Category Archives: War On Drugs

A look at the painkiller abuse that's now reached epidemic levels in the US, and could also be heading for Australia.

Americas war against opioids is being lost, and many people as well as authorities are deeply concerned. Picture: Brad Horrigan/The Hartford Courant

THE United States is experiencing a drug addiction crisis of rare proportions.

An estimated 2.6 million people are hooked on prescription opioid painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone, or on heroin and fentanyl, an extremely potent synthetic opioid.

The Straits Times reports that of the 2900 babies born last year in Cabell County, West Virginia, 500 had to be weaned off opioid dependence. So severe is the addiction in Ohio, that counties have been renting refrigerated trailers to store the mounting number of bodies of overdose victims.

The website reports that 33,000 people died from opioid overdose in the US last year, including 10 people last Friday in Florida where Donald Trump spends a lot of his spare time.

There are now 10 times the level of drug-related deaths than in 1971 when America first declared its war on drugs.

Michael Jackson became addicted to painkillers after being caught in an on-stage fire in 1984. Picture: AFP/Kevin MazurSource:AFP

Former heroin addict Courtney Love lost custody of her daughter in 2003 after claims she overdosed on painkiller OxyContin. Picture: AFP/Max NashSource:AFP

Veteran comic Jim Carrey was sued last year for allegedly procuring drugs under a bogus name for his ex-girlfriend, who died of an overdose. Picture: AFP/Justin TallisSource:AFP

Last week lawyer Paul Farrell filed a lawsuit for Cabell County, and neighbouring counties, seeking damages from drug companies for fuelling the addiction epidemic.

My community is dying on a daily basis, Mr Farrell told straitstimes.com.

Every sixth baby born locally suffers from neonatal abstinence syndrome, in which a mothers addiction is passed on to her child.

The hospital has to rock these babies 24 hours a day as they scream their way through addiction, he said.

What were asking for is not only to hold (the firms) responsible for blatantly violating federal and state laws, but also to fix the damage they caused, so that we stop creating another generation of addicts, he said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced a new plan to cut addiction, after the citys overdose death toll hit 1075 last year.

The pharmaceutical industry for years has encouraged the overuse of addictive painkillers, said Mr de Blasio.

The surge in deaths follows a shift in the nature of the crisis. After the Drug Enforcement Agency last year ordered a 25 per cent cutback in the distribution of prescription opioids, addicts turned to heroin. But that drug is frequently cut with fentanyl, which has caused even more overdoses.

Everybody is starting to see a slowdown of prescription opiates. As you see supply drop, what we are seeing is an equal rise in heroin, said Mr Farrell.

We are going to see an all-time-high transition to heroin abuse in the next five years.

Sue Kruczeks 20-year old son Nick died of an overdose. Several US states are considering legislation to create a non-opioid directive that patients can put in their medical files. Picture: Brad Horrigan/The Hartford CourantSource:AP

SOME KEY FACTS

How many Americans are addicted to opioids?

In 2015, an estimated two million Americans were addicted to prescription opioid painkillers, and 591,000 to heroin. But the tightening of supplies of prescription opioids has sent many opioid addicts moving to heroin. Heroin producers and dealers in turn are increasingly cutting their drug with fentanyl, which is so potent that a minuscule amount can turn a standard heroin dose deadly.

Four out of five heroin users started out addicted to prescription opioids. Picture: AP/Elaine ThompsonSource:AP

How are prescription drugs and heroin use linked?

Experts say four out of five US heroin users started with prescription opioids like oxycodone and hydrocodone. A new study ties the likelihood of addiction to the amount and strength of the opioid painkiller first prescribed by a doctor. Patients who are given a prescription lasting more than three days, or who get a second prescription, or who are prescribed longer-lasting painkillers, are significantly more likely to be using the drug a year later.

How many people are dying from opioid overdoses?

The latest US data show that in 2015, 33,091 people died from overdoses tied to prescription opioids, heroin and fentanyl. That was up 15.5 per cent from the previous year, and four times the number of deaths in 1999. Experts say the surge continued last year.

Prince died from an overdose of painkillers, according to reports. Picture: AFP/Robyn BeckSource:AFP

Which states have the highest levels of overdose deaths?

The national average for opioid overdose deaths in 2015 was 10 for every 100,000 people. In West Virginia, the figure was 41.5 per 100,000; New Hampshire, 34.3 per 100,000; Kentucky and Ohio, 29.9 per 100,000; and Rhode Island, 28.2 per 100,000. Nineteen of 50 states saw significant increases in overdose deaths that year.

Meantime, a new cholesterol-slashing drug that has shown promise for high-risk patients does not impair brain function, according to a study out Saturday.

Previous research had raised the possibility that evolocumab, sold under the brand name Repatha by Amgen, may have a damaging effect on memory and cognitive function.

Evolocumab is part of a new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs called PCSK9 inhibitors, which dramatically lower bad cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein (LDL).

The drug has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and death in patients who have severely clogged arteries or previous cardiac problems.

But it comes at a hefty price tag of more than $14,000 per year, raising concerns about how many patients could benefit.

Repatha cuts the chances of having a heart attack or some other serious problems by 15 to 20 per cent in a big study of people at high risk for those problems. Picture: Robert Dawson/AmgenSource:AP

Aiming to address questions about its cognitive effects, researchers at Brigham and Womens Hospital in collaboration with Brown University and the University of Geneva ran cognitive tests on nearly 2000 people enrolled in a two-year study of the drug.

