Chasing the Scream
Page 42
68 Denis Ribeaud, “Long-term Impacts of the Swiss Heroin Prescription Trials on Crime of Treated Heroin Users,” Journal of Drug Issues 34:163 (2004), 173, doi: 10.1177/002204260403400108, http://jod.sagepub.com/content/34/1/163.
69 Ibid., 188.
70 http://hivlawandpolicy.org/resources/view/753, accessed January 22, 2013.
71 Jurgen Rehm and colleagues, “Mortality in heroin-assisted treatment in Switzerland 1994-2000,” Drug and Alcohol Dependence 79 (2005), 137–43.
72 Uchtenhagen et al., Prescription of Narcotics, 6.
73 Ibid.
74 Ribeaud, “Long-term Impacts,” 173.
75 Uchtenhagen et al., “Prescription of Narcotics for Heroin Addicts,” 89.
76 Ibid., 94. Woods, “Heroin and Methadone Substitution Treatments,” 33.
77 Csete, From the Mountaintops, 16.
78 Ibid., 27-8. Uchtenhagen et al., “Prescription of Narcotics,” 96.
79 At the same time, she tried to champion the legalization of cannabis, but this effort was rejected by the Swiss people.
80 It was Joanne Csete’s brilliant pamphlet that made me realize this.
81 This wording is from Ruth’s memory.
82 Peter Reuter and Robert MacCoun, “Heroin Maintenance: Is a US Experiment Needed?” One Hundred Years of Heroin, ed by D. Musto.
83 Privately, she says, he was “really, really” interested in the country’s methadone program.
84 http://www.mapinc.org/newscsdp/v07/n531/a05.html, accessed February 20, 2014.
85 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/us/07pharmacies.html?ref=prescriptiondrugabuse, accessed February 20, 2014.
86 The strength of opiates is compared in standard medical textbooks using something called an “equianalgesic chart.” See for example http://globalrph.com/narcoticonv.htm and http://clincalc.com/Opioids/ http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/542574_3. There are several that enable you to compare different opiates and figure out how much more or less of one opiate is equivalent to another. They show the medical consensus that diamorphine (the form of heroin given to patients in hospitals) is considerably stronger than Oxycontin. (All accessed May 14, 2014.) See also the NHS Scotland report “The Management of Pain in Patients with Cancer,” November 2009, 21, published on the NHS website: http://www.palliativecareguidelines.scot.nhs.uk/documents/PAINCANCERREV_BPS_NOV09.pdf, accessed June 20, 2014.
87 Maté, Hungry Ghosts, 141.
88 The work of the Nobel Prize–winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman provides the best documentation of this trend that I know.
89 This discussion of the phenomenon is based both on Gray, Drug Crazy, and on my interview with Gray. See also http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa157.pdf, accessed November 20, 2012.
90 http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html, accessed March 3, 2013.
91 Gray, Drug Crazy, 68. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa157.pdf, accessed November 20, 2012.
92 Gray, Drug Crazy, 68.
93 Musto, American Disease, 94.
94 Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods, 212.
95 Steve Rolles, After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation, 125.
Chapter 16: The Spirit of ’74
1 A good account of the Portuguese revolution is given in chapter 7 of Malcolm Jack’s book Lisbon: City of the Sea, and it helped to inform this section.
2 Phil Mailer, Portugal: The Impossible Revolution? 38-9.
3 Hugo Gil Ferreira and Michael W. Marshall, Portugal’s Revolution: Ten Years On, 5.
4 Martin Kayman, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Portugal, 74.
5 Artur Domoslawski, Drug Policy in Portugal: The Benefits of Decriminalizing Drug Use, 13.
6 Ibid., 15. Kellen Russoniello, “The Devil (and Drugs) in the Details: Portugal’s Focus on Public Health as a Model for Decriminalization of Drugs in Mexico,” Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics 12 (2012), 382.
7 Michael Specter, “Getting a Fix,” New Yorker, October 17, 2011.
8 ibid.
9 Russoniello, “The Devil (and Drugs) in the Details,” 385.
10 João told me the name of both the politician and his brother, who subsequently died of an unrelated cause, but he asked me not to make their names public to respect the privacy of the family. Several other people raised this story with me: it appears to be common knowledge in Portugal.
