Drug Policy Question of the Week – 3-26-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 3-26-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3320

Question of the Week: What is naloxone?

A Drug Profile for Naloxone HCl from the Arizona Department of Health Services describes the drug as a

“narcotic (opioid) agonist” marketed under the name Narcan. Its adult dosages come in IV, intra-nasal, and continuous IV infusion forms. As an antidote to opioid overdose, Naloxone “Reverses respiratory depression secondary to narcotics.”

According to a Drexel University Law Review article,

“The drug “blocks the effects of opiates by binding to three types of opioid receptors in the central nervous system. It is standard practice for first responders to inject naloxone when summoned to the scene of drug overdose”

A study in the Canadian Journal for Emergency Medicine, stated,

“Respiratory depression, the primary cause of death in opioid overdose, is due to direct inhibition of the brainstem respiratory centre and decreased responsiveness to carbon dioxide.”

“Heroin [an opioid] is particularly toxic because of high lipid solubility, which allows it to cross the blood–brain barrier within seconds and achieve high brain levels.

“Naloxone is also lipid soluble and enters the brain rapidly. Reversal of respiratory depression is evident 3–4 minutes after IV and 5–6 minutes after subcutaneous administration.”

According to a 2005 article in the Journal of Urban Health,

“Naloxone precipitates acute withdrawal symptoms in opiate-dependent persons, but has no effect on nonopiate users; serious adverse effects are rare and naloxone has no abuse potential.”

The report goes on to say,

“Fatal heroin overdose has become a leading cause of death among injection drug users. Several recent feasibility studies have concluded that naloxone distribution programs for heroin injectors should be implemented to decrease heroin overdose deaths.”

These facts and others like them can be found in the Naloxone section of the Methadone Maintenance & Buprenorphine Chapters of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 3-22-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 3-22-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3304

Question of the Week: Can people with a drug conviction vote?

Just before the election last fall, the Sentencing Project reported,

“… more than 5 million citizens will be ineligible to vote in the midterm elections in November [2010], including nearly 4 million who reside in the 35 states that still prohibit some combination of persons on probation, parole, and/or people who have completed their sentence from voting.”

The Bureau of Justice Statistics “Prisoners in 2009” report found that by year end 2008, 251,400 inmates were housed in state facilities as a result of a drug conviction. For 95,079 federal prisoners, a drug offense was the most serious offense.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ “Probation and Parole in theUnited States, 2008” calculated a total of 646,493 probationers for which a drug offense was the most serious offense. Similarly, there were 265,634 adults on parole as a result of a drug conviction.

Totaling all of the above numbers computes whopping 1,258,606  adults subject to disenfranchisement or the loss of voting rights for drug convictions in 2008.

The Sentencing Project’s 2011 report Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States states that

“48 states and the District of Columbia prohibit inmates from voting while incarcerated for a felony offense.  Only two states – Maine and Vermont – permit inmates to vote. … Two states deny the right to vote to all persons with felony convictions, even after they have completed their sentences.”

Those states are Iowa and Kentucky. Please check the report to find out where your state stands.

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

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Drug Policy Question of the Week – 2-26-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 2-26-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3284

Question of the Week: How many medical marijuana patients are there?

The Congressional Research Service reported that,

“A July 2005 CRS telephone survey of the state [medical marijuana] programs revealed a total of 14,758 registered medical marijuana users in eight states.”

The report also noted,

“More recently, an estimate published by Newsweek early in 2010 found a total of 369,634 users in the 13 states with established programs.”

Medical cannabis programs are changing quickly. Applying the National Survey on Drug Use and Health or the Monitoring the Future survey to U.S. Census Bureau data can extrapolate national estimates.

Using the legal state of Colorado as a basis, the Census Bureau calculated Colorado’s 2009 population age 18+ at 3.8 million. The 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health claims that 6.8% of Coloradans are current cannabis consumers. Applying that percentage to the population results in an estimated 260,000 “current users” in Colorado.

According to the Colorado Medical Marijuana Registry, the

“total number of patients who currently possess valid Registry ID cards [was] 95,477”

as of 6/30/2010. Thus, these registered patients represented about 36% of the state’s “current” marijuana users.

Assuming 36% to be a standard patient percentage and applying it to the estimated 16.7 million current marijuana users nationwide results in about 5 million U.S. patients.

This count is supported by the Monitoring the Future survey, which apportions daily marijuana use percentages by age. Daily cannabis consumption implies medical use. Matching survey percentages to the middle series 2010 Census population computes an approximate total of 5 million patients between the ages of 18 and 55.

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

Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 2-8-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 2-8-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3261

Question of the Week: How are women affected by the drug war?

According to the 2009 National Survey for Drug Use and Health, the percentage of women using drugs and alcohol is less than men. About 6.6% of American women are current users of marijuana vs. 10.8% for men. Men use more psychotherapeutics and cocaine than women. Men are also more likely than women to use alcohol and drink heavily. However, the small percentages for non-medical use of tranquilizers and for methamphetamine are about the same for men and women.

Just because women are less likely to engage in substance use, doesn’t mean that they are spared arrest and incarceration for drug offenses.

The Institute on Women and Criminal Justice reported that,

“The number of women serving sentences of more than a year grew by 757 percent between 1977 and 2004 – nearly twice the 388 percent increase in the male prison population.”

In 2008, 25,500 women were imprisoned under state jurisdiction for drug offenses of one year or more.

While women often play relatively minor roles in the drug trade, they bring special issues to the criminal justice system.

As the Institute noted,

“More than 70 percent of women in prison have children. More than half of mothers in prison have no visits with their children for the duration of their time behind bars. Children are generally subject to instability and uncertainly while their mothers are imprisoned.”

The Institute concluded,

“Incarcerating women does not solve the problems that underlie their involvement in the criminal justice system. ”

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

Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 2-5-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 2-5-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3256

Question of the Week: What are Special Rapporteurs?

Shortly after enacting its charter in 1946, the United Nations established the Commission on Human Rights. According to its 2009 report, the Commission’s Human Rights Council fields,

“independent human rights experts with mandates to investigate, report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.”

Some experts are called Rapporteurs, a French term for “reporter.” Rapporteurs carry out their designated mandates via “special procedures.” There are currently 31 thematic and 8 country mandates.

Special Rapporteurs have issued several reports on mandates germane to drug policy.

The May 2010 “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, [by] Philip Alston,” stated,

“…in Afghanistan, the US has said that drug traffickers on the “battlefield” who have links to the insurgency may be targeted and killed. This is not consistent with the traditionally understood concepts under [international humanitarian law].”

The Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

“decided to devote particular attention in 2010 to the issues of the detention of drug users.”

The August 2010 “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health,” conceded,

“While drugs may have a pernicious effect on individual lives and society, this excessively punitive regime has not achieved its stated public health goals, and has resulted in countless human rights violations.”

The report then concluded,

“The primary goal of the international drug control regime … is the “health and welfare of mankind”, but the current approach to controlling drug use and possession works against that aim.”

These facts and others like them can be in the Human Rights – United Nations section of the Civil Rights Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 1-26-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 1-26-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3243

Question of the Week: What are Entheogens?

A paper in the Journal of Consciousness Studies defined entheogens as,

“psychoactive agents more generally known as psychedelics (etymologically, mind manifesting) or hallucinogenic … that bring one in touch with the Divine within.”

A 2009 Cornell Law School research paper went on to state that,

“The word entheogen is believed to translate into the phrase “God inside us”. In the literal sense this word refers to plants, shrubs, fungi and seeds used for centuries in religious or shamanic rituals for the purpose of obtaining revelations, spiritual enlightenment, or healing illnesses. Some of these substances include, Ayahuasca, Amanitas Muscaria, Blue Lotus, Hawaiian Baby Woodrose and Morning Glory Seeds, Salvia Divinorum, Khat, Kanna, San Pedro Cacti, Kratom, Henbane, Yopo and Mandrake. There are many more, some of which are illegal (such as DMT, Kava Kava, Cannabis and Psilocybin Mushrooms)…”

Wikipedia includes LSD, Ibogaine, and even ethanol, aka alcohol as entheogens.

The Cornell paper noted that,

“The first scholar to highlight the sacramental use of psychoactive substances was de Felice [who put] forward the hypothesis that the use of psychotropic substances is deeply embedded in human culture, and that it is intrinsically intertwined in a most basic human instinct — the search for transcendence. Thus, he proposes, the use of psychotropic substances is at the roots of perhaps all religions.”

The Cornell paper finally asks, is

“the legal status of many entheogens … another example of legislative inertia and a defect in the law? Are these drugs harmful enough to warrant criminalization? Or, alternatively, are these drugs, with their connection to peoples’ spiritual beliefs, to be protected … as an expression of people’s religion?”

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

Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]