Howard Wooldridge : Rocky Mountain High / 3

Howard "Cowboy" Wooldridge in Washington, D.C.,  with his wife Karen..
Misty and me:
Fighting pot prohibition in Colorado, Part III

An analysis of the 2012 state initiatives on cannabis.

By Howard Wooldridge / The Rag Blog / January 8, 2013

Howard "Cowboy" Wooldridge, the founder and director of Citizens Opposing Prohibition (COP), is a Texan since 1994 and a former Michigan police officer and detective. Wooldridge has become one of the most effective advocates in Washington, D.C., for ending marijuana prohibition and the "war on drugs.” Howard -- with his horse (and “partner in politics”) Misty -- took part in the successful Colorado campaign in support of Amendment 64, to legalize cannabis for recreational and industrial purposes there.

This is the third in a three-part series written for The Rag Blog.

The vote this fall has been heard “around the world.” The voters of Colorado and Washington cracked a big hole in the world-wide "Berlin Wall" of marijuana prohibition. Even Holland with its system of cannabis coffeehouses does not measure up to the full legalization passed in these two states.

I just read an article in Der Spiegel (Germany’s Time magazine) pointing out all the policy difficulties this vote has generated for President Obama and leaders of South and Central America. The light is now shining brightly at the end of the tunnel.

And there is no going back. Even if federal agents crack down hard in Colorado and Washington state, try finding a jury to convict "offenders" of anything. While in Colorado I had a meeting with Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett. He reiterated to me what he'd said on 60 Minutes: seating a jury of 12 on a marijuana case would be impossible. Jury nullification is a fact in these two states and it won’t go away now.

Beyond our borders, the ripples from the Colorado and Washington waves are striking forcefully, especially in Mexico and Central America. Mexico’s new President Peña Nieto has already called for a review of policy. He asked, "Why should my government enforce marijuana prohibition, when, if that product reaches Colorado, it becomes legal?"

Guatemala’s President Perez Molina has openly called to legalize all drugs to reduce or end the violence and suffering in his drug-transit country. These and other voices are emboldened by the vote, even as the power of the "gringos" is still felt. However, the United States is NOT abandoning its prohibition position, no matter that President Obama was a stoner, not just a toker.

What is all the yelling and screaming about? In Colorado, effective December 10, 2012, anyone 21 and older may possess one ounce (28 grams) of marijuana and grow their own up to six plants (three seedlings and three mature plants). And you know some will grow eight or t10 plants (like doing five miles per hour over the speed limit, cops usually won’t stop you for less than 10 mph over).

Also, the state will set up, by July 1, 2013, a system to sell marijuana in designated, regulated stores. The issue of driving under the influence of marijuana was not addressed. Police officers will continue to employ existing law to arrest for DUI marijuana and other non-alcoholic drugs that impair driving. Amendment 64 is now part of the Colorado constitution. This is important because the legislature cannot mess with it. Taxing marijuana, and how much, are still up in the air.

In Washington, marijuana up to one ounce became legal for 21 and over on December 6, 2012. Cultivation for personal use remains illegal. The state Liquor Control Board will develop, by December 2013, a system to sell marijuana. The Chairman of the House Committee on Public Safety, Roger Goodman, will be in charge of this project. Goodman is a committed cannabis legalizer.

As part of Initiative 502, Washington declared that any driver with five or more nanograms of tetrahydrocannibinol (THC, one of cannabis' active compounds) in their blood will be considered DUIM. Of interest, the experts credit the marijuana issue with getting an 81% voter turnout, the highest in the nation. The issue turned out voters for and against, and the side favoring an end to prohibition won.

Washington's tax scheme is set. Count on a 75% tax on the final product. That translates (say Washington government officials) into $12 per gram, currently the illicit market price for quality bud. At that price the cartels can still make a healthy profit by undercutting the price of the legal product.

Both states have a heavy responsibility to set up production, processing, and retail selling correctly. Literally, the eyes of the world are upon them.

Both states' initiatives also legalized the growing of cannabis hemp (for fiber, fuel, food, and thousands of other non-drug uses) but this will likely have zero impact. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration will still bust anyone growing on the large scale needed for industrial hemp.

Michigan also had five important city votes that demonstrate the will of the voters. The City of Detroit voted 3 to 1 to legalize marijuana. Even extremely conservative Grand Rapids (more churches per square mile than any city in the USA) made simple possession a civil infraction, like a parking ticket. All five votes ended in victory for the anti-prohibition side. Politicians have been put on notice of the will of the people. They ignore these votes at their peril.

What does that mean? In Texas, six-term congressman and former federal officer Sylvester Reyes LOST to legalizer Beto O’Rourke in El Paso this year. Reyes made legalization an issue and he lost. O’Rourke comes to the Congress in January as the first or second freshman elected who voters know favors legalization of marijuana. Jared Polis (D-CO) was probably the first.

The last of the good news came from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They voted YES to cannabis as medicine, an issue between doctor and patient. The Bay State makes 18 of the 50 states where God's medicine is legal at the state level. One in three adult Americans now has legal access to medical cannabis.

Sadly, Arkansas just missed legalizing medicinal cannabis. The vote was about two percentage points shy of common sense and personal liberty. Still, since it was close, and it was the first time any easing of cannabis prohibition had appeared on a Southern state ballot, supporters are putting their shoulder to the wheel and preparing for another day, another election.

Oregon’s Measure 80 failed by three points as a blame game divided supporters. Did it fail because it was not properly funded? Or was it so badly written funders knew it would fail and thus did not waste their money? M80 would have legalized possession and growing marijuana for adults without regard to how much one could possess. The most controversial part was a commission to regulate growing and selling that would have five growers elected at large and two appointed by the government. In other words, growers would be regulating themselves. This may have been what doomed the initiative.

Anti-prohibition forces have realized the goal of the first states going legal. nationally; they are re-energized, knowing that it has become a question of "when," not "if." The Empire will strike back as hard and as long as it can.

The DEA and narcotics officers want the paychecks, overtime, and job security. They will continue to spew lies and try to make Americans afraid of a brave new world of regulated and taxed marijuana. But they will lose. As a retired detective, I will grieve for each colleague slain in this useless, senseless prohibition. Which officer, which grower, which dealer will be the last to die?

Howard Wooldridge was Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio, Friday, November 30, 2012. You can listen to the podcast here:

[Harold Wooldridge, who was a Michigan police officer and detective for 18 years, co-founded Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and is executive director of Citizens Opposing Prohibition (COP).]

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Howard Wooldridge : Rocky Mountain High / 2

Howard Wooldridge and Misty in Pueblo, Colorado. Image from The Pueblo Chieftain.
Misty and me:
Fighting pot prohibition in Colorado, Part II

By Howard Wooldridge / The Rag Blog / December 20, 2012

Howard Wooldridge was Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio, produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, Texas, on Friday, November 30, 2012. You can listen to the podcast here:

Howard "Cowboy" Wooldridge, the founder and director of Citizens Opposing Prohibition (COP), is a Texan since 1994 and a former Michigan police officer and detective. His experience in law enforcement taught him that arresting people for drug use is a faulty proposition: it doesn’t work and is a waste of police resources.

Wooldridge has become one of the most effective advocates in Washington, D.C., for ending marijuana prohibition and the "war on drugs.” Howard -- with his horse (and “partner in politics”) Misty -- took part in the successful Colorado campaign in support of Amendment 64, to legalize cannabis for recreational and industrial purposes there.

This is the second in a three-part series written for The Rag Blog.


I used the local McDonald’s railing in Sterling as a hitching post, tying Misty up while I went inside to buy lunch. A crowd had already gathered when I returned a few minutes later.

We were a combination "petting zoo" and political statement, as everyone took pictures of their kids with Misty. Her "64" signs would show up along with my t-shirt all over social media in the Sterling area. One guy boasted of having 3,000 Facebook friends and said he would make multiple posts.

Yes, adults were nearly as eager to have a picture of the horse as the kids. By the end of this Saturday, Misty and I were both approaching exhaustion. She was actually falling asleep on the corner. We took the next day off. I took Misty to a large park and let her roam loose for several hours.

