When you get time, please watch "Breaking the Taboo," a great new documentary on the murderous and costly Drug War. It's narrated by Morgan Freeman and features appearances by, inter alia, former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, entertainment mogul Richard Branson, and former leaders from Latin America and Europe.
It is a compelling film and I urge you to share it with friends and relatives who may not understand the failure and catastrophic costs borne by millions of people in our country and abroad.
bellum medicamenti delenda est
Showing posts with label drug dealers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drug dealers. Show all posts
Friday, December 7, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug Czar Speeches
I have a lot of ideological issues with the Center for American Progress, but I didn't expect even they--an activist think tank founded by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta--would give an open-armed welcome to Gil Kerlikowske, the sitting Drug Czar, to tout the "new" drug control policy of the Obama Administration. I know they want the Administration to win in November, but self-identified progressives carrying water for the most destructive government force this side of the Pentagon should be an ideological and institutional embarrassment.
But they did, and I sat through it.
As pointed out by respected drug law reform champion Ethan Nadelmann,the "new" White House strategy the talk was meant to promote is a change in rhetoric but not much else. I've decided to take quotes from his prepared remarks to explain why the ONDCP rhetoric is fundamentally dishonest and to bring out what was left unsaid or misrepresented.
The following (in bold) are all quotes from Chief Kerlikowske's presentation yesterday at CAP.
"Very vocal, organized, well-funded advocates"
From jump street, the one-time police reformer and now head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy was clear that any talk of legalization would not be entertained. He wasted no time straw-manning the arguments of drug reformers, saying that advocates believe legalization is a "silver bullet" that would make the nation's drug problems disappear--which no one serious says or believes. But he reiterated that removing the criminal penalty from behavior--behavior that the ONDCP, CAP, and other reformers would like to have qualified as a "public health problem" indicative of an individual's "disease"--is "extreme." Furthermore, the Czar added, legalization (lumped in with "enforcement-only" strategies) is 'not humane, compassionate,or realistic.'
At that point, I knew this was going to be a long morning.
So, given that the federal behemoth--that includes the federal prison system, FBI, State Department, DHS, DEA, ICE, the U.S. Military, and the DOJ's ambitious and relatively unfettered U.S. Attorneys--is engaged almost exclusively in "enforcement only" activities, the head of the ONDCP is complaining about "extreme" "organized and well-funded advocates" who host occasional policy forums and write blog posts, op-eds, and policy papers about rethinking the government's current strategy.The way he tells it, you'd think the government was fighting a large, cold-blooded and ruthless force as strong as the drug cartels--who, of course, have all the incentive to maintain drug prohibition--instead of a few dedicated people whose strongest weapons are truth and the compassion he claims we lack.
"Most importantly, [legalization arguments] are not grounded in science."
Kerlikowske bragged, "In fact, NIDA--the National Institute on Drug Abuse--is the source of 85% of the world's research on drug abuse and we could not be more proud of that."
Who is this "we?" Science is the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Science, as practiced in all other disciplines, includes testing data and falsifiable results so that it may be peer reviewed by other scientists to support or detract from the findings in an objective manner. Science, in short, is a group effort and one agency doing most of the work is nothing at all to brag about--indeed, it should be a call for greater scrutiny.
There are those who would like to study drug effects of, say, marijuana--but the government refuses to allow the study (New York Times):
"Just last year, the Department of Justice released data that health, workplace, and criminal justice cost of drug abuse to American society totaled over $193 billion...Contributing to the immense cost are the millions of drug offenders under supervision in the criminal justice system"
Yes, Chief Kerlikowske, keeping human beings in cages is expensive. Law enforcement is expensive. Lost wages from job termination resulting from drug charges is expensive. Supporting people who can't get jobs after non-violent drug convictions is expensive. All of these are direct results of drug prohibition. This is not to diminish the other costs borne by other parties, but 'look how much money we're spending on this' is not a cohesive argument when your detractors say you should be spending the time, effort, and money elsewhere.
"To break the cycle of drug use and crime, we have worked to divert non-violent drug offenders into treatment, instead of jail, through drug courts....Whenever someone tells me that government doesn't listen or that taxpayer dollars are being wasted in [drug abuse work], I just ask them to attend a drug court graduation. If you're not moved and you're not motivated by that graduation, you have a pretty cold heart."
Drug courts look good on paper, but in practice, their effectiveness ranges from "okay" to "terrible." Depending on the state and jurisdiction, drug courts may require plea agreements, whose violation triggers automatic and often severe jail time, and usually it is not appealable. Many violations are the result of failed drug tests--one of the outward symptoms of the "disease" Kerlikowske and co. say drug addiction is.* It is hard to imagine designing a program that would be more effective at setting addicts up for failure.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers did a two-year nationwide study interviewing people from all aspects of drug courts to measure their effectiveness and adverse consequences. They found that while many people have benefited from drug courts--and that is certainly a good thing--the programs have been susceptible to other problems, such as "cherry picking" defendants to boost success numbers. (Though ONDCP rarely, if ever, acknowledges it, most people who use illicit drugs are non-problematic users.) Putting people who don't really need treatment into treatment inflates success statistics while people with severe problems are left out because they may fail on their first try, harming success rates and increasing the risk of criminal penalty for failing. (For more on the many problems with drug courts, you can download the PDF of the report here and read their follow-up here.)
That the man who oversees the national operation to keep people in cages is appealing to pity in order to defend inadequate solutions to a broken system would be comical if not so damned tragic.
"Drug use is a public health issue"
Both in his statement and in the ONDCP strategy, the Drug Czar has mentioned his desire to eliminate the stigma of drug and alcohol abuse and addiction. But this is impossible, especially when it is still a crime to use illicit drugs in the first place. Criminality brings stigma, which, ironically, is the best argument for making drug use illegal.
But experience has taught us that the criminal penalties for drug use and distribution are grossly disproportionate to the offense itself, and thus we need to scrap it. That said, I think that society should discourage drug use--especially of harder drugs like heroin and methamphetamine. "This can happen to you" is effective, when not overblown to the point of fiction. But the way drugs are thought of in America--lumped all together like smoking a joint is roughly the same thing as shooting heroin--is irresponsible because there is no distinction between more responsible/safer drug use and reckless/more dangerous use. Such conflation and enduring lies like 'gateway' drugs--that smoking a joint will lead to being a heroin junkie--undermines the value that truthful drug education provides.
"Our [highlighted] policies include support for programs like screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment. That works to medicalize [sic] our approach to the drug problem by helping health institutions recognize the signs and symptoms of drug addiction early."
"Drug screening" is a polite way to say "pee in a cup." I don't have a problem with employers drug testing their employees if they think it's important, but the government really has no business incentivizing the practice. As I said before, most drug users aren't actually problem users--and never become problem users--yet they could get caught up and risk losing their employment for something they do in their spare time. Even if the federal government were to give employment protection to "current use" drug abusers under Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA already protects from being fired for inactive addiction), this is invasive, expensive, and unnecessary for the vast majority of Americans, users and non-users alike.
The point of making drug addiction a public health issue is to get people into treatment more readily--that the door is open when they are ready to quit--without fear of criminal sanction for mistakes/relapses or possession. It is not, as apparently has been embraced by the White House and ONDCP, carte blanche to subsidize the addiction treatment industry. Furthermore, making employees' unrelated and off-site recreational behaviors a matter for HR won't help the goal of destigmatizing drug abuse--indeed, it will probably exacerbate it as recreational users will be unfairly labeled as addicts.
"We support the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and the Drug Free Community Support Program."
This is your tax dollars on drugs, any questions?
The Drug Czar finished his prepared remarks on "securing the Southern border," working with other countries to stem the flow of drugs into (and cash out of) the United States, and other aspects to the international scope of America's Drug War--with absolutely no mention of Portugal, or what's actually going on in Mexico, or how Los Zetas, a Mexican cartel, has become the primary criminal force in Guatemala. The worldwide failure of American drug policy is worth an entire post by itself, so I won't get into it further here.
As someone who is invested in fighting against the Drug War, it was a really difficult 20 minutes to sit through. I highly recommend Mike Riggs' summary of the event over at reason. I really couldn't have done better than he did on the Q&A, so instead of cribbing what he said here, just read it there.
What's perhaps most disturbing, is that this speech was short and doesn't get into the details and depths of what the federal government's strategy has done and is doing. And, of course, the federal outline barely touches on what state and local authorities are doing--where the majority of drug arrests actually occur.
The Drug War, despite Kerlikowske's and Tanden's protestations, is still going full force. That the government is spending more money on treatment does little good, on the whole, so long as cops are still breaking down doors, shooting dogs, and throwing kids in a hole for 5 days. And, Chief Kerlikowske, we're gonna keep calling it a war until you stop treating it like one.
It's the humane thing to do.
bellum mediamenti delenda est
*I'm not qualified to say what is and is not a disease. My position on legalization does not change if I grant or deny that claim. The point, of course, is that if it is a disease, these triggers punish the disease, which is contrary to the aims the ONDCP claims.
But they did, and I sat through it.
