With the publication of my new mystery, Powers of Arrest: A Cincinnati Casebook, I'm taking a few days off for signings. Some will be in Phoenix, so check this schedule.
In the meantime, use the thread as you wish (except to sell something). Some interesting fodder is the decisive GOP primary defeat of Sen. Richard Lugar in Indiana by Richard Mourdock. Lugar's sin: Working with the other side (sometimes, less in recent years). Mourdock, the Tea Party-backed candidate, said, "I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.... Bipartisanship means they have to come our way.... To me, the highlight of politics, frankly, is to inflict my opinion on someone else with a microphone or in front of a camera." Sounds just like the Kooks in Arizona. But can American democracy function this way before it devolves into tyranny?
In Arizona, the push for "open primaries" can only lead to elections where, in most cases, it will be Republican vs. Republican. This is another stealth effort at voter suppression, a broad and dangerous nationwide effort which will affect this election much more than is realized. Arpaio is still free. The downtown market pullback is a sign of how far behind downtown Phoenix remains.
As for President Obama's "evolution" to (re) supporting gay marriage, I am reminded of Keith Olbermann's majestic and moving Special Comment. I also think: There goes North Carolina. The election, too? Will the Republicans snooker the 50.1 percent with God, guns and gays all over again? Whatever happens, the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte looks to be...interesting, as they say in the South.
Update: Here's Jim Kunstler's report from the New Urbanist meet.
Book Time-Rebound
For this Book Time Post
I offer the following.
There will be no rebound until this nation begins to understand, there are too many of us. That the fresh water supply is about 1 percent. Global warming is a reality. Organized religion is dangerous. That the government has failed to prosecute hundreds of financial gangsters.
Regarding food, I am still hearing from farmers that they can’t get their crops out of the field as there are no J T Ready types signing up to pick cotton.
But by God we can find the power to prosecute gays and minorities in an attempt to save the nation for the Christians in their white hooded sheets.
Arizona would be a good place to start. Arrest not recall? What would Arizona look like if some politicians in state and county government went to jail. That might signal a rebound. However try finding someone that will prosecute. Arizona can’t even put together a program to do away with the Warren Jeffs Town Marshall system in Short Creek.
Rebound to most is when they get home at night to dribble down in front of the TV.
Your shot Steve.
Posted by: cal Lash | May 09, 2012 at 08:03 PM
Time to take prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's advise.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/colin-powell-book_n_1503592.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D159353
Posted by: cal Lash | May 09, 2012 at 08:13 PM
Mr. Talton wrote:
"In the meantime, use the thread as you wish (except to sell something)."
I'll post a copy of my continuation from the previous thread, since it's an important topic and, perhaps, an interesting treatment. (I hope I'm not selling "moonshine"!)
* * *
Since the energy cost question (in particular, the cost of gasoline) is central to Rogue Columnist and the Kunstlerian models it offers more than a passing nod to, it's worthwhile to examine that question in greater detail.
As noted above, the inflation-adjusted per gallon cost of gasoline isn't the only factor determining driving costs today; there is also increased fuel economy. Let's "do the math".
The average mileage of the U.S. passenger car fleet in the 1950s was about 15 miles per gallon.
http://epb.lbl.gov/homepages/rick_diamond/LBNL55011-trends.pdf
Largely because of the nation's first fuel economy law, enacted in 1975 and phased in through the 1980s, the U.S. car fleet average mileage increased to about 25 miles per gallon as of 2010.
http://www.pewenvironment.org/uploadedFiles/PEG/Publications/Fact_Sheet/History%20of%20Fuel%20Economy.pdf
Note that these are CAR fleet averages, which I offer to make historical comparisons as close as possible. There are far more SUVs and light trucks on the road today than in the 1950s, so current total U.S. vehicle fleet averages are lower than 25 mpg. If more households switched from SUVs and large pickup trucks to (say) something the size of a 2011 Honda Civic (combined city/highway 29 mpg) or the 2011 Honda Civic Hybrid (combined city/highway 41 mpg) today's fleet mileage would be higher.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2011_Honda_Civic.shtml
The cost of gasoline per mile driven = the cost per gallon / miles per gallon.
The average annual cost per gallon in inflation-adjusted dollars in the 1950s was about $2.50, and today about $3.50.
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_chart.htm
Gas cost per mile 1950s: $2.50 / 15 = 16.66 cents per mile.
Gas cost per mile now: $3.50 / 25 = 14 cents per mile.
So, gasoline is actually cheaper now when the combination of inflation adjusted gas prices and increased fuel economy are considered together.
Using simple algebra, the cost of gasoline necessary for per mile gas costs to equal those of the 1950s can be determined:
X = 25 times 16.66
X = $4.17 per gallon
If the U.S. non-commercial vehicle fleet had average fuel economy equal to the Honda Civic Hybrid (a realistic premise if future technological advances in fuel economy, combined with consumer shifts toward smaller vehicles, are assumed), gasoline would need to cost $6.83 per gallon (in today's dollars -- more in nominal future dollars due to inflation) to be equivalent in cost to the 1950s.
This certainly doesn't sound like we're going to Kunstlerian hell in a handbasket.
How expensive would oil need to be to support a gasoline price of $6.83 in current dollars?
According to one source, as of February 2012 crude oil prices made up 72 percent of gasoline prices (the rest depends on refinery and distribution costs, corporate profits, and federal taxes).
http://useconomy.about.com/od/supply/p/oil_gas_prices.htm
Since one barrel of oil equals 42 U.S. gallons, we can derive a simple algebraic equation to determine oil price based upon this model:
Gasoline price per gallon = (oil price per barrel / 42) times 0.72
Gasoline price per gallon times 0.72 = oil price per barrel / 42
(Gasoline price per gallon times 0.72) times 42 = oil price per barrel
Setting gasoline price at $6.83 we obtain an oil price per barrel of $206.53 so evidently we have a bit of wiggle room before the price of gasoline catches up to 1950s gasoline cost per mile, given perfectly reasonable, currently technically possible increases in fleet mileage.
