little about its meaning and scope.

This could be another ground breaking case of constitutional interpretation arising from the conflict between the People of California and the U.S government around the use of marijuana for medical purposes. In the last big case, Raich, the government won, 6 to 3, a restatement of a very broad reach for national government power under the commerce clause.

Who is in charge at the Justice Department?

2011-10-27T11:06:00.002-04:00

According to Huffington Post, the spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, says that the crackdown on California medical marijuana dispensaries was the idea of the four U.S. Attorneys that head the four federal prosecutors offices in California. That is not strange or surprising. But Huffington Post is spinning her comments to say that President Obama (the Obama Administration) was not involved in the decision (Huffington Post headline: "Obama Not Implicated In California Medical Marijuana Crackdown, U.S. Attorney Claims"). They note that the campaign was approved by the Deputy Attorney General, but suggest that since he did not fly to California for the press conference to announce the crackdown, this indicates some "administration" distancing from the decision.

It is clear that the Obama Administration is getting heat for this. It is unlikely that the President was personally asked to approve this initiative. It is likely that his press people knew about the big press conference in Sacramento at which the four U.S. Attorneys were speaking. In a well-run administration, they certainly would have been advised that this was taking place. There is no question that the President should be held responsible for this policy unless there was an effort by Justice Department officials to keep him (meaning his advisers in the White House) out of the decision making loop.

Attorney General Eric Holder should have known about this. He should have known about the memorandum that his Deputy issued earlier this summer that attracted widespread criticism. It is almost inconceivable that he did not know about the memorandum. As the memorandum was being drafted, Holder should have asked what the specific implications of this memorandum would be for enforcement actions, and he probably was advised on that point as well.

Unfortunately for the proper running of the Justice Department, Eric Holder is under significant political attack for Republicans in Congress over the mishandling of the "Fast and Furious" gun trafficking investigation in Arizona, and is being investigated by a Congressional committee. He is necessarily distracted, and he is weakened. Challenging U.S. Attorneys who choose to make enforcement initiatives is not something he will eagerly do.

It is worth noting that Holder demonstrated very poor judgement in failing to protect President Clinton and the interests of justice in January 2000. Then, as Deputy Attorney General (the number two, chief operating officer at Justice), on the last day of the Clinton Administration, as Clinton was issuing pardons and reprieves, Clinton was about to grant one to Marc Rich, a fugitive from justice. Holder was asked and stupidly signed off on that pardon, exposing Clinton to well-deserved condemnation, and betraying justice, both upper and lower case. Holder, if he had been thinking would have said no, "Look, this guy is a fugitive from justice. He fled to avoid a trial. He had good attorneys, he was contesting the charges, he was out on jail, and he ran. Mr. President, how can you give him a pardon?"

Is Eric Holder, perhaps deeply politically tone deaf, failing to protect the President again, in allowing a politically counterproductive campaign against medical marijuana dispensaries?

Not only the Attorney General, but the Deputy Attorney James Cole, and all four of the U.S. Attorneys in California were nominated by President Obama. They are his appointees, not the appointees of someone else. These nominations are reviewed by his White House personnel office.

Obama might not have personally decided the policy to crack down on dispensaries in California, but those who did so, and are doing so, are carrying out his Administration's policies. His Administration's policies are his policies. He was elected, not they, and he is responsible for how they carry out his mandate. He has the authority to tell them not to do this, to say that this is not what he wants, and they comply or resign.

Webb's National Commission on Criminal Justice defeated in Senate vote

2011-10-20T14:30:00.003-04:00

In debate on amendment No. 750 in the U.S. Senate today, Oct. 20, 2011, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said “This is the most massive encroachment on states' rights I have ever seen in this body.”

Holy Cow! Outrageous! What was this?

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) sponsored a bill to create a 14-member commission to study America's criminal justice system -- a study. He offered the bill as an amendment to the Appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Justice. The price tag for the commission was $5 million, not terribly high.

The "most massive encroachment on states' rights I have ever seen"? One has to wonder whether Senator Hutchison just had cataract surgery or if she has been in a coma since she came to the Senate in June 1993. She's a lawyer and received a law degree from the University of Texas Law School in 1967.

Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), an obstetrician, called it unconstitutional. “We are absolutely ignoring the Constitution if we do this." “We have no role … to involve ourselves in the criminal court system or the penal system in my state or any other state.”

Yet those leading conservative members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), also voted FOR the amendment, as well as Olympia Snow (R-ME) and Scott Brown (R-MA). All the other Republicans voted against it, a total of 43 no votes.

The amendment, in the current climate required 60 votes to pass, it only got 57 yes votes. All the Democratic Senators voted for it, plus the two independents.

This is too bad.

Does this sound like "due process of law?"

2011-10-14T14:28:00.000-04:00

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. . ." Does this federal raid of a medical marijuana dispensary operating in compliance with the strict controls of the Colorado Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division in which property is taken and persons are seized sound like what you or an ordinary person would think is the "due process of law?"

Gun rights and medical marijuana -- Update

2011-10-04T17:39:00.002-04:00

Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, noting that hunting season is starting soon, sent a strong letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder subtly suggesting how offensive and unworkable was the letter to Federal Firearms Licensees from the ATF declaring state medical marijuana laws null and void as far as the Federal gun laws go.

Gun ownership by patients who use medical marijuana

2011-10-03T14:56:00.000-04:00

A provision of the 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits drug addicts from possessing or receiving a firearm (18 U.S.C. 922 (g)(3)). Given the connection between serious drug addiction and criminal behavior such a provision is not unreasonable. Typically however, Congress went a little farther, applying the prohibition to any person "who is an unlawful user. . . of a controlled substance."

Of course, if you have a bona fide prescription for a controlled substance for a medical condition you are not "an unlawful user," and thus it is not a crime to possess or receive a firearm. So even if you use powerful narcotics legally, that does not affect your right to possess a firearm.

As of this time, sixteen states (and the District of Columbia) have enacted laws recognizing the medical use of marijuana.(The laws in D.C. and New Jersey are not yet operative.)

As a result of these state laws, there are hundreds of thousands of persons nationwide whose doctors have recommended to them that they use marijuana for medical purposes.

But Federal law still does not, and Federal health officials still do not, recognize the medical use of marijuana (except by four persons who receive marijuana from the federal government under the compassionate use program).

Should being a lawful patient using marijuana under State law require that one give up one's Constitutional right under the Second Amendment to possess a firearm for self-defense? As matter of logic, of course not. Under state law, you are a lawful user of marijuana under a doctor's supervision. You are not a drug addict. But according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) of the U.S. Department of Justice, the answer, sadly, is yes!

On September 21, 2011, ATF advised Federal Firearms Licensees by open letter that they must not sell firearms to any person who identifies himself or herself as a medical user of marijuana. John Adams of USA TODAY reported on this letter on September 29, 2011. MPP's Morgan Fox reported in March that the Supreme Court of Oregon came to the opposite conclusion! But the Supreme Court of Oregon's judgment does not apply to other states.

Once again obtuse Federal health and drug officials, now acting through ATF bureaucrats, are jeopardizing the liberties of Americans by setting aside their right to self defense, clarified by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Heller case in June 2008.

Mark Kleiman's Drugs and Drug Policy

2011-09-30T18:02:00.000-04:00

Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins, and Angela Hawken have published Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2011). This is a smart and useful book for all audiences. Drug policy reformers will find many points they will agree with and many that may challenge their beliefs and prejudices.

The authors -- all highly respected scholars -- have produced an easy-to-read, authoritative guide to the key issues regarding drug. They aren't trying to make friends, they are trying to tell the truth as evidence or logic leads them. For example, they praise public health advocates who support sterile syringe programs, but note that many advocates of harm reduction don't support tobacco-related harm reduction such as smoke-free cigarettes.

The authors seriously engage some of the taboos often ducked in policy discussions such as a 25-page chapter entitled, "What are the benefits of drug use?" There are numerous smart discussions about factors and myths that surround "drug policy." For example, what is the role of science and evidence in making policy, or the factors in cultural conflict.

The concluding recommendations are smart.

Troublemaker by Bill Zimmerman (Doubleday 2011)

2011-09-30T16:19:00.000-04:00

Bill Zimmerman, a principal in Zimmerman and Markman, Inc., the political consulting firm that played a critical role in the passage of California's Proposition 215 in 1996 (the Compassionate Use Act for medical marijuana), has written a fabulous memoir, Troublemaker: A Memoir from the Front Lines of the Sixties. (Doubleday, 2011).

Zimmerman's story of his full engagement in the 1960s and 1970s is an outstanding page-turner of a memoir. This brilliant and courageous man was repeatedly in the center of the action of that chaotic time -- working intensely and constructively for civil rights, for peace and for justice. If you want to understand the 1960s, and the kind of men and women who made it the cultural and political watershed that it is, you must indulge in the pleasure of reading this book.

NYPD changes marijuana arrest policy!

2011-09-23T17:24:00.003-04:00

On September 19, the NYPD issued an order forbidding officers from the practice of arresting people for the misdemeanor of public display of marijuana by ordering people to empty their pockets. New York State decriminalized marijuana possession in 1977, limiting the maximum penalty to a $100 fine. But over the past 15 years, the NYPD has tricked or coerced close to a half million people into publicly displaying marijuana, and in order to arrest them, fingerprint them, photograph them, and give them lifetime criminal records. 87 percent of those arrested have been black or Hispanic, a completely disproportionate figure.

In issuing the new order, NYPD Commissioner William Kelley noted that “questions have been raised about the processing of certain marijuana arrests.” Indeed! On June, 23 2011, the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation filed a formal demand with the U.S. Department of Justice asking for a civil and criminal investigation of the NYPD leadership and top New York City officials suggesting that the marijuana arrest program is an unlawful pattern or practice of conduct designed to violate the constitutional rights of the persons being arrested, in felony violation of federal law. Here is the letter to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, a statement from Professor Harry Levine of Queens College, City University of New York, one of the courageous figures who spotted this problem, containing part of his detailed analysis of the arrest data, and the images of the certified mail receipts for the delivery of the letter to both the Assistant Attorney General and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

More federal prisons may be on the way

2011-09-23T14:56:00.002-04:00

The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations last week approved its bill to fund Commerce, Justice and Science programs and agencies for FY 2012.

The bill, which comes from a subcommittee chaired by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), zeroes out funding for the popular Second Chance Act (which is proposed to receive $70 million in the House bill).

Shockingly, the bill added a $350 million increase to the Bureau of Prisons, a portion of which will help them kick off a multi-year prison building campaign that will result in 7 new prisons in 4 years.

Student Conference in Washington, July 6 & 7 -- Any consequences?

2011-06-30T21:46:00.004-04:00

It is the summer of 2011, and Campus Progress is coming to Washington July 6 and 7! Should any one care?

The U.S. is at war in Afghanistan -- the longest war in U.S. history. In our newest "not war," the U.S. is bombing Libya under the flag of NATO (but the President says this is not "hostilities" because there are no American forces on the ground and only few casualties). And the U.S. is sending drones to attack targets in Pakistan, Yemen and the Somalia. Is this conforming to an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution that provides that Congress declares war? (Query: Could Japan have said that there were no hostilities when it bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 because it had no troops on the ground and only 55 casualties?)

The national rate of unemployment remains at levels comparable to those last seen in the Reagan recession of 1981-82 -- thirty years ago!

American families have lost about $9 trillion in their wealth -- value of their investments such as their home, their pension fund, their savings.

June has been one of the hottest in history. Floods ravage the American heartland. The evidence of global climate change, abetted by human activity, smacks us in the face.

America is the home to one-quarter of all the world's prisoners -- not China, not Russia, not Iran, not Cuba.

America wields its drug policy like a scythe among young people of color -- imprisoning them and imposing life long criminal records by the hundreds of thousands that stop the opportunities of higher education, of lawful employment, of credit, of housing, of advancement, of creating opportunities for family and children, and deny the right to vote!

The Congress is in a state of partisan gridlock. Accomplishing the most basic tasks seems to require a Herculean effort -- to confirm the President's nominees to run government agencies, to adopt a budget, to appropriate the funds for government programs and agencies, to oversee the activities of the government.

Fortunately, what in modern decades has been America's most politically dynamic class -- its progressive students -- are meeting in Washington on July 6 and 7 under the auspices of Campus Progress.

Are the students poised to adopt a resolution, on behalf of America's youth or the families that sent them, that sets forth their demands for economic, political and social reform?

Will these political savvy and aware students present, debate and adopt a manifesto outlining their vision of a vital America: a nation moving toward to a sustainable future, protecting civil liberties and human dignity, and balancing opening opportunities for entrepreneurs with assuring that private and public resources are adequately devoted to care for those who have handicaps, illness, and who are unable to have their needs met by their own hard work and savings?

Here's a link to the agenda of Campus Progress.
Does this look like healthy debate or preaching to the choir?
Does this look like an opportunity to stand for something or for the off-spring of the affluent to add to their resumes in support of becoming apparatchiks for the professional progressives?

On the conference program there is no congress of students.
On the program, there is no opportunity for students to adopt an agenda for action.

Does this look like an occasion for progress? Or does the agenda read like a festival for the passive absorption of the assorted wit, outrage, cant, and self-congratulation by a few bright lights of the progressive left?

Can these students breakout of the straight jacket of the agenda? Can they tap the outrage of our current condition? Or are they lining up to get autographs, distribute resumes, and to out-hustle one another for a job?

U.S. Sentencing Commission approves retroactive crack sentencing guidelines

2011-06-30T14:59:00.004-04:00

On June 30, 2011, the U.S. Sentencing Commission unanimously adopted proposed sentencing guidelines that, effective Nov. 1, 2011, would allow prisoners to petition to modify their sentences. This is good news because some law enforcement groups had opposed this move. This is good news because perhaps 12,000 current federal prisoners may get their very long sentences reduced by an average of three years! This is good news because this is one of the biggest steps that the Sentencing Commission could take.

But, sadly, this step is only a small step in the longer journey for justice. First of all, this change will have no effect on the statutory mandatory minimums. Those who are serving a 10 year sentence because they were convicted of distributing, or conspiring to distribute 50+ grams of crack cocaine, will still have to serve the 10 years. Even though the new mandatory minimum sentence starts at 280 grams, because Congress did not make the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive, the statutory minimum sentence in effect at the time of the defendant's crime is not going to change. Congress may have recognized that sentences of 10 years for less than 280 grams were unjust, by contemporary standards, by changing the law but they did nothing about those cases already decided over the previous 24 years.