11 European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction report “Drug Policy profiles: Portugal” on Portugal 2012, p12.
12 Otto Pohl, “Portugal shifts aim in drug war,” Christian Science Monitor, October 11, 2001.
13 Specter, “Getting a Fix,” New Yorker, Oct 17, 2011.
14 Tara Herivel and Paul Wright, eds., Prison Profiteers, 27–35.
15 This account of the thinking behind the changes in Portuguese drug laws was also informed by Mirjam van het Loo et al., “Decriminalization of Drug Use in Portugal: the Development of a Policy,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 582, July 2002, 49–63.
16 Russoniello, “The Devil (and Drugs) in the Details,” 386–88.
17 You will be asked to pay 20 percent of the costs if you are judged to be able to afford it.
18 João agrees with Bruce Alexander and Gabor Maté that even if the currently banned drugs could be somehow be made to disappear, addicts would simply shift to other addictions. “I believe most of them would develop other kinds of addictions—legal substances or other kinds,” he says: “What really matters is the relation the individual has with the substance, and not the substance itself.”
19 Artur Domoslawski, Drug Policy in Portugal, 18.
20 This account of how street teams work is also informed by the street team I spent an afternoon with in Lisbon.
21 He attributes the fact that the police no longer beat addicts at anything like the same rate not primarily to the decriminalization, but to the fact that one addict died in a beating.
22 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/08/22/1206820109.abstract via http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19396351 both accessed November 21, 2012.
23 They were speaking in English—the lesson was integrated into an English lesson—but some of them spoke it a little awkwardly (although a lot better than in any foreign language class I’ve ever seen in Britain). This is my best understanding of what they were saying. It was all recorded.
24 http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2011/01/16/drug_experiment/, accessed January 9, 2014. See also http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133086356/Mixed-Results-For-Portugals-Great-Drug-Experiment, accessed same date.
25 European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) Statistical Bulletin 2010.
26 BJC article http://www.scribd.com/doc/46235617/What-Can-We-Learn-From-The-Portuguese-Decriminalization-of-Illicit-Drugs, page 1006.
27 Ibid., 1015. Domoslawski, Drug Policy in Portugal, 36.
28 http://www.latimes.com/nation/shareitnow/la-sh-heroin-comeback-20140203,0,5569498.story, accessed February 20, 2014; http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/02/23/philip-seymour-hoffman-and-danger-romanticizing-heroin/dJhAQgBSmvtzNpPK4HYTRP/story.html, accessed February 23, 2014.
29 European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction report “Drug Policy profiles: Portugal” on Portugal 2012, 20.
30 Domoslawski, Drug Policy in Portugal, 19.
31 http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf, accessed February 5, 2013.
32 http://www.ibtimes.com/pros-cons-drug-legalization-us-246712, accessed December 7, 2012.
Chapter 17: The Man in the Well
1 My interviewees were President Mujica, Lucia Topolansky (his wife), Mauricio Rosencoff (also a dissident kept in the well and one of Mujica’s oldest friends), Miguel Angel Campodonico (Mujica’s biographer), Rolando Sasso (editor of Mujica’s speeches, also a political prisoner under the dictatorship), Representative Julio Bango, Representative Sebastian Sabini, drug czar Julio Calzada, the writer Eduardo Galeano (his old frie
nd), his chief of staff Diego Carnepa, Dr. Raquel Parquet (an expert on drug treatment who has advised the government), Federico Grana, Geoffrey Ramsay, Guillermo Garat, Juan Tubino, Juan Vaz, and his opponents Representatives Geraldo Amarilla and Veronica Alonzo.
2 Mujica en Búsqueda, 21.
3 Mujica en Búsqueda, and this account of his childhood is also informed by interviews with Topolansky, Campodonico, and Sasso.
4 http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/josé-mujica-uruguays-robin-hood-guerrillas-9066?page=1, accessed October 8, 2013.
5 Ibid.
6 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_24-9-2005_pg9_1, accessed December 23, 2012; http://inside.org.au/reading-agatha-christie/, accessed same date. See also M.E.L. Mallowan, “Mallowan’s Memoirs: Agatha and the Archaeologist,” http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/article2450603.ece, 223–24, accessed same date.
