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America’s War on Drugs – a four-part documentary on the History Channel that began on Sunday evening.
I watched the first episode (“Acid Spies, and Secret Experiments”) – a fascinating look at the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the CIA’s involvement in Cuba and how that shifted mafia drug trafficking to the US, the introduction of LSD into the US by the CIA (the MKULTRA program), and the CIA’s involvement in the secret war in Laos (the golden triangle) and their connection to trafficking heroin (with Air America), and the military’s experiments with drugging soldiers. Great story of how the CIA brought LSD into the country to attempt to control people’s minds, but it turned out that LSD actually did the opposite and ended up controlled by people who were against the kind of government that the CIA represented. Also in this episode, the impact of Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, G. Gordon Liddy, Billy Hitchcock, Richard Nixon, John Mitchell, Elvis Presley, John Ehrlichman, Frank Serpico, and more. Also the interesting story of one of the largest thefts in history (the French Connection heroin seizure stolen from lockup) – and it was perpetrated by New York cops.
Very good historical information. Note: The History Channel is providing a number of re-broadcasts of the first episode on their channel (check listings) and may also be adding it online later.
Monday: the Contras.
As NBC describes it:
[Executive Producer Anthony] Lappé, alongside Julian P. Hobbs, Elli Hakami, spent a year conducting dozens and dozens of interviews with former CIA officers, Drug Enforcement Agency officers, historians and more. The crew takes viewers through an eight hour journey crisscrossing the world and deconstructing how the U.S. “war on drugs” truly began through interviews, old footage, and reenactments.
In the Daily Caller: Rand Paul And Al Franken Come Together For Weed
Republicans and Democrats in Congress are introducing medical marijuana legislation Thursday protecting states from federal interference in the wake of a request to roll back protections from Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Members of the House of Representatives and Senate are backing a comprehensive marijuana package in an effort to protect state medical legalization laws from a potential federal crackdown. The bill gives the Department of Veteran Affairs the freedom to recommend medical marijuana to patients and removes cannabidiol (CBD), used to treat chronic pain and severe epilepsy, from the Controlled Substances Act.
Republican Sens. Mike Lee, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski join Democratic Sens. Al Franken, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand as initial sponsors of the legislation, which they will announce in a press conference Thursday. A version of the legislation in the House is also attracting bipartisan support.
Here are some of the provisions of that bill:
Amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to provide that control and enforcement provisions of such Act relating to marijuana shall not apply to any person acting in compliance with state law relating to the production, possession, distribution, dispensation, administration, laboratory testing, or delivery of medical marijuana.
Transfers marijuana from schedule I to schedule II of the CSA.
Excludes “cannabidiol” from the definition of “marijuana” and defines it separately as the substance cannabidiol, as derived from marijuana or the synthetic formulation, that contains not greater than 0.3% delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol on a dry weight basis. Deems marijuana that is grown or processed for purposes of making cannabidiol, in accordance with state law, to meet such concentration limitation unless the Attorney General determines that the state law is not reasonably calculated to comply with such definition.
Prohibits a federal banking regulator from: (1) terminating or limiting the deposit insurance of a depository institution solely because it provides or has provided financial services to a marijuana-related legitimate business; or (2) prohibiting, penalizing, or otherwise discouraging a depository institution from providing financial services to a marijuana-related legitimate business. […]
Just for fun…
Phillip Smith over at AlterNet has The DEA’s Top 10 Most Insanely Ridiculous Slang Terms for Weed
Quite a fun list, including:
- Bambalachacha
- Booty Juice
- Burritos Verdes
- Fine Stu
- Good Giggles
- Joy Smoke
- Love Nuggets
- Pocket Rocket
- Righteous Bush
- Smoochy Woochy Poochy
Some of these terms would be a really bad idea to use when describing marijuana. I for one, would be really careful about offering anyone some of my pocket rocket, or asking for a taste of their righteous bush!
Jeff Sessions personally asked Congress to let him prosecute medical marijuana providers
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is asking congressional leaders to undo federal medical marijuana protections that have been in place since 2014, according to a May letter that became public Monday.
The protections, known as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, prohibit the Justice Department from using federal funds to prevent certain states “from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
In his letter, first obtained by Tom Angell of Massroots.com and verified independently by The Washington Post, Sessions argued that the amendment would “inhibit [the Justice Department’s] authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act.”
Steve Rolles has been one of the best voices in drug policy reform internationally. This fantastic article — Recreational drugs market should be managed by ‘governments not gangsters’, says expert — talks about his book, Legalizing Drugs: The Key to Ending the War. This interview in the Independent is loaded with quotes from Steve that provide a great primer into the futility of the drug war.