On the 22nd of October we started our long march down the I-25 corridor, spending our day in Longmont. The gods of weather smiled upon us again with sunshine and high 60s. A reporter spent nearly an hour with us, asking almost as many questions about riding across America as our efforts for Amendment 64. The drivers and passengers gave us hundreds of honks, thumbs, and smiles, while the cell phone cameras kept taking our pictures.

I strongly believe we helped fire up the base to vote, even as we confounded the stereotype that only "stoners" were voting "yes." The COP t-shirt and large pistol on my hip certainly set me apart from many. Note: My wife Karen insisted I take and wear the gun in case the Cartels tried to shoot me. Am I a lucky guy or what?!

Misty caught a break that night, sleeping in a paddock with two llamas. Bo and Betsy Shaffer of Erie put us up the next three nights, as we worked in Loveland. Bo had given us shelter in 2005 during our second ride across America. Nothing like a home-cooked meal and good conversation.

The enthusiasm for 64 exceeded that we received in our sojourn across California in 2010. The polls reflected us holding steady at 51% and, as we entered our last two weeks, I believed our efforts were helping the numbers. According to the election experts, turning out your supporters is crucial to any win. And Misty made people smile, even if they disagreed with the signs on her side.

The Front Range received 4-6 inches of snow on Wednesday evening, which meant Thursday was a snow day. I would never trailer Misty in snow. I took advantage of the off-day to visit my brother in the Denver area, had dinner with my ‘"librarian" Karen Bary and ended our day off doing a radio show in south Denver.

Colorado Springs in El Paso County -- which is home to many mega-churches -- was my last challenge. Bob Wiley not only arranged for a stall for Misty, he and his wife Rita put me in their guest bedroom, making our stay like heaven. Misty was able to take a load off. Sleeping on the ground left her markedly more rested and alert during her work time. The Wileys' good food, drink, and conversation improved my morale, just as the grind of work and being on the road were wearing me down.

We worked a bit of the traffic going to the Air Force Academy football game, before the police forced us to leave... The officer told us he was voting for 64, which tells you how pleasant the whole thing went. In the next 10 days we worked every day at different intersections. On Saturday the local ABC TV station did a nice report on us. A few days later we made a side trip to the police station where a local medical cannabis patient was supposed to receive his five pounds and 60 plants back (he had been found not guilty). This resulted in me being quoted in the local daily paper.

Again the honks and smiles seemed to increase. People rolled down their windows to shout they had already voted YES on 64.

On Saturday, November 1, we worked the crowd going to the Romney rally at the Colorado Springs airport. The traffic was only averaging about two MPH into the parking lot area, so everyone saw the signs for a solid minute. Some of the Republicans were angry and abusive but overall the crowd seemed about 50-50. It was another good day in the saddle. Fire the base and confront the opposition is my strategy.

We made a two-day, 60 mile trip down to Pueblo to work their mall intersection. Again the media gods smiled on us, as we made the local paper, including a nice big picture. Mall security was an off-duty cop who was a bit nasty ordering me to leave his parking lot. Luckily across the street the Goodwill folks said we could park there.

Though tired, we decided to work Sunday in Colorado Springs. And it was lucky that we did. An off-duty Fox reporter saw us and said, "There is a story." We made the local Fox news that night. Better, Fox national picked it up and we aired on all Fox channels on the Monday before the election, as the report went national.

After four more hours in Castle Rock on Monday, I bought a last, five-pound bag of carrots for Misty and pointed us home, our work done. Though invited to the victory party in Denver, attending would have meant a delay of 36 hours before being with my long-suffering Karen.

Near midnight on Tuesday, as we rolled into the Motel 6 in Indianapolis, I got the call from Bob that we had won with about 53% (the final total was 55%). I nearly cried with joy, knowing this was the beginning of the end of our national nightmare of marijuana prohibition. Late the next day we arrived at the ranch where Misty joined the herd of 50 on 80 acres. Later I learned that El Paso County voted in favor of Proposition 64 by a margin of 10 votes. Congratulations all around!

Ode to Misty: In August she thought, “Uh-ohh. Howard has ridden me three times this week. We are going someplace.” And with that realization, Misty had to prepare herself, mentally and physically, for yet another long ride in the trailer and upon arrival, to stand nearly motionless on one busy street corner after another. She knew that foul-smelling diesel smoke would mix with gasoline fumes to make her days less than pleasant. She knew she would be spending all night in her tight little trailer while Howard slept at the motel. Misery was spelled: "Howard-on-the-road-for-politics."

Misty has carried the anti-prohibition message on her back since 2001. She carried my little butt across America twice, while I wore the COP T-shirt. She spent two months in California for Proposition 19; now one month for Amendment 64. Through it all she did not complain, act up, or be anything other than my magnificent, Texas horse and partner. Her good looks made her a TV star and allowed our message to be seen my millions.

She has done enough. I will ask no more of my Misty. She is retired from politics. I let her know this as I turned her out into the paddock back in Maryland.

To be continued...

[Harold Wooldridge, who was a Michigan police officer and detective for 18 years, co-founded Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and is executive director of Citizens Opposing Prohibition (COP).]

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Howard Wooldridge : Rocky Mountain High / 1

Howard "Cowboy" Wooldridge and Misty fight marijuana prohibition in Colorado.
Misty and me:
Fighting pot prohibition in Colorado

Governor Hickenlooper moaned that tourism would decline or, if more tourists came, they would be the 'wrong sort of people.' What a muffin-head he was!

By Howard Wooldridge / The Rag Blog / November 28, 2012

Former police detective Howard Wooldridge will discuss his work to reform marijuana laws on Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer, Friday, November 30, from 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin and streamed live on the web. Rag Radio is rebroadcast on WFTE-FM in Scranton and Mt. Cobb, PA, Sundays at 10 a.m. (EST). After broadcast, all Rag Radio interviews are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

Howard "Cowboy" Wooldridge, the founder and director of Citizens Opposing Prohibition (COP), is a Texan since 1994 and a former Michigan police officer and detective. Like many men and women in law enforcement, he learned early that arresting people for drugs is a faulty proposition and a waste of time, pulling resources away from fighting real crime. Unlike most, however, Howard embarked on a committed crusade to change the drug laws.

With his horse, Misty, Longrider Wooldridge has twice ridden solo from coast to coast, wearing his big Western hat and a white T-shirt that reads, front and back, "Ask Me Why Cops Say Legalize Marijuana." Traveling on city streets and rural byways, camping out wherever night falls, Howard may have talked with more people one-on-one than any other single drug war opponent with the exception of the late Jack Herer. He has become one of the most effective advocates in Washington, D.C., for ending marijuana prohibition and the "war on drugs" in general.

Most recently, Howard and Misty took part in the successful Colorado campaign to legalize cannabis for recreational and industrial purposes there. (The state of Washington also passed a similar law.) Colorado began allowing medical marijuana use in 2000. In this first of a two-part special report to The Rag Blog, Howard writes about his and Misty's experience promoting Amendment 64 from a personal (and equine) point of view; next week, he'll write about the significance and likely fallout of the Colorado electorate's choice. -- Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog

This is the first in a three-part series.

DENVER -- My pickup’s bed was full: two bales of hay, bag of shavings (horse bedding), saddle, bridle, horse blankets, plus all the gear needed to sustain a month on the road with my partner in politics -- Misty. Three long travel days later and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado came into view.

We had come to Colorado to promote their ballot initiative on marijuana: Amendment 64. This proposal would essentially (for those 21 and older) legalize, regulate, and tax the use and sale of marijuana. Its major features included: 1) allowing adults to grow enough for private, non-medicinal use; 2) permitting the legal cultivation of industrial hemp; 3) establishing a system in which marijuana could be taxed and sold through state-regulated retail outlets; 4) allowing employers to maintain their existing policies; 5)and it would not impact in any way the laws surrounding the medical use of cannabis.

"64," as it was known to all, was much simpler to explain and defend than the long, complicated and too detailed Prop. 19 that Misty and I had promoted for two months in California two years ago. Indeed, the prohibition forces in Colorado could only repeat the "fact" that the green plant would be easier for our kids to obtain, as their main reason to oppose. Governor Hickenlooper moaned that tourism would decline or, if more tourists came, they would be the "wrong sort of people." What a muffin-head he was!