But the second, and bigger, point is that the enormous focus on the sentencing of crack cocaine cases has been tragically misplaced, because it has focused on the wrong "end" of the justice system. The heart of the problem is that U.S. Attorney offices around the country bring small-scale cocaine cases in federal courts where they can get extraordinarily harsh sentences because of the small quantity triggers (now 28 grams and 280 grams for minimum sentences of 5 and 10-years). A boatload of cocaine seized by the Coast Guard might contain one ton, that is, 1,000,000 grams! The team that organized that shipment is a large scale dealer and they belong in federal court. Small cases do not belong in federal court.

The thousands of small cases brought every year mean that DEA agents and other federal investigators and prosecutors are not working on major cases. Sadly, it seems everybody in Justice and Congress is satisfied with the handful of agents bringing a handful of major cases in a year.

Major cases are vitally important because the people involved are often involved in assassinations of police and political leaders, wholesale bribery and corruption, extensive money laundering, fabulous tax evasion and so forth. But federal agents are unavailable to do those cases when they are busy with thousands of neighborhood crack dealers (and their girl friends) -- dealers who are easily, quickly, and usually replaced soon after their arrests.

People concerned about the "injustice" of the excessively long "crack" sentences should focus their outrage on the U.S. Justice Department which tolerates wasting expensive federal anti-crime resources on unimportant criminals, not be outraged at the federal judges or the sentencing guidelines that have nothing to do with case selection.

Many fewer that one in a hundred American "criminals" go to federal court. The offenders who go to federal court should be those who commit terribly serious crimes. The federal cases should be those involving very complex schemes that require the smartest attorneys and investigators to unravel, and those that have nationwide or international implications.

A guy selling crack cocaine out of a local crack house does not belong in federal court. The crack was probably made in the back room of the crack house or a few blocks away. Local cases belong in local courts. Even the guy who is the biggest crack dealer in the city typically does not belong in federal court. If the Justice Department succeeded in shutting down the operators of the international cocaine pipeline that has been keeping every crack house in America fully supplied then it might be appropriate for it to work on totally local cases.

I commend the U.S. Sentencing Commission for having the courage to make the changes that it can in the face of continued political grandstanding about "crack dealers." Today, a lot of minor criminals selected almost at random by the Justice Department and now serving inordinately long sentences will have a shot at getting home to their families a few years sooner. This is not trivial.

But I fear that too many justice advocates and legal commentators will behave as though this is a problem of the justice system that is now largely solved.

In a way, this is kind of the like distinguishing those who are hurt and those who are responsible in the current financial crisis that has been going on for the past three years. American families lost $9 trillion in wealth in the lost value in their homes, pension funds, investments, etc. Tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs and are still out of work. So unable to pay bills, they are getting evicted from apartments and homes, and being foreclosed on. But the leaders and players in the financial industry who were responsible for the decisions that brought about the calamity are getting record bonuses and salaries, and not being brought into court to fight for their life savings.

Why does our political system not demand accountability from the powerful when they misbehave, but harshly punishes the the low-level people when they go bad?

Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011

2011-06-24T15:53:00.002-04:00

On June 23, 2011, U.S. Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Steve Cohen (D-TN), John Conyers (D-MICH.), Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced H.R. 2306, a bill to end the federal prohibition on the possession, cultivation, distribution, importation and exportation of marijuana.

This is a remarkable bill for several reasons. First, the bill would truly and completely decriminalize marijuana under federal law. Unlike state laws that reduce the penalty for possession of marijuana from a criminal offense to a summary offense or violation like a traffic offense, there would be no federal violation for possessing or growing marijuana. For example, it is not a federal offense to drive too fast on a federally-funded highway -- it is only a violation of state law. Under this bill, it becomes solely a matter of state law whether one can possess or grow or sell marijuana.

Second, by removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, one of the major impediments to state medical marijuana laws would be removed! If enacted, there could no longer be any argument that the state medical marijuana law is in "conflict" with federal law. The bill does not address any issues of regulation of marijuana as a "drug" under the Federal Food, Drug, Cosmetic and Device Act.

Third, I can recall no bill introduced in Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition since the enactment of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act effectively created marijuana prohibition. There may have been such a bill before I came to Washington in 1979, but I don't think so. And there certainly has not been such a bill since 1979 when there were still proposals to reduce the penalties for marijuana possession to a summary offense.

Fourth, the language of section 2 of the bill is fascinating. It is an almost word-for-word re-enactment of a famous bill from 1913, the Webb-Kenyon Act. That law, enacted over the veto of President William Howard Taft, was, curiously, a key political achievement of the "dry" forces in their drive to create alcohol prohibition. The Webb-Kenyon Act brought federal enforcement into support of state alcohol controls by making it a federal offense to bring alcohol into a state in violation of the state law. This was an early entry of federal law enforcement into the interstate commerce arena. President Taft vetoed it because he thought it was unconstitutional!

The Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 1917 in Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Railroad Co., 242 U.S. 320 (1917).

A question that the 1913 law created was whether states could become "bone-dry," and totally forbid the importation of alcohol to prevent possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Was this an interference by the States in "interstate commerce." It was upheld, and federal law enforcement could be enlisted to prosecute the shipment of alcohol into dry states.

In 2011, because of the global traffic in marijuana, this provision assures states that choose not to legalize marijuana, that federal resources will help them carry out their prohibitions regarding the interstate or international transportation of marijuana. The states would not be abandoned to having to fight the global traffic in marijuana by themselves if they want to continue to prohibit marijuana. This section would not authorize a federal prosecution for growing marijuana in a state, even when the state continues to prohibits marijuana.

Marijuana, in sum and substance, would be removed from the Controlled Substances Act!

The bill does not withdraw the U.S. from the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotics of 1961 and the other international treaties that purport to outlaw the non-medical use of Cannabis. But those treaties are not self-executing. The U.N. can't "enforce" violations of the treaties.

At this moment, the legislation has little immediate future. The Republican leadership of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Committee on the Judiciary to which the bill has been referred is unlikely to take up the bill. A companion bill has not been introduced in the U.S. Senate. The challenge for supporters of the bill is to get additional Members of the House of Representatives to co-sponsor the bill, to get newspaper editorial boards and columnists to endorse the bill, and to get the endorsement of the bill by a variety of organizations -- from police and medical organizations to Chambers of Commerce and Parent Teacher Associations.

Marking the 40th Anniversary of the War on Drugs

2011-06-17T08:34:00.003-04:00

Alternet graciously published my overview of the war on drugs on the 40th anniversary of President Nixon's message to Congress that launched it.

My 1-hour interview on "Culture Shocks" radio with host Barry Lynn is now being played in a continuous loop.

Have you (or someone you know) been hurt by the war on drugs?

2011-06-10T15:11:00.004-04:00

Have you or someone you know been raided, shot, maimed, killed, infected, deported, abandoned, orphaned, widowed, evicted, profiled, disenfranchised, robbed, burglarized, jailed or imprisoned, overdosed?

This message is from U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado):

The drug war is a waste of time, money, and resources. Worse, though, it ruins lives.

The enduring legacy of the war on drugs will forever be the horrible impact it has had on the people and families who have seen terrible, outsized punishment for minor, non-violent infractions.

That's why I'm going to make a stand. On June 14th, I'm making a speech from the House floor demanding that we bring this counterproductive war to an end. To make my argument, though, I need your help.

Tell me how the war on drugs has negatively affected your life, or the life of a loved one, now.

I'll read some of the most compelling stories as part of my speech on the House floor. And, of course, I will not reveal any private information like your last name.

It's really important for me to have these stories to share. They can illustrate better than any statistic that this war isn't really a war on drugs. It's a war on the Americans who use drugs.

Drug addiction is a serious problem and, while there can be a criminal component, our lawmakers should address individual drug use as the health problem it is instead of investing billions to incarcerate with no intention to rehabilitate.

So, whether the war on drugs has caused you or a loved one to be put in jail, thrown out of school, or lose a job, please share that experience with me so I can include it in my speech. While it may be too late to undo the pain you've gone through, it's not too late to prevent it from happening to someone else:

http://www.fearlesscampaign.com/war-on-drugs

Thanks,

Jared

What did Congress mean by "cocaine base?"

2011-06-10T13:15:00.003-04:00

In August 1986, I wrote H.R. 5394, and House Report 99-845 (Part 1) to accompany that bill, when I was assistant counsel to the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee.

H.R. 5394, "the Narcotics Penalties and Enforcement Act of 1986" became sections 1001 through 1105 of "the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986," (P.L. 99-570) in other words, the infamous crack cocaine mandatory minimum sentences.

At the direction of the Subcommittee, in the bill I used the words "cocaine base" for "crack" because crack was a street or slang term not appropriate for use in the statute. Congress understood that "cocaine base" meant "crack." All other forms of cocaine were cocaine, which itself was redefined in section 1867 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act to be a very encompassing definition found in 21 U.S.C. 812 (c) Schedule II (a)(4) and 21 U.S.C. (b)(1)(A)(ii). We referred specifically to "crack" on page 12 of the House Report.

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court came up with a somewhat different answer, in an unanimous opinion by Justice Sotomayor, in the case of DePierre v. U.S., 564 U.S. ___ , (No.09-1533) (2011).

I have lost track of the number of times laws that I have written between 1981 and 1989 dealing with drugs, gun control, pornography and other issues, have been reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, but you would think that at some point, someone involved in these cases would ask me what the Congress intended in enacting the statute that I wrote for it.

June 17, 2011, 40th Anniversary of President Nixon’s Message to Congress Launching the “War on Drugs”

2011-06-02T16:43:00.004-04:00

M E M O R A N D U M:

To: Reporters, Columnists, Editorial Boards, Managing Editors

From: Eric E. Sterling, President, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation

Re: Issues for Stories and Analysis on 40th Anniversary of Pres. Nixon's Message to Congress

The “War on Drugs” is 40 years old this month. What have been its successes and failures? How much has it cost? Did it produce a strategy for victory over what President Nixon called “America’s public enemy number one”?

Do the dangers of drugs warrant a war? Have the fears of drugs been exploited for political purposes? Have warnings about drug use been properly presented to the right target populations?

Since 1971, Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush and Obama, and the Congress have initiated a variety of strategies, most under the label, the “war on drugs.” They have had White House coordinators. Is our anti-drug effort being managed any better now than when President Nixon decried bureaucratic red-tape and jurisdictional disputes among agencies?

Have Nixon’s goals to reduce the number of deaths from drugs and to expand drug treatment been accomplished? Have Nixon’s goals to make the “traffic in narcotics…no longer profitable” and to “destroy the market for drugs” been achieved? Does this strategy make drugs less or more profitable?

In your community, what has been the legacy of 40 years of the “war on drugs?” Who has benefited from this program and who has been hurt? How much does it cost your community to carry on this fight? Is it money well spent?

Have the burdens of drug addiction or drug enforcement fallen harder on people of color or the poor? In your area, if some areas suffer more than others, what explains those differences?

What is the prognosis for mitigating or solving the problems created by the “war on drugs?”

On June 17, 1971, President Nixon sent a 5300-word message to Congress “to consolidate at the highest level a full-scale attack on the problem of drug abuse in America.” He warned, “If we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us.”

He created a Special Action Office on Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP) in the White House, authorized for three years with the option of extending its life for an additional two years.

This new coordinating office (we use the short hand, “czar,” for such efforts now) would eliminate “bureaucratic red tape, and jurisdictional disputes among agencies” in order to “mount a wholly coordinated national attack on a national problem.”

While Nixon used language such as “I will ask for additional funds to increase our enforcement efforts to further tighten the noose around the necks of drug peddlers,” he also spoke of drug users as “the people whom society is attempting to reach and help.” He wanted the SAODAP to “extend its efforts into research, prevention, training, education, treatment, rehabilitation…”

Costs

Nixon asked for an additional $159 million dollars for his initiatives, plus an unspecified amount to pay 325 additional positions in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (forerunner to the DEA).

Over the past 40 years, with leadership from successive presidents and “drug czars,” and enthusiastic support from Congress, the Federal government has spent, cumulatively, about a half trillion dollars on the “war on drugs.” By FY 1975, federal anti-drug spending had climbed to $680 million. For the past 20 years, Federal spending on drugs has exceeded $15 billion per year including the costs of imprisonment.

The costs are now so high, the “drug czar” seems to conceal almost one-third of the anti-drug spending by excluding it from the formal anti-drug budget. ONDCP says that $14.8 billion was spent in FY 2009 to fight drugs. But another $6.9 billion was actually spent in FY 2009 on fundamental anti-drug activity such as the incarceration of federal drug prisoners.

The FY 2011 formal anti-drug budget request is for $15.5 billion, excluding imprisonment and the other costs which remain concealed in the budget submission.

The cost of imprisoning federal drug prisoners has been over $3 billion annually since FY 2008. On May 19, 2011 the total federal prison population exceeded 215,000. As of April 23, 2011, 50.9% of convicted federal prisoners were drug offenders.

Economic impact

Nixon wanted research and “development of necessary reports, statistics, and social indicators for use by all public and private groups.” Do we have sufficient knowledge of the drug problem?

Do we know what it has cost the economy that tens of millions have criminal records, and earn so little that they are unmarriageable and can’t obtain credit? What has it meant, for example, to American automakers and unions that instead of the 200,000 prisoners in state and federal prisons in 1972, there are about 1.6 million adults in prison now (and another 600,000 in jails)?

Deaths

In his message, Nixon lamented 1000 narcotics deaths in New York City in 1970. There were an estimated 38,000 drug overdose deaths nationwide in 2007.

Drug use

Nixon did not say how many drug addicts there were. But he said his initiative “must be judged by the number of human beings who are brought out of the hell of addiction, and by the number of human beings who are dissuaded from entering that hell.” He did not say how many non-addicted drug users there were but he said these steps would “strengthen our efforts to root out the cancerous growth of narcotics addiction in America.” The reality that the majority of drug users were not destined to become addicts was not understood or was disregarded.

Notwithstanding these efforts, drug use continued to grow, especially marijuana use, and later cocaine use. In 2009, there were 21.8 million users of illicit drugs.

Veterans

Nixon asked for $14 million “to make the facilities of the Veterans Administration available to all former servicemen in need of drug rehabilitation.” Are we anywhere near meeting the needs of Veterans with substance abuse disorders today?

International initiatives

A major feature of Nixon’s message stressed the need for international cooperation. He imagined that it was realistic to propose an “end opium production and the growing of poppies” as an international goal. He noted the strong U.S. backing of the “United Nations effort against the world drug problem.”

