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Tag: war on drugs

  • Success is Not an Option

    Success is Not an Option

    From the BBC: “Mrs Clinton said there was ‘no alternative’ to confronting the cartels, despite rising violence that left more than 15,000 dead last year.”

    Actually, there is an excellent alternative. The US government just won’t consider it.

    “Under a security cooperation programme called the Merida Initiative the US is spending around $1.7bn (£1bn) on helping Mexico and Central America tackle drug-trafficking.”

    Interesting. That’s in the same ballpark as what it costs to prop up the Egyptian government. I guess the going cost of buying-off a government is about $16 per person per year. Not a bad price, when you think about it. Of course it’s not like that $16 goes to every person, which might actually help the country. It goes to guns, police cars (Mexico has very nice police cars–and you can’t drink the water) and into the pockets of corrupt leaders.

    And the ever immoral 1984 perpetual war equals peace kicker: “authorities argue that the rising violence shows that the gangs are being weakened and turning increasingly on each other.”

    Ignorance is strength.

    There’s a nice interactive chart on the BBC page where you can click to look at deaths by region in 2009 and 2010. You can see how the “success” is spreading state by state.

    Here’s the general trend:


    My prediction: soon murders in Mexico will fall (eventually, they have to, right?). Maybe they maxed out in December, 2010. From that point on, the authorities that be will forget their bullshit about murder being a sign of success and instead talk about how their policies are reducing murders. What they will fail to mention is that these numbers will only be down from the absurdly high level they themselves helped create with their futile war on drugs.

  • Portugal’s Drug Policy

    The headline says: “Portugal’s drug policy pays off; US eyes lessons.” Of course it should probably say, “US ignores lessons.”

    I like pseudo neutral editor’s note: “This is part of an occasional series by The Associated Press examining the U.S. struggles in its war on drugs after four decades and $1 trillion.”

    The story is here. I haven’t read it yet, but I suspect it’s good.

    [Thanks to Sgt. T.]

  • Mexico

    Mexico

    First, as my wife sits near me working on a guidebook to the Yucatan (that’s Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and the Mayan Riviera for you tourists in Mexico), I feel obliged to point out that the Yucatan has a lower homicide rate than Canada. And Canada is safer than America. So not going to Cancun because of violence in Tijuana is like not going to Disneyland because of crime in Detroit. It just doesn’t make sense.

    OK… not that I got out of the way… have you see how f*cked up the war on drugs in Mexico still is?! I mention this because one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, murder will go down in Mexico. And when it does, you’ll hear about how great the latest get-tough police leader is. And how now we’re really winning the drug war. Of course that will be B.S. But just like you (I’m certain) I was wondering, “gee, I haven’t heard much about killings in Mexico recently. Maybe things are getting better.

    Then I came across this diagram in the BBC:


    No. Things are as bad as ever. And now police are shocking the balls of suspected corrupt cops (not all of whom are corrupt). But it doesn’t work. Yet another bit of proof that “getting tough” usually fails. In fact, things are worsethan ever. It turns out that things are twice as badas when this stuff last seemed to be in the news. There are now more than 1,000 killings a month. To put that in some bit of (admittedly not quite fair) perspective, total US casualties in Afghanistan topped 1,000 this year.

    In 2006, before Mexico got really tough in the war drugs, there were about 60 drug-war deaths a month in Mexico. Now those were the good old days.

    The war on drug increases killing. We know this. People… STOP!

  • The Wet House

    This is counter-intuitive thinking I love. The “Wet House.” They drink more. You pay less. Just give addicts what they want.

    You want to save their soul or protect the rest of us? Sometimes you have to pick between the two (and I’m picking the latter!).

    If I remember correctly, there was an article (perhaps in the New York Times Magazine?) about some drunk house in some Scandinavian Country. Seemed like a horrible place… and an excellent use of tax-payer dollars.

    Consider Marion Hagerman. In his 39 years of drinking, the 54-year-old has been arrested about 60 times. He has kept drinking despite six drunken-driving convictions and six 28-day treatment sessions.

    His drinking has cost the public more than $450,000. And since he was admitted to St. Anthony’s two years ago?

    Nothing. Not a single arrest, detox stay or emergency-room visit.

    It’s not that he’s turned his life around — he still drinks mouthwash, which he stashes in a nearby Dumpster. But he has drastically cut his cost to the public.

    “I use to stumble around and make a fool of myself outside,” said Hagerman, as he relit a day-old cigarette butt in his bare room. “But now I go home and do it here.”

    [Kudos to Pete Guither.]

  • College Drug Dealers Arrested

    It’s a headline you don’t see much. These guys were Columbia University students.

    Notice, if you will, the only real crime–the crime with a potential victim–is entirely the result of prohibition. So much of drug violence revolves around getting people to pay debts. That’s what happens when the business is illegal.

    And just one more plug for Dorm Room Dealers by A. Rafik Mohamed and Erik D. Fritsvold. In an academic (but readable) fashion, they explain how this all works.

  • Viva Cinco de Diciembre!

    Viva Cinco de Diciembre!

    Happy Repeal Anniversary!

    I just learned through a friend on Facebook that it’s Prohibition Repeal Day. No better time to think about vice and the virtues of individual freedom. But remember that the end of Prohibition brought despair, crime, more drinking, and criminals. Oh no, wait, that’s the wrong press release. That’s what prohibitionists saidwould happen after we legalized a popular and dangerous drug. When we did regulated alcohol in 1933, murders went down, the mob lost a lot of power, people stopped violating drinking laws, and the government stopped wasting time and money arresting people for selling a drink.

    If you support the war on drugs, at least be consistent and advocate for the return of alcohol prohibition, too. Think of the children. Prohibition isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the alcohol free-for-all we have now! Think of how much safer they’ll be after we crack down on those grog shops and foreign liquor peddlers. Here’s to an alcohol-free America!

    But seriously, remember that ending drug war is not an answer to our drug problems. Ending the drug war is an answer to our prohibitionproblems. And with that out of the way, we could begin to focus on the actual drug problems.


    ¡Viva Cinco de Diciembre!

  • Drugged Driving! Lock the doors! Hide the Kids! Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid!

    Drug Czar Kerlikowske said, “drugged driving is a much bigger public health threat than most Americans realize and unfortunately, it may be getting worse.”

    [Cue evil music!]

    Except, of course, it’s not.

    Kerlikowske is talking about this, which estimates that one-third of those who die in motor vehicle fatalities test positive for drugs.

    The problem, at least in context of the war on drugs, is how they define “drugs.” Alcohol, nicotine, and aspirin are excluded. That’s nice. But what about Acetominophen plus codeine? Ambien? Vicodin? Yep. Yep. And Yep. Ambien may be the ninth most prescribed drug in the US.

    You might also test positive for the joint you smoked last month, which covers at least six percent of all Americans. And no, they don’t break down which drugs people had in their system. Nor can they know if you’re actually high or impaired on whatever drug you’re taking.

    You can see the complete list drugs tested for starting on page 547 of this big file.

    Seeing how from 1999 to 2009, the number of prescriptions purchased in the United States increased 39%–we’re talking more than 3 billion prescriptions a year (not all of these are tested for)–how could you notfind more drugs in people’s systems?

    In truth, it’s amazing that onlyone-third of drivers tested positive for one of these drugs. It’s not amazing that drug prohibitionists twist, misuse, and sometimes just make up the numbers. They can’t handle the truth.

  • Willie Nelson likes smoking pot

    Willie Nelson likes smoking pot

    But we all know that. He doesn’t keep it secret and thinks it should be legal. But since it’s not, he’s been arrested for it. Again. Of course it’s silly a supposedly free country wastes our money and law enforcement resources arresting senior-citizen for smoking a pretty harmless substance.