Researchers assessed the executive function, working memory, episodic memory and psychomotor speed of patients at six, 12, and 24 months after starting treatment.

After an average of 19 months of treatment, our data show that changes in memory and cognitive function were very small and similar between patients treated with evolocumab and those treated with placebo, said Robert Giugliano, a cardiac doctor at BWH.

These data should reassure physicians and patients who may have had questions about the safety of this drug as it pertains to cognitive impairment. The research, funded by Amgen, was presented at the American College of Cardiology annual meeting in Washington.

Full results are expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming months.

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America's drug problem now 10 times worse than in 1971 the year it declared a war on drugs - NEWS.com.au

A second former senior Tasmania Police officer has thrown his support behind a national push for drug law reform.

YOUR SAY: Tasmanians react to a new report pushing for drug decriminalisation.

Another former Tasmania Police officer has thrown his support behind a national push for widespread drug law reform.

Former police commander Ivan Dean said it was time toaddress what he described asone of the biggest issues facing the country.

The current strategies arent working - we just need to take a very strong look at this whole thing and try and make changes that are contemporary, he said.

It would need to be a fairly widespread reform - there are some drugs we can never accept and never decriminalise, but there are areas in which we need a different perspective.

There oughtto be some sort of committee, in my view it needs to be a body of people with the background and the knowledge to be able to look at this issue very closely.

Mr Deans comments followthe launch of a new report pushing drug decriminalisation, which has been supported by senior police, prison officers and lawyers includingformer Tasmania Police Commissioner Jack Johnston.

The Australia 21 report, officially launched on Monday, recommends national change which wouldreduce criminal control of the drug market.

The report claims that Australias current war on drugs approach is flawed, and failing to achieve its intended results.

While law enforcement will always be important to managing illicit drug use the focus should not be on whether a user has taken or possesses these drugs for personal use but rather on associated criminal or antisocial behaviour, the report read.

Original post:

Tasmanians react to drug decriminalisation calls - Tasmania Examiner

In the last four years, Illinois, like many states, has been loosening its drug laws: legalizing medical marijuana, allowing universities to research industrial hemp, and decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana. At the same time, a surge in heroin and prescription drug abuse and overdoses has left ruined lives and death in communities across the United States. In the following Q&A, Ralph Weisheit, a Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice, talks about these trends and the peculiarities of American drug laws.

Weisheit has been researching illegal drugs and rural crime since the early 1980s. He is the author of eight books, including Domestic Marijuana (1992) and Methamphetamine: Its History, Pharmacology, and Treatment (2009). His recent scholarly work includes a new edition of the textbook Pursuing Justice (2015) and the research article Rural Crime: A Global Perspective, which was published last year in the International Journal of Rural Criminology.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What did you think about the legal expansion of medical and recreational marijuana across the country in the November election?

The election set the stage for an interesting clash between state and federal laws regarding marijuana. At the state level, both medical and recreational marijuana expanded dramatically. Voters in four states approved recreational marijuana, bringing the total to eight, covering 21 percent of the U.S. population. At the same time, voters in five states approved medical marijuana, bringing the total to 28 states covering 62 percent of the U.S. population. This is an unprecedented level of public support for access to marijuana.

At the federal level, the attorney general sets the tone for drug law enforcement, and the new attorney general (Jeff Sessions) has been a passionate opponent of any access to marijuana. Complicating matters is that a Republican Congress in the previous administration explicitly forbade the federal government from enforcing federal laws against marijuana when individuals were properly following state laws. Thus, the stage is set for a legal and ideological battle between states rights and federal authority. How that plays out remains to be seen.

A lot of people take one side or the other in the drug war debate. Has it been important to you to be impartial?

It has been enormously important to me. It depends on the drug, but in the case of marijuana, I really do have mixed feelings. I will say the current move toward legalizing marijuana is something I never would have dreamed of 10 or 15 years ago. This is not because I think marijuana is evil. I see good and bad. I just never would have thought that would happen, because we are in a time when people want to know whats in their food. They dont allow tobacco smoking within so many feet of a building. And it just never seemed consistent that you would then loosen up on something like marijuana, even if it was proper and deserved. I couldnt have been more wrong.

One of the things about studying the drug issue that makes it a challenge is that its an emotional issue. For some people, its up there with abortion, or the death penalty, or other things that people get very passionate about.

Why do you think marijuana laws have been changed the last few years?

I think some of it has to do with an aging population. A lot of the things that medical marijuana is useful for are things that people who are getting older can relate to. And aging is important in another way. Older people vote. But these older people were around in the 60s, and they saw marijuana and they heard government proclamations that it wasnt much different than other illegal drugs. And they thought, thats not quite right. Even if they werent using it, they saw it as different from other drugs.

Then, as medical marijuana goes in, people look and say, Gee, the sky is not falling. We havent had the end of times because medical marijuana has come to our state. Maybe it is not as bad as we thought and maybe we need to talk about changing how we view it. I think what you are finding on marijuana legalization is not so much a call to make it completely free and available, but a call for dramatically reduced penalties, particularly for small amounts. You are seeing a lot of support for that from around the country.

Where are we at in Illinois with medical marijuana? Its legal now. Are there placesfor people to get it? Do we have dispensaries all across the state?

