Category Archives: War On Drugs

Since the U.S. drug war was declared in 1971, various drugs have been identified as public enemy number onefrom crack cocaine, in the 1980s, to prescription opioids in the early 2000s. Today, the primary villain is fentanyl, a synthetic opioid about 50 times more potent than heroin. In 2021, more than 71,000 people in the U.S. died after overdoses involving synthetic opioidsmostly fentanyl, according to provisional data released by the National Center for Health Statistics on May 11.

Such a deadly drug necessitates a firm public health response, and fortunately, decades of evidence have shown there are tools that can avert overdoses, including the medication naloxone (sold under the brand name Narcan). However, fear of fentanyl and a desire to look proactive are driving many state lawmakers to take approaches which, in the past, have caused more harm than goodnamely, punitive policies which lock up drug dealers and users alike for lengthy periods of time, and contribute to mass incarceration. Evidence abounds that such policies are ineffective: for instance, one 2018 analysis from Pew found harsher penalties for drug possession did not reduce use or overdoses, and a 2014 National Research Council report found that increases in successfully prosecuted drug crimes did not clearly drive down drug use, and had a disparate impact on Black and Hispanic communities.

As opioid and especially fentanyl-related deaths have risen, some states have implemented harm-reduction policies like expanding access to drugs that treat opioid use disorder, or legalizing fentanyl test strips and in some cases making them available for free, to make it easier for drug users to figure out before its too late whether their drugs are adulterated with fentanyl. But at the same time, a number of states have passed, or are currently considering, new legislation to ramp up penalties for drug crimes, many of which explicitly refer to fentanyl. Mississippi, for instance, recently passed a law that, as of July 1, adds additional penalties for giving someone fentanyl that results in death. Kentucky recently passed a law increasing mandatory prison time for those found guilty of bringing fentanyl into the state with the intent to sell or distribute. This March, Wisconsin enacted a law making manufacturing, distributing, or delivering any amount of fentanyl a felony.

Colorado is a particularly useful case study. In 2020, 1,477 Coloradans died from drug overdoses, up 38% from the year before, an increase the Colorado Health Institute largely attributes to fentanyl. In response, on May 11, the state legislature passed the Fentanyl Accountability and Prevention Act, which would expand access to drugs that help treat opioid use disorder and allocate funds for education about fentanyl. However, the proposed law would also make possessing more than a gram of any drug a felony if it contains any amount of fentanyl, which advocates say could make the overdose crisis worse by driving users into hiding or locking them in prison.

Like crack cocaine before itwhich was falsely blamed for making users more violentthe focus on fentanyl is threaded with fear-mongering and misinformation. In April, Colorado Public Radio asked Governor Jared Polis if he thought making possession of fentanyl a felony in the state would have similarly disastrous results as the War on Drugs started by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s had on the U.S.. You have to think of fentanyl more as a poison than a drug, Polis responded, comparing it to anthrax. Indeed, local news across states has been flooded with similar misinformation about fentanyl, including stories about first responders who claimed theyd suffered a fentanyl overdose through skin contact with patients who had been usingalthough experts say that overdosing in such a way is nearly impossible.

Such narratives enable politicians to paint fentanyland those who traffic in itas particularly nefarious. But really, its a public health crisisnot a crisis of criminality. What we need is to ramp up the things that we know prevent people from dying of overdoses, and not continue to focus on the enforcement side, where we have very little evidence that that improves public health outcomes, says Robin Pollini, an associate professor of public health at West Virginia University.

One of advocates greatest fears about the legislation is that it will expand the imprisonment of drug users, and contribute to the socioeconomic instability that often fuels addiction and abuse in the first place. Colorados bill would only apply to those knowingly carrying more than one gram of any substance containing the drug, which presupposes that carrying this amount means the person is a dealer. I would say the goal of this bill, if implemented properly, is not to put drug users in jail. The goal of this bill is to put drug dealers in jail, says Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser.

However, experts say that there are many reasons why someone might carry more than a single gram for personal use. For one, the amount of fentanyl in street drugs can vary greatly, which means that users are unlikely to actually know how much theyre carrying. Additionally, compared to other opioids, fentanyl provides a shorter but more powerful high, which means someone on it is likely using multiple times a day to avoid an agonizing withdrawal. That means theyre probably buying as much as they can whenever they canespecially if they have limited access to transportation or live in a rural area.

Colorados attempt to separate the users from the dealers is based on a false distinction, says Dr. Sarah Axelrath, who treats Denver patients with substance use disorder. Most of the drug dealers she encounters are users themselves, and are engaging in subsistence level drug distribution: trading drugs to sustain their addiction, and to meet basic needs. In such communities, a drug dealer is less likely to be a shadowy stranger than a trusted friendand the person who is buying one day may be selling the next. Thats why about 225 drug users who use services at the Harm Reduction Action Center in Denver have signed Do Not Prosecute forms, created by the activist group Urban Survivors Union, which are meant to make a plea to law enforcement that, in the event of an overdose, they not go after the person who provided the drugs. The point they want to make to legislators, says Center director Lisa Raville, is that when police arrest drug dealers, theyre not getting the popularly envisioned large drug seller or cartel. Its family and loved ones, who both buy and sell at low levels.

Experts fear that laws like that under consideration in Colorado will backfire, exacerbating the opioid epidemic. For one thing, a person who is convicted of a felony and given a prison sentence for possession of opioids is likely to become destabilized and lose their support system, making it even harder to overcome substance use disorder. There is unintended and collateral damage that happens from being incarcerated, says Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease doctor and associate professor at University of Colorado School of Medicine. That includes increased instability in housing, food, and job access, all of which could lead an opioid user to relapse.

More immediately, criminalizing fentanyl could deter people from saving lives. When someone overdoses on opioids, their best hope for survival is to get a shot of naloxone. But if the only person around to administer the treatment (or to call for help) is also either an opioid user or seller (or both), they might waste precious minutes wavering over the decision whether or not to call for help, out of concern of arrest. In general, these kinds of laws drive drug use further underground, says Robin Pollini, an associate professor of public health at West Virginia University. The higher the penalties on drug use, or the higher level of policing around drug use, the less likely people are to present in public for services they need.

Then theres the possibility that cracking down on fentanyl could lead to the emergence of even deadlier drugs. One of the reasons fentanyl became so dominant is that its easier for drug dealers to move through a punitive system compared to other opioidsit can be made from common ingredients, instead of grown in an opium plant, and its more compact, making it easier to transport and hide. Already, drug producers are developing new and more dangerous chemical analogs of fentanyl that drug tests cant detect.

