Guns, gun control, gun violence, etc. and drug legalization

There was a very smart commentary by Richard Feldman, head of the Independent Firearms Owners Association (IFOA), in USAToday (Dec. 12, 2013) about the largely pointless debate about "guns" after the Newtown, CT.

Among Feldman's conclusions: "It's time we remove incentives encouraging criminals to use, rather than avoid, guns."

In a Dec. 15 email to the Executive Directors of Drug Policy Alliance, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, NORML, and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation on Dec. 15, Feldman elaborated:

"It's time we remove incentives encouraging criminals to use, rather than avoid, guns" The incentives I refer to are of course that guns are the main only option when dealing in black market goods - no call to 911 if stolen, no use of the courts for product distribution or supply dislocation - only the ability to use force, and that force is mainly from the barrel of a gun.
 
Let me be blunt: The organized firearm community has a vested interest in this [drug legalization] movement even if many of the established organizations don't!  IFOA supports [drug] legalization because it makes sense and lowers harm.

 
A key point of Feldman's was confirmed -- without any acknowledgement of the significance of the data -- in The Washington Post, (Dec. 14, 2013). Twenty-four percent of all the children under 10 deliberately shot and killed with a firearm in 2012 was  killed due to "random violence, drive-by shootings, and neighborhood gun battles." That sounds like killings associated with the drug trade!

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Rolling Stone profile of Ethan Nadelmann

Rolling Stone magazine gives the full rock star treatment to my friend Ethan Nadelmann in the current issue.

In 1988 and 1989, three events thrust drug legalization onto the national agenda -- where it remains -- as the primary remedy for the dual problems of drug abuse and the disastrous unintended consequences of drug prohibition. Ethan played a key role in that moment that this profile does not share.

The first event was a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors by Baltimore's new mayor, Kurt Schmoke, calling for drug legalization to address the crisis of the new AIDS epidemic, among other things. Schmoke, the city's first African-American mayor, was a former United States Attorney and former elected State's Attorney for Baltimore City. Mayor Schmoke was an important political figure making an unusually frank and significant statement at obvious political risk. With a bullet-proof background in the Ivy League and as a well-regarded prosecutor, his courageous stance had an unchallenged political legitimacy.This event was stunning in its timing -- Nancy Reagan was still First Lady, just saying "No," Congress was developing of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, and the crack cocaine epidemic was growing and become more violent.

In September 1989, new President George H.W. Bush, speaking from the Oval Office announced an anti-drug strategy from the first modern "drug czar," Dr. William Bennett. Politicians had been pushing a "war on drugs" for eight years, and the nation was really ready for some new thinking.

As Bush's speech was being written, one of the nation's most prestigious intellectual journals, Science, published an article by Dr. Ethan Nadelmann making a case for legalization. This peer-reviewed article blessed the intellectual legitimacy of the critique of prohibition, the second key event.

Third, the morning after the President's address, it was attacked at a well-attended press conference in a Washington, DC with Ira Glasser, head of the ACLU, Neal Sonnett, a very distinguished bar leader and President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Dr. Arnold Trebach of the Drug Policy Foundation, Don Fiedler, Esq. head of NORML, and Rev. Andrew Leigh Gunn, head of Clergy for an Enlightened Drug Policy. I had set up the press conference and was moderator. The national news media reported our critique of the enforcement emphasis of the drug strategy as a terrible failure, and that it needed to be replaced by legalization. For the first time, drug policy was no longer reported as the tit for tat of Democrats and Republicans trying to sound tougher than the other.

Schmoke's speech, Nadelmann's article, and the organized voices of a drug policy reform movement demonstrated a moral vision, an intellectual maturity, and a political and media savvy that planted drug legalization firmly in the national discourse about drug policy. The legitimacy of prohibition was, from that point on, always under attack!


It took several years for Ethan Nadelmann to move to the center of the drug policy reform movement. Rolling Stone outlines the seminal moment of his leadership, Proposition 215 in California in 1996. Ethan saw the emerging opportunity, recruited the major funders and political strategist Bill Zimmerman, which resulted in marijuana winning one million more votes than Bill Clinton winning re-election in California.

Ethan's enormous charisma and intelligence, and his tremendous accomplishments -- especially at the international level -- are the raw material for a rock star media profile. Getting admitted to Harvard, and getting three degrees from Harvard -- a B.A., a law degree and a Ph.D. -- is a very rare achievement. Getting the substantial philanthropic support of one of the most enlightened billionaires in history -- George Soros -- was not accidental or coincidental, it was earned! Getting invited and making countless speeches to the key gatherings around the world demands enormous stamina and self-possession. It demands an enormous personal sacrifice.

Naturally, since the article is about him, the article necessarily ignores the many people who also played and continue to play absolutely essential roles in drug policy reform. If all that one knew about drug policy reform was a reading of Rolling Stone, one would be sadly ignorant of  others who played perhaps even more profoundly inspirational roles over the past 40 years in creating the modern drug policy reform movement. First, of course, Keith Stroup, the founder of NORML, and then, Dr. Arnold Trebach and Kevin Zeese, the founders of the Drug Policy Alliance (then known as the Drug Policy Foundation), Julie Stewart, the chief co-founder of FAMM (Families Against Mandatory Minimums), Rob Kampia, the chief co-founder of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), and Jack Cole, the most prominent of the three co-founders of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), along with Peter Christ and Howard Wooldridge. These men and woman have been essential to building a movement.

For the last 15 years, the Marijuana Policy Project has been, in my judgment, equally important if not more important than the Drug Policy Alliance in building the drug policy reform movement in the U.S., and enacting marijuana law reforms at the state level.


Ethan has a volcanic speaking style, a rock star charisma, and an intellectual brilliance that dazzles the audience -- whether a convention hall, a board room, or a funder in her living room. He deserves every inch of his Rolling Stone profile. Rob Kampia has an political vision, and strategic talent for making shrewd bets in politics and personnel, and a management capacity to drive a team that is enormously effective in hitting its targets and achieving results.