There's my "guestimate", Cal. Post complaints about premises, reasoning, and/or math errors here.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 09, 2012 at 08:25 PM
I am not a math person but sounds like we could add another 1.6 cents tax to a gallon of gas? Wonder if thats enough to fund a war with Iran?
Posted by: cal Lash | May 09, 2012 at 08:35 PM
Moving right along, here's my take on whiny Arizonans re the immigration issue. A comment posted to today's Arizona Republic op-ed, "Many Will Not Self-deport". The comment received four thumbs down (none up -- but also no rebuttals) from the self-satisfied locals (Nativist tribe) who haunt the backwaters there. Note that I'm far more concerned about the smuggling of (hard) drugs than I am about illegal immigrants, but wanted to make a broad point:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2012/05/08/20120508editorial0509-many-will-not-self-deport.html
The feds have increased border security manifold, but the Arizona border with Mexico remains a big place: 370 miles long.
There are, however, choke points. From "New BLM Efforts to Guard Desert" in today's Arizona Republic:
"The smugglers have carved foot trails that spider through the desert and have left behind acres of plastic water bottles, coats, backpacks and other items cast off after trekking for days from the U.S.-Mexican border to rendezvous points 75 miles to the north along I-8, the main highway smugglers use to transport drugs and illegal immigrants to stash houses in the Phoenix area or to California."
Neither illegal immigrants nor drugs are walked all the way from the Mexican border into Phoenix, much less into California or other states where the majority of both end up. They walk to I-8 where the smuggling organizations arrange for cars, vans and trucks to pick these up. Going to Phoenix requires them to drive east along I-8, and heading into California requires them to drive west.
The obvious solution is to place well-staffed, permanent checkpoints along I-8 in both directions, to weed out van-loads of drugs or illegal immigrants while facilitating the speedy passage of legitimate commercial, tourist, and other traffic.
My understanding is that Arizona is a noted drug-smuggler's paradise precisely because it is the only state in the desert southwest which refuses to set up such checkpoints.
It also refuses to support an increase in funding for border crossings so as to catch more vehicular drug smugglers while not impeding commercial and tourist traffic coming into the United States. Drug smugglers play the numbers, knowing that the need to keep traffic moving means fewer random searches; and they have plenty of drugs to gamble with, as well as plenty of drivers willing to take that risk for a large cash payment from the cartels.
It galls me to see that the feds have increased border enforcement by orders of magnitude, while Arizona's legislature prefers to punt the ball and whine about federal inaction instead of establishing a dozen well-funded, well-staffed permanent checkpoints at strategic choke-points along I-8 and certain other highways, where resources can be deployed to maximum effect with maximum leverage. Smugglers, whether of drugs, illegal immigrants, or both, have known destinations and a limited number of ways of getting there, all of which involve driving along major highways in order to get to Phoenix and/or to surrounding states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interstate_8_map.png
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 09, 2012 at 08:44 PM
When Petro and I were driving home after the last gathering, he made a comment that has really stuck in my mind. I will paraphrase him:
{An empire has to continue to draw in the resources from thoughout the empire in order to keep the empire running.}
I believe we were discussing why we need to stay in Afghanistan in order to guard and use the vast mineral resources that are in that country and now belong to our empire.
It just so happens that during my reading of the conquest of the new world, the author commented that Spain and it's Conquistadors were in a frenzy to find all the gold and silver they could get their hands on because Spain needed the resources to fund it's world empire.
In the same readings, there is mention that the educated Spaniards and Conquistadors constantly compared themselves to the Roman Empire and discussed the do's and don't learned from the fall of that empire.
It got me to thinking. Petro sure is a smart man. Too bad the people who run empires aren't smart like him.
Posted by: AzRebel | May 09, 2012 at 08:48 PM
Emil, to this I agree, “It galls me to see that the feds have increased border enforcement by orders of magnitude, while Arizona's legislature prefers to punt the ball and whine about federal inaction.”
I thought the AZ legislature tried to have a Militia to operate as the governor directed?
But drug and human smuggling are economic issues. I believe in the next 50 years fewer Mexicans will come north as economic development increases in Mexico.
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Next_100_Years.html?id=r-g97KwH2GkC
Drug smuggling will continue to be a drain on the American taxpayer (at least 40 billion a year) as long as drugs are illegal and the profits go to Al Capone and Chapo type gangsters.
And how many more prisons can we afford to build and staff?
Personally I am opposed to more and more law enforcement to try and solve an economic problem. Smuggling has been going on since mankind has been around the planet. One of the more famous cases of smugglers that could have been beheaded for their actions were the wise guys that went to Bethlehem with “illegal” products.
And I think if they make coffee illegal tomorrow I may go into the smuggling business.
Posted by: cal Lash | May 09, 2012 at 10:17 PM
But the Afganis sold the mineral rights to China and we've been dutifully guarding their mines. And don't forget, Spain squandered their entire fortune trying to overthrow Queen Elizabeth of England (hurts financially when you lose nearly your entire fleet) and then trying to turn back the Protestant Reformation. The USA is not even smart enough to be a true imperial power. It's all puffery like our politics - it will make "us" feel good about ourselves.
Agree about that smarty Petro tho!
Bill Moyers had an interesting chat with Luis Alberto Urrea on conquistadors, the border, the Tucson schools latin-awareness program. I really found it to be quite moving and profound:
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-between-two-worlds-life-on-the-border/
Posted by: eclecticdog | May 09, 2012 at 10:26 PM
Why no ebook for Powers of Arrest?
