Daily Archives: May 20, 2017

The county prosecutor joined 30 of his peers in signing a letter opposing the Attorney Generals recent order.

In a short memo delivered earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed his predecessors steps away from mass incarceration by ordering federal prosecutors to charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense. While this order applies to all federal prosecutions, the order will particularly affect drug crime cases, which in combination with mandatory minimum sentences have heavily contributed to Americas high level of incarceration. Where AGs in the Obama administration had begun a tepid retreat from the War on Drugs, using prosecutorial discretion to sometimes reduce charges against some drug offenders, Sessions memo doubled-down on it.

In response, thirty current and former state and local prosecutors have signed an open letter opposing Sessions memo, according to The Washington Post. (Sessions only has authority over federal prosecutors, not any of the letters signatories.) Among them was King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg. In an interview last week, he told us that with regard to the War on DrugsI think everyone can admit that that was the wrong response and said hes ready to use his office to defend Seattle and King Countys planned pilot safe drug sites, which will epitomize the kind of drug user intolerance Sessions opposes.

The open letter Satterberg co-signed reads in part, There is no empirical evidence to suggest that increases in sentences, particularly for low-level offenses, decrease the crime rateAlthough there are no certain benefits to the newly announced policy, there are definitive and significant costs, including dollars to pay for prisons and human lives with which to fill them. In essence, the Attorney General has reinvigorated the failed war on drugs, reads the letter.

We will continue in our own jurisdictions to undertake innovative approaches that promote public safety and fairness, and that ensure that law enforcements finite resources are directed to the arrest and prosecution of the most serious offenders. It is through these priorities that prosecutors can best advance public safety and fortify trust in the legitimacy of our crimial justice system.

cjaywork@seattleweekly.com

This post has been updated.

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Dan Satterberg Takes a Stand Against Jeff Sessions' War on Drugs - Seattle Weekly

Special to the Times Record News 6:19 p.m. CT May 19, 2017

FILE - In this March 6, 2017 file photo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions waits to make a statement at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Washington. Sessions is seeking the resignations of 46 United States attorneys who were appointed during the prior presidential administration, the Justice Department said Friday, March 10, 2017.(Photo: Susan Walsh, AP)

Instead of pressing forward on sensible drug policy that places a premium on addiction treatment and lighter sentencing rules involving low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is looking to take the nation two steps back to the days of failed policy under the War on Drugs. In effect, Sessions announcement last week on toughening rules for prosecutors considering drug crimes will serve only to return the nation to that dismal, costly trend of mass incarceration, primarily of young black men.

Sessions call for change in prosecuting guidelines, which would include a more robust approach to mandatory minimum sentences, comes at a time when Democrats and Republicans together have proposed alternative sentencing for low-level drug offenders. Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, has embraced a greater emphasis on treatment, and has been a long-term supporter of drug courts.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., one of the authors of bipartisan legislation that would seek more lenient sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, wrote an op-ed for CNN this week in which he reiterated his support for Obama-era policies put in place by former Attorney General Eric Holder. Among those were guidelines issued to U.S. attorneys that they refrain from seeking longer sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

And make no mistake, wrote Paul, the lives of many drug offenders are ruined the day they receive that long sentence the attorney general wants them to have.

Another longtime believer in moving away from strict sentencing guidelines for low-level drug crimes is Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat who served nearly two terms as mayor of Newark and saw firsthand the devastation mandatory sentencing can have on young black men and their families. Resetting this policy back to the old lock em up mentality last encouraged under the leadership of Attorney General John Ashcroft in the early 2000s would be felt heavily on the streets of Paterson, Newark and Camden.

Piling on mandatory minimum sentences and three strikes, youre out laws on nonviolent offenders did little to stop the illegal drug trade in recent decades, Booker said after reading Sessions rules changes. Instead, it decimated entire communities, most often poor communities and communities of color; resulted in an uneven application of the law; and undermined public trust in the justice system.

