Drug WarRant

I found this Press Release put out by the DEA to be… disturbing.

It’s a tragedy. Four people went and bought heroin together, and all four used it. One became unconscious and the others, afraid to get help, left her in a bedroom. The next morning, one of them found her dead, and again, afraid of repercussions, hid her body.

So that’s a tragic story, and points out the need for drug policy reform so that nobody is ever in that situation and people who need it get help.

But this is a press release from the DEA about how the feds investigated and prosecuted and got the bad guy and how he was sentenced to 80 months in prison for tampering with evidence by hiding the body.

First, it seems odd that it’s a federal case, and second (and much worse) that it’s something that they’d brag about in a press release.

If anything, this press release is a stark indictment of what the DEA has been doing.

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If you want to be tortured with pages upon pages of bad science and self-serving rhetoric, read the link on the right at that page, entitled: “The Dangers and Consequences of Marijuana Abuse.”

… and her mom.

One of the toughest things in the world of drugs and drug policy is the parent who loses a child to drug overdose.

I feel for them, and their feelings of disbelief and rage. I can understand their immediate reaction to want whoever did this to their child to be punished immediately and severely, and to push for tougher laws to make sure other parents won’t have to go through this.

They are not in a state of mind to be able to listen to the realities about prohibition’s failures or to handle the counter-intuitive truth that reducing punitive laws can actually make children safer.

And this makes What Martha Did Next all the more powerful. It is the story of Martha, who spent too brief a time on this earth, but also her mother, who was determined to respond in a way that would make a real difference.

I have spent many hours painstakingly deliberating about drug policy since my precious girl died. It was important to me that when I felt ready to disclose my views, they were well constructed and more informed, rather than knee-jerk and too immersed within the wrath of the initial raw emotion I felt in the early days.

(Note: click on the 3 lines at the top right of that site to see the rest, including a link to info on the book Martha’s mom has written.)

Over at Huffington Post: 5 Ways to Accurately Cover Marijuana Policy Issues in the Media by Kevin Sabet

Go have some fun.

Supposedly the DEA is under the Department of Justice, and therefore under the supervision of the Attorney General, and also supposedly the DEA reports to Congress and is subject to their demands, and also supposedly through the Attorney General, the DEA (and particularly the head of the DEA) reports to the President… and yet, it often seems like they’re some kind of rogue non-governmental military organization.

There are times that I really wonder if Michele Leonhart has blackmail materials on the President and members of Congress.

Here’s the latest:

DEA Seizes Kentucky’s Hemp Seeds Despite Congressional Legalization

The Drug Enforcement Administration has seized a batch of seeds that were intended to be part of the launch of Kentucky’s legal hemp industry following congressional legalization of the crop for research purposes.

The DEA has offered a wide variety of explanations to Kentucky officials perplexed at the seizure. “They’re interpreting the law a hundred different ways,” Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer (R) told HuffPost. “The only way they’re not interpreting it is the way it actually reads.”

Of course, the DEA has never been too concerned about what the law actually says. But still, this is pretty blatant, and caused quite an uproar yesterday.

Then at the end of the day, there was an update:

Late Tuesday night, the DEA agreed to issue a permit, and release the 250 pounds of Italian hemp seeds being held by the U.S. Customs Service, Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer told the Lexington Herald-Leader.

“It looks like we’ve won this round,” Comer said in a statement. “The DEA completely reversed course from this morning. I think we just needed to get their attention.”

Until…

DEA Reneges On Offer To Free Kentucky’s Hemp Seeds

The Drug Enforcement Administration is insisting that the Kentucky Department of Agriculture apply for a permit to import Schedule I drugs before it can gain access to hemp seeds the agency has seized, according to a letter the DEA sent late Tuesday night.

The letter, obtained by HuffPost through an open records request, represents a reversal of a previous agreement, said Holly Harris VonLuehrte, a senior official at the Kentucky agriculture office.

“We were told yesterday in multiple phone calls that we wouldn’t have to do this Schedule I import permit,” said VonLuehrte, adding that agreeing to the DEA demand would be an implicit admission that hemp is, in fact, a Schedule I drug. “Industrial hemp is not a Schedule I controlled substance. We’re not going to execute a document that violates federal and state law.”

