Daily Archives: August 2, 2023

On Monday Mayor Bruce Harrell shared what could become Seattles new drug ordinance, which includes increased funding for treatment services and a request for the Seattle Police Department to direct cops to pick diversion over jail in most cases where they catch someone carrying drugs or using in public. However, people who criticized a similar bill in June remain wary of the Mayors plan to address the opioid crisis using the criminal legal system, and the people who wanted to see a drug war reboot didnt say anything bad about the bill.

Public Safety Committee Chair Lisa Herbold said she planned to hear the bill in her committee before the council recesses on August 21.

Harrell said hed issue an executive order next week with more guidance on how SPD should apply the law, including a way to decide when drug possession requires an arrest, as well as how the City plans to measure success in responding to public drug use. If cops do arrest somebody under the state's new gross misdemeanor statute, then the City wants cops to say why.

The order and the new law both come out of a workgroup Harrell created in the aftermath of a June council meeting, during which the Council declined to pass an ordinance allowing Republican City Attorney Ann Davison to prosecute people for drug possession and public drug use.

Up until 2021, the King County Prosecuting Attorney handled drug possession cases under the state felony law. That year, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that law unconstitutional in State v. Blake. For next two years, the state operated under a temporary stopgap measure that effectively decriminalized drug possession. In a May special session, the Washington State Legislature passed a new law that made drug possession and public drug use a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail for a first or second offense and 364 days for any additional offenses.

In June, Council Members Sara Nelson and Alex Pedersen sponsored an ordinance to adopt that new state law. Council Member Andrew Lewis cast the deciding no vote at that meeting, saying he wanted a full understanding of how the City planned to handle drug possession cases and therapeutic courts. This bill doesn't give him those courts, but over the phone Monday Lewis said his time on the Mayors workgroup assured him the City intends to front-load treatment rather than send people to jail.

The new proposed ordinance Lewis plans to cosponsor includes a promise of $27 million in funding for addiction treatment facilities and programs, with $7 million coming this year from capital funding. The City plans to direct the money toward post-overdose care, opioid secession medication delivery, health hub services, long-term addiction care, and drop-in support, according to a release from the Mayors office.

The Mayors office expects to share more details about those services after providers go through a competitive bidding process for that funding. The remaining $20 million comes from opioid lawsuit settlements and goes toward continuing to expand these programs in the long term. The lawsuit settlements spread out that money over 18 years and equates to about $1.14 million per year, according to the Mayors office.

The organizations that opposed the bill in June remain critical of the Mayors proposal, despite giving some begrudging kudos to the Mayor for finding additional treatment funding. King County Public Defenders Union President Molly Gilbert wanted to empower Seattle Municipal Court judges to divert cases when cops arrest someone, but instead the bill leaves all the power to dismiss charges in the hands of the City Attorney.

The ACLU of Washingtons Smart Justice Policy Program Director Jazmyn Clark said the proposal still echoes War on Drugs policies by relying on the criminal legal system to connect people with these services.

Leading with criminal sanctions are, and always have been, rooted in public shaming and do little to save lives, Clark said.

No critique came from the people who supported the original bill in June. Seattle Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rachel Smith issued a statement encouraging the Council to pass the bill.

In an emailed statement Monday, Nelson basically said the bill does what she wants by making public drug use and drug possession a gross misdemeanor with the goalnot the requirementof diverting people into treatment.

At the same time, Purpose Dignity Action Co-director Lisa Daugaard, who sat on the Mayors task force and also co-founded LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion), a framework that encourages cops to divert people prior to arrest, said people shouldnt dismiss the significance of Harrells coming executive order, as it would put on record that the he wants pre-arrest diversion in most drug possession and public use cases.

Editor's note: This story was fixed to reflect that the Council has not yet set a date to hear the drug ordinance in committee.

