We can’t afford juries!
A couple of interesting things that relate to each other in the news… First, out of some 7000 entries in President-elect Obama’s website call for suggestions for priorities for the new administration the number one most popular was this one : “Q: Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?” Obama and his team, who have responded to suggestions from his constituency in the past with thoughtful, quite detailed responses offered this response to the marijuana question : “ President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.”
Could it be that the Obama team can’t come up with a better answer to the number one most popular issue among all those responding to his request for ideas to formulate his policies on? Can they not articulate reasons for this refusal to take action on this long overdue subject? Does he not want to have to explain why he smoked pot and became President but the almost one million people each year that get arrested for doing the same thing are destined to have trouble finding jobs mopping floors. Some have said that this answer gives him cover should he act on the incremental reforms he has said he supports. Reforms like preventing the federal government from interfering with states that have passed medical marijuana legislation for example. Perhaps…
No doubt it’s a difficult issue. Years of propaganda and a seriously misinformed public makes any reform of the drug laws controversial. An issue like drug policy needs time and a deft political hand to accomplish significant change but it also needs leadership. Ducking the issue by issuing pat answers is not leadership.
A story in the L A Times tells us that 19 states are having trouble paying for their court systems. New Hampshire state courts will halt all civil and criminal jury trials for a month early next year to save $73,000 in jurors’ per diems. California cut its judicial branch budget by more than $200 million, or about 10%, in the current fiscal year and further cuts are projected. Florida courts have laid off 280 clerks, lawyers and other staff members, and cut funding for judges.
Since the criminally- accused are constitutionally guaranteed the right to a speedy trial that means that civil trials are the hardest-hit by these budget cuts. Medical malpractice, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and accident suits are facing long, long delays.
Spend a few hours in any courthouse in the country and you’ll notice what crime the bulk of the criminal cases come from. One after another the accused will plead to some drug crime or another. In order to help themselves most plead guilty in exchange for a reduced charge. The prosecutor threatens them with some horrendous sentence with no chance of parole should they be foolish enough to demand a trial and, understandably, they accept the deal. I remember a few years ago the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court stated that if only one percent of the people charged with drug crimes decided to plead innocent and fight then the whole court system would come to a halt.
Demand your right to a fair and speedy trial and face a mandatory sentence of, say, 8 years to life with no chance of parole or plead guilty to crime you may not even have committed and do perhaps two years with time off for good behavior. A good deal? In a sense. But justice? Hardly.
So when it comes to drugs the current criminal justice system is terribly costly and often does not dispense justice. Add to that the fact that the numbers of Blacks or Hispanics that end up going to prison is staggeringly disproportionate to the number of whites that fare similarly and it seems obvious that this is a policy that desperately needs changing. Whether we need a Blue Ribbon Commission to look into this and make recommendations or a strong push for new laws in congress it is clear that a statement like “ President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.” is woefully inadequate.
Local Action
It seems that, as usual, our political leaders are not really leading... at least not on the drug issue. They wait for a tremendous clamoring to rise from the public before so much as addressing an issue seriously and then try to tell everyone that they supported these changes all along. Occasionally though, one does find an elected official or two who will stand up for something that hasn't reached overwhelming public acceptance yet.In his nationally syndicated column Neal Peirce asked “Can a single city do anything to change drug policies that are delivering terror to our inner city streets, diverting police, clogging our courts, breaking up families, and making a once-proud America quite literally the incarceration capital of the world?
It’s tough because federal and state drug laws, passed by tragically misguided “law-and-order” politicians, are highly intrusive. But Syracuse, N.Y., with a detailed analysis of drug law impact by outgoing City Auditor Minchin Lewis, followed up by recent city council hearings, is courageously asking tough questions and searching for alternatives.”
Syracuse Common Councillors Stephanie Miner, then chair of the Finance Committee, and Public Safety Committee chair Bill Ryan understood the importance of Lewis' report and so Syracuse held the first such hearings in the U.S. They were barely covered by the local paper but received coverage in the rest of the country. The lack of local attention paid meant that no large numbers of local voices came out to demand action after the hearing and things just gradually faded away.
I bring this up because times are different today. Perhaps similar hearings in a city today would bring change in local ordinances. Many cities have, for example, declared marijuana the lowest possible priority for their police departments and thirteen states have approved medical marijuana.If there is a local politician in your area who you think really understands the harms that drug prohibition is doing to his constituents get him to watch this video. Contact me and I'll send a high quality DVD along with a data-cd containing all relevant documents for a more detailed look at what went on in Syracuse. I'd also be glad to talk to any elected officials who are considering some sort of action and have questions."Tip" O'Neill said..." All politics is local". Don't wait for a president to come along and fix everything. Scream out to him about what needs fixing and start fixing it yourself. Perhaps he'll step in.