As pointed out by respected drug law reform champion Ethan Nadelmann,the "new" White House strategy the talk was meant to promote is a change in rhetoric but not much else. I've decided to take quotes from his prepared remarks to explain why the ONDCP rhetoric is fundamentally dishonest and to bring out what was left unsaid or misrepresented.
The following (in bold) are all quotes from Chief Kerlikowske's presentation yesterday at CAP.
"Very vocal, organized, well-funded advocates"
From jump street, the one-time police reformer and now head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy was clear that any talk of legalization would not be entertained. He wasted no time straw-manning the arguments of drug reformers, saying that advocates believe legalization is a "silver bullet" that would make the nation's drug problems disappear--which no one serious says or believes. But he reiterated that removing the criminal penalty from behavior--behavior that the ONDCP, CAP, and other reformers would like to have qualified as a "public health problem" indicative of an individual's "disease"--is "extreme." Furthermore, the Czar added, legalization (lumped in with "enforcement-only" strategies) is 'not humane, compassionate,or realistic.'
At that point, I knew this was going to be a long morning.
So, given that the federal behemoth--that includes the federal prison system, FBI, State Department, DHS, DEA, ICE, the U.S. Military, and the DOJ's ambitious and relatively unfettered U.S. Attorneys--is engaged almost exclusively in "enforcement only" activities, the head of the ONDCP is complaining about "extreme" "organized and well-funded advocates" who host occasional policy forums and write blog posts, op-eds, and policy papers about rethinking the government's current strategy.The way he tells it, you'd think the government was fighting a large, cold-blooded and ruthless force as strong as the drug cartels--who, of course, have all the incentive to maintain drug prohibition--instead of a few dedicated people whose strongest weapons are truth and the compassion he claims we lack.
"Most importantly, [legalization arguments] are not grounded in science."
Kerlikowske bragged, "In fact, NIDA--the National Institute on Drug Abuse--is the source of 85% of the world's research on drug abuse and we could not be more proud of that."
Who is this "we?" Science is the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Science, as practiced in all other disciplines, includes testing data and falsifiable results so that it may be peer reviewed by other scientists to support or detract from the findings in an objective manner. Science, in short, is a group effort and one agency doing most of the work is nothing at all to brag about--indeed, it should be a call for greater scrutiny.
There are those who would like to study drug effects of, say, marijuana--but the government refuses to allow the study (New York Times):
Lyle E. Craker, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Massachusetts, has been trying to get permission from federal authorities for nearly nine years to grow a supply of the plant that he could study and provide to researchers for clinical trials.
But the Drug Enforcement Administration — more concerned about abuse than potential benefits — has refused, even after the agency’s own administrative law judge ruled in 2007 that Dr. Craker’s application should be approved, and even after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in March ended the Bush administration’s policy of raiding dispensers of medical marijuana that comply with state laws.
“All I want to be able to do is grow it so that it can be tested,” Dr. Craker said in comments echoed by other researchers.
Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review.
“The more it becomes clear to people that the federal government is blocking these studies, the more people are willing to defect by using politics instead of science to legalize medicinal uses at the state level,” said Rick Doblin, executive director of a nonprofit group dedicated to researching psychedelics for medical uses.I don't write this to impugn NIDA or its motives, but--at least in regard to cannabis--that the government NIDA reports to for funding is the same government that uses its research to maintain its policies and the same government that denies the right of research to others cannot be construed as objective science by any reasonable standard.
"Just last year, the Department of Justice released data that health, workplace, and criminal justice cost of drug abuse to American society totaled over $193 billion...Contributing to the immense cost are the millions of drug offenders under supervision in the criminal justice system"
Yes, Chief Kerlikowske, keeping human beings in cages is expensive. Law enforcement is expensive. Lost wages from job termination resulting from drug charges is expensive. Supporting people who can't get jobs after non-violent drug convictions is expensive. All of these are direct results of drug prohibition. This is not to diminish the other costs borne by other parties, but 'look how much money we're spending on this' is not a cohesive argument when your detractors say you should be spending the time, effort, and money elsewhere.
"To break the cycle of drug use and crime, we have worked to divert non-violent drug offenders into treatment, instead of jail, through drug courts....Whenever someone tells me that government doesn't listen or that taxpayer dollars are being wasted in [drug abuse work], I just ask them to attend a drug court graduation. If you're not moved and you're not motivated by that graduation, you have a pretty cold heart."