Has the “balloon effect” has rendered successes, such as the elimination of Turkey as a source of illicit opium and France as a center of heroin production for U.S. consumption, into disasters for emerging producing states? Was the bloodshed in Mexico, and increasingly in Central America, predictable?

Does the international control regime continue to make sense? Are nations in Europe and Latin America slowly abandoning the principles of the U.N. narcotics treaties in favor of harm reduction, recognition of individual liberty, and regulated distribution and use?

Conclusion

State legislatures continue to pass medical marijuana laws. In November 2010, in California, 46.5 percent of the voters supported legalizing marijuana, and polls revealed that 30 percent of “no” voters said they supported legalization, but not in the form of Proposition 19 that was on the ballot.

Public support for this important and expensive public policy is in flux. Many states are recognizing that the costs of punishment and imprisonment are now excessive.

This 40^th anniversary is an opportunity for America’s journalistic leaders to examine and comment on a serious public health problem that still suffers from the stigma once associated with leprosy, tuberculosis or AIDS.

Please contact me if you are interested in writing on this. I can also refer you to additional sources. Eric E. Sterling, cell 301-589-6020, esterling@cjpf.org

Is this true? Obama Adhttp://www.blogger.com/imgministration is "more concerned with wellbeing of criminals than with the safety of our communities."

2011-06-02T14:14:00.003-04:00

On June 1, 2011, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urged the U.S. Sentencing Commission make retroactive the revised sentencing guidelines to cover prisoners previously sentenced under the long mandatory drug sentences that were modified by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2011, if there were no weapons or other factors involved in the case.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), is Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. His statement responding to Holder is riddled such preposterous accusations, such as the above, as well as blatant misstatements of the law, as noted by Prof. Doug Berman at his Sentencing Law and Policy blog.

One should note, by the way, that Rep. Lamar Smith is a Member of Congress especially sensitive to bias and inaccuracy in public statements, especially if they are made by the news media. (The majority of his Floor and Committee Statements, as identified on his Congressional website, are criticisms of major news media for bias.)

Rep. Smith was the sole Member of Congress to speak on the floor against the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 last year.

Global Commission on Drug Policy

2011-06-02T13:05:00.002-04:00

This is important.

This is a very balanced and yet very strong indictment of the status quo, and an intelligent suggestion of the way forward. This outstanding, short report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy is the big drug policy news this week!
The report is in English and Spanish. Take the time to read it.

The Commission includes some global heavyweights:the current Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, from the U.S. -- Paul Volcker (former Chair, Federal Reserve Board), George P. Shultz (former US Secretary of State, Treasury and Labor under Republican presidents), John C. Whitehead (former Deputy Secretary of State under Pres. Reagan, former chair of Goldman Sachs), former Presidents of Brazil, Switzerland, Mexico, and Colombia, other former top United Nations and government officials from around the world, and intellectuals and business leaders.

Link to it on Facebook, blog about it, write LTEs about it, call your favorite talk radio show to talk about it.

Our Imagination Deficit

2011-05-30T13:48:00.004-04:00

E.J. Dionne, one of the more liberal Washington Post columnists, compares the efforts of other nations to address their problems with the empty political dialogue in the U.S., and the current political obsession with lowering taxes.

He laments our lack of imagination, and posits a U.S. imagination deficit compared to other nations.

When I came to the line in his column, “Oh yes, and nearly 14 million…” I thought, oh my gosh, is he going to mention the millions of Americans with criminal records that cripple their inability to get jobs, to get married, and to participate in rebuilding our economy? One out of nine American men has a felony conviction.

Perhaps he’ll get to the lives lost to our national failure to imaginatively regulate and control the use and distribution of drugs leading to enormous social and economic costs. Of course, I was wrong.

It seems that even Americans who purport to be imaginative can’t see the importance of a justice system that the American people accept as just and effective as a foundation for national progress. Slogans about being tough on crime suffice.

We can’t organize a system to distribute of drugs that does not ravish thousands of American neighborhoods or rely primarily on organized crime and the inefficiency of the criminal justice system. Slogans like “drug-free America” and “zero tolerance” suffice.

We can’t imagine a smarter use of the $22 billion or so that the federal government spends on its anti-drug efforts annually with few positives results to show for it.

Heck, smart, compassionate columnists such as E.J. Dionne don’t even see or mention the problem. Might the fact that there are a half million drug prisoners in the U.S. be worth mentioning?

All the other countries that he mentioned in his column -- China, South Korea, European nations, Russia -- imprison a much smaller fraction of their population than we do!

June 17, 2011 is the 40^th anniversary of Pres. Nixon’s message to Congress launching the “war on drugs.” What might E.J. Dionne write on that occasion?

Mexico -- gunfights, drug money and the future

2011-05-27T12:08:00.003-04:00

A gun battle raged for three days in Michoacan, forcing about eight hundred people to flee their homes, raising "fresh fears that another major Mexican state has become all but ungovernable," report David Luhnow and Jose de Cordoba in The Wall Street Journal on May 27. In March a new cartel was announced, "The Knights of Templar," with dozens of banners pinned up across Michoacan. This new cartel "are thought to be remnants of La Familia," a particularly violent cartel, whose leader, Nazario Moreno, was killed last December.

One measure of the futility of the government's anti-cartel strategy is reported by William Booth and Mary Beth Sheridan in The Washington Post on May 27, "Teamwork on drug kingpins yields little." Money laundering investigations are "inflicting only fleeting damage on trafficking organizations," they write. "During the past 11 years, only $16 million tied to suspected Mexican traffickers has been blocked in the United States, or one dollar for every $20,000 estimated by the Congressional Research Service to flow southward from the United States..." That is $29 billion per year, $320 billion over 11 years - untaxed. (It is also likely to be an exaggeration.) A key fact is that the prosecution system in Mexico is a "black hole," according to Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a major think tank monitoring drug trafficking in Latin America.

The justice system, aside from the notorious corruption of the police, is feeble and desperately needs reform, training, and resources.

A very thoughtful, 14-page paper has just been published, "A War Without 'Principals': Narco-Violence in Mexico," by Dr. Prem Mahadevan, a research associate at the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS) in Athens, Greece. This is a very good paper to read. Mahadevan does an excellent job describing some of the history of the cartel violence, and the outlining the current situation. He sees it very much as the struggle for succession of leadership.

Mahadevan sees the current crisis as primarily the conflict between the Sinaloa organization and Los Zetas. The Mexican government has been battling one cartel or the other, depending upon which is seen as the most violent. This constantly reactive approach has not been effective.

Some observers believe that the Mexican government's current efforts have favored the Sinaloa cartel. (In the 1990s, the government's efforts had the effect of supporting the Juarez cartel. Gen. Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, the Mexican drug czar (who U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey said had a "bulletproof" reputation) was arrested in 1997 and sentenced to prison for 31 years for collaborating with the Juarez cartel.))

Mahadevan suggests that the Mexican government should attempt to exploit the inherent conflict between the predominant cartels -- Sinaloa and Los Zetas -- and their weaker allies.

"There is a strong possibility that these weaker trafficking organizations might become amenable to helping the state eliminate top Sinaloa and Zeta leaders, purely out of self-interest. By anticipating the prospects of yet another principal-agent problem emerging within the drug industry, the Mexican government can pre-empt further escalations of narco-violence instead of just responding to them."

This may be a strategy to weaken the leading cartels, the struggle around which the current violence arguably is centered. But what does Mahadevan predict will happen next? He doesn't.

With demand in the United States largely undiminished, there will remain a illicit drug industry to run. To prevent the continuation of violence, his recipe of "anticipation" and "pre-emption" requires the Mexican government to identify and support new cartel leadership, this time with a promise to stop the violence. At its core, this is the operational recipe for the strategy of "accommodation" that concludes that peace for Mexico in the "drug war" only comes with a deal that manages the leadership of the cartels by the Mexican government.

As I see it, Mexico has five options:

(1) Continue the Calderon approach. Keep throwing the military at the cartels. Take U.S. aid and intelligence, and fight on. There is no reason to believe this will produce a different result than we have seen.

(2) Intensify the Calderon approach. Raise the stakes somehow. Bring in more U.S. technology, advisers, money. Extradite more Mexican traffickers to the U.S. for trial and effective imprisonment. But there is no reason to believe that this will any more effectively reduce violence. Higher stakes usually mean higher profits.

(3) Go back to "accommodation" with the traffickers that characterized many years of the rule by the PRI governments, exemplified by Pres. Carlos Salinas and his brother Raul.

(4) Force the United States to curb demand. What would this take? Perhaps a boycott of U.S. trade, mobilization of a global anti-American economic effort to force a crisis in the U.S. to increase drug treatment, to reform largely ineffective drug prevention programs, and perhaps force the U.S. to legalize marijuana to reduce demand for Mexican marijuana.

(5) Full scale legalization and regulation. Again, Mexico would have to break with the U.S., and lead a global effort to revise the United Nations anti-narcotics treaties to allow the use of narcotics for non-medical purposes.

Drug users would no longer be outlaws. Heroin could to be used for maintenance and stabilization of addiction, and could be used experimentally or socially at high risk, like other high risk behaviors that are regulated -- sky diving, scuba diving, skiing, etc. Make harm reduction the operational approach to help drug users minimize the inherent risks they take with the drug use. Develop programs to held addicts manage their addiction, even to hard to manage drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine.

And take legal control of all aspects of cultivation, production, and distribution of drugs. Law enforcement would have more resources work with the community to fight kidnapping, extortion and other crimes the gangs are using.

In thinking about the humanity of the drug laws, the population the laws should be designed to protect are drug users. Help them get drugs of known potency and purity without going to criminals. Guide drug users, as best we can, in the least dangerous ways of using them. Minimize the costs to everyone else of violence and crime.

Our culture must recognize that liberty comes with the price making catastrophic choices. A population can vote for an idiot for Congress or even for President. That's a risk of democracy. An individual can make choices that lead to bankruptcy, divorce, and death. That's a risk of liberty.

In thinking about the costs and benefits of drug use, minimize the costs to the innocent, and help users realize the benefits. Help minimize but concentrate the costs on those who choose to use so that they can weigh their choices. There is a market for drugs. Shouldn't it be a legally regulated market?

Prohibition doesn't give any party much control, but it increases the rewards for criminals, and hurts everyone else.

Can facts overcome bias?

2011-05-13T18:08:00.003-04:00

Chris Mooney, writing in This Week, lays out the case that facts rarely overcome beliefs.

It really helps to get the right messenger.

Corpse-Free School Zones

2011-05-13T16:28:00.003-04:00

Corpse-Free School Zones from Criminal Justice Policy on Vimeo.

Here's the link to my Los Angeles Times op-ed, "Legalize Drugs or Expect More Mass Graves," from December 1999.

Major New U.S. Efforts in Mexico -- Intelligence drones

2011-03-16T13:29:00.006-04:00

The U.S. is flying intelligence gathering drones over Mexico, wiretapping Mexican suspects, and U.S. agents are carrying weapons contrary to official Mexican policy, The New York Times confirmed in a report March 16.

Yet U.S. agencies are not cooperating with each other - a chronic issue that is 40 years old -- but the DEA has time and resources to raid dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries in Montana and California.

Perhaps this is part of the public relations of the Obama Administration making up to Mexico's President Calderon who was humiliated by
leaked U.S. State Department cables posted by Wikileaks.

Follow the Money!!

2011-03-15T21:47:00.003-04:00

I am continually reminded about how often I am wrong. (I keep hoping this awareness makes me smarter.) Today I am indebted to Sam Smith.
For example, when asked how big a role the private prisons industry played in promoting the war on drugs in the 1980s, I always have said, "None." In all the meetings and hearings on the subject that I participated in, I never heard or met anyone shilling for the private prison industry. My perspective has been shaped by the speeches I heard (or wrote), or the hearings I attended (or set up) that focused on the emotions around drugs -- the fears, the anger at traffickers, etc.

But I rarely went to fundraisers and I never examined campaign finance reports.

Sam Smith, one of my favorite political analysts, who touts himself as "Washington's most unofficial source," posted this on his Progressive Review blog:

Sam Smith - I have long puzzled over the fact that the North got so emotionally involved in the Civil War. I know the argument of loyalty to union and so forth, but the cost was so immense that I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it. Perhaps it's because we now live in such an amoral time that it's hard to relate to so many giving up so much out of conscience.

But this morning searching for something in one of my books, I came across this passage:

"In America, by the time of the Civil War, slaves were the country's most valuable capital asset. In a nation with an annual federal budget of only $50 million, slaves had a market value of $2 billion, or more than twice that of all the country's railroads."

I had never before thought about what a huge financial interest northern businesses and workers had in ending slavery.

So my question for all you historians out there who correct me on other stuff is this: how big a factor was economic self interest in the north's desire to save the union?

How much is economic self-interest driving the war on drugs status quo? More than I have given it credit for.
The antidote? Mobilize others' self interest.

Obama courts young voters, again

2011-03-14T11:08:00.005-04:00

The Washington Post has a long front-page story on March 14 on Obama's campaign to reignite the 2008 enthusiasm of students.

Reading the account leaves me shaking my head at the utterly canned and insincere nature of this project. It is an echo of so many of his political and policy blunders that have driven his popularity down.

From what I hear, the Administration has been surprisingly out of touch with young people on a host of issues.

Regarding drug policy, for example, the President muffed questions on marijuana in on-line forums. In March 2009, he mocked the questioners on the subject, and with no follow-up in two years, they evidently abandoned the White House Internet question format altogether at www.whitehouse.gov. That's got to be real impressive to young people.

Medical marijuana policy is a confusing hash offering no guidance to states for effective regulation. 15 state legalize medical marijuana and the Administration position is where it was in the FIRST Bush Administration -- no such thing as medical use. Dr. Lyle Craker at U Mass has still been denied DEA registration to grow research grade marijuana that could lead to standardized marijuana essential for pharmacy distribution, after more than 10 years.

Obama's nomination of Michelle Leonhart to head DEA is another example of unimaginative, passionless, indifferent policy-making. Leonhart, the leading bureaucratic enemy of medical marijuana, is the last person he should have picked if he wanted a coherent policy that reflected both the science and the popular will. After all, in 2008, medical marijuana got a higher percentage of the vote in Michigan than he did!

The crack cocaine reform signed in August by Obama is ignored and frustrated by prosecutors at sentencing. Sadly, the White House and Attorney General do not really direct the Justice Department where appropriate policy making should be made.

