Drug Laws

Personal possession of any drug decriminalized: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Czech Republic, Baltic states, some German states and Swiss cantons, Mexico. Partial decriminalization/minimal criminal prosecution: England, Denmark, Slovakia, Latvia, Croatia, Poland, Austria, Germany, France, Netherlands (see chart in the Economist story linked below–it’s interesting that the Netherlands has the highest percentage of prison outcomes on this list) Unconstitutional to prosecute people for drug possession (any drug) per Supreme Court ruling: Argentina, Colombia Marijuana decriminalized: 14 U.S. states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon) States with some localities that have decriminalized marijuana: Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Washington, Wisconsin Considering marijuana legalization: California, Massachusetts, possibly Oregon Considering decriminalization (any drug): Brazil, Ecuador Source: The Economist, “Virtually legal," November 14, 2009; state decriminalization details from Wikipedia.

After at least two prior attempts in 2006 and 2008, Mexico has decriminalized the personal possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, and methamphetamine in order to unclog the courts and focus only on heavy trafficking. This will be an interesting experiment in decriminalization that will no doubt also provoke drug tourism to Mexico. It appears that the new law is similar to the 2006 proposal, which was less radical than it may have originally appeared–it allowed local police as well as federal police to pursue drug crimes (a strengthening of the prosecution of drug crime) and allowed diversion to treatment for possession of small amounts of drugs rather than criminal prosecution. The new law doesn’t allow criminal prosecution for personal possession, and mandates treatment diversion on a third offense. So it’s not legalization, it’s decriminalization. ...

Anthony Watts, a radio meteorologist who has collected evidence of badly sited weather stations to argue that climate change data is incorrect, was the subject of Peter Sinclair’s latest Climate Change Crock of the Week video. Rather than attempt to refute the criticism (which would be difficult–both “good” and “bad” weather stations show the same long-term temperature trends), Watts resorted to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to get Sinclair’s video taken offline. Watts doesn’t hold copyright on television footage he appears in on Glenn Beck’s show, which has been used in fair use excerpts, anyway. But the video is back, and you can see it for yourself here. (Via Pharyngula.) UPDATE: As Rich Trott points out, Watts has replied here. He says that the basis of his copyright complaint is that the video shows the cover of and photographs and graphs from his book, but doesn’t say why he thinks the video exceeds fair use. He says that the NCDC’s response to his data (a) used out-of-date data and (b) used a process guaranteed to have two similar graphs, by taking a weighted average of the good and bad station reports even in the line reported as just the good stations. This is not exactly correct–there is a correction for urban heating that does use nearby station data, but even if you do not perform the urban heating adjustment step, you STILL get two graphs with essentially the same trend. (This was indirectly linked to in my previous post on this subject, through my link to the Daily Doubt blog of frequent commenter Hume’s Ghost.) UPDATE (August 10, 2009): Climate Progress points out the inanity of Watts’ defense of his DMCA abuse, observing that he’s suggesting copyright infringement on the basis of a few graphs and images shown from his book, which is given away for free in PDF form on the Internet. So not only was Sinclair well within fair use based on the amount and substantiality of material used, there’s no chance that Sinclair’s video could possibly have had any adverse effect on the commercial market for Watts’ book, since there isn’t one. ...

Via Pharyngula, a video rebuttal to a recent Bill O’Reilly show claim that Amsterdam’s drug policies are a failure that has led it to be a “cesspool of corruption, crime, everything is out of control, it’s anarchy,” according to guest Monica Crowley, Ph.D. (In a bit of irony, her doctorate is in “international relations.” She’s a Fox News foreign affairs and policy analyst who was a personal foreign policy assistant to Richard Nixon from 1990-1994–I didn’t realize former presidents needed personal foreign policy assistants.) Various cities in the Netherlands have placed additional restrictions on coffee shops that sell marijuana, such as not permitting them to operate within 200m of a school. The Wikipedia entry on drug policy in the Netherlands documents this, along with the details of their decriminalization (not legalization) policies. ...

From the Philadelphia Daily News: ON A SWELTERING July afternoon in 2007, Officer Jeffrey Cujdik and his narcotics squad members raided an Olney tobacco shop. Then, with guns drawn, they did something bizarre: They smashed two surveillance cameras with a metal rod, said store owners David and Eunice Nam. The five plainclothes officers yanked camera wires from the ceiling. They forced the slight, frail Korean couple to the vinyl floor and cuffed them with plastic wrist ties. ...

Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2001, and Glenn Greenwald discusses the evidence that he says shows it has been “an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category and enabling Portugal to manage drug-related problems (and drug usage rates) far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug consumption as a criminal offense.” Historical Comments Ktisophilos (2009-03-17): The Drug War Body Count by Debra J. Saunders supports your case, and cites some former Central and South Americans as well as The Economist ...

Today’s Overcompensating makes a timely proposal. Just as the repeal of Prohibition during the Great Depression helped economic recovery and reduced associated criminal activity, repealing the drug war could do the same. Legalizing prostitution along the lines of the New Zealand model (adopted in 2003, and in 2008 in Western Australia) is also a good idea. Now that Attorney General Eric Holder has confirmed Obama’s campaign promise that the feds will not engage in drug raids against medical marijuana operations in states that have legalized such activity, the time is right. ...

At The Agitator blog, Radley Balko writes what Michael Phelps should have said when a photograph of him taking a bong hit was published in a tabloid: Dear America, I take it back. I don’t apologize. Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture. ...

Radley Balko, guest-blogging at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, describes three police officers, asking whether each has engaged in egregious enough conduct to be fired: One, Shoving a 71-year-old Walmart greeter to the ground and, when another customer came to assist, shoving that customer through a glass door?Two, How about three DWI incidents within a one-year span, including one in which the officer ran a roadblock, then had to be tasered, pepper-sprayed, and wrestled to the ground; another in which he hit another car, then left the scene of the accident; and another in which he fell asleep in his cruiser in front of a school, while in drive, with his foot resting on the brake?Three, How about an officer with an otherwise stellar record, who has a reputation in the department for honesty, but who became an outspoken critic of the war on drugs, and on one occasion declined to arrest a man after finding a single marijuana plant growing outside the man’s home?Can you guess which of these officers lost their jobs for the described conduct? Read Balko’s post to find out. ...

Via the Reason blog: The 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte established an exception to the Fourth Amendment, allowing the federal government to establish roadblock checkpoints within 100 miles of U.S. borders to stop people and search for illegal immigrants and smuggling. The ACLU notes that 190 million people live within 100 miles of U.S. borders, providing this helpful map. (Although Lake Michigan is entirely within U.S. boundaries, by treaty Canada is allowed full navigation rights to the lake–so it’s not clear if that 100-mile boundary would actually be as in the ACLU’s map around Lake Michigan.) There are currently 33 checkpoints in operation within the boundary area. Here’s some video footage of one of them in Arizona: (Via Checkpoint USA, which has numerous videos of interactions at one of these temporary checkpoints.) ...