Congress and the Media Should be Dubious of Office of Nat’l Drug Control Policy’s Claims
August 25th, 2008
Of the many things that often leave me guffawed after reading the rhetoric and rank propaganda that has flowed prodigiously from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) from its inception in the late 1980’s—with self-anointed moralist drug czar 1.0 William Bennett charging forward with his blunderbuss blitzkrieg against anything he deemed ‘counter-culture’—is the incessant mocking, demeaning, and most disturbingly, dehumanizing rhetoric and ad campaigns often employed by our country’s drug czars when opposing peaceable citizens and non-governmental organizations who seek first a forum with government officials to discuss concerns with the current cannabis prohibition policies and to then, logically, explore viable alternatives to cannabis prohibition’s abject failure
Since the ONDCP’s inception, citizens and organizations that are not proponents of prohibition have not been afforded either opportunity or courtesy.
Why Mock Such A Serious, Expensive And Long-Debated Conflict Between The Public and The Government?
“A few weeks ago, Congressman Barney Frank and Ron Paul introduced H.R. 5843, an ill-considered piece of legislation aimed at legalizing marijuana, a topic more often heard in college dorms at 2 o’clock in the morning than in the hallowed halls of our Congress. Indeed, at a press conference announcing the effort to legalize pot, Congressman Frank cracked jokes about how this law could create a “marijuana futures market” and acknowledged that the chance of the bill passing were not “high.”” -ONDCP blog post
The cannabis law reform debate regarding alternatives to prohibition such as medical access for patients, decriminalization and legalization are protracted and well-vetted social justice issues actively debated in the general public and media certainly since the founding of NORML in 1970.
The issue of cannabis law reform has been seriously debated in most every state and territorial legislature, dozens of major cities and in Congress since the inception of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (and the creation of Drug Enforcement Administration soon thereafter). Dissatisfied with federal cannabis laws, twelve states have decriminalized adult cannabis possession (HI, AK, OR, CA, NV, CO, NE, MS, OH, NC, NY and ME) and an equal amount of states circa 1996 have patient protection laws for medicinal cannabis use (HI, AK, OR, WA, CA, NV, NM, CO, MT, RI, VT and ME). Cannabis cases however, notably minor possession cases, still clog the criminal justice system and are at the heart of dozens of state and federal appellate cases that have largely established less—not more—liberty and economic freedom for citizens. The gravitas of the state and federal conflict on the issue of cannabis prohibition so contentious the US Supreme Court has had to twice intervene since 2001 on the specific issue of medical access to cannabis for dying, sick and sense-threatened patients (in both cases, the court strongly deferred to Congress’ prerogative to pass anti-cannabis legislation, regardless of how illogical or devoid of compassion, reason and science).*
I challenge readers, especially in the media and staffers on Capitol Hill, to peruse their daily news and locate federal bureaucracies that have the audacity of the ONDCP to publish and broadcast taxpayer-funded public attacks and blood libels against citizens who peaceably disagree with them!
Is it typical for Cabinet officers (which, amazingly is where in the federal government the ONDCP resides. Who knew?) to spend billions in taxpayer dollars disparaging, mocking, insulting and demeaning citizens and organizations that seek peaceful redress for their grievances suffered at the hands of an uncaring government? OK…Donald Rumsfeld comes immediately to mind…all right, Spiro Agnew too! But, they perfectly pale when compared to drug czars Bennett, McCaffrey and current czar John Walters (Bennett’s former assistant).
However, for the most part, civil-minded and respectful Cabinet officers thankfully rise above policy disputes and verbal attacks and, more importantly, do not employ significant public funds against their critics.
So why does the general public, the media and Congress let the ONDCP and Walters get away with this kind of abuse of government power?
