Answer Addiction

Tag: drug policy

  • Why Some Drug-Sniffing Dogs Are Being Forced Into Early Retirement

    Why Some Drug-Sniffing Dogs Are Being Forced Into Early Retirement

    Some police departments across the US have found that marijuana-trained drug-sniffing dogs have become a liability. 

    Police K-9s have helped sniff out many a marijuana offender, but as local governments relax their marijuana laws, some of these drug-sniffing dogs are being forced into early retirement.

    The New York Times reports that police departments across the United States are having to retire their drug-sniffing dogs and seek newer K-9s with no marijuana-sniffing experience. Not only is the skill becoming obsolete in parts of the country, it is now seen as a liability.

    “A dog can’t tell you, ‘Hey, I smell marijuana’ or ‘I smell meth.’ They have the same behavior for any drug that they’ve been trained on,” says Tommy Klein, police chief in Rifle, Colorado.

    Tulo, a yellow Labrador retriever who has helped with more than 170 arrests in his eight years with the Rifle police department, will retire in January. “If Tulo were to alert on a car, we no longer have probable cause for a search based on his alert alone,” said Klein.

    Colorado police departments like Rifle’s are following a 2017 ruling by a Colorado appeals court that said a marijuana-trained drug-sniffing dog’s signal was “no longer a reliable indicator of illegal activity,” the NYT reported.

    Kilo alerted Moffat County officers to the presence of contraband on a man’s truck. A search turned up a pipe with “what appeared to be methamphetamine residue.”

    However, based on the judge’s ruling, the officers had no legal grounds to search the man’s vehicle because Kilo was trained to detect marijuana, among other drugs.

    The state Supreme Court will review the decision and plans to hear arguments in January, but some police departments are taking it as a sign that times are changing.

    “Almost every state is trying to get ahead of this,” says David Ferland, executive director of the United States Police Canine Association. “Nearly every one is having some newly trained teams not introduce marijuana odors to their dogs.”

    Even in places like Texas, where marijuana is still criminalized, law enforcement are planning ahead.

    “I just did a dog for a department in Texas that asked me not to put marijuana on her. They and the feeling there could be some changes coming there, and they wanted to plan ahead,” said Ron Cloward, a K-9 trainer based in Modesto, California.

    Younger dogs, like Rudy in Arvada, Colorado, will be trained to detect only cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and methamphetamine. Makai and Jax will replace Tulo in Rifle, Colorado. They, too, will have no marijuana training.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Is New York City Handing Out Harsher Penalties For THC Oil Possession?

    Is New York City Handing Out Harsher Penalties For THC Oil Possession?

    A new report reveals a major contradiction in the city’s ongoing efforts to reform marijuana enforcement.

    Getting caught with a cartridge of THC oil can land you in jail in New York City—despite city officials’ promise to decriminalize marijuana offenses.

    A new report by The Appeal highlights the disparity in the city’s enforcement of possession of THC oil versus marijuana in its raw form.

    “Cannabis oil possession carries a harsher charge than regular marijuana possession,” The Appeal reports.

    “Because the oil is classified as a controlled substance, the charge is a Class A misdemeanor, the same class used for low-level heroin and crack possession. Those convicted of the charge can be sentenced to up to a year in jail.”

    The fact that police officers are still treating THC oil possession as a criminal misdemeanor contradicts the city’s ongoing efforts to reform marijuana enforcement.

    On Sept. 1st, the city enacted a new policy to ticket instead of arrest people for public marijuana smoking. Mayor Bill de Blasio claimed that the new policy would reduce marijuana possession arrests by 10,000. Each year, about 17,500 people are arrested in New York City for marijuana possession.

    Neither the mayor’s office nor the NYPD agreed to comment on its policy regarding THC oil.

    “The DA’s office has prosecuted at least 22 THC or cannabis oil cases since Sept. 1, according to public defenders in Brooklyn… In 13 of those cases, people were charged with possessing cannabis oil alone, without any other misdemeanor or felony charges,” The Appeal reports.

    Oren Yaniv, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, says the DA is working to reduce marijuana convictions.

    “New York law categorizes THC oil not as marijuana, but as a controlled substance… However, recognizing that THC is the active ingredient in marijuana, we believe that the two forms of marijuana should be treated similarly,” said Yaniv.