We have dispensaries, but a few words about the Illinois law. It is probably one of the more restrictive in the nation. It literally costs multimillions of dollars just to get permission to grow, and it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up a dispensary.

And you might think thats going to be a problem for the people who want to do this. My experience has been that they are pleased that Illinois has such restrictions while possessing and distributing marijuana continues to be a federal crime, because the federal government is not going to step in as long as you are following state law. But if the state law is fuzzy as it is in California, the DEA (federal Drug Enforcement Administration) can more easily justify going in and arresting people.

The law is so strict in Illinois thatto get an ID to legally buy medicinalmarijuana is not only expensive, but you have to have a meaningful relationship with a doctor. You have to have a verylimited number of conditions for which you can get marijuana, and the amount you can possess is limited. In California there are no conditions. You can literally say that your toe hurts and it would feel better if I used marijuana, and a doctor who has never seen you before and who has done no thorough physical examination can say, OK.

In your book on marijuana, you note that Illinois was the eighth largest producer of marijuana in the country and Missouri was the top producer. It was a big Midwestern thing. Is that still who is producing marijuana?

No, the illegal production has changed dramatically. Its still an issue in the Midwest, but large-scale production is going on in California. In California it is not being done on a large scale by the burned out hippies who were doing it in the 90s. Now the largest operations are run by Mexican drug organizations that are using remote public lands, and they are bringing in crews just to do that.

Where is the marijuana coming from forthe medical marijuana here?

By law all legal medical marijuana inthe state must be cultivated in the state. The Illinois law is extremely detailed in terms of the circumstances under which cultivation can occur. There has to be 24-hour video surveillance of the facility that the state police can access remotely. There must be a rigorous security system in place.

The other interesting twist on thisin Illinois and other states where they have medical marijuana, is that one of the big employment opportunities for retired cops is to become security people for medical marijuana operations. In Illinois, for example, the former head of the state police is doing just such work. I think this would be an interesting group to talk to because they have spent their career fighting marijuana, and now they are getting paid handsomely to protect the operations.

Are Illinois farmers or anyone in the agriculture industry looking toward theday marijuana is legalized here?

Indoor nursery for the cultivation of medical marijuana.

I havent heard of farmers talking about that. Im sure there is interest in hemp because it is a plant that is easy to grow, will grow in a wide range of soil and climate conditions, and can be rotated with other crops. I know that farmers in the Dakotas are very interested in it because it is being grown as a hemp product across the border in Canada. The Dakota farmers are saying, Why cant we do that? They are making a lot of money growing this stuff.

And the industrial applications are really quite massive. Hemp oil can be used as a paint thinner or as a lubricant. It is used to make cloth. It is used to make rope. Its enormously useful for paper.It grows quickly, and for paper it would be much more practical as a renewable resource than trees.

(Editors note: Hemp is a term commonly used for a type of marijuana that has industrial applications and low levels of the psychoactive agent THC.)

Have you researched synthetic marijuana?

Ive done some work with a group in Franklin County that had a treatment program for kids on meth. A large number of those kids were into K2, Spicestreet names for synthetic marijuana. Thats really nasty stuff. And its nasty for a couple of reasons. First, like a lot of the underground drugs, you dont know whats in it. The user cant necessarily anticipate the effects of a given batch. Second, some of the stuff thats in it is really powerful, and so the user cant necessarily know what their dose is going to be.

You are hearing less about synthetic marijuana. I dont know if its because its less of an issue or that the media has gone on to something else, like opiates. We have no shortage of drug problems, and over time the public shifts a bit in what it worries about.

The reality is that it is human nature to want to alter your consciousness. Ive had people tell me that someone must have a mental problem if they think they have to use drugs, and my response is no. Do you say they have a mental problem if they like riding roller coasters? Because a roller coaster serves no other function than to alter your consciousness. Is that pathological?

The difference, of course, is thatdrugs have other negative consequencesphysical, social, and legal. But the principle is the same. We dont know why some people like having their consciousness altered more than others, but it appears to be something that is common among human beings. The trick is to get them to alter their consciousness in the least destructive way.

You talk about drug panics in your marijuana book. Do you think we are in a drug panic now with heroin?

There is no question that as a society we are in a panic about opiates. The question is, Should we be? My answer is I dont know. Because its such an emotional issue, only with hindsight can we look back and say, We exaggerated the true extent of the problem. We shouldnt havent done that. Unfortunately, sometimes we underestimate the extent of the problem. Hindsight doesnt help you in the moment.

Thats one of the problems with drug policy. One of the things that is sometimes forgotten is the idea of unintended consequences. And unintended consequences run through the history of our efforts to control drugs.

One of the things that has happened as a result of places like Colorado, Washington, Oregon not only loosening up on medical but on recreational marijuana is Ive seen reports that marijuana production in Mexico has dropped dramatically because the price has gone down. They cant get as much for it, and as a result, the traffickers have moved more of their focus to methamphetamine and heroin because they are business people. You start selling less of this, and you make up for it by selling more of that. I dont think anyone thought that marijuana legalization might have had an impact on meth or heroin coming in from Mexico. It appears it probably does. It doesnt mean we were wrong to change our policies on marijuana. It just means these things happen. Who would have thought?

Did the crackdown on meth in Illinois have something to do with the uptick in heroin use and overdoes?