Posted by: Judith Lindenau | May 10, 2012 at 05:17 AM
Publisher says an ebook should be coming soon.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | May 10, 2012 at 06:21 AM
Funny... Right-wing bloggers seem to despise Open Elections as well.
http://seeingredaz.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/if-you-read-the-republic-youd-believe/
When the intellectual leaders of both sides agree that the proposition is stupid, it makes you wonder what sort of special interest is bankrolling the idea.
Posted by: Michael | May 10, 2012 at 07:42 AM
I bought two copies of Powers of Arrest in REAL book form as I love the feel and smell of paper and ink as I smear it all around on my hands and face. So if I get an E-book will it help my conservationist image?
Posted by: cal Lash | May 10, 2012 at 08:26 AM
I tuned out that Moyers/Urrea interview when Urrea stated, wrongly, that TUSD had banned the MAS program books.
TUSD did NOT ban those books; they were withdrawn from all the MAS programs and put on the district's library shelves where they sit today, with no wait list for users.
Urrea knows better than to make a mistake like that lie which has been repeated and repeated until the public thinks it true. Typical Alinsky tactic.
Posted by: terese dudas | May 10, 2012 at 09:03 AM
In my opinion Urreas first publishing of Life and Hard times on the Mexican Border was his best effort. I have tried his other stuff and just unable to get into it. I found Women in Coffee Shops by Stella Pope Duarte more interesting.
Posted by: cal Lash | May 10, 2012 at 03:15 PM
I look forward to reading Powers of Arrest during my travels over the next five days. Hope to see you at one of your Phoenix signings.
Posted by: Allen Weiner | May 10, 2012 at 03:38 PM
Dudas, you should have stayed with it because it did cover that very issue. The texts are "boxed" and in no uncertain terms it has been made clear that any non-hispanic teacher that dares teach the class will be dealt with as the district sees fit. Maybe a copy of each book has made its way to the library so it can be checked out every two weeks by some curious student. Hopefully someone can fact check that for us since the Republican controlled Dept. of Education is not being as forthcoming in their press releases as you think they are. Typical Kook tactic.
Posted by: eclecticdog | May 10, 2012 at 05:23 PM
Just checked out the link to Seeing Red AZ (via Michael). Even Kyl is too liberal for those Kooks!
Posted by: eclecticdog | May 10, 2012 at 05:38 PM
Sorry, funny little brain-fart I had with that last calculation. I got the right answer ($206.50 per barrel of oil given a per gallon gasoline price of $6.83, given the premises) only because I made two errors which cancelled each other out exactly: putting the "0.72" on the wrong side (first error) and then multiplying on both sides instead of dividing on both sides (second error, which corrected the first error).
The first line should have read:
Gasoline price per gallon times 0.72 = (oil price per barrel / 42)
This would have made the second line redundant, yielding the third line:
(Gasoline price per gallon times 0.72) times 42 = oil price per barrel
And as I stated:
Setting gasoline price at $6.83 we obtain an oil price per barrel of $206.53 so evidently we have a bit of wiggle room before the price of gasoline catches up to 1950s gasoline cost per mile, given perfectly reasonable, currently technically possible increases in fleet mileage.
The tacit issue is the fact that a barrel of oil, despite being 42 gallons, will not distill into 42 gallons of gasoline, due to inefficiencies in the distillation process. That said, this *seems* to have been included in the "0.72" factor (see article linked above for details). In any case, seems sufficient for a reasonable "guestimate".
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 10, 2012 at 08:53 PM
Only 1/2 hour tonight (less) to get to library, post, and get back to last bus. More replies tomorrow.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 10, 2012 at 08:56 PM
"cal Lash" wrote:
"I believe in the next 50 years fewer Mexicans will come north as economic development increases in Mexico."
Well, such a long time table makes argument difficult.
Closer to now, as I pointed out in my guest column On The Border, oil exports constitute about 40 percent of Mexico's legal revenues as a nation; next is remittances from foreign workers, and then comes tourism. But "Mexico's proven oil reserves are dwindling fast and may be exhausted at the current rate of production within less than ten years: the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that Mexico will become a net oil importer by 2017".
http://roguecolumnist.typepad.com/rogue_columnist/2010/01/on-the-border.html
So, despite the fact that Mexico's economic growth has been strong lately (a factor contributing to decreased immigration levels, along with the weak U.S. economy), if oil exports dry up and decreased immigration to the United States reduces the share of remittances in Mexico's national revenues, tourism won't be able to take up the slack. Will an increase in manufacturing there occur, of sufficient magnitude to offset this and offer other opportunities? I don't know but I doubt it.
"cal Lash" wrote:
"Drug smuggling will continue to be a drain on the American taxpayer...as long as drugs are illegal and the profits go to Al Capone and Chapo type gangsters."
I think you could have stopped at "drug smuggling will continue to be a drain on the American taxpayer".
Just consider how big of a problem alcohol abuse is in the United States: according to the Centers for Disease Control, "excessive alcohol consumption, including high per–occasion alcohol consumption (binge drinking), and high average daily alcohol consumption is responsible for an average of 79,000 deaths in the United States each year."
http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2011/p1017_alcohol_consumption.html
That's more than the number of American deaths during two decades of U.S. involvement in Vietnam (58,269).
