Daily Archives: May 26, 2017

More and more conservatives and liberals, from the halls of Congress to people in communities across the country, are agreeing that the so-called war on drugs needs serious rethinking.

First, we should define our terms. The war on drugs that was started by Richard Nixon in 1971 and persists to this day, refers to illegal street drugs cocaine, heroin, marijuana and variations thereof. It is not used to mean a war on legal pharmaceuticals, whose excessive and often inappropriate prescribing takes over 100,000 lives a year in our country. Ironically, prescription opioids alone took 35,000 lives last year about equal to traffic fatalities.

The argument to criminalize street drugs, and severely punish their sellers and users, is largely based on the assumption that a tough on crime approach will reduce addiction and abuse of these dangerous substances. Criminalizing drug use consistently fails to address the health problems of addiction, and drives the drug trade underground where crime, violence and death flourish.

Our country learned this hard lesson firsthand when it prohibited the production and sale of alcoholic beverages in 1920 through the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. That led to an underworld of organized crime and illegal undercover stills making moonshine, whose victims could hardly go for medical treatment. Considered a failure, the amendment was repealed in 1933 with the 21st Amendment.

This national experiment with prohibition verified the wise observation of the famous dean of the Harvard Law School, Roscoe Pound, who said that there were certain human behaviors that are beyond the effective limits of legal action. In short, the law couldnt stop the addicting alcohol business; it could only drive it underground.

Legalizing the sale and possession of alcohol allowed people suffering from alcoholism to come out of the shadows and find support through thousands of successful chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous and other treatment options. Alcoholism is still a problem in our country, but it is out in the open where a rational society can address it.

Nicotine from tobacco products is one of the most addictive drugs that people can ingest. Lawmakers since the days of the Virginia tobacco growers in the 17th century have not prohibited the smoking of tobacco. For generations, smoking cigarettes and cigars was not considered harmful; it was said to help concentrate your mind on your tasks. The mass media perpetuated such false statements through ads that claimed doctors preferred Lucky Strikes because they were less irritating.

Then the historic and widely reported US Surgeon Generals Report of 1964 concluded that cigarette smoking is a cause of lung cancer and laryngeal cancer in men, a probable cause of lung cancer in women and the most important cause of chronic bronchitis. Over time, accumulating scientific knowledge connecting smoking to lung cancer and a host of other diseases began changing habits.

In 1964 about 44 percent of American adults smoked regularly; now it is down to 17 percent. Now smokers cannot indulge on airplanes, buses, trains or in schools, waiting rooms and most office buildings. Had we driven tobacco use underground, organized crime would have claimed the tobacco market and smokers and low-level dealers would have been jailed. If alcohol prohibition taught us the limitations of drug criminalization, efforts to reduce tobacco use have shown what is possible when dangerous products are taxed and regulated and consumers are educated.

So, what about street drugs? The drug trade is tearing Mexico apart. Just in the past few years, over 50,000 people have been slain by the fights between drug cartels and against police, judges, reporters and innocents who just happen to be in the way of the machine guns. Fear, anxiety, outright terror and political corruption grips large regions of our southern neighbor as the cartels violently work to meet the black market demand in the US and elsewhere.

Drug dealers in the US fight each other, producing violent crimes and terrorized neighborhoods.

To suppress this drug trade the US is spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars a year. Drug cases are clogging our court dockets and crowding out important cases involving corporate crimes and negligence. Low-level drug offenders continue to receive mandatory minimum sentences; filling our prisons and leading to the expansion of the private prison industry whose lobbyists prefer a status quo that commodifies the ruined lives who sustain their profitable inventory.

For decades, conservatives like William F. Buckley and progressives like the then Mayor of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke, have called for decriminalization, or legalization and regulation, of illegal drugs. We dont jail alcoholics for being alcoholics, or incarcerate people for smoking highly addictive cigarettes. Their addictions are treated openly as afflictions to be treated individually and more broadly through sound public policies.

Despite the many calls for reform, the arch-reactionary Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has recently ordered 5,000 federal assistant US attorneys to charge defendants peddling street drugs, many of whom are addicts themselves, with the most serious crimes and impose the toughest penalties possible.

Not so fast, say a growing group of liberal and conservative members of Congress. From Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to liberal Patrick Leahy (D-VT), lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are joining together to sponsor a bill to end mandatory minimum sentences. Senator Paul said such sentences disproportionately affect minorities and low-income communities and will worsen the existing injustice in the criminal justice system, while Senator Leahy declared that as an outgrowth of the failed war on drugs, mandatory sentencing strips criminal public-safety resources away from law-enforcement strategies that actually make our communities safer.

The bipartisan bill, S.1127, is already supported by 37 Senators and 79 members of the House. Both the NAACP and the Koch brothers support this legislation!

We need more open debates about the impact of the war on drugs. As Justice Louis Brandeis said years ago sunlight is the best disinfectant.

To learn more about the need for drug policy reform, and the history of the failed war on drugs, watch this informative video from the Drug Policy Alliance.