Drug courts look good on paper, but in practice, their effectiveness ranges from "okay" to "terrible." Depending on the state and jurisdiction, drug courts may require plea agreements, whose violation triggers automatic and often severe jail time, and usually it is not appealable. Many violations are the result of failed drug tests--one of the outward symptoms of the "disease" Kerlikowske and co. say drug addiction is.* It is hard to imagine designing a program that would be more effective at setting addicts up for failure.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers did a two-year nationwide study interviewing people from all aspects of drug courts to measure their effectiveness and adverse consequences. They found that while many people have benefited from drug courts--and that is certainly a good thing--the programs have been susceptible to other problems, such as "cherry picking" defendants to boost success numbers. (Though ONDCP rarely, if ever, acknowledges it, most people who use illicit drugs are non-problematic users.) Putting people who don't really need treatment into treatment inflates success statistics while people with severe problems are left out because they may fail on their first try, harming success rates and increasing the risk of criminal penalty for failing. (For more on the many problems with drug courts, you can download the PDF of the report here and read their follow-up here.)
That the man who oversees the national operation to keep people in cages is appealing to pity in order to defend inadequate solutions to a broken system would be comical if not so damned tragic.
"Drug use is a public health issue"
Both in his statement and in the ONDCP strategy, the Drug Czar has mentioned his desire to eliminate the stigma of drug and alcohol abuse and addiction. But this is impossible, especially when it is still a crime to use illicit drugs in the first place. Criminality brings stigma, which, ironically, is the best argument for making drug use illegal.
But experience has taught us that the criminal penalties for drug use and distribution are grossly disproportionate to the offense itself, and thus we need to scrap it. That said, I think that society should discourage drug use--especially of harder drugs like heroin and methamphetamine. "This can happen to you" is effective, when not overblown to the point of fiction. But the way drugs are thought of in America--lumped all together like smoking a joint is roughly the same thing as shooting heroin--is irresponsible because there is no distinction between more responsible/safer drug use and reckless/more dangerous use. Such conflation and enduring lies like 'gateway' drugs--that smoking a joint will lead to being a heroin junkie--undermines the value that truthful drug education provides.
"Our [highlighted] policies include support for programs like screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment. That works to medicalize [sic] our approach to the drug problem by helping health institutions recognize the signs and symptoms of drug addiction early."
"Drug screening" is a polite way to say "pee in a cup." I don't have a problem with employers drug testing their employees if they think it's important, but the government really has no business incentivizing the practice. As I said before, most drug users aren't actually problem users--and never become problem users--yet they could get caught up and risk losing their employment for something they do in their spare time. Even if the federal government were to give employment protection to "current use" drug abusers under Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA already protects from being fired for inactive addiction), this is invasive, expensive, and unnecessary for the vast majority of Americans, users and non-users alike.
The point of making drug addiction a public health issue is to get people into treatment more readily--that the door is open when they are ready to quit--without fear of criminal sanction for mistakes/relapses or possession. It is not, as apparently has been embraced by the White House and ONDCP, carte blanche to subsidize the addiction treatment industry. Furthermore, making employees' unrelated and off-site recreational behaviors a matter for HR won't help the goal of destigmatizing drug abuse--indeed, it will probably exacerbate it as recreational users will be unfairly labeled as addicts.
"We support the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and the Drug Free Community Support Program."
This is your tax dollars on drugs, any questions?
The Drug Czar finished his prepared remarks on "securing the Southern border," working with other countries to stem the flow of drugs into (and cash out of) the United States, and other aspects to the international scope of America's Drug War--with absolutely no mention of Portugal, or what's actually going on in Mexico, or how Los Zetas, a Mexican cartel, has become the primary criminal force in Guatemala. The worldwide failure of American drug policy is worth an entire post by itself, so I won't get into it further here.
As someone who is invested in fighting against the Drug War, it was a really difficult 20 minutes to sit through. I highly recommend Mike Riggs' summary of the event over at reason. I really couldn't have done better than he did on the Q&A, so instead of cribbing what he said here, just read it there.
What's perhaps most disturbing, is that this speech was short and doesn't get into the details and depths of what the federal government's strategy has done and is doing. And, of course, the federal outline barely touches on what state and local authorities are doing--where the majority of drug arrests actually occur.
The Drug War, despite Kerlikowske's and Tanden's protestations, is still going full force. That the government is spending more money on treatment does little good, on the whole, so long as cops are still breaking down doors, shooting dogs, and throwing kids in a hole for 5 days. And, Chief Kerlikowske, we're gonna keep calling it a war until you stop treating it like one.
