Category Archives: War On Drugs

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.

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

WASHINGTON As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump pledged to tackle prescription-drug abuse and the flow of illegal drugs into the country. But his White House efforts are off to a rocky start so far.

Trump appointed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to lead a opioid crisis task force. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and other administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have embarked on a listening tour of areas ravaged by the opioid epidemic.

But any goodwill gained from those efforts was likely undercut by a leaked document that provided a preview into the administrations plan to effectively gut the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which takes the lead in addressing drug abuse issues, by reducing its funding by almost 95 percent.

Then came the announcement that the Justice Department would reverse an Obama-era policy that urged prosecutors to try to avoid mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, and an emerging pattern from the administration is developing that is troubling to some lawmakers and advocates.

Such policies and proposals could be examples of an unpredictable White House that at times sends contradictory messages about its strategy.

But while Republican members continue to hold out hope that Trump will keep his pledge to combat the opioid epidemic, a number of GOP senators are becoming more vocal in their criticism of his early actions on the issue.

I am alarmed at the defunding [of the drug-control policy office] because that, to me, signals less emphasis on what I think is a deep problem, said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia. I think we need an overarching policy and I would like to see it remain in the White House where it would get the ultimate attention.

Capito said she gave Sessions an earful about the possible funding cuts when he visited West Virginia for an event hosted by the Drug Enforcement Agency, which takes the lead on drug interdiction efforts.

The fiscal 2017 spending bill that Trump signed into law this month will provide $150 million more this year to help fight the opioid epidemic. Should the administration choose to forge ahead and suggest reduced funding for the office in the pending fiscal 2018 budget proposal, it will likely not get much support in Congress.

But it is not just funding that has galvanized Republicans into pushing back against the Trump administration. After Sessions announcement, some Republican senators came out against the shift back to harsher sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated too many minorities for too long, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, said in a statement. Attorney General Sessions new policy will accentuate that injustice. Instead, we should treat our nations drug epidemic as a health crisis and less as a lock em up and throw away the key problem.

But the decision did not meet total opposition among Republicans in Congress.

Law enforcement should side with the victims of crime rather than its perpetrators. This policy is simply common sense and will help reduce crime and drugs in our neighborhoods, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, said in a statement.

A Justice Department spokesman said the directive guarantees that prosecutors treat all defendants fairly, equitably, and uniformly.

Outside advocacy groups say they are baffled by the administrations recent actions.

To say you are going to address things and then put some policies in place that dont make any sense to what we know works, and what the science says, it leaves one beyond just scratching their head and wondering where the impetus for this is, said Tom Hill, vice president of addiction and recovery at the National Council for Behavioral Health.

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Tump administration sends mixed marching orders in the war on drugs - SaukValley.com

Asian Law Caucus for Immigrants Rights staff attorney Kevin Lograduated from UC Berkeley before he received a law degree from Stanford Law School. CONTRIBUTED

SAN FRANCISCO Two Filipino immigrants, who served jail terms for drug offenses but were apprehended by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and placed on deportation proceedings, were recently granted protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) because they are potential targets of President Rodrigo Dutertes lethal war on drugs.

One immigrant was immediately released after an immigration judges CAT ruling while the other remains in custody pending the written decision of the judge that could withstand an impending appeal of ICE against the still detained convict.

The two grateful Filipinos living in San Francisco chose to remain unidentified. Both men have families, are indigents and in their mid-30s. They are green card holders who were represented for free by legal advocacy group for Asians in San Francisco.

Their lawyer, Kevin Lo, is a staff attorney in the Immigrant Rights Program of the Asian Law Caucus. Lo chanced upon the two men when he visited the San Francisco immigration detention center and realized that the two Filipinos needed representation, as most people in immigration detention are usually not legally aided enough.

Claims for protection

In evaluating the cases of the two Filipinos clients, we learned about the situation in the Philippines with President Dutertes drug war. And when we realized that they had claims for protection under the Convention Against Torture, we decided to take their cases because we know the situation is pretty serious, Lo shared.

Eminent immigration lawyer Lourdes Tancinco notes that the view of the outside world on the controversial death toll in the war of drugs has an impact on the fate of Filipinos abroad. INQUIRER/Jun Nucum

We decided to make the argument that drug addicts who are deported to the Philippines has a more then 50 percent chance to be added to government watch lists and subsequently killed, Lo explained.

