USA Drug Policy: Dismal Failure

Bruce Mirken at AlterNet provides some detail into the Drug War that is a dismal failure, espcially when comparing to the rogue “drug countries” such as Holland. Is it any wonder that Big Money is involved and that even this war is one that is based off of profit and no clear rationale for victory?

Just like our other policies in the world stage, we are full of shit when it comes to rationale and the numbers can’t lie. Only the idiots running this country are lying:

The World Health Organization Documents Failure of U.S. Drug Policies

The United States has some of the world’s most punitive drug policies and has led the cheering section for tough “war on drugs” policies worldwide, but a new international study suggests that those policies have been a crashing failure. A World Health Organization survey of 17 countries, conducted by some of the world’s leading substance abuse researchers, found that we have the highest rates of marijuana and cocaine use.

The numbers are startling. In the United States, 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent. No one else was even close. The results for cocaine use were similar, with the United States leading the world by a large margin.

This study is important because it’s the first time a respected international group has surveyed drug use around the world, using the same questions and procedure everywhere. While many countries have their own drug use surveys, the questions and methodology vary, and comparisons between countries are difficult. This new study eliminates that problem.

Some of the most striking numbers are from the Netherlands, where adults are permitted to possess a small of marijuana and purchase it from regulated businesses. Some U.S. officials have claimed that these Dutch policies have created some sort of decadent cesspool of drug abuse, but the new study demolishes such assertions: In the Netherlands, only 19.8 percent have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure.

Even more striking is what the researchers found when they asked young adults when they had started using marijuana. Again, the United States led the world, with 20.2 percent trying marijuana by age 15. No other country was even close, and in the Netherlands, just 7 percent used marijuana by 15 — roughly one-third of the U.S. figure.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy tried to dismiss the study, Bloomberg News reported:

Trying to find a link between drug use and drug enforcement doesn’t make sense, said Tom Riley, spokesman for the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington. “The U.S. has high crime rates but we spend a lot on law enforcement and prison,” Riley said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Should we spend less? We’re just a different kind of country. We have higher drug use rates, a higher crime rate, many things that go with a highly free and mobile society.”

Funny, ONDCP takes precisely the opposite line whenever a state considers liberalizing its marijuana laws. In a March press release, deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns railed against a New Hampshire proposal to decriminalize marijuana, saying such a move “sends the wrong message to New Hampshire’s youth, students, parents, public health officials and the law enforcement community,” and would lead to “more drugs, drug users and drug dealers on their streets and communities.”

Back in 2002, denouncing a proposed marijuana law reform in Nevada, ONDCP distributed a list of talking points to prosecutors specifically slamming the “extremely dubious” Dutch system of regulated sales, saying, “Increased availability of marijuana leads to increased use of marijuana and other drugs.”

In fact, ONCDP’s latest excuse for the failure of U.S. drug policies — that enforcement and penalties don’t really have much effect on rates of use — is probably just about right. But it also dynamites any justification for our current marijuana laws. The WHO researchers put it this way:

“The U.S., which has been driving much of the world’s drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies. … The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the US, has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in nation level rates of illegal drug use.”

For this we arrest 830,000 Americans a year on marijuana charges?

McCain Proves His Ignorance

B’Man: I read this at Alternet and it gives me some reason for hope…

All Indicators Point to a Softening of America’s Harsh Marijuana Laws

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted June 3, 2008.

You have to hand it to the Republican National Committee: Those guys really know how to pick the wrong fight.

John McCain, already running against the public opinion grain in support of the Iraq War and Bush tax cuts, received no help from headquarters last month when the RNC made medical marijuana a campaign issue. After Barack Obama told an Oregon weekly that he would end federal raids on medical marijuana users and providers in states with compassionate use laws, the RNC pounced. Obama’s position, said an RNC statement, “reveals that (he) doesn’t have the experience necessary to do the job of President (and) lacks the judgment to carry out the most basic functions of the Executive Branch.” Because the Supreme Court has ruled that federal drug laws trump state drug laws, the RNC reasons that halting federal raids would be tantamount to ignoring the law.

They’re right. But the RNC might want to get some new pollsters. What they and their candidates don’t seem to realize is that a steadily shrinking minority of Americans oppose the controlled medicinal use of cannabis — around 20 percent, according to the last Gallup poll. It’s a safe bet that an even smaller number considers paramilitary raids on the homes of peaceful cancer patients to be among the “basic function of the Executive Branch.” During the New Hampshire primary, every Democratic candidate recognized this political reality by promising to end federal harassment of state-approved medical marijuana facilities and users. Republican candidates Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul pledged the same.

And John McCain? When pressed by activists from the group Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana, the Arizona senator responded in lockstep with most of his GOP peers, sounding less like a maverick than a Reagan-era after-school special. “I do not support the use of marijuana for medical purposes,” McCain said. “I believe that marijuana is a gateway drug. That is my view, and that’s the view of the federal drug czar and other experts.”

B’Man: Excuse me you cancerous old fuck: Are you going to suggest that a cancer patient’s use of marijuana to help alleviate pain and sickness will be a gateway drug to WHAT? Morphine? As the pain becomes so excruciating before death. You piss-poor, cold and unfeeling piece of ancient, out-of-touch, SHIT.

