The things that go through my head

This letter to the editor was posted by Herb to the EFSDP email list:

THE EDITOR:

On Oct. 9 I was caught smoking marijuana before class. Also, I had a large quantity of marijuana in my bag. Through the restorative justice process, I agreed to fulfill several resolutions, one of which is to apologize to the community by writing this letter to the newspaper.

I am taking responsibility for my actions by admitting to what I have done and apologizing to all the people that my actions have affected.

I realize my actions have affected the community in different ways. One way is that the money from the taxes the community pays goes toward paying the constable for the time she spent. The time she spent with me at school could have been spent in a manner that could have benefitted the community in other ways.

With regards to the school as a community, parents assume their children will be in a safe environment while on the school premises. Their children aren’t safe when there are drugs going around in the school.

Through the restorative justice process and subsequent resolution agreement, I have learned that poor choices in friends and breaking the law are costly to the community, dangerous to others and negatively impact my family.

A Kwalikum Secondary

School student

We suspended our policy on no anonymous letters to help this student, who can’t be named as a young offender, fulfill the obligations of the agreement. — Ed.

This poor kid thinks he is to blame because the community chooses to waste their time making criminals out of teenaged pot smokers. The government should apologize to all of us for the drug war, for the lives lost and the time and money wasted, for all the Constables everywhere that waste their time on minor drug offenses. Legalizing pot won’t stop teenagers from using it but it sure would go a long way towards alleviating the damage caused by drugs. I would hope that teenaged drug use would not be a criminal justice issue but a parental and educational issue. Or am I crazy? Sometimes I wonder.

For this weeks’ Friday 4:20 post, I will not be sharing too many deep and philosophical thoughts.  This was a long week and I am whiny and I don’t even wanna write a post today.  It’s cold outside and I am tired adn I think I am getting sick because I am surrounded by sick people at school.  Call the Wah-mbulance!  Bah, who am I kidding I love blogging.  Anyway, there are a couple of things in the drug policy world that caught my eye today.  First of all, today is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of alcohol prohibition in the United States.  Hopefully, while people are celebrating this occasion they will reflecton the absurdity of drug prohibition, especially the prohibition of my favorite plant.  Ethan Nadelman wrote an excellent article about this that is in the Wall Street Journal today.

Also, the provincial NDP wants to increase drug enforcement in Northern Saskatchewan in response to youth suicides.  While I understand that something must be done about the social problems in the North, I wonder if this is what the residents of Northern Saskatchewan really want.  Do they think that more police and more enforcement of bad laws is really going to help anybody?    Near the end of the article, much more useful solutions to the social problems are mentioned, such as:

Belanger said the government should be pursuing actions such as a concerted effort to “denormalize” substance abuse, ensuring RCMP detachments are fully staffed, boosting cultural and recreational programs for youth and supporting northern economic development.

Although I do wonder what they mean by “denormalize” substance abuse. Is it normalized now? Sending more cops up north may make people feel better but it won’t make an impact on the drug problem. You see, drug busts are merely the cost of doing business for your average drug dealer. Legalize drugs and the incentive to sell to the people that you know disappears. That is why there are far fewer drug users in Amsterdam, where cannabis friendly coffee shops are tolerated.

Anyway, I got to go do my paper route now before I sink into my couch (not Pete’s couch) and relax and enjoy my weekend. Do I ever need it.

The drug war gets stupider. Today’s story is about the manufacturer’s of plastic penises, known as the Whizzinator, marketed on the internet to help you pass your drug test. George Wills and Robert Catalano face up to eight years in jail and a $500, 000 fine after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy.

Instead of realizing that drug testing is a wasteful fraud and doing something useful to help addicts that need it, the Feds go after the creators of the Whizzinator. I wonder how long it will take for someone to find a different way to foil your drug test. A google search turns up many other products designed to help you continue your drug habits without letting THE MAN get you down. It looks like they will be really busy if they plan to arrest all these people.

Of course, putting a stop to drug abuse isn’t really the point. That is impossible and I believe that most people who give it some thought, realize that. Instead, we should be trying to limit the harm that drug abuse can do to people. If they want and need some help and support to quit a harmful habit, give them the support they need. If people are using drugs in the privacy of their own home and not harming anybody else, leave them alone. Arresting drug users and imposing expensive and useless tests that can be foiled with equipment widely available on the internet is not the way to go about “helping” drug abusers.

Mrs. Lovejoy and her ilk are at it again.  Sales of individual cigars have been banned in Maryland. If you want a cigar, you have to buy 5 at a time.  The rationale for this pointless action is to prevent youth from becoming addicted to tobacco and becoming lifelong users of cigars.   Also, they are worried about the recent trend of hollowing out the cigar and filling it with marijuana.  In other words, the kids wisely chose to stay away from tobacco, a highly dangerous and addictive drug and went for the safer alternative.

Even if you believe that eradicating use of marijuana and tobacco is a good idea, I just can’t imagine why anybody thinks that banning the individual sale of cigars is going to make any difference.  The kids will just find some other way to entertain themselves.  This may even be a good opportunity for some enterprising youths to make some moeny.  I’m sure that some kids will buy a five pack and sell them individually to their friends.  Trends come and go and adults over-react, often in counterproductive ways.  Besides, there are much better ways to get people to voluntarily give up their bad habits.