There are dozens of other men and women around the nation whose vision, passion and voice have been critical to victory in one state or another, and in helping sustain the organizations that make up the movement. I am thinking of Dr. Dale Gieringer, the leader of California NORML, Chris Conrad and Mikki Norris, writers, activists and editors of the West Coast Leaf, or Mason Tvert of SAFER in Colorado. In state after state, completely off the national radar, there have been hundreds of men and women who prodded the legislature, the Governor, the media and the other key actors to get a medical marijuana law enacted, or to build a state-wide organization.

As an intellectual descendant of Hegel's I believe that progress moves ahead in the struggle of thesis and antithesis. Would Ethan be as successful if not for the rivalry for movement leadership from Rob Kampia and MPP? Would he be as intellectually forceful if not for the challenge to his ideas by Dr. Mark Kleiman, once a colleague at Harvard? Kleiman, now at UCLA, is the intellectually furious Socratic challenger to much of drug policy discourse -- harassing reformers, Congress and the White House with equal vehemence, and is now leading a team to advise Washington state authorities on the practical challenges of legalizing marijuana under state law.

I have known, admired and been fond of Ethan since he was a graduate student at Harvard. He is a warm and loyal friend. He is a genuine intellectual rock star, and at this moment in his World Tour he fully deserves this wonderful profile in Rolling Stone! I encourage you to read it.

Share the article with your friends, and if you are not yet a member of Drug Policy Alliance, join and donate monthly, as I do.

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Pre-Grammys, Tony Bennett calls for drug legalization

At a pre-Grammy gala, noting the deaths of Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and Whitney Houston, singer Tony Bennett appealed for drug legalization. What strikes me is that in this context the argument is implicitly a public health claim, not an argument grounded in opposition to legal injustice, favoring individual liberty, saving taxpayer's money, or fighting crime. Given the very different circumstances of the deaths of Jackson, Winehouse and Houston, it seems to me Bennett seems to have an understanding of the negative ways drug prohibition abuse affects so many features of drug use patterns and treatment.

It is also striking that on the occasion of Whitney Houston's death, instead of simply lamenting drugs or substance abuse, or endorsing the importance of treatment, Bennett felt moved to endorse a policy change, namely, drug legalization. Bravo Tony Bennett!

UPDATE:

Katharine Celentano of SSDP Columbia University and Neill Franklin of LEAP have a terrific discussion of Bennett's comments in Huffington Post.

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LEAP asks Obama if "We do big things" on drug policy

Retired Deputy Sheriff McKenzie Allen (Los Angeles County, CA, and King County, WA), a LEAP member, addresses the President in 30 seconds on YouTube to ask if he will consider studying legalization, regulation and control of drugs to reduce violence and save lives.

The President is taking questions from the public such as this to be addressed on Jan. 27, 2011 at 2:30 p.m. EST to be streamed live on youTube. Mr. Allen's video received more votes than any other submitted question in on-line voting.

LEAP is Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Tom Angell, Media Director for LEAP, notes that President Obama has treated previous questions along these lines as a joke. LEAP Executive Director, retired Maryland State Police Major Neill Franklin, noting that close friends of his have been murdered while investigating drug cases, says this is "not a laughing matter, and the president should not treat it as such."

Tune in and see if the White House and the President, when it comes to fixing our failed drug policy, is able to say "We Do Big Things!"

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Mexico -- Is the state "failing?"

George Friedman at Stratfor published a mind-boggling analysis of the situation in Mexico in April.

He argued that the violence in Mexico is largely in the little populated North, and does not threaten the state. The violence is for control of the profitable drug trafficking routes, but does not threaten the Mexican heartland.

The drug trade is so profitable it enriches Mexican banks and institutions because most of the profits remain in Mexico. Thus Mexico has little incentive to stop the drug trade -- it is not in Mexico's national interest.

Friedman acknowledged that the U.S. can:

1. accept the status quo.

2. figure out how to reduce drug demand.

3. legalize drugs.

4. "move into Mexico in a bid to impose its will against a government, banking system and police and military force that benefit from the drug trade."

He concluded, "The United States does not know how to reduce demand for drugs. [See Peter Reuter's recent paper "How Can Domestic U.S. Drug Policy Help Mexico?" on this point.] The United States is not prepared to legalize drugs. This means the choice lies between the status quo and a complex and uncertain (to say the least) intervention. We suspect the United States will attempt some limited variety of the latter, while in effect following the current strategy and living with the problem."

"If . . one accepts the idea that all of Mexican society benefits from the inflow of billions of American dollars (even though it also pays a price), then the Mexican state has not failed -- it is following a rational strategy to turn a national problem into a national benefit."



So when might American policy makers begin to consider that control of these profits remain in criminal hands and will be used for criminal purposes?

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The Tea Party: What's brewing on drug policy?

Harvard Professor Jeffrey Miron, the brilliant libertarian economist, advised the Tea Party, in a short a National Review Online column, in June 2010, to take the libertarian path on drug policy.

Amen. Drug prohibition is the paradigmatic government program that fails to deliver what it promises. It doesn't reduce crime, it creates crime. It doesn't protect health, it makes drug use more dangerous. It doesn't hurt drug traffickers, it guarantees that the successful ones will be rich.

The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation is proud to have sponsored several of his papers. This one, in December 2008, was produced for the LEAP-CJPF project on the anniversary of the repeal of alcohol prohibition, and this one, in February 2010, was a state-by-state followup on the potential cost savings and tax revenues.

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77 bodies in mass grave in Mexico

The BBC is reporting that Mexican authorities have found 77 bodies in an abandoned well.

In December 1999, the Los Angles Times published my op-ed, "Legalize Drugs or Expect More Mass Graves."

Update: The bodies were dumped in the ventilation shaft of an abandoned mine, not an abandoned well.

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Hempfest is huge, but is it good politics?

In the months leading up to the 2009 Hempfest in Seattle, Dominic Holden, one of the long-serving leaders and organizers of the famous Seattle Hempfest, criticized what he saw as Hempfest’s narrow cultural foundation. He argues that the movement for drug policy reform needs to be much broader, and that the Hempfest could be more valuable politically if it were not exclusively a “tie-die” affair. Some leaders of Hempfest, responding to his published critique, had his VIP pass revoked and was ejected.