Really, how often does one read about the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publicly attacking and employing millions of taxpayer dollars annually attacking EPA’s many citizen and corporate critiques? Does the head of the Veterans Administration create propaganda in TV commercials or on the Internet against military personnel and their family when they identify problems in the delivery of healthcare to veterans? When scientists and civil rights activists complain to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about the misapplication of science in processing evidence, does the head of the FBI launch a program to mock and discredit public critics? Well, thankfully, post J. Edgar Hoover, the answer to this question should be ‘no’.
What cabinet officer in the Clinton Administration got away with secretly impregnating popular TV shows with anti-pot propaganda, paying Hollywood scriptwriters to tow the government line on cannabis and was ultimately stopped by NORML (and Media Awareness Project) in a lawsuit before the Federal Communication Commission? I’ll give you two guesses, minus one!
Again, from its inception and adoption of slash-and-burn campaigns against citizens and organizations that seek alternatives to cannabis prohibition the ONDCP unfortunately continues to get a free ride from Congress and the media to abuse the rights of citizens, waste tens of billions in precious tax dollars annually on failed prohibition policies and obnoxious propaganda—all the while twisting the Constitution and respect for the rule of law into a pretzel.
“Oh, What Webs We Weave When First We Set Out To Deceive”
Despite the purposely misleading graphic included by the ONDCP to try to persuade the public, media and policymakers that ‘no one goes to jail for pot’ that in fact there are between 45,000-55,000 cannabis consumers serving time in prisons and jails for cannabis prohibition-related crimes. Additionally, criminologists’ and policymakers’ believe the actual number of citizens incarcerated on cannabis prohibition-related charges is underestimated by a large magnitude (i.e., tens of thousands of minor cannabis offenders annually are caught up in the ‘purgatory’ of drug courts receiving ‘shock incarceration’ for weekends and extended stays for weeks at a time because of…you guessed it…dirty drug screens for cannabis, which can be detected weeks after a person abstains from consuming cannabis. Arguably there are as many citizens incarcerated annually in America for non-compliant excrement than for possessing the actual contraband).
These ‘shock incarceration’ prisoners, and costs therein to taxpayers, are not accounted for in the ONDCP’s absurd claim that ‘no one goes to jail for pot’.
Lastly, to this larger point regarding the ONDCP’s wanton efforts to deceive the general public into believing that cannabis prohibition is inconsequential, not a serious topic for debate in polite society or costly to taxpayers, two major points:
1) Punishment, as the ONDCP would have the public believe, does not only simply equate to being placed in a cage—that’s the penultimate penalty the government can impose on a citizen.
One thing for sure that Walters and his spokesman, David Murray, don’t want the public to understand is that at the federal level, and in most states, when an adult gets caught with a little cannabis or growing a personal stash, the punishments for cannabis consumers can end with the sound of jail cell door closing after them. However, for the vast majority of cannabis consumers caught with a small amount of cannabis, there are myriad punishments imposed long before the state moves to incarcerate.
Most often, before the government wields its power to incarcerate minor cannabis consumers are in fact abundantly punished in the loss of their freedom, state-issued ‘privileges,’ ‘robbed’ economically by the government and routinely denied the ability to move about and plan for their future.
To wit, an average cannabis arrest for possessing a small amount (or worse, cultivating a few plants to escape the ravages of the government-created ‘black market’) can lead to:
- Suspension of drivers license for 60-120 days (even if there is zero nexus to driving);
- Loss of student loans for college;
- Termination from numerous jobs, professions and government service (including the military);
- Fines, court costs, ‘victim’ funds and drug tax stamp violations;
- Civil Forfeiture (amazingly, government seizes and charges the property with a crime, liquidates the assets and largely keep the money under the control of law enforcement, not the local legislature. Most citizens confronting forfeiture proceedings are often forced to forfeit property even though they were never charged with a crime);
- Removal of children and suspension of parental rights because the parent occasionally smokes pot (even if the parent is a legal medical cannabis patient);
- A permanent criminal record that will cause unnecessarily harm, grief and taxpayer costs to track a new ‘cannabis criminal’ every 38 seconds;
- Impairment of citizens’ abilities to cross into America’s neighboring countries, namely Canada and Mexico.