At 64 headquarters on a side street in Denver, I met with the generals of the campaign: Misters Mason Tvert and Brian Vicente. The communications director Joe Megyesy joined us to plot where Misty and I could best serve 64. We decided to focus on population areas in the Front Range (eastern Colorado) and not go to the western side. We grabbed four of their well-designed yard signs plus some brochures before hitting the road to Fort Collins in the north center of the state.

After checking into the Motel 6, I pulled Misty out of her little trailer for a walk around the parking lot.

Misty, who had just spent the last three nights cooped up in her trailer, probably understood by then that this was another California-type adventure: the days spent on noisy, crowded street corners and nights spent in her little trailer staring at the walls. She knew from experience that I would be giving her extra carrots and other treats. Still, it would just be a tough month for her.

The first day went well. The most traveled road in the city yielded a solid three photos taken per minute by motorists and foot traffic. That meant by nightfall, we would be all over Facebook in northern Colorado. I was interviewed by two local daily papers and by the local TV station.

Afterwards I exercised Misty near the motel for nearly an hour. She loves to run and I indulged her. However, I was tired and careless, leaving my bridle and reins near the trailer. When I returned a few hours later, they were gone. As our Texas governor would say, “Oops.”

On Day Two we traveled to Greeley for a rally featuring Vice President Biden. We arrived early that windy, cold morning to greet the Democrats. We parked ourselves where all cars had to pass in order to park. About 10, a guy shouted from a window, "Don’t go anywhere." A few minutes later the reporter for NPR interviewed me while in the saddle. A week later he opened a nationally broadcast report with my statement on 64. Such things sure help me stay in the saddle. The Greeley paper also published our photo along with their report on the Biden rally. Misty again demonstrated her ability to attract great, free press coverage!

After another day on a street corner near the mall in Greeley, we traveled an hour down the road to Fort Morgan. The next day’s "street theater" yielded yet another newspaper article and photo. We were on a roll!

To be continued...

[Harold Wooldridge, who was a Michigan police officer and detective for 18 years, co-founded Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and is executive director of Citizens Opposing Prohibition (COP).]

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David P. Hamilton : The Physics of the Drug War

Mexican soldiers at site in Acapulco where three dismembered bodies were found in March 2012. Photo by Pedro Pardo / Agence France-Presse /Getty Images.
Drug War futures:
The dynamics against
an end to prohibition

The reliable physics of the drug war is that the more pressure the Mexican government puts on the drug cartels, the more violent they become.

By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / September 14, 2012

Recently, Tom Hayden traveled through Austin with the Caravan for Peace composed of Mexican drug war victims. In his talks here, he sought to link the antiwar movement with the anti-drug war movement. This is a promising strategy that would unite and broaden both movements. But the forces that are rallying in support of drug prohibition include a powerful new alignment that will fight to its last billion to preserve the status quo.

Some think the dam was broken with the advent of medical marijuana in California, that legalization, at least of marijuana, is inevitable as a result. But those in favor of maintaining marijuana prohibition are likely to become less violent and better organized, have covert official sanction and new allies joining them in the fray.

Hayden spoke hopefully of how Latin American leaders, especially those in Mexico and Central America, were beginning to rebel from having to pay for U.S. drug prohibition with the blood of their citizens. As a case in point, earlier this year Guatemala’s new president, Otto Perez Molina, called for complete legalization of the prohibited drugs, including their manufacture and transit.

Unfortunately, it now appears that Perez Molina’s threat was a ploy to extract further U.S. drug interdiction money. The ex-general, chief of intelligence and serial human rights violator decided that the bad part of the deal was that Guatemala was required to pay for its own bloodbath.

Blood has a price and apparently that price has now been met. However inconsistent with his earlier gesture toward legalization, Perez Molina just allowed two hundred U.S. Marine combat troops and four of their attack helicopters to enter Guatemala to help the local police in chasing Zetas through the jungle.

In Mexico, the invariable result of this approach has been increased violence. Perez Molina’s threatened exit from the drug war has quickly morphed into an escalation thanks to cash and guns provided by the Obama administration and the U.S. taxpayer.

But however much the governments of Central America groan over being located in the drug transit corridor, even collectively they matter little compared to Mexico. Mexico is the colossus among them, with more people, more money, and a 3,169 km border with El Norte. What Mexico decides governs the approach to be taken by all the countries to the south through Panama.


The changing face of the drug war in Mexico

Major transitions have taken place recently in the drug war violence gripping Mexico. The murder rate in Ciudad Juarez is falling very fast, down over 50% since the peak in 2010. In July 2012, there were 40 murders in Juarez, 33 of them drug related. This compares to 8.5 a day in 2010.

The most plausible explanation is that the Sinaloa cartel seems to have largely wiped out the Juarez cartel and taken over complete control of drug trafficking in that city. It should also be noted that the murder rate in Juarez climbed to being the highest in the world after the Mexican army was sent in to fight the cartels and dropped precipitously as soon as they left.

Tijuana has now quieted down so much, a result of the Tijuana cartel taking over all of Baja California Norte, that now the mayor of San Diego has begun encouraging tourists to cross the border again.

The murder rate in Mexico topped out at 21 per 100,000 per annum in 1986, a time when many of us thought it was such great fun to go there. I drove to Mexico City with my seven-year-old daughter that year. The Mexican murder rate declined steadily until 2007, when it bottomed out at 10. The decline in the murder rate in Mexico was steepest during the administration of Vicente Fox, from 1 December 2000 through 30 November 2006.

Mexico officially declared war on the cartels 12 years ago when the PAN took over the presidency from the PRI. In contrast to the corrupt PRI party that colluded with the old drug lords, the new PAN plan was to arrest the leaders and break up the cartels using the military.

Vicente Fox endorsed this approach and did send troops into Nuevo Laredo with disastrous results, but he mostly just talked. The murder rate nationwide continued to decline, the drugs continued to flow, and eventually, after he left office, he came out for legalization.

Calderon put into practice the continuous aggressive military approach with far more disastrous results. The Mexican Drug Wars began in earnest on 11 December 2006 when newly elected PAN President Calderon, in office for just 11 days, sent 6,500 Mexican soldiers into his home state of Michoacan to fight the growing power of the La Familia cartel.

During the Calderon administration, the murder rate nationwide doubled with 50,000 drug war related deaths, tourism went into recession as a result of the violence and Mexico, its honor besmirched, is now called a failed narco-state.

This military-judicial approach has failed. Since the election of his replacement, Calderon was jeered in the Mexican Congress while defending his drug war policy. His strategy of arresting the leading cartel figures has invariably triggered greater violence between those who aspired to take over the positions being vacated, victory usually going to the most vicious.

As arrests were made and troops deployed, these battles heated up and corruption was exacerbated as more police and politicians had to be paid off or killed. The cartels, with vast financial resources and roots in Mexican society going back generations, were strengthened in the process of the struggle.

Drug warfare in Mexico has migrated and in different locations you have different combatants. While Juarez and Tijuana have calmed down, on the Gulf coast the Zetas and the Gulf cartel, the latter allies of the Sinaloans, are slugging it out from Vera Cruz to Monterrey. On the Pacific coast, the Sinaloans fight the La Familia/Knights Templar and Zetas in Acapulco. Throw in the military and the police fighting on both sides and you have a confusing battlefield.

The general configuration of the Mexican drug cartels is that there are two large “federations” fighting for dominance. The biggest and oldest is the Sinaloan cartel and their allies in the Sinaloan Federation.

The Sinaloans cover the northwest, except for enclaves in Tijuana, previously in Juarez and in the area of northern Sinaloa where the Beltran/Leyva cartel rules. Now the Sinaloans are reputedly in control in Juarez. Their principal ally is the Gulf cartel.

The next largest group, the Sinaloan’s principal adversary, are the aggressive newcomers, Los Zetas, who broke from the Gulf cartel in 2010 and now dominate in 11 states, mostly along the Gulf and Caribbean coasts. Their headquarters is in Nuevo Laredo.

The were founded by deserters from the Mexican special forces who had been trained to fight against drug cartels, bought off originally by the Gulf cartel, but soon they became independent. They are notorious for their military expertise and brutality and they are ascendant.

