A tale of synthetic cannabinoids, the Analogues Act, and the twisted journey of two Florida hustlers.
A sticky-fingered Pennsylvania drug task force commander heads to prison, a small-town Alabama cop gets caught planting dope, and more.
A New York bill increasing civil penalties for illicit pot shops is signed into law, Oregon regulators approve the nation's first licensee for therapeutic psilocybin services, and more.
Marijuana legalization hits a bump in New Hampshire, Jordan kills a Syrian drug trafficker in a cross-border air strike, and more.
Washington State bans discrimination against potential new hires over off-the-job marijuana use, Senate drug warriors file a bill aimed at counterfeit pills, and more.
Kansas becomes the latest state to legalize fentanyl test strips, the Arizona Senate folds psilocybin research funds into a budget bill, and more.
Bizarro: The Surreal Saga of America's Secret War on Synthetic Drugs and the Florida Kingpins It Captured by Jordan S. Rubin (2023, University of California Press,, 267 pp,, $27.95 HB)
Burton Ritchie was the owner of the Psychedelic Shack, a head shop in Pensacola, Florida. In addition to t-shirts and incense and posters and bongs, he also sold synthetic cannabinoids -- lab-created chemicals with psychoactive effects, some quite different from those of marijuana -- that went by names such as K2 and spice.
With his partner, Ben Galecki, the enterprising entrepreneur decided to get deeper into the profitable action, creating a company to manufacture the stuff in bulk with synthetic cannabinoids manufactured by Chinese chemical companies. Aware that he was skirting the edge of legality after the original compound JWH-018 was federally scheduled, Ritchie quarantined new shipments of different, unregulated synthetic cannabinoids until they had been tested in labs and verified not to be federally banned substances.
A fan of the Superman comic franchise, Ritchie dubbed his product Bizarro and packaged it with a reverse Superman logo in various flavors. (Ritchie would replace the word "flavors," though, with the word "scents" in order to maintain the fiction that the products were "not intended for human consumption," as noted on the label.)
Ritchie and Galecki made a quick fortune with Bizarro and got out of the business as federal heat on the industry heightened. After their Bizarro factory was raided -- not because of Bizarro but because neighbors thought it was an illegal pot grow -- Ritchie contacted the DEA, provided product samples and invoices to a DEA agent and volunteered to shut the business down immediately on the agent's say so, because, as he said repeatedly, he didn't want to "fight city hall." The agent told them not to worry about it.
But they were still spooked and sold their company. Now, they're sitting in federal prison, doing lengthy sentences for the sale of analogues of banned synthetic cannabinoids. Bizarro tells the story of how they ended up there.
It centers on a bizarre piece of drug war legislation, the Reagan-era Analogues Act, which criminalized the production and distribution of chemical compounds "substantially similar" to already controlled substances. The problem is that "substantially similar" has no defined meaning. It is not a term of science. And that means no one knows if a substance is "substantially similar" enough to a controlled substance to merit prosecution under the statute unless a federal prosecutor tries to make the case -- and a jury buys it.
Even more bizarrely, the DEA conducts analyses of potential analogues and decides whether they are analogues or not -- but does not make that information publicly available, which results in people being prosecuted for substances they didn't even know were illegal.
Journalist and former Manhattan narcotics prosecutor Jordan S. Rubin takes the reader through the legislative history of the Analogues Act, the battles among DEA chemists over whether or not substances were "substantially similar" enough to controlled substances to be banned (and their purveyors prosecuted), and the twists and turns of a number of legal cases, particularly Ritchie and Galecki's, as jurists, prosecutors, and defense attorneys sparred over the meaning and application of the law.
It's a fascinating bit of drug war history, and prosecutions under the Analogues Act are largely history now. That is because federal prosecutors are leery of rolling the dice with juries. They have lost enough cases to know that analogue prosecutions under the act are no sure thing.