On using his Constitutional power of pardon and reprieve to correct injustices, Obama's callous indifference to patently unjust sentences is appalling. Consider Clarence Aaron, serving three life sentences concurrently, for being a courier for a Mobile, AL crack gang. He was a college student at the time, with no record, and received about $1500 for his role. The leaders of the gang, with prior records, all cut deals and have been free for years.

His White House "drug czar" is patently clueless in his speeches and comments His insistence that there is no longer a war on drugs -- because he said so in 2009 -- typifies his adherence to talking points in lieu of thoughtful discourse. Read what On columnist present at The Seattle Times said about his highly anticipated recent editorial board meeting there: "Kerlikowske's evasive, canned answers and lack of force made this a regular editorial board meeting. . . Really, even when pressed, he did not say much of anything."

Sadly, that says it all regarding the Obama White House on one issue that is important to young people.

Marian Wright-Edelman on "The New Jim Crow"

2011-03-13T15:57:00.003-04:00

Marian Wright-Edelman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund, reviews The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander on Huffington Post.

I heartily recommend this book.

Political success: perseverance and outreach

2011-03-09T22:01:00.005-05:00

The University of Maryland at College Park has adopted a "Good Samaritan" policy. In order to encourage students to call for emergency help when a student has passed out or otherwise may be endangered by drugs or alcohol, the policy removes the threat of punishment. This is a triumph of evidence-based health promotion over the ineffective "let's punish them to send a message" paradigm of university bureaucrats steeped in zero tolerance slogans, after at least a four-year struggle.

How this policy was adopted by the university is briefly recounted in this editorial by the official university newspaper, The Diamondback.

The editorial recognizes that the leaders and members of Maryland's chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, beginning with Stacia Cosner, executed the elementary political ground rules of expanding your base, enlisting allies, and building an organization that will persevere after you have to move on.

Some might think it an overstatement when I say that this exemplifies Students for Sensible Drug Policy. And yet around the nation SSDP chapters have demonstrated on numerous campuses the same success in changing campus policies.

When one considers university political activity is the primary training ground for the nation's future political leadership, SSDP stands out as the national organization that most effectively teaches the real world lessons that will enable America to survive as a democratic republic for another generation. This is a politics for results, not for show or self-aggrandizement.

If you are a student, you still have the opportunity to register to attend the SSDP National Training Conference, not surprisingly at the University of Maryland at College Park, March 17-19, 2011. Go to www.ssdp.org to for details and to register.

Persecution okay or not okay? Muslims, drug users and NASCAR

2011-03-07T16:42:00.006-05:00

The House Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is holding a hearing on the radicalization of American Muslims.

Defenders of religious freedom, and those who intellectually oppose blanket generalizations are justifiably upset. They are on the radio and in the columns denouncing the hearings because the believe the hearings are structured to create a stigma of being a Muslim by impugning Muslims as terrorists or terrorism supporters.

Trying to put this in a larger perspective, it occurs to me that the habit of politicians resorting to unfounded blanket generalizations is well illustrated by the case of the persecution of drug users, especially marijuana users. Even though the overwhelming majority of drug users are hard working, decent people, they can all be characterized as criminal and deviant because of the behavior of a few. Because a minority of drug users become addicted to drugs and engage in shocking behavior in the pursuit of their compulsion to use drugs, our culture has tolerated laws that stigmatize and persecute all drug users regardless of their actual behavior.

For a half century at least our culture has condemned "the drug culture." Of course in many respects those who use drugs are part of a separate culture. They identify as part of a separate culture. Their lives include all the characteristics of a unique culture: language, music, literature, dance, ritual, myth, etc.

Americans do not think of themselves as persecutors of people of diverse cultures. Yet isn't clear that American police engage in the systematic harassment of drug users at their musical events, at their social venues and gatherings, or because they are wearing their characteristic costumes, hair styles or other bodily adornments? Does anyone doubt that this is the case?

Imagine that the culture decided to stop, search and otherwise harass people who wore athletic jerseys because they were indicative of, let's say, excessive alcohol consumption?

Imagine that the culture decided to stop, search and otherwise harass people whose vehicles, hats or clothing involved NASCAR regalia because they were indicative of tobacco "addiction?"

Of course we would consider that intolerable. How long do we consider the persecution of people who are drug users to be tolerable?

Seattle Times -- Washington State should legalize marijuana

2011-03-01T20:27:00.003-05:00

The editorial board of the Seattle Times called for the legislature to pass a bill to legalize marijuana. Not a particularly remarkable analysis.

But apparently it disturbs Seattle's former police chief, Gil Kerlikowske, now the White House "drug czar," who is flying to Seattle to argue the case against legalization, face to face, on March 4.

I hope that the Seattle Times videotapes the conversation and posts it for all to see. It would be fascinating to have a public examination of the evidence and arguments the Obama White House relies upon to support marijuana prohibition 39 years after President Nixon's Schafer Commission recommended marijuana decriminalization.

"Justice" for Oklahoma Marijuana-Selling Mom

2011-03-01T16:08:00.006-05:00

Patricia Spottedcrow arriving in prison, Photo from Tulsa World.

Ginnie Graham of the Tulsa World has three stories about Patricia Spottedcrow, a 25 year old mother of four, who just started a ten year prison sentence in December. Last year she sold $11 worth of marijuana. In that transaction, her 9 year old son fetched some dollar bills to make change. Then she sold $20 worth of marijuana.

This is the story of her case, the story of her arrival in prison, and the story about the impact of her incarceration on her children.

How does a ten year prison sentence make sense? Is this because she hurt her children by letting them witness or participate in the marijuana sale? That is hurt them more than locking up their mother for the next ten years? Is this because selling marijuana is such a heinous offense? Is this because she is such a big dealer? Is this necessary to finally, at long last, to stop the sale of marijuana in Oklahoma?

Or is there any other point other than she is a woman of color, in a common law marriage? Perhaps she is being punished because she has four children.

ONDCP -- Selective Amnesia

2011-03-01T11:52:00.002-05:00

ONDCP's website identifies as its most viewed blog post the link to President Obama's March 26, 2009 online "Open for Questions" Live Town Hall interview in which he mocks the millions of votes that he answer a question about marijuana legalization. Of course, ONDCP's link does not work! And, of course, after all the hoopla of how unprecedentedly "open" the new Administration was going to be, there were no more whitehouse.gov online town halls.

The role of "openness" has been taken up by the "private sector," most recently YouTube. But ONDCP provides no link to January 27, 2011 YouTube interview in which the most popular question was about drug legalization, and the President says drug legalization is "an entirely legitimate topic for debate."

Federal judge upholds Wal*Mart firing medical marijuana user

2011-02-16T16:50:00.002-05:00

On Feb. 11, 2011, U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker (W.D. Mich.) upheld Wal*Mart in its discharge of Joseph Casias, a one-time "Associate of the Year" at a Wal*Mart in Battle Creek, Michigan, for using marijuana. Mr. Casias was a registered medical marijuana patient in Michigan. He was drug tested after an accident, and Wal*Mart headquarters fired him

Judge Jonker's ruling reads like a reasonable and straight-forward reading of the law in Michigan, as cruel and tragic as that may be. Of course the problem Mr. Casias faced was foreseeable in developing the medical marijuana laws.

Because of the scandalous indifference of the U.S. Congress and the Drug Enforcement Administration to the public's demand for marijuana to be one of the legitimate medical tools available to the sick and suffering, any state law has to be written in the face of federal law that does not recognize medical value. Therefore, to get these laws enacted, in most instances by popular initiative, they are simplified to ignore obvious issues.

One would imagine that law makers who express their adherence to principles of restrained federal power would seek to make sure that their state's laws can operate without federal interference.

One would imagine that a United States Senator who represents an entire state in the Congress would be especially sensitive to minimize conflict between the laws of his or her state, and the federal law. So with 14 states with medical marijuana laws, there are 28 Senators who might feel compelled to introduce such legislation. And yet it has never happened.

If you live in a medical marijuana state, be sure to write to your TWO U.S. Senators asking them to introduce a bill to modify federal law to assure that your state medical marijuana law can be revised to fully work to protect the sick and suffering!

"Free Exercise" of Religion?

2011-02-14T14:49:00.004-05:00

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Familiar, comforting words to us all. One of the great glories of our American way of life. Yada, yada.

If your religion uses a sacrament that is prepared in Brazil and is called hoasca (sometimes called ayahuasca), "free exercise" becomes a very loose term.

Recently, after ten years, the American members of "O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal"(UDV) finally worked out a settlement with various federal agencies on how hoasca can be imported, stored and used. Check it out, and find out how long you can say "free exercise of religion" before you gag with shame.

Imagine what DEA's regulations would look like if it were to recognize the religious use of marijuana in the near future.

Latest on drug trafficking violence in Mexico

2011-02-08T16:01:00.002-05:00

From David Shirk's post to the Justice in Mexico blog

02/07/10—Drawing on new data released by the Mexican government, the Trans-Border Institute issued a report today on drug violence in Mexico. The report, Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2010, was authored by Viridiana Ríos and David Shirk and builds on a previous study released one year earlier. The new study reviews available data and analyzes the factors that contributed to extreme levels of violence in Mexico through 2010, the worst year on record.

According to Mexican government data, more than 34,550 killings were officially linked to organized crime during the administration of President Felipe Calderón (2006-12). Based on multiple years of monitoring drug violence in Mexico, the 15,000 organized crime killings that occurred in 2010 set a new record as well as an increase of nearly 60% from the previous year.

The new TBI report underscores the geographic concentration of violence, with 84% of all homicides from organized crime in 2010 occurring in just four of Mexico’s 32 states (Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Guerrero and Baja California) and over 70% occurring in 80 of the country’s roughly 2,450 municipalities. The top five most violent municipalities in 2010 were Ciudad Juárez (2,738 killings), Chihuahua (670), Culiacán (587), Tijuana (472), and Acapulco (370), which together accounted for 32% of all the drug-related homicides in 2010.

Despite this concentration, several areas saw sharp increases due to new clashes among drug traffickers. Four states experienced large, sudden spikes in violence during the course of the last year: San Luis Potosí (from 8 homicides per year in 2009 to 135 in 2010), Tamaulipas (90 to 209), Nayarit (37 to 377), and Nuevo León (112 to 604). Splinter organizations — the Beltran Leyva, La Familia Michoacana, and Zeta drug trafficking organizations — that have broken from the major cartels contributed to the upsurge in violence in these areas.

The report also notes a qualitative shift in violence over the last year, with an increase in the targeting government officials and civilians. In 2010, there was an unprecedented number of elected officials, police, military, and civilians that were caught in the crossfire, including 14 mayors and 11 journalists. In January 2011, two additional mayors were killed, for a total of more than 30 since 2004.

The report reviews recent successes by the Mexican government in dismantling the leadership structures of major drug trafficking organizations, but warns that these efforts could have unpredictable effects. In 2010, the Mexican government’s counter-drug efforts led to the capture of several high-profile traffickers, including Teodoro “El Teo” García Simental, Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez, and Nazario “El Chayo” Moreno, which authorities believe may help bring a reduction, if not an end to the violence. However, the report notes that the disruption of organized crime groups also has destabilizing effects, including increased violence among traffickers as well as the targeting of government officials and ordinary citizens.

Viridiana Ríos is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University and a research associate of the Trans-Border Institute. David Shirk is the director of the Trans-Border Institute and principal investigator of the Justice in Mexico Project.

LEAP asks Obama if "We do big things" on drug policy

2011-01-27T13:50:00.003-05:00

Retired Deputy Sheriff McKenzie Allen (Los Angeles County, CA, and King County, WA), a LEAP member, addresses the President in 30 seconds on YouTube to ask if he will consider studying legalization, regulation and control of drugs to reduce violence and save lives.

The President is taking questions from the public such as this to be addressed on Jan. 27, 2011 at 2:30 p.m. EST to be streamed live on youTube. Mr. Allen's video received more votes than any other submitted question in on-line voting.

LEAP is Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Tom Angell, Media Director for LEAP, notes that President Obama has treated previous questions along these lines as a joke. LEAP Executive Director, retired Maryland State Police Major Neill Franklin, noting that close friends of his have been murdered while investigating drug cases, says this is "not a laughing matter, and the president should not treat it as such."

Tune in and see if the White House and the President, when it comes to fixing our failed drug policy, is able to say "We Do Big Things!"

Comment on Tucson shooting and murders

2011-01-11T22:30:00.002-05:00

David Brooks is correct in noting that commentators who attribute the Tucson killings and shooting of Rep. Gabriele Giffords to the political climate are full of it. From Sheriff Gupnick on, commentators have been offering a hypothesis that political rhetoric encourage Jared Loughner to go on a rampage against the Congresswoman.

Liberals who believe in "evidence-based" policy making ought to be ashamed of themselves if they make such assertions.

Loughner is mentally ill Whether he is so insane that he cannot be held criminally responsible is a question that will be open for some time. But there is little doubt that that he is seriously mentally ill. His actions are not those grounded in politics.

The Young Activists of SSDP: Budding Prospects

2010-12-09T17:11:00.002-05:00

Aaron Houston, the Executive Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, has written the cover story of the next issue of The Nation magazine.

It is a sophisticated overview of the evolving political legitimacy of the movement to legalize the social use of marijuana.

California's Proposition 19 received 46.5 percent of the vote, more votes than any of the Republican state-wide candidates. A post-election poll reported that about 31 percent of those who voted for the Republican candidate for Governor voted for Prop. 19. And about 30 percent of those who voted against Prop. 19, actually favor legalization of marijuana, but did not like the language of the proposition. Even the leading spokespersons opposing Prop. 19 determined they had to concede that they supported legalization but argued that this proposition was a legal nightmare, etc.

Aaron describes the enthusiasm that SSDP activists are bringing to the planning of 2012 ballot initiatives in Colorado as well as California.

American Prospect: Special Report on Mass Incarceration

2010-12-09T16:12:00.002-05:00

American Prospect magazine has just published a special report on "Mass Incarceration."

Mark Kleiman writes that African-Americans and the poor suffer from both too much punishment, and not enough effective crime control. He argues, as he does in his book, When Brute Force Fails, that well-designed community control programs work. That means that there must be sanctions for breaking the rules quickly imposed. He argues that effective crime control involves finding a tipping point in changing the behavior of potential offenders by concentrating the sanctions. Instead of random punishment, people will conform if they know they will be punished.