Among Colorado health care providers who work with drug users, and have known many people who have died of overdoses, theres a sense that the proposed bill is a wasted opportunity to invest the states resources in tools that are actually proven to stop overdoses. The evidence is just so clear that criminalization and felonization and incarceration will not do anything to decrease rates of substance use disorder or even recreational drug use, and it certainly wont decrease rates of overdose deaths, says Axelrath. But we have things that work. And so it is frustrating to watch our resources be funneled into interventions that we know from 50 years of both research and practice arent effective.

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Fear of Fentanyl Behind Laws That Could Lead to Overdoses - TIME

Austin City Limits festival has announced the lineup of artists who will be joining them on the weekends of Oct. 7 and Oct. 14 at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. On top of a stacked lineup, the headliners for the event include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, P!nk, The Chicks, SZA, Kacey Musgraves, Flume, Paramore and Lil Nas X.

Both weekends will showcase performances by Billy Strings, Arlo Parks, Japanese Breakfast, Diplo, Wallows, Conan Gray, Robert Glasper, The Maras and more. Goose are also set to perform both weekends and 2022 marks their first appearance at the Austin City Limits festival.

Weekend one, which will span from Oct. 7 through Oct. 9 will welcome James Black, Goth Babe, MUNA, Kevin Morby, Cory Henry and more. Weekend two, set for Oct. 14 through Oct. 16 will have performances by Phoenix, Wet Leg, The Front Bottoms, Yungblud, Neil Frances and more.

Three-day passes for both weekends to Austin City Limits 2022 go on sale today at 12 p.m. CT here. Single-day passes will be available later this fall.

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Austin City Limits Shares 2022 Lineup: Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff, The War on Drugs, Goose and More - jambands.com

A new poll just dropped. Screengrab from FM3 Research Poll

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According to the survey, 53% of respondents supported the measure, 39% voiced opposition, and 9% kept their cards close to their chest. Those results seem like pretty good news for Commit to Change WA, the advocacy group funded by the ACLU of Washington that paid for the poll and hopes to put the question on the ballot this autumn.

The pollster argues that Washingtonians have consistently supported the issues the initiative embodies. FM3 Research

Everett Maroon, executive director of Blue Mountain Heart to Heart, a case management service out in Walla Walla, counts himself among the many who think jailing people caught with drugs hasn't worked. "All we do is arrest the person, arrest their progress, and then subject them to a very high risk of overdose and overdose death when theyre released," he said during the presser.

That was certainly the case for Carmen Pacheco-Jones. Long before she became the executive director of the Health & Justice Recovery Alliance, she said she endured trafficking and a heroin addiction. When she was 18, cops picked her up on a shoplifting charge. After a search, they found drugs on her. She sat in jail for 50 days waiting for a hearing and ended up pleading guilty to avoid a trial. That decision trapped her in the system. Over the next "several years," she said, she cycled in and out of jail, until finally she went to treatment. Treatment broke the cycle, allowing her to get clean and reestablish a relationship with her kids.

An earlier offer of treatment would have put her on the right track sooner. "We need to address root causes and dramatically expand the outreach and recovery services that we know work, that weve seen work in other communities," she said during the presser.

Aside from not working to deter people from using drugs, you'll be shocked to learn that the criminal punishment system applied the possession law in a racist way across the state. According to state data collected by the American Equity and Justice Group, our courts convicted Black people and Native Americans of drug possession at disproportionally high rates in nearly every county in Washington.

This new push for an initiative to treat addiction as a public health issue rather than a criminal issue has been a long time coming. The initial group of advocates called itself Treatment First Washington, and they tried to get the measure on the ballot in November of 2020. The campaign said the pandemic sullied their efforts to gather signatures, so they changed strategies. In 2021, they tried to get the policy through the Legislature instead, using House Bill 1499 as the vehicle. Though the bill drew a meaningful amount of support from lawmakers, the proposal never made it out of committee. That year the Washington State Supreme Court struck down the state's drug possession law, which prompted the Legislature to re-criminalize possession as a misdemeanor for a couple years and appropriate some funds for treatment services. In the meantime, Treatment First WA rebranded as Commit to Change WA, and then eventually filed the initiative with some minor language tweaks. The campaign now says it needs more than 324,000 signatures by July 8 to make the ballot.

If successful, Washington wouldn't be the first state to decriminalize drugs while boosting services. In 2020, Oregon voters passed a similar law by a wide margin 58 to 42. In its first year, most people accessed "harm reduction programs such as syringe exchanges and naloxone distribution," and 1% entered treatment, according to a February report from OPB.

According to the initiative text, most of the money ($155 million annually) will go to the state health care authority to fund "substance use disorder prevention, outreach and engagement, and recovery support services." Other pots of money fund a "public education program," "cannabis social equity" grants, a program to test the drugs seized by cops, and a "drug enforcement task force" at the Washington State Patrol.

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New Poll Suggests Most of Washington Wants to End the War on Drugs - TheStranger.com

FARRELL Orlon Dungee literally carried his mothers memory in the form of a large, framed photograph as he walked over a mile on Saturday.

The 10-year-olds mom, Laura West, died in December of an opioid overdose after fighting a long battle with drug addiction. She was only 29.

Thats why her son carried her portrait at Saturdays Memory Walk Against Addiction. More than 100 joined the event, which was hosted by the Valley Baptist Church in Farrell.

Many of the people in attendance had personal stakes in the event, through people close to them who have struggled with addiction.

Laura Wests mom, April West, now cares for Orlon and her daughters two other children.

April West talked about her daughter as she walked with others while wearing a T-shirt with a large photo of Laura on the back.

When she walked into a room the whole room brightened, West said.

But her opioid addiction ground her down.

She overdosed so many times, West said. She just got tired.

April West said Its been difficult moving forward, but she found a path out of the darkness.

I have to say its by the grace of God, she said.

Valley Baptist Church Pastor T. James Harrison spoke briefly to the crowd gathered outside the church after the walk.

We want people to know were here for them, Harrison said. and he added drug addiction is felt in every corner of society regardless of religious faith, age, gender or race.

On the same day I had two funerals for people who died of drug overdoses, he said.

In a study on opioid addiction, the Mayo Clinic found anyone taking these powerful narcotics is at risk of developing addiction.