But now, Rubin reports, they have something better: class-wide scheduling. In 2018, the DEA used its emergency powers to schedule all fentanyl-related substances on a class-wide basis, meaning that the substance was illegal if it met the broad structural criteria laid out by the DEA. The substance need not behave like fentanyl at all -- it is still illegal. And unlike fentanyl, which is Schedule II, the analogues are classified as Schedule I, even though no one knows if they are better, worse, or the same as fentanyl, or whether they could be helpful.
This raises some of the same issues around civil rights and science that the Analogues Act prosecutions did. And it is an ongoing issue. The DEA's temporary scheduling has been extended repeatedly, and the Biden administration is calling on Congress to make it permanent -- much to the dismay of drug reformers and researchers. Bizarro shines a spotlight on the surrealistic story of the original Analogues Act and provides the reader with some inkling of what the supercharged version being contemplated now could deliver. It is a brisk and thoughtful addition to the literature of drug policy.
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A sticky-fingered Pennsylvania drug task force commander heads to prison, a small-town Alabama cop gets caught planting dope, and more. Let's get to it:
In Centre, Alabama, a Centre police officer was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly planting evidence in drug cases. Now former-Officer Michael Kilgore is charged with criminal conspiracy to commit a controlled substance crime-distribution. No other information was available.
In Westville, Indiana, a guard at the Westville state prison was arrested last Thursday after she was caught bringing marijuana to a male inmate inside a Cheetos bag. Adeja Cunningham, 24, went down after prison authorities found that Cunningham and the prisoner had been communicating on Instagram and "they talked about picking up something and that it would be in the chips," according to court documents. She is charged with fifth degree felony trafficking with an inmate.
In Columbia, South Carolina, a Lee Correctional Institution guard was arrested Monday after she was found trying to bring a metal grill mouthpiece into the prison hidden in her hair. Guard Alkeena Eu-Neiger Hackett got in more trouble when investigators then searched her vehicle and found "a rock-like substance containing fentanyl" with a weight of 129 grams. She is charged with trafficking fentanyl, providing prisoners with contraband and criminal conspiracy.
In Lancaster, Pennsylania, the former head of the Lancaster County Drug Task Force was sentenced last Friday to between eight and 22 months in state prison for stealing funds seized by the task force between 2014 and 2020. John Burkhart will also have to pay back $140,000 in restitution. Burkhart stole seized cash from the task force's safe instead of depositing it in the Lancaster County general fund and went down after investigators noticed discrepancies in the recording of cash seizures. He pleaded guilty in March to charges of theft by deception and theft by failure to make required disposition of funds.
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A New York bill increasing civil penalties for illicit pot shops is signed into law, Oregon regulators approve the nation's first licensee for therapeutic psilocybin services, and more.
Marijuana Policy
New York Governor Signs Bill to Increase Civil Penalties for Illicit Pot Shops. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) last Wednesday signed into law Assembly Bill 3281, which increases civil and tax penalties for unlicensed marijuana retailers, including fines of up to $20,000 a day. The move is aimed at reigning in an illicit marijuana market in the state that exploded in the months-long gap between marijuana being legalized and licensed retail sales that only recently began. At this point, there are only a handful of licensed marijuana outlets in the state compared to more than a thousand unlicensed outlets in New York City alone.
"As New York State continues to roll out a nation-leading model to establish its cannabis industry, these critical enforcement measures will protect New Yorkers from illicit, unregulated" Hochul said. "Unlicensed dispensaries violate our laws put public health at risk and undermine the legal cannabis market. With these enforcement tools, we're paving the way for safer products, reinvestment in communities that endured years of disproportionate enforcement, and greater opportunities for New Yorkers."
Medical Marijuana
Florida Lawmakers Approve Bill to Allow Telehealth Renewals for Medical Marijuana, Help Black Farmers Get Grow Licenses. With a final vote in the Senate last Wednesday, the legislature approved House Bill 387. The measure allows doctors to renew approvals for medical marijuana patients via telehealth. New patients will still require an in-patient exam. The measure could also help Black farmers get medical marijuana grow licenses after years of delays. Only one license has been issued to a Black farmer, and this bill could lead to the Department of Health issuing additional licenses to Black farmers.
