Drug Prohibition: Still Stupid

[veni vidi vici]

Vermont Republic - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I like the flag

 

[MR.CLEAN]

And we're still decades ahead of the rest of the country in thought and policies (centuries, in the case of the southeast)

 

[veni vidi vici]

And we're still decades ahead of the rest of the country in thought and policies (centuries, in the case of the southeast)

You might find this interesting

Psychedelics & Trauma Summit | Tickets On Sale Now

Join DoubleBlind for a 3-part virtual event on Psychedelics and Trauma on September 25, 2022. Reserve your seat today!

doubleblindmag.com

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

What is that?

When you find a bale floating in the ocean. You haven't heard that term?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Arkansans Will Vote on Marijuana Legalization. But Their Votes May Not Count.

The issue is whether this is clear or not:

The measure's full title is, "An Amendment to Authorize the Possession, Personal Use, and Consumption of Cannabis by Adults, to Authorize the Cultivation and Sale of Cannabis by Licensed Commercial Facilities, and to Provide for the Regulation of Those Facilities."

Seems pretty clear to me. Drug warriors are worried.

On August 3, the SBEC denied the measure's title and, therefore, its ballot eligibility. The board called the title "misleading due to the omi[ssion] of material information that would give the voter serious ground for reflection." It gave examples such as "omitting" that the measure would repeal the state constitution's "limitation on the maximum dosage" of THC, as well as "removing the concentration limit from edible products." In essence, the board contends that pledging to legalize a substance does not sufficiently imply removing limits on that substance.

I'd ask why their constitution has anything at all about max dosage but our state constitution here has stuff about pregnant pigs so I get it. Just more stuff that doesn't belong there.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Turns out the entire court doesn't believe in unintentional criminality.

The decision in Ruan seems to be gumming up the drug war works.

Doctors Rush to Use Supreme Court Ruling to Escape Opioid Charges

Dr. Nelson Onaro conceded last summer that he’d written illegal prescriptions, although he said he was thinking only of his patients. From a tiny, brick clinic in Oklahoma, he doled out hundreds of opioid pills and dozens of fentanyl patches with no legitimate medical purpose.

“Those medications were prescribed to help my patients, from my own point of view,” Onaro said in court, as he reluctantly pleaded guilty to six counts of drug dealing. Because he confessed, the doctor was likely to get a reduced sentence of three years or less in prison.

But Onaro changed his mind in July. In the days before his sentencing, he asked a federal judge to throw out his plea deal, sending his case toward a trial. For a chance at exoneration, he’d face four times the charges and the possibility of a harsher sentence.

Why take the risk? A Supreme Court ruling has raised the bar to convict in a case like Onaro’s. In a June decision, the court said prosecutors must not only prove a prescription was not medically justified ― possibly because it was too large or dangerous, or simply unnecessary ― but also that the prescriber knew as much.

Suddenly, Onaro’s state of mind carries more weight in court. Prosecutors have not opposed the doctor withdrawing his plea to most of his charges, conceding in a court filing that he faces “a different legal calculus” after the Supreme Court decision.

The court’s unanimous ruling complicates the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to hold irresponsible prescribers criminally liable for fueling the opioid crisis. Previously, lower courts had not considered a prescriber’s intention. Until now, doctors on trial largely could not defend themselves by arguing they were acting in good faith when they wrote bad prescriptions. Now they can, attorneys say, although it is not necessarily a get-out-of-jail-free card.

...

Meanwhile, in the black market, if you like your fentanyl source, you can keep your fentanyl source, thanks to the war on pill mills.

The case was "unanimous" but not in the 9 to 0 sense, more in the 6+3 to 0 sense, which is not quite the same thing.

Judgment VACATED and case REMANDED. Breyer, J. delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Thomas, J., joined, and in which Barrett, J., joined as to Parts I–A, I–B, and II.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Legal Weed, Broken Promises: A Times series on the fallout of legal pot in California

The LA Times tells many of the stories of legalization and why the black market still dominates. They seem to think a big reason is not enough enforcement of taxes and regulations. I think a big reason is that the legal market is hobbled by too many taxes and regulations and built-in cronyism.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Biden Begins Undoing His Drug Warrior Legacy



Glad to finally see this starting to happen! Better late than never.