Aside from the personality issues involved, I think his political critique is important. (Of course, that may be because I largely agree with him.)

More than a fifteen years ago I became very concerned about the role of hemp rallies in the politics of drug policy reform. This post was started and mostly written in the early 1990s after I stopped speaking at hemp rallies.

* * * * *

In many towns around the nation, the entirety of the drug policy “debate” is either on the letters to the editor page of the local newspaper or a hemp rally on a campus or in a park. But in larger cities, within the next six weeks, there will be various hemp rally–“harvest festivals,” such as the 20th Annual Boston Freedom Rally on September 19, 2009 and the 39th Annual Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival in Madison, Wisconsin, Oct. 1-4, 2009. The fall semester will probably see a resumption of campus marijuana policy protests packaged as hemp rallies.

Of course, these rallies are not a debate, at all. Even as a “political” rally or protest, the hemp rally is a hodge-podge of bands, speakers, and clouds of smoke. I am deeply troubled that for much of the public the most common face of the politics of drug policy reform is teenager smoking a pipe at a pot rally. Does it need to be said that this is profoundly counter-productive? Well-meaning and passionate, but immature strategies and tactics keep holding back our movement.

Around the nation – indeed around the world – serious analysts and commentators know that our drug policy is a counterproductive failure leading to more crime and little drug abuse prevention. The U.S. government and its political establishment are the linchpin for reform, but until a proper political campaign is executed, the status quo will remain firmly in charge. We are close to a global tipping point for reform, but our reform movement squanders the energy and political force of tens of thousands of our activists on ill-conceived events. Protests are necessary, and large, well-planned demonstrations would be a tremendous asset to the global reform movement. But the hemp rally paradigm is out of date.

Woodstock was a great cultural moment. But it is preposterous to think that two-bit re-enactments of the Woodstock vibe in parks and quads around the nation are a positive political tactic.

The drug policy reform movement has many organizational problems. In this paper I suggest that one of our reform movement’s most serious image and organizing problems are "hemp rallies." I am using this term to describe any marijuana legalization or hemp legalization rally or festival at which marijuana is smoked, encouraged, or justified and at which persons college age or younger predominate.

Have you ever been to a hemp rally? In the early 1990s, at a string of such events – the Texas Hemp Summit, the Boston Freedom Rally, the Ann Arbor Hash Bash, the Illinois Hash Wednesday, the New York Pot Parade, the Fourth of July Marijuana Smoke-in in front of the White House, Hempstalk in upstate NY, the Harvest Festival in Madison, WI, and various similar events in California, North Carolina, Kentucky and elsewhere, I basked in more than my share of cheers and applause, as I contributed my Washington, DC political perspective. But I haven’t spoken to any in fifteen years, having concluded that they are politically pointless. In the mid-1990s, when I heard the entire drug policy reform movement described as "pro-drug" and "pro-pot," I analyzed my hemp rally experiences and understood why those accusations could be seriously made.

But aside from any accusations, we must fully appreciate that in order to change the drug laws in Congress and the state legislatures, we need the cooperation and engagement of a broad-based coalition. We certainly need a much, much, MUCH larger coalition than we now have. And certainly, we need the support of people who feel most strongly about the drug problem and who are aware of the current approach's failures.

Why haven't the PTAs, the teachers unions or the Chambers of Commerce endorsed drug policy reform? Their reticence is based almost entirely on the plausible fear that teenage drug use will rise. Well, there remains a lot of teenage marijuana use – about one out of five high school seniors is a current user, which is less than it was at the start of this decade. This prevalence certainly and reasonably alarms parents and their teachers.

MARIJUANA IS NOT HARMLESS

Let's face one fact. Marijuana use can be harmful. Undoubtedly the harms are grossly, frequently hysterically, exaggerated by anti-marijuana crusaders -- but the harms to some users are real -- often subtle, but significant, none the less.

Marijuana use can be habit forming. Perhaps six to ten percent of users can be considered addicted – the users have tried to quit but quickly resumed using marijuana, and their use is interfering with their lives – their relationships, their studies, their work. One of the great psychiatrists and researchers of drug abuse, Harvard’s acclaimed Norman Zinberg, M.D., the author of the Drug, Set and Setting, and a long time friend of NORML, recognized that marijuana addiction was one of the toughest addictions to treat because it was hard for the addict to recognize the urgency of addressing it. The addict knows it is harmful but not so obviously and deeply harmful and compulsive as addictions to heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine frequently are. I suspect that most of us in drug policy reform know some persons we could fairly call marijuana addicts.

Judgment often is impaired when one is stoned. This doesn't mean one does not deny that one can have useful, valuable insights when stoned. But people can be impulsive while stoned and engage in “risky behavior” that they might not take if sober. Marijuana does not cause the gross impairment that is common with overindulgence of alcoholic beverages. Certainly some athletes believe that cannabis improves their performance, but marijuana-caused impairment can increase the risk of accidents and injuries when bicycling, hiking, skiing, boating, swimming, etc. while stoned. Motor skills and cognitive skills are often impaired when stoned. There is no doubt that this has led to several hugely tragic accidents – usually in conjunction with alcohol use. These tragic examples of the misuse of marijuana, however, do not warrant prohibition of adult use because they are more than balanced by the pleasure millions of people obtain when they are stoned. But these tragedies must not be ignored.

The biological and developmental risks for kids from heavy marijuana use are probably greater than they are for adults, simply because kids’ bodies are still developing. Of course, most teenage users are not heavy users, but some are. In general, the risks for kids engaging in many adult behaviors such as driving cars, using firearms, and having sex – to name just a few – are also greater than the risks that adults run. But we would not think of banning adults from these behaviors to "send a message" to kids that they run risks in such activities. Prohibition is definitely not the approach to address these risks, harm reduction and education are the correct route.

