12 Steps to Stopping Terror

WTF???

CNBC?

CNBC has a gallery of medical marijuana.

Maybe major policy changes are closer than we think?

Perverse incentives created by alcohol taxes

Here's a great example of the perverse incentives created by tax revenue from alcohol sales and a strong lobby that prevents increases in alcohol taxes.

Is this what we want for marijuana?

• In Georgia, Connecticut, Indiana, Texas, Alabama and Minnesota, lawmakers are considering legislation this year that would end the ban on Sunday liquor sales. All but 15 states sell booze on Sundays.
• In Nebraska, a state lawmaker has proposed allowing beer to be consumed in state parks as a way to boost tourism.
• Other states, including Utah, are considering allowing the sale of liquor on Election Day.

In fairness, the article does point out that several states are considering alcohol tax hikes, but the list includes California, which seems to have shot down the idea.

Pot polls

Nate Silver has a more sober and analytical take on the recent Rasmussen poll.

[via Andrew Sullivan]

Taxes, alcohol and drugs

A California Assemblyman is looking to a marijuana tax help address their budget woes. It's a common argument and I think it's a bad one. I've repeatedly made it clear that I'm not a marijuana alarmist, but commercialization and taxation of tobacco and alcohol have been wrought with serious problems. Their lobbies are extremely powerful and the alcohol lobby has been very successful at keeping taxes low. With all of California's budget problems, there is no alcohol tax increase in their budget accord. In Michigan, the worst economy in the country, the beer tax has not increased since 1966. Worse, they rely on problem drinkers and underage drinkers for a substantial portion of their profits.

If we eventually legalize and tax it, let's hope that they go for the moon and tax it high. There's lots of evidence that high taxes reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol related problems.

I've said it before, but I think Mark Kleiman has the best solution.

Pot legalization

Mark Kleiman directs us to a new poll on the subject with only a 6% margin against legalization.

His analysis of the poll:

Rasmussen doesn't give the wording, and the accompanying article is written largely from a pro-legalization viewpoint (Rasmussen tends to lean libertarian).

Under the circumstances, I'd be skeptical, but the CBS/NYT poll in January got comparable results: in response to "Do you think that the use of marijuana should be made legal or not?" 41% said "legal" and 52% said "not legal." Current support for legalization is at what seems to be an all-time high, but the numbers are consistent with the long-term trend in Gallup polling.

Predictions about Obama's policy direction:

Note that these numbers come against the backdrop of relentless official anti-pot propaganda: not just from the drug czar's office, DEA, and the DARE program, but even from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. That suggests that a President who decided to change the message might not hit a stone wall. And the age breakdown suggests that the trend is likely to continue as the cohorts that grew up without pot leave the voter pool.

Obviously, this isn't something the Obama Administration is going to jump on, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a big move late in a second Obama term or sometime in the term of his successor (assuming the Democrats keep winning elections). If I had to quote odds, I'd say about even money on legalization within fifteen years. As with the repeal of alcohol prohibition and the creeping legalization of gambling, I'd expect it to be presented at least in part as a revenue-raising measure.

His opinion on the matter:

Substantively, I'm not a big fan of legalization on the alcohol model; a legal pot industry, like the legal booze and gambling industries, would depend for the bulk of its sales on excessive use, which would provide a strong incentive for the marketing effort to aim at creating and maintaining addiction. (Cannabis abuse is somewhat less common, and tends to be somewhat less long-lasting, than alcohol abuse, and the physiological and behavioral effects tend to be less dramatic, but about 11% of those who smoke a fifth lifetime joint go on to a period of heavy daily use measured in months.) So I'd expect outright legalization to lead to a substantial increase in the prevalence of cannabis-related drug abuse disorder: I'd regard an increase of only 50% as a pleasant surprise, and if I had to guess I'd guess at something like a doubling.

So I continue to favor a "grow your own" policy, under which it would be legal to grow, possess, and use cannabis and to give it away, but illegal to sell it. Of course there would be sales, and law enforcement agencies would properly mostly ignore those sales. But there wouldn't be billboards.

That beautifully-crafted policy has only two major defects that I'm aware of: it wouldn't create tax revenue, and no one but me supports it. On the drug-warrior side of the argument, even those who can read the handwriting on the wall won't dare to deviate from the orthodoxy. As we did with alcohol, the country will lurch from one bad policy (prohibition) to another (commercial legalization). I just hope the sellers are required to measure the cannabinoid profiles of their products and put those measurements on the label.