Yes, I would agree with that. First, beforethe crackdown on meth, much of the meth in rural Illinois and the rural Midwest was mom-and-poppeople making it in their kitchens, or in motel rooms, or whatever in relatively small-scale operations. You had enormous problems with damage to the environment, with explosions, all of those things that were undesirable side effects. Further, with fires, explosions, and the dumping of toxic waste from these local labs, it was difficult to deny that meth was a problem.

On the other hand, there was almost no violence. You didnt have people fighting over turf. Seldom did you find money being changed hands. You did see some domestic violence, and part of that iswhen you are coming down from meth, you tend to be very irritable and you are on edge. But you didnt see gang involvement. You didnt see people fighting over money or turf.

You can crack down on home meth production, but the desire for the drug doesnt go away. What you have now is Mexican meth coming in. And you dont have the meth trash and other visiblesigns that the drug is present in your community. And so you trade that you no longer have all of these environmental damages, but now you have this other social consequence. Now you have Mexican trafficking organizations bringing in methand meth is still a big problem in this state. These are business people. They are in this to make money. The same networks that are bringing in meth can start bringing in heroin.

Professor Weisheit teases out what is true and false in popular TV series.

Now Im going to mix history into it. My co-author on the meth book (William L. White) is just a walking encyclopedia of drug history. And he said when we started the project, You wait, eventually you will see these meth areas becoming heroin areas because historically there is this cycle between stimulants and narcotics. You may turn to something like heroin to come down from a meth run because heroin is a depressant. So you have this tendency over time to go back and forth between stimulants and narcotics. The reality is someone who is an addict may prefer a particular drug but they will use the drug that is available. Now that you have Mexican distributors in the mix they determine what is going to be available.

Another example of an unintended consequence is the shift from prescription pain pills to heroin. When the government started cracking down on pills, the pills became more expensive, and the heroin by comparison was even cheaper. From the perspective of the user, there isnt much difference between a prescription narcotic and heroin. And now you have a heroin problem. Except the heroin problem now gets worse when they start cutting it with fentanylthat is said to be some 50 times more potent than heroin. Addicts are now overdosing because they cant know the potency of any one batch.

Here is the weird part. Fentanyl is essentially heroin on steroids. Its possible for doctors to prescribe fentanyl to cancer patients as a painkiller. Those same doctors cannot prescribe heroin as a painkiller. Thats considered unsafe. Our drug laws are very curious in that way.

Most people dont realize that. They may realize that marijuana is Schedule 1, which means you cant use it for medicine. So is heroin. So is LSD. But Schedule 2, which means doctors can prescribe it, includes methamphetamine, according to the DEA. It includes cocaine. Most people dont realize those are drugs that can be prescribed. In effect, the DEA has decided that methamphetamine is less risky than marijuana.

In your meth book, you write that under medical supervision, properly prescribed methamphetamine can have a positive effect on a person.

There are three conditions under which it can be used. It can be used for extreme obesity because it suppresses the appetite just as any stimulant will do. It can be used for narcolepsypeople who fall asleep at a stop sign for example. Or it can be used for attention deficit disorder. We can give it to children. Wait a minuteif this is the most dangerous drug on earth and is instantly addictive, why are we giving it to children? In reality it is rare for children to be prescribed meth, but it can be. Methamphetamine is what doctors may turn to when the other treatment drugs (such as Dexedrine or Ritalin) dont seem to be working.

One of the things about studying the drug issue that makes it a challenge is that its an emotional issue. For some people, its up there with abortion, or the death penalty, or other things that people get very passionate about.

That makes it hard to sort out the truth from fiction because you get exaggerations. In the case of marijuana, you get exaggerations on both sides. I saw someone on campus with a sign that said marijuana cures cancer. No, it doesnt. It may ease the symptoms of cancer and its treatment, but it does not cure cancer. But thats no more outrageous than claims it has no medical value.

In the case of drugs, sometimes we think its this horrible crisis, and it turns out that it is not that big of deal. Other times we dont realize how big the problem was until we look back.

Kevin Bersett can be reached at kdberse@IllinoisState.edu.

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Q&A with Ralph Weisheit: Where does the war on drugs go from here? - Illinois State University News (press release) (blog)

Photo from Brbel Koflers Twitter account

Germany joined a growing list of countries and groups expressing concern over the antidrug campaign of the Philippine government which, to the international community, was focused on putting offenders to death instead of instituting massive reforms that would disable, if not eliminate, the drug menace.

Germanys human rights commissioner cited the passage in the House of Representatives as one of the highly regrettable actions being taken by the administration of President Duterte in the fight against drugs.

Brbel Kofler, federal government commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian aid at the German federal foreign office, said in a statement that the push to revive the death penalty ran counter to the Philippine signing of a second optional protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The covenant binds the Philippine government to a commitment to shun executions of convicts as a penalty for grave crimes.

Since the signing of the international agreement, Kofler said Germany considered the Philippines as a close partner of those who, like the federal government (of Germany), reject this inhumane punishment under all circumstances.

This situation is highly regrettable, said Kofler, adding that Germany and the Philippines had been closely cooperating in the United Nations on many campaigns, among them on human trafficking, poverty reduction and climate change.

In her statement, Kofler also called on the Duterte administration to withdraw conditions it had set for the visit of the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings to take a closer look at Mr. Dutertes war on drugs.

