Stories from the week of January 21, 2011

COPs on the Hill

 Your Voice in the United States Congress

 Honesty is the best policy:  While eating lunch in the Senate’s café, a Texas  staffer stopped and asked how my efforts were going.  ‘Because of Ron Paul, the resistance to my message among the Republican staffers is near zero.  That said, it is still a big rock going up a long hill.’   The staffer laughed and thanked me my frank assessment, saying staffers always here such pie in the sky *optimism from most lobbyists.

 Thanks for your time Congressman:  At Grover’s Brunch — after the R Congressman had given us a preview of House strategy, I was able to congratulate him on his plans and throw in a suggestion of my own which we discussed for 3 minutes.***   This was our  4^th (fourth) chat.  Though the topic was not drug policy, always good to keep the lines of communication fresh.

 Webb-Kenyon Act of 1913:  This alcohol prohibition era law was brought up by my colleague Aaron Houston of SSDP during our chat with Congressman Polis.  Boiled down,* if you lived in a ‘wet’ state and took alcohol to a ‘dry’ state, you would be breaking federal law.   This would be an additional tool to convince ‘smokeless’ states to vote yes to allow ‘smokey’ states.  I have provided it below for your info. 

 *** Keep in mind that to chat with a Congressman normally costs about $1,000 per minute (at a fundraiser).

 *pie in the sky = übertrieben

*boiled down = im wesentlichen

 COPs 2nd year stats to date:

TV appearances: 12 (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, cable) 

Newspaper stories: 6 dailes, 3 weeklies

Radio appearances: 6

Published LTE: 6

58 presentations to Congressional staffers: (12 this week)

3 VIP (Member of Congress) contacts : (1 this week)  

Consider being a member of COPs at $30.00 or more per year.    Your support keeps the COPs voice loud and strong in the halls of the United States Congress.   We agree that Modern Prohibition/War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery & Jim Crow.  Go to: www.CitizensOpposingProhibition.org and click on Donate/Join – by credit card or send a check to:

 OP

POB 772

Buckeystown, MD  21717

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webb%E2%80%93Kenyon_Act

 Webb–Kenyon Act

The Webb-Kenyon Act was a 1913 law of the United States that regulated the interstate transport of alcoholic beverages. It was meant to provide federal support for the prohibition efforts of individual states in the face of charges that state regulation of alcohol usurped the federal government’s exclusive constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce.

] Text

The statute reads:^[1]

The shipment or transportation, in any manner or by any means whatsoever of any spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or other intoxicating liquor of any kind from one State, Territory, or District of the United States, or place noncontiguous to, but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, into any other State, Territory, or District of the United States, or place noncontiguous to, but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, which said spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or other intoxicating liquor is intended by any person interested therein, to be received, possessed, sold, or in any manner used, either in the original package, or otherwise, in violation of any law of such State, Territory, or District of the United States, or place noncontiguous to, but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is hereby prohibited.

[edit] Enactment

The law was named for its principal sponsors, Democratic Rep. Edwin Y. Webb of North Carolina and Republican Sen. William S. Kenyon of Iowa. Congress passed the legislation and sent it to the President on February 18, 1913. Ten days later, on February 28, 1913, President William Howard Taft, in the closing days of his administration, vetoed the law on constitutional grounds, believing that it delegated to the individual states the federal government’s exclusive right to regulate interstate commerce. He submitted with his veto an opinion by Attorney General George W. Wickersham. The Senate overrode his veto the same day by a vote of 63 to 21,^[2] and the House of Representatives did so by a vote of 246 to 85 on March 1, 1913.^[1]

The law did not simply prohibit the transport of alcoholic beverages into “dry” states, that is, states that banned alcohol. At the time of its passage and for years afterward, states varied greatly in their regulation of alcohol. Few banned alcohol entirely and were “bone-dry.” Some allowed liquor to be ordered by mail but limited the amount per month per person or prohibited its receipt by businesses. They differed as well in their definitions of such beverages by alcohol content. The Webb-Kenyon Act established the federal government’s endorsement of the right of each state to control the receipt, distribution, and consumption of alcoholic beverages within its jurisdiction.^[3]

