Regardless of the advances we make in drug policy reform, there will always be those who have not only not learned from our tragic failures, but who are determined to bring them back with a vengeance.
The overdose crisis is bringing back one of the worst policies of the ‘war on drugs’
Last month, Republican Rep. Tom Reed of New York introduced legislation that harked back to what critics call one of the worst relics of the “war on drugs.”
The legislation would allow federal prosecutors to charge a drug dealer with life in prison or the death penalty when they can connect the dealer to an overdose death caused by heroin laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid painkiller with 50 times the strength of pure heroin.
And, just in case you’ve forgotten why this is a bad thing (and why we need to get rid of the laws that are still on the books that charge a dealer for the death of a user) remember how these laws end up getting enforced.
To charge someone with drug-induced homicide or a similar charge, the chain of causation that led from purchase to overdose needs to be very clear. Drug dealers with more sophisticated operations don’t tend to put themselves in the types of situations that make it feasible to prove that causation, Kathie Kane-Willis, the director of Roosevelt University’s Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy, told The Southern Illinoisan earlier this year.
Addicts who sell to support their addiction and most often sell to friends or acquaintances do put themselves in those types of situations — like shooting up with the overdose victim.
“If our goal is to save lives, then these laws are counterproductive,” Kane-Willis told The Fix in January. “The majority of people charged under drug-induced homicide laws are drug-dependent folks who were using with a friend or loved one.”
Exemplifying the worst drug policies, a 23-year-old-mother in Idaho has been arrested on misdemeanor charges for “injury to a child†after she gave cannabinoid-infused butter to one of her children who suffered “seizure-like symptoms†after the girl’s reaction to anti-psychotic medication. The cannabis worked like the miracle it is. However, the girl tested positive for marijuana at her doctor’s appointment, and the doctor contacted the child welfare department, which took away both of her two children.
Governor “Butcher†Otter of Idaho previously vetoed a CBD bill that would have allowed its use in cases like those of Madyson’s, minus any legal harassment of her mother. Instead, Otter produced an executive order creating a special program that allowed up to 25 children to get CBD for persistent epilepsy, but no more than 25.
What makes the Idaho CBD regulations ironic is that the state has what’s called a “faith-healing exemption” wherein a parent or guardian is allowed to use prayers or “spiritual means†as treatment, while rejecting the application of modern medical science and drug treatments. Idaho “remains one of six states with what amounts to a religious defense for child manslaughter, even capital murder, in its code.†The Idaho religious group engaging in these barbarous policies calls itself the Followers of Christ: “The literalist, Pentecostal sect has congregations in areas of Owyhee, Canyon, Ada and Twin Falls counties. Some say that more members have moved to Idaho from neighboring Oregon in the years since Idaho’s neighbor to the west eliminated faith-healing exemptions from its criminal statutes.â€
Adding more irony to this story is that part of the responsibility for the state faith healing exemptions in six states originated with the Nixon White House:
Governor Otter is a strict Roman Catholic, so we can presume he’s no friend of cannabis, much like his church, which once burned men and women at the stake for providing herbal remedies used in healing the afflicted. The medieval popes believed that only the devil, and not a material substance, could bring about the observed healing effects, thereby thwarting the will of God who supposedly made the person (sinner) sick in the first place. Smallpox vaccinations in the early 19th century were rejected for the same reason by a number of Protestant clergymen.
Except for the severity of persecutions and punishments for drug consumption, some things never change. The next time someone talks about protecting children from drugs, ask them about Idaho’s faith healers and their record of medical successes.
Sources:
http://magicvalley.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/gooding-mother-faces-charge-for-treating-daughter-with-marijuana-butter/article_aa3366d9-4ce8-5514-977d-955f8fd1fdda.html
http://magicvalley.com/news/local/religious-freedom-or-medical-neglect-idaho-weighs-issue/article_39f5a6e4-f574-575a-9f51-6547f38426fe.html
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It’s good enough for me
Let us worship Zarathustra
Just the way we used to
I’m a Zarathustra booster
He’s good enough for me
Let us worship Aphrodite
She’s beautiful but flighty
She doesn’t wear a nightie
But she’s good enough for me
From Otter’s wiki page:
“In August 1992, Otter was pulled over on Interstate 84 near Meridian for suspicion of driving under the influence. He claimed the arresting officer observed him swerving as he was reaching for his cowboy hat, which had been blown off by the wind in his open car. Otter offered several explanations for failing the field sobriety test including: his stocking feet were stung by weeds and gravel, he had run eight miles (13 km) and his knee hurt, he was hungry, and that he had soaked his chewing tobacco in Jack Daniel’s. A jury convicted Otter in March 1993, and he was sentenced to 72 hours of community service and 16 hours at an alcohol treatment program, fined $700, and had his license revoked.[30][31] He publicly admitted it could end his political career;[31] it likely forced him to abandon an anticipated run for governor in 1994 and instead seek re-election for lieutenant governor.”