An example of this is the behavior around speed cameras. I drive by a half dozen or so locations in a typical week where there are speed cameras. Everyone slows down, knowing that there, at least, there is a sanction for speeding. Typically these are near schools. However, when drivers know that speeding enforcement is random, as it is on most highways, the speed limit is practically nonexistent. Mark is a proponent of Operation HOPE, a probation enforcement program in Hawai'i, pioneered by Judge Steven Alm. (As a matter of prideful disclosure, CJPF helped finance the peer review of Mark's book.)

Michelle Alexander's outstanding article is a modification of a Constitution Day speech about the role of mass incarceration in keeping people of color, primarily African-Americans in second class status in the United States. Her speech introduces her outstanding new book, The New Jim Crow. The primary driver of mass incarceration is our prohibition drug policy, and she argues that anyone concerned with racial justice now, must be working to end the "war on drugs."

Vanessa Gregory writes about the failings of the indigent defense system in America. Her critique is right on. She notes the value of training for the young attorneys who work as public defenders. I served as public defender for three years before I moved to Washington, D.C. Attending the NORML Legal Committee continuing legal education programs in 1976, 1977, and 1978 were invaluable.

Kara Gotsch, from The Sentencing Project, argues that there is an emerging bipartisan movement for less severe sentencing.

Journalist Sasha Abramsky writes the now familiar story of "problem solving courts," typified by drug court, which data shows are effective in changing behavior. He is careful to relate the criticisms of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers that such courts are often cavalier in their lack of consideration of the the constitutional rights of accused persons. Perhaps what is ultimately most disturbing is the very small number of defendants who benefit compared to the large population of drug dependent or otherwise law-breaking that could benefit from treatment, counseling, job training, etc.

Steven Hawkins from the NAACP writes with great power about the enormous impact on public education due to the increased expenditures on prisons. In 2008-2009, for example, in two-thirds of the states, there was more spent on corrections and less spent on education than the year before.

He tells how in Philadelphia, PA in 2009 as the school system struggled to deal with a $147 million shortfall, the taxpayers were spending $290 million to keep the young people from 11 Philadelphia neighborhoods in prison.

As you think about how your tax dollars are going to be spent this year, and how services important to you are likely to be cut -- from ambulances, to public schools, to parks, to pot hole repair -- simply consider how much money is being wasted in old-fashioned criminal justice programs. Don't let your public officials get way with saying, "We are going to have cut everything, but of course, not public safety." Public safety is a field of public service that is just as incompetently and inefficiently managed as any other -- if not more so!

Thank you, American Prospect, for a stimulating special report.

DEA moves to ban synthetic cannabinoids sold as "K2" and "Spice"

2010-11-24T17:08:00.004-05:00

DEA announced it is going to ban 5 synthetic cannabinoids using emergency powers Congress granted in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (21 U.S.C. 811(h)). (Yes, I handled this legislation.)

Does the government have any scientific burden of proof to demonstrate danger or harmfulness before it bans a product?

What, exactly, is the evidence that these synthetic cannabinoids are harmful? There are news reports that some poison control centers report that they have had telephone calls from persons saying that they are having some kind of reaction to ingesting something that they report to be K2 or Spice. Of course, the callers have no certainty about what they in fact have ingested. These are completely unverified anecdotes by persons who are in fear.

Considering that K2 and Spice are legal and cannabis is illegal, some persons may be selling cannabis claiming it is K2 or Spice to minimize their risk of arrest, and the demand is probably higher since buyers will believe what they have acquired is not contraband and won’t get them into trouble. An unethical drug seller may be selling Cannabis as K2 or Spice to maximize profit.

Considering that a feature of K2 and Spice is that they supposedly are not detected in the usual drug screens of probation departments or the military, K2 and Spice are much more valuable to many customers that cannabis. Again, an unethical drug seller may be selling Cannabis as K2 or Spice to maximize profit. Of course this lack of routine and inexpensive detectability really annoys drug court judges, probation officers, etc.

Someone may have a joint or pipe passed to them and told it is K2 or Spice, but it may actually be Cannabis.

It is entirely plausible that some or many of those who are calling poison control centers with reports of adverse reactions are reporting reactions to strong forms of Cannabis. After all, the government says there are thousands of reports of adverse reactions to very potent forms of cannabis every year, and certainly some of those result in calls to poison control centers.

To summarize, the government is attempting to ban a legal substance on the basis of unsubstantiated second hand claims that unidentified materials are causing unspecified and unquantified harms.

It may be the K2 or Spice are causing problems, but the government has not offered any legitimate scientific evidence that this is the case.

Anyone who has picked up High Times over the past 25 years or so, has encountered ads for “legal highs.” Most readers assumed that these ads are bogus rip offs. Many people have also assumed that K2 and Spice were equally bogus rip offs. DEA’s action today will establish K2 and Spice as drugs that people can get high on. The ban is being reported from The Wall Street Journal to WTOP radio.

DEA has no evidence that K2 or Spice is harmful, but state legislators are passing bans based on unverified anecdotes. DEA is being embarrassed by questions about why it has not banned them.

DEA’s ban is being conducted in manner that is almost exactly like the situation in 1985 when DEA banned MDMA on a temporary basis. Then, instead of following the scientifically based administrative process for determining appropriate scheduling (21 U.S.C. 811 (a) - (c)), DEA used its power to ban a chemical on a temporary basis. At that time, DEA’s action took an almost completely unknown compound, used in a very small subculture, and through its press releases and banning transformed it into a global brand, ecstasy! Instead of following the advice of doctors and scientists and scheduling MDMA as a medicinal compound, DEA’s emergency scheduling on schedule I glorified the potency of MDMA. DEA is shamefully, once again advancing its institutional agenda at the expense of public safety and due process of law.

Penn State Professor Michael Kenney explained this dynamic succinctly in his excellent book, From Pablo to Osama: Trafficking and Terrorist Networks, Government Bureaucracies, and Competitive Adaptation. In describing the way in which the drug bureaucracy makes sense of the intelligence that it gathers, Kenney explains,

“Prosecutors construct plausible narratives of criminal activity that satisfy the evidentiary standards of trial law procedure, convince jurors to convict defendants, and secure additional resources to continue their efforts. Policymakers create memorable narratives of organized criminality that capture the public interest, build support for bureaucratic and legislative agendas, and communicates messages laced with political symbolism that the United States is fighting, and ultimately winning, a war against drugs.”

DEA could not figure out a strategy to control K2 or Spice, and fell back on their traditional failed strategy. Sadly, this is the completely expected reaction of a bureaucracy like DEA. This action is another example of why Michelle Leonhart is not clever enough to be a modern, effective Administrator of DEA.

Drug Policy Goal? "Managing" the problem.

2010-11-08T12:25:00.005-05:00

With the the bloodletting of the drug prohibition business and cartel-government wars in Mexico, Newsweek looked back on the "never-ending drug war" on October 29, 2010. It noted the futility from the "balloon effect" of drug supply enforcement against as a means to control drug availability in the U.S.

After reciting the latest facts that document the well known problems of the continuing production of drugs in Latin America and the Carribean, however, they noted what may be the signs of a realistic policy:

Over the past 18 months there has been an unprecedented shift among U.S. policymakers away from focusing on mostly drugs in one country or another to a comprehensive, regionwide strategy to strengthen law enforcement, the judiciary, and prison systems. “You’ll always have drug smuggling in this world,” a senior State Department official told NEWSWEEK. “The question is how do you make that manageable so it doesn’t threaten the state?”

Make the problem manageable. Yes! At last we may becoming clearer about establishing the rule of law as a goal independent of simply "warring" on drugs.

On September 30, 1989, Law Enforcement News published my op-ed, "Harm management, not drug- free nation, should become USA's anti-drug objective." This was not an appeal for "harm reduction" public health policies, but to re-conceptualize what we were doing about all aspects of drugs to shrink organized crime, reduce user-related street crime, and protect kids in a half dozen ways. "We need to approach this issue as managers, not moralists," I wrote.

On April 13, 1991, I addressed the Board of Governors of the Colorado Bar Association. My remarks were titled, "What Should We Do About Drugs? Manage the Problem Through Legalization." They were reprinted in Vital Speeches of the Day on August 1, 1991. I called my program "comprehensive intoxication management," and set forth Ten Principles Of Intoxication Management.

This paper was expanded for the May 15, 1995, Atlanta conference, "Cities Against Drugs." [Aside: That conference was sponsored and hosted by Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, then posturing as an anti-drug zealot. In October 2008, Campbell was released from Federal prison after serving 26 months for felony tax evasion.]

The concepts were further developed in the concluding section of my paper "The Sentencing Boomerang: Drug Prohibition Politics and Reform" (40 Villanova Law Review 383-427 (1995)), for the Villanova Law Review Symposium in 1995, "The Sentencing Controversy: Punishment and Policy in the War Against Drugs." The section, beginning on p. 415 was called "The Foundations of a Realistic Drug Strategy: Twelve Principles for Managing the Drug Problem."

It is very pleasing that after so many years of trying to establish a new framework for a drug policy, senior officials in the State Department are telling Newsweek (anonymously) that they recognize that management of the drug problem seems to be the way to go.

Contemplating the caffeine overdose death of a 23-year old man in Britain.

2010-11-03T16:28:00.007-04:00

In my speeches about drugs, for many years, I have often started by asking the audience about caffeine as a drug. Show of hands -- how many of you have ever had a caffeine overdose? I'll ask. I'll note the symptoms: grinding teeth, nausea, and rapidly beating heart. I suggest we call the ceramic or disposable "coffee cups" that many audience members are using a type of drug paraphernalia.

I try to build self-awareness around our near-universal intention to use coffee for three typical drug-use motives: (1) for chemical stimulation before a demanding task; (2) to revive ourselves from morning sleepiness or later-in-the-day drowsiness; and (3) to avoid the common withdrawal symptom of intense headache by all of us who are genuinely addicted to caffeine. (I usually leave out the common drug effect of stimulating the bowels.)

I usually mention that psychotic episodes can be experienced by those susceptible to large doses of caffeine to illustrate that even compounds that are benign as widely used can be "dangerous" under some circumstances.

The premise I am trying to establish is that in the law-abiding, hard-working, straight society most of us are part of, we are (1) routinely exposed to potentially risky drugs, (2) familiar with those risks, having learned about them through personal experience, and (3) addicted to the drug. The conclusion I want to draw is that as a society we manage those risks through cultural norms. We typically drink caffeine deliberately for stimulation, and many of us consciously stop later in the day in order to avoid interfering with sleep. Until recently, we consumed coffee and tea in fairly standardized dosage vessels, and colas in 12 oz. bottles or cans. (The coffee and espresso craze has thrown that out.) And even though caffeine content is not stated on beverage labels, we operate on our experience and hope that the caffeine concentration is standardized in coffee, tea or soft drinks.

Nevertheless, even though our behavior in the use of caffeine reflects an understanding of it as a drug, we are not often conscious or aware that we are using it as a "drug" because the concept of "drug" is so stigmatized and caffeine use is so normal.

While considering these risks over the years, I don't think I ever thought of caffeine as potentially lethal in the overdose sense. I had never read of such a case . . . until now.

ABCNEWS.com reports on the death in Britain of Michael Lee Bedford who swallowed two teaspoons of pure caffeine with an energy drink. They report a toxicology estimate that this quantity of caffeine was equivalent to the amount of caffeine in 70 Red Bulls!

Of course this is a tragedy, and a preventable tragedy.

ABCNEWS also reports that there is actually little research on the effects of this compound. That should be corrected. Caffeine is not only ubiquitous in our diet -- in coffee and tea, of course, colas, but Mountain Dew(R) and other "soft drinks" -- but it is routinely offered to children.

Not surprisingly Michael's grandmother is quoted as proposing a ban! (But she may have been asked a leading question by a reporter.) Being somewhat cynical, I can imagine she may be thinking about whether she should start a foundation to ban it so that her grandson's tragic death "won't be in vain."

The old mantra is "If only one life can be saved if we ban it, it is worth it." Right? This is a little like the campaign of the Delaware family to ban Salvia because their son committed suicide after using Salvia and had no one to talk with about the intense experience he had.

In some sense this desire to ban is like the current cry to ban "Spice," "K2" or other "synthetic marijuana." We don't have any real research about its effects or dangers -- long-term or short-term; we know that "drug users" use it and that it is not detected by cheap drug tests. What happens is that some people, who may lack good advice (or lack good judgment) use it wrongly, or use something that they were told was Spice or K2, have a bad reaction to whatever they used, and call the poison control center to report that they were poisoned by "spice." No one knows if they actually used "spice" or catnip and PCP sold as "spice." But those anecdotes become, in the hands of ambitious legislators and their law enforcement allies, "evidence of the drug's harmfulness," and the flimsy justification for banning it. This abridgment of liberty, without evidence, is called foresight. If just one life is saved...

Well, perhaps Michael's grandmother or someone can parlay his death into a run for Parliament. "Ban it!" -- such a typical, knee-jerk over-reaction.

Before we decide to heed the cry to ban caffeine powder, or even "regulate caffeine," we should more fully research its effects.

We need better education about about effects, dosage, etc. but it seems that we lack the actual scientific basis for such education.

To be constructive, Michael's grandmother could push for government-funded research, or campaign to get the caffeine industry to research the effects of their products. She could push for expanded education about caffeine use.

In the interim, we could have some labeling with some kind of warning. The education doesn't have to be in school. It could be a cartoon or a rap or a video.

"Don't be a guinea pig! Medical science has not yet determined that how much caffeine you need to take to hurt yourself. Does the idea of taking at once dozens of doses of a powerful drug make sense? BTW, some research shows that taking too much caffeine doesn't lead to more alertness, but to drowsiness, so maybe you shouldn't take a lot anyway!"

Mexico and Colombia

2010-10-26T15:00:00.002-04:00

Adam Isacson observes that the U.S. delegation visiting Colombia today is not talking about drugs.

Meanwhile, the rivers of blood in Mexico's drug trafficking plazas continue to flood.

Some people ask what lessons, if any, Colombia's experience fighting drug trafficking violence has for Mexico.

In my view, first, the big problem is not drugs, per se, but the desire and ability of powerful criminal organizations to use extraordinary volumes of violence, and bribery, to create impunity from the criminal justice system. It happens that their big source of funds to finance the violence and bribery is the mountain of cash obtained from selling drugs to the United States and Europe. That certainly suggests the limits of prohibition as a drug regulation and control strategy. But the danger to a society that the justice system is made impotent by the society's worst criminals is a subversion of an essential characteristic of a state. The state is supposed to protect against "traditional," predatory crime at least, and if such crimes take place, to investigate, prosecute and punish such offenders without favor.

