HeadCount Blog

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), President Obama’s 2011 National Drug Control Budget is requesting $15.5 billion “to reduce drug use and its consequences.” This represents an increase of $521.1 million, or 3.5%, over 2010. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition notes that the upcoming budget allocates in money in almost exactly the same proportions as in previous years, a “nearly two-to-one budget disparity that heavily favors spending on law enforcement and punishment over public health strategies like treatment and prevention.”

Although Obama’s new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, declared the “drug war” a thing of the past, telling the Wall Street Journal that, “We’re not at war with people in this country,” the new budget suggests it’s drug war business as usual at a time when discretionary funding for everything except the defense budget is being frozen. Meanwhile, states – and even countries, such as Mexico – are increasingly looking to legalize marijuana for both medical and economic reasons. (Fourteen states have already done so to date.) Spending on federal drug control is down about $3 billion from 2001, however.

An ONDCP press release characterizes the new figures as “balanced and comprehensive.”

“The new budget proposal demonstrates the Obama Administration’s commitment to a balanced and comprehensive drug strategy,” Kerlikowske added, in the advisory. “In a time of tight budgets and fiscal restraint, these new investments are targeted at reducing Americans’ drug use and the substantial costs associated with the health and social consequences of drug abuse.”

If you were already concerned that big business had its hands in politicians’ pockets, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Thursday to allow corporations and unions to spend as much money as they want to support or attack congressional and presidential candidates.

Many, including President Obama, worry about the almighty dollar silencing the voice of the average American:

“With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” said President Obama in a statement. “It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans….That’s why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision.”

Despite vows from the President and other political leaders, the Supreme Court’s decision is grounded in the protection of free speech. The US Constitution stands in the way of any reform Congress might push for, because Congress cannot overturn a decision based on the Constitution. How ’bout them apples?

The decision, supported by the SCOTUS’s five conservative members, abolishes the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law and the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act. The majority argued that a corporation has the same free-speech rights as an individual. The case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, actually concerned a conservative group’s funding of an anti-Hillary Clinton movie to be released during last year’s primaries – exactly the type of spending the McCain-Feingold law prohibits.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who dissented from the majority, explained his stance:

At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding….While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

So taxpayers have given billions of dollars to banks and insurance companies to keep them afloat (and provide huge bonuses), and now we’re going to tell these same corporations they can spend whatever they want to influence political elections.

Heck of a job, SCOTUS.

As Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and a host of other wintery holidays invade our homes with annoying music, pine needles, Grandma’s perfume, and loving yet judgmental relatives you see only a few times a year, one substance in particular helps most of us get through December relatively unscathed: alcohol.

While seeing a typically shy co-worker tape mistletoe to his belt buckle and dance on a desk during the office party may lead you to believe the U.S. is among the world’s top drinkers, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s latest data on liters per capita alcohol consumption around the world should remove the beer goggles from that assumption. Turns out the U.S. has some stiff competition.

So drink up, America! Aside from being incredibly rich, there’s no reason Luxembourgers (which are not Cristal-infused Whoppers) should be drinking us under the table. At least not during the holidays.

I was excited that Chase Bank was going to do something positive with some of their post-”crises” windfall profits. The financial giant organized Chase Community Giving, a Facebook contest to give away $5 million to charities. An application allowed nonprofit organizations to compete for votes in two rounds; the top 100 vote getters win $25,000 and become eligible for up to $1 million more. The winning organizations were announced late last week but a few organizations are crying foul. I happen to work for one of them, Students for Sensible Drug Policy. SSDP and the Marijuana Policy Project were both noticeably absent from the list of winning organizations yet are confident they placed in the top 100. However, neither received a disqualification notice nor saw the total number of votes they earned.