With at least 8,000 deaths in the drug war, Kofler said it was important for the UN special rapporteur to visit the Philippines.

The German official also called for a speedy and fair trial of Sen. Leila de Lima, who had been sent to jail by Duterte administration officials for alleged involvement in the drug trade.

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Germany joins clamor vs bloody war on drugs - Inquirer.net

MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday welcomed the prospect of the International Criminal Court (ICC) putting him on trial over his bloody war on drugs, saying he would not be intimidated and his campaign would be unrelenting and "brutal".

A self-confessed assassin who testified to being in a "death squad" under Duterte is expected to file a case at the ICC this month or in April, accusing the president of crimes against humanity, his lawyer said recently.

But Duterte has said he is on the right track regarding human rights and has never instructed security forces to kill suspects who were not resisting arrest. More than 8,000 people have died since he took office last year and began his anti-drugs campaign, a third in raids and sting operations by police who say they acted in self-defense.

"I will not be intimidated and I shall not be stopped just by what? International Criminal Court? Impeachment? If that is part of my destiny, it is my destiny to go," Duterte told reporters shortly before leaving for Myanmar.

"The drive against corruption, criminality and drugs will resume and it will continue and it will be brutal."

Rights groups say many of the deaths were assassinations of drugs users with police complicity. The authorities reject that and blame vigilantes and drugs gangs.

Duterte said he would never "condone the killing of a criminal person arrested with outstretched arms, begging for his life, or what is popularly known as extrajudicial killings."

"Follow the law and we are alright. Drop shabu and nobody will die tomorrow," Duterte said. Shabu is the street name for the highly addictive crystal methamphetamine that the government blames for most of the serious crimes in the Philippines.

But Duterte warned: "If you place the guys lives in jeopardy ... my order is to shoot you."

He said he would rather see "thousands or millions of criminals go first", than see security forces killed in the anti-narcotics war.

Two men, including the one who is expected to file the ICC case, have testified before the Philippine Senate saying they were part of an alleged "death squad" in Davao that killed at Duterte's behest. But legislators found no proof of extra-judicial killings and death squads.

The "death squad" and allegations of drugs-related extrajudicial killings were among the reasons for an impeachment complaint filed by an opposition lawmaker in Congress against Duterte on Thursday.

Duterte said he was not ruling out the possibility that "scalawags in government who are trying to silence guys dealing with them" were behind these extrajudicial executions.

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met President Xi Jinping of China for 30 minutes on Sunday in Beijing and told him that U.S. President Donald Trump anticipates a meeting "soon," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

BERLIN German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that Germany owes NATO and the United States "vast sums" of money for defense.

PARIS Emmanuel Macron remains favorite to win France's turbulent presidential election race, a poll showed on Sunday, on the eve of a first televised debate which could allow embattled conservative Francois Fillon to get back in contention.

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Philippines' Duterte welcomes prospect of ICC case, says 'brutal' war on drugs to go on - Reuters

While all eyes were on the US administrations latest attempt to block people from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, many may have missed Attorney General Jeff Sessions alarming remarks on the US war on drugs.

In a speech before law enforcement leaders Wednesday, Sessions clearly articulated his prohibitionist views on personal drug use, stating that marijuana is only slightly less awful than heroin and that using drugs will destroy your life. While briefly mentioning the importance of treatment and prevention programs, Sessions made clear that he plans to significantly ramp up federal enforcement of drug laws, and that he opposes the experiments that many states have started with legalization and regulation of marijuana.

We know from experience that this approach and has done little to reduce problematic drug use, which has remained high for decades. Instead, it has done tremendous harm, resulting in massive numbers of people being locked up or deported for low-level offenses in the US.

The US decades-long emphasis on criminalization including of simple drug use and possession means that today police arrest more people for drug possession every year than for all violent offenses combined. Every 25 seconds, someone is arrested for the simple act of possessing drugs for their personal use and, as a result, nearly 140,000 people are behind bars for their drug use on any given day. Black adults are two-and-a-half times more likely than white adults to be arrested for drug possession (four times for marijuana) despite similar use rates. Far from helping people who use drugs, criminalization tends to drive them underground, making it less likely they will access needed health services.

These arrests lead to injustices at every step of the criminal justice system, from policing tactics shaping community interactions, to prosecutors charging as aggressively as possible, to the inequality of the cash bail system. This leads to exceedingly long sentences, prosecutors coercing pleas, and the weight of probation and debt hanging over people long after their conviction. Racial disparities persist at every stage, and the poorest Americans have the least power to challenge this system.

In recent years, policy makers have finally begun to recognize how disastrous and wasteful the drug war has been all without having any meaningful impact on drug use in the US.

Following Sessions vision towards deeper entrenchment in the drug war would be a devastating step backwards.

Continued here:

A Return to the Failed 'War on Drugs' in the US? - Human Rights Watch

A century-long attempt by the American government to suppress the recreational use of narcotics, based for the bulk of its history upon racial prejudice. The first major piece of federal legislation (the Harrison Act) was passed in 1914, chiefly justified by a fear of east-asian opium. In the subsequent years, marijuana became the primary focus of drug warriors as its use was increasingly associated with Mexican immigrants and the (black-dominated) jazz scene. Correlating drug use with inner-city crime, Richard Nixon (and later Ronald Reagan) explicitly declared war on drug use in the US, and allocated massive spending increases to the associated federal bureaus. While the rhetoric used by George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush was less harsh, no effort has been made in the past twenty years to rein in federal spending on the drug war; over that span the media spotlight was shifted from inner-city crack abuse to inner-city heroin abuse to youth ecstasy use to rural methamphetamine use in the hopes of maintaining hysteria.

