• Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    Question of the Week: Does student drug testing achieve drug free students?

    Drug Policy Question of the Week – 8-23-10

    As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 8-23-10. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3031

    Question of the Week: Does student drug testing achieve drug free students?

    As described in the July 2010 report from the U.S. Department of Education, entitled “The Effectiveness of Mandatory-Random Student Drug Testing,”

    “One approach to address student substance use is school-based mandatory-random student drug testing (MRSDT). Under MRSDT, students and their parents sign consent forms agreeing to the students’ random drug testing as a condition of participation in athletics and other school-sponsored competitive extracurricular activities.”

    These programs have the goals of (1) identifying students with substance use problems for referral to counseling or treatment services, and (2) deterring substance use among all students.

    Unfortunately, MSRDT has produced few results. Seven years ago, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found,

    “Drug testing is not associated with either significantly lower risk scores or lower estimates of student body drug use.”

    That same year, researchers in a Journal of School Health article concluded,

    “drug testing (of any kind) was not a significant predictor of student marijuana use in the past 12 months. Neither was drug testing for cause or suspicion.”

    A 2007 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health questioned deterrence, finding that,

    “No Drug and Alcohol Testing deterrent effects were evident for past month use.”

    The conclusions in the aforementioned 2010 Department of Education report mostly mirrored those of the prior studies, stating that mandatory random student drug testing has,

    “had no “spillover effects” on the substance use reported by students who were not subject to testing and had no effect on any group of students’ reported intentions to use substances in the future.”

    These facts and others like them can be found in the Drug Testing chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

    Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected].

  • Cannabis & Hemp - What You Can Do

    Who is for & against Proposition 19?

    We have updated our list of who is for and against Proposition 19.

    FOR

    The International Longshore and Warehouse Union

    The National Black Police Association

    The United Food and Commercial Workers Union

    The California National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

    Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

    The Drug Policy Alliance Network

    Students for Sensible Drug Policy

    The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws

    The American Civil Liberties Union

    The Courage Campaign

    Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former United States Surgeon General

    The Cannabis Consumers Campaign

    DRCNet

    DrugSense

    Common Sense for Drug Policy

    Marijuana Policy Project

    Citizens Opposing Prohibition

    The California Black Chamber of Commerce

    Retired Orange County Judge James Gray

    Republican Liberty Caucus

    California Young Democrats

    AGAINST

    The California Chamber of Commerce

    The California Police Chiefs Association

    The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy

    Mexican Marijuana Trafficking Organizations

    The California Narcotics Officer’s Association

    Gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown

    Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer

    The California League of Cities

    Mothers Against Drunk Driving

    Please check out the new Proposition 19 website at
    http://yeson19.com/ – and please do whatever you can to support the effort.

  • Focus Alerts

    #448 California’s Proposition 19

    Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010
    Subject: #448 California’s Proposition 19

    CALIFORNIA’S PROPOSITION 19

    **********************************************************************

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #448 – Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

    Today the San Francisco Chronicle printed two OPEDs.

    The first ‘Californians Must Look at Science of Marijuana’
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n677/a08.html is interesting for
    what is not disclosed. It is by an addiction therapist. The
    therapeutic community has a vested interest in continuing the current
    system. About half of all users in therapy are there because of their
    marijuana use. Of those, over 40% are there from court referrals —
    they take therapy as a preferred alternative to jail whether they need
    it or not. Many of the others are there because their parents’ health
    insurance will buy therapy as an alternative to being expelled from
    school or referred to the juvenile justice system.

    The second ‘Legalizing Marijuana Is Bad For California’
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n679.a06.html is by Susan
    Manheimer, the president of the California Police Chiefs Association.
    There is more spin and propaganda in the OPED than we can count.

    Your letters to the editor about either or both are invited.

    Opinion items are always good letter targets. They are MAP archived
    at http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm

    The same applies to Proposition 19 items which may be found at
    http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Proposition+19

    Please check out the new Proposition 19 website at http://yeson19.com/
    – and please do whatever you can to support the effort.

    We have started a list of who appears to be for and against
    Proposition 19 based on MAP’s news clippings.

    **********************************************************************

    FOR

    The International Longshore and Warehouse Union

    The National Black Police Association

    The United Food and Commercial Workers Union

    The California National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

    Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

    The Drug Policy Alliance Network

    Students for Sensible Drug Policy

    The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws

    The American Civil Liberties Union

    The Courage Campaign

    Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former United States Surgeon General

    The Cannabis Consumers Campaign

    DRCNet

    DrugSense

    Common Sense for Drug Policy

    Marijuana Policy Project

    Citizens Opposing Prohibition

    The California Black Chamber of Commerce

    Retired Orange County Judge James Gray

    **********************************************************************

    AGAINST

    The California Chamber of Commerce

    The California Police Chiefs Association

    The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy

    Mexican Marijuana Trafficking Organizations

    The California Narcotics Officer’s Association

    Gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown

    Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer

    The California League of Cities

    **********************************************************************

    Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
    http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

    For the latest facts about marijuana please see
    http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53

    **********************************************************************

    Prepared by: Richard Lake, Focus Alert Specialist www.mapinc.org

  • Drug Policy - Letter Writer of the Month

    Letter Writer Of The Month – July – Wayne Phillips

    Newshawk: Published Letters Awards www.mapinc.org/lteaward.htm

    DrugSense recognizes Wayne Phillips of Hamilton, Ontario for his
    three letters published during July. This brings his total published
    letters, that we know of, to 81. Wayne writes as the Communication
    Director for Educators For Sensible Drug Policy http://efsdp.org/

    You may read his published letters at
    http://www.mapinc.org/writer/Wayne+Phillips

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Black Cops Say Legalize Marijuana

    Neill Franklin, a 33-year veteran cop from Baltimore, talks about why the National Black Police Association and many individual African American officers are supporting an initiative to legalize marijuana in California. Neill is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), which any civilian can join for free at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com/

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Lessons Not Learned Since Tragic Drug Raid in Atlanta

    By Bill Piper

    Money spent prosecuting and jailing low-level offenders is money not being spent on drug treatment or education.

    It’s been almost four years since Atlanta narcotics officers shot and killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston and planted evidence in a failed attempt to frame her – and her family is just now receiving justice in the form of a $4.9 million settlement. That of course won’t bring Ms. Johnston back. And despite some cosmetic changes to how drug law enforcement works, very little has changed. City officials will continue to pressure police officers to meet informal arrest quotas, police will continue to violently raid the homes of people suspected of only nonviolent offenses, and taxpayers will continue to foot the bill of a failed drug policy. Real reform is needed.