There are a lot of items this week, some of which are really interesting, so my commentary this week will be limited to corrections and updates from
last week's roundup, the French study claiming that
marijuana doubles the risk of fatal crashes. I sent several emails out to the publications (especially scientific or medical) that cited the statistics that I found fishy, and I emailed the researchers in France as well.
Amazingly, the only reply I received was from one of the French researchers, Blandine Gadegbeku. She had one correction of my analysis. According to her mail, they took a measurement of THC, rather than THC-COOH, which the study I cited showed remained in the blood for days. As a result, the 7% figure that they cite for individuals testing positive for marijuana does not include people who were just heavy habitual users, whether stoned or not. However, she didn't explain the discrepancy between the 7% figure and the separate conclusion that only 2.5% of fatal crashes were attributed to a person driving under the influence of marijuana. According to Gadegbeku:
If a driver is under the influence of cannabis it's not necessary the cannabis that is the cause of the accident. So, if you remove alcohol, 28,6% of fatal crashes will disappear, but if you remove cannabis, only 2,5% will do the same.
This is still the part that doesn't really add up. Is it possible for someone to cause a fatal crash under the influence of marijuana and not have marijuana considered the cause of the accident? The only thing I can think of would be that the person was under the influence of alcohol (or some other substance) as well.
I replied asking her if the 7% figure counts people who were also under the influence of other substances, but haven't heard back. I still maintain that if the percent of fatal crashes attributed solely to marijuana (2.5%) is lower than the percentage of people in the driving population believed to be under the influence of marijuana (2.9%), then the conclusion they reach is not correct. Otherwise, it just seems like there were probably a lot of drunk drivers who also happened to be high.
If there are any statisticians out there, please feel free to drop me a mail and correct me on anything that doesn't sound right.
In other news...
The defeat for the Patriot Act today by the Senate is good news for everyone. TalkLeft has some information about how this bill that's premised upon stopping terrorism has found ways to extend its reach to the war on drugs.
Federal Agents raided 13 medical marijuana dispensaries in San Diego this week. The agents were assisted by local police, even though the city set up guidelines for the dispensaries in 2003. The following day, a protest was held.
Radley Balko is continuing to research the case of Cory Maye. Click the link for all of Balko's posts on this subject. For a quick summary, Cory Maye is a man on death row in Mississippi for shooting and killing a police officer during a drug raid. Maye had no criminal record, and it is very possible that he had reason to believe he was acting in self-defense.
Tom Angell of Students for Sensible Drug Policy has been sparring this week with Steven Steiner of DAMMADD (Dads And Mad Moms Against Drug Dealers). Steiner has been fighting for the Rhode Island House to refrain from overriding the Governor's veto on a medical marijuana bill. For some background on Steiner, he lost his son to an OxyContin overdose and has become a rabid anti-drug crusader. So after Angell's first post about him, Steiner sent another mail to his DAMMADD distribution list (which Angell is on) with a link to Angell's post. Finally, Angell has a question for Steiner, who is being funded by Purdue Pharmaceuticals, Steiner's financial backer and (I'm not making this up) the maker of OxyContin.
Drug Czar John Walters spoke in Indianapolis this week:
"Organized criminals now produce large quantities of methamphetamine in Mexico and are moving it across our borders," said John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
This was always the blatantly obvious outcome of the efforts to ban cold medicine sales everywhere. Now, we have more powerful drug gangs in Mexico, and it's harder for people with colds to buy Sudafed. There's simply no drug problem in this country that the ONDCP can't make into a much bigger problem.
The Government Accounting Office is questioning the U.S. Government's statistics on cocaine trafficking.
Washington State Senator Adam Kline will be reintroducing a bill to establish a commission to study drug law reform in the state.
Here's an op-ed in the Seattle Times discussing the internal debate among drug law reformers over how much commercialization should be allowed in any proposal to legalize marijuana. I tend to agree with the author, and will probably write at length about this in a future roundup.
Eric Footer has become the first person to challenge a marijuana arrest in Denver. Voters recently voted to make small amounts of marijuana legal to possess, but officials are still using state law to arrest people.
Professor Lyle Craker of the University of Massachusetts went to court this week to argue that he should have a DEA license to grow and study marijuana. Some commentary from TalkLeft, Mousemusings, and Last One Speaks.
Last One Speaks posts about the 87-year-old woman in Kentucky thrown in jail for selling OxyContin.
Drug WarRant breaks down a post from Mark Kleiman that misses the point on the taxation of addictive substances.
The Wisconsin Nurses Association supports the medical marijuana bill AB 740.
Via Grits For Breakfast, here's an interview with Nate Blakeslee, the author of "Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town", and some news that Texas Governor Rick Perry has put $7.1 million towards drug law enforcement under the federal Byrne Formula Grant Program.
A Florida judge ruled that Rush Limbaugh's doctors can be subpoenaed in his trial for buying illegal painkillers, but that patient-doctor confidentially rules still apply.
A Colorado high school was visited by a drug-sniffing dog this week.
A police officer in Chicago was charged with trying to sell 50 pounds of marijuana.
Three Myrtle Beach, South Carolina doctors are entitled to a new sentence hearing for their conviction of drug distribution and money laundering. They claim that they were following the guidelines for prescribing pain medication.
South Carolina is considering setting up a statewide drug court to battle meth abuse.
A University of Vermont study has shown that there are withdrawal symptoms when someone stops using marijuana.
Researchers in Memphis report that cocaine use may increase the chances of getting Parkinson's disease later in life.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana Drug Task Force officers broke into a sewer to recover bags of crack cocaine that had been flushed down a toilet.
Melissa Etheridge continues to speak out about medical marijuana.
In Vancouver, public officials are more reform-minded than anywhere in North America right now, and are trying to work with the Ottawa government to push reforms nationwide.
The reformers may have some trouble, though, if Conservatives win in next month's elections. Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper is criticizing the reforms that have been taking place in Canada.
In Ontario, the government is trying to crack down on large grow operations.
Tony Blair is considering undoing the reclassification of cannabis and re-enforcing stricter laws in response to a report that claims that marijuana causes psychosis. As anyone with basic reasoning skills understands, if marijuana causes psychosis, then you'd expect the incidence of psychosis to rise along with the rise in the use of marijuana. It hasn't.
The Czech Republic is taking steps to decriminalize marijuana possession.
A German teenager has been sentenced to 6 months in prison in Singapore for possessing less than 2 grams of marijuana.
A U.S. Navy helicopter used in anti-drug operations in Colombia crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
A 79-year-old Brazilian woman with cancer has been jailed after police found crack cocaine in the house she shares with her adult son.
An Afghani government spokesman claims that they have destroyed 181 heroin labs across the country in the past year.
In the Philippines, drugs used as evidence are supposed to be incinerated within 24 hours after being admitted as evidence in court. That's not working very well.
Last week, we had the story of the woman who mistook cheese for cocaine. This week, we have the story of an internationally recognized drug test that has the same problem.
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