Sadly, throughout history there have been instances in which some criminals escape investigation and punishment, often for years. I was thinking of the Tweed Ring in New York City in the 19th century when the city government was captured by the criminals who controlled the Tammany Hall Democratic organization. In many cases, society finally responds.

But I can't think of any instance in which the attack on the justice system has been so open and intense in the effort to neutralize it, as we are witnessing in Mexico. In Italy, there were times when various organized crime groups attacked investigating magistrates, prosecutors, police and judges. And in Colombia, there were similar attacks on Attorneys General, judges, journalists, etc. But the situation in Mexico is worse, with much worse bloodshed.

But the lesson of Colombia, I think, is that civil society was disgusted and horrified by the bombings and kidnapping, and got behind a government that would fight back.

In Mexico today, the government is fighting back, but their effort lacks broad public support. This is because, in part, the police have historically been utterly corrupt and utterly inept, and the public is not sympathetic to the police.

In Mexico, almost anyone with any property can be kidnapped. and the victim's often suspect that the police may be complicit. In any event, the family of victims's have little desire to call the police for help -- indeed they often urge the police to stay out of the case.

I fear that we may be at a tipping point in Mexico in which organized crime is about to acquire complete impunity. At El Diario (the principal newspaper in Ciudad Juarez), after the local DTO power killed one of their young photographers, the editors appealed to the criminals for guidance on what they could print, noting that the criminals were now the "authority" in the city.

Ciudad Juarez is a city of 1.5 million persons, about the population of Phoenix or Philadelphia! Another words, it is a big city.

Mexico's civil society -- its businesses, churches, educators, etc. -- needs to come together to demand that the institutions of the police, prosecutors, courts and prisons be strengthened. They need to commit themselves to getting the government mobilized.

The U.S. has a direct interest in this fight. Mexico is not merely a nation on our border. Mexico's people and our people are linked, our cities are linked, and our futures are linked. The triumph of Mexican criminals over their justice system gives those criminal organizations a base for supporting crime in hundreds of American cities.

This is not something that can be addressed by building a bigger fence, or "hardening" the border. Every day a million people cross the border, and countless trucks filled with goods.

Legalizing and regulating drugs in one important tool for taking power away from the Mexican criminals. But it will not cause them to evaporate. Mexico and the U.S. must become partners in strengthening the integrity of Mexican police, and improving their investigation sophistication. For decades they have relied on torture which is absurd. Training in investigation, paying adequate salaries, and having a society that demands public safety are the necessary building blocks.

Amazingly, Colombia was able to transform itself in many respects, and as bad as our drug policy is, we were able to help.

Drug Court -- a glimpse at the addiction to power

2010-10-11T15:29:00.005-04:00

Last Thursday and Friday (Oct. 7-8), the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers hosted its Ninth Annual State Criminal Justice Network Conference at the American University Washington College of Law. Over one hundred advocates, service providers, lawyers, judges and scholars exchanged ideas about many key criminal justice issues. Much could be said of the many thoughtful programs, but I was struck most forcefully by comments about drug court on Friday morning.

I think that drug courts are a useful reform, and can manage treatment resources for drug addicted or alcoholic offenders to effectively treat them. But the few drug courts that I have visited -- with their focus on hard core addicts who are repeat serious offenders -- may not by typical. One drug court statistician pointed out that most drug court clients have little criminal history, that marijuana is the drug they most commonly have used, and that they have little need for treatment. And no matter what you say about drug courts, they are an intense use of scarce judicial resources and handle a tiny fraction of the many persons who commit crime and need substance abuse treatment. They can never be a solution because their scale will always be very small.

However, a question was posed to Judge Darryl Larson, Chair of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, who was passionately defending drug courts. He was asked, Does drug court use punishment to address the disease of addiction?

He responded by saying that addiction is a lie, the whole life of an addict is a lie, and that the addict must deal with reality. If I send someone to jail for two days, I did not intend it as a punishment. They need a swift and certain result.

Judge Larson had been a prosecutor of 17 years and a judge for 18 years.

As I heard him deny that sending a person to jail is a punishment, I realized that I was listening to someone who sounded like he is addicted to power and is in denial about how that power is used. As the person with power, he decides if your life is a lie, and he gets to create reality for you. (Isn't the creation of reality what God does?) Everyone else may call that "reality" punishment, but it is not punishment because he didn't intend it as punishment.

How else would a power addict describe use of his drug? If the judge is right about addiction, lying and denial, doesn't his refusal to acknowledge that his jailing a person is punishment amount to a naked denial?

Another Kerlikowske absurdity: Discussion of medical marijuana is leading to more teenage marijuana use

2010-09-16T16:27:00.004-04:00

Commenting on the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health on 2009 data, ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske says

"I can absolutely not rule out this constant discussion of so-called medical marijuana, marijuana legalization and the downplaying of marijuana harms that is prevalent in the media,"

according to Businessweek/Bloomberg, is the cause of an increase in marijuana use among teens aged 12 to 17.

In his silence, he tries to rule out the fact that ONDCP's Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign has been found -- repeatedly by ONDCP's own contractors and the GAO -- to have been counterproductive in reducing teen drug use. Nevertheless, Director Kerlikowske asked for $21.5 million more for this program in 2011 than in 2010.

In Kerlikowske land, he omits to mention the fact that the Federal government's Safe and Drug Free Schools Program was so effective, the ONDCP proposed that it be completely eliminated in FY 2011.

Isn't it more plausible that drug education -- or miseducation -- programs which have been proven to be failures might have something to do with an increase in the use of marijuana?

Teenage marijuana use went down for many years as more and more states passed medical marijuana laws starting in 1996. Medical marijuana and its advocacy have nothing to do with teenage marijuana use.

How does he explain the increase in teenage initiation of tobacco? Medical tobacco use?

SSDP confronts Kerlikowske at National Press Club

2010-09-16T13:16:00.003-04:00

Daniel Pacheco, a student from Colombia and a member of the Georgetown University Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter, respectfully challenged Gil Kerlikowke, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, on Sept. 16, 2010 at the National Press Club, on the suggestion of the past Presidents of Colombia and Mexico, that legalizing drugs would defund the violent cartels that are ravaging Mexico. See the YouTube clip here.

Kerlikowske said a couple of times that the cartel revenues from marijuana were a "small part" of their income, and that taking away this revenue would not transform these criminal organizations.

Pacheco, politely retaking the microphone, noted that revenues from marijuana amounted to 60 to 70 percent of the cartel's total revenue -- not a small part -- and that to summarily dismiss the suggestions of the former Presidents was disrespectful to the victims of the cartel violence.

Kerlikowske then said that the 60-70 percent estimate was released by ONDCP in 2006, based on 1997 data, and therefore was out of date. He offered no better, more recent number or alternative number, and thus simply repudiated data and analysis generated by his own office.

Marc Emery -- Government's Sentencing Memorandum

2010-09-02T12:29:00.003-04:00

The U.S. Department of Justice filed this sentencing memorandum on Aug. 31 in the case of Marc Emery, a/k/a "The Prince of Pot".

The government makes this howler of a claim,

The government’s case was investigated and prosecuted without regard for Emery’s personal politics, his political agenda, or the ways in which he chose to spend the proceeds of his drug crimes.

I protested in May that this case was a perversion of justice.

New York Marijuana Business Conference, Oct. 25-26

2010-09-02T12:26:00.001-04:00

A media company that hosts business conferences is holding a conference on the marijuana business in New York City, Oct. 25-26, 2010. Lots of top speakers!

Mexico -- Is the state "failing?"

2010-09-01T13:57:00.004-04:00

George Friedman at Stratfor published a mind-boggling analysis of the situation in Mexico in April.

He argued that the violence in Mexico is largely in the little populated North, and does not threaten the state. The violence is for control of the profitable drug trafficking routes, but does not threaten the Mexican heartland.

The drug trade is so profitable it enriches Mexican banks and institutions because most of the profits remain in Mexico. Thus Mexico has little incentive to stop the drug trade -- it is not in Mexico's national interest.

Friedman acknowledged that the U.S. can:

1. accept the status quo.

2. figure out how to reduce drug demand.

3. legalize drugs.

4. "move into Mexico in a bid to impose its will against a government, banking system and police and military force that benefit from the drug trade."

He concluded, "The United States does not know how to reduce demand for drugs. [See Peter Reuter's recent paper "How Can Domestic U.S. Drug Policy Help Mexico?" on this point.] The United States is not prepared to legalize drugs. This means the choice lies between the status quo and a complex and uncertain (to say the least) intervention. We suspect the United States will attempt some limited variety of the latter, while in effect following the current strategy and living with the problem."

"If . . one accepts the idea that all of Mexican society benefits from the inflow of billions of American dollars (even though it also pays a price), then the Mexican state has not failed -- it is following a rational strategy to turn a national problem into a national benefit."

So when might American policy makers begin to consider that control of these profits remain in criminal hands and will be used for criminal purposes?

National Black Police Association endorses marijuana legalization

2010-08-19T17:54:00.004-04:00

At their annual meeting in Sacramento, CA on Aug. 19, the National Black Police Association endorsed Proposition 19 and the legalization of marijuana.

This is particularly significant because these cops have historically had to struggle to be taken seriously by their peers in the station house. This action by an organization that represents tens of thousands of active duty police officers is an important step toward establishing marijuana legalization as a legitimate position in the law enforcement community.

LEAP's new Executive Director Neill Franklin, a former patrol officer in Baltimore, Maryland, played a key role in speaking to the NBPA membership.

White House suggests Obama backs Leonhart- but doesn't get it

2010-08-18T15:47:00.005-04:00

The Daily Caller reported August 18,2010 that the White House is sticking with the nomination of Michelle Leonhart, who has been the Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration since 2007, and Deputy Administrator (the No. 2) since 2003. A few weeks ago, numerous groups called for the President to withdraw her nomination.

The story in the Daily Caller, however, has mis-analyzed why she is wrong for the job. It is not simply that she has overseen DEA while it has conducted raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and growers in the past year, in apparent disregard of the October 19, 2009 memorandum from Deputy Attorney General David Ogden.

The bigger issue is that Leonhart has demonstrated that she is unable and unwilling to take on the major job of the next DEA Administrator, which is to work with the states in developing medical marijuana laws that make sense. During her entire career in DEA management -- since 1997 -- she has acted as though the calendar were stuck on October 1996 -- before the medical marijuana law that passed in November 1996 and received one million votes more than Bill Clinton did. Her leadership of DEA has ignored the medical marijuana laws passed in state after state after state, and ignored the hundreds of scientific studies conducted that establish the various medical benefits of marijuana.

On the key challenge that the DEA has to address going forward, she is utterly unqualified. That the Obama Administration does not recognize this is very disturbing.

I suspect that what compelled Obama to pick Leonhart is that he could not find anyone competent who was willing to take the lead in reforming an antiquated agency staffed with zealots committed to a hopeless mission. The rumor in D.C. is that everyone they asked turned down the offer.

Thoughts on the Proposition 19 Debate

2010-08-10T18:31:00.003-04:00

My old friend Mark Kleiman (we were in college together and have stayed in close touch over years since we are both very interested in drug policy) had an op-ed in Los Angeles Times on July 18 on Proposition 19. Mark is usually brilliant, and great at developing "thought experiments." Mark is also a contrarian. He loves to argue, especially against the conventional wisdom. But unless I've misunderstood him, I think he's being sneaky in this piece.

His main point is that California voters can't "legalize a federal felony," namely growing or selling marijuana.

However, I think he misses the main effect of Proposition 19 which is to legalize adult personal possession and personal cultivation of marijuana in a plot of no more than 25 square feet (a five foot by five foot little garden) under California law, and permit a person to transport their own marijuana. It will remain a crime for anyone to provide marijuana to a person under 21 years of age, and serious crime to distribute to kids under 18, with very heavy penalties for distributing to children under 14.

For those adults who simply use cannabis on social occasions -- the overwhelming majority of users -- this amounts to functional "legalization." The police who arrest the average Californian who uses marijuana is operating under state law, such as a deputy sheriff, a city police officer, or a California Highway Patrol officer. Proposition 19 will stop those arrests.

The truth of Mark's point that "California voters can't 'legalize a federal felony,'" depends, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, on what "can't" means.

Californians "can't" change federal law in a state initiative. But they can legalize conduct that is a federal felony as far as California law goes.

As everyone knows, many laws may be "on the books," but they are minimally enforced, if ever. In Washington, D.C., for example, adultery was a crime until recently, even when Newt Gingrich was cheating on his second wife. You know, when they "legalized" adultery in the District of Columbia, there was no outrage, or apparent change in sexual mores.

But despite all the adultery there used to be in Washington, D.C., no one can recall an arrest or prosecution for the crime. Now there are three different reasons for this. The first is that, even though adultery hurts society by breaking up families and hurting children, most people (including cops, prosecutors and judges) don't think it warrants criminal punishment. In that sense, it is like simple possession of marijuana in that a majority of people do not believe you should go to prison or jail if you possess -- even though the law says you can.

The second reason for the lack of arrests is that the police have more important things to do. Even if a cop had probable cause to make an arrest for adultery, he or she would not do it because it is unimportant.

The third reason is that there are not enough police to undertake any more than cursory enforcement. Assume that the Chief of Police said that she wanted to strengthen families by prosecuting adulterers. That's simply just hot air. She doesn't have enough cops to do it. She doesn't have the ability to get behind the closed doors.

The federal law, 18 U.S.C. 844, says that to possess any quantity of marijuana is a misdemeanor, with a minimum sentence of a fine of $1000, and potential imprisonment of up to a year. Yet of the 20 to 30 million Americans who each year use marijuana (and possessed it, even if it was for the moment they held a joint, a pipe, a vaporizer, or "an edible"), no more than a couple hundred persons were convicted of that federal crime -- and that is because they tried to bring it into the country, they tried to bring it onto an airplane or they did it in a National Park, on the Mall in Washington, or at the federal Wolf Trap concert venue. The odds of the average pot smoker being convicted in federal court are smaller than 1 in 100,000.

Or another way of looking at it is that under federal law, in a practical sense, it is already legal to possess marijuana. I repeat, in a practical sense, it is already legal, as far as federal law goes, to possess marijuana. But not in a psychological sense; not at all in the sense of guaranteeing liberty.

