Methamphetamine

The Czech cabinet Monday approved a Justice Ministry proposal that sets personal use quantity limits for illicit drugs under a penal code revision that decriminalizes drug possession in the Czech Republic. The law and its quantity limits will take effect on January 1. The Czech government had approved the decriminalization law late last year, but failed to set precise quantities covered by it, instead leaving it to police and prosecutors to determine what constituted a “larger than small” amount of drugs. The resulting confusion--and the prosecution of some small-scale marijuana growers as drug traffickers--led the government to adopt more precise criteria. Under the new law, possession of less than the following amounts of illicit drugs will not be a criminal offense: Marijuana 15 grams (or five plants) Hashish 5 grams Magic mushrooms 40 pieces Peyote 5 plants LSD 5 tablets Ecstasy 4 tablets Amphetamine 2 grams Methamphetamine 2 grams Heroin 1.5 grams Coca 5 plants Cocaine 1 gram Possession of “larger than a small amount” of marijuana can result in a jail sentence of up to one year. For other illicit drugs, the sentence is two years. Trafficking offenses carry stiffer sentences. Justice Minister Daniela Kovarova said that the ministry had originally proposed decriminalizing the possession of up to two grams of hard drugs, but decided that limits being imposed by courts this year were appropriate. "The government finally decided that it would stick to the current court practice and drafted a table based on these limits," Kovarova said. The Czech Republic now joins Portugal as a European country that has decriminalized drug possession.

Beginning January 1, possession of up to 15 grams of marijuana or up to five marijuana plants will not be a punishable offense in the Czech Republic. Likewise, people will be able to possess up to 40 hallucinogenic mushrooms. The limits were announced Tuesday after they were decided on by the cabinet. Late last year, the Czech parliament approved a new penal code that specified no punishment for the possession of “small amounts” of drugs. But the code did not specify just what constituted a “small amount,” with the result that police sometimes charged people, especially home pot growers with more serious offenses. The task of formalizing those limits has been taken up by the Justice Ministry, which submits its proposals to the cabinet. The ministry has also proposed setting the “small amount” limits for ecstasy at four tablets and for hashish at five grams. Similarly, people could possess up to two grams of methamphetamine without fear of punishment. The cabinet will consider those proposals in two weeks. Possession of amounts greater than “small amounts,” but less than those assumed to indicate drug trafficking, will result of prison sentences of up to one year for marijuana and up to two years for other drugs. According to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction‘s latest annual report, Czechs are among Europe’s leading pot smokers. Among young Czechs (age 16 to 34), 22% toke up at least once a year. The European average was 16%.

Under an anti-methamphetamine package announced last week by the government of New Zealand, popular cold and flu remedies containing pseudoephedrine will soon be available only by prescription after a visit to the doctor's office. The drug is a precursor chemical for manufacturing meth. "We're asking New Zealanders to band together and to accept using alternatives to treat their colds and flus to ensure New Zealand no longer becomes one of the countries most heavily affected by P [as the Kiwis refer to meth]," said Prime Minister John Key as he announced the a series of moves to combat meth use and production. In addition to restricting access to precursor chemicals, the government will spend more money on drug treatment programs, create a 40-man police anti-meth task force, and charge police with drafting a new anti-meth law enforcement strategy by next month. The government said it would pay for the programs with asset forfeiture funds. The pseudoephedrine announcement in particular brought a mixed reaction from the public. Some, especially those who had friends or family members who had had problems with meth, were supportive. Both others were "annoyed," asking why law-abiding people had to suffer for the actions of drug users and some "voiced concern that it was a bit over the top." Unsurprisingly, New Zealand police were happy with the new meth package. In a statement greeting the package's announcement, Assistant Commissioner Viv Rickard praised the "whole of government approach" as "more effective" in the battle against meth, but, as always, the police wanted more. "Police support the control of pseudoephedrine as it would allow us to concentrate resources and work with Customs on preventing the importation of precursors from overseas," Rickard said. "Precursor control is a vital part of disrupting the supply of methamphetamine, but no one action on its own will solve the methamphetamine problem. Stronger legislation around gangs, the ability to seize assets and profits of organized criminals and enhanced treatment programs will all contribute reducing the supply of methamphetamine and making our communities safer."