Given current trend lines, it may not be long before it’s possible to count McCain’s “other experts” on two hands. In February, the 125,000-member American College of Physicians, the second-largest physicians group in the country, published a position paper endorsing the merits of medical marijuana and recommending the end of marijuana’s classification as a Schedule 1 drug. “The ACP endorsement is massive,” says Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group. “It blows to splinters the assertion that the medical community doesn’t support medicinal cannabis.”

As goes the ACP, so may go the American Medical Association, an endorsement from which would leave the anti-medical marijuana position of the Food and Drug Administration very lonely indeed.

To its credit, the country has not waited for the medical establishment before moving forward on marijuana policy reform. Over the last decade, support for compassionate use laws and broader decriminalization efforts has been growing, if not at weed’s pace, then fast enough for one veteran marijuana reform lobbyist to now speak of being “within striking distance of a national tipping point.”…

…But whatever happens inside Michigan, Massachusetts and New York, the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Raich still leaves marijuana users open to federal prosecution under the Controlled Substances Act. As highlighted by the RNC statement critical of Obama’s pledge, this decision will continue to undermine state- and local-level reforms until Congress changes federal law. Although only 1 percent of marijuana cases are prosecuted at the federal level, DEA raids on patients, caregivers and providers have been on the rise in states that have passed medical marijuana laws. This is especially true of California and Oregon, where in many cases individual patients have been detained and terrorized. In Los Angeles, the DEA has begun threatening the owners of buildings used for medical marijuana activities with seizure of their property, a development the Los Angeles Times has called “a deplorable new bullying tactic.” According to Mirken, “The DEA has become the single largest obstacle to effective regulation of (medical marijuana) establishments.”

B’Man interjects: Who benefits by keeping marijuana illegal? Isn’t it the same people who benefitted from alcohol prohibition? Politicians, the police state, alcohol & tobacco interests… basically, corporate America involved in the drug industry or the prison industrial complex. Of course the illegal purveyors tend to make money, still, on this failed effort.

In reality, marijuana is one of the best crops for production of biofuel material and could be one way to rid ourselves from the Petro-Chemical (Big Oil) stronghold that has America gripped.

At the moment there are three bills in Congress that seek to put a stop to these raids and set a precedent for federal-level reform.

The young granddaddy of this legislation is the bipartisan Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment, which has been introduced every year since 2003. Essentially, the amendment would strip the Department of Justice of funds to prosecute medical marijuana cases in states that have medical marijuana laws on the books. Named after Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., the legislation wouldn’t legalize marijuana at the federal level or prevent the feds from prosecuting medical marijuana use in states without medical marijuana laws. It would simply enforce respect for state marijuana laws. When first introduced in 2003, Hinchey-Rohrabacher received 152 votes. Last year, that number had risen to 165. Later this summer, Congress will tackle the amendment again when it votes on the Department of Justice Appropriations bill. Reform advocates hope the amendment will benefit from racking up endorsements from groups like the right-leaning Citizens Against Government Waste, which came out in favor of Hinchey-Rohrabacher as a way for Congress to “start sending a signal that its priorities are in order.”

But every year so far has been a 10-yard fight, and its sponsors don’t expect that to change this year. “This will continue to be a tough battle,” says Jeff Lieberson, Hinchey’s spokesperson. “Many politicians are still behind the voters on this issue.” Other analysts also warn against high expectations, pointing out that the timing is especially unfavorable for drug policy reform at the federal level.

“The movement on this issue in 2008 is going to be almost nonexistent because politicians are focused on the election,” says Alex Coolman, a former attorney with the Drug Policy Alliance and author of the Drug Law Blog. “Nobody in Washington wants to do anything that could be perceived as controversial.”

In April, Hinchey-Rohrabacher was joined by two other marijuana policy reform bills, both co-sponsored by Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Ron Paul, R-Texas. HR5842, the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act, would deny the federal government the right to employ the Controlled Substances Act to intervene in states that have legalized medical marijuana; it would also remove marijuana from the list of Schedule 1 drugs. HR5843, meanwhile, known as the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act, would effectively decriminalize possession of up to 1 ounce. “We’re in the early stages here,” says Frank spokesperson Peter Kovar. “Nothing like this ever comes quick.”

But it may be coming more quickly than some people expect. “All the indicators are prompting in the right direction,” says Kampia. “Every major new ballot initiative looks set to pass. Infrastructure is growing: email lists, organizations, allies — it’s across the board. Public opinion is moving steadily in favor of decriminalization. State laws are moving forward, and none are going backward. We’re constantly picking up votes in the House. The 110th is the most supportive Congress we’ve ever had.”

If the RNC keeps attacking Democrats on medical marijuana, the 111th will be that much better.

B’Man: Our representatives ALWAYS lag behind the populate. This year is no different and with the elections happening, there may not be much more headway made. But, it is absolutely insane to continue this idiocy when people could use this source of medicine.

Follow the money and you will understand why and who profits from the continued fallacy called prohibition.