Member of Javier Sicilia's Caravan for Peace against the Drug War during rally in New York City Sept. 16. Photo by John Moore / AFP / Getty Images.

The El Paso phenomenon

In 2010, Ciudad Juarez claimed the highest murder rate in the world with 3,111 homicides or over 200 per 100,000 residents per annum. Some estimates put that figure at nearly 300 per 100,000. As the Rio Grande isn’t very grand at that point, Ciudad Juarez and El Paso sit side by side with only a shallow stream dividing them. Ciudad Juarez has about 1,400,000 residents, and El Paso another 750,000.

El Paso had five murders in 2010, or 0.8 per 100,000. That tied Lincoln, Nebraska, for the lowest murder rate in of any city in the U.S. At the same time, Ciudad Juarez had more murders than that on the average day. To a lesser extent, this same striking contrast is also apparent in Brownsville-Matamoros, San Diego-Tiajuana, and Laredo-Nuevo Laredo.

What can explain the fact that murders are easily over 200 times more common in Juarez than in neighboring El Paso? Since the main function of drug cartels is moving illegal drugs across the border, it cannot be the case that the cartels just don’t exist north of the border. Captured cartel affiliates in the U.S. also testify otherwise. So why aren’t there piles of decapitated corpses in East LA or South Tucson? LA’s murder rate is at a 40-year low.

There are only a few logical possibilities to explain this phenomenon. The drug cartels either have truce agreements that are in effect when they operate inside the U.S. or they have an implicit truce because they all recognize the negative consequences of arousing the U.S. police unnecessarily or they have territories in the U.S. that are firmly established and uncontested.

The last of these possibilities seems unlikely given their lack of a similar territorial agreement in Mexico. Given the peacefulness of the U.S. side, some level of agreement seems likely. If they do have an agreement, it would not be unprecedented.

All the present day cartels used to be part of one confederated organization headed by Miguel Angel Felix Gallado who founded the Guadalajara cartel in 1980 and established an alliance with Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel in Columbia. Gallardo was the “godfather,” the “lord of Mexican drug lords.”

According to Peter Dale Scott, ex-Berkeley professor, Canadian diploma,t and author of Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America¸ Gallardo’s organization prospered “largely because it enjoyed the protection of Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS), under its chief Miguel Nazar Haro, a CIA asset.”

In 1987, after DEA raids on his properties, Felix Gallardo “decided to divide up the trade he controlled as it would be more efficient and less likely to be brought down in one law enforcement swoop.” He “convened the nation's top drug narcos at a house in the resort of Acapulco where he designated the plazas or territories.” Thus were born the modern cartels.

This event was the first of many instances where pressure from the police fragmented the industry, producing violent power struggles.


Nieto’s choices

Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI will be the next president of Mexico, an office he won with only 38% of the vote. He also lacks a majority in the Mexican Congress. His position is not strong and his potential to maneuver is limited. In that sense, it will indeed be a new PRI.

But the old PRI was notorious for making corrupt deals, including those with drug lords that were partially designed to institutionalize the industry so as to minimize competitive frictions and keep them from becoming violent. This policy did nothing, of course, to reduce drug trafficking, but it was successful in minimizing violence.

Polls show that the majority of Mexicans tell pollsters that they support the war on the drug cartels. Polls also show that the primary issue in the collective mind of the Mexican electorate was reducing drug violence. This is contradictory.

Although vague about his plan, Nieto ran on a platform that emphasized the reduction of violence, not the smashing of the cartels. He gives lip service to the continuation of the war on the cartels, but everyone knows that when his party was last in power the PRI made deals and the murder rate was half what it is now.

Back before 2000, the drug gangs were far less violent. Then the government facilitated agreements between cartels and safeguarded their leadership, while drugs moved silently north. Police were paid. Politicians were paid. People weren’t being decapitated. A network of trade that has been around since the 19th century was expanding, another growth industry for Mexico.

Violence has spiked since the government was taken over by the PAN. The PAN strategy was anti-corruption and war on the cartels using the military. Lots of kingpins were knocked over and the ensuing leadership struggles invariably instigated greater violence. The harder the government has pressed, the higher the level of violence. The peak murder rates in Juarez occurred after Calderon sent 20,000 army troops into that city. Those rates drastically declined when the army was removed. Coincidence?

The reliable physics of the drug war is that the more pressure the Mexican government puts on the drug cartels, the more violent they become. If Nieto is going to reduce violence, he must reduce that pressure. It is patently ridiculous to think that these venerable institutions, the contrabandistas, a part of Mexican life for many generations, are somehow going to go away while that massive market in the U.S. continues to beckon with such highly profitable opportunities.

As long as there is drug prohibition in the U.S. there will be drug cartels in Mexico. Legalizing cannabis, cocaine, and opiates in the U.S. would cause a major market collapse, with the ensuing deflation possibly triggering a depression.

As limited as are Nieto’s options and despite his pledges to continue the drug war and his acceptance of further U.S. anti-drug largesse, he was put in office by constituents who hope that his promise to reduce violence must necessarily involve traditional PRI willingness to make deals with the cartels.

Reducing that violence requires leadership in making peace treaties between the warring parties after a lot of blood has been spilled. This will require difficult agreements about territories and establishing a disciplinary system where those who break the treaties will face the combined forces of the offended cartel and the government. The inevitably attendant corruption must be institutionalized. With decades of experience, who better for this difficult task than the PRI?


The lineup of forces

If Nieto is successful in his campaign promise to reduce drug violence in Mexico by 50% during his term, it is not good news for the advocates of marijuana legalization. It will instead mean a better organized and less repugnant illegal drug industry streamlined by Mexican government regulation.

All parties involved in this nascent arrangement know that legalization would severely deflate the entire burgeoning industry. Those addicted to the tens of billions generated annually by illegal drugs include cartel affiliates like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and every other major bank, the ultimate repositories of all that money, which would evaporate like the morning mist with legalization.

It is reputed that the above mentioned cartel affiliates have considerable influence within the U.S. political power structure, so much so that the drug war policies of Obama are indistinguishable from those of Bush.

Opposition to legalization would also seem the logical course for any Mexican government that wanted to stay in the good graces of the cartels in return for the cartels restraining themselves from the ancient tradition of ritual bloodletting. Cleansing the cartels is a PR problem solved by reduced violence.

The value of the illegal drug trade is a not insignificant element of the Mexican gross domestic product or its foreign currency earnings. There can be no doubt that marijuana is Mexico’s most valuable agricultural export. The tentacles of the drug trade reach into the deepest recesses of the Mexican oligarchy. If you sell luxury goods in Mexico, you’re in the illegal drug business.

The long-standing Mexican consensus has been that the nexus of the problem is north of the Rio Grande, so don’t damage Mexico in the process of fighting the Yankee’s drug problem.

The result of Nieto’s success will be reduced violence and a better organized illegal drug industry, both dedicated to not killing the goose that keeps laying those golden eggs -- drug prohibition in the U.S. As long as U.S. prohibition stays in place, this system can keep paying off with the big bucks even while European and Latin American governments are drifting steadily toward decriminalization.

As a concession to the American consumer, Mexico will soon be able to ship north connoisseur quality to compete with California medical grade pot at $250 an ounce. Cheaper, but still five times the price were it legalized.

The traditional vested interests in favor of marijuana prohibition include the prison-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical, tobacco, and alcohol industries, gun manufacturers and dealers, police associations and prison guard unions and, of course, the banks.

But there is a relatively new player joining their cause, the medical marijuana industry. This industry is a rapidly growing manifestation of California’s most valuable agricultural export. It is already generating billions. And those ex-California hippies now making those big bucks do not want to kill off that golden goose either.

Since prohibition is universally hated by their clientele, the medical marijuana industry must endure the special requirement of coming up with a plausible cover story to justify their opposition to legalization, hiding both their hypocrisy and financial self-interest. Such an obfuscating devise is currently in evidence in Washington where the medical marijuana industry is opposing legalization because the law specifies questionable levels of driving impairment.

In California, they claimed to be protecting the interests of their “patients” in opposing legalization. In fact, marijuana prohibition is very much in their class interest.

