A Close Encounter With the Nation's Drug Czar

[boulder]

You can't win an argument with the Drug Czar. I found that out fast when John Walters, the federal government's tireless, full-time propagandist in the War on Drugs, met for an edgy but civil hour of debate recently (Oct. 30) with editors and reporters in Pittsburgh.

 

Czar Walters, whose official title is director of National Drug Control Policy, came to town as part of his national campaign to debunk the latest crisis of the government's never-ending Drug War--"the myth of harmless marijuana."

 

Later that day, he would tell an assembly of local high school students that pot is not a soft drug that deserves to be decriminalized or legalized, but a dangerous, addictive scourge that is increasingly destroying the brains and bodies of teenagers.

 

After his opening remarks to journalists, in which he summarized at great length how his office planned to carry out its presidential mandate to cut drug use in America 10 percent in two years and 25 percent in five, the Czar quickly discovered he was behind enemy lines.

 

No one laughed out loud or was rude. But none of us was buying much of what the Czar was selling especially the part about how marijuana is now apparently a greater threat to the Republic than al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein or Al Sharpton combined.

 

Columnist Dimitri Vassilaros, my fellow lovable libertarian, and I made the standard anti-prohibitionist complaints about the heavy cost of the Drug War in dollars and lost civil liberties and imprisoned nonviolent drug offenders.

 

But we aging journalists were no match for a five-star drug general. He is smart, competent and blessed with a likable, un-czarlike manner. After months of campaigning, he carries all the government facts, studies, anti- legalization arguments and official policy statements in his head--and his heart. To back him up, he travels with two assistants and a pile of official blue information packets stamped with "Executive Office of the President."

 

In the end, it didn't matter what we serfs believed. The Czar had not come to debate drug policy. He doesn't believe debate is even possible. He thinks the government's side--which I would argue is mindless, hysterical, absolutist, puritanical, inconsistent, cruel, totalitarian and embarrassing--is always right and the other side's arguments have no credibility.

 

He accepts the results of no health study--no matter how new or reputable--that doesn't find marijuana to be dangerous, addictive or a gateway to heroin and crack. He is quick to discredit or disbelieve the recent poll results in Time and elsewhere that show ever-higher majorities of Americans think marijuana should be decriminalized. I'm heartened by those polls. I'm also encouraged to see that 74 percent of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center agree with me and my 84-year-old non-pot-smoking mother that we're losing our 30- year War on (some) Drugs.

 

Like we eventually did with Vietnam and Prohibition, someday we will look back at the War on Drugs and see we had been waging a costly war which we never should have started, that was fought stupidly and did more to harm society than help it.

 

Czar Walters, of course, would buy none of this defeatist talk. He insisted to us that the war is going well--except, he said, that we need a few billion more for treatment and for helping the Colombians fight the cartels and for beefing up interdiction by the Coast Guard.

 

And except that marijuana is much more powerful and is addicting more of our teens than ever. And except that you can buy drugs throughout America on the same corners they've been sold on for the last 30 years. And except that high school kids have more trouble buying a pack of Winstons than a bag of pot.

 

We lost our argument with the Czar, just as the decriminalizers and legalizers lost two days later when voters in Nevada, Arizona and Ohio rejected ballot issues to approve marijuana for medical use, decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana or put nonviolent drug offenders into treatment instead of jail.

 

Czar Walters is probably still cheering those victories. But he should celebrate while he can. The slow, steady revolution of responsible, sensible drug reform bubbling up from some of the country's most conservative states is not going to go away.

 

Fewer and fewer Americans are such dopes when it comes to supporting federal drug policy, especially as it regards marijuana, a drug that polls say about half of Americans have tried and nearly 72 percent believe possession of small amounts of should be punished by fines, not jail time.

 

Czar Walters and his allies paint drug reformers as threats to the public health and safety, as coddlers of criminals, or as irresponsible dopers who are willing to sacrifice the future of the country's youth for the selfish right to get high.

 

I'm 55 and don't use or sell drugs. I won't lie and say I never did, or that I think my kids never will. But I see the growing drug reform movement as a sign that common sense is not completely dead in America.

 

I'd argue most reform leaders and their followers are responsible citizens who are concerned about individual freedom or interested in minimizing the serious harm done to society by the prohibition of drugs that 16 million people demand and the worst elements of society are willing to supply.

 

But who the reform leaders are, or what their real motives for de-escalating the Drug War are, is not the point. The War on Drugs is wrong. A majority of ordinary Americans know it, even if their political leaders don't or are too terrified to admit it. And the sooner our government declares defeat and ends it, the better.

 

We said all that, though not so clearly or succinctly, to Czar Walters, who looked suspiciously relieved when his time with reporters was up. I didn't set out to make him uncomfortable, and maybe we didn't. Maybe he's used to being argued with. I sure hope so.