Jacob Sullum pokes numerous holes in the drug czar’s recent claims of dramatic drug war progress. This in particular jumped out at me:

…if Walters wants to take credit for every drop in drug use that occurs on his watch, he'll have to take the blame for the enormous increases in past-month LSD use among high school seniors and  past-month methamphetamine use among sophomores, both of which nearly doubled between 2007 and 2008 (hitting a whopping 1.1 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively).

Be careful out there, kids! Thanks to the total failure of the war on drugs, you are up to your asses in acid and meth, but seriously, do not mix them. It will suck. You’ll get arrested (and probably tasered, too).

See, contrary to the drug czar’s wild accusations, those of us who want to end the drug war have no interest in seeing young people make poor choices. And the fact that America’s high schools are overflowing with acid and speed ought to help illustrate why closing the black market is actually a perfectly rational approach to keeping powerful drugs away from our kids.

The drug war’s mindless persecution of sick people goes beyond medical marijuana:

MASON CITY — Gary Schinagel has suffered from chronic nasal congestion from the time he was a youngster.

When he was a child growing up in Sheffield his family doctor told him, “Gary, this is something you’ll be dealing with all your life.”

Little did he know.

Last Wednesday, Schinagel, 47, a senior investment associate at Principal Financial Group in Mason City, was arrested for the illegal purchase of pseudoephedrine. [Globe Gazette]

Arrested for buying cold medicine. It’s happened before, too. Can you even imagine how many cold sufferers have declined to purchase cold medicine for fear of having their door kicked in by the cops?

If you don’t know about things like this, you don’t fully understand what the drug war does. The real drug war consists of the accumulation of every mindblowingly absurd outcome our policies have produced. It’s not just a game of cops and robbers. It’s a philosophy that corrupts our consciousness, permeates our policymaking, and eventually results in completely normal and innocent people being arrested all the time for some of the stupidest reasons one could possibly imagine.

Also: On a very related note, this weekend CVS wouldn't sell Radley Balko the medicine he needed.

Anytime you apply pressure in the war on drugs, the market just shifts to accommodate the new conditions. Thus, efforts to crack down on domestic methamphetamine production by limiting access to precursor chemicals may have reduced meth cooking, but they have not stopped people from snorting drugs and getting all tweaked out:

While methamphetamine remains a problem in Oregon City, arrests for possession have been declining. Arrests for cocaine possession, however, increased from 2006 to 2007. That trend is mirrored statewide.
…

Officials point to the similarity of the effects of the drugs as a major reason for cocaine's comeback.

"Meth addicts have a need for a certain amount of energy," said Detective Jim Strovink of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. "Heroin makes people laid-back, so that's not really for them. They're finding they can get the same high with cocaine. That's where they're getting their jolt." [The Oregonian]

Of course, we were already going after cocaine, so now what? We've restricted access to pseudo-ephedrine based cold medicines in order to stop people from getting high, but all it did was boost the cocaine market. It seems the only people who can't get the drugs they need are allergy sufferers.

Hillary Clinton's new anti-crime plan is a typical example of schizophrenic drug war policy-making. First, she gets it right on the crack/powder sentencing disparity:

At the federal level, Hillary will reform mandatory minimums for non-violent offenders, starting by eliminating the mandatory minimum for simple possession of crack cocaine and eliminating the disparity between crack and powder cocaine.

Then she dives headfirst into full-blown meth hysteria, buying into the absurd candy-flavored meth mythology, and proposing a federal methamphetamine sentencing disparity:

Make it a federal crime to manufacture or distribute a controlled substance – including meth – that is colored, packaged, or otherwise altered in a way designed to appeal to kids and young people. Last year, the DEA reported that drug dealers are coloring meth crystals and giving them names like "Strawberry Quick." The crystals resemble "pop rocks" and other forms of candy. One goal of dealers is to try to lure in young customers "by making meth seem less dangerous." Hillary will sternly punish any dealer or trafficker of meth that colors, packages, or otherwise alters the drug to appeal to young people.

Nevermind that the candy-meth story has been proven to a be a wild exaggeration. Nevermind that it is a textbook case of DEA fear-mongering, volleyed along from gullible reporters to political demagogues, eventually producing the intended effect of people like Clinton offering more money and power to the DEA. And nevermind that this is probably what she meant last week when she said the DEA has "more important work" to do than interfere with state medical marijuana laws.

Those things are all frustratingly true, and perfectly typical. What I find truly amazing is that Clinton literally proposes the creation of a sentencing disparity for meth, while in the same breath calling for parity in our cocaine laws. The pink meth hysteria of 2007 is every bit as absurd, if not more so, than was the great crack panic of 1986. I thought we'd all come to terms with the concept that disparate punishments for different forms of the same drug is bad policy, and yet here we are repeating the mistakes of the past just as quickly as we correct them.

(This blog post 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.)

On Friday, once this week's Chronicle has been put to bed, I hop in the pick-up and head for Mexico for a month or so of on-the-scene reporting on the drug war south of the border. If all goes according to plan, I'll be spending a week in Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros, the major Rio Grande Valley border towns on the Mexican side, where the Mexican government sent in the army a couple of weeks ago. After that, it's a week in Mexico City to talk to politicians, marijuana activists, academics, drug treatment workers, and others in the Mexican capital. Then, I'll head to the beaches of Oaxaca for a weekend, then up the Pacific Coast, stopping in the mountains above Acapulco to talk to poppy farmers, human rights observers, and whoever else I can find. A few hundred miles further north, in Sinaloa, I'll be trying to make contact with pot farmers, as well as seeing what the impact of the Sinaloa Cartel is on the ground in its home state. I will also, of course, be making a pilgrimage to the shrine of San Juan Malverde, patron saint of drug traffickers, on the outskirts of Culicacan. And then it's back toward Gringolandia, with a few days on the Tijuana side of the border, provided I have any money left by then. In the meantime, I'd like to share with you something that appeared last week but that got little attention. It's an analysis of drug situation in Mexico from Austin-based Strategic Forecasting, Inc, and it's pretty grim. Titled The Geopolitics of Dope, the analysis is a steadfastly realistic look at what drug warrior can hope to accomplish fighting the cartels. You should read the whole thing--it's very, very chewy--but here are the last few paragraphs:

The cartel’s supply chain is embedded in the huge legal bilateral trade between the United States and Mexico. Remember that Mexico exports $198 billion to the United States and — according to the Mexican Economy Ministry — $1.6 billion to Japan and $1.7 billion to China, its next biggest markets. Mexico is just behind Canada as a U.S. trading partner and is a huge market running both ways. Disrupting the drug trade cannot be done without disrupting this other trade. With that much trade going on, you are not going to find the drugs. It isn’t going to happen. Police action, or action within each country’s legal procedures and protections, will not succeed. The cartels’ ability to evade, corrupt and absorb the losses is simply too great. Another solution is to allow easy access to the drug market for other producers, flooding the market, reducing the cost and eliminating the economic incentive and technical advantage of the cartel. That would mean legalizing drugs. That is simply not going to happen in the United States. It is a political impossibility. This leaves the option of treating the issue as a military rather than police action. That would mean attacking the cartels as if they were a military force rather than a criminal group. It would mean that procedural rules would not be in place, and that the cartels would be treated as an enemy army. Leaving aside the complexities of U.S.-Mexican relations, cartels flourish by being hard to distinguish from the general population. This strategy not only would turn the cartels into a guerrilla force, it would treat northern Mexico as hostile occupied territory. Don’t even think of that possibility, absent a draft under which college-age Americans from upper-middle-class families would be sent to patrol Mexico — and be killed and wounded. The United States does not need a Gaza Strip on its southern border, so this won’t happen. The current efforts by the Mexican government might impede the various gangs, but they won’t break the cartel system. The supply chain along the border is simply too diffuse and too plastic. It shifts too easily under pressure. The border can’t be sealed, and the level of economic activity shields smuggling too well. Farmers in Mexico can’t be persuaded to stop growing illegal drugs for the same reason that Bolivians and Afghans can’t. Market demand is too high and alternatives too bleak. The Mexican supply chain is too robust — and too profitable — to break easily. The likely course is a multigenerational pattern of instability along the border. More important, there will be a substantial transfer of wealth from the United States to Mexico in return for an intrinsically low-cost consumable product — drugs. This will be one of the sources of capital that will build the Mexican economy, which today is 14th largest in the world. The accumulation of drug money is and will continue finding its way into the Mexican economy, creating a pool of investment capital. The children and grandchildren of the Zetas will be running banks, running for president, building art museums and telling amusing anecdotes about how grandpa made his money running blow into Nuevo Laredo. It will also destabilize the U.S. Southwest while grandpa makes his pile. As is frequently the case, it is a problem for which there are no good solutions, or for which the solution is one without real support.

