When the Majority Says Marijuana Should Not Be a Crime the Law Loses Its Legitimacy. It is hard to imagine that Eric Holder's letter threatening to "vigorously enforce" federal law if California votes for legalization of marijuana is serious. It seems timed to manipulate voters in California, but in this year when political elites are hated it is likely to backfire and lead Californians to vote to end the failed marijuana war. During one of the greatest failed experiments in American history, alcohol prohibition, a turning point was when New York told the federal government it would no longer enforce laws against alcohol. That left it to the federal government to enforce the law. Already "the feds" as they were derogatorily known were hated in rural areas where alcohol was often produced and the feds came in and disrupted their commerce. Then, the biggest urban area refused to enforce the law. The result, alcohol prohibition ended a few years later. [continues 682 words]
WHEN Will Our Dumb Marijuana Prohibition Be Overturned? Criminal Laws Are Not an Effective Way to Control Marijuana; Removing Criminal Penalties Does Not Lead to Increased Use; Decriminalization Creates Savings in Law Enforcement. The great divide between politicians and the people is showing itself in California where polls show the voters support Proposition 19 and where the mainstream politicians mostly oppose it. To many Americans, there are few policies more bankrupt than the prohibition on marijuana use, a recognition that a blue-ribbon panel reached four decades ago, urging an emphasis on drug education rather than incarceration. [continues 966 words]
Since the founding of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973, 15 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana. That is more people than live in California's 25 largest cities millions more than live in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Illinois. The DEA has led an aggressive national law enforcement effort that results in a marijuana arrest every 38 seconds, propelling the U.S. to become the biggest incarcerator on the planet, housing one out of four of the world's prisoners. [continues 696 words]
Since the recent death of economist Milton Friedman, I've been thinking about the times that my life crossed paths with his. I've got a photograph on my bookshelf of me with him at the conference of the Drug Policy Foundation in 1991. In that year we gave him our most prestigious award, a lifetime achievement award named in honor of noted philanthropist and Chicago commodities trader, Richard Dennis. When we gave Dr. Friedman the award it was controversial. Many in the reform movement are liberal Democrats who are offended by Friedman's view that "the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem." But, no doubt all in the drug policy reform movement would agree with that statement when it is applied to the government's never-ending war on drugs. [continues 710 words]
Since the death last week of Milton Friedman I've been thinking about the times that my life crossed paths with his. I've got a photograph on my bookshelf of me with him at the conference of the Drug Policy Foundation in 1991. In that year we gave him our most prestigious award, a lifetime achievement award named in honor of noted philanthropist and Chicago commodities trader, Richard Dennis. When we gave Dr. Friedman the award it was controversial. Many in the reform movement are liberal Democrats who are offended by Friedman's view that "the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem." But, no doubt all in the drug policy reform movement would agree with that statement when it is applied to the government's never-ending war on drugs. As Friedman correctly said: "Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal." [continues 771 words]
Bravo for the amazing accomplishment of creating a news archive of 100,000 articles. It is a great achievement that shows how much can be done when people are organized for a common goal. While the leadership of MAP/DrugSense deserves a lot of credit for developing this project, I realize that this could not have been done without the volunteer work of scores of activists. As anyone who has heard me speak knows, I always highlight the work of MAP/DrugSense. While the news archive achieving the 100,000 article mark is the highlight of today -- and important not only to reform activists but to reporters, producers and policy makers -- the reality is the archive is only one of the important services you provide the reform movement. The other projects of MAP/DrugSense that I appreciate include: [continues 270 words]