The Federal Highway Safety Administration reports that despite decreases in recent years, in 2008 13,846 Americans were killed in alcohol related car crashes, and that alcohol was a factor in 41 percent of fatal crashes. There were tens of thousands more non-fatal crashes in which alcohol was involved; and countless other crimes and health problems in which alcohol abuse was implicated as a contributing factor.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/2010cpr/chap5.htm#3
Alcohol alone is involved in 30 percent of assaults in the United States, and 40 to 50 percent of violent crimes involve alcohol alone or alcohol with drugs.
http://recoveryfirst.org/alcohol-related-injuries-and-deaths-in-the-us.html/
If hard drugs are legalized and become as cheap as alcohol, expect use rates to skyrocket. A decrease in costs for enforcement of drug laws will be offset by an increase in enforcement costs for drug related offenses, an increase in medical costs, and an increase in motor vehicle collisions, injuries, and fatalities.
If drugs are legalized but heavily taxed to drive up the price, criminal syndicates will smuggle and distribute non-taxed drugs to undercut the legal market, will still fight each other for turf, and will still corrupt law enforcement, politicians and judges with bribes, and commit violence to intimidate those who remain incorruptible.
Most addicts of hard drugs have a difficult time keeping a job. I also don't believe that drug users will become an exempted class under employment laws, so they can still be screened and fired at will under legalization.
Without a source of income with which to purchase drugs, addicts must turn to crimes like burglary or prostitution, or must become small-time dealers.
In the case of legalization, there will either be no place for street dealers (since drugs will be easily obtained commercially) or else they will function in a grey market in which untaxed drugs are sold, or in a black market in which drugs are sold to those who cannot legally purchase them under the terms of legalization (e.g., those under 21).
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 11, 2012 at 01:51 PM
Gah. "timetable" not "time table".
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 11, 2012 at 01:53 PM
You are entitled to your quaint guestimate on drugs.
I disagree.
Posted by: cal Lash | May 11, 2012 at 02:34 PM
Interesting argument on the drug issue Emil, but I tend to believe the following:
A certain percentage of the human population is born with a genetic propensity to addictive behavior. Luckily for us the percentage is low.
That segment of the population will become addicted to whatever crosses their path, regardless of legal, illegal, unlimited in supply, hard to get. It doesn't matter. They can deal with their addictions, if they so choose, but they, nor anyone else will ever be able to cure them of their addictive nature.
Which leaves the large majority of the population who WILL NOT become addicted to drugs, even if you legalized it and gave it to them for free.
So as usual, in our CIVILIZED country, the vast majority of us are required to pay for the welfare the minority's problems.
Even Spock knew that in a true civilization "THE NEEDS OF THE MANY, OUTWEIGH THE NEEDS OF THE FEW".
Live long and prospher.
Posted by: AzRebel | May 11, 2012 at 02:52 PM
oops. I spelled prosper in Vulcan, where the h is silent and invisible.
Posted by: AzRebel | May 11, 2012 at 03:11 PM
Hard drugs (like heroin, meth, PCP, crack, prescriptions) will present many problems, but treating them like alcohol and tobacco (no sales to minors -- fines instead of prison and medical or psychiatric intervention for addiction) is the cheap way to go. Party drugs like marijuana, estacy, viagra, and cocaine will probably have little impact other than crackheads going back to being cokeheads and lifting an enormous financial burden of throwing all those minorities and poor white trailor dwellors into the hoosegow. Portugal has famously done this and found use actually dropped a small amount. Other countries that have decriminalized drugs have found the same. Your point about punative taxes is true (hence the popularity of highjacking tractor-trailers full of Marlboros).
Here's one for you Emil -- how much revenue (from fees and liquor licenses) has dried up from the enforcement of DUI laws in the coffers of the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control and how much has been made up by fines and court and jail charges? Let's limit it to the last 10 to 15 years.
Posted by: eclecticdog | May 11, 2012 at 03:48 PM
Also, Emil, you are attributing the same level of harm to the illegal drugs as alcohol exhibits. Alcohol is one of the king daddies of harmful substances, and while some of the "harder" drugs approach its pernicious dangers, I think on the whole any distraction from alcohol use provided by the legalization of drugs would probably end up being a net positive.
However, since illegal drugs are so easy to get, I'm of the opinion that most people that are inclined to use them already are.
Posted by: Petro | May 11, 2012 at 04:05 PM
DRUGS, legal and illegal. The research is out there and has been for years. In the big picture legalization is cheaper. Thats one reason why LEAP exists (cops against prohibition). At 72 and a student of this subject for 50 years I am too tired to have anything but an opinion. Personally I am opposed to using LEGAL or illegal drugs or alcohol or cigarettes. Just as I think you can eat to many hot dogs. Just dont try and take away my Ameicano.
Posted by: cal Lash | May 11, 2012 at 06:25 PM
Here's a copy of a comment I just added to the "Rebound" thread:
Mr. Talton wrote:
"As the Calculated Risk blog wrote, 'fewer foreclosures at the low end could lead to higher median prices, even if repeat sale prices are still falling.' "
An Arizona Republic story from April 27th, 2012, "Price of homes in Valley up 20%" had a pull-out table whose figures seem to support Mr. Talton's skepticism in this regard.
The interesting thing about the table's figures is that it breaks down average home price per square foot BY TYPE OF SALE, comparing March 2012 to March 2011 and providing a percentage change.
Average price per square foot for new-homes sales (only a tiny fraction of current sales) was +2.3 percent, a modest improvement but nearly flat.
Average price per square foot for "normal resales" was actually DOWN, -5.4 percent.
Average price for "investor flips" was up +9.8 percent.
Average price for "short-sales and pre-foreclosures" was down -2.9 percent.
Average price for "bank-owned sales" was up +16.7 percent.
Average price for "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac foreclosure sales" was up +20.1 percent.
So, while the total for all sales was up +14.4 percent, the average price for ordinary sales (new homes and normal resales) was flat or down; the total was buoyed by an increase in price in investor purchases (which I assume figure prominently in the "bank-owned sales" and "FM/FM foreclosure sales" categories as well as in the "investor flips" category).
It may yet be that upward price pressures from investor activity will spill over into regular sales, but to what degree or for how long, if so, remains to be seen.
P.S. The online version does not include this graphic, so I won't bother giving a link. So much for private sector "efficiency". The Arizona Republic webmasters are a model of sloth and incompetence.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 12, 2012 at 02:53 PM
Portugal isn't quite the argument for legalization that some advocates imagine.
"In July 2001 in Portugal a new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization. The offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the possessing was no more than up to ten days' supply of that substance. This was in line with the de facto Portuguese drug policy before the reform. Drug addicts were then to be aggressively targeted with therapy or community service rather than fines or waivers. Even if there are no criminal penalties, these changes did not legalize drug use in Portugal. Possession has remained prohibited by Portuguese law, and criminal penalties are still applied to drug growers, dealers and traffickers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal
Now, there are several things of importance to note here.
First, drug possession and use has not been legalized in Portugal.
Second, decriminalization was "in line with the de facto Portuguese drug policy before the reform", so it cannot be credited for positive changes. In order words, even though personal drug use incurred criminal penalties like prison before the new law, those penalties were in practice deferred in sentencing, in favor of drug diversion programs. Much the same thing is true already in the United States for drug possessers not charged with possession for sale. Prisons are not overflowing with "personal use" drug offenders not charged with other crimes.
Third, Portugal enacted "a vast expansion of harm reduction efforts, doubling the investment of public funds in drug treatment and drug prevention services". This is in large part responsible for the decrease in some use rates, not decriminalization per se. The United States does not have a comparable investment in prevention and treatment.
Fourth, addicts are "aggressively targeted" with therapy, and therapy has been compelled by maintaining the illegality of drug use, which gives law enforcement authorities there substantial authority to detain, detoxify, enroll in treatment, and monitor treatment aggressively, with the possibility of punitive conventional criminal penalties (fines and jail) for "contempt of court" for those who stubbornly refuse to cooperate. Again, this is not legalization.
Fifth, while some use rates have decreased, some have also been offset by an increase in substitution use: "From 2000 to 2008, the number of people in Portugal receiving substitution treatment increased from 6,040 to 25,808".
Three-fourths of this was an increase in methadone use (as a substitute for heroin addiction), "with the rest receiving high dosage buprenorphine treatment" (another opioid substitute).
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 12, 2012 at 03:53 PM
Pre-prohibition, alcohol use was widespread and in general society carried little or no social stigma, despite the passions of "temperance" fanatics. During prohibition, there were NO criminal penalties for the possession or use of alcohol: what was illegal was the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol. Despite this, the elimination of conventional advertising, distribution, and retail of alcohol DID substantially reduce public consumption, as did the increase in price caused by this elimination.
Once prohibition ended and the normal business infrastructure (and price structure) resumed, public consumption again expanded.
The idea, popular among some legalization advocates, that eliminating the social stigma of drug use, eliminating the criminal penalties for drug possession and use, and decreasing the price of drugs to make them competitive with alcohol, will somehow fail to enlarge the market for drug use, is astoundingly naive.
The idea that cocaine (in its various forms), methamphetamines, and narcotics in general, would somehow cause fewer problems than alcohol, as Petro suggests, is really quite fanciful.
If alcohol causes more problems, it is only because it is more popular than those drugs. If drugs were cheap and widely available and without criminal risk, common sense dictates that use would increase, and as a result, so would intoxication-fueled criminal activity, auto-accidents, and medical problems.
The argument that drugs are already used by those so inclined, naively claims that existing criminal sanctions and social stigma have no deterrent effect. That's like arguing that everyone who would commit rape already does because all it takes is a penis.
While it is true that a minority of individuals display "addictive behavior" and are responsible for the majority of alcohol abuse, and that something similar may be true of drugs, it is also true that some substances are more easily abused than others (indeed, some cannot be safely used at all), and that some substances are more addictive than others, so that a different percentage of users would become addicted.
Alcohol is fairly safely used by most, without danger of addiction or serious consequences. Despite this, its popularity, affordability, and legality means that a minority percentage of abusers burden society with great costs, because there is a large absolute number of them even if they are a minority of all drinkers; and many are serial offenders (e.g., DUI).
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 12, 2012 at 04:02 PM
An excerpt from "Rethinking the War on Drugs" in the Wall Street Journal:
* * *
Larry Long, a district court judge in South Dakota, developed one promising approach, called 24/7 Sobriety. Started in 2005, it requires people who commit alcohol-related crimes -- originally just repeat offenders for drunken driving but now other offenders -- to show up twice a day, every day, for a breathalyzer test as a condition of staying out of jail. If they fail to appear, or if the test shows they have been drinking, they go straight to jail for a day.
More than 99% of the time, they show up as ordered, sober. They can go to alcohol treatment, or not, as they choose; what they can't choose is to keep drinking. According to the state attorney general's office, some 20,000 South Dakotans have participated in 24/7 Sobriety (a large number for state with just 825,000 residents), and the program has made a big dent in rearrests for DUI.
By distinguishing sharply between people who use alcohol badly and the larger population of non-problem users, 24/7 Sobriety moves past the simple dichotomy of either banning a drug entirely or making it legal in unlimited quantities for all adults.
* * *
Note that by going to jail "for a day" they get an immediate taste of the consequences of non-compliance, a threat of further immediate jailing for continued non-compliance, and also the choice of freedom as a reward for compliance. This doesn't require any far-seeing imagination to grasp either the concrete consequences for non-compliance or the salvation and personal freedom resulting from simple compliance. E.P.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 12, 2012 at 04:41 PM
Forgot the WSJ link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303425504577353754196169014.html
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 12, 2012 at 04:41 PM
I was talking to the chief economist of Fiserv, which gathers the Case-Shiller Index.
