Drug Policy Question of the Week – 7-3-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 7-3-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3449

Question of the Week: What is the Posse Comitatus Act?

A definitive report from the Congressional Research Service released in 2000 states,

“Americans have a tradition, born in England and developed in the early years of our nation that rebels against military involvement in civilian affairs. It finds its most tangible expression in the nineteenth century Posse Comitatus Act, 18 U.S.C. 1385.”

Another Congressional Research Service report released in 2011 indicates that,

“The term “posse comitatus” means the “force of the county.” Its doctrine dates back to English common law, in which a county sheriff could raise a posse comitatus to repress a civil disturbance ….”

The Posse Comitatus Act was enacted in 1878 during post-Civil War reconstruction and amended in 1981. According to the CRS, the act reads,

“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

The 2000 CRS report noted that,

“The language of the Act mentions only the Army and the Air Force.” However, “Express statutory exceptions include the legislation which allows the President to use military force to suppress insurrection, and sections which permit the Department of Defense to provide federal, state and local police with information and equipment.”

According to the Washington Office on Latin America, the 1981 amendment,

“made the military the permanent “single lead agency of the Federal Government for the detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States.”

These facts and others like them can be found in the Military Participation Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 6-26-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 6-26-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3440

Question of the Week: Who declared war on drugs?

“America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”

According to a recent report by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, President Richard Nixon spoke these words on June 17, 1971.

Ironically, a New York University Law Review article noted, “When

President Nixon first declared a national War on Drugs, the policy focused on treatment rather than incarceration … the Nixon era marks the only time in the history of the War on Drugs in which more funding went toward treatment than law enforcement.”

Pew Center on the States reports that there were about 174,000 state prison inmates in 1972.

Nixon’s declaration was just the first, according to a Fordham Law Review article,

“[President Ronald] Reagan officially launched the “War on Drugs” on June 24, 1982, with the creation of the White House Office of Drug Abuse Policy. First Lady Nancy Reagan joined the movement, announcing the “Just Say No” campaign in 1982.”

State prison inmates in 1982 approximated 300,000.

The NYU article suggests that,

“With the Obama administration comes hope for scaling down the War on Drugs, though the collateral consequences remain for those who are presently incarcerated. The current director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske, has chastised the phrase “War on Drugs” as eliciting an inaccurate representation of the War on Drugs as a war on individuals.”

In 2010, there were over 1.4 million state prisoners, 1.2 million more than on June 17, 1971.

These facts and others like them can be found in the History section of the United States Chapter and in the Prisons & Jails Chapters of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 6-15-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 6-15-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3427

Question of the Week: What about international drug policies?

Several recent reports highlight the impact of the international War on Drugs and call for a reevaluation of it.

The first comes from a series called “Count the Costs: 50 Years of the War on Drugs,” by the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. The report, “The War on Drugs: Are we paying too high a price?” lists seven definable and tragic costs of the drug war and supports each referencable international statistics. Did you know that that…

“Up to 1000 people are executed for drug offences each year, in direct violation of international law”?

A similar report in the Count the Costs series, “War on Drugs: Undermining international development and security, increasing conflict,” lists seven definable ways that the drug war affects international economic development and security, again documenting each with referencable statistics. Did you know that …

the demand for cocaine in Europe has “turned Guinea Bissau from a fragile state into a narco-state in just five years.”?

The recent “Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy” indicted international drug war failure and listed eleven actionable principles. The report was co-authored by notable commissioners that included former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan as well as three former Latin American presidents, among others. The report summary succinctly concluded,

“Break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now.”

Some facts in the above reports and others like them can be found in the International Policy Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org. Listeners should note that there are seventeen Chapters and 341 Facts under this link on the Drug War Facts home page. Countries include U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico, a number of countries in the European Union, and Australia.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 6-5-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 6-5-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3413

Question of the Week: What are adverse drug events?

An article in the Connecticut Law Review defines the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the agency that

“regulates both the safety and effectiveness of prescription pharmaceuticals and certain medical devices. In addition to ensuring that prescription drugs are safe and effective before they are sold in interstate commerce, the FDA approves all information a manufacturer plans to provide physicians on a drug’s recommended use, contraindications, risks, and side-effects.”

The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) is the regulatory body that oversees over-the-counter and prescription drugs, and biological therapeutics. This agency has produced several trendable reports, including a data briefing covering 1996 to 2006.

This paper overviews the CDER’s Adverse Event Reporting System that compiles

“voluntary adverse drug reaction reports from [healthcare practitioners] and required reports from manufacturers … this system forms “the basis of “signals” that there may be a potential for serious and unrecognized drug-associated events [or reactions].”

Drug reaction numbers from this FDA system are now displayed in two Drug War Facts Tables, one called “Prescription Drug Product Approvals, Recalls and Adverse Event Reports” and the other named “AERS Patient Outcomes by Year,” both sourced directly from the FDA.

Both of these tables reflect troubling statistics. The former table shows that Adverse Drug Event reports to the FDA concerning prescription drugs soared by almost +75% for the six years (2002-2007) compared to the prior six years (1996-2001). Further, and perhaps more disturbing, adverse reaction outcome “deaths” totaling over 370,000 and “serious outcomes” eclipsing 2,300,000 occurred during the ten years from 2000 to 2009 for the prescription drugs tracked by this FDA system.

These facts and others like them can be found in the Regulation of Prescription Drugs section of the United States chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 5-28-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 5-28-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3403

Question of the Week: What are Clinical Trials?

Wikipedia defines clinical trials as,

“a set of procedures in medical research conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for health interventions such as drugs, diagnostics, devices, and therapy protocols.”

Clinical trials in the United States begin with the Food and Drug Administration or FDA that

“regulates both the safety and effectiveness of prescription pharmaceuticals and certain medical devices.”