The disappointing verdict in the Ed Rosenthal case may end up doing more to ignite California voters than a hung jury would have done. Now, the media is reporting that jurors were not told all the truth, a majority of jurors are saying they felt used and that if they had known the whole truth they would have voted acquittal. One juror has described this as the greatest mistake of her life - one she will never forget. Throughout US history unjust verdicts have led to dramatic change. Indeed, the birth of the United States was sparked by a verdict in favor of the crown in Paxton's case challenging the warrantless searches by the King's soldiers of colonial homes and businesses. John Adams, who later became a leader in the revolution and the second president of the United States, was a young court reporter and at the time of the verdict he wrote, "Then and there, the child Independence was borne." [continues 656 words]
WASHINGTON--A friend recently remarked to me, "Alcohol is the original date-rape drug." That's very sadly true. And it's why I found it hypocritical that the national drug czar's new ad equating marijuana use with teen pregnancy should debut during the Super Bowl, in which beer and sex were the dominant advertising themes. Teen drinking is the bigger problem, both in sheer numbers as well as health risks, yet the federal agency overseeing drug-control policy ignores it. An anti teen-drinking commercial would have been a powerful counterpoint during that game; the antipot ad came off as a clumsy attempt to maintain beer's market share. [continues 801 words]
"If George W. Bush is good enough for the White House, my brother is good enough for my house," proclaimed Nora Callahan of the November Coalition at the Journey for Justice demonstration at the White House on November 1, 2002. She was urging the release of her brother who is serving a 27-year drug offense sentence of which he has served 14 years. Approximately 50 demonstrators highlighted the racism and hypocrisy of the drug war by placing 20 cardboard cutouts in front of the White House. Four of the figurines were of Presidents Bush and Clinton, Vice President Gore and Speaker Gingrich - highlighting their past drug use. Six figurines described the stories of twelve children of politicians who got caught and received gentle treatment by the justice system. And, ten of the figurines were a life-sized bar graph of the prison population - six black, two brown and two white with facts and figures about the drug gulag. The dark colors of the real prison population contrasted with the all-white make-up of the elites who avoid the drug war treatment despite their drug use. Photos of the DC demonstration and others stops along the Journey for Justice are available at http://www.journeyforjustice.org/archive.html. [continues 851 words]
Editor: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial of Aug. 8 "DEA Takes Over the War on Drugs" correctly pointed out that despite massive rises in the federal drug budget to nearly $20 billion annually, and aggressive enforcement, we have not succeeded in preventing drug abuse. The facts show that cocaine and heroin are cheaper and more pure today than they were in 1980 resulting in record overdose deaths -- all that after spending a half a trillion dollars on the drug war since 1980. [continues 322 words]
A Flawed Drug Policy Marches On There's one thing you can say for the war on drugs: It's consistent. The effort is tinged with the same hypocrisy, dishonesty and propaganda that characterized President Richard Nixon's launch of it during the early Seventies. Earlier this year the National Archives released tapes Nixon made in the Oval Office during 1971 and 1972. Transcripts highlight the prejudice, ignorance and self-deception that precipitated a national tragedy. While the president appointed a commission that called for decriminalizing the possession and small-scale sale of marijuana, Nixon pushed for an "all-out war, on all fronts," against pot smokers. Within a year marijuana arrests had jumped threefold, to 420,700 from 100,000. And since then, more than 15 million people have been arrested in the U.S. for marijuana. [continues 620 words]
During the 1980s, in every election year, the U.S. government enacted new anti-drug laws. But in the 1990s, as the costs from the election-year drug-war pandering began to come due, we thankfully did not build on those mistakes. This year, the big drug fear is ecstasy (MDMA). The U.S. Senate seems to be rushing toward enacting an election-year anti-ecstasy bill. The bill is called the Reducing Americans Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act of 2002 (S2633) (the RAVE Act). [continues 1081 words]
On June 6, reform activists organized demonstrations in 60 cities at DEA offices across the United States to protest their continued prosecution of community-based marijuana dispensaries, growers and patients. The DEA continues its prosecution even though research proves medical marijuana is the most effective treatment available for many people with chronic pain and other serious illness. They ignore seven statewide referenda where the public voted overwhelmingly for medical marijuana. They ignore court decisions that demonstrate that marijuana should be available as a medicine. They've ignored efforts to negotiate to resolve the matter and ensure safe access for the seriously ill. Despite all the evidence and overwhelming public support, our democratic will is still being pushed aside by the Federal Government. [continues 1192 words]
