The failure of Drug War is glaringly obvious to judges, cops, wardens, prosecutors and millions more, now calling for decriminalization, legalization, the end of prohibition. Let us investigate the Century of Lies.
_____________
Dean Becker: Ah yes, it’s the Century of Lies show. I’m so glad you could be with us. You know the century of lies is starting to be exposed, starting to be derided and ridiculed. And it’s about time to end this madness.
We’re going to feature some reports from major news players who have finally started to understand, to get this situation and to report on it properly. But first up we have got a couple of reports about progress across America.
We are going to hear from Mr. Micah Daigle of Students for Sensible Drug Policy about Chase bank slighting them and drug reform in general. And we’re going to hear from Allison Holcom of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington State. First up Micah Daigle.
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Micah Daigle: I’m Micah Daigle. I am the executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
Dean Becker: Micah your organization is not just US based now. You guys have people around the world who are interested in changing these drug laws, correct?
Micah Daigle: That’s right, Dean. We’ve grown tremendously over the last few years. We have been around since 1998 and started up just at about five campuses at that time. And now we have grown to about two hundred worldwide - across the US as well as Canada, the UK, Colombia, Nigeria and others.
Dean Becker: Now your organization has I don’t know developed other leaders if you will who moved on to other organizations if you will after quote graduating from SSDP. You guys have created quite a presence for yourself around this country and a lot of followers.
And recently Chase banking systems put forward an offer to those organizations who could garner the most support in an online survey, is that correct?
Micah Daigle: That’s right, that’s right.
Dean Becker: And you guys were high in those ratings but something happened as this was closing out. You want to tell us about that?
Micah Daigle: Chase jumped on this social networking philanthropy bandwagon where they launched this contest in which any member of Facebook supposedly would be able to vote on their favorite non profit organization to receive in the first round twenty-five thousand dollars and in the second round a chance at one million dollars.
And so SSDP as well as the Marijuana Policy Project was on track to win that first round and get in to the second round at this chance at a million. We had, we had more votes than many of the groups in the contest. In order to qualify for the first round you needed to be within the top one hundred.
And Chase did not publish any of the vote counts. So myself and the leaders of several other organizations that were taking place and start taking part in the contest developed an unofficial leader board where we kept track every day of the vote counts. And we found that that we were in fourteenth place. And again we needed to be within the top one hundred.
So we were in fourteenth place well within the range of winning when Chase removed all of the vote counts several days prior to the end of the voting. They obscured all the vote counts. And then once the voting was done they released the winners which included everyone that was in that top one hundred except for us, the Marijuana Policy Project and possibly one other group that’s an anti abortion group.
I had been in touch with the folks at Chase the entire competition and they had been helpful. There was a problem with our voting page and they worked with me to sort that out and at no time did they say that we were ineligible for any reason.
And instead of directly telling us that we were ineligible because they didn’t like the mission of our organization which by the way is a mission that seventy-five percent of Americans agree with in that we’re simply asking for a reevaluation of the war on drugs which has failed They didn’t let us know that there was any problem with that mission statement. And instead they you know turned this this supposedly democratic voting process in to a repeat of the you know the 2000 presidential election in Florida.
We were we were really upset about this understandably and and so we launched a boycott. We publicized this, there was a big expose on the scandal in the new york times. Thousands of our supporters agreed to boycott Chase and dropped their Chase [ ]. I did the same. And to this day Chase will still not, not tell us why they decided to exclude us from the contest.
You know I think that Chase’s decision is sort of one of these last parting shots of an older, confused generation that thinks that that drug policy reform is something to be scared of, that it that it’s a third rail issue, that its this fringe issue. But when you look at the polling you know as we both know this is a majority mainstream issue.
You know like I said when you poll Americans seventy-five percent think the war on drugs is a failure. Greater than fifty percent agree with legalizing marijuana. Greater than seventy percent agree with legalizing medical marijuana. So this is you know this is an issue that enjoys wide support and by treating us like a fringe issue really they’re just showing that they themselves are out of touch. Just like Kellogg’s showed that they were out of touch when they dropped Michael Phelps because of a bong hit.
So I think that this is you know this is part of a really important battle in the war against the war on drugs. And getting people to take this issue seriously and I think that Chase found that out the hard way and you know when their name wound up in the pages of the New York Times you know when they decided to make this very terrible decision.
So of course we’re upset about it that’s a lot of money and of course money makes this movement move. So if anyone wants to join the boycott go to chaseboycott.com and sign up and pledge to boycott Chase. And you can also help us make up that money by donating to SSDP at ssdp.org/donate
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To dream the American dream
To lie still and hope
With both of your eyes closed
To ignore the nightmare that surrounds you
Just to try, try to reach the American dream
_____________
Allison Holcom: My name is Allison Holcom and I am the drug policy director with the ACLU of Washington.
Dean Becker: Allison it seems there are breaking stories about drug reform, potential drug reform all over this nation on a daily basis and Washington has been foremost I think among those in bringing forward logical means to better deal with the subject of drug use. And there’s potential again in Washington State. Tell us about what’s going on there.
Allison Holcom: What we’re interested in doing here in Washington is shifting the primary response to problematic drug use away from the current over reliance on arrest, prosecution and jailing people to a public health model where we’re really looking at drugs as a health concern.
And the most recent and exciting development is that this morning the Washington state senate passed senate bill 5516 sponsored by Senator Rosa Franklin. And what this bill does is essentially replicates what New Mexico did in 2007. It creates a limited scope of immunity from criminal charges for people who seek medical assistance or call 911 for example when they think they are witnessing a drug overdose situation.
Dean Becker: New Mexico has realized a lesser number of drug overdoses and other similar concerns due to their Good Samaritan law. And I would think that Washington State would hope for a similar result, right?
Allison Holcom: That’s exactly right. What we’re hoping is that we will reverse the drastic and alarming trend in drug overdose deaths that this state has experienced. Drug overdose is now the number one cause of accidental injury death in this state, ahead of motor vehicles, falls and fire arms.
In 2001 we had three hundred sixty deaths resulting from drug overdose. In 2008 we had seven hundred ninety-four. Our drug overdose death rate more than doubled in a decade to more than two deaths per day on average. This is a public health crisis. And it’s impacting not only Washington but the entire nation.
So we’re hopeful that not only will we be able to reverse our drug overdose trend here in Washington but that we along with New Mexico will help set an example for the rest of the nation in a smarter, more effective, more compassionate response to drug overdose.
Dean Becker: Now one other factor that enters in to this is the making available the use of a drug that counteracts the effects of opiates. You want to talk about that aspect?
Allison Holcom: Absolutely. There’s a second provision in senate bill 5516 that would expand access to a very important drug that’s called [ ] some of your listeners may be more familiar with one of its trade names, Narcan. And what this drug is is an opiate antagonist.
When administered to an individual it goes in and it attaches to the receptors that opiates attach to. And what happens is that for people who are suffering an opiate overdose, it immediately reverses that overdose. Within thirty seconds to two minutes it brings the person back out of the overdose and provides some additional time for people to get professional emergency care for that person.
And when we think of opiates many of us think oh we’re talking about heroin overdoses but the reality is that the largest segment of the increase in drug overdose deaths that we have seen in the last decade are prescription opiates, things like Oxyconton. So this is a very important improvement.
It’s not going to help people who are experiencing alcohol overdoses or overdoses from stimulants but for a very large segment of the people experiencing drug overdoses, those that are resulting from opiates, it can literally save their lives.
Dean Becker: Once again we have been talking with Allison Holcom of the ACLU up in Washington State. Allison, point them toward your website where they might learn more.
Allison Holcom: People can learn more about the ACLU of Washington at www.aclu-wa.org
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Dean Becker: OK and as promised we now have a couple of extracts we took from PBS and CNN. PBS was dealing with the situation with marijuana around the country; all the progress, setbacks and reboots to do it all over again. Progress is being made despite the protestations of law enforcement officers disguised as doctors.
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Dean Becker: The following is courtesy of PBS News Hour.
Anchor: Now new efforts to limit the sale of medical marijuana. Last week the Los Angeles city council approved an ordinance that would close many medical marijuana dispensaries throughout the city. The backlash is brewing elsewhere too including debate and a vote today in Colorado’s senate. News Hour correspondent Tom Bearden has our report from Denver.
Lady: I feel like my life is in danger. I did not purchase a house right here to feel like I can’t go outside my front door.
Tom Bearden: For the past three months, angry residents have gathered in town hall meetings asking politicians to slam the brakes on one of the fastest growing businesses in Colorado.
Man: We’re gambling with our kids, our families, our own lives. And why not just stop everything until we actually learn something about how to run this industry.
Tom Bearden: The new industry is medical marijuana, specifically the commercial dispensaries that have opened in neighborhoods all over the state. At last count Denver alone had over three hundred, more than the number of Starbuck’s is the oft quoted statistic.
Some residents are concerned the shops could lead to increased crime and encourage loitering near their homes. The dispensary industry has blossomed virtually overnight with few regulations or rules and left politicians at the state and local level scrambling to catch up.
Ten years ago, Coloradans voted to amend the state constitution to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes. Subsequent state regulations limited caregivers to five patients a piece. But it was still against federal law and police continued to arrest people.
So for years only about two thousand people registered as patients. Then a court threw out the five patient limit. And last year the US justice department announced it would no longer enforce federal anti marijuana laws in the fourteen states that allow its medical use. Marijuana dispensaries began popping up everywhere and the patient registry exploded to forty thousand people with twenty thousand more waiting for approval in the coming months.
That’s created a huge business opportunity for people like Ryan Vincent. He’s a medical marijuana user himself to relieve pain from a degenerative eye disease. He hated buying the drug in what he described as a back alley environment. So in November he opened up The Health Center which offers patients a variety of marijuana products from traditional leaves to brownies to topical lotions.
Ryan Vincent: I built a very safe environment for people. It would be safe for my own grandmother to come in here. That’s kind of the idea of how we built this place.
Tom Bearden: But some people think too many dispensaries have opened up in far too many places. City councilman Charlie Brown recently led the effort for a Denver law that requires any new dispensaries to be located one thousand feet from schools and daycares and from other dispensaries. Brown says he knows more needs to be done but it isn’t easy.
Charlie Brown: It’s like trying to pick your teeth with a rattlesnake. If you’ve ever tried that you know how hard it is. You know, you’re dealing with medicine, you’re dealing with patients, you’re dealing with the dispensary owners, you’re dealing with neighbors and you’re dealing with schools. It all you know you can’t please everybody and so you compromise.
Tom Bearden: Vincent says he welcomes more regulation and is working hard to show that he runs a legitimate business that is not some front for dealing drugs to recreational users. For instance, he accepts credit cards and will only pay growers and suppliers with checks.
Vincent: If we say you know we’d like to write you a check and they say no, no cash only, we’re not working with them. And the reason being is because we are a business and we want those tracks, ratios, we want where our money is going and we want to have a paper trail. We you know at the end of the day that’s how you do business.
Tom Bearden: One of the criticisms I have heard from people who are concerned about whether this is being sold indiscriminately are things like the names of the products like Afghan Diesel, Durban Poison, Juliet, AK 47. Does that hurt your cause when you try to establish yourself as a as a genuinely legitimate business, that you’re selling a product that has a name like that?
Vincent: We’re trying to move away from those names. One of the things that we are actually working on doing right now with the growers is coming up with some names that might be more acceptable; something that more people can use and it would it would make more sense to the patient.
Tom Bearden: But making marijuana use more acceptable is what has many residents like Christine Tatum [ ] so upset.
Christine Tatum [ ]: The more these dispensaries pop up the more we normalize this, the more we mistake this as a substance that doesn’t have any problems. Basically what Colorado has done is it’s using the medical community as a really cheap and easy and a really cheap, really cheap easy back door to legalization of marijuana.
Tom Bearden: As various local officials in both urban and rural communities wrestle with how to deal with the dispensary issue. Most people are now looking to the state legislature for a more comprehensive approach.
State senator Chris Roamer a democrat originally drafted a bill that would have required dispensaries to register their products in a database and provide other health services. But he says he couldn’t get the support of other colleagues so he scaled his bill back to one that would put an end to the practice of dispensaries paying physicians to write prescriptions for medical marijuana.
Roamer: You will no longer be able to have a dispensary that has a doctor on site who is paid per prescription because I can’t think of another circumstance in medicine where we actually pay doctors for each prescription they write.
Tom Bearden: On the state house side republican Tom Massey is working with law enforcement groups on a bill to reestablish the old five patient limit and apply it to dispensaries.
Tom Massey: I’ve had a number of concerns, complaints, questions, are we trying to put dispensaries out of business and that’s clearly not the goal of this. We’re trying to make sure that we have a regulatory piece that works within the framework of the doctor patient caregiver relationship and honors the intent of the voter for the constitutional amendment.
Tom Bearden: Dispensary owner Vincent says a five patient restriction would not only put him out of business, it would drive the marijuana business back in to basements and back alleys.
Vincent: This would all go back underground again which is may be what his idea is. Then we put it all back underground and took off all the neighborhoods and then they’ll all vote it out.
Tom Bearden: Both republican and democratic lawmakers say they know whatever action they take the issue is not likely to be resolved this session and they concede everything would change if the federal government decides to go back to enforcing marijuana laws.
How do you craft a state law or set of state laws to deal with an issue that’s still fundamentally illegal at the federal level?
Roamer: Well it’s difficult but we’re working on that and the Obama administration has clearly said the states can experiment with this and create our own model. I hope we ultimately could be the people who really create the best medical marijuana laws for those chronically ill patients.
Tom Bearden: Today the Colorado senate passed the Roamer bill. It now moves over to the house.
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Dean Becker: The following comes to us courtesy of CNN. It is the Christine Amanpour program featuring interviews she did with Reuben Beltrand, the council general of Mexico.
Christine Amanpour: Now one of the officials in Juarez is basically saying that they’ve left Juarez totally alone, there’s a total absence of authority, this despite the fact that the army’s there. Also saying that that the people of Juarez are not necessarily pre disposed to cooperating with the army. They describe a massacre, they describe the army and the police trying to figure out the details, asking eye witnesses - a big a big nothing coming from people. So are is that strategy working?
Reuben Beltrand: I do believe it is working but now Mr. [ ] in one of his publications. In order to be successful requires a commitment of society, the local governments, the state municipalities, state governments and the federal government. And I do believe strongly one thing is for the Mexican people to fear violence. Everybody would like we would all like the violence to diminish or disappear but that’s not realistic at this point.
And one thing is that but let me assure you the Mexican people is backing this strategy. Which is the other alternative? We have to fight, we have to confront this thugs because what they want to secure positions in order to have these corridors of drug coming in to the united states. So that’s the only alternative.
Christine Amanpour: You used to be council general in some of these border border states, Arizona, in California. The current US secretary of homeland security was also governor of Arizona. Here’s what she said in regards to the weapons bill which today your president Calderon blamed for this violence.
Arizona Governor: It’s a significant number of the guns used in this wave of violence in northern Mexico absolutely come from the united states that’s why part of our plan is increasing the number of agents who are going to inspect southbound vehicles.
That’s why we are sending technology to the border that will allow us to scan or do non invasive X rays to see whether cars are carrying assault weapons, other kinds of weapons that are now flowing in to Mexico to fuel these drug cartels.
Amanpour: I know you obviously agree with what she’s saying.
Beltrand: The secretary [ ] is absolutely right. In order for Mexico to be successful in this war we need to increase cooperation with the United States to stem the flow of cash, [ ] cash, weapons and ammo from the United States to Mexico.
Christine Amanpour: What’s wrong with that flow?
Beltrand: I flew to San Diego from Mexico City last week and crossed back to San Diego from Tijuana I had a speech to give and I someone drove me. There was not the slightest inspection of any car crossing from north to south on the US side or on the Mexican side a year after secretary [ ] statement March twenty-fifth, 2009.
Christine Amanpour: Why not?
Beltrand: Because they can’t do it. It’s too expensive. The local communities don’t want it. It backs up queues all the way hundreds of tens of miles north the same way is in the south. They are not going to do it. This has been a full year now. Is it desirable? We could argue about whether it’s desirable. I’m not sure it is but I am sure that they’re not doing it. That’s a fact.
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Dean Becker: Following that on air interview they had a live web cast as well.
Samuel: Hi there I am Samuel. Welcome to the Amanpour webcast we have the consul general of Mexico here in New York Mr. Rueben Beltrand. Welcome.
And so what we have do, we have taken questions online Facebook, Twitter and amanpour.com so it’s actually going to be out viewers that are putting the questions to you. I have them right here in my hand. So I am going to start. The first one comes from Cheryl Craig and she wants to know did the [ ] initiative in 2008 have any positive effects?
Reuben Beltrand: The answer would be yes on various aspects. On the one hand there’s been some new technology Mexico is acquiring on that. And the ways in which Mexico and the United States are exchanging intelligence on that is also very positive. Some training and actually some hardware in terms of some choppers arrived to Mexico. So yes [ ] initiative is working and this is a system by which the Mexican government and the United States government are going to be working more and more closely in these areas.
Samuel: And there is another person on our Facebook page who asked did it benefit private industry more than it benefited the actual public at large?
Reuben Beltrand: I think that the answer to that will be of course the equipment for instance is being purchased through a given company but but I would not circumscribe the effect of the initiative to that because the impact of [ ] is much broader.
And actually in the sense that it’s improving the Mexicans ability to detect or confront and to tackle the drug lords and drug cartels I think that you cannot circumscribe to dollars and cents an maybe to the benefit of maybe a company that actually sold the choppers or the equipment is having.
Samuel: Alright, OK then. The next question comes from [ ] Otero in Argentina and she says don’t you believe that the USA has not made a rational analysis of its own role in the drug problem in Mexico?
Beltrand: Well what I can say on that I think that leadership of the Obama administration has made very clear from the beginning of Obama administration that this is something that calls for a joint responsibility, a shared responsibility and it only would be, it would be tackled properly only when both countries come together in a joint effort to combat and fight this organized crime.
Samuel: But more than just an administration do you think the average American like me really realizes the role that Americans play in the drug war in Mexico, the average one, not the president of the United States.
Beltrand: I would not dare to pass a judgment on the sentiments of the US citizens but I think that we have to socialize in a better way in both countries. But what is at stake here I think that that’s needed and that would be a call for action [ ].
Producer: Council general, I have a question. I am George [ ],one of the producers for Amanpour. How do you make the case to the Mexican people that this is that this war is worth the cost to the people who are suffering, the civilian population of Juarez and towns across northwestern Mexico. What is the case of the of the, how do you convince the Mexican people that this policy with all of the bloodshed that we’re seeing is worth the cost?
Beltrand: Well I think that by and large the Mexican population is convinced that this war to fight this war against organized crime. I can understand the fear of Mexicans in some cities which are witnessing the peaks of violence that we are witnessing most regrettable. Our sentiments goes to the families of the people of Juarez that lost just recently sixteen kids at this war. I understand that, we understand that.
But also that at the end of the day I think that by and large the Mexican population, the Mexican citizen is convinced this is a war for the future. This is a war that’s not going to be won overnight. It’s going to take time, it’s going to take a toll but it’s a war for the future. It’s a fight for the youth, it’s a fight for the children and it’s something that should be done.
Producer: Ten years ago large sections of the Colombian countryside were being controlled by guerrilla groups, were being controlled by narcotraficantes. Is that danger, is there a danger that sections of the Mexican state will become a narco state?
Beltrand: The return answer to that would be no. The the you are mentioning one example, I will not mention any country. But let me state very clearly, Mexico has never lost part of its territory to the drug lords and that will not be the case and I am telling you and the international community knows very well Mexico is not going to relinquish its duties. It’s going to keep on a very aggressive posture to prevent drug lords to control territory of Mexico.
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Dean Becker: Alright my friends. How long do you want the drug war to last? Well as you know, that’s just way too long. There is no truth, justice, logic, scientific fact, medical data, no reason for this drug war to exist. Please do your part to help end this madness, visit our website, endprohibition.org.
Prohibido istac evilesco.
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For the Drug Truth Network this is Dean Becker, asking you to examine our policy of drug prohibition.
The Century of Lies
This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston
Transcript
Century of Lies, February 7, 2010
The failure of Drug War is glaringly obvious to judges, cops, wardens, prosecutors and millions more, now calling for decriminalization, legalization, the end of prohibition. Let us investigate the Century of Lies.
_____________
Dean Becker: Ah yes, it’s the Century of Lies show. I’m so glad you could be with us. You know the century of lies is starting to be exposed, starting to be derided and ridiculed. And it’s about time to end this madness.
We’re going to feature some reports from major news players who have finally started to understand, to get this situation and to report on it properly. But first up we have got a couple of reports about progress across America.
We are going to hear from Mr. Micah Daigle of Students for Sensible Drug Policy about Chase bank slighting them and drug reform in general. And we’re going to hear from Allison Holcom of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington State. First up Micah Daigle.
_____________
Micah Daigle: I’m Micah Daigle. I am the executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
Dean Becker: Micah your organization is not just US based now. You guys have people around the world who are interested in changing these drug laws, correct?
Micah Daigle: That’s right, Dean. We’ve grown tremendously over the last few years. We have been around since 1998 and started up just at about five campuses at that time. And now we have grown to about two hundred worldwide - across the US as well as Canada, the UK, Colombia, Nigeria and others.
Dean Becker: Now your organization has I don’t know developed other leaders if you will who moved on to other organizations if you will after quote graduating from SSDP. You guys have created quite a presence for yourself around this country and a lot of followers.
And recently Chase banking systems put forward an offer to those organizations who could garner the most support in an online survey, is that correct?
Micah Daigle: That’s right, that’s right.
Dean Becker: And you guys were high in those ratings but something happened as this was closing out. You want to tell us about that?
Micah Daigle: Chase jumped on this social networking philanthropy bandwagon where they launched this contest in which any member of Facebook supposedly would be able to vote on their favorite non profit organization to receive in the first round twenty-five thousand dollars and in the second round a chance at one million dollars.
And so SSDP as well as the Marijuana Policy Project was on track to win that first round and get in to the second round at this chance at a million. We had, we had more votes than many of the groups in the contest. In order to qualify for the first round you needed to be within the top one hundred.
And Chase did not publish any of the vote counts. So myself and the leaders of several other organizations that were taking place and start taking part in the contest developed an unofficial leader board where we kept track every day of the vote counts. And we found that that we were in fourteenth place. And again we needed to be within the top one hundred.
So we were in fourteenth place well within the range of winning when Chase removed all of the vote counts several days prior to the end of the voting. They obscured all the vote counts. And then once the voting was done they released the winners which included everyone that was in that top one hundred except for us, the Marijuana Policy Project and possibly one other group that’s an anti abortion group.
I had been in touch with the folks at Chase the entire competition and they had been helpful. There was a problem with our voting page and they worked with me to sort that out and at no time did they say that we were ineligible for any reason.
And instead of directly telling us that we were ineligible because they didn’t like the mission of our organization which by the way is a mission that seventy-five percent of Americans agree with in that we’re simply asking for a reevaluation of the war on drugs which has failed They didn’t let us know that there was any problem with that mission statement. And instead they you know turned this this supposedly democratic voting process in to a repeat of the you know the 2000 presidential election in Florida.
We were we were really upset about this understandably and and so we launched a boycott. We publicized this, there was a big expose on the scandal in the new york times. Thousands of our supporters agreed to boycott Chase and dropped their Chase [ ]. I did the same. And to this day Chase will still not, not tell us why they decided to exclude us from the contest.
You know I think that Chase’s decision is sort of one of these last parting shots of an older, confused generation that thinks that that drug policy reform is something to be scared of, that it that it’s a third rail issue, that its this fringe issue. But when you look at the polling you know as we both know this is a majority mainstream issue.
You know like I said when you poll Americans seventy-five percent think the war on drugs is a failure. Greater than fifty percent agree with legalizing marijuana. Greater than seventy percent agree with legalizing medical marijuana. So this is you know this is an issue that enjoys wide support and by treating us like a fringe issue really they’re just showing that they themselves are out of touch. Just like Kellogg’s showed that they were out of touch when they dropped Michael Phelps because of a bong hit.
So I think that this is you know this is part of a really important battle in the war against the war on drugs. And getting people to take this issue seriously and I think that Chase found that out the hard way and you know when their name wound up in the pages of the New York Times you know when they decided to make this very terrible decision.
So of course we’re upset about it that’s a lot of money and of course money makes this movement move. So if anyone wants to join the boycott go to chaseboycott.com and sign up and pledge to boycott Chase. And you can also help us make up that money by donating to SSDP at ssdp.org/donate
_____________
To dream the American dream
To lie still and hope
With both of your eyes closed
To ignore the nightmare that surrounds you
Just to try, try to reach the American dream
_____________
Allison Holcom: My name is Allison Holcom and I am the drug policy director with the ACLU of Washington.
Dean Becker: Allison it seems there are breaking stories about drug reform, potential drug reform all over this nation on a daily basis and Washington has been foremost I think among those in bringing forward logical means to better deal with the subject of drug use. And there’s potential again in Washington State. Tell us about what’s going on there.
Allison Holcom: What we’re interested in doing here in Washington is shifting the primary response to problematic drug use away from the current over reliance on arrest, prosecution and jailing people to a public health model where we’re really looking at drugs as a health concern.
And the most recent and exciting development is that this morning the Washington state senate passed senate bill 5516 sponsored by Senator Rosa Franklin. And what this bill does is essentially replicates what New Mexico did in 2007. It creates a limited scope of immunity from criminal charges for people who seek medical assistance or call 911 for example when they think they are witnessing a drug overdose situation.
Dean Becker: New Mexico has realized a lesser number of drug overdoses and other similar concerns due to their Good Samaritan law. And I would think that Washington State would hope for a similar result, right?
Allison Holcom: That’s exactly right. What we’re hoping is that we will reverse the drastic and alarming trend in drug overdose deaths that this state has experienced. Drug overdose is now the number one cause of accidental injury death in this state, ahead of motor vehicles, falls and fire arms.
In 2001 we had three hundred sixty deaths resulting from drug overdose. In 2008 we had seven hundred ninety-four. Our drug overdose death rate more than doubled in a decade to more than two deaths per day on average. This is a public health crisis. And it’s impacting not only Washington but the entire nation.
So we’re hopeful that not only will we be able to reverse our drug overdose trend here in Washington but that we along with New Mexico will help set an example for the rest of the nation in a smarter, more effective, more compassionate response to drug overdose.
Dean Becker: Now one other factor that enters in to this is the making available the use of a drug that counteracts the effects of opiates. You want to talk about that aspect?
Allison Holcom: Absolutely. There’s a second provision in senate bill 5516 that would expand access to a very important drug that’s called [ ] some of your listeners may be more familiar with one of its trade names, Narcan. And what this drug is is an opiate antagonist.
When administered to an individual it goes in and it attaches to the receptors that opiates attach to. And what happens is that for people who are suffering an opiate overdose, it immediately reverses that overdose. Within thirty seconds to two minutes it brings the person back out of the overdose and provides some additional time for people to get professional emergency care for that person.
And when we think of opiates many of us think oh we’re talking about heroin overdoses but the reality is that the largest segment of the increase in drug overdose deaths that we have seen in the last decade are prescription opiates, things like Oxyconton. So this is a very important improvement.
It’s not going to help people who are experiencing alcohol overdoses or overdoses from stimulants but for a very large segment of the people experiencing drug overdoses, those that are resulting from opiates, it can literally save their lives.
Dean Becker: Once again we have been talking with Allison Holcom of the ACLU up in Washington State. Allison, point them toward your website where they might learn more.
Allison Holcom: People can learn more about the ACLU of Washington at www.aclu-wa.org
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Dean Becker: OK and as promised we now have a couple of extracts we took from PBS and CNN. PBS was dealing with the situation with marijuana around the country; all the progress, setbacks and reboots to do it all over again. Progress is being made despite the protestations of law enforcement officers disguised as doctors.
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Dean Becker: The following is courtesy of PBS News Hour.
Anchor: Now new efforts to limit the sale of medical marijuana. Last week the Los Angeles city council approved an ordinance that would close many medical marijuana dispensaries throughout the city. The backlash is brewing elsewhere too including debate and a vote today in Colorado’s senate. News Hour correspondent Tom Bearden has our report from Denver.
Lady: I feel like my life is in danger. I did not purchase a house right here to feel like I can’t go outside my front door.
Tom Bearden: For the past three months, angry residents have gathered in town hall meetings asking politicians to slam the brakes on one of the fastest growing businesses in Colorado.
Man: We’re gambling with our kids, our families, our own lives. And why not just stop everything until we actually learn something about how to run this industry.
Tom Bearden: The new industry is medical marijuana, specifically the commercial dispensaries that have opened in neighborhoods all over the state. At last count Denver alone had over three hundred, more than the number of Starbuck’s is the oft quoted statistic.
Some residents are concerned the shops could lead to increased crime and encourage loitering near their homes. The dispensary industry has blossomed virtually overnight with few regulations or rules and left politicians at the state and local level scrambling to catch up.
Ten years ago, Coloradans voted to amend the state constitution to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes. Subsequent state regulations limited caregivers to five patients a piece. But it was still against federal law and police continued to arrest people.
So for years only about two thousand people registered as patients. Then a court threw out the five patient limit. And last year the US justice department announced it would no longer enforce federal anti marijuana laws in the fourteen states that allow its medical use. Marijuana dispensaries began popping up everywhere and the patient registry exploded to forty thousand people with twenty thousand more waiting for approval in the coming months.
That’s created a huge business opportunity for people like Ryan Vincent. He’s a medical marijuana user himself to relieve pain from a degenerative eye disease. He hated buying the drug in what he described as a back alley environment. So in November he opened up The Health Center which offers patients a variety of marijuana products from traditional leaves to brownies to topical lotions.
Ryan Vincent: I built a very safe environment for people. It would be safe for my own grandmother to come in here. That’s kind of the idea of how we built this place.
Tom Bearden: But some people think too many dispensaries have opened up in far too many places. City councilman Charlie Brown recently led the effort for a Denver law that requires any new dispensaries to be located one thousand feet from schools and daycares and from other dispensaries. Brown says he knows more needs to be done but it isn’t easy.
Charlie Brown: It’s like trying to pick your teeth with a rattlesnake. If you’ve ever tried that you know how hard it is. You know, you’re dealing with medicine, you’re dealing with patients, you’re dealing with the dispensary owners, you’re dealing with neighbors and you’re dealing with schools. It all you know you can’t please everybody and so you compromise.
Tom Bearden: Vincent says he welcomes more regulation and is working hard to show that he runs a legitimate business that is not some front for dealing drugs to recreational users. For instance, he accepts credit cards and will only pay growers and suppliers with checks.
Vincent: If we say you know we’d like to write you a check and they say no, no cash only, we’re not working with them. And the reason being is because we are a business and we want those tracks, ratios, we want where our money is going and we want to have a paper trail. We you know at the end of the day that’s how you do business.
Tom Bearden: One of the criticisms I have heard from people who are concerned about whether this is being sold indiscriminately are things like the names of the products like Afghan Diesel, Durban Poison, Juliet, AK 47. Does that hurt your cause when you try to establish yourself as a as a genuinely legitimate business, that you’re selling a product that has a name like that?
Vincent: We’re trying to move away from those names. One of the things that we are actually working on doing right now with the growers is coming up with some names that might be more acceptable; something that more people can use and it would it would make more sense to the patient.
Tom Bearden: But making marijuana use more acceptable is what has many residents like Christine Tatum [ ] so upset.
Christine Tatum [ ]: The more these dispensaries pop up the more we normalize this, the more we mistake this as a substance that doesn’t have any problems. Basically what Colorado has done is it’s using the medical community as a really cheap and easy and a really cheap, really cheap easy back door to legalization of marijuana.
Tom Bearden: As various local officials in both urban and rural communities wrestle with how to deal with the dispensary issue. Most people are now looking to the state legislature for a more comprehensive approach.
State senator Chris Roamer a democrat originally drafted a bill that would have required dispensaries to register their products in a database and provide other health services. But he says he couldn’t get the support of other colleagues so he scaled his bill back to one that would put an end to the practice of dispensaries paying physicians to write prescriptions for medical marijuana.
Roamer: You will no longer be able to have a dispensary that has a doctor on site who is paid per prescription because I can’t think of another circumstance in medicine where we actually pay doctors for each prescription they write.
Tom Bearden: On the state house side republican Tom Massey is working with law enforcement groups on a bill to reestablish the old five patient limit and apply it to dispensaries.
Tom Massey: I’ve had a number of concerns, complaints, questions, are we trying to put dispensaries out of business and that’s clearly not the goal of this. We’re trying to make sure that we have a regulatory piece that works within the framework of the doctor patient caregiver relationship and honors the intent of the voter for the constitutional amendment.
Tom Bearden: Dispensary owner Vincent says a five patient restriction would not only put him out of business, it would drive the marijuana business back in to basements and back alleys.
Vincent: This would all go back underground again which is may be what his idea is. Then we put it all back underground and took off all the neighborhoods and then they’ll all vote it out.
Tom Bearden: Both republican and democratic lawmakers say they know whatever action they take the issue is not likely to be resolved this session and they concede everything would change if the federal government decides to go back to enforcing marijuana laws.
How do you craft a state law or set of state laws to deal with an issue that’s still fundamentally illegal at the federal level?
Roamer: Well it’s difficult but we’re working on that and the Obama administration has clearly said the states can experiment with this and create our own model. I hope we ultimately could be the people who really create the best medical marijuana laws for those chronically ill patients.
Tom Bearden: Today the Colorado senate passed the Roamer bill. It now moves over to the house.
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Dean Becker: The following comes to us courtesy of CNN. It is the Christine Amanpour program featuring interviews she did with Reuben Beltrand, the council general of Mexico.
Christine Amanpour: Now one of the officials in Juarez is basically saying that they’ve left Juarez totally alone, there’s a total absence of authority, this despite the fact that the army’s there. Also saying that that the people of Juarez are not necessarily pre disposed to cooperating with the army. They describe a massacre, they describe the army and the police trying to figure out the details, asking eye witnesses - a big a big nothing coming from people. So are is that strategy working?
Reuben Beltrand: I do believe it is working but now Mr. [ ] in one of his publications. In order to be successful requires a commitment of society, the local governments, the state municipalities, state governments and the federal government. And I do believe strongly one thing is for the Mexican people to fear violence. Everybody would like we would all like the violence to diminish or disappear but that’s not realistic at this point.
And one thing is that but let me assure you the Mexican people is backing this strategy. Which is the other alternative? We have to fight, we have to confront this thugs because what they want to secure positions in order to have these corridors of drug coming in to the united states. So that’s the only alternative.
Christine Amanpour: You used to be council general in some of these border border states, Arizona, in California. The current US secretary of homeland security was also governor of Arizona. Here’s what she said in regards to the weapons bill which today your president Calderon blamed for this violence.
Arizona Governor: It’s a significant number of the guns used in this wave of violence in northern Mexico absolutely come from the united states that’s why part of our plan is increasing the number of agents who are going to inspect southbound vehicles.
