Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposes cutting Medi-Cal funding for methadone maintenance. The $53 million that would ostensibly be saved would, in fact, cost Californians a lot more. To begin, the state would lose more than $60 million in federal support for methadone treatment programs as a result of the state not making the investments required to qualify for federal funds. This budget cut would also generate enormous socio-economic costs. A National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) study found, for example, that methadone treatment reduced participants' heroin use by 70 percent and their criminal activity by 57 percent, and increased their full-time employment by 24 percent. The annual cost of methadone therapy about $5,000 per patient is a fraction of the cost of jailing a heroin abuser or of the lifetime health costs of treating the illnesses that are frequently caught by injecting drug users. [continues 465 words]
Methamphetamine, an illicit drug that is easily and cheaply produced, remains a deeply entrenched problem in the Southern United States. The 2009 National Drug Intelligence Center's National Drug Threat Survey showed 22.8 percent of state and local agencies in the Southeast "reported meth as their greatest drug threat," second only to cocaine. Former U.S. Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey called meth "one of the worst drug menaces ever to threaten America, associated with paranoia, stroke, heart attack, and permanent brain damage, leaving a trail of crime and death." Despite its dangers, 10.4 million Americans age 12 and older have tried methamphetamine at least once, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. [continues 526 words]
It is a craving so powerful that addicts will do almost anything to satisfy it. For thousands of people hooked on heroin and other opiates, a daily swallow of methadone tames the demon and opens the door to a normal life. But soon the synthetic narcotic, which for decades has been used as a controversial treatment for addiction, no longer may be an option for thousands of Californians. As part of the effort to dig the state out of its massive budget hole, the Schwarzenegger administration has proposed cutting off Medi-Cal funding for "methadone maintenance" and other treatment programs to most addicts, saving the state $53 million. [continues 792 words]
SACRAMENTO -- Steve Day of Camarillo is a Vietnam War combat veteran, an ex-con and a recovering heroin addict. He's not had an easy life. Yet when Day, 59, stepped before a podium in the state Capitol on Wednesday and looked out at the television crews facing him, he was visibly nervous. "Standing in front of these cameras," he said, "is the most difficult thing I've ever done." Joined by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the former White House drug czar, law enforcement officials and others, Day felt the importance of what he had to say was more powerful than his fear: If the state eliminates Medi-Cal funding for drug treatment, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed, lives will be lost. [continues 398 words]
Legalizing Pot Could Reduce the Murderous Power of Drug Cartels. In the late '90s, for a national magazine story on the issue of somehow making marijuana legal, I interviewed then-drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey. Of course, McCaffrey swatted away any notion that pot should be legal. It was addictive, he said, and it was the "gateway" drug that led to heroin and cocaine use. I told him that my own experience was nothing like that. Of the 10 or so friends I have kept up with from high school, none of us uses marijuana anymore, and most of us had gotten it out of our system by our early 20s. Sure, we experimented with other drugs through the years, but marijuana was not the gateway. The tendency of youth to experiment was the gateway. [continues 651 words]
Rising Lawlessness Echoes State Of '90s-Era Colombia MEXICO CITY - For months, the leaders of Tancitaro had held firm against the drug lords battling for control of this central Mexican town. Then one morning, after months of threats and violence from the traffickers, they finally surrendered. Before dawn, gunmen kidnapped the elderly fathers of the town administrator and the secretary of the City Council. Within hours, both officials resigned along with the mayor, the entire seven-member City Council, two department heads, the police chief and all 60 police officers. Tancitaro had fallen to the enemy. [continues 2172 words]
Five myths that caused the failed war next door. Mexico's current government took office on Dec. 1, 2006, but really only assumed power 10 days later, when Felipe Calderon, winner of a close presidential election that his leftist opponent petulantly refused to concede, donned a military jacket, declared an all-out war on organized crime and drug trafficking, and ordered the Mexican army out of its barracks and into the country's streets, highways, and towns. The bold move against odious adversaries (and change of topic) garnered Calderon broad support from the public and the international community, along with raised eyebrows among Mexico's political, business, and intellectual elites. [continues 3001 words]
