Drug Laws

No, it doesn’t reduce the amount of adolescent sexual activity–it merely reduces the likelihood that teens who have sex will use condoms, and thus increases the prevalence of teens with sexually transmitted diseases. This is not merely useless, it’s actually harmful and counter-productive, like the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s anti-drug advertisements. But empirical evidence is irrelevant to those who are pushing their programs due to religious fundamentalism. For such people, the fact that they not only don’t work but have the opposite of the desired effects just means they need to be pushed harder.

Former Chicago police officer and FBI informant Keith Herrera told “60 Minutes” that pressure to get results in the war on drugs led to police officers lying about the facts in order to get arrests, and ultimately to a corrupt ring of officers engaging in thefts from drug dealers and a plot to kill two of fellow officers who weren’t with the program and were prepared to testify against them. Herrera is one of seven officers in the Special Operations Section who have been charged with robbery, kidnapping, and other crimes. (As reported by Reuters on Yahoo.)

The writers of perhaps the best show on television, The Wire, have published an opinion piece in Time magazine in which they advocate that jurors vote to acquit any drug case defendant, and state that they will do so: If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun’s manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens. ...

Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa says that Ecuador will not be renewing the U.S.’s lease of the Manta Air Base on his country’s Pacific coast when it expires in 2009. U.S. officials say the base is essential for anti-narcotics operations. Correa says he will be happy to reconsider if the U.S. allows him to open an Ecuadoran military base in Miami. “If there’s no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States,” he told a reporter in Italy. (Via Distributed Republic.)

Steve Tucker ended a ten-year federal prison sentence last year. He served his time for selling light bulbs–specifically grow lights–that, while themselves legal, were sold to some customers that were using them to grow marijuana. Even though he and his brother asked any customers who so much as mentioned marijuana to leave and refused to sell any products which had any visible references to marijuana, they were successfully prosecuted on conspiracy charges because they had knowledge that some of their customers were using their products to grow marijuana. His brother Gary, who was given a fifteen-year sentence that was reduced to ten after a successful petition to apply a change in policy from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, died of cancer at about the time his sentence was served. ...

Barry Beyerstein, professor of psychology and member of the Brain Behavior Laboratory at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, a Fellow and member of the Committee of Skeptical Inquiry’s executive council, author of numerous skeptical articles and books, a contributing editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, member of the advisory board of the Drug Policy Foundation and advocate for decriminalization of drugs, brother of philosopher and skeptic Dale Beyerstein, and father of prominent blogger Lindsey Beyerstein, died on Tuesday at the age of 60. His daughter describes him as “among the most ethical people I have ever known” and “also one of the most fulfilled people I’ve had occasion to meet." I had the pleasure of meeting him on multiple occasions at CSICOP conferences and found him to be very friendly and generous with his time; he was the only member of the CSICOP executive council who took me seriously regarding an ethical issue I brought up regarding a prominent skeptic who regularly published in the Skeptical Inquirer. His death is a significant loss to skepticism and advocates for sensible drug policies. He is remembered on the front page of the CSI website. CSI Executive Director Barry Karr sent out the following: ...

Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff’s Deputy Daniel Brock was honored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving for his drunk driver arrest record, but now it turns out that many of the people he arrested and testified against were innocent and arrested on the basis of falsified reporting by Brock. From October 2005-October 2006, Brock arrested 313 people for driving under the influence. In one year (not clear from the report if it’s during that same period), he arrested 58 people whose blood-alcohol content was below .08. 43 of those 58, according to an internal affairs investigation, displayed no discernable impairment. In 41 cases, urine samples did not show alcohol over the legal limit. In many cases, videos of sobriety tests showed that Brock made false accusations of losing balance, being unable to correctly recite the alphabet, and slurred speech. Brock also failed to turn on his car’s audio and video recorder 40% of the time, instead choosing to fill out his reports on the basis of memory, sometimes days and even weeks after the arrest. Brock was fired on May 24. (Via The Agitator.) ...

I just came across an old post of mine on the Internet Infidels’ Discussion Boards: February 22, 2004, 05:24 PMI keep seeing this TV commercial from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The commercial shows a girl standing on a dock on a lake, with a life preserver sitting on it, and another drowning in the water as she looks on. The voiceover says something like “If you had a friend who was drowning, you’d help, wouldn’t you?" Every time I see it I think it’s going to be an argument for the nonexistence of God. The ad is online, though it doesn’t seem to be one of the ones the ONDCP put on YouTube, with subsequent ridicule. The ONDCP ad campaign has been studied by the GAO and found to be ineffective, but the government continues to spend over one hundred million dollars per year on it. ...

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has placed anti-drug PSAs on YouTube. You know, those same ads that have been shown to increase drug use? Perhaps they hope that the video replies which YouTube users generate in response will similarly have an effect opposite to their intent? (Via CNN.)