Drug Policy Question of the Week – 11-21-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 11-21-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3639

Question of the Week: What are mandatory minimum sentences?

As described by the Sentencing Project,

“Along with the stepped-up pace of arrests in the 1980s, legislatures throughout the country adopted harsher sentencing laws in regard to drug offenses. The federal system, in particular, led the way with the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and … of 1988. Among a number of provisions, these laws created a host of severe mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses and affected the calibration of the federal Sentencing Guidelines, which were being formulated simultaneous to these statutory changes. The result of these developments was to remove discretion from the sentencing judge to consider the range of factors pertaining to the individual and the offense that would normally be an integral aspect of the sentencing process, thereby increasing the number of individuals in federal court exposed to a term of incarceration for a drug offense.”

In its recent report to Congress, the United States Sentencing Commission contended that,

“Sentencing data and interviews with prosecutors and defense attorneys indicate that mandatory minimum penalties that are considered excessively severe tend to be applied inconsistently.”

The other unintended consequences of mandatory minimum penalties were enumerated by The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing to include,

“significant increases in the costs of corrections due to longer prison terms and an increasing prison population; removal from consideration of other sentencing options that may prove to be less costly and/or more effective than mandatory incarceration; and Impact on … pleas or verdicts and offender eligibility for rehabilitation programs and early release.”

The Commission concluded,

“Addressing the growth in the state prison population, particularly involving drug-related offenders, requires systemic change.”

These facts and others like them can be found in the Mandatory Minimum Sentencing chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-29-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-29-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3606

Question of the Week: How similar is Ken Burns’ ‘Prohibition’ to the Drug War?

Many aficionados have probably seen “PROHIBITION,” the

“three-part, five-and-a-half-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed.”

Viewers of this film can’t help but see strong similarities between this era and the 21^st Century drug war.

Substituting the word “drug” for “alcohol,” PBS states that prohibition was,

“intended to improve, even to ennoble, the lives of all Americans, to protect individuals, families, and society at large from the devastating effects of DRUG abuse.”

In bold letters, PBS declares,

“Prohibition turned law-abiding citizens into criminals, made a mockery of the justice system, caused illicit DRUGS to seem glamorous and fun…”

The similarities between the Prohibition 1 and Prohibition 2 are substantiated by more than words. Consider these statistics. Despite the fact that 25 million people were made criminals by arrests for illegal drugs during the last 15 years, 120 million Americans – roughly half of everyone over age 12 – made a mockery of drug laws by reportedly using an illegal drug in 2010.

As PBS concludes,

“The film [Prohibition] raises vital questions that are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago – about means and ends, individual rights and responsibilities, the proper role of government and finally, who is — and who is not — a real American.”

These facts and others like them can be found in the Alcohol, Crime and Drug Usage Chapters of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org. Please visit the PBS website pbs.org to learn more about the Prohibition series.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-1-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-1-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3570

Question of the Week: Is opiate use increasing?

Each year around this time, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration releases its National Survey on Drug Use and Health that reports the prevalence of illicit drug use in the US population age 12 or older.

Trendable from 2002 onward, the data measure “lifetime” and “monthly” use of various illicit drugs, alcohol and tobacco. “Lifetime” use means having tried a drug just once. “Monthly” use equates to consuming an illicit drug at least once per month. NSDUH calls “monthly” use “current use.”

What is striking about these data, but under reported in their analysis, is the growth in the use of opiates, specifically heroin and pain relievers, often opiates as well. In the nine years since 2002, among the drugs showing the largest “lifetime” growth in users were pain relievers at +17.4% over 2002 and heroin at +12.5% over 2002.

“Monthly” usage of heroin at +44% and pain relievers +16.5% grew the most quickly over their 2002 respective user populations. There were an estimated 5.1 million users of illicit pain relievers in 2010, over 700,000 more than in 2002.

The increasing use of these illicit drugs is tragically reflected in the headline of a recent Los Angeles Times article entitled, “Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the U.S.” Citing 2009 data in a 2011 National Vital Statistics Report and naming these drugs as the culprit, the article read,

“Claiming a life every 14 minutes … This is the first time that drugs have accounted for more fatalities than traffic accidents since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979.”

These facts and others like them can be found in three data tables within the Drug Use chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 9-19-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 9-19-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3554

Question of the Week: Are the “War on Drugs” and “War on Terror” the same?

An article in the University of Pittsburgh Law Review states,

“Well before the twenty-first century, the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the resulting War on Terror, the country and Supreme Court already had been fighting another war for thirty years—the so-called “War on Drugs”—and it was every bit as devastating to civil liberties, although slower and more methodical, than our new “War on Terror” promises to be.”

The link between the two is described rhetorically by the Transform Drug Policy Foundation,

“Like the war on terror, the war on drugs is framed as a response to an exceptional, existential threat to our health, our security, and indeed the very fabric of society. …. The “Addiction to narcotic drugs” is portrayed as an “evil” the international community has a moral duty to “combat” because it is a “danger of incalculable gravity” that warrants a series of (otherwise publicly unacceptable) extraordinary measures.”

The results of this rhetoric were outlined in a Drexel Law Review article concerning the U.S. Patriot Act,

“the Passage of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act [shortly after 9/11] substantially increased the authority of the government in surveillance, border security, terrorism policing, money laundering policing, and intelligence gathering.”

The University of Pittsburgh Law Review concludes,

“methodically and largely unnoticed in the name of the War on Drugs, and now more rapidly and apparent in the War on Terrorism, our free, open society is casually losing its grip.”

These facts and others like them can be found on the Drugs and Terrorism subchapter of the Drug War Facts Interdiction chapter at www.drugwarfacts.org

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 9-18-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 9-18-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3552

Question of the Week: What are mycoherbicides?

According to the 2011 Global Commission on Drug Policies report,

“Biological methods of eradication, known as mycoherbicides, have been researched for coca and opium poppy …”

A 2007 Drug Policy Alliance report overviewed two kinds of mycoherbicides, stating,

“One of these is Fusarium oxysporum and the other is Pleospora papaveracea. Both are toxic molds that attack their targets through the secretion of cell-dissolving chemicals called mycotoxins,”

According to the Sunshine Project mycotoxins can

“have serious impact on human and animal health.”

The Project defines Fusarium oxysporum as a,

“well-known plant pathogen causing damage and large losses in food and industrial crops worldwide. Researchers of the US Department of Agriculture have developed highly virulent strains that attack cannabis and coca plants, the source of cocaine.”

The Sunshine Project defines Pleospora papaveracea as,

“a fungal pathogen that attacks opium poppy. Candidate strains for use in crop eradication were … part of the [former] Soviet Union’s offensive biological weapons program.”

A United Nations Special Rapporteur raised concerns about the use of mycoherbacides, citing Colombia’s Office of the Ombudsman, which is,

“gathering information on the serious risks to life, human health and the environment that could result from experimentation with … the Fusarium oxysporum fungus in the open in the Colombian Amazon, one of the richest habitats in terms of biodiversity in the world.”

The Drug Policy Alliance echoed these concerns, noting that,

“While mycoherbicides contain chemical toxins, they are actually covered under the [United Nations] Biological Weapons Convention …. Given that mycoherbicides are biological agents it has been argued that their use, especially in foreign countries, would be illegal under [this United Nations treaty].”

These facts and others like them can be found on the Mycoherbacides subchapter of the Environment Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.