When it was revealed last month that Evangelical leader Ted Haggard had purchased meth from a male prostitute, some were wondering if Haggard would actually be charged with a crime. Possession of methamphetamine is illegal, and there are a number of people who've been arrested for what Haggard did. But there was no one demanding that Haggard be charged with a crime, despite the fact that there's no debate at all over whether what he did was illegal. It reinforced one of the dynamics that keeps the drug war going:
For those who haven't been brainwashed by people like Ted Haggard, it's understood that the market for drugs involves buyers and sellers; people who have supplies of drugs in an unregulated black market, and people who want to use those drugs. When it comes to smaller amounts of drugs, a buyer could be a seller one day, and the next day, a seller could be a buyer. But in the world that has propped up the drug war for all these years, there aren't buyers and sellers, there are pushers and victims. There are aggressive marketers who go around trying to get people of all ages hooked on their dangerous poisons, and there are victims who fall prey to these unscrupulous individuals. This distorted view leads not only to terrible ideas like online drug dealer registries, but also allows for a great distortion in who actually gets charged with drug crimes.
One thing that I didn't mention in that post is how much this false view of drug markets fuels the flawed logic that many parents have when it comes to the best way to keep their kids from becoming addicted to drugs.
A news article this week from Utah demonstrates this pretty well.
Lance Merrill came to know the seedy streets of Provo, Utah, while searching for his 19-year-old, heroin-addicted daughter, Jani.
It's one of the most powerful fears that any parent can have. Their promising young child loses interest in the things that they used to do and succumbs to an addiction that they can't control. It happens to parents all over America, from wealthy suburbs to inner cities to small towns. And when it happens, the false dynamic of pushers and victims becomes the way many parents see what's happening:
The night before Jani was to begin a full-time drug rehabilitation program, she overdosed in her own bedroom.
"It became her prison at the end, because we locked her in her room." Merrill said. "We put a locking handle. We thought she'd be safe if we could contain her."
Her family could not protect her; her dealer was crafty and persistent. Because Jani couldn't leave the house, he brought the drugs to her.
"They would actually come throw heroin through the window to her," Merrill said.
[emphasis mine]
Whether it's in order to rationalize what happened, or if it's just a result of how this nation views illegal drugs, Lance Merrill saw this problem as the result of a drug dealer's persistence, rather than something that Jani's addiction was driving. After looking through his daughter's cell phone, Merrill put up fliers and managed to catch the dealer, a 23-year-old named Chris Cartwright. By then, his daughter had overdosed and died.
The article isn't clear as to how Jani Merrill knew Cartwright, but chances are that they were friends or had met one another through other friends. It's not even clear if he was the only person who'd sold her drugs in the past, or if he was the first person to introduce Jani to heroin. According to the article, Cartwright was only charged with drug possession, the same crime that Ted Haggard was very clearly guilty of, and is awaiting trial. In the mind of Lance Merrill, Chris Cartwright was a pusher, someone who victimized others by selling them drugs. Chances are, though, that Chris Cartwright's loved ones see him as a victim as well.
We tend to believe that there are bigger reasons why some teenagers end up as drug addicts and others are never exposed to such dangers and lead successful adult lives. People will look at a 19-year-old addict and question how she was raised. This is both an insult to parents like Lance Merrill and a failure to understand what the war on drugs has done to this country. Whether or not children are exposed to drugs is almost entirely random. When the supplies of certain drugs are pushed underground, they reside in hidden places, where you don't see them and you don't expect them to be found. The tentacles of the supply chain are constantly moving and changing, driven by the Ted Haggards of the world, wealthy people whose habits and deep pockets keep the markets alive, and by law enforcement officials living under a delusion that they have the power to stop it. Now, Lance Merrill is off on his own futile crusade:
Jani died in September. However, her father is not giving up on his mission. He has declared war on drug dealers.
He drives around putting up wanted posters. He has also set up a Web site for tipsters to anonymously give information to police.
