Keeping with Today's Drug War Focus

It's a real think piece, and not short, so here's a taste.

How America Lost the War on Drugs
After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An Anatomy of a Failure.

Ben Wallace-Wells

Posted Nov 27, 2007 12:56 PM
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Even by conservative estimates, the War on Drugs now costs the United States $50 billion each year and has overcrowded prisons to the breaking point - all with little discernible impact on the drug trade. A report by the Government Accountability Office released at the end of September estimated that ninety percent of the cocaine moving into the United States now arrives through Mexico, up from sixty-six percent in 2000. Even Walters acknowledges that for all of the efforts the Bush administration has devoted to overseas drug enforcement, the price of cocaine has dropped while its purity has risen. More than forty percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana, yet the government continues to target pot smokers. In October, the administration announced it was planning a new military offensive, dubbed Plan Mexico, with a price tag of $1.4 billion. Things look so bleak that Walters was recently moved to describe a momentary upward blip in drug prices as "historic progress."

There are a handful of battles in the War on Drugs that have actually been won, times when fresh thinking prevailed over politics - but they are not the kind of victories that the Bush administration is eager to trumpet. In the summer of 2003, the police department in High Point, North Carolina, held its annual command-staff retreat in a small conference center themed to look like the log cabins of the pioneers who settled the region. One topic dominated the conversation: an increase in violent crime that was concentrated in three drug-dealing neighborhoods in the city. "The place we were at was that all the traditional enforcement was making no difference," says the department's deputy chief, Marty Sumner. "We agreed we weren't going to be able to eliminate drug use. We weren't even going to try to go after drug use. We wanted to change the marketing of the drug."
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Counterpoint to Morty's Vermont post

California Justices Put Limits on Medical Marijuana Law

By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO — In the latest setback for advocates of medical marijuana in California, the State Supreme Court ruled Thursday that employers were within their rights to fire employees who fail drug tests.

The ruling, a 5-to-2 decision that affirmed the findings of lower state courts, involved a former Air Force mechanic, Gary Ross, who injured his lower back in a fall off an airplane wing in 1983. In 1999, a doctor, acting under the state’s Compassionate Use Act, prescribed marijuana in an effort to relieve Mr. Ross’s pain.

The act, approved by voters in 1996, legalized the use and sale of marijuana to those with a chronic illness or infirmity.

Two years after he began using the drug, Mr. Ross was fired from a job as a systems administrator with a telecommunications company after failing a drug test.

Mr. Ross filed suit, contending that his dismissal violated state laws barring wrongful termination and discrimination based on disability.

But the state’s highest court firmly rejected that argument on Thursday, saying that the act deals solely with criminal prosecution, not terms of employment.

“The Compassionate Use Act does not eliminate marijuana’s potential for abuse or the employer’s legitimate interest in whether an employee uses the drug,” Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar wrote.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative, free-enterprise group, praised the decision as a victory for “safe, drug-free workplaces.”

“You don’t want employers to be trying to figure who is impaired and who is not,” said Deborah J. La Fetra, a lawyer for the group.

“They need to have a bright-line, no-drugs-in-the-workplace rule.”

Advocates of medical marijuana said Thursday that they hoped the Legislature would provide medical marijuana users some workplace protections, and Assemblyman Mark Leno, a Democrat from San Francisco, said he planned to take up the cause.

Mr. Ross, now 46 and a host at outdoor camps in the Sacramento area, said he never intended to use marijuana on the job, only to relieve pain and help him sleep. But he said he was not surprised at the judges’ ruling.

“Their mind is stuck in 1967,” he said in a telephone interview. “They just say, ‘My mind was made up in the 1960s, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.’ ”

Baby Steps Toward Sanity

January 21, 2008

MONTPELIER, Vt.—Vermonters get to weigh in this week on a bill before the Legislature that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.
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The state Senate Judiciary Committee plans a public hearing Wednesday on a measure that would make possession of four ounces or less punishable by a civil penalty instead of criminal prosecution. Also on the agenda: a bill that would stiffen the penalties for selling heroin and cocaine.

"I think both are public policy issues that ought to be explored," said state Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, who chairs the committee.

Sen. Hinda Miller, one of the sponsors of the marijuana bill, said it would help Vermont courts focus on more important crimes if passed.

"It's time to be realistic and look at the world as it is," said Miller, D-Chittenden.