Drug Lords
The threat of spending a few years in prison may not be enticing to you and me but if you knew the odds of not getting caught were in your favor what would it take to get you to take the risk? If you were a customs agent assigned to check vehicles at the border and you were making $40 K a year how much money would you want to wave a certain car through? $5000.? $10,000. ? If you were unemployed with a family to feed what would it take to drive a van across the border and risk deportation or jail time? Chances are the drug cartels could meet your price… easily. Look at this stack of money found in a Mexican drug lord’s house recently…
And that’s just a small portion of it. How much would he leave around the house? This is probably only a month’s worth of profit awaiting laundering to make room for the next pile. But they arrested this guy, you say, and seized the money. Yes, but look at his house…
And his pool…
His toys…
Do you want to bet someone else hasn’t taken over this lucrative enterprise and built himself a similar estate full of money? The potential for great riches is incredibly tempting to everyone involved on every level of the business. The relatively remote threat of prison is no deterent. That’s obvious if you look at the decades of thriving drug business despite harsher and harsher penalties and more and more enforcement.
There is one sure way to end it overnight however. End drug prohibition - legalize it and regulate it. Viola! No more ridiculous profits. Production, shipping, and distribution is taken over by licensed companies subject to losing that license should they sell to minors, adulterate the product, or otherwise violate the law. Would it be perfect? No. Would some minors still get hold of dangerous drugs? Of course. But at least we’d have far more control than we do now. Add the billions of dollars of tax revenue to the equation… subtract the savings gained by not endlessly chasing drug smugglers, producers and sellers around and we’d be onto something. It’s not really all that complicated…
Look at these Numbers!
The latest Rasmussen polling numbers are out and very interesting. After years of marijuana legalization hovering between 10 and 20% this poll indicates that number has more than doubled nationally (41%) and has reached 47% in California. Significant progress, especially when you consider that the marijuana reform movement as a whole has only recently started calling for legalization. In the past the only talk has been about reducing penalties and medical marijuana.
Of course there is another side to this. While 47% of California voters favor legalizing and taxing the drug 42% don’t like that idea. Nationally, 41% of likely voters think the United States should legalize and tax marijuana, but 49% are opposed. Break it down by political party and you find that over half of Democrats (52%) support the idea of legalizing and taxing pot, but only 28% of Republicans agree.
There are other interesting marijuana related numbers from Rasmussen. When queried as to whether marijuana or alcohol was the safer drug 51% chose marijuana and only 19% went for alcohol. Of course understanding the collective mind of the public is more complicated. 25% say both are equally dangerous. Just two percent (2%) say neither is dangerous. Fifty-three percent (53%) of women say alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana, compared to 48% of men. Men by a two-to-one margin over women say pot is riskier, but women are more inclined to say both are dangerous. Confusing, to say the least.
Overall this is some very impressive news on the drug policy reform front. (Think what those numbers would be if reformers had been making the case for legalization for the past decade or two). The numbers still aren’t good enough for our elected officials however. We know our “leaders” don’t do much leading. Generally they look for the parade, see which direction it’s heading and jump in front of it and pretend they’re leading. For whatever reason the voters don’t seem to notice and so it goes.
The politicians I speak to, be they incumbents or challengers, Republicans or Democrats, US Senators or county legislators, are all scared of taking any but the safest positions on drug policy issues. None of them wants to voice anything that might get him criticized by the police. The majority agree with most reform positions privately and promise to take action once elected. Then they say they can’t speak out because they’ve got to get re-elected. By the time they have been re-elected enough times and are ready to move on to other things then they can’t talk about the issue because they don’t want to hurt the chances of their party-mate who is in line for that seat.
Even medical marijuana, which consistently passes with 75% of the votes in states that allow for referenda and, consequently is the law in 13 states, scares many legislators. Unless there is a clear and vocal majority amongst their constituency as well as editorial support from the local media they won’t touch it.
Polling like this should at least ensure serious discussion between opposing sides. With any other issue it would have but when it comes to drugs 70-plus years of demonization and misinformation have taken their toll. The thought of some TV news anchor giggling over some stupid pot joke made at the candidate’s expense is too much for them to risk.
Presidential science:Marijuana is dangerous but alcohol is not.
You may remember President Obama promising to listen to science when determining policies. “I’ll change the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology.” he told Computer World.
To the Washington Post he said : “Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources - it’s also about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about letting scientists like those who are here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s
inconvenient - especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda - and that we make scientific decisions based on
facts, not ideology.”
Good stuff…were it true. In reality the President’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowski pronounced marijuana “dangerous” the other day. The President invited his friend Professor Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. and the police officer that arrested him to the White House for a beer. The drug czar pronounced marijuana “dangerous” but the President thinks it’s OK to drink alcohol, a far more dangerous intoxicant.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of death in the United States, with about 35,000 deaths attributed to its use each year, including hundreds from accidental overdose. The CDC does not report any deaths attributable to the use of marijuana. So much for science.
During the hearings in Congress back in 1937 about making marijuana illegal Congress had heard quite fantastic annecdotal marijuana horror stories from Harry Anslinger and others and convened with the intent of passing a bill prohibiting the drug. The only medical testimony heard was that of a Dr. William C. Woodward. Dr. Woodward was a lawyer and a doctor and he was Chief Counsel to the American Medical Association. Dr. Woodward testified representing the American Medical Association and said: “The American Medical Association knows of no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug.”
