Daily Archives: October 1, 2021

I am a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. However, as an independent think tank, the Brookings Institution does not take institutional positions on any issue. Therefore, my testimony represents my personal views and does not reflect the views of Brookings, its other scholars, employees, officers, and/or trustees.

President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs in the Philippines is morally and legally unjustifiable. Resulting in egregious and large-scale violations of human rights, it amounts to state-sanctioned murder. It is also counterproductive for countering the threats and harms that the illegal drug trade and use pose to society exacerbating both problems while profoundly shredding the social fabric and rule of law in the Philippines. The United States and the international community must condemn and sanction the government of the Philippines for its conduct of the war on drugs.

On September 2, 2016 after a bomb went off in Davao where Duterte had been mayor for 22 years, the Philippine president declared a state of lawlessness1 in the country. That is indeed what he unleashed in the name of fighting crime and drugs since he became the countrys president on June 30, 2016. With his explicit calls for police to kill drug users and dealers2 and the vigilante purges Duterte ordered of neighborhoods,3 almost 9000 people accused of drug dealing or drug use were killed in the Philippines in the first year of his government about one third by police in anti-drug operations.4 Although portrayed as self-defense shootings, these acknowledged police killings are widely believed to be planned and staged, with security cameras and street lights unplugged, and drugs and guns planted on the victim after the shooting.5 According to the interviews and an unpublished report an intelligence officer shared with Reuters, the police are paid about 10,000 pesos ($200) for each killing of a drug suspect as well as other accused criminals. The monetary awards for each killing are alleged to rise to 20,000 pesos ($400) for a street pusher, 50,000 pesos ($990) for a member of a neighborhood council, one million pesos ($20,000) for distributors, retailers, and wholesalers, and five million ($100,000) for drug lords. Under pressure from higher-up authorities and top officials, local police officers and members of neighborhood councils draw up lists of drug suspects. Lacking any kind transparency, accountability, and vetting, these so-called watch lists end up as de facto hit lists. A Reuters investigation revealed that police officers were killing some 97 percent of drug suspects during police raids,6 an extraordinarily high number and one that many times surpasses accountable police practices. That is hardly surprising, as police officers are not paid any cash rewards for merely arresting suspects. Both police officers and members of neighborhood councils are afraid not to participate in the killing policies, fearing that if they fail to comply they will be put on the kill lists themselves.

Similarly, there is widespread suspicion among human rights groups and monitors,7 reported in regularly in the international press, that the police back and encourage the other extrajudicial killings with police officers paying assassins or posing as vigilante groups.8 A Reuters interview with a retired Filipino police intelligence officer and another active-duty police commander reported both officers describing in granular detail how under instructions from top-level authorities and local commanders, police units mastermind the killings.9 No systematic investigations and prosecutions of these murders have taken place, with top police officials suggesting that they are killings among drug dealers themselves.10

Such illegal vigilante justice, with some 1,400 extrajudicial killings,11 was also the hallmark of Dutertes tenure as Davaos mayor, earning him the nickname Duterte Harry. And yet, far from being an exemplar of public safety and crime-free city, Davao remains the murder capital of the Philippines.12 The current police chief of the Philippine National Police Ronald Dela Rosa and President Dutertes principal executor of the war on drugs previously served as the police chief in Davao between 2010 and 2016 when Duterte was the towns mayor.

In addition to the killings, mass incarceration of alleged drug users is also under way in the Philippines. The government claims that more than a million users and street-level dealers have voluntarily surrendered to the police. Many do so out of fear of being killed otherwise. However, in interviews with Reuters, a Philippine police commander alleged that the police are given quotas of surrenders, filling them by arresting anyone on trivial violations (such as being shirtless or drunk).13 Once again, the rule of law is fundamentally perverted to serve a deeply misguided and reprehensible state policy.

Smart policies for addressing drug retail markets look very different than the violence and state-sponsored crime President Duterte has thrust upon the Philippines. Rather than state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings and mass incarceration, policing retail markets should have several objectives: The first, and most important, is to make drug retail markets as non-violent as possible. Dutertes policy does just the opposite: in slaughtering people, it is making a drug-distribution market that was initially rather peaceful (certainly compared to Latin America,14 such as in Brazil15) very violent this largely the result of the state actions, extrajudicial killings, and vigilante killings he has ordered. Worse yet, the police and extrajudicial killings hide other murders, as neighbors and neighborhood committees put on the list of drug suspects their rivals and people whose land or property they want to steal; thus, anyone can be killed by anyone and then labeled a pusher.

