With the West's occupation of Afghanistan now nearing the seven-year mark and plagued by an increasingly powerful and deadly insurgency revitalized by massive profits from the opium trade, Western

According to Mexican press reports this week, Mexico's Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD -- Democratic Revolution Party) is preparing to consider legalization of the drug trade as a respo

Former Republican Congressman and current Libertarian Party Candidate for president Bob Barr Monday issued a statement criticizing the widely

Today, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) released a new study that perfectly demolishes one of the central myths underlying the war on drugs. The National Survey on American Attitudes on Substance Abuse shows that youth access to marijuana has increased significantly in the past year:

According to the report, half of the 16- and 17-year-olds surveyed said their peers use marijuana more than tobacco. More teens say it’s easier to acquire marijuana than beer. And there’s a 35% increase from last year in the number of teens who say they can buy marijuana within an hour and a 14% increase in the number of teens who say they can find it in a day. [MPP]

It almost speaks for itself. Nothing could more directly obliterate the false notion that the war on marijuana is reducing youth access. Just days ago, the drug czar stood on a California mountaintop proudly pronouncing the importance of marijuana eradication. He's bent over backwards to explain that reductions in youth marijuana use provide proof that the war on marijuana is working.

What then can be said about marijuana's ever-increasing availability to young people? Rather obviously, recent declines in youth marijuana use owe nothing to the brutal and controversial tactics the drug czar is duty-bound to defend. After another year of dead dogs, dead informants and dead cops, marijuana is more available to our children than ever before. If fewer of them are using, then that is because they don't feel like it, not because they don't know where to get any.

Of course, the drug war supporters at CASA must have realized how badly their data reflects on marijuana prohibition, so they cooked up one the most embarrassingly backwards statistics possible:

Teens who can obtain marijuana readily are more likely to use it. Forty-five percent of teens who say they can get marijuana in an hour or less have used the drug, compared to 10 percent of those teens who say it would take them a day to get it and less than one percent of teens who say they would be unable to get it.

Oh, mercy. Is it really necessary to explain that teens who smoke marijuana are more likely to know where to buy it? This is just a crime against the scientific method, a pathetic face-saving ruse to defend marijuana prohibition within a report that unintentionally – yet transparently -- humiliates the drug war status quo.

Today, the drug war's failure to keep drugs out of the hands of our young people has been revealed in stark, unambiguous terms. No, the debate won't end here, but it is moments like this that cause one drug warrior after another, after another to jump ship and admit that the whole thing is just a monumental travesty.

An all-white jury found Lima, Ohio, Police Sgt.

Indonesia's harsh drug laws have not succeeded in stopping illicit drug use in the Southeast Asian archipelago, and now some of the people those laws are aimed at are speaking out.

On Thursday and Friday I attended the Breaking the Chains Conference in Baltimore, MD. The event brought together a passionate and diverse group of experts and activists to explore the impact of the war on drugs within communities of color. I'm rather familiar with the topic, but I heard some things I won’t soon forget.

I heard Baltimore youth share their visions for the future of their neighborhoods.

I heard "Little Melvin" Williams, the biggest heroin supplier in Baltimore history, tell us he'd never have done it if it wasn't so profitable.

I heard a trauma surgeon describe what it's like telling a mother she lost her son.

I heard a woman who couldn't have been a day over 40 describe her recovery from 30 years of addiction on the streets of Baltimore.

I heard current and former police officers acknowledge and vividly describe the overt racism of many professional drug enforcement officers.

I heard about youth who excelled at inner city schools only to be targeted by gang recruiters interested in their math skills.

And I heard a mother beam with joy as she shared the news that her sons would be home four years early under the revised crack sentencing guidelines.

For two days, I was the minority.

Back in D.C. later that evening, I walked through Columbia Heights to a house party. On my way, I happened to pass the scene of a homicide that occurred two years ago while I was on a ride-along with the Metropolitan Police Dept. We were the first unit to arrive, finding a young black man sprawled in the street, unconscious and still breathing as his friends stood over his shattered body unsure what to do. He'd been run over by a car on purpose, but his friends dispersed without providing any information to the frustrated homicide investigators.

The last remnants of a once-thriving open-air drug market along the 14th Street corridor continue to operate discretely, generating sporadic drug trade violence in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Just one block from the scene of that still-unsolved murder, I entered a refurbished row house to find a few dozen white 20-somethings playing drinking games. Young professionals waited their turn at the beer-pong table as an ice luge slowly melted on the deck in the summer heat. Across the street, a gaping hole was fenced off, awaiting the construction of new luxury condos.

As I sipped my beer listening to my friends compare business schools, I thought back to a comment from Baltimore attorney Billy Murphy Jr. earlier that day at the conference. He described how three decades of drug war violence, widespread addiction, and massive incarceration have decimated urban communities, necessitating gentrification to raise the tax base in major cities. The drug economy and the criminal justice system have indeed played a prominent role in reshaping America's urban landscapes. But the violence doesn't stop, it just moves over a few blocks.