The DEA needs to go. Shut them down. Declare them a terrorist organization. Seize their assets. Investigate the leadership for violation of laws and human rights.

Former Top DOJ Leaders Oppose the SSA

So a bunch of folks wrote to say that they oppose the notion of reducing the mandatory minimums for drug offenses. After all, they have found those mandatory minimums useful for their jobs, and it’s not like they’d abuse that power. As they say…

Existing law already provides escape hatches for deserving defendants facing a mandatory minimum sentence. Often, they can plea bargain their way to a lesser charge; such bargaining is overwhelmingly the way federal cases are resolved. Even if convicted under a mandatory minimum charge, however, the judge on his own can sidestep the sentence if the defendant has a minor criminal history, has not engaged in violence, was not a big-time player, and cooperates with federal authorities. This “safety valve,” as it’s known, has been in the law for almost 20 years. Prosecutors correctly regard this as an essential tool in encouraging cooperation and, thus, breaking down drug conspiracies, large criminal organizations and violent gangs.

Right. Make the mandatory minimums so high that defendants don’t dare take their chances with a jury trial, and give breaks to those who can give someone up, encouraging lying and giving a disadvantage to those who don’t know anything.

So who are the pillars of society who wrote this letter? Ah yes, some familiar names…

William P. Barr
Former United States Attorney General

Michael B. Mukasey
Former United States Attorney General

Samuel K. Skinner
Former White House Chief of Staff and Former United States Attorney, Northern District of Illinois

William Bennett
Former Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy

John P. Walters
Former Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy

Mark Filip
Former United States Deputy Attorney General

Paul J. McNulty
Former United States Deputy Attorney General and Former United States Attorney, Eastern District of Virginia

George J. Terwilliger III
Former United States Deputy Attorney General and Former United States Attorney, District of Vermont

Larry D. Thompson
Former United States Deputy Attorney General and Former United States Attorney, Northern District of Georgia

Peter Bensinger
Former Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration

Jack Lawn
Former Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration

Karen Tandy
Former Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration

Greg Brower
Former United States Attorney, District of Nevada

A. Bates Butler III
Former United States Attorney, District of Arizona

Richard Cullen
Former United States Attorney, Eastern District, Virginia

James R. “Russ” Dedrick, Former United States Attorney, Eastern District, Tennessee and Eastern District, North Carolina

Troy A. Eid
Former United States Attorney, District of Colorado

Gregory J. Fouratt
Former United States Attorney, District of New Mexico

John W. Gill, Jr.
Former United States Attorney, Eastern District, Tennessee

John F. Hoehner
Former United States Attorney, Northern District, Indiana

Tim Johnson
Former United States Attorney, Southern District, Texas

Gregory G. Lockhart
Former United States Attorney, Southern District, Ohio

Alice H. Martin
Former United States Attorney, Northern District, Alabama

James A. McDevitt
Former United States Attorney, Eastern District of Washington

Patrick Molloy
Former United States Attorney, Eastern District, Kentucky

A. John Pappalardo
Former United States Attorney, Massachusetts

Wayne A. Rich. Jr
Former United States Attorney, Southern District, West Virginia

Kenneth W. Sukhia
Former United States Attorney, Northern District of Florida

Ronald Woods
Former United States Attorney, Southern District, Texas

‘Kettle Falls 5’ case tests marijuana laws

Clearly the feds are not done going after people in states where marijuana is legal. Now, I don’t really know the specifics of this case, what all the charges are, or which of them are true.

But it’s this passage in the article that really makes my blood boil:

The five defendants won’t be allowed to argue they were obeying state laws on medical marijuana, or even mention it to the jury, U.S. District Judge Fred Van Sickle ruled last week, citing several precedents.

The continuing use of this federal gag order, still pretending that marijuana doesn’t have a medical use simply because Congress once said so, and preventing defendents from defending themselves with the truth… that is a blight on our justice system.

