For those who have no experience with child protective services, the state foster system often brings to mind thoughts of wrongs righted, children saved, and love persevering.

Unfortunately, thats too often not the case.

A recent report reveals how the state foster system acts as a secondary criminal justice system, one that targets cannabis consumersand even medical marijuana patients.

A recent report reveals how the state foster system acts as a secondary criminal justice systemand uses drug allegations, including cannabis use, as a pretext to rip children away from their parents.

The 174-page report, How the Foster System Has Become Ground Zero for the U.S. Drug War, was produced by a coalition of social justice organizations, including the Movement for Family Power, the NYU Family Defense Clinic, and the Drug Policy Alliance.

Recent years have seen infamous examples of children forcibly removed from their homes due to a parents use of medical marijuana:

Those cases arent glitches in the system. They are examples of the system functioning as its meant towhich is to say, case workers are instructed to tear families apart over the slightest whiff of cannabis, even in legal states.

Todays foster system dates back to 1935, when its forerunner was established at the federal level to identify and respond to families living in poverty who were determined to be undeserving of cash assistance.

Our dedication to the idea of bootstrapping has resulted in millions of children being ripped away from parents who may have needed just a little help.

This basic premise still exists to this day. The problem lies in determining which families are undeserving of state or federal aid. Those judgments functionally criminalize poverty. They shift the blame for problematic family conditions away from systemic issues of oppression and onto the individual.

Our collective dedication to the idea of bootstrapping has resulted in millions of children being ripped away from parents who may have needed just a little help.

Children removed from their families and placed into foster or adoptive care often face worse outcomes than children from similar circumstances who remain with their families.

In one survey of nearly 6,000 people incarcerated in the Kansas prison system, 20% had spent time in a state foster system as children. Children who grow up within the foster system are much more likely to be scrutinized by that same system when they themselves become parents.

Instead of helping provide aid to struggling families, the foster system punishes them. Just like the carceral system, the punishment dealt out by the foster system comes with its own traumas and contributes to the cycle of children forced into that system.

The arrival of crack cocaine in the 1980s, and the hysteria surrounding it, spurred politicians into a frenzy of legislation, passing ever-more draconian sentencing laws that disproportionately affected people of color. That era also affected the child welfare system: Child removals more than doubled.

Over time, the federal government has granted more and more power and funding to state-based foster care systems to remove children from families deemed unfit in the eyes of case workers. That pattern intensified during the War on Drugs, aided by Congress passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997.

AFSA created monetary incentives for state foster care agencies to fast-track the permanent removal of children from their families. AFSAs policies mean that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services now sends state agencies a benefit of $4,000 to $10,000 for each child adopted out of the foster system.

The enormous costs associated with this bill are covered, in part, by funding originally designated for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a program whose aim is to alleviate the worst impacts of poverty on children.

Because of AFSA, the United States now has the dubious honor of having the highest number of legal orphans in the world.

When it comes to legal cannabis use, many adult consumers and medical marijuana patients are hesitant to reveal their use to their own doctors. That reticence isnt without good reason. Federal and state laws, passed in the name of child protection, have criminalized the doctor-patient privilege of privacy.

How exactly? Heres how the dots connect.

Federal and state laws, passed in the name of child protection, have criminalized the doctor-patient privilege of privacy.

States interested in receiving federal funds provided through the Child Abuse Prevention Treatment Act (CAPTA) amendments of 2003, 2010, and 2016 can get that money only if they create a reporting system for medical professionals to utilize when faced with an infant impacted by substance abuse. That medical provider must also notify a local child protective services (CPS) agency, and ensure that the agency establish a plan of safe care for the infant and mother.

That safeguard has effectively put millions of pregnant people and mothers at risk of being reported to CPS for cannabis use that is perfectly legal. Women of color and those struggling economically are far more likely to be reported and thereby taken into a system that may monitor them for years thereafter.

CAPTAs passage resulted in a slew of punitive state-level policies related to parental drug use, and functionally made reporting to child protective services the nations primary response to substance use during pregnancy, according to the Ground Zero report.

The problematic nature of those laws hasnt gone unnoticed. The Family First Act of 2018, passed by Congress two years ago, appears on its surface to remediate some of the harms of the foster system. It legislated the reallocation of funds previously used to rehome foster children towards programs to treat substance abuse, mental health services, and parenting classes.

Some question, though, whether the foster system should be the vehicle through which these services are provided. Given its historically punitive behavior towards parents, the foster system is often viewed with suspicion and mistrust by the communities who stand to benefit from the Family First Act.

On its face, the foster system is meant to protect children from negligent or abusive parents. But the ability to assess a parents ability to raise children has never been standardized. What may be a perfectly normal act of parenting in the eyes of one case worker or agency may be, to a social worker in a different state, cause for removal of children from the home.

Goals follow money. Funding for separating children from families is three times higher than funding for keeping them together.

Furthermore, the system has evolved with the nearly-exclusive focus of separating children from their families. The goal is not to repair families and support struggling parents. The goal is to post positive numbers of children savedthat is, taken from their parents and placed in the state foster care system.

As in any business, goals follow the money. And in the foster system, funding for separating children from their families is three times higher than funding for keeping families together.

One quote stands out in the Ground Zero report: A drug test is not a test for addiction and certainly not a parenting test. So said a nationally renowned OBGYN and addiction medicine specialist interviewed by the reports authors. The fact that the doctor did not feel comfortable or safe enough to attach their name to the quote speaks volumes about how risky it still is to talk bluntly and honestly about drug use.

Once a family comes into contact with the child protective services system, state investigators have nearly unassailable power when it comes to determining if a parent is fit to raise children.

In New York City, 25% of child removals involve allegations of parental drug use.

That power has resulted in a system where, according to the report issued earlier this year, the most consistent variable used to determine child maltreatment was [the investigators] opinion about the presence of maltreatment. When faced with a system whose punitive actions are nearly entirely subjective, how are determinations about parenting made? Too often it comes down to the use of certain categories of drugs.

In New York City, 25% of child removals involve allegations of parental drug use. Although data is hard to come by for foster systems nationally, some studies estimate that over 80% of all foster system cases involve caretaker drug use allegations at some point in the life of the case. Drug use has allowed the foster system a false sense of certainty in their evaluations of parental fitnessso much so that it has become almost weaponized.

Historically, leaders of the War on Drugs often justified their actions by claiming they were protecting children from harm by their drug-addled parents. But, as with most things, the real story is far more complex. Because of the legislation passed to support the foster system nationally, and the corresponding legislation at state and local levels, drug use is equated to drug abuse in nearly all foster system cases.

Think about how the issue of drug use/abuse is racialized. In the contemporary cannabis community, there is a growing movement of mostly white, female parents fighting for the right to enjoy cannabis while raising children. And why not? Its legal in many states, and has been proven to be far safer than alcohol.

But speaking publicly about cannabis use, for women who arent white and economically well off, risks the destruction of their entire family.

If those same mothers were Black and poor, they would face the real risk of permanently losing custody of their children. The report details the story of one mom whose blood was drawn for testing as she was giving birth. When the test turned up evidence of cannabis use within the past few weeks, state workers removed the newborn from the mothers care. It took her two years to contest the removal of her daughter and eventually regain custody.

The criminal justice system has established clear standards for what kind of drug testing is allowed in court. Those same standards dont apply to the foster system.

The most common drug test used within the foster system is, in fact, so inaccurate that it is not allowed to support legal action without confirmatory testing. But within the foster system its enough to start a case file and initiate a years-long battle for parents facing the loss of their children.

Drug treatment programs required by the foster system are functionally more akin to surveillance programs than anything else. Parents are forced, in most cases on their own dime, to attend these programs without any clear indication of what it means to graduate from them. In many cases, the foster system forces parents to remain in these time-intensive programs with little more reason than a suspicion that they are unfit parents.

Hospitals that serve low-income populations regularly engage in drug testing of pregnant women and newborns without their consent.

Then theres the problem of consent. Hospitals that serve predominantly low-income populations regularly engage in drug testing of pregnant women and newborns without their consent. If they find evidence of drug use, those test results are reported to child protective services and can result in immediate removal of the newborn. These are the same drug tests that are not accurate enough to be used in court.

The focus on drug use within the foster system all revolves around the idea that all drug use indicates drug abuse.

The medical world has a clear definition of what constitutes a substance use disorder. As defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM5), substance use must negatively interfere with the users life or the lives of the people around them in order to qualify as a disorder. A simple drug test cannot show that negative effect.

The cause of the struggle for many families is poverty, not drug use.

Despite the foster systems insistence on equating drug use with unfit parenting, studies have found no correlation between parental drug use and child maltreatment. Instead, research has shown a strong correlation between maltreatment and environmental factors associated with poverty such as lack of access to health care and housing.

Poverty is cause of the struggle for many families, not drug use. But the foster system doesnt address poverty. Instead, it uses evidence of drug consumption as a cheap, nonsensical, and counterproductive way to cast moral blame upon parents, and set in motion the violent process of state removal of children from the family home.

The authors of the Ground Zero report have constructed a framework for reimagining the foster system. They offer an action list for each group of stakeholders, as outlined below.

Zoe Sigman serves as Broccoli Magazines science editor, previously served as the program director for Project CBD, and has testified about CBD and cannabis regulation before the FDA. She thinks science is magic made real, and loves breaking the technical jargon down so anyone can understand it. IG: @zoe_sigman

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Focus on the family: How the War on Drugs destroyed America's foster care system - Leafly

This is "Look Back," a feature that I plan to do for at least all of 2020 and possibly beyond that (and possibly forget about in a week, who knows?). The concept is that every week (I'll probably be skipping the four fifth weeks in the year, but maybe not) of a month, I will spotlight a single issue of a comic book that came out in the past and talk about that issue (often in terms of a larger scale, like the series overall, etc.). Each week will be a look at a comic book from a different year that came out the same month X amount of years ago. The first week of the month looks at a book that came out this month ten years ago. The second week looks at a book that came out this month 25 years ago. The third week looks at a book that came out this month 50 years ago. The fourth week looks at a book that came out this month 75 years ago. The occasional fifth week looks at books from 20/30/40/60/70/80 years ago.

Today, as a special fifth week (every time a month has five weekends in it, we do an extra one based on either 20, 30, 40, 60, 70 or 80 years ago!), we go back to August 1990 to see the conclusion of the Captain America "Streets of Poison" storyline, where Captain America makes a bold sacrifice to say "no" to drugs.

The concept of the "Streets of Poison" storyline by Mark Gruenwald, Ron Lim and Danny Bulanadi, is that there is a new drug on the streets called Ice that both the Kingpin and the Red Skull want to sell. So they try to fight against each other through their intermediaries, Crossbones and Bullseye (we got to see Captain America take on Bullseye and Daredevil take on Crossbones). However, during one of the fights, Captain America was accidentally exposed to Ice and the drug combined with the Super Soldier Serum in Captain America's blood that gave him his super powers and it caused Captain America to basically go insane.

