Drug War Chronicle #580 - April 10, 2009

Feature: Twenty Years of Drug Courts -- Results and Misgivings

The drug court phenomenon celebrates its 20th birthday this year. The first drug court, designed to find a more effective way for the criminal justice system to deal with drug offenders, was born in Miami in 1989 under the guidance of then local prosecutor Janet Reno. Since then, drug courts have expanded dramatically, with their number exceeding 2000 today, including at least one in every state.

According to Urban Institute estimates, some 55,000 people are currently in drug court programs. The group found that another 1.5 million arrestees would probably meet the criteria for drug dependence and would thus be good candidates for drug courts.

The notion behind drug courts is that providing drug treatment to some defendants would lead to better outcomes for them and their communities. Unlike typical criminal proceedings, drug courts are intended to be collaborative, with judges, prosecutors, social workers, and defense attorneys working together to decide what would be best for the defendant and the community.

Drug courts can operate either by diverting offenders into treatment before sentencing or by sentencing offenders to prison terms and suspending the sentences providing they comply with treatment demands. They also vary in their criteria for eligibility: Some may accept only nonviolent, first-time offenders considered to be addicted, while others may have broader criteria.

Such courts rely on sanctions and rewards for their clients, with continuing adherence to treatment demands met with a loosening of restrictions and relapsing into drug use subjected to ever harsher punishments, typically beginning with a weekend in jail and graduating from there. People who fail drug court completely are then either diverted back into the criminal justice system for prosecution or, if they have already been convicted, sent to prison.

Drug courts operate in a strange and contradictory realm that embraces the model of addiction as a disease needing treatment, yet punishes failure to respond as if it were a moral failing. No other disease is confronted in such a manner. There are no diabetes courts, for example, where one is placed under the control of the criminal justice system for being sick and subject to "flash incarceration" for eating forbidden foods.

Conceptual dilemmas notwithstanding, drug courts have been extensively studied, and the general conclusion is that, within the parameters of the therapeutic/criminal justice model, they are successful. A recently released report from the Sentencing Project is the latest addition to the literature, or, more accurately, review of the literature.

In the report, Drug Courts: A Review of the Evidence, the group concluded that:

• Drug courts have generally been demonstrated to have positive benefits in reducing recidivism.

• Evaluations of the cost-effectiveness of drug courts have generally found benefits through reduced costs of crime or incarceration.
• Concern remains regarding potential "net-widening" effects of drug courts by drawing in defendants who might not otherwise have been subject to arrest and prosecution.

"What you have with drug courts is a program that the research has shown time and time again works," said Chris Deutsch, associate director of communications for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals in suburban Washington, DC. "We all know the problems facing the criminal justice system with drug offenders and imprisonment. We have established incentives and sanctions as an important part of the drug court model because they work," he said. "One of the reasons drug courts are expanding so rapidly," said Deutsch, "is that we don't move away from what the research shows works. This is a scientifically validated model."

"There is evidence that in certain models there is success in reducing recidivism, but there is not a single model that works," said Ryan King, coauthor of the Sentencing Project report. "We wanted to highlight common factors in success, such as having judges with multiple turns in drug court and who understand addiction, and building on graduated sanctions, but also to get people to understand the weaknesses."

"Drug courts are definitely better than going to prison," said Theshia Naidoo, a staff attorney for the Drug Policy Alliance, which has championed a less coercive treatment-not-jail program in California's Proposition 36, "but they are not the be-all and end-all of addressing drug abuse. They may be a step forward in our current prohibitionist system, but when you look at their everyday operations, it's pretty much criminal justice as usual."

That was one of the nicest things said about drug courts by harm reductionists and drug policy reformers contacted this week by the Chronicle. While drug courts can claim success as measured by the metrics embraced by the therapeutic-criminal justice complex, they appear deeply perverse and wrongheaded to people who do not embrace that model.

Remarks by Kevin Zeese of Common Sense for Drug Policy hit many of the common themes. "If drug courts result in more people being caught up in the criminal justice system, I do not see them as a good thing," he said. "The US has one out of 31 people in prison on probation or on parole, and that's a national embarrassment more appropriate for a police state than the land of the free. If drug courts are adding to that problem, they are part of the national embarrassment, not the solution."

But Zeese was equally disturbed by the therapeutic-criminal justice model itself. "Forcing drug treatment on people who happen to get caught is a very strange way to offer health care," he observed. "We would see a greater impact if treatment on request were the national policy and sufficient funds were provided to treatment services so that people who wanted treatment could get it quickly. And, the treatment industry would be a stronger industry if they were not dependent on police and courts to be sending them 'clients' -- by force -- and if instead they had to offer services that people wanted."

For Zeese, the bottom line was: "The disease model has no place in the courts. Courts don't treat disease, doctors and health professionals do."

In addition to such conceptual and public policy concerns, others cited more specific problems with drug court operations. "In Connecticut, the success of drug courts depends on educated judges," said Robert Heimer of the Yale University School of Public Health. "For example, in some parts of the state, judges refused to send defendants with opioid addiction to methadone programs. This dramatically reduced the success of the drug courts in these parts of the state compared to parts of the state where judges referred people to the one proven medically effective form of treatment for their addiction."