The drug war and incarceration

Though this in no way justifies the drug war, it's contribution to the prison population is often overestimated:

Myth No. 2: Low-level drug offenders drive prison population growth. It is popular, perhaps almost mandatory, to blame the boom on the War on Drugs. But it is just not true. Only 20 percent of inmates in prisons (as opposed to jails) are locked up for drug offenses, compared with 50 percent for violent crimes and 20 percent for property offenses; most of the drug offenders are in prison for distribution, not possession. Twenty percent is admittedly much larger than approximately 3 percent, which was the fraction of prisoners serving time on drug charges in the 1970s. But if we were to release every prisoner currently serving time for a drug charge, our prison population would drop only from 1.6 million to 1.3 million. That's not much of a decline, compared with the total number of people in prison in the 1970s—about 300,000.

In fact, the war on drugs does play a role in the prisoner increase. But it's an indirect one. State "predicate felony" laws, for example, impose longer sentences on offenders with prior records: A drug conviction may not send someone to prison, but it will make him serve more time for any future crime he commits. This suggests that simply tackling long drug sentences, as reformers in New York state have done, may miss the real problem.

One interesting point for context: the number of people incarcerated for drug crimes is now approaching the total prison population in the 1970s.

4 takes on the new Drug Czar

The Stranger has 4 takes on the new drug Czar. Here's an excerpt from one:

Kerlikowske has also overseen a shift in drug policy from enforcement to treatment. Most notably, he allowed the Get Off the Streets program to hatch in the Central District in 2006. That year, then-lieutenant John Hayes (now a captain) set up a table in an open-air drug market where people with criminal warrants could visit for referrals to housing, health, and human services without risking arrest.

"That was, at that time, a very edgy approach, and the chief was willing to let one of his people staff the program," says City Council member Nick Licata, who soon pushed for legislation to fund the project. "It was at a stage where Gil could have stopped it, but he allowed it to go forward."

Although he isn't going to legalize pot, drug czar Kerlikowske could push to lift the federal ban on funding needle exchanges, stop the medical-pot raids in California, overhaul spending on antidrug commercials, and enthusiastically seek funding for drug-treatment programs.

The larger brilliance of Obama's pick for drug czar isn't just that Kerlikowske is open to new strategies, but that he is first and foremost a cop. Nobody can claim that Kerlikowske is a public-health nut who doesn't know the impact of drugs on the streets. Like many Americans, he agrees that drugs should be illegal. But he understands that both enforcement and public health have their place, and he's willing to take a look at new approaches when enforcement alone has failed.

[via Andrew Sullivan]

More on the power of gratitude

Bob Sutton posted a link to the abstract below:

This study tests whether gratitude predicts psychological well-being above both the domains and facets of the Five Factor Model. Participants (N=201) completed the NEO PI-R measure of the 30 facets of the Big Five, the GQ-6 measure of trait gratitude, and the Scales of Psychological Well-being. Gratitude had small correlations with autonomy (r = .17), and medium to large correlations with environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relationship, purpose in life, and self-acceptance (rs ranged from .28 to .61). After controlling for the 30 facets of the Big Five, gratitude explained a substantial amount of unique variance in most aspects of psychological well-being (requivalent = .14 to .25). Gratitude is concluded to be uniquely important to psychological well-being.

Gratitude also improves sleep quality.

College Fraternity Sober Monitors

Fraternities and the university collaborate on a harm reduction approach to unsafe drinking at fraternity parties:

The Interfraternity Council is looking to bring a fresh approach to social responsibility through a redesigned Sober Monitor Training Program.

The program will provide members of the Greek community with the skills necessary to hold safer parties and handle alcohol-related situations that may arise at parties. At all fraternity parties a designated number of brothers is required to remain sober throughout the night. IFC president Ari Parritz said a priority of his will be to have most first-year members attend the program so they’ll know what to do when it’s their turn to be a sober monitor.

...
“My goal for this program is to have every new member — that is, the individuals generally responsible for the operation and conduct of our social events — complete it by February of 2010,” Parritz said in an e-mail interview. “Our community trusts these individuals with the safety and conduct of our social events; as such, they should be trained by professionals, and never be placed in a situation where they are unsure what to do.”