Your personal history and the length of time you use opioids play a role, but its impossible to predict whos vulnerable to eventual dependence on and abuse of these drugs, the clinic said on its website. Legal or illegal, stolen and shared, these drugs are responsible for the majority of overdose deaths in the U.S. today.

Mercer County Coroner John Libonati was among those at the event and shared some heartbreaking numbers. In Mercer County, as in much of the nation, drug overdose deaths are increasing.

After 44 drug overdose deaths in 2020 in the county. Last year, that figure rose to 67, the highest since the opioid epidemic struck Mercer county, according to recently compiled figures.

So far, Libonatis office has compiled 27 drug deaths in less than four months in 2022, with another five cases pending.

Were on pace to hit triple digits this year, Libonati said.

But there is hope.

Events like the one Saturday serve as an outreach to anyone dealing with an addiction, Libonati said.

Sometimes they get the feeling nobody cares, he said. Just look at the people who are here today. There are people who care.

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Marching in the war on drugs | News | sharonherald.com - Sharonherald

Jordan McClements| Special to the USA TODAY Network

You think that May 10, National Fentanyl Awareness Day, will provide awareness of the overdose crisis? You would be right, according to the state, until you realize that National Fentanyl Awareness Day is supported by the group Drug Induced Homicide. Then you type druginducedhomicide.org in and the first thing you read is the headline: Why Are Drug Dealers Getting Away With Murder? You think it makes sense, but youre wrong.

National Fentanyl Awareness Day is a reactionary movement headed by cops, lawyers, parents, and other agents of the state who are feigning ignorancewhen, instead, they are painting a racist portrait straight out of the red herring rhetoric of the War on Drugs.

This is the backside of the Biden administrations approach to ending the overdose crisis outside its small approach to harm reduction. The supply is cut before it even makes it to the United States or any part of the world.

Going after cartels and dealers will only continue prohibition, as the state wants abstinence-only policies, which are enacted by the state to enact class warfare and consequently the elimination of the working class and working people.

There is a supply of fentanyl because there is a demand. When my cousin and I shot up, we went to dealers of people who overdosed because we knew wed get higher. And we did.

Now is the time to implement harm reduction and eliminate this red herring attempt a holiday that the state will recognize because it not only supports the War on Drugs it is the very definition of the War on Drugs.

I and my cousin overdosed. This day is a slap in the face to users and ex-users alive and dead, along with our friends and families.

Embrace harm reduction. The world hasnt and will never stop using drugs. National Fentanyl Awareness Day is a holiday for the state to announce all the people it is murdering due to its lack of harm reductionist policiesand inability to care about human life especially current and ex-drug users.

You want the reasons? The reasons are that the state doesnt want people to use any drugs except the three that help you deal with work, those being alcohol, caffeine and tobacco. Alcohol and tobacco kill you faster than any clean illegal drugs.

By placing the blame on dealers and cartels, you are taking away the material reality that not drug dealers, but the state is getting away with homicide on a national and international level.

This new day on the calendar on May 10will be a rallying cry for the overdose count to increase even higher because it is the antithesis of harm reduction.

As a nation and world, we need to use harm reduction instead of putting people in prison and murdering them by the state doing nothing about the overdose crisis besides further pushing the overdose count up with its abstinence-only policies as you and everyone else drives by us.

The reason the state has legalized only alcohol, caffeineand tobaccoand no other drugs is the other drugs make you question the American dream. Shooting heroin in your veins tells you that the American dream doesnt, hasntand will never exist. And until you realize that the state has been murdering the world in the attempt to stop this uniquely American perversity, we will watch helplessly as we lose our friends, family, countryand world die at the hands of those who only wish to preserve their conception of the state by murdering the working classes.

The world and its solution to the overdose crisis in harm reduction cannot coexist with murder from the state through policy failure and consequent murder of the working classes as a result of the War on Drugs.

Until people with lived experience shape policy, the assassins of the state will always get away with murder as they continue to further paint the nations face with the blood from our track marks.

Until you realize this propaganda machine through the symbol of National Fentanyl Awareness Day is rhetoric that supports the War on Drugs that created and continues to increase the overdose crisis you will lose your friends, family, country, world, and life just as we did.

JordanMcClementsis a resident of Felton.

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National Fentanyl Awareness Day is rhetoric supporting the War on Drugs | Opinion - The News Journal

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah is a faculty member in the department of sociology at the University of Toronto and race equity lead at the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation. Alex Luscombe is PhD candidate in the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto.

Drug prohibition in Canada has always been about race. Our first national drug law, the Opium Act of 1908, was introduced as a way to control the Chinese community. following the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Chinese labourers had been recruited in sizeable numbers to work on the railroad but were seen as an unwelcome threat to the employment prospects of white men following the completion of the project in the early twentieth century.

Our first cannabis laws were introduced in the 1920s following the racist musings of Emily Murphy published in Macleans magazine and later compiled in her book The Black Candle. Ms. Murphy suggested Black people and racialized immigrants were decaying the moral fabric of Canadian society and corrupting white women and girls by introducing them to drugs. Of course, Ms. Murphy had no empirical evidence to support her case, but her writings nonetheless made their way into the popular imagination.

Later policy shifts, including prime minister Brian Mulroneys declaration of a war on drugs in Canada in 1986, resulted in dramatic increases in the number of Black people being sent to prison for drug-related offences. Vice News, which reported on racial differences in cannabis arrests prior to legalization, has published new data showing that Black and Indigenous people are significantly overrepresented in drug possession arrests in cities across Canada.

As politicians, policy makers and members of the public look for ways to reduce racial inequality in our society, our drug laws should be front and centre. Racial disparities in drug possession arrests are troubling because of what we know about patterns of drug use. Available evidence from Canada and other countries such as the U.S. and U.K. shows that rates of drug use are relatively similar across racial groups. Racial differences in drug arrests stem largely from racially biased policing practices. Black and Indigenous people are more likely to be stopped by the police, which means they are also more likely to be caught in possession of drugs. In fact, stereotypes connecting race with drug use drive the police to initiate more contact with Black and Indigenous people in the first place.

A second reason for the disparities in arrests is the fact that Black and Indigenous people are more likely to experience homelessness and poverty. Middle and upper-class drug users can call on delivery services to obtain their drugs and have the benefit of being able to consume them in private spaces. They run little risk of drug-related contact with the police as a result. On the other hand, the underhoused and the people who live in dense apartments and multigenerational homes are pushed into the streets to buy and use their drugs, increasing their chances of being caught by the police.

