I've just returned from Houston, Texas, where I participated in a two-day forum held by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. This informative discussion included representatives from law enforcement, judiciary, clergy, academia, drug law reform, anti-drug advocacy, medicine and government, from Texas, from America, from Europe, and from Mexico (where 50,000 have been slaughtered in our Drug War.)
My job was to debate the topic of "Marijuana" with a former adviser to Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, Dr. Kevin Sabet. He's worked in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations on the issue of drug policy. Me? Well... I've smoked marijuana during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. But more on that in a moment. (And all following quotes are paraphrased and approximate from my sleep-deprived memory -- see linked videos for the actual quotes.)
Entitled The War on Drugs Has Failed: Is Legalization The Answer, the event was coordinated by William Martin, the Senior Fellow in Religion and Public Policy for the Baker Institute. The event began with travel author Rick Steves presenting his talk on "Travel as a Political Act," which is an engaging look at the European take on drug policy, which is not to be "hard on drugs" or "soft on drugs," rather "smart on drugs." From blue lights in bar restrooms (makes veins hard to find) to push-button cannabis menus in Dutch coffeeshops (so it's not advertised "to" you, you must request it), Steves' presentation is entertaining and informative (you can watch it here on YouTube.)
The first panel, "Examining the Premise, Considering Alternatives", featured Dr. Ethan Nadelmann, the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance versus John J. Coleman, the head of Drug Watch International and a former DEA Administrator. It's hardly fair putting a bureaucrat like Coleman in a debate with a dynamic speaker like Nadelmann, especially when he equates the "War on Drugs" to a "War on Pigeons."
Next, "Law Enforcement Perspectives" featured The Honorable Patricia R. Lykos, District Attorney of Harris County, Texas, who wished that "Timothy Leary and others who ruined this country by promoting drug use are burning in hell" and lamented her docket clogged with "trace cases" where the drug seized is as low as .01 grams. Michael Dirden, Executive Assistant Chief of the Houston Police Department, worried about our country becoming a "stoned culture." The Honorable Michael McSpadden, Judge, 209th Criminal Court, also of Harris County, turned economics on its ear when he said "as long as there is a supply of drugs in this country, there will be a demand." Russ Jones from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition explained that problems associated with drugs can better be addressed when separated from the violence and crime attributable to prohibition.
Then came my time -- twenty minutes to present the case for marijuana legalization, against Dr. Kevin Sabet, Ph.D., a real live honest-to-goodness Drug Warrior. To be fair, he is a very nice person who told me he does not want to see me in a cage. But he argues for policies that equate to just that -- a cage for possession, even if it is just the forty minutes it takes my bail to get me out of a holding cell. Or the threat of a cage if I don't submit to urine collections and re-education camp (rehab).
I've garnered a reputation in the marijuana reform movement as being the "data guy". I've read more tables, charts, studies, polls, and interviews than 99.99% of all Americans. I've even written a coffee table book on the subject that still seeks a publisher (sample, anyone?) But for this debate, I didn't want to play "my chart can beat your chart," because the main tactic of the Drug Warrior is Ali's famous Rope-a-Dope (no pun intended). More Americans now believe marijuana should be legalized than not, so I feel they have to defend keeping prohibition; I don't have to defend legalization.
Instead of letting this get lost in the quagmire of what everyone can agree is purely speculation on unreliable data -- nobody's ever legalized pot and the studies we have are based on people answering truthfully to complete strangers asking them whether they break state and federal drug laws -- I decided to attack marijuana prohibition at its roots: why are we even concerned about trying to stop people from smoking pot in the first place?
The next panel, "Are Current Drug Laws the New Jim Crow," starred The Rev. Edwin C. Sanders II, Senior Servant of the Metropolitan Interdenominational Church, Nashville, Tennessee. He made it clear that "if you ask for a speech, a lecture, a panel, a presentation, you're gonna get a sermon, because that's what I do." Preach he did, from his informed perspective in a "no steeple church." He followed a video from Prof. Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Era of Colorblindness and continued her theme of the War on Drugs as a tool of maintaining an undercaste system in America. "They are mining black gold," he intoned, "when every black boy who's arrested represents $30 to $40 thousand dollars to the prison industrial complex!" He described as "sinister" and "evil" the practice by private prison corporations to examine third and fourth grade reading levels to help determine where they'll build the next new prison.
