The Houston Young Republicans held a forum on Tuesday evening titled, “The War on Drugs Has Failed.” David Jennings previously wrote about this event and my friend Ann Lee asked me to attend. The event was billed as a discussion on drug policy and the question of legalization was raised. Four speakers participated in this discussion: The Honorable John Delaney, Jerry Epstein, Carl Veley, and the keynote speaker and Ann’s son, Richard Lee.
Ann and her family have long advocated for the reform of cannabis laws. While I knew that her passion was related to her son Richard, I did not know the reasoning behind her position. The purpose of Richard’s speech on Tuesday was to send the message to young conservatives that cannabis possession is an issue of liberty. While he did not provide much of his personal testimony on Tuesday, I was interested as to why Richard is so zealous about this issue. After some research, I discovered that, when he was 27 years old, Richard was working as a lighting technician and fell off a scaffold, which broke his back. Richard, a paraplegic, is now wheelchair bound and medical cannabis eased the pain that could not be stopped by standard prescription medication. Since that time, Richard has been working to end the prohibition of cannabis.
Ann and her husband Bob have been tireless workers within the Harris County Republican Party. Ann serves as a precinct chair and is dedicated to our community. If you come to the Downtown Pachyderm meeting on Thursdays, she will remind you that the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States does not include a comma between “one Nation” and “under God.” She is a conservative and I think of her as a true stalwart in the vein of Pat McCall, Louise Wing, and Judith Jones. These women, like Anne Armstrong, activated the women’s movement within the Republican Party of Texas. True trailblazers.
The first speaker was Carl Veley. Mr. Veley provided the standing room only crowd with a historical, financial, and legal perspective of the war on drugs throughout the world. He was filled with knowledge and could have spoken on his own for some time.
Judge Delaney, a judge from Bryan, Texas was the second speaker. He began by telling the crowd about his family and stunned the crowd with the news that his adult son was a drug addict. While the judge provided some interesting statistical information, his fight is clearly personal. The most staggering statistic was that, since the war on drugs began in the 1980s, the United States now houses 743 of every 100,000 persons in prison. The numbers speak for themselves.
While race is a difficult subject to address, it cannot be ignored that the strong drug laws in our country disproportionately affect the African American community. And the comparison between alcohol and drug prohibition is real. How are today’s current gang leaders and drug cartel members any different than Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, or the Italian crime families of the 1920s? Taking advantage of government prohibition is the name of the game.
Judge Delaney asked the crowd to raise their hand if they believed that the war on drugs was effective. Not one hand was raised. As a frequent lecturer on this topic, Judge Delaney asks this question often – and no one has ever raised their hand. So, if this effort isn’t working, what should be done?
The third speaker, Jerry Epstein, spoke further about statistics. His mission is to formulate reasonable and sensible drug policy throughout our world. He emphasized that the drug reform efforts comport with the Republican Party of Texas platform that includes personal liberty and protection.
The keynote speaker, Richard Lee, really emphasized the fact that varied groups are coming together to support drug reform because they see that reform is necessary. He spoke about his efforts in California to promote reform. And, he identified the two groups in California who are working against reform: medical marijuana business owners and law enforcement. Why? It’s simple: job preservation.
At the beginning of the presentation, John Baucum, the program moderator, introduced all candidates and elected officials in attendance. After the presentation, Baucum allowed time for questions and Mike Knox, former Houston Police Department Police Officer and current Houston City Council candidate, was asked about his position on legalization. Mr. Knox restated the Houston Police Officers Union’s policy that marijuana should be treated the same as methamphetamine, cocaine, and every other illegal drug. You may remember that the HPOU came out against the trace policy of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office after it was in place for almost two years. Of course, the press conference was in conjunction with their candidate’s election announcement.
The reality of this situation is that over 50{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of Republicans believe that the war on drugs is not working. 81{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of Republicans support medical marijuana as an alternative for seriously ill or terminal patients. 77{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of self-identified conservatives do as well. What can Harris County conservatives do to create an effective policy against criminal activity? The Honorable Michael McSpadden has long advocated for drug law reform. Harris County saw reform efforts by Pat Lykos but we are currently in a 1980s time warp.
Congratulations to the leadership of the Houston Young Republicans who thought outside of the box and brought a great dialogue to a serious subject.
Further reading:
Help for families http://www.council-houston.org
Drug Policy Forum http://www.dpft.org
Drug Policy – Rice http://www.bakerinstitute.org/programs/drug-policy
Trace Amounts of Cocaine – A Misdemeanor? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N8vUDYYI-c&list=FLKTJzQiRyZAAE2dIJZWKtXQ&index=49
The statistics used in this blog entry maybe misleading. The poll refered to was conducted among New Yorkers and not a wider or national group. Perhaps Mr. Hooper can comment on this. It would be interesting to see the what a national and a Texas poll would reveal. The dollar volume in the US and Texas with regard to the sale of marijuana is staggering. Legalizing the use of it would put a lot of nasty people out of business and would generate revenue that could be used to reduce taxes.
I almost tried that evil devil weed long ago, in the dorm during my first year of college. I decided against it after my roommate took the first toke, immediately fell over dead, became a communist, and voted for Jimmy Carter.
But seriously folks, it’s long past time to consider less costly, more effective, and less harmful policies in regard to cannabis, and there are plenty of options to talk about that are better than the status quo. I make it no secret that I favor full legalization and regulation at both the federal and state levels.
Despite the long debunked propaganda that our government continues to spew about cannabis, there is evidence in abundance that it is far less harmful than alcohol, to the individual and to society. There is no rational reason to continue to treat it as if it were heroin, which is were it is currently classified.