The National Bureau of Economic Research overviews this process that,

“begins when a firm files an Investigational New Drug [IND] application, which requests permission from the FDA to conduct clinical trials on humans … Once the FDA gives its approval, the firm may begin conducting clinical trials for the drug, which proceed in three phases.”

“The goal of Phase I is to evaluate the drug’s safety and to obtain data on its pharmacologic properties. Typically, phase I trials enroll small numbers of healthy volunteers. Phase II trials then enroll slightly larger numbers of sick volunteers. The goal of these trials is to begin investigating a drug’s efficacy and optimal dosage, and to monitor the drug’s safety in diseased patents. Finally, Phase III testing typically involves larger numbers of sick patients and is the most costly stage of the approval process. Phase III testing seeks to establish more definitively the efficacy of a drug, as well as to discover any rare side effects. Upon the completion of Phase III testing, the firm submits a New Drug Application to the FDA, which is accompanied by the results of the clinical trials. The FDA may then reject the application, require further clinical testing, or approve the drug outright.”

These facts and others like them can be found Regulation of Prescription Drugs section of the United States Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 4-20-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 4-20-11.  http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3355.

Question of the Week: Is Asset Forfeiture taxation?

According to the U.S. Justice Department,

“Civil forfeiture is a proceeding brought against the property rather than against the person who committed the offense. Civil forfeiture does not require either criminal charges against the owner of the property or a criminal conviction.”

“…forfeiture can be used to seize and forfeit the following:
• any amount of currency;
• personal property valued at $500,000 or less, including cars, guns, and boats;
• hauling conveyances of unlimited value.

Real property cannot be forfeited administratively.”

In 2009, U.S. Attorneys seized over one billion dollars in assets, roughly four times more than in 1989. During that 21 year span, the value of forfeited assets totaled 11 billion dollars, five billion short of the 2011 federal drug control budget.

The Justice Department readily admits that,

“… civil forfeiture expanded greatly during the early 1980s as governments at all levels stepped up the war on drugs.”

The department goes on to claim,

“… asset forfeiture can assist in the budgeting realm by helping to offset the costs associated with fighting crime. Doing what it takes to undermine the illicit drug trade is expensive and time-consuming. Forfeiture can help agencies target these difficult problems, sometimes without the need to seek additional outside resources to offset their costs.”

In its 2010 report, the Institute for Justice called asset forfeiture

“… legal fiction that enables law enforcement to take legal action against inanimate objects for participation in alleged criminal activity, regardless of whether the property owner is guilty or innocent—or even whether the owner is charged with a crime.”

I have to ask, is asset forfeiture for merely alleged drug crimes taxation without representation?

These facts and others like them can be found in the Asset Forfeiture Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 4-12-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 4-12-11.  http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3343.

Question of the Week: Do drug courts work?

A new report called “Drug Courts Are Not the Answer” from the Drug Policy Alliance defines drug courts as,

“an application of therapeutic jurisprudence theories in which the judge does not ask whether the state has proven that a crime has been committed but instead whether the court can help to heal a perceived pathology.”

The report goes on to say,

“The judge is the ultimate arbiter of treatment and punishment decisions and holds a range of discretion unprecedented in the courtroom … The defense lawyer, no longer an advocate for the participant’s rights, assists the participant to comply with court rules.”

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers asserts,

“Under the traditional drug court model, an individual must waive significant rights when entering drug court.”

“Most drug courts require a guilty plea as the price of admission.”

While drug courts have been praised for reducing recidivism and yielding positive cost/benefit ratios, the Congressional Research Service found,

“Drug court evaluations have been widely criticized for methodological weaknesses and data inconsistencies. … the majority of drug court program evaluations (1) have either no comparison group or a biased comparison group, … (2) report outcomes only for participants who complete the program, … and (3) use flawed data-collection methods, such as drug court participants’ self-reported surveys.”

District Judge Morris B. Hoffman concluded in the North Carolina Law Review,

“… drug courts are not satisfying either the legitimate and compassionate interests of the treatment community or the legitimate and rational interests of the law enforcement community. They are, instead, simply enabling our continued national schizophrenia about drugs.”

These facts and others like them can be found in the Drug Court Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 4-4-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 4-4-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3331

Question of the Week What is domestic surveillance?

In a 2003 report, the American Civil Liberties Union warned,

“In recent years – in no small part as the result of the failed “war on drugs” – Fourth Amendment principles have been steadily eroding. … The courts have allowed for increased surveillance and searches ….”

The Department of Defense defines “Electronic Surveillance” as,

“Acquisition of a nonpublic communication by electronic means without the consent of a person who is a party to an electronic communication.”

It calls “Domestic Activities” those

“that take place within the United States that do not involve a significant connection with a foreign power, organization, or person.”

and indicates, that

“Information may be collected about a United States person who is reasonably believed to be engaged in international narcotics activities.”

Illicit drugs are often smuggled from other countries.

The American Constitution Society worries that

“There has been a massive shift from surveillance and intelligence-gathering based on a factual predicate—such as specific information or a lead about a suspicious person or event—to surveillance and intelligence-gathering intended to obtain vast troves of data on millions of people.”

The American Civil Liberties Union confirms that

“Data companies collect information from courthouses and other public sources, as well as marketing data – sometimes including extremely personal information [concerning Americans]…”.

Citing Senator Sam Ervin the chief author of the 1974 Privacy Act,

“When the Government knows all of our secrets, we stand naked before official power. Stripped of our privacy, we lose our rights and privileges. The Bill of Rights then becomes just so many words.”

These facts and others like them can be found in the Domestic Surveillance section of the Interdiction of Drugs and Military Participation Chapters of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.