Thursday, June 24, 2004

Supreme Court Justice Kennedy's call for investigation into mandatory minimums bears fruit In the Chicago Tribune: ABA urges new look at sentencing: Many get-tough approaches to crime don't work and some, such as mandatory minimum sentences for small-time drug offenders, are unfair and should be abolished, a report from the American Bar Association said Wednesday. Laws requiring mandatory minimum prison terms leave little room to consider differences among crimes and criminals, an ABA commission concluded in its study of problems in the criminal justice system. More people are behind bars for longer terms, but it is unclear whether the country is safer as a result, the ABA said. The report and recommendations for changes follow criticism of the criminal justice system last year from Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Listen to the report on NPR today. Report information is available here, and won't be acted on by the ABA until August, but here's part of the summary: The resolution urges states, territories and the federal government to ensure that sentencing systems provide appropriate punishment without over-reliance on incarceration. Lengthy periods of incarceration should be reserved for offenders who pose the greatest danger to the community and who commit the most serious offenses. Alternatives to incarceration should be provided when offenders pose minimal risk to the community and appear likely to benefit from rehabilitation efforts. The resolution sets out a series of recommended actions, including: Repealing mandatory minimum sentences; Allowing courts to consider the unique characteristics of offenses and offenders that may warrant an increase or decrease in a sentence; Requiring sentencing courts to state the reason for increasing or reducing a sentence, and allowing appellate review of such sentences; Considering diversion programs for less serious offenses, and studying the cost effectiveness of treatment programs for substance abuse and mental illness; Giving greater authority and resources to an agency responsible for monitoring the sentencing system; Adopting risk-based criteria as a basis for determining whether an offender should be released to community custody, parole or probation; and Developing graduated sanctions for violations of probation and parole. In addition, the resolution urges Congress to give greater latitude to the United States Sentencing Commission and the federal courts in exercising authority related to criminal sentencing, and to reinstate a more deferential standard of appellate review of sentences. I have often talked about the need to change the rhetoric from "tough on crime" to "smart on crime," so it was good to see this in the release: "For more than 20 years, we have gotten tougher on crime," said ABA President Dennis W. Archer. "Now we need to get smarter. We can no longer sit by as more and more people-particularly in minority communities-are sent away for longer and longer periods of time while we make it more and more difficult for them to return to society after they serve their time. The system is broken. We need to fix it." Bravo. 7:42:18 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Student Drug Testing - not the same as TB tests A bill in California has bi-partisan support and would ban universal random drug testing of students, and only allow drug testing if administrators have "reasonable suspicions." A companion bill would allow for testing of athletes specifically for performance enhancing drugs. Naturally, this reasonable approach doesn't sit well with the Drug Czar's office, which is trying to boost the income of testing companies, so they sent their resident quack Andrea Barthwell, who testified that universal random drug testing of students was like testing for tuberculosis, and urged testing all students to "stop the spread." I hear there's an epidemic of lying in government. We'd better institute random lie detector tests to stop the spread. 7:20:13 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

