Drug War Chronicle #703 - October 6, 2011

Canada Supreme Court Okays Safe Injection Site [FEATURE]

Rebuffing the Conservative government of Prime Minister, the Canadian Supreme Court Friday ruled unanimously that Vancouver's safe injection site for heroin addicts can stay open. Known as Insite, the Downtown Eastside facility is the only safe injection site in North America.

The Downtown Eastside, centered on the intersection of Main and Hasting, streets, has one of the highest concentrations of injection drug users in the world. An overgrown Skid Row flush with prostitution and destitution, most of its residents live in decaying SRO hotels lining Main Street. Out of 12,000 residents in the area, some 5,000 are estimated to be drug addicts.

At Insite, drug users are provided clean needles and sterilized water with which to mix their drug. Insite does not provide the drugs; users must bring their own. The users inject under medical supervision at one of 12 injecting alcoves.

Insite operates under the auspices of the British Columbia Ministry of Health and the local public health authority, Vancouver Coastal Health. Numerous research reports on Insite have found that it has reduced fatal drug overdoses, reduced HIV and Hepatitis C transmission rates, reduced crime rates in the neighborhood, and increased the number of drug users entering treatment.

It has operated since 2003 under an exemption to Canada's drug laws, but since coming to power, the Harper government has attempted to shut it down, claiming it "enables" drug users. Friday's decision by the Canadian Supreme Court is the final chapter in that effort.

The Harper government argued that the federal drug law took precedence over British Columbia's public health policies. British Columbia and other Insite supporters argued that because Insite is providing a form of health care, its operation is a provincial matter. The federal government's concerns did not outweigh the benefits of Insite, the court said.

"The grave consequences that might result from a lapse in the current constitutional exemption for Insite cannot be ignored," the court said. "Insite has been proven to save lives with no discernible negative impact on the public safety and health objectives of Canada."

Hundreds of Insite supporters gathered at the facility at dawn and broke out in cheers after the decision was announced. As the news spread, harm reduction, public health, and drug reform groups in Canada and around the world lined up to applaud it.

"We are absolutely delighted that we finally have a clear decision on the legal framework for Insite," said Dr. Patricia Daly, Vancouver Coastal Health Chief Medical Health Officer. "Since 2003, Insite has made a positive impact on thousands of clients, saved lives by preventing overdoses, and provided vital health services to a vulnerable population. Today's ruling allows us to continue the outstanding work Insite, its doctors, nurses, staff and partners provide."

"This represents a victory for science," said Dr. Julio Montaner, Director of the BC Center for Excellence for HIV/AIDS. "Prior attempts from the federal government to stop the activities of Insite have been ruled unconstitutional. We are thankful for the continued and unwavering support from the provincial government that has allowed us to set an example in Canada and the world for how to deal with addiction which is, indeed, a medical condition."

"We applaud today's landmark decision by the Canadian Supreme Court to uphold the human rights of all Canadians by allowing Insite to remain open," said the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, CACTUS Montreal, and Harm Reduction International in a joint statement. "We are heartened the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that criminal laws on drugs must give way to good public health practices and harm reduction."

"This is a victory for science, compassion and public health -- and, given the fiscal benefits of such programs, the Canadian taxpayer. The Supreme Court of Canada recognized that Insite saves lives, and that that should be a guiding principle in deciding drug policy," said Laura Thomas, California deputy director for the Drug Policy Alliance. "Congratulations to the advocates, drug users, researchers, nurses, and elected officials who have campaigned for Vancouver's supervised injection facility for so long. This is a complete validation of their work."

The Supreme Court of Canada's Insite ruling applies only to Insite. Other Canadian localities seeking to establish safe injection sites must win permission from the federal government. Canadian activists urged them to do so.

"In light of today's Supreme Court decision, jurisdictions Canada-wide should act fearlessly on evidence and make harm reduction services modeled on Insite available to those in need in their locales," said the Canadian groups. "The Minister of Health must respect the court's decision and grant similar exemptions to other sites so that people across Canada will be able to access the public health services they desperately need."

There are 67 safe injection sites operating today, with one in Australia, Insite in Vancouver, and the rest in Europe. There are no safe injection sites operating in the United States, although a move is afoot in San Francisco to get one underway there. The Drug Policy Alliance's Thomas said it is time to start pushing harder.

"For communities in the US which have been hard hit by drug use, it is time to look at the evidence from Canada and start opening supervised injection facilities here," she said. "We look forward to implementing the same desire to save lives in the US."