7 Sasson interview.
8 Memorias del Calabozo by Rosencoff et al, 371.
9 http://upsidedownworld.org/main/uruguay-archives-48/2385-celebrating-compromises-in-uruguay-mujica-inaugurated-as-president, accessed October 8, 2013.
10 Topolansky interview.
11 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243493, accessed December 15, 2012.
12 Robert Greenfield, Timothy Leary: A Biography, 333.
13 Ibid., 273.
14 Ibid., 355.
15 Ibid., 168.
16 Many other passionate advocates of LSD were horrified by his belief that it should be given to juveniles. See ibid., 427.
17 Ibid., 308.
18 Ibid., 380, 557.
19 . . .” Ibid., 108.
20 Ibid., 392.
21 Ibid., 397.
22 Ibid., 532.
23 Szasz, Ceremonial Chemistry, 198.
24 Medical Research Council website: http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Achievementsimpact/Storiesofimpact/Smoking/index.htm, accessed February 10, 2013.
25 Miron, Drug War Crimes, 47.
26 MacCoun and Reuter, Drug War Heresies, 240.
27 Ibid., 256. This was also broadly true of U.S. states that decriminalized marijuana possession in the 1970s. See Mary O’Leary, “Data shows pot use probably won’t grow,” New Haven Register, June 12, 2011.
28 MacCoun and Reuter, Drug War Heresies, 257.
29 Ibid., 258.
30 http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE7992IX20111010, accessed December 1, 2012.
31 http://stash.norml.org/bigbook/monthly-adult-use-by-state.html, accessed March 3, 2013.
32 http://dmarkanderson.com/Point_Counterpoint_07_31_13_v5.pdf, accessed November 27, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/19/david-nutt-alcohol-cannabis-cafes, accessed November 20, 2012.
33 http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-10-31/news/ct-oped-1031-chapman-20131031_1_medical-marijuana-marijuana-use-drug-use, accessed December 2, 2013.
34 Miron, Drug War Crimes, 26. Miron notes that it has been falling before national prohibition was introduced; but this may be because most states had introduced their own prohibitions during this period.
35 MacCoun and Reuter, Drug War Heresies, 28.
36 Tom Feiling, The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World, 270.
37 There were some caveats to his support for legalization; these emerged in our conversation.
38 http://norml.org/news/1999/01/07/dutch-marijuana-use-half-that-of-america-study-reveals, accessed December 2, 2013; see also “Addiction” doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2011.03572.x; Robert J. MacCoun, “What Can We Learn from the Dutch Coffee Shop System?” Working Paper for Rand Corporation. As accessed http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2010/RAND_WR768.pdf on June 24, 2014.
39 See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47064492/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews/t/hardball-chris-matthews-monday-april/#.T9-Ds82TSqk, accessed May 1, 2012.
40 For good references, read Jacob Sullum’s account of Hart’s theories, at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/11/04/everything-youve-heard-about-crack-and-meth-is-wrong/, accessed November 10, 2013. Miron, Drug War Crimes, 48. See also page 40 of the RAND Report at http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf, accessed January 14, 2014.
Chapter 18: High Noon
1 From the Colorado campaign I talked on the record to Mason Tvert, Steve Fox, Art Way, Joe Megyesy, Brian Vicente, Christian Sederberg, Tom Tancredo, Barbara Brohl, and Betty Aldworth. From the Washington campaign I talked to Alison Holcomb, Tonia Winchester, Pete Holmes, Roger Rofmann, Maru Mora Villapando, and Charlie Mandigo.
2 There was also a woman in the leading team in Colorado, Betty Aldworth. Her analysis, however, was closer to the Washington team’s. There were also some male spokespeople for the Washington team, but they were not its leaders.
3 http://archive.saferchoice.org/safercolorado06/pressroomcf1a.html?id=1159426802, accessed January 2, 2014.
4 http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19040726.2.31, accessed January 2, 2014.
5 While this initial duel received little press, the wider duel between Mason Tvert and John Hickenlooper—which began, in some ways, here—played a huge role in the drug war.
6 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/colorados-beer-brewing-governor-critiques-the-white-house-beer/262018/, accessed January 2, 2014.
