Heroin's Fast Rise Propels States to Charge Family, 911 Callers With Murder "I think a person who supplies illegal drugs to a person that kills them is . . . no different than a person who shoots somebody with a gun." David Hickton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania When Jarret McCasland and his fiancee decided to celebrate her 19th birthday with heroin, it meant the end of her life and the end of his freedom. Flavia Cardenas, who worked in a nightclub, died of an overdose the next morning in Baton Rouge. After a prosecutor convinced a jury that McCasland administered the fatal dose, the 27-year-old pipe fabrication shop worker was found guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison in February with no chance for parole. [continues 2064 words]
As California moves toward completely decriminalizing our multibillion-dollar marijuana economy, one cannot help but notice that many of the regulations are being written of wealthy white people, by wealthy white people and for wealthy white people. This is sadly not surprising, but it is both wrong and a lost opportunity, given the history of the disproportionate impact of criminalization on minority communities. As a county supervisor striving with my peers to craft sensible policy in the midst of a modern-day gold rush, it is my goal to ensure that the huge economic potential for legalization is shared equally with the communities who have suffered excessively during marijuana's criminalization: Latinos and African Americans. [continues 416 words]
"We thought America was the best in the world." "This can't be happening." That's how Saw Marvellous Soe and Eh Wah described their astonishment after police seized more than $ 53,000 in cash from Eh Wah's car in Muskogee, Okla., in February. Eh Wah is tour manager for a Christian rock band led by Marvellous that played in 19 U.S. cities, raising money from concerts to support an orphanage in Thailand and a Christian college in Burma. Worthy causes, no doubt. But when law enforcement found the cash during a routine traffic stop, a little-known legal process known as "civil asset forfeiture" allowed police officers to seize it, and whatever other property they wanted, without having to prove that Eh Wah was guilty of a crime. [continues 535 words]
High- Profile Coalition Will Submit 600,000 Signatures to Give Voters a Chance to Legalize Marijuana. SACRAMENTO - A measure to legalize marijuana for recreational use in California appears headed for the Nov. 8 ballot. A coalition that includes former Facebook President Sean Parker on Tuesday said it had collected 600,000 signatures, more than enough to qualify the initiative. Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and other supporters of the measure plan to kick off a campaign for voter approval of the Adult Use of Marijuana Act on Wednesday in San Francisco. [continues 605 words]
Congress and President Obama are under pressure to reschedule marijuana. While rescheduling makes sense, it wouldn't fix the broken scheduling system. Ideally, marijuana reform should be part of a broader bill rewriting the Controlled Substances Act. The Controlled Substances Act created a five-category scheduling system for most legal and illegal drugs (although alcohol and tobacco were notably omitted). Depending on what category a drug is in, the drug is either subject to varying degrees of regulation and control (Schedules II through V) - or completely prohibited (Schedule I). The scheduling of various drugs was decided largely by Congress and absent a scientific process - with some strange results. [continues 376 words]
Law enforcement should not be allowed to seize a person's assets before there is a criminal conviction and a clearly established nexus between someone's assets and criminal activity. This very simple set of premises is completely rejected under the system of civil asset forfeiture, a practice which allows law enforcement agencies to take a person's property or cash with minimal due process and without a criminal conviction ever taking place. The practice incentivizes the allocation of law enforcement resources to crimes and strategies that maximize the potential for generating revenues that boost the budgets of local police and sheriff's departments. [continues 565 words]
Congress and President Obama are under pressure to reschedule marijuana. While rescheduling makes sense, it doesn't solve the state/federal conflict over marijuana (de-scheduling would be better). But more important, it wouldn't fix the broken scheduling system. Ideally, marijuana reform should be part of a broader bill rewriting the Controlled Substances Act. The Controlled Substances Act created a five-category scheduling system for most legal and illegal drugs (although alcohol and tobacco were notably omitted). Depending on what category a drug is in, the drug is either subject to varying degrees of regulation and control (Schedules II through V) -- or completely prohibited, otherwise unregulated and left to criminals to manufacture and distribute (Schedule I). The scheduling of various drugs was decided largely by Congress and absent a scientific process -- with some strange results. [continues 607 words]
