Sessions’ Justice Department goes all-in on sentencing

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Any inconsistent previous policy of the Department of Justice relating to these matters is rescinded, effective today.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

27 Responses to Sessions’ Justice Department goes all-in on sentencing

  1. Servetus says:

    AG Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III may fall victim to similar circumstances that sent Nixon’s attorney general John Newton Mitchell to federal prison. The problem follows Sessions’ changing his mind about recusing himself from the Russian influence investigation:

    …Refusing to recuse oneself from a conflict or breaking the promise to recuse from a conflict is a serious breach of legal ethics. “Someone could file a bar complaint, and/or one with DOJ’s office of professional responsibility, if Sessions had a conflict of interest when it came to the firing decision, and if he did not follow the ethics rules, including those of DOJ by acting when he had a conflict of interest,” legal ethics expert Norman Eisen tells me. “The fact that he broke his recusal commitment, if he did, would be relevant context, and violating an agreement can sometimes in itself be an ethics violation. “In sum, Sessions has risked his law license, whether he realized it or not. He needs to testify immediately under oath; if there is no satisfactory explanation, he must resign. The alternative could be impeachment proceedings.”[…]

    “Under 18 U.S.C. 1505, a felony offense is committed by anyone who ‘corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation in being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress.’

    “An accompanying code section, 18 U.S.C. 1515(b), defines ‘corruptly’ as ‘acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including making a false or misleading statement, or withholding, concealing, altering, or destroying a document or other information.’ This is where obstruction of justice intersects with the false statements law. If you knowingly and willfully make a false statement of material fact in a federal government proceeding, you’ve potentially violated 1001, and when you add an objective to influence, obstruct, or impede an investigation, you’ve now possibly violated 1505 as well. Perjury can intersect with obstruction of justice in the same way.

    “Under the statute, a ‘proceeding’ can be an investigation. Section 1503 criminalizes the same conduct in judicial proceedings. So obstruction during an investigation might violate 1505, while if that same investigation leads to a criminal prosecution, obstruction during the prosecution itself would violate 1503. […]

    The question for Sessions — and for the president — is whether there was intent to obstruct justice. (“As applied to the President and his staff, the first two elements appear to be a slam dunk. First, courts have given “proceeding” a broad definition. . . . Second, Comey himself had recently confirmed that the investigation was ongoing-in extremely public and publicized congressional hearings.”) That leaves the matter of intent.[…]

    http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Jeff-Sessions-is-in-deep-trouble-and-here-s-why-11139288.php

  2. DOJ has taken an unwise step backward to discredited criminal justice policies. The need for reform still exists.

    -Eric Holder

    https://twitter.com/EricHolder/status/863058742522388480/photo/1

  3. Jeff Sessions = Dumb On Crime

    • DdC says:

      “It’s not what you look at that matters,
      it’s what you see”.
      ~ H.D. Thoreau

      ☛ Heroin Epidemic Is Driving A Spike In Hepatitis C Cases,
      CDC Says

      ☛ Hepatitis C
      – Medical Marijuana Research Overview

      Research suggests that cannabis has the potential of offering therapeutic benefits to patients with HCV and other liver diseases (Mallat, et al., 2011). The two major cannabinoids found in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) bind with or influence the cannabinoid receptors (CB1 and CB2) of the endocannabinoid system within the body. CB2 receptor activation has demonstrated anti-inflammatory and beneficial effects on alcoholic fatty liver, hepatic inflammation, liver injury, regeneration and fibrosis. A research review determined that the cannabinoids found within cannabis look to tame aspects of chronic liver disease (Zamora-Valdes, et al., 2005). One study found that cannabinoids’ anti-inflammatory properties effectively reduce inflammation of a damaged liver and researchers therefore suggested that cannabis could be developed as a potential drug for hepatitis (Lavon, et al., 2003).

      Jeff Sessions Makes Ignorant Comments
      on Marijuana and Opioid Abuse

      ☛ Legalizing Marijuana Decreases Fatal Opiate Overdoses
      ☛ Fewer Opioid Prescriptions

      ☛ Report links painkillers to increased risk of heart attack

      ☛ Cannabinoids Protect the Brain and Heart. Get Over It!
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/2083

  4. Head on a Stick says:

    On a much lighter note:

    The Liberal Democrats have pledged to fully legalise cannabis and allow the drug to be sold on the high street amid mounting evidence that their fightback is faltering.

    The party has announced that it wants to create a legal market for the drug and claims that the move will improve mental health.

    It represents the first time a major party has pledged to legalise the production and sale of the drug in a General Election.

    There’s also a poll with 86% support at the moment.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/12/lib-dems-pledge-legalise-cannabis-can-sold-high-street-shops/

  5. NorCalNative says:

    After toking up some Alex Jones cut of the George Soros weed (shite brained my damage BTW) three terms come to mind.

    White Fear
    Class War
    Predatory Capitalism

    Go Jeff! Justice for me would be seeing ol’ Jeff in a cell with a large African American male busted for weed possession.

  6. Freeman says:

    In a just world, Jeffro Low-Regard Sesspools would be subject to federal prosecution for his serious ethics violations and the prosecutor would “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense”.

    Of course that is not the world we live in.

    In this world, Lush Limpballs gets caught breaking multiple federal drug laws doctor-shopping for Oxycontin and is never charged, while those he continues to demonize daily on his radio show continue to be vigorously prosecuted for lesser drug offenses.

    In this world, Missouri Governor and future US Attorney General John Asscrack’s two nephews are caught growing weed on a scale that normally warrants federal prosecution, one is convicted of state felony charges, gets his 3-year sentence suspended, serves 100 hours community service, tests positive for drugs his first month on probation with no consequences, and the other isn’t even charged. Asscrack remains an outspoken advocate for vigorous enforcement of draconian drug laws on everyone else.

    In this world, Keif Harrumphreys blogs that federal drug enforcement policy doesn’t matter because few prisoners are incarcerated at the federal level compared to state and local and almost none of them are prosecuted for possession while simultaneously arguing that Nixon didn’t really start the drug war because federal sentencing guidelines for marijuana possession were reduced during his term.

  7. strayan says:

    OMFG they’ve appointed Christie, Kennedy and Madras to solve the opioid crisis:

    https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/10/white-house-names-new-members-of-opioid-commission/

    Bertha Madras, deputy drug czar to President Bush, told National Public Radio that users shouldn’t have access to naloxone because “sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room, having that contact with a healthcare professional, is enough to make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap into having someone give them services.” Madras told another reporter: “It is not based on good scientific data … It’s based on what some people would consider the right thing to do. But the studies supporting it are so sparse it’s painful.”

    Bertha Madras, deputy director of demand reduction for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, called San Francisco’s consideration of such a [safe injecting] facility “disconcerting” and “poor public policy.”

    “The underlying philosophy is, ’We accept drug addiction, we accept the state of affairs as acceptable,”’ Madras said. “This is a form of giving up.”

  8. Spirit Wave says:

    “This policy affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just…”

    Not when the law is immoral and unjust (nonetheless irrationally, so illegally, applied as constitutional via the commerce clause) in the form of mass rights infringement solely to enrich thugs in the “land of the free” still preferring to be the land of hypocrisy.

    Enforcing true constitutional law would land those thugs where they most certainly belong… behind the bars where they are stuffing way too many non-rights-infringing citizens.

  9. Mouth says:

    What stays in America, leaves America. If such a memo truly gains muscle, it will further pump up the 1961 U.N. Single Laws. This will no doubt inch us closer to a wall along Mexico, since money is to be had making it. This will further allow small and large quantities of dope to be more liquid for the corrupt regimes, gangs, cartels, mafia and terrorists. If the dope stops making black market profits, then how on earth can one justify contracts and troops in the middle east and central Asia? I’m done being politically correct: Jeff Sessions is a Muslim Terrorist belonging to the KKK and Crips and I have pictures of him placing a blue Hijab, speckled with Rebel Flags on his wife . . . we all have these pictures. Actions speak louder than words: he is making jihad more profitable by making the black market dope more liquid in its ability to fund what it funds. Having talked with the CIA in Iraq, myself, they figured I’d tow the line when they fed me all my information about the Drug Black Market funding the “enemy” . . . lest we forget that cleaning up 9/11 and her two wars were all on credit–leveraged out by the banks and companies like AIG who invested in bad mortgages and invested in the swaps against said mortgages: good job . . . produce the ants and the ant killer from one source, like laws making dope illegal so wars can be waged to fight the dope money funded horror. What about the Getty images of Jeff Sessions operating one of those small boats overloaded with refugees crossing the Mediterranean?

    Instead of passing around marijuana cigarettes to people for events and causes, let’s pass out Hijabs to cops and politicians . . . no, full on burkas. Instead of fabulous Jimmy Choo’s, Parada, Armani, D&G outfits for the wealthy at auctions and events for the ladies: ordinary black burkas, while the rich men get to wear those long white cotton garments–the kind you see on dead children and men in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Yesterday, I placed an American Police Officer under Citizen’s arrest because he had no beard. Yesterday, I called the cops on a Middle School because there were female students attending. How do lady cops drive their cop cars when we clearly have laws forcing them to be in the back passenger seats? Since 2008, when I awoke from my nap, I’ve watched cocaine flow east, over the Atlantic into Africa, Asia and Europe. Now we are seeing Jihad groups heading west, terrorizing Kenya, Nigeria etc. What was small is growing larger.

    Working in a Prisoner of War camp in Iraq filled with terrorists, drug dealers, bankers, insurgents, European/Chinese Mafia etc, has its perks: information.

    Wall Street says: Money never Sleeps. But keeping drugs illegal, with all the negative financial consequences to be had is like forcing liquor down the throats of dollar bills and gold bullion . . . it eventually passes out and possibly dies from over consumption.

  10. Mouth says:

    Drug War Clock says we’ve spent $40 Billion on drug prohibition in 2010. Yet half of the war on terror was because of drug money, with the government spending at least $2 billion each week during the height of both wars from 2003-2010, thus drugs attributed to $52 Billion dollars a year between 2003-2010 for the War on Terror. In 2010: $40 Billion plus $52 Billion gets us $92 Billion for drug prohibition. One could easily attribute 10% (at an underestimation) of the $40 Billion being in lost revenue from drug offenders unable to contribute to taxes and consumer spending due to incarceration/fines/legal fees etc. So, we’ve got in 2010: $102 Billion (underestimated cost) of drug prohibition in America. And we should never leave out the automatic $1 billion a year (underestimated) cost to taxpayers in the form of ‘slush’ funds and ‘covert funding’ for secret operations left off the Balance Sheet, just to combat drug money funded organizations/terrorists in and outside the U.S. as well. So in 2010, Americans had forfeited at least $103 Billion dollars because Drugs Are Illegal on just the prohibition side. We are not accounting for the loss of taxes/revenue generated from ‘assumed’ legalization of drugs and thus buying drugs legally.

    Some people say 9/11 cost America some money and as we’ve discovered, Al Qaeda loves the drug money and has for quite some time–even before 9/11. So, from 2001-2011 (taking in account the cost of war/terrorism/drug prohibition), Americans forfeited and at a steep underestimate $951.5 billion dollars because drugs are illegal (9/11/2001-Jan 2002: we spent at least $20 Billion cleaning up 9/11 and starting a war; in 2002, Afghanistan was a small war and should have cost us [the Taliban etc are mostly funded by drugs in that region] at least $25 billion just from drugs; From 2001-2003–drug prohibition in just the U.S. would have been at least $75 Billion and 10% from reduced revenue/taxes from offenders at $7.5 Billion.

    I’m very confused how anybody can say: from Nixon till now, we’ve spent just over $1 trillion dollars because of drug prohibition in America. I don’t get it. Fuzzy Math. I’ll wager 25lbs of Blue Dream to anyone who can beat my estimation on how much the drug war has cost America from 2001-2011. Our stupid laws represent well over 10% of our National Debt.

