Drug War Chronicle, Issue #513 -- 12/7/07
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"
Students: Intern at DRCNet to help stop the drug war!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/drcnet_intern****ps_to_stop_the_drug_war
Table of Contents:
1. FEATURE: THE 2007 INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY REFORM CONFERENCE
-- MR. COSTA MEETS THE OPPOSITION
The 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference opened with
a bang Thursday in New Orleans as the United Nation's top drug
fighter addressed a skeptical and sometimes hostile audience.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/2007_international_drug_policy_reform_conference_costa_unodc
2. FEATURE: THE BIBLE, A BLACK BAG, AND A DRUG DOG -- A FLORIDA
DRUG WAR STORY
In the latest installment of the Chronicle's occasional series
on the day-to-day workings of the drug war, we go to Florida,
where a drug interdiction exercise disguised as a traffic
enforcement effort, some sheriff's radio shenanigans, a
suspicious Bible, and a drug dog left one Key West man wondering
what hit him.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/florida_baranoff_bible_drug_dog
3. PRESS ADVISORY: NINETY-NINE PERCENT SAY THEY WOULDN'T USE
HARD DRUGS IF LEGALIZED, ACCORDING TO ZOGBY POLL
The results of a new poll -- commissioned by DRCNet -- suggests
that prohibition of "hard" drugs may not reduce their use.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/hard_drug_legalization_zogby_poll
4. STUDENTS: INTERN AT DRCNET AND HELP STOP THE DRUG WAR!
Apply for an intern****p at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and
you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/drcnet_intern****ps_to_stop_the_drug_war
5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
Troopers telling lies, troopers selling cocaine, cops peddling
coke, Border Patrols agents peddling pot, cops peddling cocaine
and pot, but not a single jail or prison guard this week!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/police_drug_corruption
6. SENTENCING: RACIAL DISPARITIES IN DRUG SENTENCES THE NORM IN
THE NATION'S MOST POPULOUS COUNTIES, STUDY FINDS
A re****t released this week by the Justice Policy Institute
finds that racially disparate sentencing is the norm in the
nation's most populous counties.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/justice_policy_institute_re****t_vortex_racially_disparate_sentencing_counties
7. LATIN AMERICA: MEXICO'S PRESIDENT SAYS FIGHTING DRUGS, CRIME
HIS HIGHEST PRIORITY
One year after he took office, Mexican President Felipe Calderon
says the war on drugs remains his highest priority. Some 24,000
troops are in the field, but the traffic and the violence appear
to continue unabated.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/mexico_calderon_drug_war_highest_priority
8. EUROPE: BRITISH DRUG COUNCIL CALLS FOR HEROIN, COCAINE
PRESCRIBING BY NURSES, PHARMACISTS, CHIDES GOVERNMENT'S DRUG
STRATEGY CONSULTATION
As Britain's Labor government prepares to announce a new
long-term drug strategy in the spring, the battle is heating up.
Now, the government's own Advisory Council on the Misuse of
Drugs is calling for nurses and pharmacists to be able to
prescribe heroin and cocaine, and chiding the government for
making a joke of consultations around the new strategy.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/britain_advisory_council_misuse_drugs_cocaine_heroin_prescribe_criticize_consultation
9. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/drug_war_history
10. 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/513/do_you_read_drug_war_chronicle
11. RESOURCE: DRCNET WEB SITE OFFERS WIDE ARRAY OF RSS FEEDS FOR
YOUR READER
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War
Chronicle and more -- is now available.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available
12. WEBMASTERS: HELP THE MOVEMENT BY RUNNING DRCNET SYNDICATION
FEEDS ON 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/513/drug_policy_content_syndication_feeds_now_available
13. RESOURCE: REFORMER'S CALENDAR ACCESSIBLE THROUGH DRCNET WEB
SITE
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/513/drug_reform_calendar
(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org
to sign up
today!)
================
1. Feature: The 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference
-- Mr. Costa Meets the Opposition
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/513/2007_international_drug_policy_reform_conference_costa_unodc
The 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference
(http://www.drugpolicy.org/conference)
in New Orleans kicked off
with a bang Thursday as Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime (http://www.unodc.org),
told a
boisterous and sometimes combative audience of drug reformers
that while a drug-free world is probably not attainable, it is
almost certainly desirable, and that he would continue to work
toward that goal.
Costa, who as head of the UNODC is the leading cheerleader for
the global drug prohibition regime and chief chider of
governments UNODC believes are not making sufficient efforts in
the war on drugs, is the highest placed drug war figure to ever
address a drug reform conference. But while his attendance could
mark the beginning of a broader dialog on global drug policy, at
various points Thursday it seemed more like a dialog of the
deaf.
His remarks came on the opening morning of the three-day
conference hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance
(http://www.drugpolicy.org),
and co-hosted by Marijuana Policy
Project (http://www.mpp.org),
Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition (http://www.leap.cc),
the American Civil Liberties
Union (http://www.aclu.org),
the Harm Reduction Coalition
(http;//www.harmreduction.org), and the Criminal Justice Policy
Foundation (http://www.cjpf.org).
With more than a thousand
attendees, the joint 2007 conference is the largest drug reform
conference ever.
"A drug-free world is not a slogan I use," Costa told the
opening morning crowd. "It is an aspiration, not an operational
target, much as one aspires to eliminate poverty or hunger or
disease."
While Costa flatly rejected drug legalization, he also suggested
that drug law enforcement was not the ultimate "solution" to
drug use and the drug trade. Even if all the drugs produced
around the world this year could be eradicated, he said, they
would be planted again next year -- and if farmers in Colombia
or Afghanistan didn't want to plant them, farmers somewhere else
would. "While law enforcement is necessary, it is not
sufficient," he told the crowd.
The answer, Costa argued, is not on the supply side but the
demand side. "Lowering demand is the necessary condition to make
drug policy realistic and sustainable," he said, adding that
that could be achieved by "prevention, harm reduction, and
treatment, combined with comprehensive health programs."
Then the top global anti-drug bureaucrat took on the topic of
legalization. "Some people say drug use is a personal choice and
nobody else's business," he said, as the room erupted with
sustained applause. The room quickly quieted, however, as Costa
continued: "I have some problems with this. First, this is a
health issue. Drug abuse is a disease affecting the brain,
triggered by individual vulnerability," he suggested, as
scattered hissing and booing broke out.
"Drugs are not dangerous because they are illegal, they are
illegal because they are dangerous," Costa bravely soldiered on,
only to be met with a crescendo of boos.
Costa also addressed the argument that drug prohibition creates
violence, if only obliquely. "You say prohibition creates
violence and crime by creating a lucrative black market, so
legalize drugs to defeat organized crime. I agree with you, but
this is not only an economic argument," he maintained.
"Legalization will increase the damage done to individuals and
society."
For Costa, there are no drug users, only "addicts" who need
help. "Why do we have these ideological debates about drug
addiction?" he complained. "People aren't divided about treating
tuberculosis or AIDS."
Careful to repeatedly mention that he sup****ted harm reduction
as well as prevention and treatment, Costa called on the
audience to join him as an "extremist of the center" in an
effort to destroy demand for drugs. "We all want to help the
farmers and the drug addicts and reduce the crime and violence,"
he said. "Let us build on this common ground to build a safer
and healthier world."
Costa's positions did not go unchallenged. Immediately following
him at the podium was Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, Director of the
International Harm Reduction Development program at the Open
Society Institute, who went through a litany of repression of
drug users: ranging from Russia, where police often block them
from gaining access to health care; to China, where police wait
outside needle exchanges and arrest people on the way out; to
Thailand, where authorities killed thousands of suspected drug
users in 2003; to India, where throwing users in cages p***** as
drug treatment; and Kazakhstan, where female users are subjected
to body searches and forced to engage in *** acts to get their
seized drugs back.
"When you look at the UNODC re****t on drug treatment in India,"
she noted, "those people in the cages are going to be counted.
There are no standards for what is drug treatment; the numbers
are self-re****ted."
Costa took even more flak at a lunchtime question and answer
session immediately following the presentation. As attendees
eager to see the exchange packed the room past capacity, a
cavalcade of drug policy reformers and scholars took aim at the
UNODC head and his arguments.
"This is a healthy opening," said UC Santa Cruz sociologist
Craig Reinarman, who praised Costa for his fortitude in coming
to the conference and his charm in making his case. "If you're
wrong on most of the arguments, it helps if you're charming."
Reinarman challenged Costa on his prescription to deal with drug
users by subjecting them to drug treatment. "We agree on making
treatment available to all who want it, but the vast majority of
people who use illicit drugs do not become addicts who need
treatment. The idea that you will treat people who don't have a
disease flies in the face of everything I know about medicine,"
Reinarman said.
He also attacked Costa's claim that reducing supply would reduce
demand and the problems attendant with drug use. "The
availability of drugs is not correlated with drug problems," he
said, citing the case of the Netherlands. "It is surrounded by
countries with far more restrictive prohibitionist policies that
also have higher figures for use, addiction, overdose deaths,
and the like. The notion that there is a correlation between
repressive drug policies and use levels is just not borne out by
the facts."
Costa did not respond directly to Reinarman, instead diverting
the observation by claiming that the Netherlands had "poisoned
Europe" with amphetamines produced there, probably an even less
apt reference to Dutch production of ecstasy, which in UN-speak
is an "amphetamine-type stimulant."
Wealthy San Francisco libertarian John Gilmore reproved Costa
for talking treatment while continuing to endorse repression of
drug use. "We don't prosecute diabetics," he noted. Costa did
not respond.
"Most of what you said flew in the face of reality," chided Pat
O'Hare, executive director of the International Harm Reduction
Association (http://www.ihra.net),
who took special umbrage at
Costa's repeated call for tackling the problem through reducing
demand. "We don't know how to reduce demand," he said bluntly.
"I want regulation; right now, we have almost no control. I'm
prepared to accept slightly more drug use, but a load less
harm."
Again, Costa failed to respond directly, although he grew
increasingly testy. In response to a query about medical
marijuana, he almost sneered: "I don't believe in buying
joints," he said. "You don't need to lick mold to get
penicillin," he said, eliciting groans and jeers from the crowd.
To charges that the global prohibition regime he cheerleads is
financing terrorism and political violence around the globe,
Costa agreed that indeed groups like the FARC in Colombia and
the Taliban in Afghanistan were profiting from the black market
drug trade. "The best response is to quit buying that stuff,"
was the solution he proffered, a response that brought laughter
and jeers.
And with that, the UN's head drug-fighter was gone, off to catch
a plane for New York as the conference attendees collectively
took a deep breath and scratched their heads. Whether Costa was
persuaded to see the errors of his ways remains to be seen, and,
given his performance Thursday, that seems most unlikely. But
the fact that the top global drug-fighter felt it necessary to
enter the lion's den and take on the pride suggests that the
movement is making progress. As that old agitator Mahatma Gandhi
once said, "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then
they fight you, then you win."
[Editor's Note: The New Orleans conference continues through
Saturday. Look for more re****ts in the Chronicle next week and
some blog posts in the meantime.]
Visit http://www.drugwarrant.com
for extensive blogging from the
conference, and check back at http://stopthedrugwar.org
too.
================
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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