Daily Archives: May 18, 2017

So Ive decided this morning, with everything going on, that I would talk a little bit about whats going on in terms of our criminal justice system. And specifically because of this our system of justice I think was shaken last Tuesday when the President, being aided and abetted by Jeff Sessions, fired FBI Director Jim Comey.

What got less attention, guys, and also threatens our system of justice, was a memo that the Attorney General issued the following day to federal prosecutors across the country.

The United States Department Of Justice memo was entitled Department Charging and Sentencing Policy, a subject line that seems pretty tame. However, what it effectively did was to declare the reviving of the War on Drugs. The failed War on Drugs.

As a young prosecutor right out of law school at the Alameda County DAs office that Earl Warren once led, I started my work. And I saw the War on Drugs up close. And let me tell youthe War on Drugs was an abject failure.

It offered taxpayers a bad return on investment. It was bad for public safety. It was bad for budgets and our economy.

And it was bad for people of color and those struggling to make ends meet.

During that time, and still, instead of focusing on prevention, we spent $80 billion a year in reaction. Locking people up. Thats money that obvioulsly could have gone to schools, to roads, or healthcare.

Instead of treating everyone the same, we created a system where Latinos are 2 times more likely than White men to be incarcerated for drug offenses. Where African Americans are 12% of the population, but about 60% of the drug offenders who are in our state prisons. Where when inmates get out, their criminal record makes it almost impossible for them to get a job, which of course traps them and their families in never-ending cycles of poverty.

As San Francisco DA and then Attorney General of California, I was proud to be a part of a different approach. Its what we called the Smart on Crime approach.

And the Obama administration similarly adopted and championed reforms at the federal level.

Which included directing prosecutors to avoid harsh sentences for low-level, non-violent offenders. Which included reducing the disparity in penalties for possession of crack versus powder cocaine. Which included creating a task force that they called a Task Force on 21st Century Policing. The emphasis being on 21st century.

But now this administration and Jeff Sessions want to take us back to the Dark Ages.

Sessions has threatened that the United States Department Of Justice may renew its focus on marijuana use, even in states like California where it is legal.

Well, let me tell you, what California needs, Jeff Sessions, we need support in dealing with transnational criminal organizations, dealing with issues like human trafficking. Not going after grandmas medicinal marijuana. Leave her alone.

That is not justice. That is not smart on crime. And I believe we have to stop this. Because drug addiction, by the way, is color blind. It doesnt see red or blue.

So heres what Im talking about. I started my career as a prosecutor in the 1990s, at the height of the crack epidemic. And Im now starting my career as a United States Senator at the height of an opioid crisis. And folks, let me tell you: these crises have so much more in common than what separates them.

And to fight Jeff Sessions and his old-fashioned, discredited, and dangerous approach to drugs, I believe we must embrace what all regions have in common and build coalitions.

And I believe we have opportunities in front of us. We need a national drug policy that finally treats substance abuse not as a crime to be punished, but as a disease to be treated. We need to build on reforms, instead of reviving mandatory minimums or boosting bottom lines for private prisons. We need to build on the reforms. And we need to fund, not defund, the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

And we need this administration to understand that if they care about the opioid crisis in rural America, as they say they do, they have also got to care about the drug-addicted young man in Chicago or East LA.

And while I dont believe in legalizing all drugs, as a career prosecutor I just dont but I will tell you this, we need to do the smart thing and the right thing and finally decriminalize marijuana.

And finally, I believe we need to look locally and elect progressive prosecutors. Because the vast majority of prosecutions occur at the state and local level.

I believe this is the time that we look in mirror and ask who we are as a country on this issue of drug addiction. And the time is now to fight for the values we believe in.

U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris represents California.

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It's Time to Fight Not a War on Drugs but a War on Drug Addiction - Afro American

Attorney General Jeff Sessions jump-started the war on drugs in a recent memo to federal prosecutors, ordering them to charge and pursue the toughest penalties possible, even for low-level offenses.

