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How We Got Into This Mess and the Special Interests That Keep Us Here

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How We Got Into This Mess and the Special Interests That Keep Us Here

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  1. "Who would believe that a democratic government would pursue for eight decades a failed policy that produced tens of millions of victims and trillions of dollars of illicit profits for drug dealers, cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, increased crime and destroyed inner cities, fostered widespread corruption and violations of human rights - and all with no success in achieving the stated and unattainable objective of a drug free America?“- Milton Friedman,  winner of 1976 NobelMemorial Prize for economic science

  2. How We Got Into This Mess and the Special Interests That Keep Us Here Suzanne Wills Drug Policy Forum of Texas Email - suzy@dpft.org Slides created by Nathan Kohler

  3. Serving the public by providing information and expert opinionabout legal and illegal drugs and the issues surrounding them. http://www.dpft.org/

  4. 1906 Pure Food & Drugs Act U. S. Postal Service commemorative stamp issued January 15, 1998.

  5. George Washington reportedly used laudanum to ease the pain caused by his ill fitting dentures. It was easily available until 1914. 45% alcohol with 2.964 grams of opium per fluid ounce  http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/preprohibition.htm

  6. Dr. Hamilton Wright – Set out to eradicate opium use – Harrison Narcotics Act – The creation of addict as a criminal – Was a severe alcoholic - Supported by temperance movement • Financially supported by wife, Elizabeth Washburn Wright

  7. In 1910 there were 12,000 temperance leagues with 248,343 members. By 1920 membership had risen to 345,949. Source: Norton Mezvinsky, "The White Ribbon Reform, 1874-1920”

  8. “The really serious results of this legislation… will appear only gradually and will not always be recognized as recognized as such. These will be the failure of promising careers, the disrupting of happy families, the commission of crimes which will never be traced to their real cause, and the influx into hospitals for the mentally disordered of many who would otherwise live socially competent lives.” New York Medical Journal, 1915

  9. Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 1930-1962 "... the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races." 1937

  10. http://www.conquestdesign.com/uncler/index.html

  11. Distribution of Cannabis sativa L. Selected Weeds of the United States. Agriculture Handbook No. 366. http://www.hempology.org

  12. Reefer Madness, was produced in 1936 with the close collaboration of the Bureau of Narcotics.

  13. - Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 ‘…to levy a token tax of approx. $1 on all buyers, sellers, importers, growers, physicians, veterinarians, and any others who deal in marijuana commercially, prescribe it professionally, or possess it.’ - 5 years prison and/or $2000 fine -Doctors had to report to Bureau of Narcotics on patients or both would be fined/ jailed - Made marijuanaunprofitable as a pharmaceutical product

  14. Source: FBI,Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, annually. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/enforce.htm

  15. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Drug Enforcement Administration _______________________________________ ) In The Matter Of ) ) Docket No. 86-22 MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION ) ______________________________________) OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION OF Administrative LAW JUDGE. FRANCIS L. YOUNG, Administrative Law Judge DATED: SEP 6 1988 …There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality. …Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.

  16. “In several states, marijuana smoking exceeds tobacco smoking among young people….” John Walters Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (the drug czar) National Review, September, 2004

  17. Fumigated food crops in Colombia. Photo by Sanho Tree, Institute for Policy Studies. Tobacco kills over 400,000 people in the U.S. every year and millions more worldwide.

  18. Inscribed: To Governor Ray Shafer ...from his devoted friend Richard M. Nixon http://shafer.allegheny.edu/figures.html

  19. The Shafer Commission issued its report on marijuana policy on March 22, 1972- Washington, DC - A Presidential commission's report recommends that marijuana be legalized. The Commission concluded that marijuana users "are essentially indistinguishable from their nonmarijuana using peers by any fundamental criterion other than their marijuana use." They found that, "Neither the marijuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety." The Commission recommended "Decriminalization of possession of marijuana for personal use on both the state and federal levels."

  20. The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding Commissioned by President Richard M. Nixon, March, 1972 "...the creation of ever-larger bureaucracies, ever-increasing expenditure of monies and an outpouring of publicity so that the public will know that 'something' is being done. Perhaps the major consequence of this ... has been the creation of a vested interest in the perpetuation of the problem among those dispensing and receiving funds ... In the course of well-meaning efforts to do something about drug use, this society may have inadvertently institutionalized it as a never-ending project." 

  21. Proportion of 10th graders who report ever having used marijuana/cannabis by region Proportion of 10th graders who have used any illicit drug other than cannabis by region European Survey Project on Alcohol and Drugs (ESPAD), Feb, 2001

  22. (1985) (2002) http://www.unodc.org/pdf/trends2003_www_E.pdf

  23. DEA Briefing Book 2001

  24. http://archive.aclu.org/graphics/forfeiture_ad_sm.jpg

  25. Barry McCaffrey Director of Office of National Drug Control Policy, 1996 - 2001 U.S. Prisons - • More than $55,000,000,000 a year • More than 2,000,000 prisoners

  26. Source: 2003 ONDCP National Drug Control Strategy2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health

  27. Percent of high school seniors reporting they could obtain drugs fairly easily or very easily, 2003 Source: University of Michigan, Monitoring the Future National Results on Adolescent Drug Use: Overview of Key Findings 2003, 2004 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/du.htm#Availability

  28. George McMahon Nail Patella Syndrome Irvin Rosenfeld-Bone disorder Elvy Musikka Glaucoma patient Corrine Millet-glaucoma patient Barb Douglass-multiple sclerosis patient Two patients maintain anonymity.

  29. Conant vs. McCaffrey (later vs. Walters) established physicians’ right to discuss Cannabis with their patients. Dr. Marcus Conant Lead plaintiff

  30. Angel Raich suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain. The Supreme Court will hear Ashcroft vs. Raich this winter to rule on her right to use cannabis as a medicine. Angel and Robert Raich

  31. “The undertreatment of pain in hospitals is absolutely medieval.” Dr. Russell Portnoy Pain Center at Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital “…The use of pain medications has become a crime story when it…should be a healthcare story.” Dr. David E. Joranson, University of Wisconsin Medical School

  32. Heroin injection has often been the ignition point for AIDS outbreaks in third world cities.

  33. The clinic in Bern, Switzerland is in this building

  34. "I know of no other crime prevention program with such a big reduction in theft and other serious crimes." Martin Killias, Institute of Police Science and Criminology

  35. In year 2000 dollars 55 pounds of heroin was worth $128,000 on the legal market. It was worth $3.7 million on the illegal market. Source: St. Petersburg Times July 31, 2001 www.nagoya-customs.go.jp/. ../images/heroin.

  36. “I find that a policy of prohibition fails to deliver reductions in drug use or supply, provides incentives for increased crime, profits for criminal endeavour and an environment of mistrust and ignorance that is socially and educationally counter- productive. “ Eddie Ellison, the former operational head of Scotland Yard's Drug Squad http://eddie.gn.apc.org/index.php?pID=1

  37. Special Interests • All federal agencies • The defense industry • The pharmaceutical industry • The advertising industry and the media • The prison industry • The tobacco and liquor industries • The drug testing industry • The drug treatment industry • The home security industry • The timber industry • The international illegal drug cartels

  38. The federal bureaucracy MDMA and INcredible research

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