The unaccountable en masse prosecution of anyone accused of drug trade involvement or drug use also serves as a mechanism to squash political pluralism and eliminate political opposition. Those who dare challenge President Duterte and his reprehensible policies are accused of drug trafficking charges and arrested themselves. The most prominent case is that of Senator Leila de Lima. But it includes many other lower-level politicians. Without disclosing credible evidence or convening a fair trial, President Duterte has ordered the arrest of scores of politicians accused of drug-trade links; three such accused mayors have died during police arrests, often with many other individuals dying in the shoot-outs. The latest such incident occurred on July 30, 2017 when Reynaldo Parojinog, mayor of Ozamiz in the southern Philippines, was killed during a police raid on his house, along with Parojinogs wife and at least five other people.

Another crucial goal of drug policy should be to enhance public health and limit the spread of diseases linked to drug use. The worst possible policy is to push addicts into the shadows, ostracize them, and increase the chance of overdoses as well as a rapid spread of HIV/AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and hepatitis. In prisons, users will not get adequate treatment for either their addiction or their communicable disease. That is the reason why other countries that initially adopted similar draconian wars on drugs (such as Thailand in 200116 and Vietnam in the same decade17) eventually tried to backpedal from them, despite the initial popularity of such policies with publics in East Asia. Even though throughout East Asia, tough drug policies toward drug use and the illegal drug trade remain government default policies and often receive widespread support, countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam, and even Myanmar have gradually begun to experiment with or are exploring HARM reduction approaches, such as safe needle exchange programs and methadone maintenance, as the ineffective and counterproductive nature and human rights costs of the harsh war on drugs campaign become evident.

Moreover, frightening and stigmatizing drug users and pushing use deeper underground will only exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and tuberculosis. Even prior to the Dutertes brutal war on drugs, the rate of HIV infections in the Philippines has been soaring due to inadequate awareness and failure to support safe sex practices, such as access to condoms. Along with Afghanistan, the Philippine HIV infection rate is the highest in Asia, increasing 50 percent between 2010 and 2015.18Among high-risk groups, including injection- drug users, gay men, transgender women, and female prostitutes, the rate of new infections jumped by 230 percent between 2011and 2015. Dutertes war on drugs will only intensify these worrisome trends among drug users.

Further, as Central America has painfully learned in its struggles against street gangs, mass incarceration policies turn prisons into recruiting grounds for organized crime. Given persisting jihadi terrorism in the Philippines, mass imprisonment of low-level dealers and drug traffickers which mix them with terrorists in prisons can result in the establishment of dangerous alliances between terrorists and criminals, as has happened in Indonesia.

The mass killings and imprisonment in the Philippines will not dry up demand for drugs: the many people who will end up in overcrowded prisons and poorly-designed treatment centers (as is already happening) will likely remain addicted to drugs, or become addicts. There is always drug smuggling into prisons and many prisons are major drug distribution and consumption spots.

Even when those who surrendered are placed into so-called treatment centers, instead of outright prisons, large problems remain. Many who surrendered do not necessarily have a drug abuse problem as they surrendered preemptively to avoid being killed if they for whatever reason ended up on the watch list. Those who do have a drug addiction problem mostly do not receive adequate care. Treatment for drug addiction is highly underdeveloped and underprovided in the Philippines, and Chinas rushing in to build larger treatment facilities is unlikely to resolve this problem. In China itself, many so-called treatment centers often amounted to de facto prisons or force-labor detention centers, with highly questionable methods of treatment and very high relapse rates.

As long as there is demand, supply and retailing will persist, simply taking another form. Indeed, there is a high chance that Dutertes hunting down of low-level pushers (and those accused of being pushers) will significantly increase organized crime in the Philippines and intensify corruption. The dealers and traffickers who will remain on the streets will only be those who can either violently oppose law enforcement and vigilante groups or bribe their way to the highest positions of power. By eliminating low-level, mostly non-violent dealers, Duterte is paradoxically and counterproductively setting up a situation where more organized and powerful drug traffickers and distribution will emerge.

Inducing police to engage in de facto shoot-to-kill policies is enormously corrosive of law enforcement, not to mention the rule of law. There is a high chance that the policy will more than ever institutionalize top-level corruption, as only powerful drug traffickers will be able to bribe their way into upper-levels of the Philippine law enforcement system, and the government will stay in business. Moreover, corrupt top-level cops and government officials tasked with such witch-hunts will have the perfect opportunity to direct law enforcement against their drug business rivals as well as political enemies, and themselves become the top drug capos. Unaccountable police officers officially induced to engage in extrajudicial killings easily succumb to engaging in all kinds of criminality, being uniquely privileged to take over criminal markets. Those who should protect public safety and the rule of law themselves become criminals.

Such corrosion of the law enforcement agencies is well under way in the Philippines as a result of President Dutertes war on drugs. Corruption and the lack of accountability in the Philippine police l preceded Dutertes presidency, but have become exacerbated since, with the war on drugs blatant violations of rule of law and basic legal and human rights principles a direct driver. The issue surfaced visibly and in a way that the government of the Philippines could not simply ignore in January 2017 when Philippine drug squad police officers kidnapped a South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo and extorted his family for money. Jee was ultimately killed inside the police headquarters. President Duterte expressed outrage and for a month suspended the national police from participating in the war on drugs while some police purges took places. Rather than a serious effort to root out corruption, those purges served principally to tighten control over the police. The wrong-headed illegal policies of Dutertes war on drugs were not examined or corrected. Nor were other accountability and rule of law practices reinforced. Thus when after a month the national police were was asked to resume their role in the war on the drugs, the perverted system slid back into the same human rights violations and other highly detrimental processes and outcomes.

The Philippines should adopt radically different approaches: The shoot-to-kill directives to police and calls for extrajudicial killings should stop immediately, as should dragnets against low-level pushers and users. If such orders are issued, prosecutions of any new extrajudicial killings and investigations of encounter killings must follow. In the short term, the existence of pervasive culpability may prevent the adoption of any policy that would seek to investigate and prosecute police and government officials and members of neighborhood councils who have been involved in the state-sanctioned slaughter. If political leadership in the Philippines changes, however, standing up a truth commission will be paramount. In the meantime, however, all existing arrested drug suspects need to be given fair trials or released.

Law-enforcement and rule of law components of drug policy designs need to make reducing criminal violence and violent militancy among their highest objectives. The Philippines should build up real intelligence on the drug trafficking networks that President Duterte alleges exist in the Philippines and target their middle operational layers, rather than low-level dealers, as well as their corruption networks in the government and law enforcement. However, the latter must not be used to cover up eliminating rival politicians and independent political voices.

To deal with addiction, the Philippines should adopt enlightened harm-reduction measures, including methadone maintenance, safe-needle exchange, and access to effective treatment. No doubt, these are difficult and elusive for methamphetamines, the drug of choice in the Philippines. Meth addiction is very difficult to treat and is associated with high morbidity levels. Instead of turning his country into a lawless Wild East, President Duterte should make the Philippines the center of collaborative East Asian research on how to develop effective public health approaches to methamphetamine addiction.

It is imperative that the United States strongly and unequivocally condemns the war on drugs in the Philippines and deploys sanctions until state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings and other state-authorized rule of law violations are ended. The United States should adopt such a position even if President Duterte again threatens the U.S.-Philippines naval bases agreements meant to provide the Philippines and other countries with protection against Chinas aggressive moves in the South China Sea. President Dutertes pro-China preferences will not be moderated by the United States being cowed into condoning egregious violations of human rights. In fact, a healthy U.S.-Philippine long-term relationship will be undermined by U.S. silence on state-sanctioned murder.

However, the United States must recognize that drug use in the Philippines and East Asia more broadly constitute serious threats to society. Although internationally condemned for the war on drugs, President Duterte remains highly popular in the Philippines, with 80 percent of Filipinos still expressing much trust for him after a year of his war on drugs and 9,000 people dead.19 Unlike in Latin America, throughout East Asia, drug use is highly disapproved of, with little empathy for users and only very weak support for drug policy reform. Throughout the region, as well as in the Philippines, tough-on-drugs approaches, despite their ineffective outcomes and human rights violations, often remain popular. Fostering an honest and complete public discussion about the pros and cons of various drug policy approaches is a necessary element in creating public demand for accountability of drug policy in the Philippines.

Equally important is to develop better public health approaches to dealing with methamphetamine addiction. It is devastating throughout East Asia as well as in the United States, though opiate abuse mortality rates now eclipse methamphetamine drug abuse problems. Meth addiction is very hard to treat and often results in severe morbidity. Yet harm reduction approaches have been predominately geared toward opiate and heroin addictions, with substitution treatments, such as methadone, not easily available for meth and other harm reduction approaches also not directly applicable.

What has been happening in the Philippines is tragic and unconscionable. But if the United States can at least take a leading role in developing harm reduction and effective treatment approaches toward methamphetamine abuse, its condemnation of unjustifiable and reprehensible policies, such as President Dutertes war on drugs in the Philippines, will far more soundly resonate in East Asia, better stimulating local publics to demand accountability and respect for rule of law from their leaders.

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The human rights consequences of the war on drugs in the ...

The War on Drugs, not the war in Afghanistan, is Americas longest war. It has used trillions of American taxpayer dollars, militarized American law enforcement agencies (federal, state, and local), claimed an untold number of lives, railroaded peoples futures (especially among Black, Latino, and Native populations), and concentrated the effort in the countrys most diverse and poorest neighborhoods.

The War on Drugs has been a staggering policy failure, advancing few of the claims that presidents, members of Congress, law enforcement officials, and state and local leaders have sought to achieve. The illicit drug trade thrived under prohibition; adults of all ages and youth had access to illicit substances. Substance use disorders thrived, and policymakers efforts to protect public health were fully undermined by policy that disproportionately focused, if unsuccessfully, on public safety.