 

When I shook his hand good-bye, I made a point of telling him something else. "Please tell the president," I said to the only Drug Czar I'm likely to ever meet face to face, "that the War on Drugs is shameful and unbecoming a free society."

 

I didn't deliver that message to be nasty or try to change his mind. I did it so he and his boss in the White House will know that the dissenters in the Drug War include stone-sober grandfathers like me.

 

Interview with the Man

 

By Tim McGivern

 

Special Agent Finn Selander has been with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for 12 years. He serves as the Demand Reduction Coordinator for the Southwest and handles the agency's media relations.

 

Mr. Selander joined the Alibi (he even picked up the tab) for a cup of coffee in Nob Hill last week to discuss our government's efforts to staunch marijuana use in America.

 

First, the War on Drugs....

 

Let's call it a cancer on society. In a war you have a beginning and an end. The objective is very clear. You want to win. But you have to define what winning is. Now let's say 50 percent of all high school seniors have tried or use marijuana. ...

 

Is that accurate for Albuquerque? It seems low to me.

 

Yes, that's accurate. But you're right, I would say from the polling we've done, maybe 75 percent of seniors have tried it. That doesn't mean they are users, just that they've at least tried it as an experiment. With that in mind, winning might be if we could drop that number to just 20 percent. You've got to set a goal. And then try to obtain it.

 

You wouldn't describe the goal then in the context of waging a "war" against these kids?

 

Right. And that's the wrong context. That would be a war on society, and we are part of society. As an agent I've got a family, I've got kids in the school system. I'm raising kids. I don't like the term "war on drugs." It's a cancer on society.

 

Let's talk about the term "drugs." In some people's minds drugs are not all the same. For example, it's frustrating for people advocating for the legalization of marijuana to see it compared to crystal meth.

 

OK, you are separating marijuana from other drugs. I can tell you this, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that, yes, meth destroys people--period. Yes, cocaine destroys people. Yes, heroin destroys people. Then when we talk about marijuana, it's like most people will agree let's not put it in the same category as these other drugs.

 

Just so you know, the DEA, right now, is sponsoring seven studies to see if there is any benefit to medical marijuana. To see if there are health benefits.

 

You mean the DEA is reacting to public concerns and opinion?

 

Exactly. Here's the whole issue. Even the DEA won't deny that if Grandma or Grandpa has glaucoma, it may just help. Nobody denies that maybe, just maybe, when you are in chemotherapy and you are wasting away, guess what, you use marijuana and you get the munchies, it helps keep the weight on and prevent the nausea.

 

But the bottom line is this: The American Medical Association (AMA) has said that marijuana does not have a medical use. And the reason for that is, one simple thing, it's because you smoke it. There is no medicine that you smoke. As a society we buy into the idea that smoking kills you. When you compare a marijuana joint to a cigarette, it has 50 percent more benzyl pyridine, the chemical that causes lung cancer. ... Also, there's not one officer that doesn't believe in a free nation. But there are people that say, why should the government tell me what I can and cannot do? I realize that.

 

Like people who say the government tries to control everything.

 

You know what, if it ever got like that, I'm out. But at this point, when we are talking about the War on Drugs, you almost have to protect some people from themselves. Like being your brother's keeper. We live in a free society, but how free is free? Should you have a right to go and shove anything you want into your body in the privacy of your own home, but by doing that you start falling apart. Who pays for the medical treatment? Those are things you have to think about. The average age of getting cancer for heavy marijuana users is 26.

 

Twenty-six? When did they start smoking?

 

Well, in New Mexico the average age for starting to drink alcohol is 13. Nationally the average is 14. I would say for smoking marijuana, it's about the same.

 

Medical marijuana failed to pass in New Mexico. The legalization of up to three ounces failed in Nevada. ...

 

Right. Now get this. Here in New Mexico you can possess up to an ounce and it's a misdemeanor. You are not going to go to jail. And one ounce will roll 83 joints. An ounce is a lot of dope.

 

The guy who was significant at defeating that bill in Nevada--he went on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and "Crossfire" on CNN--he actually showed most people don't know the difference when we talk about a kilo or a gram. They think we are just throwing people in jail for using marijuana. Trust me, that's the furthest thing from the truth. We don't have time to do that. That's more of a local law enforcement issue. The DEA, we go after traffickers.

 

Don't quote me on these numbers, but I recall seeing statistics that show there is something like a million people in this country locked up on drug charges. That something like 80 percent are non- violent offenders convicted on marijuana possession. The point being, should anyone be locked up for being a nonviolent pot smoker?

 

That is the biggest lie going on. Let's say you stole a car and when you got caught you also had weed. Which offense gets reported? The weed. People are not incarcerated for just possession.

 

How does the DEA determine what drugs to go after?

