Reason media alert

Reason's Jacob Sullum is scheduled to talk about his new book, Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, this morning on C-Span's Washington Journal at 9 am eastern, and tonight on Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, which airs at 8 and 11 pm eastern.

(Update: You can access the video of Jacob's C-Span appearance here. )

Comments

[joe]

Did I actually type "PCB?" Well, you shouldn't smoke that either.

[James Merritt]

I watched Jacob Sullum's C-Span appearance, through the true miracle of internet videocast. All hail C-Span for making so much of their day's coverage freely available to the public in this way.

I ahve to say "thank you" to Mr. Sullum, for making what one caller called the "common sense case" for ending drug prohibition so thoroughly and articulately in a public venue. Not to toot my own horn, but I (along with numerous fellow Libertarians, I hasten to add) have been saying pretty much everything that Mr. Sullum said today for many years. Rarely, however, has there been time to cover a broad range of concerns in a single sitting; rarely have I addressed more than a handful of people at once; and NEVER have I had to do so under the pressure of the red camera on-light, the hot studio lights, and the sometimes contentious comments of disembodied callers or a hostile host (the latter of which O'Reilly may be, but the C-Span host, to her credit, was not).

What is remarkable to me is that Sullum made a broad and deep case, in plain language, while keeping his head in a pressurized situation, and not falling into the common rhetorical traps that drug warriors like to toss in the way of reformers (and that some of today's callers tried). Not a moment of his airtime was wasted. The ability to do all of that is rare, and deserves the profound appreciation of anybody who wants to end this "Moron War on..."

I guess I'll have to tape O'Reilly, to see how Sullum does there. I am hopeful that, based on his C-Span performance today, Sullum will be able to hold his own and even score points against the combative O'Reilly. I will judge Sullum's appearance on "The Factor" as successful, if he gets his points out calmly, while the only argument O'Reilly can ultimately muster is "because we say so and because we can." In the end, that's the only real argument the authoritarians have, anyway.

Bravo, Mr. Sullum, and thank you again. Everyone, see the C-Span video if you can. You won't regret it.

[Eric Hanneken]

Joe,

I've read Sullum's book, and no, his argument doesn't depend on PCP not being dangerous, although he does present evidence that no drug pharmacologically causes its user to become violent. The drug most associated with violence is alcohol, yet almost everyone recognizes that most drinkers are responsible, and don't hurt anyone. The same is true about users of other drugs.

[Anonymous]

Wasn't there a giy who murdered a prominent politician and blamed it on the sugar high from some junk food he'd eaten?

[Eric Hanneken]

I agree that Jacob Sullum did a fantastic job presenting his arguments on C-SPAN, but I doubt he'll have the same success on Fox News Channel tonight. The C-SPAN host was calm, and seemed genuinely interested in listening to what Sullum had to say. Bill O'Reilly is unlikely to exhibit those qualities. I saw Nick Gillespie on John Kasich's show a few days ago, and it was not good.

[Perry]

Bill -

Boy, isn't it great that this super-effective drug war that we have keeps these folks from getting PCP. Oh wait..

Well at least people don't get trashed on something legal like alcohol and get into accidents and kill people. Oh wait..

Point is that guy's gonna get all messed up on pretty much anything that he can lay his hands on, legal or not. If he's gonna do something stupid like that, he deserves to be behind bars no matter what substance he was or wasn't taking.

On a brighter note, i'm sure that watching O'Reilly will be worth a laugh or two.

[fredH]

Eric and Perry are right. Over the years, there have been many incidents comparable to the one Bill references that were due to alcohol abuse, and no one but a few fundamentalist cranks would want to bring back alcohol prohibition. The only difference between drug prohibition and alcohol prohibition is the ethnicity of the gangsters.

[SM]

I saw Jacob Sullum Vs O'Reilly - Part 1 a while ago; this is presumably the rematch. The first one was O'Reilly all the way, achieved mainly by not letting JS speak. His arguments were very much like Omnibus Bill's using isolated examples, "the children" etc, etc.
O'Rielly's strategy consisted of -
1. As above, not letting Sullum speak
2. Ignoring JS's arguments regarding alchohol, prohibition etc, & repeating "the children" over and over.