Here’s Elisha Figueroa, administrator of Otter’s Office of Drug Policy:
http://cdapress.com/columns/my_turn/article_6dac5ea8-7beb-546e-84fd-83deb36340f7.html#user-comment-area
American Nurses Association Calls For Rescheduling of Cannabis
ANA is vocal in calling out the hypocrisy of the scheduling, sharing that cannabis has been notoriously used for medicinal purposes throughout our history. In fact, cannabis was part of America’s Pharmocopeia before Prohibition. Now, the medical benefits of cannabis are being proven every day, and ANA was able to point out some of these proven uses. The statement reads, “Marijuana has been used for alleviating symptoms of nausea and vomiting; stimulating appetite in HIV patients; alleviating chronic pain; easing plasticity due to multiple sclerosis; decreasing symptoms of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and psychosis; and reliving intraocular pressure from glaucoma.â€
Overall, the ANA believes patients and health care providers should be safe from federal prosecution regarding medical cannabis, and the nurses organization hopes to see further research and the rescheduling of cannabis in the near future.
http://ireadculture.com/american-nurses-association-rescheduling-cannabis/
It is the most horrible emotion a human can experience, giving dope to a friend then they OD. worse than any life sentence. I would know.
Just for interest’s sake CJ, could you please give me your brief understanding of “OD” when there are opioids involved. So in other words, what happens to the person’s physical processes?
Arch-prohibitionist and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has experienced a moral epiphany:
Not surprisingly, Duterte began his career as a prosecutor; according to Wiki : “Special Counsel at the City Prosecution Office in Davao City from 1977–79; Fourth Assistant City Prosecutor from 1979–81; Third Assistant City Prosecutor from 1981–83; and Second Assistant City Prosecutor from 1983–86.†As president, however, Duterte has been in trouble for some sick comments he made a few months ago in a rape case:
The moral of the story is never give the tools of drug prohibition to a necrophiliac, serial killer, and whack-job such as Rodrigo Duterte. Prohibition is already a dangerous threat to humanity. It shouldn’t be made worse by making it a toy for the entertainment and profit of psychopaths, although that seems to be the historical trend.
“The drug war’s most enthusiastic recruit: Hollywood”
by Alyssa Rosenberg at The Washington Post
http://tinyurl.com/hss7g7k
… “Just as Jack Webb’s partnership with the Los Angeles Police Department on “Dragnet†and “Adam-12†benefited both Hollywood and the police, the drug war united pop culture and real law enforcement agencies in a new common purpose. The prospect of foreign drug traffickers invading American shores gave pop-culture cops a new and more dangerous enemy to fight, one that justified fast driving, explosive shootouts and all sorts of audience-thrilling rule-breaking. In return, Hollywood promoted the idea that drugs posed a grave threat that justified new, frightening police tactics and the erosion of basic rights.” …
Watching out for the worse – and the misguided drama of an industry stuck on the abundant script material provided by the war on drugs.
The pols who propose these laws really don’t care whose lives they ruin. They see a rash of overdoses and think ‘how can I personally benefit from the situation?’ Acting tough on drugs is a sure fire way to garner support. For the children.
As the war on drug users recedes, the war on overzealous drug prosecutors begins:
Another marijuana prosecutor ousting attempt is happening in Houston, Texas:
As for Maricopa County, Arizona:
In the future, prosecuting the prosecutor, or merely kicking the bums out of office, will become a favored avenue of drug law reform.
https://thinkprogress.org/reefer-madness-2016-f8c88e986819#.j8yna3wog
https://thinkprogress.org/can-marijuana-ever-be-environmentally-friendly-5109b7436318#.bxoy0xsl1
OT…
everybody’s favorite, the drug sub returns!
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/10/27/coast-guard-captures-sub-carrying-2-tons-of-coke/
The City of Santa Ana, California, is $100,000 poorer today after being sued for police harassment of a marijuana dispensary and losing in court:
The separate hidden cameras saved the day for the dispensary, as the cops believed they had completely disabled the dispensary’s only surveillance system. In ways such as this, technology has become the great equalizer among people and the police. As legalization proceeds, the game plan will be ‘spy vs. spy’ until the U.S. finally reigns in its drug squads.