Photo by vladans/Getty Images

It is time for an American president to think seriously about broad-based policy change to disrupt the manner in which the United States deals with drugs.

Despite its dramatic policy failures, the War on Drugs has been wildly successful in one specific area: institutionalizing racism. The drug war was built on a foundation of racism and xenophobia. As I have written in Marijuana: A Short History, the historical foundation of drug policy in the United States was to vilify African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants from Asia and Mexico, and other out groups, and to turn White America against each. Michelle Alexander and numerous others have effectively highlighted how Americas criminal justice system from arrest to trial to incarceration to post-release conditions disproportionately punish people of color, creating a cycle of harm in their communities.

We know the design and enforcement of Americas drug laws were racist in intent and in practice. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 enacted penalties for possession of crack cocaine (a substance predominantly used by poor and minorities users) that were 100 times higher than for the possession of powder cocaine (a substance used more often by wealthier, white users). And while Congress in 2010 reduced that disparity in penalties from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1, and in 2018 President Trump signed a law making that change retroactive, thousands of low level offenders were left out from resentencing because of a loophole. And in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to extend the retroactive resentencing effort for those low-level offenders.

In addition, research shows that Black and wWhite Americans use cannabis at roughly the same rates. However, Black Americans are more than 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for a cannabis offense than are wWhite Americans. And even in states that have reformed their cannabis laws, the institutionalization of racism in police departments enforcement of the drug war sustains, as Blacks are more than two times as likely as whites to be arrested for cannabis offenses in those legal jurisdictions. And while cannabis offenses have plummeted in those states, the impact of those remaining arrests and convictions are felt in an outsized way across Black and Brown America and in Native communities.

The 2018 law mentioned above was titled the First Step Act. This label was fitting in that it described the long road toward broader criminal justice reform and for justice in the communities that the War on Drugs targeted for decades. And in his 2019 State of the Union Address, President Trump praised that bill becoming law, by noting that it addresses the explicit racism in the American criminal justice system. He noted:

This legislation reformed sentencing laws that have wrongly and disproportionately harmed the African American community. The First Step Act gives nonviolent offenders the chance to reenter society as productive, law-abiding citizens. Now States across the country are following our lead. America is a nation that believes in redemption.

President Trump was right that America believes in redemption, but only in theory. It rarely advances redemption in practice. Every president in the 20th and 21st centuries helped perpetuate, in some way, a drug war with one crowning achievement: systematically harming minority communities in America with intent and malice. Supporters of prohibition, be they presidents or other elected officials, advocates, law enforcement leaders, or everyday citizens wrap themselves in a mystical cloak of protecting the children and keeping communities safe. In reality, that hypocrisy has sought simply to protect white children (a failed effort) and to keep white communities safe (another missed target).

Photo by LeszekCzerwonka/Getty Images

If prohibition supporters cared deeply about children and the safety of communities, they would look at what the War on Drugs have done to Black and Brown children and communities and be sickened. They would see families divided, young people (especially young Black men) have dreams dashed and future opportunities restricted, communities rocked by gang and police violence, systematic underinvestment with simultaneous over-policing in cities, and dozens more disastrous consequences because of their failed drug policies. Prohibition supporters from Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue should consider how the drug war has harmed specific American communities and recoil, but instead, they ignore reality and refuse to advance legitimate alternatives.

RELATED: We Need To Recognize That The War In Afghanistan Is Not Our Longest War

It is time for President Biden to face the reality of his role and the role of his colleagues and predecessors in advancing of the drug war. He must consider vast reforms some which require the cooperation of Congress and others than can be implemented via executive action that deal with drug policy in a thoughtful and reasoned, rather than anachronistic and heartless way. Mr. Biden must realize that choices about drug reformpardons, sentencing reform policy, the expansion of mental health and addiction services, cannabis legalization, police reform, prison reform, community reinvestmentshould not focus on whether those reforms come without costs. Mr. Biden must compare whether those reforms are a policy improvement over the status quo: prohibition.

RELATED: Al Harrington, Drake, Killer Mike Ask Pres. Biden To Pardon All Non-Violent Cannabis Offenders

Too often elected officials, policy analysts, advocates, and citizens hide behind the cowardice of highlighting the challenges that drug reform can potentially cause, while refusing to speak and think bravely about the comprehensive failures and harms perpetuated by current policy. Mr. Biden can no longer do what he and his predecessors have done: sit idly by, awaiting a perfect policy to replace the unmitigated failures of the War on Drugs. A significant part of the electoral coalition that swept Mr. Biden to the Democratic presidential nomination and eventually to the White House were Black, Latino, and Native Americans who have been harmed the most by the War on Drugs.

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Part of that solution must be an embrace of full-scale criminal justice reform that works to inject fairness into a system that has, for centuries, disproportionately punished people of color, the poor, the undereducated, those without personal or political connections, and any others in our society who fall on hard times. Drug reform and particularly cannabis reform must sit at the forefront of the presidents efforts to chase the type of justice that has eluded so many for so long.

Legalizing cannabis, focusing broader drug reform efforts around public health policy rather than inhumane criminalization, prioritizing law enforcement funds toward violent crime rather than petty crime, coordinating an intergovernmental effort to harmonize criminal justice reform through legislative and executive efforts, and reinvesting in the communities that our government has targeted and persecuted are a requirement for President Biden to be the humane and justice-oriented president he marketed himself to be in the 2020 campaign.

Eight months into this administration, Mr. Biden faces an embarrassing reality with regard to drug policy. Donald Trump, who received only 8% of the Black vote in 2016, did more as president to change drug policy and ameliorate the effects of the drug war for communities of color than has Joe Biden, who won 87% of Black support in 2020.

In the same way this president took the bold step of ending Americas second longest war in Afghanistan, he should take the equally bold step of ending Americas longest war: the War on Drugs.

This article originally appeared on the Brookings blog, How We Rise, and has been reposted with permission.

Excerpt from:

Biden Should End Americas Longest War: The War On Drugs ...

In 1971, former President Richard Nixon labeled drug use a national emergency and asked for $155 million to combat it, beginning the war on drugs. This war has been characterized by aggressive police response and highly punitive measures. Meanwhile, in 1996, Purdue Pharma released the prescription opioid OxyContin, a drug that would initiate an ongoing epidemic that has killed over 500,000 people and has torn families and communities apart.

One key aspect of the war on drugs has been its disproportionate effect on people and communities of color, both directly and indirectly.

Under the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, a five-year minimum penalty was enacted for individuals possessing just five grams of crack cocaine, a version of cocaine with a lower price point more commonly used in low-income communities and Black communities. In comparison, the same minimum penalty was only applied for the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine which was much more prevalent in wealthier, white communities. This contradiction landed many more Black people in jail, despite the fact that crack and powder cocaine are chemically equivalent.

This act was amended nine years later, but with the disparity in grams necessary for minimum penalty going from a ratio of 100:1 to 18:1, many people who were incarcerated during this time were not able to receive shortened or overturned sentences. Nearly half of all inmates in federal prisons and one-fifth of inmates in the U.S. are incarcerated for drug-related charges, withBlack Americans being six times more likely than white Americans to be arrested on drug-related charges, despite no disparity in drug use.

Additionally, this war-like approach to solving our nations drug problem was the beginning of the Department of Defenses 1033 Program, which outfits state and local law enforcement with surplus military equipment. While originally created for counterdrug activities, it was later used for counterterrorism goals, exacerbating incidents of police brutality.

Breonna Taylor was killed in a botched drug raid. Neither she nor her boyfriend, who was also present, were suspects in the case the officers were working on, yet the police still burst into her apartment in the dead of night. In Derek Chauvins trial for the murder of George Floyd, the defense tried to argue that Chauvins use of force was justified due to trace amounts of fentanyl found in Floyds blood that, they argued, made his behavior unpredictable, despite video evidence that he did not resist. These incidents and countless others show the racial disparity in how drug use is seen and addressed, as well as the incredible harm police officers armed as soldiers can do.

Nowhere is the failure of the war on drugs clearer than in the opioid epidemic. Many different drugs have contributed to the epidemic, but one company and one family has undoubtedly had an outsized impact.

The company that eventually became Purdue Pharma has been owned by the Sackler family since 1952. The family has made approximately $10 billion between 2008 and 2017 from Purdue Pharma. The company cannot act alone as it dos what those who control it intend for it to do which means the Sackler family must be held responsible for the harm it has caused. Many family members were high-level employees or board members of the company, including Richard Sackler as the president for years, Kathe Sackler as an officer and David Sackler as a former board member.

The Sacklers also own Mundipharma, Purdues international affiliate, which sells Nyxoid, a naloxone nasal spray that can save people from opioid overdoses. The Sacklers created a deadly addictive drug, made $10 billion off of it and are also making money off of its cure.

Last November, following years of countless lawsuits, Purdue Pharma pled guilty to three felonies, including fraud. In July, a new settlement was filed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y. This settlement requires Purdue Pharma to be reorganized and refocused on battling the opioid epidemic, while forcing the Sacklers to pay $4.3 billion and making many internal Purdue documents public.

This appears to be a great victory but the biggest perpetrators essentially get off scot free. The Sacklers, whose name is on a Smithsonian building and a wing of the Met, are not charged in this settlement. It also contains a non-consensual third party release, meaning that if this goes through, all current and future lawsuits against those named, which includes various Sackler family members and companies, would be erased.

The Department of Justice has said that this violates the Constitution and the federal government, and eight states, including the District of Columbia, oppose the settlement. Even the $4.3 billion the Sacklers must pay is a cold comfort, as their net worth is believed to be around $11 billion. It is likely they would be able to pay the $4.3 billion over the nine years allowed by the settlement from interest alone.