This is the situation the Bush administration wants to throw $1.4 billion at in the next couple of years. Maybe it and Congress should be reading Strategic Forecasting analyses, too.

After a few months of worrying about other more important things, people are freaking out about candy-flavored meth again. They think it's a ploy to get more kids to try the drug, and some of them want to increase the penalties for adulterated meth, even though it's unclear whether such a thing actually exists. But this much is for certain: if you're worried about candy-flavored meth, there's a strong chance that you're an idiot. Here's why:

1. There's a good chance that candy-flavored meth doesn't even exist. Various experts have pointed out that rumors of candy-flavored meth are anecdotal and unsubstantiated:

David Duncan, the chairman of the illicit-drugs council of the National Association of Public Health Policy in Reston, Va., said that the candy-flavored-meth stories are myths, fueled by misunderstandings and a gullible media.

Steve Robertson, a Drug Enforcement Agency special agent and spokesman, said that the DEA has not analyzed any flavored methamphetamine… [Winston-Salem Journal]

The rumor site Snopes.com says the story of candy-flavored meth being marketed to children is false. Snopes explains that meth comes in all colors due to varied ingredients and methods of production. Some manufacturers use food coloring for product identification, but police don't put it in their mouths, so they have no idea what it even tastes like.

2. Kids don't want candy-flavored meth anyway. It's not a f%&king pixie stick. It's meth. It costs like $80 a gram. Kids can't afford it. Fortunately, kids don't have to do meth to enjoy the sweet taste of candy. They can just buy regular candy for $1.00 and avoid all the nasty side-effects.

I've got great news for anyone who worries about drug dealers targeting children: you can't sell drugs to kids because they don't have any money. What, are they gonna save up their allowance for 9 months so they can go on a two day meth binge? Are they gonna cry and tug on daddy's pants demanding more meth money?

Young people may be reckless, but you cannot get a return on your investment by passing out samples of speed in the schoolyard.

3. Candy-flavored meth is safer than regular meth. If you cut your meth with a bunch of candy, it won’t be very strong. Regular meth with no candy in there is much stronger and more dangerous, so it would actually make more sense to increase the penalties for people who don’t water down their meth with harmless candy.

After all, meth is gross. If your meth tastes good, it's probably fake.

So if there is any bright side to the hysteria surrounding candy-flavored meth, it is that we can all observe and hopefully learn from the collective stupidity of the media and elected politicians who will hurl themselves, mouths foaming, into full-blown panic mode over any opportunity to mention children and drugs in the same sentence.

Let us all point our fingers and laugh at them, for they are the true epidemic. They are the actual purveyors of disease and destruction, through the terrible war spawned in their laboratory of idiocy. Candy-flavored meth may be the rumor of the day, but the drug war is a lie that spans generations and it will never taste good no matter how much sugar you cut it with.