Jen’s Update Addendum: Marijuana Slows Tumor Growth

B’Man: I have an ongoing series of reports on my dear friend Jen relating to her glioma (brain tumor). I mentioned that it is similar to Teddy Kennedy’s tumor here. Since Jen has become sick, especially in the last 6 months (she has been diagnosed since 1999, which it is a miracle she is still alive this long… most prognosis only give a few years), I have been investigating and reading about therapies that can be used for her (the venom treatment was clinical and doesn’t appear to be working for her).

However, I read this article (which contains a video I will post below) which tells me something that I had suspected from a previous friend’s cancer and his insistence that marijuana was helping him. Of course, that is no clinical trial, but I have witnessed more than one person who swears they are helped by medical marijuana. As a matter of fact, I can attest to its pain functionality.

So, I sent Jen and her hubby an email with this post’s info. I am no prude, so those who use for fun… have right at it. Enjoy and watch out for Big Brother. However, for those who are frightened by it, the law and what may happen… fuck them. If I was dying and this could help, they can all just suck my ass.

The fact is that Big Prison keeps this medicine out of the hands of hurting people, but not only that, out of the hands of the researchers who could isolate the actions of the drug and use it to HELP PEOPLE.

Damn, I get pissed about this. It is a travesty.

I doubt that Jen has ever even seen marijuana and it is unlikely that she could beat the stigma associated. But, in my opinion, she should do anything and everything that will help alleviate her sufferring or, as miracles may happen, heal her. without the research into this wonder drug, we will never truly know.

I love you, Jen. Keep fighting, darlin’.

Can Pot Extend Ted Kennedy’s Life? Too Bad It’s Illegal

by Paul Armentano Posted on May 23, 2008

In the 14 years I’ve worked in marijuana law reform, few events have struck me as so needlessly tragic as the federal government’s consistent and deliberate stifling of medical cannabis research. Nowhere is the Fed’s refusal to allow this science more overt and inhumane than as it pertains to the investigation of cannabinoids as anti-cancer agents, particularly in the treatment of gliomas.

As noted in today’s wire stories regarding Sen. Edward Kennedy’s diagnosis, glioma is an aggressive form of cancer that affects an estimated 10,000 Americans annually. Standard treatments for the cancer include radiation and chemotherapy, though neither procedure has proven particularly effective — the disease kills approximately half its victims within one year and all within three years.

But what if there was an alternative treatment for gliomas that could selectively target the cancer while leaving healthy cells intact? And what if federal bureaucrats were aware of this treatment, but deliberately withheld this information from the public?

Sadly, the above questions are not hypothetical. As I originally wrote in a 2004 essay for Alternet.org, titled Pot Shows Promise as a Cancer Cure”:

In fact, the first experiment documenting pot’s anti-tumor effects took place in 1974 at the Medical College of Virginia at the behest of the U.S. government. The results of that study, reported in an Aug. 18, 1974, Washington Post newspaper feature, were that marijuana’s psychoactive component, THC, “slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent.”

Despite these favorable preliminary findings, U.S. government officials banished the study and refused to fund any follow-up research until conducting a similar — though secret — clinical trial in the mid-1990s. That study, conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program to the tune of $2 million, concluded that mice and rats administered high doses of THC over long periods had greater protection against malignant tumors than untreated controls.

However, rather than publicize their findings, government researchers shelved the results, which only became public after a draft copy of its findings were leaked in 1997 to a medical journal which in turn forwarded the story to the national media.

In the years since the completion of the National Toxicology trial, the U.S. government has yet to fund a single additional study examining the drug’s potential anti-cancer properties. Is this a case of federal bureaucrats putting politics over the health and safety of patients? You be the judge.

Fortunately, in the past 10 years scientists overseas have generously picked up where U.S. researchers so abruptly left off, reporting that cannabinoids can halt the spread of numerous cancer cells — including prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and in one human clinical trial, brain cancer.

Writing earlier this year in the journal Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, Italian researchers reiterated, “(C)annabinoids have displayed a great potency in reducing glioma tumor growth either in vitro or in animal experimental models. (They) appear to be selective antitumoral agents as they kill glioma cells without affecting the viability of nontransformed counterparts.” Not one mainstream media outlet reported their findings. Perhaps now they’ll pay better attention.

What possible advancements in the treatment of cancer may have been achieved over the past 34 years had U.S. government officials chosen to advance — rather than suppress — clinical research into the anti-cancer effects of cannabis? It’s a shame we have to speculate; it’s even more tragic that the families of Senator Kennedy and thousands of others must suffer while we do.

Watch a video of Paul Armentano explaining the relationship between cannabinoids and glioma.

Paul Armentano is the deputy director for the NORML Foundation in Washington, D.C.

© 2008 NORML All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/86256/

How To Become The Pot-Bust Capital of the World

Focus on dark skin and lie your ass off. Ahhh… law enforcement. Gotta love ‘em.

NYC’s Staggering Arrest Rate for Pot Achieved By Police Deception and Scams

By Steven Wishnia, AlterNet. Posted May 9, 2008.

New study says New York’s cannabis crackdown is both racist and fraudulent — and that more have been arrested under Bloomberg than Giuliani.

New York City has been the pot-bust capital of the world for a decade, since Rudolph Giuliani’s decision to make public toking a top police priority. A new study sponsored by the New York Civil Liberties Union says the city’s cannabis crackdown is both racist and fraudulent.