 

Well, in the real world, most agents don't really care about marijuana. Seriously. Because the real cases are the meth cases, the cocaine cases. One of our priorities is club drugs (like Ecstasy) and predatory drugs like the date rape drug--that is serious stuff.

 

OK, now: Does that mean that you cannot work marijuana cases? It's still illegal. But the cases we look at are who's growing. The U.S. Attorney's office has set up thresholds. For us to even get involved you have to have 100 plants.

 

Like when I was in Florida, if you had five kilos of cocaine they wouldn't prosecute you, because 50 or 75 kilos was very common. Five kilos was like a local thing. Here, five kilos is a lot.

 

Let's use an example of a guy living in the East Mountains who gets nailed because his neighbors called him in after they saw he was growing, say, 60 plants on his property.

 

I'll tell you exactly the way that would work. Now it's going to be a toss-up. The threshold says 100 plants. He's got about half. Now it's a question of his past record.

 

If he's got a lily-white record, I can almost promise you that it would stay local. But let's say twice before he'd been popped for drugs. Then that ups it, because he's a repeat offender. Then, we can flip the coin and say, do we really want to prosecute? It doesn't matter what the DEA does, or the FBI does, then. The Justice Department makes the final decision--the lawyers. If they are swamped with other cases, the guy might almost walk.

 

Or, it could go to the state and they might just slap his hand or fine him or whatever.

 

So the idea that someone--a doctor, lawyer, judge or whoever--is a casual pot smoker and could have their house raided by the DEA. ...

 

Absolutely not. You can have an ounce in this state and it's a misdemeanor. That's what I'm telling you. ... Do you think people are going to bust down your door (for that)? Hell no.

 

What do you think about Gov. Johnson's stance on drug policy reform?

 

When the governor originally was talking about legalizing all drugs, that was totally asinine. I mean, there's no society on earth like that.

 

In Holland, marijuana is not legal. It's decriminalized. You can buy what they call "user amounts" in coffee shops. But if you sit on a corner and try to sell, you're going to get arrested for trafficking. They tried to regulate it (not legalize it). Where the Pandora's box is opened up in Holland: Polls show 78 percent of their 10th graders are casual users of marijuana. The talk about let's legalize it, tax it and all that, and things are going to get better. Well ... we do a lousy job (controlling) alcohol with kids under 21. They're gonna get a hold of it. How would we keep it out of the hands of the 13 and 14 year olds?

 

What about the DEA busting and shutting down folks in California for distributing medical marijuana, even after the voters in that state approved it? How does the DEA justify that?

 

That stems from the AMA, which is made up of doctors, going on record saying there is no medical use for marijuana. If they did a 180, I'm not saying two or three years from now that couldn't change. The DEA is taking a long look at this.

 

But right now, the law of the land is federal law.

 

Drug Policy Reform Fact Sheet

 

 

 

By Ty Bannerman

 

How did the drug law reform movement fare during this year's elections? Three out of five ballot measures lost. But drug policy reform efforts still have an 80 percent success rate since 1996, passing 18 out of 23 statewide ballot measures, according to the Drug Policy Alliance. For information on actions taken to reform drug laws in New Mexico, visit Gov. Gary Johnson's website at: http://governor.state.nm.us/

 

Major Drug Policy Reform Questions on Election Ballots in November 2002

 

Washington D.C.

Measure 62--

Would provide substance abuse treatment instead of conviction or imprisonment to eligible, non violent defendants charged with illegal possession or use of drugs. Excludes Schedule II drugs such as cocaine, morphine, and PCP, but not Schedule I drugs, such as marijuana.

Passed

Percentage of votes for: 78

 

Ohio

Issue 1: Drug Treatment Initiative--

Similar to D.C.'s Measure 62 (see above,), this issue proposed that the Ohio Constitution be revised to establish a comprehensive treatment program (instead of incarceration) for individuals charged with or convicted of illegal possession or use of controlled substances.

Failed

Percentage of votes for: 33

 

Arizona

Proposition 203--

Medical Marijuana and Civil Fines Instead of Criminal Penalties for Small Amounts of Marijuana Possession: Would decriminalize adults' possession of marijuana imposing a civil fine instead of criminal penalties for limited amounts. Would require state to distribute medical marijuana free of charge to patients with written approval from their physician. Would eliminate all mandatory-minimum penalties for drug crimes.

Failed

Percentage of votes for: 43

 

Nevada

Question 9--

Would decriminalize possession of up to 3 ounces of marijuana for adults over the age of 21. Would require the state government to implement a legally regulated market for the purchase of marijuana by seriously ill patients.

Failed

Percentage of votes for: 39

 

California

San Francisco's Proposition S--

A nonbinding referendum encouraging city officials to explore cultivating and distributing medical marijuana to seriously ill patients.

Passed

Percentage of votes for: 63

 

Source: Alibi (NM)

Author: Bill Steigerwald