Asian Law Caucus sought the help of Vicente Rafael, professor of history in the University of Washington, specializing in Southeast Asian history. Rafael became our source for the condition in the Philippines particularly the drug war being waged by President Duterte,Lo said.

Rafaels declaration together with another experts statement proved very helpful in securing the detainees protection from the judge.

We [also] submitted a big stack of articles and pictures to show that in the Philippines drug convictions typically equal torture and death, Lo explained. If we havent been able to submit the country condition confirmation that intended to show that the governments (drive against drug offenders) is true, the ruling may not have been granted and they could have been deported.

Scheduled to testify again

Rafael is scheduled to testify by phoneon another case, in Tacoma, Washington, largely along the same lines. Nearby Seattle was where an earlier case employing the CAT appeal protection lost.

Duterte supporter Atty. Arnedo Valerasays drug addicts who surrender are sent to rehabilitation centers for treatment and rehabilitation under the Duterte administration.INQUIRER/Jun Nucum

Lo wants to make clear though that the CATis usually the last thing that people try for because it doesnt lead to any legal status; one can still be deported when conditions change. It is also not granted very often.

For our clients, the judge said he wont be deporting our clients. But once Duterte is no longer in power and the drug war is no longer happening, they can be deported. So, CAT is an acknowledgement that you are deportable, but for human rights reason, you are not going to be for now, disclosed Lo.

He says its a form of relief that applies to other people in other countries with dangerous condition of human rights. The Duterte situation is so extreme, so rare that the head of state will be so explicit and proud that he killed so many people that started back when he was mayor of Davao City.

Unfair deportation system

Lo also stressed that the U.S. deportation system is so unfair because even if immigrant convicts spent only a few months in a U.S. prison, they are being deported even for drug crimes that are not serious.

Current U.S. immigration law punishes drug crimes very heavily. It is kind of funny that we are criticizing Duterte for his war on drugs, while the U.S. war on drugs, although not be as bad, is pretty extreme too, Lo lamented.

Vicente Rafael, professor of history in the University of Washington, offered testimony that helped two immigrants be spared from deportation.INQUIRER/Jun Nucum

In the deportation process, ICE will request for travel documents from the Philippines and also will turn over a copy of the deportees criminal record. What that means is that the U.S. is explicitly telling the Philippines that the deportee is a drug abuser or trafficker. Under Duterte, it is very likely that the deportee will be added to the drug list.

Duterte supporter Atty. Arnedo S Valera, a practicing immigration attorney, congratulated Lo and company for creative legal representation in finding a relief from deportation for these two Filipinos.

Legal aberration

However, he contended that this ruling is a legal aberration and not the prevailing case law in almost all immigration courts in 50 States. For the last decade, based on specific and unique removal issues faced by Filipino immigrants, I have been successful in obtaining asylum alleging fear of even torture under the Aquino and Arroyo regimes.

Most likely, these liberal rulings will be appealed by the government because the fact is, under the drug policy of theDuterte administration, drug addicts who surrenderand are not engaged in selling drugs and other criminal activities are sent to rehabilitation centers for treatment and drug rehabilitation.

Duterte critic and seasoned litigator Ted Laguatan says that the present Philippine government has developed a global reputation for being engaged in state-sponsored extrajudicial killings and human rights violations.

Numerous documented reports and graphic pictures of Filipinos brutally murdered by police elements and so called vigilantes many of whom are also police elements dressed in civilians, have been published in international publications. More than 8,000 killed since PresidentRodrigo Duterte sat in office, reasoned Laguatan.

Laguatan says that while government apologists continue to deny that these killings are state-sponsored, there are so many recorded footages of President Rodrigo Duterte delivering speeches urging the police to continue with these killings and assuring them of his protection.

Duterte behind the killings

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that Duterte is behind these killings as the styles or modes of executions are the same as those used by the notorious Davao Death Squad reputedly headed by Duterte when he was Mayor of Davao City. Moreover, the more than 8,000 killings are self-evident. They would not have happened if Duterte were not President.As such, more Filipinosin removal proceedings in Immigration Court will be using the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) to prevent their removal, Laguatan opined.