It ought to be obvious that none of us are in the drug policy reform movement to increase the number of teens in trouble or the number of drug addicts. Most of us believe a system of regulation and control of drugs will lead to better control, and more credible prevention, than the out-of-control situation that exists in the prohibition structure of criminal markets, and the prohibition culture that results in a mix of secretive use and flamboyantly rebellious use.

Before we can mobilize the public to end prohibition, we need dramatic expansion of effective public health-based prevention programs to discourage people of all ages, but especially children, from using drugs in risky and inappropriate ways.

The drug policy reform movement wants to create conditions for safer, more responsible, less harmful drug use than is possible under prohibition. When we talk of harm reduction, of course, we are explicitly acknowledging the risks and dangers of drug use. But we must be more forthright in acknowledging those risks, especially about marijuana. Our political work demands that we be truthful and that we are truly working to reduce the harm from drugs. Our mission requires that we practice harm reduction in our politics.

TEENAGE POT USE

Marijuana use by teenagers is not a sign of enlightenment. Yes, there are certainly bright, curious kids who smoke marijuana, but their adolescent marijuana use is not a cause for celebration! Some marijuana using kids are more likely to use other drugs than kids who have never used marijuana. That's what the data shows, and it makes sense, even though the overwhelming majority of teenage marijuana users never use another illegal drug. Statistically, marijuana is more frequently a “terminus” drug than a “gateway” drug.

The fact that marijuana experimenting teenagers are more likely to experiment with other illegal drugs than a kid who never tried marijuana is not the bogus pharmacological "stepping stone" theory that a "marijuana addict eventually needs a stronger drug to get high." Rather, it is both a psychological truth and a legal and cultural phenomenon. Psychologically, a willingness to take risks cuts across a variety of behaviors. A risk taker might try out for a role in the school play, the varsity football team, or the debate team. A risk taker might ask someone for a date. A risk taker might take a toke when a joint is passed to him or her. Appropriate risk taking is healthy.

What we call “risky” behavior is different. “Risky” behavior is not wearing a seat belt, not wearing a condom during sex, running a yellow traffic light, shooting the rapids without a life jacket, kayaking or climbing without a helmet, etc.

Risk is to be encouraged, risky is to be discouraged.

In addition to the personal behavior and psychology, there are the cultural features of the pot smoking world. The gestalt values new experiences and adventures. It includes a music scene which is embedded with drug use. It has an ethos that mixes almost boundless individual liberty with voluntary (never compulsory) social responsibility. One of the accepted values is getting high. Experimentation with drugs is commonplace and tolerated -- particularly with LSD, nitrous oxide, MDMA (Ecstasy), peyote (mescaline), psilocybin mushrooms, tobacco, and alcohol. Many pot smokers don't use other drugs or if they do, for most, their experimentation is short-lived. But many pot smokers do try other drugs, and pot, after underage and illegal alcohol and tobacco experimentation and use, was another illegal drug – the first culturally illegal drug – they tried.

Increasing rates of teenage pot use is not a good thing. It would be a political cynicism and stupidity of the most odious sort to see expanding the cohort of teenage pot smokers as an enlargement of a political base.

Certainly it cannot be heresy in the harm reduction movement to observe that it is statistically likely that more kids will be hurt by hard drugs if the number of teenage pot smokers continues to rise. Many of these new pot smoking kids are not college kids, they are not even senior high school kids -- they are usually junior high or middle school kids and sometimes younger.

It is important to ask why teenage pot use went up a decade ago. It would be simply glib to say that it is the fault of prohibition, or the flawed design and execution of D.A.R.E. programs. Like most social phenomena, it is almost certainly due to a number of factors. As public health oriented advocates, we must ask if hemp rallies have anything to do with that increase? If so, we must examine what happens at hemp rallies.

THE HEMP RALLY PLAYERS

I'd like to describe the hemp rallies I attended from the perspectives of the rally organizers, the speakers, the participants, and the different groups in the viewing public.

Rally organizers -- like most of us, much of the time -- often have mixed motives. On one hand they want to hold a political rally. They want a forum for making political statements about marijuana and hemp. For the old Cannabis Action Network, for example, that was the principal motive. Rally organizers want the press to cover the event, and they need to draw a crowd. They may also want to cover their costs and raise money.

For the organizers of the Fourth of July Hemp Coalition's Smoke-In at the White House, the motive was primarily politics. As a concert, the stage and sound system were practically non-existent -- indeed, there is a companion concert later that afternoon. But they almost never have political literature around the marijuana issues.

For organizers of other events the primary motive seems to be to have a big party, e.g., the "Hash Bash" in Ann Arbor, the "Windy City Weed Fest" in Chicago, and the "Great Atlanta Pot Festival." "Let's get some great bands together and kick back in the sunshine. If we all get together and get high, won't that be great."

For some hemp rallies, the motives are clearly mixed. For NORML's Fourth of July rock'n'roll party near the Lincoln Memorial, for example, politics is the motive, but fun and music is the lure. As a political event, this has repeatedly been an utter failure. No one takes it seriously as a protest. New York's "Fifth Avenue Pot Parade" has a serious political hue -- until it gets to Washington Square Park when the real business of the day begins -- the party!

For the Boston Freedom Rally, the organizers have an explicit political objective, but the bands are critically important, and the vendors and fund raising is important too.

For Hempfest in Seattle, it appears that the political objective is mixed and inseparable from hosting a cultural celebration.

At one level, the hemp rally is like the $500 per person gala benefit organized by "high society" socialites to benefit the opera guild, the Childrens' Hospital, or cancer research -- "The public may think we're wealthy, social parasites -- but we're actually doing good work for the community." Yes, we are raising money for an important charity. But at heart, we also like hobnobbing with the local wealthy elites. This is the hempy alternative: we're not stoners, we're political activists!

On campus, hemp rally organizers recognize the value of associating their "spring fling" with positive political and social messages -- individual freedom, equal justice for all, criminal justice reform, medicine for the sick, save the planet!

Rally organizers look for the best bands and the best speakers they can to get the biggest crowds. They target the rally publicity to the youth media. The organizers know that what really draws crowds is the promise of a good time.