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The local Boston subsidiary of the object of our mutually loathed and disgust donated $850,000 to the campaign to defeat Massachusetts Question 4 on Election Day. Could this mean that the church has finally paid off all of the diddled kiddies judgments?
Paranoia is a healthy state of mind when there really are people out to get you.
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Just FYI I changed my screen name because the absolute prohibition of cannabis is going away. Duncan20903 was never meant to be permanent screen name. Neither did I dream that it might persist for more than a decade when I invented it.
Well, Duncan, I’ll try to get used to it. Same holds for old DC. Never thought it would stick. I created darkcycle for the purpose of a single response here at DWR….I think it was 11 years ago…and here we both are. Don’t regret a single minute with the best bunch of amotivational, unreliable, forgetful stoners on the planet. (Yeah….the most driven, consistently hard working and intelligent group I have ever belonged to.)
And I’m down to my last horse; Carl Jung strikes again!
How unfortunate our mutually loathed should waste $850K on a lost cause. I’d hoped that when they were a no-show at the United Nations UNGASS meeting they’d backed off from enforcing their peculiar health code.
The ill-advised donation targeting Prop 4 means I’m forced to reveal more nasty things about them. Let’s start with the woman who went to a Catholic hospital to be treated for bleeding due to her dislodged IUD:
Do people buying ‘Blue Shaft’ health insurance know about this? A boycott of Blue Cross Blue Shield is definitely needed. Speaking of shielding civilians from evil, the Vatican’s rogue rape squad is still decimating those parts of the world too poor or too frightened to confront its priestly child predators:
Mother Church…standing in the way of progress and knowledge for 2000 years
Duterte returned from a visit to Japan late on Thursday and during a news conference waved a thick book he said contained names of officials suspected of drug links. The book contains about 3,000 names.
It came as police shift tactics in the controversial war on drugs by focusing on politicians, government officials, celebrities and high-ranking army and police suspected of involvement in the trade. The new plan, called “Project Double Barrel Alpha”, was reported exclusively by Reuters on Monday and aims to increase arrests and reduce the bloodshed in a campaign that has claimed more than 2,300 lives since Duterte took office on June 30.
Reduce the bloodshed?
http://preview.tinyurl.com/DutardInitiatedCivilWar
No matter how much you try to be reasonable about drug law reform, you always face the underlying motivations for drug prohibition and drug prohibitionists: the twin desires to control and punish. It’s in everything they do.
HL Mencken noted this in his time during alcohol Prohibition in his (Downloadable PDF) Notes on Democracy, ca. 1925 Page 173:
“The Prohibitionists, when they foisted their brummagem cure-all upon the country under cover of the war hysteria, gave out that their advocacy of it was based upon a Christian yearning to abate drunkenness, and so abolish crime, poverty and disease. They preached a millennium, and no doubt convinced hundreds of thousands of naive and sentimental persons, not themselves Puritans, nor even democrats.
That millennium, as everyone knows, has failed to come in. Not only are crime, poverty and disease undiminished, but drunkenness itself, if the police statistics are to be believed, has greatly increased. The land rocks with the scandal. Prohibition has made the use of alcohol devilish and even fashionable, and so vastly augmented the number of users. The young of both sexes, mainly innocent of the cup under license, now take to it almost unanimously.
In brief, Prohibition has not only failed to work the benefits that its proponents promised in 1917; it has brought in so many new evils that even the mob has turned against it.
But do the Prohibitionists admit the fact frankly, and repudiate their original nonsense? They do not. On the contrary, they keep on demanding more and worse enforcement statutes — that is to say, more and worse devices for harassing and persecuting their opponents. The more obvious the failure becomes, the more shamelessly they exhibit their genuine motives. In plain words, what moves them is the psychological aberration called sadism. They lust to inflict inconvenience, discomfort, and, whenever possible, disgrace upon the persons they hate — which is to say, upon everyone who is free from their barbarous theological superstitions, and is having a better time in the world than they are.
They cannot stop the use of alcohol, nor even appreciably diminish it, but they can badger and annoy everyone who seeks to use it decently, and they can fill the jails with men taken for purely artificial offenses, and they can get satisfaction thereby for the Puritan yearning to browbeat and injure, to torture and terrorize, to punish and humiliate all who show any sign of being happy. And all this they can do with a safe line of policemen and judges in front of them; always they can do it without personal risk.” (Emphasis mine – k.)
I’ve said it before and will say it again: The main failure of drug law reform is not in communication; we excel at making our case on a rational basis. The main failure is that many in the drug law reform community are fundamentally incapable of understanding just how much they are hated by the opposition; the prohibitionists want people they don’t like to die. Which is why we keep seeing laws like the one detailed above being proposed time and again.