The new policy is expected to increase the prison population and punish minority groups, particularly African Americans, that have been disproportionately subjected to mandatory minimums for minor drug crimes.

But theres a looming, and less obvious, side effect of this new directive: The White Houses tough on crime approach is almost certainly going to exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases like HIV.

In a new systematic review of 106 studies on criminalization and HIV, published this week in The Lancet HIV, researchers found the vast majority of studies (more than 80 percent) show criminalization is associated with harmful effects for those targeted by the laws as well as their communities: increasing drug use, increasing the use of shared needles for drug injections, and driving up HIV infections, among other troubling effects.

This disconnect between the evidence and the White Houses new policy has shocked the public health community, said Stefan Baral, one of the study authors and an associate professor of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. The evidence is overwhelming, he added. The Sessions memo is just incredibly sad.

During the Obama era, former Attorney General Eric Holder advised federal prosecutors to do the opposite of what Sessions is suggesting now and avoid mandatory minimums for low-level, nonviolent drug offenses.

Between 2008 and 2013, HIV rates declined in the US, in part because of a drop-off among injection drug users.

One big reason why, Baral explained: Criminalization drives injection drug users underground, making them more likely to share needles and helping diseases like HIV spread more rapidly among users.

Almost invariably, when you increase policing, people are more hidden in terms of how they are injecting, said Baral. On the other hand, he added, Its a global truth that when someone who is using drugs has access to a clean needle they will use it.

Thats exactly what happened in rural Indiana when Vice President Mike Pence was the governor. He first resisted pleas from public health officials for the state to provide clean needles during an out-of-control 2015 HIV outbreak among injection drug users. (The evidence suggests clean needle exchanges reduce the rate of HIV transmission among drug users.) More than two months into the outbreak, Pence changed his mind. The HIV rate in Indiana dropped precipitously and the needle exchange is seen as the major reason for the turnaround.

Policies that lead to mass incarceration contribute to infectious disease spread in other ways: When you have people coming in and out of prison, peoples sexual patterns are disrupted, Duke researcher Susan Reif told me. Prisons have higher rates of STDs, and when prisoners return to the community, they may bring with them any diseases they picked up while incarcerated not just HIV. Incarceration is a significant driver of HIV and STDs," Reif summed up.

The Obama-era efforts to reduce mandatory minimums enjoyed broad bipartisan support. And thats part of the reason why the new push to undo that work has garnered criticism from both sides of the aisle. As Eric Holder said of the new policy, [Its] not tough on crime. It is dumb on crime.

Republicans such as Rand Paul have also been speaking out against Sessionss backward approach. We should be treating our nation's drug epidemic for what it is a public health crisis, he wrote in a CNN op-ed.

Instead of throwing drug users in prison, Baral, the epidemiologist, would like to see the White House enact policies based on evidence creating programs for safe needle exchanges, for example, and expanding treatment options for addicts.

We are at a watershed moment turning back these improvements, he added. [The Sessions memo] is a clear move back to putting more and more and more people in jail, which is just something that will a) drive more people underground, [and] b) have no positive health consequences for anybody.

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The White House's new war on drugs could drive up the HIV rate - Vox

In the race to the top, there is one area where America shines above all others incarceration. In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States was by far the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners.

In the last 40 years, the U.S. incarceration rate has increased upward of 500 percent despite crime rates decreasing nationally. Much of that growth was driven by the war on drugs, combined with mandatory minimum and other draconian sentencing laws. Almost 50 percent of state prisoners (in 2006) and over 90 percent of federal prisoners (in 2008) were incarcerated for non-violent offenses.

There is scant evidence the war on drugs was effective. All this incarceration comes at enormous expense to the taxpayer, while we've allowed for-profit prison systems, which have a vested self-interest in jailing folks, to blossom. Meanwhile, prisons have become inhumane warehouses for the mentally ill. It's a national disgrace.

Despite opposition from such conservative voices as Sen. Rand Paul and the Koch brothers, who favor incarceration policy reform, Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to return to the war on drugs. He is not thinking straight.

Fritz Walker

South Whitehall Township

Originally posted here:

War on drugs proven to be ineffective - Allentown Morning Call

A little-noticed document issued by President Trump has put advocates of medical marijuana on edge, raising questions about the long-term security of programs authorized in 29 states and the District that have broad public backing.

In a signing statement that accompanied Trumps signature on the bill passed this month to keep the government open, the president noted a handful of objections on legal grounds. One was to a provision that prohibits his administration from interfering with state-run medical marijuana programs.

White House aides indicated that none of Trumps objections to Congresss work signaled immediate policy changes. But given how vocal Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been in opposition to relaxing marijuana restrictions, those who support the burgeoning industry are worried about what could come next.

It just creates a lot of uncertainty, and that uncertainty is deeply concerning for patients and providers, said Michael Collins, deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that has sought to roll back the nations war on drugs. We had thought medical marijuana wasnt really in play in terms of a crackdown.

Such concerns are being voiced more broadly about the direction of marijuana policy under the new leadership at the Justice Department.

(Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

Sessions last week directed federal prosecutors to get significantly tougher on drug defendants than they had been under the Obama administration. And a task force launched by Sessions is looking at changes in enforcement, particularly regarding marijuana, a drug that remains illegal at the federal level despite significant movement in numerous states in recent years to loosen restrictions.

The eight states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use could be at greater risk for federal intervention than those that have approved only the dispensing of medical cannabis or cannabis-infused products to patients with a doctors recommendation.

As a candidate for president, Trump repeatedly voiced support for medical marijuana, a concept that has been increasingly embraced by fellow Republicans at the state level. Of the 29 states that have authorized programs, Trump prevailed in last years election over Democrat Hillary Clinton in nine of them.

Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac poll last month found that 94 percent of Americans including 90 percent of Republicans supported allowing adults to legally use marijuana for medical purposes if their doctors prescribe it.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said this year that he expects states to be subject to greater enforcement of federal laws against marijuana use, but he also said Trump sees a big difference between use of marijuana for medical purposes and for recreational purposes.

Sessions, however, said at an appearance in Richmond in March that medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to discuss what steps might be taken related to medical marijuana but said the provision in the spending bill is of concern to officials.

The Department of Justice must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives, said spokesman Ian Prior, who wouldnt discuss the issue further.

Justin Strekal, political director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the May 5 signing statement is troubling, even if a federal crackdown is not in the offing, because it could have a chilling effect on a nascent industry.

Of particular concern, he said, is the impact it could have on investors in dispensaries in states where programs are just coming on line. Prosecution of a single business in one state could have a devastating impact in that regard, he added.

The provision in question, which has been part of federal law since late 2014, prohibits the Justice Department from spending money to interfere with state medical marijuana programs. It was co-authored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who, by his own description, is a very strong supporter of Trump.

I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, Trump wrote in the signing statement.

Signing statements became prevalent under President George W. Bush and have often been used to preserve objections rather than to signal new action.

President Barack Obama continued the practice, routinely citing provisions in spending bills that he said conflicted with authority granted to him under the Constitution.

Trump also objected on constitutional grounds to several other sections of the first spending bill he signed, including one related to a program that helps historically black colleges and universities get low-cost construction loans. That prompted an outcry from African American lawmakers, prompting Trump to release a statement about his commitment to HBCUs.

Tom Angell, founder of Marijuana Majority, said comments from Trump and the Justice Department on medical marijuana dont necessarily mean a crackdown is coming, but its a concerning signal.

Essentially, [Trump is] saying he reserves the right to ignore this congressionally approved provision, Angell said.

If the administration moves in that direction, it wont be without a fight, Rohrabacher said.

The congressman, who has used cannabis himself to ease pain from severe arthritis in his shoulders caused by years of surfing, said he is confident his side would prevail in court because Congress clearly has the power of the purse.

Rohrabacher said it appears that members of the administration are working to reposition Trump on the issue of medical marijuana.

I think there are a lot of people running around trying to paint the president into a corner on this, Rohrabacher said, adding that he is eager to talk to Trump about it directly.