As I've pointed out numerous times before, advertising individuals as drug dealers will not have the desired effect. The world of drugs is not made up of pushers and victims. It is made up of buyers and sellers. Chris Cartwright, or whoever it was that brought heroin to Jani Merrill's bedroom window, did not do so because of his own persistence in wanting to sell it, but because of the persistence of Jani in wanting to buy it. By plastering information about drug dealers all around town, Merrill may actually be assisting these drug dealers in having potential customers find them, and making it more likely that another parent will experience the pain he's feeling.
If a parent like Merrill really wants to do something that keeps future parents from losing their children to drug addiction, he should address the real reason why it was so easy for his daughter to get her hands on such a dangerous drug - drug prohibition. In a system where potentially dangerous drugs like heroin are controlled by medical professionals, and the market for these drugs is handled through a registry of adult users and addicts, you don't have to worry about the random chance that your child will stumble across the supply chain. The city of Zurich in Switzerland started to do this in the 90s. Since then, the amount of new users of heroin went down 82 percent. That's a lot of saved teenagers, and a cause that Lance Merrill should look into.
-------------------------
In the news this week...
The outgoing 109th Congress did not do anything about the sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine, a policy that has hit the black community especially hard. Scott Henson wonders if the "No More Tulia's" legislation will see some movement now with Democrats in control of Congress.
Thursday was National Methamphetamine Awareness Day. Wonkette is sold. Bill Piper has some questions. Pete Guither has some more things we should be aware of.
The U.S. Supreme Court is ready to hear the Alaska 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' case.
A recent report revealed that there are now 7 million people in the justice system in America.
Froma Harrop explains why she believes we need to legalize drugs.
The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse is set to publish the results of a study that showed that marijuana is useful for people who are trying to break their dependency on cocaine.
Grant Smith watches Dr. Phil demonstrate the fallacy of using threats of incarceration to treat drug abuse.
Brian Doherty looks at conservative attitudes towards marijuana legalization. Radley Balko adds on.
A new blog called Sifting the Haystack will be discussing needle-exchange programs.
Actress Tawny Kitaen was busted for cocaine possession.
After a failed attempt in Amsterdam to break the record for the world's largest joint, a medical marijuana patient in Los Angeles is going to try it on New Year's Eve.
I'm now a front page poster at Washblog, covering issues related to drugs and social justice, and I posted this week about Washington State's medical marijuana law loopholes. Scott Morgan discusses recent medical marijuana cases in both Washington and California.
Dan Savage continues to throw down on the Seattle PI for how they've treated a recovered drug addict during the investigation of the Bellevue crane collapse.
The winner of the contest to find America's Next Progressive Talk Radio Star was Radical Russ Belville, Associate Director of Oregon NORML.
The Drug Law Blog discusses the ruling in the California Supreme Court case of People v. Wright, which dealt with aspects of the state's Compassionate Use Act.
Medical marijuana defendant Stephanie Landa will be appearing in federal court on Tuesday, December 5th in San Francisco.
A medical marijuana dispenser in San Luis Obispo, CA had his supplies, along with some other valuables, stolen by masked robbers.
An Arizona grandmother convicted this week of being a drug runner did so in order to sustain her bingo habit.
A man in New Mexico discovered 22 pounds of marijuana in a used car he purchased.
A retired Denver police lieutenant says it's time to get the drug dealers off the streets, by ending prohibition.
The Longmont, CO online magazine FYI ran a series on meth addiction and child abuse, the policy of removing children from meth addicted mothers, and the stories of children and addicts attempting to recover.
Border Patrol agents in Kingsville, Texas arrested an American citizen with $3.5 million worth of cocaine in his SUV.
In Fort Worth, Texas, a high school senior on the honor roll was suspended for 25 days after a search yielded a tiny amount of marijuana in her car.
Several Houston residents wrote in support of a local judge who thinks that long drug sentences are counterproductive.