Its passage, followed shortly by the passage of an income tax, was recognized as a major progressive victory and gave added impetus to the prohibition movement’s drive for a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol nationwide.^[4]

[edit] Constitutionality

The act faced challenges in the courts and the courts differed in their consideration of its constitutionality.^[5] Some lower courts declared complete bans on alcohol at the state level unconstitutional. The Supreme Court finally delivered an opinion of the Act on January 8, 1917. The Court sustained the Act by a vote of 7 to 2 in a decision by Chief Justice White in which a total of 6 justices concurred. The Court also affirmed the right of each state to regulate alcohol even to the extent of banning it completely. The case was a challenge to a West Virginia statute that banned shipments even for personal consumption.^[6]

Congress responded to the Supreme Court decision by immediately enacting legislation to make the District of Columbia “bone-dry.”^[7]

Opponents of nationwide prohibition hoped the Supreme Court decision demonstrated that the ability of each state to exercise complete control over alcohol within its borders would make a constitutional amendment superfluous. “It is better,” said the New York Times, “that prohibition laws should be made effective in communities that want them than that by a Federal amendment the rule of prohibition should be extended over unwilling States.”^[8]

The Supreme Court added a further decision upholding the law in its next term in a case involving a North Carolina statute requiring railroads to maintain records of liquor shipments and recipients.^[9]

[edit] Repeal of prohibition

The Webb-Kenyon Act became irrelevant with the adoption of national prohibition under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Volstead Act. With the movement to repeal prohibition by the adoption of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, the question of the Act’s validity and enforcement became a political and policy issue once again.^[10] The Act was cited as a protection that would shelter dry states if prohibition were repealed.^[11]

Howard

Detective/Officer Howard  Wooldridge (retired)

Drug Policy Specialist, COP – www.CitizensOpposingProhibition.org

Washington, DC

817-975-1110 Cell

howard@citizensopposingprohibition.org

Published LTE: Maryland Coast Dispatch- January 21, 2011 – ALCOHOL A BIGGER ISSUE THAN DOPE

COPs First Annual Report

Annual Report: Citizens Opposing Prohibition – 2009/2010

 The House Crime Subcommittee adjourned and I made contact with the Member who is the presumptive chairman, when the Republicans take control of the House in 2011.   This was our sixth (6^th) chat in three years.   He had already agreed that current policy was ineffective but he asked, “What do we do?  Just give up on these (addicts) people?”   “No.”  I replied, “But arresting them wastes precious police time.   The government can not fix stupid.  Only family and friends might have a chance.”  He nodded and we chatted another minute.    I knew his Chief of Staff was on board to end marijuana prohibition from a chat earlier this year.   

 This type of ‘Grass Tops’ contact is what COPs is all about.   In our first year you kept an anti-prohibition, law enforcement voice on Capitol Hill and in the DC area, a voice which generates instant credibility.  The transition from carrying a LEAP card to a COPs card was a smooth one.   My cowboy hat and politics are what staffers and Members remember, not my card.  COPs had ‘sit-down’ conversations with 443 Congressional staffers and chats with seven more Members.    This steady contact reminded all of them that solid, law enforcement professionals oppose the current prohibition approach to some drugs.

Since 2005 I have been educating/advocating to Members and their staff for a drug policy commission, even before Senator Webb (D-VA) was elected in November 2006.  These efforts bore fruit in 2009, when Webb introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission bill which cleared the Senate’s Judiciary Committee with a unanimous vote in early 2010.  In the summer of 2010 the House passed the bill on a voice vote.  Though it died during the lame duck session, it will be introduced again in 11.  Through educational efforts these past five years, I have prepared the ground for the passage of the Webb bill.    As members of Citizens Opposing Prohibition, you can take credit for the progress made in 2009 and 2010.

Moving forward into its second year, COPs is in poised to add to the progress already made and enter new areas.  We will educate the Congress on the advantages of allowing the several States to set their own couse for drug policy, starting with marijuana.   I will attend two, new national conferences in 2011: the LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens- similar to NAACP) and the NRA (National Rifle Association).  As I have done the past five years, I will attend the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and the three day conference in DC sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus.   Weekly, I attend the Grover Norquist brunch (120 conservative VIPs attending) and monthly I attend the Leadership Institutes’ breakfast which features conservative speakers, including Members of Congress.     I will seek out and go to the groups who do not yet agree with our position on drug policy.   We are adding speaking engagements to service clubs, churches and other community groups to our list of activities as well.