So don't anybody have high hopes for part 2.
I wonder - Is there any way to tune in for only the Sullum segment & switch to Cartoon Network the instant it's done ? Working on it ...

[Croesus]

Anon. Poster @ 2:04,

You are referring to the famous "Twinkie Defense":

On November 27, 1978, in San Francisco, Dan White, who had recently resigned from his city supervisor position, confronted Mayor George Moscone's in his office. He demanded his job back, and when Moscone refused, White shot the Mayor four times, killing him. White reloaded, and walked down the hall to the office of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to hold public office in SF, and killed him with five gunshots.

In White's trial, his defense attorneys stated that he was suffering from "diminished capacity" -White's lawyers argued that he suffered from depression and was therefore incapable of any pre-meditation (if you ever take a criminal law course, you'll soon discover that these are largely terms of art, as apposed to terms that can be objectively defined). Psychiatrist Martin Blinder (what an apropos name) testified that White was addicted to junk food (including Twinkies) and that too much sugar could have had an effect on the brain and worsened White's depression. Blinder offered the junk food addiction as evidence of the depression, rather than a cause for the crime (though the subtlety of this distinction was lost to the public in general).

The jury found White guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced him to six years for both homicides. Many residents of San Francisco were outraged and riots broke out in the city.

In 1982, California voters approved a proposition to abolish the "diminished capacity" defense. Dan White served his time, was paroled in 1985, and took his own life later that same year.

[joe]

Croesus,

You forgot to mention that White a right winger, who campainged on a promise to "cleanse the city of filth," and there were reports of police congratulating him at the scene and at the lockup.

[Croesus]

Oh, and in reference to the "twinkie defense," many have conjectured that the light sentence had something to do with prejudice against homosexuals. As it was the 1970s, such should not be surprising.

[Croesus]

joe,

Yeah, you're right.

[Jim N]

omnibus bill, while we wait for Sullum's appearance on O'Reilly, perhaps you would like to comment on this case describing a drug bust gone bad. DEA agents were on a stakeout of a cocaine dealer and killed a 14 year old girl:

One of the agents at a drug stakeout in plain clothes and unmarked vehicles(my emphasis) were watching a house on the city's west side where they believed a suspect was hiding when they saw a man get into the passenger side of a car, San Antonio police Sgt. Gabe Trevino said.

"A girl got into the driver's side of the vehicle, and when they started leaving without the headlights on, and at a high rate of speed, the agents felt certain that this was their suspect and he was trying to escape," Trevino said after the shooting.

When agents boxed the car in and attempted to arrest the man, they said the girl who was driving the car continued toward them and slammed into their vehicle, then shifted into reverse and rammed the DEA vehicle behind her.
Agents fired at least four times, and the girl was struck in the head.

...

Investigators from the DEA arrived Tuesday afternoon to begin reviewing the death. San Antonio police officers continued their investigation, questioning the shooting victim's grandmother. Robles said the agents opened fire immediately after the crash and didn't identify themselves until afterward. "The first shot was fired and Ashley didn't say a word," he said. "She didn't scream or anything and I knew she was hit with the first shot."

...

Robles said that after the gunfire, the agents pulled him out through the passenger side and handcuffed him. Then they reached in and lay Ashley on the grassy curb. "They knew. I could see it. They had made a big mistake," Robles said.

This wouldn't have happened without a war on drugs, but then, I'm sure being upset by this just makes me a damn hippie peacnik, right?

[Jim N]

Just wanted to point out that though the link above is not to a journalism site, this is an actual story that was widely reported in the mainstream press.

