followups set to talk.politics.drugs
I included the editorial because it follow my own thesis that no
matter how bad using a drug is, legal prohibition makes it worse.
Drug War Chronicle, Issue #492 -- 6/29/07
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"
Appeal: A Victory is In the Works, With Your Help:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/hea_victory_is_in_the_works
Table of Contents:
1. EDITORIAL: TWO GOOD REASONS TO WANT TO LEGALIZE DRUGS
The relative harmlessness of drugs like marijuana is a good
reason to want to legalize them. But the harmfulness of other
drugs is a reason to want to legalize them too.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/two_good_reasons_to_want_to_legalize_drugs
2. FEATURE: UN RELEASES ANNUAL DRUG RE****T, COUNTRIES MARK
INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST DRUGS WITH BONFIRES, PROPAGANDA
EXERCISES, DEATH SENTENCES
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Tuesday released its
annual world drug re****t and marked the International Day
Against Drugs and Illicit Trafficking. Both actions are drawing
criticism.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/united_nations_anti_drug_day_re****t_death_sentence_human_rights
3. FEATURE: SUPREME COURT USES "BONG HITS 4 JESUS" CASE TO LIMIT
STUDENTS' SPEECH RIGHTS
In the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, the Supreme Court has upheld
the right of schools to prohibit speech advocating illegal drug
use, but has also held the schools may not bar speech advocating
political positions.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/supreme_court_limits_student_free_speech_bong_hits_4_jesus
4. APPEAL: A VICTORY IS IN THE WORKS, WITH YOUR HELP
Our multi-year campaign to repeal an infamous law that denies
financial aid to students because of drug convictions may soon
ride to a successful conclusion.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/hea_victory_is_in_the_works
5. FEEDBACK: DO YOU READ DRUG WAR CHRONICLE?
Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we need your feedback to
evaluate our work and make the case for Drug War Chronicle to
funders. We need donations too.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/do_you_read_drug_war_chronicle
6. WEEKLY: BLOGGING @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
THE SPEAKEASY
Are Justices Stevens, Souter, & Ginsburg drug policy reform
sympathizers? Is it okay to out prohibitionist politicians for
past pot use? Do firefighters get stoned when a stashhouse burns
down?" China again celebrates International Anti-Drugs Day -- by
killing people, The End Racial Profiling Act is coming back, and
a DEA official claims that "marijuana will kill you." All that
and more in the Speakeasy...
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/blogging_at_the_speakeasy_every_day
7. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
Busy, busy. A Virginia police chief gets caught selling speed, a
New Jersey State Trooper gets arrested for stealing and
re-selling seized drugs, a New Jersey prison guard gets nailed
trying to smuggle prescription drugs into the prison, a former
Schenectady narc pleads guilty to ripping off cocaine from the
evidence locker, a former Border Patrol agent is going to prison
for stealing a bale of pot he was supposed to be guarding, and a
corrupt Milwaukee cop wants back pay.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/police_drug_corruption
8. INCARCERATION: JAIL AND PRISON POPULATION AT ALL-TIME HIGH
(AGAIN) -- LAST YEAR SAW BIGGEST INCREASE SINCE 2000
The number of people behind bars reached another all-time high
last year and it increased at the fastest rate since 2000. Drug
prohibition contributes mightily.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/jail_prison_population_all_time_high_2006
9. MARIJUANA: NO MORE AUTOMATIC ARREST FOR POSSESSION IN TEXAS
As of September 1, police in Texas will have the option of
simply issuing a summons instead of arresting people caught with
up to a quarter-pound of marijuana. Texas marijuana laws remain
unchanged, but at least you might not go to jail.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/texas_marijuana_arrest_summons
10. LATIN AMERICA: HOUSE VOTES TO ****FT ANDEAN INITIATIVE
ANTI-DRUG FUNDING TO DEVELOPMENT
The US House of Representatives last Friday voted to cut
military anti-drug aid to Colombia and subject aerial spraying
of coca crops to more restrictions. Now the measure heads for
the Senate.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/house_vote_colombia_military_drug_aid_cut