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Mayor Bruce Harrell Shares His New Pitch for the War on Drugs - The Stranger

I have expunged more than 800,000 low-level cannabis arrest records We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to lift up communities most harmed by the failed war on drugs.

By Andrew Hensel, The Center Square

A law now on the books in Illinois looks to make it easier for individuals who have been released from prison to smoothly reenter society.

Senate Bill 423 supports the reintegration of individuals into the community while aiming to lower the possibility of recidivism and increasing public safety.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed the measure into law on Friday.

In just a few minutes, I am going to sign legislation that focuses our mandatory supervised release system on creating successful outcomes for those who were formerly incarcerated and improves the safety and peace of our communities, Pritzker said.

According to the latest data from the Illinois Department of Corrections, Illinois has 29,672 people incarcerated. Thats down from 36,910 in March 2020.

The law Pritzker signed Friday is intended to help individuals who have been affected by the war on drugs.

I have expunged more than 800,000 low-level cannabis arrest records on top of pardoning an additional 26,000 people who committed nonviolent offenses, Pritzker said. Illinois has reduced our prison population by more than 26 percent in the last four years. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to lift up communities most harmed by the failed war on drugs.

A news release said the measure, which goes into effect January 1, 2024, aims to promote public safety and community success by implementing criminal justice reforms the governors office said include improving education credits while streamlining early termination processes and increasing government transparency by standardizing review timelines and encouraging officers to recommend early termination.

The law will also provide an individualized approach to each persons unique circumstances, focusing on addressing the root causes of crime and enhancing public safety, the governors office said. The measure also limits what the governors office said is unnecessary drug testing and expands virtual reporting permanently for remote check-ins for all forms of supervision.

Ive always said, Im open to commonsense, bipartisan criminal justice reform which offers people a second chance as long as we maintain accountability, state Rep. Mike Marron, R-Fithian, told The Center Square. I think this bill actually meets that standard and had broad bipartisan support. I agree with the governor on this one and just wish he would follow this way of bipartisan policy-making more often.

This story was first published by The Center Square.

Lawmakers Vote To End Pre-Employment Marijuana Testing For Most Government Jobs In U.S. Territory

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Illinois Governor Signs Supervised Release Bill To Help Drug War ... - Marijuana Moment

Tens of thousands of Minnesotans are getting past drug crimes wiped from public record, thanks to the same law that legalized recreational cannabis on Tuesday.

Low-level marijuana convictions are being automatically expunged by law enforcement, and higher-level sentences will be reviewed by a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension-led expungement board.

Elizer Darris community leader, business owner and motivational speaker was a guest on Morning Edition. As a juvenile, he spent time in prison but later had his life sentence reversed on appeal. Since then, hes worked to end mass incarceration in Minnesota and around the country.

I advocate for any laws, policies, or any movements that would be criminalized and that would allow people the opportunity to step into day-to-day life without being chained down, Darris said. Because of that, I recognize the impacts that the War on Drugs have within my community and advocate in order to help to reverse some of those harms.

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Elizer Darris

Darris Group, LLC

Black Minnesotans are 5.4 times for more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than their white counterparts, despite similar rates of use, according to data from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Darris says the legalization of marijuana for recreational use is a step toward equity, but says more action is needed to right past wrongs.

Clearly, we need to continue to go further, Darris said. The very mechanism that many businesses, corporations and individuals are about to find their wealth with, its the same mechanism that very strategically perniciously wreaked havoc within our community.

Many convictions mean exclusion from federal benefits, like Pell Grants for secondary education.

Were talking about the ability to go to college to advance your life. And as many of you who would have applied for that type of assistance to go to college would have read right on the application itself. It says if you have a drug conviction, do not apply, Darris said.

Also under consideration: The difficulty of landing a job due to background checks.

Darris says this is particularly important when former drug users are unable to be hired or barred from licensure to help people struggling with substance abuse, despite probably [being] in the best position to help others escape the throes of addiction.