It's the humane thing to do.
bellum mediamenti delenda est
*I'm not qualified to say what is and is not a disease. My position on legalization does not change if I grant or deny that claim. The point, of course, is that if it is a disease, these triggers punish the disease, which is contrary to the aims the ONDCP claims.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Geraldo and the Hoodie
So most of the Internet knows that Geraldo Rivera tweeted this garbage about Trayvon Martin:
Rivera has since tried to walk it back, basically saying his point was about the awful truth it is to be a minority and dealing with people in (supposed) authority. The problem here is that the "jerk with a gun" is solely responsible for shooting and killing Trayvon Martin. If Trayvon's hoodie had anything to do with what happened, it was Zimmerman's fear and prejudice about hoodies, not Trayvon's fashion sense. Shifting the responsibility to Trayvon or his inanimate attire is absolutely unacceptable. The entirety of responsibility for changing any act or behavior rests on Zimmerman and anyone else who fears brothers in hoodies.
Touré published a list of advice to give black youths about how to grow up in the face of racism. It's generally decent advice, but it's just that: advice. A black kid could follow every rule he listed and still die at the hands of someone like Zimmerman. There is no "safe" way to be black in America and any post hoc analysis of the victim's non-aggravating and perfectly innocent behavior is so off-base it's insulting.
There is no comprehensive list of things to do to avoid being harassed while black. Individual black people from any walk of life who drive any type of car and wear any type of clothes are suspicious to somebody in authority:
Nice car? Drug dealer.
Hoopty? Ex- or future convict looking for trouble.
Walking/driving too fast? Getting away from someplace he shouldn't have been.
Walking/driving too slow? Casing robbery/intoxicated.
Minding own business/driving the exact speed limit? Looks scared. Probably carrying drugs.
ad infinitum
You might as well tell a black person to become invisible if you're trying to tell them to avoid suspicion for all the good it will do them.
One of the main problems here is that it is still acceptable in our society to treat people like criminals with no reasonable evidence to suggest guilt of anything. The Drug War exacerbates this, given the violence associated with the illicit trade and the relative ease with which users and dealers may conceal drugs and weapons on their person. Further, that enforcement is concentrated in poor, minority neighborhoods--leading, inter alia, to increased violence because of the increased transaction costs of dealing--disproportionate arrests of poor minorities appear to be justified because of this self-sustaining cycle. This cycle also perpetuates and reinforces stereotypes of violent young black men because of the type of people the prohibitionist system produces on the margins. It's absolutely maddening.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with a goddam hoodie.
bellum medicamenti delenda est
Trayvon killed by a jerk w a gun but black & Latino parents have to drill into kids heads: a hoodie is like a sign: shoot or stop & frisk me
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) March 22, 2012
His hoodie killed Trayvon Martin as surely as George Zimmerman.
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) March 23, 2012
Rivera has since tried to walk it back, basically saying his point was about the awful truth it is to be a minority and dealing with people in (supposed) authority. The problem here is that the "jerk with a gun" is solely responsible for shooting and killing Trayvon Martin. If Trayvon's hoodie had anything to do with what happened, it was Zimmerman's fear and prejudice about hoodies, not Trayvon's fashion sense. Shifting the responsibility to Trayvon or his inanimate attire is absolutely unacceptable. The entirety of responsibility for changing any act or behavior rests on Zimmerman and anyone else who fears brothers in hoodies.
Touré published a list of advice to give black youths about how to grow up in the face of racism. It's generally decent advice, but it's just that: advice. A black kid could follow every rule he listed and still die at the hands of someone like Zimmerman. There is no "safe" way to be black in America and any post hoc analysis of the victim's non-aggravating and perfectly innocent behavior is so off-base it's insulting.
There is no comprehensive list of things to do to avoid being harassed while black. Individual black people from any walk of life who drive any type of car and wear any type of clothes are suspicious to somebody in authority:
Nice car? Drug dealer.
Hoopty? Ex- or future convict looking for trouble.
Walking/driving too fast? Getting away from someplace he shouldn't have been.
Walking/driving too slow? Casing robbery/intoxicated.
Minding own business/driving the exact speed limit? Looks scared. Probably carrying drugs.
ad infinitum
You might as well tell a black person to become invisible if you're trying to tell them to avoid suspicion for all the good it will do them.
One of the main problems here is that it is still acceptable in our society to treat people like criminals with no reasonable evidence to suggest guilt of anything. The Drug War exacerbates this, given the violence associated with the illicit trade and the relative ease with which users and dealers may conceal drugs and weapons on their person. Further, that enforcement is concentrated in poor, minority neighborhoods--leading, inter alia, to increased violence because of the increased transaction costs of dealing--disproportionate arrests of poor minorities appear to be justified because of this self-sustaining cycle. This cycle also perpetuates and reinforces stereotypes of violent young black men because of the type of people the prohibitionist system produces on the margins. It's absolutely maddening.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with a goddam hoodie.
bellum medicamenti delenda est
Saturday, February 4, 2012
The Rhetorical Power of "Drugs"
Unless you follow sports or sports news pretty closely, you probably have never heard of Sam Hurd. Until a couple months ago, he was just a wide receiver and special teams player for the NFL's Chicago Bears. He recently signed a contract for $5.1 million, not anywhere near a star's salary, but enough cheddar that people are predictably surprised that a "rich" man would get caught trafficking a large amount of cocaine.
I don't know enough about the case or Hurd to explain what he was doing. I could get into the one-sided nature of NFL contracts (if you get cut from the team, you don't get paid, no matter what the paper says), the short professional tenure of most NFL players ( ~4 years), or what it says to be a typical special teams player not named Devin Hester (you're a back-up when a star goes down), but I don't think "why?" is really important either. Furthermore, I generally don't trust media reports this early into the public phase of the process. It's a one-sided PR battle waged by the prosecution until the lawyers hash it out at trial, so talking about this or that "fact" is just speculation. What I do want to focus on is the predictable shock and outrage that a 'successful' man is doing something so risky and potentially life ruining as cocaine trafficking.
Here is an image of what a lot of people think when they hear "drug dealer":
The problem is, while this is what our prison population looks like, it's not fully indicative of who is selling, buying, and using drugs. The guy in the picture could be Father of the Year for all I know, but if you Google image search "drug dealer," he comes up.
The United States illicit drug market is the largest in the world--surpassing the drug market for the entire European continent--worth multiple billions of dollars. Tens of millions of Americans are illicit drug users. Think about that for a moment: tens of millions. The drugs have to get to all of them somehow, and it's not always delivered by someone who looks like our friend here.
"Drug dealers" are just people who exchange drugs for property, money, or services. That's it.
Not every person who sells drugs is a "drug dealer," per se--a lot of times it's a user who gets extra for his friends. Like chipping in on a beer run, it doesn't make sense for multiple users to all go separately to a seller, so one guy can pick up a bunch--as drugs, like most goods, are cheaper when you buy in bulk--and distribute it to his friends. Other times, someone "knows a guy"--you could say, a drug dealer--who brings in extra cash by selling drugs to regular or semi-regular users. The guy is not on the street hustling or gang banging--he works at a job and makes extra money on the side by selling to friends, co-workers and other people he knows aren't police. If you have a secure supplier and a small customer base, this can last quite sometime with low risk because most people who use drugs don't actually get caught. The risk comes when someone does get caught and rats out his dealer to avoid or decrease jail time. Such is the life of the low-level dealer.
The other risk, which it appears Mr. Hurd discovered, comes when you're trying to expand your customer base. Your quantities are larger so transportation becomes more difficult, and you're much more likely to draw the attention of law enforcement.
The police are rather fond of big fish, you see. It seems to be their only distraction from the Sisyphean drudgery of the drug war day after day. For a brief moment, they try to convey that they've done something useful, despite having no lasting effect on the supply or demand for drugs. Even in the rare event law enforcement is successful in dramatically reducing one type of drug from making it from supplier to consumer, the latter's desire to get high remains and new drugs come to the fore or less popular drugs reemerge through alternate channels.
But back to my point: the scary "drug dealers" are just people engaged in a market. In massive distribution networks, like the Mexican cartels, there are kingpins and mercenaries and mules and American distributors and-so-on down the line as the drugs are diffused into the American black market economy. In more local operations, there are a farmers who grow marijuana in fields, woods, homes, or warehouses and smaller supply networks. Eventually, the drugs get to "that guy" and then to the consumer. People at various levels essentially are engaged in the same enterprise, but face vastly different pressures and constraints related primarily to the level of prohibition enforcement, but also the cost of overhead ( the level of bribes and kickbacks required to do business on top of growth and distribution) and local competition. Access to major drug channels in northern Mexico that stretch into the southern U.S., for example, can be expected to produce a high volume of drug-related violence due to the profits tied to those routes. Yet, in San Francisco, there are state-sanctioned distribution shops and users all over the place--yet there aren't constant shootouts at Haight and Ashbury or decapitated bodies in Berkeley despite the ubiquitous drug trade. The tolerance of law enforcement, whether by law or priority, lowers operating costs of drug sales. If you and your neighbor can both make a little money selling drugs, but neither of you is likely get super rich from doing it, motivation for violence is virtually zero. One doesn't become a violent monster just because he makes some dough selling his old college buddies some weed once a week.
This overreaction isn't at all limited to "drug dealers." The Daily Show put out a great bit this week about a newish but (thankfully) enjoined law in Florida that requires all welfare recipients to take a drug test. This video shows how poor people--simply by someone asserting that they do drugs at a higher rate than more affluent folks--are subject to invasive 4th Amendment violations just because they are poor (and probably perceived to be racial minority, but that's another post) are thus assumed to be "drug users."
Regardless, because it's "drugs," all sense and decency go out the window despite the fact that the poor actually spend less on drugs than non-poor folks and alcohol--a perfectly legal addictive intoxicant that one or two people have been known to use as escape mechanism--isn't regularly tested for. Surely, we don't wanna be subsidizing bar tabs any more than we want to pay for weed -- but this raises uncomfortable questions about what taxpayers can really demand of the people to whom their money is given and where that line stops. I would like few things more on this planet than a more constructive alternative to government-provided welfare--but until that becomes a reality, I don't believe setting arbitrary and abusive bars on that assistance helps anyone. Indeed, by kicking a drug user off of welfare, they further marginalize a poor person who may very well have a drug problem. He or she still needs to survive, and without a legitimate source of income, a life of crime--be it as a dealer or actual crimes against people and property to support their problematic habit--is likely to make the community more dangerous than it would have been supporting this person's habit. And, of course, you can't very well support this policy from a fiscal stance if the result is more people in prison being supported for food, shelter, and medical care. You don't have to believe in drug legalization to recognize the probable downside to this policy.
If you say "drugs," then all the normal limits of what we expect of people and what is proper for government to do change--whether we're talking about dealers, users, or even suspected users. The general consensus is that drugs are bad, and thus anything to stem their influence--whether the solutions are shown to be the least bit efficacious or not--are accepted with almost no hesitation. Similarly, anyone engaged in the trade is assumed to be a horrible person--a violently cruel drug dealer or a drug-using bloodsucking leech on society. This is both foolhardy from a budgetary perspective and unspeakably cruel from a humanitarian perspective. The result is the Drug War that diverts resources from violent crimes to pursue vice crimes whose greatest tie to violence is the prohibition itself. Everyone is presumed to be guilty and without excuse for their alleged behavior, which must be condemned in no uncertain terms and with the harshest of punishments. All this makes United States the undisputed leader in incarceration on the planet, imprisoning one percent of our entire adult population with more than three percent on probation or parole. "Drugs" as rhetorical boogeyman allows the American public to support an ever-expanding incarceration state and tolerate the Drug War that feeds it. Given the outcomes of the policy, it's hard not to think "drugs" has become a euphemism for a more inflammatory word that has traditionally scared the status quo.
bellum medicamenti delenda est
I don't know enough about the case or Hurd to explain what he was doing. I could get into the one-sided nature of NFL contracts (if you get cut from the team, you don't get paid, no matter what the paper says), the short professional tenure of most NFL players ( ~4 years), or what it says to be a typical special teams player not named Devin Hester (you're a back-up when a star goes down), but I don't think "why?" is really important either. Furthermore, I generally don't trust media reports this early into the public phase of the process. It's a one-sided PR battle waged by the prosecution until the lawyers hash it out at trial, so talking about this or that "fact" is just speculation. What I do want to focus on is the predictable shock and outrage that a 'successful' man is doing something so risky and potentially life ruining as cocaine trafficking.
Here is an image of what a lot of people think when they hear "drug dealer":
Black. Cornrows. Neck Tattoo. "Bling." Vaguely menacing to those people who get scared of people who look something like this. Pictures like this pay for the Drug War.
The problem is, while this is what our prison population looks like, it's not fully indicative of who is selling, buying, and using drugs. The guy in the picture could be Father of the Year for all I know, but if you Google image search "drug dealer," he comes up.
The United States illicit drug market is the largest in the world--surpassing the drug market for the entire European continent--worth multiple billions of dollars. Tens of millions of Americans are illicit drug users. Think about that for a moment: tens of millions. The drugs have to get to all of them somehow, and it's not always delivered by someone who looks like our friend here.
"Drug dealers" are just people who exchange drugs for property, money, or services. That's it.
Not every person who sells drugs is a "drug dealer," per se--a lot of times it's a user who gets extra for his friends. Like chipping in on a beer run, it doesn't make sense for multiple users to all go separately to a seller, so one guy can pick up a bunch--as drugs, like most goods, are cheaper when you buy in bulk--and distribute it to his friends. Other times, someone "knows a guy"--you could say, a drug dealer--who brings in extra cash by selling drugs to regular or semi-regular users. The guy is not on the street hustling or gang banging--he works at a job and makes extra money on the side by selling to friends, co-workers and other people he knows aren't police. If you have a secure supplier and a small customer base, this can last quite sometime with low risk because most people who use drugs don't actually get caught. The risk comes when someone does get caught and rats out his dealer to avoid or decrease jail time. Such is the life of the low-level dealer.