7 At the same time, he issued the same challenge to Pete Coors—the owner of the Coors beer empire—who was a prominent Republican in the state. The challenge was bipartisan.
8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaN5ERdnHrw, accessed January 2, 2014.
9 Mason was later told he did not have to testify.
10 http://thecollegianur.com/2012/10/10/richmond-alumnus-is-leading-advocate-to-legalize-marijuana/29323/, accessed January 2, 2014.
11 Fox, Armentano, and Tvert, Marijuana Is Safer, 139.
12 The Safer Colorado website provides sources for these claims. See http://archive.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/, accessed January 6, 2014. See also http://jop.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/09/03/0269881111414751, accessed same date.
13 Mason interview. See also Fox, Armentano, and Tvert, Marijuana Is Safer, xviii–xix and chapter 3 of the book, where he backs up these statements.
14 Fox, Armentano, and Tvert, Marijuana Is Safer, xx.
15 http://archive.saferchoice.org/content/view/1335/10/, accessed January 2, 2014.
16 http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4837.html, accessed January 2, 2014.
17 http://archive.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/, accessed January 2, 2014; see also http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14656545, accessed January 6, 2014.
18 http://archive.saferchoice.org/content/view/387/38/, accessed January 2, 2014.
19 Steve Fox interview; see also Fox, Armentano, and Tvert, Marijuana Is Safer, 125.
20 Later, via e-mail, Mason clarified that this was only one stage in their work. After reading an earlier draft of this chapter, he wrote to me: “We focused on the marijuana-is-safer-than-alcohol message up until the 2012 campaign, at which time we began making the traditional anti-prohibition arguments while still making the SAFER argument, and then for the final few months made only the traditional anti-prohibition arguments. This is really a critical part of the whole thing. The goal was to make sure people understood marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, then push the traditional arguments once they’re primed and more receptive. You make it sound like we completely rejected all standard anti-prohibition arguments.”
21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA0u98YFq04, accessed February 6, 2014.
22 Mason said this to me via e-mail during my fact-checking process, February 14, 2014.
23 Mason argues that the scientific study indicated that this link is false.
24 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/19/marijuana-legalization-colorado_n_4989191.html, accessed May 6, 2014.
25 Initially, I had taken from our conversation that Mason believed all other prohibited drugs were more dangerous than alcohol. In an e-mail as pa
rt of my fact-checking process, he clarified that this is not the case, writing: “I am 100% sure that many illegal substances—particularly psilocybin, MDMA, LSD—are not remotely as dangerous as alcohol.”
26 As part of my fact-checking, I showed this chapter to Mason, as I did with all the major living figures I have written about (except as noted above). I then had an e-mail discussion with him intermittently for quite a long time clarifying his position. I want to lay out the contours of that conversation here, to make it as clear as possible how I reached my conclusions about Mason’s policy positions, and—just as importantly—because I think our conversation reveals something useful about the debate that will happen as the drug war ends.
In my initial interview with Mason, he said other drugs “should” be treated differently from marijuana, because they cause different (and by implication greater) harms. I asked: “Do you think over time the model of regulation that you’ve achieved for marijuana, or other models of regulation, can be applied to other drugs that are currently banned?” He replied: “I don’t think they will be, no.” When I said: “That’s a division within the drug reform movement as well, isn’t it?” he replied: “Well, it’s only a division between reasonable, realistic people, and non.”
I therefore, in my initial draft, presented Mason as opposed to legalization of any drug other than marijuana or alcohol because that was how I’d understood his position, which I described as different to Alison and Tonia’s, since they both said to me that they believe legalization of other drugs can and should happen in time.
When he read this initial text, Mason felt it was incorrect to describe him as having a different position to Tonia and Alison—who believe in more extensive legalization covering other drugs—and reiterated that he believes in reforms like the decriminalization of personal drug use. This disagreement, I soon realized, came in part from a difference between us about what these individual words mean. He wrote to me that “words like ‘legalize’ (and even ‘decriminalize’) are ambiguous to the point of worthlessness.” I didn’t agree: I believe the words “legalize” and “decriminalize” do have quite distinct and clear meanings, and I tried to clarify them.