Top cop criticises war on drugs

Sometimes I think the only people who support the War on Drugs must be on drugs themselves. Never have I seen such a long-lasting, counter-productive policy that is so much worse than the thing it is supposed to be curing.

The Agonist reports that UK Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom took a swipe at the drug war recently:

[Brunstrom says:]

Some say legalization is immoral. That’s nonsense, unless one believes there is some principled basis for discriminating against people based solely on what they put into their bodies, absent harm to others.

This phrasing presents as unpalatable the idea that taking some drugs is intrinsically immoral. However I think it is a moral position held, consciously or unconsciously, by a large fraction of people. Fundamental moral opposition to drug taking may underly some of the difference in the way society treats recreational drug use compared with other risky activities pursued purely for pleasure such as scuba diving or handgliding. Many factors contribute to peoples moral opposition to drug use, some well considered but also some which are ill thought through and have their roots in less salubrious areas of human nature and history.

It is important to examine the roots of commonly held moral beliefs surrounding drug taking because they form the social background to media and policy on the subject. The dramatic changes in policy towards homosexuality in Western democracies in the 20th century could not have occurred without corresponding shifts in moral beliefs in those societies. One key component in ensuring we have better drug laws in future is to raise the standard of the moral debate about drug use from its currently often infantile level.

One of the things that strikes me is the inconsistency in the conservative position on drugs compared to much of the rest of conservative policies.

The stereotypical conservative supports a hard-line prohibition on drugs -- at least, some drugs: I've written about the hypocrisy of anti-drug pundits like Rush Limbaugh and politicians like Jeb Bush before. One of the major arguments supporting that hard-line is the idea that people are weak-willed and easily manipulated into taking drugs against their better instinct. In the conservative mind-view, people are easily manipulated into acting against their own better interests and against their own wishes -- but only when it comes to drugs. When it comes to nearly everything else, the modern conservative position is that people are in full command of their actions: there's no suggestion that (e.g.) advertising might manipulate people into needless consumerism or eating unhealthy junk food.

While progressives like myself have a nuanced view of human nature, that our actions are caused by a mix of factors, some internal and some external, the typical conservative view is schizophrenic: it flip-flops between treating people as masters of their own destiny and slaves to temptation, depending on whom they wish to punish.

Price of heroin

One of the accidental consequences of the "War on Terror" is the US market for heroin is now flooded with cheap, strong Afghan heroin. As Mark Kleiman of the Reality-Based Community explains:

The reporter places no emphasis on the most astonishing (if true) fact in the story: grams of highly pure Afghan heroin are now trading at $90 in LA. That's about a dime per pure milligram, compared with $2.50 a pure milligram in New York during the "French Connection" days. For a naive user, 5mg of heroin is a hefty dose, so your first heroin experience is now available for less than the price of a candy bar.

Ain't competition grand?

[...]

Heroin, even more than cocaine, illustrates the near-futility of trying to use drug law enforcement to control drug abuse once a drug has found a mass market. Prices have been dropping (about 80% in inflation-adjusted terms for cocaine, much more than that for heroin) even as the number of dealers going to prison has soared.

Taken at face-value, this suggests that competition and market forces could lead to falling profits for the Mister Bigs in the drug trade. But then, it could easily go the other way: a lower prices leading to a larger market and more over-all profit.

Either way, anyone who still believes that prohibition is the answer is clearly living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. It isn't working now, and it has never worked, ever.

Vancouver's drug policy

Salon reports on Vancouver's harm-minimization program for drug users. Three years ago, infectious disease was rampant amoung Vancouver's addicts, with diseases like hepatitis and AIDS at risk to spread to the wider population. The streets were littered with discarded needles and trash, and sometimes corpses: an average of three people died in the streets from overdoses every week.

But since Vancouver started the Insite legal injecting room program, things have turned around radically. The streets are cleaner, disease is under control, people are no longer dying, drug use in the streets is reduced and the number of addicts seeking help and entering rehabilitation programs has increased.

A banker by trade, Allen was helping run a community campaign to secure Insite's future. "Just seeing the renewed optimism of the neighborhood has been amazing," he told me. "It's been a dramatic change over the last three years. I remember a person dying almost every day out here. One of your neighbors was always in mourning."

[...]