In August 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled a similar provision passed by Congress prevented the Justice Department from spending money on prosecutions in states where medical marijuana was legal, as long as those being prosecuted abided by state law.

More broadly, James Cole, a deputy attorney general in the Obama administration, had directed prosecutors to enforce all federal drug laws even in places that had legalized marijuana but said they should look to states regulatory systems to determine whether their intervention was necessary.

Cole wrote that federal authorities should essentially stay out of states that had robust regulatory systems in place.

Coles memo is among the policies now being actively reviewed by the new leadership at the Justice Department.

The issue of medical marijuana will need to be revisited by Congress in coming months. The provision sponsored by Rohrabacher expires on Sept. 30, at the end of the federal fiscal year, and would have to be adopted again to stay on the books.

Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

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Jeff Sessions's war on drugs has medical marijuana advocates worried - Washington Post

On New Years Day, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen launched a six-month crackdown on the drug scourge that he said had become an increasing grievance for the countrys people.

His announcement came shortly after a state visit by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who in 2016 launched a violent anti-drugs campaign in his own country that went on to kill 7,000 people in seven months.

Given that Dutertes crackdown was suspended after rogue police officers kidnapped and killed a South Korean businessman, it is perhaps not surprising that Hun Sen, after the first spike in detentions in February, rushed to assure Cambodians that his campaign would not be bloody.

And, sure enough, while Dutertes crackdown made headlines the world over, Hun Sens has escaped such scrutiny. Yet while it is true that Cambodias crackdown has avoided the kind of violence associated with Dutertes campaign, that has not allayed fears of serious abuses.

Such crackdowns are only one aspect of the regions struggle against drugs ministers and delegates from six Mekong countries (Cambodia, China, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand) agreed a regional drug policy with representatives from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime last Wednesday but they are its most visible.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watchs Asia division, said that while Duterte had unleashed police and vigilantes to shoot thousands of small-scale drug dealers or users on the streets, Cambodian authorities were arresting more drug users and shoving them into woefully overcrowded prisons.

Its the difference between sudden human rights abuses, and gradual but deadly rights abuses, said Robertson. In Cambodia, its only the families and the lawyers who see how bad the prison conditions are for the thousands of people in pretrial detention.

Even before Hun Sens crackdown, Cambodia had been criticised for the conditions in its prisons for practices such as the involuntary detention of drug users in rehabilitation centres and because many people serve entire prison sentences before their cases have even reached trial.

Such delays mean the prison population is heaving. As of December, before the crackdown started, 8,902 of the 22,000 people in prison were being held for drug offences.

Robertson said Hun Sens campaign was having an alarming side effect, as it had driven drug use further underground, encouraging addicts to hide and reuse needles, putting them at greater risk of HIV. But, again, he says, thats not seen by many or particularly well known.

Sithat Sem, drug programme manager in Phnom Penh for the NGO Friends International, a Cambodia-based social enterprise, said users were still accessing services, but requesting fewer syringes so as not to draw police attention. Drug users had also begun to divide into smaller groups or live alone, hiding in their community or moving to other places, he said.

All this means we have more constraints on finding them and reaching them with our services, he said. We are concerned about the impact this will have on targets for HIV elimination in 2025 and 90-90-90 Targets in 2020, which the national government along with UN has committed to.

Under the 90-90-90 initiative, by 2020, 90 per cent of people living with HIV will know their HIV status; 90 per cent of people diagnosed with HIV will get continuous antiretroviral therapy; and 90 per cent of people receiving antiretroviral therapy have viral suppression.

The prevalence of Aids among Cambodians who inject drugs is 25 per cent. The needle and syringe programme, HIV testing and education are among the most important approaches to preventing new cases among this at-risk group.

Cambodian officials said the governments crackdown was a response to a nearly 30 per cent increase in the number of documented addicts to 2016. But critics attacked this as pre-election propaganda: communal elections are scheduled for June, to coincide with the end of the anti-drug campaign.

