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Drug War

Oregon Becomes First State To Decriminalize Small Possession Of All Drugs

November 4, 2020 Mike Ludwig, Truthout. , , ,
Voters in Oregon approved a historic ballot initiative that would decriminalize possession of smaller amounts of all illegal drugs and funnel tax revenue from legal marijuana sales into addiction treatment, potentially providing an early model for combating deep racial disparities in the criminal legal system and significantly slowing the war on drugs. Now that Measure 110 has passed with nearly 59 percent of the vote, racial disparities in drug arrests are expected to drop by an astounding 94 percent, according to an analysis by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, a state agency.

Kevin Zeese: His Last Words For The Movement And Carrying On

September 13, 2020 Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance. , , ,
As I wrote last week, Kevin Zeese died unexpectedly in his sleep, likely from a heart attack, early in the morning on September 6. He had not shown signs of illness and was working until the end. Many of you know Kevin from Popular Resistance, from his writing and podcast Clearing the FOG. He had a deep knowledge of history and the issues. He often spoke of his time working for Ralph Nader in 2004 when he wrote policy briefs as a "PhD in public policy." Kevin understood how political power works. Kevin's work in activism spanned more than 40 years.

RIP Arnold Trebach – Made Opposition To The Drug War Respectable

July 30, 2020 Jacob Sullum, Reason.com. , , ,
Arnold Trebach, who died last week at the age of 92, started the Drug Policy Foundation in the heat of Ronald Reagan's war on drugs. It was the same year that Joe Biden, a Democrat who is running for president this year as a criminal justice reformer, wrote the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which prescribed new mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and created the notorious weight-based sentencing distinction that treated crack cocaine as if it were 100 times worse than cocaine powder.

Why And How To Defund The Police

June 20, 2020 Jason Kirkpatrick, Counterpunch. , , ,
The vague and easily misinterpreted call to Defund the Police has been spreading quickly across the USA. Some may have a knee-jerk reaction to “just say no” to this call, but polls show a vast majority of Americans are concerned about improving the lives of people of color across the country. Reforms such as teaching police to de-escalate conflicts and enforcement of body camera use have support of about 90% of Americans. So, what could solutions to the current situation look like, how could they be paid for, and should relative costs realistically be coming out of police budgets? My experience sharing oversight of a police budget as a City Councillor and Vice Mayor for four years gave me valuable insights to be able to propose concrete solutions.

Ending Militarization Of Our Communities

January 19, 2020 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In recent weeks Popular Resistance has focused on the escalation of US militarism around the world, especially in the Middle East with the assassination of General Soleimani, US troops staying in Syria to take their oil and the US refusing to leave Iraq despite being asked to leave. The US is in the midst of a potential escalation toward full-scale war in the Middle East once again. However, militarism abroad is mirrored by militarism at home, especially in poor, black and brown communities. There is a long history of attacks on these communities. Now, the Department of Justice's new Operation Relentless Pursuit threatens seven cities with more militarized police who view people in these communities as the enemy. This escalation of the war at home must be stopped and people are offering positive alternatives to militarization.

Operation Relentless Pursuit Brings Terror To Seven Cities

January 16, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
Clearing the FOG co-hosts Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese interviewed Jacqueline Luqman of Coffe, Current Events and Politics in Luqman Nation about the Department of Justice's new Operation Relentless Pursuit. The initial phase of the program, which costs $71 million, targets seven cities, four of them majority black, with more money, police equipment, and federal law enforcement to supposedly combat crime. Luqman explains what the impact of the program will be on poor and black communities and what would be a more effective approach to crime. Listen to the full interview plus recent news and analysis, including what the corporate media isn't telling you about Iran and Iraq, on Clearing the FOG. 

New Federal Police Surge Targets Poor And Black Communities

January 13, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
In December, the Department of Justice announced a new $71 million program, Operation Relentless Pursuit, that will increase policing and the involvement of federal agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Agency in seven cities, four of which are majority-black cities. Rather than addressing the root causes of crime, the program will result in greater repression and violence against these communities. We speak with Jacqueline Luqman about the program, what policies would be more effective and what people are doing to fight back. Kevin Zeese, who has worked for decades to end the war on drugs and mass incarceration, describes how similar programs have been tried in the past and have failed. We also provide current news and analysis. 