New York police have arrested almost 400,000 people for misdemeanor marijuana possession in the last decade. Last year, there were 39,700 such arrests. The vast majority of those seized have been black and Latino men, most under 25. And according to the NYCLU study, released last week, thousands of them are the victims of police scams, falsely charged with possession of marijuana “burning or open to public view.”

“We are confident in estimating that about two-thirds to three-quarters of the people arrested were not smoking marijuana,” the study says. “Usually they were doing their utmost to keep their marijuana concealed, generally deep inside their clothing.” The authors, sociologist Harry Levine of Queens College and activist Deborah Peterson-Small of the organization Break The Chains, say that conclusion is “based on the experience of legal aid and public-defender attorneys who have handled thousands of these cases, along with that of the police officers and arrestees we interviewed.”

New York State decriminalized marijuana in 1977. That reduced possession of less than 25 grams is a violation, carrying a $100 fine and no criminal record. But smoking or possession in public is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to three months in jail. So in order to get around the constitutional restrictions on searches and find a valid reason to make an arrest, police have to use deception.

A typical ruse is for police to stop someone near a suspected marijuana-sales site and tell them something along the lines of “We saw you coming out of the weed spot. If you have anything on you that you’re not supposed to have, give it to me and all I’ll give you is a ticket.” If the suspect falls for the ruse and hands over his marijuana, he is then arrested for displaying it in public view. Though most people charged with misdemeanor pot possession do not receive jail sentences, they often have to spend up to 24 hours in jail before arraignment, and they acquire a permanent arrest record.

Police and defenders of the crackdown say that making large numbers of arrests for minor offenses has reduced major crimes. Other benefits include that it’s an easy way for police supervisors to show their precincts’ productivity, it’s an easy way for individual officers to get overtime-rookie New York cops get paid only $25,000 a year, so “collars for dollars” augment that — and it keeps a reserve of officers occupied.

Peterson-Small states bluntly that the crackdown is “racist,” a legacy of the Giuliani principles that “we will tame New York by bringing the black and brown people under control” and “no offense is too petty.” Of the people arrested for misdemeanor pot possession from 1997 through 2006, five out of six were black or Latino, in a city that is almost half white and Asian. Nine out of ten were male, and most were aged 16 to 25. And over the years, the focus has shifted from Midtown Manhattan and Greenwich Village to outlying black and Latino areas. The police precincts in upper Manhattan’s Washington Heights, the west Bronx, Jamaica and St. Albans in southeastern Queens, and the “Black Brooklyn” neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, and East New York regularly turn in more than 1,000 petty pot busts a year each. Though there is no evidence that black New Yorkers smoke more pot than white ones — nationally, the rate of use among young adults is slightly higher for whites, at least according to government surveys — the city’s marijuana-arrest rate for blacks is more than five times what it is for whites.

Another worry is that the arrests tag thousands of young black and Latino men as criminals. The study terms the crackdown “Head Start for prison and unemployment.” The Head Start preschool program, it notes, intends to “familiarize and socialize young children in the routines and expectations of school systems”; the marijuana-arrest program works to “familiarize, socialize, and prepare disadvantaged black and Latino teenagers and young adults from poor neighborhoods for the routines and expectations of the police, court, jail, and prison system.”

The study also calls the policy a waste of money — at an estimated $1,500 to $2,500 per arrest, it cost the city $60 to $100 million last year, at a time when Mayor Michael Bloomberg is slashing the city budget and closing libraries on weekends. Peterson-Small adds that it violates the spirit of the state’s decriminalization law. The ban on public smoking, she says, was originally intended to apply only to people creating a public nuisance, not to someone lighting up discreetly “in the alley behind a jazz club.”

Though the city’s cannabis crackdown is Rudolph Giuliani’s legacy, Bloomberg has continued it. Bloomberg has a reputation as a moderate, as less racist and draconian than Giuliani, and he famously declared “You bet I did — and I enjoyed it” when asked if he had ever smoked pot. But in his first six years in office, more people have been arrested for misdemeanor possession than in Giuliani’s entire eight-year regime.

Will Pot Ever Be Legal In This Schizoid Country?

Will Pot Ever Be Legal in This Schizoid Country?

By Steven Wishnia, AlterNet. Posted May 1, 2008.

Five signs that pot might become legal soon — and five reasons why it probably won’t.

Marijuana occupies a bizarrely paradoxical place in American culture. Its use is widespread, commonplace among the young and ubiquitous in popular culture. Yet it remains highly illegal, and talk of legalization is usually deemed political suicide.

Here are five signs that pot should be legal soon — and five reasons why it probably won’t.

1. Pot is indelibly a part of the cultural mainstream. The stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay grossed $14.6 million in its first weekend, making it the second most popular movie in the country. Most pro basketball players blaze, according to sources as diverse as the ganjaphile Mavericks player Josh Howard and the antidrug ex-Knick Charles Oakley. And on April 20, thousands of revelers turned out at the University of Colorado and the University of California at Santa Cruz to celebrate the 4/20 herb holiday.

As of 2002, notes Keith Stroup, legal counsel with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 47 percent of American adults had smoked marijuana at some time in their lives, according to a CNN/Time poll. By today, he adds, “it is likely there are more living Americans who have smoked marijuana than who have not. Approximately 26 million Americans smoked marijuana just in the last year. All of these people know it did not cause them any real harm, and that it did not keep them from having a successful life and career.”

2. Increased medical acceptance. In February, the American College of Physicians, the second-largest medical organization in the country, urged the federal government to move cannabis out of Schedule I, the category for drugs with no legal medical use, “given marijuana’s proven efficacy at treating certain symptoms and its relatively low toxicity.” The group also strongly urged legal protections for doctors who prescribe cannabis and patients who use it.

Last year, more than 3,000 articles on cannabinoids were published in scientific journals. These have explored their possible uses for a host of ailments, from easing the pain of arthritis to inhibiting the growth of brain tumors.

The development of vaporization technology — pricey devices that heat cannabis to a point where the THC can be inhaled, but don’t incinerate the plant matter — has eliminated one of the main reasons for doctors to be uncomfortable about the medical use of cannabis: that smoke contains toxic compounds. “Vaporization of THC offers the rapid onset of symptom relief without the negative effects from smoking,” the ACP noted.

3. A federal decriminalization bill was introduced last month. HR 5843, sponsored by Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Tex.), would eliminate federal penalties for possession of less than 100 grams or for the nonprofit transfer of less than one ounce between adults. The bill is the first decriminalization measure introduced in Congress since the early 1980s.

4. The state budget crunch. With the recession battering their treasuries, many states are taking a second look at the price of incarcerating thousands of drug prisoners. Legal cannabis would eliminate the costs of arresting, prosecuting, and jailing cannabis users, growers, and dealers, and could be a major new source of tax revenue — especially in states like California, where it is estimated to be the most valuable cash crop. And cannabis farming could revive rural economies, whether by hemp production in the Great Plains or marijuana cultivation in Appalachia.

5. There are no rational arguments against legalizing cannabis under regulations similar to those for alcohol. I’ve been covering drug issues for almost 20 years (and smoking the green since? well, I went to Woodstock when I was 14, you do the math), and I haven’t heard any. The most common, the “gateway theory” and the idea that today’s pot is so much stronger than Woodstock-era weed that it’s essentially a different drug, are based on distortion and misinformation. They aren’t even valid rebuttable presumptions like “abortion is murder,” “the government should not interfere with the free market by regulating rents,” or “the U.S. government had to depose Saddam Hussein by any means necessary.” And the “send a message to the children” argument is akin to espousing the resurrection of Prohibition because legal alcohol encourages underage drinking.

****

On the other hand, I strongly doubt that cannabis will become legal in the near future, for the following reasons.

1. Pot-smokers aren’t well organized. According to government surveys, there are about 4 to 5 million regular marijuana users-roughly speaking, people who get high at least once a week. The three leading drug-law-reform groups would have a combined mailing list of 35,000 to 55,000 people, estimates NORML executive director Allen St. Pierre. NORML has about 15,000 dues-paying members, 55,000 e-mail subscribers, and 420,000 friends on its Facebook page. The Marijuana Policy Project claims 24,000 members and 180,000 e-mail subscribers. The Drug Policy Alliance has 26,000 members and more than 100,000 e-mail subscribers.

Those numbers are dramatically higher than they were five years ago, but they’re still relatively small. MoveOn.org has 3.2 million people on its e-mail list. The National Rifle Association has more than 4 million members.

2. Very few politicians support legalization. About the only nationally known elected officials who advocate full legalization of cannabis are Ron Paul and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)-the two candidates most often derided as fringe lunatics in this year’s presidential race. If you stretch the list to include big-city mayors, you’d get Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and the recently retired Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City. The Frank-Paul decriminalization bill’s cosponsors include both antiwar liberals and far-right semi-libertarians, but St. Pierre believes it is unlikely to make it out of committee this year and wouldn’t get more than 85 votes if it did. Almost all its supporters represent culturally liberal areas in the Far West and Northeast.

“If those of us who currently smoke would take the pledge that we will never again vote for any candidate for public office who supports treating us like criminals, we could end prohibition within a couple of election cycles,” says Stroup. But if they did take that pledge, “initially they would frequently only have fringe candidates whom they could support, and would have to sit out many major races. So we can’t count on most smokers to vote based only on the candidate’s position towards treating marijuana-smokers like criminals.”

3. Marijuana arrests continue at record levels. In 2006, there were 830,000 arrests for marijuana offenses-almost triple the number of people nabbed in 1991. It was the fourth consecutive year that the number of pot busts set a new record. Of those popped, 89 percent were charged with simple possession.

4. Baby-boomer politicians sold us out. In the 1970s, baby-boomer stoners believed that the laws would inevitably change when the prohibitionist dinosaurs faded out and their generation took over.

Well, among the potheads-turned-politicians of the last 15 years, Bill Clinton signed the law cutting off federal student aid to drug offenders. Clarence Thomas wrote the Supreme Court decision against medical marijuana. Barack Obama now says he is “not interested in legalizing drugs.” Al Gore, declaring that he had “put away childish things,” came out against legalizing medical marijuana. Newt Gingrich sponsored a bill to execute pot smugglers. George W. Bush (yeah, you expect me to believe that a raging alcoholic with a never-denied taste for cocaine made it through the ’70s without a single toke?) has overseen federal crackdowns on headshops, bong-makers, and medical-marijuana clinics.