2) For nearly 40 years the government criminal justice data clearly indicates that nearly 9 out of 10 cannabis prohibition-related arrests are for minor possession (i.e., any eye-popping 738,935 in 2006).
Are Walters and Murray credible when they claim that ‘no one goes to jail for pot’ when such an overwhelming percentage of those arrested are in fact for possession-only pot offenses?
Notice that while the ONDCP claims that the incarceration rate for simple cannabis consumers is 0.3%, it fails to explain at all what happens to the other 99.70% of cannabis consumers collared by the law who are fortunately not caged.
Seeing Is Believing
Rather than show manipulated data for purposes of persuasion, please look at the chart below, based on NIDA researchers’, not narcs’ or moralists’, informed opinions on the known harms associated with currently illicit and licit and ‘drugs’. As you can see, if Walters and the ONDCP genuinely care about stopping Americans from accessing genuinely dangerous drugs, licit or illicit, cannabis would not likely qualify to be one of them.
Ho-Hum…
The rest of ONDCP’s opposition to an effort in Congress to decriminalize cannabis for responsible adult use is their standard, rote propaganda that has been aptly criticized, sliced-and-diced in Appalachian State University Professor Dr. Matthew Robinson’s Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics: How The ONDCP Lies About The Drug War, as well as NORML’s well-researched rebuttal to the ONDCP’s incredible claim that ‘cannabis is the most dangerous drug in America’, the Truth Report.
The ONDCP’s claims that cannabis is a major contributing factor to mental illness, rising emergency room episodes and a leading cause of treatment for drug abuse have been criticized for years as purposefully misleading.
Alcohol Safer Than Cannabis! Huh?
I have to say that ONDCP’s new claim that cannabis has surpassed alcohol in addictive risk and impact on dependency requiring treatment is self-evidently stupid. Is the American public supposed to buy this ONDCP sophistry that alcohol, a-l-c-o-h-o-l is less addicting and cause for treatment than cannabis?
Takes your breath away, does it not? Alcohol is safer than cannabis? Who is signing the employees’ paychecks at ONDCP, Johnny Walker?
The 60s Cultural Revolution Was Fueled By Industrial Hemp-Quality Pot?
Today, the ONDCP claims that cannabis is so uber-potent that it is almost a different plant species altogether when compared to the cannabis and hash consumed by humans in the previous 5,000 years (or, at least starting in 1975, which conveniently is when the DEA started to first and incorrectly assay the quality of cannabis available in America’s prohibition-driven marketplace). If the ONDCP is to be believed, then the cannabis-fueled cultural revolution of the 1960s was powered by industrial grade hemp, with a THC potency rate under 1% (such a low level of THC in cannabis, ironically, is what actually allows industrial hemp to be cultivated legally in dozens of countries under current United Nation’s ‘anti-drug’ treaties. Of course, in building the ONDCP’s utopian ‘drug-free’ nation, American farmers are illogically prohibited from cultivating industrial grade hemp, unlike their farming counterparts in China, Canada, France and the United Kingdom).
I’m 43 years old and I’d be overjoyed to be able to access the cannabis of my youth growing up in New England. Maybe Walters and the ONDCP do not remember the popular and potent cannabis strains Americans readily accessed in the 1970s and 80s, such as: Maui Wowie, Panama Red, Acapulco Gold, Gainesville Green, Texas Creeper, Durban Dirt, Thai Stick and Jamaican. All available to adult and youth alike (to say nothing of the availability and quality of hash in the late 1970s….Oh, the black hash! And real sativa strains! Mmmm, s-a-t-i-v-a.)