Five times since 2003, the “Truth in Trials Act” has been introduced in Congress. It would simply allow for an affirmative defense in federal court, allowing defendants to show that what they were doing was in full compliance with state law.

The fact that we have to pass a law to allow defendants to tell the truth in their trials is absurd. The fact that the bill has never progressed beyond being introduced and referred to a subcommittee is unconscionable.

The hosting system I use has gotten new servers, and over the past couple of days, they’ve been migrating DrugWarRant and others to new hardware. Because of this, there may have been a couple of downtimes for the site, and it’s also possible that there may have been a glitch or two in the transition. Let me know if you see any problems.

Ultimately, this should mean a more reliable server in the long run.

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I’ve also been busy with end of the year activities at work. Our Fine Arts Commencement ceremony, which I help organize, was last night, and it went beautifully. We’re sending some very good young people out into the world.

How bad is marijuana for your health? What recent press coverage gets wrong.

In an otherwise good critique of the media’s coverage of health issues of marijuana, Slate’s Brian Palmer includes this paragraph:

If you are considering smoking pot—or quitting—here is what you need to know. Smoking marijuana once is very unlikely to harm you. It takes at least 15 grams of cannabis to kill a person, and probably much more than that. A healthy person would have to smoke dozens of joints in a single session to risk death from overdose. People who do die from the acute effects of marijuana die in accidents: A recent study suggested that more than 10 percent of drivers killed in car accidents test positive for cannabis.

What’s wrong with this paragraph?

The regulars here should see a couple of things immediately.

I have written to Brian asking him to address these, but haven’t heard back yet.

This is big.

Minnesota Now Requires A Criminal Conviction Before People Can Lose Their Property

In a big win for property rights and due process, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill yesterday to curb an abusive—and little known—police practice called civil forfeiture. Unlike criminal forfeiture, under civil forfeiture someone does not have to be convicted of a crime, or even charged with one, to permanently lose his or her cash, car or home.

The newly signed legislation, SF 874, corrects that injustice. Now the government can only take property if it obtains a criminal conviction or its equivalent, like if a property owner pleads guilty to a crime or becomes an informant. The bill also shifts the burden of proof onto the government, where it rightfully belongs. Previously, if owners wanted to get their property back, they had to prove their property was not the instrument or proceeds of the charged drug crime. In other words, owners had to prove a negative in civil court. Being acquitted of the drug charge in criminal court did not matter to the forfeiture case in civil court.

Let’s hope the idea of this law spreads far beyond Minnesota.

The bill faced stiff opposition from law enforcement

Yeah, no kidding.

Lots of media coverage about the new report out from the London School of Economics. Check out Time to rethink the war on drugs by Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch at CNN, for example.

How bad is it? The London School of Economics this week publishes a report that attempts to quantify some of these consequences of the war on drugs.

The report has been endorsed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists who write, “It is time to end the ‘war on drugs’ and massively redirect resources towards effective evidence-based policies underpinned by rigorous economic analysis. The pursuit of a militarized and enforcement-led global ‘war on drugs’ strategy has produced enormous negative outcomes and collateral damage.”

This report is an opening salvo for a battle that will take place in the U.N.

There’s a reason why these calls are being directed at the United Nations. In 2016, at the request of several Latin American presidents, the U.N. General Assembly will hold a special session to review the functioning of the drug control system. The London School of Economics report is being delivered to a representative of the Guatemalan government – Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina inspired the 2016 session and has said he will use it in negotiations with other governments.

The coverage is good new, and the overall thrust of the report is good news. However, the report itself is a mixed bag.

Probably the worst is the incoherent and bizarre chapter by Jonathan Caulkins, where he admits that the drug war is bad and should be eliminated, but still claims that by pulling completely invented future statistics out of his ass, he can prove economically that there are benefits to keeping prohibition.

But… why should I critique it when Jacob Sullum has already done a thorough job? Can We End the War on Drugs Without Repealing Prohibition?

The main impression left by Caulkins’ discussion is that you can make calculations like this demonstrate anything you want about prohibition, depending on which costs and benefits you decide to include, the way you measure them, and the weights you assign to them.