As both Paul and Booker point out, mandatory sentencing laws handcuff prosecutors and judges as they approach individual cases, and often send young people to prison for long stretches of time for relatively minor offenses. These arrests, convictions and sentences disproportionately affect African-Americans and their families, and can serve to set the course of their entire lives.

Equal justice advocates are hopeful the energy created by the Sessions announcement will spur members of Congress to move aggressively to address criminal justice reform, including the rollback of mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug crimes. Christie, who has long been on the common-sense side of addiction treatment and has raised the profile of the use of drug courts, could be an important voice on this issue. We encourage him to wholeheartedly join the pushback against this failed tough love approach to drug criminalization the attorney general is pursuing.

This editorial appeared in The Record in Hackensack, New Jersey.

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Wrong direction in 'War on Drugs' - Times Record News - Times Record News

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZLEZ: I want to ask Michelle Alexander, there wasthere appeared to be some hope in the last few years that the country was finally beginning to turn away from mass incarceration, especially when it came to drugs. And now were seeing, under the new Trump administrationwe heard what some of the stuff that attorneythe new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, says. Your reaction to where the country appeared to be heading and where nowthe turn that its now taking?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Well, I think its clear by the rhetoric coming out of the Justice Department today that they are committed to reviving a warlike mentality towards poor people and people of color. And I think we need to respond forcefully, with as much courage and compassion as we can muster in these times.

You know, a few decades ago, politicians were banging the podium, calling for "law and order" and "get tough," and declaring war. And our, you know, television sets were filled with images of crack mothers, crack babies. And a literal war was unleashed on communities, war that devastated the lives of people like Susan and families and communities of color nationwide.

Well, today, the enemy has been defined as those brown-skinned immigrants sneaking across the border. And, you know, Donald Trump has banged the podium, you know, saying, "We must get rid of them."

JUAN GONZLEZ: Bringing drugs, because

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, claiming theyre getting

JUAN GONZLEZ: He even said it yesterday with Colombia, right?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, claiming theyre bringing drugs and that theyre murderers, and urging our nation to get rid of them all. You know, that war that was declared on drugs decades ago gave birth to a private prison system, gave birth to the system of mass incarceration. And if we had risen to the challenge of the war on drugs the way that we could have and should have, the system of mass deportation would not exist today. The private detention centers that are locking up immigrants today wouldnt even exist but for the drug war that was waged, with little resistance, for decades in this country and that birthed a prison system, you know, a penal system, unlike anything this world had ever seen before.

So I hope that we will learn the lessons that the drug war has to teach us, and rise to the challenge this moment in history presents, and build a truly transformational, revolutionary movement that will not only dismantle the system of mass incarceration and mass deportation, but will lead us to a new way of life, a new way of caring for one another and for our communities, and reimagine what justice can and should be in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: But, Michelle, thats not the direction, of course, of the Trump administrationJeff Sessions, the attorney general of the United States, just announcing an escalation on the war on drugs, going after drug offenders, people who are addicted. Can you talk about the significance of what this means, pushing for mandatory minimums when theres been this consensus now, in many ways across the political spectrum, of the right, from the Koch brothers to Newt Gingrich, to progressives who have been pushing for reform for a long time? What does this mean? What effect will it have?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Well, at the federal level, it will have significant effect for those who are arrested and charged with federal crimes, particularly drug crimes, and who will be facing years, perhaps decades, longer than they might otherwise have, you know, before Sessions kind of overturned Obamas memo directing a slightly more compassionate approach.

But theres tremendous movement in states and in communities around the country, in places like California and Ohio. I can go down the list of states and communities that are calling for legalization of marijuana, that are moving to declassify drug offenses from felonies to simple misdemeanors. There is momentum that will not be turned back overnight.

And thats why I think its important for us not only to see the necessity of continuing to build momentum to end the drug war, but to understand that the racial politics that gave birth to this drug war are the same racial politics that have given birth to the war on immigrants. And its not simply a matter of building a movement to reform drug policy. Its about building a movement that will break the history and cycle of these racially punitive politics that birth systems of racial and social control in whatever form.