    • There were no figures on how much the drug war had cost Americans back a few yrs ago and I found all the figures I could that the government had released (I love Google). It did not include moneys that are not made public going to the military and clandestine agencies. The figures ball parked out to 1.4 trillion. My personal view on the money is that the 1.4 trillion dollar figure is a minimum amount spent on drug war, but actual figures could be higher than double that amount. Its just not possible to access all the actual figures.

      Having a drug war is an exceptionally slick money maker for the government.

      • Mouth says:

        The costs of the drug war are deferred and accumulating interest. AIG etc have insured the instruments governments and banks use, thus causing a floating leverage over our heads and theirs as well. And it looks more like a dam being built over our heads and not on some slab of land. Next time, the government is going to bail out the Department of Justice, Corrections, Private defense contractors and Military.

        As I’ve told people before: hate the Iraq war or love the Iraq war, but by not buying war bonds or using ration cards, the odds of the war lasting longer and being more expensive (deferred costs) has increased . . . the voice via actions of the little people is muted, giving the Government all control and not even remotely split between them and the People. The best laws the government made was one requiring citizens to ‘save’ money in 1942, upon a Rations Card. In Today’s language, if Todd’s family spends $10 grand on fuel, electricity, food, rubber, plastics and various fabrics, then the ration card would (let’s say) require Todd’s family to spend just $7.5 grand every year, forcing Todd’s family to stretch supplies that go to the government/troops, thus adding to a stockpile of resources/unspent revenue and taxes not used by the time the war ends. This notional $2.5 grand reduction not happening per year while the War on Terror is being waged is a debt amount of a positive $2.5 grand Todd’s family now owes the government outside of ‘normal/standard’ taxes and each year it accumulates interest, compounding the debt. Therefor if Todd simply wrote out a check to the Government by the end of the year for 2016 to pay off his debt, he would need to pay roughly $47K-$50K for ‘War’ Costs, lest his debt keeps accumulating for every year no rations card is being used. Some families spend a lot more than $10 grand a year on consumer goods, thus accumulating a higher debt over the life time of the ‘War’, plus compounded interest . . . the question is: is the interest at 5% or 10% or higher each year? What is the interest we pay on credit cards for large purchases? Because a house is a finished product and thus a static object, the interest rate I believe for not having rations cards would be higher than a standard good credit mortgage because various materials/foods are extremely liquid and have flexible uses that move around.

        In essence: we’re fucked and we need to legalize crystal meth, heroin, MDMA, hookers, blow and pot just to create a table spoon big enough to scoop the water out of our large sinking vessel. But all we have are millions of slotted spoons.

  11. DdC says:

    How Jeff Sessions’s New Drug War Can Be Avoided
    http://hightimes.com/news/how-jeff-sessionss-new-drug-war-can-be-avoided/
    The thing is, though, that this won’t work unless Sessions has help.

    This is the formula. Consolidation of power by a central authority requires dutiful and diligent shock troops carrying out Sessions’s orders. Though Sessions has yet to appoint the very U.S. attorneys who will be tasked with fulfilling his mandate, he will—he’ll find people corruptible by the smell of authority.

    What he will also need is faithful cooperation from the rest of us—from state and local authorities, from local cops, county sheriffs and the voters who hire, fire and fund them.

    If voters don’t vote lawmakers who build jails and unleash police without any accountability, this won’t work. If sheriffs who help Sessions’s DOJ round up low-level meth users and crack smokers lose their elections, it won’t work.

    Jeff Sessions’s life has led to this point, to where he is the man in charge, rather than the servant of power. He now needs footmen to repay the favor.

    Don’t let him do it. For now at least, he can be outmaneuvered and beat.

    • DC Reade says:

      the shift in American popular attitudes indicates that it’s going to be a serious challenge for the Feds to obtain convictions for at least some types of drug offenses in the coming years- the liability of hung juries is increasingly likely, particularly for marijuana offenses. There are only so many prospective jurors that can be rejected by prosecutors.

      One thing that especially rankles me about Federal District Attorney support for reinstituting draconian sentences is their claim that it provides a vital service as a threat, to flip people to inform on their associates.