The ‘bread and butter’ of COPs will continue to be spending time in the Congress, meeting staff and Members.  Ending federal drug prohibition is a crucial part of the national strategy.  The prohibition crowd delights in repeating that federal law trumps any state law.   Our first year stats are below for your review.    I hope and trust you will continue to support these efforts.

Thank you,

Howard Wooldridge

Drug Policy Specialist and Executive Director, Citizens Opposing Prohibition

COPs  First Year Stats 2009-2010

 443 presentations to Congressional Staffers 

7 presentations to VIPs (elected officials)

37 published Letters to the Editor 

Numerous conferences, hearings & briefings attended.  C-Span broadcast my question at a Senate briefing. 

12 radio shows 

8 TV interviews (Colombian TV, Fox and Univision, NBC, cable)

Stories from the week of January 14, 2011

 COPs on the Hill

 How did you do that?:   I was flabbergasted *(never happened in five years), when for a normal ‘meet and greet’ presentation with a Senate Republican staffer, her boss –Legislative Director -invited himself.   As always when I meet a staffer & give them my background, I always include my Long Ride for a head snap….    As you can imagine, the boss dominated the chat for the first 25 minutes.    He then turned to his colleague and asked if she had any questions or concerns about my presentation.  She said, “I want to know how you rode your horse across America!”  

 I gave her a one minute overview of 23 miles/day, six days week for six months — park the horse in baseball fields, in the woods, tied to a tree & with much help from strangers, it was a piece of cake. Smile.   For a bonus I showed her the February Reason magazine which has Misty and me as the centerfold.   And the meeting ended. 

 BTW, the LD and I hit it off well, he agreed in theory with the COP position and said he would recommend to the boss to sign onto a Senate repeal marijuana prohibition bill.    Given 22,000 lobbyists in DC, being remembered is the ‘coin of the realm.’  My hat and Long Ride continue to pay dividends. 

 ­­Webb Commission take two or ¡Homework!:  I attended the first organizational meeting of the year for a new National Crime Commission bill.  After I spoke of the need to emphasize this year the “Thin Blue Line getting thinner” reality, the chairwoman volunteered me to put together a fact sheet showing police and fire layoffs.   Sadly, using google ‘police layoffs ’ and add any state,   too many stories appear.  On the other hand, it strengthens our case to end at least marijuana prohibition ASAP.

 *flabbergasted = ich war platt

*coin of the realm = Gold Standard

 COPs 2nd year stats to date:

 TV appearances: 12 (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, cable) 

Newspaper stories: 6 dailes, 3 weeklies

Radio appearances: 6

Published LTE: 6   

46 presentations to Congressional staffers: (9 this week)

2 VIP (Member of Congress) presentations:   

Consider being a member of COPs at $30.00 or more per year.    Your support keeps the COPs voice loud and strong in the halls of the United States Congress.   We agree that Modern Prohibition/War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery & Jim Crow.  Go to: www.CitizensOpposingProhibition.org and click on Donate/Join – by credit card or send a check to:

 COP

POB 772

Buckeystown, MD  21717

 Howard

 Detective/Officer Howard  Wooldridge (retired)

Drug Policy Specialist, COP – www.CitizensOpposingProhibition.org

Washington, DC

817-975-1110 Cell

howard@citizensopposingprohibition.org

 Domino el español

Ich verstehe mich gut auf Deutsch

Je parle français assez bien pour un petit, timide, moyen cowboy

 Citizens Opposing Prohibition – Become a Member

PO Box 772

Buckeystown, MD  21717-0772

 Modern Prohibition/The War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional &  immoral  domestic policy since slavery  & Jim Crow.

