I'm sure people are wondering if President Obama is really going to change our nation's drug policies? Only time will truly tell, but it's very encouraging that the official White House website now calls for eliminating both the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity and the federal syringe ban. That's very telling, and a remarkable change from the last eight years. It's worth noting that these two reform items have been DPA's top goals in DC for the last two years.

From the White House website's civil rights section:

*Eliminate Sentencing Disparities: President Obama and Vice President Biden believe the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.
[...]
* Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, President Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The President will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma -- too often tied to homophobia -- that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.

Labels: Bill Piper, Obama

I think it's pretty obvious that our country is moving towards de facto, if not outright, tobacco prohibition. It's increasingly a crime to smoke in most public places (even if those "public" places are actually privately owned), several states have banned smoking in your car if there's a child riding with you, and a few cities have outlawed smoking in your own home. A Zogby Poll commissioned by the Drug Policy Alliance in October 2006 found that 45 percent of Americans would support a federal ban on cigarettes within the next five to ten years. That percentage rises to 57 percent among 18 to 29-year-olds. (DPA's Ethan Nadelmann makes a case against tobacco prohibition here. DPA's Tony Newman details his struggle with nicotine addiction here.)

What has gone largely unnoticed is the move towards de facto alcohol prohibition. It started with imposing high taxes on alcohol to deter people from drinking too much, but soon moved into banning the sale of certain types of alcohol in certain neighborhoods (hint: we're not talking about banning expensive wine in rich neighborhoods). Now we see judges and policymakers across the country trying to prohibit people on parole or probation from drinking, even if their underlying offense had nothing to do with drinking. If fully implemented, more than five million Americans would be barred from even having a beer. For instance, Montana's Department of Corrections is trying to prohibit all people on parole or probation from drinking, gambling or using medical marijuana.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California recently ruled, however, that federal judges cannot prohibit probationers from drinking if their underlying offense had nothing to do with alcohol. The Ninth Circuit covers Montana, California and several other states, but it's unclear what impact their ruling will have on state-level probation policies. Still, the decision really hits the nail on its head:

"Moderate consumption of alcohol does not rise to the dignity of our sacred liberties, such as freedom of speech, but the freedom to drink a beer while sitting in a recliner and watching a football game is nevertheless a liberty people have, and it is probably exercised by more people than the liberty to publish a political opinion," wrote appeals court judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld.

Of course, I would argue that consumption of alcohol (and other drugs) does rise to the "dignity of our sacred liberties. " The right to put whatever you want into your own mouth is every bit as important as the right to say whatever you want. Getting drunk and talking your friend's ear off is as American as apple pie.

For more on the rising neo-prohibitionist movement I recommend David Harsanyi's recent article in Reason Magazine, entitled "Prohibition Returns! Teetotaling do-gooders attack your right to drink."

Labels: Alcohol, Bill Piper, Smoking

The Seattle paper The Stranger takes a great look at how drug laws and overzealous prosecutions make it more likely that people won't call 911 when a friend is overdosing. It even quotes our Director of DPA New Mexico, Reena Szczepanski. Hopefully the article will give a boost to "Good Samaritan" legislation that is pending in Washington State.

When mothers abandon their unwanted newborns—which happens with alarming frequency—they must decide whether to leave an infant in a Dumpster, where the child is likely to die, or in a public place, where the child's likelihood of survival is higher but so are the chances that the mother will be seen by witnesses, arrested, and prosecuted. The pandemic of abandoned newborns in the 1990s spawned a popular movement to declare emergency rooms and other medical facilities "safe havens" where mothers could abandon newborns without risking arrest. In 2002, the Washington State Legislature passed such a law.

A law that encourages people to call 911 when someone is overdosing would be grounded in the same impulse: It's better to save lives than to prosecute every crime. But saving the lives of newborn babies is an easy sell and saving the lives of drug users is not.

My life-altering "should-I-call-911-or-not" story told here.

Labels: Bill Piper, Overdoses

It has been a long, grueling year in DC. Sure we had Senator Larry Craig's "wide stance" to joke about; but there were also a few near catastrophic misses, with the Senate passing two disturbing amendments - one that would have prohibited cities from establishing safe injection sites in the future (why not outlaw flying cars?) and another that possibly could have overturned all state medical marijuana laws (or maybe would have done nothing at all; no one knows what exactly it would have done, including the Senators who voted for it). Fortunately, we beat those amendments back in the House. And we're ending our year of Congressional work on a very high note, so I thought I would share.

First, the omnibus spending bill that Congress passed this week contains a provision repealing the federal ban that prohibits Washington, DC from spending its own (non-federal) money on syringe exchange. This is a major, hard-fought victory that we narrowly won. Rep. Mark Souder almost derailed it earlier this year, but Congress voted 216 to 208 against his amendment. President Bush is expected to sign the omnibus bill sometime before the end of the year. DC's mayor has already pledged to provide hundreds of thousands of public dollars to syringe exchange next year.

Second, the same omnibus bill also cuts funding to the anti-marijuana media campaign from $100 million this year to $60 million next year. This is the biggest one-year cut in the program ever! I'm going to miss those commercials with talking dogs telling their owners how disappointed they are in them for smoking pot.

Third, Bush's hardline on domestic spending not only prevented Democrats from increasing funding to the Byrne grant program but forced them to slash it further. Overall, Byrne grant funding was roughly $500 million this year. Democrats wanted to increase that to $600 million next year. The final omnibus bill appropriates roughly $373 million. Bush's hardline did force Democrats to scale back their increases to treatment funding, but their proposed increases were pretty puny to begin with.

Finally, we're leaving this year in a great position to move crack/powder reform forward next year. There are three bi-partisan reform bills in the Senate. Both Senate Democrats and Republicans want to have hearings early next year and we're optimistic that we can get something out of committee. Earlier this week our Deputy Director of National Affairs, Jasmine Tyler, stood with six members of Congress and representatives from several advocacy groups in support of the House version of the Senate bill, introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackon Lee (D-TX). Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), chair of the House Crime Subcommittee, announced this week he is introducing his own bill, one that not only eliminates the crack/powder disparity but also eliminates the underlying mandatory minimums. House Democratic leadership is afraid of the issue and House Republicans don't "get it" in the way many of their Senate counterparts do, but the tide is turning towards our side.

Happy Holidays!

Labels: Bill Piper

As I've said before I'm very glad the government doesn't run anti-alcohol ads. They would be stupid and over-the-top and would probably increase alcohol use. Anyway, Dominic Holden makes this point and many others over at SLOG, the blog for The Stranger in Seattle. It's a good read.

Labels: Alcohol, Bill Piper, Drug Education, Methamphetamine