Thirty years ago the United States came to a critical juncture in the drug war. A Nixon-appointed presidential commission had recommended that marijuana use not be a criminal offense under state or federal law. But Nixon himself, based on his zealous personal preferences, overruled the commission's research and doomed marijuana to its current illegal status. This newly revealed information comes from declassified tapes of Oval Office conversations from 1971 and 1972, which show Nixon's aggressive anti-drug stance putting him directly at odds against many of his close advisors. [continues 1140 words]
Can't Seek Out the Course of Justice Marney Craig is a middle-class white woman with a good job, fine family and clear sense of right and wrong. It was not surprising that she wound up on a jury in February judging Ed Rosenthal, a marijuana producer on trial in San Francisco federal court for growing over one thousand plants. She and her fellow jurors noticed from the outset that something was strange about this trial. Almost all of the defense witnesses were barred from testifying. The judge himself took over cross-examination of one of the two defense witnesses. And certain words seemed taboo - AIDS, medicine, physician. [continues 1363 words]
John Walters must be desperate to be so deceptive. Only a desperate man could keep a straight face while claiming that the prosecution and incarceration of drug offenders is not a cost of the drug war. Walters, the Bush administration's drug czar, recently announced that the nation's new drug war budget is not going to count the cost of prosecuting, sentencing or incarcerating drug offenders. It also will not count the cost of military personnel working on drug enforcement. However, the cost of alcohol treatment will be included in the budget -- even though the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Walter's agency, has no jurisdiction over alcohol. [continues 706 words]
In 1985, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration made a little-known drug, 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), illegal. Since then, sentences have escalated to the point where it is treated more harshly than heroin. Less than two decades later, the drug is described by law enforcement as a youth epidemic and is widely available throughout the United States. The drug, better known as ecstasy, was the first drug ever to be made illegal by the DEA using the emergency scheduling authority granted to the attorney general under the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, 98 Stat. 1976 (1984). [continues 837 words]
To the Editor: Re "U.S. Weighs Expanding Aid Plan to Colombia's Neighbors" (News article, Dec. 4): Plan Colombia, the United States' large-scale military escalation in Colombia, is already in trouble. Europe has not provided the resources we had hoped, and Latin American countries oppose the escalation of the drug war. The plan's short history is consistent with efforts to interdict and eradicate drugs by every president since Richard M. Nixon. The results have not been promising. Since 1980, the price of cocaine and heroin has dropped and their purity has increased. There is more death and disease from drug use in the United States, and adolescent use of the most dangerous drugs is increasing. Rather than building on failure, it's time to face reality: more of the same will not work. Kevin B. Zeese, President, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington [end]
Re: "War on drugs leader to leave" (A-section, Oct. 17): I realize that when a cabinet-level official leaves office there is a tendency to write a puff piece about him, but your story on the exit of drug czar Barry McCaffrey did not mention some important points from his tenure. The story implied that McCaffrey had turned the drug war into a treatment war. In fact, he increased its militarization, and did nothing to deal with the crises of drug-related AIDS and record overdose deaths. [continues 183 words]
No Interdiction Program Has Had Any Serious Impact On The Supply Of Illegal Drugs In The U.S. Rather, These Campaigns Have Spurred New Source Countries, New Trafficking Routes And New Drugs. Current congressional consideration of a $1.7 billion military aid program for Colombia is the most recent escalation of the U.S. government's war on drugs with a total federal budget of over $250 billion since 1980. Each administration has fought the drug war aggressively, using the military, spraying herbicides, extraditing leaders of cartels, providing intelligence and other assistance to the military and police forces of the Americas. [continues 966 words]