Two days before voting ended, Chase removed the vote counters that appeared on each organization’s page, thereby making it impossible to know exactly where any organization stood on the final day of voting. So how do these organizations know they were in the top 100? SSDP’s good friends at the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA), who made it into the first round, kept track of the leaders. NYRA’s Executive Director, Alex Koroknay-Palicz explained the situation to the New York Times:

“For the most part, the organizations Chase picked were exactly the organizations we expected to win, because we had spent a lot of time and effort tracking it,” Mr. Koroknay-Palicz said. “So the biggest surprise was SSDP and a couple of pro-life groups, as well as the organization called the Prem Rawat Foundation, didn’t make it, because they had been doing pretty well.”

According to the leader board he created, Students for Sensible Drug Policy collected 2,305 votes through Dec. 9, when organizations no longer could track their votes or see who had voted for them. The Marijuana Policy Project had 1,911 votes, and Justice for All had 1,512.

SSDP was unofficially in fourteenth place two days before voting ended, so it’s hard to imagine that we wouldn’t make it in the top 100. Chase is unwilling to explain whether groups were disqualified or how the winners were finally determined.

This suggests that Chase decided the appropriate organizations to award their money to. It also implies that non-winners didn’t have the public’s support. Since most Americans support legalization, it’s really no surprise that organizations working on the issue would have make it in the top 100.

Although Chase neither donated money to SSDP nor would explain what happened, they’ve had no problem providing our banking services for more than three years. Not any more. The organization is boycotting Chase.

The Garden State is shaping up to be the next state to legalize medical marijuana. Back in February, the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act passed 22-16 in the NJ Senate, and the NJ Assembly health committee passed an amended version of the bill in June. NJ Gov. Jon Corzine (D) said he supports the bill and would sign it into law. But that’s only if it reaches his desk by January. Corzine lost his bid for re-election and will be succeeded by Republican Chris Christi, who has expressed concerns about the bill.

The NJ medical-marijuana campaign has been so successful due to the efforts of Drug Policy Alliance of New Jersey, which has led the grassroots campaign and gained the support of the New Jersey State Nurses Association, the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians, and other state health organization. Public support for medical marijuana in the state has reached 86%.

More support for the legislation came from the story of Jersey resident John Ray Wilson, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is currently facing 20 years in prison for growing marijuana to treat his condition. NJ Sen. Nicholas Scutari, primary sponsor of the medical-marijuana bill, has asked Gov. Corzine to pardon Wilson.

New Jersey’s homicide rate that has risen 31% since 1998, and the state is struggling with a $34 billion dollar deficit. It’s hard to believe that state prosecutors and Charlie Christi are so keen on spending tax dollars to prosecute and imprison a nonviolent medical marijuana user and oppose legislation that would free up police resources and bring in tax revenue with the implementation of medical-marijuana dispensaries.

Then I thought, maybe no one has explained this to them in a way they can understand. So I’ll give it a go:

“Hey, how ya doan? Listen brah. This guy that’s smokin’ the ganja to help with his MS or whatevah, he needs that stuff so he can eat an Italian sub with bomb cold cuts and and it ain’t like I can’t already get dank buds all the time just by goin’ down to da shore. Why don’t yous guys free up some mula so we can get betta parkways and da cops can go aftah all those friggin’ douche bags that raised our murdah rates? Capeesh?”

Check out this timeline of marijuana’s history in the United States. (Use your cursor to enlarge the images.)

While most people are warned about the dangers of pot, few have any idea about how long the plant has been illegal, or even why it was prohibited in the first place. Did you know that cough syrup used to contain cannabis? This fun little timeline provides you with lots of cool people, events, and laws that you can type into your Google search bar to learn more about.

Here are some highlights of the U.S. and marijuana’s dysfunctional relationship:

1937: Marijuana is made illegal by the federal government through The Marijuana Tax Act. The American Medical Association opposed making it illegal at this time but would ultimately refuse to support rescheduling marijuana until 2009.

1943-48: Harry Anslinger plans to bust the biggest jazz musicians in the country for pot, including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and others. The plan is rejected by Anslinger’s superior.

1972: President Richard Nixon rejects the Schaffer Commission’s recommendation that personal marijuana use should be decriminalized.

2007: A Harvard University study finds that THC reduces tumor growth for lung cancer by half and also significantly reduces cancer’s spread.