In essence, were criminalizing poverty and making it less likely that the people with criminal records for drug offences will be able to contribute to our society. People who are criminalized have more difficulty completing their education, finding meaningful employment, securing housing and doing many other things that most of us take for granted. People with criminal records also have a greater likelihood of future contact with the justice system and are more dependent on the state for support.

These are not the only reasons we should overhaul our drug laws. Drug prohibition has done little to curtail drug use while at the same time allows a multi-billion-dollar unregulated (illegal) drug market to flourish. This illegal market is naturally attractive to criminal organizations, which use violence to protect their business and may use drug proceeds to fund other criminal endeavours. Unregulated markets are susceptible to toxic drug supplies, which combined with the big-pharma fuelled opioid dependency and overdose crisis, claimed the lives of approximately 27,000 Canadians between Jan., 2016, and Sept., 2021, according to Statistics Canada.

Finally, we believe we should move beyond prohibition because people should be able to choose what substances they put into their bodies and when and how they choose to alter their consciousness. This argument is well articulated by celebrated neuroscientist Carl Hart in his recent book Drug Use for Grown-Ups. In dispelling many of the myths weve been taught about drugs and drug use, Dr. Hart correctly points out that our drug laws, rather than drugs themselves, are the cause of a great deal of social harm and suggests that personal happiness can be found through responsible drug use.

Whatever your take on drug use might be, it is undeniable that the enforcement of our drug use is biased and needs to change.

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Opinion: We can't reach racial equality without drug law reform - The Globe and Mail

Cannabis buds (CTNewsJunkie / photo)

The lottery for anyone wanting to participate in Connecticuts cannabis industry as a retailercloses at midnight May 4.

The Department of Consumer Protection said that as of last Thursday it received 1,215 entries for a general license and 1,957 entries for a social equity license.

There will be six general licenses issued and six social equity licenses issues. The entries will be handed over to a third party vendor to choose which entries get the provisional license.

They can apply as much as they want, but they have to pay a fee every time, Kaitlyn Krasslet, a spokeswoman for the DCP, said.

Krasslet said they do plan to have another lottery this summer and any social equity applicant who doesnt get chosen will be added to the general lottery.

It costs $500 for a general license entry and $250 for a social equity license entry. Those fees are not refundable.

We do expect there to be many more applications, Krasslet said.

The DCP has already received entries for medical hybrid retailers, micro cultivators, and food and beverage manufacturers.

Advocates who pushed for legalization in Connecticut worry that the system is rigged against those who they tried to help with this legislation.

Our folks dont have the capital, Rep. Anne Hughes, D-Easton, said.

She said she was surprised to learn an out-of-state company received a seven-figure sum from the quasi-public agency, Connecticut Innovations, to apply for these licenses.

Theyre skipping the line, Hughes said.

Jason Ortiz, executive director of SSDP, said theres nothing in the Connecticut licensing scheme that should help an out-of-state company get a license in the Nutmeg state.

In a webinar last week, Peter Barsoom, CEO and Co-Founder of 1906 New Highs, said they will be applying, but they havent applied yet. However, they plan to submit more than one.

We are planning to release additional details later this week regarding the investment from Connecticut Innovations, Barsoom said in an email regarding questions about the investment.

Barsooms company received $1.25 from Connecticut Innovations.

Theres no social equity here, Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, said. The damn bus has left the station and Im still waiting.

Porter worries that the industry is going to be set before those disadvantaged by the war on drugs will even get a shot.

She said it reminds her of plantation politics.

Make me whole. This piece meal thing is not going to work to build intergenerational wealth, she said.

She said poverty is a policy choice and the states legalization is allowing oppression to continue.

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Connecticut Cannabis Lottery To Close This Week - CT News Junkie

In this Nov. 30, 2005 file photo, an anti-abortion supporter stands next to a pro-choice demonstrator outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

As you probably know by now, a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion indicates there may well be five justices prepared to overrule Roe v. Wade. For a long time, many assumed that if Roe were to be overruled, abortion policy would be "left to the states." That will indeed happen in the short run. But such a state of affairs might not last. Many Republicans have been advocating nationwide bans on abortion, including very sweeping ones that would forbid all abortions more than six weeks into a pregnancy. For their part, many Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, back nationwide legislation protecting abortion rights.

Would such laws be constitutional? I have written about this issue twice before (see here and here). The bottom line is that current Supreme Court precedent likely would enable Congress to ban most, if not all, abortions if it wanted to. That's because the Court has endorsed a ridiculously broad interpretation of Congress' powers to regulate interstate commerce. But that precedent might be pared back, thanks in part to that unlikely champion of abortion rights, Clarence Thomas.

Here's why current precedent likely supports broad congressional power to restrict abortion:

Under cases such as Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the Supreme Court has held that Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce includes the authority to restrict almost any "economic activity," so long as it has a "substantial effect" on interstate trade. And [in Raich] "economic activity" is defined very broadly to include anything that involves the "production, distribution, and consumption of commodities." That definition allowed the Court to use the Commerce Clause to uphold a federal ban on the possession of marijuana that had never crossed state lines or been sold in any market (even an intrastate one). Nearly all abortions involve the "consumption" and "distribution" of commodities, such as medical supplies. In addition, most abortions qualify as "economic" transactions because doctors, nurses, and others are paid to perform them.

One could argue that a federal law banning or severely restricting abortions isn't "really" aimed at regulating interstate commerce. The true motive would be to restrict abortion regardless of whether it involved interstate transactions or not. But much the same can be said for the marijuana ban upheld in Raich, and other federal laws enforcing the War on Drugs. They go far beyond targeting actual interstate trade in drugs, and instead forbid even in-state distribution and possession of illegal narcotics.

If, as is likely, the interstate abortion market expands in the wake of a Supreme Court decision overruling Roe, Congress could claim that suppression of intrastate abortions is necessary in order to enforce restrictions on those that involve crossing state lines. If abortion is banned in State A, but legal in neighboring State B, that creates an incentive for residents of A to cross into B in order to get abortions - even if the feds enact a ban on such crossing. That ban might be more effectively enforced if abortion were illegal in B as well as A..

The Commerce Clause rationale for abortion restrictions might not apply to abortions that are performed on a noncommercial basis by staff who provide their services for free. But such cases are only a small percentage of the total. Moreover, in Raich, the Court upheld the ban on Angel Raich's possession of marijuana even though the producers had in fact provided it to her for free. The theory was that even such completely noncommercial production and distribution of an illegal drug could impact the interstate market.

These kinds of Commerce Clause arguments may strike some readers as the kind of sophistry that gives lawyers a bad name. I sympathize with that reaction! I hate these arguments myself, and have long argued that Raich is a terrible decision that should be overruled. But this is exactly the sort of reasoning that prevailed in Raich, and provides a constitutional rationale for much of the federal War on Drugs.

However, Raich has been much criticized by conservative and libertarian legal commentators, and is especially abhorred by Justice Clarence Thomas. He has also suggested, in a 2007 concurring opinion, that federal abortion restrictions may be beyond the scope of congressional power under the Commerce Clause. It is possible that one or more other conservative justices agree with him on this. A federal abortion ban could, therefore, be struck down by a coalition of conservative justices who oppose it on federalism grounds, and liberal ones who believe it violates constitutional individual rights. I outlined this scenario here:

In Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), the Supreme Court upheld a federal restriction on late-term "partial birth" against individual rights challenges. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion emphasizing the possibility that the law in question exceeds the scope of congressional power under the Commerce Clause. Thomas previously wrote a forceful dissent in Gonzales v. Raich. [In 2021], he reiterated key elements of his critique of that decision, and urged the Supreme Court to reconsider it.

It's possible that one or more other conservative justices could join Thomas's reasoning.

One can then envision federal abortion restrictions getting invalidated by a coalition of conservative justices who believe they are beyond the power of the federal government, and liberal justices who object on individual-rights grounds. It is also possible (though less likely) that some liberal jurists could endorse the federalism argument against these restrictions. Liberal thinking on constitutional federalism shifted a good deal in recent years, and some of that shift may go beyond "fair weather federalism" brought on by opposition to Trump's policies. It's also possible that either liberal or conservative judges will think of clever ways to limit the scope of Raich, even if it doesn't get overruled completely.

Cynics may say that Thomas isn't really sincere in his opposition to Raich or his doubts about the constitutionality of federal abortion restrictions. I cannot know his true feelings for sure. But, as a general rule, Thomas is known for being a man who says what he means and means what he says. He even often gets criticized for his apparent reluctance to compromise with other justices or respect their sensibilities. I also see little motive for him to express the above views if he doesn't really mean them. It's unlikely Thomas was trying to curry favor with liberals. If he truly valued such favor, he would say and do a lot of things differently.

Thus, if Congress does enact federal abortion restrictions, abortion rights advocates may well have a good chance of stopping them by relying on federalism arguments. In order to make the most of that opportunity, they would need to explicitly make that case and - ideally - ask the Court to overrule or severely limit Raich.

Attacking Raich and other ultra-broad Commerce Clause precedents may go against the grain for some left-of-center abortions rights advocates. But immigration advocates have made a similar shift in sanctuary cities cases (with great success), and the pro-choice legal community could follow their example. For some pro-choicers - myself very much included! - the possibility that reducing Commerce Clause authority would weaken the War on Drugs would be a feature, not a bug.

In addition to using the Commerce Clause, federal abortion restrictions could also be enacted using Congress' spending power. I go through some of the details here:

In addition to trying to directly regulate abortion by using its Commerce Clause powers, Congress could also try to do so indirectly by using its Spending Clause power to condition grants to state governments. For example, it could enact legislation restricting various types of health care grants to state governments unless the latter ban or severely restrict abortion. These kinds of conditional spending restrictions are subject to a number of constraints under current Supreme Court precedent. The amount of money involved cannot be so large as to be "coercive"; the conditions must be sufficiently related to the purpose of the grant; and they have to be clearly stated on the face of the law - not just inferred by the executive branch. The Trump administration ran afoul of all three of these restrictions during its campaign to cut federal funds to "sanctuary cities."

Much depends on the exact scope and wording of the legislation at issue. Nonetheless, I think a carefully drafted conditional-spending restriction on abortion rights could potentially jump through these hoops. Then, blue states would face a choice of either losing some of their federal health care grants or imposing abortion restrictions.

The Spending Clause approach is less threatening to abortion rights because states could. avoid the conditions by refusing the federal funds tied to them. In practice, such refusals of federal funds are very rare. But a hot-button ideological issue like abortion might prove an exception to that rule.

I would add that the requirements of relatedness and noncoercion set a ceiling to the amount of pressure Congress could bring to bear in this way. It couldn't deny affected states all or most federal health care funding (that is precluded by NFIB v. Sebelius, which struck down as coercive a provision of the Affordable Care Act that would deny all Medicaid funds to states that refuse to expand Medicaid), and it cannot deny funds with little or no connection to abortion.

Some conservatives have argued that a federal law banning abortion might be authorized by Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, rather than the Commerce or Spending Clauses. But that would be a radical departure not only from current Supreme Court precedent, but also from traditional conservative originalist approaches to the Fourteenth Amendment. Co-blogger Jonathan Adler explained why here.

Obviously, the above constraints on federal laws banning abortion would also apply to federal laws seeking to protect it against the states. In the wake of a decision overruling Roe, conservatives and liberals alike may need to decide whether they care more about preserving the autonomy of "their" states, or about retaining the power to control the other side's states when their preferred party is in power in Washington. In both cases, however, even if some would prefer to preserve maximal federal power, there may well be others willing to file federalism-based lawsuits, regardless of what their ideological comrades think.

Finally, I should note the scenarios discussed above may not come to pass, because political obstacles may prevent Congress from enacting any significant new abortion legislation, whether pro-life or pro-choice. Doing so would likely require either a massive 60-vote Senate supermajority or the abolition or limitation of the filibuster. On the Republican side, federal abortion restrictions could be opposed by key moderate senators, such as Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski (both of whom are pro-choice).

But while the obstacles to such legislation are significant, they may not be insuperable. If you believe that abortion is murder, you might well be willing to set aside the filibuster to ban it. Ditto if you think it's a fundamental human right, and only federal legislation can ensure its protection. If Roe does indeed get overruled, time will tell if major new federal abortion legislation is politically feasible or not. If it turns out that it is, there is a good chance it might be successfully challenged on federalism grounds.

UPDATE: Back in 2015, co-blogger Jonathan Adler also wrote a post explaining why federal abortion restrictions exceed the scope of Congress' powers under the Commerce Clause. I think he's overly optimistic when it comes to current precedent. But the kinds of arguments he marshals are the sort that might well be accepted by Justice Thomas and others if the issue were to come before the Supreme Court.