Rising support for the policy north of the border agitated Washington. Shortly after Insite gained Canadian federal approval, President Bush's drug czar, John P. Walters, slammed the program as immoral. "There are no safe injection sites," he declared, calling Vancouver's policy "a lie" and "state-sponsored personal suicide."

Since Insite opened, there has not been a single death inside or connected to the facility among the more than 7,200 individuals who have used it -- including at least 453 people who have overdosed.

Unlike American conservatives, who often act as if it is their personal mission from God to see to it that as many people die from drug abuse as possible, many of the initially skeptical Canadian conservatives have been won over by the success of the programme. Even the police like it, as it helps keep the streets safe and frees them from harrassing two-bit junkies, giving them more time to go after the major dealers.

"I guess you see what you see," [the officer] said. I mentioned how different the area appeared to be since my prior visit, which elicited a sliver of a polite smile. "It's a lot better out here now," he said.

"I think the police often feel like they're shoveling water in terms of street-level dealers," said West, the Insite coordinator. He suggested the police were more interested in focusing on bigger drug traffickers operating in the city. In the neighborhood around Main and Hastings, more critical to the police department's role in the harm-reduction strategy is maintaining public order and safety. "They're really quite supportive of the site," West added. "They know it's another tool that helps them do their job."

"If somebody's dealing drugs right in front of an officer, I can assure you they'd be dealt with," said Constable Howard Chow, speaking by phone from the public affairs office of the Vancouver P.D. He noted that the squad assigned to the Downtown Eastside, one of the city's most volatile sectors, regularly conducts surveillance and sweeps to bust dealers. But he acknowledged there were priorities. "Is simple possession as harshly looked upon as trafficking, for example? No. Those officers are often inundated with calls down there. We use the resources where they're most needed." He added, "We support the site in terms of the medical research, and helping see that through for its potential benefits. We don't comment on the right or wrong of it -- that's not up to us."

Nor has the programme lead to an increase in robberies and other crimes, as conservatives initially feared. Instead, many property crimes decreased.

Another major plus is the savings to the healthcare system. Preventing just twelve addicts from contracting AIDS will pay for the programme's operating expenses for a year.

Despite all the scientific evidence that safe injecting rooms reduce the harm of drug abuse, people still worry about "the message" it sends.

There are other, less tangible considerations that can stand in the way of opening a safe injection site. "Plenty of people are going to feel like it sends the wrong message about a neighborhood," said Mark Kleiman, a former policy director in the U.S. Department of Justice who now heads the Drug Policy Analysis Program at UCLA. "Would you want one of these next door to you?"

Still, Kleiman says the potential benefits are undeniable. "Nobody's going to start using heroin because you've opened a safe injection site. Assuming you can keep crime in control, I don't see much downside," he said. "But there is a big upside in terms of public health and public order -- I'm not surprised this has worked well in Vancouver. So is it a good idea for us to try this? Certainly."

[...]

The Bush administration has often spoken of a "compassionate conservative" approach to social crises, but has emphasized only so-called faith-based and abstinence programs. Might they look at the results in Vancouver and consider exemption from federal drug laws for city governments under siege from drug-related disease and urban blight?

"Don't be ridiculous," Kleiman said flatly. "They're completely unserious about drug policy. It's an issue that's all about liberal-bashing to them, and playing to their base. I haven't seen them do anything counter to their own prejudices just because the science says they should."

Despite multiple calls seeking comment on Insite's results and legal status, Walters and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy did not provide any response.

Community leader George Chow, now a city councilor, initially opposed the programme, running as an independent on a campaign of opposition to the injecting site.

Three years later, Chow has changed his mind:

"It was a fear of the unknown -- people were afraid such a facility would bring in more chaos," Chow said, speaking by phone from his office at City Hall. "After three years that has not happened, even with an increase in the homeless. Without this facility the drug problem would have been far more out of control. There would be an even bigger problem with HIV transmission and other issues."

Chow spoke with measured but unambiguous praise of the program. Insite has had a huge impact on the neighborhood, he said, though it certainly hasn't solved all its problems. "There is no easy solution," he said. "I think a lot of people still look at this as a moral issue, and it's challenging -- but as a councilor, I believe we have to do all we can to deal with these health and social issues. This is most important, to work toward practical solutions."

