Category — Prohibition

The Obama administration has always paid lip service to the idea of pursuing more sensible drug policy, but has rarely lived up to its promises. From launching state-to-state crackdowns on medical marijuana providers despite promises to let states determine their own policies to attempting to license the federal government’s marijuana patent for profit while claiming that marijuana has no accepted medical value, the Obama administration continues to disappoint on this issue. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske may say that the War on Drugs is over, but “legalization” still isn’t in the President’s vocabulary, and the war on marijuana users is still in full effect.

Given this unfortunate history, the administration’s signals of hope last week rang even more hollow.

The three pardons granted last week by Obama to former marijuana prisoners could be viewed as a step in the right direction for an administration that has consistently increased its enforcement against marijuana violations. It is certainly a boon for those three individuals, who will no longer have to deal with the stigma of arrest and incarceration haunting them the rest of their lives. Those three people will find it easier to find employment, apply for student loans and federal education assistance, and will finally be able to vote again.

The recipients of these pardons should be lauded for becoming pillars of their communities after their incarceration. But how many pillars have been torn from their communities by prohibition, whether for providing medicine to sick people or simply choosing to relax with a substance that is safer than alcohol?

Those three people should be celebrating. The mitigation of the effects the war on marijuana has had on their lives is long overdue. But that celebration provides no solace to the 853,000 people arrested in the U.S. in 2010 for marijuana violations, 750,000 of which were for simple possession. Nor does it comfort the families of those who have died at the hands of the police during marijuana raids, or those who have lost beloved family pets and property to marijuana prohibition.

The press conference given by Gil Kerlikowske last Monday is perhaps even more insulting to supporters of drug policy reform. The purpose of this event was to address concerns that minority populations were being disproportionately affected by drug laws and what could be done to fix this problem. While he proposed many positive efforts to reduce the effect that drugs have in the African-American community, he overlooked some glaring facts.

Even though marijuana use among whites is higher than in any racial demographic, minorities are arrested for marijuana violations at a staggeringly higher rate throughout the country. This disparity in arrests, as well as the accompanying disparity in sentencing for drug crimes has an undeniably detrimental effect on African-American and Hispanic families and communities that is directly tied to the ability of police to arrest people for marijuana. Even in New York City, where marijuana possession is technically decriminalized, law enforcement found a loophole to facilitate the arrests of over 50,000 people a year for marijuana violations. The vast majority of those arrestees are people of color. Until we remove the threat of arrest, we cannot adequately or realistically confront the impact of drugs in any community.

Kerlikowske is right: we cannot arrest our way out of our drug problems. Logic would suggest, then, that we stop trying. For the drug czar to propose fixing those problems for minorities while leaving policies in place that undeniably support systemic racism is disgraceful.

It may be a good sign that the Obama administration is looking at this issue with a little more interest, and is moving along harm reduction lines to solve it, but the fact remains that the government is still at war with marijuana users. We need to go further. There must be a legitimate dialogue in the White House to mirror the one occurring on an international level and among voters about the failure of marijuana prohibition.

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Last week, the Beckley Foundation announced the launch of the Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform at the UK’s House of Lords. This project is made up of senior policy representatives from around the world. Together with the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which issued a damning report on current prohibition strategies earlier this year, the Initiative is taking important steps toward starting an international discussion on how to move beyond the failed current drug control system.

MPP is proud to be a signatory to this initiative and will be doing everything we can to help spread the conversation on ending marijuana prohibition worldwide, as well as increasing pressure on the United States to reform their position on international drug treaties.

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Yesterday, voters in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Tacoma, Washington directed local law enforcement to make marijuana possession the lowest enforcement priority. The measures passed by 2:1 margins, garnering nearly 65% of the vote in Tacoma and 66% in Kalamazoo.

