Thank you for making the case for drug decriminalization in the editorial "Descriminalizacao" (July 26). There is a misguided effort underway nationwide to replace the punitive drug war with drug courts. This effort is effectively a war on non-corporate drugs funded by taxpayers and carried out with the heavy hand of a bloated criminal justice system. Drug courts use drug tests and the threat of jail to force illicit drug users to switch to legal alcohol or prescription pharmaceuticals, both of which are arguably more harmful than marijuana, the most popular illicit drug. [continues 104 words]
Re: "Drug legalization: Learn from Portugal" [Editorial, July 26]: So we should follow Portugal's example, and legalize all drugs? Maybe we should follow Portugal's example and become a welfare state that is almost as bankrupt as Greece? Oh, pardon me. I guess we are already following Portugal in dependency and fiscal matters. I will gladly support the legalization of all drugs the minute the state makes drug users fully responsible for their drug use. This can be demonstrated by removing addicts and alcoholics from the disabled list and discontinuing their Social Security disability and general relief payments. They should also be forced to seek nongovernmental shelter the same as the rest of us and not be allowed to live in a cardboard box on some street corner harassing folks as they walk by. [continues 123 words]
VANCEBURG, Ky. - In six months, Ashley lost 50 pounds, blew through $15,000 of a settlement and sold her house for $700. She lost feeling in her fingertips. Her hands turned raw and scaly, almost black. She was convinced her old man talked to people through the vents, that strangers lurked outside and that she was once in a high-speed chase - sirens blaring - with the law. She stayed awake for nine straight days, rarely ate and drank even less. A stench clung to her body. In the shower, she could feel something seep out of the pores in her face. She never could get clean enough. [continues 1887 words]
COLUMBUS -- Heroin addicts leaving Ohio's prisons will soon receive the gold standard of treatment -- a combination of counseling and medication. But the state's largest detox centers, county jails, receive little money for medication, and law-and-order legislation proposed by Southwest Ohio lawmakers would lock them up longer. State lawmakers' reaction to the heroin epidemic has been bipolar. Some changes treat addicts like victims of a brain disease, while others punish them as a scourge on society. Meanwhile, thousands of Ohioans are dying of drug overdoses. [continues 1100 words]
Charlie Horace Scandrett Jr. was a free man Tuesday after serving 18 years of a 30-year sentence on a drug conviction, a punishment a Clayton County judge said was "just not right." "I'm going to do today what probably should have been done a long time ago," said Superior Court Judge Matthew O. Simmons as the Scandrett's father and sister wept during a hearing."Today he can go home to his family." Scandrett could have been out within five years but the state-court judge who was filling in for Simmons the day he was convicted in 1997 gave him the maximum sentence possible under the recidivist laws at the time, said Patrick Mulvaney, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights. [continues 427 words]
The State of New Jersey is funding several reforms in the name of abandoning the failed "war on drugs." These reforms include forcing Drug Court (DC), funding re-entry services and retrofitting jails as treatment centers. There is only one problem; these reforms actually fund the "war on drugs." The key tenet of the "war on drugs" is criminalizing people who use drugs and stripping rights from them via arrest, incarceration and institutionalization. These "reforms" are all post-arrest, post-incarceration, and leave failed drug criminalization in tact. [continues 164 words]
No apology for nabbing lawyer BRAMPTON - Toronto criminal lawyer Laura Liscio had to explain to her grandma in Italy why Peel Regional Police arrested her for smuggling drugs to a client. And now finally cleared, she wants the police to pay for the embarrassment and shame they've caused. In the very courthouse where she was slapped with handcuffs and paraded in her robes to a waiting cruiser, Liscio, 32, was exonerated Thursday when the Crown withdrew all outstanding charges against her for having "no reasonable prospect of conviction." [continues 661 words]
Laura Liscio Alleges Police Engaged in Malicious Prosecution TORONTO - A Toronto lawyer once accused of smuggling drugs into a courthouse and arrested in front of colleagues and clients is suing police for malicious prosecution, her lawyer said Friday. Laura Liscio filed a defamation lawsuit last month seeking $1.5 million in damages from the Peel Regional Police Service, but is planning to amend the claim now that all criminal charges have been dropped. Liscio's lawyer, Louis Sokolov, said new documents will be filed in the coming weeks alleging the police conducted a negligent investigation and engaged in a malicious prosecution. [continues 324 words]
The Yuma County Superior Court launched its drug court program 17 years ago to stop the abuse of alcohol and other drugs and related criminal activity. Over that time, the program has provided hundreds of nonviolent offenders with an alternative sentence that helps them get their lives back on track. "It has been phenomenally successful since its inception," said Benjamin DeCorse, a probation services supervisor for the Yuma County Adult Probation Department. "These people are back in the community. They are taxpayers again rather than tax-drainers. They are maintaining employment and they are now being good role models for their children and families, so it is a win-win for everybody." [continues 993 words]
WHEN Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ted Cruz, Eric H. Holder Jr., Jeb Bush, George Soros, Marco Rubio and Charles G. Koch all agree that we must end mass incarceration, it is clear that times have changed. Not long ago, most politicians believed the only tenable stance on crime was to be tougher than the next guy. Today, nearly everyone acknowledges that our criminal justice system needs fixing, and politicians across the spectrum call for reducing prison sentences for low-level drug crimes and other nonviolent offenses. But this consensus glosses over the real challenges to ending mass incarceration. Even if we released everyone imprisoned for drugs tomorrow, the United States would still have 1.7 million people behind bars, and an incarceration rate four times that of many Western European nations. [continues 1024 words]