Heimer's complaint about the rejection of methadone maintenance therapy was echoed on the other side of the Hudson River by upstate New York drug reformer Nicolas Eyle of Reconsider: Forum on Drug Policy. "Most, if not all, drug courts in New York abhor methadone and maintenance treatment in general," he noted. "This is troubling because the state's recent Rockefeller law reforms have a major focus on treatment in lieu of prison, suggesting that more and more hapless people will be forced to enter treatment they may not need or want. Then the judge decides what type of treatment they must have, and when they don't achieve the therapeutic goals set for them they'll be hauled off to serve their time."

Still, said Heimer, "Such courts can work if appropriate treatment options are available, but if the treatment programs are bad, then it is unlikely that courts will work. In such cases, if the only alternative is then incarceration, there is little reason for drug courts. If drug court personnel think their program is valuable, they should be consistently lobbying for better drug treatment in their community. If they are not doing this, then they are contributing to the circumstances of their own failure, and again, the drug user becomes the victim if the drug court personnel are not doing this."

Even within the coerced treatment model, there are more effective approaches than drug courts, said Naidoo. "Drug courts basically have a zero tolerance policy, and many judges just don't understand addiction as a chronic relapsing condition, so if there is a failed drug test, the court comes in with a hammer imposing a whole series of sanctions. A more effective model would be to look at the overall context," she argued. "If the guy has a dirty urine, but has found a job, has gotten housing, and is reunited with his family, maybe he shouldn't be punished for the relapse. The drug court would punish him."

Other harm reductionists were just plain cynical about drug courts. "I guess they work in reducing the drug-related harm of going to prison by keeping people out of prison -- except when they're sending people to prison," said Delaney Ellison, a veteran Michigan harm reductionist and activist. "And that's exactly what drug courts do if you're resistant to treatment or broke. Poor, minority people can't afford to complete a time-consuming drug court regime. If a participant finds he can't pay the fines, go to four hours a day of outpatient treatment, and pay rent and buy food while trapped in the system, he finds a way to prioritize and abandons the drug court."

An adequate health care system that provided treatment on demand is what is needed, Ellison said. "And most importantly, when are we going to stop letting cops and lawyers -- and this includes judges -- regulate drugs?" he asked. "These people don't know anything about pharmacology. When do we lobby to let doctors and pharmacists regulate drugs?"

Drug courts are also under attack on the grounds they deny due process rights to defendants. In Maryland, the state's public defender last week argued that drug courts were unconstitutional, complaining that judges should not be allowed to send someone to jail repeatedly without a full judicial hearing.

"There is no due process in drug treatment court," Public Defender Nancy Foster told the Maryland Court of Appeals in a case that is yet to be decided.

Foster's argument aroused some interest from the appeals court judges. One of them, Judge Joseph Murphy, noted that a judge talking to one party in a case without the other party being present, which sometimes happens in drug courts, has raised due process concerns in other criminal proceedings. "Can you do that without violating the defendant's rights?" he asked.

A leading advocate of the position that drug courts interfere with due process rights is Williams College sociologist James Nolan. In an interview last year, Nolan summarized his problem with drug courts. "My concern is that if we make the law so concerned with being therapeutic, you forget about notions of justice such as proportionality of punishment, due process and the protection of individual rights," Nolan said. "Even though problem-solving advocates wouldn't want to do away with these things, they tend to fade into the background in terms of importance."

In that interview, Nolan cited a Miami-Dade County drug court participant forced to remain in the program for seven years. "So here, the goal is not about justice," he said. "The goal is to make someone well, and the consequences can be unjust because they are getting more of a punishment than they deserve."

Deutsch said he was "hesitant" to comment on criticisms of the drug court model, "but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to keeping drug addicted offenders out of the criminal justice system and in treatment, drug courts are the best option available."

For the Sentencing Project's King, drug courts are a step up from the depths of the punitive prohibitionist approach, but not much of one. "With the drug courts, we're in a better place now than we were 20 years ago, but it's not the place we want to be 20 years from now," he said. "The idea that somebody needs to enter the criminal justice system to access public drug treatment is a real tragedy."

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Feature: Michigan Medical Marijuana Law in Effect

As of last Saturday, legal medical marijuana has arrived in the Midwest. On that day, Michigan's medical marijuana went into effect as the state Department of Community Health began accepting applications from patients to register for the program. By day's end Saturday, the department had received 85 applications, 16 more arrived in the mail Monday, and more have been dribbling in since then.

No one is yet carrying a state-issued registration card, but the first ones should arrive in mailboxes within a couple of weeks. The department can take up to 15 days to review an application. Once it is approved, it will be sent out within five days.

"We should be issuing the cards probably by the end of April," said James McCurtis, a spokesman for the department, which will oversee the program.

Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved a medical marijuana initiative last fall, but it did not go into effect until last Saturday to allow the department time to craft its rules and regulations. Under the law, patients can grow up to a dozen plants. Caregivers can grow for up to five patients, as well as themselves. Patients must have a doctor's recommendation and suffer from a specified list of diseases, symptoms, or conditions, including cancer, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis.

As last weekend's opening day rush of applications suggests, there is pent up demand for medical marijuana in Michigan. Advocates estimate that 50,000 people may qualify under the state law. The Chronicle spoke with two of them this week.