Before Aug. 1, the onus was on the individual to get marijuana convictions expunged, which took several months and carried a financial burden. Darris called the new automatic expungement outstanding as it shifts that responsibility to the government.

Hes advocating for some resources and tax revenue that will emerge from the business of marijuana to go toward restorative justice programs and investments in minority communities most impacted by the War on Drugs.

Attempting to write some of these wrongs is a step in the right direction, Darris said. Its not far enough.

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Activist: Automatically expunging cannabis convictions is step ... - MPR News

Lenny Woodley is a substance abuse counselor and recovered crack addict who started using when she was a young teen. Shawn McCray is a former crack dealer who came of age at a time when a kid from Newark could make more money selling drugs than from a college degree. Elgin Swift found himself selling crack after his dad got addicted and left him to fend for himself. Kurt Schmoke was the mayor of Baltimore during much of the epidemic, advocating for a public health approach when everyone else in power called for tougher policing.

I talked to Ramsey about lessons we can take from the systemic failures of the crack era and how community care is at the center of preventing future drug epidemics.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Alex LaSalvia: Can you describe the perfect storm of conditions that created the crack epidemic?

Donovan X. Ramsey: First you have, on the substance level, young people. I was able to discover a group of students in the Bay Area who were cocaine enthusiasts in the 70s, who experimented with that substance and came up with the formula for freebase cocaine. That is a chemistry term for separating the base of the compound from its other elements, which is scientific and complex, but basically it makes cocaine smokeable, but also super accessible.

You also have, at the same time, a glut of cocaine being shipped into the United States, trafficked from South and Central America. And thats really going uninterrupted by the U.S. government, which was more focused on a war on drugs that targeted users and dealers at home.

But then I would also say that you had really tremendous disaffection across the country, especially in Black and Latino communities in big cities. There was a feeling of hopelessness and real despair about some of the failures of the civil rights movement and not clear direction on where we would go next. So I think that its those things: Its a lot of cocaine in the U.S.; the scientific innovation that created freebase, or crack cocaine; and then also this tremendous desire among people to check out, to escape using the substance.

How did you decide to structure the book episodically around these core characters?

The structure of the book really is a reflection of how the story of the crack epidemic played out. You have the meta history of cracks rise and fall from beginning to end, and then you also have the way that crack touched the lives of these individuals.

It was really important for me to go to history that was both official, but also personal. The four people that I ultimately included in the book, it was after a long process, a year of traveling the country trying to find people who are representative of different experiences of the crack epidemic. So there is a former user, a former dealer, a former mayor, and the son of a user who became a dealer. It seemed to me that those four different experiences would create the most complete picture of how the crack epidemic came and went.

Lenny tells you she feels like decades of her life during her addiction are simply inaccessible to her now. Do you think this sense of lost time is true more broadly for communities who were impacted by the crack epidemic?

I think so. One thing we know about trauma is that it can affect the memory on the individual level. There are a lot of people who, individually, have lost years because of either the trauma of addiction, the violence that accompanied the drug trade, or the police violence that was a response to it.

But also, on a social level, a part of the reason why the crack epidemic is misunderstood is because we try not to think about it. We havent done the work of turning memory into history. And thats a part of what I hope this book does: it takes these four people, who are in many ways representative of different experiences within the crack epidemic, and it tries to turn their memories into a proper history. Otherwise that moment is lost, and theres no opportunity to learn from it.

Do you think the government and society learned lessons from the crack epidemic, especially in the more recent response to the opioid epidemic?

The average person has more empathy for drug addicts. And I think that is a part of just increased understanding of addiction, and also the fact that the vast majority of the folks impacted by opioids today are White. Our country tends to humanize things once theyre in White bodies, and addiction is no different.

Now that Black and Latino men are leading in overdose deaths because of fentanyl, I am again concerned whether or not those feelings will harden, that people will go back to having less empathy for addicts.