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Could Congress Ban Abortion Nationwide if Roe Gets Overruled? - Reason

Now Im finally feeling free Im living down by an old par 3/You know Ill be playing

The last lyric that came to Adam Granduciel for the latest The War on Drugs album is the one hes most proud ofand the one he most enjoys singing. But the frontman and creative force behind the Grammy-winning rock band didnt need to take any artistic license in coming up with it.

Granduciel actually lives down by an old par-3 course, and it played a crucial role in his bands most recent creation. After moving to the Studio City area of Los Angeles in 2020, Granduciel stumbled onto Weddington Golf Course while on a walk with his then infant son, Bruce (named in part for one of Granduciels music idols, Bruce Springsteen). It soon became a place to unwind after the baby was put to bed, but it also morphed into an important part of his creative process, both for the bands fifth studio album, I Dont Live Here Anymore, and for the albums 10th and final track, Occasional Rain, on which he sings about his golf oasis.

Id go at night and just park the car behind the huge net and sit there listening to the music we were working on or voice memos of ideas I had and watch people tee off, says Granduciel, whose band won a Grammy for best rock album in 2018. It was just real meditative, and it was a nice routine I had.

As with many others, the pandemic played a role in Granduciel getting (back) into golf. The future rocker first fell in love with the game as a sixth-grader caddieing at Wellesley Country Club outside of Boston, taking advantage of Monday playing privileges while using his dads old set of clubs. As a teen he cobbled together his own setin some cases by ordering parts and using a blowtorch in the basement.

But Granduciel stopped playing when he was too old for the junior golf rateby then he was spending nearly all his free time playing guitar anyway. He thought about getting back into the game after college until his father informed him that his clubs had been thrown away. (Empty nesters like that nest empty.) A few decades later, the 43-year-olds latest move not only brought him close to that par 3 but to a neighbor who happened to be looking for a fourth.

It was just such a great thing to do every week, Granduciel says, to get outside and forget about whatever was going on, and I just really love it. And it was just great to connect with something from when I was younger.

Granduciel raves about the public golf courses in the L.A. area, even if he has to pay full freight these days. His Friday game has become a fixture on his calendarwell, when hes not touring, like during a recent two-month stretch that included his first time playing Madison Square Garden in January. He says the next steps in his golfing evolution are converting his bandmates and bringing his clubs on the road.

What a great way to see a city, too, or a town, Granduciel says. A couple years ago youd go to the local record store or youd find the great coffee shop or restaurant. But now, Im just going to try to find the great course.

In the meantime, Granduciel is just happy to have found the game again after all these years.

You cant really choose the things you get obsessed with. It was the same feeling I had when I was in sixth grade, and my friend invited me over to his house to jam for the first time . . .I couldnt wait for him to invite me over again, Granduciel says. I dont even know what Im doing out there half the time, but its the getting there thats the fun part.

Granduciel calls playing the guitar an extension of himself, but he says his golf game is very much a work in progress. After recently shooting a career-best 84, though, hes at least begun entertaining the possibility of playing the celebrity pro-am circuit.

When you see these highlights, and there are thousands of people watching you hit a 6-iron out of a fairway bunker to two inches, I cant even imagine how that feels, Granduciel says. You must feel like a god or something.

Of course, most people think the same thing about rock starseven rock stars who just bought their first pair of golf shoes. Yep, theres no turning back now. Adam Granduciel is all in as a golferjust listen to his lyrics.

We just played in L.A., so my golf buddies all came to the show, and I sang the line, and I pointed to them, Granduciel says. So it was a cool, full-circle kind of event.

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Adam Granduciel of the Grammy-winning band The War on Drugs finds musical inspiration on the course - GolfDigest.com

Yessenia Chavez died on July 16, 2021, after ingesting a Percocet pill that, unbeknownst to her, was laced with fentanyl. Her life could have been saved if anyone in that house knew how to prevent the situation, her mother, Jessica Chavez, told Colorado lawmakers on April 12 during the first public hearing over the Fentanyl Accountability and Prevention bill. [The police] did not question anyone in the house about the drugs. They took nobody [into] custody.

Chavezs testimony was followed later in the day by Laura Cash, whose son also died of an overdose. She warned against instituting harsher penalties that could lead to felony murder charges for an overdose victims friends and family. My son would have never wanted another life ruined because of his choices, Cash said.

Chavezs and Cashs children are only two of the 1,436 Coloradans who have died after overdosing on a deadly synthetic opioid known as fentanyl since 2020, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). Its an alarming statistic that inspired members of the Colorado House of Representatives to introduce a piece of legislation entitled Fentanyl Accountability And Prevention, or HB22-1326, this session. The bill seeks to enact tougher punishments for fentanyl possession while also putting money toward treatment and harm reduction.

Debate around the bill intensified after the April 12 hearing, when lawmakers considered, and ultimately passed, an amendment to make the law more punitive: Now, should the bill pass the General Assembly, it would be a felony to knowingly possess one gram or more of fentanyl (or a one gram compound with just a smattering of the deadly opioid) for personal use. For addiction and drug policy experts alike, the change raises the questionwho will be impacted by the proposed legislation and widened police drag net?

Critics, including Elisabeth Epps, executive director of the Colorado Freedom Fund and a candidate for Colorado House District 6, testified that the bill would essentially reignite the war on drugs, a government-led initiative that began in the 1970s and which disproportionately impacted Black communities through aggressive policies of policing, prosecution, and sentencing. State Representative Rod Bockenfeld, a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, took issue with Epps characterization: You mentioned the failed war on drugs. However, what were seeing is that, once we started defelonizing possession, that our use and deaths have doubled, tripled, maybe quadrupled in this country? Is it possible that maybe the war on drugs had some check and balance?

Its likely no shock that politicians on opposite sides of the aisle come down on opposite sides of the issue. What is surprising to many on Epps side is the number of Democrats who are crossing the aisle to join Bockenfeld. People are putting their seats or their votes before peoples lives, says Democratic state Representative Leslie Herod, who questions the amendments potential to harm vulnerable communities for generations to come.

In the end, the Judiciary Committee voted 7 to 4 to allow the amendment. Five Democrats voted in favor. On Monday, April 25, the Colorado House voted 42 to 20 to pass the bill, which will now move to the Colorado Senate for consideration before the legislative session ends May 11. There are strong political forces weaponizing criminal justice reform, says ACLU of Colorados director of advocacy and strategic alliances Taylor Pendergrass. Its not a good faith debate about how to protect people from harm or save lives, but really just a wedge issue during a very highly charged political year. In other words: Fix the fentanyl problem, or lose the election.