And so, Im hoping that in the months and years to come, that well see more coordination, more unity between the movements to end mass incarceration and the movements to end mass deportation, and come to see its the same struggle to define who is worthy, who has dignity and value, and who is disposable. And ultimately, we are trying to birth a new America in which each and every one of us, no matter who we are, where we came from or what we may have done, is viewed as fully human, with dignity and value and, you know, deserving of inclusion in our nation, despite the efforts to distract and to divide and to elicit from us our most punitive impulses.

JUAN GONZLEZ: Id like to ask Susanwe only have about 30 seconds, but is there any hope of your expanding your successful New Way of Life to other cities across the country?

SUSAN BURTON: The next stage is to actually identify areas in the country and develop a network of the model in which A New Way of Life has developed that successfully brings people back into the community. Theres been a lot of interest, and Im going to respond to that interest, because all over America we have found that women have been taken out of their homes, men have been sent away, and they need to be able to come back in successfully.

AMY GOODMAN: Susan Burton and Michelle Alexander, we thank you so much for being with us. Susans new book is called Becoming Ms. Burton.

That does it for the show. Ill be in New Mexico tonight in Santa Fe, tomorrow in Tempe, Arizona and in Houston.

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Michelle Alexander: We Must Respond Forcefully & Challenge Jeff ... - Democracy Now!

By Hub staff report

The criminalization of drug usethe so-called war on drugshas had negative impacts on the prevention and treatment of HIV, according to a systematic review of research on the topic.

A team from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of British Columbia analyzed 106 studies published between 2006 and 2014, sharing their findings this week in journal Lancet HIV.

Stefan Baral

Johns Hopkins epidemiologist

Of the studies the team reviewed, 80 percent suggest that drug criminalization has a negative effect on HIV prevention and treatment among people who inject drugs. Across the world, the injection of drugs continues to be a key driver in the HIV epidemic, with about 13 percent of these drug users estimated to be living with the virus.

The researchers found that stiff penalties for possession of illegal drugs have failed to reduce drug use, while putting thousands of people in jail who might be better served by treatment.

"The evidence that criminalization helps is weak at best, and the vast majority of studies show that criminalization hurts when it comes to health, economics, and society-at-large," says one of the study's leaders, Stefan Baral, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School.

Baral notes that the study's publication comes on the heels of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' directives for federal authorities to start seeking the toughest penalties possible for drug violations, even for less serious offenses. In the meantime, the United States also faces an unprecedented opioid crisis.

The researchers suggest the need for alternative policies for limiting the harms of drug use, including infectious disease, overdose, and unemployment due to drug arrests.

According to the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance, more than 1.5 million drug-related arrests are made every year in the U.S., the overwhelming majority for possession only, yet levels of drug use remain high. Previous research estimates that 56 to 90 percent of people who inject drugs will be incarcerated at some point in their lives.

Baral notes that fear of arrest or incarceration prevents many from seeking help for addiction; ideally, he suggests, people charged with drug offenses should be connected with treatment.

He also suggests that U.S. policies should allow for programs like needle exchanges and possibly safe consumption facilities to minimize infections and fatal overdoses. The 2015 HIV epidemic in Indiana, for example, was caused in part by the sharing of dirty needles among heroin users.

"We must understand that punitive laws have neither decreased the supply or the use of drugs and have caused adverse health outcomes," Baral says. "The current approach is not working."

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War on drugs hurts HIV prevention and treatment, research review suggests - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: WIRED

Amid all the chaos and confusion of the Trump administration, one certainty abides: Attorney General Jeff Sessions does not like pot.

The former Alabama senator once joked that he thought the Ku Klux Klan was ok until he found out they smoked weed. During a 2016 Senate hearing, he called marijuana a dangerous drug. He also didnt shy away from Reefer Madness-era moralizing: Good people, he said, dont smoke marijuana.

Federal law shares Sessions sentiment. The US still bans marijuana outright, placing it in the same category as heroin and cocaine. But these days, opposing pot is bad politics. During the November election, marijuana legalization polled better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. In Colorado, which has legalized both medicinal and recreational marijuana, one report found the industry added $2.4 billion and 18,000 jobs to the local economy in 2015. Even the staunchly conservative Florida governor Rick Scott has approved a measure legalizing medical marijuana for the terminally ill. Sending federal agents to raid marijuana dispensaries in the 29 states that have legalized weed in one way or another only seems likely to alienate voters.

Does the GOP really want to piss off the senior citizens of Florida? says Micah Tapman, who runs the Colorado-based cannabis startup incubator Canopy.

Tapman isnt betting on it. What worries cannabis entrepreneurs like him most isnt some blatant crackdown on dispensaries, but a more surreptitious war on drugs, in which government overseers like the Department of Labor or the Internal Revenue Service catch cannabis companies slipping up on the more mundane details of complying with laws around safety, environmental standards, and taxes. In other words, to stop pot, the Trump administration may find the answer in what it ostensibly despises most: government regulation.

Which, ironically enough, presents its own business opportunity. Today, there are businesses like Front Range Biosciences that test the quality of different growers cannabis. Adistry, meanwhile, ensures cannabis companies are compliant with advertising restrictions. Other startups help businesses track the product through the supply chain, manage wholesale orders, and yes, even handle payrollall so marijuana companies can focus on selling a product that could still technically land their proprietors in federal prison.

Complying with local and state regulations is already a migraine-inducing experience for most any small business, much less one trafficking in a federally banned substance. Laws limit where and how marijuana sellers can advertise. They require dispensaries to track and trace all cannabis products from seed to sale. Even something as simple as paying employees poses challenges for these businesses, since big banks, still bound by federal law, cant work with payroll providers that service cannabis companies. If the federal government decides to pile on with a new regulatory war on drugs, marijuana entrepreneurs may need help. And so startups are springing up to provide it.

There are a lot of ways they can stick their fingers in the industry without having the DEA go after the industry, says Keegan Peterson, CEO of Wurk, a payroll and compliance firm that works with legal marijuana companies. Its created a lot of work for us.

Sessions has so far exercised caution as he tiptoes into the pot policy arena. He appears poised to keep in place the 2013 Cole memorandum, guidelines laid out by the Obama-era Justice Department that instructed federal prosecutors and law enforcement to de-prioritize cases against marijuana businesses that were following state law. Still, its clear Sessions sees marijuana as a scourge. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life, he said during a speech in March.

For people like Peterson, Sessions anti-pot animus suggests that while he may not seek to upend the industry entirely, he plans to keep a close eye on it. They have made clear that theyre going to make sure the businesses that are operating are following the law, Peterson says. And that likelihood has been a boon for the burgeoning cannabis compliance industry.

All of these things say to a Department of Justice thats unfriendly, Look, we understand you disagree, but were being responsible,' says Tapman. Were going 60 in a 55.

For would-be pot entrepreneurs, its a different world than the one Steve DeAngelo stepped into when he opened Harborside Health, one of Californias first dispensaries, in 2006. Back then, DeAngelo had to build his own laboratory to monitor the plants quality and develop software that could follow it through the supply chain. Now, he says, Theres been a sea change when you look at the kind of support resources available to a legal cannabis business today.

And yet, industry leaders know that Sessions now holds the power to overturn that progress. Just last week, they saw how impermanent the countrys current drug enforcement rules are when Sessions directed federal prosecutors to pursue the most serious, readily provable offense in their cases. In doing so, Sessions effectively reversed the Obama-era drift toward doing away with mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenders.

It brings to mind the departments ability to make quick decisions that affect a very large percentage of people, Peterson says. Thats the organization that controls the future of the cannabis industry.

That future is still very much in flux. For now, the most the industry can do to prepare for such uncertainty is to keep its books in order.