The Michigan State House met this week to discuss legalizing medical marijuana in the state. Usual suspect Scott Burns showed up to present the Drug Czar's completely indefensible position. The bill died in the Legislature, but can be reintroduced next year.
Another group is Michigan has been cleared to move forward with a petition to allow people to grow and possess marijuana on private property.
A Bahamian citizen was arrested in a Miami suburb in possession of $1 million worth of cocaine.
A Florida paramedic was cleared of charges after several bags of marijuana were found in his personal bag.
The Inverness, FL school board refused to take money from the Drug Czar and implement student drug testing.
The case of Kathryn Johnston, the 88-year-old Atlanta woman killed by police during a no-knock drug raid by Atlanta police, continues to get uglier. The confidential informant who allegedly bought drugs at the residence claimed that he never did and was asked by the police to lie. A community meeting following the raid drew hundreds of residents, many of whom had similar stories to tell. And one of the police officers involved in the raid has a record of questionable behavior. Dale Franks at Q and O has more. So does Loretta Nall. Hell, even Glenn Reynolds can figure out why this is a problem.
The former Henry County, VA sheriff pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges.
A 19-year-old defendant in a Rockville, MD robbery trial accidentally dropped a bag of marijuana in the courtroom.
Philadelphia police found $6 million worth of cocaine after a shooting in the Northeast part of the city.
A burglary victim in Long Island was arrested after police showed up to investigate and found the marijuana that the burglars were trying to steal.
Two Canadians were arrested in Massachusetts with 200 pounds of marijuana.
A Vermont prosecutor is calling for the decriminalization of drugs.
Heroin use is common in New Hampshire's small towns. The largest meth bust in New England (12 pounds) also occurred in New Hampshire this week.
Five towns in Maine are looking to pass initiatives that make adult marijuana use the lowest priority of law enforcement.
Arthur Black of Newfoundland explains how a somewhat crazy woman's rights pioneer is partly responsible for marijuana prohibition in Canada.
Raids on an apartment building in Toronto yielded a large number of units involved in a marijuana grow operation. Rob at To The People has more.
The head of Ontario's Conservative Party, the interestingly named John Tory, says he's changed a lot since his pot smoking past.
The Saskatchewan NDP passed a resolution eliminating penalties for cultivation and possession of marijuana.
The Summerland Review in British Columbia believes that since legalization is not politically viable that the sensible solution is to increase penalties for drug crimes.
It is believed that 80 percent of the methamphetamine in the United States is manufactured in Mexico.
Gardai in Ireland made several large drug busts across the country this week.
As representatives from American-based Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) head over to the UK, Simon Jenkins writes in the Times Online that the tough way to control drugs is to license them. TalkLeft adds some comments. Jennifer Cunningham of the Scottish Herald writes about Jack Cole, the founder of LEAP.
Authorities are trying to figure out whether or not a drug overdose killed a 17-year-old Scottish teen.
The Sofia Echo reports that Bulgarians are behind drug smuggling operations between Latin America and Europe.
In Botswana, the Liquor Trade Association is warning the government not to ban alcohol because they tried that once in the United States and it didn't work.
Saudi Arabia executed a Pakistani and a Nigerian for drug smuggling. In Dubai, another Pakistani received a life sentence for the same crime.
UN court jester Antonio Maria Costa wants to stop the opium trade in Afghanistan by continuing to do the exact same thing that hasn't been working for the last 4 years. Pete scoffs at his belief that it can be done in a generation. The Drug War Chronicle has more.
Officials in the Orissa state of India are worried that illegal ganja cultivation is funding Maoist rebels.
A report from Myanmar is claiming that the government is focusing its opium eradication on tribes that oppose the totalitarian regime there while supporters are still allowed to grow it.
Thai victims of their brutal drug war are hoping to get some justice after the overthrow of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
A Cambodian Buddhist monk was arrested in Laos for attempting to sell opium.
Western Australia has found success by treating marijuana use as a health issue rather than a criminal one.
An Australian man was arrested at the Auckland Airport with (NZ)$6 million worth of cocaine.