Prosecutors Enlist
in Drug Czar's Anti-Marijuana Campaign --
Will Prioritize
Marijuana Cases, Lobby Against Reform
The drug
czar's Office of National Drug Control Policy
(http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov)
has teamed up with the
National District Attorneys Association (NDAA) as part
of its
escalating war on marijuana. In letters sent to every
prosecutor
in the country on November 1, NDAA president Dan Alsobrooks
and
the drug czar's Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs,
Scott
Burns, hoisted the battle flag against pot, signaling
prosecutors
that they should make the prosecution of marijuana crimes a
high
priority and urging them to fight efforts to reform the drug
laws.
But for a group representing prosecutors, who have long fended
off
criticisms of drug prosecutions on the grounds that "we don't make
the
laws, we merely enforce them," the push against marijuana
brushes right up
against the line separating law enforcement from
lobbying. While
Alsobrooks, in his cover letter, attempted to
portray the push as a matter of
public safety, he also made it
clear that the effort was inspired by attempts
to reform the
marijuana laws. "Attempts to legalize or criminalize
controlled
substances, and particularly marijuana, are springing up
around
the country," Alsobrooks warned. "Those who support
drug
legalization are well funded and highly adept at manipulating
the
media. And they do not mind deceiving the American public
as
well... Those who want to legalize drugs advance their
position
issue-by-issue, winning incremental victories. We can, and
have
stopped their efforts at the national level, but will lose all if
the
states yield individually." Writing that the drug czar's
office had
asked NDAA to aid in its battle against marijuana,
Alsobrooks urged
prosecutors to read Burns' letter containing
"important information about
marijuana" and to "consider ways that
you can bring this message to your
communities."
But if prosecutors have any interest in accurate
information about
marijuana, they will shy away from Burns' rhetoric.
The tenor of
Burns' letter is evident early on, when he tells prosecutors
that
"nationwide, no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana."
He
then listed a bunch of "truths" for prosecutors to tell the
American
people about cannabis, but those "truths" are, at best,
highly controversial
and, at worst, mendacious and tendentious.
"The truth is that marijuana
is not harmless," Burns wrote, citing
DAWN data showing marijuana mentions in
hospital emergency rooms.
Marijuana "now surpasses heroin" as a factor in
emergency room
visits, he claimed. Burns did not explain that an
emergency room
"mention" of marijuana does not signify a
marijuana-related
medical emergency, or that marijuana overdoses are a
practical
impossibility.
"The truth is that marijuana is addictive,"
Burns wrote, claiming
that 62% of all dependent drug users are hooked on
pot. But
experts disagree. In his new overview of marijuana
research,
"Understanding Marijuana," Dr. Mitchell Earlywine writes:
"Despite
its popularity, few people smoke marijuana regularly...
diagnoses
[of addiction or dependence] may say more about the culture
and
values of a given clinician than the actual negative consequences
that
cannabis creates."
"The truth is that marijuana and violence are linked,"
Burns
claimed, citing two studies that fly in the face of both decades
of
folk wisdom and the rest of the scientific literature. On this
topic,
Earlywine writes: "Direct links between cannabis
intoxication and
violence do not appear in the general population.
A few studies show
correlations between marijuana consumption and
violent acts, but these links
frequently stem from personality
characteristics or the influence of other
drugs. People who are
violent or who use drugs that lead to violence
often also smoke
marijuana, but the marijuana does not appear to cause
the
violence."
"The truth is that we aren't imprisoning individuals
for just
'smoking a joint,'" Burns wrote, noting that only half of
one
percent of prisoners are doing time for marijuana possession.
While
few responsible critics of drug policy make that argument,
that is still
roughly 10,000 people doing hard time. Burns also
ignores the serious
consequences awaiting the 700,000 people
arrested each year on marijuana
charges, from jail time to lost
benefits to lost licenses to financial
hardship.
"The truth is that marijuana is a gateway drug," Burns
wrote,
ignoring study after study that debunks this prohibitionist
tenet.
Two of the most recent studies to debunk the gateway theory are
a
February 2001 study by Dr. Andrew Golub published in the
American
Journal of Public Health that called it a "historical
artifact"
with no explanatory value for current drug use trends
(http://www.apha.org/news/press/2001_journal/feb01.htm),
and a
study released last month by the RAND Corporation that found
that
"the gateway theory is not the best explanation of the link
between
marijuana use and hard drug use"
(http://www.drcnet.org/wol/266.html#randreport).
"The
truth is that marijuana legalization would be a nightmare for
America," Burns
warned, using suspect numbers to suggest that
Dutch coffee shop policies led
to a huge increase in teen
marijuana use. But as Dr. Peter Reuter has
shown in his book,
"Drug War Heresies," the increase in Dutch teen marijuana
use
occurred only a decade after the Dutch began tolerating
marijuana
sales, when a wave of commercialization swept the
coffeehouse
industry. And as Reuters pointed out, Dutch teenage use
levels
remain lower than in the US.
"The truth is that marijuana is
not a medicine and no credible
research suggests it is," Burns wrote, closing
his eyes to the
1999 Institute of Medicine study commissioned (and then
promptly
ignored) by his boss's predecessor, then drug czar Gen.
Barry
McCaffrey, as well as more recent research
(http://www.nap.edu/html/marimed/).
"The
role you play as prosecutors is indispensable to our success
in fighting the
normalization of marijuana," he wrote. "You can
target and aggressively
prosecute traffickers and dealers. You
can help those who need
treatment -- a first offense for marijuana
possession, for example -- get
treatment. You can intensify the
detection and removal of marijuana
growing operations. You can
work with your legislators to update local
laws impeding marijuana
prosecutions and treatment."
Burns then
thoughtfully included a seven page "Changing the Way
Americans Think About
Marijuana Talking Points" paper, full of the
same claims that filled his
letter. It's all part and parcel of
drug czar John Walters' "Marijuana
Initiative," the federal
government's multi-million dollar anti-marijuana
propaganda effort
(http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/marijuanainitiative/).
The
drug czar and his boss, President George W. Bush, are deadly
serious as they
fight what they fear is a losing battle against
reform. They are
seeking allies in powerful positions. And they
are willing to resort to
lies, misinformation, disinformation and
distortion to do so. This
isn't your father's drug war.
Read Alsobrooks' and Burns' letters
at
http://www.ndaa-apri.org/alsobrooks_letter_nov_1_2002.pdf
online.
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