Drug WarRant

Strong article in the Atlantic by Jeff Deeney: To Stay Out of Jail, Must Nonviolent Offenders Submit to Medical Diagnoses?

The following passage, I think, really points out the problem that we’ve been railing about with the so-called “third way” that’s been heavily promoted by ONDCP and S.A.M.

Criminal justice policy reformers say that when courts flood the drug treatment centers with the kinds of drug offenders who more often get arrested, the outcome is no longer a system for treating drug addicts who want help with their drug problems. Instead, the treatment system becomes an extensive community-based surveillance network whose primary purpose is to monitor the behavior of people who are primarily black and poor. In fact, as some sociologists have argued, this changes the definition of what a drug problem is and who requires treatment. This suits perfectly the needs of a justice system that refuses to decriminalize drugs, but now has to put offenders somewhere other than jail.

Exactly. And the use of treatment as an arm of the criminal justice system may be good for treatment’s financial bottom line, but it’s not good for those who need treatment. And as the article goes on to demonstrate, the system is still heavily skewed in terms of class and race.

Another question is what happens with those who don’t need treatment. In the article ONDCP spokesperson Rafael LeMaitre attempts to reassure us:

Lemaitre, though, stands by the justice system’s referral policies for those with disorders, saying people don’t get sent to drug programs if they don’t have real drug problems.

Oh, really? I find that very hard to believe, particularly when treatment programs are getting paid for accepting people, and there’s a strong incentive to admit to having a drug problem in order to stay out of jail. After all, the one group people like LeMaitre never will discuss is those nonviolent low-level drug offenders with no drug problem. Because then he’d have to answer what this touted “third-way” does for them.

Regardless of what you may feel about the appropriateness politically of the “marijuana is safer” than alcohol campaigns, the truth is that in some areas, marijuana is, in fact, scientifically and objectively safer than alcohol.

A recent ad aired at NASCAR said that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol, and that specific claim was analyzed by Politifact, which looked at the facts, found that the science supports that marijuana is less toxic and called the claim “Mostly True” (who knows why “mostly true” instead of just “true”).

The really interesting part of the story, however, is the attempts by opposition to dance around the straightforward science of toxicity and try to re-define it to keep from making marijuana sound good in any way.

“It’s like trying to compare different weapons. Both have the potential to cause harm,” said Dr. Scott Teitelbaum, professor and vice chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine, at University of Florida. “I don’t know that there’s a clear answer.” […]

Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, said she wants the public to realize that “these are two drugs that are both addictive and impairing and they both create unsafe situations.”

Of course, we expect that from Calvina. But how about the federal agency that focuses on the use of science?

NIDA states in an email that the effect of marijuana can depend on the person (their biology) who’s using it, the amount and under what circumstances.

“Claiming that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol cannot be substantiated since each possess their own unique set of risks and consequences for a given individual,” according to an agency email statement.

Um, no. Toxicity is a measurable scientific standard (LD50), and while each individual is unique, there have been clearly established overall differences in toxicity between alcohol and marijuana. Period.

It appears that science is toxic to NIDA.

I was pleased to hear Attorney General Holder make his announcement about reducing sentencing for low-level drug crimes, not because I thought what he planned to do would have much practical effect (still depending on prosecutors to use judgement), but rather because it appeared that the announcement might end up being non-controversial.

So many politicians still labor under the old notion that anything but “tough on drugs” is a third-rail position. What was important here was not Holder’s comment, but the lack of political “gotcha” reaction to it.

As Steve Chapman notes in Drug Warriors in Retreat

So when Holder gave a speech announcing that the Justice Department would minimize the use of stiff mandatory sentences in some drug cases, it was reasonable to expect a storm of protests from Republicans accusing him of flooding our streets with crack dealers and meth heads.

Instead, the response bordered on the soporific. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, reported Politico, gently suggested that the administration “work with Congress on policies it wants to implement instead of consistently going around it.” Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who has previously called for criminal prosecution of Holder, echoed Cruz’s view, while admitting that “reducing mandatory minimums may be good policy.”

Instead of tepid criticism, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky offered outright praise, calling the change “a welcome development.” Hardly anyone in the GOP cared to defend the merciless approach. At least when it comes to low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, both parties have lost their appetite for locking the cell and tossing the key.

I think there may have been some border sheriff who raised a stink about Holder’s announcement, but otherwise, silence.

Nobody in the media or politics (to the extent that they differ) was going to criticize this move. (Even prohibitionists supported it, since they’ve been forced by us to tack toward the kinder, gentler prohibition.) And believe me, that fact will be noticed by the lily-livered politicians who have good intentions, but are afraid to be seen as soft on crime.

Holder’s statement is not an indication that the Obama administration wants to actually do something important about our serious incarceration problem (after all, Obama could easily commute sentences of prisoners who had received ridiculously long sentences, yet he has chosen to be very stingy in that area). It is, however, additional proof of a change in political climate that could very well embolden Congress or future Presidents.

Official Tweets from the Seattle Police Department twitter feed:

SPD Chief Jim Pugel was just driving down 4th Ave when he spotted a 79 Chevy w/fake pot leaves hanging from its rearview. Driver looked lost

That’s when Chief Pugel’s 30 years of policing experience kicked in.

After stopping the car (which had out of state plates), Chief Pugel asked everyone in the car if they needed directions to Hempfest.

Turns out they did.

Update:

The Seattle Police were handing out Doritos with this sticker:

I hate to recommend watching the TV “news” stations, but it’s how so much of the mass population gets their info…

Tonight at 9 pm Eastern: Gone to Pot – Making cases for and against the legalization of marijuana.