He was erratic and his friends Black Widow and Diamondback had to team up to take Cap down and bring him back to Avengers headquarters where Hank Pym was forced to remove all of Captain America's blood and replace it with normal blood while Hank will weed the Ice out of his Super Soldier Serum-enhanced blood.

Meanwhile, Kingpin and Red Skull decide to end things between each other by having a one-on-one fight with each other...in their underwear, because, well, why not?

While they are fighting, Captain America recovers from the procedure and is now in his right mind. However, while Hank is weeding out the Ice from his blood, Cap is just a normal, very athletic and trained person. He feels like he has to head to the stadium where the fight is taking place and do what he can to stop the bad guys. However, as soon as he gets there, he encounters Crossbones, who had managed to do well against in fights while Cap still had his Super Soldier Serum!

You see, early in the storyline, the reason why Captain America (who is not exactly plugged into "the street") discovered that Ice was around is because one of the Avengers' support staff was hooked on Ice. Cap helped him beat it, but he then asked Cap, "But what about the Super Soldier Serum? Don't you owe your powers to a DRUG?" And Cap is all, like, "Oh man, I guess he's right. Am I better than the people who do drugs like steroids?" It is a very silly concept, as, well, come the heck on. It is like saying "I won't use Penicillin - it's a DRUG!" It is way too silly.

However, whatever, Cap proves to himself that he doesn't need the Super Soldier Serum to defeat Crossbones, even though Cap had to exert himself unlike he normally would (and he kind of sort of cheats to win the fight. Not CHEAT, exactly, but it is not like Cap beats him in a straight fight)...

Kingpin defeats the Red Skull and the Skull hilariously is, like, "Ah, whatever, who cares?" It is too funny of a solution to the whole SEVEN-ISSUE arc. Ron Lim and Danny Bulanadi do a good job on art, or as well as you can when you're drawing Red Skull and Kingpin in their underwear fighting each other.

Anyhow, Hank Pym shows up at the Stadium with Cap's other friends, as they're all worried about him. Hank lets Cap know that he has successfully gotten rid of the Ice in Cap's blood and he can restore the Super Soldier Serum in Cap to give him his enhanced abilities back. Cap then tell him no, as the Super Soldier Serum is a drug and if Cap can't say "No" to drugs, then who can?

Of course, that makes no sense and his powers come back in the next issue (and they were confirmed to have never actually gone anywhere in another six issues or so), but in the moment, at least, it was a big dramatic sacrifice by Cap that was very timely for the 1990s. It was very silly, but very timely, at least! You could tell that obviously Mark Gruenwald's heart was in the right place with the story. he meant well, it just, you know, was kind of silly.

If you folks have any suggestions for September (or any other later months) 2010, 1995, 1970 and 1945 comic books for me to spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Here is the guide, though, for the cover dates of books so that you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. Generally speaking, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book throughout most of comic history has been two months (it was three months at times, but not during the times we're discussing here). So the comic books will have a cover date that is two months ahead of the actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Obviously, it is easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was internet coverage of books back then.

Atari Force: DC May Have Resurrected Its WEIRDEST Video Game Super-Team

CBR Senior Writer Brian Cronin has been writing professionally about comic books for over a dozen years now at CBR (primarily with his Comics Should Be Good series of columns, including Comic Book Legends Revealed). He has written two books about comics for Penguin-Random House Was Superman a Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed and Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? And Other Amazing Comic Book Trivia! and one book, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, from Triumph Books. His writing has been featured at ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Times, About.com, the Huffington Post and Gizmodo. He features legends about entertainment and sports at his website, Legends Revealed.Follow him on Twitter at @Brian_Cronin and feel free to e-mail him suggestions for stories about comic books that you'd like to see featured at brianc@cbr.com!

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Captain America Made a BIZARRE Sacrifice In the War on Drugs - CBR - Comic Book Resources

Starting this month, we are happy to announce that Southasiasphere, our analysis of regional affairs will be a monthly podcast featuring Himal editors! If youre a member, youll automatically receive links to the new episodes in your inbox. If youre not yet a member, you can still get it for free (for the time being..) by signing up here.

In this first audio episode of the roundup, we talk about elections in Sri Lanka, freedom of speech debates in India, war on drugs in Bangladesh and more.

***

This is an unedited transcription from the podcast. Please listen to the corresponding audio before quoting from it.

Shubhanga Pandey: Welcome to Southasiasphere, our monthly round up of news events in Southasia that have made headlines and havent made headlines. If youve been following Southasiasphere for some time, you might have seen it in the form of a newsletter before. But starting this month we are going to be doing a podcast. And this is the first episode of the Southasiasphere podcast. Im Shubhanga, and Im joined by Amita and Raisa. Hi guys.

Raisa Wickrematunge: Hi

Amita Arudpragasam: Hi

SP: So in this episode of Southasiasphere we are going to be talking about a few big stories that affected Southasia: the elections in Sri Lanka, the freedom of speech debate in India, the war on drugs in Bangladesh, among a few other things.

AA: Yeah Shubhanga, so thanks for the introduction. Its been a really eventful month for Southasia as we held in the region our first post covid-19 election in Sri Lanka on August 5th to elect, 225 members to Sri Lankas parliament. The Rajapaksa family and their party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna or SLPP won more seats than when Mahinda Rajapaksa went to the polls in 2010 soon after Sri Lankas civil war ended with a, you know, complete military victory for the government. This was when Mahinda was assumed to be at the height of his popularity. And now thats been surpassed. So with close allies the SLPP secured 150 seats in parliament which is a 2/3rds majority and, you know, that grants SLPP the power to amend the Constitution. Sri Lankas government is likely to interpret this as a mandate to consolidate Sinhala Buddhism in the otherwise ethnically diverse country that is, you know, clearly symbolized by Mahinda Rajapaksa taking oaths at a Buddhist Temple like his brother did on becoming President in November last year. Its also, you know, the parliamentary elections has also resulted in the empowerment of Sinhala Buddhist ultranationalists including with the parliamentary seat this election for a party associated with anti-Muslim hate speech. Given, you know, the Rajapaksa side of governance the next few years are likely to see some significant human rights violations especially for minority communities as Gotabaya Rajapaksa noted in his throne speech, national security will be a top priority for the government and that often translates to no dissent tolerated. Already in the last 6 months, weve seen a rapid increase in militarization, the arrest without charge of a prominent human rights lawyer, the intimidation of journalists and activists representing the relatives of the forcibly disappeared. This election also notably saw a fragmentation of Tamil politics, we had the predominant Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance losing about 40% of its parliamentary presence and its also seen a shift away from Sri Lankas grand old parties I really hate using that term its something an old British colonial administrator would use probably, kind of associated with the US Republican party, and, you know, suggest that theres something kind of ungrand about modernity and evolved values.

RW: Yeah, and Im not sure that its exactly a move away from the establishment if you interpret grand old party to mean establishment, because if you look at the heads of the new parties, the SLPP is headed by Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was well known as the former Defense Secretary and the SJB which forms the main opposition party with Sajith Premadasa whos also not a newcomer, you know then this isnt really a move away from the establishment and even the policies that they put forward or discussed arent really anything new.

AA: Right so I think even though theres this kind of rhetoric of a shift away from some of these old establishment politics, a lot has actually remained the same. I think, this election you know, to sum up will actually kind of weaken constitutional safeguards for Sri Lankan democracy including the separation of powers and the independent oversight bodies that were introduced in 2015 because you know as Gotabaya Rajapaksa mentioned in his throne speech, the SLPP plans to eliminate, the 19th amendment and you know it will possibly also result in greater centralization of power via the proposed elimination of the 13th amendment which guarantees devolution to the provinces. And you know we may even see a new constitution in Sri Lanka which will consolidate Sinhala Buddhist ethnocracy in the country and perhaps even the Rajapaksa dynastic project.

SP: Right, which kind of brings us to the next big elections in Southasia thats the Myanmar elections on November 8th. Could you give us updates on that, Amita?

AA: Yeah, I mean with 2 months to go the National League for Democracy, the NLD is predicted to hold on to its electoral successes and you know while Aung San Suu Kyi remains extremely popular with her base, and the country has made several reforms in the last few years, some analysts think there hasnt been enough change in Myanmar and Suu Kyis relationship with ethnic groups have actually deteriorated in the years, you know, analysts have suggested that Myanmars elections wont be free and fair, because you know we have thousands of displaced civilians, 200 000 from Rakhine alone, across a nation that might not be able to vote in areas of social unrest. The Election Commission has also barred three more Rohingya candidates from running for office because apparently their parents were not citizens when they were born. But on the outcomes and conduct of the Myanmar elections well have to wait and see. But you know relatedly on the subject of elections, weve also seen calls for internal elections, to elect a new leader for Indias congress, after senior leaders over 20 expressed their grievances with the interim nature of the partys leadership in a letter to Sonia Gandhi. Shes you know like, the longest serving Congress President and the Congress is actually another grand old party with a 130 year old history.

SP: Right, so coming to India I think we can enter the second big topic of this podcast which is free speech debates thats going on in India. The debate began with the withdrawal by Bloomsbury, a publisher, of a book on Delhi riots, so you know everyone saw those kind of social-media criticism of their decision to publish a book that seems to be both misinformed and kind of riddled with misleading and dubiously sourced information about the February Delhi riots, and actually based on a report produced by a pro-BJP and a pro-Citizenship Amendment Act group. So anyway that was, you know the book seemed like a strange thing for them to publish. And there was a book launch that was happening which invited Kapil Mishra, whos a BJP politician, whos seen as someone that incited the entire violence. So you know it seemed like a strange thing for them to do.

Now they did say that the book launch was not part of their plan, and that their logo had been used, but still they were publishing the book, so after a sustained, kind of social-media criticism of that this has led to Bloomsbury withdrawing the publishing of the book much to the ire of rightwing commentators, who were now seeing this as a curtailment of free speech. Interestingly the book has been picked up by a pro-Hindutva publisher, but all of a sudden theres this big debate, and I dont know how valid the debate is on this being an attack on free speech and that the liberal left is being hypocritical.

RW: Yeah, I find it quite interesting that this story of this book is being discussed in the context of freedom of expression because in my view, this is a reaction to public outcry which I feel should kind of be contrasted with actual instances where the state is intervening to restrict free speech and we have a high profile instance of that before the Supreme Court right now with the case of Prashant Bhushan.

SP: Right, which again explains why this whole thing is a false analogy, that supposedly the liberal left have this outcry when their people are stopped from speaking, but it ignores the fact that Prashant Bushan being found guilty of contempt of court for a few tweets was the state you know the judiciary acting on that. Even with non-state actors you saw the attack on Caravan reporters by mobs in Delhi. I mean those are genuine attacks on free expression because it either uses the state instrument or theres physical violence, which seems very much different from the case of that book being withdrawn, because thats the kind of social sanctioning.