Last week the American Medical Association (AMA) announced its support of moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II status. The AMA has refused to budge on this for decades, and opponents of marijuana law reform often cite the organization’s stance as an argument that marijuana should remain illegal.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which has used the AMA’s stance in just such a manner, has yet to comment on the AMA’s suggestion. Yesterday, however, the agency removed that particular bulletpoint from its list of reasons why pot should remain illegal.

The change can probably be attributed to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of police officers, judges, lawyers, and many other law-enforcement officials who oppose drug prohibition. LEAP organized a letter-writing campaign to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting the site be updated.

One question, though: If the DEA were truly transparent, as it claims to be, wouldn’t it not only remove the previous AMA position but replace it with the association’s new stance?

While LSD has a healthy rep for inspiring great art (e.g., R. Crumb, Ken Kesey, the Beatles) and great science (Francis Crick deduced the double-helix structure of DNA while tripping), it’s rarely considered much of a sports enhancer — with one important exception.

On June 12, 1970, formidable yet eccentric Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis notched one of the major leagues’ 263 no-hitters, against the Padres, while high as the proverbial kite on acid and benzedrine. Ellis, who died in December, recounted the amazing story behind his achievement on NPR last year. His account inspired artist James Blagden to create this awesome animated video about that fateful day.

More than a fine right arm (teammate Dave Parker called him, “without question the most intimidating pitcher of his era”) and Hendrix-loving acid head, Ellis was virulently anti-racist and would head into the stands upon hearing the n-word. After initially refusing to play baseball in high school because a white player had called him “spearchucker,” Ellis was forced onto the team after being caught drinking wine in the locker room. (You can read a terrific account of Ellis’s remarkable career here.) And while he may have been a party animal, he never bottomed out. After leaving the majors, Ellis cleaned up and became a drug counselor. He even worked briefly for George Steinbrenner as a drug counselor in the minor leagues. Steinbrenner. Now there’s a guy that could have used a good dose.

To the surprise and delight of those who support medical marijuana, the American Medical Association announced Tuesday that it will call for the schedule I status of marijuana to be reviewed:

“Our American Medical Association (AMA) urges that marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines,” the AMA’s statement (PDF) reads. “This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product.”

Support is clearly growing around the marijuana legalization movement and this statement comes on the heels of numerous victories for reformers. Maine voters approved an initiative to allow medical marijuana dispensaries and pot is now legal for the over-21 crowd in Breckenridge, Colordo, after voter passed a ballot initiative.

(Meanwhile, the firing of British government drug adviser Prof. David Nutt (AKA “the Nutt sacking”), who had compared the threat of taking Ecstasy to that of horseback riding, has led to the resignation of five other government advisers.)

Marijuana is a Schedule I drug. This means it is grouped in with drugs like heroin and PCP and is said to have a high potential for abuse and no medicinal value. Cocaine is a Schedule II drug because it has medical use as a topical anesthetic.

If marijuana became a Schedule II drug, it’s complete medical potential could finally be researched. At the present, all marijuana used for research must be obtained from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who essentially have a monopoly on research cannabis; and they aren’t giving much of it away. Cannabis-based medicines could be studied and manufactured by pharmaceutical companies such as G.W.. which created Sativex, an oral cannabis spray (researched and created across the pond) that provides an alternative to smoke inhalation.

As the marijuana legalization debate heats up, the Disco Biscuits roll in for an interview and photo shoot in the December issue of High Times magazine. High Times is no stranger to musicians who favor legalizing the ganja. Last month’s issue featured an interview with Kid Cudi (who played at Camp Bisco this summer), while Jason Mraz and Tenacious D have also graced the cover.

The organization I work for, Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), launched its AMPLIFY project this semester. The project links college SSDP chapters with musicians who support drug policy reform. The chapters act as street teams to promote shows; the bands support the cause by allowing chapters to do outreach at their shows and by promoting action alerts on their social networking sites. Nearly every band that’s part of the project has played at Camp Bisco!