This is another issue where the opposing forces are both strengthening and polarizing and the U.S. government seems incapable of devising a sensible solution. Despite the unpleasant side effects, the drug war still works quite well as a means of social control.

Although most U.S. citizens favor marijuana decriminalization, almost no establishment politician of either mainstream party will take any initiative in that direction. It is a taboo issue in federal elections despite majority support for reform.

The forces in favor of prohibition have to clean up the PR embarrassment of the violence, but with tens of billions annually at stake, this coalition of forces, the cartels, the big banks, and the pot growers, pot script doctors and pot dispensaries, have unlimited money, a huge financial interest in the outcome and the support of governments in both the US and Mexico in maintaining prohibition.

[David P. Hamilton, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin in history and government was an activist in Sixties Austin and a contributor to the original Rag. David writes about France and politics (and French politics) for The Rag Blog. Read more articles by David P. Hamilton on The Rag Blog The Rag Blog

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Harvey Wasserman : It's High Time to End Marijuana Prohibition

Brian and Stewie campaign to legalize marijuana. Image from Family Guy.
It's time to end prohibition:
Legal marijuana or bust!!!

By Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog / November 1, 2010

The simple truth about America's marijuana prohibition: any law that allows the easy incarceration of any citizen any time those in power want to do it is the ultimate enemy of democracy. With 800,000 annual arrests over an herb used by tens of millions of Americans, it is the cornerstone of a police state.

The newly energized movement to end prohibition in California -- home to more than 10% of the nation -- is one of the few healthy developments in this otherwise horrific election.

To help pass Proposition 19, go here and sign up to make phone calls in these last crucial hours.

Part of the battle has already been won. By all accounts the California campaign has thrust the issue to a new level. The terms of repeal are not perfect. But the acceptance of marijuana use has taken a giant leap forward. When joints are openly lit and smoked on national television, it's clear that sooner rather than later, this travesty will fall.

The California campaign has drawn the sides clearly. Demanding continued prohibition first and foremost are the drug dealers who profit directly. As Dan Okrent has shown in Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, organized crime booms around such bans.

With them are the prison builders and operators, plus the lawyers, judges, guards, and street cops who make their livings off the human agony of this endless stream of meaningless arrests. To their credit, some of these -- especially cops who actually care about controlling actual crime -- have come out for legalization.

Then come the alcohol and tobacco pushers who don't want the competition from a recreational substance that -- like renewable energy -- can be raised and controlled locally. Ditto Big Pharma, which fears marijuana as a superior anti-depressant with healing capabilities far beyond a whole multi-billlion-dollar arsenal of prescription drugs with deadly side effects. They fear an herbal medicine whose warning labels will be limited to statements like: "Caution -- use of this healing herb may lead to excessive desire for chocolate cup cakes."

Ultimately it's the politicians who cling to a prohibition that enhances their power. One after the other, they endorse more arrests and fiscal insanity.

Never mind that virtually every farmer in Revolutionary America -- including Washington, Jefferson, and Madison -- raised marijuana's kissing cousin, hemp, and profited handsomely from it. Never mind that Ben Franklin made his best paper from hemp. Forget that the last three presidents of the United States and the current governor of California (among so many others) have smoked marijuana, and may still do so.

Never mind that hemp looms behind marijuana as a far greater cash crop, with huge profits to be made from ecologically superior paper, clothing, shoes, textiles, rope, sails, food, fuel, and more. A core agricultural mainstay throughout human history, hemp requires no chemical pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. A nitrogen-fixing weed, it replenishes the soil in which it grows. As the stock for cellulosic ethanol, fuel pellets, and seed-based diesel oil, it is the key to a green revolution in sustainable biofuels. As such, hemp is legal in virtually every country on Earth except the United States.

Many believe the decentralizing economic power of hemp is the real reason its corporate industrial competitors want marijuana to stay illegal. The literature on both is deep and wide.

This ghastly 2010 mid-term election is like a horrendous death spasm for a dying empire. The cancerous flood of corporate money pouring through the process has taken the corruption of what's left of our democratic process to new post-imperial depths.

But nature always provides a healing herb that grows near a poisonous one. We work and hope for repeal in California. But we know the issue has already gone to a new level.

The accelerated corporate rape and pillage of what's left of our nation is all too evident. Sending this tool of official repression up in smoke will help mitigate the disaster.

Vote YES on California's Prop. 19, and make sure to call those you know who might.

[Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States is at www.harveywasserman.com, along with Passions of the Potsmoking Patriots by "Thomas Paine." His “George Washington Was America’s First Stoner...” is in the December issue of Hustler Magazine.]

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Prohibition II : A Trillion Dollars Down the Drain

Cartoon from WeedPolitik.
40 Years of War on Drugs:
A trillion bucks and things are worse

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / May 14, 2010

Back in 1970, President Richard Nixon was having a lot of trouble trying to get something (anything!) accomplished in Vietnam. So he decided to wage a war that he thought he could win, and most of the American populace would support -- a war on drugs. He signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. He said, "Public enemy no. 1 in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive."

Nixon budgeted $100 million, and the "war on drugs" was off and running. Unfortunately, this new "war on drugs" was as flawed and ill-conceived as his plan to burglarize the Watergate Building. President after president took up the same war, and each one upped the amount of money sunk into the program. Now it is 40 years later, and the only thing that has been accomplished is the spending of over a trillion dollars on this exercise in futility. That money has not slowed down the import of drugs into this country or the use of the illegal drugs.

The current United States Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, admits as much. He says, "In the grand scheme, it has not been successful. Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

His predecessor, John P. Walters, is more hard-headed. He claims, "To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous. It destroys everything we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcement, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided."

Well, yes. That's exactly what the last 40 years of the "war on drugs" has shown. Much of the work is misguided -- especially the money spent on interdiction, arrest, incarceration, and forced drug programs. This approach simply does not work. How many more years and how much more money must we waste before we realize that?

It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat that history, and that is obviously true with prohibition. We should have learned from the first time it was tried in this country in the 1920s, when alcohol was outlawed. That did not prevent the use of alcohol. Anyone who really wanted it could still get it. All it did was create a huge black market that made underworld gangs rich and much more powerful. It also increased the violence of these underworld gangs as they struggled to control that black market, and many times that violence spilled over to affect innocent people.

Our second attempt at prohibition, the "war on drugs," has done exactly the same thing. It has not stopped or decreased drug use. Anyone who really wants to use drugs can easily get them. It has also enriched underworld gangs (we now call them "drug cartels") and made them very powerful. And it has increased the violence connected with those gangs, with much of that violence spilling over to affect innocent people. And it is all caused by the "war on drugs."

We had the chance to learn the horrors of prohibition the first time we tried it, but we didn't. And our failure to learn from past mistakes has been devastating both financially and socially. It does not matter whether the prohibited drug is alcohol, marijuana, or some other drug, the effect of the prohibition is the same.

There were those opposed to legalizing alcohol again. They said it would be terrible for the country, because alcohol use would rise sharply. They were wrong. Education programs alerted people to the effects of alcohol overuse and abuse, and treatment programs did wonders for those who wanted treatment for that abuse. Meanwhile, millions continued to use alcohol recreationally, just as they had under prohibition, without ill effects.

It is just a regrettable fact of life that some will abuse any recreational substance. However, that can be controlled by education and treatment programs. In a free country, we should not punish the millions who use the substances in a controlled and recreational way. And we certainly shouldn't criminalize those hard-working and decent people (especially those who use harmless substances like marijuana). Legalizing drugs will not destroy our society any more than legalizing alcohol did. Those who want them will get them (just as they do now) and those who don't won't.

Instead of spending another trillion dollars trying to stop drug use and failing (while the drug cartels get richer and more violent), wouldn't it make more sense to legalize drugs and then tax the hell out of them? Let those drugs pay not only for treatment programs and education, but also for many other government functions. It would not only mean less taxes of other kinds, but it would also create many legal jobs and income opportunities. Doesn't that make sense for a country in the middle of a recession?