Drug testing in the Workplace
I have a friend who is about to retire from a couple of decades as a union electrician. He tells me that he’s far more concerned by his fellow workers who have a couple of beers at lunch and proceed to drop tools from scaffolding and don’t always secure heavy items properly than someone who smoked some marijuana the night before after work. He has, on his own time and in the interest of workplace safety, researched something called “impairment testing” and, after fruitlessly trying to interest his union president, shared the fruits of his efforts with me. Before I pass it on let me give you a little background on drug testing in the workplace. I think you’ll be surprised.
According to a survey by the American Management Association, in1986 only 21.5 percent of companies tested employees. By 1996, 81 percent did. The same study showed that the number of Fortune 200 companies that require pre-employment or random drug testing grew from 6 in 1983 to 196 in 1996. Eighty-three percent of employers surveyed believe that testing slows
employee drug use, according to the AMA study. But 80 percent of companies
in the same survey had never done a cost-effectiveness analysis. The American Civil Liberties Union issued a report based on studies by the National Science Foundation and the AMA showing that testing has been ineffective in reducing drug use and has no noticeable impact on reducing either absenteeism or productivity.
The National Academy of Sciences recently found that illegal drugs contribute little to workplace accidents and that off-duty drug use has about the same small effect on worker accidents as off-duty drinking and, in January’s Working USA magazine, two researchers with the Le Moyne
College Institute of Industrial Relations surveyed 63 Silicon Valley companies and found that productivity was 29 percent lower in firms with pre -employment and random testing.
In spite of all of this drug testing is a growing business with revenues approaching a billion dollars a year.
Most of the drug tests used are only marginally accurate and often show false postives. Depending on the method used; Sweat patch, On-site testing, urine testing, incorrect readings are not uncommon. Hair testing is the most controversial of the methods because of concerns that it is discriminatory and can be thrown off by contaminants. Several studies by the National Institute of Drug Abuse show that some drug molecules, whether ingested or picked up from the environment, have an affinity for the pigment melanin and bind more strongly to dark hair than light.
The fastest-growing segment of the drug-testing industry consists of newer and often more error-prone tests. On-site urine testing appeals to private employers because it gives results in minutes and can cost as little as $3 per screening. The problem? Studies of several of these tests, designed to pick up a single drug type such as amphetamines, show they give the right answer as little as one third of the time. Other new tests, which rely on lab analysis of hair and sweat, can be a powerful probe of drug use-but can also be fooled by stray drug molecules from the environment.
Laboratory urine testing, not the far less accurate “on-site” kind but rather the type that gets analyzed by a lab, is often called the “gold standard” test yet Robitussin and some types of diet pills can give a false reading for amphetamines. Migraine medications and anti-depressants can look like LSD. Even Ibuprofen and various antibiotics can appear to be marijuana and a kidney infection or diabetes can cause you to test positive for cocaine. With the millions of drug tests administered mistakes are all too common.
A second, more accurate confirmation test called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, GC-MS exists but is too costly for regular use. When a lab does use GC-MS to identify the entire range of molecules, it is 95 percent to 99 percent accurate. But labs don’t always use the equipment to its full advantage. Accuracy rates are trending downward as employers contract with the lowest-bidding labs. It’s cheaper to use GC-MS to look only for a few fragments of the drug molecules, which raises the risk of mistaking legitimate medicines, herbs, and foods like poppy seeds for illegal drugs.
A key thing to remember is that traces of most drugs including cocaine, heroin and amphetimines in most cases disappear from the body in a day or two. Marijuana traces wind up in the body’s fat cells where they remain for weeks. The effect of the drug will wear off in a few hours but it’s detectable for a long time. A worker can smoke marijuana on a Friday night and test positive the following Friday. What this has to do with workplace safety is lost on me. It smacks of Henry Ford’s “Service Department”, a private police force that visited workers homes to make sure they were living “right” and making sure they went to church on Sunday.
And to top it all off, at many companies, employees who fail the initial screen get no second chance. Most employers, even those who use a lab, don’t confirm positives on pre-employment tests. And, in most cases, it’s perfectly legal not to. There are no regulations, other than a smattering of state laws, regarding testing of nongovernment workers.
