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Tag: law enforcement

  • Cops Still Bust People Using $2 Drug Test That Mistakes Bird Poop For Cocaine

    Cops Still Bust People Using $2 Drug Test That Mistakes Bird Poop For Cocaine

    Law enforcement still depends on a cheap, unreliable drug test to make arrests.

    Police once leveled charges on someone for cocaine that turned out just to be bird poop. Another time, for meth that was actually some flakes of donut glaze. Surprisingly, these arrests weren’t just in-the-moment visual mistakes, they’re the result of false positive drug test results.

    The problem, according to VICE News, is that the kit is a $2 test that isn’t all that accurate. The charges in these cases were eventually dropped after samples were sent off to state labs for testing—and probably a lot of legal legwork on the parts of the accused. Those who can’t afford to pay bail are forced to stay in jail for weeks, or even months, until their lab tests are returned.

    A Baggie Of Powdered Milk Tests Positive As Cocaine

    In some cases, people may be forced to plead guilty, as in the case of Cody Gregg. In October, Gregg took a guilty plea just to get out of the notoriously problematic jail he was placed in.

    After two months in that jail, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The original charge? Police found a baggie of powdered milk that tested positive as cocaine.

    “You cannot indict somebody—put somebody in jail—over something you know has a very high rate of false positives,” said Omar Bagasra, a biology professor at Claflin University. “It’s ignorance.”

    Bagasra has done work with the Marijuana Policy Project that found that police rely on a shoddy brand of drug tests that have mistaken patchouli, spearmint, and eucalyptus as marijuana.  

    Why Continue Using The Tests If They Don’t Work?

    So why do police continue to use these demonstrably bad tests? They’re cheap, making them the prime choice of departments across the United States. ProPublica found in 2016 that these tests have been used to justify thousands of arrests. The only upside is that the tests aren’t admissible in court, so police are legally required to get samples lab-tested.

    Another reason is that the tests are simple to do in the field, only requiring an arresting officer to drop a sample of a suspected substance, and then chemical capsules, into a bag. The contents of the bag will change color according to the particular drug it detects.

    Bagasra believes the chemistry behind the color change is not nearly as precise as cops think it is. The reagents in the capsules can cause a chemical reaction to a wide range of compounds, he explained to VICE. The capsule commonly used to test for cocaine, called cobalt thiocyanate, also turns blue when it comes into contact with Benadryl, drywall, laundry detergent, and whey protein powder.

    Not only that, but which colors appear are entirely subjective, especially in the dark of night under the flashing red and blue lights. Risk of contamination from random roadside particles also means the tests aren’t clean.

    Police claim they rely on more than just the test to arrest a suspect. Gregg, for example, had a criminal history and was also carrying a scale with the baggie of powdered milk.

    “Field testing of possible drugs by officers is a presumptive test only and is simply one part of the totality of the circumstances that can lead an officer to believe that enough probable cause exists to legally effect an arrest,” Capt. Larry Withrow of the Oklahoma City Police Department, which arrested Gregg, told VICE News. “We are reviewing our presumptive test procedures to determine if improvements can be made in this area.”

    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

  • Sober Cleveland Police Officer Gives Back To Local Recovery Community

    Sober Cleveland Police Officer Gives Back To Local Recovery Community

    After a lengthy battle with alcoholism, a Cleveland detective got sober and inspired those around him to change their lives.

    Today, Cleveland police detective Chris Gibbons puts the bad guys in jail cells, but in 1992 he was on the other side of the law, sitting in a jail cell soaking wet and shivering after being brought in for public intoxication. After seven years of battling alcoholism, Gibbons had hit rock bottom. 

    “How did the son of a policeman end up here?” Gibbons said to News 5 Cleveland. 

    After that night, Gibbons was determined to turn his life around. He became a police officer just like his father and grandfather had been. And he inspired his sister, Erin Becker, to start her own path to sobriety. 

    “Most of my struggle was internal,” Becker said. “I just got to a point of hopelessness.”

    Gibbons has been sober for 26 years and Becker has been in recovery for 17 years. Now, the siblings run a sober house together, helping women start their lives in recovery. Becker co-founded the Edna House, which has grown over the years, helping woman with limited means get sober. 

    “It started with three women. Now we have 40 women,” Becker said. “The women that come in, they see that the people that are here helping them, the staff, the woman that runs the program, we’re all in recovery. That catches their attention. Nothing is asked of them here. When they come to Edna and the only thing that is asked is, ‘Do you have a willingness to work on your own recovery?’ They know something is different.”

    Gibbons is on the board of directors for Edna House and volunteers with men’s recovery programs though the area. He enjoys seeing the transformation of the 300 women who have graduated from Edna House.

    “They’re almost unrecognizable when they’re done. They look so much better. They feel so much better,” Gibbons said. “You can actually see the happiness and the glow on their face whereas when they came in they were totally broken.”

    In addition, Gibbons serves on the Cleveland Police Department’s Employee Assistance Unit, which helps officers navigate traumatic and stressful situations.

    “It gives you a little credibility,” Gibbons said. “When I approach an officer or someone in the community who is struggling with it, I can say I’ve been there and I have a good life today because of my decision not to drink.”