The federal government is fairly zealously prosecuting large scale marijuana growers. But if you were growing 25 square feet of marijuana in California right now, and you were not selling it, your risk of being prosecuted by the federal government is pretty slim. They are looking at much bigger growers than that. Your legal risk is from the officers and deputies who enforce the laws of California.

Essentially all three of the reasons that adultery was not prosecuted in Washington, D.C. would be applicable to California if Proposition 19 passed, and that left only federal agents to prosecute marijuana possession and personal cultivation -- it is not that important, and there are not enough of them.

What really "can't" happen is that the federal government will enforce those laws in any meaningful way! Marijuana will be legalized on the books of California law and in the practice of federal law.

There is another important part of Proposition 19 which would allow cities and counties to license and tax commercial cultivation and distribution of marijuana. This kind of commerce is covered by the Controlled Substances Act. This is the law that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich in the medical marijuana context. Because the number of cities and counties is small, I believe the Federal government could relatively easily sue them and obtain an injunction to prevent them from actually issuing such licenses. A person who attempted to go into the commercial cultivation and distribution business would not be able to get a valid state license in such circumstances.

Essentially this kind of commercial cultivation distribution is likely to continue under the guise of the pseudo-medical dispensaries that operate in many parts of California -- until the boundaries of federal-state regulation are further clarified.

What is to me most strange about Mark Kleiman's op-ed is that the regime of non-commercial, grow-your-own marijuana is the one that he endorses in his books and articles is the likely outcome of passing Proposition 19.

I strongly support Proposition 19, and will write more about it soon.

The Tea Party: What's brewing on drug policy?

2010-08-10T12:37:00.002-04:00

Harvard Professor Jeffrey Miron, the brilliant libertarian economist, advised the Tea Party, in a short a National Review Online column, in June 2010, to take the libertarian path on drug policy.

Amen. Drug prohibition is the paradigmatic government program that fails to deliver what it promises. It doesn't reduce crime, it creates crime. It doesn't protect health, it makes drug use more dangerous. It doesn't hurt drug traffickers, it guarantees that the successful ones will be rich.

The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation is proud to have sponsored several of his papers. This one, in December 2008, was produced for the LEAP-CJPF project on the anniversary of the repeal of alcohol prohibition, and this one, in February 2010, was a state-by-state followup on the potential cost savings and tax revenues.

Fighting marijuana prohibition as a Christian imperative

2010-08-04T18:16:00.003-04:00

James Clark argues very persuasively at Huffington Post that a Christian should be in the fight against marijuana prohibition.

The back story is that when the NAACP endorsed Proposition 19 on June 28, some African-American pastors attacked the NAACP state conference president. The pastors said nothing about the faith basis for their opposition.

Signs that drug prohibition is on the run

2010-08-04T07:16:00.002-04:00

Drug prohibition depends on the belief that drugs are substances so powerful that mere mortals cannot control their use of them. It is the faith in the supremely dangerous, seductive power of drugs, and the fear that any child is at risk of being seduced, that sustains the prohibition edifice.

So when mainstream journalists start mocking these fears, even in the case of ludicrous pseudo-drug claims such as "i-dosing", this is a sign that prohibition's foundation of fear is collapsing.

Read John Kelly's column Aug. 4 in The Washington Post! It is a hilarious send-up of the usual hysterical anti-drug column! This is a columnist who is squeaky straight, spending half the year trying to raise funds for the YMCA summer camp program!

Thoughts on a "victory"

2010-08-03T23:39:00.002-04:00

This morning at 11 a.m., President Obama signed S. 1789, the Fairness in Sentencing Act, in the Oval Office, reported by The Caucus blog at The New York Times. The House passed the bill on July 28 on a voice vote. I have been working for a bill on this subject since 1993.

This bill raises the quantities of crack cocaine that trigger the mandatory minimum sentences for trafficking enacted in 1986 (from 5 grams to 28 grams and from 50 grams to 280 grams) creating a ratio of cocaine to crack of 18 to 1 instead of 100 to 1. The Act also repeals a mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of 5 grams of crack or more -- enacted in 1988, provides various directives to the U.S. Sentencing Commission regarding drug sentencing, calls for a review of the effectiveness of drug courts, and raises the fines that can be imposed for the crime of drug trafficking.

In 1986, I was counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, and played a key role in the creation of that law. A person who is convicted of distributing (or is part of a conspiracy to distribute) at least 500 grams of powder cocaine (a little more than a pound) or 5 grams of crack cocaine (a very small amount -- the weight of 5 packs of artificial sweetener or one nickel must be sentenced to at least 5 years (up to 40 years) in Federal prison. A person who is convicted of distributing (or is part of a conspiracy to distribute) at least 5000 grams (5 kilograms or about 12 pounds) of powder cocaine or 50 grams of crack cocaine (the weight of a typical candy bar) must be sentenced to at least 10 years (up to life imprisonment) in Federal prison. These sentences are triggered by different quantities for other drugs -- all relatively small quantities. In 1986, the federal prisons held 36,000 prisoners. This week there are over 211,000 federal prisoners, more than half of them there on drug charges, and a large fraction serving unjustly long sentences. Over 70 percent of the prisoners are serving sentences longer than 5 years.

The quantities that trigger mandatory sentences are mistakenly small. Contrary to the intent of Congress, they do not indicate that a trafficker is a major drug trafficker. A major cocaine trafficker organizes transactions in hundreds and thousands of kilos. One thousand kilos is one metric ton, which equals one million grams. The U.S. consumes about 300 metric tons of cocaine annually.

Unfortunately, year after year about 80 percent of the federal crack cocaine defendants are African-American. About 8 or 9 percent of the defendants are white. The racial disproportionality is utterly unwarranted.

Perhaps just as scandalous is that most federal drug defendants are neighborhood-level dealers, not the national level or international level dealers who should be the primary target of federal drug enforcement efforts. If most federal drug convicts were trafficking in hundreds or thousands of kilos, and operating at a very high level, no one would concerned about their race or ethnicity.

I have been working to repeal or reform the mandatory minimums I helped write since I left the Judiciary Committee in January 1989. I helped found Families Against Mandatory Minimums in 1991. In 1993, I wrote a draft of legislation to eliminate separate crack cocaine quantities so that at least crack and powder would be equal at the 500 and 5000 gram levels that was introduced by U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), the former Chairman of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. He called the bill the "Crack Cocaine Equitable Sentencing Act." With that title, I thought it would never pass, and it never did.

Beginning in 2005, the Open Society Policy Center assembled a coalition that I joined along with Drug Policy Alliance, the ACLU, the Sentencing Project, Families Against Mandatory Minimum Sentences, the Methodist General Board of Church and Society, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and many other groups including SSDP and LEAP, to push Congress to end the crack - powder disparity. For the coalition I drafted a bill I called the "Cocaine Kingpin Punishment Act" which eliminated the crack provisions and raised the fines that could be imposed against convicted traffickers.

In 2007, Sen. Joe Biden introduced a bill, S. 1711, with "cocaine kingpin" in the title and included some of the provisions of my draft. Senators Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton cosponsored his bill. There was a day of hearings on the bill, but no action. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduced a companion bill in the House.

In 2009, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) introduced a revision of the Biden bill, now called the Fairness in Sentencing Act. He worked with Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who had expressed concern about the racial disparity in cocaine prosecutions, and what Sen. Hatch referred to as the "girl friend problem" of sentencing co-conspirators like principals. With Sessions and Hatch, Durbin was able to reach the compromise on 28 and 280 grams (18 to 1) and get it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and out of the Senate on a voice vote.

I was very pessimistic that the House Democratic Leadership would bring the bill to the floor and risk a recorded vote. But House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) worked to get it to the floor. I believed that House Republicans would resist the bill as "soft on drugs," as Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, argued on the floor.

But I was wrong. The bill was brought to the floor, and Representatives James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Dan Lungren (R-CA) supported the bill. There was no record vote.

Since I did not think the bill would pass, and it did, my thoughts are that this is the best our political system can produce right now.

Republican support creates a political opening for President Obama to begin to issue orders commuting some sentences that are especially unjust -- if the Pardon Attorneys office is reorganized and expanded.

Ideally the Justice Department will begin more careful oversight of U.S. Attorney offices to assure that they focus on high level cases.

Happy Birthday President Obama -- What do you say now?

2010-08-03T23:36:00.001-04:00

The Democratic Party is making a big deal about President Obama's 49th birthday tomorrow.
I posted this comment on FireDogLake.com on August 3.

What's a progressive. . . or a liberal. . .or a conservative?

2010-07-21T13:20:00.004-04:00

In John McWhorter's op-ed in The New York Times July 21, 2010, about who identifies himself or herself as a "progressive," a "liberal," or a "conservative," and what progressive means, he says

I am often called a “black conservative” because, despite being a pro-choice Obama voter who opposes the war on drugs, I consider racism an inconvenience to be conquered.

I was struck that of the various potential characterizations he might have chosen -- vegetarian, environmentalist, human rights activist, anti-war, pro-education, pro-health, etc. -- he chose abortion, Obama, racism, and opposing the war on drugs.

Brain Enhancement

2010-07-14T17:31:00.004-04:00

Stanford Law Professor Henry Greely has a very thoughtful article about brain enhancement on the Cerebrum website of the Dana Foundation.

"Who gets to decide whether you can tinker with your brain?" is a question that goes to the heart of drug policy. Greely's commentary helps tease out the question of whether brain enhancement might be a good idea.

He points out that use of tools and use of language (such as learning to read and having access to books) changes our brains, and are enhancements. It is interesting to think about Cannabis use as a brain enhancement rather than simply a tool for producing a euphoric effect. Isn't the charge that drug use "changes our brains" -- without considering the positive ways that they could be changed (and are changed by our daily experience) just so much fear-mongering?

He has a lovely discussion that takes down the common criticisms of brain enhancements as cheating, unfair, or unnatural.

Greely also thoughtfully dissects the difference between brain enhancements and the use of, say steroids, in a sports competition.

If you think about drug use -- is it a good idea or not? is it moral? what you are using drugs for? -- this is an article that will stimulate you and, perhaps, enhance your drug use.

Drug Law Reform in Latin America

2010-07-14T13:57:00.003-04:00

The Washington Office on Latin America and the Trans National Institute have just launched an excellent new website.

Plan Colombia -- Not a model for Mexico, Afghanistan or anyplace else

2010-07-14T13:03:00.003-04:00

Adam Isacson has an excellent analysis of the "success" of Plan Colombia, whose 10th anniversary is this week. Isacson, who moved from CIP to the Washington Office on Latin America this Spring, observes that when Americans are praising the program, it is as reliable as students grading their own papers.

Look, up in the sky! It's a drug, it's a high. No, it's website!

2010-07-14T11:31:00.009-04:00

How plausible was the Superman story?
How plausible is it that listening to certain "tones" on earphones or a headset can get you "high" -- that is, "using 'digital drugs'"? I don't know, give me a decent theory and perhaps it is plausible. Here is link to BinauralBeats.us. Now, how plausible is the warning that listening to such tones is dangerous?

"I think it's very dangerous," said Karina Forrest-Perkins, chief operating officer of Gateway to Prevention and Recovery in Shawnee [OK]. While there are no known neurological effects from digital drugs, they encourage kids to pursue mood altering substances, she said.

She is quoted near the top of the story in The Daily Oklahoman.

Even if it can't get you high, it is dangerous because the website encourages thinking about getting high. Here's another website that also has pictures of Cannabis ("Legal Bud"), pills and hashish ("Legal Hash"). These scam ads have been in magazines for decades, and on the Internet since websites became accessible. If we conclude that simply thinking about drugs and getting high is "dangerous," then what is the content of our anti-drug education programs?

Once again, adults seem to have lost their minds in the face of "dangers!" How many kids are killed and injured in Oklahoma every year in connection with football or hunting? I can confidently assert -- without fear of being disproved -- that the number is greater than that of kids who are injured from the combined dangers of "digital drugs," websites promoting drugs, and marijuana.

And, of course, thinking about getting high is deviant behavior in our culture -- unless you like baseball, and watch the Major League Baseball All-Star Game on Fox, sponsored by Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser. No one is going to try to shut this website down!

I suspect that "Digital drugs" are another species of drug scares that are more scare than drugs. In the early 1980s, I set up Congressional hearings on "Look-alike drugs." These were over-the-counter drugs packaged in capsules or tablets to look like commonly-abused stimulant controlled substances. It was already a crime to manufacture or distribute "counterfeit" controlled substances. But the fact that some people were trying to make money selling non-controlled substances as the real thing was enough for stirring up talk of epidemics, etc. Selling these pills was a scam. (When I was an assistant public defender, one of my first jury trials was defending a bartender in a biker bar who sold counterfeit "speed" to an undercover State Trooper in the men's room. We lost.) Of course there was a danger there -- since the counterfeits do not produce the intended effects, a not-too bright person might conclude that instead of having been burned, they should simply take more of the counterfeit pills, risking an overdose of the over-the-counter medication. But the anti-drug public relations consultants, ambitious reporters, and client-hunting drug abuse treatment experts were eager to trumpet an old scam with a new alliterative name, "look-alike drugs".

In the mid-1980s, "Designer Drugs" was another a catchy, public relations label for a logical consequence of prohibition -- but it was good enough to stimulate enactment of the Controlled Substances Analogue Act of 1986. This campaign was scary enough to inspire Congressman Dan Lungren (R-CA) to push this law which bans substances before they are invented, and once invented, criminalizing the makers and sellers before any evidence of the substances harmfulness was observed, reported or documented. It was the chemical equivalent of requiring a woman to have an abortion because she was impregnated by a "dangerous" man.

The anti-drug establishment is always looking for a scary brand for a "new" epidemic. In the 1990s, DEA and CBS News attempted to re-brand methamphetamine as "Nazi Crank" -- because it was synthesized using a process developed by German scientists in the 1930s to provide stimulants to soldiers, sailors and airmen during World War II. (The U.S. Army and Japan also provided methamphetamine to crucial personnel to help them stay awake.) "Wehrmacht Crank" was hardly as scary and politically-loaded as "Nazi Crank." A drug addict who can be prosecuted for selling "Nazi crank" is not just a bad guy or addicted guy, he is a certified demon.

News stories like this one just made URLs with words like digital drugs, or i-dose, a heck of a lot more valuable. Stay tuned, you will see this "breaking news" on your TV soon, and more stories in newspapers around the nation.