      The fact that the U.S. Justice Department is convinced that using the threat of draconian sentences to intimidate people into betraying their friends and family members is the most effective tool that they have to dismantle illegal drug networks is already ethically borderline, as far as I’m concerned. Simply in terms of practical results, that policy may have led to more deaths than it’s prevented. It’s also inevitably corrosive in terms of breaking down any pre-existing structures of social trust, community, and friendship that might have been built over time, and through the implicit message that treachery and betrayal is an act worthy of reward, while reserving the worst punishment for loyalty and integrity.

      The Drug Warriors of course justify this policy by asserting that Drug Dealers are already lower than murderers or violent rapists, and thus have no integrity to preserve, because they deal Drugs.

      But that isn’t the worst of it. What’s really ethically indefensible is the difference between way the policy is described to the general public, and the way that it’s actually employed. Prosecutors routinely tout their use of the tactic as the use of informants to “bust up the ladder”- to flip low-level retailers to snitch on the people above them in the hierarchy, until the “kingpin” or “vice lord” (such corny purple prose titles) at the top of the hierarchy is finally made vulnerable to criminal conviction through informant testimony or by having a snitch facilitate a transaction with government agents. (As if there’s one Ultimate Drug Kingpin whose conviction will lead to final victory in the Drug War…I mean, really, as if there’s any reason to believe this after nearly a century of the same bogus narrative…)

      But I’ve read of too many cases where drug selling organizations were dismantled by the Feds in exactly the opposite manner- the kingpin gets flipped to inform on his subordinates. Nicky Barnes and Rayful Edmonds are two names that hurtle to mind- they bought leniency for themselves and/or close relatives by ratting out everyone beneath them in their organization. Meanwhile, anyone who examines some of the stories of prisoners documented by FAMM and the November Project will eventually find cases where the heaviest time landed on the people at the bottom- people who literally had no one available to betray, no “substantial information” to provide to aid prosecutors. So all the time landed on the lowest underlings, because the System requires someone as a sacrifice to keep the numbers looking good and provide the image of an effective law enforcement campaign.

      This also accounts for the documented fact that people have been subjected to mandatory minimum sentences simply as a result of having it proved that they once provided their residence or business as the location for a drug sales transaction, or for playing no role other than driving buyers and/or sellers to and from a transaction.

      Driving a buyer to the home of a seller is formally an overt act in furtherance of an illegal drug sale, and therefore all that’s required to convict someone of one count of “felony drug conspiracy.” Which is why I’ve been known to observe that, strictly speaking, millions of Americans- perhaps 10 million or more- have committed at least one felony in their lives. Because practically anyone who’s gotten far enough into illegal drug use to purchase their own stash of weed has done something along that line at least once. Conspiracy is conspiracy, no matter how minor: driving a friend over to a dealer’s apartment to buy a $5 bag of pot = taking part in a drug sales conspiracy, and conspiracy is a felony.

      Of course rendezvous like those take place routinely in the underground marketplace, and most of the time the risk of getting arrested is negligible. Even in the relatively rare event that someone is swept up in a raid and busted for that participation, felony conspiracy is almost never charged- unless the government is seeking people to snitch for them. But someone who simply drives their friend over to a house and waits outside in the car while they do a deal may have no information of value to bargain with.

      Meanwhile, the same Federal government rewards those who have risen high enough in the hierarchy of a drug conspiracy to have the detailed knowledge to offer critical testimony against their companions with slots in the WITSEC program, or reduced sentences, or relatively comfortable confinement settings.

  12. Mr_Alex says:

    @DdC

    Want to see a Australian and New Zealand Dr Quack claiming Cannabis does not cure cancer and etc:

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/92550869/pain-expert-medicinal-cannabis-for-noncancer-pain-based-on-anecdote

    Pain expert: Medicinal cannabis for non-cancer pain based on ‘anecdote’

    The late Helen Kelly swore medical cannabis was the only thing that kept her pain at bay after cancerous tumours broke her back.

    Kelly spent her final months battling for better access to medicinal cannabis products, before she died of lung cancer in October last year.

    Victory came posthumously in February, when it was announced that authority to approve applications from medical specialists for non-pharmaceutical grade medicinal cannabis was passed from Government ministers to the Ministry of Health.