Lynn Allen of Williamston suffers from AIDS and hepatitis C, contracted from a blood transfusion. He has been on disability since 1996, the last time he was able to work. Marijuana works for him, he said.

"I've been through periods where I lost a lot of weight, and I need medical marijuana primarily to develop my appetite," he said. "It causes the munchies."

Allen had experimented with weed back in his college days in the 1970s, but had left it behind long ago. "It's been 30 years since I tried it in college, but I decided to try it again, and it seems to work reasonably well, so I was quite happy when the vote passed. I plan to grow my own. I don't have a real good history with growing things, but this will be a fun project."

Allen hasn't sent in his application yet, but will soon, he said. "I have an appointment with my doctor to get the documentation signed, then I will submit it."

Another Michigander preparing to take advantage of the new law is 19-year-old Jon Dunbar of Kalamazoo. Dunbar suffers chronic pain from degenerative spinal problems and neuropathy and walks with the assistance of a cane.

"It started with a little bit of back pain and has gotten progressively worse for the past two years," Dunbar explained. "I am now disabled. This has taken my life from me. About a year ago, I started getting symptoms in my leg. When the nerves die, you lose function and feeling. I can't drive, I can't walk normally, I will never be able to play sports again. I have to do physical therapy because the nerves are constantly dying and I have to learn to adjust to that," he explained.

"My doctor says there is no cure and I will be on some form of pain management for the rest of my life. I've been on almost every opiate you can think of -- fentanyl, morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone -- but that stuff is horribly addictive. It's bad enough having to watch my nerves die; I don't want to be some kind of addict, too."

[Ed: The likelihood of a pain patient getting addicted to opiates is actually low if the prescribing is handled properly, research has found, but that's another issue. Clearly patients who prefer not to use powerful opiates have legitimate reasons and should not be forced to do so (just as patients who need or prefer opiates for pain control should not be prevented from obtaining them).]

It wasn't just opiates. "This is as tough a challenge for me as you can imagine," Dunbar said. "My mom had pictures of me playing sports on the wall. It was a constant reminder of all the things I can never do again. It was very depressing, and I was on Xanax, Valium, Clonazapam. But I realized no matter how mad or sad I got, it wasn't going to change."

Medical marijuana helps him lay off the heavy meds, he said. "It helps me cut back on my need for opiates for relief, and being able to cut back even a little is beneficial for me."

Dunbar tried marijuana for pain relief several months ago, but is waiting to get legal medicine. "After I tried it, I would have switched right away if it were legal. Maybe I could cut down on the 10 10-milligram Percocets I'm taking every day right now."
The former athlete and musician is preparing his application this week. "Since I can't drive, I have to catch rides to go to the doctor and take in my application, but I'm working on that right now. I should be an officially registered patient within three weeks," Dunbar said.

Patient advocates are keeping a watchful eye on the state and law enforcement, but so far, so good, said Greg Francisco, head of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association (MMMA), the leading patient group in the state, which took a busload of patients and supporters to Lansing Saturday and signed up 50 people. "We're relatively happy with the way the state has responded," he said. "It would have been nice if they had been more collaborative with us, but they didn't really collaborate with any of the stakeholders, not patients, not law enforcement, not pharmacies, not doctors. Still, I think we have a workable program here."

A handful of patients have run into problems with police since the law passed in November, but the courts have been inclined to throw out those cases, Francisco said. In one case in the Detroit suburb of Madison Heights, police raided a couple growing 21 plants, but now the city finds itself in the odd position of ensuring that the plants stay alive. While there are some grey areas in the law, things will sort themselves out, he predicted.

"Most departments are saying they will follow the law, but the state has not been good at communicating just how the program works or what are the limits and liberties," said Francisco. "We're dedicated to protecting the liberties of patients and encouraging people to stay within the limits. We're trying to create an ethic of respect for the law on all sides."

MMMA has been busy traversing the state and working with patients, said Francisco. "We've been starting compassion clubs. These are not marijuana hook-ups, these are patient support groups. They help hook patients up with doctors and things like that. Now, people may make relationships at the compassion clubs, but if they want to talk about obtaining clones and medicine, that's going to happen outside the club. That's a secondary function for these clubs; they're not dispensaries, but pure patient support groups."

While the law allows patients to grow up to 12 plants and provides for caregivers who can grow the allotted maximum for up to five patients, plus themselves, it does not mention co-ops or dispensaries. That means there is going to be some pushing of boundaries, said Francisco.

"There are lots and lots of different models being talked about," he said. "There are entrepreneurs pushing the envelope, and we encourage that. We encourage people to make good choices and go for it. We would hope that we would end up with not for profit, community-based operations, but we're really about options and pushing the envelope."

And so the tendrils of the medical marijuana movement burrow into the fertile soil of Michigan. Soon, it may not be the only Midwest medical marijuana state. Legislative efforts are well under way in Minnesota and Illinois. Perhaps by the time the lawmakers go home in those two states, they will be ready to join Michigan as part of the third front (after the West Coast and the Northeast) in the expansion of therapeutic cannabis.

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Drug War Chronicle Book Review: "Cool Madness: The Trial of Dr. Mollie Fry and Dale Schafer," by Vanessa Nelson (2008, MMA Publishing, 353 pp., $19.95 pb.)

[Order "Cool Madness" by making a donation to StoptheDrugWar.org and specificying "Cool Madness" as your requested membership premium.]