    Meanwhile, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is working on the bigger picture. The state is currently exploring legalizing marijuana for adult use. New York already has a medical marijuana program. However, home cultivation, smokable medical marijuana, and edible products are not allowed under the program.

    This month, during a recent appearance in Buffalo, Governor Cuomo said that marijuana legalization legislation is in the works.

    “We now have a working group that is putting together a piece of legislation that would do it, because the devil is in the details: How do you do it, where do you do it, what are the ages, etc.? What is New Jersey doing? What has Massachusetts done? So that legislation is being crafted. I expect it to be introduced next year. The when and the how, we’re not clear,” Cuomo said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Mexico May Become Third Nation To Legalize Marijuana

    Mexico May Become Third Nation To Legalize Marijuana

    A new bill submitted by Mexico’s president-elect would allow individuals to grow up to 20 plants and produce up to 17 ounces of marijuana each year.

    Mexico has a good chance of becoming the third nation in the world to legalize marijuana for adult use—after Uruguay and Canada.

    President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will take office on Dec. 1, has submitted legislation this month seeking to legalize marijuana for adult use.

    The country legalized marijuana for medical use in June 2017—but the law limits medical marijuana products to “cannabis derivatives” that contain less than 1% THC.

    The bill submitted by Lopez Obrador would allow individuals to grow up to 20 plants and produce up to 17 ounces of marijuana each year. The law would allow public smoking and growing cooperatives, but not edible products.

    This comes after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in October that a ban on marijuana for adult use is unconstitutional, declaring, “The effects caused by marijuana do not justify an absolute prohibition on its consumption.”

    According to political analysts, the bill has a good shot at passing, possibly in 2019. Lopez-Obrador has been a vocal critic of the “war on drugs” approach, and promised to cut down violent crimes in the country.

    According to the LA Times, there were 31,174 recorded homicide victims in 2017—the highest number in 20 years when this data was first collected. This year is on track to surpass that number.

    Lopez Obrador’s political party, Morena, has control of both houses of Congress. And the president-elect’s interior minister and former Supreme Court justice, Olga Sanchez Cordero, has criticized Mexico’s “prohibitionist” drug policy and co-wrote the proposed marijuana bill.

    According to the legislation, 62% of Mexico’s prison population in 2012 were there on drug charges, a majority of them marijuana-related.

    The recent high-profile trial of one of Mexico’s most notorious drug kingpins exemplifies the extent of the drug trade there.

    The trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera began in Brooklyn, New York on Nov. 13. The former Sinaloa cartel boss was extradited to the United States after escaping from maximum-security prison twice in Mexico.

    The trial is unveiling the inner workings of the Sinaloa cartel. Jesus Zambada Garcia, its official accountant, testified that in an average year, the drug trafficking organization would transact “billions” of dollars in shipments.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Medical Marijuana Advocate’s Death Sentence Sparks Outcry

    Medical Marijuana Advocate’s Death Sentence Sparks Outcry

    Medical marijuana advocate Muhammad Lukman is one among about 900 other people on death row in Malaysia for drug offenses.

    Malaysia may be on a path toward drug policy reform.

    The Southeast Asian country has some of the harshest drug laws in the world. According to the BBC, cultivating a single cannabis plant can land you in prison for life, while possessing more than 7 ounces “is almost certain to result in a death sentence.”

    But recently, Malaysians have been more vocal in protesting these laws. Twenty-nine-year-old Muhammad Lukman was convicted of trafficking in cannabis and sentenced to death by hanging on August 30. This has prompted a public outcry.

    According to his lawyer, Farhan Maaruf, Lukman testified that he only sold cannabis oil to help ill patients. If they could not afford it, he would provide it for free.

    Lukman’s case has captured the attention of Malaysians. A Change.org petition to free Lukman has garnered more than 70,000 signatures as of Nov. 14.

    Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad said in September that Lukman’s sentence should be reviewed, according to Reuters. MP Nurul Izzah Anwar declared the case a “miscarriage of justice,” and said at the time that she would urge the attorney general to reconsider Lukman’s case.

    Change might be coming. In October, the prime minister’s administration announced that it would abolish the death penalty completely. But “suspects convicted for drug trafficking, like Lukman, could however still face jail for decades or life,” the BBC reported.

