Drug WarRant

“bullet” Check out this week’s Drug War Chronicle for disappointing updates on the Rockefeller Drug Laws and lots more. Also a good review of the week’s news in today’s Drug Sense Newsletter.
“bullet” Speaking of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, check out The Reluctant Activist in the Village Voice (Thanks, MzOuiser)

When it was Cheri’s turn, she stepped forward, clutching Ashley’s poster in front of her. “I just want to say that the Rockefeller drug laws need to be changed,” she said, her voice strong and confident. “When you send someone to prison, you send their entire family to prison, in a sense. This is a young man who has a lot of potential. He doesn’t deserve this.”

The reporters scribbled down her words. Cheri felt a little better, and a little more hopeful, than she had felt in months.

“bullet” For something completely different, check out The Drug Czar’s blog.

In the Chicago Tribune: ABA urges new look at sentencing:

Many get-tough approaches to crime don’t work and some, such as mandatory minimum sentences for small-time drug offenders, are unfair and should be abolished, a report from the American Bar Association said Wednesday.

Laws requiring mandatory minimum prison terms leave little room to consider differences among crimes and criminals, an ABA commission concluded in its study of problems in the criminal justice system. More people are behind bars for longer terms, but it is unclear whether the country is safer as a result, the ABA said.

The report and recommendations for changes follow criticism of the criminal justice system last year from Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Listen to the report on NPR today.
Report information is available here, and won’t be acted on by the ABA until August, but here’s part of the summary:

The resolution urges states, territories and the federal government to ensure that sentencing systems provide appropriate punishment without over-reliance on incarceration. Lengthy periods of incarceration should be reserved for offenders who pose the greatest danger to the community and who commit the most serious offenses. Alternatives to incarceration should be provided when offenders pose minimal risk to the community and appear likely to benefit from rehabilitation efforts.
The resolution sets out a series of recommended actions, including:

• Repealing mandatory minimum sentences;
• Allowing courts to consider the unique characteristics of offenses and offenders that may warrant an increase or decrease in a sentence;
• Requiring sentencing courts to state the reason for increasing or reducing a sentence, and allowing appellate review of such sentences;
• Considering diversion programs for less serious offenses, and studying the cost effectiveness of treatment programs for substance abuse and mental illness;
• Giving greater authority and resources to an agency responsible for monitoring the sentencing system;
• Adopting risk-based criteria as a basis for determining whether an offender should be released to community custody, parole or probation; and
• Developing graduated sanctions for violations of probation and parole.

In addition, the resolution urges Congress to give greater latitude to the United States Sentencing Commission and the federal courts in exercising authority related to criminal sentencing, and to reinstate a more deferential standard of appellate review of sentences.

I have often talked about the need to change the rhetoric from “tough on crime” to “smart on crime,” so it was good to see this in the release:

“For more than 20 years, we have gotten tougher on crime,” said ABA President Dennis W. Archer. “Now we need to get smarter. We can no longer sit by as more and more people-particularly in minority communities-are sent away for longer and longer periods of time while we make it more and more difficult for them to return to society after they serve their time. The system is broken. We need to fix it.”

Bravo.

A bill in California has bi-partisan support and would ban universal random drug testing of students, and only allow drug testing if administrators have “reasonable suspicions.” A companion bill would allow for testing of athletes specifically for performance enhancing drugs.
Naturally, this reasonable approach doesn’t sit well with the Drug Czar’s office, which is trying to boost the income of testing companies, so they sent their resident quack Andrea Barthwell, who testified that universal random drug testing of students was like testing for tuberculosis, and urged testing all students to “stop the spread.”
I hear there’s an epidemic of lying in government. We’d better institute random lie detector tests to stop the spread.

Dusty Nix in the Ledger Enquirer (GA)

Consider two “drug wars” — one a highly and expensively hyped crusade, the other quieter; but both of tremendous social, economic, legal and cultural significance over the last few decades.

One, waged principally against opiates, cannabis and cocaine by state and federal governments for more than 20 years, has cost billions, perhaps trillions of dollars in taxpayer money; taxed the resources of already overworked law enforcement agencies; sustained a criminal empire the size and riches of which would dwarf the booze kingpins of the 1920s and ’30s; created, with the help of “mandatory sentencing” politics, an unprecedented corrections crisis by stuffing prisons to bursting with drug offenders; and provided the dubious rationale for abrogating the Bill of Rights to an extent even the Patriot Act hasn’t approached.æ And even the front-line troops in this war have acknowledged it’s a losing campaign.