Clearly, the government has criminalized the wrong people in the war on drugs. Users who fell prey to predatory drug companies have been incarcerated, while the billionaires who led those companies get to keep their billions. This cannot stand. As reported in the Daily last week, the Somerville City Council has proposed a restitution fund for residents who have been harmed by the war on drugs. The DOJ also moved to block the Purdue Pharma settlement.

Other local and state governments, as well as the federal government, should follow Somervilles example and offer restitution to those whose lives have been taken or destroyed by the war on drugs. They must ensure that we do not let the Sackler family get away with the pain and destruction that they have caused for countless American families and communities.

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In the war on drugs, the US has incarcerated the wrong perpetrators - Tufts Daily

On a shelf in the VICE News Washington DC bureau, theres a glass bong signed by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer after he proposed federally decriminalizing marijuana in 2018.

At the time, Schumer declined to rip the bong himself, saying, maybe Im a little old. But he pledged to support lifting the criminal penalty for others who might want to give it a go.

Three years later, Schumers still struggling to get the Senate to follow his lead.

Instead, hes yet another politician to publicly admit the war on drugs has been a misguided debacle and to show just how hard it will be to stop.

The war on drugs has really been a war on people, particularly people of color, Schumer said this summer. I will use my clout as majority leader to make this a priority in the Senate.

Recent indications suggest he hasnt yet been able to get all Democratic Senators on board with legalizing weed, let alone the 10 Republicans hed need to smash through a filibuster.

Never mind that the drug war has cost over $1 trillion and filled Americas courts and prisons with petty offenders, without achieving its ends.

Drug production and use are both up. Colombian cocaine production has soared to record highs in recent years. So have deaths from drug overdoses in the U.S., which rose above 93,000 in 2020.

In some terrifyingly important ways, the war on drugs is raging as strong as ever. Police still make over a million arrests per year for drug possession. The drug war still has wartime funding: The national drug control budget is set to hit a historic $41 billion in 2022, an increase of over 1,000 percent in four decades. That doesnt include $182 billion the U.S. spends every year on mass incarceration, when one in five prisoners is locked up on a drug offense.

In 2019, more than half a million people were arrested for possession of marijuana, more than the number of people arrested for violent crime.

Statistics like these run at odds with the recent trend of loosening cannabis laws at the state level. So far, 36 states allow medicinal marijuana, and 18 states plus DC allow for full-on recreational use.

A few places are going beyond weed. In February, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, LSD, oxycodone, and other drugs handing out $100 fines or a health assessment that could lead to addiction counseling. And since March, Washington, D.C. has decriminalized plant-and-fungus based psychedelics like magic mushrooms and ayahuasca.

In Vancouver, vigilantes are handing out tested supplies of heroin, cocaine and meth, defying the law in an attempt to stop overdoses.

Yet consider how the U.S. has reacted to the rise of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 100 times stronger than morphine thats led to a deadly wave of accidental overdoses.

According to the CDC, opioids were involved in more than 70 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2019. And 73 percent of those opioid-involved deaths were from synthetic opioids.

Since 2011, 45 states have proposed legislation to increase penalties for fentanyl. Thirty-nine of those states, plus DC, have actually passed it.

In May, President Joe Biden signed an order extending a ban on chemical substances that look and act like fentanyl, called analogues even though Democratic Senators and a wide range of activist groups urged him not to, saying hed just be prolonging the failed war.

And even in California, a state leading the way on loosening cannabis restrictions, weed remains illegal for a special class of people: prisoners.

Five men convicted of having marijuana in prison in California went to court to point out that the state voted to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of cannabis in 2016.

In August, Californias supreme court ruled against them.

Meanwhile, politicians seem to sense they wont be punished by voters for failure to act to end the war on drugs.

The majority of states that now allow recreational use of marijuana got there through public referendums, rather than through leadership at the top. The public, oddly, has signalled that it will vote both to decriminalize cannabis and to support politicians who arent ready to go there yet themselves.

Or, as former President Barack Obama put it: Nobody ever lost an election because they were too tough on crime.

The upshot is that 50 years after former President Richard Nixon declared the official start to the War on Drugs during a speech in the summer of 1971, there seems to be little hope of the war ending anytime soon.

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How Drugs Won the War on Drugs - VICE

THE announcement last week that drug possession in Scotland is to be effectively decriminalised is a step towards a saner and more compassionate drug policy. However, the key to success with this approach will be research, education, and vigilance. In this vein, Scotland can and should take lessons from locations that have already taken these steps, such as Baltimore, USA.

Baltimore, synonymous with hit TV show The Wire and once called ground zero for the failed war on drugs, embarked on a new approach to drug use in March 2020. The States Attorney Marilyn Mosby (below) made the decision to stop prosecuting a range of low-level offenses, including drug possession and sex work.