That’s why we are sending technology to the border that will allow us to scan or do non invasive X rays to see whether cars are carrying assault weapons, other kinds of weapons that are now flowing in to Mexico to fuel these drug cartels.
Amanpour: I know you obviously agree with what she’s saying.
Beltrand: The secretary [ ] is absolutely right. In order for Mexico to be successful in this war we need to increase cooperation with the United States to stem the flow of cash, [ ] cash, weapons and ammo from the United States to Mexico.
Christine Amanpour: What’s wrong with that flow?
Beltrand: I flew to San Diego from Mexico City last week and crossed back to San Diego from Tijuana I had a speech to give and I someone drove me. There was not the slightest inspection of any car crossing from north to south on the US side or on the Mexican side a year after secretary [ ] statement March twenty-fifth, 2009.
Christine Amanpour: Why not?
Beltrand: Because they can’t do it. It’s too expensive. The local communities don’t want it. It backs up queues all the way hundreds of tens of miles north the same way is in the south. They are not going to do it. This has been a full year now. Is it desirable? We could argue about whether it’s desirable. I’m not sure it is but I am sure that they’re not doing it. That’s a fact.
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Dean Becker: Following that on air interview they had a live web cast as well.
Samuel: Hi there I am Samuel. Welcome to the Amanpour webcast we have the consul general of Mexico here in New York Mr. Rueben Beltrand. Welcome.
And so what we have do, we have taken questions online Facebook, Twitter and amanpour.com so it’s actually going to be out viewers that are putting the questions to you. I have them right here in my hand. So I am going to start. The first one comes from Cheryl Craig and she wants to know did the [ ] initiative in 2008 have any positive effects?
Reuben Beltrand: The answer would be yes on various aspects. On the one hand there’s been some new technology Mexico is acquiring on that. And the ways in which Mexico and the United States are exchanging intelligence on that is also very positive. Some training and actually some hardware in terms of some choppers arrived to Mexico. So yes [ ] initiative is working and this is a system by which the Mexican government and the United States government are going to be working more and more closely in these areas.
Samuel: And there is another person on our Facebook page who asked did it benefit private industry more than it benefited the actual public at large?
Reuben Beltrand: I think that the answer to that will be of course the equipment for instance is being purchased through a given company but but I would not circumscribe the effect of the initiative to that because the impact of [ ] is much broader.
And actually in the sense that it’s improving the Mexicans ability to detect or confront and to tackle the drug lords and drug cartels I think that you cannot circumscribe to dollars and cents an maybe to the benefit of maybe a company that actually sold the choppers or the equipment is having.
Samuel: Alright, OK then. The next question comes from [ ] Otero in Argentina and she says don’t you believe that the USA has not made a rational analysis of its own role in the drug problem in Mexico?
Beltrand: Well what I can say on that I think that leadership of the Obama administration has made very clear from the beginning of Obama administration that this is something that calls for a joint responsibility, a shared responsibility and it only would be, it would be tackled properly only when both countries come together in a joint effort to combat and fight this organized crime.
Samuel: But more than just an administration do you think the average American like me really realizes the role that Americans play in the drug war in Mexico, the average one, not the president of the United States.
Beltrand: I would not dare to pass a judgment on the sentiments of the US citizens but I think that we have to socialize in a better way in both countries. But what is at stake here I think that that’s needed and that would be a call for action [ ].
Producer: Council general, I have a question. I am George [ ],one of the producers for Amanpour. How do you make the case to the Mexican people that this is that this war is worth the cost to the people who are suffering, the civilian population of Juarez and towns across northwestern Mexico. What is the case of the of the, how do you convince the Mexican people that this policy with all of the bloodshed that we’re seeing is worth the cost?
Beltrand: Well I think that by and large the Mexican population is convinced that this war to fight this war against organized crime. I can understand the fear of Mexicans in some cities which are witnessing the peaks of violence that we are witnessing most regrettable. Our sentiments goes to the families of the people of Juarez that lost just recently sixteen kids at this war. I understand that, we understand that.
But also that at the end of the day I think that by and large the Mexican population, the Mexican citizen is convinced this is a war for the future. This is a war that’s not going to be won overnight. It’s going to take time, it’s going to take a toll but it’s a war for the future. It’s a fight for the youth, it’s a fight for the children and it’s something that should be done.
Producer: Ten years ago large sections of the Colombian countryside were being controlled by guerrilla groups, were being controlled by narcotraficantes. Is that danger, is there a danger that sections of the Mexican state will become a narco state?
Beltrand: The return answer to that would be no. The the you are mentioning one example, I will not mention any country. But let me state very clearly, Mexico has never lost part of its territory to the drug lords and that will not be the case and I am telling you and the international community knows very well Mexico is not going to relinquish its duties. It’s going to keep on a very aggressive posture to prevent drug lords to control territory of Mexico.
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Dean Becker: Alright my friends. How long do you want the drug war to last? Well as you know, that’s just way too long. There is no truth, justice, logic, scientific fact, medical data, no reason for this drug war to exist. Please do your part to help end this madness, visit our website, endprohibition.org.
Prohibido istac evilesco.
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For the Drug Truth Network this is Dean Becker, asking you to examine our policy of drug prohibition.
The Century of Lies
This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston