Another 4/20, Come and Gone

[stefanb]

Another 4/20, Come and Gone (http://stefanbanda.blogspot.com/2009/04/another-420-come-and-gone.html)
by Stefan Banda

Prohibition.

I'd like to believe the debate just ended, and that I've already won it after typing just that one word. Its mere utterance must lead one to inquire, if only silently, on the exact successes achieved by the aforementioned policy blunder. What was the great success of prohibition? Well, quite simply, it succeeded at taking an absurdly profitable industry and transferring that entire section of the economy into the hands of untaxed criminals. No, we don't want any part of this sinful market. We insist you take all the profits, Mr. Capone. We will happily pay for the societal problems created by your products, but we refuse any piece of the profit it might generate -- on "moral" grounds, of course.

Surely one would like to believe that we have learned a thing or two since then.

I would like to say that I have the patience to write the same old tired argument for marijuana law reform that you have already seen a thousand times. You know the one where they say, “it’s just a plant”, and “it’s natural”, and “it’s not possible to overdose”, and then they site a few statistics showing how alcohol is clearly, and I mean CLEARLY more dangerous, more widely abused, and more addictive. They mention the several medicinal benefits of marijuana, then close by out saying how profitable it could be for the government to simply legalize and tax it. Really now, I’m playing the world’s tiniest violin for them. This argument is so well established at this point that the people who don’t get it yet, probably never will. Repeating ourselves ad nauseam has got to be less affective than simply calling for the legalization of everything. Why not?

Pop quiz: What's the single biggest difference between heroin and OxyContin? OxyContin has "Purdue Pharma" written on the container it comes in, while heroin most typically comes in a knotted-up balloon. Aside from that, they're both a derivative of the opium poppy, highly addictive, with multiple negative side effects. They both have substantial withdrawal symptoms, and both are produced and sold by people completely lacking a properly functioning moral compass. It's called 'hillbilly heroin' for good reason. A 2003 study by the Government Accountability Office, had the following to say about OxyContin use in the United States (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04110.pdf) [1]:


* Oxycodone is "twice as potent as morphine," and OxyContin contains a large amount of oxycodone compared with other types of oxycodone-containing pills.

* OxyContin's warning label said to not crush the controlled-release tablets because of the potential for rapid release of oxycodone, which led to many people crushing the tablets and injecting or snorting the drug.

* By 2001, sales of OxyContin in the U.S. exceeded $1 billion per year, which made it widely available.


Not convinced yet? Google the words "Crime Pharmacy OxyContin" (http://www.google.com/search?q=Crime+Pharmacy+OxyContin), and tell me if what you find looks like people trying to fill an honest pain prescription, or if it sounds a bit more like junkies in desperate need of their fix. Don't bend over too far backwards to insult your own intelligence in the process. That aside, could you really blame them? Just take a quick look at what they're hooked on (http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/oxycodone.asp), according to the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland:

"When used illicitly, the chances of becoming addicted to {Oxycodone} increase exponentially. Oxycodone, for example, has many similarities to other drugs of abuse including alcohol, heroin, and marijuana, in that they elevate levels of dopamine, the neurotransmitter linked with pleasure experiences. As a result, prolonged use and abuse of oxycodone medications eventually change the brain in such a way that a user cannot quit on his or her own, a typical sign of addiction. The opportunity for experiencing withdrawal symptoms when using prescription opioids (e.g., oxycodone) is extremely high, especially when the user stops suddenly. Withdrawal symptoms may be severe and can include anxiety, nausea, insomnia, muscle pain, fevers, and other flu like symptoms." [2]

One is inclined to ask how, if our policy is to make illegal any substances that are inherently harmful to us, did marijuana plants even make the short-list in a society that legally produces and markets OxyContin from opium poppies? An extraterrestrial observing us from a far away planet would certainly be utterly perplexed by this stupidity. This is to say little of the numerous over-the-counter pseudoephedrine-based decongestant products that have been chemically transformed into Crystal Meth over the years. On the subject of methamphetamine abuse, for those of my readers seeking a pattern here, it's also worth noting that since the pseudoephedrine has been removed from most of these over-the-counter products, the production of Crystal Meth hasn't ceased, rather the required pseudoephedrine is merely being acquired from other sources (http://www.google.com/search?q=pseudoephedrine+bust), while those people who previously benefitted from the medicinal effects of products such as Pseudofed and NyQuil are now left with worthlessly ineffective placebos. The over-all supply of Crystal Meth, however, has been largely unaffected.

For all the romanticizing we do of characters such as Al Capone, there is really nothing special about him. Every nasty vice that we criminalize will inevitably result in a profit-seeking entrepreneur to produce it covertly, and sell it through entirely disposable and easily replaceable intermediaries. We spend quite literally billions of dollars prosecuting and incarcerating these intermediaries, while the real producers often go unmolested. Of course with heroin that entrepreneur is -- by a far and away majority -- the Taliban of Afghanistan. They use the profits of said enterprise (to say nothing more of their support for people flying planes into New York skyscrapers) to further their agenda of imposing Islamic law across swaths of the middle east (http://www.slate.com/id/2213246/), while brutally destroying what can already only laughably be called "women’s rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali)" in those same parts of the world; In particular, the right to an education. Google the words "acid attack schoolgirls" (http://www.google.com/search?q=acid+attack+schoolgirls), and see what you can learn in just a few minutes of do-it-yourself research. Better yet, skip Google, and just type the words into YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=acid+attack+schoolgirls) for full effect. You might as well see the face of what we're funding. Assuming you are not already familiar with this issue, I can only hope the three search words alone are giving you a dismal and sinking feeling of what you are in store for. We could buy the opium poppies ourselves (http://www.slate.com/id/2201622/) [3] (presumably to make more OxyContin; a policy of clearly diminishing returns), but instead we tell the Taliban to just go ahead and keep all the profits of this drug economy for themselves. All we're willing to accept of this economy are the problems created, not the profits generated.

Given the fact that the CIA is one of the most prolific cocaine importers in U.S. history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_Contras_cocaine_trafficking_in_the_US) [4], I don't think further argument is required on said drug. Any government that covertly imports a banned substance while publicly prosecuting the citizens purchasing it is beyond a label even as friendly as "savagely ridiculous hypocrite".

The moment of truth in all this will occur when we finally collectively realize that the government has neither the resources, nor the competence, nor the responsibility, nor the sovereignty over individual human beings to prevent them from abusing substances. This moment of truth may still be a long time coming if recent statements from President Barack Obama are any indication. On March 26th, Obama responded to the marijuana legalization question (http://www.joblo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128823) by saying, "I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high, and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation, and I don't know what this says about the online audience. This was a fairly popular question. We want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."

This debate isn't about economic growth, nor should it be. It is about individual liberty, so I would be interested to hear what he has to say on the subject within the proper context. From his own book titled, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Obama writes of his high school years, "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it."

When questioned about the passage during his senate campaign, Obama said he admitted using drugs because he thought it was important for "young people who are already in circumstances that are far more difficult than mine to know that you can make mistakes and still recover." He continued on to say, "I think that, at this stage, my life is an open book, literally and figuratively, and voters can make a judgment as to whether dumb things that I did when I was a teenager are relevant to the work that I've done since that time."

Well... As Carly Simon might have put it, this song isn’t about you.

If this song were about him, then just how disgusting would it be to listen to someone talk about recovering from their past mistakes, when they were never charged with any crime, or punished for these mistakes in any way, and to then have this same person tell us that it is a good idea to keep charging other people with felony criminal offences for doing the same dumb things that he got away with before ascending to the Presidency? I believe it’s the very definition of the word ‘hypocrite’.

I digress. This song really isn’t about him. This song is about the 15.9 million Americans using illicit drugs (http://www.policyalmanac.org/crime/archive/drug_abuse.shtml) [5], who haven't been elected President. This song is about their rights. This song is about the 189,065 students who were rejected financial aid (http://www.nacdl.org/sl_docs.nsf/issues/druglawreform005) during the first five years since the federal government added a drug conviction question to the application form in 2000-01 [6]. So much for trying to recover from past mistakes... Here's a roadblock or two, stupid felon. This song is about the child molester being paroled early in order to make room in an over-crowded state prison system holding 21% of its population for drug convictions (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm) [7]. This song is about the millions of Americans who have lost their right to vote due to a felony (http://www.aclu.org/votingrights/exoffenders/index.html) drug conviction, and now face a lifetime of taxation without representation: a disenfranchisement preventing them from ever having a voice against the government that both taxes and prosecutes them. This song is about the taxpayers spending billions of dollars on incarceration efforts, which could be better used for rehabilitation programs. This song is about the young schoolgirl in Afghanistan permanently blinded by acid (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=acid+attack+schoolgirls) because of a fascist religious movement funded by opium dollars. This song is about freedom: A freedom we're not going to have any time soon because of attitudes like those currently coming from Barack Obama.

