This is a fascinating report on the massive use of electricity for marijuana production. Approximately 1% of Americans use of electricity goes toward growing marijuana.
Not sure that this will really affect drug policy either way. But these are facts to be reckoned with by both sides of the debate.
I've been both fascinated and amused to read so many stories of how California's move toward legalizing marijuana has undermined the illegal economy of the northwestern part of the state. This NPR piece is a good example.
It's hard to feel sorry for the growers. People have this image of a bunch of hippies playing in the forest. That might be a fitting description of Humboldt County in 1976, but it's not in 2010. There are a large number of problems with clandestine grow sites. First, they cause pretty significant damage to the region's fragile forests, including redwood forests. Growers tear out the forest understory to clear land, they dam and divert rivers and streams to their operations, and without regulation, they are free to use whatever pesticides they want on the plants.
Moreover, violence is a significant problem in these operations. Growers are understandably defensive of their plots. Hikers can run across these operations accidentally, causing problems. More scary, the Mexican drug cartels have established operations in western forests. One of the biggest security issues in many national parks are unknown drug operations guarded by people with guns. While these are usually in isolated areas of the parks, backcountry hikers can and have run across these operations.
One of legalization's benefits will be to undermine the illegal economy and place marijuana growing under government regulation. First, legalization will destroy the Mexican gangs' presence in the forests. They'll have no reason to be there. It'll hardly destroy the Mexican gang problem, but legalization will severely undermine a major income source for the cartels. If Americans can get reasonably priced drugs from the U.S., the market for imported marijuana will fall apart. Of course, this still leaves cocaine, heroin, and increasingly crystal meth, but it makes a difference.
The environmental benefits of legal and inexpensive marijuana are a bit more complex. Certainly getting the growing out of the redwood forests and national parks is very important. Forcing growers to abide by pesticide regulations is extremely important as well. But what this all means is that marijuana is turning into tomatoes or corn or lettuce. People are developing a standardized expectation of what marijuana will look like and what it will do to them. From the NPR piece:
The consumer market is now shaping the marijuana industry. Whereas for years, producers ruled the roost because consumers would take what they could get, this is changing. Like consumers don't like tomatoes with black spots on them or corn with worms in the silk or spinach with small insect bites in the leaves, they now have a mental expectation of what they want. This could well mean a brief period of decentralized production followed by capitalists buying up production and working in enormous greenhouses, maximizing profits and providing drugs to consumers at prices that undercut individual operators.
Indoor-grown marijuana is increasingly favored by dispensaries and consumers for its looks, consistence and potency. It costs more to produce than pot grown under the sun, but commands as much as double the price. That's one reason retail prices haven't hit the skids.
California has gotten plenty of attention lately for its budget woes and the prospect of legalizing and taxing marijuana to address those woes. The debate raises some fascinating questions over the effects of drugs; the stigmas (fair or unfair) of marijuana; the role of the state in dealing with marijuana; the prospect certain drugs offer the state; and a broader social re-imagining of marijuana's place in society.
With all the possible effects the legalization of marijuana may have, this article raises some questions that most aren't considering, namely: what will the environmental impact of pot production be if it's legalized and becomes a more lucrative (and easier) business proposition?
Marijuana plantations in remote forests cause severe environmental damage. Indoor grow houses in some towns put rentals beyond the reach of students and young families. Rural counties with declining economies cannot attract new businesses because the available work force is caught up in the pot industry. Authorities link the drug to violent crime in otherwise quiet small towns.
I don't know if Ms. Lintott is being particularly naive or close-minded here, but I don't know if she isn't, either. At least personally, of all the aspects of this question I've thought about, the environment hasn't been at the forefront. But maybe it should be. What are the environmental consequences on pot production? It's pretty well known that monocrop agricultural production is generally devastating on the environment and the soil - is marijuana any different? Has this even been studied? Will California provide the first case to (legally) study these effects of the market and environment consequences of weed?"For those of us who are on the front lines, it's not about pot is bad in itself or drugs are bad," said Meredith Lintott, district attorney in Mendocino County, one of the country's top marijuana-producing regions.
"It's about the negative consequences on children. It's about the negative consequences on the environment."
Perhaps the most fascinating single trend in politics over the past month is the sudden space to have legitimate discussions about decriminalizing drugs. The utter failure of the war on drugs has been clear for 20 years. Drug use has not declined. Prison populations have skyrocketed. Drug gangs have grown. Drug farms infect our national forests and national parks. Etc. Lots of people have talked about this for a long time now.