Change in Phoenix house prices from 2Q 2006 peak to 4Q 2011: Down 56 percent. Estimated annual price change through the fourth quarter of 2016: Up 1.7 percent (vs. 5 percent in Seattle). Prices there expected to "go sideways" after "investor" interest stops, which it will. Forecast change in prices this year before market hits bottom: Down 11.1 percent.
Also, the fire on Whiskey Row in Prescott is horrible. I will blog on this more. But it's a terrible loss for a state that can ill afford it, and shows no interest in historic preservation.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | May 12, 2012 at 06:07 PM
Emil wrote:
"Much the same thing is true already in the United States for drug possessers not charged with possession for sale. Prisons are not overflowing with "personal use" drug offenders not charged with other crimes."
My recommendation Emil is that you read 100 pre-sentence reports for purely property crime convictions such as auto theft or burglary in Maricopa County. The conviction will not be a drug offense but the purpose of the crime was to feed a drug addiction for 95% of those convictions.
Posted by: pinata | May 12, 2012 at 11:03 PM
Emil wrote:
"The argument that drugs are already used by those so inclined, naively claims that existing criminal sanctions and social stigma have no deterrent effect. That's like arguing that everyone who would commit rape already does because all it takes is a penis."
My recommendation is that Emil talk to 50 people who have served prison sentences. You will hear that drugs are easier to score in the joint than on the street. If criminal incarceration can't prevent drug use, how effective are criminal sanctions.
You might also speak to 20 sex offenders to get a better sense of comparing illegal drug use to sex crimes. No comparison.
The question is not the marginal deterrent effect that costly, ineffective drug laws have on illegal drug use, the issue is the growth of dangerous criminal drug organizations that challenge the very authority of governments in many developing countries.
Posted by: pinata | May 12, 2012 at 11:11 PM
I am late, as usual. I only got to the Ambulance Days post a couple of days ago. For the record, I am Tom Payne. Jon and I had the alter-egos of Buford Gilbert (me) and Arlo Southern. I am a Seattle area native who spent ten years in Arizona from '75 to '85. I worked with Jon in '77 and then ran an ambulance for a construction company on the Central Arizona Project for several years.
I just finished my hard copy of Powers of Arrest. If there was any question in your mind, I think its worth reading. I have all of his novels and Will Borders tells me a lot about what its like to be Jon these days.
I'll go back to lurking as the Subversive Squad always does. Those of you in the Belligerent Squad can carry on. We've got your back.
Posted by: Buford | May 13, 2012 at 12:09 AM
You ran an ambulance and your name is Payne??
Posted by: AzRebel | May 13, 2012 at 09:11 AM
Thanks for the info on Portugal, Emil. But I still thinks it points to that decriminalization and therapy go much further than incarceration.
Posted by: eclecticdog | May 13, 2012 at 10:14 AM
Discovering all these new oil fields in the Dekotas and East Texas is sure going to throw a wrench in the timetable of the peak oil doomsayers.
I'm sticking with my theory. It will be a slow, painful, ugly decline of our empire, maybe 100 to 200 years in the process.
Posted by: AzRebel | May 13, 2012 at 10:20 AM
Pinata and electric dog, good posts. I am to going let you all carry on this subject should it continue. Of all the stuff posted here I didnt see anything I wasnt aware of. As a 72 year old conservative republican, a retired company owner a PI and a cop that worked narcotics twice on a local and federal level I am too tired to argue illegal drugs and religion anymore. Just accept that I am for legalizing all drugs and if we HAVE to make a new law, I would make organized religion illegal. Lock up the kooks and put them on a Sahuaro planting chain gang.
Posted by: cal Lash | May 13, 2012 at 10:42 AM
Spekaing of being tired Cal.
These are issues which concerned me in college and continue to concern me now, forty years later.
War on drugs
Wars
Oil
Clean water
Clean air
Abortion
Gay rights
Over population
Environment
Education
Nuclear threat
If I had gone into a coma in 1970 and come out of the coma yesterday, other than computers and cell phones, nothing would be changed.
Same old crap. New packaging maybe, but same old crap.
It is very tiring.
Posted by: AzRebel | May 13, 2012 at 11:24 AM
10-4
Posted by: cal Lash | May 13, 2012 at 11:32 AM
Yes, tiring is right. It's to the point that people have calcified to their prejudices, facts be damned.
I'm speaking of the "other side," of course. Not me! ;)
Posted by: Petro | May 13, 2012 at 11:36 AM
I have gone from calcification to petrified wood. Almost totally intolerant.
Time for my nap.
Posted by: cal Lash | May 13, 2012 at 12:28 PM
cal,
I heard you were going to be featured in an Arizona commercial for Viagra and the theme was going to be about "petrified wood".
Anyway, that's what I heard.
Posted by: AzRebel | May 13, 2012 at 01:01 PM
A Woody it is!
Posted by: cal Lash | May 13, 2012 at 01:27 PM
The NYT article i've been waiting for:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/student-loans-weighing-down-a-generation-with-heavy-debt.html
mentions many of the points discussed here before. Reduced state funding for higher ed (more for prisons). Federal loan scheme that tries to make up for that. Racketeering of the for profit toilet schools.
Posted by: AWinter | May 13, 2012 at 01:47 PM
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/155393/How_the_Ayn_Rand-Loving_Right_Is_Like_a_Bunch_of_Teen_Boys_Gone_Crazy
Nice Mother's Day commentary.