Staunch Marcos and Duterte critic Atty. Ted Laguatan says the present Philippine government has developed a global reputation for engaging in state-sponsored extrajudicial killings and human rights violations.INQUIRER/Jun Nucum

Another eminent immigration lawyer Lourdes Tancinco noted that with the current social political environment in the Philippines, the view of the outside world on the controversial war of drugs has an impact on the fate of Filipinos abroad.

I am not surprised that it had reached the immigration courts involving Filipinos who are facing removal. It would not be difficult to find sufficient evidence for protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) Act considering that substantial and factual information is available in regards to the increasing number of death of people involved in illegal drugs. The courts can rely on expert opinion or organizations like the UN Commission on Human Rights, Tancinco said. Tancinco noted that the challenge in employing CAT is proving whether the abuse is inflicted by, or at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a public official or any person acting in an official capacity.

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2 Filipinos spared from deportation due to PH war on drugs ... - Inquirer.net

In a phone call from the White Houselate last month,U.S. President Donald Trump heaped praise on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte,one of the worlds most murderous heads of state, fordoing what Trump called anunbelievable job in his war on drugs. Trump offered an unqualified endorsement of Dutertes bloody extermination campaign against suspected drug dealers and users, which has includedopen calls for extrajudicial murders and promises of pardons and immunity for the killers.

You are a good man, Trump told Duterte, according to an official transcript of the April 29 call produced by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and obtained by The Intercept. Keep up the good work, Trump told Duterte. You are doing an amazing job.

Trump began the call by telling Duterte, You dont sleep much, youre just like me, before quickly pivoting to the strongmans drug war.

I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem, Trump told Duterte at the beginning of theircall, according to the document. 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.

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

The transcript, which contains numerous typographical errors, was authenticated by well-placed sources in the Palace and the Department of Foreign Affairs by reporters at the Manila-basednews outlet Rappler, which collaborated with The Intercept onthis story.

Since Duterte took office in June, Philippinenational police and vigilante death squads have embarked on a campaign to slaughterdrugusersas well as drug dealers. Hitler massacred three million Jews [sic], now,theres three million drug addicts. Id be happy to slaughter them, he said in September. Last month, he told a group ofjoblessFilipinosthat they should kill all the drug addicts. Police have killed over 7,000 people, devastated poor areas of Manila and other cities, and used the drug war as a pretext to murder government officials and community leaders.

The new details of Trumps call with Duterte comeon the heels of the Philippine presidents announcement that he is imposing martial law on the autonomous island of Mindanao, where government forces are battling Islamist rebels. If I had to kill thousands of people just to keep Philippines a thousand times safer, I will not have doubts doing it, Duterte said.

On the April 29 call, Trump pointed out to Dutertethat his predecessor in the White Househad been critical of the rising body count under Dutertes reign in the Philippines, but that Trump himself gets it. I understand that, and fully understand that, and I think we had a previous president who did not understand that, Trump said, but I understand that and we have spoken about this before.

Whenthe Obamaadministration offeredsome tempered criticism of Duterteskilling spree, Duterte called the U.S. presidentthe son of a whore and an idiot who can go to hell. Speaking in Beijing inOctober, Duterte said, America has lost now. Ive realigned myself in your ideological flow.And maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. Its the only way.

However, inthe wake of Trumps election, Dutertesaid, I dont want to quarrel anymore, because Trump has won. Onthe April call, Trump addressed Duterte warmly by his first name, Rodrigo, and Duterte thanked Trump for his sentiments on Obama.

This week, Duterte was slated to beinRussia for a five-day trip, including a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, whom he has called his favorite hero. On Tuesday, Duterte announced from Moscow that he was cutting the trip short in light of his declaration of martial law and fighting between rebels and the government in Mindanao.

Following the call last month, the White House publicly described a very friendly conversation that culminated with an invitation for an Oval Office meeting. To endorse Duterte is to endorse a man who advocates mass murder and who has admitted to killing people himself, said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, reacting to the transcript. Endorsing his methods is a celebration of the death of the poor and vulnerable.

A member of a Scene of the Crime Operatives team investigates the scene where two alleged robbers were killed after a gun fight with police in Manila on Feb. 8, 2017.