In an interview with The Independent, Rolles, who has previously served as an adviser to the Global Commission on Drugs, argues that the “most striking thing about the war on drugs is its spectacular failings on its own terms”.
He says the idea behind the policy was to eradicate drugs from the globe in order to create a drug-free world by 2008, with the official slogan of the 1998 UN conference on the world drug problem being: “A Drug-Free World: We Can Do It.”
“Not only did that not happen but actually things continued to get worse so drug markets were founded, prevalence increased and all the problems related to drug use and illegal drug markets increased as well,” Rolles says. “For a policy that is specifically trying to eradicate drugs from the world, it has overseen the most rapid expansion of drug use in human history.”
The policy has instead backfired, he points out, leading to the creation of an “enormous illegal market where hundreds of billions every year are controlled by violent gangsters. So we have all of this crime and violence, both on UK city streets and around the world, which is fuelled by the illegal drug trade. We don’t have those issues with legal drugs. We don’t have tobacconists gunning each other down in the streets. All the problems associated with the vast illegal drug trade are essentially a result of prohibition.”
Instead of protecting the health of the public, the war on drugs has made drugs more dangerous, Rolles maintains. “It’s not deterring youth. It’s not preventing availability of access to drugs. It’s actually making drugs more dangerous.
“All drugs are fundamentally risky but when they’re produced and supplied through an illegal market they become more risky. People don’t know how strong they are, people don’t know what’s in them, their potency can vary wildly. All of the things that that the war on drugs is supposedly achieving in terms of protecting our health or protecting us from crime, it’s actually doing the opposite.”
Good stuff. And there’s lots more in the article.
Jeremy Scahill at The Intercept has the story about President Trump’s phone call to Philippine President Duterte. TRUMP CALLED RODRIGO DUTERTE TO CONGRATULATE HIM ON HIS MURDEROUS DRUG WAR: “YOU ARE DOING AN AMAZING JOB”
“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Duterte at the beginning of their call, according to the document. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”
“Thank you Mr. President,” replied Duterte. “This is the scourge of my nation now and I have to do something to preserve the Filipino nation.”
For your enjoyment…
@ISSUE: Should we make marijuana legal?
The arguments for and against legalization are debated… by advocate Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and by opponent Kevin A. Sabet, president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
In the last post, Sessions’ Justice Department goes all-in on sentencing, we learned that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has mandated a revival of the discredited “tough-on-crime” charging and sentencing approaches.
And, as comforting as it is to blame Sessions, there’s a more important point.
Sessions is only able to do this because horrendous laws exist.
For us, there’s no doubt that it’s easier to complain about the actions of an administration that goes all-out in the enforcement of unjust laws, or a Supreme Court that refuses to override unjust laws. But the reality is that the best way to prevent them is to eliminate (or prevent the passing of) the laws themselves. And that, unfortunately, involves the messy self-serving chaos that is Congress.
Fortunately, we’re making progress. It used to be that any Congressperson could bolster their reelection efforts by proposing the expansion of criminal laws or adding new sentencing enhancements. We’re finally getting to the point where that’s not automatic. We need to get to the point where a representative will actually lose support by considering such a thing, and get ridiculed on the floor of Congress.
While Congress has not yet succeeded in passing significant sentencing reform (it’s always harder to remove bad laws than to pass them), the reaction to Sessions’ proclamation is heartening.
If you have not yet subscribed to Tom Angell’s excellent Marijuana Moment newsletter, you really should do so. In today’s issue, he includes a powerhouse of reactions.
A number of members of Congress criticized the new U.S. Department of Justice drug prosecution policy:
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): “Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated too many minorities for too long. Attorney General Sessions’ new policy will accentuate that injustice.”
https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/press/dr-rand-paul-releases-statement-on-attorney-generals-action-on-mandatory-minimums
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT): “The Attorney General’s new sentencing policy is an ideologically motivated attempt to resurrect the failed policies of the War on Drugs. Make no mistake, low-level offenders will spend years and even decades more in prison. This will not make us safer — quite the opposite, it will strip critical public safety resources away from targeting truly violent criminals in order to house nonviolent drug offenders.”
https://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/comment-of-senator-patrick-leahy-d-vt-judiciary-committee-member-and-appropriations-committee-vice-chairman-on-attorney-general-sessions-new-sentencing-policy
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): “This policy shift flies in the face of the growing bipartisan consensus that we need to reduce—not increase—the length of prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. It will send already skyrocketing prison costs even higher, undermining other important public safety priorities and separating nonviolent drug offenders from their families for years, which has a destructive effect on communities and erodes faith in our criminal justice system.”
https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-statement-on-ag-sessions-move-to-force-needlessly-harsh-prison-sentences-for-nonviolent-drug-offenses
U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT): “To be tough on crime we have to be smart on crime. That is why criminal justice reform is a conservative issue.”