With only 61-66% of homicide cases in this country cleared every year, and only 12% of burglaries cleared, it’s not surprising that voters think police should have more important things to do than arresting individuals who possess a substance safer than alcohol. While crimes with actual victims went unsolved, police found time for the arrests, bookings, and court time associated with more than 750,000 marijuana possession arrests in the U.S. in 2009.

Kalamazoo and Tacoma are far from alone in directing police to find better things to do than arrest marijuana users. More than a dozen cities and counties —with a total population of over 3.3 million — have directed law enforcement to de-prioritize marijuana possession enforcement.

Congratulations to all who were involved in these sensible measures that will prevent the convictions and resulting stigmatization and heartache that can haunt people for life.

This is one more step in the turning tide. In less than a year, voters in Colorado, Washington, and possibly other states will be deciding whether to replace marijuana prohibition with regulation in their states. With 50% of Americans now supporting making marijuana use legal, we are hopeful that the first states will have opted out of prohibition by this time next year.

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Since the beginning of the White House’s “We the People” petition program, questions and requests about marijuana policy have dominated the site. Last week, the Obama administration lumped all of those detailed, nuanced questions together and answered them all by parroting the same old rhetoric. Very little in the way of an actual response was given to the questions, other than this: marijuana is dangerous and should remain illegal, but more research should be done on its medical properties.

This response is disingenuous, given the federal government’s repeated interference in medical marijuana research, including a recent denial of a study on the effects of marijuana on post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans. It is also not an appropriate answer to the myriad policy issues addressed in the petitions.

Luckily, one Jon G from Michigan has started a petition that is sure to get an appropriate reply from the Obama White House:

Since these petitions are ignored apart from an occasional patronizing and inane political statement amounting to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, we the signers would enjoy having the illusion of success. Since no other outcome to this process seems possible, we demand that the White House immediately assign a junior staffer to compose a tame and vapid response to this petition, and never attempt to take any meaningful action on this or any other issue. We would also like a cookie.

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If you’ve been following news in the drug policy world, you know that Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is sponsoring the National Criminal Justice Commission Act. The bill would create a blue-ribbon panel that, according to Webb, would “take the long-overdue step of undertaking a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system, producing recommendations for changes in oversight, policies, practices, and laws designed to prevent, deter, and reduce crime and violence, improve cost-effectiveness, and ensure the interests of justice at every step of the criminal justice system.” Among the many reasons Webb feels the commission is needed, “the number of incarcerated drug offenders has soared 1200% since 1980.” Sounds sensible enough, right?

Last night, the U.S. Senate narrowly shot down an amendment that would have established such a commission. Why? States’ rights of course.

“We are absolutely ignoring the Constitution if we do this,” said noted drug warrior Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). “We have no role … to involve ourselves in the criminal court system or the penal system in my state or any other state.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) was even more incredulous: “This is the most massive encroachment on states’ rights I have ever seen in this body,” she said.

Never mind that the bill wouldn’t actually change any state laws; it would only establish a commission to review policies and make non-binding recommendations. At this point, you might be curious how these senators feel about the Department of Justice threatening to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries in California. So was I, so I called their offices.

“Given the senator’s strong support for states’ rights, where does s/he stand on the Department of Justice threatening to close medical marijuana dispensaries in California, even though medical marijuana is legal under state law,” I asked, after repeating each senator’s quotes above.  Not surprisingly, each time I was transferred around a couple times, given a “no comment,” and told to leave a voicemail that’ll almost certainly never be returned. Before Sen. Coburn’s office sent me to voicemail purgatory, I did get one staffer to mutter “um … well … he um … he’s opposed to medical … er, I’m not sure.”

Anyone else reminded of the Robot on Lost in Space: “does not compute?”

We will of course update this if we get any sort of official response. In the mean time, maybe you’ll have better luck than me. If you live in Texas, you can ask Sen. Hutchison again by calling 202-224-5922. If you’re reading this from Oklahoma, Sen. Coburn’s office number is 202-224-5754.

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