    But international pain specialist Professor Milton Cohen, from Sydney, has urged specialists not to prescribe medicinal cannabis for chronic pain conditions – such as multiple sclerosis until there’s more substantial evidence

    “The international data on which one could make an informed decision about the effect of medicinal cannabis on chronic non-cancer pain is in fact very poor. The conclusions have been oversold,” Cohen said.

    Cohen presented his view at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists’ (ANZCA) Annual Scientific meeting in Brisbane on Saturday May 13, attended by more than 2000 medical practitioners. Cohen represented ANZCA’s Faculty of Pain Medicine.

    Cohen was concerned anecdote and “community enthusiasm” had preceded science when it came to prescribing medicinal cannabis for patients who suffered chronic non-cancer pain.

    It had created a culture of “false hope” about medicinal cannabis as a treatment, he said.

    “If doctors are to prescribe substances – that is if they are to be available on doctors’ prescriptions – they should be proven substances.

    “On the basis of what we know about cannabis as a treatment it’s not going to revolutionise the field of chronic pain management.”

    OPIOIDS VS MEDICINAL CANNABIS

    In the same session, a Brisbane addiction expert questioned whether ongoing stigmatisation of medicinal cannabis was denying people a safer pain medication than opioids.

    Clinical director of the Metro North Alcohol and Drug Service, Dr Jeremy Hayllar, said there was potential for cannabinoids to be used as a safer alternative to the highly addictive opioid drugs, such as morphine, for pain relief.

    Opioids cut the risk of returning to work by 50 per cent, lead to 165,000 deaths in the US since 1999 and increased a person’s risk of death, he said.

    “We know there’s a high risk of overdose in opioids, whereas THC is very safe.”

    The opioid methadone – used as a pain reliever and opiate substitute – was the fifth most commonly dispense drug in New Zealand last year, according to Pharmac figures. The opiate codeine was dispensed 650,000 times, and morphine 470,000 times.​

    “Are we denying patients a safer option? Do opioids themselves measure up? Perhaps the role of cannabis in the future will be to get patients off opioids.

    “The medicinal cannabis genie is out of the bottle – things will never be the same.”

    * The writer travelled to Brisbane courtesy of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anesthetists’ (ANZCA).

    *Comments on this article have now closed.

    – Stuff

    • DdC says:

      Mr Alex, their words are a meaningless means to an end. No one has cured cancer outside of in real life. The records are fixed. As long as Cannabis is a S#1 drug. To prohibitionists that means no medicinal value. To cops enforcing it or doctors researching it, it couldn’t have medicinal value and be a S#1. Even if Nixon had no Science backing it up and listed it on purely political, racist reasons.

      They don’t care why it was placed as a S#1. Only that it is. So they back their entire Trillion dollar bottom line on the same bullshit for 45 years. Now Americans are waking up to the fact that they have been lied too. Who ya gonna call?

      Until the people decide to demand their taxes not be spent on their own persecutions. All the truth in the world will stay hidden behind the TV reporters and science. All of the real life “anecdotal” evidence and University studies and other Government studies are of no value in the US as long as the monopoly on drug testing stays with the FDA, HHS and IOM. As they are still sitting on the 1999 IOM Report.

      We thought all we had to do was inform the people and the politicians would have to listen. We didn’t realize these are fascist, not everyday politicians. They don’t legislate what isn’t brought to a vote. They don’t even hear the truth when they stack the deck with stupid patricks and chris chrispies. Don’t give up, but don’t expect them to play by the rules of ethics or even logic and dignity.

      Here is a thread on the subject.

      ☛ HOW MY DAUGHTER WAS CURED
      FROM LUNG CANCER WITH CANNABIS OIL

      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/1170

      Here is my latest.

      ☛ Ignorant Jeff Orders Moral thing to do. Profit Prisons
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/1171

      ☛ Trump Opiod Idiots.jpg
      http://oi65.tinypic.com/fnbcdx.jpg

      ☛ Trump Faith Based.jpg
      http://oi64.tinypic.com/2hxncx1.jpg

      Again, be careful using the “cure” word.

