Nothing really new to us, but great to see such expanded coverage on a major show. This is from last night’s episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
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Watching The United States vs. Billie Holliday on Hulu. Many people are unaware of how much Billie Holliday (and her dangerously true song “Strange Fruit“) drew the ire of the government and racist drug warrior Harry Anslinger in particular during his ramping up for the war on drugs. This true story is taken in part from the research in Johann Hari’s amazing book “Chasing the Scream: The Opposite of Addiction is Connection,” which I talked about at length here on DrugWarRant, and the script for the film is by Suzan-Lori Parks. Andra Day, in a very powerful performance, plays Billie. I thought the direction by Lee Daniels was a little uneven, but it was still an amazing (and disturbing) story to watch, and always wonderful to hear Billie’s songs. Wow. This is big news. Washington State Supreme Court finds state’s felony drug possession law unconstitutional
Now, this doesn’t stop the legislature from drafting a new possession law that meets the court’s standards, but for now, simple possession cannot be prosecuted under the felony law. Many people know how the drug war has affected them personally, or those close to them. Less attention is focused on the insidious impact of drug enforcement on society as a whole. A new initiative by the Drug Policy Alliance called ‘Uprooting the Drug War,’ seeks to expose the damage caused by drug wars beyond the usual mass of arrests and incarcerations:
An exposé of drug war social harms is important, but it doesn’t address a key issue needed to scale down the war and end it. What about all the federal, state and municipal employees whose income and livelihood depends on the continuation of current drug policies? President Biden or Congress needs to provide prohibitionists with a parachute—something that allows them to retire early or easily transfer to another line of work. Failing this, the drug war’s labor force is set to continue to act in every way possible to preserve their jobs up until they retire. Prohibitionists still retain influential and powerful drug war allies, such as Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Chuck Grassley. The two senators recently introduced a bill, HEN21186, that among other things allows a redundant relic of the drug war, the federal cannabis farm in Mississippi, to continue its operations at taxpayer expense, effectively retaining prohibitionists in the federal loop. Ending the drug war will require targeting it from all directions. Constitutional ban on legal pot advances in Idaho
That’s right. They’re proposing a constitutional amendment so they can ensure that it won’t be able to be passed through a referendum.
Yes, please. Much better than sniffing for marijuana. The Dogs Training to Sniff Out COVID-19
After 107 years of drug war-induced misery and futility, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finally reversed the legal remnants of the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act that prohibited general medical practitioners from treating patients addicted to drugs for their addictions. The HHS made history recently by changing 21 U.S.C. § 823(g)(2) of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) so that physicians who want to prescribe buprenorphine to their patients for opioid use disorder (OUD) can do so without going to jail. The following restrictions must be met:
Under the new regulations, actual progress toward ending the drug war is achieved merely by engaging in a harm reduction-based approach that encourages medicinally-based therapies that see addictions as treatable illnesses. By allowing drug treatment to be administered by licensed and general medical practitioners, HHS sidestepped the NIMBY effect where people object to having a drug treatment center in their neighborhood or next to schools or businesses. Under U.S. medical privacy laws (HIPAA), the new regulations protect the privacy and dignity of the patient suffering from opioid addiction, making it more likely a person will seek treatment should they desire it. Lawfare turns laws into weapons. No better example of lawfare exists than the never-ending saga of the South American Drug War. Drug lawfare is waged by the DEA and the U.S. Congress to protect oil, gas, mineral, and timber extraction industries from irate villagers. The villagers are upset because the foreign extraction corporations operating in Latin America tend to take a colonialist approach to business, pillaging, and stealing indigenous property to gain access to rich natural resources. The blowback consists of cheated inhabitants who revolt in clever ways and who tend to enlist the aid of anyone willing to back them. Congress decided it’s the DEA’s job to help counter these revolts and any democratic, socialist or communist political economy that might arise. Legislators legitimatized their tactic by making drug enforcement part of the national security apparatus. Because huge amounts of money can easily be allocated for drug enforcement—no questions asked—the U.S. taxpayer is tricked into funding corporate welfare schemes tied to financing death squads in Honduras and elsewhere. T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and he describes the history and ongoing situation in Honduras:
Ending the U.S. funded drug lawfare racket in Latin America would compel extraction industries to deal with their own political problems in ways that don’t bleed taxpayers. No longer able to hide behind the plausible disguises of drug enforcement, the need for corporate business and political security would encourage commercial operations to spend their own money to make peace with the locals and to cease using lawfare to rob, attack, or murder citizens, journalists, and political or environmental activists. As a bonus for those opposing corporate welfare handouts of any type, the drug war perfectly showcases the evils of corporate welfare when it’s left unchecked. Via Radley Balko: Mexico Lawmakers Reclaim Sovereignty From DEA
This is good news, and way overdue. While it hasn’t been talked about as much in recent times as the emphasis has been on marijuana legalization, the DEA, which has often acted as if it operates outside the law, certainly hasn’t been stopped. They may be less able to focus on marijuana, but they’ve still been pushing the drug war.
Yeah. Whatever depression you may be experiencing regarding the election process in this country right now, you can at least take comfort in the voters coming through in drug policy reform.
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