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.

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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