Next was "International Alternatives and Insights" with Prof. Alex Stevens from Univ. of Kent in England, Gary J. Hale, retired Chief of Intelligence for DEA with insight on Mexico, and Bill Piper, director for congressional affairs with Drug Policy Alliance to cover US legalization strategies. Prof. Stevens impressed me with his steady, engaging refutation of much of the myths surrounding Europe's varying drug policies, including Swiss heroin assisted treatment and clean safe injection sites and Dutch coffeehouses and Portuguese across-the-board decriminalization. Mr. Hale's explanation of the futility and tragedy of the American Drug War in Mexico, as seen even by our own anti-drug forces, was disturbing. Mr. Piper's summation of American state policies toward decriminalization and medicalization led him to proclaim, "The US government can't really do all that much about what its own states do in this area, I don't think they can do very much to other countries that want to experiment with drug reform."
The forum concluded with a keynote speech from The Honorable Larry W. Campbell, Senator, Parliament of Canada; Former Member, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Drug Squad; Former Chief Coroner, British Columbia; and 37th Mayor of Vancouver. There is so much to be excerpted from his jovial and educated remarks. This one will suffice: when discussing his support in Vancouver of the supervised (heroin) injection site, he explained "saying no to needle exchange because it'll cause addiction is like saying flies cause garbage."
It is incredible to me that we have reached this point where, as President Obama once said, marijuana legalization is a legitimate topic for debate.
Follow Russ Belville on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RadicalRuss
Who will it be directed at next? Hopefully, AL-Qaeda or the Taliban.
http://nymag.com/news/9-11/10th-anniversary/patriot-act/
PATRIOT ACT Sneak-n-Peek Search Warrants 2006-2009:
Terrorism Cases = 15
Fraud Cases = 122
Drug Cases = 1,618
The Patriot Act fights legalization not terrorists?
If the people who want to use marijuana could grow a few plants in their own back yards, it would be about as valuable as home-grown tomatoes; it would put the drug gangs out of business and get them out of our neighborhoods.
I've seen people whose lives were a train wreck of sitting around stoned all the time and/or wasting a lot of time looking for more, and it's kind of sad. (I'm not saying that's the norm; I'm just acknowledging that it happens. Let's not sweep it under the rug.) I've also seen people in jail, beat up by other prisoners, molested, job opportunities destroyed, scholarship opportunities destroyed, kids on public assistance because parent was in jail... The law is hurting a LOT more people than the marijuana ever will.
A person CAN get over an addiction; they often will NEVER get over a conviction. It's time to treat marijuana like alcohol, sugar, fast food, or any of the hundred other things that we hope to educate people to use responsibly, rather than putting them in jail and wrecking their lives.
Some guys will grow their own and maybe sell it to pals under the taxed rate, but that cost will be so low it won't extend beyond that first relationship. It'll be like your neighbor who has the zucchini in the garden and is trying to pass it off on you - you'd take it if you like zucchini, if you hadn't already bought some at the store, if you already didn't have some in your pantry, or if it was significantly better zucchini than you have. You probably wouldn't pay much for it - obviously, demand and price and tax will be higher on pot than on zucchini - but you're not going to pay more than what you'd pay at the store. Plus, you may not want zucchini, you may want sweet potatoes. The store is going to have selection that your buddy just won't.
There will still be diversions to kids - nothing is ever going to stop that. Some 16-20 year olds will have friends 21 and older who will buy them some herb. Some kid is going to snip some buds off some parent's house plant. But that happens now, and on top of that we get some of those kids dealing themselves and all the crime and violence that surrounds that.
If you don't live by this move to China or some other totalitarian state and stop messing with our Liberty.
His tactics of trivializing people going to jail and prisons and the rest of the slippery interpretations of some very one sided facts was seamless. Treatment metered out through the court systems with drug testing represents involuntary indoctrination and treatment run by someone well versed in behavior modification. Probably someone much like Dr. Sabet himself. We need more discussions. Bravo !!!
I am also the guy with no traffic record in the 2000's, no criminal record, always paid taxes, never taken welfare or unemployment, almost have my student loans paid back, happily married for eleven years, and even my dog is licensed and neutered.*
So regardless of whatever predictions or statistics Dr. Sabet wants to make, he has to make the case that it shows why I need to be in a cage or a forced re-education camp with body fluid monitoring. When he says "well, you're not in a cage or rehab", all he underscores is that we have laws we don't really intend on enforcing... against me and other reasonably lucky and successful white folks.
* I have a juvenile reckless driving ticket from 1985 and some speeding tickets from the 1990's. I also have a couple of disturbing the peace violations from alcohol parties I threw in the 1990's. I have been bankrupted twice by medical emergencies, both Chapter 11's that I fulfilled the repayment plans on. I'm no saint... but I'm no criminal, either.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Nobody should be in trouble with the law for smoking pot. Parents on the other hand....
Cannabis is safe(er) medicine for autism and childhood epilepsy dude :)