Comments on Dopes

Nice work.

It's not that they lie.

It's that they distort.

Casualties are "down" in Iraq.

Never mind the fact more died in 2007 than in 2006 than in 2005 than in 2004 than in ...

I'm confused -- if the data in the graphic that accompanies the Seattle Times article is accurate, the disparity did NOT exist before I-75. That is, there was a big disparity before 2003, but it was in the opposite direction. In the years before I-75, according to the graphic, far more WHITES were charged than blacks-- 88 whites vs 60 blacks in 2000, with an even bigger difference the next year. Am I looking at the graphic wrong? Or are you saying the graphic itself is wrong?

Also, Chan made an error in the one sentence you quoted, but in the beginning of the article said quite clearly, "Since Initiative 75 took effect in fall 2003, the number of cases involving black men has exceeded cases involving white men." That was clearly the point of the article -- that the disparity has FLIPPED since I75 was passed. It's practically her lead. She misspoke by later saying the NUMBER as well as the proportion had gone up, but even then, it doesn't seem to me she misspoke by much, since it looks from the graphic like it was 65 charges in 2003 when I-75 first started (and presumably wasn't fully in gear immediately), and 65 again in 2006.

To be honest, I think YOUR bias is the one that's showing here, not Chan's or the Times's!

Meghan, the trend of more charges against blacks was established in 2003, before I-75 took effect. That same disparity continued after I-75, but there were fewer prosecutions of all races. Also, the error in Chan's article was repeated in the print-version headline inside the paper. So it's just wrong. There's no defending that.

I totally agree the error was a bad one -- I'm glad you caught it, frankly. Thank god for people who read more carefully than I do, because I just breezed right by that sentence (and I never read headlines, since they're usually inaccurate anyway, written by copy eds as they tend to be!).

But I'm not sure I agree that you can really say the trend was "established before I-75 took effect." I mean, that means essentially tossing out ALL the data from 2000-2002 in that table, where the disparity was pretty dramatically flipped, which doesn't seem quite logical, statistically-speaking.

What it makes me wonder is what ELSE happened in 2003 that might account for this radical flip? Is it possible I-75 actually had nothing to do with it? When did I-75 take effect in 2003? It says "fall" in the article, but does that mean after November elections, which would suggest, as you suggest, that the flip in 2003 took place before I-73 could really impact the numbers? If so, WHY did the disparity flip so significantly in 2003 BEFORE I-75 began to take major effect, when for so many years the proportion was so radically different?

I'd love to see The Stranger explore this more. I mean, I know you can fully support your argument that the Seattle Times focuses on the negative aspects of I-73 and marijuana stuff in general, just by posting a list of citations that prove it. In that context, I can see why you'd lump this story in as being sort of anti-I-73. But all by itself, I think it raises some interesting questions. I'd love to see The Stranger try to find the answers, especially if you think the Seattle Times isn't working hard enough at that themselves.

Damn, that was a long post. Sorry!

Damn government!

The power of small numbers.

Seriously, when the size gets small, tiny changes look big. But they're still within the noise level.

Somebody slept thru stat class ...

What it makes me wonder is what ELSE happened in 2003 that might account for this radical flip? Is it possible I-75 actually had nothing to do with it?

I don't know if anything specific happened in 2003, but the trend could just be related to law enforcement priorities (focusing extra enforcement in particular neighborhoods) rather than anything specific to I-75. Either way, the numbers of marijuana citations are extremely low in this city compared to other large cities.

To say that I-75 had any major effect is little more than an optimistic, and self-serving, opportunity to claim victory from people like Dominic Holden and Allison Holcomb who would like to take credit for some major change in the attitude of law enforcement.

Sorry...the facts just don't support this. Even the independent experts had a hard time determining what, if any, positive effect actually occurred due exclusively to I-75. The numbers, especially those from 2006, show that the changes were statistically inconclusive, and certainly not the earth-shattering success that was predicted by the I-75 supporters like Dominic Holden.

What this I-75 exercise doesn't show is that legal Washington medical marijuana patients, including some in Seattle, are still under attack by joint drug task forces. They are being robbed, terrorized and prosecuted on a daily basis. As long as this is allowed to continue throughout the state, the buzz over this marginal "success" of I-75 is totally inconsequential to those who actually need cannabis as medicine...and still live in fear of the state funded drug task forces every single day.

Steve Sarich
Executive Director
CannaCare
steve@cannacare.org