View original post here:

The Left/Right Challenge To The Failed 'War On Drugs' - HuffPost

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZLEZ: We begin todays show looking at the Philippines, where Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has been overseeing a bloody war on drugs. Since last June, more than 7,000 people have been extrajudicially killed by police or vigilantes. Duterte has also suggested he might impose martial law across the country, after first declaring it this week in his native island of Mindanao. While human rights groups have condemned Duterte, he has received backing from President Trump, who recently invited him to visit the White House. Human Rights Watch slammed the invitation, saying, quote, "By effectively endorsing Dutertes murderous 'war on drugs,' Trump has made himself morally complicit in future killings."

Well, earlier this week, a transcript of the call of Trump inviting Duterte to the White House was leaked and published by The Intercept. According to the leaked transcript, Trump said, quote, "I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that."

Duterte responded, quote, "Thank you, Mr. President. This is the scourge of my nation now, and I have to do something to preserve the Filipino nation."

Trump then responded, quote, "I understand that and fully understand that, and I think we had a previous president who did not understand that, but I understand that, and we have spoken about this before."

On May 1, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about Trumps decision to invite Duterte to the White House.

JOHN ROBERTS: Chris Coons said that the president is giving his stamp of approval to human rights abuses. Governor John Sununu, on the other hand, said this is part of the unpleasant things that presidents have to do. Whats the White Houses perspective on Duterte and him coming here?

PRESS SECRETARY SEAN SPICER: I think it is an opportunity for us to work with countries in that region that can help play a role in diplomatically and economically isolating North Korea. And frankly, the national interests of the United States, the safety of our people and the safety of people in the region are the number one priorities of the president.

AMY GOODMAN: The leaked transcript of the Trump-Duterte call does confirm North Korea came up, but only after Trump praised the Filipino president on waging his war on drugs. During the call, Trump said, quote, "We have a lot of firepower over there. We have two submarinesthe best in the worldwe have two nuclear submarinesnot that we want to use them at all." Trump went on to say, "Ive never seen anything like they are, but we dont have to use this, but he could be crazy, so we will see what happens," unquote.

Well, to talk more about Presidents Trump and Duterte, were joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, host of the new weekly podcast, Intercepted. Jeremy recently co-wrote a three-part article on the leaked call for The Intercept.

Jeremy, its great to have you with us here at the SkyDome, where the Blue Jays play, in Toronto, Canada, where we all participated in a forum on journalism last night. But talk about this really explosive expos that you did for The Intercept around Trumps phone call with Duterte.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, first of all, just to, you know, establish what this is that we published, this was a transcript from a phone call that took place on April 29th between Trump and Duterte. And Trump initiated the call. What we published was a Philippine government document, a classified Philippine government document. So this was the transcript that Dutertes people made of his call with Trump.

The reason I emphasize that is because after we published this, Matt Drudge put it at the top of Drudge Report, and so we had an enormous surge in traffic from many people who are supporters of Donald Trump. And we got bombarded, and Drudge got bombarded with a boycott campaign from Trump supporters, who were saying, "Whoever leaked this should be prosecuted for treason. And the journalists who published this should be put in prison," which echoes what we know Trump has sort of suggested in meetings, most recently to James Comey right before he fired him, the idea that journalists should be arrested. This was not a U.S. government document. Also, people were saying, "Oh, this is proof that Obama left the White House bugged." You know, its like they dont understand the basic fact of when two foreign leaders are speaking, you know, theres two sides of this conversation. So there we have it. We have the phone conversation between these two. So

AMY GOODMAN: How did you get it?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, were not going to talk about sources or methods, as the U.S. government likes to talk about. All well say is that we obtained it, and both the White House and the Philippines governmentwell, the Philippines government validated that it is a legitimate document. The White House said that the transcript was accurate.

Now, what does that leave us with? Well, it leaves us with the fact that Donald Trump begins a phone call with Rodrigo Duterte, who is one of the most unrepentant, murderous heads of state in the world today, openly brags about how hell give a pardon or immunity to people who extrajudicially kill anyone involved with the drug war. And the dominant perception and the way that this is portrayed by Dutertes people is that theyre just going after narcotraffickers. In reality, many drug users have been assassinated as part of this campaign. Duterte actually enjoys a pretty wide base of support in the Philippines, and he kind of mixes in anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist rhetoric with these very harsh policies. He also is one of the few heads of state in the world who willyou know, he regularly swears. I mean, he called Barack Obama things that I cant even say on this program, "the son of a"and then referenced hisas though Obamas mother had been a sex worker. I mean, hes, you know, calling the president of the United States and saying, "Im going to divorce the United States and orient myself toward China and Russia." And he said that under Obama because Obamas administration criticized the tactics that Duterte was using, the kind of paramilitary gangster tactics that they were using.

And, you know, I think the mostnot astonishing, but the most relevant part of this is that Trump knows all of that and, in fact, views that as a positive thing. So he calls Duterte and says to him, you know, "Rodrigo, I just want to congratulate you for the amazing job that youre doing." And the reason that we know its not just kind of generic platitudes is because Trump himself references in this call the fact that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had said the obvious, which is, you know, this is not right, the way that this is being handled. And, you know, the Obama administration had a very hypocritical record on human rights, but, as Allan Nairn has pointed out before, hypocrisy has some virtue, in the sense that at least theyyoure able to call them out on it, because they say one thing but mean another. So the bottom line is, Trump calls Duterte and says, "Great job. Amazing job. Obama didntyou know, he didnt get it. I get it. You have our full support. Youre a good man."

JUAN GONZLEZ: Jeremy, I wanted to ask youalmost as shocking as the call and the congratulations from Trump was the other part of the discussion about North Korea and Trump revealing to Duterte and, obviously, to lots of folks in the Philippine government about nuclear submarines of the U.S. that are off the coast of North Korea.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. I mean, well, first of all, we know that, you know, Trump still continues to use an insecure cellphone, that he tweets from, and has brought that cellphone to the table on classified discussions about North Korea. He did it when Shinzo Abe was at Mar-a-Lago with him, the Japanese leader. There were photos of Trumps cellphone. His specific phone that he uses has beenalready, that phone, for years, its been known to have been compromised by Chinese hackers. So Trump is bringing this insecure phone to meetings about North Korea. Then hes on the phone with Duterte last month, and he says, "You know, weve got these two nuclear subs near North Korea." And hes saying this to Duterte, who was most certainly under surveillance by both the North Koreans and the Chinese. So anyone who says, "Oh, well, you guys revealed this information," the most damaging revelation of classified information happened when Donald Trump told Duterte this. And Duterte also is a clever operator when it comes to China. And he has called Vladimir Putin his hero.

But the most newsworthy aspect of that is thatand I felt bad for you, Amy, having to read those quotes from Trump, because when you actually read his words and youre not Trump, it sounds like the garbled mess that it actually is, because you dont have the inflection, and youre not, you know, sniffling and all these things. But Trump tells Duterte about these submarines off the coast, and he says, you know, "Weve got so much more firepower than North Korea. At least 20 times more." Twenty times? The United States is known to have more than 6,000 nuclear warheads. North Korea is believed to have around 10. So Trumps math was way off in that equation.

And some people were saying, "Oh, well, Trump keeps saying, 'We don't want to use it. We dont want to use it." Thats not whats significant. Whats significant is that Trump says, "This is a madman. We dont know what hes going to do. Wed prefer not to go to war. But who knows?" Thats really frightening to hear from someone who is in command of the most lethal and powerful military in the world. He alsoand this is sort of sad, on one level, but also frighteninghe says, "Rodrigo, lets talk about Kim Jong-un. Is he stable or unstable?" Huh? I mean, why is the president of the United States asking Duterte about if Kim Jong-un is unstable?

JUAN GONZLEZ: A man whose own stability is in question, Duterte.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right, right, of course. I mean, this is three madmen that are in this equation: Trump, Duterte and Kim Jong-un. And I really dont know which of these three people is the sort of greater threat to civilization. I mean, its probably Trump, but itsyou know, tough call.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, lets go to some of the clips of Duterte in his own words. Last September, the Philippines president likened himself to Hitler.

PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE: Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now, there is 3 millionwhat is it? Three million drug addicts, there are. Id be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have [me]. You know, my victims, I would like to be all criminals.

AMY GOODMAN: Last fall, Duterte called then-President Obama "son of a whore" and warned him not to ask about his so-called drug war.

PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE: I am a president of a sovereign state, and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. [translated] Son of a whore, I will swear at you in that forum.

AMY GOODMAN: Before he was elected, Duterte admitted he was linked to a death squad in Davao. He spoke on a local TV show in a mix of English and Visayan.

MAYOR RODRIGO DUTERTE: [translated] Me. They are saying Im part of a death squad.

HOST: So, how do you react to that?

MAYOR RODRIGO DUTERTE: [translated] True. Thats true. You know, when I become president, I warn youI dont covet the position, but if I become president, the 1,000 will become 50,000. [in English] I will kill all of you who make the lives of Filipinos miserable. [translated] I will really kill you. I won because of the breakdown in law and order.

JUAN GONZLEZ: Meanwhile, in December, Duterte boasted about having personally killed criminal suspects when he was mayor of Davao City. The Manila Times reported he told a group of business leaders in the Philippines capital, quote, "In Davao, I used to do it personallyjust to show to the guys that if I can do it, why cant you? And Id go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also. I was really looking for a confrontation, so I could kill." Jeremy

JEREMY SCAHILL: I mean

JUAN GONZLEZ: These comments from a president of the Philippines.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, I mean, you know, those, of course, are of a more serious nature than the kinds of things that come out of Donald Trumps mouth, but they do have that in common, where, you know, theyll just sort of say what theyre thinking. And in a way, its refreshing, I guess, because most world leaders try to cover up the uncouth actions that theyre taking in their countries.

What I think is really significant for people to understand is that in the Hitler quote, where Duterte is saying Germany had Hitler, and, you know, he underestimates the number of people that Hitler killedyou know, he says 3 millionbut he doesnt say, "We have 3 million narcotraffickers that I want to kill." He says, "We have 3 million addicts." And that isthats the point here, is that they are not going after the kind of, you know, "Chapo" of the Philippines. Many of the people that have been killed are rank-and-file victims of a drug culture. And thats whos paying the heaviest price for all of this.

JUAN GONZLEZ: I wanted to ask you about something else in those transcripts: the short discussion between Trump and Duterte toward the end about China and Xi Jinping, the president of China, that Trump said, "Oh, I met with him at Mar-a-Lago. Hes a really good guy."

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah.

JUAN GONZLEZ: You know, this is after months and months of Trumps China bashing here during the political campaign. All of a sudden he seems to indicate that he needs to rely on China, China is the critical country in being able to keep North Korea at bay.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, and, you know, that has sort ofyou know, under Obama, they called the policy on North Korea "strategic patience." And I think that all serious observers of Korea politics and the history of Korea know that the North Korean regime is largely dependent on China for basically its survival, in many ways, in addition to the smuggling and organized crime that the North Korean regime is involved with. But on a tactical level, Trump spends, you know, a couple of days with Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, and then hes saying to Duterte, "Oh, weve got to get the Chinese to solve the problem." And Dutertes like, "Oh, yeah, Ill give him a call." It really shows how out of his depth Trump is, as though he just heard, oh, maybe China could do something about this. I mean, its frightening when youre talking about the presence of nuclear weapons. China plays the United States like a fiddle all the time in international relations.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds before we go to break, and then well also be joined by Glenn Greenwald, butso, Duterte is coming to the White House? Is that clear?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Donald Trump says to him, you know, "Anytime youre in Washington, come by. I would love to have you in the White House." After we published this, Senator Lindsey Graham said that he may join with Democrats who are calling for Trump to postpone that trip, so that they can discuss these issues.

And, I mean, I do think that whats interesting, he just declared martial law in the south of the country, Duterte did, and hes doing it in the name of fighting terrorism. That part of what Duterte is doing has long been aided by the United States, the Joint Special Operations Command, the CIA, military intelligence. The U.S. has poured resources into the Philippines in the name of fighting Islamist rebels. Duterte is now adopting that rhetoric, just like Bush and Trumpyou know, Obama had different terms for itare talking about this fight. In a way, it seems as though Duterte is outsmarting Trump in terms of how this is all playing.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill is going to stay with us, co-founder of The Intercept, host of the new weekly podcast, Intercepted. His most recent piece, well link to, "Trump Called Rodrigo Duterte to Congratulate Him on His Murderous Drug War: 'You Are Doing an Amazing Job.'" Jeremys books include Blackwater: The Rise of the Worlds Most Powerful Mercenary Army, more recently, The Assassination Complex: Inside the Governments Secret Drone Warfare Program. This is Democracy Now! Back with Jeremy and Glenn Greenwald in a moment.

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Jeremy Scahill on Trump's Embrace of Duterte's Deadly War on Drugs in the Philippines - Democracy Now!

Decades after President Nixon declared drugs "public enemy number one," the criminal justice system is still grappling with the problem. In recent years, we've seen bipartisan calls for an end to so-called mass incarceration for drug crimes and a shift away from the so-called "war on drugs" toward greater emphasis on treatment for addiction.

As Acting U.S. Attorney John Farley sees it, the phrase "war on drugs" is a bit of a buzz term that oversimplifies a battle now being waged on two fronts.

"There is the effort to get people to stop using drugs, and theres the effort to try to stop people from selling drugs and from preying on people who are suffering," Farley said onThe Exchange.

"I dont know that you can say the war on drugs has failed. Its ongoing and will probably never end. But we are certainly in a very bad spot right now. We have mounting deaths resulting fromfentanyl. We have a community that is really suffering."

His agency goes after major drug traffickers.

The latest scourge in the drug crisis iscarfentanil-- a syntheticopioidabout 100 times more potent thanfentanyl. So far this year, 37 people have died fromfentanyland six fromcarfentanil. The state has been in the grip of anopioidepidemic for some time now.

Farley concedes that some dealers also suffer from addiction.

"We cant simply just prosecute people and put them in jail. We need to look at the root causes, such as why are people using drugs, why are they starting, whats motivating them to do that even though they see the body count mounting every day. Whats going on? I think as a society and here in New Hampshire were taking a step back and taking a broader approach. "

Patricia Conway, Rockingham county attorney, agrees there's much more to solving the problem than just arresting people. She also thinks the phrase "war on drugs" serves a vital purpose.

"I think it demonstrates that this is very serious and we need to come together as a community, just like we would if there was a war, and support our troops and really come together and fight the problem," she said.

But forBehzad Mirhashem, assistant professor of law at the UNH School of Law, the war on drugs has been wrongheaded and has criminalized addiction and drug use with devastating consequences for some communities, as well as civil liberties.

"The human cost was the number of people in this country went from around 200,000 in the early1970sto 2 million inthe year2000," Mirhashem said.

"And when you talk about people being locked up, they lose their job, they lose their home, they lose their ties to their children, theirfamilies, and so theres been a tremendous human cost of this concept of war as a response to a social problem. But the other aspect of this is an incredible cost in terms of individual freedoms."

That strikes a chord with Anna Battle, who is in recovery from heroin addiction and spent time in jail on drug-related charges, including while she was pregnant. She now works at Hope on Haven Hill, which helps pregnant women who are dealing with addiction.

"It's a sad concept, the war on drugs, because it makes me feel like its a war on our own people who are suffering with the disease of substance use disorder. So from my experience with incarceration and through addiction theres not much rehabilitation available in our jail systems," she said. "Its important to look at people as having a disease rather than a moral issue."

Still, Battle does believe in holding people accountable for actions and in consequences that include jail. "So, if we do need incarceration, what do we need insideourjails that is going to help stop the recidivism rate," she said.

Prosecutorial and Police Discretion: The Pros and Cons.

When it comes to deciding how to handle those possessing and dealing drugs, Conway says prosecutors consider many factors, including aggravating circumstances.

"For instance, how much drugs were involved? Was it one hit or one use? Is it someone with intent to sell? Or is it straight possession? Is it someone with a long criminal history? Is it someone who suffers from substance abuse or is it a drug profiteer someone who does not suffer fromsubstanceabuse but is profiting off the miseryof others," she said. "If its someone who is selling drugs, who is not addicted and profiting fromthe miseryof others, then that person should go to state prison for a long time as far as Im concerned."

Farley says a recent memo by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructing federal prosecutors does not diminish prosecutorial discretion or signal a major shift toward mandatory-minimum sentencing, as claimed by some.

"His memo still provides us with the ability to look at an individual, the individual facts and circumstances of the case, and make that judgment that this is not the appropriate way to charge a particular case," Farley said.

But such discretion too frequently does not serve the cause of justice, according to Mirhashem.

"Police, prosecutors have a lot of discretion and how they exercise it is critical. A police officer sees a young person who looks like hes smoking a joint and the kid flicks it off into a stream -- the officer can let it go or he can charge that person with felony, falsifying physical evidence. Thats a point of discretion for a police officer," he said.

"Then a prosecutor reviews that case, he or she can decide to bring that change or not. And large scale the reality is that discretion has been exercised in the system to the great detriment of poor people and people in minority communities. The problem is not the individual, horrible police officer who goes after poor people or black people but there are structural forces in play such that the war on drugs has devastated certain communities."

For the full Exchange conversation, listen here.

Read the original here:

N.H. Fed., Local Authorities Weigh In On 'The War On Drugs' - New Hampshire Public Radio

"We have a drug problem here," said Ann Hall.

She, Jackie Laplatney and a group of other women were tired of watching the growing drug problem in Harrisville.

"After the last couple of weeks, we said it's enough, it's enough. We can't just sit back and talk to each other about it, we can't just sit back and message each other on Facebook, nobody's hearing us," said Jackie.

So instead of sitting back, they organized and planned a public meeting at the Harrisville Fire Hall.

They say people need to start talking about the problem - a problem that Jackie says she's felt personally.

"I will be honest, I was that parent who said, not my kid, but it was my kid. It was my kid, and it's an eye opener," she said.

The meeting is open to anyone.

Officials from local law enforcement and the village will be there, as well as people who've been hurt by the drug problem.

Ann and Jackie say they need the community behind them.

"We feel like we kind of fall through the cracks and we need more help within our own community. If people need to step up to get that help, then that's what we wanna do," said Ann.

The meeting is at 6:30 pm at the Harrisville Fire Hall and Ann and Jackie just want to educate and get people to acknowledge the problems they see in their community.

If you need help, you can also call Pivot's Crisis Line at 315-782-2327.

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Harrisville Group Declares War On Drugs - WWNY TV 7

Decades after President Nixon declared drugs "public enemy number one," the criminal justice system is still grappling with the problem. In recent years, we've seen bipartisan calls for an end to so-called mass incarceration for drug crimes and a shift away from the so-called "war on drugs" toward greater emphasis on treatment for addiction.

As Acting U.S. Attorney John Farley sees it, the phrase "war on drugs" is a bit of a buzz term that oversimplifies a battle now being waged on two fronts.

"There is the effort to get people to stop using drugs, and theres the effort to try to stop people from selling drugs and from preying on people who are suffering," Farley said onThe Exchange.

"I dont know that you can say the war on drugs has failed. Its ongoing and will probably never end. But we are certainly in a very bad spot right now. We have mounting deaths resulting fromfentanyl. We have a community that is really suffering."

His agency goes after major drug traffickers.

The latest scourge in the drug crisis iscarfentanil-- a syntheticopioidabout 100 times more potent thanfentanyl. So far this year, 37 people have died fromfentanyland six fromcarfentanil. The state has been in the grip of anopioidepidemic for some time now.

Farley concedes that some dealers also suffer from addiction.

"We cant simply just prosecute people and put them in jail. We need to look at the root causes, such as why are people using drugs, why are they starting, whats motivating them to do that even though they see the body count mounting every day. Whats going on? I think as a society and here in New Hampshire were taking a step back and taking a broader approach. "

Patricia Conway, Rockingham county attorney, agrees there's much more to solving the problem than just arresting people. She also thinks the phrase "war on drugs" serves a vital purpose.

"I think it demonstrates that this is very serious and we need to come together as a community, just like we would if there was a war, and support our troops and really come together and fight the problem," she said.

But forBehzad Mirhashem, assistant professor of law at the UNH School of Law, the war on drugs has been wrongheaded and has criminalized addiction and drug use with devastating consequences for some communities, as well as civil liberties.

"The human cost was the number of people in this country went from around 200,000 in the early1970sto 2 million inthe year2000," Mirhashem said.

"And when you talk about people being locked up, they lose their job, they lose their home, they lose their ties to their children, theirfamilies, and so theres been a tremendous human cost of this concept of war as a response to a social problem. But the other aspect of this is an incredible cost in terms of individual freedoms."

That strikes a chord with Anna Battle, who is in recovery from heroin addiction and spent time in jail on drug-related charges, including while she was pregnant. She now works at Hope on Haven Hill, which helps pregnant women who are dealing with addiction.

"It's a sad concept, the war on drugs, because it makes me feel like its a war on our own people who are suffering with the disease of substance use disorder. So from my experience with incarceration and through addiction theres not much rehabilitation available in our jail systems," she said. "Its important to look at people as having a disease rather than a moral issue."

Still, Battle does believe in holding people accountable for actions and in consequences that include jail. "So, if we do need incarceration, what do we need insideourjails that is going to help stop the recidivism rate," she said.

Prosecutorial and Police Discretion: The Pros and Cons.

When it comes to deciding how to handle those possessing and dealing drugs, Conway says prosecutors consider many factors, including aggravating circumstances.

"For instance, how much drugs were involved? Was it one hit or one use? Is it someone with intent to sell? Or is it straight possession? Is it someone with a long criminal history? Is it someone who suffers from substance abuse or is it a drug profiteer someone who does not suffer fromsubstanceabuse but is profiting off the miseryof others," she said. "If its someone who is selling drugs, who is not addicted and profiting fromthe miseryof others, then that person should go to state prison for a long time as far as Im concerned."

Farley says a recent memo by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructing federal prosecutors does not diminish prosecutorial discretion or signal a major shift toward mandatory-minimum sentencing, as claimed by some.

"His memo still provides us with the ability to look at an individual, the individual facts and circumstances of the case, and make that judgment that this is not the appropriate way to charge a particular case," Farley said.

But such discretion too frequently does not serve the cause of justice, according to Mirhashem.

"Police, prosecutors have a lot of discretion and how they exercise it is critical. A police officer sees a young person who looks like hes smoking a joint and the kid flicks it off into a stream -- the officer can let it go or he can charge that person with felony, falsifying physical evidence. Thats a point of discretion for a police officer," he said.

"Then a prosecutor reviews that case, he or she can decide to bring that change or not. And large scale the reality is that discretion has been exercised in the system to the great detriment of poor people and people in minority communities. The problem is not the individual, horrible police officer who goes after poor people or black people but there are structural forces in play such that the war on drugs has devastated certain communities."

For the full Exchange conversation, listen here.

Link:

N.H. Chief Federal Prosecutor: The War On Drugs 'Will Probably ... - New Hampshire Public Radio

For Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the only way to assure a safer America and reverse rising violent crime rates is to lock up as many drug offenders as possible. Earlier this month, he directed federal prosecutors to charge suspects with the most serious offense that can be proved, a return to mandatory minimum sentencinga key policy of the war on drugs.

We know that drugs and crime go hand-in-hand, Sessions said in a May 12 speech. Drug trafficking is an inherently violent business. If you want to collect a drug debt, you cant file a lawsuit in court. You collect it by the barrel of a gun.

Drugs do, in fact, fuel crime. Dealers often turn to violence to carve out territories and enforce loyalty. And chronic drug users sometimes turn to crime to support their habits. But research has shown that boosting drug crime prosecutions often does not lead to a reduction in violent crime and that in some instances, it can actually spark more of it.

Its pretty clear that theres a correlation between drug arrests, crackdowns on drug markets and increase in violent crimes, said Leo Beletsky, a professor of Law and Health Sciences at Northeastern University. [But] the relationship is not inverse, as law enforcement would claim, but symbiotic one causes the other, or at least they go hand-in-hand.

Arresting and convicting a drug dealer would seem an obvious path to less overall crime. But such a move can actually destabilize a criminal ecosystem, leading to a surge in violence. When law enforcement disrupts drug markets, whether by decapitating arresting a major kingpin or taking out small-time dealers on a major scale, it can create a power vacuum, which gives rise to turf wars and creates the conditions for violent crime, Beletsky said.

Arresting people on the supply side of the drug trade also generally does not have the impact Sessions is seeking, he added.

A comprehensive article in the International Journal of Drug Policy from 2011 evaluated 15 studies on violence and drug crackdowns and found that increasing police activity drug arrests, drug seizures, and police spending on drug enforcement paradoxically drove up violence. One of those studies, of 67 Florida counties, found that increases in the rate of drug arrests correlated with a twofold risk of violent and property crime.

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Thats not to say that law enforcement actions are the only cause of drug-related violent crime, but theyre definitely one of the contributing factors, Beletsky said.

Few police departments make note of motive when recording homicides and other violent crimes. Those that do show that drugs are rarely the primary motivation for killings. In New York, murders where drugs were a primary motive comprised 8.6 percent of the total murders in 2016. In Milwaukee, drug-involved homicides rose by 27 percent from 2014 to 2015, but were still only 23 percent of the total number, slightly higher than those that were alcohol-related, which accounted for 15 percent of the total number of homicides.

In making his case for a crackdown on drug offenders, Sessions has cited Federal Bureau of Investigation numbers that show a rising violent crime rate. In 2016, the national rate rose 3percent from the year before. But that increase followed two decades of sharp decreases. The current violent crime rate is nearly half of what it was in the early 1990s.

In some American cities, like New York, the rate has continued to decline. According to an analysis published by the Brennan Center for Justice, the national uptick is attributable to a handful of cities that experienced particularly sharp surges in violence. Last year in Chicago, where police recorded more than 4,300 shootings, the violent crime rate increased 17.7 percent. There were 762 homicides, the highest number in nearly two decades.

Richard Aborn, a former prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorneys office and now the president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, credits falling crime rates in his city to precision policing.

[An] irrefutable lesson weve learned from the fight against crime is that society is made much safer when police use scalpels, not bludgeons, he said. Sessions is talking about bringing bludgeons back.

Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer who now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, added that one reason that New York doesnt have the same problem with violent crime as Chicago is because of a change in the drug market: dealers started delivering drugs to their customers instead of slinging on the corner. The result, according to Moskos: dealers stopped shooting each other.

Theres no indication that drug use went down, he said. Other cities, like Baltimore and Chicago, still have active street markets.

Sessions laid out a three-pronged approach for bringing down crime: criminal enforcement, treatment, and prevention. Both Beletsky and Moskos agreed the biggest failure of the decades spent devoted to the war on drugs has been overlooking the latter two. They fear that Sessions clear preference for incarcerating people over helping them surmount addiction and its fallout will do nothing to slow either the pace of shootings in Chicago, or of an opioid crisis that is out of control in rural America.

Moskos recalled a recent photo that went viral on the Internetof a little boy in East Liverpool, Ohio, sitting in the backseat of a car while two adults overdosed in the front. Moskos was struck by the local police chiefs recognition after the incident that law enforcement is ill equipped to address the issues that created the situation depicted in that photo.

We dont have any resources, and we dont have a place. Even if somebody comes down here to the station, knocks on the door and asks for help, where do we send them? East Liverpool police chief John Lane said on NPR at the time. We have nothing here in our county.

Originally posted here:

Jeff Sessions Says Renewing the War on Drugs Will Also Reduce Violent Crime. Experts Aren't So Sure. - The Trace

The War on Drugs began during the 1960s and 70s. During those years, President Richard Nixon launched new policies to aggressively criminalize and punish anything related to drugs.

In 1969 he began telling the public that drug use was becoming a growing problem in the U.S. He argued that the best way to deal with illegal drugs wasto ramp up policing efforts.

Then in 1971, he said, Americas public enemy number one . . . is drug abuse. Nixon then laid out his plan for what he described as a new, all-out offensive.That plan was to give the government and law enforcement agencies authority and the funds to fuel this kind of an offensive.

Nixons War on Drugs picked up steam throughout the following decades.Most recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made clear his commitment to continuing the War on Drugs.

He has appointed hardcore War on Drugs supportersto high-level law enforcement positions. And he is considering putting back into place policies that require severe mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenses.

But is all this effort really worth it? Is the War on Drugs accomplishing anything productive? As critics of the long-standing war on drugs have pointed out for decades, these policies have actually created many more problems than they have solved. Here are 10 reasons why the War on Drugs must end.

The war on drugs has led to an explosion in the numbers of people incarcerated in the U.S. In fact, with more than 2 million people behind bars, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

To put it into context: The U.S. is home to less than five percent of the worlds total population, but it has nearly 25 percent of the worlds prisoner population.

More than 1.6 million people are arrested in the U.S. every year for drug-related crimes. And 84 percent of those arrests are for simple possession. For example, as of 2015, there was a person arrested for a cannabis-related crime every 49 seconds.

Arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning that many people ends up sucking away a lot of resources. According to drug reform groupCount The Costs, the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion over the last 40 years waging the War on Drugs.

Every year, the country spends around $15 billion on enforcing drug laws. And many reports indicate that the U.S. spends a total of$80 billion every year to maintain its huge population of prisoners.

Not only do these figures represent a lot of money spent to keep the War on Drugs going. It also means that theres less money available for funding other public programs and services such as schools, employment training programs, addiction recovery programs, and mental health servicesall of which are arguably better ways of dealing with drug abuse.

Many critics of the war on drugs have suggested that we shift our thinking so that drug abuse becomes a matter of public health rather than a question of crime.

Simply locking people who struggle with drug abuse in jails and prisons does not address the problem of addiction. Failing to provide adequate health resources means that many folks end up getting arrested for similar drug crimes once they are released.

But if the U.S. devoted resources toward addiction recovery programs instead of the War on Drugs, it could significantly lower the number of people harmed by drug abuse.

A 2015 report found that War on Drugs policing has failed in its stated goal of reducing domestic street-level drug activity. Instead, it has authorized more aggressive policing practices.Those practices include raids and police-related violence, especially against Black adolescents and adults.

Other sources have argued that the War on Drugs incentivizes police departments to go after low-level, non-violent drug users while letting the black market flow of drugs remain intact.

Local law enforcement agencies receive funding and equipment the more drug-related arrests they make. Similarly, asset forfeiture laws allow cops to seize private property if they suspect it was somehow involved with a drug crime.

All of this encourages and rewards aggressive policing practices that do nothing to slow the flow of illegal drugs, but that target instead low-level, non-violent drug users.

Far from reducing crime, the War on Drugs actually creates crime. Keeping drugs illegal keeps the black market strong. And this ends up creating even more crime.

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground, wrote economist Jeffrey Miron. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

He added: Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.

In fact, making drugs legal has proven far more effective at reducing drug crime than the War on Drugs. For example, as cannabis becomes more legal in the U.S., there is less illegal weed coming into the country. Similarly, the legal cannabis industry is taking huge profits away from illegal traffickers.

Every time the U.S. locks people up for a drug-related crime, there are a number of economic costs. The most obvious one is how much it costs taxpayers to arrest, charge, prosecute, sentence, and incarcerate them.

But the War on Drugs also hurts the economy by taking people out of the labor force. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the War on Drugs diverts billions of dollars away from the economy.

For example, from 1992-2002, there was a loss of about 1 million per years of effort between both the black market and those locked up for drug crimes. That equates to several billions of dollars taken out of the economy every year.

By keeping drugs illegal, the U.S. loses out on big-time tax revenues. Miron estimated that legalizing and regulating drugs in the US would yield tens of billions of dollars annually in both taxation and enforcement savings.

For real-world proof, look at whats going on in states that have legalized weed. For example, the legal cannabis industry in Colorado creates more than $2 billion in total economic activity every year.

All that activity also generates billions every year in taxes. Colorado uses that tax money to improve infrastructure, fund education, fight homelessness, give students scholarships, fund drug abuse prevention programs, and other public programs.

The War on Drugs tends to harm poor people more than middle- and upper-class folks. For starters, poor people and especially homeless people are more visible and vulnerable to police.

And since the U.S. focuses more on criminalizing drugs than providing health services, incarceration is almost inevitable for poor people who use drugs. People who can afford drug rehab programs can get help before getting arrested. But those who cant afford those services are more likely to end up getting arrested for using drugs.

It might not seem obvious, but the War on Drugs also harms the environment. Cannabis is a good example of how this works.

The black market for growing and producing illegal weed leads to deforestation as growers look for isolated places to cultivate cannabis. And every time a site is raided by law enforcement, growers have to move into new territory.

Illegal cannabis grows also lead to pollution and poor water management.And in many cases, illegal grow operations also end up killing local wildlife. For example, a study last year found that illegal cannabis grows in California werecontributing to the extinction of several species.

Ending the War on Drugs would solve a lot of this. It would provide a way for drug producers and growers to cultivate their product in safer, more permanent, highly regulated methods.

The War on Drugs disproportionately targets and harms people of color. For example, although white people, black people, and Latinx people sell and use illegal drugs at roughly the same rates, people of color are arrested far more often.

In fact, black men are arrested 13 times as often as white men for drug crimes. And in some states,its as high as 57 times.

Similarly, black and Latinx folks together make up roughly 29 percent of the U.S. population. But they represent more than 75 percent of prisoners locked up for drug-related crimes.

And even when theyre released from jail or prison, the War on Drugs continues harming people. In many places, a felony drug charge disqualifies people for many important resources such as housing, food, healthcare, education, and sometimes even the right to vote.

All of this keeps people locked into poverty. It also increases the likelihood of returning to prison. And since people of color are the most likely to be arrested for drug activity, they are also more likely to face these long-term obstacles as well.

See the rest here:

10 Reasons The War On Drugs Must End - Green Rush Daily