    Lukman is one among about 900 other people on death row in Malaysia for drug offenses. Others include Mohammed Zaireen bin Zainal, the founder of the Malaysian Marijuana Education Movement. He is waiting for a final appeal.

    A medical marijuana patient and advocate named Yuki is hoping Lukman’s case will spark a shift in Malaysia’s drug laws.

    Yuki, 41, has been using marijuana to help ease chronic, debilitating pain from hypokalaemia (low blood potassium) since she was 29 years old.

    She’s now at the forefront of the campaign to reform Malaysia’s drug laws. “If you are desperate, you are sick, you will do anything. We go online, we search about it, we find out about it. The government doesn’t want to give it to us but we will still find it,” she said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Low-Level Weed Cases Not A Priority, Michigan's Top Prosecutors Say

    Low-Level Weed Cases Not A Priority, Michigan's Top Prosecutors Say

    Michigan voters approved a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana last week.

    On the heels of a successful ballot measure that legalized recreational weed in Michigan, prosecutors last week put out a statement clarifying that pot is still illegal on a federal level – but they won’t make weed cases a priority. 

    “Marijuana continues to be an illegal drug under federal law,” Matthew Schneider and Andrew Birge, U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan, wrote in a statement Thursday, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Because we have taken oaths to protect and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States, we will not unilaterally immunize anyone from prosecution for violating federal laws simply because of the passage of Proposal One.”

    But – following the lead of federal prosecutors elsewhere – the duo said they wouldn’t make throwing resources at marijuana enforcement a priority. 

    “Our offices have never focused on the prosecution of marijuana users or low-level offenders, unless aggravating factors are present,” the federal prosecutors said. “That will not change.”

    The factors that could pique federal interest in a given case include everything from the involvement of other illegal drugs to suspects’ past criminal records and from the use of guns to the possibility of environmental contamination. 

    The ballot measure approved by 56% of Michigan voters on Tuesday will allow adults over 21 to grow and use weed legally, and it’ll take effect 10 days after the vote is certified.

    “The Proposal 1 campaign boiled down into one of fact versus fear,” Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Spokesperson Josh Hovey said, according to Forbes. “The data from the nine other states to have legalized marijuana made clear that regulation and taxation are a better solution. Legalization of marijuana will end the unnecessary waste of law enforcement resources used to enforce the failed policy of prohibition while generating hundreds of millions of dollars each year for Michigan’s most important needs.”

    But, while Michiganders greenlit legal pot on Tuesday, the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions a day later created some uncertainty about the future of the nation’s marijuana enforcement policies. 

    Although Sessions was no friend to marijuana reformers, he did clarify earlier this year that he was not interested in pursuing small-time weed cases due to a lack of resources for low-level crimes.

    It’s not clear what a new attorney general might mean for federal approaches to pot. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Drug Policy and Criminal Justice Reform at the 2018 Midterm Elections

    Drug Policy and Criminal Justice Reform at the 2018 Midterm Elections

    In one of the most talked-about reform wins of the midterm elections, Floridians approved restoring voting rights to most of the state’s roughly 1.4 million felons

    Aside from boasting impressive voter turnout, the 2018 midterm elections ushered in a number of wins for criminal justice and drug policy reformers across the country. Florida felons stand to benefit from a ballot measure there, and a trio of successful marijuana initiatives will broaden legal access to cannabis in three states. Those were some of the most-touted changes approved last week, but there’s much more to celebrate (or mourn). Here’s our overview of how drug policy and criminal justice fared at the polls.

    A Win for the Felons of Florida

    In one of the most talked-about reform wins of the night, Floridians approved restoring voting rights to most of the state’s roughly 1.4 million felons. The ballot measure finally put to rest another piece of a regressive legacy from the days of Jim Crow, bringing the number of states with felony voting bans down to just two: Iowa and Kentucky.

    The decades-old dictum was pushed into the state’s constitution after the Civil War, creating a lifetime restriction that only the governor and his Cabinet could overturn on a case-by-case basis.

    During former Gov. Charlie Crist’s four-year tenure, more than 150,000 felons were granted access to the ballot box. But since Republican Gov. Rick Scott took over in 2011, just 3,000 formerly incarcerated Floridians have won back that right, according to NPR.

