Daily Drug War Digest -- August 31, 2006

Cops are using opioid settlement funds to buy Flock cameras, Vietnam contemplates restricting the death penalty for drug offenses, and more.

A Flock camera. Opioid settlement dollars are paying for them in some localities. (Flock)

Opiates and Opioids

Opioid Settlement Funds Are Going to Flock Cameras and Other Surveillance Technologies. An investigation by Mother Jones has found that more than a dozen law enforcement agencies throughout the country are using opioid settlement funds to buy Flock cameras and similar AI-powered automated license plate readers (ALPRs). 

Major pharmaceutical companies, retailers, and wholesalers have settled thousands of lawsuits over the industry's role in the prescription opioid crisis of the early 2000s, and states and localities have won more than $50 billion to be paid out over the next 18 years. That money was supposed to provide resources for communities hard hit by the wave of addiction that followed the introduction of OxyContin in 1996 and pay for addiction prevention, recovery, treatment, and harm reduction services. 

But Mother Jones found that 19 agencies in ten different states spent more than $920,000 in opioid funds on Flock and other ALPRs, and that is probably an undercount given inconsistencies in how settlement funds are tracked. That is not the only diversion of opioid settlement funds: Earlier reporting from KFF Health News found that police have spent funds on Tasers, silencers, drones, and more, with some West Virginia counties spending the money on jail bills. 

That is not what the money should be spent on, said Robyn Oster, director of policy at the nonprofit Partnership to End Addiction. 

"It’s just really not the way to make the most impact in addressing addiction," said Oster. "While $50 billion may seem like a lot of funds, once it’s divided up over 18 years and thousands of localities, a lot of places really aren’t getting that much, particularly given the scope of the crisis…Whatever funds you’re spending on a camera, you’re not spending on getting someone into treatment."

DEA Ignores Legal Challenge, Moves Forward With Emergency Schedule I Placement of NIH-Researched Opioid Compound SR-17018. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has announced it will be moving forward with the emergency scheduling of SR-17018, despite a formal administrative request from Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) and the Rights & Reason Project asking the agency to remove the compound from its emergency scheduling order.

SR-17018 is an opioid agonist that has been studied for its potential to provide pain relief without some of the negative effects associated with conventional opioids, such as respiratory depression, the development of tolerance, and addiction. 

On July 1, the DEA announced plans to emergency schedule SR-17018 as a Schedule I drug, which would make it Schedule I for two years without meaningful public input. On July 29, Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) and the Right & Reason Project filed an administrative request to remove SR-17018 from the emergency scheduling order, citing lack of evidence that it was an "imminent hazard to the public safety."

"We have seen this playbook before: declare a substance dangerous, put it in Schedule I, and ask questions about its scientific potential later," said Kat Murti, Executive Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. "SR-17018 could prove to be a powerful ally in the fight against the ongoing opioid overdose epidemic. It exists because American taxpayers funded scientists to search for safer alternatives to existing opioids. Now another arm of the federal government is using emergency powers to make that research dramatically harder. Sensible drug policy should protect public health, not stand in the way of the science we desperately need to improve it."

"What makes this decision particularly troubling is DEA’s own reasoning," said Robert Rush, founder of the Rights and Reason Project and a member of SSDP’s Advisory Council. "DEA points to online forums that report SR-17018 can reduce or reset opioid tolerance. They argue that a person who later returns to opioid use may therefore face an increased overdose risk because that tolerance is gone. Losing opioid tolerance is what happens when someone stops taking opioids. Are we really going to call getting people off opioids an imminent threat to public safety? The DEA seems to think so."

Foreign Policy

US Military Boards, Sinks Ship Described as "Refueling Station" for Drug Traffickers. In its latest act of war in waters off northern South America, the US military joined with Ecuadorian authorities to board and then scupper a boat they described as being used as a refueling station for drug traffickers. The boat was in international waters. 

The boat was boarded by Marines and sailors from the USS San Antonio without incident, the US Southern Command said. The crew was taken to Ecuador, and the boat was then hit and sunk by an airstrike. 

"Today's operation is a stark example of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition's power to dismantle the sophisticated, clandestine narco-terrorist tactics and capabilities that have enabled the trafficking of dangerous drugs destined for American communities," SOCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan said in a statement. "Working together with our Ecuadorian partners, our coalition dealt a decisive blow to a narco-terrorist operation responsible for moving significant amounts of drugs through the region. Together with our regional partners, we are committed to defeating narco-terrorists in the Western Hemisphere."

The strike comes as the US continues its lethal campaign of attacks against alleged "drug boats" in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean. After a month of quiet, the strikes resumed last week and now total at least 68, with at least 227 people dead.

The strikes have been widely condemned by domestic and international law experts and human rights advocates.

International

Vietnam Moves to End Drug Executions. The country's legislature is set to consider a government-submitted revision to its penal code that would end the death penalty for drug trafficking. 

The country has some of the world's toughest drug laws, and the proposed revision would still allow the death penalty for illegal drug production, as well as treason, murder, and terrorism.

Southeast Asia has long treated drug offenses severely, and Singapore retains the death penalty for serious drug trafficking offenses. But Malaysia ended mandatory death sentences for drug offenses in 2023, and now Vietnam is headed in the same direction.

For rights groups, Vietnam’s proposal matters because it targets an offense that has contributed to the largest number of death sentences.

"We are hopeful that these reforms will lead to immediate and concrete impact, particularly given that the majority of new death sentences that Amnesty International has recorded in recent years were imposed for drug trafficking," said Chiara Sangiorgio, Amnesty’s death penalty expert.