The speakers come with a range of motives. Some of us look forward to getting our message out to an audience more appreciative than a right-wing talk radio show. A few of us think we present seriously developed analyses of various drug policy issues and that this is a forum for education about the issues. We bring copies of our reports, white papers and book chapters.

For other "speakers" at a hemp rally, this is a party -- this is like cheerleading at an athletic event. I've seen speakers dressed up in costume. One earnest speaker used to make a living selling bumper stickers, "Thank you for pot smoking" -- that imitated the American Cancer Society's slogan "Thank you for not smoking." At some rallies, there are "doobie tosses" -- the throwing of marijuana cigarettes into the crowd. Functionally, at most events the speakers are on the program to fill the time as the bands who have drawn the audience move their equipment off and on stage. This is down time, perfect for rolling a joint and filling a bowl before the next set begins.

Speakers generally express outrage that the crowd shares. The ever-present shadow of arrest genuinely interferes with the peace of mind of America's 15 or 20 million pot-smokers. Prohibition enforcement is an enormous psychic burden upon adult marijuana users -- a genuine denial of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But this is a very narrow political message.

That the Federal government denies sick people legal access to marijuana which is a medicine that would help them, and interferes with state efforts to permit such legal access, is another legitimate source of outrage. But that outrage is not what draws most of the participants.

A hemp rally is rarely a call to specific political action. It is a festival of marijuana use. It is an entertainment with excitement -- being an outlaw and hoping to get away with it. The job of the speakers is to entertain the crowd. Inevitably, speakers extol the pleasure of pot smoking. We hear from the stage "Let's get high!" "Let's party!" We rarely hear calls to “Register to vote here. Join a political campaign here.” No one is here for a reasoned analysis or education. The repetition of cliches is always dependable.

The musicians sing about the subject matter -- the pleasures of getting high, the evil persecution of the drug law, the ugliness of police practices, and adoration of the hemp plant. To get a sense of this, listen to NORML's "Hempilation" album. And of course this can be an opportunity to get exposure, get fans to sign up on email lists for club invites, and sell CDs.

Who are the participants? At the Hash Bash in Ann Arbor, for example, many of the participants are committed, heavy consumption pot-smokers. The participants are there for the excitement, the crowd, the entertainment and the music. Many are there for the self-identification: I am a pot smoker. They are there for a good time and for camaraderie. The curious are there because this is "a happening." This is completely unlike the usual weekend of chores, homework, shopping, movies, TV, etc. This is "the place to be."

For some participants the rally is an opportunity to get their feelings of persecution off their chest and tell society, "I'm stoned -- Get over it." "I'm gonna get high and there's nothing anybody's going to do about it." At its core, the rally is essentially an affirmation of pot smoking.

But as politics, this is most definitely not about contemplating the serious work of lobbying or coalition building, or stuffing envelopes for a mailing. No one's attention is focused enough to comprehend a target of the protest.

Others are simply curious. They heard the ads on the radio or got the Facebook post. The teenage students are forming impressions. Is this what Woodstock was like? Is this what the 60s were like? Is this like the civil rights movement, or the anti-Vietnam War "peace" movement?

At the Fourth of July White House smoke-in, there is the thrill of smoking pot in defiance of the law, the frisson of deviance when “straight” people are crowding the mall for a patriotic concert and fireworks.

But while the bands play and the speakers speak, the participants are standing around, sitting around, or walking around, smoking pot and getting stoned.

Of greatest social and political significance, however, is that for the youngest participants this may be the first time they have been so publicly encouraged to smoke pot. It is one thing to be covertly offered a joint by another kid from school or the team down in the woods, or hear a pot joke on TV. But here, everybody seems to be doing it. Look, someone on the stage is saying how great it is to get high. Look, up on the stage, someone is smoking a pipe or a joint, and everybody is cheering. Hey, someone is offering me a 6-foot bong! If I smoke a joint, won’t I be worthy of being cheered right now? Gee, everyone seems to be having such a good time, isn't this a good place to try pot, if I haven’t before? In this sense, hemp rallies are a social menace and political disaster.

For conscientious reporters, there is significant challenge in reporting this event. In Madison, Wisconsin they actually reported the speeches. But that was atypical. Is the content the “news?” Do they report the gestalt, the “flavor” of the event, as the Seattle Post Intelligencer does with photographs and no news story? The sideshow character of the event is often much more interesting than what the speakers said (for no matter how loud they were, the messages were pretty lame). Some reporters wonder how to report the event without condoning drug use? If they actually quote a speaker, for balance, should they interview some of the stoned kids, and some critics of the event? Standing back and looking at the event overall, isn’t this event, first, about getting stoned, and second, celebrating getting stoned? It must be conceded that some reporters cover the politics but do not report on the event itself.

For many of the police the rally engenders anger and disgust. For officers who have seen car crashes resulting from irresponsible drug and alcohol use, this is outrageous. For those who teach in D.A.R.E. programs, to see stoned kids at this "pro-pot" rally is maddening. For those who bust drug dealers -- at some personal danger to themselves -- this is infuriating. "Not in a million years would we take the policy proposals of the organizers of this event seriously -- we don't even take their phone calls!"

True, the kids are not rioting like drunken college students after a championship ball game -- which has plagued Ann Arbor during March Madness. But the drunks at the ball game riot are celebrating the values of “winning,” of "sportsmanship," of "the competition that makes America great," etc. And drinking is legal, something that cops certainly do a lot of, and they understand drunks. At the hemp rally, so much that “ordinary” Americans ostensibly value -- family values, respect for the flag, patriotism, rule of law, cleanliness, modesty, chastity, heterosexuality etc. -- is being flouted wantonly and indiscriminately.

For teachers and parents who are concerned about drug abuse among their children, this rally is a sickening sight. No matter what caveats about the problems of drug use that might be uttered by a few “serious” speakers, and despite the political literature being distributed (too often crudely produced drivel), a legitimate overall impression is that this is a "do drugs" rally. They accurately hear speakers praising pot and getting high. They see an audience filled with young people using pot. They see kids who are more interested in finding drugs than in finding the literature. They see kids more interested in smoking a joint than in listening to the speakers.