Former President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs in June 1971, calling drug abuse public enemy number one. He allocated funds to strengthen federal drug control agencies and pushed through mandatory sentencing, stop and frisk, and no-knock warrants, which allowed police officers to enter a suspects home without first announcing themselves.

But historians say U.S. drug prohibitions have been as much about the people who use substances as the substances themselves. Americas first opioid crisis began just after the Civil WarUnion Army doctors issued nearly 10 million opium pills to wounded soldiers, and an untold number went home addicted.

Opioids in the 1890s continued to go unregulated and were prescribed for a wide range of maladies, including menstrual cramps, according to historian David T. Courtwright, author of Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America. It wasnt until the 1870s, when Chinese immigrants introduced opium smoking to the United States, that popular sentiment regarding opioid use changed. No longer a soothing tincture for little old ladies, the drug instead was associated with young toughs who frequented Chinese laundries. That association fueled a wave of anti-Chinese immigration laws and, by 1914, recreational use of opium was banned nationally.

Other narcotics have a similar social history: Cocaine was banned when it became commonly used by Black Americans. (In February 1914, the New York Times highlighted the racial hysteria in an article titled, Negro Cocaine Fiends Are A New Southern Menace.) Marijuana took on a similar racial bias in a 1917 U.S. Treasury Department report concerned that, Mexicans and sometimes Negroes and lower class whites who smoked marijuana might assault upper-class white women while under the influence. These fears coincided with an influx of war refugees and political exiles seeking safe harbor in the U.S. during the Mexican Revolution.

And then there were the Reagan years, when Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. The law established the first mandatory minimum sentences based on specific quantities of cocaine, and put in place tougher criminal sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine than powder cocaine. For example, a person distributing five grams of crack received the same amount of jail time as someone distributing 500 grams of blow. Because crack was relatively cheap and accessible for poorer drug users, the sentencing disparity hit Black communities hardest. Before the 1986 law, the average drug sentence for African Americans was 11 percent higher than for whites. Four years later, it had jumped to 49 percent higher.

Republicans werent the only ones to enact such policies. Former President Bill Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which ushered in new statutes for gang-related crime and instated the three strikes rule, which mandated life imprisonment after three felony convictions. The law only served to accelerate the imprisonment of Black Americans: Although Black Americans make up 13 percent of the population, they represent 40 percent of all prison inmates, according to the Massachusetts-based think tank, Prison Policy Initiative.

Criminal justice reformers saw the pendulum swing their way beginning in 2010, when Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act. Signed into law by former President Barack Obama, the law eliminated a five-year mandatory sentencing for simple possession of crack cocaine over its powder formending a distinction that legal scholars assert led to the disproportionate arrest and incarceration of Black drug users.

That same year, harm reductionists celebrated when Congress reversed a decades-long ban on federally funded needle exchange programsa concept that involves providing unused, sterile syringes to people who inject drugswhich public health advocates have long pushed as an effective way to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis C. A reversal in that ban only highlighted its effectiveness: In 2012, a Republican-led Congress reinstated the ban in response to the growing number of heroin overdoses, as people who had been overprescribed prescription painkillers like OxyContin turned to injecting the drug. Just two years later, more than 200 people contracted HIV after sharing syringes in one Indiana county alone.

Now, state Republicans and many members of law enforcement, including Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen, assert that Denvers rise in car thefts, homicides, and overdoses spanning the past two years is due to several statewide criminal reform laws passed in 2019. Those statutes, which include a bond reform and a law reclassifying the possession of less than four grams of schedule I and II drugs (like heroin and cocaine) as a misdemeanor, were meant to reduce human and financial costs associated with the mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders.

Those statutes may have been the victim of bad timing. Drug reclassifications went into law on March 1, 2020, just as the novel coronavirus sent the country into lockdown. Though murders spiked that summer, a 2020 crime data analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that jumps in crime occurred across the country, including in cities that had not implemented any reforms. Crime analysts point to possible contributing factors, including the economic and mental health toll of the pandemic, as well as civil unrest after a Minnesota police officer murdered George Floyd. Ultimately, the Brennan Center for Justice concludes, the reasons for the crime increase cant be squared with any one narrative.

Fear sparked by rising crime in Colorado and the alarming rate of fentanyl overdoses, however, has obscured much of that nuance. Its a source of frustration to lawmakers intent on pursuing less-punitive measures. This is not a new conversation, says Democratic state Representative Leslie Herod, who previously voiced support for the bill before the amendment felonizing fentanyl possession was added.

Herod is chairwoman of the Black Democratic Legislative Caucus of Colorado, whose nine members will take individual positions on the bill as it evolves. What I will say is the Black caucus stands united in fighting against punitive measures that just relive the war on drugs and the failed policies of the past, Herod says. When asked if her support for the bill had shifted after the amendment, she responded that lawmakers were still working through additional amendments. The reduced possession threshold in House Bill 1326 was passed through the House Appropriations Committeewhich is chaired by Herod and received her yes voteon Friday.

Increasing the penalties for fentanyl possession isnt the only goal of the legislationthe bill currently earmarks $26 million for harm reduction efforts like Narcan and fentanyl testing strips. Several Democrats have said it was these measures that earned their support. Democratic state Representative Kerry Tipper told 5280 via email that her yes vote was solidified with adding robust guardrails and off-ramps for people to get the help they need. For state Representative Adrienne Benavidez, who also gave 5280 her statement via email, her yes vote was contingent upon including language that requires that the individual knew or should have known that they were in possession of contained fentanyl.

Democratic Speaker of the House Alec Garnett, who is in support of HB22-1326, believes the harm reduction aspects of the bill are being overshadowed by the felony amendment. Its kind of amazing how much attention the possession piece is garnering, Garnett says. In low level drug possession cases, you know, one [gram] is still 10 pills, but [the statute] provides space for a plea down to a misdemeanor and flexibility on how the system goes about focusing on that drug felony.

Still, both Epps and Herod expressed fears that the legislations more punitive measures would disproportionately impact the Black community. Those concerns arent unfoundedracial disparities in drug-related charges remain in the Centennial State. A Department of Public Safety report released in 2021 showed that even after legalization, Black Coloradans were still twice as likely as whites to be arrested on marijuana-related charges. Such disparities have led to higher incarceration rates for Colorados Black community: A 2017 report by the ACLU of Colorado found that Black Coloradans, who made up only four percent of the state population, consisted of 13 percent of those imprisoned.