I’ve no opinion on some out-of-context case in an out of the way place.

You on the other hand wax about legalizing drugs quite frequently. It’s out of character for you to ignore the biggest move to decriminalize (of only a start) since the criminalization in the first place.

No @Pertinacious Tom comment on the pardons?

We had a curricane down here. I'll eventually get to the part about posting pics of the giant oak we disassembled yesterday.

Meanwhile, if you want to imply that I won't praise Biden when it's warranted, it would be a lot more efficient if you frame it as a reply to a post of mine showing that you're lying again.

I mean, I will continue to do it, but it's just a lot more efficient if you show yourself a liar from the start, rather than waiting for me to do it again.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

My opinion on Biden getting around to his campaign promise on pardons hasn't changed.

He also urged state governors to do the same, a welcome move. He also said he wants to pursue rescheduling, another welcome step, sort of. I'm more a descheduling guy but a half step is a kind of step.

Biden's Weed Plan

...
All things considered, Biden's announcement is still an unequivocal good and should be commended.


It does leave a lot to be desired, however.
...
A truly revolutionary drug policy would look more like this:




A number of people in Congress have not only applauded Biden's move but called for things to go further.
...

So my take is Biden's right and Justin Amash is more so on this issue. Particularly with respect to drug war looting. Still no sign of Biden undoing his legacy on that issue.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Tom Cotton Says Biden's Marijuana Pardon Recipients Pleaded Down From More Serious Charges

...
A 2016 report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that most people charged by the feds with simple possession are either caught coming over the U.S.-Mexico border with small amounts, or caught on federal property, such as a military base, national park, or Veterans Affairs facility. They often bumble their way onto a federal prosecutor's caseload, rather than being the target of federal law enforcement. The median sentence for a border offender was six months in prison, while most non-border offenders received probation and a fine.

As law blogger Ken White noted, it's practically unheard of for someone to plead down to simple possession from more serious drug crimes.
...
In completely unrelated news, a September poll of prospective Arkansas voters found 58.5 percent were in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana, 29 percent were against, and 12.5 percent were undecided.

So Biden is drawing fearmongering lies from stupid drug warriors. Hat tip for that!

 

[Mike in Seattle]

(1) The "Pardon" is virtue signalling, desperate grab for a few votes, unless weed is declassified at fed level.
, seems unlikely to me, considering the long time drug warrior administration.


, from the other thread,,

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

(1) The "Pardon" is virtue signalling, desperate grab for a few votes, unless weed is declassified at fed level.
, seems unlikely to me, considering the long time drug warrior administration.


, from the other thread,,

I'm just glad that enough people have come around to the libertarian point of view on the stupid drug war that pardoning people for possession is seen as a virtue.

Biden did at last call for rescheduling, which seems a bit more likely now that he's done so. This is an upgrade from his previous position, which boiled down to, "I want to see more research before deciding whether to allow more research."

 

[Mike in Seattle]

, from the quoted article,

" ,,, or caught on federal property, such as a military base, national park, or Veterans Affairs facility. ,,,"

I wonder how that would apply in WA state. Mt. Rainier NP for example.
Busted by a park ranger in a legal state

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

, from the quoted article,

" ,,, or caught on federal property, such as a military base, national park, or Veterans Affairs facility. ,,,"

I wonder how that would apply in WA state. Mt. Rainier NP for example.
Busted by a park ranger in a legal state

Same as any other federal law, I'd imagine. State law doesn't nullify it.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

That old "Just say NO" thing from the Reagan years has come back around.

"We have to hold every drug user accountable," Sen. Joe Biden declared in 1989, "because if there were no drug users, there would be no appetite for drugs, and there would be no market for them." The mass pardon for low-level marijuana offenders that the president announced last week suggests how far he has traveled since his years as a gung-ho drug warrior, even as it demonstrates that he remains out of step with the times.
...
Fifty years ago, when less than 20 percent of Americans thought pot should be legal, the Nixon-appointed Shafer Commission recommended that "possession of marihuana for personal use no longer be an offense." President Jimmy Carter endorsed decriminalization in 1977, when he told Congress that "penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."


Half a century later, Biden has finally come around to that position. "Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives—for conduct that is legal in many states," he said on Twitter last week.

...

The same thing is true of sending people to jail for growing or selling marijuana, of course, although that is a point Biden refuses to acknowledge. The moral logic of his distinction between simple possession and other marijuana offenses is hard to follow.


Back in 1989, when Biden was keen to show that Democrats could be even tougher on drugs than Republicans, he correctly identified the source of the problem he was fighting: Americans who defied the law by choosing to consume intoxicants that Congress had arbitrarily proscribed. Without those individual decisions, he noted, there would be no black market to suppress.


Now Biden says marijuana use should not be treated as a crime. But if so, how can helping people use marijuana justify arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning anyone?


There is no satisfying answer to that question. And even as he recognizes the grievous harm caused by "our failed approach to marijuana," Biden has not attempted to supply one.

The pardons amount to saying, "OK, you can have weed, you just can't grow it, nor can you buy it from anyone." Those things are still naughty, much like having weed if you're a Dreamer.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

I'm just glad that enough people have come around to the libertarian point

It's libertarian to advocate reverse of a fraudulent policy created and advocated by a would-be oligarch nearly a century ago?

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

It's libertarian to advocate reverse of a fraudulent policy created and advocated by a would-be oligarch nearly a century ago?

Not sure what you're talking about and your post lacks the citations that seemed so important to you in the Stun Gun thread, but since you truncated my post, I'll spell it out again. The libertarian point of view on the stupid drug war is that it's stupid and should be ended. And I'm glad more Duopoly types than ever have come around to agreeing with us. Not the President, of course, but quite a few.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

The libertarian point of view on the stupid drug war is that it's stupid and should be ended.

Anti-cannabis prohibition was a progressive/hippie POV long before it was a libertarian one. Glad the libertarians jumped on the train.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

Not sure what you're talking about and your post lacks the citations that seemed so important to you in the Stun Gun thread,

If you are not sure what I am talking about, you are neither the reader nor the anti-prohibition believer you claim to be. Those of us who have been in the trenches for decades know the history, and it sure ain't a secret. Hint: Like every illogical and overreaching anti-business law, rich assholes who claimed 'free market' in every other scenario were behind it.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Joe Biden is too timid. It's time to legalise cocaine.

“It makes no sense,” said Joe Biden on October 6th, as he pardoned the 6,000 or so Americans convicted of possessing a small amount of marijuana. Although cannabis is fully legal in 19 American states, at the federal level it is still deemed to be as dangerous as heroin and more so than fentanyl, two drugs that contributed to more than 100,000 Americans dying of opioid overdoses last year. But the president’s admission applies to drug policy more broadly. Prohibition is not working—and that can be seen most strikingly with cocaine, not cannabis.

Since Richard Nixon launched the “war on drugs” half a century ago, the flow of cocaine into the United States has surged. Global production hit a record of 1,982 tonnes in 2020, according to the latest data, though that is likely to be an underestimate. That record high is despite decades of strenuous and costly efforts to cut off the supply. Between 2000 and 2020 the United States ploughed $10bn into Colombia to suppress production, paying the local armed forces to spray coca plantations with herbicide from the air or to yank up bushes by hand. To no avail: when coca is eradicated on one hillside, it shifts to another.

...

10 billion over 20 years to suppress production and the result was record-breaking production. That's some pretty stunning failure.

Glad to see The Economist notice.

If you are not sure what I am talking about, you are neither the reader nor the anti-prohibition believer you claim to be. Those of us who have been in the trenches for decades know the history, and it sure ain't a secret. Hint: Like every illogical and overreaching anti-business law, rich assholes who claimed 'free market' in every other scenario were behind it.

Congress created the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, so your assertion that one person did it doesn't make sense. Just name the person you're talking about or provide a source or something.