I PLEAD GUILTY

About sixteen or seventeen years ago, I was a featured speaker at some hemp rallies. I even had my name silk-screened on a rally T-shirt. I've made my share of passionate hemp rally speeches, and – woo-hoo – a handful of people have later asked for my autograph. I found the "rock star" treatment of being a hemp rally headliner very seductive!

But I have been a serious advocate of drug policy reform for a much longer time. As part of a comprehensive policy reform, for example, I think marijuana ought to be legally sold to adults under the explicit condition that it be used carefully, with controls in place to minimize misuse, with restrictions on juvenile access, with appropriate taxation, and with appropriate penalties for dangerous conduct while under the influence.

Overall, the many hemp rallies I've attended have been political duds, and I'm ashamed that I didn't speak out against them sooner or more forcefully. I distributed an outline of a system for regulating marijuana for adults only, along the lines of a state hunting license, but the audience simply did not care. I regret that my exuberant participation at hemp rallies more than 15 years ago may have been seen as legitimizing teenage drug use by some in the audience.

I fear that overall, hemp rallies are bad for the kids who attend, bad for the country, and very bad for our movement. I gave too much weight to my hope that I was recruiting idealistic college students to a fulfilling political activism. I didn't pay close enough attention to the event as experienced by the audience.

As constructive political activity, these rallies are not simply a failure, they are a catastrophe. What is the number one obstacle to drug policy reform? The public's fear that kids will use drugs. Hemp rallies fully legitimize those fears.

A POLITICAL FRAUD

Let's face it, hemp rallies are not only a fraud as serious political events go, they are worse -- they are advertisements of irresponsible drug use. Prohibitionists are on the mark when they describe hemp rallies as "pro-drug" events. We do not know that they contribute to the increase in juvenile drug use, but we do not know that they don't.. Do those of us in drug policy reform who are committed to public health perhaps have a responsibility to change the character of these events, or to boycott and help end them?

In America today, there are no other political protests like a hemp rally. Does any other political cause have such superficial preparation and indifference to the message and to organization? Hemp rallies are the antithesis of serious political protest. Would any serious political figure outside of the drug policy reform movement, who knows anything about a hemp rally, consider participating?

HEMP RALLIES: ANTI-DRUG POLICY REFORM

The drug policy reform movement claims that it has a better solution to the drug problem than prohibition. We say to those genuinely concerned about the tragedy of drug use, join us for we have a better solution. How do we demonstrate our sincerity in trying to curb drug abuse and its related social disorder?

We condemn the prohibitionists as obtuse who can't see the fallacy in their arguments. Have we been equally obtuse in not seeing that our movement's most common "political" events contradict our standards and our analysis? I argue that there is such a thing as responsible drug use -- but I regret that I have spoken at pot rallies where there has been uncontrolled drug use, drug use by kids, and the extolling of drug use. That was obtuse -- I certainly didn't model responsible political behavior. I apologize for having undermined the work of so many in this movement by having participated in these events.

I call upon serious drug policy reformers to reform hemp rallies or end them. To associate our movement with hemp rallies makes our movement repellent to the most important constituencies we claim we are trying to reach.

The drug policy reform movement must expand beyond those who are energized by concerts and festivals of pot smoking, and by their own sense of personal persecution. We must get beyond the abstract discussions of policy and into detailed proposals. We must reach those who are deeply concerned about the drug problem among our youth. We must be in a real coalition with parents and teachers to resist teen drug use. We can’t effectively be in such coalitions if we are participating in hemp rallies, hash bashes and doobie tosses.

THE COST OF HEMP RALLIES TO DRUG POLICY REFORM

We pay a terrible price for allowing our political face to be hemp rallies. Ultimately we teach our politically inspired students the wrong lesson, that public politics is a casual, almost trivial affair. We teach that a political action should be an occasion for feeling good, partying, talking to the converted, cheering, hanging out, uttering banalities, and then going home. This "politics" is as empty as the self-esteem voodoo that passes for preventing teenage drug use.

It doesn't matter how articulate or compelling the speakers have been about writing well-written letters to the legislators -- almost no one is sending those letters. It doesn't matter that participants are encouraged to sign petitions -- few sign, and fewer are delivered. It doesn't matter that we circulate sign-up lists -- few follow up to organize the signers. This is not politics, this is a party -- that is the medium, and that is the message.

We squander the energy of our activists by arranging pot rallies and encouraging them to drive hundreds of miles to engage in pointless events.

Compare our events to the newsreel footage of political rallies of the 1930s and 40s. When serious political organizations staged an event, the male participants came in neckties; women wore dresses. People came to listen and to make a point with their presence. Drinking was unthinkable. The events were organized. People trained to be political organizers -- not wannabe show business producers.

During the civil rights era, it was inconceivable that people would drink at a march or at a rally. The Civil Rights Marches were undertaken with sober reflection -- they were led by preachers and were undertaken prayerfully. Look at the photographs of the 1963 great civil rights march on Washington.

How do we expect the allies we must have to take our "movement" seriously when we don't take our own political events seriously? Do we take seriously as “supporters” and “members” upon whom we can rely, the majority of the youth who attend hemp rallies?

What kind of politics is it that takes the rock concert as its paradigm of political protest?

How can anyone take seriously a rally that purports to be for medical marijuana when 99.9% of the marijuana smoked is done so recreationally, and with indifference to use by children?

How can anyone take seriously a rally promoting hemp to protect the environment when 99% of the hemp present is there to be smoked or ingested to get someone high?

How can we make a serious claim to be advocates of harm reduction and of legitimate alternative forms of drug control if we participate in hemp rallies in which drug use, particularly by the young, is flagrantly uncontrolled?

POLITICAL STANDARDS

Can we develop standards or best practices of what our movement considers an appropriate and effective marijuana reform rally or event? Can we set criteria regarding the kinds of events we will participate in? Or do we simply speak wherever there is a crowd? Should we denounce irresponsible drug use, especially when it is undertaken in the name of drug policy reform? Can we organize true protest rallies?

