Drug Policy

DEA Refuses To Support Modifying Minimum Sentences

June 9, 2014 Clifford Thornton, www.greenshadowcabinet.us Organize! DEA, Drug Policy, Law

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration is refusing to support a bill backed by the Obama administration that would modify mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug crimes, putting her at odds with her boss, Attorney General Holder. He hopes to make the bill, the “Smarter Sentencing Act” a centerpiece of his legacy. Sign the petition here. As DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart explained, “Having been in law enforcement as an agent for 33 years, [and] a Baltimore City police officer before that, I can tell you that for me and for the agents that work for DEA, mandatory minimums have been very important to our investigations. We depend on those as a way to ensure that the right sentences are going to the... level of violator we are going after.” Administrator Leonhart, appointed by Bush a Deputy Administrator of the DEA in 2004 and served as Acting Administrator of the DEA in 2007, was appointed by President Obama as Administrator in 2010 over the objections of many drug policy reformers. She has been at the DEA since 1980.

Sasha Shulgin Rest In Peace

June 3, 2014 Hamilton Morris, Ash Smith, www.vice.com Educate! Drug Policy, Drug use, Drug War, Psychedelic Drugs

I love Alexander Shulgin. I’ve loved him from the first moment I read about him. He is my idol, my hero, my sun, my O2. I love each of the 978 pages of his phenethylamine magnum opus, PiHKAL(Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved), and every milligram of his 1.13-kilogram tryptamine treatise, TiHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved). Above my bed I’ve pinned a large picture of Shulgin cuddling with his wife, Ann. I often sleep with a copy of PiHKAL not under my pillow, butas a pillow. He is the grandfather of Ecstasy, the molecular magician, the atomic conquistador. Over the span of 50 years he has created more new psychedelic drugs than the Amazon jungle ever has. He is more of a mythological creature, a chemical centaur, than he is a real person. But he does exist, as I am about to attest.

Is Destructive Drug War Being Brought To An End?

June 3, 2014 Kevin Zeese, www.huffingtonpost.com Organize! Drug Policy, Drug War, Marijuana, Medical Marijuana

Majorities now support the outright legalization of marijuana and oppose the war on drugs. The public has overcome decades of misinformation to justify the drug war. The transformation struck me a few years ago when I was in a medical marijuana dispensary in California. In 1996, California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana. At the dispensary, people lined up -- as if they were waiting for a bank teller -- in a safe place to get medical-quality marijuana. The slogan of the Harborside Health Center was "out of the darkness and into the light." Now, the light is shining on former drug war assertions, and claims like the one that marijuana causes crime are being proven false. Since the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, violent crime has fallen by 6.9 percent and property crime by 11.1 percent. A 2012 study, "California Youth Crime Plunges to All-Time Low," credits a state marijuana decriminalization for plummeting arrests for all crimes. Meanwhile, anApril 2014 study shows that legalization does not lead to increased adolescent use.

Take Action: End The Drug War

May 20, 2014 Eugene Jarecki, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy, Drug War

The video, JUST SAY NO ...to the War on Drugs, links to how people can take action to tell Congress to pass the bipartisan SMARTER SENTENCING ACT. The letter to Members of Congress says "This bill will save taxpayer dollars, improve public safety, reduce dangerous overcrowding in federal prisons, and rethink unproductive mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. Mandatory minimums help drive America’s unsustainably large prison population of over 2.3 million people. The U.S. has only 5% of the world’s population yet holds 25% of its prisoners, many of them nonviolent, often serving longer sentences than those convicted of rape and murder. This is not only senseless and unjust; it wastes valuable resources that could be better spent by law enforcement to prevent violent crime." Help end the drug war, share this article and video. Take action today.