Sadly, President Obama is following in the failed footsteps of his predecessors. He has budgeted $15.5 billion just for this year's "war on drugs" -- with $10 billion going to the futile interdiction and law enforcement efforts (and that doesn't count the billions that will be spent for the incarceration of nonviolent drug users in state facilities). This is just throwing good money after bad into a bottomless pit, and it will accomplish nothing -- just like the last 40 years. Frankly, that money could be better spent on food, housing, and health care for needy Americans.

It is time for America to admit that the "war on drugs" has failed. Continuing this program will only result in more failure. The only thing that makes sense is to change our policy and recognize that drug abuse is a medical problem -- not a criminal problem. Any money spent on drugs should go into education and treatment programs. And our law enforcement agencies should turn their attention to controlling real crimes -- like those committed by violent criminals who attack innocent persons and their property. Meanwhile, recreational substance use should be legalized and taxed. A sensible policy like this will not harm our nation -- it will save it.

By using the Freedom of Information laws, the Associated Press has learned how some of our first trillion dollars in the failed "war on drugs" was spent. Here are the figures:

• $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.
• $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.
• $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.
• $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.
• $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.
• At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse — "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" — cost the United States $215 billion a year.

[Rag Blog contributor Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger.]

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Women : The Secret Weapon of the Marijuana Reform Movement

Art from Anne of Carversville.
The secret to legal marijuana?
It may just be women

Public acceptance of pot is at an all-time high, and the fact that women have drastically changed their attitudes may be what is most fascinating about the sea change in public opinion...

By Daniela Perdomo / December 6, 2009

In September, ladymag Marieclaire ruffled some feathers when it published a piece about women who smoke weed. But its most interesting effect was not the "marijuana moms" chatter it unleashed, and instead the fact that it brought to the mainstream media a more open discussion of the fact that women can be avid tokers, too.

Public acceptance of pot is at an all-time high, and the fact that women have drastically changed their attitudes may be what is most fascinating about the sea change in public opinion -- and policy -- regarding marijuana. In 2005, only 32 percent of polled women told Gallup they approved legalizing pot, but this year 44 percent of them were for it, compared to 45 percent of men. In effect, women have narrowed what had been a 12-point gender gap.

Women are also smoking more weed. The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that current marijuana use increased from 3.8 to 4.5 percent among women, while there was no significant statistical change for men.

Indeed, it appears the growing acceptance of marijuana is fueled by women having joined the movement for reform.

Women "can reach people's hearts and minds," says Mikki Norris, co-author of Shattered Lives: Portraits from America's Drug War, managing editor of the West Coast Leaf, and director of the Cannabis Consumers Campaign. "I think we can really take it from the third- to the first-person, and make it personal."

Norris, who's participated in numerous successful marijuana campaigns, may be onto something. If pro-weed women are a new momentum behind the normalization of marijuana, they may also become the driving force behind game-changing drug reform.

If that's the case, then it's worth examining why some women have signed onto the marijuana reform movement -- because it may soon be why many others will as well.

'A bigger amygdala'

The avenue through which women have been foremost leaders in the movement is medical marijuana advocacy.

There are currently 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana use and at least 14 other states with pending legislation or ballot measures. In California, where cannabis has been legalized for medical use since 1996, a Field poll found 56 percent support for adult legalization -- and the matter may very well make its way onto the 2010 ballot.

Every woman I spoke to referenced cannabis' medicinal properties as a major reason they are so personally impassioned by the marijuana reform debate.

One of these is Valerie Corral, dubbed "the Mother Teresa of the medical marijuana movement," by Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Corral was introduced to the medical benefits of marijuana in 1973, when she was the victim of a car crash that left her an epileptic. At one point, while on pharmaceuticals, she was having up to five seizures each day.

In 1974, her husband read an article in a medical journal that described how positively rats had reacted to cannabis when treated for certain ailments. Soon thereafter, Corral started applying a strict regimen of marijuana, and kept a catalog of its effects.

"Within a few weeks, I noticed change," Corral said. And over time, she was able to control seizure activity in a way that allowed her to wean herself off the prescription drugs. To this day she does not take anything other than marijuana for her epilepsy.

Not only did medical marijuana change Corral's quality of life, it changed its course. She went on to found Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a patient collective based in Santa Cruz, Calif. that offers organic medical marijuana and assistance to those who have received a terminal or chronic illness diagnosis.

WAMM currently serves about 170 patients. When I spoke to Corral, she was late to hit the road for her Thanksgiving holiday. She had spent the morning with a patient who was anxious about his radiation therapy. She then spent the afternoon delivering marijuana before counseling -- "and learning from" -- terminal patients.

While Corral knows first-hand the physical benefits of marijuana, she believes its most important effect is "the way it affects how we look at things that are difficult."

"No matter what else happens to us," Corral said, "the quality with which we live our lives is so important."

Cheryl Shuman, a 49-year-old optician in Los Angeles, would agree. Up until she started using cannabis therapy to treat her cancer, she was on a daily regimen of 27 prescription drugs, attached to a mobile intravenous morphine pump, and undergoing constant CAT and MRI scans. In 2006, her doctors told her she'd be dead by the end of that year.

"I had to make a decision [regarding] which way I was going to go and quite frankly, I thought if I am going to die, I want to control how my life is going to be," Shuman said, her voice breaking. "And the only side-effects were that I was happy and laughing."

It turns out those may not have been the only effects of her cannabis therapy. Her cancer has been in remission for 18 months now -- and that coincides precisely with the start of the marijuana treatment.

Shuman had previously used pot medicinally in 1994, when going through a harrowing divorce. Up to 80 milligrams of Prozac a day, coupled with multiple therapy sessions a week, did not help her get over the sense that she could barely make it through each day.

During one session, she says, "my therapist said, 'I could lose my license, but I think what would help you more than anything is just smoking a joint.' I didn't know how to respond! I said I couldn't do that -- I don't drink, I've never even smoked a cigarette!"

But after researching medical marijuana and realizing that cannabis had been available in pharmacies until the early 20th century, Shuman acquiesced and tried a joint. At 36 -- after learning to inhale -- Shuman says she found she "finally had some peace."

This year, Shuman became the founding director of Beverly Hills' National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) chapter -- and she hopes to attract women to the cause.

Corral, for her part, acknowledges that the role she fills within the marijuana movement is one that fits the traditional female archetype. "Maybe it's because we have a bigger amygdala," she laughs, referring to the part of the brain that processes emotions. "It probably is!"

Valerie Corral, "the Mother Teresa of the medical marijuana movement." Image from 420 Magazine.
Debby Goldsberry, director of the Berkeley Patients Group, a medical marijuana dispensary, feels similarly: "It's our job in our families and in our circles of friends to be caregivers. It makes sense that women would gravitate to cannabis."

In a recent study of a sample of patient reviews at a chain of medical marijuana assessment clinics in California, Craig Reinarman, a sociology professor at UC-Santa Cruz, found that only 27.1 percent of the patients were female. Another study, conducted on a sample of patients at Goldsberry's Berkeley dispensary, found that 30.7 percent of those patients were women.

Those numbers are close to the general expert estimate that women constitute about a third of marijuana consumers.

Mainstream myth-busting

Since more women are smoking weed, it's no surprise there has finally been an onslaught of girl stoner coverage in the corporate media.

It probably started with Weeds -- a Showtime series about a bodacious soccer mom who deals and smokes pot -- which is now readying for its sixth season premiere. But the big dam opener this year was the aforementioned publication of the Marieclaire article, "Stiletto Stoners," which paints the portrait of a whole class of "card-carrying, type A workaholics who just happen to prefer kicking back with a blunt instead of a bottle."

Julie Holland, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, has been called onto NBC's Today Show twice now to explain why women are gravitating towards weed.

During one of her appearances, Holland seemingly shocks the hosts by telling them that 100 million Americans have tried weed -- 25 million of them over the past year. The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that 10.6 million women used marijuana in 2008.

Also surprising to the TV hosts was Holland's assertion that marijuana is the least addictive substance among many. According to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report, the rate at which people who try a substance and go on to become addicted is 32 percent for nicotine, 23 percent for heroin, 17 percent for cocaine, 15 percent for alcohol, and 9 percent for cannabis.