    It was a system that disproportionately impacted minority voters; more than a fifth of potential black voters are banned from the ballot box due to criminal records.

    But on Tuesday, 64 percent of the state’s voters decided to change that. Now, felons — except for those convicted of murder or sex offenses — regain the right to vote once they finish parole or probation.

    It’s a change that could cause ripples far beyond the Sunshine State. Florida is consistently seen as a swing state with narrow margins for its coveted share of electoral votes; a slight shift in the voting population could have national impact.

    In 2000, when the tight presidential race came down to Florida, roughly 500 votes separated the two candidates. It’s not clear which way a possible 1.4 million new voters might lean, but we’ll soon find out. The new law goes into effect in January.

    Looking Back on Drug Laws

    Aside from enfranchising felons, the Sunshine State also made waves with another ballot measure that could help cut the prison population by making new sentencing laws retroactive.

    Until now, any time that legislators approved new laws or repealed old ones, the changes didn’t apply to anyone already locked up. The state’s constitution specifically banned that sort of retroactivity under a so-called “savings clause” aimed at preserving convictions, according to the Jacksonville Times-Union.

    But now, if someone is sitting in prison on a strict mandatory minimum under a law that’s later repealed or if they’re locked up for something that later becomes legal — they might have a chance of getting out.

    Reformers framed the measure as a means of reducing mass incarceration in a state still boasting a record-high prison population. But the change isn’t so much a step ahead as it is a game of catch-up; Florida was the only state with a ban on retroactivity baked into its constitution.

    Speaking of Baked…

    Four different states voted on pot-related measures last week, with mixed results.

    Utah and Missouri both greenlit medical marijuana, joining more than 30 states that already allow it, according to the New York Times.

    And, on the recreational front, 56 percent of Michigan voters got behind Proposal 1 to legalize weed for adults. The Great Lake State is now the 10th in the nation to just say yes to pot, a change that will take effect ten days after the election results are officially certified.

    But despite three ballot successes and growing nationwide support behind legalizing weed, pot proponents lost out in North Dakota, where 59 percent rejected a measure that would have nixed most marijuana-related arrests. The state already allows medical marijuana, but cannabis advocates faced stiff opposition leading up to Election Day.

    “It would have been a disaster for the state,” former state attorney general Bob Wefald, who chairs North Dakotans Against the Legalization of Recreational Marijuana, told the Grand Forks Herald.

    Whatever the inclinations of North Dakota voters, the midterms as a whole seemed to cap a strong year for marijuana advocates – and NORML framed it as a sign of more to come.

    “In 2019, we anticipate unprecedented legislative activity at the state level in favor of marijuana law reform legislation,” the group wrote on its website, “and we expect to see several significant legislative victories before the year’s end.”

    A Blue Wave Sweeps Across the Biggest Incarcerator in Texas

    Harris County – which has traditionally sent more people to state prison, more kids to juvenile lock-ups and more inmates to the death chamber than any other county in Texas – was swept away by Democratic candidates in Tuesday’s elections.

    While the county – which is home to Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city – already had Dems for mayor, sheriff and district attorney, many of the judges and some county commissioners were Republicans.

    Now, all 59 of the judicial benches that were up for grabs are in the hands of Democrats and at least one socialist. That could have huge implications for progressive system reforms in a county that was already beginning to lean left after years of lock-em-up justice.

    For one, the shift could help end the school-to-prison pipeline, as voters unseated the two juvenile court judges who accounted for more than one-fifth of all kids sent to state juvenile prisons. Now, all three of the juvenile benches will be held by Democrats, including a former teacher, a public defender and one of the 17 black women who won out in Houston on Tuesday.

    The Election Day shake-up could also have a huge impact on the county’s ongoing bail litigation. Last year, a federal judge deemed the county’s bail system unconstitutional because it amounted to “wealth-based detention” for minor crimes. But the county and 14 of its 16 misdemeanor judges have spent millions in taxpayer dollars fighting that ruling, which has become a contentious issue in Houston criminal justice.

    On top of all that, the new county judge — who is the county’s top executive and does not oversee a criminal court — is a 27-year-old Democrat who positioned herself as a justice reformer during the campaign. In a surprise election night upset after a close race, Lina Hidalgo — who came in with no experience in local politics — unseated the Republican who oversaw the county’s response to Harvey.