The war on drugs has focused primarily upon two weakly-related goals: the reduction of domestic demand for drugs based upon punitive measures (that is, jail time) and the reduction of foreign supply through crop eradication and the interception of drug shipments (the end goal being to raise US prices by lowering supply). As is borne out by the US government's own data, both strategies are crippled by deep logical flaws.

The first flaw concerns the economics of black markets: rendering a product illegal does little to raise the cost of its production, but does much to raise its price. Profits soar, creating a massive incentive for new players to enter the business at all levels. Because drugs are cheap and easy to produce, farmers in poor areas can make better money and grow larger crops than they can with fruits and vegetables. Because drugs are cheap and easy to sell, dealers in poor areas can make more than they can working a minimum wage job. The profitability of the drug trade poses another problem as well: any time a major figure is arrested or killed, another person, or worse, several persons, are available to replace them, doing nothing to stem the trade but increasing its violence.

The second flaw is inherent to the logic of the drug warriors' attempts to restrict supply: In an ordinary market, prices vary consistently with supply, but the illegality of drugs creates a price floor: At high levels of supply prices are artificially held high by the mere fact that drugs are illegal. Until a certain threshold of drug interception is reached (roughly 70-80% of incoming shipments) prices will be more or less constant. The US currently estimates it finds 10% of the drugs entering the country.

The drug war does nothing to prevent addiction or lower prices: the National Survey on Drug Use and Health has shown an increase in addiction rates over the past thirty years, and a sharp drop in prices. The only success, such as it is, has been a drop in the casual (infrequent and non-dangerous) use of marijuana.

There are of course many disastrous social consequences to the War on Drugs, but they are too many and too depressing to discuss here.

"We do know this, that more people die every year as a result of the war against drugs than die from what we call, generically, overdosing." - William F. Buckley, Jr.

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Urban Dictionary: war on drugs

Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed on Wednesday to ramp up enforcement of drug crimes to combat what he says is a nationwide increase in violent crime, a move some experts say channels the "drug war" era of the 1980s.

Sessions delivered a speech to law enforcement officers in Richmond, Virginia, where he touted the effectiveness of Project Exile, a two-decade old program that enforced mandatory minimum sentences on felons caught carrying firearms.

"All of us who work in law enforcement want to keep people safe," Sessions said, according to prepared remarks. "That is the heart of our jobs; it is what drives us every day. So we are all disturbed to learn that violent crime is on the rise in America, especially in our cities."

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Marijuana legalization laws by state

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Alabama: Medical use only, otherwise possession is a felony

(Photo: Dennis Macdonald via Getty Images)

Alaska: Marijuana legalized for medical and recreational use

(Photo: Zoonar/N.Okhitin via Getty Images)

Arizona: Marijuana legalized for medical use

(Photo:Mikel Ortega via Getty Images)

Arkansas:Medical use only

(Photo: Getty Images)

California: Legal for medical and recreational use

(Photo: Dorling Kindersleyvia Getty Images)

Colorado: Legalfor medical and recreational use

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Connecticut: Decriminalized andlegalized for medical use

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Delaware: Decriminalized

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Florida: Medical use only

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Georgia: Medical use only

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Hawaii: Medical use only

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Idaho: Not legal

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Illinois: Decriminalized

(Photo: VisionsofAmerica/Joe Sohm)

Indiana: Not legal

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Iowa: Medical use only

(Photo: Getty Images)

Kansas: Not legal

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Kentucky: Not legal

(Photo: Dorling Kindersley via Getty Images)

Louisiana: Medical use only

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Maine: Legal for medical and recreational use

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Maryland: Decriminalized

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Massachusetts: Legal

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Michigan: Medical use only

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Minnesota: Decriminalized

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Mississippi: Decriminalized on first offense

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Missouri: Not legal

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Montana: Medical use only

(Photo:Dennis Macdonald via Getty Images)

Nebraska: Decriminalized on first offense only

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Nevada: Legal

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New Hampshire: Medical use only

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New Jersey: Medical use only

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New Mexico: Medical use only

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New York: Decriminalized unless in public view

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North Carolina: Decriminalized

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North Dakota: Medical use only

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Ohio: Decriminalized

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Oklahoma: Medical use only

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Oregon: Legal for medical and recreational use

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Pennsylvania: Medical use only

(Photo: Henryk Sadura via Getty Images)

Rhode Island: Decriminalized

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South Carolina: Not legal

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South Dakota: Not legal

(Photo:Dave and Les Jacobs via Getty Images)

Tennessee:Medical use only

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Texas: Medical use only, decriminalized in Houston and Dallas

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Utah: Not legal

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Vermont: Decriminalized

(Photo: Shutterstock)

Virginia: Not legal

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Washington: Legal for medical and recreational use

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Jeff Sessions 'appears intent on taking us back to the 1980s' and the 'War on Drugs' - AOL

History has given a greenlight to more than 100 hours of original, premium documentary limited series and specials to premiere in 2017, including programs examiningAmericas costly War on Drugs, immigration, cars, terrorism and the mythology of superheroes.