Psychedelics
Oregon Regulators Approve Nation's First Psilocybin Service Center. The Oregon Health Authority has awarded a license to EPIC Healing in Eugene to provide therapeutic psilocybin services, where people can use the psychedelic in a supervised and facilitated environment. This is a national first and comes after state voters approved therapeutic psilocybin services in 2020. Now, the state has issued at least one license in all four licensing categories -- facilitators, testing labs, psilocybin manufacturing, and therapeutic services.
"This is such a historic moment as psilocybin services will soon become available in Oregon, and we appreciate the strong commitment to client safety and access as service center doors prepare to open," Oregon Psilocybin Services (OPS) Section Manager Angie Allbee said in a press release.
Harm Reduction
Federal Government Provides Grant to Study Safe Injection Sites. New York University and Brown University announced Monday that they had received a four-year, $5 million grant to study whether safe injection sites can prevent drug overdoses, estimate their costs, and weigh potential savings for health care and criminal justice systems. This marks the first time the federal government has paid for such a study. The study will focus on two safe injection sites already operating in New York City and one set to open next year in Rhode Island and hopes to enroll a thousand adult drug users. The grant comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Studies from the 14 countries that currently allow safe injection sites have found they radically reduce drug overdose deaths.
"There is a lot of discussion about overdose prevention centers, but ultimately, we need data to see if they are working or not, and what impact they may have on the community," said NIDA director Dr. Nora Volkow.
Florida Lawmakers Pass Bill to Decriminalize Fentanyl Test Strips. The House last Wednesday gave final, unanimous approval to a bill that decriminalizes fentanyl test strips by removing them from the state's list of drug paraphernalia, Senate Bill 164. More than 6,000 Floridians died in drug overdoses implicating fentanyl in 2020. A similar bill failed last year after some critics claimed that legalizing the test strips would incentive drug use.
International
Honduran Police Seize a Million Coca Plants, Rustic Labs. The Honduran National Police announced that a raid last Friday in a protected forest reserve in the eastern part of the country resulted in the seizure of more than one million coca plants, two million seedlings, and "four rustic structures" used to extract alkaloids from the coca leaf and store chemicals used in the process. While coca has traditionally been grown almost exclusively in its native Andean region of South America, Honduran authorities have been encountering small coca plantations on their soil since 2017, but never one approaching this size.
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Marijuana legalization hits a bump in New Hampshire, Jordan kills a Syrian drug trafficker in a cross-border air strike, and more.
Marijuana Policy
New Hampshire Senate Committee Rejects House-Backed Marijuana Legalization Bills, but Floor Votes Still Coming. The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted against two marijuana legalization bills, deeming them "inexpedient to legislate." The committee rejected a full-blown commercial legalization bill sponsored by bipartisan House leaders, House Bill 639, as well as a second bill that would only have led to non-commercial legalization. Despite the committee votes, the bills are still technically alive and could see Senate floor votes as early this week, but given the rejection by the committee, the prospects for passage in the Senate are dim.
Ohio Activists Begin Second Round of Signature Gathering to Put Marijuana Legalization Initiative on November Ballot. The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol has commenced a new round of signature gathering to put its marijuana legalization initiative on the November ballot. The coalition earlier gathered enough valid voter signatures to put the issue before the legislature, which under state law had four months to approve it but failed to do so, clearing the way for organizers to take the issue directly to voters if it comes up with enough signatures in this round. The coalition now has 90 days to come up with 124,046 valid voter signatures to get on the November ballot and it says it is confident it will do so.