I dont think we are smarter as it relates to policy. I could point to something like the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine, and although it was reduced from 100-to-1 which was the original law under the Reagan administration, and it continued on until 2010, when former President Barack Obama reduced it to 18-to-1 I would say the fact that theres still a disparity in sentencing between these identical substances shows that we havent learned our lesson, that we are still holding on to some of that crack era mythology and fear that ultimately created that that policy.

Also, when I look around at the response to harm reduction policies as it relates to opioids and fentanyl in particular, people are creating a level of panic and hysteria around fentanyl that is causing them to turn away from really smart harm reduction policies. And thats a shame.

The face of this more recent epidemic has been largely White and rural, although that is changing.

Yes, it is. And that makes me more concerned about what the future is of our drug policy because there was some hope with the fact that fentanyl was impacting the most valued Americans. Now that Black and Latino men are leading in overdose deaths because of fentanyl, I am again concerned whether or not those feelings will harden, that people will go back to having less empathy for addicts, and if we then will turn back to those hard-on-drugs, tough-on-crime policies.

How would you say the tough-on-crime policies and the war on drugs have distorted our views of how to actually make our communities safer?

I think back to my experience growing up in a neighborhood that was hard hit by crack the so-called high-crime neighborhood. I remember being a kid and being afraid of the violence, the random violence in my neighborhood. I remember being sad about the people that were clearly drug addicted and being afraid of having our house broken into, but I was also afraid of the police. All of those things were traumatizing forces in my growing up.

The system we have now this incredibly broken system of policing, in particular is a result of the crack epidemic. Policies like stop-and-frisk are about finding drugs or guns on peoples bodies. Broken windows policing, this idea that you can interrupt small crimes as a way of ultimately stopping bigger crimes, the bigger crimes theyre ultimately afraid of were ones related to the drug trade.

Our criminal justice system ballooned during that period because we created policies like mandatory minimum sentences that not only put people in jail, but kept people in jail for really long periods of time. We as a nation decided our best option was to warehouse people during the crack epidemic. Instead of trying to eliminate the causes of the crack epidemic, we said, Lets just lock people up for as long as possible. And the fact that the crack epidemic ended, not because of that but because of the choices individuals made, I think gives people the wrong idea that it worked.

Could you go into what you found to be the real reasons the crack epidemic ended?

The Bureau of Justice Statistics did a lot of studies in the early 90s to actually look at why the crack epidemic ended. What they concluded was that it was simply the choices made by the next cohort of young people, people 18 to 25, who would be experimenting with drugs decided not to pick up not only crack, but no hard drugs. Rates of hard drug use for Black and Latino youth completely plummeted in the early 90s. And it was because of the devastation they saw firsthand.

I want to underline that we have Black and Latino people to thank for ending the crack epidemic in our big cities. And we didnt celebrate that. We didnt applaud that in the same way that those folks were demonized. What that goes to show is that these things are trends, that they come and that they go, and that they come because of all the factors weve discussed, the social conditions that make them popular for a time. What that suggests to me is that harm reduction is so important because our goal should be to keep people alive, to keep communities safe long enough for the storm to pass.

Some people are adamant that the crack epidemic was orchestrated by the U.S. government to disrupt communities of color. Others call that a conspiracy theory. What did you find? Was the government at least complicit in the spread of drugs?

I want to point out that I did not find the smoking gun, and I looked very hard for it. When you are talking about this kind of thing, its important to make distinctions because it is a big thing to accuse the U.S. government of intentionally creating the crack epidemic. I didnt find any evidence of that.

But what I did find evidence of was federal agencies the CIA, the FBI that turned their head the other way again and again when there was evidence that there were large amounts of cocaine being trafficked into the U.S. by groups that we were friendly with namely, the Contras, the Nicaraguan rebels that were attempting to overthrow the government there. That is something that we supported, that we were not able to support with funding, because Congress would not allow that.