And what of other drug hubs such as Toronto and Montreal? "I would advocate for a national plan, with more facilities like this in other cities," Chow said. "Not just an injection site, but also including treatment and education programs. This, of course, requires more money and resources."

Some perspective on sports doping

Freakonomics has reprinted a letter to the editor of Sports Illustrated magazine which is worth repeating.

The letter is from Brandon Gaut of Irvine, California.

As a scientist and a sports fan, I believe the current doping scandals compromise science as much as sports. The tests are performed by entities motivated by and funded to achieve the goal of detecting cheaters; their objectivity is suspect. Also, it is a scientific fact that there will be positive tests even when there are no cheaters. From my perspective, the puzzle is not the occasional prositive test, but why there aren't a great many more. The system is broken, and I fear it is not always due to cheating athletes.

I must admit I don't understand the obsession with banning "performance-enhancing drugs". All of sports training is designed to enhance performance, and none of it is particularly natural. Whether it is intensive training, dietary supplements or "approved" drugs (antibiotics, pain-killers, medicines of many varieties), none of it is especially natural, and all of it takes a great toll on the athlete's body.

I don't see that anaerobic steroids and other banned drugs are any worse for the athlete, nor cheating. We don't try to distinguish between natural athletes and "unnatural" athletes. All athletes are allowed to exercise and train hard, which is a pretty unnatural thing to do. They pump their bodies full of "permitted" chemicals, including antibiotics, painkillers and other drugs, as well as other chemicals such as vitamins, minerals and "nutritional supplements". They eat carefully tailored food combinations. There is nothing natural about "loading up on carbs". Why are hormones and steroids treated differently?

It is a double standard for sports administrators to allow athletes to eat protein supplements to put on more muscle mass, but not natural hormones that assist in growing muscles. I don't believe the excuse that it is because of the side-effects. If they were genuinely worried about the health of the athlete, they wouldn't allow them to become athletes in the first place. The high-intensity training and competition they go through not only leads to serious, permanent, mechanical damage to joints, but it also seriously weakens the immune system. Elite athletes might be able to push their bodies further, faster and harder than ordinary folks, but they aren't healthier. Sport is about performance, not health.

But all that is by-the-by. Even if we decide that "drugs are bad, m'kay?" and ban anabolic steroids and others, it is important to remember that the drug testing labs are highly motivated to detect cheats, and there will always be false positives. Claims of drug cheating should always be taken with a grain of salt.

[Update, 2 Sep 2007: fixed a silly typo/thinko where I wrote "anaerobic" instead of anabolic. Drugs for athletes who don't breathe perhaps?]

Nicotine update

Earlier, I wrote about claims that tobacco companies were deliberately increasing the amount of nicotine in brands that were purchased by teenagers.

Further information adds an element of doubt to the story. At the very least, the story isn't as cut-and-dried as I first thought.

Tobacco companies increasing nicotine for kids

A new study reported by the Boston Globe has found that tobacco companies have been slowly and quietly increasing the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, particularly the brands smoked by children.

Between 1998 and 2004, the amount of nicotine per cigarette had increased in 92 of 116 cigarette brands. 52 of those brands had increased by more than 10%.

Nicotine, apart from being quite poisonous, is the major addictive component of cigarettes.

The amount of nicotine in Marlboro products, the brand of choice of two-thirds of high school smokers, had increased by 12%.

I'm in favour of liberalising drug laws, but one factor which gives me pause is the behaviour of the tobacco companies. We've seen how the tobacco companies covered-up evidence that their products were toxic, deliberately marketed their drug to children, filled their products with toxic fillers to make them burn faster, and other immoral, anti-social acts. If and when the so-called "hard" drugs are legalised, what will prevent the suppliers from acting with reckless disregard for people's well-being, as the tobacco companies do?

Meanwhile, in liberated Afghanistan...

...the Taliban are effectively in control in the south, thanks in a big way to the War on Drugs.

What a mess Afghanistan is. In the 19th century, the Great Game was played out by Russia and Great Britain. In the late 20th century, it was USSR and the USA. Now it looks like continuing, between the US and UK on one side, and Pakistan on the other, and no doubt a more aggressive Russia will insist on joining again. Whoever wins, the Afghani people lose; and, with the expansion of religious Fundamentalism and extremism, so will the rest of us.

Legalised theft

I've written before about legalised theft by the US government under the guise of the "War Against Drugs".

Here is another example: a US Court of Appeals has ruled that if you get caught carrying around large sums of money, the government can assume it came from illegal drug trafficking and seize the money.

There are more details by Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

Gonzolez was not charged with any crime because there was no evidence of any crime, yet they confiscated $125,000 based on the civil forfeiture laws without showing any crime had been committed by anyone connected to the money.

How embarrassment!

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who has a long history of calling for people who use drugs illegally to go to jail, was detained at Palm Beach International Airport for possession of illegal prescription drugs.

Not just any drugs. Viagra.

Come on Rush, what were you thinking? You're white, rich and in the ... prime... of your life. What doctor wouldn't be glad to prescribe you as much Viagra as you want? Just how much of the stuff are you using that you can't get enough legally from American doctors, but have to go buy it on the black market in the Dominican Republic?

Story here.

Ten Things I Know About Drugs

Tony Newman writes on Alternet about the failed "War On Drugs":

I know a lot about drugs and the drug war, both personally and professionally. Drugs have had a positive and a detrimental impact on my life. I have laughed, played and found inspiration while intoxicated. I have also struggled, fought and cried because of my addiction to drugs.

Drugs don't just mean crack and heroin. People have self-medicated with drugs forever: the rush you get from eating a lot of sugar is a drug trip. Chocolate is a drug. Tea and coffee and tobacco and alcohol are all drugs. One cup of tea or coffee a day is all it takes to get a mild addiction, complete with withdrawal symptoms.

Not all drugs are as mild as caffeine. Any drug that can be used can be abused. The more powerful drugs, whether addictive or not, should be controlled: the average person should no more self-medicate with LSD than they should do brain surgery without training. (And, in a sense, LSD is brain surgery, through chemical means rather than a steel scalpel.)

But the puritanical, expensive, hopeless War On Drugs has been a failure. Rather than turning people into honest, law-abiding citizens, it has turned ordinary men and women into criminals. It has utterly failed to keep drugs off the streets. It has made the drug problem worse, not better: while drugs are illegal, there is no quality control, so innocent people die from adulterated drugs; worse, there is no legal avenue of dispute resolution for suppliers, so they turn to illegal violence.

Worse, it leads to the most wicked hypocrisies and double-standards: Jeb Bush, brother to the US President and governor of Florida, was happy to go public and declare his pride at being intolerant, unforgiving and uncompassionate when it came to drug users. But when his own daughter Noelle was caught forging prescriptions for Xanax, things were different: daddy stood by her, she served less than two weeks in jail, and she got all the rehabilitation she could want.

Not that this changed Jeb Bush's mind about treating drug use as a crime, not for everybody else. It is only his family and friends who deserve rehabilitation: he continued to oppose proposed Florida legislation that would send 10,000 first-time non-violent drug offenders to treatment instead of jail.

If America's drug laws were applied fairly, Jeb Bush and his family would have been thrown out of their publicly-funded home, just as other people living in public housing can be evicted from their home if any household member or guest is found using drugs -- even in cases where the drug use happened somewhere else.

But any suggestion that America's laws are applied fairly is a joke. Black Americans make up only 13% of the country's illegal drug users but 55% of those convicted of possession, and a shocking 74% of those sent to jail for possession. That means that black users are more than five and a half times more likely to be sent to jail for possession than white users.

Let the punishment suit the skin colour.

Likewise the hypocritical Rush Limbaugh, who was going on public radio and television for years, blasting drug users and declaring they should go to jail:

...if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.

And all the while he himself was addicted to painkillers, including OxyContin, the so-called "heroin of the trailer park". When he got caught out, Limbaugh begged for the understanding and charity which he had denied millions of others -- and, because he was white and rich and powerful, he got it. No jail for Rush.

The American so-called "War on Drugs" leads to absurdities like the case of Richard Paey, a paraplegic with constant pain following a botched operation. Paey was jailed for using too many legal prescription drugs and jailed for a mandatory 25 years in maximum security prison, where the Florida state now pays for a direct IV pump of morphine, far stronger than the drugs he was jailed for using, directly into his back.