The next quote in the record comes from a Congressman who said: “Doctor, if you can’t say something good about what we are trying to do, why don’t you go home?” Another Congressman said, “Doctor, if you haven’t got something better to say than that, we are sick of hearing you.”
Apparently Obama & Kerlikowski are just continuing in a long-standing tradition of ensuring that “scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda”
How can the Drug Czar just stand there and lie? (see below)
How is it that the White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske can publically make the statement “Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit.” as he did in Fresno, California the other day, when it is so obviously a lie?
No less prestigious medical organizations than the Institute of Medicine, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Lymphoma Foundation of America, American Academy of HIV Medicine, and literally dozens of other medical organizations recognize marijuana’s medical value.
Marinol, a synthesized version of one of the active ingredients in marijuana, is legal and FDA approved in the US which makes one ask why, if marijuana has no medical use, would a company synthesize it and the FDA approve it? How can our drug czar make such an obviously false statement?
The answer may lie in something called The Office of National Drug Control Reauthorization Act of 1998 H11225, Responsibility #12. This law, passed under the Clinton administration provided renewed funding for the department now headed by Kerlikowske usually referred to as ONDCP, the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Section 12 of that law states that ONDCP “shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that–
(A) is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and
(B) has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;”…”
In other words, lie, cheat, or do whatever nefarious deeds you deem necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of marijuana and let the science be damned.
With national polling currently showing about ¾ of the American public in favor of permitting marijuana for medical use and about half in favor of simply legalizing it for any use whatsoever one wonders how long the administration will be able to continue to maintain this obviously ridiculous position. As I’ve written about before on this blog the Controlled Substances Act needs to be seriously revised.
Both Kerlikowske and President Obama have said that the word “legalization” is “not in their vocabulary”. Perhaps they need to familiarize themselves with the term lest they be even more confused when congress eventually legalizes marijuana.
Things have certainly changed since The French Connection days
Remember the 1971 movie “The French Connection”? That was a true story about what was then the largest heroin bust made in the US. Remember the car that had the heroin hidden in the rocker panels? There were about 40 kilos hidden in that car. 40 kilos, about 88 pounds… the largest quantity of the drug ever imported into the country at one time!
That same year another movie focused on heroin was released. “Panic in Needle Park” told of a couple of addicts desperately trying to find their next fix during a shortage on the streets. That big bust in the French Connection caused a shortage of heroin in New York City and, presumably across the country.
These movies informed the public about heroin. They had heard mentions of the drug of course. Billie Holiday had died from it. In these films they saw both the horrible consequences of addiction to an illegal drug. The squalor and filth in which these addicts lived lives focused almost solely on scoring their next shot of heroin. They also saw the Mafiosi that lived the high life importing the drug , and they saw the dedicated cops who worked hard to catch them and save society from narcotics addiction.
America’s drug prohibition was ready for a big boost after these films came out. Narcotics enforcement grew in police departments all over the country. From a tiny department with a handful of officers the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (later to become the Drug Enforcement Administration) grew to over 1,500 agents and budget of some $43 million. President Nixon declared a “War on Drugs”.
Since 1971 government’s anti-drug spending has increased by leaps and bounds. The DEA’s current budget is well over 2 Billion dollars. We got tough on those we caught too. The sentences given to the smugglers in the French Connection case averaged about 3 years for each of them. Since then big heroin “kingpins” draw 20+ year sentences with many getting sent up for life.
So how has that worked? These days they measure the heroin bust in tons, not kilos. Before the war on drugs started heroin use was quite rare. A few jazz musicians, the odd writer perhaps. Now it’s found in every town in America and in their high schools. So prohibition of heroin hasn’t worked so well at reducing heroin use but maybe it benefitted society in other ways? Let’s take a look.
- Prisons? - We imprison a higher percentage of our population than any other country on the planet… more than South Africa did at the height of Apartheid, more than China under Mao, and it’s largely driven by the war on drugs. I guess that hasn’t been a success … unless you consider over-crowded prisons a sign of success.
- Deaths from illegal drugs?- Quite common in the U.S. compared to countries with harm-reduction strategies like Portugal but then since we have no regulation users don’t have any way of discovering either the content or the strength of what they’re injecting so we’re not saving lives here.
- HIV and Hepatitis C ? - We’re slowly starting to make some progress on this score as most states now allow for the sale of syringes without a prescription. Syringe exchanges and safe injection sites are still considered controversial so they must be fought for over and over in every locality.
- Foreign Policy ?- We’re still squeezing the proverbial balloon south of the border and claiming success as heroin production grows. Up here this year, down over there, the opposite of the year before…blah, blah, blah. ..of course there was practically no heroin produced at all in South America back in the 60’s before the war on drugs but we don’t like to mention that.
- Price ? - Back in 1981 heroin was available for around $2000 per gram… in 2003 the average retail price for a gram was about $350. Over the same period average purity went from about 10% up to over 30%. Let me see… heroin is now available at three times the potency for one sixth the price… No, that was hardly a resounding success.
Well it seems pretty obvious that prohibition of heroin, like that of alcohol, has not been helpful. Now that this policy has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, ruined millions of lives, destroyed entire neighborhoods, filled our prisons, and spread death and disease we need to drop it. America needs to start the serious discussion on how we should legalize and regulate it. Should it be sold like alcohol is today? Probably not. Perhaps regulated and sold by prescription much like morphine? Sounds reasonable to me. That’s the discussion we need to have if we are to stop this insane hemorrhaging of blood and money that is drug prohibition.