So it seems as though we allowed them to fundraise by trafficking cocaine into the U.S. These were actions that were known to those three-letter agencies like the FBI, the CIA, that were interrupted. I dont have to characterize that most people can look at a situation like that and draw their own conclusions.

It is remarkable to see the U.S. government turning a blind eye to trafficking of cocaine into the U.S. at the same time that it is criminalizing the use of cocaine in the U.S., and to really drastic consequences for communities of color.

You mentioned at the end of your book this fear you got after writing this book that the next drug epidemic could be right around the corner at any time. Where does that fear come from?

After reporting the book and getting an idea of the factors that facilitated the crack epidemic, it was clear to me that we had not done enough as a nation to shore up the social forces the poverty, the terrible housing, the political disenfranchisement that make people feel hopeless. That is something that continues to exist in communities all across the country today.

Our idea is that we want people to just stop, but I think that we have to think hard about how we can keep people alive long enough for them to stop.

I was also very disappointed that our response hadnt gotten better, that we did not, as a result of the crack epidemic, create healthier systems for dealing with people who have addiction. Today, for example, if you saw somebody standing on the street who was leaning and completely out of it because they were high on maybe an opioid, who could you call besides the police? For me, its a shame we went through that big devastating time and our options are still the same.

And Ive had that experience. When I started writing this book, I was living in Brooklyn. I had a neighbor, a man that lived on the street, who was clearly high and having a moment, and I called 911. I called 311, [but] 311 told me to call back 911, and I didnt want to criminalize that man, but there was nothing I could do. There was nothing in place, at least on a social level, that I could do.

What that meant was I had to leverage community care, the thing that actually saved us and kept us alive. It meant going over to him and saying, Sir, are you OK? Have a seat. Let me get you some water. You know, trying to actually care for him on an individual level. But on a social level, we havent gotten any better at that.

What can we do now to shore up that community care to make our communities more resilient to new threats of drug epidemics?

I want to see more investment in community organizations that are actually doing the work, that people trust and look to, that are embedded within communities and know the people who need help: churches, activist organizations, hospitals, individual hospital systems that help people into recovery. Its super important to look at whos already doing it, and thats where we put our resources.

I would also like to see more investment in harm reduction programs around the country that do things like distribute Narcan, the life-saving drug that interrupts overdose. Fentanyl test strips, [because] a lot of the fentanyl that is causing overdoses is laced. Other drugs are laced with fentanyl because its super cheap, and its a way of taking something like powder cocaine and stretching it [by putting] little bit of fentanyl in there. People should be testing drugs.

I want to see distribution of clean syringes that keep people from contracting diseases like HIV AIDS while theyre doing intravenous drug use. This is not something we like to talk about in this country, that people are going to do drugs. Our idea is that we want people to just stop, but we have to think hard about how we can keep people alive long enough for them to stop.

Harm reduction programs should go hand-in-hand with recovery programs that our hospital systems should be funded for and trained to see patterns of drug abuse to actually be able to disrupt them and funnel people into treatment. Those two things together create a system where you keep people alive long enough for them to get treatment, and then you give them treatment. And if they relapse and go back into drug use or drug abuse, you can keep them alive long enough for them to get treatment. Its a cycle that has to be interrupted, and we havent created the space to interrupt it.

There are people who want to decriminalize drugs, and I think hard about that because I am so afraid of a potential increase in overdose deaths, if drugs are readily available. That is a big goal we can work toward once those other policies are in place.

Donovan X. Ramseys book, When Crack Was King, is available now wherever books are sold.

Alex LaSalvia is the Digital Producer for The Emancipator. He can be reached at alexla@bu.edu.

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What the crack epidemic reveals about America - The Boston Globe

30 July 2023, 13:35 | Updated: 30 July 2023, 21:48

Sir Richard Branson, speaking to Andrew Castle, said that politicians dont have the courage to speak out and admit drug policy failings and that reform should focus on an acceptance that millions of people do drugs.

Following the Global Commission on Drugs Policy calling for a renewed approach to decriminalising drugs, the British businessman told Andrew Castle, I have watched the war on drugs for 60 years, I have seen that it's been an abject failure.

He continued: I have lost friends to drugs, I have friends that have lost kids to drugs and nations have continued with this failed war on drugs when there obviously needs to be a change of direction.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, of which Sir Richard is a commissioner, consists of 20 ex-presidents and statesman including people like Kofi Annan who used to be secretary general of the United Nations and they felt absolutely convinced that the war on drugs was one of the biggest travesties of our time and that there needed to be a radical change in direction.

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Speaking of some of the studies by the group, Sir Richard said: They were clear that we cant just carry on the way we are it is the biggest regret of my life that we have not seen more radical change."

Lewis and caller Graham unpack complexities of legalising drugs

Speaking about the current international situation the Virgin Group founder said: There are more illicit drugs than ever before, the entire market is dominated by criminal organisations that dont care about people's health or safety.

Explaining the radical change hed like to see in drug policy he asked the question: If you had a child that had a drug problem would you want to call up the police and have them put in prison or given a criminal record or would you want them to be helped? I think most people would want them to be helped.

I think the same applies to politicians, they dont have the courage to speak out about it and they dont have the courage to do it.

He concluded: The situation is at the moment, there are millions of people that do take drugs, at festivals the majority of people are on ecstasy tablets, testing would avoid the horror stories and mean that parents could sleep easy at night.

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'The war on drugs has failed: Sir Richard Branson tells LBC there ... - LBC

Mexico has been one of Americas closest allies for years under both Democratic and Republican administrations, even Donald Trumps.

That may be changing. Republican officials and voters have not only expressed criticisms of Mexico but also outright hostility against Americas southern neighbor.

The starkest example involves repeated calls by Republican presidential candidates to bomb Mexico or unilaterally send troops there to stop the illegal drug trade, which would be an act of war.

Trump led the way: He asked defense officials about striking Mexico with missiles while he was president, and during the 2024 presidential campaign he has supported military action. Ron DeSantis has called for using deadly force and a naval blockade of Mexican ports to stop drug traffickers. More moderate candidates, like Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, have also backed using the military against drug cartels in Mexico.

You know what you tell the Mexican president? Either you do it or we do it, Haley said in March. But we are not going to let all of this lawlessness continue to happen.

These calls havent become a major focus of national attention because the Republican campaign remains in its early stages. But as the campaign picks up including at the first debate, on Aug. 23 you will probably hear more about this issue.

Taking cues from Trumps 2016 campaign playbook and presidency, other Republicans have already translated his disparagement of Mexicans and other Latinos into policy, particularly on immigration. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott put razor wire, floating barriers and state troopers along the U.S.-Mexico border to deter people from coming into the country illegally. The federal government sued Texas last week to try to stop him.

What is going on? The posture represents a genuine shift within Republican politics. For most of the past few decades, Republicans have backed closer ties with Mexico. (The 1990s free trade deal, NAFTA, had bipartisan support.) And in the first days of Trumps presidency, most Republican voters said in polls that Mexico was an ally of the U.S. Now, Republican voters are evenly divided on whether Mexico is an ally or an enemy, as this chart shows:

Republicans often portray the idea of fully militarizing the war on drugs as an evolution in policy: treating Mexican cartels like ISIS or other terrorist groups. But unilaterally deploying the military to Mexico would be a significant escalation of U.S. policy.

I spoke to half a dozen drug policy and counterterrorism experts across the political spectrum. All of them criticized the approach as extreme, ineffective and self-destructive. In 35 years, this takes the prize as the stupidest idea I have ever heard, said Jonathan Caulkins at Carnegie Mellon University.