Drug Policy
California Task Force Recommends $228 Billion in Drug War Reparations for Black Residents. A task force empaneled by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has recommended that the state legislature pass reparations legislation to compensate about two million Black state residents to the tune of $228 billion for racially disproportionate harms caused by a half-century of drug war. The California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans voted Saturday to submit its recommendations to the governor.
The task force "recommends that compensation for community harms be provided as uniform payments based on an eligible recipient's duration of residence in California during the defined period of harm (e.g., residence in an over-policed community during the 'War on Drugs' from 1971 to 2020)," the report says. The task force also recommended that "the Legislature enact an individual claims process to compensate individuals who can prove particular injuries, for example, an individual who was arrested or incarcerated for a drug charge during the war on drugs, especially if the drug is now considered legal," i.e. marijuana. The reparations figure comes out to $2,352 per Black Californian for each year of residency in the state during the 50-year period.
"African American residents in California who were incarcerated for the possession or distribution of substances now legal, such as cannabis, should additionally be able to seek particular compensation for their period of incarceration, as discussed above," the task force said. The racially biased war on drugs in the state resulted in "massively disproportionate incarceration of African Americans" and also contributed to "unemployment and houselessness in many economically depressed African American communities once incarcerated African Americans were eventually released."
International
Jordan Carries Out Air Strikes on Syrian Drug Factory, Drug Trafficker. A pair of air strikes carried out by the Jordanian Air Force Monday hit an abandoned drug factory in the southern Syrian province of Deraa and the home of a Syrian "drug kingpin" in neighboring Sweida province. The strikes destroyed the drug factory and killed Syrian trafficker Marie al-Ramthan and his family at their home.
Intelligence sources said the drug factory was a meeting place for Hezbollah drug traffickers and that Ramthan had recruited hundreds of Bedouins to transport drugs and enlisted them in the ranks of militias sympathetic to Iran. Ramthan faced several death sentences in Jordan for drug trafficking. Jordan has declined to confirm the strikes, but "two regional intelligence and a Western diplomatic source who tracks the situation in southern Syria" confirmed they had occurred. War-ravaged Syria is a center for the production and distribution of the amphetamine captagon, but the Syrian government denies any involvement in the drug trade, as do Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
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Washington State bans discrimination against potential new hires over off-the-job marijuana use, Senate drug warriors file a bill aimed at counterfeit pills, and more.
Marijuana Policy
Washington Becomes Latest State to Ban Pre-Employment Tests for Marijuana. Gov. Jay Inslee (D) has signed into law Senate Bill 5123, which bars employers from using a positive test for marijuana to disqualify potential new hires. As of January 1, 2024, it will be "unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person in the initial hiring for employment if the discrimination is based upon: (a) The person's use of cannabis off the job and away from the workplace; or (b) An employer-required drug screening test that has found the person to have non-psychoactive cannabis metabolites in their hair, blood, urine, or other bodily fluids." Employers can, however, still punish employees for positive marijuana test results even if the use was off-the-job and there are exemptions for certain safety-sensitive employers.
Drug Policy
DEA Extends Pandemic Telehealth Prescribing Rules, Including for Buprenorphine. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has extended under November 11 rules created during the pandemic that allow for the prescribing of controlled substances via telehealth. The agency says it will make a final decision on whether to make the changes permanent before the current extension expires. The rule has drawn the interest of drug reformers because it allows for telehealth access to buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder.
Senators File Bill to Attack Counterfeit Pill Production. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control co-chair Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Sen. Maggie Hasan (D-NH) have filed a bill that seeks to halt a surge in counterfeit pills containing methamphetamine, fentanyl, or fentanyl analogues, the Stop Pills that Kill Act.
The bill does not mandate new or increased criminal penalties but requires the DEA to come up with a plan to address the problem within 180 days and requires the agency, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP -- the drug czar's office), and the attorney general to file an annual report "on information regarding the collection and prosecutions of counterfeit fentanyl and methamphetamine substances." The bill would, however, "ensure that existing penalties for possessing paraphernalia used to manufacture methamphetamine would also apply to possessing paraphernalia used to make counterfeit pills that contain methamphetamine, fentanyl and fentanyl analogues."
