What’s the Controlled Substances Act and Why Do I Need To Know?
I had a tooth pulled the other day and the dentist gave a prescription for Tylenol with codeine to kill the pain. He also gave me one for an antibiotic to kill any infection that could occur (the human mouth is a dirty, germ-filled place you know). Since I wanted to go home and lie down and not wait around the drugstore while these were being filled I asked that they be called in so they would be ready for pick up when I got there. She could call in the antibiotic but I had to show up with the prescription in hand in order to get the pain pills. She also had to read the pharmacist the DEA number from the prescription.
Why? Because of a US law called the Controlled Substances Act. This law is the reason certain drugs are available either without prescription (like aspirin), with a prescription (like antibiotics), with a prescription in triplicate with a copy for the DEA (like strong painkillers such as opiates), or prohibited altogether (like LSD, marijuana, or heroin). These categories are called “schedules” with Schedule 1 being those drugs that are absolutely prohibited because they have been declared to be highly addictive, have no medical use, and a high potential for abuse.
The placing of various drugs in these categories is not without controversy. In the case of painkillers for my dental work, for example, I was given codeine, a relatively mild opium derivative that is available over-the-counter (no prescription) in Canada. Under the CSA it is Schedule 2 - available only with the consent of the policemen at the Drug Enforcement Administration. Marijuana, a drug the Academy of Medicine, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Nurses Association, and the American Academy of Family Physicians among dozens of other respected medical associations recognizes as having many medical uses is also Schedule 1.
Of course the fundamental question here is if any governmental agency should have the power to tell a person what they may put in their body but that’s a bigger issue. For now one must ask why do policemen have the final word as to what is an effective drug with medical uses? Do you seek the advice of a cop when you’re in pain? Do you run to the doctor when your car is stolen? America needs to reconsider the Controlled Substances Act… it’s the root cause behind our failed justice system, our overcrowded prisons, and a host of other serious problems caused by drug prohibition.
(In the interest of full disclosure, the author is a member of the Committee on Drugs & the Law of the Bar Association of New York City. That committee is hosting a panel to examine the CSA issue at the Association’s headquarters in New York City on April 29th. the public is invited.)
4.20 - A Date to Demand Justice and Change
Well it’s that time of the year. Spring is here in most parts of the country. Flowers are blooming. The end of the school year is in sight. Summer plans are being made and it’s April 20th - “4.20″ A day that has become the holiday for marijuana smokers. For some years now there have been public “smoke-ins” on the quads at colleges, special concerts commemorating the day, and “420″ buttons, bumper stickers, and other such things displayed across the country.
The mood is optimistic this year because of the growing poll numbers showing over 40% of the public favoring marijuana legalization and the increasing public discussion on the topic in the mainstream media. The growing awareness that the violence in Mexico is closely connected to the marijuana trade with the US has prompted calls for considering marijuana legalization as a possible solution. Even Fox TV pundit Glenn Beck came out for legalization last week. Change is in the air, at least all the air but that breathed in the White House.
Despite President Obama’s promises to listen to the people he laughs at the idea of marijuana legalization. Without offering any sort of attempt at justification at all he states that the issue is not under consideration. Despite his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement that America’s drug policy of interdiction and demand reduction has failed he calls for more interdiction and demand reduction. He pledges increased funding for drug courts and mandated treatment.
I can’t help but wonder what sort of treatment he would have benefitted from had he been arrested when he smoked marijuana. In addition to a criminal record would a period of enforced attendance at a 12 step program made him a better student at Harvard? Would it have helped him become a US Senator? President? Or perhaps forced treatment is only helpful to us regular citizens. We all know how a drug arrest helps folks not qualify for federal financial aid to attend college or to move into public housing. We understand how a drug arrest looks on our resumes when we apply for a job.
Of course 40% of the public favoring marijuana legalization is not a majority but the number was half that just a decade ago. Someday soon politicians won’t be able to get elected unless they support legalization. In the meantime it looks like America will continue to arrest close to a million people each year for marijuana possession. Show your support for ending this prohibition on 4.20 and maybe this disgusting policy will end when we elect a president willing to fight for change, justice, and freedom.
Drug Policy Reform is not Necesarily Drug Policy Reform: Why we need to be careful about what we support.
Lately there have been an unprecedented number of news stories about drug policy. The reason? The consequences of our policy of he last several decades with regard to illegal drugs have become too serious to ignore. When there was evidence that the way we handle drugs in the U.S. harms mainly minorities it could be ignored misinterpreted by our elected officials and the media. The problem is poverty… lack of education… cultural differences … not enough police…anything but drug prohibition. Now things have changed.
We can no longer pretend so effectively when our neighbor to the south is in the throes of an epidemic of violence responsible for over 7000 deaths last year alone. After all… that’s more than we lost in Iraq. We can no longer pretend when our new president is starting another war and the reason he gives involves illegal drugs. We can no longer pretend we just aren’t serious about our war on drugs after we realize we’ve spent over a trillion dollars on it and drugs are available in every high school in the country.