[dhex]

mr. o'reilly is such an angry, angry man. a hilariously angry man. 🙂 france and woody allen are getting no christmas cards from him.

that was a pretty snippy segment, though mr. sullum got in some really good zingers. especially at the end with the beer question, nicely done.

i think it would have been interesting to ask mr. o'reilly about religious devotionals, ceremonies and the like, since they're all intended to alter consciousness but can be used for both "good" and "bad" purposes. but that would require focusing on the end result rather than the means, which appears to be beyond his means.

[Gary Gunnels]

If O'Reilly doesn't claim that you sacrifice naked virgins and the newly born to Cthulu, I'll be surprised. 🙂

[Eric Hanneken]

Am I mistaken, or was O'Reilly actually defending alcohol prohibition at one point? Sullum was arguing that some people drink alcohol to excess and get behind the wheel, but this isn't a persuasive argument for banning that substance. O'Reilly was unmoved, and said something like, "Alcohol, PCP, marijuana, whatever."

[Eric Hanneken]

By the way, I found it odd that O'Reilly's parting words to Sullum were, paraphrasing, go ahead and have fun taking your drugs, when he spent the entire segment arguing in favor of locking up people for doing just that.

[Chris Howell]

Thanks for the media alert. I'd really like to see this. I suppose I'll force myself to watch O'Reilly tonight.

I'm at work and can't get to a TV. Watching on the Internet is out of the question. Please let readers know if C-Span's Washington Journal will be rebroadcast at a worker-friendly time.

[omnibus bill]

I'm going to tune in. Maybe Jacob can talk about this article describing a recent murder. According to the article, a knucklehead on PCP rammed a car that was moving too slowly in traffic, pushed it 500 yards, then got out and beat the innocent driver, a disabled older man, to death by smashing his head on the pavement. According to the murderer's mother,

"PCP scrambled his brain." According to the article, PCP is

"a potent hallucinogen that often induces psychotic-like behavior, and it was Hansberry's [the killer's] drug of choice for years. He dipped cigarettes in it, and the smoke made him giddy or spacey or morose or ragingly delusional -- there was no way to know until he lit up. Medical literature warns of PCP's "bizarre and volatile effects," that the drug "disassociates the user from reality; it feels as if the user is in a fantasy world," that "some users may become aggressive and violent," that users "have been known to assault others or injure themselves, sometimes resulting in murder or suicide."

But then I'm sure that's just paternalistic prohibitionist BS and exaggerations by the police and doctors, right?

[Croesus]

omnibus bill,

If we were to agree that PCP should be illegal, would you agree that mary jane should be legal?

[James Merritt]

O'REILLY: First, I want to say that I think you're crazy, but I want to hear your point of view. Umpty-ump million people have a problem with substance abuse. What do you say to THAT, hah?!

The Sullum of this morning's C-Span show might have said, "how many of those problems were caused or aggravated by drug prohibition" or "is the definition of a 'problem' perhaps influenced by prohibition propaganda"?

O'REILLY: So are you saying that drug use is GOOD? Hah?!

The Sullum of this morning's C-Span show didn't say that drug use was good. He said, rather that it is the normal state for humans (adults, at least) to NOT have somebody telling them what they can or cannot put into their bodies. We have deviated from that normal state during the conduct of prohibition and the drug war, and the cost for doing this is greater than the costs we'd pay if there were no prohibition.

As I heard it, the Sullum of this afternoon said, "yes, drug use is a good thing, a natural thing, it is a natural human drive to alter consciousness."

O'REILLY: It is not a natural thing. I don't have that drive. And look at the problems it causes -- umpty-ump million people have substance abuse problems. What about THAT, hah?!

This morning's Sullum might have mentioned that consciousness alteration is as old as and thoroughly entwined with religion (both in terms of sacramental substances and mental disciplines), just one obvious indication of the deep-seated need humans have to alter their consciousness by whatever means. This afternoon's Sullum did challenge O'Reilly to say whether or not he drank any alcohol, a beer, whatever. O'Reilly flatly refused to discuss it.

O'REILLY: Come on! What about those umpty-ump millions of people with substance abuse problems? Hah?!