Desprez said there have been three training sessions so far this semester, with each session having between 10 and 40 people in attendance. There are plans to have eight to 12 sessions conducted by the end of the semester, she said.

The training program includes conversations and demonstrations on blood alcohol content, recognizing different levels of intoxication, alcohol-related laws, risk management issues, conflict management skills, and emergency protocol, Desprez said.

Nausea Drug Shows Promise Against Opioid Addiction

This could be good news. Buprenorphine has been a really good tool but we are seeing increasing misuse of it. Something that's effective in reducing suffering and has no misuse potential would be great.

The Limits of Shame

Andrew Sullivan picks up on a debate about shame's influence on behavior:

Adam Serwer responds to Dreher's post on stigmatizing having children out of wedlock:

Conservatives regularly overestimate the beneficial effects of shame. Shame provokes response in the form of impulse, not long term planning. A person who
is ashamed isn't going to think, "I'd better get a degree" or "I'd better get married," they're going to think in the short term about what they can do to rectify their sense of self-worth.

How do you see people--men in particular--act when they're ashamed? You rarely see them do something like get married or get a fantastic job; usually they're going to hurt or exploit someone, make them feel as low as they do--this is the lesson learned by the shamed from the shamer, regardless of the lesson the shamer thinks they're teaching the shamed.

I'm not sure it's possible to encourage beneficial social behavior without in some ways discouraging destructive behavior. The key is emphasis. And a little positive reinforcement often goes a long way.

I'm not interested in entering this debate (in this space any way), but this issue of shame is relevant. I've posted before on people like Sally Satel, who are worried that the disease model will erode stigma (that's a good thing!!!) and lower the threshold for people to misuse drugs and alcohol.

BTW - I've been watching the debate about Ta-Nehisi's posts unfold for the last week. Good reading.

More on the new Drug Czar candidate

The New York Times ran an article about the latest Drug Czar candidate. Not very quotable, so read the whole thing.

New residential treatment completion numbers

• Treatment completion among clients discharged from long-term residential treatment was also highest among those reporting primary alcohol abuse (46 percent), but lowest among those reporting primary cocaine abuse (33 percent) or primary opiate abuse (35 percent)
  
  
• As educational level increased, the proportion of client discharges completing either short-term or long-term residential treatment increased

Still making Dawn Farm look good.

What these numbers don't report is probably more important. I care a lot about how many people complete residential treatment at Dawn Farm, but that's only part of the picture.

What do they do after treatment? Do they maintain involvement in mutual aid groups? Do they attend aftercare?

What about the people who don't complete residential? Do we maintain a relationship with them? If residential was not a good fit for this person, at this time, do we connect them with another service that will better meet their needs and preferences? If residential was they right place for them, are we able to get them back into residential?

Addiction recovery is a long game, not a short one; addiction is a chronic illness, not an acute one. Successfully completing treatment is like successfully responding to a heart attack--it's a significant victory, but any long term success relies on taking medication, compliance with dietary guidelines and compliance with exercise recommendations. Completing treatment should be viewed in the same manner and treatment services should be structured to provide long-term support in maintaining recovery and long-term monitoring to help prevent relapse and re-intervene quickly when relapse does occur.

Neighborhood-based strategies

I often hear arguments that the cost of incarceration makes it sensible to invest in individuals and service delivery systems to keep people out of prison.

This suggests that neighborhood-based strategies could be a very effective strategy.

Nationwide, an estimated two-thirds of the people who leave prison are
rearrested within three years. A disproportionate number of them come
from a few urban neighborhoods in big cities. Many states spend more
than $1 million a year to incarcerate the residents of single blocks or
small neighborhoods.

Some of Mark Kleiman's points from yesterday's post lead in the same direction:

5. We can help by shrinking our domestic markets. Offenders under
criminal justice supervision account for half of all hard-drug
consumption. Hawaii's Judge Steven Alm has shown that frequent testing
and swift, automatic, but relatively mild sanctions can sharply reduce
methamphetamine use among probationers. This is a cheap solution that
also actually shrinks the population behind bars by reducing both
probation revocations and arrests for new crimes. But it works only if
the authorities can organize themselves to deliver the sanctions.