Stories from the week of January 7, 2011

COPs on the Hill

End game coming:  This Wednesday I arranged* a meeting with Congressman Polis’ office (D-CO) which ended up including reps all DC based organization which want to repeal federal prohibition of marijuana. (MPP, SSDP, DPA, NORML and COPs).  After 30 minutes with the primary aide on this issue, the Congressman came in for the last 20 minutes.  More happened here which I can not disclose.*

Early this session it will happen(late this month, early Feb.) &  I will let you know immediately when the US House has a bill to repeal fed MJ prohibition.  Also, I will take that bill to the 6 (six) Senate offices whose aides have said they will bring it to their boss for a possible companion bill in the Senate.  I am encouraged that so many Senate offices will even consider this… and I am just getting started on the Senate side.   Recall I work the Senate from December to March & the House the rest of the year.

Keep in mind = don’t get too excited >> from introduction to the President signing a bill nearly always takes a number of years.   On the other hand, this type of bill, when signed by the President, will shift the battle to the States – where it belongs.   And we will go home to Texas.

*in the past I would NOT toot my horn about what I did but now that I have raise $$, with reluctance, I will start doing this.

Homework done and turned in:  This week I gave 3 briefing papers (1. How youth are harmed by MJ prohibition. 2) How prohibition hurts business. 3) How prohibition hurts America in general) to the legislative aide of a New England Senator I mentioned before the New Year.  Main paper on MJ is at the bottom  (8 minute read).  Many thanks to Eric Sterling, Jerry Epstein, Paul Armentano, Steve Fox and Dr. Mitch Earlywine for their review and many edits which made this effort shine like a new penny, IMHO.

I will let you know if the aide passed it on the prohibitionist Senator.

*disclose – teilen

A star is born:  A staffer I did not know stopped me in the Longworth café this week, saying he had seen my foto in Reason magazine (February edition).  Ah shucks.  Here is the foto by the way which was spread over two entire pages.  The foto is so large, you can read the buckle: LONG RIDER

COPs 2nd year stats to date:

TV appearances: 12 (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, cable) 

Newspaper stories: 6 dailes, 3 weeklies

Radio appearances: 6

Published LTE: 6 (one this week)

37 presentations to Congressional staffers: one this week

2 VIP (Member of Congress) presentations: one this week  

Consider being a member of COPs at $30.00 or more per year.    Add your voice to those who agree that Modern Prohibition/War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery & Jim Crow.  Go to: www.CitizensOpposingProhibition.org and click on Donate/Join – by credit card or check.

Howard

Harm to Youth Due to Marijuana Prohibition

SUMMARY:   Although the intent of marijuana prohibition was to limit the ability of youth to buy it, this result has not been achieved, quite the contrary.   Since 1975 teens in government surveys report that marijuana is readily available and easier to obtain than alcohol.    Teen use has recently overtaken their consumption of tobacco.  The strength of marijuana has increased.    By these metrics, prohibition has been at best a failure and perhaps made the situation worse.

As law enforcement has increased its marijuana arrests (new record number of arrests for simple possession in 2009), the result has been more teens have suffered and died than need be.   Detectives assigned to marijuana enforcement arrest no pedophiles and those possessing child porn.   Road officers have caught fewer deadly DUIs, due to more and more time spent searching cars for marijuana.    Teens have been murdered after they took the job option of selling marijuana.  College tuition has risen dramatically in the past twenty (20) years, as tax money was diverted to increase prison populations due in part to marijuana prohibition.  Those teens unlucky enough to have been caught are burdened by a life-long, drug-related criminal record which restricts their ability to get a job, a student loan, a license, a credit card etc. 

 Personal Safety.   Child cyber pornography continues to be a serious threat to little boys and girls in America.  Per Senator Biden’s hearing in April of 2008, law enforcement so under-resources this problem that only 2% (12,000) of these criminals were caught in 2008.   Per recent news, that figure is now 4% per year are caught.   At the end of 2008 about 190,000 little boys and girls were still in the home of a sexually abusive parent or guardian.   This while the police arrested 800,000 for marijuana crimes, mostly possession. 

Many teens are subjected to random drug tests to play sports, etc.   They all know that consuming alcohol or even meth and cocaine on Friday night will allow them a ‘clean’ urine on Monday morning.  Marijuana, since it is fat soluble, will show up on a urine test on Monday.   Thus, many teens choose the much more dangerous alcohol over the use of marijuana. 