And I feel in some ways the Indian right is deploying the same categories and terms of the cancel culture which has kind of become big in the US, particularly since the rise of Trump, and you know all of a sudden, social boycotts of all kinds become the same as the state or mobs attacking someone.

RW: Yeah, its kind of interesting how these false analogies are being created. Another story thats kind of really made headlines was this story in the Wall Street Journal which actually found that there were these instances of hate speech which were identified by Facebook and which were being spread by the BJP, which were not removed and this story actually lifted the veil of secrecy that surrounds like some of the inner operations of Facebook, and it kind of identified Ankhi Das who is their policy person kind of showing that she had apparently explicitly said that these posts should not be removed because to do so would be to threaten the market opportunity that they would have in India, so thats been an interesting story.

SP: Yeah and I feel it sometimes even muddles the actual debate on free speech and hate speech and you know how companies like Facebook maintain their own standards. I mean, in this case it was clearly a failure to stand by their own standards. Interestingly, she has a history of also making Islamophobic comments, and we know what the result of allowing these kind of hate speech on platforms like Facebook have been, looking at what happened in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. So it also makes one question how serious platforms like Facebook are when it comes to basically standing you know by their own standards.

RW: Yeah thats right, to add to that, theres also been some writing that Ive seen which has actually talked about, how maybe we shouldnt get too distracted by the personalities, including Ankhi Das, and focus like you said on the issues, on the fact that these platforms need to be standing by the commitments that they make or making some kind of an effort on freedom of speech and just not allowing hate speech to proliferate but we are going to move on now to drugs, and specifically a particular case in Bangladesh, which was actually the killing of this retired military officer, Major Sinha Rashed Khan and this case has actually forced security forces to confront their culture of extrajudicial executions. So the details of this case will be chillingly familiar to those who have been following Bangladesh politics and these kinds of cases. So he was shot dead at a checkpoint in Coxs Bazar where he was actually shooting a documentary. According to the police he refused to stop and they had then fired in self defense. And afterwards they recovered, they said recreational drugs and alcohol from Sinha. Now following this and following some outcry, 7 police personnel who are among the accused have been placed in remand, and there have been several residents who were witnesses who were also placed in remand. Now I said that this kind of shooting is familiar to those who have been following incidents in Bangladesh, thats because it has very chilling similarities to these incidents which are kind of euphemistically called crossfire killings.

SP: The word crossfire killings sounds dangerously close to whats called encounter killings or encounters mostly in India, Pakistan, sometimes Nepal also. It just shows how creative states can get when it comes to hiding certain kinds of extrajudicial actions.

RW: Yeah I agree and I mean you can even draw parallels with Sri Lanka, theres been again a long history of prisoners either being taken to the scene of a crime and then reports that theyve tried to escape and then in Sri Lanka whats often said is again this term self-defence either tried to escape or attack them, so similarities across the region to these incidents, but when we look at Bangladesh in particular, according to rights body Ain O Salish Kendra thereve been around 2700 people who have been killed in this so called crossfire or gunfight since 2004 and thats when the Rapid Action Battalion was formed. Now, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has given the RAB a mandate to crackdown on drugs, and theyve called, shes gone so far as to call drug peddlers a menace to society, but now with the killing of Major Sinha theres been this increased scrutiny and especially because the victim is a former bodyguard of the Prime Minister herself. So shes actually told Rasheds mother that a proper probe would be carried out. So this story has crossborder resonance with Sri Lanka where former President Maithripala Sirisena pushed for the death penalty for drug traffickers and the current President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has also appointed a military led task force and their primary mandate is actually to liberate society from the drug menace. So since this task force has been formed and indeed since Gotabaya has been appointed President, thereve been these reports of drugs and firearms being seized along with reports of increased crackdowns, but theres also been these reports of apprehending a number of really unusual accomplices so most recently there was a cat who was found smuggling 2 grams of heroin, 2 SIM cards and a memory chip into Welikada prison and the cat was detained in early August, and interestingly this cat then made a break for freedom, and was then subsequently found again on the prison premises and this story made headlines, around the world. There was also actually an eagle who was suspected to be used by underworld Kingpin Angoda Lokka for his drug trafficking ring and this eagle was also seized by the police at the end of July actually and it was found on a poultry farm in Meegoda and two suspects who were involved in this ring were arrested. Now Angoda Lokka has actually been in the news recently as well, he goes by two other aliases which is Pradeep Singh and Maddumage Lasantha Chandana Perera. He was recently found dead in India seemingly due to a heart attack but he was wanted in connection with several crimes in Sri Lanka including murder, illegal sand mining, land reclamation, extortion, drug smuggling, so thats been an interesting story that weve been following.

AA: And I guess thats a nice transition or segue into the issue of transitional justice in the continent. So August 30th was the International Day of Disappearances, but unfortunately across the region families of the disappeared are still waiting for answers with several stalled or flawed or in some cases nonexistent transitional justice projects. In Sri Lanka its quite obvious in hindsight now, that 2015s political shift was not really consolidated by the kind of accountability or change in political culture thats necessary for a genuine political transition, so despite pledges by the previous government to implement a meaningful transitional justice project, nothing substantial has actually happened and in Nepal you have victims of the ten year long Maos insurgency who are gradually losing hope of getting justice just like in Sri Lanka. 9 years after the comprehensive peace agreement was signed and you know the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Commissioner of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons was formed in 2015, these victims are still waiting for answers. And like in Sri Lanka the Transitional Justice project in Nepal is suspected to be a type of undue international intervention largely because there is a lot of foreign interest and human rights groups have that kind of association in Nepal and you know across the region, but you know if youre interested in regional transitional justice efforts be sure to catch our piece this week on the transitional justice process in the Maldives as well.

SP: Now a very short quick update on Covid-19, weve been seeing cases really pick up particularly in Nepal and India continues to see more and more infections. Very interestingly a lot of countries around the region appear to be using the blood plasma therapy, to try to treat Covid patients, and so youre seeing this in Pakistan, you know cities around Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and its not clear if the governments have kind of made it part of their public health effort but clearly organizations, different hospitals and clinics have started doing it, and thats an interesting trend.

RW: Yeah, and just to end on a bit of a positive note, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in India has constituted the National Counsel for Transgender Persons which would you know work with states to ensure that transgender welfare boards are set up in all states and that the essential needs of the community like housing, food, healthcare and education are met.

SP: So thats the end of Episode 1 of Southasiasphere, our new podcast on Southasian affairs. So subscribe to us and visit our website for more. Bye.

RW: Bye

AA: Bye

***

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Southasiasphere newsletters from the past.

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Elections in Sri Lanka, freedom of speech debates in India, war on drugs in Bangladesh and more - Himal Southasian

Criminalisation of Cannabis Use Disregards Racist Origins Of USs War On Drugs

As India succumbed to international pressure, it was forced to disregard the racist origins of the USs war on drugs. The US war on drugs started off as a patently racist propaganda against the African-American and the Hispanic population. Harry Anslinger, called the architect of the modern war on drugs, argued that cannabis leads to insanity, criminality and death.

This racial bias in drug regulation has resulted in a disproportionate number of arrests of African Americans for cannabis consumption, which has become central to major policy reform in the US.

Economic Impact Of Indias Cannabis Law

Despite the historical use of cannabis as a fibre, India contributes a mere 0.001 percent to the world market for hemp products, which is pegged at USD 4.7 billion today.

The prohibitionist environment created by the NDPS (Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act, 1985, prevents India from effectively contributing to the world hemp market. As the world cannabis market is estimated to go up to USD 15.8 billion by 2027, restrictive policies in India continue to act as barriers to economic gains.

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Could Indian Economy Get A New High By Removing Ban On Cannabis? - The Quint

Residents cleaning highway should be honored for service

If there were awards for meritorious citizen service it should go to Kaeti Ecker and Sarah Govier, the two ladies who on their own time have for the past few months been picking up trash from the side of Queen Kaahumanu Highway between Palani Road and Kaiminani Drive as reported in West Hawaii Today on Aug. 27.

This stretch of road has long been an embarrassment for us residents and a Third World eyesore for visitors, though perhaps the latter are so dazed by being in paradise they dont notice all the trash. I have contacted state and county agencies about this, but the answer is always limited manpower or other priorities, which I can believe since its all the government can do to keep the weeds mowed in the center dividing strip.

Now that Ecker and Govier have shown what two motivated people can do to improve our community, how about one of the service clubs or tourism promotion groups stepping up to take this on as their ongoing project? What do you say Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis, Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce, Hawaii Island Visitors Bureau or others? Youve got some woman and manpower and I cant think of a better use to which it could be put then to help these two women to make Kona an attractive community when the tourists return. And to Kaeti and Sarah, a big mahalo.

John Kitchen

Kona

More of a deterrent needed

I read about those aquarium fish poachers recently and wondered why arent they penalized more. Just having their equipment taken is not enough to deter them from breaking the law again. Why not tell them the next time it will be their boats as well? Maybe that might put fear into them. Frankly, Im sure these guys have done this before and gotten away with it. so charge them for what they would have made on their haul of poached fish.

Colleen Wallis

Kailua-Kona

A step toward racial justice

In the time of COVID-19, while living on an island with very few Black people, what can we do to help ensure that Black lives really matter? Certainly, Black Americans need something more concrete than our thoughts and prayers.

First, and foremost, we should abolish two institutions that represent modern slavery: private prisons and the so-called War on Drugs.

The USA has 4% of the worlds population and 25% of the worlds prisoners. Most inmates are incarcerated on drug charges, with people of color imprisoned at four times the rate of other people, despite using drugs at the same rate as white people. Clearly the War on Drugs is really a War on People. Any politician who will not work to end the War on Drugs should never get our vote.

Private prisons create a powerful and sinister lobby that works to keep the prisons full. That might be the stupidest idea in history. We need to end this vested interest that wants its citizens in jail.

This is just a start, but implementing these two changes could be a wonderful step forward toward racial justice for our beloved land of the free.

Charlie Webb

Kailua-Kona

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Letters to the Editor: September 4, 2020 - West Hawaii Today

In November, Oregon voters will have the opportunity to vote on Measure 110, the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act. And action couldnt come too soon.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the already deadly addiction epidemic in America, increasing the desperate need in Oregon for drug and alcohol rehabilitation services.

Joseph Kertis is a veteran healthcare professional turned journalist. Former clinical director at a drug and alcohol treatment center, his experience in substance abuse and addiction recovery give him a unique insight into our nations opioid epidemic. He uses this knowledge in his writing to present an expert view in hopes of spreading awareness through education. Based in neighboring Lincoln County, he is a featured author on the healthcare website, http://www.addicted.org.

According to proponents, one of every 11 Oregon residents is struggling with a substance disorder. And Oregon ranks dead last in the nation in providing the treatment they need.