But over the past month, the forums for decriminalization proponents have grown drastically. It's clearly for two reasons. First, the violence in Mexico spreading into the U.S. Second, the economic cost of the war on drugs and the potential to tax drugs. I wonder if this is a blip or whether we have reached a point of no return where support for ending the war on drugs will continue to grow and become more mainstream.
For instance, here's Jack Cafferty talking about the stupidity of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, Virginia Senator Jim Webb is exploring decriminalization through his fight to reform the prison system. While he won't use the word "decriminalization," Webb is open to any option suggested by his recommended bipartisan commission on how to end the expensive imprisonment of people for nonviolent offenses, the majority of whom are in on drug charges. As Webb says, "There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice." Not only is a moderate U.S. senator pushing this cause, but he even had a forum in last Sunday's Parade magazine of all places. What's more, some conservatives are also supporting Webb's commission.
The anti-drug warriors are clearly on the offensive, at least for the time being. Much of this is because their arguments are bankrupt. Examine the comments to Cafferty's piece. The anti-drug people say things like:
I disagree with making drugs legal. I don't want to see rapists running around with unlimited amounts of GHB, nor do i want to see babies that are addcted to cocaine at birth! While legalizing drugs would solve some problems, it would create many more.
Tell this to my brother who died of a heroin overdose.
-In Peru, official outrage erupted as a magazine ran pictures of a nude model sitting astride the national flag. Defense officials are outraged, wanting prosecution of the journal, while the journal's editor suggests there is no higher patriotism than celebrating national holidays and symbols by placing a naked woman on top of the flag. Seriously.
-Alvaro Uribe offered the rarest of rare things yesterday: criticism of the U.S. from his own mouth. Uribe took the U.S. to task for giving extradited drug-lords lighter sentences in return for information. I'm not sure who's right or wrong here; I don't think that more draconian sentences is going to solve the drug problem in Colombia (working on the demand-side will), but certainly lighter sentences in the U.S. prisons probably don't have many drug-lords shaking in Colombia, either.
-Ecuador's constituent assembly approved a new constitution for the country, now sending the issue to a national vote referendum at the end of September. Among the items that would be included in the new Constitution (if the population approves it, which it may not do) would be broader social programs; more presidential power to accomplish things (as the system is established now, Ecuador's Congress, wracked by cronyism, inefficiency, and a political elite that does little but take care of its own, can and does easily prevent anything from being done by what is probably a too-weak executive authority; the new constitution hopes to amend this); the president could close Congress once, but Congress could also unseat the president (with elections following in either circumstance); and, very interestingly for a Latin American and/or Catholic country, give same-sex unions the same rights as opposite-sex marriages.
-Bolivian indigneous groups from the Eastern lowlands are planning to meet with Congress in September to discuss how Chevron lied to Congress in an attempt to avoid paying $16 billion (with a "b") in damages for polluting the region (the decision stems from a case filed way back in 1993, and still has to receive a judge's approval some time next year). Representatives from the Cofan, Secoya, and Siona tribes are trying to get reimbursed for environmental damage caused by "dumping 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways from 1964 to 1990, thereby decimating the ability of the indigenous groups to live off the rainforest. Texaco [bought by Chevron in 2001] also built roughly 1000 unlined open-air waste pits that have been leeching toxins into the soil and groundwater for decades." The indigenous leaders will be traveling in order to talk to Congress themselves and explain how Chevron's lobbyists, including Trent Lott, John Negroponte, and many other governmental officials past and present, have misled Congress and tried to get the U.S. government to pressure Ecuador to drop the case with the threat of withdrawal of economic support from Ecuador. (Erik may be right about coal companies in the U.S., but in my book, globally none is as despicable as the oil companies are.)
-Argentina's president Kristina Fernandez Kirchner has an amazingly sane take on how to deal with the drug issue, proposing to decriminalize possession and work harder at rehab programs and going after distributors and dealers (if you're going to attack the supply-side, that's the way to do it).