Photo: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images

Dutertes police killings are widely recognized by the international community as an ongoing atrocity. The war on drugs has drawncondemnationfrom theUnited Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, and last month a Philippinelawyer filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing Duterte of mass murder and crimes against humanity. The State Departments annual human rightsreportacknowledges thousands of extrajudicial killings with impunity and calls themthe countrys chief human rights concern.

Killing is nothing new for Duterte. His bloody record started in 1988, when he became the mayor of Davao City, a coastal city in the southern Philippines. During his tenure,he earned the nickname the Death Squad Mayor a titlehe embraces. According to oneformer hitman, Duterte formed an organization called the Davao Death Squad a mafia-like organization of plainclothes assassins that would kill suspected criminals, journalists, and opposition politicians, often from the backs of motorcycles. Multiple former members of the group have come forward and said that they killed people on Dutertes direct orders.

Duterte has even bragged that he personally killed criminals from the back of a motorcycle.In Davao I used to do it personally, hetolda group of business leaders in Manila. Just to show to the guys [police officers] that if I can do it, why cant you.

In 2016, Duterte campaigned on a policy of mass extermination for anyone involved in the drug trade. Id be happy to slaughter them. If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have me, Duterte said after his inauguration in September.

Despite human rights concerns, the U.S. has long consideredthe Philippines a military ally, and under Obama the U.S. gave the countrys military tens of millions of dollars in weapons and resourcesper year. The U.S. government does notprovide lethal weapons directly to the PhilippineNational Police, which has a decadeslong history of extrajudicial killings. But it does allow U.S. weapons manufacturers to sell to them directly. In 2015 the State Department authorized more than $250 million in arms sales from U.S. defense contractors to security forces in the Philippines.

After Dutertes election, Obamas State Department halted one sale of assault rifles to the Philippines, largely due to the objections of Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Philippines became a colony of the United States in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War. A long insurgency followed, and the country didnt win full independence until 1946.

Disclosure:Omidyar Network is an investor in Rappler, an independent news organization based in the Philippines. The Intercepts publisher, First Look Media, was founded by Pierre Omidyar.

Top photo: A drug suspect lies dead in a hallway during an alleged shootout with police in Manila, Philippines, on Aug. 18, 2016.

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Trump Called Rodrigo Duterte to Congratulate Him on His Murderous Drug War: You Are Doing an Amazing Job - The Intercept

Opioids and Marijuana.

Crisis lurking within US; once this looked just like a random medicine bottle for prescription medication but for many in the United States now it is reminiscent of addiction and overdose.

Just in 2015, 33,000 people died of overdoses from prescription drugs such as OxyContin. But thats not all about the opioid crisis that has gripped the country, as heroine is also wreaking havoc, with overdoses reaching epidemic levels. The Trump administration is, meanwhile, announcing a new war on drugs, a war many believe is already doomed to fail.

In this episode, we take a look at the crisis lurking within the country. Speaking of crises, President Trump had promised to tackle unemployment. He is now supposed to bring jobs back to America by adopting a Buy American, Hire American policy. As a result, the largest economy on the planet appears to be rushing to a protectionist stance: another bad news particularly for US trade partners, which we will cover in the second part of the show.

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US war on drugs protectionists - Press TV

The Record (Hackensack, N.J.), Tribune News Service 12:00 p.m. CT May 21, 2017

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks at the National Association of Attorneys General annual winter meeting, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017, in Washington.(Photo: Alex Brandon, AP)

The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) (TNS)

Instead of pressing forward on sensible drug policy that places a premium on addiction treatment and lighter sentencing rules involving low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is looking to take the nation two steps back to the days of failed policy under the War on Drugs. In effect, Sessions announcement on toughening rules for prosecutors considering drug crimes will serve only to return the nation to that dismal, costly trend of mass incarceration, primarily of young black men.

Sessions call for change in prosecuting guidelines, which would include a more robust approach to mandatory minimum sentences, comes at a time when Democrats and Republicans together have proposed alternative sentencing for low-level drug offenders. Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, has embraced a greater emphasis on treatment, and has been a long-term supporter of drug courts.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., one of the authors of bipartisan legislation that would seek more lenient sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, wrote an op-ed for CNN this week in which he reiterated his support for Obama-era policies put in place by former Attorney General Eric Holder. Among those were guidelines issued to U.S. attorneys that they refrain from seeking longer sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

And make no mistake, wrote Paul, the lives of many drug offenders are ruined the day they receive that long sentence the attorney general wants them to have.

Another longtime believer in moving away from strict sentencing guidelines for low-level drug crimes is Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat who served nearly two terms as mayor of Newark and saw firsthand the devastation mandatory sentencing can have on young black men and their families. Resetting this policy back to the old lock em up mentality last encouraged under the leadership of Attorney General John Ashcroft in the early 2000s would be felt heavily on the streets of Paterson, Newark and Camden.

Piling on mandatory minimum sentences and three strikes, youre out laws on nonviolent offenders did little to stop the illegal drug trade in recent decades, Booker said after reading Sessions rules changes. Instead, it decimated entire communities, most often poor communities and communities of color; resulted in an uneven application of the law; and undermined public trust in the justice system.

As both Paul and Booker point out, mandatory sentencing laws handcuff prosecutors and judges as they approach individual cases, and often send young people to prison for long stretches of time for relatively minor offenses. These arrests, convictions and sentences disproportionately affect African-Americans and their families, and can serve to set the course of their entire lives.

Equal justice advocates are hopeful the energy created by the Sessions announcement will spur members of Congress to move aggressively to address criminal justice reform, including the rollback of mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug crimes. Christie, who has long been on the common-sense side of addiction treatment and has raised the profile of the use of drug courts, could be an important voice on this issue. We encourage him to wholeheartedly join the pushback against this failed tough love approach to drug criminalization the attorney general is pursuing.

2017 The Record (Hackensack, N.J.)

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Wrong direction in 'War on Drugs' - Corpus Christi Caller-Times - Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Chicago Sun-Times

Failed war on drugs won't end because there's money to be made Chicago Sun-Times What a pleasant surprise to read columnist John Stossel disavowing Richard Nixon's (unwinnable) War On Drugs. (Sessions' renewed drug war cruel, stupid, May 18). For numerous valid reasons that he cited, he declaims Attorney General Jeff Sessions' ...

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Failed war on drugs won't end because there's money to be made - Chicago Sun-Times

UPDATED: Sun., May 21, 2017, 7:54 a.m.

DAYTON, Wash. Nearly every lifelong resident has at least one story about the towns old asparagus cannery.

Ginny Butler, past president of the Dayton Historic Depot, remembers her mother and three friends took a job processing asparagus one summer to earn some extra spending money.

They each wanted something for their house and their husbands didnt want to buy it, Butler said, laughing. Two of the women quit right away, but Butlers mother stuck it out, working grueling shifts while caring for her children.

By the end of the season, she was able to buy a decorative piece to hang over the family fireplace.

For decades, the plant defined life in Dayton. Each summer an influx of about 1,000 migrant workers would join the towns other 2,000 permanent residents. Hundreds more workers would tend the nearby fields.

Trade deals just about spoiled Washingtons asparagus industry. Farmers quit the crop. Canneries closed. Then, slowly, farmers used technology and grit to create a second chance. | READ MORE

And then it came to an abrupt stop. In 2005, the company moved much of its business to Peru, taking Washingtons entire asparagus canning industry with it. Farmers plowed under fields. Two other canneries closed.

It totally wiped us out. Ive never seen such a huge, significant industry collapse, said Alan Schreiber, executive director of the Washington Asparagus Commission.

The culprit? Cocaine.

A rare undated historical photo of the asparagus packing production line the inside the Green Giant plant. (Colin Mulvany / The Spokesman-Review)

The Green Giant cannery, as it would come to be called, opened in 1934 after a 45-day construction blitz, according to records from the Dayton Historic Depot. Workers processed peas from surrounding fields at first, then added asparagus in 1939. The company soon created a seed research department with a greenhouse to work on improving pea seeds, and set up a labor camp in 1942 to house Mexican-American workers from Texas.

The Minnesota Valley Canning Co. merged with Blue Mountain Canneries, Inc., the plants original owner, in 1947. By 1950, the company was called Green Giant.

In the early years, they packed asparagus grown in the Dayton area.

The crop, which is perennial, can grow for 15 years after a single planting, though shorter periods are more typical. Once its done, farmers plow it up and plant something else.

Duane Dunlap, who started working as an agriculture personnel supervisor in 1966, said Green Giant would lease the fields from farmers for 20 years. When one cycle of asparagus was over, theyd move on to new land. By the 1970s, asparagus was migrating west, toward the Columbia Basin.

Once the crop quit producing enough to be economical, you had to plow it up, he said. Pretty soon we had no asparagus here.

Dunlaps job was to recruit migrant workers. In the early years, they were mostly single men, but by about 1972, he said, the plant started recruiting families.

Children sometimes worked in the fields with their parents before the company stopped that practice, requiring kids to go to school. Women often worked in the Dayton plant receiving asparagus from all over the region.

More than 40 years later, Dunlap can still recite the towns where the company kept workers housed: Starbuck, Tucannon, Grandview, Khalotus. Many cutters lived in Dayton and were bused out before sunrise to reach the fields, working until midday. The barracks in Dayton, recently donated to the county, sit on Green Giant Camp Road.

It just mushroomed. We had asparagus fields all over the Columbia Basin, he said.

Maurecio Ramos started working in the asparagus fields around Dayton in 1975. He moved his family to Dayton after a few years in the fields, and eventually began doing irrigation work for the company. He left Green Giant in the early 1990s to take a job at City Lumber, a hardware store where he works today in downtown Dayton. (Colin Mulvany / The Spokesman-Review)

Mauricio Ramos started working in the asparagus fields around Dayton in 1975. His uncle began working around Dayton in 1942, when Texas migrant workers were bused up in the back of covered 10-wheeler trucks. By the time Ramos came from Eagle Pass, Texas, the workers traveled in buses with bathrooms.

Workers in the barracks woke at 4:30 a.m. and had to be ready to go to the fields by 5 a.m., Ramos said. Crews were driven to fields, about 20 miles outside of Dayton.

A 1983 filing with the U.S. Department of Labor calls for 150 plant workers, paid $4.26 per hour, or about $10.50 in todays dollars. Cutters made at least the federal minimum wage of $3.35 an hour, but earned $11.75 per hundredweight of asparagus harvested.

If you moved fast, it was good pay, Ramos said.

As Washingtons asparagus fields moved toward the Tri-Cities, cocaine gripped American cities. Powdered cocaine was the king of drugs on Wall Street in the 1980s. Crack cocaine laid waste to the inner cities.

In a 1986 Gallup poll, 42 percent of Americans said crack and other forms of cocaine were the countrys most serious drug problem, besting alcohol by eight percentage points.

This was the golden age of the War on Drugs, and officials in the other Washington came up with what they thought was a good solution: go after the source. So the United States signed the Andean Trade Preference Act, which went into effect in 1991. It gave trade preference via duty-free imports and grants to Andean countries that trafficked cocaine into the U.S.

The goal was to incentivize farmers to grow crops other than coca. The U.S. Agency for International Development built irrigation infrastructure and other projects in Peru. Farmers started planting asparagus.

Asparagus crowns take a few years to mature, and farmers needed time to get the crop right. The Washington market didnt start feeling the effects until about 2002, Schreiber said.

Asparagus is not a hard crop to grow if you know how to grow it, he said. Once Peru developed that knowledge, Washingtons canneries didnt have long.

The Seneca seed processing plant it Dayton, Wash., employees about 50 locals now. When it was a asparagus processing plant, a local workforce of about 50 people swelled to more than 1,000 in the summer, as migrant workers, mostly from Texas, worked hunched over in summer heat to harvest the green spears and can them. (Colin Mulvany / The Spokesman-Review)

Seneca Foods was the last in a string of Dayton plant owners who canned asparagus for Green Giant, which was then owned by General Mills. General Mills made the decision to move operations to Peru in 2005, citing Washingtons high minimum wage and the lower cost of doing business in South America.

They gutted the plant of all those machines and sent them to Peru, Dunlap said.

Daytons plant was the last of three Washington asparagus canneries to close. In 2003, a Del Monte plant in Toppenish and another Seneca plant in Walla Walla stopped processing asparagus.

Ramos moved his family to Dayton after a few years in the fields, and eventually began doing irrigation work for the company. He left Green Giant in the early 1990s to take a job at City Lumber, a hardware store in downtown Dayton. His wife spent about a decade in the plant, earning better wages than she could have gotten in Texas.

By the time he left Green Giant, Ramos said, rumors about the cannerys closure were always floating around. The asparagus fields had already moved out of Dayton further west.

That year when they closed it, they didnt say anything. They just did it, he said.

Jennie Dickinson, now the Port of Columbia manager, was the director of the Dayton Chamber of Commerce at the time of the closure. She said Seneca had been talking about Washingtons minimum wage for a long time before the closure, saying they couldnt raise prices to make up the increased costs.

You can only get so much for a can of asparagus, she said.

Duane Dunlap, 79, stands at the now closed Green Giant housing facility in Dayton, Wash., were he managed migrant farm workers until he retired in 2002. They gutted the plant of all those machines and sent them to Peru, said Duane Dunlap, the plants former personnel manager. (Colin Mulvany / The Spokesman-Review)

Cocaine still comes to the U.S. from Peru, though the amount of coca growing in the Andean highlands has fallen since the 1990s. Whether Peruvian asparagus production has helped depends on whom you ask.

The Peruvian government and White House drug policy office have both defended the trade preference, saying many asparagus farmers came from coca-producing regions.

Schreiber doesnt buy it. Coca is usually grown in the Andean highlands, while asparagus does best at sea level. A 2015 map by the Peruvian government showing hot spots for coca cultivation has almost no overlap with asparagus growing areas.

Theyre the No. 1 exporter of coca and the No. 1 exporter of asparagus, Schreiber said.

That may not be strictly true Colombian coca production surged in 2015, putting it ahead of Peru but Peru has historically been and continues to be a major coca supplier.

USAID sent a little over $384 million in foreign aid to Peru in 2015, the last year for which complete data was available. About a third of that was spent on the Andean Counter Drug Program, and more on other law enforcement related to narcotics. Perus agriculture sector got $24 million.

The amount of coca grown in Peru has fallen nearly 70 percent since 1992, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In 1992, farmers planted 129,100 hectares. By 2015, that was down to 40,300 hectares. A hectare is the equivalent of approximately 2 1/2 acres.

But its debatable whether that fall is because of asparagus. The largest reductions in acreage, according to the UN data, occurred in the mid- and late 1990s, before asparagus production took off. The Peruvian government also eradicated tens of thousands of hectares in the 2010s.

A larger-than-life Jolly Green Giant still sits on the hillside above Dayton, Wash., though the plant that canned the companys asparagus left town for Peru in 2005. (Colin Mulvany / The Spokesman-Review)

Whether it helped stop cocaine trafficking or not, Dayton residents know the plant isnt coming back.

The white brick outline of a larger-than-life Jolly Green Giant still sits on a hillside above town, well-maintained now after some years in disrepair.

My husband says, Take it down, theyre not here anymore. I say, Were still the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant, Dickinson said.

The cannery was the largest private employer in Dayton at the time of its closure. But, Dickinson said, most of the jobs lost were people near retirement age. Seneca kept 10 workers on to work processing seeds, a business still going strong in the old Green Giant location.

Daytons culture during harvest and packing season changed right away. Dayton children used to look forward to seeing their friends, the children of migrant workers, in class each spring.

It was kind of a domino effect, said Brad McMasters, who was a third-grade student teacher when the plant closed, and now does economic development work for the Port. The laundromat closed, and a few bars shut down.

The workers often gathered in public spaces, sitting on downtown benches and socializing. Hearing Spanish on the street was common. Butler, the Dayton Historic Depot board member, said that sense of community was missing after the closure.

I just felt like the fabric of Dayton was thinner, Butler said. Some families, like Ramos, stayed in the area, but many left for the Tri-Cites or other asparagus areas.

The economic impact of the closure would have hit harder, but wind power was booming just as Seneca moved asparagus to Peru. PacifiCorp began building the Marengo Wind Farm the same year, bringing in new construction jobs and some permanent jobs maintaining the turbines. A second farm, Hopkins Ridge, went in the following year, and a third came soon after.

Without those, I cant even imagine what would have happened to us, Dickinson said.

Columnist Paul Turner takes a look the asparagus question thats often pondered but rarely brought up: Why does it make your pee smell anyway, and why can some of us smell it and others cant? | READ MORE

Seneca has been expanding its seed processing operations. Plant manager Chris Shires said it employs about 50 people, half of whom are full time and half of whom work about 10 months a year. In the past six months, theyve tripled their volume and now process 30 million pounds of pea, garbanzo and wheat seeds per year for three companies.

Because of that expansion, theyre now using the full space once occupied by the asparagus cannery.

Washingtons asparagus canning industry wont come back, something Schreiber said hes still bitter about. Hes worked to reinvent Washington asparagus as a fresh crop, but said hundreds of people lost money when the plants shut down: farmers who plowed under fields, businesses who sold groceries and gas to migrant workers, families that relied on the income from plant workers.

Its been a rough, gut-wrenching era, he said.

Dunlap retired from Seneca in 2002 and has since been active in the Blue Mountain Heritage Society, which recently restored a one-room schoolhouse from the countys early days and moved it into downtown Dayton. He sits on the board and did much of the painting to bring the old classroom back to life.

For Dickinson, the loss of lifelong company workers like Dunlap will be the true loss to Dayton. Wind farms provide good jobs, but the young people who take them often move up in the energy company and leave for a bigger city. Asparagus gave Dayton a supply of company men who retired, stayed in town and can give back now with community service.

But between tax revenue from wind farms, a budding local food movement and the towns proximity to a small ski area, hiking and agrotourism, Dayton isnt in danger of becoming a ghost town.

Were just not going to dry up and blow away like a lot of farm towns, Dickinson said.

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Dayton lost its asparagus business to the 'War on Drugs' but ... - The Spokesman-Review

Lima Stadium Park dedicated By Sam Shriver Multimedia Video Journalist 2017-05-21T21:40:46Z

A new Lima park is open to the public. Lima Stadium Park has been an effort of cooperation...one between the City of Lima, Lima City Schools, several private property owners and the AR-Hale Foundation.

The Ohio Investigative Unit is looking into possible allegations of misconduct and misuse of law enforcement equipment at the Putnam County Sheriff's Office.

Tonight, the long anticipated Rally in the Square kicked off in the heart of downtown Lima, but with somechanges.

Hello! My name is Cynthia Hill.

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This years St. Rose Festival was a bit different than previous years. Because of construction of a new building on the St. Rose grounds, the festival was pared down to fit in the available space. There was still plenty to eat and there was live music but no amusement rides. A miniature golf course was set up outside and many kids games were held inside. All of the proceeds go back into the parishs general fund.

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Funding sought to protect officers in war on drugs - Your News Now

The county prosecutor joined 30 of his peers in signing a letter opposing the Attorney Generals recent order.

In a short memo delivered earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed his predecessors steps away from mass incarceration by ordering federal prosecutors to charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense. While this order applies to all federal prosecutions, the order will particularly affect drug crime cases, which in combination with mandatory minimum sentences have heavily contributed to Americas high level of incarceration. Where AGs in the Obama administration had begun a tepid retreat from the War on Drugs, using prosecutorial discretion to sometimes reduce charges against some drug offenders, Sessions memo doubled-down on it.

In response, thirty current and former state and local prosecutors have signed an open letter opposing Sessions memo, according to The Washington Post. (Sessions only has authority over federal prosecutors, not any of the letters signatories.) Among them was King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg. In an interview last week, he told us that with regard to the War on DrugsI think everyone can admit that that was the wrong response and said hes ready to use his office to defend Seattle and King Countys planned pilot safe drug sites, which will epitomize the kind of drug user intolerance Sessions opposes.

The open letter Satterberg co-signed reads in part, There is no empirical evidence to suggest that increases in sentences, particularly for low-level offenses, decrease the crime rateAlthough there are no certain benefits to the newly announced policy, there are definitive and significant costs, including dollars to pay for prisons and human lives with which to fill them. In essence, the Attorney General has reinvigorated the failed war on drugs, reads the letter.

We will continue in our own jurisdictions to undertake innovative approaches that promote public safety and fairness, and that ensure that law enforcements finite resources are directed to the arrest and prosecution of the most serious offenders. It is through these priorities that prosecutors can best advance public safety and fortify trust in the legitimacy of our crimial justice system.

cjaywork@seattleweekly.com

This post has been updated.

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Dan Satterberg Takes a Stand Against Jeff Sessions' War on Drugs - Seattle Weekly