Drug Policy

Families Losing Children For Medical Marijuana Where It Is Legal

September 19, 2013 Ken Palmer, www.freep.com Resist! Drug Policy, Marijuana

The case of a 6-month-old Lansing girl who was removed from her parents after a complaint involving medical marijuana has become a rallying point for groups aligned behind the state’s 5-year-old medical marijuana law. Holding placards and chanting, “Free Bree,” dozens of people gathered outside the Grand Tower on Tuesday to protest the state Department of Human Services’ efforts to remove Brielle (Bree) Green from parents Gordon (Steve) and Maria Green. “These are good parents, good loving parents,” said Charmie Gholson, founder of Michigan Moms United, one of several groups that organized Tuesday’s news conference. Gholson said the Green case is among dozens in which state caseworkers have disregarded protections in the medical marijuana law while trying to remove children from parents who are registered patients or caregivers

Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing NSA’s

September 2, 2013 Scott Shane and Colin Moynihan, www.nytimes.com Educate! Drug Policy, Police abuse, Privacy, Surveillance

For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs. The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an extremely close association between the government and the telecommunications giant. The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.

Welfare Reform Insanity: Banning Convicted Drug Offenders From Food Stamps

August 31, 2013 Sheila Bapat, www.alternet.org Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy, Food and Agriculture, Poverty, Women's Rights

Well before the current, direct attack on federal funding of food stamps—also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—there have been systemic, state-imposed barriers to accessing food stamps that have been in place for nearly two decades. Several states require fingerprinting of recipients and reams of paperwork, or are stalled by outdated technology. The Los Angeles Times recently reported on the onerous barriers food stamp recipients face in California. But the ban barring drug convicts from accessing food stamps is one of the most problematic state-imposed barriers faced by poor people like Sutherland. Twelve states still ban convicted drug offenders from accessing SNAP benefits. A relic of welfare reform, the food stamp ban is an example of the political interplay between the drug war and the movement to reform welfare which in reality became a double indictment of the poor: People of financial means who made mistakes with drugs would not be rendered vulnerable to hunger for the rest of their lives.

Study: 80% of Swiss Inmates Consume Cannabis, Improves Safety According to Guards

August 8, 2013 The Joint Blog, www.thejointblog.com Educate! Drug Policy

A new study published by the International Journal of Drug Policy has found that as many as 80% of inmates in Swiss prisons consume cannabis, something that prison staff is fully aware of, with most feeling that it has a positive effect on the overall prison environment. According to the study, prisoners named off a variety of benefits they received from consuming cannabis; “Participants showed similar opinions on effects of cannabis use that were described both at individual and institutional levels: analgesic, calming, self-help to go through the prison experience, relieve stress, facilitate sleep, prevent violence, and social pacifier.”

IRS Manual Detailed DEA’s Use of Hidden NSA Intel

August 8, 2013 John Shiffman and David Ingram, www.uk.reuters.com Educate! DEA, Drug Policy, NSA

The practice of recreating the investigative trail, highly criticized by former prosecutors and defence lawyers after Reuters reported it this week, is now under review by the Justice Department. Two high-profile Republicans have also raised questions about the procedure. A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA's Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007.

New Report on Public Housing: “Communities, Evictions, and Criminal Convictions”

June 14, 2013 Bruce Reilly, www.ficpmovement.wordpress.com Create! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug Policy, Housing

New Orleans tangles with the most intense incarceration in America, and thus the world. Seemingly innocent programs related to criminal convictions, can take on a primary role in a city such as New Orleans, where one in seven Black men is either in prison, on parole or probation. To fully grasp the community impact of affordable housing barriers in this sphere, one must account for arrest, incarceration, and poverty rates. Particular to civil rights law, one should factor in the proportionality between recognized ethnic and language groups. It is no mystery that in New Orleans, policies that affect people impacted by the criminal justice system (both individuals and families) are disproportionately affecting people of Color- especially African-Americans. The contrasting affect is most glaring when comparing the drug enforcement policies of densely populated, overwhelmingly White, college students. The excuse of “experimentation” has been reserved for a certain segment of young drug users.

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