You can tell from the second sentence that this so called review of Ron Paul’s new book, End the Fed, is going to be a piece of mindless partisan garbage, written by someone who knows nothing of history or economics, when the author calls Dr. Paul’s last book, The Revolution: A Manifesto a rant against big government, instead the cogent well reasoned argument that it is.

The piece composed by the slanderous fascist ignoramus, Justin Moyer, makes no attempt to describe or refute Paul’s manuscript; it is merely two measly paragraphs of ad hominem attack. This happens because it is axiomatic to this hack and his ideologue editors that society should be run from the top down organized on principles of force and coercion and anyone who disagrees that this is the ideal must be a crank. No wonder The Washington Post, which published this junk review, is hemorrhaging readers.

From the Club des Hachichins in 1840s Paris where the literary lights of France gathered, to the jazz loving vipers of America in the 1920s and 1930s and the hippies congregating on the corner of Haight and Ashbury in 1960s San Francisco marijuana has often exerted a profound effect on popular culture.

According to Adam Tschorn writing in in the Los Angeles Times we are now in a period where marijuana’s cultural influence is ascendant. He argues that, “after decades of bubbling up around the edges of so-called civilized society, marijuana seems to be marching mainstream at a fairly rapid pace. At least in urban areas such as Los Angeles, cannabis culture is coming out of the closet.”

While this article is accurate, it is also incomplete. There is, like almost all articles about marijuana, no mention of the fact that numerous commissions, investigations and studies such as the Nixon appointed Shafer Commission and the Canadian Senate report have consistently found that there is no valid reason for marijuana to be illegal in the first place.

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

The exponentially increasing violence as a result of the Mexican government’s ill conceived attempt to crack down on the drug cartels is finally garnering some attention. The television program Sixty Minutes had a segment on it Sunday night. However, as per usual the piece had plenty of questionable scary sensationalism with virtually no analysis of the root of the problem, the drug laws. There was also no mention of the recent statement by former leaders Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), César Gaviria (Colombia) and Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico) calling for a paradigm shift in drug policy. Instead, CBS attempted to blame U.S. demand for drugs and lack of gun control laws for the problem.

Meanwhile Defense Secretary Robert Gates is praising Mexican President Felipe Calderon for initiating the chaos and he promises more U.S. assistance, including joint military operations, to keep the violence going.

On the other hand, essayist for the Orange County Registrar, Alan Bock places the blame for the killings squarely where it belongs on drug prohibition. He asks us to substitute the phrase “drug law related violence” for the misleading drug related violence now commonly in use. Bock is arguing that so called successes in this war are actually failures when he points out that those “who have sought to win the ill-considered War on Drugs by main force have discovered time and time again, that the drug cartels are hydra-headed monsters. Kill or imprison the head of a particularly brutal cartel, as the authorities were able to do recently with the notorious Felix Arellano organization in Tijuana, and a half dozen contenders for leadership quickly emerge, all of them skilled to one extent or another in the dark arts of violence, concealment, intimidation, and cruelty.”

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

With our government already trillions of dollars in debt and the private economy in a shambles of historic proportions the pressure to do something on President Barak Obama is enormous. He has the added stress of a foreign policy which must maintain the tough on terrorism posture of the previous administration while simultaneously reaching out diplomatically the world’s Muslims. The political necessity of matching expectations with results must be taking its toll and perhaps Obama is turning to a particular drug as a means of coping. Here is some evidence that may be the situation.

Another good sign for the marijuana law reform movement came with the news that CNN’s medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta will not be the new Surgeon General. Dr. Gupta wrote an article for Time magazine in which he used specious logic and misinformation to categorically reject marijuana decriminalization. His elevation to the above position would have been an impediment to needed change.

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

So far, sending mixed messages would be a very apt description of the Obama Administration’s approach to drug policy. In the week after taking office there were federal raids on medical marijuana clinics but subsequently the Attorney General announced that there would be a change in that aspect of the federal/state relationship. Next the administration named the most forward thinking and humane person to hold the job of Drug Czar in the history of that office; however, the administration made the appointment a non-cabinet position and stated that veteran dedicated drug warrior Vice-President Joe Biden would have a significant role in forming policy. Also, that while some military leaders are expressing a desire to intervene in support of Mexican drug prohibition the administration itself seems to be very reluctant.

In the latest signal though, the Obama Administration has opposed the idea of harm reduction at the UN. During a meeting in Austria to determine the direction of UN drug policy for the next decade, the concept of mitigating the effects of drug use was not included in the final statement and 26 countries, including some of our closest allies, tried to change this despite strong opposition from the U.S. delegation. Eyewitness SSDP Executive Director Kris Krane reports that, “over 100 countries chose not to speak in support or opposition to harm reduction, yet the United States willingly chose to align itself with countries that are responsible for some the worst human rights abuses perpetrated in the name of the War on Drugs, rather than staying silent or aligning with America’s traditional allies. The Obama administration has promised to rebuild America’s traditional alliances, yet they willfully set this process back in order to continue the disastrous global war on drugs and drug users. Clearly, this behavior will not change unless President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton hear a loud message from citizens that global drug policy must be based in science, reason, evidence, and human rights, rather than worn-out ideology and Drug War orthodoxy.”

Indeed, Obama does need to make a decision, will his drug policy be based on the same old inhumane, immoral, violent, costly, and failed concepts or will he instigate meaningful change that will benefit both his place in history and the lives of the American people. Before he makes such a choice he would do well to heed Anthony Gregory’s latest comprehensive and well argued talk on the subject. To make clear the stakes involved Gregory quotes Ludwig von Mises as asserting that, “opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government's benevolent providence to the protection of the individual's body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.”

Some of Barak Obama’s opponents on the political far right are arguing that the new president’s real agenda is the imposition of totalitarianism. We would do well to monitor his drug policy choices as a gauge to the accuracy of his adversary’s claims.

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

Those who still think our government only tortured high value prisoners in search of critical information needed immediately to save American lives should read this article. Published in Esquire, by John H. Richardson, it is a fascinating eyewitness account of torture American style. The piece relates the experiences of an Army interrogator assigned to Task Force 121 at Camp NAMA who “conducted or participated in about fifteen harsh interrogations, most involving the use of ice water to induce hypothermia. By his reckoning, at least half of the prisoners were innocent, just random Iraqis who got picked up for one reason or another. Sometimes the evidence against them was so slight, Jeff would go into the interrogation without even knowing their names.”

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this essay is the numerous mentions of Obama’s new commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, as the high ranking officer who sanctioned and even encouraged the repugnant activities described.

Hat tip to Scott Horton

Not too long ago then Speaker of House Dennis Hastert rightfully earned the scorn of many clear thinking people when he suggested that drug law reformer George Soros was funded by the drug cartels. Recent events in Mexico are demonstrating just how far from rational an American politician can go on the subject of drug policy. The Drug War Chronicleis reporting that members and candidates of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) are being subject to violent attacks. The SDP Party Chairman Jose Carlos Diaz Cuervo believes this is happening because the party’s platform strongly calls for the legalization of drugs. He asserts that, "doubtless, unlike the federal government, it appears the drug traffickers do understand that the regulation of that market would take the business away from them and would be a more intelligent way to combat them."

Cross posted on The Trebach Report

In the 1920s, the decade after alcohol prohibition passed, dissatisfaction with the policy grew at a tremendous rate. As the violence became widespread the ranks of politically wet groups swelled while membership in dry groups declined substantially. Yet it was not until the economic collapse of the Great Depression that repeal of Prohibition became a concrete possibility. In his book Repealing National Prohibition historian David Kyvig writes that the ”growing malaise of the Great Depression introduced new political and social as well as economic circumstances, greatly accelerating the revolt against prohibition and causing the prospect of repeal to be taken seriously for the first time.”

Perhaps in a way history is repeating itself, as new polls show an increased support for the legalization of marijuana. An essay in The Christian Science Monitor reports that a poll conducted last week by Zogby International shows a nationwide majority support for legal pot, 52%, for the first time ever. This is up from an ABC News/Washington Post survey conducted last month which revealed 46% in favor of marijuana decriminalization. In addition, a recent poll of California voters had 56% of the respondents favoring taxation and regulation of legal cannabis. The article asserts that NORML deputy director Paul Armentano ”traces the changing stance to three developments: the economic downturn, which is forcing people to consider new sources of revenue; the violent Mexican drug war, which he says many Americans see as the result of prohibition of the drug trade and not directly linked to personal usage; and lastly, more experience with the drug.”

Cross posted on The Trebach Report