So the national conversation begins. “What shall we do?” people ask. This is a new topic for most of them. The terms are unfamiliar. Some of the old arguments for prohibition still sound logical. Most haven’t given the issue much serious thought but spout off their quick-fix plans to solve the problem. The politicians try to sound concerned but it’s hard to come out and admit you’ve been dead wrong about this issue since you got elected but now somehow you have the right solution.
Make no mistake about it, the solution to this mess is a radical one. That doesn’t make it bad, crazy, or impossible…just radical. Any serious look at the problems we’re talking about will quickly reveal that the so-called “drug-related” problems are actually “drug-war related” problems. People aren’t shooting each other on our streets because they are high on drugs but because they have some drug business dispute that, because drugs are illegal, they can’t settle in court. We don’t have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the entire world because Americans are the most horrible, violent people on the planet but because half of them are there because of our harsh drug laws. The list goes on and the cause is always the same: drug prohibition.
Obviously we need to end drug prohibition and replace it with some sort of regulation and control much as we do with alcohol. Then disputes could be settled peaceably in a court of law and we could imprison only those that are to violent to roam free. What is happening today though makes me think that this logical answer may be a ways off.
Instead of serious talk about serious solutions we get tepid plans that, at best, will only prolong the status quo. In New York the legislature “reformed” the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Sounds good huh? So just how is putting some percentage of those arrested for drug offenses into treatment instead of prison going to stem the violence in our streets, preserve our neighborhoods, or keep our kids in school? They don’t need treatment because most are not addicted. What they need is to get jobs but those will still be denied to them because of their drug arrest record. It will reduce prison costs since treatment is less expensive. That will enable still more people to be arrested, brought into the system, and have their lives ruined.
Militarizing the Mexican border won’t stop marijuana from entering the country either. It’s been tried repeatedly with disastrous results. Even if you could totally seal that border the US coast is enormous and the cartels even have submarines to avoid interdiction. They could bring it to Canada and drive it down that way. They could fly it in. The possibilities are infinite and the higher these anti-drug efforts drive the price the more profit for the cartels.
As usual the devil is in the details. If a proposed change doesn’t involve a paradigm shift… if it doesn’t require a fundamentally different way our society looks at drug use nothing will change. Paradigm shifts are, by their nature, radical. So is cutting out your appendix if you think about it, but if it’s infected and you don’t do it you will probably die.
After Decades the Press Discovers the Other Side of the Drug Issue
There’s something happening here… but this time around what it is seems pretty clear. The media is starting to take the drug issue seriously. After years of alternating between joking about drug use and doing their best to panic the populace with poorly done stories about the horrors of this or that drug they have been covering it differently recently.
In the last week or two there have been many stories criticizing Obama’s laughing at the question about marijuana legalization at this press conference, Hillary’s comments about Mexico’s problems being our fault, and other drug related news items. Yes, they’re still cracking jokes but far less so.
Hardly a radical newspaper, the Houston Chronicle editorialized that the “U.S., Mexico must start by dealing with root causes.On this side of the border, the day is coming when the country must look seriously at ways to rein in the multibillion-dollar market that enriches the drug lords while filling American prisons with inmates. This means reassessing the generation-long national drug war, and should include debate on the merits and pitfalls of legalization of drugs.”
Pulitzer Prize-winner Leonard Pitts pointed out in his column for the Miami Herald that the reason marijuana often affects smokers’ lives negatively is because of the consequences attached with using the drug - not the drug itself.
Syndicated Washington Post, columnist Kathleen Parker, criticizes Obama’s dismissal of the tax and regulate question… “The conviction makes it nearly impossible to get a job, go to college, or even rent an apartment,” Pitts wrote.
Columnist Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald - wrote “Millions of Americans understand that you can get stoned in high school, in college, every post-collegiate Saturday night, yet remain a responsible, upstanding, taxpayer. They know because they’ve done it,”
In a very perceptive article on the much-hyped “repeal” of the Rockefeller Drug Laws Jennifer Gonnerman wrote in NY Magazine “While the new proposal would empower judges to send first-time B felons to treatment instead of prison, for those who were never addicts in the first place, the punishment remains the same: one to nine years in prison… And what if you’re not an addict at all? What if it’s not treatment you need but a high-school degree and a job? Do you have to feign addiction to avoid prison?”
Time magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote “We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public.”
It’s not just the print media that is starting to take the issue seriously either.
The not-so-subtlely titled “War on drugs is insane” By Jack Cafferty, author, columnist, TV commentator, and regular on CNN’s “The Situation Room” makes it pretty clear where he’s coming from on the drug issue. Even Dennis Prager, a very popular conservative talk show host, stated recently on the air that he has come to believe that the benefits of legalizing drugs outweigh the liabilities.
I remember when Walter Cronkite started showing footage of American body bags being unloaded upon return from Vietnam. I remember how soon after the public got to read the casualty figures daily as they rolled across the screen the Vietnam war became very unpopular and was soon ended. If this trend keeps up, the honest coverage, the thoughtful reporting and cogent editorializing on the effects of drug prohibition we could soon see the end of America’s longest war as well.