-The New York Times finally gets around to talking about the economic growth in Brazil that I've discussed before (for example, here, here, here, and here). The report offers the general picture of growth, but there are some pretty impressive stats, including the facts that "Brazil has shrunk its income gap by six percentage points since 2001, more than any other country in South America this decade," and that "while the top 10 percent of Brazil’s earners saw their cumulative income rise by 7 percent from 2001 to 2006, the bottom 10 percent shot up by 58 percent." I would just blatantly point out what the New York Times does not here, but is something I absolutely believe: these changes have happened in large part because of Lula's approach to governing, which has not shied away from investment but has avoided privatizations or short-term fixes, while simultaneously investing public money into social programs. Certainly, Brazil still has a very long way to go in terms of the income gap. Still, the facts that Lula's social programs are doing more than anybody predicted, people are gaining more access to purchasing goods that they previously never could afford, and Brazil's economy doesn't have any signs of slowdown ahead, as its currency is doing great and it's industrial base has diversified, are all excellent news, and I think a lot of the credit does belong to Lula on this.
-While we're on the subject of Lula, he took a new step in environmental protection, setting up a fund designed to "promote alternatives to forest-clearing for people living in the Amazon, and support conservation and sustainable development." As critical as I (and Erik and Randy) have been of Lula on environmental policy, this is truly a great step, primarily because it not only puts money into conservation efforts, but also because it puts money towards social programs that will hopefully prevent people from deforesting for money. I don't begrudge him his efforts to maintain sovereignty on the Amazon and in fact actually think the fund finally puts some efforts behind Brazil's rhetoric. (Up to this point, Brazil has often insisted that the Amazon is its business, and has often bristled at outside help, but without ever really trying to do much financially itself). Anyhow, this is just a small step, and will not radically shift Lula's environmental legacy. That said, it's still a great step in the right direction, and it's the best step he's taken environmentally yet.
-And finally, an interesting (if sometimes disjointed) article at the Times uses the rumor of a Brazilian immigrant winning the lottery to get into broader issues of what "the American dream" means to immigrants, how the economy's collapse is affecting them, and the ways in which modern technology allows Brazilians in the U.S. and Brazil to communicate more quickly than ever.
"I think I'll take up smoking
Though I've never smoked before"
Tom Russell
"What Do You Want"
I've always been extremely uncomfortable with the moralistic overtones of anti-smoking fanatics. I am a non-smoker. But the condescension that non-smokers have toward smokers often makes me angry. To what extent should the government regulate the personal behavior of citizens, particularly when they are not hurting others? Yes, second-hand smoke can be bad, especially for children. But unless you are going to regulate the behavior of adults inside their homes, there is little to be done. Outside of that, second-hand smoke isn't really going to hurt you, unless you are in a band or work in a bar. It's not good for you, but neither are a lot of other things that people don't complain about either. They whine about smelling a cigarette and then drive 50 miles in their SUV through massive air pollution, stopping at McDonald's on the way home where they get everything super sized, and then sit and eat it on the couch while watching "American Idol"
On the other hand, there's little question concerning the lack of morality among tobacco officials. Their product does cause cancer, they knew it, and they didn't care. Should cigarette companies be able to advertise on TV? No, I don't think so. Should they target children through Joe Camel and other cartoon figures? Probably not. So clearly, there is a role for government regulation of legal drugs.
It is much the same with alcohol. While I don't smoke, I certainly do drink. It's hard to look back at the temperance movement without laughing. Yet, while prohibition was a failure, it did reduce Americans' drinking consumption. As Pamela Pennock shows in Advertising Sin and Sickness: The Politics of Alcohol and Tobacco Marketing, 1950-1990, the Prohibitionist movement was far from dead after World War II. It pushed for a total ban on alcohol, but knowing that was pretty well impossible, had to settle for reductions on advertising pushed on children.
The problem though with limiting advertising aimed at children is that the assumption remains that alcohol is a bad thing. The problem to me is not with alcohol per se, but with the underlying moralistic assumptions of American culture. The constant moralizing is combined with a consumer culture that undermines those morals and personal desires that shows the hypocrisy of so many Americans. They speak of "family values" and then drink, smoke, take drugs, go to prostitutes, cheat on their spouses, etc.