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The Pot Startups Prepping for Jeff Sessions' New War on Drugs - WIRED

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte shakes hands with Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eduardo Ao. PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

Outgoing military chief Eduardo Ao said Friday he would apply the rule of law in a campaign against drug syndicates when he takes over the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

Ao made the pledge as President Duterte personally set June 2 for the DILG to be turned over to the 55-year-old Ao who reaches the military retirement age of 56 in October.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he tried on Thursday to persuade Mr. Duterte to extend Aos tour in the military but the President rejected the idea.

(The President) said No, no, no, no. Lets have the turnover by June 2, Lorenzana quoted Mr. Duterte as saying.

When told of the Presidents remarks at the closing of the Philippine-US Balikatan exercise at Camp Aguinaldo, Ao said he was still awaiting official instructions.

I have not received an official order. I will just have to prepare, he said, conceding that Mr. Duterte might be in a hurry to have him transferred because the DILG is a big agency.

The DILG is big. It has big responsibilities. Because the DILG plays a big role in (Mr. Dutertes) program, he needs a permanent and regular secretary to take over immediately, Ao said.

But the general, who spent most of his military career as an intelligence officer, said he understood the challenges he is facing.

Many ways

I believe I have enough knowledge and information on how to run the team in the DILG. There is already an existing team in the DILG. I will just be joining the team, he said.

He also recognized that one of the problems in the war against drugs was the local and international criticism it had been getting.

Ao said the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency would lead the antidrug campaign with the support of the Philippine National Police.

Well find many ways to defeat the (drug menace) using and following the rule of law, Ao said, adding that the PNP should retool its image.

Its very important that the image of the PNP should be morally high so that we can get the cooperation of the public, he said.

From users to syndicates

Ao said he would also shift the focus from street dealers and users to drug syndicates.

What we will do is really focus on the drug syndicates that supply these drugs to the communities. You really need to go to the source, Ao said.

Its like the insurgency. We have to address the root causes. It is also the same in the war on drugs. We will work together on that. We will make a good holistic approach on the war on drugs, he added.

Asked about the transition at the Armed Forces, Ao said the Board of Generals has yet to submit to the President the names of his possible successor.

We will recommend at least three names and then the President will decide who is the possible successor as the next Chief of Staff, he added.

However, his early retirement should not have a bad effect on the AFPs plans and programs.

Theyre not centered on one personality, he said.

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Rule of law in war on drugsAFP chief - Inquirer.net

WASHINGTON Attorney General Jeff Sessions former colleagues in the Senate are pushing back on his order to federal prosecutors to pursue the most severe penalties possible for defendants, including mandatory minimum sentences, and introducing legislation to give federal judges more sentencing discretion.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who co-sponsored the legislation, said that Sessions new policy will accentuate the existing injustice in the criminal justice system.

Mandatory minimum sentences disproportionately affect minorities and low-income communities, while doing little to keep us safe and turning mistakes into tragedies, said Paul. As this legislation demonstrates, Congress can come together in a bipartisan fashion to change these laws.

Last week, in a two-page memo to federal prosecutors across the country, Sessions overturned former attorney general Eric Holders sweeping criminal charging policy that instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with offenses that trigger long mandatory minimum sentences. In its place, Sessions told his more than 5,000 assistant U.S. attorneys to charge defendants with the most serious crimes, carrying the toughest penalties.

After Sessions released his new policy, it drew bipartisan criticism the policy would mark a return to mass incarceration, especially of minorities. It was embraced, however, by the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, whose president said it would restore more tools to do their jobs.

An outgrowth of the failed War on Drugs, mandatory sentencing strips critical public safety resources away from law enforcement strategies that actually make our communities safer, said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Leahy and Paul introduced the Justice Safety Valve Act with Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., are introducing a companion bill in the House. The legislation would allow federal judges to tailor sentences on a case-by-case basis. It would also reduce correctional spending, which accounts for nearly a third of Justice Departments budget.

During President Barack Obamas second term, similar sentencing reform legislation was introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

The legislation, which had 37 Senate sponsors, would have reduced mandatory minimum sentences for gun and drug crimes.

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Senators resist Sessions' initiative for new war on drugs - Press Herald