A lame duck with nothing to lose but his legacy, Barack Obama is now in the peculiar position of being America's most cannabis-friendly president. He has earned this title passively: by doing nothing. Obama did nothing when Washington and Colorado legalized recreational cannabis in 2012. He did nothing when Oregon and Alaska did the same in 2014. But in 2010, when recreational marijuana was legal nowhere and when drug agents seized a record number of marijuana plants, Obama's Justice Department also did next to nothing - vague threats of jail time and some threatening letters to property owners - which, at the time, was enough to help kill legalization in California and to slow down the growth of the state's weed industry for a couple of years. Never have a few pieces of certified mail had more effect. [continues 776 words]
The science on marijuana is settled. The assertions that continue to be made linking marijuana use to serious drug addiction by officials like Michele Leonhart, the former administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, are contradicted by facts. But since the science is settled, the question we should be unpacking is why do some people persist in promoting messages known to be false, as was done by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey during his failed bid for president? Why are we still not discussing the evidence: that the real gateways to addiction are poverty, trauma, mental health problems and the effects of criminalization and stigma? [continues 173 words]
The gateway theory can be summarized as an ounce of truth embedded in a pound of bull. Yes, most people who use heroin and cocaine used marijuana and alcohol and tobacco for that matter first. But the vast majority of people who use marijuana never progress to using other illicit drugs, or even to becoming regular marijuana consumers. That's why the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine says "there is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs." The principal connection between marijuana and other illicit drugs mostly involves the nature of the market, not the nature of the high. In The Netherlands, where the marijuana market has been quasi-legal and regulated for decades, marijuana use is less prevalent than in the United States, and those who do consume marijuana are less likely to use other illicit drugs. [continues 196 words]
Patrick and Beth Collins didn't want to get their daughter high. They wanted to get her well. "They wanted to get her CBD oil." So begins John Hudak's case description within The Brookings Institute's examination last month of "The Medical Marijuana Mess." The Collinses had discovered a substance that might provide help for their daughter, but their government - at both federal and state levels - told them she was not allowed to have it. With its injunctions against medical marijuana, our government keeps patients sick. It also keeps its constituents ignorant. The fact that marijuana's therapeutic effects are supported by hundreds, indeed thousands of years of effective treatments around the globe has not sufficed to get it removed from government prohibition. [continues 594 words]
Nadeau: Vote Will 'Tie Our Hands' In Regulating Pot The D.C. Council voted Tuesday to impose a permanent ban on private marijuana smoking clubs, ending months of political hand-wringing over where to allow residents to consume pot. In a 7-to-6 vote, the council made permanent a 90-day ban on pot clubs in the nation's capital, where marijuana possession is legal though still a federal offense. The ban's passage did not come easily: Democratic council members Brianne Nadeau and Vincent Orange both tried to delay the vote, saying a permanent ban would undercut a task force studying how to regulate pot clubs. Set up in February, the task force has 120 days to offer recommendations to lawmakers. [continues 483 words]
Legalizing cannabis could reduce sentences and clear criminal records for millions. Here's something to toast to on the week of 4/20: Millions of Californians with an old pot crime conviction besmirching their records could see the scarlet letters vanish if voters legalize marijuana on November 8. And those in prison for cannabis offenses that are no longer considered crimes could petition for a reduced sentence. "If we have victory here, it will set the new standard for what can be done," said Tamar Todd, director of legal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, an international group helping to fund and direct the pot legalization effort in California. [continues 798 words]