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): “Jeff Sessions wants to turn back the clock on the progress we’ve made on sentencing reform—and we must speak out against it.”
Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-TX): “Trump/Sessions: Let’s double down on failed strategy, add to highest incarceration rate in the world. America: Let’s end the war on drugs.”
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/863040937894838272 https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/863041181609074688
Congressman Justin Amash (R-MI): “Let’s pass criminal justice reform to put an end to this unjust, ineffective, and costly policy.”
Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN): “Sessions’ memorandum is a return to the failed policies of the War on Drugs. It is bad for our communities, and utterly destructive for low-level, non-violent drug offenders. The only people who benefit from these laws are those who have a financial stake in imprisonment: the private prison industry and vendors to the public system.”
https://ellison.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-ellison-statement-on-harmful-department-of-justice-sentencing
Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN): ” Harsher sentences for non-violent drug crimes cost taxpayers more money and waste limited resources that are needed to go after more dangerous, violent offenders who put the public at risk. The beneficiaries of these policies are often private prisons who profit from locking up more inmates, disproportionately affecting people of color.”
https://cohen.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/cohen-s-statement-doj-s-new-guidelines-charging-and-sentencing-criminal
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC): “Will fight AG Sessions’ effort to revive failed War on Drugs. Mass incarceration has destroyed lives & devastated our minority communities.”
Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA): “As President Trump distracts with outlandish threats, AG Sessions quietly brings back the harshest sentences of the failed War on Drugs.”
There may be some hope in that domed building in Washington, DC. We need to keep applying the pressure to our representatives that sentencing reform, not sentencing enhancement is what is needed to fix our broken criminal justice system.
Sessions Tells Prosecutors To Seek ‘Most Serious’ Charges, Stricter Sentences
In a memo to staff, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered federal prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” — a move that marks a significant reversal of Obama-era policies on low-level drug crimes. […]
Holder had asked prosecutors to avoid slapping nonviolent drug offenders with crimes that carried mandatory minimum sentences — which, as NPR’s Tamara Keith explains, “give judges and prosecutors little discretion over the length of a prison term if a suspect is convicted.” Holder’s recommendation had been aimed partly at helping reduce burgeoning prison populations in the U.S. […]
Tamara notes this marks a return to the “tough-on-crime philosophy of the 1990s.”
Here’s some text from the May 10 Sessions memo
First, it is a core principle that prosecutors should charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense. This policy affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency. This policy fully utilizes the tools Congress has given us. By definition, the most serious offenses are those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences.
There will be circumstances in which good judgment would lead a prosecutor to conclude that a strict application of the above charging policy is not warranted. In that case, prosecutors should carefully consider whether an exception may be justified. Consistent with longstanding Department of Justice policy, any decision to vary from the policy must be approved by a United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, or a supervisor designated by the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, and the reasons must be documented in the file. […]
Any inconsistent previous policy of the Department of Justice relating to these matters is rescinded, effective today.
Study on drug-impaired driving gets pushback — from other safety advocates
A week after a report suggesting that drug-impaired driving is moving to the fore of concerns in traffic safety, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) jumped in Monday to express concern that the report could lead the public to believe the country has turned the corner on drunk driving. There is still much work to do, MADD officials said.
“There is no way you can say drugs have overtaken alcohol as the biggest killer on the highway,” J.T. Griffin, chief government affairs officer at MADD, said Monday. “The data is not anywhere close to being in a way that would suggest that … We’re doing a lot of good things on drunk driving, but the public needs to understand this problem is not solved.”
MADD officials also questioned the methodology of the research in the report, noting that there is no scientifically agreed level of impairment with drugs such as marijuana. There is also no uniform test, roadside or otherwise, to determine such a level. […]
To some, the report smacked of an attempt by the makers and purveyors of booze to shift the conversation. That’s because the GHSA report was also underwritten by the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility, whose members include makers of alcoholic beverages such as Bacardi USA; Brown-Forman, which produces Jack Daniel’s whiskey; and Constellation Brands, whose labels include Corona beer.
“I don’t know what their motives are,” Griffin said. “But I do know this: I know alcohol is a drug, and that’s something a lot of people don’t like to talk about, but it is. It impairs the mind. And I know alcohol causes many more deaths than drugs do. We can talk about an increase in drug-impaired driving. But it is not accurate in any way to say drugs have overtaken alcohol in terms of deaths on our highways.”
The days of just uncritically parroting this mindless drug war nonsense may actually be nearing an end.
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