Also, Tom Friedman, the usually odious blowhard at the NYT had a decent column today. I'll throw the link up but remember you only get 10 free page views per month at the Times now: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/friedman-this-column-is-not-sponsored-by-anyone.html?ref=opinion
Here's the second-to-the-last paragraph in his piece:
Throughout our society, we are losing the places and institutions that used to bring people together from different walks of life. Sandel calls this the “skyboxification of American life,” and it is troubling. Unless the rich and poor encounter one another in everyday life, it is hard to think of ourselves as engaged in a common project. At a time when to fix our society we need to do big, hard things together, the marketization of public life becomes one more thing pulling us apart. “The great missing debate in contemporary politics,” Sandel writes, “is about the role and reach of markets.” We should be asking where markets serve the public good, and where they don’t belong, he argues. And we should be asking how to rebuild class-mixing institutions.
This gets at the core political issue in America today. We can't have a real social democracy if there's no visible democracy in our public square (or no public square period, for that matter). What we have instead is socio-economic fiefdoms where like-minded tribesmen congregate. Once we stop seeing one another, the real exchange of information evaporates. Scottsdale doesn't care about Maryvale (and certainly doesn't want to fund its schools). Gilbert doesn't bother with South Phoenix. We've Balkanized to the point now we're no longer real to each other. This is why our politics has become insane.
Posted by: soleri | May 13, 2012 at 03:30 PM
Speaking of Mother's Day - this is charming:
Social Security Checks Garnisheed for Student DebtPosted by: Petro | May 13, 2012 at 04:08 PM
So what ya'll are saying is we have a clueless generation heading out into the world with massive debt, a grandma-ma who is tapped out and the only chance they have of mixing with the "haves" is to hang out at one of the new bar/pool clubs in Scottsdale where drinking and swimming removes the necessity to go to a bathroom to pee.
What could go wrong with that???
Posted by: AzRebel | May 13, 2012 at 04:22 PM
That alternet.org link to the Ayn Rand article really picks up some steam... it's not as light as the conceit of its lede implies... shared.
Posted by: Petro | May 13, 2012 at 04:32 PM
Posted by: Petro | May 13, 2012 at 04:35 PM
"pinata" wrote:
"My recommendation Emil is that you read 100 pre-sentence reports for purely property crime convictions such as auto theft or burglary in Maricopa County. The conviction will not be a drug offense but the purpose of the crime was to feed a drug addiction for 95% of those convictions."
The percentage is spurious, but I agree that many property crimes (especially burglaries) are drug-related. That this isn't news to me might have been inferred from my earlier comments in this thread, where I wrote:
"Most addicts of hard drugs have a difficult time keeping a job. I also don't believe that drug users will become an exempted class under employment laws, so they can still be screened and fired at will under legalization. Without a source of income with which to purchase drugs, addicts must turn to crimes like burglary or prostitution, or must become small-time dealers."
Why would you expect drug addicts to become more employable under legalization? If they can't keep a job because of an addiction, they will have to pay for their drugs, the roof over their heads, their car, their food, and so forth, some other way. It remains true under legalization, whether drugs are heavily taxed to drive up their costs, or whether drugs are as cheap as alcohol. Rent is expensive, so is keeping a motor vehicle. As for feeding an addiction, even alcohol can easily cost a heavy drinker $100 or more a week -- the "more" depending on how cheap the spirits, whether bars are visited, and on exact quantities. Two bottles a day of cheap whisky (say, $8 each plus tax) adds up fast.
Legalization will increase the number of addicts and the number of property crimes committed to feed addiction and to provide for basic needs in the absence of employability. Opportunities are limited for those who sleep all day and divide the rest of their time between the haze of intoxication and sober periods when a desperate drive for money and drugs dominates them.
I also wrote:
"In the case of legalization, there will either be no place for street dealers (since drugs will be easily obtained commercially) or else they will function in a grey market in which untaxed drugs are sold, or in a black market in which drugs are sold to those who cannot legally purchase them under the terms of legalization (e.g., those under 21)."
No place for dealers also means more prostitution or property crime as a way of feeding drug habits and of meeting basic expenses such as shelter and transportation, for someone who is in no fit state to work because of habitual narcotic intoxication, or who gets screened out by employers before they are hired.
"pinata" wrote:
"...drugs are easier to score in the joint than on the street. If criminal incarceration can't prevent drug use, how effective are criminal sanctions?"
Nothing can prevent criminal behavior in the segment of society determined to act criminally. Not incarceration, and not the death penalty, except to the extent that imprisonment or death prevents further criminal acts.
Fortunately for society, most individuals do not fall into this category. There are three basic categories: (1) determined criminals, for whom nothing or almost nothing is sufficiently deterrent; (2) saints, for whom no motivation to criminal behavior is sufficient; (3) everyone else. The last category is by far the largest, in our society.
Let's extend your argument to other crimes: is the fact that prisons are full of criminals, who acted despite the deterrent penalty of imprisonment, an argument for the abolition of all laws and of prisons in general?
There are plenty of middle-class folks who wouldn't dream of driving to a bad part of town to purchase drugs, not only because the idea of imprisonment terrifies them, and the idea of gratuitously engaging in felonious behavior mortifies them, but because any activity that requires them to associate with bad people (i.e., drug dealers) who may be personally dangerous to them (whether the danger is real or imagined) makes them uncomfortable.
It may seem odd to you, but most individuals, regardless of class, have no idea where or to whom to look for hard drugs, unless they live in a very bad neighborhood indeed, where street corner dealing is the norm or drug houses are well-known. Their social circles don't overlap with those of addicts and dealers. Rates of hard drug use are low. By contrast, alcohol is cheap, plentiful and ubiquitous: everyone knows where to buy it.
Make drugs cheap, easily and conveniently available, remove all risk of criminal penalties, and remove the social stigma which criminalization confers, and in a generation, drug use will skyrocket; and that will be true across class lines.
It's bad enough that there are thousands of drunk drivers on the road. The only reason we don't have equal numbers of accidents, injuries and fatalities from drug-related DUIs is that drugs are not as popular, because they are illegal, harder to come by, and more expensive.