Featuring LEAP’s Neil Franklin and… David Evans.

Wow, they’re really having to dig to the bottom of the barrel to find prohibitionists. Evans, by the way, is a career drug testing guy, who has lobbied heavily for the drug testing industry.

I was impressed with this CNN story: As haze clears, are American opinions on pot reaching tipping point? (except for the obligatory pun in the headline).

It is a story of a lot of people getting caught flat-footed by the sudden surge of the legalization movement…

“I’m surprised by the long-term increase in support for marijuana legalization in the last six or seven years. It’s unprecedented. It doesn’t look like a blip,” said Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland public policy professor with 30 years experience researching drug policy.

Reuter, who co-wrote the book “Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate,” said he believes two factors are spurring the shift in national opinion: Medical marijuana has reduced the stigma associated with the drug, making it “less devilish,” and the number of Americans who have tried the drug continues to rise.

This is now becoming the conventional wisdom of even the very mainstream press — that cannabis legalization is probably inevitable. The only real question left is “How?”

Mayor Bloomberg tries to defend Stop and Frisk in this horrible piece in the New York Post: Frisks save lives

He basically takes the position that Stop and Frisk has been responsible for a decrease in violent crime, even though he has no evidence proving it (in fact, other cities without Stop and Frisk saw the same reduction in violent crime).

Even if it were true (which it isn’t), Bloomberg acts like that’s all that matters. He simply justifies the acts by the supposed results. But we have a Constitution, and therefore you can’t just do anything to people simply because it… works. What would otherwise prevent him from simply creating concentration camps for minorities if he could show that it would reduce violent crime?

He complains:

Throughout the trial that just concluded, the judge made it clear she wasn’t at all interested in the crime reductions here or how we achieved them. In fact, nowhere in her 195-page decision does she mention the historic cuts in crime or the number of lives that have been saved.

Exactly. Because that was, quite frankly, irrelevant to the question of whether the use of Stop and Frisk was unconstitutional. What did he expect her to do? “Well, what you’re doing is unconstitutional, but it works so well, so we’ll just ignore it.”

Bloomberg has shown, in various ways, a complete disrespect for the law. And here he does again.

And he has company.

Kal Penn is, once again, proving that he doesn’t have anywhere near the smarts of the stoner character that he plays in the movies.

He tweeted:

Great op/ed by @MikeBloomberg on the merits of “stop-question-frisk”. http://t.co/QVeGVqlNDF

When asked if he forgot his “snark” tag, he responded:

@Only4RM nope. It’s a good policy. Sad to see such activist judges ruling against public safety

…and he kept digging in even further…

@CWmsWrites lol well already been a victim of violent crime. It’s a sound policy and we need to stop trying to get rid of it

…to bordering on racism…

@CWmsWrites and who, sadly, commits & are victims of the most crimes?

@BridgetMarie it angers us all but the stats don’t lie. We need to do better to uplift our urban & rural communities.

…

The Daily Show has a delightful piece where they turn Stop and Frisk around.

Ken White at Popehat has an excellent post that’s extremely helpful for those who would like to understand the Holder memo and federal sentencing: The Eric Holder Memorandum on Mandatory Minimum Sentences, Explained

He concludes:

I’m not happy that the methodology for the change is a fairly dramatic expansion of prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutors already had a vast amount of discretion in imposing mandatory minimums — they decided whom to charge federally at all, and decided when a defendant cooperates whether that cooperation is sufficient to spare them the mandatory minimum sentence.

But previously, with certain exceptions, the Justice Department required prosecutors to seek the mandatory minimum when it was applicable. The Holder Memorandum confers an additional and substantial measure of discretion by letting prosecutors judge which defendants deserve mandatory minimums based on some criteria that incorporate wiggle room.

The Holder Memorandum also continues to normalize vast prosecutorial discretion by making explicit that prosecutors can dictate Jane Doe’s sentence simply by deciding whether or not to mention drug weight in her indictment. Federal prosecutors therefore retain almost unimaginable power to change the course of lives, to coerce cooperation, to separate some defendants from others.

It’s a pretty powerful point. We’re not likely to see real longterm reform via the good will of prosecutors.

One interesting reaction to Holder’s comments today came from a certain former Attorney General… Former AG Mukasey: Holder Has Wrong Approach on Mandatory Sentences

“Mandatory minimums impose a certain rigidity in sentencing that’s not appropriate in the individual case,” Mukasey said Monday on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” […]

Mukasey said he would be happy to work with Holder to find proper ways to change mandatory sentencing laws.

Oh, really?

Anybody else remember Michael Mukasey? Think back, …way back, to early 2008.

We had just done a bit of sentencing reform, and were releasing some prisoners who had been given ridiculously long sentences under the 100:1 crack/cocaine disparity (now down to only a merely ridiculous 18:1).

Here was Mukasey then:

Speaking before the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said that “a sudden influx of criminals from federal prison into your communities could lead to a surge in new victims as a tragic, but predictable, result.”

Somebody needs to ask him how that prediction turned out.

Should Marijuana Be Rescheduled? — Kevin Sabet, sounding really desparate to remain relevant given everything going on.

What does Holder’s speech really mean? Who knows? It certainly had some attractive rhetoric, but at that level, you can afford good speechwriters, so your rhetoric should seem like ambrosia. Actual action is yet to happen.

If I was to guess, I would say that Holder’s speech is the equivalent of throwing the door wide open, while his actions will be merely opening the door another crack. But that’s OK – we’re used to that and we’ll get another foot in that crack and keep that door open just a little more. We’ll never back down so there’s only one way for that door to go.

Why a Federal Judge Says the NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk Program is Unconstitutional by Jacob Sullum.