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Chronicle Film Review: Prohibition

Prohibition: A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (2011, Florentine Films/WETA, 3 discs, 5 ½ hrs., $41.99)

One of America's leading documentarians has done it again. Ken Burns, producer of the widely watched and hailed documentaries, Baseball and The Civil War, has now teamed up with Lynn Novick to examine the rise, fall, and repeal of the 18^th Amendment banning alcohol sales and production. It is a worthy effort, and well-executed.

The multi-hour must-see premiered over three nights this week on PBS, pulling in nearly four million viewers on its opening night -- very big numbers for public TV. It's also available online at the PBS Ken Burns Prohibition web site.

For most us of Prohibition is ancient history, skimmed over bloodlessly in dusty tomes in high school and undergraduate history courses. My 83-year-old mother, for instance, was still a toddler when revelers across the land tippled with delirious joy to mark repeal. For anyone younger than her -- and that's most of us -- Prohibition is no more than a school lesson, not a thing of living memory, except, perhaps, for an old story or two told by grandpa or grandma.

One of the successes of Prohibition is the way it brings that dry history to life. Through the skillful use of contemporary film, photographic stills, oral history, written remembrances narrated by actors, and a lively narration by Peter Coyote, Burns and Novick are able to recreate the living, breathing reality of second half 19^th and early 20^th Century America. Staring face to face at the glowering glare of a doughty battle-axe like Carrie Nation or the lizard-lidded, full-lipped gaze of Chicago gangster Al Capone, listening to Al Smith rail against the dries or Mabel Willibrand rally preachers against repeal, helps us put a human face on the  passions and frailties behind the march of the social revolution that was Prohibition and the mass rejection of it that was repeal.

Similarly, vivid scenes of saloon debauchery, with passed out drunks and giddy tipplers, of speakeasies filled with good-time guys and giddy flappers, of mass marches for and against, of political conventions and campaigns in which Prohibition was a burning issue of the day, help put living flesh on the dry bones of history.

The early 20^th Century experiment in social control and legislating morality contains many lessons for contemporary activists seeking to undo the damage done by drug prohibition. Burns and Novick deserve our thanks for teasing out the varied strands that turned the 19^th Century's temperance movement among mostly rural, Protestant, church-going women into a political powerhouse capable of blunting the power of big booze, shuttering the breweries and distilleries, and eliminating the saloons men saw as their last refuge from the demands of wife and children.

For me, the most important achievement of Prohibition is the way in situates the temperance movement within the broader social and political context of a tension-filled, rapidly evolving America. As Burns and Novick make abundantly clear, Prohibition did not happen in a vacuum. Among the forces propelling it were many of the same forces active today propelling reactionary social movements: racism (directed against newly arrived Irish, German, and Jewish immigrants), nativism (ditto), religious bigotry (aimed at those Catholic immigrants), nationalism (against mainly German-American beer brewers, especially during World War I), and rural vs. urban tensions.

But while it may be easy to ridicule the reactionaries of the last century, the roots of Prohibition also come uncomfortably close for present-day progressives. The temperance movement -- in all its intemperance -- was closely tied to "what about the children!" sentiment and women's suffrage, a cry for healthy living,  as well as the sort of "do-gooderism" conducted by "busybodies" that still informs much of the discourse when it comes to drug policy reform today.

As Prohibition shows most excellently, the politics of morality and social control are deep and twisted, and unraveling them reveals some unflattering facets of progressivism, as well as the more easily derided absolutists of what could fairly be called the Christian Right.

Where Prohibition is perhaps most useful to modern day drug reformers is in its depiction of the social ills it generated. Much as the Drug Policy Alliance likes to say "drug abuse is bad, drug prohibition is worse," viewers of Prohibition could fairly draw the conclusion that "mass drunkenness is bad, mass drunkenness under Prohibition is worse." Burns and Novick sketch the rapid expansion of organized crime under Prohibition, the gang wars of Chicago and New York, the corruption of cops and public officials -- all the side-effects of prohibition so familiar to present day reformers.

But they also look at its public health consequences, which -- like current drug prohibition -- were also in many ways disastrous. There were mass deaths from bad bathtub gin, deaths from drinking wood alcohol, outbreaks of "Jake Leg," a neurological disorder caused by contaminated whiskey that crippled hundreds, if not thousands, and while alcohol consumption initially declined, that decline was soon reversed, and with even more unhealthy drinking patterns.

In the end, Prohibition died of neglect, ridicule, and changing social attitudes, forged at least in part by the experience of Prohibition itself. And at the end, it revealed itself to be hollow, crumpling with amazing rapidity after the Great Depression hit and the big city, immigrant-friendly Democrats under FDR took power. Before the end of FDR's first year in office, Prohibition was history.

There are many lessons and parallels for contemporary drug reformers in Prohibition, but they are not exact and may not apply across the board. Alcohol prohibition lasted barely a decade, but drug prohibition is now in its second century. Why one was a flash in the pan and the other remains a painful, enduring legacy are questions that need to be answered if we are ever to leave drug prohibition in the dustbin of history along with Prohibition. Prohibition can help us start to ask the questions that will give us the right answers.

Disappointingly, Ken Burns doesn't appear interested in pursuing the parallels, nor even the dissimilarities, between Prohibition then and prohibition now. He does not reference the prohibition of other drugs in Prohibition (although heroin and cocaine were already criminalized federally and marijuana was being banned in a number of states), nor, as he has made clear in interviews, does he see a useful comparison between the two.

But that disagreement or lack of boldness notwithstanding, Prohibition is still a great viewing experience that brings alive a critical episode in US social and political history, an episode who reverberations still linger and whose contours are still echoed in drug prohibition. This is your history, America -- watch, enjoy, learn, and ponder.

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Call-In: The National Criminal Justice Commission Act

Today is the National Call-In Day to pass a very important bill, Sen. Jim Webb's National Criminal Justice Commission Act. Read more about the NCJCA here.

Last year the Act passed the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support, but despite having similar support in the Senate did not make the calendar. Please call the US Senate leadership today (or on the first possible business day when you see this) and ask them to prioritize and pass the National Criminal Justice Commission Act, S. 306:

• US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), 202-224-3542
• US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 202-224-3135

When you are done, please use our web site to email your own US Representative and your two US Senators in support of the National Criminal Justice Commission Act. You can also use our web site to look up who your members of Congress are and their phone numbers. Please forward this email to spread the word too.

Following are some taking points to assist you with your call:

• I am calling to ask the senator to support immediate Senate passage of S. 306, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act.
• The proposed commission would review the criminal justice system, identify programs and policies that promote public safety, and urge but not mandate reform of policies and practices that aren't working.
• One policy that needs review is mandatory minimum sentencing. Thousands of offenders receive lengthy mandatory terms. These sentences have filled prisons across the country well beyond capacity.
• The current incarceration rate comes at a high cost to taxpayers, families and communities.
• Passage of S. 306 will lead to a more effective and just system. Please pass the bill.

Thank you for supporting this important effort -- send us an email to let us know you took action and how it went!

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Mexico Says "No Thanks" to Perry's US Troops Idea

Mexico's ambassador to the US reiterated Monday that deploying US troops to Mexico to help fight violent drug trafficking organizations is not an option. Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan was responding to remarks made by GOP presidential contender Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

On Saturday, Perry raised eyebrows by suggesting on the campaign trail that Mexico's problems with the so-called cartels might require US military assistance. His comments came in response to a question while campaigning in New Hampshire.

"It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and to keep them off of our border and to destroy their networks," Perry said.

That idea wouldn't fly, Sarukhan said in remarks to reporters Monday. "The issue of participation, or the presence of, US troops on Mexican soil is not on the table." Having US troops on Mexican soil "is not a element of strategy that is being foreseen, not a part of the tremendously innovative ways in which Mexico and the United States have been using to fight transnational organized crime." No US troops has been Mexico's policy "for a very long time," he added.

Mexico has been sensitive about the issue of US troops since 1848, when the US seized half of Mexico's national territory in the Mexican-American War. That historic trauma has led Mexico to make non-interventionism a pillar of its foreign policy.

The US and Mexico do cooperate in the struggle to suppress the drug trade, mostly through information exchanges, but also via the $1.4 billion Plan Merida aid package. But neither Mexican troops nor American aid dollars have been able to suppress the outbreak of bloody prohibition-related violence plaguing Mexico since President Felipe Calderon deployed the military against the cartels in late 2006.

(This article was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)

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IRS Rules Against Oakland Marijuana Dispensary, Demands Millions

In a decision that advocates warn could cripple the industry, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ruled that Oakland's Harborside Health Center cannot deduct standard business expenses on its taxes and sent the dispensary a whopping $2.5 million tax bill.