A Tale of Two Wars on Drugs Dusty Nix in the Ledger Enquirer (GA) Consider two "drug wars" -- one a highly and expensively hyped crusade, the other quieter; but both of tremendous social, economic, legal and cultural significance over the last few decades. One, waged principally against opiates, cannabis and cocaine by state and federal governments for more than 20 years, has cost billions, perhaps trillions of dollars in taxpayer money; taxed the resources of already overworked law enforcement agencies; sustained a criminal empire the size and riches of which would dwarf the booze kingpins of the 1920s and '30s; created, with the help of "mandatory sentencing" politics, an unprecedented corrections crisis by stuffing prisons to bursting with drug offenders; and provided the dubious rationale for abrogating the Bill of Rights to an extent even the Patriot Act hasn't approached.  And even the front-line troops in this war have acknowledged it's a losing campaign. "Drug war" No.  2, which hasn't generated nearly as much attention -- which, in fact, few people have thought of as a "drug war" at all -- has involved relatively little public money, no prison space, little or no effort on the part of law enforcement.  Nobody's been randomly summoned away from a desk or work site to urinate into a cup.  And it has been waged against a drug that every year claims more lives than all illegal substances combined. But the vast differences in expense and approach aren't the most dramatic distinction here.  The biggest difference is that one of them has worked. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported last week that smoking among American teens is at its lowest level in almost 30 years. This is a point that more people need to notice. The editorial is a strong one, and ends: So providing people with education and information has proven dramatically effective in curbing use of a drug some experts have said is as addictive as heroin; while draconian laws and sentences and self-incrimination policies have created more problems than they have solved. Surely there's a lesson in there somewhere. 6:59:20 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Brazil to shoot down drug planes From BBC News: Brazil is close to adopting a plan to shoot down aircraft suspected of carrying narcotics over the Amazon jungle, the government has said. Colombia and Peru called a halt to the controversial practice in 2001 after the Peruvian air force mistakenly shot down a plane carrying missionaries. ... Colombia resumed shooting down suspected drug trafficking planes in 2003 and has shot down almost a dozen planes this year alone with intelligence assistance from Washington, AP news agency reported. Peru is seeking to restart the policy.  Sad. Why can't we force planes down, or, failing that, use our technology to follow them, and arrest them after they land? Perhaps the better question is... "Why do we continue policies that make smuggling so profitable that they're willing to chance being shot down?" 6:53:42 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Sue 'em for False Advertising Reported in Now Magazine Our friendly neighbourhood pot promoters, Canadians for Safe Access ( CSA ), are calling for an immediate moratorium on the distribution of medical pot after independent testing of the feds' bud revealed that THC levels are nowhere near the 10.2 per cent claimed by Health Canada. According to two tests conducted by the Quebec National Institute of Public Health, Health Canada's cannabis contains only 5 per cent THC, barely enough to catch a buzz, let alone have any real therapeutic effect. For all their talk about health care, the feds seem content to toy with the health of thousands of chronically ill Canadians. Government has to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing. 6:49:15 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

THC Delays Progression of Lou Gehrig's Disease Via NORML Seattle, WA: The administration of the cannabinoid THC in mice delayed disease progression of an animal model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), according to clinical findings published in the journal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis & Other Motor Neuron Disorders. Also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS is a chronic, often fatal condition marked by a gradual degeneration of the nerve cells in the central nervous system that control voluntary muscle movement. "Treatment with Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol was effective if administered either before or after onset of [symptoms] in the ALS mouse model," researchers at the MDA/ALS Center at the University of Washington determined. "Administration at the onset of tremors delayed motor impairment and prolonged survival in Delta(9)-THC treated mice when compared to ... controls." Authors concluded, "As Delta(9)-THC is well tolerated, it and other cannabinoids may prove to be novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of ALS." 6:43:51 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

One lady who won't sit down and die. Suing The Reaper by Dean Kuipers in Los Angeles City Beat The story of a South L.A. Sickle-Cell Patient Had To Sue The LAPD To Stop Pulling Up Her Legal Pot Harvest. Kambui, who relies on marijuana to combat debilitating pain from sickle-cell anemia, was in tears. Then her eyes fixed on someone who turned her sorrow to rage: accompanying the federal agents was LAPD Detective Steve McArthur. McArthur had busted Kambui at least four previous autumns, and each time there had either been no charges filed or, most important, she'd been acquitted and her grow operation approved under California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act, better known as Proposition 215.  Unable to get an indictment under state law, McArthur had brought in the feds, whose warrant was based solely on his testimony.  After two hours of questioning, the DEA set Kambui free, and one of the agents even gave her a hug. Kambui, however, had had enough of Detective McArthur.  She filed a civil suit against McArthur, the LAPD, the City of Los Angeles, and "John Does 1-50" in January, backed by an increasingly effective medical cannabis advocacy group, Bay Area-based Americans for Safe Access. This case is particularly important to Kambui, who was diagnosed with sickle-cell anemia at age 19 when she was in the U.S.  Air Force. The fatal malady is usually treated with morphine and many patients die from a morphine overdose. Kambui uses marijuana, cooked into teas, tinctures and foods. "This kind of shows you how ass-backwards all this is," says Elford [Kambui's attorney].  "In the name of the drug war, they're trying to require someone to take much more serious narcotics than relatively harmless marijuana.  And in this case, not just much more serious narcotics in terms of toxicity and addictiveness, but in this case, narcotics that are actually extremely harmful to the person prescribed them." 6:40:39 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []