There’ve been two news items this week that have shown us one of the uglier aspects of the drug war – attempts to censor science and expert opinion in order to maintain the status quo.
In the UK, a chief drugs advisor named David Nutt was fired by Home Secretary Alan Johnson after Nutt publicly stated something that’s rather obvious: marijuana and ecstasy are safer drugs than alcohol. Nutt was a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), and two other members of the council quit after the firing.
Here in the US, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa is going even farther than that. In response to a bill introduced by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia to establish a blue-ribbon commission to study how to fix our criminal justice system, Grassley tacked on an amendment that would prohibit the commission members from considering drug decriminalization as an option. This is like having a commission to study how to deal with global warming but not allowing the commission to suggest reducing carbon emissions.
Is there any other political subject where we so willingly accept the idea that science and reason are a threat that we have to legislate against? When Nutt made his proclamation, he was able to point to a recent study in The Lancet on the relative harms of various substances. As is mostly common knowledge now, you can’t overdose from marijuana and it’s less addictive than nearly all other recreational drugs. Ecstasy is also non-addictive and kills far, far fewer people than alcohol does every year, while also having potential medical uses. But simply pointing this out is apparently grounds for termination within the British Government.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has previously ignored the advice of the ACMD when his government stiffened penalties on marijuana, had this to say in defense of the move:
On climate change, or health, for example, we take the best scientific advise possible, but in an area like drugs we have to look at it in the round. We have got to look not just at what medics and scientists are saying to us – and we take that very seriously – but also what impact different decisions can have on young, vulnerable people.
For some reason, this passes as an acceptable excuse. Drug policy is somehow a grand exception to the general rule that if you employ science and make rational decisions, you’ll end up with better outcomes. Brown seems convinced that if adults don’t act like paranoid simpletons, their kids will all become drug addicts. This is moronic. Of course, any time a drug warrior is backed into a corner of their own irrationality, they always end up claiming that what they’re doing will be better off for children – and never with any evidence to back them up. The UK continues to have much higher drug use rates among teens than nearly every other country in Europe, despite having some of the strictest drug laws too.
Back here in the United States, a reporter asked Senator Grassley about his amendment. Here was his response:
Well, my intent on that amendment isn’t any different than any other amendments that are coming up. The Congress is setting up a commission to study certain things. And the commission is a — is an arm of Congress, because Congress doesn’t have time to review some of these laws.
And — and — and the point is, for them to do what we tell them to do. And one of the things that I was anticipating telling them not to do is to — to recommend or study the legalization of drugs.
So Grassley is proudly admitting – out loud, to a reporter – that he thinks it’s a good idea to set up a commission to study a complex issue, but then also tell the commission what they can and can’t recommend. That’s surreal. It’s not like he and the rest of the dinosaurs in the Senate can’t do what they do in the UK and just ignore the experts and then fire them when they speak louder. Grassley posted this amendment because he’s too scared to even hear people suggest it. God forbid drug policy experts suggest that Iowa shouldn’t continue to arrest startlingly high percentages of its relatively few black residents for drug crimes. In the end, the reluctance to confront the broken status quo of our criminal justice system is not so much about the worry of children grappling with an adult issue so much as it is the worry that adults will have to stop dealing with this issue like children.
I dunno, Lee. Alcohol, pot, and conservatism all cause fuzzy thinking. Alcohol and pot can cause car accidents, and conservatism has been proven to cause fiscal and other types of train wrecks. I think all three should be illegal for public safety’s sake.
Follow the money. There’s billions to be made in the ‘war on drugs’.
Meanwhile, Breckenridge, CO legalized posession of up to an ounce of marijuana. Change will only come from the bottom up, it seems.
@3
With 73% of the vote!
Drug policy isn’t science, it’s religion.
Period.
It’s about politics and everyone (Republicans and Democrats) jostling to see who can be more “hard on drugs”. Sure the policies aren’t true nor do they make sense. Of course we’d be safer with ‘bars’ full of stoned people rather than drunk people. But we will put our lives at risk, increase domestic violence, and risk our CHILDREN in drunk driving and domestic violence deaths…all to protect the alcohol industry. UN-F**KING-BELIEVABLE!
Sorry, like the evolution vs creationism “debate”(tm), here 99.999999% of the evidence points one clear way. One drug is clearly safer than another (marijuana vs alcohol). Neither is without any risk, but one is clearly less dangerous. If I drink a gallon of vodka, I will die. If I smoke pot for 4 hours straight, I will pass out and wake up hungry (if I used smoke/joints I’ll have a bad cough and risk lung issues of course long term, but not DEAD).
There is no DEBATE. The science only points one direction. NO modern peer reviewed science journal says marijuana is MORE harmful than alcohol. When politicians start pointing at the moon and telling you it’s the sun…or passing legislation that says the moon can only be called the sun…then you know we’re f**king nuts and something is very very very wrong.
Too bad poor little David Nutt couldn’t intervene on behalf of this douche bag:
http://www.bellinghamherald.co.....44697.html
I wonder if this guy paid taxes on this income? Hhhmmmm….
Lee’s stand on this would be GREAT, IF …
IF he were to consistently argue for dispassionate use of scince.
The inconvenient truth for both sides is that science is impartial. On some issues we scientists have NO useful information … e.g. on when “life” begins. On others science stands against political hypocrisy .. e.g the issues of inheritance of “intelligence” or the history of evolution.
The obvious fact, however, is that the Radical Republican Right has adopted a huge anti science agenda. Libruls SHOULD unite to undermine the RRR.
There are three specific issues here:
1. Strengthening Tenure. The independence of qualified scientists from political decisions is critical to objectivity. Liberals AND conservatives … for different reasons … undermine the independence of faculty.
2. Creating a Cabinet Level Secretary of Science. The use of czars is a poor substitute for having a cabinet level position. Surely a Secretary of Sce3ince makes as much sense as a Secretary of Commerce?
3. Creating a Congressional Science Office tied to the National Academy. Like the CBO, the Congressional Science Office (CSO) could be an apolitical body to endorse scientific positions.
#3 gets to Lee’s concern with Grassley (isn’t THAT an ironic name here?). Senator Greassley is correct that Congress must define the charges of Commissions. However, BOTH sides of the grass debate misuse science. On Lee’s side there are naturopathic claims for pot as a miracle drug while the bizarre worl of “reffer madness” is likely a big part of Senator Grassley’s view.
cross posted at SJ.
Well, such “guidance” is obviously necessary, because the bill was intruduced by that hard-core liberal Jim Webb, who as we all know was previously a member of that ultra-liberal Reagan administration and from that hotbed of radicalism in S.W. Virginia….
Uh, wait. What?
I think we would get more support for de-criminalization from the “red states” if added meth to the list….
A funny thing happened in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Nixon had campaigned for President in 1968 in part on a promise to wage a “war on drugs” in the U.S. That seemed like a good idea to middle-america, who felt threatened by the use of pot and LSD by youngsters, which was lumped in together with heroin in the discussion of the harm it caused.
But once the War on Drugs opened, the police departments focused on the “easy targets” – black slums in the cities, and college students. Nobody cared about the blacks in the city getting put in jail for long prison terms. But when college students got arrested – they were often the sons and duaghters of wealthy and politically influental parents.
So the administration quickly switched tactics, pledging to not go after the user, but instead to go after the “pusher”. It wasn’t the fault of the wealthy college kid that they did drugs, after all – he was “pushed” into it, usually by some black from the inner city 9at least in their mind). So again, the enforcement effort was put on the blacks.
So while the government was concentrating on prosecuting blacks in the inner cities and interdicting heroin coming in from Europe, the suburban white kids wre bringing in pot (and later cocaine) from over the border from Mexico.
Now, there are treatment programs available and programs in place to defer prosecution for drug offenses – but only as long as you are in a treatment program. There are lots of expensive private treatment programs, some very good, and some of which are merely glorified resorts for the wealthy where they can spend the next thirty days “in treatment”, out of the limelight of the media, until the furor of their recent scandal has died down.
But if you don’t have that kind of money, you get in line for scarce beds in a public program (dramatically few and far between due to frequent spending cuts), and stay in jail in the meantime.
It really has become a class war.
The story reminds us all that, when we get to the bottom of it, the emperor truly has no clothes.
Marijuana should be made legal now. If it takes a bottom-up approach to get there, them I’m all for it.
Not entirely correct. THC, the actibe ingredient in marijuana, is pretty benign .. certainly as benign as nicotine and likley mor ebenbign than ethanol.
Based n its composition, however, it is highly likely that MJ SMOKE is more dangerous than tobacco smoke.
The smart. scientific, and solid thing to do may be to equate smoked MJ with smoked tobacco and use the same sort of laws for both. OTOH, I see no reason we ought not to be as bale to buy brownies with THC as we are to buy Nyquil or antihistamine pills.