And so, the young people of color who grow up in drug-ravished communities in America continue to tell the same stories we've been hearing for decades. The "crack epidemic" that dominated the evening news when I was a child is supposed to be over, but the brave Baltimore youth that spoke up at the Breaking the Chains conference described a world that remains defined by everything the drug war was supposed to prevent. A world in which the most dangerous drugs are sold by children on the sidewalks. A world in which snitching is a capital offense, youth learn math by counting glass vials, prison slang permeates cultural vernacular, and a group of teens dressed in blue are not a soccer team.

These things are the legacy of the war on drugs. After so many years and so many lost lives, nothing should be more obvious to anyone who listens to the voices of the multiple generations that have now been born on the drug war battlefield. Nothing is changing, nor will it, until the day this terrible war is finally dismantled and replaced.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 4, 2008

CDC Survey: As Many Teens Smoke Marijuana as Cigarettes, Cigarette Use Dropping Faster
Crackdown on Tobacco Sales to Kids Continues to Reduce Teen Access to Cigarettes

CONTACT: Bruce Mirken, MPP director of communications ............... 415-668-6403 or 202-215-4205

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Two just-released federal reports indicate that regulation of tobacco continues to produce a steady drop in teen cigarette use and teen access to tobacco, with current cigarette use by high school students dropping markedly faster than use of marijuana.

The just-released 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports rates of current cigarette use and current marijuana use among teens in grades nine through 12 in a statistical tie at 20 percent and 19.7 percent, respectively. The cigarette use figure represents a sharp drop from the 2005 survey, when it was 23 percent. Marijuana use, at 20.2 percent in 2005, showed a much smaller decline.

Another report released this week, the Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Synar Report on tobacco sales to youth, showed the 10th straight annual decline in the rate of illegal tobacco sales to minors. In 1997, 40.1 percent of retailers violated laws against tobacco sales to minors. In 2007 the rate had dropped to just 10.5 percent, the lowest ever.

"Efforts to curb cigarette sales to teens have been wildly successful, and it's past time we applied those lessons to marijuana," said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "Tobacco retailers can be fined or put out of business if they sell to kids, but prohibition guarantees that we have zero control over marijuana dealers. Foolish policies have guaranteed that the marijuana industry is completely unregulated.

"This isn't about whether you think marijuana is good or bad, it's about common sense," Houston, a father of three children, continued. "If you think marijuana is bad, why would you want it controlled by unregulated criminals, which guarantees that kids have greater access to it?"

The full CDC report is available online at http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/yrbs/pdf/yrbss07_mmwr.pdf. The 2007 Annual Synar report is at http://prevention.samhsa.gov/tobacco/synarreportfy2007.pdf.

With more than 23,000 members and 180,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.

####

Just watch the finesse with which SDSU's chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy responded to the arrest of 75 of their classmates:

SDSU-SSDP President Randy Hencken's superb performance shows how effectively one can reframe the issue by choosing smart and appropriate talking points. There are many interesting, and truthful, drug policy reform arguments that would nonetheless have been poorly applied here. As the video shows, a disciplined and mature reaction from reformers resulted in positive press coverage.

There is another lesson here, however, that should not go unnoticed: the reform argument came off strong because we had people on the ground at San Diego State well before the DEA showed up to haul students away in handcuffs. SSDP is a growing presence on campuses throughout the nation and beyond. Each new chapter increases our chances of being organized and prepared when the next such opportunity presents itself.

If you're in school and you don’t have a chapter, go here now. Whether you're looking to organize events or just stay informed and make some friends, you'll find what you’re looking for. This is where the next generation of reformers is coming from.

When I heard today that 75 students at San Diego State University were arrested on drug charges, something didn't sound right. That's just a hell of a lot of people, and in light of the drug war's typically flimsy evidentiary standards, I leaned towards the assumption that more than half of them probably didn’t do a damned thing.

That may still be true, but after learning how reckless and cavalier these guys were, I'm less shocked by the outcome:

"Undercover agents purchased cocaine from fraternity members and confirmed that a hierarchy existed for the purpose of selling drugs for money," the DEA said.
…

A member of Theta Chi sent out a mass text message to his "faithful customers" stating that he and his "associates" would be unable to sell cocaine while they were in Las Vegas over one weekend, according to the DEA. The text promoted a cocaine "sale" and listed the reduced prices. [AP]

Um, had you ever heard of the drug war, you idiot? Why not advertise on Craigslist while you're at it.

Many will say they had it coming, but I sympathize nevertheless. The lure of the black market sucks these guys in like a whirlpool. It is precisely the sort of people who would behave this way that are drawn forcefully towards such activity, empowered by it, and ultimately destroyed by the state at tremendous expense to the taxpayer.

If someone responsible and accountable to the public were charged with distributing these substances to those determined to consume them, we wouldn't have conspicuous drug monopolies creating disorder on college campuses across America. We wouldn't have to pay for young people to be investigated and convicted, then sent away to a horrible place where taxpayers must buy their food and clothing and medical care and even fund their reintegration into society.