11. LATIN AMERICA: MEXICO PURGES FEDERAL POLICE CHIEFS IN DRUG
CORRUPTION REVIEW
Mexico has purged its federal police chiefs in all 31 states and
the Federal District to ensure police are fighting the drug
traffic, not abetting it.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/mexico_purges_federal_police_chiefs_drug_corruption
12. EUROPE: SCOTTISH POLICE CHIEF SAYS TIME TO CONSIDER
PRESCRIBING HARD DRUGS
A leading Scottish police chief says it is time to consider
prescribing hard drugs to users in a bid to get a grip on
acquisitive crime. Perhaps the Scottish new prime minister of
Britain will lend an ear to the idea.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/scottish_police_chief_says_prescribe_class_a_drugs
13. WEB SCAN
UN World Drug Re****t, Neurology Now on MedMj, DrugTruth Network,
Charlie Rangel and the Second Chance Act, EU "Green Paper" on
civil society and drug policy, Vancouver demo.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/drug_policy_links
14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/drug_war_history
15. ANNOUNCEMENT: NOMINATIONS SOUGHT FOR BIANNUAL DRUG POLICY
AWARDS
Each conference of the Drug Policy Alliance (formerly the Drug
Policy Foundation) includes a bit of ceremony, with the
presentation of an annual round of awards. DPA is seeking
nominations for the next round, which will take place in New
Orleans this December.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/drug_policy_awards_nominations_sought
16. JOB OP****TUNITY: NETWORK AND SYSTEMS ENGINEER, MARIJUANA
POLICY PROJECT, DC
MPP is hiring a tech person for the DC office.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/mpp_network_systems_job
17. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET CONTENT SYNDICATION FEEDS NOW AVAILABLE
FOR YOUR WEB SITE!
Sup****t the cause by featuring automatically-updating Drug War
Chronicle and other DRCNet content links on your web site!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/drug_policy_content_syndication_feeds_now_available
18. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET RSS FEEDS NOW AVAILABLE
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War
Chronicle and more -- is now available.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available
19. ANNOUNCEMENT: NEW FORMAT FOR THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to
the events coming up the soonest, and more.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/drug_reform_calendar
(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org
to sign up
today!)
================
1. Editorial: Two Good Reasons to Want to Legalize Drugs
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/492/two_good_reasons_to_want_to_legalize_drugs
In a recent study published in the British medical journal "The
Lancet," faculty at the UK's Bristol University "proposed a new
framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on
the actual risks to society," according an Associated Press
article published Friday
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17760130/).
The study, led by Prof.
David Nutt, ranked the various commonly used drugs, and found
alcohol and tobacco to be among the top ten most dangerous --
ahead of marijuana and ecstasy, though behind cocaine and
heroin.
Nutt and his colleagues feel that Britain's current drug
classification, which divides them into three different
categories -- ostensibly based on their potential for harm -- is
"ill thought-out and arbitrary," he told the AP. "The exclusion
of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a
scientific perspective, arbitrary."
One might think such talk could fuel calls for alcohol or (more
likely) tobacco prohibition -- I hope not! That isn't
necessarily what they are looking for -- Nutt wants more
education, he said, and realism. "All drugs are dangerous, even
the ones people know and love and use every day."
Marijuana's relative lack of harmfulness is one good reason to
want to legalize it. Certainly it makes vividly clear the
bizarre senselessness of what we are doing here in the US, where
police make over 700,000 arrests for marijuana every year, about
2,000 per day.
For other drugs, paradoxically, their harmfulness is one of the
best reasons for wanting to legalize them. As my friends at Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition are fond of saying (and as their
bumper sticker that I have stuck to back of my car exclaims),
"drugs are too dangerous to leave in the hands of criminals."