5. We don’t live in a rational society. In many ways, American politics haven’t changed much from 1928, when people believed that if Al Smith, a Catholic, were elected President, he’d dig a tunnel from the White House to the Vatican-except that now we have the Internet to spread similar rumors. (They didn’t have Photoshop in 1927, when Smith dedicated the Holland Tunnel connecting Manhattan and Jersey City.)

We live in a society where politics are dominated by moronic symbolism, where the media ignore government’s actual effect on working-class people in favor of pontificating endlessly about the importance of Hillary Clinton knocking back a shot of blended whiskey vs. Obama’s abysmal bowling score, where they cast a spoiled senator’s son as a “man of the people” because he clears brush and isn’t too bright.

We live in a society ruled by fear, where people are willing to accept having the Bill of Rights shredded in the name of fighting drugs or “terrorism.”

So it’s not surprising that politicians quaver and quail at the idea of supporting a perfectly rational change that would end the legal harassment of millions of Americans. If they did, they’d be damned as “trying to let drug dealers out of jail” and barraged with attack ads accusing them of wanting to sell methamphetamine to eight-year-olds.

There is a very powerful stereotype afoot in much of the population, the belief that anyone “on drugs” is a brutish beast from whom all reason hath fled, a conglomeration of the snapping-at-phantoms temper of a rageball drunk, the stolen-goods appetite of a $500-a-day dopefiend, the self-abasement of a crack addict performing oral sex for a $5 rock, and the casual and calculated sadism of an ’80s cocaine kingpin ordaining “Manolo, choot this piece of chit.”

Anyone who knows a pothead knows that this belief is absolutely ludicrous, but it’s what sets the tone of American political discourse on drug issues-or more accurately, almost no one in the political mainstream has the guts to defend drug users by pointing out that it’s propaganda.

The Fight Is Pointless

Dutch police union chair: legalise cannabis

Published: Wednesday 23 April 2008 08:32 UTC
Last updated: Wednesday 23 April 2008 12:59 UTC

Amsterdam - The chairman of the Dutch police union NPB Hans van Duijn says it is pointless to fight against the supply of cannabis. He thinks it only leads to more crime and he would much rather see soft drugs legalised in The Netherlands. Further, Hans van Duijn is in favour of letting long time addicts use hard drugs under supervision. In his opinion this is the only way to effectively fight drug related crime.

Drug crimes take up a great deal of the police’s time and energy and other crime issues suffer from it, says the retiring NPB chairman. He thinks most senior police officers feel the same way.
According to Hans van Duijn, Dutch politicians are reluctant to look at the possibilities of legalising soft drugs. Under international pressure they prefer to put their heads in the sand, says Mr Van Duijn.

Now ask yourself just “who” this “international pressure” might be from. I have spoken to several police officers (a few fairly close friends from high school who are now quite high up) and by and large, this is true (however, they cannot openly admit it for fear of losing funding and having the administration attack them as unAmerican or unserious in their job).

The population, in general, has no idea about this drug and its benefits. All they know is what the government tells them. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, IF you will ONLY stop listening to the same ones who have been lying to you for your entire lives.

Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008

Congressman Frank’s Personal Use of Marijuana Act hits the House floor

April 17, 2008

Today Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced legislation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. The bill, dubbed the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008, marks the first time in decades that Congress has considered removing criminal penalties for marijuana.  

Congressman Frank’s legislation would decriminalize the possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana and the not-for-profit transfer of one ounce of marijuana. It would not affect laws prohibiting drug sales or the cultivation of marijuana, and it would not affect state or local laws regulating marijuana possession.

“It’s time for the politicians to catch up with the public on this [issue],” Congressman Frank said. “The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly.”

The bill incorporates the basic recommendation of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (also known as the Shafer Commission). The commission, which was administered by the White House and published its findings in 1972, recommended that then-president Richard Nixon decriminalize possession of marijuana in amounts that constituted “simple possession.”

Thirty-six years later, Rep. Frank will try to do just that.

Why support this legislation?

- Currently, 1 out of every 100 Americans is behind bars, and many of these prisoners are non-violent drug offenders.

- Arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people simply for possessing marijuana for personal use is an illogical waste of our government’s limited resources.

- Each year, more than 700,000 people are arrested for marijuana offenses, costing American taxpayers more than $7 billion annually. Despite this, marijuana is still easily available, both to adults and minors.

- The money saved from ending marijuana prohibition could provide health insurance each year to 4.5 million uninsured children in the U.S.  This legislation would be an important first step towards that.

B’Man: Of course I doubt this gets anywhere, but at least these people will be forced to discuss it (finally) after all this time. Too many people’s lives have been ruined over this issue… unfairly and unconstitutionally.

Do Alabama Rednecks Support “Compassionate Care”?

From the Drug Policy Alliance:

Support Compassionate Care in Alabama

Dear Supporter,

Last week, a medical marijuana access bill was introduced in the Alabama Legislature. Our bill, HB 679, has been assigned to the Judiciary Committee, and now needs to get called for a hearing. Can you take two minutes to ask the Judiciary Committee to bring this bill up for a vote?