    The Drug War Wins in Ohio

    Voters in the Buckeye State rejected a progressive ballot measure that would have made drug possession a misdemeanor instead of a felony.

    The would-be constitutional amendment was projected to cut back on the state’s bloated prison population and net millions in savings for taxpayers. Currently, the state-run lock-ups are at 132 percent capacity and, according to Ohio Policy Matters predictions, the rejected measure could have cut the prison population by at least 10,000 inmates.

    Unlike in Florida, Ohio already had the ability to make new drug sentencing laws retroactive, so the new measure would have allowed already-convicted prisoners to petition the courts to apply the new law to them. And, aside from opening up the possibility of release for those already behind bars, the measure’s potential retroactivity would have meant that people who have already served their time could avoid some of the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction – like the loss of professional licenses – by having their old felonies turned into misdemeanors.

    Backed in part by robust campaigns funded by the likes of George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg, the issue sparked contentious debate, and some argued that it could gut participation in the state’s drug court programs as arrestees wouldn’t have the threat of felony charges hanging over their heads when considering treatment.

    But, amid an ongoing opioid crisis in the state, just over 63 percent of voters opposed the measure on Tuesday.

    No More Slave Labor in Colorado

    Coloradans amended their state constitution to get rid of a decades-old loophole that allowed slave labor in the state’s prisons. Now, the Centennial State can’t force its inmates to work for free.

    The constitutional language that allowed the state to use free, forced prison labor dated back to the years after the Civil War, when states – mainly former slave states – started using an abusive convict leasing system to punish crimes, thus effectively reviving slavery under the guise of law-and-order.

    Under federal law, that was still possible given the slippery wording of the 13th Amendment which ended slavery “except as a punishment for crime.” Constitutions in Colorado and at least 15 other states mirrored that language which meant that, even long after the end of convict leasing, prisons could force inmates to work for free.

    But thanks to Tuesday’s vote in Colorado, that’s now no longer the case. Amendment A nixed the language that permitted slavery, replacing it with a concise sentence banning the practice: “The shall never be in this state either slavery or involuntary servitude.”

    To an extent, the shift is only symbolic as the state’s prison labor programs were already considered voluntary, according to NPR.

    Roughly 65 percent of voters supported the amendment, according to the Denver Post. But — even though it is 2018 — some 765,000 Coloradans cast votes in support of slavery.

    A Loss and a Win for Reformers in Louisiana

    Despite the gains for felons’ right in Florida, nearby Louisiana took a step in the opposite direction, passing a ballot measure that explicitly bans felons — unless pardoned — from seeking public office until five years after finishing their sentence.

    Nearly three-quarters of voters supported the restriction. Before Tuesday’s decision, Louisiana was just one of three states that allowed felons to run for office as soon as they got out of jail or prison, according to Governing. Everywhere else, they have to wait till finishing parole or probation — if they can run at all.

    This isn’t the first time the southern state has sought to ban freshly released felons from bids for office; two decades ago voters greenlit a similar ballot measure, but it was later struck down by the courts.

    But the Bayou State offered some good news for reformers as well; Louisiana will now require unanimous verdicts for felony convictions, thanks to a different ballot measure. Previously, only 10 of 12 jurors needed to agree on guilt to put a defendant behind bars.

    Food for Inmates

    In another reform move from the Deep South, voters in two Alabama counties banned sheriffs from keeping for themselves leftover money intended for inmate food.

    More than 86 percent of voters in Cullman County and Morgan County approved nixing the controversial practice that sparked national media coverage. Famously, the sheriff in Etowah County pocketed $750,000 from inmate food funds and then bought a $740,000 beach house.

    Months after AL.com reported extensively on the sheriff’s surfside real estate purchase, the governor put out a memo clarifying that it’s not allowed. Now, the ballot measures reiterate that on a local level.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Anti-Marijuana Attorney General Jeff Sessions Resigns

    Anti-Marijuana Attorney General Jeff Sessions Resigns

    “Our hope is the next attorney general will recognize that it is not politically popular to escalate the war on drugs,” said one drug reform advocate.

    Jeff Sessions is out as U.S. Attorney General.

    The former U.S. Senator from Alabama resigned on Wednesday (Nov. 7), a day after the midterm elections.

    “At your request I am submitting my resignation,” Sessions wrote in a letter to the White House. His chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, will serve as acting attorney general until a permanent replacement is found.

    Sessions’ departure from the Department of Justice is cause for celebration for advocates of drug policy reform.

    “He’s been an absolute disgrace on drug policy. We would welcome any attorney general whose policy ideas would move beyond the 1980s,” said Michael Collins, interim director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance.

    The 71-year-old former Alabama senator’s opinion of marijuana in particular is perhaps best illustrated by this statement he made during a 2016 Senate hearing: “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.”

    He also said in February 2017, “I don’t think America is going to be a better place when people of all ages, and particularly young people, are smoking pot. I believe it’s an unhealthy practice, and current levels of THC in marijuana are very high compared to what they were a few years ago, and we’re seeing real violence around that.”

    Last year, he took aim at sentencing reform, telling federal prosecutors to stop seeking leniency for low-level drug offenders and start seeking the toughest penalties possible, as NBC News reported at the time.

    And in January, Sessions reversed an Obama-era policy—the 2013 Cole memo—that prioritized marijuana cases that presented a safety threat (involving minors, organized crime, etc.) but otherwise left alone U.S. states that have approved marijuana in some capacity. In his own memo, the attorney general called it a “return to the rule of law.”

    But despite Sessions’ anti-marijuana stance, on Tuesday, Michigan became the 10th state to legalize cannabis for adult use, and two others—Utah and Missouri—approved medical marijuana.

    Marijuana policy reform has been winning with each election, and appears more popular than ever.

    “Our hope is the next attorney general will recognize that it is not politically popular to escalate the war on drugs,” said Collins of the Drug Policy Alliance.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Anthony Scaramucci Thinks Trump Will Legalize Marijuana

    Anthony Scaramucci Thinks Trump Will Legalize Marijuana

    During a recent interview, Scaramucci discussed how Trump may change his stance on legalization in the near future. 

    Anthony Scaramucci is predicting a greener future under the Trump administration. 

    Specifically, that is, he thinks the president will legalize marijuana during his last two years in office. 

    The former White House communications director offered his pro-pot prediction during a half-hour YouTube interview with Succeed.com founder Charles Peralo.

    In the final minutes of the interview, which tackled everything from entrepreneurship to immigration to trade, Peralo lobbed a quick question about the odds of seeing Trump change his stance on marijuana legalization—and The Mooch responded without pause.

    “I do. I think he’s going to legalize marijuana,” he said. “I think he’s waiting for after the midterms. I think he’s on the side of legalization. I think the attorney general probably wasn’t but I think the president is.”

    The reference to stridently anti-marijuana Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the past tense prompted a follow-up. “He’s on his way out most likely?” Peralo asked.

    “Yeah, I think he is,” Scaramucci responded. “Well I don’t wanna speak about that because anything happens in the Trump world.”

    It’s not clear, as Marijuana Moment pointed out, whether Scaramucci’s prediction is based on gut feeling or insider knowledge—but he’s not the only politico highlighting the possibility of pot reform.

    U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told Fox Business that the president made a “solid commitment” to addressing pot legalization after the Nov. 6 elections. 

    “I have been talking to people inside the White House who know and inside the president’s entourage,” Rohrabacher told the TV network. “I have talked to them at length. I have been reassured that the president intends on keeping his campaign promise.”

    The idea, Rohrabacher said, would be to greenlight medical marijuana on a federal level and leave individual states to decide on the legality of recreational pot.

    “I would expect after the election we will sit down and we’ll start hammering out something that is specific and real,” the Congressman added.

    To some, marijuana reform seems like a political necessity for the president. Conservative blog Hot Air predicted that any failure to approve pot could turn into a Democratic talking point against Trump in 2020. 

    “He could short-circuit that by getting out in front of the issue,” the website predicted. “Any other Republican president might expect blowback from seniors and evangelicals for making a move like that, but Trump isn’t ‘any other Republican president.’”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • A Space for Grief and Growth: The 12th National Harm Reduction Conference

    A Space for Grief and Growth: The 12th National Harm Reduction Conference

    When we demand answers without a deep, authentic understanding of the problem, we wind up putting band-aids on gangrene.

    As I wandered into the opening plenary at the 12th National Harm Reduction Conference in New Orleans last week, something felt off. It wasn’t just the four white-robed women on stage, solemn and elegant in contrast to the mostly grungy, tattooed crowd. It wasn’t the massive indigo chandeliers, which cast a somber blue over the room. It was an energy I couldn’t quite place at first. Then, slowly, it washed over me.

    Grief.

    Throughout the morning, as various speakers mounted the stage, the story of grief unfolded. The harm reduction movement is grieving the loss of one of our pillars, Dan Bigg, who died suddenly last August. We are grieving the political landscape, feeling vulnerable and scared as overdose deaths continue to mount and hard-won reforms in drug policy are reversed through a tide of drug-induced homicide laws and other punitive policies against drug users. And we are grieving the conflicts, hypocrisies and dysfunction present within our own movement that at times threatens to tear it apart.

    My last report on a harm reduction conference for The Fix was in 2014. At the time, I described harm reduction as a community standing at a crossroads. The 2014 conference in Baltimore embodied the culture clash of a movement that had started as a radical underground community of people who use drugs being overwhelmed by mainstream and professional interests. Tension crackled between old and new, as did fear of co-opting and straying too far from its radical roots. Now, four years later, some of those tensions have boiled over.

    One of the plenary speakers in New Orleans, Micah Frazier of The Living Room Project in Mexico, described the harm reduction community as a family full of love and dysfunction. With gentle admonition, Micah urged the crowd to watch how we treat each other and to be careful of how we engage in conflict.

    Another speaker, Erica Woodland of the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network, offered a blunt account of how he had left harm reduction six years ago over concerns about the lack of black leadership in the movement and the devaluation of black expertise.

    “I got divorced from y’all,” Erica said, to a smattering of laughter. “I came back; we’re dating!” But he warned that the reunion would be brief unless harm reductionists could show capacity for change.

    Harm reduction has changed in the past few years. Several of the largest organizations have experienced a shift in leadership as white, male executives who held power for decades have been replaced by women and people of color.

    In fact every speaker touched on the need for a “changing of the guard” within harm reduction. They pointed out that the movement, supposedly centered around racial justice and recognizing the dignity of people who use drugs, does not always practice what it preaches. They criticized the prevalence of white, male leadership, while queer staff, people of color and active drug users are often reduced to underpaid “peer outreach” positions or token members of panels, trotted out for the public, then silenced once the cameras are gone. They stressed the pitfalls of sacrificing long-term vision for short-term gain, warned against co-opting by the public health system, and urged the crowd not to forget its roots.

    Change is coming. Change must come, the speakers insisted. And transition is not always pretty.

    Their words seared right through me.

    A few months ago, I left my position with the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition (NCHRC) after eight years as their advocacy and communications coordinator. The decision was voluntary, but born from a place of pain. The organization had recently gone through its own changing of the guard and the process had, at times, been ugly.

    In fact, the past couple years of my life have been marred by grief as the organization I have loved and helped grow, an organization that has done so much to advance harm reduction in hostile territory, has been tested and torn by the tension between demand for change and resistance to it. These past years have involved a lot of soul searching for me as I have second-guessed past decisions and wondered if I have allowed enough space for the voices of people most impacted by the drug war to lead.

    The plenary was an epiphany. All this time I had bathed in private shame thinking that NCHRC was alone in its struggle, uniquely unable to have tough conversations without dissolving into anger and defensiveness. Now, for the first time, I realized that the movement has been changing and hurting across the whole country. We had never been alone.

    The heaviness of this opening plenary hung over me for the remainder of the four-day conference. Even the siren call of New Orleans—the bright lights of Bourbon Street and hot gumbo spice—could not penetrate the fog. I don’t think I was the only person struggling. Even as other attendees greeted old friends and met new ones in between workshops, you could feel grief and tension hovering over everyone. There was no relief from it, not even in the blizzard of breakout sessions.

    I tried to attend some breakout sessions, of which there were a dizzying number including topics such as fentanyl, friction with police, racial justice, indigenous healing, queer drug use and much more. The breakout sessions seemed designed to ask questions, but not necessarily to answer them. This frustrated a lot of people. I overheard many grumbling conversations in the hallways about how such-and-such a panel had not provided a “solution” to the problem being discussed. Years, perhaps even months ago, I would have felt this way too. Today I feel differently.

    A couple of years ago I attended a town hall meeting hosted by activists and founding members of Black Lives Matter. After over an hour listening to them talk about racism and oppression, a white woman in the audience asked the question that had been burning in my brain the whole time: “How can we fix it?”

    The speaker responded by politely suggesting that the young woman have conversations with family and friends about racism. The woman sat down, seeming dissatisfied with such vague marching orders. I was disappointed myself and, I’ll admit, a little appalled that the speaker didn’t seem aware of the importance of giving people concrete actions so that they stay engaged in the movement. But today I see the wisdom in that answer. The speaker didn’t give that young woman, or me, an easy answer because we weren’t ready for one.

    Lately I have come to appreciate conversations that do not end with solutions. Most societal problems are so complex that any “solution” that can be discussed in a 60-minute panel is probably bullshit. Most of us know surface level things—racism is real, drug policy is killing people, there are too many people in prison—but we don’t truly understand the history or scope of these issues, especially if they don’t directly impact us. We want a quick recap of current affairs and a quick fix, but when we demand answers without a deep, authentic understanding of the problem, we wind up putting band-aids on gangrene.

    This, I think, is what the conference was attempting to do—to encourage discussion and exploration and self-reflection, not to provide instant gratification.

    I left New Orleans without answers, but with a great sense of responsibility to seek them, even if it takes a lifetime.


    Members of Harriet’s Apothecary open the conference with calls to be mindful and present.
    Image: Nigel Brundson

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Is Law Enforcement More Effective Thanks to Legal Marijuana?

    Is Law Enforcement More Effective Thanks to Legal Marijuana?

    Researchers examined the impact weed legalization has had on crime trends.

    While marijuana legalization remains a contentious issue for many throughout the U.S., Washington and Colorado may have proven that in some aspects it is positive.

    According to The Washington Post, researchers at Washington State University have concluded that legal pot has “produced some demonstrable and persistent benefit” to police departments.

    “Our models show no negative effects of legalization and, instead, indicate that crime clearance rates for at least some types of crime are increasing faster in states that legalized than in those that did not,” researchers said.

    Police departments in states where weed has been legalized have apparently been able to focus on other, more serious types of crime, rather than getting bogged down with “low-level marijuana enforcement.”

    The Post describes “crime clearance” as when authorities have “identified and arrested a suspect and referred him to the judicial system for prosecution.”

    Using available FBI data, the Washington State researchers analyzed the clearance rates in both Colorado and Washington between the years 2010 and 2015. In order to see what impact weed legalization had on crime trends, researchers looked at clearance rates after November 2012 in Colorado and December 2012 for Washington (when weed, respectively, became legal).

    The Post did, however, note that both states’ “recreational markets” did not open until 2014. Both states experienced falling clearance rates before weed legalization, showing that “the decline stabilized in Colorado and began to reverse itself in Colorado,” with the Post adding that “no similar shift happened in the country as a whole.”

    It wasn’t until legalization that those numbers took a sudden shift in the other direction.

    Still, while researchers say the data can’t conclusively prove that legalization was the primary influence on those crime clearance rates, there were no other demonstrable changes in policing strategies during that same time. Instead, researchers can only say that legalization had a “plausible” impact on clearance rates. 

    Property-crime clearance rates showed a “dramatic reversal” in Colorado after weed became legal. Researchers also noticed that the clearance rates of other types of crime, such as burglary and motor-vehicle theft, spiked soon after legalization. By contrast, researchers said, national trends remained essentially flat.

    “While there were both immediate and longer term differences between states which legalized and the rest of the country in terms of crime clearance rates,” the authors said, “the long-term differences are much more pronounced, especially in Colorado.”

    In some ways, that’s all the proof that legalization advocates need to hear when it comes to the efficacy of how police departments use their resources.

    “Our results suggest that, just as marijuana legalization proponents argued, the legalization of marijuana influence police outcomes, which in the context of this article is modeled as improvements in clearance rates,” researchers said.

    Additionally, researchers found no other crimes in Colorado or Washington upon which legalization seemed to have a negative impact on clearance rates, suggesting that the case for legalizing weed is, from a law enforcement perspective, as remarkable as it is promising. 

    View the original article at thefix.com