Coalition Pushes To End Criminalization Of Marijuana And Other Drugs

September 8, 2019 By Kyle Jaeger, Marijuana Moment , ,
A coalition of more than 100 civil rights groups—including ACLU, NAACP, National Education Association and National Organization for Women—released a criminal justice reform platform for the 2020 elections on Thursday that calls for the legalization of marijuana and supports the “dismantling” of the criminalization of other drugs. As part of the document’s plank on ending the war on drugs, the organizations said states should “legalize marijuana through a racial justice framework that focuses on access, equity, and repairing the damage of prohibition” and the federal government should end cannabis prohibition and “implement marijuana reform through a racial justice lens.”

An Apology From Joe Biden For His Drug War Sins Would Be Nice

February 8, 2019 Doug McVay, Freedomleaf.com ,
I attended my first US Senate committee hearing about 30 years ago this year. It was the confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee of William Bennett to be the nation’s first Drug Czar. The hearing was chaired by Senator Joseph Biden, the Democrat from Delaware. The post of Drug Czar – Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to give the job its proper name – as well as the Office of Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) itself was created by Joe Biden and his colleagues in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.

Nicaragua And The U.S. Neo-fascist Offensive

November 18, 2018 Fabian Escalante Font, Global Research. , , ,
In April of the current year, media headlines pointed to a ‘revolution’ breaking out in Nicaragua against the Sandinista Front government headed by Commander Daniel Ortega. Until then, and for 11 years, the government of that country, legitimately chosen in elections supervised by regional organizations, had carried out wide-ranging programs for reducing residual poverty, poor health, and illiteracy and also implemented many social programs that benefited rural and urban populations. Highways, roads, aqueducts, and an expansive electrical system were constructed.

ACLU Sues San Francisco For Targeting African-Americans In Drug Arrests

October 11, 2018 Phil Smith, Drug Reporter , ,
San Francisco's Tenderloin is a heavily populated, racially mixed neighborhood in the heart of one of America's iconic progressive cities. Yet when the San Francisco Police Department and the DEA targeted the neighborhood to crack down on drug dealing between 2013 and 2015 as part of "Operation Safe Schools," the only people they managed to roll up were black. When 37 black defendants—and no defendants of any other race—got hauled away, nobody noticed. That is, until the defendants started showing up looking for federal public defenders. The federal public defenders noticed, and they began making noise about racial disparities and selective enforcement of the drug laws.

Dan Bigg, Revolutionary Of Harm Reduction Movement, Dies

September 14, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance , ,
A colleague of mine, Dan Bigg of the Chicago Recovery Alliance, died on August 21 at his home. Bigg was at the forefront of bringing harm reduction into practice in the United States. The Fix called Dan "The Patron Saint of Harm Reduction" in a notable 2014 interview, and the Chicago Tribune described his work as "revolutionary."  As a result of Bigg's efforts, friends and colleagues said, thousands of people who would have died from infections or overdoses are still alive - a flesh and blood legacy of the "harm reduction" philosophy Bigg helped to popularize.

International Day Of The Disappeared

August 30, 2018 School of Americas Watch. , , ,
This August 30th marks the International Day of the Disappeared, initiated by the Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared, FEDEFAM, an organization founded in 1981 at the height of US-backed state terrorism throughout Latin America. On this day, SOA Watch salutes the thousands of families who continue their unwavering search for their disappeared and celebrates the trials that continue to take place in spite of a legacy of terror and impunity that seeks to silence the demands for justice.

Jeff Session’s Assault On Mariujuana Legalization

January 23, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG Radio. , , ,
Jeff Sessions, head of the Department of Justice, reversed the "Cole Memo" that allowed states to pursue marijuana legalization without fear of the federal government stepping in and prosecuting the marijuana industry. Sessions is leaving it up to each state's federal prosecutor to decide on how to proceed. This happened just as California moved to implement legal marijuana and Vermont voted to legalize marijuana. We speak with Justin Strekal, policy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and Doug McVay, a long time advocate for drug law reform at the state and national level and editor of Drug War Facts, about what lies ahead for the movement to end marijuana prohibition.

Session’s Anti-Marijuana Move Might Be Good For Legalization

January 7, 2018 Tom Angell for MarijuanaMoment.net. , ,
For the past several years, the marijuana industry and its customers have been relying on a piece of paper — an Obama-era document known as the Cole memo — to indulge in their business and pleasure mostly without fear of arrest by federal agents. On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded that document. Observers took it as a sign that a large-scale cannabis crackdown could be on the way. But could Sessions’s move actually turn out to be good news for legalization supporters? The development generated immediate and intense pushback from federal and state officials, from both sides of the aisle. And it wasn’t just the usual suspects of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus chiming in.
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