The other risk, which it appears Mr. Hurd discovered, comes when you're trying to expand your customer base. Your quantities are larger so transportation becomes more difficult, and you're much more likely to draw the attention of law enforcement.
The police are rather fond of big fish, you see. It seems to be their only distraction from the Sisyphean drudgery of the drug war day after day. For a brief moment, they try to convey that they've done something useful, despite having no lasting effect on the supply or demand for drugs. Even in the rare event law enforcement is successful in dramatically reducing one type of drug from making it from supplier to consumer, the latter's desire to get high remains and new drugs come to the fore or less popular drugs reemerge through alternate channels.
But back to my point: the scary "drug dealers" are just people engaged in a market. In massive distribution networks, like the Mexican cartels, there are kingpins and mercenaries and mules and American distributors and-so-on down the line as the drugs are diffused into the American black market economy. In more local operations, there are a farmers who grow marijuana in fields, woods, homes, or warehouses and smaller supply networks. Eventually, the drugs get to "that guy" and then to the consumer. People at various levels essentially are engaged in the same enterprise, but face vastly different pressures and constraints related primarily to the level of prohibition enforcement, but also the cost of overhead ( the level of bribes and kickbacks required to do business on top of growth and distribution) and local competition. Access to major drug channels in northern Mexico that stretch into the southern U.S., for example, can be expected to produce a high volume of drug-related violence due to the profits tied to those routes. Yet, in San Francisco, there are state-sanctioned distribution shops and users all over the place--yet there aren't constant shootouts at Haight and Ashbury or decapitated bodies in Berkeley despite the ubiquitous drug trade. The tolerance of law enforcement, whether by law or priority, lowers operating costs of drug sales. If you and your neighbor can both make a little money selling drugs, but neither of you is likely get super rich from doing it, motivation for violence is virtually zero. One doesn't become a violent monster just because he makes some dough selling his old college buddies some weed once a week.
This overreaction isn't at all limited to "drug dealers." The Daily Show put out a great bit this week about a newish but (thankfully) enjoined law in Florida that requires all welfare recipients to take a drug test. This video shows how poor people--simply by someone asserting that they do drugs at a higher rate than more affluent folks--are subject to invasive 4th Amendment violations just because they are poor (and probably perceived to be racial minority, but that's another post) are thus assumed to be "drug users."
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Poor Pee-Ple | ||||
| ||||
Regardless, because it's "drugs," all sense and decency go out the window despite the fact that the poor actually spend less on drugs than non-poor folks and alcohol--a perfectly legal addictive intoxicant that one or two people have been known to use as escape mechanism--isn't regularly tested for. Surely, we don't wanna be subsidizing bar tabs any more than we want to pay for weed -- but this raises uncomfortable questions about what taxpayers can really demand of the people to whom their money is given and where that line stops. I would like few things more on this planet than a more constructive alternative to government-provided welfare--but until that becomes a reality, I don't believe setting arbitrary and abusive bars on that assistance helps anyone. Indeed, by kicking a drug user off of welfare, they further marginalize a poor person who may very well have a drug problem. He or she still needs to survive, and without a legitimate source of income, a life of crime--be it as a dealer or actual crimes against people and property to support their problematic habit--is likely to make the community more dangerous than it would have been supporting this person's habit. And, of course, you can't very well support this policy from a fiscal stance if the result is more people in prison being supported for food, shelter, and medical care. You don't have to believe in drug legalization to recognize the probable downside to this policy.
If you say "drugs," then all the normal limits of what we expect of people and what is proper for government to do change--whether we're talking about dealers, users, or even suspected users. The general consensus is that drugs are bad, and thus anything to stem their influence--whether the solutions are shown to be the least bit efficacious or not--are accepted with almost no hesitation. Similarly, anyone engaged in the trade is assumed to be a horrible person--a violently cruel drug dealer or a drug-using bloodsucking leech on society. This is both foolhardy from a budgetary perspective and unspeakably cruel from a humanitarian perspective. The result is the Drug War that diverts resources from violent crimes to pursue vice crimes whose greatest tie to violence is the prohibition itself. Everyone is presumed to be guilty and without excuse for their alleged behavior, which must be condemned in no uncertain terms and with the harshest of punishments. All this makes United States the undisputed leader in incarceration on the planet, imprisoning one percent of our entire adult population with more than three percent on probation or parole. "Drugs" as rhetorical boogeyman allows the American public to support an ever-expanding incarceration state and tolerate the Drug War that feeds it. Given the outcomes of the policy, it's hard not to think "drugs" has become a euphemism for a more inflammatory word that has traditionally scared the status quo.
bellum medicamenti delenda est
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