Look no further than the fact that college students are getting hauled out of college 75 at a time for drug violations to know that our drug policy isn't working at all.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is super popular with U.S. drug warriors for his crackdown on drug trafficking, but it doesn’t sound like the cartels are very scared. If they were, they wouldn't be posting job listings on the highways:

(AP) Hitmen tied to Mexico's Gulf cartel appear to be boldly seeking recruits by posting help-wanted signs in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, including a giant banner hung across a thoroughfare, a federal anti-drug enforcement official said Monday.

The banner appeared over the weekend in Nuevo Laredo near the border with Texas: "Operative group 'The Zetas' wants you, soldier or ex-soldier. We offer a good salary, food and benefits for your family. Don't suffer anymore mistreatment and don't go hungry."

Yeah, Calderon's drug war troop surge is a joke that serves only to delay the inevitable realization that the drug war is a contractual guarantee of endless violence. The cartels aren't the least bit intimidated and we haven’t seen a fraction of the violence that is possible if Calderon wants to throw more gas on the fire.

He'll be voted out of office by war-weary constituents long before he ever drives out the powerful organizations that recruit their armies right out in the open. There is only one way to close these drug war job openings and that is to end the war on drugs.

I'm now down in the Lower Rio Grande Valley on the border between the US and Mexico. I've been staying in a hotel on the US side in McAllen, Texas, because, somewhat surprisingly, a hotel with an internet connection in the room is cheaper on this side. But I've been crossing the river every day to scout out Reynosa, the city of about half a million, on the other side, and to talk to informed observers, as well as common folks, there, about the recent wave of drug prohibtion-related violence and what can or should be done to reduce the toll.

One thing I'm finding is that people are very nervous, whether its the man in the street, human rights observers, businessmen, or even the US enforcers on the north side of the river. The human rights advocate I spoke with didn't want his picture taken ("there are several narco families on my block"), the Reynosa businessmen absolutely refuse to say anything on the record (although they complain bitterly of local corruption), people on the street look around nervously when I ask about the drug trade and the violence, and when I tried to take photos of the border crossing here, ICE agents ran up and demanded I stop.

While the violence here has subsided from the violent spasms of a few weeks ago, it continues, with my human rights observer reporting that another narco killing had occurred in the city Sunday night. That makes 14 so far this year in Reynosa, out of 23 total homicides. I'll be getting into some more of the numbers in a feature article on the situation here that will appear on Friday.

The poverty in Reynosa is striking. There are guys trying to sell calendars on the streets, there are guys quite eager to show me the way to "Boys Town," and there are other guys quite eager to peddle whatever drug I desire. I haven't taken them up on that, though.

Meanwhile, my schedule in Mexico City next week appears to be filling nicely. I'm set to meet with Congresswoman Elsa Conde, the author of the marijuana decriminalization bill, early in the week, as well as with a bunch of Mexican reform activists. I'll also be talking to various Mexican academic experts and people working with drug users in the city.

And I take advantage of being in Mexico. Yesterday, I stuck my head in the door of one of the numerous dental clinics just across from the bridge in Reynosa that cater mainly to American visitors. Before I knew it, I was in the chair and getting that crown I had long needed but could never afford. It cost $125, no appointment necessary, in and out quickly, and now I can drink cold drinks again.

I'll be trying to talk to as many people as possible here between now and Friday, so stay tuned.

San Francisco city officials last Thursday took a tentative first step toward opening the nation's first safe injection site for drug users.

To no one's surprise, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced last week that Afghan opium production had reached another record high.

Anti-drug activists are so desperate to infect society with their fears and anxieties that they routinely make up statistics designed to terrify parents and policy-makers. Such is the case with Joseph Califano of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) who announced today that 80% of high schools are "drug-infested."

Only a moment's inspection is required to discover that the people behind this research are insane. They begin by defining two types of schools:

Drug Infested: Schools at which the students surveyed had witnessed some form of drug activity

Drug Free: Schools at which the students surveyed had not witnessed drug activity

It is just so obvious that most schools are neither infested with, nor entirely free of drugs. Everything in this report is based on a false dichotomy that prevents any meaningful analysis. Califano argues that parents should remove their children from drug infested schools; a surprising declaration given that he puts 80% of schools in this category.

Jacob Sullum offers a typically superb refutation of the finer points of the study, but I want to emphasize one additional important point: the reason groups like CASA can do crazy things like claim that all schools are either drug infested or drug free is because the media never holds them accountable. The entire premise of this study is ridiculous on its face, and there is no excuse for the failure of the press to readily observe that something is wrong with this report.

Protecting children from drugs and other safety threats is an important discussion. Yet, this conversation goes nowhere when it is based on transparently nonsensical propaganda from hardcore anti-drug extremists. If Califano were correct that 4 out of 5 schools were really this dangerous, we'd already know about it.

It is also strange that Joseph Califano, who thinks the drug problem is worse than ever, advocates the continuation of the exact policies that got us here. He's a psycho, but he's right about one thing: something's got to change.

The House Judiciary Committee heard police and legal experts say there needs to be more oversight and tighter standards on the use of confidential informants in law enforcement at a July 19 hearing

The Afghan opium poppy crop will set a new record this year, US Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood