Here in Washington State, there has been some good progress recently in the effort to reform drug laws. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper has become an
outspoken critic of the drug war, and Roger Goodman of the King County Bar Association has been
leading an impressive effort to convince the lawmakers in Olympia that something needs to be done. Goodman will be stopping by the
Seattle Drinking Liberally event this Tuesday to discuss policy. If you're in the Seattle area, I encourage you to come by.
The question I get most often from skeptics of drug law reform is "What about meth?" Meth is a drug that appears to be both dangerous and chemically addictive. I don't know this for sure, but it's an opinion that is held by people who've had more exposure to the drug than I have (which is not hard, since I've never seen it, or even seen people use it). But as with any drug, the root logic of prohibition simply doesn't work, regardless of how destructive a drug is. Even for heroin, we're beginning to learn how well safe houses work, from Switzerland to Spain to Canada.
In the past week in Washington State, a new law took effect regulating the sale of pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient for cooking meth, found in many standard cold medicines. The Snohomish County Herald, in the northern Seattle suburbs, sent its reporters out to test the new law:
In just a few hours, the boxes of cold medicine piled up.
Inside, police said, was enough pseudoephedrine to brew up more than 18 grams of methamphetamine - enough to get nearly two dozen people high and put nearly $1,300 in a drug trafficker's pocket.The article is so poorly written that I can't quite tell whether or not the paragraphs above refer to what the reporters bought or what police had confiscated from someone, but that's not a very large amount of meth. Although here's more detail on the reporters' wild and crazy drug-buying spree:
The reporters legally engaged in group shopping, with 10 people hitting different stores from Arlington to Lynnwood.
The reporters purchased 20 boxes of the newly regulated cold medicine. Buying that much of the over-the-counter drugs is legal, even though it can be used to make a substantial quantity of meth, police said.
Home-cooked methamphetamine has a street value of $40 to $70 a gram. A box of cold medicine retails for $5.50 to $10. Depending on the strength of the medicine used, it can take as little as two boxes to produce a gram of meth.So, 10 reporters purchased 20 boxes of cold medicine. Using the average prices ($55 a gram for cooked meth and $7.75 for a box of cold medicine), the reporters spent $155. Assuming that they could produce 10 grams of cooked meth with that amount, they could sell their finished product for $550. So, not counting gas and other overhead costs, the reporters showed that they could have each made around $40 for a day's work. Great scoop there.
The article goes from bad to worse here:
The new law does nothing to curb the purchase of cold medicines, which is legal so long as individual purchases are limited to no more than two packages in 24 hours.
I'll spare you from reading too much more of this embarrassment, but I might as well point out where they come the closest to actually making a real point here.
Most of the meth now sold here no longer comes from what police call "Beavis and Butthead" labs run by locals, Flood said. Instead, the drugs are produced by Latin American drug organizations in "superlabs" in Mexico and the southwestern U.S.
Wow, how'd that happen? Maybe because similar laws across the country have allowed these foreign operations to gain a bigger market share? Of course, that's never mentioned, and we continue to make foreign crime syndicates wealthier by believing that there's a way to stop the consumption of addictive drugs through laws that target the supply chain. Or, as I like to call it, "Beavis and Butthead" law enforcement.
In other news...
In New York, Governor Pataki has granted clemency to 28 drug offenders, but that's only scratching the surface of the problems that New York has with its drug laws.
Here's a Washington Post editorial questioning why there's so much more emphasis on enforcing marijuana laws.
Here's a San Francisco Chronicle editorial wondering the same thing.
Former Drug Czar Bill Bennett is stepping away from the craps table and joining CNN.
Rhode Island became the 11th state to legalize the use of medical marijuana.
Maryland has a strong need for more substance-abuse centers.
Tennessee is posting pictures of known meth manufacturers on the internet. I think the theory is that making it difficult for someone to get a job or a rental, while also letting the entire meth using community aware that you know how to make it, is the best way to get someone to stop.
About 1 baby per week in Arkansas is placed in state care because the mother is suspected of drug use. The most common drug? Marijuana. (via USMJP)
A man in Texas is sentenced to 35 years in prison for having less than 1/2 kg of cocaine.
Remember the kids in Colorado who were smoking pot laced with heroin? They weren't.
Pete at Drug WarRant finds a Utah lawmaker desperately in need of a clue.
In Oregon, it is now legal to smoke marijuana seeds.
A Wisconsin man has been charged with murdering his friend, who died of a drug overdose after he injected him. In Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, 2 others are charged with homicide, although in their case, the victim was a minor.
Radley Balko at The Agitator finds another "wrong address" raid in Milwaukee that made the 68-year-old victim question the use of SWAT teams for arresting marijuana users.
He also wonders what the hell happened to George Bush since he took a more libertarian position in 1999 on medical marijuana than the Clinton Administration.
GW Pharmaceuticals will soon be able to test marijuana-based Sativex on cancer patients in the U.S. Jacob Sullum wonders if this will eventually have a negative effect on those who believe that recreational use of marijuana should be legal as well.
An international research team has made some new findings on how marijuana alleviates the symptoms of multiple sclerosis sufferers.
Here's a good article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Dutch drug laws.
Justin Holmes at the DARE Generation Diary discusses a truly silly article on MDMA at The Conservative Voice.
We will soon be able to get ONDCP propaganda podcasts over the internet.
Michele Kubby, the wife of former California Libertarian candidate for governor Steve Kubby, is challenging Canadian drug law. If they lose, they could potentially be sent back to the U.S. on January 12. The Hammer of Truth has more.
Peruvian rebel group Shining Path is believed to be behind an ambush of police officers. The group has historically been funded by cocaine trafficking.
Iran has seen a 5% increase in drugs confiscated by the police from last year.
Newsweek had an article this week discussing the situation in Afghanistan. The head counternarcotics official in Afghanistan, Gen. Mohammad Daud, is confident he can reduce poppy production by 40% in 2006. In the Newsweek article, it mentions that General Daud is suspected of having ties to the poppy industry as well.
A Tanzanian man died on a flight from Johannesburg to Blantyre, Malawi after swalling 177 tubes of cocaine.
Despite the reclassification of cannabis, Britain still arrested over 13,000 people for possession in 2004. Blair is considering reversing the reclassification, which apparently was never in effect in the first place.
The Sydney Morning Herald has an editorial questioning the wisdom of putting drug users in jail.
This week, I've been encouraging people to take the poll on the front of the Drug Free America Foundation site. I was motivated by this letter from DFAF founder Calvina Fay.
Finally, from Texas, this is funny. (via Grits For Breakfast)