The initial slate of programming announced today by Jana Bennett, President and General Manager of History, focuses largely on significant moments and people who have impacted world and modern U.S. history.

Whether its a story from our distant past or a contemporary event that will shape our collective future, Historys robust new slate of documentary events will take viewers straight to the heart of epic events that shaped where we are and what we are today, said Bennett.The networks increased focus on documentary programming, collaborating with some of the best storytellers in the genre, along with our commitment to sustainable, premium non-fiction and scripted series, will continue to drive the ongoing success of the History brand.

The 100-plus hours of planned documentaries representsan increased investment in such programming to complement the networks non-fiction and scripted series strategy, History says.

Here is the initial line-up of Historys2017 doc slate announced today, along with the networks program descriptions:

Americas War on Drugs Americas War on Drugs has cost the nation $1 trillion, thousands of lives, and has not curbed the runaway profits of the international drug business. For the last 50 years, both the vilification and the celebration of recreational drugs has had incredible impact on our collective culture. This 8 hour mini-series will explore the strange revelations of the profit machine of the drug business, and the impact of the longest war in our nations history on our lives.

Americas War on Drugs is produced by Talos Films. Julian P. Hobbs, Elli Hakami and Anthony Lapp are Executive Producers for Talos. Michael Stiller is Executive Producer for History.

America: Journey of the Brave Every era begins with the human will to move. Between 1820, when proper record keeping began, and 2014, over 80 million people migrated to the US. During the Great Potato Famine, 1.5 million Irish departed for the shores of America. The Russian Empire saw 1.5 million Jews immigrate to the US from 1881-1914. In America: Journey of the Brave, Historyuncovers the great forces that set mankind in motion. Anchored by high-end graphics and based on research that pieces together the patterns of migration over 70,000 years, this two-part, four-hour special will emphasize the massive movements of people that have occurred since the Industrial Revolution.

America: Journey of the Brave is produced by Nutopia. Jane Root is Executive Producer for Nutopia. Michael Stiller is Executive Producer for History.

The Cars that Made America (working title) The epic stories of the iconic names behind the iconic cars that shaped America. The automobile steered America at every turn throughout modern history, but the world has not heard all the stories of those behind the wheel men like Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler, the Dodge Brothers, William Durant, Lee Iacocca and John DeLorean. In three two-hour installments, Historylooks under the hood to reveal the winners who rose to fame and fortune and the losers who crashed and burned on the race to glory. From the birth of the American engine at the turn of the 20th Century through the Muscle Car era of the 1970s, the automotive industrys shadowy legends are replete with titans and devils, genius and failure with one constant: the automobile has influenced us at every turn.

The Cars that Made Americais produced by Magilla Entertainment. Matthew Ostrom, Laura Palumbo Johnson and Jason Fox are Executive Producers for Magilla. Sean Boyle, Stephen Mintz and Russ McCarroll are Executive Producers forHistory.

Superheroes Decoded (working title) Superheroes Decoded reveals how the origin stories of our most iconic superheroes are the building blocks of a uniquely American mythology. This special 2-night, four-hour event is equal parts fan film and informed documentary, mixing clips from present-day blockbuster films with vintage comic book artwork and historical archival to tell the surprising story of the modern era through the lens of our fictional heroes. The program features heroes and villains from both Marvel and DC side by side, as well as commentary from creators, artists, filmmakers, famous fans, and the stars who bring these characters to life on TV and film. Well see how the rise of the superhero parallels Americas rise as a superpower in the 20th century, and how both stories continue to evolve into the future.

Superheroes Decoded is produced by Warrior Poets. Morgan Spurlock and Jeremy Chilnick are Executive Producers and Josh Mensch is Co-Executive Producer for Warrior Poets. Kristen Burns and Russ McCarroll are Executive Producers for History.

How the 90s Changed the World (working title) The fall of the Berlin Wall and the attack on the Twin Towers. A four-hour series of deep investigations explores the critical events that shaped the worldview of those who came of age during that time. Event by event, we see a generation impacted and influenced by an unprecedented era that straddled the end of a century and the beginning of an unimaginable new world. Ultimately, the series reveals the depths to which our near history directly shapes our present. Throughout the series, a chorus of extraordinary individuals born between the late 1960s and early 1980s contextualizes the times and provides a diverse, varied, and complete first person perspective on a generations journey through its formative years.

How the 90s Changed the World is produced RadicalMedia and directed by Paul Bozymowski. Dave Sirulnick, Jon Kamen and Justin Wilkes are Executive Producers for RadicalMedia. Zach Behr is Executive Producer for History.

Age of Terror (working title) September 12th, 2001 was the dawn of a new age: The Age of Terror. The U.S. entered into war with an elusive new enemy: terrorism. It is a war that has lasted sixteen long years, taken tens of thousands of lives, and shifted the global landscape. Despite the enormous efforts to thwart our enemies, today terror is more prevalent than ever. It casts a dark shadow of fear over everything we do. It is the backdrop of our lives. How did this happen? And are we trapped in a war without end? Age of Terror, in two two-hour installments, seeks to answer these questions and more. Probing the historical roots of the conflict, it reveals how this war evolved, and how weve fought back. It provides context on todays brand of terror, on how it has re-shaped our world, and what the future may bring.