What if we focused on reforming Americans' attitudes toward pleasure rather than think of it as a bad thing that needs regulation? But I guess that would be swimming upstream against 400 years of American Puritanical moralizing. There's no doubt that anti-alcohol groups have done some good things. In the 1970s, drunk driving was not only extremely common but basically unpunished, even when someone was killed. Only with the creation of MADD and intensive lobbying did Americans begin taking drunk driving as a serious offense. I'm glad that has happened. We should continue to make driving drunk socially unacceptable and punishable by law. But I have to wonder if another way to fight these problems isn't making drinking an acceptable everyday occurrence that would make binge drinking less appealing to younger people, as well as a national investment in public transportation that would mean you could drink all you want and still have a reasonable way to get home without driving.
Pennock's book is an interesting overview of the policy debates taking place in the postwar years over restricting the advertising of tobacco and alcohol. I don't want to get into the details of the book in too great of detail. If you have a scholarly or personal interest in issues of alcohol history like I do, then it is an important book. But it is policy and therefore a bit on the dry side. I do want to focus on a couple of interesting issues she touches upon.
First, these debates mirrored postwar debates over free speech. Different makeups of the Supreme Court led to slightly different interpretations of the protections granted to advertisers and broadcasters over advertising sin. One argument the industries consistently fell back upon was the idea of the slippery slope. Once you start banning ads for alcohol and tobacco, what is next? Why not coffee? Sugary drinks? Anything that could be seen as bad for you might be next? Where do you draw the line? These are important questions for anyone thinking about free speech issues, regardless of their interest in these particular products. It is almost impossible to demarcate what is OK and what is not. Almost inevitably, reformers draw the line wherever they are comfortable, which makes it almost impossible to create lasting legal codes with any sense of logic. My sense is that we should ban very little. Perhaps restricting certain sorts of ads to late night hours works, but in reality it just gives those products an aura of naughtiness about them, which just reinforces the problem of overwrought morality in America to begin with.
Second, Pennock offers useful insights on the increased role of science in these debates. While the temperance movement after World War II was still dominated by aging prohibitionists, few took their arguments seriously. But once scientists began studying the effects of smoking, fetal alcohol syndrome, and other affects of these substances on bodies, the terms of the debate began changing. The moral component largely (but certainly not entirely) fell by the wayside and scientific evidence began to take over the now regulatory rather than prohibitionist movements. I think Pennock makes good points here, though she does overstate Americans' love affair with science in the postwar period (92). Rather, Americans were enamored with technology and the good life. Science brought us those things but we've never had a national love affair with science. Large numbers of Americans opposed to teaching Darwinism, discomfort with the effects of the atomic bomb in the early years of the Cold War, and today's baseless skepticism over climate change are just a few examples of the ambivalent relationship Americans have had with science. Technology we love, science we love only when it serves our desires.
My other big criticism of the book is the lack of focus on illegal drugs, especially marijuana. She tries to cut off this criticism early on by saying that she is interested in legal marketing practices (9). OK, but that is a narrow interest. Why not expand the study to ideas about regulation of drugs more generally and use marketing as a tool to understand these questions? I think bringing a discussion of marijuana to these broader questions would make the book all the more interesting and useful for current political debates. Certainly the kind of prohibitionist rhetoric that dominated the temperance movement continues to play a huge role in debates over marijuana. Plus such a discussion would help expose the absurdity of marijuana restriction, at least in comparison to the far more destructive and legal drugs, tobacco and alcohol.
Eric Martin reports that the Bush administration has kind of sort of won in their poppy eradication campaign in Afghanistan. What, you say. The Bush administration did something right??? Yes, indeed. Afghani farmers have found another cash crop that can they can survive on instead of opium.
Marijuana.
Awesome.
Of course, the Bush administration and its allies will start eradicating the pot as soon as they can. Because they don't actually care about those farmers. That they will become even more impoverished if they grow chickpeas or whatever means nothing to them. Nor does effective drug policy within the United States that might cut the demand for drugs. I suppose the US could create a policy that would give these farmers subsidies to not grow drugs that would make up the income, something like an Agricultural Adjustment Act for the world. But that makes way too much sense for the United States and its war on some classes of people who make or do drugs.
Philadelphia police captured fugitive Maximo Jurado, 28 years after escaping from prison on a drug charge.
I'm sorry, but arresting a 75 year old guy for a prison escape in 1979 on what seems to have been a non-violent drug charge seems really stupid. He must have stayed out of trouble for all those years since he never got caught. He's old and clearly non-violent. Must he really spend his last days in prison?
Going to prison for 4-10 years is pretty unjust for a non-violent crime. If it was murder or rape, I'd say throw him back in prison. But for this? Totally wrong.