READ MORE:Warnings for Class A drugs is good step but there's still more to do

This decision was mirrored 18 months later when the Scottish Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain QC, told parliament that police should use recorded warnings in drug possession cases.

In Baltimore, the States Attorneys Office recognised that research, education, and vigilance were key to making the new policy a success. First, despite this being a decision that was unilaterally taken by the prosecutors office, the States Attorney engaged leadership in the Baltimore Police Department and the mayors office to get feedback and support on the initiative. The result was a united front in support of the new approach from the citys key stakeholders. The police commissioner has encouraged officers to use their discretion to stop making arrests, and the mayor has spoken of the need to stop criminalising poor black people in the city.

The States Attorneys Office did not just rely on police leadership to educate law enforcement about the new change and ensure implementation. Police have had many questions about the new approach, and prosecutors have led education efforts, including presenting at roll call at each station, to speak to rank-and-file officers, hear their concerns, and talk through challenges. The office has also monitored the data to ensure that police and prosecutors are following through on the commitments made. Such education and oversight will be needed for the Lord Advocate to make certain that police are not paying lip service to the new approach.

One of the biggest challenges was what to do about prior cases involving drug possession. The Lord Advocate will face a similar dilemma. The policy change is prospective, but questions will arise about retroactivity. In other words, how should the Crown Office deal with pending cases for drug possession, warrants for drug possession cases, and people on probation for these offenses. In Baltimore, the principle has been one of broad retroactivity. If someone would have benefited from the policy prior to its introduction, then that person had their pending case or warrant dismissed. It would seem inherently unfair to approach the issue any other way.

READ MORE:Scots carrying Class A drugs may be given 'warning' in radical new policing plans

It is also important to educate members of the public about what the new approach means for them. In community meetings, we have heard concerns that the new strategy will lead to an uptick in public drug use or drug selling, and it is important to have answers for a wary public. A public that has spent a lifetime calling police on drug users will need to be educated on what alternative strategies are out there. In Baltimore, we forged partnerships to give people an alternative to calling 911.

We also worked with researchers from the Johns Hopkins University who found that the vast majority of those not prosecuted for drug possession did not go on to commit more serious offenses, showing that there was no public safety value in incarceration.

It is also crucial to build partnerships with harm reduction and drug treatment organisations. Whether we like it or not, the criminal justice system has played a significant role in the lives of people who use drugs. Its removal should be supplanted by public health collaborations. It goes without saying that the resources hitherto spent on the arrest and prosecution of drug users should be redirected to such services.

Drug users themselves should also be educated about the policy, especially given that they are its intended beneficiary. There is much mistrust between police and the drug user community, in part because of pervasive and damaging police practices. The recent Drug Deaths Task Force report recommended that the Scottish Government explore introducing tolerance zones, where police agree not to make active patrols or use stop-and-frisk powers.

To go one step further, it is embarrassing that a progressive government would allow stop-and-frisk an outdated and discredited policing tactic on anyone.

Similarly, the culture around dehumanising drug users must be addressed. Nicola Sturgeon admitted that her government had taken its eye off the ball on drug deaths, and it is no stretch to say that this happened because drug users are often working class, and overdoses often impact the poor and marginalised those society would rather ignore and forget.

The SNP having positioned itself as a champion of the working class should campaign to rid Scotland of the stigmatising attitudes towards drug use that can be so deadly.

Scotland has taken a bold step to stem the tide of drug deaths. The Government took its eye off the ball once; it cannot afford to do so again.

Michael Collins, originally from Glasgow, is the strategic policy and planning director for Baltimore Citys States Attorney. He was formerly director of national affairs at Drug Policy Alliance in Washington DC

Originally posted here:

What Scotland can learn from the US 'ground zero' for failed war on drugs - The National

DAVAO CITY The mother of Bree Jonson has made an appeal to President Rodrigo Duterte through daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte to look into their celebrated case.

Salome Sally Jonson believes the present government has every reason to check on their case, noting that the president has long been known to have taken a tough stance against illegal drugs.

As Brees remains lay in state here, Mayor Duterte stated on her local radio program that any resident of the city can avail of the funeral assistance from the Lingap Para sa Mahirap program.

While Sally expressed her appreciation on the offer, the distraught mother wanted a more significant form of assistance.

We dont need any form of assistance. But please tell Mayor Sara to tell her father to do something on Julian Ongpin because this is not just our fight, this is also his fight, the war on drugs, said Sally who is based in Canada but traces her roots here.

Bree was laid to rest Wednesday afternoon, September 29, 11 days after she was found unconscious by police inside a hostel room in San Juan, La Union that she occupied with Julian Roberto Ongpin.

She was taken to a hospital but was declared dead. Ongpin is the son of businessman and former trade minister Roberto Ongpin. He was ordered released by the prosecutors. Reports said that 12.6 grams of cocaine were found inside their hostel room.

