I don’t particularly mind the drug czar pointing out that cocaine can kill you. While far from the deadliest thing on earth, the stuff ain’t good for you, especially given the way some folks get carried away with it. I agree that a sensible drug policy includes telling people that cocaine pretty much sucks.

But here we have the drug czar highlighting reports of tainted cocaine in Canada and proposing drug treatment as the solution to that. Isn’t it ironic that, after tirelessly advocating policies which drive drug distribution underground, the drug czar then cites a poisoned drug supply as an argument for abstinence?

Here’s drug czar John Walters shamelessly using a young woman’s death as an opportunity to plug student drug testing:

Heroin killed 19-year-old Alicia Lannes, and her parents say she got the drug from a boyfriend.  Experts say that's how most young kids get introduced to drugs: by friends or relatives.
…
While teen drug use is declining, Walters says a Fairfax County heroin ring busted in connection with Lannes' death proves it's still a problem.  He supports a federal program used in more than 4,000 schools to randomly drug test students.

"There's no question in my mind had this young woman been in a school, middle school or high school with random testing," said Walters, "She would not be dead today." [FOX DC]

Walters sounds supremely confident, as usual, yet the reality is that random drug testing is often impotent when it comes to discovering heroin use. Student drug testing programs typically rely on urine tests, which can only detect heroin for 3-4 days after use. Only marijuana -- which stays in your system for up to a month – can be effectively detected this way. Thus, random testing actually incentivizes students to experiment with more dangerous drugs like heroin that increase your chances of passing a drug test.


And thanks to the complete failure of the drug war, heroin is stronger today than ever before:

The drug enforcement agency says the purity of heroin found in Virginia is typically higher than usual—making it more deadly.

"They tend not to know how to gauge the strength and they usually take more than they need to," said Patrick McConnel, who oversees Treatment for Youth Services Administration Alcohol and Drug Services.

There are no easy answers here, to be sure, and I don’t claim any monopoly on the solutions to youth drug abuse. But I guarantee you that the problem isn’t our failure to collect more urine from young people. As long as the most dangerous substances continue to be manufactured, distributed, and controlled by criminals, the face of our drug problem will remain the same.

I don’t know quite what to make of this news from Switzerland:

GENEVA (AP) — The world’s most comprehensive legalized heroin program became permanent on Sunday with overwhelming approval from Swiss voters, who separately rejected the legalization of marijuana.

The heroin program, started in 1994, is offered in 23 centers across Switzerland. It has helped eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in parks and is credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts.
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Of the 2.26 million Swiss who voted in the national referendum, 68 percent approved making the heroin program permanent. But 63 percent voted against the marijuana proposal, which was based on a separate citizens’ initiative to decriminalize consuming marijuana and growing the plant for personal use. [NY Times]

Pete Guither has some good analysis explaining how concerns about Amsterdam-type drug tourism helped to torpedo the proposal. It’s a harsh reality that any nation that considers tolerating recreational marijuana sales must inevitably come to terms with a potential influx of pot smoking tourists. They’re easy enough to deal with, but the idea just makes some people uncomfortable.

A policy that prohibits sales to foreigners might mitigate these concerns, but I can’t get over the absurdity of restricting marijuana sales while permitting tourists to get drunk off their asses anywhere they please. The problem in Amsterdam isn’t that marijuana laws are too loose, it’s the fact that marijuana laws everywhere else are completely unreasonable. So-called "marijuana tourism" is just another symptom of marijuana prohibition in the U.S. and beyond. Can you even imagine what Amsterdam would be like if it were the only place you could legally purchase alcohol?