Federal Grant Encourages Police Terrorism In Southern Town

May 4, 2014 Spencer Woodman, www.alternet.org Educate! Drug Policy, Police abuse

As Durham becomes a regional center for sophisticated culture and cuisine, the drug enforcement strategies of its police increasingly assign second-class status to the city’s minority communities. Over the past several months, protesters alleging police misconduct have pummeled the city’s police headquarters with rocks and met tear gas along the usually amiable streets of this city of 240,000. In seeking to understand the roots of the city’s divisive policing, lawyers at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice were astonished by what a recent round of public records requests produced. Not only was a federal grant subsidizing what they regarded as the most perniciously targeted drug enforcement operations of the department, but the grant — with a key “performance measure” emphasizing police report their sheer volume of arrests — also appeared to be incentivizing the department to raise its overall number of drug arrests, which overwhelmingly affect the city’s black community. SCSJ attorneys add that recently revealed evidence also indicates that the federally funded program included an illegal system of secret payments law enforcement made to witnesses who delivered successful drug prosecutions — another sign, they say, that the city’s policing has flown off the rails.

Will Obama Pardon Thousands of Drug Offenders?

April 22, 2014 Drug Policy Alliance, www.drugpolicy.org Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy

A White House official told Yahoo that President Obama is prepared to use his pardon power to grant clemency to “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of people who have been jailed for nonviolent drug crimes. The White House’s new moves would follow in the footsteps of a January announcement that the Obama administration would taking the unprecedented step of encouraging defense lawyers to suggest inmates whom the president might let out of prison early, as part of its effort to curtail severe penalties in low-level drug cases. In December, President Obama commuted the sentences of eight federal inmates convicted of non-violent drug offenses involving crack cocaine. Mr. Obama said the eight men and women had been sentenced under an “unfair system,” including the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses that was reduced to 18:1 by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.

Izzy Award & IF Stone Hall of Fame Honor Scahill, Greenwald, Turse & Carlos Frey

April 11, 2014 David Maley, www.ithaca.edu Educate! Drug Policy, Media, Mexico, NSA, Wars and Militarism

Four acclaimed journalists will speak at Ithaca College on Monday, April 28, as they accept national honors. Glenn Greenwald will appear via a pre-taped video, while Jeremy Scahill, John Carlos Frey andNick Turse will appear in person. The Izzy Award and I.F. Stone Hall of Fame ceremony, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for 7 p.m. in Park Hall Auditorium. Sponsored by the Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM), both the award and the hall of fame are named in memory of legendary journalist I.F. “Izzy” Stone, who published “I.F. Stone’s Weekly” from 1953 to 1971 and exposed official deception while championing civil liberties. Also participating in the ceremony will be Izzy Stone’s son Jeremy Stone and biographer Myra MacPherson, author of “All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone.”

Random Drug Testing for All? The Chilling Proposal That Could Eradicate Your Privacy

March 13, 2014 Paul Armentano www.alternet.org Educate! Drug Policy

The white paper, authored by former United States National Institute on Drug Abuse Director (and present-day drug testing consultant and profiteer) Robert Dupont (along with input from staffers at various drug testing labs and corporations) argues: “The major need today is the wider and smarter use of the currently available drug testing technologies and practices. … This White Paper encourages wider and ‘smarter’ use of drug testing within the practice of medicine and, beyond that, broadly within American society. Smarter drug testing means increased use of random testing rather than the more common scheduled testing, and it means testing not only urine but also other matrices such as blood, oral fluid (saliva), hair, nails, sweat and breath.”

Members Of Congress Tell Obama Reschedule Marijuana

February 14, 2014 Mollie Reilly, www.huffingtonpost.com Organize! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy, Marijuana

"Over a dozen members of Congress are calling on President Barack Obama to reschedule marijuana, with one congressman describing the drug's current classification as "arbitrary and incorrect."[..]In the letter, which Blumenauer began circulating to colleagues late last month, the lawmakers said placing marijuana at the same level as heroin "makes no sense." "You said that you don't believe marijuana is any more dangerous than alcohol: a fully legalized substance, and believe it to be less dangerous 'in terms of its impact on the individual consumer,'” the letter reads, referencing Obama's recent interview with the New Yorker. "This is true. Marijuana, however, remains listed in the federal Controlled Substances Act at Schedule I ... This is a higher listing than cocaine and methamphetamine, Schedule II substances that you gave as examples of harder drugs. This makes no sense."