UC Berkeley-trained journalist Vanessa Nelson has found a niche for herself reporting on medical marijuana prosecutions in California. One can only hope it will not be a lasting niche; that the events of which she is reporting will soon be the stuff of history, a quaint reminder of what is was like to live in the bad old days.

But as the recent DEA raid on a San Francisco dispensary suggests, the era of mindless persecution by the federal government of medical marijuana patients and providers is not over yet -- despite the nice words coming from Attorney General Holder. Other California medical marijuana providers are currently serving prison terms, some are waiting to be sentenced, and some are in the midst of appeals. All of them are facing (or already enduring) harsh federal sentencing laws for the crime of trying to help their fellow sufferers.

The case of Dr. Mollie Fry and her husband, attorney Dale Schafer, is among the most outrageous. A physician residing in the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Cool (thus the title) who came to embrace the therapeutic benefits of cannabis after a bout with breast cancer, Dr. Fry became an enthusiastic advocate of the herb, recommending it for patients, and, with the help of her husband, encouraging them to grow their own (and even selling them starter kits), and trying -- not very successfully -- to grow it themselves.

Fry and Schafer had consulted with local law enforcement and thought they were safe from prosecution, but they were naïve and mistaken, as started to become evident on September 26, 2001, when their home and offices were raided by aggressive DEA agents, and a whopping 34 marijuana plants seized. [Ed: This is what federal law enforcement had time to spend on, barely two weeks after major terrorist attacks on two US cities.]

Then, as is often the case with DEA medical marijuana raids, nothing happened, as if the bust had disappeared into limbo. That is, nothing happened until the US Supreme Court came down on the side of the federal government in the Raich case in 2005. Within a matter of days, Fry and Schafer found themselves indicted and arrested on federal marijuana manufacture and distribution charges.

Oddly enough, the 34 plants seized had somehow morphed into more than 100 plants in the government's case. That makes an important difference -- the difference between a short sentence, or even probation, and a mandatory minimum sentence of at least five years. And that's what Assistant US Attorney Anne Pings was determined to get when Fry and Schafer finally went to trial on August 1, 2007.

Nelson provides a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings, from the defense's selection of famed defense attorney Tony Serra and his less flamboyant but equally dogged co-counsel Laurence Lichter to the bail hearing after they were convicted. In so doing, she has crafted a gripping narrative tale more akin to a page-turning novel than a dry and dusty trial transcript.

Not only is the narrative gripping, it is also infuriating for anyone sympathetic to the medical marijuana movement or who holds to the notion that trials are about justice. With Serra and Lichter forbidden to even mention medical marijuana, as is typically the case in those federal medical marijuana trials, that the prosecution would win convictions was almost a foregone conclusion to anyone other than those medical marijuana supporters so blinded by the righteousness of their cause that they couldn't see the approaching freight train. That didn't stop the defense duo from repeatedly trying to introduce the topic, leading to rapid-fire prosecution objections, repeated sidebars, and courtroom fire-works. Still, the jury that heard the case got only the faintest hints of what it was really all about.

There were some real villains in this little drama, and some buffoons. (While Nelson was clearly sympathetic to the defendants, the following characterizations are mine, not hers.) Prosecutor Pings spared no tactic, no innuendo, no insinuation in trying to convince the jury that Fry and Schafer were money-hungry dope dealers, even going so far as to tell the jury they advertised their services on a rock radio station! Nor was she in the least reluctant to intimidate and threaten former employees facing their own legal problems into turning state's evidence and portraying the couple as mercenary marijuana peddlers. Actions like those may make Pings an effective prosecutor, but they also paint her as a terrible human being, willing to do whatever it takes to send some harmless people to prison.

Another villain worth noting was a Sergeant Ashworth of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department. At Fry and Schafer's request, Ashworth visited their properties repeatedly, enjoying their hospitality and assuring them they were acting within the law. But by the summer of 2001, when he got done sipping coffee with Dr. Fry he was reporting to the DEA. Even worse, Ashworth actively encouraged the couple to grow another crop that year, getting the prosecution to the magic 100 plant number. This kind of sleazy, backstabbing behavior deserves a response. In this case, it seems the appropriate response would be to vote his boss out of office and send Ashworth out to patrol the dog pound.

As for the buffoons, the sobriquet was earned by the DEA agents on the case, from the supervisor who seemed exceedingly clueless about the things he was testifying about to the DEA undercover agent who infiltrated medical marijuana meetings where no pot was smoked and worried that he was getting a contact high just from being there. In an even more unbelievable, but revealing, example of DEA buffoonery, Nelson relates the story of two agents at the trial who, upon heading to the court house parking lot to get in their car to go to lunch, saw a member of the medical marijuana community attending the trial walk toward that very same parking lot (!) and assumed they were being stalked. The spooked agents fled the scene on foot and called their supervisors for back-up, only to be laughed at and told to go back and get their vehicle.

The DEA guys may be idiots and the prosecutor may be a nasty person, but behind them was the full power of the federal government. Nelson's account is a very disturbing window into just how these villains and bozos managed to wield that power. Again, this should be a wake-up call for those who think federal medical marijuana prosecutions have anything to do with justice.

[Order "Cool Madness" by making a donation to StoptheDrugWar.org and specificying "Cool Madness" as your requested membership premium.]