Policy wonks and deficit hawks weren't the only ones paying attention when President Obama signed the Fiscal Year 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act last week. HIV activists, public health experts and communities of drug users celebrated--not for what's in the appropriations bill, but for what's not in it: a ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs, which has appeared in the federal budget every year since 1988. After two decades, this change is a historic achievement. Obama had already missed one opportunity to lift the ban, neglecting to pull it out of his budget in May. Still, that same month former Seattle chief of police Gil Kerlikowske was sworn in as the director of national drug control policy, calling for a new common-sense approach to drug addiction. When the drug czar calls for an end to the war on drugs, it's clearly the start of a new era. [continues 2291 words]
Quick: What single plant can you use to build, insulate, and heat a house; help build and run cars; turn into the finest textiles; use to make tortillas, cheese, veggie burgers, perfumes, skin creams, and suntan lotions - and also to get stoned? Gotcha. The answer is none. But if you leave out the stoned part, you're talking about hemp, the non-smokable variety of cannabis sativa, botanical cousin of the cannabis that gets you high. It's currently grown legally in 30 industrial nations, has a history that dates back to the earliest days of man, was touted by George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, was probably used to make the first American flag, and - if given the chance - might help bring Texas farmers out of troubled times. [continues 3983 words]
When It Comes to Treatment, the White House Should Put Its Money Where Its Mouth Is In Baltimore last week, new U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske made the case for expansion of drug courts to treat rather than imprison addicts and called for drugs to be considered a "public health crisis." Why, then, is the Obama administration proposing to spend an even higher percentage of its anti-drug resources on law enforcement than the administration of George W. Bush? Nowhere are these issues more resonant than in Baltimore. Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, a star of HBO's The Wire and a native of the city, said that her mother stole clothes off of her body for drug money and locked her in a closet. Darius Harmon, an 18-year-old learning-disabled boy from Baltimore, was killed in April by the Black Guerrilla Family gang because he was not good at selling drugs. Despite recent progress, the Drug Enforcement Administration in March found that Baltimore still has more drug-related crime than any other city in the nation. [continues 585 words]
How Right-Wing Posses Started the Crack Trade, and Other Tales That Will Blow Your Mind. Vivian Blake's War In the late 1970s, a young Jamaican man named Vivian Blake, a scholarship kid from the Tivoli Gardens ghetto of Kingston, arrived in New York as part of a traveling cricket exhibition, stuck around, and began selling marijuana. One of the last great political proxy fights of the Cold War was then unfolding in Jamaica: Both the left-wing party, friendly to Castro, and its right-wing opponents built violent electioneering posses to persuade friendly voters and attack unfriendly ones--800 Jamaicans died. Blake was affiliated with the right-wing Shower Posse. He helped funnel pot and, later, cocaine to the United States and sent guns back home to help the posses intimidate voters. After the election, the new government tried to drive the posses off the island, and many arrived in New York and Miami, fully formed, violent organizations, deprived of their political purpose and looking for something to do. [continues 1329 words]
Since 1998, the Drug Czar Has Been Mandated to Lie to the American People. So What Would a Fact-Based Drug Policy Look Like? AMONG OUR LEADERS in Washington, who's been the biggest liar? There are all too many contenders, yet one is so floridly surreal that he deserves special attention. Nope, it's not Dick Cheney or Alberto Gonzales or John Yoo. It's a trusted authority figure who's lied for 11 years now, no matter which party held sway. (Nope, it's not Alan Greenspan.) This liar didn't end-run Congress, or bully it, or have its surreptitious blessing at the time only to face its indignation later. No, this liar was ordered by Congress to lie--as a prerequisite for holding the job. [continues 803 words]
To the Editor: Drugs have not "won the war." With a comprehensive anti-drug strategy in place, involving foreign policy, enforcement, education, treatment, prevention and media, America's overall drug use has declined almost by half in the past three decades -- from 14.1 percent of the population in 1979 to 8.3 percent now who used drugs in the past month. In addition, cocaine use, including crack -- the source of much of the former record-high violent crime numbers -- is down 70 percent. Want to go back? [continues 207 words]