Especially for people who are addicted to them -- what a
dangerous and tumultuous and destructive situation it must be to
be tied to the criminal underground for getting the fix that
you're just not ready yet to do without! A lot of people have
trouble with that idea; they see the harms and the miserable
condition of people who've gotten hooked on these drugs, and
they can't imagine that it would be a good idea to legalize
them.
An understandable reaction, but an illogical one. All of the
harms we see today related to cocaine and heroin and the like
are the harms that exist under the current system. At a minimum
the current system did not prevent them. The idea that more
people would get addicted to the drugs if they were legal is
mere speculation, and to me it seems doubtful -- I wouldn't use
heroin if it were legal, and only rarely has anyone who doesn't
use heroin now told me that he would. In the meanwhile, the
addict suffers severe financial debilitation from the high
street prices created by prohibition -- often is driven to
extreme measures to afford drugs that would cost pennies to
produce in a legal market -- and is at risk of overdose from
fluctuating purity or poisoning from adulteration. We are
literally driving addicts to their deaths, who might survive,
eventually maybe even recover, if we would simply allow them to
acquire their drugs from a safe and affordable source.
A conversation I had at a social function a few years ago
illustrates the confusion. The person I was speaking with had
very decent views on the issue -- he was all for legalization of
marijuana, he hated mandatory minimum sentencing, he was all for
helping people with programs like needle exchange and so forth
-- but he couldn't imagine legalizing heroin or cocaine.
An example he provided to me, from his personal experience, was
one that illustrates my point about the fallacy of the line of
reasoning. He told me about a wedding he had recently attended,
at which the groom had gotten wired on cocaine and was acting
out from it. It was a very uncomfortable situation for
everybody, and the fact that this guy couldn't stay off of the
stuff on his wedding day, in front of everybody, really said
something negative to him about it. It certainly sounded like a
bad scene to me.
But are there any ways it could have turned out worse? One way
that it could have turned out worse is that the groom could have
gotten a bad batch of the stuff, and instead of making people
uncomfortable with his behavior, simply dropped dead. Such a
tragic outcome would clearly have been worse than the merely
uncomfortable and unpleasant one that transpired, and deaths
from that very cause take place thousands of times per year in
the US alone.
And that is prohibition at work. If users were getting their
substances from licensed manufacturers and outlets who have a
strong incentive to secure their reputations and stay on the
right side of the law, it would almost never happen -- some
people would still overdo it and harm themselves in that way,
but only rarely from getting something other than what they
thought they were getting.
So again, I find my conversation partner's reaction to the
situation he witnessed to be understandable. But it is not well
thought out. Just because a drug is dangerous doesn't
automatically mean that banning it is a good response, and
making such an assumption takes a pretty big leap of logic. The
danger of a drug only raises the question of how to best respond
to it, but does not answer that question.
The Bristol study is a positive contribution to the debate.
Implementation of its recommendations would undoubtedly improve
policies, assuming the implementation did not include any new
prohibitions. But the harmfulness of a drug is only the
beginning of the discussion, not the ending. Ultimately it is
the consequences of prohibition -- and they are terrible --
which point to where governments need to go in drug policy. And
that is to prohibition's ending.
================
The following material is included for the more uninformed lurkers
and prohibitionists. Nearly all of it is from U.S.A. government sources.
** Begin copied material from Usenet **
Marijuana: it's nowhere near as scary as they want
you to think. truth: the Anti-drugwar
<http://www.briancbennett.com>
Nothing will ever change if we don't stand up for
ourselves:
http://cannabisconsumers.org
"Cops say legalize drugs" ask them why:
<http://www.leap.cc>
...America just celebrated 90 years of Federal drug "control"
(the Harrision Narcotics Act was passed on December 17, 1914) --
when do you suppose this prohibition stuff will start to "work"?
Brian Bennett, Thursday 17 December 2004
** End copied material from Usenet **
later
bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)
--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco
"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.
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