Today in Texas, a person charged with the crime of possessing this plant is prohibited by law from presenting a medical need defense. I think this is immoral. Even if it’s only a placebo effect (research strongly indicates otherwise) a person who is ill and deriving benefit from cannabis should not be punished for doing something that helps them. I understand that the objection to “medical cannabis” is that it may lead to legalization. To which I reply, so what?
I’ve been acquainted with a few people that have used the plant for medical reasons.
I know a Viet-Nam veteran who is less than 10 years my elder, but suffers with advanced arthritis. He works when he can, but subsists mainly on disability and the charity of others. He’s very wary about becoming addicted to prescription pain meds, with good reason. Over the years I’ve set up a couple of hand me down PCs for him. His house always smells like a rope factory on fire. He says it helps him, but maybe he’s just a stoner. I don’t know and I really don’t care. He is causing no harm, and lives in constant fear that our current laws will harm him.
18 Years ago I worked with a very sharp computer programmer that never went out with the party crowd. More recently, a common friend that I’ve kept up with asked me to help him with her yard work before we watched the Sunday games. I thought that odd because the entire time I’d known her she was an avid gardener and enjoyed taking care of her place. I was shocked to find that she was in a wheel chair because of MS. Her house smelled like an Amsterdam coffee shop. She says it helps, and I believe her.
I still miss my brother in law that was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer five years ago. The worst thing about stage four cancers is that there is no stage five. The nausea from the disease along with the chemo was problematic for him to the point that he couldn’t maintain the treatment schedule. His sister (my estranged ex) asked me about it, and I did not hesitate to trust her, and become a “criminal” to try and help him.
What would you do?
Like every other government program, the War on Drugs has its own constituency that will fight tooth and nail to prevent changes reducing the money spent. I know. I’m a criminal defense lawyer and a lot of my income comes from drug cases.
The billions spent on drug investigation and prosecution gives DEA agents and narcotics investigatorsthe chance to be like James Bond, often in fancy cars seized from drug dealers, allows police officers to prove their efficiency by busting low-level drug dealers or addicts with dirty crack pipes, provides jobs for lawyers on both sides of the docket. And, usually all of the lawyers are paid by the taxpayer because the defendants have court-appointed lawyers. The drug war is the reason Texas spent billions on prison and jail construction and the reason the federal prisons are overcrowded with inmates who were nothing but low-level mules who were being paid a bit to transport drugs.
President Reagan’s drug war had two results which could be considered “positive.” First, since it became too risky to smuggle cargo planes full of marijuana into the United States, we have developed a thriving marijuana growing industry in this country. And, since the risks of smuggling drugs such as cocaine involved smaller shipments — reducing the likelihood of being caught — the price of cocaine fell in the 80s and has remained remarkably stable since then. The cost of a kilogram of cocaine isn’t much different from the days of $1.00 gasoline.
For years, because of drug war funding, the authorities were arresting wholesalers with dozens of kilos of cocaine and people selling one or two rocks on the street to finance a drug habit. But no one was looking for the people who bought a kilo or so of cocaine and turned it into crack. The grant money simply didn’t pay to do that. It was simpler to build statistics by busting street dealers, often selling some crack to finance their own habits.
The drug war also has led to an erosion of our civil rights, from constitutional protections on search and seizure to our right against self incrimination. It has led to police officers testalying about probable cause to stop vehicles and what they saw “in plain view.”
And, yes, there is a racial component. The authorities can get away with a lot of things in fhe Fourth Ward that would be impossible in River Oaks. Stopping and frisking pedestrians or arresting drivers for minor traffic violations in River Oaks would cause a public uproar by people with clout. When it happens in the ghetto, no one cares.
About a third of black males under 30 in Harris County are either ex-convicts, in prison or jail or on parole or probation. And most of those crimes are drug related. We are stamping a generation with a stamp making it hard for them to get jobs and education.
When I entered the University of Texas in the late 1960s, possession of any amount of marinjuana was a felony. When I graduated, possession of up to four ounces was a misdemeanor. The reason was that a lot of children of doctors, lawyers, bank executives, oil company owners and even some politicians were ending up with felony records. No one really gave a damn that Lee Otis Johnson got a ton of years for “delivery” of marijuana simply for passing a joint to someone else.
I spent about two years in The Netherlands at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In The Netherlands, possession of a personal use amounts of marijuana is allowed and “coffee shops” exist to sell to users. There is a coffee shop in The Hague where middle class, middle age people go for a joint rather than a drink on the way home from work. Yet, The Netherlands has one of the lowest drug addiction rates in Europe. Why? I think it’s an adult view of marijuana rather than limping it with heroin.
It’s time to re-think the war on drugs, to see what we want to accomplish and what works. Maybe it would be worthwhile to legalize marijuana, tax the hell out of it and use that money to pay teachers a wage that would attract top people from other professions. Maybe marijuana tax money could finance drug treatment and education programs.
A lot of people who are in and out of jail have mental health problems and they use illegal street drugs to self medicate. That’s because we simply don’t have a decent mental health care program for the poor. The easiest way for me to get mental health care for my clients is to put them on probation. There has to be a better way.
Like a lot of government programs, the War on Drugs has had unintended consequences. It’s time to re-examine our drug policies. But, it’s not likely to happen because most public officials are afraid of the “stakeholders” in the War on Drugs. Just ask former District Attorney Pat Lycos who lost her job for many reasons, including a rational view on the use of resources for trace cocaine cases.