This afternoon's Sullum clarified that O'Reilly's figures included alcohol issues. What he didn't ask (or if he did, perhaps it was lost below the quarrel's noise floor), was this: "are you arguing then, Bill, that alcohol also should be banned again? Because that didn't work the first time, any better than drug prohibition is working now." This was certainly a point that this morning's Sullum made at least a couple of times.

The question I have to ask: will Sullum sell more copies of his book by having let Bill go all O'Reilly on him? Or would he have sold more copies by actually debating O'Reilly as nimbly as he debated callers today on C-Span? In either case, I wonder, who would be doing the buying?

On the basis of today's C-Span appearance, I would buy the book without even cracking it open before paying the money. After today's O'Reilly, I might pick up the book in the bookstore, but I'd definitely have to browse through it before deciding to take it home, as I didn't get nearly the sense of the book -- or its value -- from O'Reilly as I did from C-Span. Worse, if I were a prohibitionist, I wouldn't gather from the O'Reilly exchange that Sullum's book contained anything I should be worried about or consider a credible challenge to my position. O'Reilly did his best to paint Sullum as an earnest, libertine crackpot. Even though Sullum got in a few points, I doubt that O'Reilly's audience came away with any opinion other than the one O'Reilly was promoting. If they ever read the book, or see the C-Span video, maybe they'll think differently.

[Anonymous]

Bill:

Why not do your own research instead of just taking the washington post's word for it?

[fyodor]

Good point, omnibus bill!! And I agree, the sooner we ban those damn dangerous cars, the better!!

[Eric Hanneken]

"The Sullum of this morning's C-Span show didn't say that drug use was good."

He said it can be, and he says so in his book. Don't you remember the C-SPAN caller who asked him, "Do booze and drugs add any positive value to the plight of humanity?" Sullum answered "Yes," and listed some of the reasons people use drugs: to unwind, to increase concentration, to gain self-insight, and to have fun.

I thought Sullum did pretty well on O'Reilly's show, given the circumstances. O'Reilly didn't allow him nearly the same amount of time to present his side of the argument as the C-SPAN host did, and, as you mentioned, they were talking over each other quite a bit.

[joe]

If your case relies on PCB users not being dangerous, you're doomed.

[Cal Ulmann]

Even without drug prohibition the PCP addict in the example would still be sentenced for the crimes he commited.

[Brian]

I always suspected that PLC was actually Bill O'Reiley in cognito... 😉

All things considered, I think JS did a pretty good job with BO, especially when you realize that BO's main rhetorical strategy is to repeat himself at ever-increasing volume. It's pretty hard to fence with someone when they won't even pick up a foil.

[Xrlq]

I generally enjoy O'Reilly's show, but agree with James M. and others that this was not his finest hour. Can anyone else recall other times when O'Reilly has told a guest "I'll give you the last word," only to cut him off mid-sentence when he tries to take him up on it?

[s.m. koppelman]

I tuned out around the point early on when Mr. Sullum argued that deaths directly attributable to drugs happen only because illicit drugs aren't of uniform potency. Whether this came from the Freshman Logic tendency of libertarians and Maoists alike to create "facts" that shoehorn the real world's messy ambiguities into their ideology, or from the drooling pothead logic that drives NORML members to dress their toddlers head-to-toe in hemp footy pajamas, I'm not sure. I came away with the feeling that Mr. Sullum's got a bit of both in him.

His core arguments for ending the drug war are sensible, persuasive ones even if some drugs are addictive or dangerous to a plurality or the majority of people who choose to use them recreationally. It's a shame he runs off the rails. Surely Mr. Sullum would agree that some drugs can seriously impair aesthetic judgement: the Beatles actually thought Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour were good records, for instance, and anti-anxiety and antipsychotic medications are designed and prescribed precisely for the purpose of altering people's thought patterns and decisionmaking. And yet he feels the need to argue that some psychoactive chemicals can't and don't distort decisionmaking in ways that can very well harm others for a great many of the people who use them. It's possible to make a compelling argument and argue for good policy without also arguing that the whole world is black and white.

People who don't see the world in black and white usually don't define their politics with one word, though.

[PLC]

If you've ever met a pothead, you know that pot destroys the ability to discern good ideas from poor ideas. I think this explains Mr. Sullum quite well.

Another thing - why the hell do people continue to make the argument that since more damage is done by legal drugs than illegal drugs, that the illegal drugs should be made legal. Can't you see that this is an argument AGAINST legalization? Has all the pot really addled your minds to such an extent?

[Perry]

If i've ever met a pothead? I'd say that at least half of every single person who grew up in the 60's and 70's is or was at one time a pothead. (Most likely including a certain member of our Administration..)

I'd say that most of them turned out to be fine enough citizens in their own right.

The real point is, what is the arbitrary line separating good drugs from bad ones? If a certain standard is used, it should be used uniformly, across all drugs.

If addiction is to be a measure, i'd say that tobacco and caffiene are as much or more addictive than most currently illegal drugs. If capacity for danger to self is a measure, then there should be much harsher treatment of paint-thinners and whipped cream bottles (whippets and inhaling do MUCH more harm to your brain than almost any other actual drug that I could think of)

I think that most of us don't pretend to know the exact answer, but an honest, rational discussion of drugs and their effects is necessary to determine the legality or illegality of such substances. Right now, Drug policy seems to be a randomly integrated system for keeping together another 'War on '

[omnibus bill]

Yeah, well, you got me there, Jim N. DEA agents mistakenly kill a girl, so we ought to stop trying to outlaw narcotics. Fair enough, but by that reasoning, I ought to quit working out and watching my diet because I sprained an ankle once, and I ought to resign my job because I once blew a deadline. Maybe it's just me, but I see an accidental death caused by bad policing as morally and factually distinguishable from a PCP induced psychotic episode leading to murder.

Anonymous - the Wash Post is generally reliable, and when it is quoting police officers, eye witnesses to a well reported crime, coroners reports, I generally trust it. I know a diligent chap like you would conduct interviews, dig up the killer's body to determine exactly how much PCP was in the bloodstream and so forth before drawing any conclusions about anyone, but I'm just not that diligent. So shoot me. When the Post reports at length on a brutal murder by a goon on PCP, and cites evidence from his life, and his own mother -- who said that his PCP use scrambled his brain -- I tend to take that as proof enough. It's worth noting that the killer himself was trying to tear the leg off the victim, and was killed after he rushed the first police officer on the scene. This was reported by a number of eyewitnesses. Given the PCP content in his bloodstream, and the fact that normal people, the killer included, don't normally beat old crippled men to death and try to rip their legs off, I'd conclude that the PCP may have had something to do with it. I think that's reasonable under the circumstances.

Jacob Sullum can argue all he wants that the isolated bad incidents shouldn't cause us to ban all PCP use. That's well and good -- as long as you or your daddy aren't the quiet, 52 year old cripple having your head crushed on the pavement in that isolated incident. And the incidents aren't all that isolated when it comes to crack, heroin, PCP, and increasingly, oxycontin. Just look at Baltimore, and parts of Southeast and Northeast D.C. if you want to see what a unrestricted drug trade and use does to a community. Sure, we could legalize PCP, and rely on increasingly strict laws to deter crimes like this one. But increasing any criminal penalties must surely fly in the face of libertarianism -- social controls are bad, after all... right? The particular murder I'm discussing was committed in Maryland, a state which does have the death penalty. I'm not sure Maryland's laws could constitutionally be altered to provide any additional deterrent value - we're already maxed out.

The fact is, hard drug use (crack, heroin, PCP especially) have externalities that cannot be imposed on the user. The rest of us pick up the tab. If it was a simple question of some idiot slowly killing himself with PCP, I wouldn't give a damn. But it isn't -- society gets stuck dealing with the violence, theft and filth that addicts leave in their wake, not to mention the broken and bankrupt families they leave behind. Yeah, it's possible to run yourself into the gutter and ruin your family and community with pot or booze, but it's a lot easier to do with harder drugs, and the addicts of harder drugs, in my experience, tend to be involved in violent and dangerous crimes at a much higher rate than alcoholics.

