USA - VT, USA: Drug and alcohol policies questioned

[baudmax]

Sand opened the ACLU drug policy conference, and was amazing! They had some hack, I believe his name was Bill Darrow, from the USAO Fed Office there, with the usual inane FUD. Can you believe that guy even said, essentially that what we have now (as far as drug policy) is about is good as we're going to get?! When it was pointed out to him what he was saying, Darrow denied it, tho this conference was filmed in its entirety (ACLU-VT may have info on where to acuire a copy), so there is documentary evidence of what he did in fact clearly imply. He tried to crucify Sand with a misquoted newspaper snippet, in a feeble attempt to paint Sand as an extremist who advocated no-holds-barred legalization, after Sand had just clearly articulated his belief that we need to do a drug-by-drug cost-harm-benefit analysis and handle different drugs differently, so as to minimise social harm due to either legal or social consequences. Sand also openly advocates that marijuana possession and use (ie, NOT intoxicated driving) for adults should be completely removed from federal scheduling and decriminalized.

State's attorney critical of drug laws
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pb...611300390/1004


Peace and Divinity
Love is the Law

B.Machs
--
Drug and alcohol policies questioned
By Nancy Remsen
Free Press Staff Writer

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...706080307/1007

June 8, 2007
MONTPELIER -- The nation's war on drugs, a 35-year focus on enforcement, has failed to curb drug use and drug violence, Windsor County States Attorney Robert Sand declared Thursday.

"It's time to demand of our policy-makers a new model," Sand told an audience of more than 100 attending a conference on drug and alcohol policies sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Vermont.

Former Middlebury College President John McCardell offered the group a similar message about the nation's 25-year experiment with a 21-year-old drinking age.

Suggesting the age restriction wasn't clearly responsible for decreases in driving fatalities among young adults, but might be a factor in the epidemic of binge drinking by this age group, McCardell said, "It is time to reopen this settled question."

ACLU director Allen Gilbert said he focused his organization's annual conference on the merits of drug and alcohol policies because substance abuse affects so many aspects of life. He noted that it drives spending and work priorities for police, courts and the state correctional system; has an adverse impact on businesses; escalates health care costs; and destroys families.

Some who came to Thursday's conference embrace ideas such as decriminalization of marijuana or lowering the drinking age.

Others, like Sen. Hull Maynard, R-Rutland, came to hear "fresh ideas" for the vexing problems of drug and alcohol abuse.

Noting the cost of Vermont's enforcement efforts for substance abuse, Maynard said, "If punishment isn't sufficient to be a deterrent, then the people who are really being punished are the taxpayers."

Lost war?


Sand argued that "by virtually every measure, we aren't better off now than when we started the war on drugs."

"What happens when government tries to separate people from a substance they want?" Sand asked. "They find it from another place ... a violent, criminal marketplace.

"And by punishing drug users, we push them away from help."

Tony Folland, coordinator of an outpatient, medication therapy program for drug users in central Vermont, supported Sand's view of the outcome of making addiction a criminal offense. "To think we are going to punish away a disease, well it isn't going to happen."

Sand proposed that government shift its focus to harm reduction -- a kind of cost-benefit analysis. "If the harm of our response to the drug outweighs the harm of the drug itself, then we need to change our response."

Marijuana, Sand said, is a drug that needs to be dealt with differently. "I think we need to move marijuana out of the criminal justice system and into a treatment, public health approach."

"I disagree with almost everything Bobby Sand had to say," said William Darrow, assistant U.S. attorney.

While he and almost every other speaker agreed that enhanced treatment and effective prevention are needed, Darrow said he opposed any move to legalize the use of drugs such as marijuana and opiates.

"It is the chemical properties of these drugs that has such extreme adverse impacts," Darrow said. He predicted that easing penalties would lead to more drug use.

"Yes, we aren't winning the war on drugs," Darrow said. "We aren't winning the war on domestic abuse or fraud, either. These are ongoing problems."

U.S. Attorney Thomas Anderson issued a statement after the conference that blasted the idea that legalizing "dangerous, addictive drugs" would make Vermont safer. "Why would Vermonters want to risk our way of life by advocating for a dangerous social experiment that history and the European experience show is doomed to fail?"

Barre Mayor Thomas Lauzon, another speaker at the conference, proposed stronger rather than weaker penalties for drug dealers. Beef up prevention and rehabilitation, he said, "but at the end of the day, I think we have to consider the death penalty."
Drinking question

McCardell, like Sand, has created a stir with his challenge to conventional wisdom. McCardell founded a nonprofit organization called Choose Responsibility and undertaken a national campaign to change thinking about the drinking age.

He noted Thursday that Congress decided in 1984 to withhold a significant portion of federal highway dollars from any state that failed to set its drinking age at 21. Today, Vermont would lose $17.5 million if it lowered its drinking age.

Setting the drinking age at 21 was intended to reduce car crashes among young adults. Motor vehicle deaths have decreased in the past 20 years, McCardell said, but he added that the trend began before the age change and involved drivers of all ages.

"Lives have been saved for a lot of reasons," he said. "More lives have been saved by safety restraints (such as air bags and seat belts) in the last two years than lives saved the whole time the age has been 21."

McCardell also argued that the age change has had other adverse consequences, such as encouraging hidden, and excessive drinking.

Many in the audience seemed to agree, but not Sara DeGennarro, a substance abuse-counselor. She told McCardell, "I guess I'm unpersuaded that the 21-year-age has anything to do with binge drinking."

She offered another explanation that brought nods of support. "There is this culture of extreme behavior, this kind of culture of excess."

Contact Nancy Remsen at 229-4125 or nremsen@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com