‘Garbage in—Garbage Out’
Simply put and with a clear nod to the late Dr. John P. Morgan’s ground-breaking research into exposing the fundamental flaws in the ONDCP’s constantly flogged myth that pot is uber-potent these days—ergo there is greater ‘harm’ associated with cannabis use today—is that by the government (DEA) not testing potent strains of cannabis and hash that were readily available in the 1970s (instead, DEA largely tested seeded and compressed ‘kilobricks’ of cannabis from Mexico) the DEA/ONDCP established a false baseline from which to claim that cannabis somehow is a tremendously different and more potent plant today than existed 30 years ago (or for that matter 5,000 years ago).
NORML Is A Pro-Drug Interest Group?
Recognizing the didactics employed by the ONDCP in its strident attacks against individuals or organizations (or, when convenient, entire generations, like the ‘1960’s’) are easy to spot.
“Some pro-drug interests groups have argued that keeping marijuana illegal itself does damage…” -ONDCP Blog Post
Pro-drug? No.
Is Budweiser pro drug? Is Altria a ‘pro-drug’ group? How about Merck? Are these huge multi-billion dollar corporations ‘pro-drug’?
Are the NFL, NBA, MLB and NCAA ‘pro-drug’ because they swim in beer and pharmaceutical endorsements?
Are the AMA, AARP, American Cancer Society, MS Society ‘pro-drug’ because they accept millions annually from companies that produce, market and sell ‘drugs’ that can addict, cause great harm and even death?
Is the strong plurality of today’s elected officials in the US ‘pro-drug’ because they accept PAC money from alcohol, tobacco or pharmaceutical interests?
I suggest in this long suffering debate there are neither anti or pro ‘drug’ groups. Better said regarding the debate at hand here—which happens to be decriminalizing cannabis, not hard ‘drugs’—NORML is anti-prohibition, not pro-drug. ‘Pro-drug’ is a well-placed pejorative and meant to scare the reader by conflating NORML’s single-minded advocacy for cannabis law reforms (which enjoys broad public support) vs. ‘drug’ legalization (where there is little public and close to zero political support for legalizing currently illicit drugs such as cocaine, heroin, Meth, PCP or LSD).
Shades Of Anslinger: Cannabis Causes Violence Canard Reintroduced Under Walters’ ONDCP
“[A]ny elected official who is concerned about crime in their community should consider the long-established link between marijuana use and committing crimes.” -ONDCP Blog Post
One of the first myths regarding cannabis that seemed to fade away in the mid 1960s with the passing of Reefer Madness czar Harry J. Anslinger was the government’s baseless and unscientific claims that consumers of cannabis could easily become violent, in many instances going on homicidal, rape and mass family killings sprees under the influence of the ‘devil’s weed’.
By the 1970s however most medical doctors, mental health experts and criminologists (including stakeholder organizations such as the American Bar Association, American Medical Association and American Psychological Association) concurred that cannabis did not create or foster a violent state of mind or aggression towards others. Quite the opposite was in fact consistently reported in scientific studies and you maybe familiar with the terms ‘mellow’, ‘stoned’ or ‘chill’.
Candidly, there have been a time or two in my life when I became violent and acted out after having smoked some ganja, but, that was because I couldn’t get the lid off my favorite ice cream or easily open the bag of my favorite cheese puffs.
Another lesson in Drug Czar-Slight-Of-Hand: Correlation Equates To Causation
If there is a valuable lesson that any student of statistics and analysis walks away with is that ‘correlation does not equate to causation’. How then do Walters and Murray, both of whom have advance degrees, consistently employ this lowbrow and dishonest approach in attempting to justify cannabis’ continued and expensive prohibition?
Example at hand provided in the ONDCP’s blog post:
“According to data from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring system, the great majority of men arrested for any violation in America have drugs in their system at the time of arrest, with marijuana being the most often detected. The rate testing positive for marijuana ranges from a third to more than a half of all male arrestees at the time of arrest.”
What pray tell does the government drug testing folks arrested and entered into the criminal justice for all crimes inform us about the role of cannabis in criminality? Nothing. Why? Because the ONDCP is absurdly making the assertion that cannabis use causes criminality (of course, the opposite is true, as it is the government-created prohibition policies and not taxing cannabis products that actually creates criminality, not cannabis use per se). Is not such a high percentage of arrestees who test positive for cannabis an indictment of the government’s ability under 71-years of cannabis prohibition to actually control cannabis?
My untested hypothesis: Randomly drug test one hundred persons in the local jail at intake and randomly drug test, say, one hundred seniors on graduation day from Ivy League universities. Would the ONDCP’s illogical correlation of ‘positive drug tests equates to criminality and/or criminal behavior’ stand?
I know in a debate one is not supposed to argue from the specific to the universal, but when reviewing my life, my eyes roll around the top of my head when trying to link individuals I’ve known who use cannabis to either criminality or violent behavior—myself included—where prohibition was not the source of the ‘criminality’.
I think of myself as a hard working, taxpaying citizen whose only crime is the occasional puff of cannabis—which is currently a ‘crime’ only because of outdated and misguided cannabis prohibition laws, mainly fostered by the federal government, notably ONDCP, DEA, NIDA and SAMHSA.
“We’re optimistic that members of Congress will continue to see through the haze.”
Regarding the ONDCP’s last points, where a mocking tone is re-employed, Congress and the numerous anti-cannabis industries who economically thrive off the government-imposed 71-year prohibition of cannabis that flood members of Congress with PAC money (i.e., alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical and law enforcement industries) may indeed not currently support cannabis law reform, but thankfully reformers in most every cannabis law reform initiative or in long-fought state legislative sessions—not nanny state boosters from the government—are winning the political battles, along with the hearts and minds of a majority of citizens who clearly favor both decriminalization and medicinal access.
Beltway CYA Time
Every time I see Walters and company roll out the claim that “marijuana use has plummeted by 25% over the past six years”, which conveniently covers Walters’ tenure as drug czar, I see a parochial cherry-picking of selective teen demographic data sets on cannabis use for ONDCP chest-thumping, when the greater reality is that teen cannabis use—despite the taxpayer funded ONDCP, DARE, Partnership for a Drug-America ads, blah-blah-blah—is about the same that it was when the government first started surveying youth in the mid 1970s.
In conclusion, while ONDCP can employ dump truck loads of taxpayer dollars annually producing glossy charts predicated on bogus data and awkwardly slung cultural insults at the longstanding non-profit organizations and their stakeholders who sensibly and peaceably oppose cannabis prohibition, the question still begged by us lowly citizens to ONDCP: Why are responsible adult cannabis consumers (especially medical cannabis patients) who’d otherwise be happy to pay local, state and federal taxes on their cannabis purchases treated like violent criminals (when the producers, marketers, retailers and consumers of alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical products are treated without controversy as good, responsible corporate citizens and responsible individuals selling taxed, problematic and commonly consumed adult products)?
Until Walters and company (actually, more importantly the Congress and President) answers this fundamental question, the citizens, media and members of Congress should be very dubious of the ONDCP’s subjective and manipulative use of data in an attempt to justify the continued prohibition of cannabis for adults—regrettably this government nitwittery is likely going to continue in the short run, no matter how silly, tax wasting, anti-free market or impervious to reason (and compassion) ONDCP continues to be.
*If cannabis law reformers ‘lost’ before SCOTUS in 2001 and again in 2005, and since then there has been an explosion of ‘Main Street’ cannabis buyers clubs and cooperatives in a number of the states that have medical cannabis patient protection laws—there are now even 24-hour day medicinal cannabis/hash vending machines in California—what exactly did reformers lose? The SCOTUS decisions in US v. OCBC and Gonzalez v. Raich are shining examples of federal government detachment from public opinion and voter sentiments at the polls, and an undue exertion of dominance over citizens in states seeking greater personal autonomy and self-preservation options.
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