"Look at what the choices are. Cannabis isn't toxic to your brain, to your liver, it doesn't cause cancer, you can't overdose, and there's no evidence that it's a gateway drug," Holland said. "I believe that the majority of adults can healthfully integrate altered states into their lives, and it makes sense to do it with the least toxic substance you can. "

The public seems to agree.

Societal mores around marijuana are at their most progressive in at least 40 years, when Gallup first started asking Americans whether they believed marijuana ought be legalized. This year, 44 percent of those polled -- up from 36 percent in 2005 -- said they are in favor of legalization. A May Zogby poll found marijuana legalization was even more popular with its respondents, at 52 percent.

Harry Levine, professor of sociology at Queens College and co-author of Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice, attributes a lot of the mainstreaming of progressive views on pot to the medical marijuana movement.

"What it has done is change the image of marijuana from this tie-dye 1960s hippie-dippy kind of thing to a real drug, a real substance that has medical uses," he said. "You can separate it from the scary image of drugs."

Showtime's Weeds stars Mary Louise Parker.
Why do girls smoke?

As weed is no longer considered by the public to be a "hard drug," three presidents -- 41, 42, and 43 -- have admitted to smoking marijuana. "The whole association of failure and dropouts [with marijuana] has been smashed in an important kind of way," Levine says.

In other words, you can smoke pot and be successful. Look at Natalie Angier, for example. In her book Woman: Intimate Geography, this Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer interjects a personal note of -- and case for -- female empowerment through weed:

All the women in my immediate family learned how to climax by smoking grass -- my mother when she was over thirty and already the mother of four. Yet I have never seen anorgasmia on the list of indications for the medical use of marijuana. Instead we are told that some women don't need to have orgasms to have a satisfying sex life, an argument as convincing as the insistence that homeless people like living outdoors.

As Angier writes, alcohol is a "global depressant of the nervous system" so marijuana can be a woman's best friend. In that vein, Holland has clinically observed that many of her female patients choose marijuana over alcohol -- for all kinds of social situations -- because it makes them "more present instead of absent."

"You can relax but not be incapacitated. You can keep your wits about you and protect yourself," Holland told me, adding that women don't always tolerate alcohol the way men do.

Diana, 37, a published writer in Madison is one such woman. She uses marijuana as a social lubricant: "If I drink, I know I'll be throwing up by night's end, even if it's only a couple of beers. But with weed, I know I can make it to closing time -- and keep up with all the steely-stomached drinkers."

Paloma, 25, a Bay Area union organizer, told me she smokes weed two to three times a week to "relax, sleep, work on arts and crafts or clean the house and cook" without being distracted by what she calls her "explosive" attention deficit disorder.

A few women smokers said they did not initially like the effects marijuana had on them. Tessa, 29, a doctoral student in Portland, said, she didn't enjoy weed in college "because I would not be able to do anything besides be high and stupid. Now I know to smoke less -- maybe a hit or two -- and then relax on that."

What a lot of women like Tessa don't know is that there are several kinds of weed that have different effects on the mind and body. Women who live in places where marijuana can be purchased at dispensaries are often more attuned to the fact that cannabis sativa gives a euphoric head high while cannabis indica results in a lazy body high. And then there are hybrids -- the equivalent to blends in wine culture.

Ally, 34, an architect and mother in San Francisco, sees weed as similar to vino: "Smoking a joint and taking a bath is what drinking a glass of wine and taking a bath was to my mom," she says, balancing a baby on her knee. "It's 'me' time!"

Think of the children!

The acceptance of pot has led to discussion of how marijuana reform might positively impact families and children. This may change the debate because family values have long been employed by drug warriors as reasoning for why weed ought remain criminalized.

Enter Jessica Corry, a pro-life Republican from Denver. A mother of girls aged two and four, this 30-year-old newly-minted lawyer is widely hailed as a rising star in Colorado politics. She is currently working on her first book, which she described to me as an "analysis of how race consciousness and political correctness are silencing America's students and our entrepreneurial spirit."

Conservative Republican Jessica Corry speaks out for reform of marijuana laws on Fox News.
A real conservative. Yet she is also one of the most outspoken proponents of marijuana legalization.

In 2006, she started a group called Guarding Our Children Against Marijuana Prohibition, which supported a statewide initiative to legalize marijuana.

"I had high-ranking Republicans politely encouraging me to write my political eulogy," Corry said. "Fortunately, they were wrong. While the initiative failed, it garnered more general election support than that year's Republican candidate for governor."

Corry doesn't smoke pot -- though she is open about past use. "As a mother," she says, "I'm far more concerned about my kids having access to a medicine cabinet than having access to a joint or a liquor cabinet. Marijuana, when consumed independently, has never been linked to a single death."

Mothers like Corry are drawn to marijuana regulation as part of a larger appeal that encourages the use of harm reduction to more pragmatically deal with substance abuse. Examples of harm reduction include providing designated drivers for drinkers and clean needles for heroin addicts.

Concerned moms may be moved to action by studies such as the Teen Survey, conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia. This year, there was a 37 percent increase in teens who said pot is easier to buy than cigarettes, beer or prescription drugs. Nearly one-quarter said they can get weed within the hour.

Those stats matter to women. In light of this, children and family will be included in the mission statement of the Women's Alliance, a group NORML will launch next year. The coordinator, Sabrina Fendrick, plans to include mention of how current marijuana policy undermines the American family and sends mixed messages to young people.

An economic savior?

The harm reduction approach extends itself from families and children to our ailing economy. With the largest economic recession since the Great Depression firmly in place, more people see the benefits of taxing and regulating marijuana for adults.

Economist Jeffrey Miron has calculated that, assuming a national market of about $13 billion annually, legalization would reap state and federal governments about $7 billion each year in extra tax revenues and save about $13.5 billion in law enforcement costs.

This kind of math attracts libertarian support, ranging from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California who recently called for an open discussion on legalization, to Rep. Ron Paul, a physician and Republican congressman from Texas, who has long advocated it.

The problem with a fiscal approach, however, might be that it could have more traction as a top-down rather than a bottom-up movement. Deborah Small, a drug reform veteran and founder of Break the Chains, a group that engages communities of color around drug reform policy, believes the reason the medical marijuana movement has been so successful is that its female leaders have made it a "real grassroots movement."

"Male-dominated libertarian philosophy and money has dominated" the general marijuana reform movement, Small says, and "there's a struggle in this next stage to see whether the movement will be driven by people with a lot of money or people on the ground -- or if they can agree to work together."

Perhaps male drug reform leaders can learn from the ladies. Jessica Corry, the GOP mom from Denver, turns the economic discussion back to the home: "It's generational child abuse to waste billions of dollars every year on marijuana prohibition."

Mikki Norris, the California marijuana activist, observed gender-specific focus groups in Oakland on Measure Z, a 2004 ballot initiative that ultimately succeeded in making marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority. She heard the women's group speaking on behalf of their children -- "they wanted money for their kids' education and they didn't want kids arrested for pot." Men, on the other hand, were more worried about children getting involved with drugs, she told me.

Norris said, "I just think women have a better grasp of home economics," or what's really important in a family.

Today's economic climate lends itself to easy parallels with the fight to repeal Prohibition in the 1920s, which was also framed as a family issue. Harry Levine, the sociologist, reminded me of Pauline Sabin, a high-society Chicago feminist who organized women in the fight to repeal the 18th Amendment.

"Sabin said that because of the violence, the corruption, the bootleggers, and all the resulting lost tax revenue, that alcohol undermined the home and therefore women should speak out for themselves and children," Levine said.

Many point to the moment when women joined the fight against Prohibition as the tipping point for the ultimate success of the movement.

Women as a new force

The women in the marijuana reform movement have different reasons for trumpeting policy change. Some see cannabis as a medicinal wonder drug, others see tangible -- and sensible -- socio-economic benefits to taxing and regulating it.

Trends indicate that as more states legalize the use of cannabis for medical purposes, more people will discover first-hand that legalization of marijuana does not equate with anarchy and instead with more effective control of a substance so readily available to Americans -- and American kids -- across the country.