Given the lack of national focus on expanding human services, and Oregons poor record on addiction treatment, youd think the measure would be headed for a landslide win. Its hard to imagine anyone opposing a measure with such a laudable title and goal.

However, Measure 110 has managed to draw considerable controversy, mainly due to its decriminalization component.

The initiative aims to decriminalize simple non-commercial possession of nearly all drugs within the states borders. Now a Class A misdemeanor subject to a year in prison and $6,250 fine, possession would become a Class E violation with a $100 fine or submission to an addiction assessment.

Those found in possession of a small, personal amount of most drugs would be given a citation, much like a traffic ticket. Instead of paying the associated fine, they would have the option to participate in a drug and alcohol assessment to determine their need for treatment.

The measure would leave stiff criminal penalties unchanged for those engaged in manufacture and sales. However, that requirement doesnt sway the opposition.

Opponents are concerned the initiatives treatment orientation might cause lazy voters unknowingly to decriminalize possession for a wide range of drugs, including cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin.

Thats something they oppose. They maintain it causes addiction rates to skyrocket and and alienate law enforcement officers as allies in the war on drugs.

The official ballot title reads, Provides statewide addiction recovery services; marijuana taxes partially finance; reclassifies possession penalties for speecific drugs. Opponents feel that misses the mark when it comes to decriminalization.

Another controversial aspect is the proposed treatment funding source tax revenue from the sale of legal marijuana.

Oregon has a history of being on the cutting edge, and so it was with Measure 91, passed in 2014. The measure went beyond previous decriminalization to authorize legal recreational marijuana consumption and cultivation.

Since then, Oregon has continued to reap financial benefits from the highly taxed industry. In 2019, Oregons cannabis tax revenue topped $102 million, a 24% increase from 2018.

Currently, 25% of that revenue is split between prevention and treatment for mental health issues and drug abuse, almost $50 million over the last two years.

Should Measure 110 pass in November, revenue exceeding $45 million would be used to fund increased access to substance abuse treatment. That figures to nearly double current funding for the addiction component.

The move to decriminalize possession and expand treatment options has gained impetus from the recent unrest triggered by the death of George Floyd at police hands. A keynote of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has been drawing a sharp increase in media coverage and public support in the wake of Floyds death, is changing the emphasis from punishment to treatment for those caught in the throes of addiction.

Its no secret African American and other ethnic minority groups are disproportionately targeted for drug arrests.

A recent report from Albany, New York, noted 97% of the 134 marijuana cases prosecuted criminally there focused on Black defendants. Systemic racism is still prevalent in the criminal justice system, despite the attention focused on reform in recent months.

Drug arrests can ruin someones life. They can trap people in the legal system and tag them with a permanent criminal record, severely limiting their future options.

Assessing fines such defendants are often unable to pay inevitably leads to further violations and charges. Before they know it, they become engulfed in the system.

Black Americans remain the target of these charges more often than not, despite representing a vastly smaller percentage of both the overall population and population of drug abusers. Despite Oregons recent status as a bastion of progressive policy, its history is fraught with racism.

Oregon at its inception was the only state to ban Black people from its borders. As a legacy, Portland remains 72.2% white, making it the whitest major city in America. This demonstrates the lasting impact systemic racism can have on shaping the landscape of America.

As with any ballot measure, valid arguments can be made both for and against. And incorporating two layers of complexity adds to the dilemma.

Voters are not just choosing to increase funding for addiction treatment. Having already voted to decriminalize marijuana, they are now being asked to allow harder drugs as well a step no other state has taken.

However, proponents feel the two issues inextricably connected.

Two separate measures, one to decriminalize drug use and the other to expand treatment for drug addition, could produce different results, they argue. And that could leave one hand working without the other.

So far, the opposition has focused mainly on the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act title. It considers omission of the interconnected decriminalization element deceptive.

Maybe its time opponents moved on to issues raised in the actual workings of the act.

Perhaps they should be considering questions such as how many times a user can afford $100 to put off seeking help. Or what happens to people who cant even pay a $100 fine the first time, because they are homeless and without resources. Is it fair to deny them a choice?

As an addiction recovery advocate of long standing, Measure 110 seems to contain more positives than negatives to me, upon full examination of the big picture. But this doesnt mean its an entirely sensible and unflawed proposal.

Thankfully, those who want to know before making up their mind can read the full measure in advance.

There are multiple sources. Heres one: https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Measure_110,_Drug_Decriminalization_and_Addiction_Treatment_Initiative_(2020)

If we dont care enough to vote at all, or to reach reasoned judgments when we do cast ballots, what do the results matter anyway?

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Kermis: Is Oregon prepared to pioneer new approach to drug abuse? - McMinnville News-Register

An important birthday is approaching. The War on Drugs turns 50 years old, and experts are trying to ensure it wont live to see 51.

The day is Tuesday, Oct. 27, 1970. The newest thing on the radio is The Jackson 5; The Brady Bunch and Colombo are just getting started on TV. The current President of the United States, Richard Nixon, does not suspect it yet, but in three years,almost to the day, his impeachment process will start. But on this day, Nixon is not thinking about answering for his numerous crimes. Today, he is signing theControlled Substances Act that will rule how the U.S. acts towards drug possession for the next 50 years.

The Controlled Substances Act classifies illicit substances into five schedules, and it categorizes marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the hardest, alongside heroin. The act claims that marijuana has a high potential for abuse, no accredited medical use, and a lack of accepted safety. Despite the later admission that Nixon chose to repress drug use for political gain, the act became law. Starting in 1971, even for first offenders, possessing any amount of marijuana was punishable by one year in prison, and growing or selling the plant could mean a life sentence, even for non-violent offenders. Fought by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that Nixon would go on to create, the burgeoning War on Drugs led to tens of millions of arrests, mostly for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Countless Americans who would never have been arrested otherwise saw the inside of a cell and were subsequently treated like criminals.

The question of reform is back on the table, nowadays. Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden,famously said, Nobody should go to prison for marijuana, and his partys platform explicitly calls for the federal decriminalization of cannabis. To pave the way to the realization of that promise, a leading nonprofit organization, the Drug Policy Alliance, has released a drug decriminalization model, a roadmap to effectively end the criminalization of people who use drugs and begin repairing the harm drug law enforcement has caused,the organization said.

Decriminalizing marijuana is not as simple as the president declaring it donenor is it as simple as descheduling cannabis, which means removing it from the list of Schedule I drugs. Prohibition is deeply entrenched in our institutions and laws, and those need to be untangled. The Drug Policy Reform Act, brought forth by the Drug Policy Alliance, addresses the multifaceted question of ending the War on Drugs as we know it.

The first promise of the Act is not to address cannabis schedule, but to shift regulatory authority away from the DEA, which has been directly responsible for most of the damage of the War on Drugs. The DEA has a long and violent history of treating substance abuse as a crime to be fought rather than as a health issue requiring help. Instead of the DEA, the nonprofit suggests that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) should be responsible for the classifications of drugs under the Controlled Substances Act. The people in charge of a public health issue should have a medical degree, not a gun.

In a time where defunding the police has become a popular rallying cry, the Drug Policy Alliance recommends defunding the War on Drugs enforcers and reinvesting the money thusly saved in more productive endeavors. Agencies that must be defunded include the DEA, the Office of National Drug Control Strategy (ONDCP), the Bureau of International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Affairs (INCLE) and other agencies that play a part in drug prohibition. Programs that facilitate the militarization of these agencies, such as the Department of Defenses 1033 Program, which fast-tracks the obtention of excess military equipment to these agencies, should be ended.

Because of federal funding and defense equipment transfer schemes directly tied to drug arrests, the drug war incentivizes and funds the kind of militarized policing that has led to the overwhelming demand for reform in recent months, said Queen Adesuyi, policy manager for the Drug Policy Alliance.

The second step would be to shift the legal apparatus surrounding substance abuse towards harm reduction instead of repression. Of course, the most important step would be to repeal all criminal penalties for simple possession of a controlled substance, as well as penalties for distributing small personal use quantitiestoo often, those laws are used to escalate the charges against people who dont traffic drugs but give small quantities to relatives and loved ones. That means removing minimum sentencing and sentencing enhancements for drug charges. The Drug Policy Alliance identified numerous passages in a large number of bills passed in the past century that all need to be repealed in order to truly end Prohibition.

Shifting the focus to harm reduction also includes drafting rules based on current, peer-reviewed research to define personal use thresholds, as well as measures allowing addicts to come forward and receive help instead of a prison sentence. Currently, access to substances that can help with addiction treatment, such as methadone and buprenorphine, is extremely restricted, and it should be made more widely available. Procedures such as no-knock warrants and civil asset forfeiture have been shown time and time again to be easily abused by law enforcement in drug-related cases, and they should be prohibited entirely.

Even when someone has been convicted of drug charges, their voting rights should be protected, they should still be able to access federal benefits, employment and housing. Anyone who has been convicted solely for drug possession or minor selling charges should be released from prison immediately and have their records automatically expunged without needing to petition for it.

Just removing laws that currently criminalize drug use is not sufficientnot by a long shot. It is up to the federal government to create new laws to cement these new procedures into law and force states to cooperate. Congress needs to actively prohibit state funding that is used for drug prohibition. Instead of using funds to crush drug use, that money would be better used in positive programs, such as programs providing social and health services, affordable addiction treatment, drug research and evidence-based drug education.

All these proposals are included in an all-encompassing bill that the Drug Policy Alliance intends to present to Congress ahead of the Controlled Substances Acts 50th anniversary.

To read more Cannabis Connection articles, click here.

To read more articles by Jean-Gabriel Fernandez, click here.

Excerpt from:

After 50 Years of Prohibition, Here Is How to Decriminalize Drugs - Shepherd Express

Two men, one from Britain and one from Australia, have been arrested on the Indonesian island of Bali for possession of methamphetamine and ecstasy, police say.

Collum Park from Britain was arrested on Tuesday night with 11.8 grams of methamphetamine and 15 ecstasy pills, Denpasar police chief Jansen Panjaitan said in a statement. Denpasar is Bali's capital.

Mr Park has been in Bali since 2019, he said.

Police allege Aaron Wayne Coyle, an Australian who has been in Bali since early 2020, had 1.2 grams of methamphetamine on his person at the time of arrest.

"We suspect that the Briton is the drug dealer and distributor, while the Australian is the courier," Mr Panjaitan said.

Both men are being held by Denpasar police for further investigation.

They are being charged under an article of the narcotics law which provides a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Spokesperson confirmed the arrest to the ABC and said the department "stands ready to offer consular assistance".

That assistance may include visits to the prison and liaison with local authorities to monitor Mr Coyle's welfare and assistance in communicating with local lawyers and family members.

Many countries in South-East Asia have some of the globe's harshest anti-drug policies, where convicted traffickers are often executed by a firing squad, while in Singapore convicted drug traffickers continue to be hanged.

For those convicted for personal drug possession, sentences can mean years of jail time.