    Gibbons has prompted other law enforcement officials to become involved in the recovery community and sponsor events. Some of the people in recovery have even followed Gibbons’ footsteps and started a law enforcement career. 

    “Several dispatchers who actually went through this house are sober to this day because of their involvement here,” Becker said. 

    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

  • A-Bombs & Bruno Mars: DEA Releases 2018 Drug Slang Guidebook

    A-Bombs & Bruno Mars: DEA Releases 2018 Drug Slang Guidebook

    The unclassified guidebook is intended to help law enforcement personnel navigate the lingo used to refer to drugs.

    High Times has noted, with no small degree of amusement, that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), has issued the 2018 edition of its handbook “Slang Terms and Code Words: A Reference for Law Enforcement Personnel,” which presents both new and evergreen terms for drugs and related issues, including sales, measurements and geographical locations.

    According to the National Drug Early Warning System, a research group funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the unclassified guidebook is intended to assist law enforcement personnel in navigating the myriad of slang terms used to refer to drugs.

    The 2018 edition is laid out in a manner similar to the 2017 guidebook, which presented long-standing terms with newer ones in italics, but adds a cross-referenced alphabetical list, which boosts the page count to 125—several times larger than the seven-page 2017 edition.

    According to the High Times report, marijuana has the largest single entry in the listing, incorporating both widely known terms like “pot” and “reefer” with more obscure and enduring terminology like “cheeba,” “dank” and “Acapulco Gold.”

    Among the 2018 additions are “A-bomb,” which is used to describe marijuana mixed with heroin; “manteca” (a relatively venerable term with Afro-Cuban heritage reaching back to the 1940s) to; “green crack” and “greenhouse,” and “bionic,” which is marijuana mixed with PCP.

    Several strains of marijuana also make the list, including Tangie OG—spelled Tangy OG in the guide—Girl Scout Cookies and Train Wreck.

    Synthetic cannabinoids also enjoy a diverse lexicon, ranging from “kush” and “spice” to what the guide labels as newer brand names like “Bombay Blue” and “Yucatan Fire,” while marijuana concentrates/hash oil—a new listing for 2017—are a similar mix of established nomenclature (“dabs”) and terms well known in marijuana culture and less so among law enforcement (“rosin,” “bubble hash”).

    Cocaine and heroin both sport their own substantial lists, with “chicanitas,” “comida dulce” and “puma” among the former’s new terms (though the DEA has apparently never heard of the pungent “Booger Sugar” prior to this list) and “chocolate shake,” “churro negro” and “huera” currently trending, so to speak, for heroin.

    “Goofballs”—a Beat Generation term used to describe heroin mixed with methamphetamine—also appears to have been revived for the 2018 list.

    Substances like steroids (“Arnolds,” “gym candy”), PCP (“Ashy Larry”), mescaline (“love flip,” when mixed with ecstasy) and GBH (“Bruno Mars”) each merit a listing, as do measurements—one kilogram has apparently been referred to as a “can of paint” or “pillow”—and the cities of Los Angeles (Los Shorts) and New York (Towers or Up Top).

    A lengthy list of miscellaneous terms for very specific activities is also included, (i.e., Coordinates of Maritime Rendezvous Sites and Smuggling Route are “Las Dirrecciones”). The guidebook concludes with a massive alphabetical list for easier reference.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • New York Federal Judge Admits He’s Been Too Tough on Marijuana

    New York Federal Judge Admits He’s Been Too Tough on Marijuana

    The judge says he wants to make things right, in both his current and future judgments.

    Judge Jack Weinstein of Brooklyn, New York admits he’s probably been too harsh on marijuana offenders throughout his career. To make amends, he has vowed to be more lenient in future cases and to fix the cases he can now.

    To that end, he plans to dig back through his cases and do away with supervised releases for marijuana offenders. Assigning probation officers to offenders who are simply trying to get their lives together after time in jail is a waste of time for all parties involved, Weinstein reasoned.

    He’s already begun by prematurely terminating the three-year supervised release of 22-year-old Tyran Trotter, despite the fact that Trotter had smoked marijuana to stay “calm and on the right path.” While Trotter was in the system after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute heroin, Weinstein believes that booking him just for marijuana would be a mistake.

    “If his supervision continues, he will probably end up in the almost endless cycle of supervised release and prison,” wrote Weinstein of the case in a 42-page ruling.

    Besides Trotter’s case, Weinstein also wrote more broadly about marijuana’s legal status in general, mentioning that it’s “becoming increasingly accepted by society.” Law enforcement and the court systems are beginning to reflect this change in perception as well. Weinstein notes that even New York prosecutors aren’t aggressively pursuing lower-level marijuana cases.

    Additionally, the New York Police Department has taken to issuing summonses to people caught smoking marijuana instead of arresting them.

    However, Weinstein notes, the use of marijuana is still illegal at the federal level and federal probation officers will act accordingly. If marijuana offenders don’t stay mindful of this distinction, it could lead to getting booked for violating probation or even getting thrown in a cell.

    Potentially, that’s a lot of offenders considering 13% of supervised releases in Brooklyn and Long Island area courts are drug-related. Weinstein isn’t the only judge who feels that way; a 2014 survey revealed that more than 85% of 650 federal court judges felt that offenders should not be automatically locked up when charged with illegal drug possession.

    View the original article at thefix.com