The bill is endorsed by a variety of anti-drug groupings, including the National Narcotic Officers' Associations Coalition, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, Song for Charlie, Victims of Illicit Drugs, Major Cities Chiefs Association and National District Attorneys' Association. But the bill's purpose, if not its precise language, could be consistent with the harm reduction approach as well, in in this case by helping drug users avoid taking pills that they think are one thing but are really another.
International
Colombia Chamber of Representatives Approves Marijuana Legalization; Bill Now Heads to Senate for Final Votes. A marijuana legalization bill has won final approval in the Chamber of Representatives and now heads to the Senate, where it must win a committee vote before heading for a final Senate floor vote. The bill passed the lower chamber by a vote of 98-57. A legalization bill passed both chambers last year but since it is in the form of a constitutional amendment, it has to be passed by both chambers in two separate calendar years.
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Kansas becomes the latest state to legalize fentanyl test strips, the Arizona Senate folds psilocybin research funds into a budget bill, and more.
Marijuana Policy
SAFE Banking Act Gets Senate Committee Hearing. The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing Thursday to discuss marijuana banking issues with a focus on the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act (S.1323). No votes were taken at the hearing, which was announced as "Examining Cannabis Banking Challenges of Small Businesses and Workers." Testifying before the committee were bill sponsors Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Steve Daines (R-MT), as well as representatives of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC), United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), Dama Financial and Smart Approaches To Marijuana (SAM).
"The cannabis landscape looks far different than it did a few short years ago," Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said in opening remarks. "Cannabis has been legalized or decriminalized in almost every state. States and localities have established licensing and social equity programs to ensure that small businesses and communities impacted by the War on Drugs are part of the growing legal cannabis industry."
Harm Reduction
Kansas Governor Signs Fentanyl Test Strip Legalization Bill into Law. Gov. Laura Kelly (D) on Thursday signed into law Senate Bill 174, which legalizes fentanyl test strips by removing them from the state's definition of drug paraphernalia. Last year, a similar bill passed in the House only to stall in the Senate.
"Overdoses caused by fentanyl have devastated communities across Kansas and the nation," Gov. Kelly said. "By decriminalizing fentanyl test strips, we are providing the resources needed to combat the opioid and fentanyl epidemic so that families and loved ones no longer have to feel the pain of a preventable death."
The bill also increases criminal penalties for those who manufacture or distribute fentanyl.
Psychedelics
Arizona Senate Approves Psilocybin Research Grants as Part of Budget. The Senate on Wednesday approved an appropriations bill that includes $5 million in funding for psilocybin research. A standalone bill introduced earlier this year would have also funded psilocybin research at a higher level, but Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and top lawmakers agreed to slide the provision into the budget bill. Another budget measure that passed the Senate Wednesday contains detailed requirements for the clinical trials funded by those dollars. The House has already given initial approval to a companion version of the legislation, with a final vote coming soon.
International
Iran Hangs Three Cocaine Traffickers as UN Warns of Rising Number of Executions. Iranian state media reported that three men who were members of the "largest cocaine distribution cartel" were hung for cocaine trafficking on Wednesday. Their names are Hossein Panjak, Abdolhossein Emami Moghadam, and Babak Aghaei. They had been arrested in a 2014 raid in which 2.2 pounds of cocaine, methamphetamine, and opium were seized.
A day earlier, UN human rights chief Volker Turk criticized Iran's "abominable" record of executions this year, saying that it had hanged an average of 10 people a week so far this year. If the current rate of executions continues through the year, it would reach the highest number since 2015 when 972 people were hung. Back then, a large number of executions were for drug offenses, but Iran changed its drug laws in 2018, radically reducing the number of drug executions. It is not clear how many of this year's executions were for drug offenses, but the regime has been executing political opponents amid months of sustained civic unrest.
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