My Email to Clark Durant

At a luncheon recently during a Q&A I asked Clark Durant for his stance on Federal Drug Prohibition Policies. He did not answer the question at all, so I emailed him asking for a serious statement of what he supports even if it was just "that's not my issue." Just sharing it to encourage thought and action on the issue. To the Honorable Clark Durant and Company, While I tried to keep the first email short and sweet, your subsequent request for information deserves more detail. That said if you need it presented differently, or even have time for a 5 minute call, just let me know. I deeply appreciate your asking for more information. This is an important conversation and your honest opinion matters deeply to me. As Senator, you would have more power to influence this issue then almost anyone in America. To support you it is vital that people understand where you stand on this issue. Current Policy: The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010 on the War on Drugs. Source: Jeffrey A. Miron & Kathrine Waldock: "The Budgetary Impact of Drug Prohibition," 2010. This includes all or part of the following budgets: DEA – $2.02 billion dollars staff of 9,906. ONDCP – $401 million dollars Bureau of Prisions - $6.8 billion dollars (reflecting a 527 million dollar increase from Obama in 2011). Of the more than 217,000 inmates in Federal Prison. BOP itself estimates that more than 50% of Federal Population is in for Drug Offenses http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp Beyond this, while figures are not readily available, you can believe a substantial portion of money spent on US Federal courts is spent on Probation or Parole services for individuals released. As you know such budget figures only scratch the surface of net spending caused by their programs, because agencies like the ONDCP and DEA are leviathans which wrap their way through an assemblage of other federal state and local agencies. Take the DEA, which has a major portion of its budget going to the training of Local Enforcement Authorities in: “Drug Identification; Surveillance Techniques; Interview and Interrogation; Raid Planning and Execution; Asset Forfeiture; Undercover Techniques; Informant Management, Conspiracy Law and Investigations; Financial Investigations; Telephone Exploitation; Diversion Investigations; Clandestine Laboratory Safety and Investigation; Pharmacology; and Intelligence.” http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/detroit_training.html They set the standards, then educate and enforce people in them. You know how government spending warps State and Local priorities. And if you don’t just ask yourself: Would Detroit City spend tens of millions locking up marijuana users if it didn’t have a national agency standardizing and subsidizing it? Drug Market Economics You asked me for the Freedom Alternative, but as you know this starts by understanding the market the Federal Government is trying to inhibit. Now consider the commerce done in the illegal drug market. Let’s start on a local level. It 2006, it is estimated there was around 1.9 Billion dollars in drugs trafficked through Detroit City Proper alone! These are local sales, not even what DHS is catching at the border. Ironic isn't it- this is one thing we export a heck of a lot of to Michigan. Meanwhile at that time the City’s Total Police Budget was around 400 million. For everything! Let’s just imagine drug dealing as an ad in the paper: Deal Drugs! 1. All cash business! 2. Tax-free income! 3. Flexible hours! 4. No education or work history required! 5. Criminal background acceptable! Mr. Durant, you get economics. Drug Trafficking is not something the government can stop. We all have near-instant access to illegal drugs should we choose despite all laws to the contrary. From Capitol Hill to Max-Security Prisons drugs can be had. The DEA estimated in 1998 that US Residents spent more than $67 billion on narcotics. http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speakout/05so.htm Meanwhile, where does all that cash go? Now let’s look at the Ultra National perspective. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that 70% of financial resources available to “organized crime” derives from the narcotics industry. Think that’s any less the case in Detroit’s neighborhoods? Think the Detroit Police estimate that 50-75% of murders have a drug nexus isn’t related to that? Murder is economical in Detroit, which is the only explanation as to why there have been more than 21,000 people murdered in this city since 1969. Shootings are economical in Detroit, because Drugs is among- if not the most profitable and accessible businesses to be in. How to quantify those numbers to add them to the Billions we know is spent just buying the drugs in Detroit every year? I don’t know. How also do we account for the billions of man-hours lost every year in the productivity of non-violent drug offenders lost as they sit warehoused in prison or on probation, often in their prime years, handicapped from employment and