In addition to the likely humanitarian toll and the hit to U.S. standing in the world, any incursion into Mexico could worsen the same problems Republicans are trying to address. To the extent that the U.S. has succeeded in stemming illegal immigration and drugs in recent years, it has relied on Mexicos close cooperation. Both Trump and President Biden have worked with Mexican officials to stop South and Central Americans from traveling to the U.S. through Mexico.

Mexico would almost certainly stop collaborating if the U.S. sent troops or let missiles fly. Mexicos president, Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, has said that talk of sending the U.S. military south of the border is irresponsible and an offense to the people of Mexico, a lack of respect for our sovereignty.

Representatives of the Trump, DeSantis and Haley campaigns did not respond to questions about using the military against Mexican cartels. A spokeswoman for Scott restated his support for the idea, but didnt respond to questions about whether he would ask for Mexicos approval before deploying the military there.

Some of the language can be pinned on the presidential primaries, when politicians tend to take more extreme stances on all sorts of issues before moderating themselves in the general election. That could be happening here.

Politicians are also desperate to look as if they are doing something about illegal immigration and the drug overdose crisis, often with deceptive promises of quick fixes and decisive action. But enduring solutions to these problems have eluded the U.S. for years.

Losing a star: The Mets agreed to trade Max Scherzer to the Rangers.

Going to the Dodgers? Justin Verlander could be heading west before tomorrows trade deadline.

Firing back: Aaron Rodgers slammed the Denver head coach Sean Payton, saying his comments about the Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett were out of line.

Hold the shot, please: The word mocktail once sounded like a joke, underscoring the mild embarrassment that came with ordering a virgin mojito. But as more people cut back on alcohol, mocktails have become a regular, and often inventive, feature of bar menus.

Distillers have developed new nonalcoholic spirits to meet the demand. This guide highlights the best for making zero-proof cocktails at home.

Link:

An Enemy in Mexico - The New York Times

New Season from Sony Music Entertainment Reveals an Untold Tale of Betrayal, Power, and Corruption in the Streets of New Orleans

Subscribers toThe BingeCan Listen to All Episodes, All At Once Starting Today

New York, NY August 1, 2023 Sony Music Entertainment today premieredSmoke Screen: Betrayal on theBayou,the latest season of its hit investigative podcast series that delves into the captivating story of DEA Special Agent Chad Scott and the stunning turn of events that led to his imprisonment. Subscribers toThe Bingecan listen to all episodes, all at once today.

For almost two decades, Chad Scott ruled the streets just north of New Orleans, diligently working to put drug dealers behind bars while controlling a network of snitches through pressuring people he arrested to serve as informants. However, when one of Chads own team members is caught dealing drugs, his life takes an unexpected turn, as his trusted associates betray him and confess everything to the FBI.

Hosted by veteran reporters Jim Mustian (The Associated Press) and Faimon Roberts (The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate),Betrayal on theBayouhears Chad Scott break his silence for the first time, speaking out about the case that upended his 17-year DEA career and ultimately led him to the same fate as the countless drug dealers he investigated.

Drawing upon thousands of pages of government records, FBI interrogations, previously undisclosed materials, and exclusive interviews with friends and foes of Chad Scott, including drug dealers, federal agents, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and victims, this season exposes the flawed judgment and questionable tactics employed in the war on drugs. As the investigation unfolds, one central question looms: Is Chad Scott truly the greatest DEA Agent in the South, or is he a criminal?

Betrayal on theBayouoffers a firsthand look at ashocking story of corruption, misconduct, and, of course, betrayal said hosts Jim Mustian and Faimon Roberts. After seven years of reporting on this case, were absolutely committed to taking listeners right to the front lines of the drug war.

Betrayal on theBayouis executive produced by Jonathan Hirsch and produced by Odelia Rubin. It is edited by Catherine Saint Louis.

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Betrayal on the Bayou, a New Season of Hit Podcast Smoke Screen ... - Sony Music