HB 679, the Compassionate Care Act, was introduced by Representative Laura Hall. The bill would allow seriously ill patients to use marijuana as recommended by their physicians. You can read the legislation here.

Judiciary Committee members need to hear from you. They need to know that Alabamians support Compassionate Care.

Last year, our Compassionate Care bill made it to a Judiciary Committee hearing. Patients, family members and concerned citizens all testified in support of the bill, and the press coverage we got was extremely positive. But the committee tabled discussion of the bill, and it didn’t move any further.

Let’s get this bill all the way through the legislature this year. There are four things you can do right now to help make sure this bill is brought up in the Judiciary Committee for a hearing:

1. Send a message to your legislator now, urging them to support medical marijuana for the seriously ill.
2. Forward this action alert to five of your friends. Every time someone contacts his or her legislator about HB 679, it increases the likelihood that the bill will pass!
3. Help us get in contact with sympathetic doctors and patients. This is especially important. If you know of a doctor or patient who supports Compassionate Care, please contact me at gsayegh@drugpolicy.org  or call my direct line at 212.613.8048.

With your support, we will pass HB 679 and win compassionate medical marijuana legislation in Alabama!

If you have any questions about medical marijuana in Alabama, contact me at gsayegh@drugpolicy.org.

Thanks for all you do.

Gabriel Sayegh
Director, State Organizing and Policy Project
Drug Policy Alliance
More Information

Alabama’s Compassionate Care Act, HB 679, would provide much-needed protections for patients suffering from debilitating diseases and conditions. The legislation allows for patients to use medical marijuana under a physician’s care and direction. For individuals living with cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and other serious conditions, doctors and patients need to have every option available to alleviate severe pain and suffering.

Alabama residents strongly support the medical use of marijuana–a 2004 poll administered by the Mobile Register found that 75% of Alabamians support allowing access to medical marijuana as prescribed by a physician. This strong support for compassion is consistent with the levels found in other states and in national polls. A 2004 AARP national poll found that 72% of those surveyed support allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Numerous medical and scientific organizations, including the American College of Physicians, American Nurses Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the Lymphoma Foundation of America all support allowing access to marijuana for medicinal purposes when recommended by a physician.

Barack Obama Speaking About Medical Marijuana

The Mail-Tribune (Medford, OR), March 23, 2008:

“Q: A couple of other issues of interest to Oregonians involve initiatives passed by the voters that have come into conflict with the federal government: physician-assisted suicide and medical marijuana. Do you support those two concepts?

“A: I am in favor of palliative medicine in circumstances where someone is terminally ill. … I’m mindful of the legitimate interests of states to prevent a slide from palliative treatments into euthanasia. On the other hand, I think that the people of Oregon did a service for the country in recognizing that as the population gets older we’ve got to think about issues of end-of-life care. …

“As for medical marijuana … I’m not familiar with all the details of the initiative that was passed, but I think the basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that’s entirely appropriate. …

“I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.”

What, the Anti-Bush? ummhmm… we’ll see.

Barney Frank Announces His Intent To Introduce Marijuana Decriminalization Legislature

Unfortunately, I don’t have a shorter version (you can find this discussion beginning at the 3:20 mark), so view or scroll forward, as needed.

Read below or visit CBS here:

Barney Frank Calls For Decriminalizing Small Amounts Of Marijuana

(The Politico) Rep. Barney Frank will soon introduce legislation to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, the Massachusetts Democrat said during an appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

Frank offered no details on his legislation, and it’s not at all clear that he could ever get it to the House floor for a vote. A Frank aide was unaware of his plans other than his statement on HBO.

Frank has introduced legisaltion in previous years to allow the use of “medical marijuana,” although the bills never made it out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Asked by Maher as to why he would push a pot decriminalization bill now, Frank said the American public has already decided that personal use of marijuana is not a problem.

“I now think it’s time for the politicians to catch up to the public,” Frank said. ”The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly. I’m going to call it the ‘Make Room for Serious Criminals’ bill.”

History of Marijuana…. Condensed

The Colbert Report Official Site | Comedy Central

Stephen gets doped up to interview Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance.

from www.comedycentral.co posted with vodpod

I’m never going back to school! Hmmm… on second thought

Oakland trade school teaches people how to grow pot

By LISA LEFF
Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif.  — You know you’re in a different kind of college when a teaching assistant sets five marijuana plants down in the middle of a lab and no one blinks a bloodshot eye.

Welcome to Oaksterdam University, a new trade school where higher education takes on a whole new meaning.

The school prepares people for jobs in California’s thriving medical marijuana industry. For $200 and the cost of two required textbooks, students learn how to cultivate and cook with cannabis, study which strains of pot are best for certain ailments, and are instructed in the legalities of a business that is against the law in the eyes of the federal government.

“My basic idea is to try to professionalize the industry and have it taken seriously as a real industry, just like beer and distilling hard alcohol,” said Richard Lee, 45, an activist and pot-dispensary owner who founded the school in a downtown storefront last fall.

So far, 60 students have completed the two-day weekend course, which is sold out through May. At the end of the class, students are given a take-home test, with the highest scorer — make that “top scorer” — earning the title of class valedictorian.