participation in our economy? How to account for the knock-on effect of illicit drug money swirling through our economy? The math is difficult suffice to say we know the market is absolutely massive, dynamic and incapable of being suppressed. Freedom Alternative The Freedom Alternative begins when YOU ask yourself the question: WHY do Citizens need to earn the right NOT to be arrested by the Federal Government? Does the Constitution anywhere direct the Federal Government to do this? Has the Federal Government proven itself effective in Drug Policy Enforcement in the last 50-years? No. It is a top-heavy bureaucracy that identifies a problem- drug addiction- creates an enemy - traffickers- so that it can get funding to fight it. It’s prisons and prisoners; probation officers, parole commissions and federally appointed judges. Do they all provide such a service as to warrant $15 billion dollars spent annually? It doesn’t. And, as I have tried to demonstrate, these stated expenditures are miniscule when compared to the drug industries strength as a whole. Certainly, addiction is a terrible disease. Drug abuse shortens lifespans and kills more people than any other disease out there. Considering that it is easy to make an argument for policies that prevent it. But what such arguments miss is that they aren’t making a dent. Prices on street drugs have only fallen on an inflation adjusted basis and the age of first use amongst children has only decreased falling from 16-12.5 from when the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse started keeping track in the 70s to present. From Capitol Hill to Maximum Security Penitentiaries, Illegal Drugs are available and they always will be. It’s just supply and demand. What is the Freedom Alternative? It is the defunding and de/relegislating of the laws. It is not legalization, it is defederalization. And for that I have a sterling example for you in Alcohol Prohibition. And how that happened was the government pronounced that, “the Federal Government is getting out of this business.” They worked with States to prepare them for the change, but they quickly amended laws to de-restrict the sale of some quantities of alcohol, and municipalities and States started making their own decisions. They declared in legislation that “beverages with less than 3.5% alcohol no longer fall under our jurisdiction.” If you need legislative example, imagine the federal government amending Controlled Substances acts to say “the possession of up to 1 oz. of Marijuana on private property is no longer an enforceable/chargeable issue in Federal institutions.” Benefits: Let’s look at all the money that flows to State and Local coffers because they are the nexus for distribution of alcohol? Tens of millions of dollars in Michigan alone. Not to mention the Liberty that this Freed Market has brought to its vendors and users. This was once money that flowed through the pockets of organized criminal networks throughout the nation. Where we had Capone before now we have Coors. Remove this “extra-community” organization that cannot possibly interdict the mass disbursement of drugs and let the community make its own decisions- that is the Freedom Alternative. It is trusting our local governments to act responsibly. Allow Freedom for States and Localities to act, and watch the benefits liberty will have for all. Mr. Durant, I could provide you a mountain of statistics on this, blue ribbon commission findings, and Law Enforcement official upon Law Enforcement official. You are free to ask of me any support you desire. But the question remains: What are your frank views on continuing or increasing the Federal Drug Prohibition vs. defunding and re-legislating the matter? You can ask more evidence, but you see the experience this Nation has had so far. In light of that and your principles what do you believe needs to be done here? You have demonstrated your ability to take clear, unambiguous and passionate stands in other areas. If you hold mum, or play your hand close to the chest on this, I will be hugely disappointed by the equivocation. The less clearly you stand, the more I will have to conclude that you are comfortable with the present order. I will have to presume that the cancerous illegal activity that the illegal market supports just is not your issue. I am one Hillsdale grad among many, raised in the tradition of Free-Market economics and Christian virtues that feels a deep obligation to all fellow citizens of this Nation. So when I tell you that so much of what you say resonates deeply with me, I hope you will understand my sincerity. I realize you have major supporters that desire different solutions then what I have offered. I am not a reporter, set to broadcast this email conversation for maximum benefit. I am an active and concerned Citizen and I need to know. Please get back to me at your next convenience. Thank you all for the time to read and consider this. -Andrew Rodney p. 248.672.1739

American Spring

It is so heartening to see oppressive governments shaken by the power of their people.

By largely non-violent methods and motivations, tens of millions of people have risen up. With many voices they have delivered a single message to their leaders- your rule is unjust.

Using tools never before available, they agreed on a message, a demand, on coming together and demonstrating for change.

How appropriate would it be for we Detroiters and we Americans to call our government to account for its foreign meddling in that region? Or the similar oppression that it enforces upon its own people?

As the United States of America verges on practical bankruptcy- which is to say on the near certain default on its recognized obligations- it is time to ask: What do we want from our government?

Wars?

Do we want our Cities, Counties and States building large infrastructure for warehousing criminals- many non-violent?

Do we want to see Detroit City spend 50 million dollars on another jail downtown?

Do we want the Federal Government spending money on Drug Prohibition?

NO!

I know many friends may read this and agree change is needed. But HOW is the question. And this is where the courageous people of Africa and the Middle East have shown and are showing us the way.

Revolutions of violence never work, but demonstrations of unity and civility always destroy the illusions.

And this is why I implore you believers to RISE UP.

Personally, knowing that the Drug War has taken more than 300,000 American lives devastates my sense of justice. Detroit has seen over 10,000 of these deaths and a roughly 4-fold rise in its jail population since Nixon announced the drug war 40 years ago.

Drugs are dangerous, but wars are far more deadly. Especially in a country that respects its citizens right to bear arms, but not their rights to private property when in the possession of a drug.

It is time we take a cue from our Arab brethren who are also fighting 40 years of corrupted rule.

You CAN End Drug Prohibition.

Come to the May 7 Cures not Wars peace rally at Grand Circus Park- just outside Tigers stadium. It starts at 12. March is at 4pm.

Stand with the People of Detroit. If we want the justice system to work WE have to work for it.

Rides can be arranged. Please feel free to contact me.

The only question that matters

I would like to spend as little of my life as possible as an economic philosopher.

Not that agreeing on tenants of our political-economy are of little importance- they are vital. Instead I seek to avoid this chore so I will not live my life as a type-face intellectual in an era when a real, physical revolution is needed.

Our financial system is politicized in a way that has crippled our country. Never before, has the government so extensively used its powers to print money and control credit to support an entrenched group of citizens. Of course this problem didn’t crop up in the Financial Crisis- that was just one act of a long-running play.

It is a play with many stages, because wherever there has been a regulated coin or bill of commerce, there have been individuals that have sought to expand the supply of it, while forcing the citizenry to exchange their goods for it.

You readers know this and that is why it tires me to write about it.

In this specialized day and age, we are trained that some people are expert writers, some people are expert policy makers and some people are expert builders. That division of labor. We should all just specialize in our own trade, pay our bills and taxes and let the expert’s sort out the rest.

But revolution should spring from no specialty. Just that recognition that the rights of your fellow citizens are being trampled- physically, politically, economically.

The truth we can all see is that we live in economically tyrannical times. Few will move to Detroit to be an honest banker when there are double digit returns to be made flipping government subsidized products- from mortgages to F-22’s.

We could discuss supply and demand until we are blue in the face, and heck we might just educate some people, but the time for idle talk must be over.

I for one cannot be the servant of a system that imprisons so many millions. That makes federal policy into a river of treasures for those that stand along its banks. A system that lies about its ability to ever repay its obligations, and maintain its fiduciary promises.

The hard decisions have been put off too long.

Friends, while it may seem like “the game” is the same as it always has been the fact is that our system has never been spread so thin. If we can get organized to change it right now, we can do it.

The question Are you in? If you are: Prove it. Get in touch to plan.

For more than words it is action that is needed!