Carefully adapted to local conditions, testing-and-sanctions can be
extended nationwide, to every probationer and parolee, and everyone
released on bail, who has an illicit-drug problem. The current practice
of forcing large numbers of drug users into treatment, with
incarceration as the alternative, wastes resources. Voluntary treatment
should be more broadly provided. Coerced drug treatment should be
reserved for those who don't respond to the threat of short jail stays.

...

8. Flagrant retail drug markets still devastate too many American
neighborhoods, especially poor urban areas where African-Americans and
Latinos live. Imprisoning half the young men in those neighborhoods is
neither useful nor just, but that's the result of routine street-level
drug enforcement. Since every dealer arrested makes room for a
replacement, we're just running on a treadmill. "'Drug kingpins,"' too,
are replaceable. We now keep 500,000 drug dealers behind bars at any
one time; there wouldn't be a significant rise in drug abuse if that
number were halved. There are smarter and less brutal things to do.

9.One practical alternative to routine drug law enforcement is to
break up markets with as few arrests as possible. This was an approach
first used in High Point, North Carolina, and is now being tried out in
dozens of places nationwide. Identify all the dealers in a market,
build cases against them, and warn all of them, simultaneously, that
they have a choice of stopping -- right now -- or going to prison. If
that threat is made convincing, most dealers quit and there's enough
capacity to arrest and imprison the rest. When all the dealers in a
neighborhood quit or get sent away at once, the market is gone, and a
little bit of enforcement will keep it from coming back. Committed
users still get their drugs, discreetly, but crime drops and the
residents get their streets back. Can this general approach work
elsewhere? Try to find out.

Advice for the new Drug Czar

Here's an abridged list of suggestions from Mark Kleiman. (Please take the time to read the whole thing here.)

1. Talk to Americans as if we are thinking adults.

2. You'll be told that we have a national strategy resting on three legs: enforcement, prevention, and treatment. Don't believe it. There is no coherent strategy.

3. "Drug czar" is a silly title. We're not fighting a war, you don't have czar-like powers, and the last actual czar who fought an actual war got clobbered. You're stuck with the title. But don't get sucked in to the rhetoric of "'enemies"' and "'victory."' The drug problem isn't like that.

4.There are some real "'drug wars"' raging: in Afghanistan, in Colombia, and in northern Mexico.

5. We can help by shrinking our domestic markets. Offenders under criminal justice supervision account for half of all hard-drug consumption.

6. Treatment needs to be more accessible and more accountable.

7. Engage family doctors, internists, emergency room personnel, and mental health counselors to identify and address their patients' drug problems.

8. Flagrant retail drug markets still devastate too many American neighborhoods, especially poor urban areas where African-Americans and Latinos live. Imprisoning half the young men in those neighborhoods is neither useful nor just...

9.One practical alternative to routine drug law enforcement is to break up markets with as few arrests as possible.

10. Prescription pain-killers and stimulants are now traded hand-to-hand among middle school and high school students. So far, no one has a convincing idea about how to deal with the problem. Get someone thinking about it.

11. All these measures bring one common injunction: Take public management seriously.

12. Our data collection systems are pathetically ill-matched to the actual drug problem.

New Drug Czar

This is the first I've seen about Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske being appointed as Drug Czar.

The article says almost nothing about his positions on drug policy.

Girls more resilient than boys in troubled households

Here's a brief report on a study finding that girls are 4 times more resilient than boys in overcoming adversity at home, such as a heroin addicted parent.

The details are sketchy and the study isn't posted on the journal's webpage yet. I'll try to get more info and do another post on it.

Contingency Management for Smokers

I've bristled before at the use of incentives for addicts. I worry that it smacks of "the subtle bigotry of low expectations."

However, I saw this post on incentives for smokers and was confronted with the fact that we use a financial incentives for employees at Dawn Farm and have for more than 15 years.

I'll have to digest this for a while.

Rockefeller Laws: An End in Sight

Good news:

The New York Legislature finally seems poised to overturn the infamous Rockefeller drug laws. The impending change comes too late for the tens of thousands of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who wasted away in prison because of mandatory sentencing policies when they should have been given treatment and leniency. But after years of building support for reform, legislative leaders now have it within their power to make wholesale changes in this profoundly destructive law.

Read the rest here.