MONTPELIER, Vt. - First came Colorado and Washington. Then Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C. Now advocates for legal marijuana are looking to New England, hoping this part of the country will open a new front in their efforts to expand legalization nationwide. But this largely liberal region is struggling with the devastating effect of opiate abuse, which is disrupting families, taxing law enforcement agencies and taking lives. And many lawmakers and public officials are balking at the idea of legalizing a banned substance, citing potential social costs. [continues 1170 words]
50 Parents, Including Five Canadian Mothers, To Address Session On Global Problem Donna May's daughter had been in a downward spiral for months. Once a happy young woman, with dimples and a quick sense of humour, Jac had become addicted to opioids. She first took OxyContin to cope with the pain from a fall down the stairs in her home in Sault Ste. Marie. When the prescription ran out, she turned to fentanyl patches - a highly addictive opioid 20 times stronger than heroin, and readily available on the street. [continues 695 words]
Former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour is among a host of international jurists, politicians, celebrities and sports stars to sign a letter that denounces the "disastrous" war on drugs and urges the United Nations to lead the world toward a more enlightened drug policy. "Humankind cannot afford a 21st century drug policy as ineffective and counter-productive as the last century's," reads the letter, delivered to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in advance of next week's UN special session on drugs. [continues 347 words]
One of the last singles by the late Merle Haggard was a fun little tune he sang with his old crony, Willie Nelson, and younger country star, Jamey Johnson, called "It's All Going to Pot." With obvious glee radiating from their weathered voices, Hag and his pals sang, "It's all going to pot / Whether we like it or not. ..." Yep, it looks like they do smoke marijuana in Muskogee after all. Willie's been a leading advocate for marijuana legalization for decades now, but some who heard that song (released on April 20, 2015 . 4-20, get it, get it?) were surprised to hear Merle singing it. After all, he first rose to national fame in the late '60s when "Okie from Muskogee" captured the hearts of President Richard Nixon's Silent Majority and was hailed as a troubadour of the right. Those who have actually followed his career realize that Haggard's stance on drugs softened not long after that hit and that his politics were all over the place (one of several reasons I loved him so much). [continues 488 words]
"Whiter than a Wonder Bread-and-mayonnaise-sandwich served with a side of whole milk." How white is the green rush? Extremely white. Ridiculously white. Whiter than a Wonder Bread-and-mayonnaise sandwich served with a side of whole milk. Whiter than new teeth. Whiter than the Gods of Egypt movie. Hella white. And I'm not alone in thinking this. Consider Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: "Here are white men poised to run big marijuana businesses, dreaming of cashing in big-big money, big businesses selling weed-after 40 years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed. Now, white men are planning to get rich doing precisely the same thing?" Exactly. [continues 538 words]
"Nixon's Drug War Was (and Still is) a Racist Tool to Disrupt and Neutralize Black Communities" was the headline of an article published this week by Melissa Franqui, communications director of the Drug Policy Alliance. She was literally stating a half-truth. Her hook was a comment made in 1994 by John Ehrlichman, a top Nixon aide who had done time for his role in the Watergate cover-up, to a very good journalist named Dan Baum. Baum had used the quote at the time, Dr. Sunil Aggarwal cited it in a scholarly article in 2012 (and I cited it, too), but Ehrlichman's blunt confession remained below the radar until Baum recounted it in the new issue of Harpers: [continues 454 words]
It's time for Colorado to have a frank discussion about marijuana potency. In recent years, Colorado's marijuana has become a fundamentally different and harder drug, with unprecedented levels of THC, marijuana's psychoactive ingredient. Nationally, the potency of marijuana has more than tripled since the mid-1990s, with the average at 12.6 percent THC in 2013, according to the National Drug Control Strategy. But Colorado's post-legalization pot has reached even higher levels. Here, the average potency of marijuana flowers/buds is 17.1 percent THC and the average potency of concentrates is 62.1 percent THC, according to the Marijuana Equivalency in Portion and Dosage report, prepared for the Colorado Department of Revenue. [continues 510 words]