Before getting to Horticulture 101, the hands-on highlight of Oaksterdam U, the 20 budding botanists, entrepreneurs and political activists at a recent weekend session sat politely through two law lectures and a visiting professor’s history talk.

In the lab, Lee measured plant food into a plastic garbage can and explained how, with common sense, upgraded electrical outlets, a fan and an air filter, students can grow pot at home for fun, health, public service — or profit.

Lee explained to his students how to prune and harvest plants, handing the clipping shears to a woman who wasn’t sure how close to the stalk to cut without damaging it. He offered his thoughts on which commercial nutrient preparations are best, as well as the advantages of hydroponics, or soil-free gardening.

During a discussion of neighbor relations, he warned against setting boobytraps to keep curious kids out of outdoor gardens.

Students gave various reasons for enrolling. Some said they were simply curious. Others said they wanted tips for growing their own weed, although judging from the questions, a few were ready for the graduate seminar Lee recently added to the curriculum.

Jeff Sanders, 52, said he has been buying medical marijuana since 2003, but wants to open a dispensary in the San Joaquin Valley because he doesn’t like having to drive up to San Francisco and paying the markup.

“I see it as a good thing. You are giving back to the community,” Sanders said.

Patrick O’Shaughnessy, 37, said he started smoking pot regularly for the first time about a year ago to treat his chronic migraines, depression and anxiety. After attending class, he said felt more confident about growing his own, which he wants to do because the dispensary he frequents often sells out of his favorite strain.

Oaksterdam U draws its name from the jokey nickname for a section of Oakland where some of California’s earliest medical marijuana dispensaries took root. The nickname in turn was inspired by the city of Amsterdam, in Holland, where pot use is tolerated.

At one point, the Oaksterdam neighborhood had at least 15 clubs and coffee shops selling pot, a number that dwindled to four when the city started issuing permits and collecting taxes from them a few years ago.

California was the first of a dozen states that have legalized marijuana use for patients with a doctor’s recommendation. Despite periodic raids by federal drug agents and the threat of prosecution, clubs and cooperatives where customers can buy the drug of their choice have proliferated; California has 300 to 400, according to advocacy groups.

Entry-level workers are paid a little more than minimum wage, while “bud tenders,” can make over $50,000 a year, and owners and top managers more than $100,000, Lee said. But there’s also a certain amount of risk — and not just financial, but legal.

Michael Chapman, an assistant agent in charge with the Drug Enforcement Agency’s San Francisco office, said authorities are aware of Oaksterdam U and don’t see any reason to shut it down. Talking about marijuana is not illegal, and while a small amount of pot is kept on the premises, the DEA tries “to concentrate our case work on the most significant violators,” he said.

Still, Chapman said he doesn’t like Lee’s effort to wrap cannabis education in a cap and gown.

“I think they are sending the wrong message out to the community and it’s something that could only facilitate criminal behavior,” he said.

We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1!

By God, America is Number One at something afterall.

US prison numbers reach record high

 More than one per cent of US adults are serving prison sentences, higher than any other country in the world, according to a new report.

The US penal system held more than 2.3 million adults at the start of the year, the Pew Centre on the States said on Thursday.

More populous China was ranked second with 1.5 million behind bars, while Russia was third with 890,000.

“Beyond the sheer number of inmates, America also is the global leader in the rate at which it incarcerates its citizenry, outpacing nations like South Africa and Iran,” the report said.

The report said growth in prison numbers had not been driven by a similar increase in crime rates or a corresponding increase in the nation’s population.

“Rather, it flows principally from a wave of policy choices that are sending more lawbreakers to prison and, through the popular ‘three-strikes’ measures and other sentencing enhancements, keeping them there longer,” it said.

Correction expenditure

US states spent more than $44bn on corrections last year, the report said, compared with $10.6bn in 1987.

Ryan King of the Sentencing Project, a US prison reform group, told Al Jazeera that many of those currently incarcerated were serving sentences for minor offences or were drug users.

“We are using tens of billions of dollars of our domestic resources to incarcerate individuals who would be much better off either under community supervision or in a public health treatment programme.”

The report said that the national prison population had almost tripled between 1987 and 2007.

While one in 106 adult white men are incarcerated, one in 36 Hispanics and one in 15 African-Americans are behind bars.

Young black men

Younger black men fare even worse, with one in nine African-Americans ages 20 to 34 held behind bars.

King said this was the case because US law-enforcement agencies chose to enforce drug laws more strictly among African-Americans.

“African-Americans are more likely to be arrested because law enforcement is centred in those communities.”

While men are still 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than women, the female penal population is “burgeoning at a far brisker pace”, the study said.

Some states, such as Texas and Kansas, had slowed their prison population growth, with more use of community supervision for lower-risk offenders and use of sentences other prison.

Are you proud to be an American, yet?

UPDATE from dday at Hullabaloo (I didn’t see this before I posted):

This, incidentally, is one area in which Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, has been so effective. Getting the Kansas legislature to move in this direction must have been a monumental task.

We desperately need a more progressive prison policy that recognizes the actual intention of imprisonment, to rehabilitate and return the jailed back to society with opportunities for advancement. Locking the problem offenders away for longer and longer hasn’t work