Should the fentanyl bill follow this trend, it would mean the very community most harmed by the dangerous drug would also see the worst punishment. In February 2022, the nonprofit advocacy group Families Against Fentanyl found that in the past two years, fentanyl-related deaths had increased five-fold in Colorado. The same report also found that Black and Indigenous Americans are more likely to die from fentanyl-related overdose than any other racial groups.

Activists and academic literature on the war on drugs say it is enforcement, not possession amounts, that yield disparities. The worry is that police and prosecutors, because of biases and because of other social factors, are just going to be more likely to use these criminal statutes against defendants from marginalized communities, says Benjamin Levin, associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder. Levin contends that statutes that use criminal law to regulate drug use indicate that the war on drugs is very much alive.

The worry is, if you continue to use possession crime as a way of addressing these issues, youre just creating incentives for police to stop more people, says Levin. Based on decades of evidence, theres reason to think that thats less likely to happen to white students at CU than it is to happen to Black drivers or pedestrians in lower income communities.

The data backs him up: A 2020 study by social scientists in New York Universitys Steinhardt School found that Black drivers were about 20 percent more likely to be stopped than white drivers. The same study found Black drivers were searched twice as often as white driverseven though they were less likely to be carrying drugs, guns, or other illegal contraband compared to their white peers.

Black pedestrians dont fare any better. When the Vera Institute analyzed 125,000 pedestrian stops by police in New York City, they found Black New Yorkers were stopped more than 23 percent more often than white New Yorkers, representing over half of the stops and only 26 percent of the citys population. Some activists say pretextual stopswhen police stop a driver or pedestrian for a minor violation and use that stop to investigate something else, without a warrantgive law enforcement too much leeway in whom to stop. Police insist its a useful tool to investigate drug possession, hoping to catch that big dealer.

According to Levin, concerns about disparities in enforcement scale up to every step of the criminal justice system, from surveillance and arrest, to prosecution and sentencing. Black defendants tend to be treated worse than white defendants, and are more likely to face sentencing enhancements. Theres an immense reliance on individual discretion at the policing level, the prosecutorial level, and in the sentencing phase with judges. If were relying on that kind of discretion, and we accept the fact that people have biases, says Levin, theres always going to be a risk that defendants perceived as scarier, or riskier, or less sympathetic are going to be people from an outgroup.

Community members working in harm reduction, an umbrella term for a suite of public health policies that decrease the dangers of drug use, believe there are better ways to reduce fentanyl deaths. They have been working behind the scenes since last November to convince lawmakers to only rely on evidenced-based approaches while crafting the bill. What we should be talking about is safe supply and managed use, says Lisa Raville, executive director of Harm Reduction Action Center, a nonprofit that provides resources to users in a non-judgmental space and advocates for evidence-based drug policy at the local and state levels.

Both strategies have seen success: Safe supply, providing substance users with a product that isnt laced with any unknown adulterants with a known potency, was shown to be effective when it was used in Vancouver. And managed use, a harm reduction principle that acknowledges that people have and will always use drugs, has led to policies like safe injection sites. At these facilities, a person may use drugs under the watchful eye of a person trained to respond to an overdose. One such site opened in New York City last year and has seen zero deaths from an overdose.

To Raville, safe supply and managed use are no different to how we currently administer cannabis, or even alcohol proof. But people have a very hard time talking about that if youve never had a good conversation about those drugs. Its always reefer madness.

And that reefer madness has led to policies that most evidence says simply do not work. A 2018 policy analysis of state corrections and public health data by the Urban Institute found no relationship between imprisonment rates and rates of drug use, overdose deaths, or arrests for drug law violations. In other words, evidence shows the ineffectiveness of felony convictions to deter drug use or mitigate the harm it can cause. Decades of research points in the opposite direction, according to the National Institutes of Health, which stated in May 2021 that addiction is a medical conditiona treatable brain disordernot a character flaw or a form of social deviance.

Unfortunately, some say this expert advice continues to go unheeded. Its not about the policy, its about politics, says Denise Maes, policy analyst for Servicios Sigue, a behavioral health organization serving the Denver Latino community. I think there is the sense that the Dems have to pass something now for their political survival in November.

Lawmakers, regardless of political affiliation, have expressed that they want to see an end to the overdose crisis. While tough-on-crime policies have long been associated with Republicans and conservatives, Levin is quick to remind us that it isnt so red or blue: Its really important to recognize that one of the reasons were in this place, in terms of incarceration and criminal law in this country, is because of a lot of support from Democrats.

But public opinion among Colorado voters is changing. The Colorado Criminal Justice Coalition released a poll this month that found most voters oppose law enforcement officials recent calls to re-felonize simple drug possession. A majority believe lawmakers should focus more on prevention and treatment and less on punishment and incarceration. I think the voters are ahead of the legislators in some respects on this, says the ACLUs Pendergrass. And I think people whose lives have been directly impacted by substance use know in their bones that jail doesnt work. They want to see prevention and treatment prioritized, and I hope that the legislature can catch up to them.

Maes and Raville also take issue with language that creates an additional criminal charge if they introduce or dispense any drug with any amount of fentanyl that leads to death. Its a drug-induced homicide piece that essentially makes every overdose death a murder investigation, says Raville. Thats only going to increase overdose deaths because no ones gonna want to call 911. The bill also requires a court to order a defendant into drug treatment, something Raville says doesnt work. Thatll be incredibly problematic, too. So, no. I am not a fan of this bill at all.

While Herod, Maes, and Pendergrass expressed support for the bill before it was made more punitive, all agreed the public debate would have been better spent giving air to progressive harm reduction efforts.

Whether House Bill 1326 becomes law with harsher penalties for fentanyl possession remains to be seen. The question of whether the criminal statutes will deter substance use and sweep the Centennial State of large amounts of fentanyl is yet unanswered. One thing is certain: Coloradans will soon know for certain if harm reduction efforts will take a backseat to politics in an election year. And in November, legislators will find out for themselves at what cost these efforts came. But the bearers of the most collateral damage in this crisis will continue to be those communities most at risk of overdose deathBlack and Indigenous communities.

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Is Colorado Bringing Back the War on Drugs? - 5280 - 5280 | The Denver Magazine