And as Californians may next year, Americans will soon be exposed to the choice between regulating marijuana for adult use or continuing a failed drug war that incarcerates 850,000 people a year -- tearing apart families, ruining futures, and siphoning from public funds that might otherwise benefit the next generation. All this for a relatively mild psychotropic that at least a third of us has tried.

As the recession continues to unravel communities across the country, the economic incentive to end this drug war will affect the opinions of many who might never otherwise have considered legalization. The time may very well be now.

Similar to the prohibition of alcohol in the early twentieth century, what we have today is a federal policy that is at odds with public opinion. It is a policy without a plurality of citizen supporters.

And many women are at the vanguard of the movement that recognizes this and is fighting for change.

[Daniela Perdomo is a contributing writer & editor at AlterNet. You can follow her on Twitter @danielaperdomo.]

© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

Source / AlterNet

Thanks to Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog

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Carl R. Hultberg : Jazz Cigarettes

Lester Young was left a shattered man. Photo by Herb Snitzer.
The Beatles called them 'jazz cigarettes'

Race mixing was the fear and marijuana perceived to be the social lubricant making it happen.

By Carl R. Hultberg / The Rag Blog / October 23, 2009

Jazz cigarettes. That’s what the Beatles called them, and you know they got that right. And that’s really the reason why those type of cigarettes are still illegal.

Jazz musicians.

What did that mean exactly back in the early years of the twentieth century? One thing really: black and white folks having fun together. Creating the potential for what? A once unspeakable thing that we now know as... people like Barack Obama. Race mixing was the fear and marijuana perceived to be the social lubricant making it happen.

As one “expert” testified in Congress when marijuana was being made illegal in the 1930s: “reefer makes a darkie look a white man in the eye.”

So Jazz musicians were hounded. A sensitive creative black genius like Lester Young was forced into the army. When the tough sergeant told Lester to get rid of that picture of a white woman, Lester replied that was his wife. The punishments and humiliations he was forced to undergo left Lester a shattered man, drained of the laconic spark he’d used to ignite the Basie band.

Gene Krupa, a young white Jazz drumming sensation was singled out for special attention in the 1940s. The movie The Gene Krupa Story (1959) would have been the first time many of us kids heard about the demon weed. How it ruined that young man’s life... or was it the years he was forced to spend in prison?

Another Jazz fiend (and friend of my grandfather) was Mezz Mezzrow, an early Jewish hipster clarinet player who moonlighted as pot dealer to the stars (Louis, Fats...) in 1930s/1940s Harlem. As Mr. Waller used to sing: “the real Mezz, but not too strong.” Fats Waller and his buddy, the Madagascarian Prince Andy Razaf would sit around smoking and writing the hit songs that are still famous. Some, like “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” they sold to white publishers for $10. That’s what you do when you’se a viper.

The bi-racial culture created by Jazz/Pot in the 1920s-1930s blossomed in the 1960s. Suddenly it all seemed to make sense. Drop out of the straight white culture. Become a non-conformist artist. A poet. A musician. A dancer. Get down with black Soul brothers and sisters.

Who knew the backlash that was coming? Nixon. Reagan. Rockefeller. NY State’s (and other state’s) repressive drug laws. Grand Juries (I was on one in NYC) indicting nobody but black and Hispanic street dealers. No undercover action in the yuppie office dealing scene, that’s for sure. But somehow that situation changed when 9/11 brought panic to America. How best to stop terrorism? That’s easy, mandatory drug screening for employees and job applicants.

Everybody knows that pot smoking leads to terrorism. Doesn’t it? As I said to my ex-boss as NYU after they’d rejected the best candidates for the job I was vacating: “There goes your talent pool.”

Think about it. Your employer or would be employer has the right to test your body, regulate your behavior off the job for reasons totally unrelated to ability or work performance. And we accept this, either because we have been totally cowed or else we smoke a little to help us cope with the Orwellian realities.

But wait, there’s hope. The president who represents the essence of free will (non-slave) race-mixing in the USA has ordered, through his black Attorney General, that Federal prosecution of state-condoned medical marijuana sales and use will be discontinued.

That’s right the black helicopters can take a break and the jackbooted DEA agents can lay off kicking down the doors of granny and grampa, puffing or growing a little on the side, if their states have medical marijuana statutes.

It is also totally within President Obama’s power to simply reclassify marijuana as a non-class B controlled substance. With states like California’s fiscal futures hanging in the balance, it’s hard to imagine that full scale legalization/taxation are not just around the
corner. But this is America and not doing the right thing is a long honored sacred tradition. Besides the folks who would be most effected by any legal change regarding weed are just too peaceful, philosophical and accepting to make a big stink. Don’t you wish more people were like that?

Smoke American

Previous title: “Legalize Mexico.” Stop the drug wars at home and abroad. Give people a future or else allow them the right to self medicate. On the positive side, just look at the brainpower behind the home growing revolution. It takes a lot of smarts to create the high potency potflower medical mind bongler material now in circulation (in some
places).

Another paradox of life. And also, another reason to be proud to be an American. Those are our kids developing tomorrow’s killer weed. Here’s a growing field (!) where the USA can still be #1.

Bong Hits for Jesus, anyone?

The Rag Blog

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Stop Drug Violence? End Prohibition. Simple as That.

This is the most cogent argument against drug prohibition that I have read. And it couldn't be more timely.

The logic here is so clear that one wonders how so many have been so blind for so long. Or might it have something to do with the established economic interests served by maintaining the status quo and the political cowardice that has stood in the way of change?

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / March 24, 2009

The face of the drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border.
'The only way to reduce violence... is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.'

By Jeffrey A. Miron / March 24, 2009

[Jeffrey A. Miron, is senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University.]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.

Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this "war on drugs."

The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.

Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.

The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.

Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise. Mexico's recent history illustrates this dramatically.

Prohibition erodes protections against unreasonable search and seizure because neither party to a drug transaction has an incentive to report the activity to the police. Thus, enforcement requires intrusive tactics such as warrantless searches or undercover buys. The victimless nature of this so-called crime also encourages police to engage in racial profiling.

Prohibition has disastrous implications for national security. By eradicating coca plants in Colombia or poppy fields in Afghanistan, prohibition breeds resentment of the United States. By enriching those who produce and supply drugs, prohibition supports terrorists who sell protection services to drug traffickers.

Prohibition harms the public health. Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other conditions cannot use marijuana under the laws of most states or the federal government despite abundant evidence of its efficacy. Terminally ill patients cannot always get adequate pain medication because doctors may fear prosecution by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Drug users face restrictions on clean syringes that cause them to share contaminated needles, thereby spreading HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases.

Prohibitions breed disrespect for the law because despite draconian penalties and extensive enforcement, huge numbers of people still violate prohibition. This means those who break the law, and those who do not, learn that obeying laws is for suckers.

Prohibition is a drain on the public purse. Federal, state and local governments spend roughly $44 billion per year to enforce drug prohibition. These same governments forego roughly $33 billion per year in tax revenue they could collect from legalized drugs, assuming these were taxed at rates similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. Under prohibition, these revenues accrue to traffickers as increased profits.

The right policy, therefore, is to legalize drugs while using regulation and taxation to dampen irresponsible behavior related to drug use, such as driving under the influence. This makes more sense than prohibition because it avoids creation of a black market. This approach also allows those who believe they benefit from drug use to do so, as long as they do not harm others.

Legalization is desirable for all drugs, not just marijuana. The health risks of marijuana are lower than those of many other drugs, but that is not the crucial issue. Much of the traffic from Mexico or Colombia is for cocaine, heroin and other drugs, while marijuana production is increasingly domestic. Legalizing only marijuana would therefore fail to achieve many benefits of broader legalization.

It is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition. The U.S. has been at the forefront of this puritanical policy for almost a century, with disastrous consequences at home and abroad.

The U.S. repealed Prohibition of alcohol at the height of the Great Depression, in part because of increasing violence and in part because of diminishing tax revenues. Similar concerns apply today, and Attorney General Eric Holder's recent announcement that the Drug Enforcement Administration will not raid medical marijuana distributors in California suggests an openness in the Obama administration to rethinking current practice.

Perhaps history will repeat itself, and the U.S. will abandon one of its most most disastrous policy experiments.

Source / CNNPolitics.com

Thanks to Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog

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