“Drug war” No.æ 2, which hasn’t generated nearly as much attention — which, in fact, few people have thought of as a “drug war” at all — has involved relatively little public money, no prison space, little or no effort on the part of law enforcement.æ Nobody’s been randomly summoned away from a desk or work site to urinate into a cup.æ And it has been waged against a drug that every year claims more lives than all illegal substances combined.

But the vast differences in expense and approach aren’t the most dramatic distinction here.æ The biggest difference is that one of them has worked.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported last week that smoking among American teens is at its lowest level in almost 30 years.

This is a point that more people need to notice. The editorial is a strong one, and ends:

So providing people with education and information has proven dramatically effective in curbing use of a drug some experts have said is as addictive as heroin; while draconian laws and sentences and self-incrimination policies have created more problems than they have solved.

Surely there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

From BBC News:

Brazil is close to adopting a plan to shoot down aircraft suspected of carrying narcotics over the Amazon jungle, the government has said.

Colombia and Peru called a halt to the controversial practice in 2001 after the Peruvian air force mistakenly shot down a plane carrying missionaries.

… Colombia resumed shooting down suspected drug trafficking planes in 2003 and has shot down almost a dozen planes this year alone with intelligence assistance from Washington, AP news agency reported.

Peru is seeking to restart the policy.æ

Sad.
Why can’t we force planes down, or, failing that, use our technology to follow them, and arrest them after they land?
Perhaps the better question is… “Why do we continue policies that make smuggling so profitable that they’re willing to chance being shot down?”

Reported in Now Magazine

Our friendly neighbourhood pot promoters, Canadians for Safe Access ( CSA ), are calling for an immediate moratorium on the distribution of medical pot after independent testing of the feds’ bud revealed that THC levels are nowhere near the 10.2 per cent claimed by Health Canada.

According to two tests conducted by the Quebec National Institute of Public Health, Health Canada’s cannabis contains only 5 per cent THC, barely enough to catch a buzz, let alone have any real therapeutic effect.

For all their talk about health care, the feds seem content to toy with the health of thousands of chronically ill Canadians.

Government has to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing.

Via NORML

Seattle, WA: The administration of the cannabinoid THC in mice
delayed disease progression of an animal model of amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS), according to clinical findings published in the journal
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis & Other Motor Neuron Disorders. Also known
as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a chronic, often fatal condition marked by
a gradual degeneration of the nerve cells in the central nervous system
that control voluntary muscle movement.

“Treatment with Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol was effective if
administered either before or after onset of [symptoms] in the ALS mouse
model,” researchers at the MDA/ALS Center at the University of Washington
determined. “Administration at the onset of tremors delayed motor
impairment and prolonged survival in Delta(9)-THC treated mice when
compared to … controls.”

Authors concluded, “As Delta(9)-THC is well tolerated, it and other
cannabinoids may prove to be novel therapeutic targets for the treatment
of ALS.”

Suing The Reaper by Dean Kuipers in Los Angeles City Beat
The story of a South L.A.æSickle-Cell Patient Had To Sue The LAPD To Stop Pulling Up Her Legal Pot Harvest.

Kambui, who relies on marijuana to combat debilitating pain from sickle-cell anemia, was in tears.

Then her eyes fixed on someone who turned her sorrow to rage: accompanying the federal agents was LAPD Detective Steve McArthur.

McArthur had busted Kambui at least four previous autumns, and each time there had either been no charges filed or, most important, she’d been acquitted and her grow operation approved under California’s 1996 Compassionate Use Act, better known as Proposition 215.æ Unable to get an indictment under state law, McArthur had brought in the feds, whose warrant was based solely on his testimony.æ After two hours of questioning, the DEA set Kambui free, and one of the agents even gave her a hug.

Kambui, however, had had enough of Detective McArthur.æ She filed a civil suit against McArthur, the LAPD, the City of Los Angeles, and “John Does 1-50” in January, backed by an increasingly effective medical cannabis advocacy group, Bay Area-based Americans for Safe Access.

This case is particularly important to Kambui, who was diagnosed with sickle-cell anemia at age 19 when she was in the U.S.æ Air Force. The fatal malady is usually treated with morphine and many patients die from a morphine overdose. Kambui uses marijuana, cooked into teas, tinctures and foods.

“This kind of shows you how ass-backwards all this is,” says Elford [Kambui’s attorney].æ “In the name of the drug war, they’re trying to require someone to take much more serious narcotics than relatively harmless marijuana.æ And in this case, not just much more serious narcotics in terms of toxicity and addictiveness, but in this case, narcotics that are actually extremely harmful to the person prescribed them.”

Via TalkLeft comes word of another horrible bill with an exploitive and deceptive name: Defending America’s Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2004 sponsored by House Judiciary Chair Jim Sensenbrenner (R-5th district, WI). So far he’s the sole sponsor, but he has a lot of power, and it’s going to take some effort in an election year to prevent passage.
To read the bill, go to Thomas and type in HR4547. The bill makes adjustments to the Controlled Substances Act.
Here are some of the new penalties for distribution of any controlled substance (including marijuana), or attempting or conspiring to distribute (note that actual sale is not required).

• Distribution by a person older than 18 to a person under 21 is 5 year mandatory for first offense. (would probably include two college students sharing a joint)
• Distribution by a person older than 18 to a person under 21 is 10 years for subsequent offense.
• Distribution by a person older than 21 to a person under 18 is 10 year mandatory for first offense.
• Distribution by a person older than 21 to a person under 18 is life in prison for subsequent offense.

No opportunity would be given for probation or suspended sentences. Judicial involvement would be limited.
Additionally, the bill would increase “proximity penalties.” Once you add all the things together, you get:

Distributing, manufacturing, or possession with intent to distribute within one thousand feet of a public or private elementary, vocational, or secondary school or a public or private college, junior college, or university, or a playground, or a public or private youth center, public swimming pool, or video arcade facility, or public library, or public or private daycare facility would be subject to 5 years minimum for the first offense, 10 years minimum for the second offense.

Tell your Representative to oppose mandatory sentencing.
And if you live in the 5th District of Wisconsin, you might want to check out Bryan Kennedy, who is opposing Frank James Sensenbrenner, Jr. in November.
You can also buy a T-Shirt at my shop:

Jeanne Lenzer with the British Medical Journal (with follow-ups by World Net Daily) has a strong report: Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness.
The sweeping mental health initiative that President Bush will unveil in July is part of the government’s New Freedom Initiative, which has some very laudable goals regarding integrating mentally ill patients into the community.
However, the plan includes a major effort to find mental illnesses that go undiagnosed by using the schools to screen the 52 million students and the 6 million adults who work there. The effort will link the screening with “state of the art treatments” using “specific medications for specific conditions” and specifically using the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a model.

But the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, sparked off controversy when Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, revealed that key officials with influence over the medication plan in his state received money and perks from drug companies with a stake in the medication algorithm (15 May, p1153). He was sacked this week for speaking to the BMJ and the New York Times.

The Texas project started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. The project was funded by a Robert Wood Johnson grantÖand by several drug companies.

Mr Jones told the BMJ that the same “political/pharmaceutical alliance” that generated the Texas project was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which, according to his whistleblower report, were “poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab” (http://psychrights.org/Drugs/AllenJonesTMAPJanuary20.pdf).

One of the drugs that would be pushed would be Olanzapine, Eli Lilly’s top-selling drug, which grossed over $4 billion last year.

Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, has multiple ties to the Bush administration. George Bush Sr was a member of Lilly’s board of directors and Bush Jr appointed Lilly’s chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to a seat on the Homeland Security Council. Lilly made $1.6m in political contributions in 2000Ö82% of which went to Bush and the Republican Party.

Jones points out that the companies that helped to start up the Texas project have been, and still are, big contributors to the election funds of George W Bush. In addition, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to the Texas Medication Algorithm Project.

Bush was the governor of Texas during the development of the Texas project, and, during his 2000 presidential campaign, he boasted of his support for the project and the fact that the legislation he passed expanded Medicaid coverage of psychotropic drugs.

Bush is the clear front runner when it comes to drug company contributions. According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), manufacturers of drugs and health products have contributed $764,274 to the 2004 Bush campaign through their political action committees and employeesÖfar outstripping the $149,400 given to his chief rival, John Kerry, by 26 April.

Drug companies have fared exceedingly well under the Bush administration, according to the centre’s spokesperson, Steven Weiss.

Identifying mental illness earlier is a good idea. However, if the drug companies are running the show, then what will be the standard for the use of dangerous and expensive medication?
And what message are we sending to our children (to use the prohibitionists’ phrase) if we’re sending armed federal agents to harrass and arrest sick people using medical marijuana, and spending billions to arrest those who traffic in pot, while working with other drug traffickers to pump prozac and olanzapine into children whose behavior is slightly off “normal”?

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