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.
SCOTUS drives big nail in the coffin
Following on the heels of numerous recent scandals in police crime labs in Houston, Baltimore, Chicago, and New York, (to name just a few), and even in the renowned FBI lab, the Supreme Court rendered a landmark 5-4 decision that may be a crippling blow to the war on drugs.
In the past few years case after case has shown that, not only are lab tests previously thought to be highly accurate in fact, only moderately accurate, but that labs regularly didn’t even bother to perform tests but simply falsified the lab reports. Up until now such reports were simply entered into evidence and there was no way for a defense attorney to question them. If the police crime lab said the substance was cocaine then it was. If the defendant claimed it was baby powder then he was assumed to be lying. Who knows how many people are sitting behind bars because of false lab reports? DNA tests, ballistic tests, drug tests, all have been found to be erroneous again and again all over the country.
The Supreme Court’s decision requires lab technicians to testify, under oath, in court if called to do so in a trial. They would have to present their conclusions and explain in detail how they were arrived at. The defense could have their experts review the results of police lab tests and dispute them if they felt they were inaccurate.
Yes, this will slow things up considerably. Lab staff will be spending more time in court which means less time in the lab. Less lab hours will translate to the need to hire more technicians with the concomitant higher costs. No doubt some guilty people will go free because of errors in lab work or procedure. On the other hand, fewer innocent people will do time for crimes they didn’t commit.
The criminal justice system will move closer to its mission of delivering justice because of this SCOTUS decision in many ways. One way will be to change dramatically the procedures in a drug arrest. Evidence will have to be meticulously tracked and tests will have to be conducted perfectly and thoroughly documented. How will this affect drug arrests? Here’s one way the decision is already showing to have an effect… Recently Massachusetts changed its law to require a $100. fine for possession of a small amount of marijuana. If they don’t pay the fine police are just ignoring it. An arrest is pointless as you would need to prove in court the offender actually had marijuana. That would mean the DA would have to bring in the technician to testify and the costs would far exceed the penalty. The result? Massachusetts cops are just ignoring most small time pot violations. Isn’t that what legislators should have done in the first place?
This could prove to be a big nail in the coffin of prohibition.
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.
Rhode Island- Leader of the Pack?
Will tiny Rhode Island be ahead of the pack when it comes to ending drug prohibition? A couple of weeks ago the state legislature passed a medical marijuana bill… good news but not, in my opinion, a real big step toward justice in America. The governor vetoed the bill and the legislature promptly voted to override his veto so the legislation stands. They didn’t back down in the face of the governors cliched arguments about saving the children. Good job. Now Rhode Island Senate has taken a major step further.
Last week they approved a resolution to create a commission to“study a swath of issues surrounding marijuana,” including… “The experience of individuals and families sentenced for violating marijuana
laws…The experience of states and European countries, such as California, Massachusetts and the Netherlands, which have decriminalized the sale and use of marijuana… Whether and to what extent Rhode Island youth have access to marijuana despite current laws prohibiting its use…Whether
adults’ use of marijuana has decreased since marijuana became illegal in Rhode Island in 1918…Whether the current system of marijuana prohibition has created violence in the state of Rhode Island against users or among those who sell marijuana…Whether the proceeds from the sales of marijuana
are funding organized crime, including drug cartels…Whether those who sell marijuana on the criminal market may also sell other drugs, thus increasing the chances that youth will use other illegal substances.”
To those of us familiar with the topic the answers are to these questions are clear. Once this commission is created, does its homework, and reports its conclusions it could mean Rhode Island would become the first state to seriously challenge federal drug prohibition.