For some critics, Hun Sens crusade is intended as a distraction from increasing political repression. In February the prime ministers long-time opponent Sam Rainsy was forced to abandon the leadership of the Cambodian National Rescue Party in the face of a threat of a ban against any political party whose leader is convicted of a crime.

Watch: a close-up view of Dutertes war on drugs

Sam Rainsy had been convicted on a series of defamation charges, and has lived in France since 2015 to avoid punishment.

According to David Harding, an independent drug expert with a decade of experience in Cambodia, the focus of the war on drugs has been on both demand and supply, but, he said, there is little evidence to show that there has been an impact on traffic or cultivation.

Mass arrests, he said, just transferred the issue of drug use from the community to the penal system, which he said was already overstretched, and served no long- or even medium-term purpose except for moving the problem out of sight and appearing to be doing something, for populist political gain.

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Why are abuse claims in Cambodia's war on drugs being ignored ... - South China Morning Post

A psychoactive substance is a chemical which changes brain function and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness or behavior. Societies mitigate the health, social, and economic consequences of the use and misuse of psychoactive substances such as alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, opioids, amphetamines, cocaine, tranquillizers and sleeping pills in a variety of ways with varying degrees of success. Their effects on population health, however, are often overshadowed by our fascination with the direct effects of substance misuse on individuals [e.g. recent rise in the opioid death rate due to adulteration of the drug supply with fentanyl and its analogues]. Currently, western societies manage illegal psychoactive substances largely through prohibition and criminalization and legal drugs, like tobacco and alcohol, through regulation, restricted availability and price control. The laws and systems initially introduced to control these substances reflected the times and prevalent issues of the day, but no longer reflect current scientific knowledge concerning substance-related harms to individuals, families, or communities. There is growing evidence, awareness, and acceptance that prohibition and criminalization are not reducing drug use and associated harms. The war on drugs has been lost. Furthermore, it is clear that drug prohibition engenders an environment that fuels the growth of illegal markets, organized crime, violent injuries, and the deaths of users, dealers, and police. It also has unintended public health consequences such as accelerating the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, and increasing overdose deaths from black market sales of extremely potent and contaminated products. An alternative to prohibition and criminalization does exist in a public health approach which is based on the principles of social justice, attention to human rights and equity, evidence-informed policy and practice, and addressing and improving the underlying determinants of health. Such an approach espouses health promotion and the prevention of death, disease, injury, and disability as its central tenet. It bases its initiatives on evidence of what has worked or shows promise of working. Worldwide psychoactive substance use is estimated at 2 billion alcohol users, 1.3 billion smokers and 185 million illicit drug users, including 147 million cannabis users. Amongst the many preventable factors responsible for the global burden of disease, tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs comprised 12.9 per cent of all deaths worldwide in 2010. Looking at the percentage of preventable years of life lost, it has been estimated that they account for 9.1 per cent. Tobacco is responsible for 8.7 per cent of all deaths worldwide and 3.7 per cent of total preventable years of life lost (Disability Adjusted Life Years). Alcohol causes 3.8 per cent of all deaths and 4.5 per cent of preventable years of life lost. You might be surprised to learn that all the illicit psychoactive drugs combined (cannabis, opioids, cocaine, amphetamines, prescription medications misused, others) only result in 0.4 per cent of worldwide deaths and 0.9 per cent of preventable years of life lost. The health burden from psychoactive substance use is higher in the developed world. Deaths from psychoactive drug use are predominantly male, ranging from 80 per cent for tobacco and illicit drug use to 90% for alcohol. As more men quit smoking tobacco, the female death rate from smoking is expected to surpass that of males in the near future. One of the differences amongst these substances is that they tend to affect different age groups. Illicit drug use causes harm earliest in life, alcohol in middle age, while 70 per cent of tobacco deaths occur after the age of 60. It is time for us to focus our public health attention on the more common preventable causes of disease such as alcohol, tobacco and obesity. As Pogo once so wisely said We have met the enemy and he is us.

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DES COLOHAN: The war on drugs has been lost - The Guardian