Still, few businesses have abandoned drug testing, even though the AMA found
it costs a company $77,000 to find one drug user by testing all employees.
So what is the reason for a company spending that kind of money to weed out the occasional marijuana smoker? There are several. Some companies don’t care about the research. They apparently operate by some sort of faith. “You can’t tell me that drug testing doesn’t work” they say.
Then there are some that don’t know or care about the science. They drug test because it may look good to their shareholders or their customers. And there is another kind that conjures up thoughts of 1930’s Germany… Talking to a manager at a brewery that produces a national beer brand I was surprised by his answers when I asked him if they drug tested their workers… “Yes we do” he said righteously. When I then explained that, since marijuana use can cause a test to come back positive days or even weeks after a worker uses marijuana it is no indication that he was high at work he didn’t miss a beat. “Oh we know that. It’s not about workplace safety.” He said. “We don’t want drug users in the plant regardless if they are high on the job or not. That’s just not the sort of employees we want.” I guess what he really meant was that they don’t want workers who choose to use a different drug after work than his preferred drug.
So what about impairment testing? How does it work? What are the pros and cons? There are several types of these machines but all share certain basic things; they are tailored to the individual, they measure current functionality, and provide instant results. I’ll use one type as an example.
A worker shows up for work and a supervisor, noticing his bleary-eyed stare or unsteady movements, suggests he take the test. The worker sits down at something like video game screen, inserts his card and pushes the “start” button. A ball moves around the screen and, using a mouse, he tries to keep the pointer on the moving ball. His ability to accomplish this is recorded and compared to that workers previously recorded attempts read from the card he inserted at the start of the test. He is not required to meet some arbitrary goal, just do as well as he did when he established his personal “baseline” results the first few times he took the test.
This whole process took less than 5 minutes and told the supervisor whether or not the worker was fit for duty. Could he focus and perform his job or not? It doesn’t tell you “why”, just “if”.
Do you really care why? If he’s been feeling terrible because of the flu, been up all night with a sick child, fighting with his wife, couldn’t sleep because he was worried about his mortgage payment, or has recently injected himself with heroin and is high as a kite he shouldn’t be operating machinery and should go home. Should the problem arise often perhaps the boss might recommend some counseling or medical care.
Such a system would do a lot to improve workplace safety but my friend was told to drop it. His union local’s president said the unions don’t like it because many members would be caught showing up for work impaired by something, legal or illegal and because it gives a manager, who is not a union person, the power to order someone to take an impairment test. Workplace safety for union members apparently was not relevant.
Another friend of mine is an air traffic controller. He is required to give a urine sample at random times after which he is sent off to direct airplanes for several days until the test comes back. That doesn’t seem like a particularly safe way to handle things. The impairment test I described above would be the perfect test, cost a fraction of the urine test, keep him away from the airplanes immediately if he was impaired, and only take 5 minutes.
Science is a wonderful thing. Let’s use it to make a better world instead of relying on inaccurate prejudices and assumptions to make our decisions.
Old News… (and I do mean old)
Old News
An interesting thing happened recently in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of China; the remains of what appears to be the world’s oldest pothead were unearthed. About 2,700 years ago a man was buried here along with the things thought essential for the afterlife. For this gentleman one of those things was his stash… about 2 lbs of marijuana.
Near Turpan in China, in the Gobi Desert region locals stumbled across a sprawling graveyard containing nearly 2,500 graves while digging irrigation wells, but it was not until 2003 that formal archaeological investigations were launched. So far only 500 or so of the graves have been excavated.
Dr. Ethan Russo was lead author of an article on this extraordinary discovery published this month in the peer-reviewed Journal of Experimental Botany. “The evidence all indicates that there was intent to utilize this cannabis for psychoactive purposes,” said Dr. Russo. “What we’ve found here is the oldest, clear-cut and proven sample of psychoactive cannabis in the world”.
The skeleton was that of a 45-year-old male, likely of the ancient Gushi culture, apparently a medicine-man, shaman, or some other important person. With the skeleton and the 2 pounds of marijuana were several other items, including horse bridles, archery equipment and a harp. Dr. Russo is unsure if the marijuana was to be smoked or ingested because no pipes were found. The marijuana was found in a leather container and in a smooth wooden bowl like a mortar.
How do we know the marijuana was used as a drug and not for its hemp fibers?