Digital drugs? Caveat emptor, anybody?

Five Books. . . on drugs

2010-07-12T15:41:00.002-04:00

Mark Kleiman at UCLA, the author of When Brute Force Fails, has just been asked about the five essential books on drugs.
Even if you know him well, his answers about the books are not what you would think.

BTW, here is his Huffington Post summary of his book, When Brute Force Fails.

Law Enforcement idiocy exposed by Wall Street Journal

2010-07-07T18:54:00.003-04:00

The Wall Street Journal has a front page story on the idiotic priorities of county sheriffs in California. They are facing enormous budget shrinkage: they are laying off deputies, closing floors of the county jail, eliminating patrols, eliminating major crimes investigators, letting convicted drunk drivers out of jail early (predicting that they will drink and drive and hurt people). But they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of their scarce local funds to cut down marijuana plants because the Federal government will give them grants to help cover some of the costs. Do they even arrest the marijuana growers who they say are dangerous fiends from the Mexican drug trafficking organizations? No. They make arrests only 10 percent of the time.

How does it make sense for law enforcement agencies to knowingly endanger public safety in order to cut down marijuana plants?

How does it make sense for the Federal government, which is going to spend more than $1.3 trillion this year that it has to borrow, to cut down marijuana plants?

This is the scenario: The U.S. borrows dollars from the Chinese to pay cops who can't catch criminals from Mexico to cut down marijuana in California that when used as intended won't hurt people as much as alcohol and drunk drivers.

Marijuana prosecutions are a civil rights issue

2010-07-07T01:17:00.003-04:00

Excellent article by Alice Huffman of the California NAACP, which has endorsed Proposition 19.

U.S. Justice Department budget for FY 2011 -- more waste

2010-06-30T12:30:00.003-04:00

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and related agencies has reported its bill for U.S. Justice Department Appropriations for FY 2011, with a summary here.

Let's try to keep in mind that the President's budget for FY 2011 is estimated to be in deficit by $1.342 trillion ($1,342,000,000,000)! This is spending by us that supposedly will be paid back by our children.

Total spending in the department would grow from $28,077,664,000 in FY 2010 to $30,031,638,000 in FY 2011. This is $295 million more than the President's request! Of course that fact -- planning to spend more than the Administration asked for -- is not new, but in these circumstances it is depressing that this habit appears to be unbreakable.

The biggest one-year growth is $638,126,000 for the Federal prison system. It would increase spending from $6,188,086,000 in FY10 to $6,826,212,000 in FY11.

However, the congressional earmarking of law enforcement spending is staggering!
Look at this 38 page list of congressional earmarks for law enforcement.
The Subcommittee approved $697,590,000 more for grant programs to state and local law enforcement agencies than was requested by the Administration, and $484,033,000 more than was spent in FY 2010.

This is a form of incumbent protection. Members go back to the voters and tell them that while local budgets had to be cut because revenues were down because the economy shrank and property values collapsed, "I was able to wangle money from Uncle Sam" to run our police department. I saved police jobs with money we don't have. This behavior, if by anyone other than a Member of Congress or Senator would lead to bankruptcy!

Oh, regarding a couple of law enforcement agencies:
The FBI would get another $305 million to total $8,203,186,000, but that is $61 million less than the Administration asked for.

The DEA would get another $105 million to total $2,124,317,000, $5.8 million less than the Administration asked for.

With rape reports suppressed, are Baltimore crime reports a "pure fiction?"

2010-06-30T12:16:00.006-04:00

On June 27, 2010 the Baltimore Sun reported that about thirty percent -- a very high proportion -- of rapes initially reported to the Baltimore police are classified as "unfounded." 30 percent is 5 times the national average. From 1995 to 2009, the number of rapes nationwide has declined by 8 percent. However, for the same period, in Baltimore the number has inexplicably declined by 80 percent!

Sun columnist Peter Hermann reports that this problem goes back to the 1960s and 1970s, and quotes Barry M. Baker, a retired Baltimore police lieutenant with 32-years in the police department that crime statistics in Baltimore are "pure fiction."

Wal-Mart sued for firing employee who was Michigan medical marijuana patient

2010-06-30T10:59:00.003-04:00

Wal-Mart is being sued in Michigan by a cancer survivor who is a Michigan-licensed medical marijuana patient who they fired after a positive result in a drug test, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The Battle Creek Enquirer has a better story.

Joseph Casias, 30, who has survived sinus cancer but has an inoperable brain tumor, was fired after he was given a drug test in November 2009 after he twisted his knee at work. In 2008, Casias was one to two employess named, "Associate of the Year" out of 400 employees at the store.

Wal-Mart contends that it had to fire Casias for safety reasons.

Casias is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Hezbollah drug threat to San Diego and U.S.?

2010-06-28T14:39:00.007-04:00

< U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), the Ranking Republican member of the Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management of the House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence, wrote to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on June 23, 2010, to set up a Southwest Border Task Force to protect against what she fears is a potential Hezbollah alliance with Mexican drug cartels.

She reports that prisoners are being tatooed in Farsi to accompany drug-related tatoos, that Hezbollah tunnel-digging expertise is a logical threat for bringing drugs into the U.S. near San Diego, that Hezbollah could be a conduit for Afghan heroin and cannabis products to the U.S. via Mexico, and that Mexican cartels may be seeking to acquire Hezbollah bomb-making expertise leading to "Israel-like car bombings of Mexican/USA border personnel or National Guard units in the border regions."

Is this real? Or is this an effort to set up some pre-election drug-terror hysteria? The great thing about being on the Intelligence Committee -- you can't cite your sources, they're "top secret."

Should Al Capone have been sent to prison?

2010-06-26T15:55:00.003-04:00

Today, everyone recognizes that alcohol prohibition was a mistaken way to control abuse of alcohol. The consequences of alcohol misuse remains a major problem throughout the United States. But outside a few communities in Alaska, almost no one proposes we bring it back.

Many opponents of drug prohibition are committed to the principle that the use of drugs is not wrongful. An extension of that principle is that the illegal distribution of drugs to willing sellers -- if the drugs are not contaminated and of safe potency, and the buyer is an adult -- is not wrong. Thus many opponents of drug prohibition feel that the prosecution of marijuana distributors especially, and the distribution of psychedelic drugs like MDMA, LSD, mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms, ecstasy and related drugs is wrong. And probably some opponents of drug prohibition believe that many of those who are imprisoned for selling heroin or cocaine have been imprisoned wrongfully.

But Al Capone was sent to prison for violating the Internal Revenue Code. But his greatest crimes were murder. In addition, he engaged in extensive bribery and other serious crimes against individuals, the public order and the society.

When we contemplate the extradition of Christopher "Dudus" Coke, the leader of Jamaica's deadly Shower Posse, we need to keep in mind that he exemplifies a long line of criminals who have enriched themselves in the drug trade but committed numerous "genuine" crimes along the way.

The U.S. Justice Department should focus on drug criminals who use violence and bribery since they are subverting the government and the public order. They should not focus on medical marijuana dispensers, legitimate or not, who can be investigated and prosecuted for any violations of state law.

Illegal immigration and illegal drugs

2010-06-25T19:17:00.003-04:00

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R), running for re-election says that most illegal immigrants come to the country to bring illegal drugs. Her assertion is being challenged. If she is even partly correct, isn't one logical response -- if your goal is to minimize illegal immigration and get control of the border -- to regulate, tax and control the now illegal drugs?

The enormous profits of illegal drugs exceed the profits of any other kind of business that operate across the border. But Congress's prohibition policy restricts access to those profits to criminals. Because these profits are not taxed, the fiscal effects is that American taxpayers are subsidizing these crimes!

Certainly the public has a right to wonder what a post-prohibition regime of taxed and regulated drug distribution and use would look like. But as long as leading policy-makers insist on stupid slogans such as "the word legalization is not in my vocabulary," we can't seriously consider the alternatives.

Wouldn't those who say they oppose legalization actually be interested in a honest appraisal of actual legalization proposals, instead of their cartoonish vision of now illegal drug dealers still operating in alleys and abandoned buildings as legal drug dealers?

Still "Pissing into the wind" in Peru, trying to eradicate coca

2010-06-15T14:17:00.004-04:00

In August 1983, observing the manual eradication of coca bushes in Tingo Maria, Peru, a Member of Congress turned to me and said, "Now I know the meaning of the term, 'pissing into the wind.'"

It was twenty-seven years ago that I flew in a Peruvian Air Force transport plane to Tingo Maria, Peru, to inspect coca eradication programs funded by the U.S. taxpayers, while helping to staff a delegation of U.S. Members of Congress (the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY)). Today, the U.S. is still paying to eradicate coca there, The New York Times reported on June 14, 2010.

Look at the slide show and video that accompany the article.

As the Times story indicates, our policies and programs are still enriching terrorists, still adversely affecting the environment, and still terrorizing and impoverishing poor peasants. We are spending over $70 million per year there now. I have no idea how many millions, if not billions we have wasted over the past 27 years!

Tax benefits of legalizing marijuana -- a history lesson?

2010-06-13T12:19:00.004-04:00

Daniel Okrent, the author of Last Call, a new book on alcohol Prohibition, writes in the Week in Review in The New York Times, on June 13, 2010, about the 1920s arguments of business leaders to repeal Prohibition in order to tax alcohol in order to end the relatively new income tax.

Okrent's history is fascinating, but his reporting is seriously flawed. He lazily lays out a specious claim and then attacks supporters of the Tax and Regulate initiative as "indulging a fantasy of income tax relief emerging from a cloud of legalized marijuana smoke." Okrent does not identify anyone in California, or any supporter of the initiative, for making the kinds of extreme claim made on March 19, 1928 by Pierre S. DuPont about ending alcohol prohibition, "the revenue of the government would be increased sufficiently to warrant the abolition of the income tax and corporation tax." But Okrent acknowledged that in the first year of the repeal of alcohol prohibition, the federal taxation alone amounted to nine percent of total federal revenue!

He says some (anonymous) persons "even believe that a tax on marijuana, which could be legalized by California voters this November, could lead to a reduction in the state's income tax." What is so surprising about this shoddy piece is the Okrent served for three years as the Public Editor of The New York Times, charged with upholding the highest standards of journalism at The Times by flagging the failings of Times writers. One of those standards is to attribute ideas and claims. His current counterpart at The Washington Post, Ombudsman Andrew Alexander, for example, writes today in his column about this particular sin of journalism, anonymity.

It is with specious suggestion that the California Tax, Control and Regulate Initiative is attacked.

Of course the question of tax savings is raised, and it is an important issue with a wide range of estimates.

In the New York Times Freakonomics blog in May 2009, Harvard professor Jeffrey Miron suggests nationwide marijuana legalization revenues of about $7 billion if it were taxed at rates similar to those of alcohol or tobacco.

Paul Armentano, in that blog, cites Dr. Jon Gettman's estimate of $31 billion in revenues, and a California revenue agency's estimate of $1.3 billion annually.

No one who knows the size of government today is going to claim that the tax on marijuana is going to enable the abolition of the income tax. Okrent's column is the crudest journalistic sleight of hand.

"Cocaine Nation" by Tom Feiling

2010-06-11T17:08:00.003-04:00

The American edition of "The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World" by Tom Feiling published in the U.K. by Penguin (2009) is coming out in the U.S. as "Cocaine Nation" published by Pegasus Books. Here's the review by the Guardian.

This book is a terrific overview of the drug prohibition phenomenon, focusing on cocaine. The history is rich and detailed, and almost encyclopedic.

Consider the crisis of violence and corruption raging across Jamaica right now. The government there is accused of killing scores of people in its attempt to capture Christopher "Dudus" Coke, the leader of the Shower Posse. Yet Tom Feiling writes about Coke's father, Lester "Jim Brown" Coke and the history of the Shower Posse and Jamaican politics as the cocaine traffic and its money became established in Jamaica. He reports on how U.S.-supplied weapons that helped tip the bloody Jamaican election in 1980 toward the U.S.-favored Edward Seaga became the armaments of the cocaine and crack dealing posses.

The crisis of violence and corruption in Mexico gets similar analysis.

The chapter on "Legalization" is thoughtful, and identifies numerous unlikely supporters, and examines the arguments of thoughtful opponents such Mark Kleiman.

This is a very up-to-date comprehensive examination of the current cocaine phenomenon.

Thanks Open Democracy!

2010-06-10T12:23:00.001-04:00

Open Democracy comments on my paper on sentencing prepared for the symposium on the 25th anniversary of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus at the U.S. Capitol.

Frat and Facebook "Icing" idiocy means big bucks for Smirnoff and Diageo

2010-06-10T10:17:00.008-04:00

The New York Times reported on June 8, 2010, on its business pages how sales of an alcoholic beverage ("Smirnoff Ice") that one icing fool called a "pretty terrible" drink are growing because fraternity brothers -- those great judges of the next cool and sophisticated thing (after puking) -- supposedly started a drinking game, "icing" that has gone viral. If I approach you with a bottle of "Smirnoff Ice," and you don't have one, you "have" to go down on one knee and drink the whole thing down. But, if you have a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, then I have to drink BOTH of them. Cool! Cutting edge! And how do I learn this? Via Facebook and the Web.

Who benefits from spreading the idea that making your friends chug a disgusting bottle of booze they would not voluntarily drink is a good idea? The owners of shares in the world's largest spirits company, for sure, and booze retailers. Diageo, Inc., which makes "Smirnoff Ice" is raking in the dough as socially insecure fools get suckered by the "icing" fad.

Diageo, America's biggest spirits seller, told its investors on May 19, 2010 that it is using blogging and social marketing.

Diageo told its investors in May, "We understand consumers globally." Diageo's spending on advertising and promotion of Smirnoff is more than 17 percent of sales revenue, the second highest rate for all of Diageo's brands. North American sales are responsible for about 40 percent of Diageo's profits. Diageo sells about $14 billion in spirits in the U.S. annually! And they bragged to investors on May 19, 2010 about their "Great consumer connections"

Of course, an anonymous company spokesperson denied any involvement, according to The New York Times. But the Smirnoff home page says, "This summer Smirnoff will crash your party."

Diageo's shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange have been trading in the range of $60 to $70 per share since the beginning of the year. In 2009, Diageo's share performance was substantially above that of the S&P 500, which was performing very well. But in February 2010 -- shortly before the "icing" craze appeared "out of nowhere," Diageo's shares plummeted. Since early March, Diageo's shares have been trading below the S&P 500, except for a couple of weeks at the end of March.