[James Merritt]

The last several postings here talk about the harm that various drugs can do and the "externalities" associated with their use. But in fact, there are many legal things in the world -- alcohol notable among them for its previously, famously counterproductive status as contraband -- that can cause similar harm or that entail similar externalities. Should government -- and criminal law, especially -- be about the control of the production, distribution, possession of THINGS, all of which can have good sides and bad sides? Or should it be about people's behavior toward one-another, and the harm it can cause, i.e., what people DO with themselves or their property to cause harm to others? Another key question: what is the worst realistic downside to the end of prohibition? Can we realistically expect the post-prohibition situation for drugs to be different from (and worse than) that of alcohol? If not, what is the point of continuing prohibition? From what I heard in Sullum's talk on C-Span, the actual rate of use, addiction and abuse of even the most feared drugs is low enough that we can weigh a projected cost of, say, legal heroin, against the cost of the heroin component of the drug war, assuming illegal heroin, and conclude that the cost of the drug war (money, lives lost or derailed forever, and loss of civil liberties) is much higher. This seems to be the kind of reasoning and analysis that our lawmakers ought to be conducting, in making the policies that are foisted upon us all. That their arguments, like O'Reilly's, so quickly degenerate into superstition and fear-mongering, is shameful. That they will attempt to pillory and marginalize someone like Sullum, who seeks only to take a (pardon the expression) sober look at the pros and cons of drug use, is telling about where their heads and hearts are.

[James Merritt]

I don't think that flatly saying "drug use is good," as O'Reilly baited Sullum to do during that segment, is quite the same thing as conceding (and providing examples of) the possibility of positive drug use, as I agree Sullum did during the C-Span show. I guess it is a matter of context. On O'Reilly, the host was trying to get his guest to defend the blanket statement that "drug use is good." On C-Span, it was clear that the message was rather, "drug use can be bad, as many things can be, but it is not necessarily so..."

It was clear to me that "afternoon Sullum" seened to want to make an argument similar to the one made that "morning Sullum" made on C-Span. But he started by conceding the general, sensational point to O'Reilly, and of course Mr. Bill's tactics didn't allow for any worthwhile expansion on the original point.

I give "afternoon Sullum" props for having the stuff to go the distance with O'Reilly in the latter's own ring. But I am very sorry that what I judged to be the key point made in the morning wasn't more clearly and forcefully made in the afternoon: drug prohibition has been sold on fear of the alleged worst that might happen from drug use, but looking at the realistic and reasonable worst we can extrapolate -- by engaging in exactly the type of mental exercise Sullum does in his book -- and by looking at the drug war, we conclude that the DRUG WAR itself is the worst that could happen, and getting worse every day. Ending prohibition was the right decision for alcohol, and it is the right decision for currently illegal drugs, for the same reasons.

I do think that O'Reilly landed a low blow when Sullum tried to argue facts and O'Reilly dismissed them, saying that "you can spin statistics to say anything..." (I paraphrase, but accurately, I think). That only goes to show what kind of infotainment-minus-the-info the "Factor" is designed to be. Don't confuse us with facts when our minds are made up... O'Reilly also tried to get in a parting jab with the "libertine" comment, not to mention "have fun with your drugs, but don't get in a car and ... (ominous expression) STAY AWAY FROM MY KIDS!" This, after claiming that he was giving Sullum "the last word" (a bald-faced lie).

As Gary G said at the top of the thread, "If O'Reilly doesn't claim that you sacrifice naked virgins and the newly born to Cthulu, I'll be surprised. :)" No surprises for Gary!

[Allocco Kate]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://digital-photo.online-photo-print.com
DATE: 01/20/2004 11:33:37
Morality by consensus is frequently morality by convenience.