Dr. Russo is affiliated with GW Pharmaceuticals, a company that makes a cannabis product called Sativex licensed for pain relief in England and Canada. He was able to bring the marijuana to their lab in the UK for intense analysis and the results were interesting. The scientists were able to learn much from the stash, using sophisticated biochemical analysis, electron microscopy and DNA analysis. What they found was not the native hemp historically used for fiber, but rather a domesticated and cultivated crop relatively high in tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical that provides pot its psychoactive high.
Also, the team found no hemp products in the tombs, but rather clothing of wool and ropes of reed. The marijuana also had been picked clean of stems and stalks, and only female plant parts higher in psychoactive properties were found in the grave. All of the evidence, Russo said, points to a strictly psychoactive use.
The discovery in the Yanghai tombs, Dr. Russo said, was particularly intriguing because of the well-preserved nature of the pot a result of dry conditions, a cool underground burial and extremely alkaline soils.The marijuana, in fact, “retained a surprisingly green color in its leafy parts” the journal article concluded. “It was in remarkable shape,” Russo said. “Microscopically, it looks almost fresh. You can still see the glands that hold the THC.” Not fresh enough, however, to resurrect the plants. Russo and others have tried to germinate the ancient seeds, but without luck.
The journal article concludes the most probable conclusion is that the Gushi culture cultivated cannabis for pharmaceutical, psychoactive or divinatory purposes, making it the oldest such stash ever found and tested.
Dr. Russo was lead author on the research paper, which included an international team of Chinese archaeologists, Italian geneticists, and English biochemists. Dr. Russo is American neurologist who, in addition to teaching pharmacology, also taught in the chemistry, physical therapy and psychology departments at the University of Montana. He has written and edited seven books on medicinal plants, including Cannabis: From Pariah to Prescription. He now works as a consultant with GW Pharmaceuticals.
75th Aniversary of the Repeal of Alcohol Prohibition
This is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of alcohol prohibition. Seventy five years since repeal and America has still not recovered from the effects of that thirteen year “noble experiment”. Yes, it was called “noble” because it was, I believe, originally a genuine attempt to change the lives of people for the better. Instead it did them untold harm but that is where the “experiment” part of its nickname comes in. Experiments often fail.
When scientists develop a theory they perform experiments, note the results, and base future experiments on these notes. In time a body of data is accumulated that either proves or disproves the theory. The enormous increases in crime, government and police corruption, public disrespect for the law, and the other negative results of this policy were bad enough to make the 18th amendment the only one ever in the history of the country to be repealed.
Alas however, politicians are not scientists. The lessons learned from that experiment went unheeded and today we find ourselves again embracing prohibition. Somehow the idea that we can do the same thing again but this time achieve a different result has gripped America.
Today’s prohibition is one not aimed at the drugs whiskey, gin, beer, and other alcoholic beverages but against cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, and marijuana. The extent of the prohibition is much more comprehensive; alcohol prohibition prohibited only the manufacture, sale, and distribution of theses substances. Today personal possession of the illegal drugs is also prohibited with vast resources devoted to punish individual users.
The duration of this prohibition is also far greater than our earlier experiment that lasted a mere thirteen years. The first laws prohibiting drug use were passed in the early years of the 20th century and today’s “war on drugs” is usually credited to President Nixon who made it a big issue thereby stimulating drug use by artificially boosting the prices, creating a burgeoning illegal market, and stimulating the “forbidden fruit” effect. We’ve been trying, with stunningly poor results, to prohibit the use of illegal drugs for about a century.
We’ve seen the results of this folly; thousands dead in Mexican drug war violence, thousands more victims of prohibition-fueled wars in Afghanistan and Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, half a million drug offenders languishing in US prisons, 800,000 arrests just for marijuana per year ( most of those just for possession), our cities and towns ravaged by this war, about one trillion dollars wasted over the past decade or so… yet drugs are readily accessible to anyone who wants them.
Were Americans smarter in the earlier decades of the 20th century? Were they more scientifically inclined? How is it they saw the folly of this sort of policy in slightly more than a decade whereas today we still can’t see it after a century?
Imagine you are suffering from a pain in your foot and your doctor tells you to take two aspirin. You still have pain but now it’s in your whole leg. You go back and he tells you to take four aspirin…still no pain relief but now both legs hurt, now he reccomends twelve aspirin, yet again you follow his orders and now the pain has spread to your back… he tells you to take 24 aspirin… How long before you find a different doctor?
America needs a different doctor.