If you want to argue for legalization despite this, for example on philosophical grounds, I might disagree but would respect your position, more than I would in the case where denial of the obvious undermines your case.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 13, 2012 at 04:39 PM
"eclecticdog" wrote:
"Thanks for the info on Portugal, Emil. But I still thinks it points to that decriminalization and therapy go much further than incarceration."
I agree. My point is that social costs will be high whether the "drug war" continues, or a Portuguese model of decriminalization and aggressive treatment and prevention is adopted, or the libertarian pipe-dream of complete legalization occurs.
We're also a lot closer today to decriminalization than most legalization advocates seem to imagine. U.S. prisons are not overflowing with simple "personal use" possession cases. Burglary remains criminalized in Portugal, whether drug-motivated or not; so too in the United States.
Sometimes the answer to difficult problems is that there is no easy fix.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 13, 2012 at 04:51 PM
I'm not going to open that can of worms here, but if others wish to meditate upon it...
(Hint: Our culture, and the education of our youth, is not reflective of an enlightened society.)
Emil, this question is not the slam-dunk demonstration of logical absurdity that you clearly intended it to be. It stresses the context of this decrim debate, yes - but an affirmative answer is defendable.Posted by: Petro | May 13, 2012 at 04:54 PM
Thank you AWinter, Petro and Soleri for your insightful and superbly worded comments, as usual. It is this type of commentary that keeps me tuning in to Jon’s well formed articles. And thank you Azrebel for the laughs.
Time for my drug of choice, coffee, when I get back from my out of country trip. Texas.
Posted by: cal Lash | May 13, 2012 at 06:31 PM
Compared with the brainless religious zealotry and sexual hysteria of the right wing and the ruinous social services pandering of the left, the New Urbanists look like the only organized group of adults in the nation who have not completely lost their minds.
Kunstler is a wild man so sentences like the one above don't necessarily surprise. The nation's adults are a small group of people most other citizens have never heard of, but one which Kunstler himself belongs to. Even the delusional Ron Paul zealots don't go this far.
I've read most of Kunstler's work. His jeremiads about suburbia moved me in a way few other screeds have. But there's this price you have to pay for righteous anger, either your own or someone's you respect. Once it's clear that anger is the primary vehicle of communication, then social reality becomes so much disposable scenery in your personal Wagnerian opera. Thunder about everything replaces thought about anything.
I love Kunstler but I don't like him. This much certitude is toxic. It reveals the carrier not as an anguished witness so much as an abusive know-it-all. I read him now not to learn something new but to get pounded into mute submission. He holds up a mirror to my face and I don't like what I see.
Posted by: soleri | May 15, 2012 at 07:19 AM
WELL SAID, SOLERI
Me thinks you should have a few drinks with Kuntsler
Posted by: cal Lash | May 15, 2012 at 08:23 AM
Some transit humor:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/14/1091474/-L-A-subway
Yes they built it you bastards!
Posted by: eclecticdog | May 15, 2012 at 08:56 AM
"I love Kunstler but I don't like him." Very well put.
JHK provided the best insights into what was wrong with suburbia and how to recreate places worth caring about. His "Long Emergency" is worth reading. But we're not going to end up on small farms in upper New York state as the answer to dystopia.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | May 15, 2012 at 09:51 AM
JHK has that gonzo-style (ala Hunter S.) that I enjoy. But I neither love nor dislike him. I appreciate the writings he puts out there, but I think he underestimates the young and has no concept of economics beyond a barter system.
Posted by: eclecticdog | May 15, 2012 at 11:45 AM
Yeah, it keeps coming. The second part in the NYT series, featuring some hypocritical university admins:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/business/colleges-begin-to-confront-higher-costs-and-students-debt.html
Then a comment on the waste that is committed even in state schools to keep up with the Joneses i.e., the rankings, and entice sources of income. I didn't know Washington State Univ. had the largest (52 person) jacuzzi on the West coast.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/05/12/easing-the-pain-of-student-loans/control-costs-and-youll-control-the-problem
Finally, a law professor spells out the law school scam for every dolt to understand:
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/15/debt_not_just_for_undergrads/singleton/
Posted by: AWinter | May 15, 2012 at 12:55 PM
I recently read a book, a rhapsodic history of the post-war California suburb, Lakewood. It's Holy Land by DJ Waldie, and made me consider my mixed feelings about Kunstler. Waldie is reverential not about the place per se but the lives it contained. Some of it suffused with gentle irony but it never condescends. It was touching because we tend to look at places like this (think Maryvale) and condemn them for being insufficiently attractive. But there were - are - real lives here whose memories are rooted and tangled in the definite soil of a specific environment.
It's possible to imagine all sorts of bitter outcomes to the crisis of industrial civilization. That said, I can't agree with Kunstler that we should welcome its collapse or the pain it will necessarily bring. Waldie humanizes the problem if only to put it a context we're capable of understanding. These are our lives. We don't critique their circumstances without damning ourselves.
Posted by: soleri | May 15, 2012 at 02:49 PM
Kunstler and others like him remind me a bit of the religious zealots standing on the corner, carrying a sign saying "Repent! The World Ends Tomorrow". There's a strong element of puritanism to his screed.
Is he really the first correct member of this line of self-styled prophets, or will he be a Wikipedia footnote fifty years from now?
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | May 16, 2012 at 01:43 PM
Since Peak Oil has now been pushed back 100 years, that footnote will need to be delayed a little longer.
Posted by: AZRebel | May 16, 2012 at 02:34 PM
Peak oil has been pushed back 100 years and I'll sell you a McMansion in Maricopa for only $10 million.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | May 16, 2012 at 05:18 PM