Most businesses are able to deduct standard business expenses, such as rent and payroll, from their federal tax bill, but Harborside chief financial officer Luigi Zamarra told the Bay Citizen the IRS had determined the dispensary cannot deduct standard business expenses because it is involved in "the trafficking of controlled substances."

Harborside is the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the country, with more than 83,000 members, and pulled in $22 million in sales last year. It has already paid the IRS $500,000 in taxes for 2007 and 2008, the years for which the agency now claims it owes the additional $2.5 million.

Although the IRS is happy to take Harborside's money, the federal government considers marijuana nothing more than a Schedule I controlled substance. The IRS attack on Harborside is part of an Obama administration assault on medical marijuana distribution using the regulatory apparatus of a number of federal agencies, ranging from the Treasury to the DEA.

Harborside said it would appeal the ruling and warned that if it stood, the entire medical marijuana dispensary industry could be endangered.

"We can't live with the conclusions that the IRS has come to and neither can the industry," Zamarra said. "If the IRS ultimately prevails, we would close our doors and go away because the business model wouldn't work,” he said.

Ironically, on the same day it announced the adverse IRS ruling, Harborside also announced it had paid the last installment of its $1,081,450 tax bill to the city of Oakland, which collects a 5% tax on dispensaries.

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No Evidence Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Cause Crime, RAND Study Finds

Opponents of medical marijuana dispensaries have long argued that they are magnets for criminality, but a study released last week by the RAND Corporation does not support that contention. The RAND study found that crime rates rose in surrounding neighborhoods when dispensaries were shut down when compared to areas where dispensaries were allowed to stay open.

The study examined neighborhoods in Los Angeles for 10 days before and 10 days after more than 70% of the 638 dispensaries in the city were shut down on June 7, 2010. Researchers found that incidents such as break-ins rose in neighborhoods where dispensaries were shut down.

In the immediate blocks surrounding closed dispensaries, crime increased 60% more than in the blocks surrounding dispensaries that were allowed to stay open. Those effects in the immediate vicinity were not apparent across a wider area.

"If medical marijuana dispensaries are causing crime, then there should be a drop in crime when they close," said Mireille Jacobson, the study's lead author and a senior economist at RAND. "Individual dispensaries may attract crime or create a neighborhood nuisance, but we found no evidence that medical marijuana dispensaries in general cause crime to rise."

The expansion of medical marijuana dispensaries in states such as California and Colorado have given rise to oft-voiced concerns by law enforcement and some neighborhood activists that the outlets are a public nuisance that create crime, but such concerns have not previously been subject to rigorous evaluation. The RAND study is the first systematic analysis of the link between medical marijuana dispensaries and crime.

Researchers suggested that the crime increase near closed dispensaries could be caused by factors such as the loss of foot traffic, the loss of on-site security provided by dispensaries, an increase in outdoor drug activity, or changes in police practices, such as fewer nearby patrols.

RAND said that because of the limited data and the short period of time in its study, the study's results should be viewed as preliminary, but that they could inform policy makers' decision-making process.

UCLA researcher Bridget Freisthler, who is studying crime around dispensaries in Sacramento, criticized the RAND study as "deeply flawed" for precisely the reasons RAND noted above. Still, Freisthler's own research results so far tend to dove-tail with the RAND findings. Last year, she examined 31 Sacramento dispensaries and found that those with security cameras, guards, and signs announcing that buyers needed cards had lower crime rates in the immediate vicinity than those that didn't.

But it is too simple even from her own research to just say "pot clubs don't cause crime," she said. "I suspect what's going on, although we don't know for sure, is that those areas that already had a strong illegal drug market aren't really seeing a lot of dispensaries because access to marijuana is already easy," she told UCLA's news department. "The dispensaries are finding a market among people who aren't willing to buy on the street. Whether people in charge of the drug markets in dispensary-free areas are actively trying to keep the dispensaries out, I don't know."

 The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was also critical of the RAND findings, citing a small number of high-profile crimes committed against dispensaries. In one incident last year, a dispensary employee was shot to death on the job, and in another, two days later, a dispensary employee was shot to death.

"We question the findings," sheriff's department spokesman Steven Whitmore told NBC Los Angeles. "We don't think they're accurate. We want to know where exactly they're talking about and how they're coming to these conclusions because we’ve had some very dangerous crimes that have happened at these dispensaries."

But he didn't cite any hard data. And the only hard data so far suggests that, law enforcement claims notwithstanding, there is little support for the notion that dispensaries are crime magnets.

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