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Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Another crooked judge, another dirty border guard, more problems for Philly's narcs, and a guilty plea in Detroit. Let's get to it:

In El Paso, Texas, a Texas district court judge was indicted last week on charges he took cash bribes and asked for sex from defendants in exchange for his help making felony cases go away. State District Court Judge Manuel Barraza was indicted on four counts, including mail fraud, wire fraud, and lying to a federal agent. Local prosecutors are now reviewing about 100 drug cases he dismissed. Barraza is out on bail pending trial, but has been suspended from his $140,000 a year job.

In Brownsville, Texas, a US Customs and Border Protection officer was arrested April 2 on charges he took bribes to allow vehicles carrying drugs and illegal immigrants to pass through his border checkpoint. Officer Raul Montano Jr., 34, faces charges of bribery, conspiracy and smuggling illegal immigrants and conspiracy to import and possession of cocaine. According to a criminal complaint filed the same day, Montano would tell another person when he would be inspecting a certain lane on the Brownsville Gateway bridge and that person would relay the information to waiting smugglers on the Mexican side, who would pass through with people and cocaine.

In Philadelphia, two Philadelphia police narcotics squads are being reorganized as part of an effort to better supervise the officers involved. The move comes as one of those squads, Squad 9, is the subject of ongoing federal and local investigations after the Philadelphia Daily News ran a series of articles exposing numerous allegations of illegal acts by Narcotics Officer Jeffrey Cujdik and his cronies. Squad 9 is being dissolved, with its members being dispersed among the 10 remaining dope squads. Cujdik was first accused of lying on search warrant applications to gain access to suspected drug houses and of becoming too close to his snitches. Then, last month, the Daily News ran articles from 14 immigrant convenience store owners alleging Cujdik's squad ransacked their stores, ate food, stole goods and cash, then arrested them for selling small plastic bags that could be used to hold drugs. The Cujdik gang would typically cut the wires to surveillance cameras at the beginning of those raids.

In Detroit, a Detroit police officer pleaded guilty April 2 to tax evasion in the theft of more than $2 million worth of cocaine from a police evidence room. Officer Vincent Crockett, 50, had faced more serious charges of cocaine possession and embezzlement, but a police chemist who would have been a key witness in the case died last year, leaving federal prosecutors with a weak case. In his plea bargain, Crockett admitted to evading 2007 income taxes on $72,000 he received as the result of "an illegal act."

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Marijuana Legalization: For First Time, Poll Finds Majority Support in California

An EMC Research poll commissioned by Oaksterdam University and conducted between March 16 and 21 has found that California voters are ready to offer majority support for taxing and regulating marijuana possession and sales and production. That's a first.

Some 54% of those polled believed marijuana should be legal for adults, while 39% disagreed. When asked if they would support an initiative to allow for the consumption of cannabis by adults with taxed and regulated sales by local option, 53% said yes, while 41% said no. When the hypothetical initiative was divided into its two parts, taxed and regulated sales by local option garnered 55% approval, while allowing adult consumption got 50%.

When asked to consider the hypothetical that such an initiative had passed and their county or city was voting whether to tax and regulate marijuana sales and production, 59% said yes, while only 36% said no. Some 58% of respondents said that marijuana should be treated the same as (50%) or less seriously (8%) than alcohol.

The poll also queried voters about which arguments for marijuana legalization and regulation resonated most strongly. The following arguments were most persuasive: It would ease access to medical marijuana for people who need it (57% said more likely to approve), it would keep pot from kids (54%), it would allow police to focus on violent crime (51%), and it would take business from street dealers (50%).

Somewhat surprisingly, economic arguments were not as persuasive. Arguing that legalization would provide funding for social services would make only 45% more likely to approve, that it would provide billions in tax revenues, 40%; that it would create thousands of jobs, 37%.

Finally, after going through the questions, the poll asked again whether they would support cannabis legalization for adults with taxed and regulated sales and production by local option. This time 62% approved and 39% disapproved. That's a 9% improvement over the answers given at the beginning of the poll and suggests that a little concentrated thought about the matter raises approval rates.

The poll comes less than a month after Rep. Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced a AB 390, which would legalize marijuana in the state, but only once the feds clear the way. It looks like California lawmakers need to start catching up with the people who elect them.

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Sentencing: US Jail, Prison Population Hits Another Record High, Well Over Half a Million Drug Offenders Behind Bars

In its latest survey of US jails and prisons, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported at the end of March that the number of people behind bars in the US had set yet another all-time record. According to the BJS, there were nearly 2.4 million people imprisoned in the US on June 30 of last year, or one out of every 131 US residents.

More than 1.4 million people were locked up in state prisons and another 200,000 in the federal prison system. Additionally, almost 800,000 found themselves in jail at the end of last June.

This BJS report does not break down the numbers by offense categories. In state prison systems, drug offenders typically account for between 20% and 25% of all prisoners, and they account for well over half of all federal prisoners. Assuming the lowball figure of 20% and applying it to jail populations as well, the number of drug war POWs was somewhere in the neighborhood of 550,000.

While the prison population continued to increase, the rate of increase is slowing. During the first six months of 2008, it increased by 0.8%, compared to an increase of 1.6% during the same period the previous year. The rate of growth in jail populations was 0.7%, the lowest rate of increase since Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981.