While thousands of drug convicts sit on death row in prisons across South-East Asia, the local trade in methamphetamine and other illicit drugs is flourishing.

Out of 14 countries identified as actively applying the death penalty for drug crimes by watchdog Harm Reduction International (HRI), nearly half are in South-East Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

Despite the region's hard-line approach, a July 2019 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that South-East Asia was producing methamphetamine in "quantities unimaginable a decade ago" much of which is making its way to Australian shores.

The report found the illicit methamphetamine market of South-East Asia and its neighbours in East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh, was worth between $US30.3 and $US61.4 billion ($44.5$90 billion).

The Philippines, under President Rodrigo Duterte has garnered global attention for his bloody 'war on drugs', which has resulted in thousands of alleged extra-judicial killings by police and armed vigilantes, while prison populations have swelled.

A UN Human Rights Council report released in June found Mr Duterte's policies has lead to a "culture of impunity", with thousands of people slaughtered under the drug purge.

In nearby Indonesia, the country has also raised eyebrows with President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo generally presented as a moderate who has been an enthusiastic advocate of the death penalty for drug-related crimes.

It was under his watch that Bali Nine members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were killed by firing squad in 2015.

Several other Australians convicted of drug offences in the country have served significant jail time, including Schapelle Corby, who was sentenced to 20 years jail for cannabis importation in 2005.

Presently, more than 150 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug crimes, and about a third of them are foreigners.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has been approached by ABC for comment.

ABC/AP

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Australian and Briton arrested in Bali over alleged drug offences - ABC News

By Dr. Lynn Webster, PNN Columnist

Times have changed. Marijuana should not be a crime, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) said last year when she and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) introduced the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act). The current Democratic vice-presidential nominee called the legalization of marijuana an important step "toward racial and economic justice."

We need to start regulating marijuana and expunge marijuana convictions from the records of millions of Americans so they can get on with their lives," said Harris.

"Racially motivated enforcement of marijuana laws has disproportionally impacted communities of color. Its past time to right this wrong nationwide and work to view marijuana use as an issue of personal choice and public health, not criminal behavior," added Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.

Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical cannabis and several states allow its recreational use. If it became law, the MORE Act would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level by removing it as a Schedule I controlled substance.

That wouldn't instantly remove all restrictions; states could still prohibit the sale of cannabis. But the MORE Act would give states more latitude to create laws to suit their needs, establish a trust fund to support programs for communities impacted by the war on drugs, and destroy or seal records of marijuana criminal convictions.

This week the House Judiciary Committee passed the MORE Act and later this month the full House is expected to approve the bill and send it to Senate. Chances are the bill will not pass the Senate, because Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) opposes it -- while paradoxically supporting hemp farming.

However, if the MORE Act passes, it would be a game changer. It could open the floodgates for the development of products that contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the psychoactive compound in marijuana. Some research suggests THC alone, or THC and cannabidiol (CBD) combined, could be more effective than CBD alone for treating pain, anxiety, insomnia and other conditions. More research could discover life-changing new treatments.

Since THC has rewarding properties, such as inducing euphoria, any drug that includes THC would likely be a controlled substance. Nevertheless, decriminalizing marijuana would create enormous economic opportunities for growers and anyone in the business of finding solutions to medical problems for which marijuana or its derivatives may be useful.

It doesnt seem likely that marijuana will be decriminalized at the federal level this year. Congress criminalized marijuana in 1937 and all attempts to reform the law at the federal level have ultimately failed. Our current Senate is unlikely to change the status quo.

But the upcoming election will likely determine whether the MORE Act has a chance to become law in the near future. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden supports legalization and decriminalization at the federal level, while President Trump is generally opposed to changing federal marijuana laws. The election will also determine which party controls the House and Senate.

It behooves every voter to become familiar with the candidates' positions regarding cannabis. Criminalizing marijuana has caused great harm. We, as voters, have the power to change that.

Lynn R. Webster, MD, is a vice president of scientific affairs for PRA Health Sciences and consults with the pharmaceutical industry. He is author of the award-winning book The Painful Truth, and co-producer of the documentary It Hurts Until You Die. Opinions expressed here are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views or policy of PRA Health Sciences. You can find him on Twitter: @LynnRWebsterMD.

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Election May Determine Whether Marijuana Will Be Decriminalized - Pain News Network

There are many reasons why people of color are not much better off today than they were before the Civil Rights Act was passed. These are easily explained:

1. Single-parent households: The war on drugs swept people of color into prison at disproportionate rates. The number of black people incarcerated in 2000 was 26 times the level of 1983. For Latinx in the same timeframe 22 times more. For white people 8 times more. This is true even though most drug users and dealers nationwide are white. People of color are no more likely to be guilty of drug crimes than whites despite the meteoric rise in incarceration.

Mandatory minimum sentences are also responsible for an increase in single-parent households. A first-time drug offense likely means five years in prison regardless of amount or drug. The Anti-drug Abuse Act, emphasizing drug enforcement over treatment, encouraged mass incarceration and family separation.

2.Education: After Brown v. Board of education, San Antonio ISD v. Rodriguez upheld property tax as the primary source of school funding, ignoring residential segregation and discriminatory housing practices. This decision allowed the continuation of unequal funding to schools in low-income and districts where most residents are people of color.

The decision in Milliken v. Bradley actively upheld school segregation. The state of Michigan was funding transportation for suburb districts but banned state funds for transportation for districts within the Detroit city limits. Funding is a major determining factor in the quality of the school and the education. If the supreme court is allowing discrimination in schools, how can people of color advance?

3.Crime: People of color do not commit more crimes than white people. Their neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by discriminatory laws and policing policies. Also, violent crime rates fluctuate and have little correlation to incarceration rates which have skyrocketed since the mid-80s. Violent crime has been on a decline over the last decade, but incarceration rates continue to climb.

It is well documented that the rights and freedoms of people of color have been eroded due to discriminatory policing and prosecuting related to the war on drugs. A lot of those policies and practices are still in use today.

Affirmative action was introduced to help reduce racial and gender gaps in higher education and employment. The goal of the program was to encourage employers/schools to include women and people of color to a more representative percentage. Since the 80s affirmative action has been under attack and has been eroded so that it is almost ineffective today. The continued need for affirmative action is evidenced in the gender and racial pay gaps, education disparities, and hiring disparities, most notably the misrepresentation of the American people in the federal government.

The idea of reverse racism is preposterous. Racism is a system of control from the racial majority through legal and institutional means. Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian peoples have never had the legal or institutional control. Thus, reverse racism is an impossibility.

To summarize, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act have been eviscerated by the Supreme Court. The war on drugs decimated communities of color. Affirmative Action, an attempt at the advancement of women and people of color has been rendered mostly ineffective.

Our good intentions are not working, because they werent allowed to work properly. We need to fix what is wrong and keep pushing for equality. We all have a self-interest in equality as it could make our country truly great!

Original post:

Fix what is wrong and push for equality - bdemo.com

Four men have been arrested following a major crackdown on drugs and organised crime in Aberdeen.

The investigation, code-named Operation Hidden, focused on an alleged gang linked to the trade of crack cocaine and heroin in the Granite City.

Four properties were targeted in a series of early-morning raids and a quantity of class A drugs, worth five-figures, was seized.

It was the culmination of around two months hard work by North East Police Divisions Organised Crime Group (OCG).

Led by Detective Inspector Martyn Thomson, Operation Hidden focused on protecting Aberdeens most vulnerable communities and keeping drugs off the citys streets.

DI Thomson said: This operation was in response to an organised crime syndicate who have embedded themselves in Aberdeen. We have been investigating them over a number of months.

Tackling serious and organised crime and protecting vulnerable people in the north-east police division has been a key priority.

We have a dedicated team who tackle this kind of crime in the north-east.

Officers, using a battering ram, smashed their way into properties in the Kittybrewster and King Street areas yesterday.

Nearly 10,000 of Class A drugs were recovered, while four men aged 33, 39, 47 and 48 were arrested.

They are expected to appear at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on Monday.

DI Thomson said: We are absolutely committed to tackling serious and organised crime operating in the north-east and across county lines. Its a local and national priority.

It is very much at the forefront of our minds to tackle these groups and protect the vulnerable.

These groups exploit some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, and we want to give the public assurances that we are tackling serious crime and drugs.

We will continue to take action against those who cause harm in our communities.

Officers working on the operation have been complying with Covid-19 regulations and DI Thomson vowed the war on drugs would continue despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.

In August, more than 120,000 of drugs were seized as police teams continue to crack down on the trade.

Of that total, 15,500 was Class A drugs, 60,000 Class B and 48,500 Class C.

DI Thomson added: We have had to be mindful and conscious of the impact of the pandemic but we have been resilient.

Just because there is a pandemic, it doesnt mean crime ends.

I continue to reassure and encourage anyone with any concerns or information to contact Police Scotland on 101 or via the website.

Anonymous reports can be made to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

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EXCLUSIVE: Arrests as drug cops smash organised crime gang in Aberdeen - Aberdeen Evening Express

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it which obliges every one; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that, being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

Somehow, in this country and in this state, we have come to a pass where reasonable and educated people have an understanding of some important things that is precisely backward. It is as if they were insisting that 4+4=2.

Here we are, wishing our children could go back to school and all of us could go for a haircut, a movie and a beer, while vocal groups of people are pulling the levers of government in attempts to make things worse.

The Provo City Council recently passed a local mask mandate in an attempt to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the best chance we have of life returning to something resembling normal. Mayor Michelle Kaufusi vetoed it, because, well, freedom. The council overrode her veto.

Then a group of Provo residents launched a petition drive to reverse the council. It is too late to have the question on Provos November ballot but, if the drive gathers enough signatures, the law will be set aside until an election can be held, in November 2021.

If we miraculously develop a vaccine before then, it wont matter much. If we dont, the delay will literally cause sickness and death, and not just for those who signed the petition.

And now we hear that a group of parents has gone to state court in an attempt to void Gov. Gary Herberts various orders designed to curb the pandemic and save lives. In their view, the orders amount to an unprecedented and unlawful suspension of their most sacred and fundamental rights.

How about the right to not be infected with a horrible virus that, even if it doesnt kill you, can leave you with long-term heart and kidney damage, unending fatigue and a feeling of unending guilt because, even though you made it through OK, your mother died?

This is what John Locke, a British philosopher who was among the leading influencers of Americas Founding Fathers, was on about when he examined the difference between liberty -- the natural right to govern yourself and your property -- and license -- unjustified actions that harm other people.

We heard a lot about that in the 1960s, when a rising generation was experimenting with the use of drugs and new ideas about sexual expression and gender equality. Those who opposed those trends generally did not base their arguments just on the fact that such behaviors were icky, but insisted such behaviors harmed people, and not just those who were participating. That liberty had been supplanted by license.

To the degree that the conservatives won that debate, we were left with the totally overdone War on Drugs and delayed struggles for racial and gender equity, marriage equality and LGBTQ rights.

But now, you might say, the mask is on the other mouth.

Now it is generally the more progressive strains of society insisting everyone wear masks and keep our distance, while it has become the relatively conservative folks who demand the right to do whatever they please. At the top of that list is the claimed right to not wear masks and to not force their children to wear masks.

Their claim would make some modicum of sense if the purpose of wearing a mask were to protect the person wearing it. In that case, the risk-benefit analysis of dont-get-sick-later vs. dont-feel-like-wearing-a-mask-right-now could reasonably be thought a personal decision, left to individuals and parents.

But that is not why the state wants us to wear masks. They want us to wear masks because doing so protects other people. We dont know everything about how the insidious COVID-19 virus works, but we are as certain as people can be about these things that a great many of us harbor the virus and spread it to others even as those carriers have utterly no symptoms.

Saying you dont want to wear a mask to protect others, because, nyah, nyah, nyah, you cant make me, is not like not wanting to wear a seatbelt. It is not like insisting on the right to drink what you want, smoke what you want and sleep with whomever you please.

Refusing to wear a mask is the legal and moral equivalent of not wanting to stop at stop signs, not liking to obey speed limits and refusing to turn the keys over to someone else when you are too drunk to drive. Because you dont feel like it.

People who wont wear a mask in a time of coronavirus are not taking a risk. They are a risk.

George Pyle, editorial page editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, actually looks better with his face covered.

Original post:

George Pyle: Liberty and license in a time of pandemic - Salt Lake Tribune

In a historic move, the House of Representatives is set to vote this month on the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, Politico reports. The bill would deschedule cannabis (marijuana), and therefore decriminalize it at the federal level. Unfortunately, the bill doesn't have the best chances of making it through Congress due to Republican opposition in the Senate. But the fact that it has made it this farand that it will actually be voted onis a big deal.

Thanks to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, drugs in the U.S. are classified by schedules based on their potential for abuse, how much we know about their effects, and any medical value they have, the Drug Enforcement Agency explains. Currently cannabis is in Schedule I, the most restrictive classification, meaning that the government believes it has a high potential for abuse and no medical value.

The original decision to put cannabis in Schedule I was steeped in racism and xenophobia far more than scientific evidence. And, based on what we've learned about cannabis and its potential medical uses in the past several decades, we know that's not necessarily an accurate assessment of the evidence. But the current scheduling still causes harm, especially for Black and brown people, and restricts the amount of research we can do with cannabis. So advocates have been working toward descheduling cannabiswhich would put it in a less restrictive schedule or remove it from scheduling entirelyfor a long time now.

The MORE Act, which was sponsored in the Senate by vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, would remove cannabis from scheduling and, well, more. The bill would also take some measures to address the harms that cannabis prohibition has caused. It would expunge and seal previous nonviolent federal cannabis-related arrests and convictions for those who are not currently serving their sentences. Those who are currently serving sentences for federal cannabis arrests or convictions would have the opportunity to have their sentences reviewed and, possibly, have their records expunged and sentences vacated.

It would also create a community reinvestment grant program that would fund job training, health education, youth mentoring programs, and legal aid for individuals most adversely impacted by the war on drugs. Additionally, the bill would establish a cannabis justice office to ensure the implementation of those programs.

Descheduling cannabis at the federal level would effectively decriminalize it across the country, but individual states would still have the power to legalize it (or not) on their own. Passing this bill would not mean that weed would suddenly become legal everywhere, but it does mean that those states that have legalized cannabis for medical or recreational (adult) use don't have to worry about the federal government interfering with their legal cannabis practices.

Passage of the MORE Act is essential in order to truly right the wrongs of federal marijuana criminalization, and to once and for all allow the majority of states that have legalized cannabis for either medical or adult-use to embrace these policies free from the threat of undue federal prosecution or interference, Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, said in a statement.

Although the MORE Act may never become law, it shows just how much public and political opinion has changed on the subject of cannabis legalizationand marks an important step forward in addressing the past and ongoing harms of the war on drugs, which continue to disproportionately affect communities of color.

We believe that the responsible regulation and control of marijuana will be more beneficial to society and the publics health than prohibiting and criminalizing it, reads an open letter organized by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and signed by 16 organizations and more than 100 individuals, including epidemiologists and public health experts.

What makes the MORE Act absolutely essential is that it will help communities avoid the very real harms they face daily due to the criminalization and enforcement of our marijuana lawsparticularly Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and low-income communities," Danielle Ompad, Ph.D., associate dean for education and associate professor of epidemiology at the NYU School of Global Public Health, who also signed the DPA letter, said in a statement. Federal prohibition is an utter failure, and has only served to worsen public and community health. We have waited far too long and it is essential that Congress act now.

Related:

See more here:

What to Know About the MORE Act, the Bill That Would Deschedule Cannabis - Self

Columnist Amari Jarrell photo courtesy Jarrell

Earlier this week I read an opinion piece in the Tallahassee Democrat by Donna Brown, a retired police sergeant. In this piece, she wrote: People are demanding the good cops stand up and speak out against bad cops. I support that, but why are they not demanding that members of the community stand up and speak out against those who take the lives of innocent children?

While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, here is why I disagree.

Black on Black crime is a myth. Every race commits acts of violence against members within their own communities. It is not exclusive to the Black community. You will never hear anyone say, White on White crime. If you are not in this community, why are you speaking on my communitys business?

In this article, Brown, who is white, also writes: Does a life matter less if they die from the actions of a community member versus a law enforcement officer?

Why is it assumed that the Black community does not mourn for the loss of a member within its own community? While any death of a member of your own community should be something sad, this point is purposely used to negate the reason for Black Lives Matter.

I believe that killing within the Black community is rooted within the conditions some of us may happen to be in such as poverty, oppression, etc. Not to mention that we are still seeing the effects of the War on drugs. If we were in better conditions and had access to more resources, these deaths would surely go down.

I strongly believe that the violence at the hands the people sworn to serve and protect us is deeply rooted in racism and abuse of power.

You may see many non-POC speaking on what happens during the interactions between an unarmed man and a police officer. Many will try to justify it by saying they resisted the arrest and were reaching for something when that is just not true. Too many videos circulate around social media and these news outlets for people to still act blind to what is going on within our country.

Im tired of people spinning protesting around to make it look as if members of my community are the aggressors. Im tired of yelling, Say his name or, Say her name, because these trained officers dont know how to deescalate a situation without murdering my people. Im tired of the unjust and senseless killings of my people just because of the color of our skin. Im tired of it all.

If you dont see a problem, youre part of the problem.

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Black on Black crime is a myth The Famuan - Famuan

Sicario is a 21st century western. It is also a war film. It is a film about liminal spaces and the inevitable chaos that unfolds at the edge of the frontier.

Sicario is directed by Denis Villeneuve and bears many of the hallmarks of the directors mainstream Hollywood work the polished production, the oppressive atmosphere, the cold detachment. However, Sicario is perhaps best understood as part of writer Taylor Sheridans frontier trilogy. This disconnected trio of films from three distinct directors updates the western for a new age, juxtaposing that quintessential American genre with a larger story of decline and collapse.

Villeneuves Sicario would be followed by David Mackenzies Hell or High Water. In Hell or High Water, the descendants of settlers who had displaced the indigenous population were themselves being dispossessed by the relentless churn of capitalism. Taylor Sheridan would wrap up the triptych with Wind River, a film more explicitly focused on the experience of those Native American communities that had originally populated the frontier.

Sicario is set at the literal edge of the frontier, albeit to the south rather than the west, against the established border between Mexico and the United States. The western genre is built on the fantasy of expansion, a continent waiting to be tamed by settlers pushing westward in an expression of manifest destiny. That makes a border by definition the end of the western, a barrier on that mythic frontier.

Sicario is fascinated with boundaries. Villeneuve populates the film with shots structured around clear lines and demarcations: the suburban communities trying to impose order on the desert, the fences that delineate the border, the overhead shots of long stretches of highway that cut across the terrain like scars, even the familiar road markings visible in headlights in the dead of night. Characters are always aware of the lines in the world around them.

Some of these boundaries are metaphorical rather than literal. FBI Agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) spends most of Sicario confused and disoriented by the operation that she has joined. However, she repeatedly tries to establish ground rules. When Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) tells her to follow the lead of the mysterious Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro), she replies, Im not authorized to follow orders from Alejandro! Later, she protests, Im not a soldier. This is not what I do.

Over the course of the film, it becomes clear that Macer has been drafted into a CIA operation on American soil to effectively provide legal coverage. Macers supervisor, Dave Jennings (Victor Garber), assures her that it is all technically legal. If your fear is operating out of bounds, I am telling you, you are not, he assures her. The boundarys been moved. However, these boundaries are still very precise. Much is made of what Macer can or cannot witness. She is herself bound.

Of course, these fragile barriers and boundaries exist to be crossed. They are not strong enough to withstand attack. The films opening sequence literalizes this, with a truck smashing through the wall of a suburban house. During a raid on a cartel safehouse, a stray bullet reveals horrors lurking in the wall: There are countless decaying corpses arranged within the walls of the house. It is a none-too-subtle visual metaphor for what happens when these constructed barriers come tumbling down.

Sicario is populated by characters who cross these boundaries. Macers partner, Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) correctly deduces that Graver is a CIA operative. CIAs not supposed to work this side of the fence, he explains. The climax involves a raid into Mexico, which represents a dramatic overreach. We have no jurisdiction in Mexico, Macer points out. However, it is all lawless. Naturally, that operation takes place at twilight, although night vision renders it in black and white.

Sicario is a war movie. However, it is an abstract war movie. Although it is set against the backdrop of the War on Drugs and stars Benicio del Toro, it is not intended as a snapshot of that conflict in the way that Traffic was. While it is frequently likened to Kathryn Bigelows Zero Dark Thirty, it is nowhere near as precise in its frame of reference. Sicario exists at the blurred edges of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. After all, Wayne recognizes men like Graver from his time in Iraq.

In this context, the very idea of war becomes an expression of the frontier myth. Wars provide another world to be conquered, another wilderness to be tamed. Wars provide purpose. They shape identity. They forge the most important of boundaries, the line between us and them. However, the challenge of wars is that they end. Much like the North American continent gives way to the unyielding Pacific, war gives way to peace. This is true even of ideological wars, like the Cold War.

The War on Terror and the War on Drugs are different. The War on Terror is difficult to define and such a war has no end. President George W. Bush repeatedly defined the War on Terror as a task that does not end. The frontier becomes limitless. Over the course of Sicario, it becomes clear that Graver is not fighting to end the war, but to perpetuate it. Whats our objective? Macer asks. To dramatically overreact, Graver replies. He is trying to shake the tree and create chaos, to make noise, to stir the pot.

Critics like Chris Ryan have observed that Sicario is a descendant of Francis Ford Coppolas Apocalypse Now, a Vietnam War movie that is ultimately a meditation on mankinds obsession with these acts of mutual destruction. Matt Barone described Kate Macer as the Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) in Sicarios Apocalypse Now-like hell-storm of bleakness. These comparisons are apt. Apocalypse Now was drawn from Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness, lending its exploration of war a primal quality.

However, there is an interesting distinction to be made. In Apocalypse Now, Willard makes a linear journey down river to find and eliminate Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando). As Willard embarks on his journey, he pushes deeper and deeper into madness. In the Redux cut, he even seems to journey back in time. The journey in Apocalypse Now might be as metaphorical as literal, and might be inward rather than outward, but it is still a clear progression.

In contrast, Sicario skips back and forth across the border, demonstrating that these boundaries by which the characters define themselves are ultimately meaningless. CIA operative Steve Forsing (Jeffrey Donovan) evokes hell in his description of Juarez as the Beast, but the underworld is not exclusive to one side of the border. As he prepares to waterboard Guillermo Daz (Edgar Arreola), Alejandro taunts the captive, Now youll learn whats hell in Yankee land.

Villeneuves camera is repeatedly drawn to the rubber bands that hold the cartels money. After a raid outside a Texan bank, itself a western trope, the film lingers on the loose bands as agents gather up the cash. Later, a senior cartel figure fidgets with a band as he watches the news. Texan police officer Ted (Jon Bernthal) exposes himself as a cartel operative when he pulls a band from his pocket. These bands seem a more honest reflection of the situation than the films rigid lines: They are flexible, theres no beginning or end, and they loop around.

Sicario is full of twisted reflections. Graver rejects Wayne from his task force because there are no lawyers on this train, even though Alejandro used to be a prosecutor in Mexico. Alejandros entire family was brutally murdered at the behest of Fausto Alarcn (Julio Cesar Cedillo), and he responds by brutally murdering Alarcns family. Before he dies, Alarcn asks, Do you think the people that sent you here are any different? Who do you think we learned it from?

This equivalence runs through Sicario. Dazs prisoner convoy is attacked at the border crossing. What are the rules here? asks one voice in the radio, as the tension heightens. We must be engaged to engage, comes a response. When the team asks whether they can leave their vehicles to establish a protective parameter, they are instructed, You can do what they do. If they get out, you get out. The border is no longer a boundary, but a mirror.

This is the horror of Sicarios frontier war, a conflict waged for no greater purpose than to perpetuate its own existence. In its own way, this is a purer distillation of the idea of war than that depicted in Apocalypse Now; here is no progression, no journey, no introspection. There is only a forever war and with it a forever frontier.

Read this article:

Sicario Depicts a Forever War on the Final Frontier - The Escapist

When he was the officer-in-charge of Teknaf Police Station, Pradeep Kumar Das earned such a name that parents put small children to sleep by telling them scary stories about the OC.

Cox's Bazar Deputy Commissioner Kamal Hossain said this last year at a public event while praising Pradeep.

"The war on drugs has started and we cannot backtrack from it. I would like to thank the OC [Pradeep] of Teknaf Police Station after whose arrival I heard that locals put their children to sleep saying Pradeep would visit. We want it to continue like this," the DC told the event, marking the surrender of 102 yaba dealers and smugglers, on February 16.

During the animated speech, Kamal Hossain also said, "We want to enforce the law and wipe out the drugs menace."

This newspaper has a video clip of the speech.

Pradeep was suspended after he was accused in a case for killing Major (retd) Sinha Rashed Md Khan. The fallen officer is now behind the bars.

Contacted, Cox's Bazar DC Kamal Hossain on Wednesday said, "Yes, I said that. We want to enforce the law and wipe out the drugs menace. We want to enforce the law while staying within the law."

Sinha, who served in the Special Security Force (SSF) and took voluntary retirement from the army two years ago, was killed in police shooting at Shamlapur Police Checkpost on July 31.

The general people of Teknaf, who lived in fear when Pradeep was the OC, recently came forward with allegations that he took hefty sums from locals by threatening to kill them in so-called shootouts with police.

Read more:

Parents put kids to sleep with stories of Pradeep - The Daily Star

As a medical cannabis professional, I, like most industry leaders, have been left out of the conversation around the Governors call to legalize recreational cannabis. Much like flying a plane without the advice of the pilot, those of us who are rooted in this space should be given a seat in the cockpit if were headed in this direction.

While Governor Wolf has called for legalization, which is absolutely necessary, those who understand where legislation has gone wrong and what works well including business owners and most importantly, patients have been largely left out of the conversation.

I meet regularly with legislators and unlike many, I speak and listen to both sides. I applaud the call for legalization by Governor Wolf, however, I question his true intentions. Is this political posturing to make Republicans look out of touch? Any political strategist would say that if you actually want something done, you must work with the opposition. Like many issues today, change can only be created once we come together. This is no different.

Few people understand that cannabis was used as medicine for thousands of years and legal in the U.S. until 1969. In 1971, Nixon told us that cannabis was bad and drug abuse was public enemy number one, so Americans listened. Nixon then goes on to break American law, be impeached, resigns, and yet, Americans continue to follow his lead, vilifying cannabis users, 46 years later. As a society, we are taught to conform to what we are told by elected officials and community leaders as truth.

Act 16 legalized cannabis a term illegal to use by someone like me, who has been mandated by The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to use ONLY the racist term marijuana but in a way that shames users. The system fails our patients at every turn leaving business owners hostage to an unmanageable seed to sale platform, leaving many patients without access to their medicine. Low income patients have been left out of our program by high prices and have not received any of the subsidies they were promised, even though the program has produced hundreds of millions of dollars.

Pennsylvania law strictly prohibits anyone charged with the use of cannabis to work in the industry. You cannot own a cannabis business or work for a cannabis company if you have been arrested for possessing a $10 joint. Yet, my customers skip to their cars with hundreds of dollars of weed in their bags and go about their day. Meanwhile, a 19-year-old black kids life just ended after he was pulled over, driving while black and the officer finds a joint. He can never receive financial aid for college or get a job because he has a record. The reality is, the black teens life will most definitely come to an end because of a joint while others can smoke walking down Broad Street and no one blinks.

Pennsylvanians want legal cannabis. It has a consistent history of reducing opioid deaths, state by state, by 25%. How many lives would be saved if we allowed those who cannot afford legal cannabis but fear prosecution for illegal use, to grow their own?

I have no judgement against those who have been conditioned to believe cannabis is an illicit drug because this is how weve been programmed. Cannabis has healed but has killed no one. We must educate our legislators before we vilify them. There are more Republicans quietly for legalization than against, but they need information, not shaming.

Legalization of cannabis is necessary to preserve our health and welfare, because weve become a society addicted to chemically derived pharmaceutical drugs designed to cause dependence. Cannabis is not physically addicting. It can prevent and eliminate seizures, shrink and even kill cancer tumors, settle the nervous system from diseases like Parkinsons and MS and help those with anxiety, depression and PTSD. Legalize cannabis and clean up our homelessness, allow people of color to profit from an industry which has capitalized on them, allow low income people and all people to grow their own medicine, and reduce the violence in our streets caused by prohibition.

Pennsylvania needs a legalization law that includes real, hard-working Americans. I am one of the few, born and bred small business cannabis owners in Pennsylvania and I want opportunity for my neighbors and fellow Pennsylvanians in this space. We need legalization to save our communities, but we need two separate application processes one that is directed toward those disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs which should be crafted to protect applicants who cannot afford thousands of dollars of application fees and the uncertainty of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars via legislative delays. The system is broken. There must be two points of entry.

Pennsylvania Republicans will legalize cannabis. Pennsylvania Democrats will not. Democrats hold no power or authority in our Republican controlled state, and they have shown no attempt to educate. Cannabis legalization is necessary to save the state, but money should not be the reason. Pennsylvanians deserve the education to understand what they do not understand.

Instead, lets legalize and allow 50% of the licenses to be awarded to social equity applicants (those disproportionately affected by the war on drugs) with a bill that is written in the best interest of the social equity applicant and the consumer. The other 50% of the applications should be open to current license holders (who should be grandfathered in with a high price license acceptance fee) and small business owners from Pennsylvania. (It is federally illegal to require residency requirements).

We must not eliminate the Multi State Operators (MSOs) because a free market depends on expertise and stability and whether anyone wants to hear it or not, being disadvantaged is not enough to be a successful businessperson. We need a balance, but more importantly, as with our nation in crisis, we need to come together.

We CAN

All of this is a cry for peace. As a wise person once said, Drunk men in a bar start a fight, high men start a band. Spread peace not hate. Thousands die from excessive alcohol consumption every year, but legalization of cannabis does not increase usage. No one has ever died from cannabis. Tell me again why we shouldnt legalize? Those who believe we should not might as well push for alcohol prohibition again it has no medicinal properties and kills.

Hopes and dreams will not help our humanitarian crisis but action and education just might

See the article here:

A Response to Governor Wolf's Call for the Legalization of Recreational Cannabis - Cannabis Industry Journal

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Last month, just hours after businesses in downtown Chicago were struck by looters, former judge Pat OBrien told a local TV interviewer that Cook Countys top prosecutor was to blame.

Certainly Kim Foxxs policies of not prosecuting, of dismissing cases, of dismissing all narcotics charges, of letting people who loot out on I-bonds to return to the looting it is a dog whistle for these criminals to do exactly what they did last night, said OBrien, a Republican whos challenging Foxx for Cook County states attorney on the November ballot. We are going to become Detroit if we dont fight Kim Foxx.

Most of OBriens claims were simply untrue; for starters, judges, not prosecutors, ultimately decide whether suspects can post bond and go free before trial. But he touched on the very real concerns of many Chicagoans who believe crime is out of control and officials like Foxx arent doing enough about it.

Our newsletter is written by a ProPublica Illinois reporter every week.

Foxxs election four years ago, with backing from national reform groups, powerful local politicians and some Black Lives Matter activists, was viewed across the country as a pivotal event. She promised to restore trust and fairness to the states attorneys office a step toward making the criminal justice system more just.

Since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the demands for change have intensified as part of a national conversation about racism and law enforcement.

But after months of protests, occasional explosions of rioting and a surge in violence in Chicago, a number of politicians have declared that its time to get tougher on crime. The loudest is, of course, President Donald Trump, stoking fears of chaos and destruction as he campaigns for reelection on law and order. Challenger Joe Biden and other Democrats have noted that the unrest and violence are occurring on Trumps watch, but that doesnt mean theyre not worried that the political backlash is real.

In a history-turning year, some in Chicago are wondering about the previously unthinkable: Could a Republican actually win countywide office?

More important, the growing fear of crime ensures that not just Foxx but the reform agenda she promised will be up for a vote. In a time of turmoil and anxiety, how many Democratic voters will respond to the call for law and order? Is justice more than locking people up?

The optics are also telling: Foxx, who grew up in the Cabrini-Green public housing development, is the first African American in decades to serve as top prosecutor, and the first African American woman ever. While shes been embraced by voters in neighborhoods most affected by crime and policing, shes been vilified in communities where most of the citys police officers live. OBrien, who is white, has to hope he can connect with voters in mostly white and Hispanic areas in the rest of Cook County.

As the Trump administration publicizes its latest show of federal force in Chicago, advocates say there are better ways to prevent violence.

Foxxs predecessor, Anita Alvarez, was a career prosecutor. Asked to describe her mission, she said: We stick up for victims of crime.

That is a worthy goal, but Alvarez talked far less about justice. A product of the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 1990s, she was slow to respond to a stunning series of false confessions and wrongful convictions. She was also widely seen as too friendly with police, and too dependent on them to build her cases, to hold them accountable when needed.

In 2015, a judge ordered the release of video showing Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times the previous year. Alvarez charged Van Dyke with murder but not until hours before the video was made public, more than a year after the shooting.

Four months later, Foxx beat Alvarez decisively in the Democratic primary. She was part of a small wave of reform-minded prosecutors around the country promising to bring new transparency and fairness to the work.

Foxx has followed through on many of her promises, such as reinvigorating her offices conviction integrity unit and creating a data portal that allows the public to track every case the office handles. She also has taken a new approach to some nonviolent offenses that she said would not only be more humane, but would free resources for fighting violent crimes.

For instance, people arrested for shoplifting charged formally with retail theft now face misdemeanor charges unless theyre accused of stealing at least $1,000 of goods. The move was welcomed by reform groups as well as officials at the jail, where homeless or mentally ill shoplifters often ended up when they couldnt afford bail. But it was blasted by some business and political leaders.

Her reforms, including calls for police accountability, have also made her deeply unpopular with officers, including the local leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Several clear mistakes have given more fire to her critics. Exhibit A is the fiasco with actor Jussie Smollett. Arrested for allegedly staging a hate crime against himself in January 2019, Smollett avoided prosecution or even making an admission of wrongdoing when Foxxs office dropped the charges. Foxx has yet to fully explain the series of events, which has only fed the media frenzy around the case. Last month, a special prosecutor cleared Foxxs office of criminal wrongdoing but said it had committed substantial abuses of discretion.

We certainly recognize that the public had a deep interest in the case and we had an obligation to be fully transparent with them and we didnt handle that well. I own that, Foxx told me in an interview this week. But that still means we have to do the work that I was put here to do.

In March, Foxx faced three primary challengers who attacked her handling of the Smollett case and questioned whether her office had let too many criminals off the hook. Though Foxx was formally endorsed by the Cook County Democratic Party, several elected officials from mostly white areas declined to back her.

State Sen. Robert Martwick, the 38th Ward Democratic committeeperson, said members of his ward organization voted not to endorse anyone in the race.

Martwick said he respected Foxx for working with state legislators to enact criminal justice reforms. The 1980s lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key approach, shes partnered with the legislature to change some of those policies, he said.

But in the 38th Ward, on the Northwest Side, either a police officer is a member of your family or your neighbor or your kids coach in little league baseball. And among those police officers, theres a lot of concern that shes making their lives more difficult. Whether its right or wrong, that is the perception.

Foxx lost the 38th Ward as well as many other majority-white city wards and suburban townships. But her huge margins in Black areas sent her to victory with 50.2% of the vote.

Given the Democratic dominance of Cook County, Foxx was expected to have little trouble with OBrien in November; only two Republicans have served as states attorney in the last 60 years. But the tenor of the race changed after the unrest following Floyds killing in May.

A few weeks later, Foxx announced that her office would not prosecute protesters arrested for nonviolent offenses such as curfew violations. Progressives praised the move for backing the right to demonstrate peacefully. Others saw it as another sign that Foxx didnt have the backs of the police.

On the night of Aug. 9, businesses in downtown Chicago and the Near North Side were struck by looters in an ugly repeat of the chaos in the spring.

The next morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot suggested that criminals were emboldened because Foxx and her office werent doing their jobs to keep them in jail. Lightfoot, a Democrat, had supported Foxx, and the two later appeared at a press conference declaring they were working together with other public safety officials. But the narrative was set. Downtown Alderman Brendan Reilly blasted Foxx in an email newsletter to constituents, and other Democrats signaled they would not back her reelection.

OBrien joined in the attacks. Like many others, he mixed criticism with outright falsehoods.

When I spoke with him this week, he argued that it was fair to link Foxx to the looting. He said that, as he understood it, prosecutors in her office didnt fight judges who let accused looters out on bond before trial. But thats not what he had said after the unrest, when he claimed she had let them out herself. OBrien also admitted he had no evidence that looters had been released on bond and then gone back to looting, but insisted that criminals have an understanding that the states attorney isnt serious about enforcing the law.

When he looked closely at Foxxs record, he said, it seemed that there was a real bias she favored defendants over victims.

On Aug. 13, Foxxs office announced that prosecutors had approved charges against 42 of the 43 people police had arrested for felonies during the looting.

Still, OBrien has enjoyed a boost in funding and attention since the second round of unrest. From Aug. 10 through Sept. 3, Foxxs campaign reported six donations adding up to $19,900, mostly from wealthy longtime supporters. OBrien, meanwhile, received 42 contributions adding up to $199,000. His biggest check, for $57,800, came from the police union. Other police backers have also donated, including lawyers who have defended officers accused of misconduct, former top aides to Alvarez, and former judge Matthew Coghlan, who had a record of handing out harsh sentences before voters decided in 2018 that he shouldnt be retained.

Foxx said the accusations from OBrien and others that she has helped create a revolving door of criminals going in and out of jail is not supported by evidence. She noted that from 2017 through early this year, crime, including violent offenses, dropped even as her office was implementing reforms.

The notion that the states attorneys office cant simultaneously pursue public safety and a broader sense of justice is false, she said, and it would be a mistake to stop the reform efforts now.

All of those bad justice policies came out of fear, and we know it: three strikes laws, mandatory minimums, the war on drugs, Foxx said. Thats the extreme irony. We know how we got here.

OBrien himself served as a prosecutor in a case that ended up putting four men in prison for a 1986 rape and murder they were later cleared of through DNA evidence. In this case the justice system failed those four men and I was part of the failure, he said. If elected, OBrien said, he would commit to more vigorous testing of crime scene evidence.

A key witness in that case offered testimony that experts concluded was false. But OBrien said the case was not a sign of overzealous policing or prosecution. As states attorney, he said, he would keep the community safe and stick up for victims.

Thats exactly how Alvarez described the job.

Update, Sept. 4, 2020: This story has been updated to reflect the races of both candidates for states attorney.

See original here:

As Trump Calls for Law and Order, Can Chicagos Top Prosecutor Beat the Charge That Shes Soft on Crime? - ProPublica

I signed up for the War on Drugs because I want to be a winner, unlike my murdered friend and the two American former interns who died of an overdose. They lost.

Almost 50 years after late US President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Latin Americas narcos are doing better than ever.

The rest of the world agrees the United States drug policy is a racket, but try explaining that to the Washington DC pen pushers and the narcos who now have billions of dollars to celebrate their scams 50th anniversary.

The narcos have every reason to celebrate as they are trafficking more drugs than ever before. The DEA has every reason to celebrate because they are ripping off the American people for $3.1 billion a year without doing anything.

As a former loser in the War on Drugs I dont have that kind of money. Fortunately, now that I have joined the war I get drugs for free.

People will stand in line to feed you doobies, smarties and benzos when you say you want to write a column while off your tits on drugs only to debase feds and their so-called War on Drugs.

Ironically, I am now too wasted to remember what day it is, but one cannot be wasted enough to win the War on Drugs.

I got nothing against drugs. I think its a personal choice, just like alcohol and cigarettes, just as long as that personal choice doesnt infringe on the freedoms and other peoples personal choices. Really, thats the end of the story. Thats called logic, itll help you.

George Bush says: Were losing the War on Drugs. Do you know what that implies? Theres a war going on and people on drugs are winning. What does that tell you about drugs? Theres some smart, creative motherfuckers on that side. Theyre winning a war and theyre fucked up!

Had the DEAs $3.1 billion budget gone to healthcare like in developed countries, my dead American former interns may have gotten the help they apparently needed.

Had the DEA not colluded with Medellin drug trafficker Don Berna and the Cali Cartel my late colleagues brains may still be inside his skull.

If you make a deal with one bad guy to take down another bad guy. Whats wrong with that? I heard this gloating DEA prick say on Netflix the other day.

The answer is that when counternarcotics officials collude with narcos they the DEA becomes their plaything. Ask El Tuso, his drug trafficking even got him a green card.

Plan Colombia was supposed to deprive organized crime of their drug trafficking revenue, which became became a $10 billion failure, yet the ignoramus who invented it, Philip Goldberg, was promoted and is now the US ambassador in the country he helped ruin.

Goldberg now pretends to be fighting drug trafficking with a government that has more ties to the now-defunct Medellin Cartel than I have had girlfriends.

While asking US Congress for more budget to fight drug trafficking, the US Embassy refuses to answer any of my questions related to criminal investigations.

Im probably blacklisted or something and I didnt even ask why no narco has been arrested in years.

I did reveal that Pablo Escobars cousin was hanging out with former ambassador William Brownfield before he became Assistant Secretary of State for dont laugh the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

Brownfield even won a Distinguished Service Award and three Presidential Performance Awards despite having secured a Medal of Freedom for another former Medellin Cartel associate.

Meanwhile, I was trying to overcome the deaths of my former colleague and former interns, but my days of losing this war are over.

It took pharmaceutical companies Novartis and Roche and my friends homegrown weed some convincing, but I have decided to become an active combatant in the War on Drugs.

I may be high as a fucking kite, but I believe I am winning and I no longer feel pain.

P.S. After sobering up I realized I dont want to be a racketeer like Goldberg or Brownfield and dont want to be responsible for the deaths of innocent people who either succumb to addiction or are assassinated for confronting organized crime and corruption. Ill just continue losing this stupid war.

Read more:

Getting wasted to win the War on Drugs and forget those who lost - Colombia Reports

InThe War On Drugs Show, we examine the social implications of drug prohibition how it plays into user harms, arrest and incarceration rates, drug seizures and the destruction of criminal networks.

Whether, basically, prohibition works or not.

In this episode, we take a look at the worlds most infamous horse tranquiliser. It may lack the glamorous associations of cocaine and the hedonistic kudos of ecstasy, but ravers, doctors and therapists worldwide are united in their love for ketamine.

The trippy anaesthetic has thrived despite global attempts to ban it, and has overcome PR damage caused by teenage incontinence and knocked-out horses. Since it was first used by US field surgeons in the Vietnam War, the drug has quietly been winning battles in the War On Drugs across the planet, and today is used by club kids zoning out at afterparties and pioneering psychotherapists alike.

Read more from the original source:

'The War On Drugs Show' How Ketamine Took Over the World - VICE