Best Regards,
Stefan Banda


Footnotes:

[1] "OxyContin Abuse and Diversion and Efforts to Address the Problem"
United States General Accounting Office
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04110.pdf

[2] "Oxycodone".
Center for Substance Abuse Research.
http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/oxycodone.asp

[3] "How To Win Afghanistan's Opium War"
Christopher Hitchens, Slate.com
http://www.slate.com/id/2201622/

[4] CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US
wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_Contras_cocaine_trafficking_in_the_US

[5] Drug Abuse in America: 2001
Almanac of Policy Issues
http://www.policyalmanac.org/crime/archive/drug_abuse.shtml

[6] Drug Convictions Costing Students their Financial Aid
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
http://www.nacdl.org/sl_docs.nsf/issues/druglawreform005

[7] Criminal Offenders StatisticsU.S. Department of Justice - Office of Justice Programs - Bureau of Justice Statistics
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm

[countchocula]

Great article. That's all I have to say.

[Jamesadin]

You're from Regina? I'M FROM REGINA! Cool!

Well put together essay, as well.

[stefanb]

Great article. That's all I have to say.
Thanks

You're from Regina? I'M FROM REGINA! Cool!
Well, clearly we need to smoke some good smoke some time. ;)

[someguy]

Jeez stefanb, what made you come back here? Or have you been posting all this time and I just haven't noticed.

[stefanb]

Nah, I don't really do much participating in internet forums anywhere anymore... It's good for my blood pressure. :rolleyes: But, I wrote this (http://stefanbanda.blogspot.com/2009/04/another-420-come-and-gone.html) and thought about here as a good place to have like-minded read it, so logged back in (couldn't remember my password after three years), and... well, here I am. :cool: SUPER SCHMOE!!!!

[QUENTIN]

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html?xid=rss-topstories)
By Maia Szalavitz

Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)

Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.

The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.

"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.

But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.

At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it's based on "speculation and fear mongering," rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country's number one public health problem, he says.

"The impact in the life of families and our society is much lower than it was before decriminalization," says Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, Portugual's "drug czar" and president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, adding that police are now able to re-focus on tracking much higher level dealers and larger quantities of drugs.

Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.

The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."


And the Report for the Cato Institute by Glenn Greenwald itself: http://cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080 (download the pdf)

There are simply zero benefits to drug criminalization, and a laundry list of serious detriments. It's unsustainably expensive, itself legally unjustified and antithetical to individual liberty, it does not prevent drug use or related crime, and it makes powerful millionaires out of violent thugs. Decriminalization has none of the negative effects that opponents claim it will. There's really little room for debate on the issue, a clear analysis of the facts leads to only one reasonable conclusion.

[stefanb]

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

This smells like a statistical bait-n-switch to me. The author clearly wants to cite a statistic that effectively says "since legalization, drug use has dropped." I'm guessing the numbers weren't benefitial to the argument being presented, so rather than be able to write something like "Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of marijuana use in the E.U."; Instead the line reads, "Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U."

Well, did drug useage drop, or didn't it? Why is the author citing statistics other than year-over-year useage numbers?

Bigger point:

I don't care. It's my right to snort Drāno if I see fit. Offering therapy is wonderful, but this is really just a simple question of personal sovereignty. I can fully understand why we lock people in a jail cell for assaulting others. What I can't seem to drag my mind into understanding is why we should jail people for assaulting themselves. Didn't these people see Fight Club?

On the question of therapy, it reminds me of something I heard author Christopher Hitchens say about an old English playwrite named George Bernard Shaw. In the early 1900's Shaw had suggested no more houses be built for the English working class without a installing a bath. His opponents said the poor were were so stupid they wouldn't know what to do with a bath, and would likely store coal in it, to which Shaw replied, "I don't want them to have a bath for their sake. I want them to have a bath for my sake." Anyone who gets that, understands the reasons to offer drug therapy to those in need.


Just because I noticed your signature... A tip of the hat to Kurt...

"I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer, I can't help but thinking that...and this engineer knows just what he or she is doing and where evolution is headed...and that's why we've got giraffes, hippopotami, and the clap." -- Kurt Vonnegut