Some 16 states, led by the sentencing reform states of California and Kentucky, actually saw decreases in prison populations. In 18 of the states reporting prison population growth, the average rate of growth (1.6%) was nearly half as low as the rate the previous year (3.1%) But in the 16 remaining states it was full-steam ahead, led by Minnesota (up 5.2%), Maine (up 4.6%), and Rhode Island and South Carolina (up 4.3%).

And even though the federal prison population passed the 200,000 mark, that may be running out of steam too. The growth rate of 0.8% was the lowest for any six-period since BJS began collecting the data in 1993, the year Bill Clinton assumed the presidency.

Still, since 2000, when US imprisonment levels were already at historic highs, the US prison and jail population has increased by a whopping 19%, or more than 373,000 prisoners. That is the equivalent of an entire medium-sized city, such as Wichita (pop. 360,000), Honolulu (pop. 375,000), or Raleigh (pop. 376,000) vanishing behind bars in less than a decade.

Of the 800,000 people in jails last June 30, 52% were housed in the nation's 180 largest jails, all with average daily populations exceeding 1,000 inmates. Nearly two-thirds (63%) were jailed awaiting court action or had not been convicted. More than a million people were jailed every month in the year ending last June 30, for a total of 13.6 million.

African-Americans continue to figure prominently and disproportionately in the inmate population. Black male prisoners accounted for 37% of the male prison population, and while that figure was down from 41% the previous year, it still shows black males being incarcerated at a rate 6.6 times that of white males.

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Salvia Divinorum: Ohio's First Bust Came Day Before Law Went Into Effect

An Ohio law criminalizing the possession of salvia divinorum went into effect Tuesday, but that didn't stop an over-eager Butler County sheriff's deputy from arresting a man for it Monday or Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones crowing about being the first to bust someone under the new law. Jones sent out a press release touting his coup at 11:00am Monday, but had to retract it before the day was over.

Salvia divinorum is a fast-acting, short-lived psychedelic member of the mint family traditionally used by Mazatec shamans in southern Mexico. It is not a federally controlled substance, but has been an object of concern among prohibitionist-leaning legislators across the country. Ohio is the latest of about a dozen states to pass laws criminalizing its possession or sale.

The bust came when Deputy Tim Andrews pulled over a Virginia man in a traffic stop Monday morning. After spotting a bag of marijuana in the vehicle, Deputy Andrews searched the car and found another bag marked "salvia divinorum." The Virginia man was charged with felony drug possession for the salvia, misdemeanor drug trafficking for a small amount of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia for having a scale. (Under Ohio law, possession of up to a quarter pound of marijuana is decriminalized.)

But shortly after the press release went out, a sheriff's detective questioned whether the charges were premature. The detective was correct, and the felony salvia charge was dismissed. The man's marijuana and paraphernalia charges remain.

"I don't have a whole lot (of sympathy) for this guy," Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "He was coming from one place to another. He admitted selling a bunch of dope in Michigan. It's not like salvia was the only thing he got arrested for."

Yes, but it wasn't a crime when he got arrested for it.

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Medical Marijuana: Florida Petition Drive Under Way

In a true grassroots effort, a group of Floridians organized as People United for Medical Marijuana (PUFMM) has begun an effort to put a medical marijuana initiative on the November 2010 ballot. The group needs some 687,000 valid signatures of registered voters in the next nine months to qualify.

The group is not affiliated with any national organization and says it needs $5 million for the signature gathering drive and the election campaign. Unlike more traditional initiative campaigns, PUFMM is relying heavily on Internet-based activism. The group's Facebook page already has 4,800 members, and PUFMM is counting on cascading new memberships to gather what it hopes is 1.2 million signatures, providing a very comfortable cushion at validation time. PUFMM is also hoping for each signatory to kick in $5. That way, the group could meet its self-imposed budget goal.

"Patients need a safe, affordable and effective medication. We hope Florida will lead the nation in marijuana research to further its uses as a medicine," PUFMM head Kim Russell, whose father suffers from Parkinson's Disease, told the Cape Coral Daily Breeze."There is absolute support, we just have to get everyone organized," she said, citing favorable national polling data.

If approved, the petition would create a constitutional amendment that reads as follows:

"(a) No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property or otherwise penalized for the cultivation, purchase, use or possession of marijuana in connection with the treatment of Alzheimer's, cachexia, cancer, chronic pain, chronic nervous system disorders, Crohn's disease, epilepsy and other seizure disorders, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, diseases causing muscle spasticity, or other diseases and conditions when recommended by a physician.

"(b) This section shall be self-executing. The legislature, however, may provide by general law for the voluntary registration of persons intending to exercise their rights hereunder and for the regulation of the distribution and sale of marijuana to persons intending to exercise their rights hereunder.

"(c) Nothing herein, however, shall be construed so as to prevent the legislature from enacting laws penalizing the operation of motor vehicles, boats, watercraft or aircraft while under the influence of marijuana or regulating the use of marijuana by minors. Similarly, all laws in effect at the time of adoption of this section penalizing the operation of motor vehicles, boats, watercraft or aircraft while under the influence of marijuana or regulating the use of marijuana by minors shall remain in force."

The proposed amendment does not create limits on the number of plants or the amount of usable marijuana patients may possess. It appears to leave that up to the legislature. In fact, PUFMM would prefer that the legislature just went ahead and passed a medical marijuana bill and is asking people to write to their representatives in the hope of achieving just that. "We are hoping they will submit a bill rather than a ballot initiative," Russell said. "The Internet is a huge resource for us."

While the effort is just a week old, it has already been denounced by the Florida Sheriff's Association and by Bill Janes, director of Florida's Office of Drug Control. "When we increase the availability of marijuana we increase the availability for young people," Janes said. "What this petition doesn't address is how the marijuana will be controlled. Will we just allow random growing of marijuana?"

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Europe: Britain Could Save $20 Billion a Year by Legalizing Drugs, Study Finds

A regime where currently illicit drugs are regulated and legalized would provide numerous benefits to Britain, not the least of which would be up to $20 billion a year in savings to government, crime victims, and drug users, according to a comprehensive comparison of the costs of drug prohibition and drug legalization.

The figure comes from A Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of Prohibition and Regulation, a report released Wednesday by the British drug reform group the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. The group says it is the first time anyone in Britain has attempted an across-the-board comparison of the differing approaches to drug use and sales.

According to official British policy, policies or programs should be assessed by a cost-benefit analysis or impact assessment, but that has never been done with drug prohibition. Instead of evidence-based policies, the British government has relied on mere assertion to justify maintaining prohibition and to argue that the harms of legalization would outweigh its benefits.

Now, Transform is calling the government's bluff. According to its analysis, which examined criminal justice, drug treatment, crime, and other social costs, a regime of regulated legalization would accrue large savings over the current prohibitionist policy.

Transform postulated four different legalization scenarios based on drug use levels declining by half, staying the same, increasing by half, and doubling. Even under the worst case scenario, with drug use doubling under legalization, Britain would still see annual savings of $6.7 billion. Under the best case scenario, the savings would approach $20 billion annually.

"The conclusion is that regulating the drugs market is a dramatically more cost-effective policy than prohibition and that moving from prohibition to regulated drugs markets in England and Wales would provide a net saving to taxpayers, victims of crime, communities, the criminal justice system and drug users," Transform found.

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Weekly: This Week in History

April 14, 1989: A congressional subcommittee on Narcotics, Law Enforcement, and Foreign Policy, chaired by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), issues a report finding that US efforts to combat drug trafficking were undermined by the Reagan administration's fear of jeopardizing its objectives in the Nicaraguan civil war. The report concludes that the administration ignored evidence of drug trafficking by the Contras and continued to provide them with aid.

April 13, 1995: The US Sentencing Commission votes to equalize penalties for crack and powder cocaine quantities for trafficking and possession offenses, a proposal that would have become law on November 1 if Congress took no action. Attorney General Janet Reno urges Congress to reject it the next day.

April 11, 1997: Graham Boyd, an ACLU attorney representing a group of plaintiffs including eleven prominent cancer and AIDS physicians in San Francisco, presents to a federal judge the following statement: "The federal government has issued broad threats against physicians who might recommend marijuana to some of their seriously ill patients. These threats have gagged physicians and have impeded the responsible practice of medicine. We assert that doctors have the right to discuss medical marijuana with patients, and we are seeking clear guidelines for physicians who wish to do so."

April 15, 1998: California Superior Court Judge David Garcia orders Dennis Peron, author of Proposition 215, to cease operations of his Cannabis Cultivators' Club (CCC) in San Francisco. Judge Garcia writes, "The court finds uncontradicted evidence in this record that defendant Peron is currently engaging in illegal sales of marijuana." The illegal sales, the court said, were to "primary caregivers," not patients as defined by California's medical marijuana law. Peron agrees to resign as head of the CCC in an effort to keep the operation open.

April 16, 1998: The Iowa Legislature overwhelmingly approves a bill enhancing marijuana penalties for repeat offenders, and enabling police officers to conduct drug tests on drivers who appear to be operating under the influence of marijuana.

April 12, 2002: Canada's Toronto Sun reports that a recent report cites Ontario's indoor marijuana industry as the third largest agricultural sector in the province, a $1-billion industry surpassed only by dairy's $1.3 billion and beef cattle's $1.2 billion. Add to that the multi-millions being harvested from outdoor crops and marijuana cultivation in this province moves into the top spot on the list.

April 10, 2003: In the wake of the federal conviction of medical marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal, US Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) and 27 other members of Congress introduce H.R. 1717 (the "Truth in Trials Act").

April 16, 2004: Richard Paey, a wheelchair-bound pain patient, is sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Florida judge. Paey, who was convicted of forging prescriptions for pills to ease chronic, severe back pain dating from failed surgeries after an auto accident in 1985, was sentenced under Florida law as a drug dealer -- though even prosecutors conceded there is no evidence he did anything other than consume the opioid pain relievers himself. (Paey was later pardoned by Gov. Charlie Crist.)

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Job Opportunity: Policy Analyst/Content Editor, Common Sense for Drug Policy -- DRCNet Office in Washington, DC

Common Sense for Drug Policy (CSDP) is hiring a Policy Analyst/Content Editor, with primary responsibility for maintaining the online and in print publication Drug War Facts, as well as a range of smaller web sites. The starting date for this position is scheduled for June 2009 (exact starting date negotiable).

QUALIFICATIONS

Candidates must have strong research and written communications skills, basic web site skills (maintenance and stats analysis) and basic organizational skills. The ideal applicant is knowledgeable about the ins and outs of drug policy, and has a demonstrated interest through past involvement in the drug policy reform movement.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The primary responsibility of the Policy Analyst/Content Editor will be researching and summarizing facts and statistics for the web site http://www.drugwarfacts.org, as well as providing news links, event listings and other information to maintain http://www.csdp.org and other organizational web sites. The Policy Analyst/Content Editor may also coordinate publishing of the next in-print edition of Drug War Facts. The Policy Analyst/Content Editor will also write monthly updates on web site stats, and may at times provide assistance with e-mail list maintenance, coordinate drug reform activist meetings, coordinate with web development or other consultants, represent CSDP at conferences, or assist with other organizational business.

The Policy Analyst/Content Editor position will be located in office space shared with several organizations concerned with drug policy, including DRCNet (StoptheDrugWar.org), in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC, and the successful candidate will report to DRCNet's executive director.

COMPENSATION

Entry-level as well as more experienced candidates are encouraged to apply, and so salary is commensurate with experience. Health insurance is included.

TO APPLY

To apply, interested applicants should e-mail a one-page cover letter and a one- or two-page resume to [email protected] or: Job Search, DRCNet, 1623 Connecticut Ave. NW 3rd Floor, Washington, DC 20009. Please submit your application by May 1st -- interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis, so applicants are encouraged to apply early. In your cover letter, please indicate (1) how you learned about CSDP's job opening, (2) why you are interested in working with CSDP, (3) why you think this particular position is a good fit for you, (4) what experience you have in research, writing/editing, or drug policy reform work, and (5) how you feel this position may fit into your long-term career objectives. Feel free to include any additional information you deem relevant, not to exceed one page. Thank you for your interest.

ABOUT CSDP

Common Sense for Drug Policy is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to reforming drug policy and expanding harm reduction. CSDP disseminates factual information and comments on existing laws, policies and practices. CSDP provides advice and assistance to individuals and organizations and facilitates coalition building. CSDP supports syringe exchanges, the expansion of Methadone and Buprenorphine availability and other public health measures to reduce harm to users and restrict the spread of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. CSDP advocates the regulation and control of marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol and subject to local option. CSDP favors decriminalizing the use of hard drugs and providing them only through prescription. CSDP also advocates clear federal guidelines for the practice of pain management so that physicians need not fear unwarranted law enforcement scrutiny of medical practices.

CSDP is an equal opportunity employer.

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Students: Intern at StoptheDrugWar (DRCNet) and Help Stop the Drug War!

Want to help end the "war on drugs," while earning college credit too? Apply for a StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) internship for this spring or summer semester and you could come join the team and help us fight the fight!

StoptheDrugWar has a strong record of providing substantive work experience to our interns -- you won't spend the summer doing filing or running errands, you will play an integral role in one or more of our exciting programs. Options for work you can do with us include coalition outreach as part of the campaign to rein in the use of SWAT teams, to expand our work to repeal the drug provision of the Higher Education Act to encompass other bad drug laws like the similar provisions in welfare and public housing law; blogosphere/web outreach; media research and outreach; web site work (research, writing, technical); possibly other areas. If you are chosen for an internship, we will strive to match your interests and abilities to whichever area is the best fit for you.

While our internships are unpaid, we will reimburse you for metro fare, and DRCNet is a fun and rewarding place to work. To apply, please send your resume to David Guard at [email protected], and feel free to contact us at (202) 293-8340. We hope to hear from you! Check out our web site at http://stopthedrugwar.org to learn more about our organization.

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Feedback: Do You Read Drug War Chronicle?

Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we'd like to hear from you. DRCNet needs two things:

1. We are in between newsletter grants, and that makes our need for donations more pressing. Drug War Chronicle is free to read but not to produce! Click here to make a donation by credit card or PayPal, or to print out a form to send in by mail.
   
   
2. Please send quotes and reports on how you put our flow of information to work, for use in upcoming grant proposals and letters to funders or potential funders. Do you use DRCNet as a source for public speaking? For letters to the editor? Helping you talk to friends or associates about the issue? Research? For your own edification? Have you changed your mind about any aspects of drug policy since subscribing, or inspired you to get involved in the cause? Do you reprint or repost portions of our bulletins on other lists or in other newsletters? Do you have any criticisms or complaints, or suggestions? We want to hear those too. Please send your response -- one or two sentences would be fine; more is great, too -- email [email protected] or reply to a Chronicle email or use our online comment form. Please let us know if we may reprint your comments, and if so, if we may include your name or if you wish to remain anonymous. IMPORTANT: Even if you have given us this kind of feedback before, we could use your updated feedback now too -- we need to hear from you!

Again, please help us keep Drug War Chronicle alive at this important time! Click here to make a donation online, or send your check or money order to: DRCNet, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036. Make your check payable to DRCNet Foundation to make a tax-deductible donation for Drug War Chronicle -- remember if you select one of our member premium gifts that will reduce the portion of your donation that is tax-deductible -- or make a non-deductible donation for our lobbying work -- online or check payable to Drug Reform Coordination Network, same address. We can also accept contributions of stock -- email [email protected] for the necessary info.

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