"We had a war on drugs," says Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera. "We've lost miserably. That's the best I can tell you." Cervera is a member of a state task force set up by Gov. Terry McAuliffe to examine the problem of prescription drug and heroin abuse. His comments echo those of Rick Clark Jr., the police chief in Galax, who calls the drug war a "dismal failure. ... I don't think we can throw money at it. Obviously we have not arrested our way out of it." Like others on the panel, they contend society needs a new approach to the drug scourge. [continues 571 words]
NORTHAMPTON - The response to Dick Evans at the State House was not warm. The lawyer had drafted a bill legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana, and it was among the topics of a public hearing. Evans made his case in a short speech. "Antidrug crusader types," of whom there were many, also had their say, he recalled. Then, a legislator asked those in the big crowd who opposed legalization to make themselves known. "The building shook," Evans said, laughing. "They are still talking about the roar that was heard." [continues 934 words]
The proposal to give only civil citations to juveniles for possessing marijuana may sound reasonable, but Hillsborough County officials should be skeptical. Unless accompanied by rigorous safeguards, a civil citation program will likely result in more drug abuse and more crime. Don't be misled into thinking pot use is a frivolous crime. As Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee points out, drug use is the common denominator to most crime. Or as Mark Cox of the State Attorney's Office says: 'Most all the serious crime we see is related to drugs, and almost all the drug abuse started with marijuana. ... When you talk about stopping drug abuse, [having offenders] picking up cans is not going to help.' To discourage drug use, marijuana offenses should bring immediate consequences that convey to the young offenders that drugs are dangerous and illegal. [continues 264 words]
Prosecutor Talks Effects of Recent Measures VICTORVILLE - Speaking about the erased incentive for lower-level offenders to enter drug court under Proposition 47, San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Kris Parde said Tuesday the resulting declining enrollment could ultimately lead to the program's demise in Victorville. "Our drug court used to be about 75 to 80 people up here in the High Desert," said Parde during a presentation to the Rotary Club of Victorville. "It's dwindled to eight." The current enrollment represents as much as a 90 percent decline, which might spell trouble since drug court programs rely heavily on grant funding, she said. [continues 470 words]
Harper maintains hard line despite other nations' changes in policy, law Prime Minister Stephen Harper may find himself at odds with some other western-hemisphere leaders who want to relax drug laws for offences such as marijuana use and provide "alternatives" to jail time. Harper flies to Panama Friday for the two-day Summit of the Americas, where more than 30 leaders from the Organization of American States will gather. In recent years, there has been a growing movement among some of those nations - particularly those in South America devastated by violence from drug cartels - to find new ways to tackle the drug problem. [continues 720 words]
"I can't say 'hell yes,' can I?" Mentor Municipal Court Judge John Trebets answered when asked if all the extra work was worth it. On March 9, the city's drug court expanded and is now the Lake County Drug Court, extending its alternatives to incarceration to the entire county. Mentor's drug court began in April 2010 and has helped dozens of low level, non-violent drug offenders get back on the road to recovery. "We can only help those that want to help themselves," Trebets said of the voluntary nature of the program. [continues 794 words]
SARASOTA COUNTY - The 27-year-old man was found dead on Feb. 24 inside a Walmart bathroom in East Bradenton. He had a history of heroin use. A small bag containing a white substance was recovered from the scene. A child called their uncle on Jan. 6 because their 30-year-old mother was unresponsive. When the uncle arrived, he found the woman dead with a needle in her arm. He placed the needle in a drawer so the children wouldn't see it. Crime scene technicians took the syringe as evidence. [continues 1302 words]
Novel Program Helps Offenders Battle Addiction, Avoid Prison Time Theodore Twigg of Holland was headed for prison. A 37-year-old heroin addict, he was locked up in the Lucas County jail on Jan. 20, facing a five-year sentence for breaking-and-entering and fleeing from a police officer. Nonviolent addicts like Twigg are flooding local jails and state prisons, as their addictions continue to drive them to crime. But Twigg and Lucas County officials are trying to break that cycle. Twigg took a plea deal earlier this month that requires him to complete a new program that, for the first time in Ohio and maybe the nation, starts medication-assisted treatment for addiction while offenders are still in jail. Sheriff John Tharp and local providers will announce the program on Monday at the sixth annual Opiate Conference in Columbus. [continues 1344 words]
In Allegheny County, Common Pleas Judge Lester Nauhaus Sees His Drug Court As an Alternative to the Carnage of the Drug War. Drugs drive crime. But locking up addicts doesn't stop crime. Nor does it stop drug addiction. "Nail 'em and jail 'em wasn't working," Judge Nauhaus said. "All it was doing was costing everybody a fortune." Instead of locking up defendants, drug courts allow prosecutors, public defenders, judges and others to work together to get defendants to much-needed drug treatment. [continues 1683 words]
Of all the misunderstandings about marijuana's impact on the country, perhaps none is greater than the belief that America's courts, prisons and jails are clogged with people whose only offense was marijuana use. This is the perception, but statistics show few inmates are behind bars strictly for marijuana-related offenses, and legalization of the drug will do little to affect America's growing incarceration numbers. "It's this myth that won't go away and gets repeated by people who should know better. Unfortunately, no one reads public records," said Ernie Martinez, Denver-based at-large director for the National Narcotics Officers Association Coalition. "But the truth is there - and it looks a lot different than the story pushed by marijuana-legalization advocates and amplified in news media." [continues 1576 words]
