• Cannabis & Hemp - Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Softer pot laws saved Philadelphia $2 million in 2010

    By David Ferguson
    Saturday, July 9th, 2011

    The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office estimates that it saved the city two million dollars in revenue through a new program designed to deal with individuals arrested with less than 30 grams (slightly more than one ounce) of marijuana.

    According to The Philadelphia Daily News, new sentencing guidelines have meant that the city no longer has to foot the bill for court-appointed defense attorneys, prosecutorial fees, lab tests, or overtime wages paid to police officers who appear in court. Additionally, says the article, legal personnel at all levels are freed up to concentrate on more serious crimes.

    Thousands of cases have been diverted to through Philadelphia’s so-called Small Amount of Marijuana (SAM) program, which is designed to process marijuana users quickly through the system and leave them with a clean record. The effort might have been doomed to failure had it not received the support of law enforcement personnel, who say that efforts to take marijuana off the streets use up resources and do little to dent the supply available to users.

    In the year since the policy has gone into effect, police say that they’ve noticed no discernible change in the city’s quality of life.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/09/softer-pot-laws-saved-philadelphia-2-million-in-2010/

     

  • Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    Military and the Drug War

    Drug Policy Question of the Week – 7-6-11

    As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 7-6-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3454

    Question of the Week: Does the military participate in the drug war?

    According the Washington Law Office on Latin America (WOLA), in 1986 …

    in 1986,  “…Bolivia became the scene of the first major antidrug operation on foreign soil to publicly involve U.S. military forces. One hundred sixty U.S. troops took part in Operation Blast Furnace…”

    Three years later, in 1989 per the Department of Defense, Joint Task Force 6 was formed under the U.S. Army …

    “to support local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies within the Southwest border region to counter the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.”

    That same year per the Air Force Law Review,

    “President George H. W. Bush’s so-called ‘Andean Initiative… involved the deployment of seven Special Forces teams and approximately 100 military advisors to Colombia, Bolivia and Peru…”

    Unfortunately, in 2001,

    “… a Peruvian A-37 interceptor, operating as part of a joint U.S.-Peruvian counternarcotics mission fired two salvos of machine gun fire into a small Cessna float plane. … Two people on the aircraft were killed, a U.S. missionary and her infant daughter.”

    In 2006, according to WOLA,

    “President [George W.] Bush ordered 6,000 National Guard troops to assist the Border Patrol for a two-year period in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.”

    That same year, he signed a repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, but under public pressure, it was restored in 2007.

    In 2010, “President Barack Obama announced the intention to send 1,200 National Guard troops to the border again. These troops will join the 340 already there under the ‘State Counter Drug Programs,’”

    These troops remain there today.

    These facts and others like them can be found on the “Brief Chronology of Domestic Military Involvement” table in the Military Participation Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

  • Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    Posse Comitatus Act

    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.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Marijuana Use by Young People

    The Impact of State Medical Marijuana Laws

    Karen O’Keefe, Esq.,
    Director of State Policies, Marijuana Policy Project

    Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D.,
    Professor of Psychology, University at Albany, State University of New York

    With assistance to this version or the original report from: Dan Riffle, Kate Zawidzki, and Bruce Mirken

    First Version Released: September 7, 2005
    Last Updated: June 2011

    The debate over medical marijuana laws has included extensive discussion of whether such laws “send the wrong message to young people” and increase teen marijuana use. This is an updated version of the first report that analyzed all available data to determine the trends in teen marijuana use in states that have passed medical marijuana laws.

    Nearly 15 years after the passage of the nation’s first state medical marijuana law, California’s Prop. 215, a considerable body of data shows that teens’ marijuana use has generally gone down following the passage of medical marijuana laws. Of the 13 states with effective medical marijuana laws with before-and-after data on teen marijuana use, only the two with the most recently enacted laws (Michigan and New Mexico) have indicated possible increases, both of which are modest and within confidence intervals. In Rhode Island, the data indicate teens’ lifetime marijuana may have slightly decreased while current use may have slightly increased, but those changes are also within confidence intervals. The 10 remaining states have all reported overall decreases — some of which are also within confidence intervals and some of which are significant. Generally, no state with an overall change outside of the confidence intervals saw an increase in teens’ marijuana use, strongly suggesting that enactment of state medical marijuana laws does not increase teen marijuana use.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Medical Marijuana Memo

    DOJ Says Prosecuting State-Authorized Medical Marijuana Suppliers Is ‘Entirely Consistent’ With Not Prosecuting Them

    By Jacob Sullum

    As Mike Riggs noted on Thursday night, the Justice Department’s new medical marijuana memo (http://mapinc.org/url/YhTyZ7o4, PDF), confirms that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are reneging on their promises to respect state law. Under the policy described by Deputy Attorney General James Cole on Wednesday, “commercial operations cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana” are fair game, even when they are explicitly authorized by state law. By contrast, in his October 2009 memo (PDF) to U.S. attorneys, Cole’s predecessor, David Ogden, instructed them that they “should not focus federal resources” on “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

  • Letter of the Week

    Drugs A Problem In Suburbs, Too

    The June 15 story about another big drug investigation to bust a major pipeline to the Capital Region avoided questions of law enforcement that would address the tough reality that drug prohibition doesn’t work.

    All of these drug investigations are concentrated in the inner cities while the wealthier suburban areas of upstate New York are ignored by law enforcement. How long will it be before the next big drug investigation is launched in the next inner city?

    Statistically, there is as much drug use in the suburbs, but these investigations are selectively enforced and the media never ask law enforcement why. They merely report the number of arrests or the amount of cash and drugs confiscated without reporting the cost of these lengthy investigations to the taxpayer.

    Even in the areas where these investigations are focused, the impact is minimal as drug arrests continue to fill our prisons and courts. Too many of our elected leaders have forgotten the lessons of alcohol prohibition.

    The facts show that this heavy hand of the law is centered on the people with the least amount of money, influence or power. If our scarce law enforcement resources were applied evenly in the cities and suburbs in the war on drugs, alternatives such as regulating, taxing and legalizing them would have a great deal more traction in the public discussion.

    WILLIAM AIKEN

    Member, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

    Schenectady

    — MAP Posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.

    Pubdate: Thu, 23 Jun 2011
    Source: Times Union (Albany, NY)
    Copyright: 2011 Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation
    Contact: http://www.timesunion.com/forms/emaileditor.asp
    Website: http://www.timesunion.com/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/452
    Author: William Aiken. Member, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Why Barney Frank And Ron Paul Are Wrong On Drug Legalization

    By William J. Bennett, CNN Contributor

    Editor’s note: William J. Bennett is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute. He was U.S. secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 and was director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush.

    (CNN) — From certain precincts on the left, notably Barney Frank, to certain precincts on the right, notably the editorial page of National Review, we are witnessing a new push to end the so-called war on drugs and legalize drug use, starting with marijuana. Indeed, Ron Paul, Barney Frank’s co-sponsor in the latest legislative effort, said recently he would go so far as to legalize heroin.

    It’s a bad idea. My friends at National Review begin their case by stating the illegalization of drugs has “curtailed personal freedom, created a violent black market and filled our prisons.” But the legalization of drugs, including marijuana, would exacerbate each of these problems.