      ☛ FDA Takes Action Against ‘Bogus Cancer Cures’

      ☛ How many “crimes” do Corporations Buy?
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/1165

  13. Mouth says:

    Donald Trumpy sat on a Border Wall–Donald Trumpy had a big fall. But all the kings men and all the kings lawyers simply had to chapter 11 him back together again . . . then Donald Trumpy fired them all.

  14. About US President DONALD TRUMP and his dubious connections (Dutch video)
    https://youtu.be/hdZ-RbL7pmw
    Watching this video is a must.

  15. CJ says:

    Just thought I’d drop by to let u guys know I’m still alive and a couple weeks ago I went with my dad to a conference / demonstration / Q&A / presentation at CCNY which was about safe consumption sites. It started with a documentary film about it then opened up to the speakers one of which was a woman a Canadian lady who’d been apart of all the incredible things they have done in Vancouver and now she’s here fighting the good fight and thank God for her. I want to say however that the thing that struck me the most was one of the speakers was this doctor I forget his name. He is in charge of methadone prescription at Rikers island. He totally gets it. What I’ve said for years about us “hard drugs” users and how the insane war on drugs has caused this totally insane shame and self hate etc but he said how basically insane 12 step philosophy is and especially tough love and as anyone whose come here to Petes site knows or if u may have seen my writings elsewhere I’ve said it for years tough love kills. I specifically like to say if you treat someone like they’re dead for long enough it’s no surprise when they wind up dead. In fact it breaks my heart to say two dear friends have died this year one of them a lower east side legend. Named mark I swear to you if you’ve been in the lower east side or union square at any time in the past ten fifteen years you would have seen mark. Fairly short quite skinny guy white guy but long dreadlock type hair and goatee. A few years ago he was in a wheel chair but hadn’t been in one in recent years. He was going about his normal life and sparring for change a couple months ago when he suddenly felt very ill. It got so bad he went to the hospital and they found out very quick he was in full blown liver failure and basically within a few weeks everything was going to shut down. He made it a month but he was a good kid with a good heart never hurt anyone type of guy. Very funny very nice. He died an extremely painful and drawn out death. It was horrible. Unfortunately mark liked everything. He wasn’t just shooting like a lot of us. He liked to drink hard alcohol as well. Anyway what the doctor had said that I liked was how messed up tough love is and the whole rock bottom idea. He said for so many of us rock bottom is death and in that case what’s the point because when you hit rock bottom in that case so called drug treatment was no longer a possibility. Also during the Q&A at one point my dad got on the microphone to make a rousing speech about his life my life our relationship and how the conference validated for him the way he’s approached me the past few years which is to say in every way the opposite of tough love which is what he’d been doing for years before and I was homeless. He got quite emotional and wound up getting a standing ovation so although I was a little embarassee…especially because there was also a hot chick there…. it was also kind of neat. So yeah that’s the latest guys. Currently awaiting the man’s arrival so the beat goes on but I hope all have been well happy healthy. Hope Petes enjoying retirement.

  16. Nice to hear from you CJ. Your story and your comments about tough love, I agree with 100%. I saw it in the half-way house environment from personal experience working to help people kick (voluntarily).

    Your stories CJ always rekindle my spirit and resolve in ending the war on drugs.

    In view of that (ending the war on drugs) I urge every body to not let my post on the Trump video – https://youtu.be/hdZ-RbL7pmw – get buried in the posts. We need to know who we are dealing with to end this war.

    The best to you and your father CJ. Stay in touch.

    • Head on a Stick says:

      I posted that same link at the Washington Post, just yesterday. My account was immediately terminated.

  17. Pingback: AG Sessions’ move, while despicable, isn’t the real problem « Drug WarRant

  18. james vue says:

    As a policy recommendation for the chaos, violence, and dysfunction in our inner cities, author Renford Reese, Ph.D. advocates incentivizing permanent birth control for those who have out-of-wedlock children in an explosive new book, “The Failed Experiment.”

    https://www.amazon.com/Failed-Experiment-Renford-Reese-ebook/dp/B0716SPF88/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1494790967&sr=8-2&keywords=Renford+Reese

Comments are closed.