Prohibition creates tens of thousands of part and full-time jobs for teens to sell pot.   No legal job available to teens is as easy to obtain or as rewarding.   Teens sell pot for profit and or to be popular with their peer group.  This can end up with them having a criminal record, in prison or dead.   Although not broken down by drug, SAMHSA reported in 2005 that 900,000 teens were selling prohibited drugs. 

The vast majority of teens who are getting high or “partying” choose between alcohol and marijuana. Marijuana use is actually safer than alcohol for the user, those nearby and the community. Consumption does not provoke aggressive or violent behavior. On average, those teens who use marijuana in place of alcohol have better health outcomes: no overdose deaths from marijuana; far fewer homicides, suicides, rapes, assaults, car crashes, and other problems caused by drinking & not by marijuana.    We need to make unwanted but inevitable experimentation less risky.

Marijuana use does NOT increase use of harder drugs. The last federal study concluded that marijuana was the “terminus” illegal drug for 72 percent of users.    The most recent research in 1999 done by the Institute of Medicine (division of the National Institute of Health) concluded, “There is no evidence that marijuana serves as a stepping stone [to other drugs] on the basis of its particular physiological effect.”     96% of marijuana smokers never try heroin.  One of prohibition’s greatest dangers is having a teen meet a drug dealer to buy marijuana and be offered a low cost or free sample of drugs like heroin.   Or, the dealer puts meth or heroin into the marijuana to hook the teen on the much more dangerous and expensive drug.  This does happen.

NOTE:  If marijuana were legal for adults, teens would buy it from older siblings or other adults, much like alcohol reaches teens.   This would continue to be against the law, similar to an adult can not furnish alcohol to a minor.  The advantage of legal, regulated and taxed marijuana is the adult would provide the teen pure marijuana inspected by the government.   The older sibling would not offer the teen other drugs for sale, certainly no free or low cost samples of hard drugs.

Also, the consumption of alcohol causes the death of more teens than all other drugs combined.    If marijuana were legal for adults, educators could put the proper focus on what is by far the biggest drug threat to teens – alcohol.

Minority youth are severely impacted:  Studies show these groups use at about same rate, but youth of color are stopped, searched and arrested at rates as high as four times the white rate. Former police chiefs – George Napper of Atlanta, Anthony Bouza of Minneapolis and Norman Stamper of Seattle – have criticized this outrageous feature of marijuana enforcement.

 Prohibition causes disrespect for all laws.  Teens see the hypocrisy of marijuana being illegal, while cigarettes, alcohol, Oxycodone, Valium & Prozac are legal.  Young adults who have their cars or persons illegally searched by over-zealous police become bitter and don’t respect the law.   The long-term damage to our society of developing contempt for law and authority at an early age is hard to measure, but evolves into lack of respect for government and the Congress, and admiration for outlaws.

Educational costs.    Tuition costs at colleges are much higher, as states fund narcotics units and then build more prisons to hold those they arrest.  Thus fewer young people can attend or they are burdened with huge debts upon graduation.   Many students now graduate with the equivalent of a home mortgage.  

The best studies have shown that the criminal justice system in 2009 spent about 12 billion to enforce marijuana prohibition and about 6 billion in taxes was not collected from its sale.  This money was unavailable for pressing public purposes of all kinds. The money is truly lost in the sense that its expenditure fails to accomplish any worthwhile public purpose.

Long term consequences:   President Jimmy Carter told Congress in 1977, “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.   Nowhere is this clearer than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.”  This ball and chain follows the young person all the way thru life, decreasing their ability to obtain good employment and wages.  When Michael Phelps the swimmer was arrested as a drunk driver, that crime was no problem for Kellogg.  However, his smoking cannabis lost him a million dollar contract. 

Has marijuana prohibition protected our teens from using it?   No.  Those who support prohibition have testified that marijuana would become easier for teens to buy, if legal for adults.   The federal government reports that marijuana “is readily available to America’s youth.”   How could it become easier to obtain than “readily available?”

Would more teens try it, if it were legal for adults i.e. send the wrong message?  No.  Medical doctors –board certified in addiction psychology –  have stated that at least as many teens try marijuana because of the glamour and excitement factors created by its prohibition, as are deterred by it being illegal for everyone.   

Respectfully submitted, 

Detective Officer Howard Wooldridge (retired)