    Of course it’s probably not a big deal for him. For Willie, getting busted yet again is almost like another feather in his bandanna. It’s more a shame when my students are arrested for such things. They can actually be hurt by a drug arrest. They don’t have much money and go to public university. When I went to college at a very rich private university, I don’t think anybody was everbeen arrested for marijuana possession. (I’m just sayin’…).

    But this arrest bothers me more than usual because Willie Nelson, a US citizen, was detained at a US Border Patrol checkpoint while traveling within the US. Willie Nelson never left the Land of the Free. He was simply minding his own business being driven down US Highway 10 when he was stopped by federal agents at a border checkpoint that isn’t on the border. Seems they make a lot of low-level drug arrests here which probably brings in a little money to little Sierra Blanca and Hudspeth County, Texas.

    US Border Patrol can and does stop people at “Interior Checkpoints” without cause. One needn’t be an anti-government survivalist to be slightly bothered by this. The main purpose, supposedly, is to deter illegal immigration. OK. Fine. So why arrest a guy getting stoned in the back of his tour bus? [Update: I should amend that to say the main purpose originally was to deter illegal immigration. Drugs were never mentioned in the original Supreme Court decision. But see the first comment below for yet another example of how the war on drugs creeps into everything.]

    Police get power because of fear of terrorism or immigration. But once you give police that power, they can and will (and arguably should) use it as a tool for alllaw enforcement. I’ve written about this problem before, albeit in the slightly different context of airport security. If Border Patrol can stop people on trains and roads within 100 miles of an international border to look for illegal immigrants, then they should do nothing but make sure you’re not an illegal immigrant. Period.

    In this case, the officer smelled weed when the door opened. This “plain smell” gives probable cause for further detention and search of a motor vehicle.

    And let me just mention how nice it was of Willie to take one for the team. He said the six ounces of found marijuana was his. That’s a lot of weed, even for Willie!

    At fixed check points (but not roaming ones) Border Patrol got the authority to stop people at their discretion in US v. Martinez-Fuerte (1976) when the court said:

    It is agreed that checkpoint stops are “seizures” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment…. But it involves only a brief detention of travelers during which “[a]ll that is required of the vehicle’s occupants is a response to a brief question or two and possibly the production of a document evidencing a right to be in the United States.”

    The decision was seven to two. The two dissenters, Brennan and Marshall, wrote:

    There is no principle … which permits constitutional limitations to be dispensed with merely because they cannot be conveniently satisfied. Dispensing with reasonable suspicion as a prerequisite to stopping and inspecting motorists because the inconvenience of such a requirement would make it impossible to identify a given car as a possible carrier of aliens is no more justifiable than dispensing with probable cause as prerequisite to the search of an individual because the inconvenience of such a requirement would make it impossible to identify a given person in a high-crime area as a possible carrier of concealed weapons.

    The lonely dissenters also took objection to the majority’s opinion that, “We further believe that it is constitutional to refer motorists selectively to the secondary inspection area … even if it be assumed that such referrals are made largely on the basis of apparent Mexican ancestry, we perceive no constitutional violation.” That’s a bit scary.

    Is such constitutional racial profiling still law of the land or has some more recent case overturned that?

  • DEA funds terrorism

    Of course that’s meant to be a sensational headline… but it’s actually true.

    And God only knows how the DEA would flip the tables if some anti-drug-war group was guilty of the same thing.

    According to the Times:

    [The DEA] sent David C. Headley, a small-time drug dealer and sometime informant, to work for them in Pakistan months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, despite a warning that he sympathized with radical Islamic groups, according to court records and interviews. Not long after Mr. Headley arrived there, he began training with terrorists, eventually playing a key role in the 2008 attacks that left 164 people dead in Mumbai.

    Nice one.

    Remember kids, drugs don’t cause terrorism, the DEA does.

    I wonder what the DEA’s brain looks like funding terrorists?

  • Exceptional Clearance

    “The presumed slaughter of 20 tourists in Acapulco — apparently has been solved by thugs who captured the alleged killers, posted their confessions on the Internet, then murdered them and directed police to the crime scene.” From the Houston Chronicle.