In rushing to approve a 1.7 billion dollar Colombian military aid package Congress is ignoring drug enforcement history which shows this approach will actually make America's drug problem worse. There has not been an eradication or interdiction program in the last 35 years that has reduced the supply of illegal drugs. Indeed such efforts actually increase drug supplies by spurring new source countries, new trafficking routes and new drugs. 1. The French Connection of the 1960s. Officials believed destroying the Turkey—French—US supply line would destroy the heroin market. In fact the heroin market expanded to sources in Mexico and Asia. The Mexican and Southeast Asian heroin markets are still with us today. Also, Turkey and other Eastern European sources now supply much of Europe. [continues 743 words]
FIVE YEARS AGO DISCUSSING REFORM OF DRUG POLICY WAS TABOO. NOW ENDING THE DRUG WAR IS POPULAR! by Kevin B. Zeese Over the past two years voters in seven states and the District of Columbia passed initiatives favoring medical marijuana or decriminalization of marijuana generally and treating drug offenses as a health issue rather than a law enforcement issue. Recently, a wide array of groups, including the NAACP, Volunteers of America, YWCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the United Methodist Church and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, have called for a new approach to drug control. [continues 657 words]
Progressives should not follow Michael Massing's advice to use Nixon's drug policy approach. While Nixon had a better budget balance between law enforcement and treatment, his drug policy contained the roots of many of today's problems. Nixon coined the term "drug war," he militarized the Mexican border, legitimized no-knock entries, developed herbicide spraying (G. Gordon Liddy's idea) and knew that the drug war would be another way to lock up African-Americans and other "undesirables." He ignored the findings of his own commission on drugs when it recommended decriminalization of possession and small sales of marijuana. [continues 261 words]
We received a huge amount of mail, most of it congratulatory and complimentary, on our September 20 special issue, "Beyond Legalization: New Ideas for Ending the War on Drugs," guest edited by Michael Massing. Here are kudos and a few dissenting viewpoints. - The Editors I read articles on the Web from your special drug policy reform issue. I was so impressed, I immediately became a paying subscriber. Thank you for recognizing the seriousness of our failed policies and making the effort to shed more light on them. [continues 1766 words]
With crime rates down and prison populations soaring, it's easy to conclude that the latter has much to do with the former. America's long-term efforts to lock up more violent criminals has indeed reduced street crime. But the current prison boom has more to do with the nation's War on Drugs than on its battle against violent crime. "No matter how much crime plummets, the United States will have to add the equivalent of a new 1,000-bed jail or prison every week -- for perhaps another decade," according to a New York Times article published in the Register last Sunday. That follows a decade in which the U.S. prison population has nearly doubled, to almost 2 million inmates. [continues 393 words]
By Kevin Zeese The Pentagon's recent recommendation to permanently cancel armed military patrols along the Mexico border is a good first step toward a drug policy not based on military force. Armed soldiers on the border, however, are only the tip of the iceberg in our militarized drug war. The incident that led to the proposed policy shift -- the shooting death of young goat herder last year by a United States Marine on an anti-drug surveillance mission -- should never have happened. [continues 564 words]
The incident that led to the proposed policy shift - the shooting death of young goat herder last year by a United States Marine on an antidrug surveillance mission - should never have happened. When I visited the Texas border town where Esequiel Hernandez was killed, residents said they could not understand why they were treated like criminals simply because they lived on the border. Military helicopters droned overhead. Children were afraid to go outside. Many in the community felt the military had taken from them one of their best and brightest. Yet, the Department of Defense has yet to acknowledge any wrongdoing. Instead, it hides behind last year's questionable grand jury decision not to indict the marine who fired the fatal bullet. It fails to mention that the majority of the jury were people who received paychecks or retirement checks from the federal government, including the deputy border patrol chief for the region, a member of the very agency that called in the Marines and was responsible for their supervision. [continues 422 words]