There sure are a lot of things going on in the world of drug policy these days, just like always. Trying to keep track of everything is next to impossible. But I will attempt to give a round up of the things that interest me right now. First of all, add me to the list of successful pot smokers. It appears that I am in good company. Also, is Barack Obama really going to make an impact on drug policy? Especially when you consider that he has Joe Biden, king of the Drug Warriors as a VP? I doubt it. Pete has a lot more eloquent thoughts on this matter than I do. Obama has stated opposition to the medical marijuana raids that the DEA engages in, but I just can’t see him doing anything once he gets sworn in. Bush once opposed raiding med pot gardens before he was elected and then promptly changed his tune once in office. Prove me wrong, man!

Remember last week when I was all happy that Massachusetts voters wisely chose to lessen the penalties for possession of less than an ounce of weed? Well, the police in Berkshire county are very concerned that this measure will cost the taxpayers money and lead to an increase in stoned drivers. What do they base their opinions on? Nothing. Or maybe they are just worried that they will have to find something more useful to do with their time than hassle pot smokers. Just check out this quote:

“If I see a guy standing on the corner smoking a joint, that’s illegal,” McDyer said. “But, can I search him for other drugs? Do I write him a ticket? Are we going to bring scales out and measure every seizure we make? No one has thought this out.”

If this is your worst problem, consider yourself lucky. Also, don’t the boys in blue have anything better to do than hassle pot-smokers? Are they worried about air pollution? Because the last time I checked, smoking pot produces a lot less pollution than running your car.

Why not leave the poor pot-smoker in peace if he isn’t bothering anybody? Get a life, already.

Note to self: Write the 4:20 posts before 4:17.

It’s a good thing for my weekly feature, the Friday 4:20, or I might never post a thing on this blog! Today, I thought about posting about the recent victory for medical marijuana in Michigan in this recent presidential election. However, I already wrote about that the other day, when I whined about the election win. So instead of enlightening you with any good news from the world of drug policy, I bring you some reefer madness from the Star Phoenix. What could the SP possibly write about drugs, if they didn’t do it from a reefer madness point of view? In this feature, we can read about how fighting the drug trade by sending out the troops to Kabul is the best way to deal with the drug problem. I have to admit I couldn’t stomach reading the whole thing, so it’s possible that they mentioned changing our drug policies. But I highly doubt it. I don’t even have to read these things anymore. It’s all reefer madness, all the time. Just look at this prize quote:

“It’s not possible to draw a watertight line between narcotics and the insurgents. Sometimes, they are the same people,” she said in an interview. “You can’t say ‘First, we take the insurgents, then we take the narcotics.’ “

All I have to say about that is NO SHIT SHIRLOCK! Jeez louise, could we be any more stupid if we tried? Of course the drug trade is fueling the insurgency! What good is it going to do to crack down on it? You aren’t going to stop people from using drugs with these punitive measures. It just doesn’t work. Even if they managed to make an impact on the drug supply in Afghanistan, it will just start coming from another place, like Columbia, for instance. Legalize all drugs and suddenly there won’t be an illegal drug trade anymore. Heroin will be sold in a heroin bar or whatever and all the harm caused by drug prohibition will end and insurgents will have to find a new way to make money.

I am so damned smart, solved all the drug problems just like that.

Here is my new shirt that my friend Sam gave to me. Isn’t it sweet? Now I can be a hippy for Halloween. YAY!

I know that I should write a serious drug policy post, because there are lots of evil bad wrong things going on with respect to that, like Grant Krieger being found guilty for drug traficking. But right now, I am in Halloween mode and I’m tired of complaining.

Welcome to this weeks’ greatly anticipated edition of the Friday 4:20. This week I bring you two sordid links to concerned parents that want to bring random, compulsory drug testing into the school system. The phrase “Won’t Somebody Please Think of The Children” will come to mind as you read these letters. You will come to realize that these people really believe that forcing students to hand over their pee is in their own best interests. They may not have thought of the implications of false positives, false negatives and the way that these programs help justify the war on drugs. Instead of teaching students that responsible drug use is in their own best interests, we wish to impose punitive “gotcha” measures to bully students into doing what we think is best for them. I wonder if these parents engaged their children in discussions about responsible drug use before their kids became troubled.  You will also be disturbed by the frequent war imagery.  They looked at the drug problem and “attacked it head on”.  Not only that, but apparently opposing drug testing in the schools makes you a liberal.  I really wish that people would quit using that word as an insult.

The first letter is all about how the Drug Policy Makes Sense and the second letter is from a father grieving the tragic loss of his son.  It depresses me to realize how little people really understand why people use drugs in the first place and that continuing the same, punitive approaches will result in more people in jail, more wealthy drug peddlers and more drug addicted students.  The fact remains that the US has the highest prison population in the world, thanks to their punitive drug policies and the highest number of drug users.  Sadly, opposition to drug prohibition still seems relegated to the fringes.

These advocates of drug testing remind me of something that Alfie Kohn said.  “Our schools are great places to prepare you for the real world, if you wish to live in a totalitarian society.”  So yes indeed, using the excuse that drug testing is a condition of employment in many cases is a great excuse.  We want to train them to hand over their pee and all their medical information, without a complaint, and what better way to do it but to start them young.

A dope growing guide from Australia. Kog’s accent is sweet. I’m going to finish watching this when I get home.

I have for you today a wonderful article written by Dan Gardner about the global failure of the war on drugs and the reasons why opium production has soared in Afghanistan.  I really enjoyed and I hope you do too.