Historic Moment: First License To Sell Marijuana Issued

December 27, 2013 Staff, www.AP.org Create! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy, Marijuana

The first batch of Denver businesses approved to sell recreational marijuana are getting their licenses. The city is giving out licenses to the owners of 42 medical marijuana shops and growers Friday. Denver is one of 19 municipalities and seven counties in Colorado that will allow retail sales of recreational pot to those 21 and older under voter-approved Amendment 64. Only existing medical marijuana businesses in Denver are now allowed to make the transition to recreational sales. Of the 42 approved so far, eight are retail shops, 30 are growers and four are infused product manufacturers. The state has approved 348 marijuana business licenses in Colorado.

Undercover Police In Schools Entrap Students On Drug Charges

December 16, 2013 Tony Newman, www.alternet.org Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy, Education, Police abuse, Youth

Here we go again. Undercover cops pose as students, make friends, build trust, and then arrest teenagers for selling mostly small amounts of marijuana. Yesterday nearly two dozen students were busted at two southern California high-schools, according to Riverside County Sheriff officials. Two undercover cops, a woman and a man, had been posing as students since the beginning of the year. The majority of the drug buys were small amounts of marijuana, but there were some other drugs seized including cocaine and prescription pills. The campus was shaken yesterday, according to a story in the Press Enterprise. Students were shocked to see their friends arrested in class and left wondering who they can and cannot trust in their peer groups.

Uruguay Becomes First Country to Legalize Marijuana Trade

December 11, 2013 Malena Castaldi and Felipe LLambias, www.reuters.com Educate! Drug Policy, Marijuana

Uruguay became the first country to legalize the growing, sale and smoking of marijuana on Tuesday, a pioneering social experiment that will be closely watched by other nations debating drug liberalization. A government-sponsored bill approved by 16-13 votes in the Senate provides for regulation of the cultivation, distribution and consumption of marijuana and is aimed at wresting the business from criminals in the small South American nation. Backers of the law, some smoking joints, gathered near Congress holding green balloons, Jamaican flags in homage to Bob Marley and a sign saying: "Cultivating freedom, Uruguay grows."

Every War On Drugs Myth Destroyed By A Retired Police Captain

December 2, 2013 Rollie Williams, www.upworthy.com Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy, Video

Below is an interview with Peter Christ Peter is a co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) that has gone viral. He appears on WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, NY and takes on all aspects of our disastrous War on Drugs. Captain Christ is currently vice-chair of LEAP. LEAP is in a fundraising campaign. Their goal is to raise $35,000, they have five days to go and $14,000 more to raise. They are raising money to make a documentary film of LEAP when they accompanied Javier Sicilia's Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity from the Mexican border, through 27 U.S. cities, to Washington D.C. You can be part of the crowd-sourced fundraising here. Retired police Capt. Peter Christ is about to make more sense about the War on Drugs than anyone you've ever heard in the past. His basic premise is that we need to legalize drugs, but if you're skeptical, just give him a few minutes to convince you.

An Occupy Activist’s New Cause: Drug Raids And Police Abuse

October 28, 2013 Radley Balko, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Drug Policy, Occupy, Police abuse

Two men with different approaches to both politics and activism are leading Utah's police reform movement. Connor Boyack is the libertarian pragmatist, the negotiator and the policy wonk. Jesse Fruhwirth is the far-left idealist, the sign-toting activist and the revolutionary. It was Fruhwirth who organized a rally against police brutality at the Utah state capitol in March, and another in support of Matthew David Stewart in Ogden in April. Stewart, an Army veteran, was awaiting trial on murder charges, after a botched raid on his house to serve a drug warrant ended in the death of a police officer.

Masked DEA Agents Raid Innocent Women, Refuse to Reveal Identities

September 19, 2013 Radley Balko, huffingtonpost.com Educate! Civil Rights, DEA, Drug Policy

Over a three-day period in June 2007, heavily armed SWAT teams, supported by tanks and helicopters, descended on Detroit's Eight Mile Road. The massive operation involved police and agents from 21 different local, state and federal branches of law enforcement, and was intended to rid the notoriously crime-ridden area of drug houses, prostitutes and wanted fugitives.

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