Some are very nuts and bolts, saying the war on drugs has cost trillions of dollars while only making the problem worse. Others like Kane, while agreeing on that point, are more philosophical. “Our national drug policy is inconsistent with the nature of justice, abusive of the nature of authority, and ignorant of the compelling force of forgiveness,” he says on the web site of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Retired Denver police officer Tony Ryan

 

Colorado attorney Leonard Frieling

“In Colorado we believe our laws should be practical and they should be fair. Yet we are wasting scarce public resources in our criminal justice system by having police, prosecutors and the courts treat marijuana users like violent criminals. It is unconscionable for our state to spend tax dollars to arrest, prosecute and crowd the courts, and jail people for possession of a small amount of marijuana, especially when those being arrested and jailed are disproportionately people of color,” said the ACLU in a statement on its web site.

“The war on drugs has failed. Prohibition is not a sensible way to deal with marijuana. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol will move us toward a more rational approach to drug laws,” the statement continued.

Rosemary Harris Lytle, communications director at the ACLU of Colorado, said legalizing small amounts of marijuana for adults is a civil rights issue. “Current drug laws contribute to the mass incarceration of people of color, especially young people of color.”

She said that drug use is roughly equal among ethnic groups in the U.S., but that a disproportionate number of those incarcerated for possession of small amounts of drugs are people of color.

Moreover, she said the effort to legalize small amounts of marijuana is in keeping with the ACLU’s mission of promoting and defending individual rights and freedom.

“We believe that prosecuting people for low-level possession of marijuana is a waste of the taxpayers’ resources,” Harris Lytle said.

Mason Tvert, director of SAFER, which is promoting the legalization effort, said “This is a great endorsement. The ACLU is one of the largest organizations in the state and their support lends a lot of credibility to our efforts and helps us make the point that marijuana prohibition is a huge waste of resources. It sends the message to other groups that this is a mainstream issue.”

In its statement, the ACLU said:

• Colorado authorities made 17,000 arrests for drug offenses last year.

• One in five people in Colorado’s prisons are serving time for a drug offense.

See the ACLU statement here.

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Hispanics reached a new milestone for the first time this year, making up the majority all federal felony offenders sentenced in the first nine months of fiscal year 2011, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Hispanics comprised 50.3 percent of all people sentenced in that time period, blacks 19.7 percent and whites 26.4 percent.

In comparison, last year Hispanics made up just 16 percent of the whole U.S. population.

The commission’s statistics also reveal that sentences for felony immigration crimes — which include illegal crossing and other crimes such as alien smuggling — were responsible for most of the increase in the number of Hispanics sent to prison over the last decade.

The reason that a majority of new federal prisoners are Hispanic is because the offenses which the federal government is most involved in policing are disproportionately enforced against Hispanics and other minorities, said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a group that works towards reform of the criminal justice system.

“A lot of it is a function of policy and practice,” Mauer told The American Independent. “Both immigration cases and drug cases are fairly discretionary in terms of enforcement. If there’s a bank robbery or a murder it doesn’t really matter where it happens, there will be a serious attempt at enforcement. When it comes to immigration and drug-related offenses, there will be a decision as far as how much enforcement there should be.”

In the case of drug laws, Mauer said, although it’s been shown that drug use is fairly evenly spread throughout the population, enforcement is much more likely to impact “low-income communities of color.”

As for immigration, the past decade has seen an unprecedented amount of federal enforcement of immigration-related offenses, resulting in both record numbers of deportations and a backlog of cases in immigration courts. Huge racial disparities in federal prisons and detention centers have followed as a result.

The statement, translated from Spanish, reads:

In connection with information reported by numerous American and Mexican media outlets on an operation called “Fast and Furious,” conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) of the U.S. Justice Department, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs states the following:

1. Detailed information on this matter has been requested from American authorities.

2. The Mexican Government will follow with special interest the investigations announced by both ATF and the Department of Justice.

3. The aim of the governments of Mexico and the U.S. is to stop the trafficking of firearms on a basis of shared responsibility and to both work to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the field. The Presidents of Mexico and the United States endorsed this priority on March 3rd in Washington, D.C.

The reference to “Fast and Furious” reflects a CBS News report from last week confirming that the project was not just informal policy within the ATF, but that it was fully authorized by the Department of Justice and even given an official name: “Fast and Furious.”

The statement comes at a time when relations between the U.S. and Mexico have ostensibly become slightly less strained after a ratcheting up of tension in recent years over skyrocketing drug cartel-related violence near the border. According to Mexican officials, around 35,000 people in Mexico have died in drug-related violence since December 2006, and while the U.S. is hardly the only source of illegal guns in the country, Mexican officials cannot be happy with a program that saw a U.S. government agency encourage the flow of guns into Mexico. Presidents Obama and Calderón held a joint press event last week in Washington at which they vowed to redouble efforts to mitigate violence in the border region and to end a years-long impasse over cross-border trucking that resulted in retaliatory food tariffs from Mexico, the U.S.’s second largest import market.

Though the Foreign Ministry’s statement alludes to this cooling off, it remains to be seen whether Mexico will be satisfied with the American government’s level of cooperation or the comprehensiveness of the ATF and DOJ internal investigations. Attorney General Eric Holder authorized a preliminary investigation of the practice last week.

“We’ve been talking about a war on drugs for over 40 years,” he said. “I don’t think the American public sees a huge level of success — not that there hasn’t been some — in a war on drugs.”

Calling it a war really limits your resources. And, essentially, the greatest resource in a war is some type of force. Looking at this as both a public safety problem and a public health problem seems to make a lot more sense.

I know, in talking about these policies with my colleagues, former colleagues —  police chiefs and sheriffs and the directors of state police authorities throughout the country — they have become quite frustrated at recycling people through a criminal justice system.

Kerlikowke, who previously headed Seattle’s police force, also noted the economic advantages of treating addiction like an illness instead of a crime.

We also know that … incarceration is very expensive, and that if there are treatment programs — and we know there are — that can be successful in treating drug addiction and keeping communities safe, that those treatment programs are about one-half the cost of incarceration.

And that’s music to the ears of states facing the toughest budget problems in a generation.

The history:

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew industrial hemp and used it to make cloth. During World War II, the federal government encouraged American farmers to grow hemp to help the war effort.

The science:

Industrial hemp [is] defined to contain less than 0.3 percent THC — the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana. … Nobody can be psychologically affected by consuming industrial hemp.

The current law:

Despite industrial hemp farming being an important part of American history, the federal government has banned cultivation of this crop.

The impact of that law:

Because of a federal policy that does not distinguish between growing industrial hemp and growing marijuana, all hemp products and materials must be imported. The result is high prices, outsourced jobs, and lost opportunities for American manufacturing.

The benefits of eliminating the prohibition:

Reintroducing industrial hemp farming in the United States would bring jobs to communities struggling in today’s economy, provide American farmers with another crop alternative, and encourage the development of hemp processing factories near American hemp farming.

Hemp’s utility:

Industrial hemp is used in protein supplements, non-dairy milk, and frozen desserts. Hemp flour is in breads, crackers, chips, dips, and dressings. Hemp seeds may be eaten plain or added to prepared foods. Additionally, hemp oil is used in a number of cosmetic and body care products, and hemp fiber is used in cloths. Industrial hemp is also present in bio-composite materials used in buildings and automobiles.

Paul’s bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), has 20 additional supporters.

From a press release sent along by the Office of National Drug Control Policy:

National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske said today “a new direction in drug policy” is required to reduce the strain on the Nation’s economy caused by drug abuse and to improve the public health and safety of our citizens.

Testifying before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Director Kerlikowske outlined national drug control priorities and the Fiscal Year 2011 National Drug Control Budget, noting that the Obama Administration approach to drug policy is “grounded in common sense, sound science, and practical experience.”

With drug use accounting for tens of billions of dollars per year in healthcare costs, and drug overdoses ranking second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of accidental death, the Nation “needs to discard the idea that enforcement alone can eliminate our Nation’s drug problem,” Director Kerlikowske said. “Only through a comprehensive and balanced approach – combining tough, but fair, enforcement with robust prevention and treatment efforts – will we be successful in stemming both the demand for and supply of illegal drugs in our country.

“The forthcoming National Drug Control Strategy calls for addressing our Nation’s enormous demand for drugs by scaling up our public health policy response, integrating treatment programs into mainstream medicine, and recognizing that effective drug policy requires engagement at the community level,” Director Kerlikowske said.

He also noted that ONDCP would continue to work to “break down the silos between the prevention, treatment, and law enforcement communities– and the greatest use must be made of the finite resources at our disposal.”

The President’s $15.5 billion Fiscal Year 2011 National Drug Control Budget lays the foundation for these efforts and provides resources for five major drug control functions: substance abuse prevention; substance abuse treatment, domestic law enforcement, interdiction, and international support. The budget request specifically calls for an increase of $521.1 million over the FY 2010 enacted level, and includes a 6.5 percent increase for prevention and treatment; an increase of $73.8 million for Federal interdiction efforts; and an increase of $20.1 million for international support.

The Obama administration has signaled shifts on needle exchanges and other harm reduction policies.

Quietly, free of headlines and fanfare, the Obama White House is toning down the bellicose “war-on-drugs” position that’s defined the country’s narcotics policy for the last 25 years.

Appearing in Vienna last week for the 53rd annual United Nations meeting on global drug policy, administration officials shifted away from the decades-old approach of attacking drug use as a crime to be penalized. Instead they moved toward a strategy of tackling addiction as an illness to be treated, a number of health and human rights advocates who attended the event told TWI.

[Congress1] Drug reformers for years have promoted so-called “harm reduction” measures as a more effective and humane way to treat drug addiction and the diseases that often accompany it — an approach that runs counter to the punitive attitude epitomized by the Reagan administration’s “war on drugs.” And while the Obama White House — behind Gil Kerlikowske, the White House drug czar, and his deputy, Thomas McLellan — remains officially opposed to the hot-button harm reduction language, officials have also conceded that the current strategy isn’t working, advocates say. That sharp break from past administrations has left reformers hopeful that the Obama White House will mark a new era in the nation’s fight against drug abuse — one that prioritizes treatment and prevention above rap sheets and prison time.

“There was virtually no reference to a criminal justice approach,” Allan Clear, executive director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, an advocacy group, said of the U.S. delegation in Vienna. “I’m just so used to being appalled by their behavior … It was very encouraging.”

Deborah Peterson Small, executive director of Break the Chains, another group advocating for drug-policy reforms, agreed, noting a brand new willingness among White House officials to embrace certain elements of the harm reduction strategy. When she spoke about treatment reforms to U.S. drug officials in Vienna in 2008, Small said, the entire delegation walked out on her. “This year it was completely different,” she said. “We finally had a sense that they were listening.”

The comments mark quite a departure from those that drug reformers were making a year ago at the same U.N. event, where the Obama administration killed international efforts to include harm reduction language as part of a U.N. document that will guide the next decade’s global drug policy. Harm reduction refers to things like drug-substitute treatments and clean-needle exchanges — programs being tried (with promising results) in a number of countries to battle the spread of HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and other drug-related illnesses. The White House has argued that the broad harm reduction language is “ambiguous” and could include controversial programs the administration doesn’t support, including drug legalization, drug consumption rooms and heroin prescription initiatives.

But there are clear signs that the attitude is changing — and the policies are beginning to follow suit.

With Obama’s vocal support, for example, Congress last year repealed the 21-year-old ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs. And last week in Vienna, not only did the United States endorse a new U.N. resolution promoting access to controlled medicines for legitimate medical purposes (commonly considered to include drug dependency treatments, like methadone for heroin addiction), but it co-sponsored a separate declaration designed to tackle the treatment gap plaguing HIV patients. The latter resolution, while it doesn’t mention harm reduction specifically, references a U.N. technical guide promoting certain harm reduction measures, like needle exchange and opioid substitution therapy. Rebecca Schleifer, advocate for the health and human rights division at Human Rights Watch, said this week that the HIV document represents “the most vocal support” the White House has ever given for HIV-treatment efforts focusing on human rights.

Opponents of needle exchange and other harm reduction measures argue that the human rights groups have misinterpreted the signals coming from the White House in Vienna. “If you read Kerlikowske’s statement,” said Lana Beck, spokeswoman for the Drug Free America Foundation, “clearly there’s nothing there to indicate any change.”

That part is true. The remarks prepared for Kerlikowske — officially the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or ONDCP — reiterated the administration’s opposition to the broader harm reduction language, arguing that the term “creates unnecessary confusion” and might be misused to “promote drug use.” Still, drug reformers were quick to point out that the drug czar declined to include those passages when he addressed the crowd in Vienna — more evidence, they say, that the U.S. is consciously toning down its traditional war-on-drugs rhetoric.

“Traditional advocates of harm reduction recognized that the United States was a different animal [this year],” Clear said.

The ONDCP did not return calls for comment.

For health and human rights advocates, there remains a long way to go. Like any number of emotionally charged issues, drug policy is often dictated more by entrenched ideology than evidence-based rationality. And on Capitol Hill, there remains a strong sense that drug users are criminals to be punished, not patients to be treated. For proof, look no further than the debate over needle exchange. Although a long list of public health organizations — including the National Institute of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the American Public Health Association — had endorsed needle exchange as an effective way to reduce HIV/AIDS without increasing drug abuse, the politics of Washington kept the ban in place for more than two decades prior to last year’s repeal.

Not that some lawmakers aren’t trying to reform the punitive mindset surrounding drug use. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), for example, has long-criticized the criminal justice system for packing the nation’s prisons with non-violent drug users. A description of his reform proposal notes that the the war on drugs hasn’t diminished drug use, it hasn’t brought the multi-billion dollar drug industry under control, and it targets minority offenders disproportionately. The system, he says, is “broken, unfair, [and] locking up the wrong people.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Webb proposal in January, leaving supporters hopeful that Democratic leaders will bring the bill to the chamber floor later this year.

Meanwhile, health and human rights advocates have vowed to continue their push for health-centered drug reforms, encouraged by the tone of a White House that seems ready to place a greater emphasis on treatment, health and human rights.

“That would put us on par with most other countries — like Iran,” Small quipped, “instead of being the leading jailer in the world.”

One focus of the commission’s review, sponsors say, will necessarily be the sentencing policies surrounding the decades-old “war on drugs,” which critics argue has packed the nation’s prisons needlessly with non-violent offenders.

Some Republicans, however, are wary of taking any steps toward a legalization of drugs. And they’re lining up with amendments to prevent that from happening. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), for example, has been weighing a provision that would prevent the newly formed commission from even studying the effects that drug legalization would have on the criminal justice system.

“The point is, for them to do what we tell them to do,” Grassley said Wednesday of the commission. “And one of the things that I was anticipating telling them not to do is to recommend or study the legalization of drugs.”

Asked by a reporter if his amendment would “have even stopped the discussion of legalized marijuana for medical purposes,” Grassley responded, “Yes, the extent to which it would be decriminalization, the answer is yes.”

The Webb-Specter bill has 35 co-sponsors, including Judiciary Committee Republicans Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.).

Critics claim that needle-exchange programs create a moral hazard by legitimizing drug abuse. But it does not legitimate drug abuse to help people with the clinical disease of addiction avoid other deadly diseases until they are ready for help. Sacrificing the lives of addicts to send an “unmixed” moral message actually sends a troubling moral message: that the unwanted have no worth.

The topic is timely, because House lawmakers have passed legislation repealing a 21-year-old ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs, which have been endorsed by a long list of public health groups and federal health officials. Conservative critics, however, say the programs simply condone drug use and contribute to crime. Bowing to such sentiments, House Democrats were forced to dilute their proposal by prohibiting needle exchanges within 1,000 feet of schools, daycare centers, pools, parks, and basically anywhere else that children gather. In a city setting, that means just about everywhere.

In the eyes of Gerson, the restrictions make no sense.

This restriction might make sense if needle-exchange programs increased the number of addicts. But they don’t. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, has comprehensively reviewed the scientific studies on needle exchange. “It does not,” he says, “result in an increase in drug abuse, and it does decrease the incidence of HIV. . . . The idea that kids are going to walk out of school and start using drugs because clean needles are available is ridiculous.”

Later in the year, House and Senate lawmakers will meet to decide whether the repeal of the federal ban on needle-exchange funding will remain in the larger bill, which will provide funds for the Department of Health and Human Services. A number of Democrats hope that, not only will that language remain, but the 1,000-foot restriction will be eliminated as well.