In one of his Palace virtual pressers, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque was asked if Duterte was aware of the circumstances surrounding the death of the 30-year-old Jonson.

Yes and he has instructed the criminal justice system of the country to accord the victim justice, Roque said.

Meantime, Sally chided anew the Philippine National Police (PNP) with the way it is handling the case of the late visual artist.

Sally claimed that the police are allegedly not acting on their filing of a motion for reconsideration on the release of Ongpin.

The elder Jonson said their family handed the motion for reconsideration to a senior police officer a few days ago.

Its so frustrating, she lamented in an interview with local reporters.

During the burial, the Sally bade an emotional farewell to her only daughter before her casket was lowered at the Davao Memorial Park around 4 p.m. Wednesday.

I will miss your voice, your face Trixie, cried the elder Jonson beside the casket as family members and friends gathered from a distance.

The late artists family and close friends fondly call her Trixie, whose real name is Breanna Patricia Jonson Agunod.

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Brees mom appeals to PRRD, This is also his fight, the war on drugs - Manila Bulletin

Back in the 1970s and 80s, when there was talk of expanding Logan Airport to the detriment of residents in the communities of Winthrop, Revere, Chelsea, and South Boston, among others, then-State Senator William Bulger of So. Boston suggested constructing a second major airport for the Boston metro area in the town of Dover, the upper-class suburb west of Boston.

Bulger knew that his idea would never fly (pun intended), but the point he was making was this: Residents of low-income communities should not have to be the only ones to bear the burden of the noise and air pollution from Logan Airport.

Similarly, we view the ongoing controversy regarding the growing problem of homeless and drug-addicted persons at the Mass. and Cass intersection in the same light. The extraordinary statement released last week by Revere Mayor Brian Arrigo in response to the suggestion that a hotel in Revere be converted into a homeless shelter and treatment facility highlights the unequal burden being placed upon the communities of the immediate Metro Boston area of dealing with the scourge of drug addiction, which goes hand-in-hand with homelessness

As Mayor Arrigos statement points out, this is not NIMBY-ism. Revere and Boston already shoulder a huge share of the burden. But he states quite frankly and truthfully that the problem is a regional one and requires a regional solution. Indeed, it has been reported that 70 percent of those who live on Bostons streets are not Boston residents.

However, we think that truly solving the problems of drug addiction and homelessness has to be even more systemic in order to address their root cause.

First and foremost, we must end the war on drugs. The best evidence that our Forever War on Drugs (now more than 50 years old) has been a total failure is this: In 2020, there were more than 93,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States, a number that shattered the previous record. The U.S. now has one of the highest rates of drug-related deaths in the world. Indeed, it is fair to say that it is the War on Drugs itself that is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.

Massachusetts spends about $60,000 per inmate per year in our prisons. For those whose sole crime was simple possession of a drug or a failed urine test with a Probation Officer, incarceration is merely a revolving door that accomplishes nothing, either for the individual or society, at a great financial cost to all of us.

We call upon our states political leaders to show a little bit just a bit of courage in order to enact legislation similar to what the voters in Oregon approved in 2020 when they decriminalized the possession of all drugs.

Second, the state should establish clean injection sites with appropriate mental and physical health capabilities. Portugal has been doing this for 20 years and has by far the lowest rate of drug-overdose deaths in Europe at six per million of its population. By contrast, Scotland has a rate of 335 drug-related deaths per million for persons ages 15-64 which is about the same rate as we have here in the U.S. and which is 15 times greater than the rate for the rest of the nations in Europe (and exponentially more than Portugals).

Clean injection sites in Portugal (and Switzerland) provide addicts with drugs that are not dangerously-laced with fentanyl or other substances, while also offering services for their physical and mental health. In addition, safe injection sites avoid the problem of dirty needles, which still ranks as one of the chief causes for the transmission of AIDS and other serious diseases which, by the way, seep into our population as a whole.

There presently are bills pending before the legislature to establish clean injection sites and we call upon our legislature to pass this legislation expeditiously.

Third, we need to get creative in order to build affordable housing for those who presently live on the streets. Our present policy of doing next to nothing for the homeless is a tragedy that is played out every day at Mass. and Cass.

There will be a large cost at the outset for any housing program for the homeless. But in the long run, there will be huge savings of tax dollars when we abandon our present failed model of arrest-prosecution-incarceration, as well as finally making progress in addressing the problem of substance abuse that afflicts so many.

Oh, and we also suggest that our state officials look into placing drug-treatment and homeless shelters in hotels and other potential sites in the areas of our wealthy suburbs, such as Dover, Wellesley, Weston, etc., so that those communities can do their part to solve the twin crises of drug addiction and homelessness in our state.

The rest is here:

Lets Build a Drug Treatment and Homeless Facility in Dover - Winthrop Transcript