PALM BEACH GARDENS -- Destroy opium plants, or U.S. soldiers will continue to abuse heroin and terrorism will continue to thrive in Afghanistan. That's the message from former U.S. drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who was Wednesday's keynote speaker at a conference for the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers at PGA National Resort. McCaffrey, a retired four-star general who served as the nation's drug czar under President Clinton, believes that drug abuse among soldiers has doubled in the last four years. [continues 304 words]
YUCATAN, Mexico -- The Canadian guy at the swim-up bar seemed ready to fall off his stool and float away. In an effort to help him focus, I asked him about Canada's involvement in Mexico's brutal drug war. "What involvement?" he said. And that's the problem. A lot of Canadians don't know about our stake in Mexico's war against drug lords, which now has a higher death rate than the war in Iraq. The war's statistics are staggering: More than 7,000 people killed this year and last; 50,000 Mexican troops and federal police battling five big drug cartels armed with rocket-launchers, machine guns, grenades and armour-piercing sniper rifles over a drug trade valued at $50 billion a year. [continues 608 words]
Mexicans Seek 'True Solidarity' MEXICO CITY -- After promising $1.4 billion last year under a landmark initiative to help fight drug trafficking in Mexico, the U.S. government has spent almost none of the money, fanning criticism on both sides of the border that the United States is failing to respond quickly to the deepening crisis. In June, Congress appropriated $400 million to assist Mexico under the first installment of the Merida Initiative, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The three-year aid package was passed as an emergency measure because of deteriorating security in Mexico. In December, the State Department announced that $197 million had been "released." [continues 1462 words]
Mexico's hillbilly drug smugglers have morphed into a raging insurgency. Violence claimed more lives there last year alone than all the Americans killed in the war in Iraq. And there's no end in sight. What I remember most about my return to Mexico last year are the narcomantas. At least that's what everyone called them: "drug banners." Perhaps a dozen feet long and several feet high, they were hung in parks and plazas around Monterrey. Their messages were hand-painted in black block letters. They all said virtually the same thing, even misspelling the same name in the same way. Similar banners appeared in eight other Mexican cities that day--Aug. 26, 2008. [continues 2196 words]
No New Troops Or Funding in Obama's Plan The Obama administration announced plans yesterday to move more than 450 law enforcement agents and equipment to the southern U.S. border to combat Mexican drug cartel violence, but its "comprehensive response" was also notable for what it omitted. President Obama asked for no new troops, legislation or funding from Congress for now, beyond the three-year $1.4 billion Merida Initiative lawmakers gave Mexico and Central America for counter-trafficking programs last year and a small amount of stimulus money for border security. [continues 677 words]
Guess which city leads the world in kidnappings? No, not Beirut. Not Baghdad. Mexico City. And guess who comes second? Ready? It's Phoenix, Ariz.: 370 recorded cases in 2008 alone, and who knows how many unrecorded cases. When you think Phoenix, you may think of retirees and golf courses. But here's what the late Paul Harvey used to call "the rest of the story," courtesy of the Web site Stratfor.com: "Late on the night of June 22, [2008] a residence in Phoenix was approached by a heavily armed tactical team preparing to serve a warrant. The members of the team were wearing the typical gear for members of their profession: black boots, black BDU (battle dress uniform) pants, Kevlar helmets and Phoenix Police Department (PPD) raid shirts pulled over their body armour. The team members carried AR-15 rifles equipped with Aimpoint sights to help them during the low-light operation and, like most cops on a tactical team, in addition to their long guns, the members of this team carried secondary weapons --pistols strapped to their thighs. [continues 666 words]
The White House yesterday said that it will push for treatment, rather than incarceration, of people arrested for drug-related crimes as it announced the nomination of Seattle Police Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske to oversee the nation's effort to control illegal drugs. The choice of drug czar and the emphasis on alternative drug courts, announced by Vice President Biden, signal a sharp departure from Bush administration policies, gravitating away from cutting the supply of illicit drugs from foreign countries and toward curbing drug use in communities across the United States. [continues 939 words]