The Five Stages of Grief over Obama's Drug Policies

August 8, 2009 -- Huffington Post (US)

The Five Stages of Grief over Obama's Drug Policies

By Stanton Peele, addiction expert, psychologist, raconteur

Original: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanton-peele/the-five-stages-of-grief_b_254134.html


Like the stages people who experience grief due to a personal tragedy pass through, people concerned about modifying American drug policies have dialed through these five stages since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States:

1. Unbounded enthusiasm. Drug reform advocates, along with other progressives, were wild with anticipation when Barack Obama was elected President. Aside from his remarkable background and intelligence, he was extremely well-informed about drug reform initiatives -- including clean needle programs, discrepancies in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine (which punish minorities disproportionately), and noninterference with states that have enacted medical marijuana (MM) statutes. Moreover, he called the war on drugs an "utter failure."

2. Anxiety. During the run-up to Obama's selection of a Drug Czar, a name often mentioned was Jim Ramstad, former Congressman and a recovering alcoholic who opposed all major drug reforms (e.g., needle exchange, methadone maintenance). Why would Obama even consider such a Neanderthal, his supporters wondered. Where was he coming from in all of this, they asked themselves through sleepless nights.

3. Cautious optimism. Instead, the President selected Gil Kerlikowske, who was not known for being out front in reforming drug policies as Seattle Police Chief, but who also didn't fight the city's needle exchange program and low priority on marijuana possession enforcement, nor Washington state's MM laws. Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance and the country's leading reform advocate, declared himself "cautiously optimistic" due to Kerlikowske's middle-of-the-road stance, even as he was disappointed that Obama had chosen a law enforcement officer rather than a public health advocate to be Drug Czar.

4. Euphoria. Not all drug policy change originates in the Office of National Drug Control Policy. And a number of local and state initiatives came to the fore, including continuing support by states for MM, some harm reduction measures, and - as the economic downturn hit hard - active contemplation of legalizing marijuana in order to tax revenues from its massive sales in California and around the country. Furthermore, the House Judiciary Committee eliminated the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity. Although he pushed none of them, these actions were all consistent with Obama's enunciated positions on drugs.

5. Disillusionment. But, from the start, Kerlikowske sounded like anything but a drug reformer. Shortly after his installment as Drug Czar, he brashly announced that any type of drug decriminalization would be "waving the white flag" and that the "legalization vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't exist in President Obama's vocabulary." Since then, belying his own state's policy and Obama's and Attorney General Eric Holder's statements, Kerlikowske has consistently maintained that marijuana has no medical value. All in all, Kerlikowske's orientation towards drug policy seems like, well, a cop's. And yet he seems to reflect Obama's position on reform.

Where oh where are you Mr. President? Hoping against hope that Kerlikowske is going rogue, the Drug Policy Alliance has started a letter-writing campaign to the President asking him to reassert the progressive views he had previously endorsed, and to rein in his recalcitrant Drug Czar. Of course, it seems unlikely that a control maven like Obama would really allow his Drug Czar to repeatedly defy the President's own inclinations in this area.

A more realistic scenario is that the President - facing opposition to his key policies from not only red states and hard core Republicans, but increasingly also independent voters and moderate Democrats - is unwilling to forge ahead on drug reform. Liberalizing policies towards currently illicit drugs would strike Americans as intensely alien - even as young and old Americans are turning more and more to prescription pharmaceuticals for their highs (and lows), so that there is increasingly little space between substances deemed "illicit" and "legal."

But Obama is not committed enough to drug policy reform to incur the symbolism taking any steps towards liberalization would convey. Can you imagine what the Congressional hearings, town hall conflagrations, and shrieking of people calling "I want my country back" would be like if he tried? American prudery about drugs, alcohol and whatever else will not be reversed any time soon.

*******


Tom Murlowski
Operations Manager
November Coalition
282 West Astor
Colville, WA 99114


(509) 684-1550
tom@november.org
http://www.november.org
http://www.nonewprisons.org

 

The War on Drugs: One big failure

 

Son of Michael Douglas faces life in prison
By staff writers

NEWS.com.au

August 12, 2009 10:03am

WAY to help your boyfriend.

The girlfriend of Cameron Douglas, the son of actor Michael Douglas, has been arrested for trying to smuggle drugs to him - while he was being held in detention.

That’s after his hearing on federal drugs charges which could see him sent to jail for life.

The 30-year-old son of the Oscar winner faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum period of life for two counts of possessing and distributing forms of methamphetamine known by the street names of crystal meth and ice, which is smoked in a pipe.

He’s accused of selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of methamphetamine, according to a complaint unsealed this week.

After his initial court hearing yesterday, news broke that law enforcement sources claim Douglas’s girlfriend Kelly Sott was caught passing an electric toothbrush to him in a conference room at the courthouse after the hearing.

The claim that she passed the toothbrush to him in the courthouse was later revealed to be incorrect. The official story was that the exchange was made at the apartment where Douglas was being held in detention.

He was later moved to a jailhouse.

An official said there were small bags - “dime bags” - of heroin hidden inside the handle of the toothbrush.

NBC quoted law enforcement sources saying Sott was at a Manhattan apartment when Cameron Douglas called and asked her to bring down items to him.

She was allegedly caught passing the toothbrush to Douglas.

Douglas was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine in 2007 in Santa Barbara, California, but the latest charges outline a much deeper involvement in the illicit drug trade.

It is claimed Douglas received large quantities of crystal meth in California then sent them to New York via FedEx between 2006 and 2009.

He worked with accomplices who were cooperating with the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

In several different recorded phone calls Douglas referred to the drugs as "pastry" and "salts", the complaint said.

Douglas attorney Allison Menkes declined to comment. A next court date has not been set.