Isn’t it a reasonable rule of our politics that there be no pot smoking, no drug use and no drinking at public drug policy events, unless it is Gandhian nonviolent civil disobedience? If we want to build our movement, shouldn’t the days of pot rallies and casual smoke-ins be declared over?

If there is to be marijuana use at a political event, it can only be in the context of a carefully planned civil disobedience action with the intention of generating arrests as a moral witness against the evils of the drug war.

Those who organize fundraising concerts and parties to support drug policy reform (and those who attend) will need guidance about responsible drug use behavior. I commend MPP and DPA for leaving behind the rock concert model as the paradigm for drug policy reform fundraisers.

Don’t we have an obligation to show by example what responsible drug use in a post-prohibition world might look like. Don’t we have an obligation to reduce the number of future victims of the drug war by doing our political work well? Doesn’t this obligate our movement to "clean up our act."

The drug policy reform movement is not a "pro-drug" movement, it is a drug control movement. It is pro-control. Can it ever succeed as long as it can be fairly charged that it is a "pro-drug" movement? Isn’t it time that the leaders of the movement act in concert to end the association with a "politics" that is "pro-drug?"

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LEAP's Norm Stamper on Democracy Now, Mar. 30, 2009

Norm Stamper, the brilliantly articulate former Chief of Police in Seattle, was interviewed on Democracy Now on March 30 about drug legalization.

His analysis would not be new to students of this issue. But he tells how, many years ago, making his first arrest of a 19-year old for possession of marijuana, after breaking into the suspects home), he wondered about the public safety value of the arrest.

Stamper would begin a case by case review of persons in prison on drug charges to release those who would not be a danger to the community.

I very strongly recommend his book, Breaking Rank. It covers many of the important issues in policing and police management.

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Legislative Scatology

Scatology is “interest in or treatment of obscene matters especially in literature.”

Even before George Carlin died last year, many writers noted the growing presence and acceptance of “dirty” words in American life and letters. The use of dirty words in broadcasts is an issue facing the Federal Communications Commission.

As Mel Watkins wrote in his obituary of Carlin in the International Herald Tribune, of Carlin's use and defense of the “controversial” language, “The material seems innocuous by today's standards.”

When Vice President Dick Cheney said to U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), “Fuck yourself,” in the Senate Chamber in June 2004, the infamous four letter word was printed in many newspapers, such as The Washington Post. (The use of language and how we talk about issues is one of the questions of that is addressed by essayist Stephen Miller in his book, Conversation: A history of a declining art (Yale, 2006).

But Carlin was most concerned about the essential cultural need for truth telling, as Carlin’s New York Times obituary pointed out. Some of his funniest bits illustrated how language is misused to prevent the truth from being expressed.

Are there words, not among the “Carlin Seven,” that remain unutterable? What words are so outrageous that even euphemisms for the words are used with peril? In January 2009, the El Paso City Council got hit with the intergovernmental equivalent of “I wanna cut your nuts out”
when it called for “an honest, open national debate about ending the prohibition on narcotics.”

The unmentioned, unmentionable words? “Drug legalization.” On Jan. 6, the nine members of the El Paso, Texas City Council unanimously expressed solidarity with their sister city of Ciudad Juarez, where about 1600 persons were slaughtered by drug cartels last year. In most respects, it is a typically conventional resolution chock a block with “whereas, whereas, whereas” and “now therefore be it resolved.” It called “strongly” for more effective law enforcement efforts to stop the flow of weapons, chemicals used to make illegal drugs, and laundered money. It endorsed funding the major Federal, state and local law enforcement and anti-drug agencies. But, and this is the part where you need to cover your eyes, it urged the U.S. government to have “an honest, open national debate about ending the prohibition on narcotics.” (Council Minutes, p. 10-11).

The Mayor immediately vetoed the resolution, saying it called for a debate on the legalization of narcotics:

The action of Council in amending the resolution, which was drafted by the Border Relations Committee, undermines the hard work of the Committee by adding new language which may affect the credibility of the entire resolution. It is not realistic to believe that the United States Congress will seriously consider any broad based debate on the legalization of narcotics. That position is not consistent with community standards both locally and nationally. I urge Council to reconsider supporting the original wording as recommended by the Committee.

Five members of the Texas House of Representatives immediately wrote to the El Paso City Council that the resolution’s call for “an honest, open national debate “ was “support for discussions to legalize narcotics at the federal level.” They warned if the resolution were not vetoed, “Funding [by the State of Texas] for local law enforcement efforts and other important programs to our community are likely being put in jeopardy, especially during a time when state resources are scarce.” Translation: “We’re gonna cut your nuts out!”

U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes of El Paso, powerful chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also warned El Paso civic leaders that Congress would retaliate against El Paso in the “economic stimulus package in which El Paso stands to benefit” – unless the resolution were vetoed.

Is this comprehensible? A congressman tells his constituents, “If you ask for an open honest debate about the failed policy that has left 1600 bodies dumped on the other side of your metropolitan area, ‘Congress is gonna cut your nuts out!’”

Witnessing a murder epidemic by gangs who are financed by illegal drugs, the council not unreasonably suggested an “honest, open national debate” about the policy that created and empowers those gangs. Why does this sound like a string of obscenities to the ears of congressmen and Texas legislators? George Carlin would be having a field day with this story.

Notice that when serious people question the current ineffective strategy, the defenders of the status quo label this question as a call for "drug legalization." They prefer to use "drug legalization" as they would the term "Communist" or "fascist," trying to create the implication that no reasonable person would advocate such a preposterous position. This is the same tactic of the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Councils of a half century ago. When civil rights activists tried to register black citizens to vote, they were accused being Communists, and of taking orders from the Kremlin. That was a charge J. Edgar Hoover made against Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in warning John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy to keep their distance from him.

The El Paso resolution found on pp. 9-11 of the Council's minutes is more mild than the typical volume of the Congressional Record. But when the city council was threatened with economic retaliation from their congressman and their state legislature, four members of the council reversed their position and sustained the Mayor’s veto.

Twenty-one years ago, I was an eye witness to similar pressure to shut down debate on our drug policy. In the 1980s, I was counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee responsible for drug law enforcement. In the 1980s, drug abuse was generally going down, but anti-drug rhetoric was going up. The illegal drug problem became the “war on drugs.” First Lady Nancy Reagan made drug abuse prevention her signature issue to deflect criticism of Marie Antoinette-like excesses in redecorating the White House during the 1981-82 recession.

Anti-drug politics spawned anti-drug legislation in 1982 and 1984 that I helped write. In June 1986, basketball star Len Bias died snorting cocaine the night he signed with the NBA champion Boston Celtics. In July, House Speaker Tip O’Neill from Boston saw the political advantage in this tragedy. Regular order policy-making was swept away in a flood of anti-drug hysteria. A few weeks later, I generated the infamous mandatory minimums for crack cocaine on my word processor without Subcommittee hearings or careful consideration. It was just one of hundreds of anti-drug provisions enacted on a careful political calculation that disregarded scientific research and the knowledge of the drug treatment and public health communities as part of the "Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986" (P.L. 99-570).

But early 1988, the “war on drugs” consensus began to crack. Kurt Schmoke, the new Mayor of Baltimore and a former prosecutor, and Princeton professor Ethan Nadelmann, questioned the effectiveness of the war on drugs approach. It looked like an “open, honest debate” on drug policy was in the wind.

With a presidential election on the line, the new House Speaker, Jim Wright of Texas, led Congress to invest enormous energy into another omnibus anti-drug bill. In September, the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control held two days of hearings on Schmoke and Nadelmann’s ideas simplistically relabeled “drug legalization.” This was the opportunity for Members of Congress to heap ridicule and invective on any critique of the status quo – “open, honest debate” indeed. Two weeks before the election, the “Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988" (P.L. 100-690) passed.

Congress made sure to bury “open, honest debate.” Among its 374 pages, three provisions of the 1988 law stand out:
First, Congress declared that it was the policy of the United States to “create a Drug-Free America by 1995.” (Sec. 5252(b)).
Second, “It is the sense of Congress that proposals to combat sale and use of illicit drugs by legalization should be rejected; and consideration should be given only to proposals to attack directly the supply of, and demand for illicit drugs...” (Sec. 6201).
Third, “The Congress finds that legalization of illegal drugs, on the Federal or State level, is an unconscionable surrender in a war in which, for the future of our country and the lives of our children, there can be no substitute for total victory.” (Sec. 5011).

Politically, the law was a wash. The Democrats lost the White House again, and retained control of the Congress. The law created the drug czar’s office and President George H.W. Bush appointed Dr. William Bennett to trumpet zero tolerance the drug epidemic. One result: the population of the Federal prisons exploded from 36,000 in 1986 to over 202,000 today.

Instead of a smart policy, we have had twenty years of mostly rhetoric. Not only are Congress and the White House “drug czar” more than fourteen years overdue on delivering on their ridiculous pledge of a “Drug Free America,” in many respects the problems are worse. Since the early 1990s, drug use by teenagers has increased. The death rate from the use of illegal drugs has grown. American cities remain plagued by drug related crime and disorder, even as crime rates have fallen. Now we have 30,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting a resurgent Taliban that taxes the opium farmers. In Mexico, 45,000 Mexican troops are fighting the hydra-headed drug cartels that kill generals, chief prosecutors, police chiefs, mayors, journalists and thousands of others with impunity.

Today, when people call for a debate on drug policy, they aren’t calling for better or cheaper dope for potheads and addicts, they are calling for an end to the terror in neighborhoods dominated by the violence of drug prohibition, and an end to the power of the criminal cartels. They want to save lives and end the thousands of deaths of drug users each year due to poisoned and uncontrolled drugs. They want to end market logic that targets kids, and makes it easy for teenagers to become rich drug dealers. All Americans want the same thing, a system of control that protects public safety and public health.

Economically, our commitment to criminal punishment has resulted in the conviction of one out of nine American men of a felony. That accumulation of felons means tens of millions of men can’t earn decent salaries, can’t buy cars, can’t buy homes, and can’t contribute to our economic recovery.

Three-quarters of the public know our policy is a failure. They hunger for an open honest debate to hear about potential solutions.

What is this controversy really about? Don’t all Americans want a drug control system that works, meaning one that reduces violence, crime, and disorder; better protects youth; improves public health by reducing death and disease; and that wisely uses scarce public resources?

An unreasonably cynical view is that cops and the prison industry simply want the jobs and paychecks that come from fighting such chaos; that the violence is good for their business.

But it is human nature that crusaders are invested in their cause. The anti-drug policy is a mission, not a program subject to cost-benefit analysis.

Another cynical view is that the drug cartels don’t want any changes – their profit could not be better – and their campaign contributions are oriented the same way.

To whom and why is this debate be so frightening? Not those who believe they have strong arguments. Who stands to lose the most? The drug cartels and traffickers stand to lose the most. An effective drug policy would end their profits, end their power, end their violence and end their impunity.

Through bribery and threats, the cartels own countless public officials in Mexico and Colombia. The cartels have branches operating in the United States. If the cartel leaders cannot be quoted condemning a drug policy debate, who would they put up to it?

The rationale for vetoing the City Council resolution of Rep. Reyes and the Texas legislators is that a city which questions national policy will be punished. Are there any instances in which that has happened? During the Bush presidency, city councils around the nation adopted resolutions condemning the USA PATRIOT Act ,White House policies on torture, the Iraq war, and the president himself. Almost one hundred cities and towns adopted resolutions calling for the impeachment of President Bush. None of them were retaliated against for their resolutions.

In 2003, the Minneapolis City Council condemned the USA PATRIOT Act, the Homeland Security Act, various Military Orders and Justice Department directives in the “war on terror,” yet the Republican Party held their convention there last summer!

The threatened retaliation against El Paso for saying the dirty words “have an ‘honest open debate’ about drug policy” was no doubt a bluff. In these hard times, it was a bluff that at least half the city council was not going to call, and the Mayor’s veto was sustained.

Who is safer as a result? The people of El Paso, the people of Ciudad Juarez, or the members of the cartels?

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