Age of Terror is produced by Pulse Films. Fred Grinstein and Gretchen Eisele are Executive Producers for Pulse Films. Kristen Burns and Russ McCarroll are Executive Producers for History.

The programming announced today joins Frontiersmen, the previously announced 8-hour series about iconic pioneers such as Daniel Boone, Lewis & Clark, Tecumseh, Davy Crocket and Andrew Jackson from the post-revolutionary war colonies through the California Gold Rush. Frontiersmen is produced by Appian Way Productions and Stephen David Entertainment. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson, Michael Hampton and Phillip Watson are executive producers for Appian Way Productions. Stephen David is the executive producer for Stephen David Entertainment. Kristen Burns and Russ McCarroll are Executive Producers for History.

A+E Networks holds worldwide distribution rights for all of the above programs.

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History's 2017 Documentary Slate To Examine War On Drugs, Cool Cars, Immigration & Superheroes - Deadline

A one-time hawk in the war on drugs of 20 years ago, I am now a conscientious objector and believe its time to drop the old trappings of war language and metaphor for federal policy and response that strategically embraces new information; the disease model of addiction; and the smart data that tells us incarceration doesnt save money; solve health problems; not stem loss of life, potential and community.

In my one claim to celebrity fame, I was listed among the hawks in a 1997 Rolling Stone article of Whos Who in the War on Drugs. At the time, I was the founding president of Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) and a principal architect of then new legislation known as the Drug-Free Communities Act (DFCA), introduced by Rep. Rob PortmanRob PortmanThe war on drugs is a horrible metaphor for a nations response to addiction Trump trade nominee says he supports 'America first' policy Overnight Finance: Budget ref caught in ObamaCare crossfire | Treasury chief urges Congress to raise debt limit | McConnell says tax reform unlikely by August MORE and Rep. Sander Levin.

We had a public-health problem, and many prevention- and law-enforcement advocates were seeking criminal justice solutions. That made no sense to me, and there was a clear need to fully fund research on marijuana to get the facts.

I was a strong advocate for prevention and treatment and lobbied hard to protect the Safe and Drug-Free Schools education initiatives to keep kids off drugs, a Nancy Reagan funding legacy. In the 1990s, public and private funds were spent to build community anti-drug coalitions and public-service advertising, conducted by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and Drug Free Schools.

This three-legged stool was the main strategy promoted by the Clinton administration under the leadership of Drug Czars Lee Brown and Gen. Barry McCaffrey.

Brown led the campaign to increase funding for treatment of the hard-core drug-user. This focus on treatment, often through Drug Courts, resulted in a dramatic decrease in crime. The Clinton Administrations crime bill created the Office of Community-Oriented Policing and put 100,000 officers on the streets.

By 1999, gun crime was down by 40 percent; overall crime dropped eight years in a row; and the murder rate had dropped 38 percent. Since 1993the rateof violent crime has declined from 79.8 to 23.2victimizationsper 1,000 people.

We look back on that time with some nostalgia. Things appeared to be working, but lost in those favorable crime-rate headlines was the incarceration trend that would cost this country billions of dollars and millions of ruined lives.

In 1992, we incarcerated nearly 900,000 people in state and federal prisons. In 2016, that number had risen to 2.2 million imprisoned, with a total of 6.7 million under court supervision. The United States incarcerates 716 out of every 100,000 people. This year, we will spend $80 billion on incarceration, but those numbers still fail to account for the lost potential and far-reaching social, economic and personal consequences on individuals, families and communities.

While our intentions may have been noble, the outcome was anything but noble. During the George W. Bush and Barack ObamaBarack ObamaUK spy agency denies 'ridiculous' wiretap claim Dem senator: Trump has lost credibility over wiretap claims Obama reportedly spending a month in French Polynesia MORE administrations, the country focused more on treatment and treatment-alternatives to incarceration.

Our thinking about best approaches to substance use and addiction has evolved from an increased awareness about the disease component of addiction and from communities looking for more redemptive approaches to drug use.

It would appear we are about to declare another war on drugs. Attorney General Jeff SessionsJeff SessionsTHE MEMO: GOP breaks from Trump in 'wiretap' furor Overnight Finance: Inside Trump's first budget | Reaction from Congress | Budget panel advances ObamaCare repeal | Debt ceiling returns Overnight Cybersecurity: Trump standing by wiretapping claim | Cyber gets boost in Trump budget | Bad bots on the rise | McDonald's Twitter hack MORE wants to enforce federal marijuana laws and increase enforcement efforts on drug-trafficking. I get the trafficking strategy, but incarceration for marijuana possession and use ignores decades of informed data.

The war on drugs is a horrible metaphor for a nations response to addiction. It has been a war on our own people and our neighborhoods. We have warehoused those afflicted with the disease of addiction in a false detente pivoting on out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

In 1997, we were all trapped by the war on drugs metaphor. Drug use and dependence is a health issue and requires a health response. Health providers are non-combatants, and the impulse to lock people up is a reversal that will continue to cost this country in lives, dollars and compassion.

James E. Copple facilitated President Obamas Task Force on 21st Century Policing and is the Founding President of Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America. He is currently the Principal of Strategic Applications International an international consulting firm working in substance abuse, HIV/AIDS prevention and police reform.

The views of contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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The war on drugs is a horrible metaphor for a nation's response to ... - The Hill (blog)