Violence continues in Ciudad Juarez in the wake of a deadly Sunday prison break, Mississippi has created a web site where residents can order free naloxone, and more.

fentanyl test strips (Creative Commons)

Mississippi Makes Naloxone Available for Free. After nearly 600 people died of drug overdoses in 2021, the last year for which full numbers are available, the state is moving to ease access to the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone (Narcan). The Department of Health has begun a program under which people need only log onto a state website, answer a few questions, and watch a training video, and the department will then send them a free naloxone kit. Or they can download a voucher and have it filled at a local pharmacy. To apply for the free Narcan, visit odfree.org/get-naloxone.

Pennsylvania Law Decriminalizing Fentanyl Test Strips Now in Effect. A new law, Act 111, that decriminalizes fentanyl test strips went into effect Monday. The law achieves this by amending the Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act of 1972 to no longer define the test strips as drug paraphernalia. Fentanyl test strips (FTS) are a low-cost method of helping prevent drug overdoses and reducing harm. FTS are small strips of paper that can detect the presence of fentanyl in all different kinds of drugs (e.g., cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin) and drug forms (pills, powder, and injectables).

International

Sinaloa Cartel Gang Leader Among Those Who Escaped in Ciudad Juarez Prison Attack. Among the 27 prisoners who successfully fled a Ciudad Juarez prison as it was attacked Sunday was Ernesto "El Neto" Pinon, the long-imprisoned leader of the Mexicles, a Juarez gang affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel. The attack and jailbreak left 10 guards and seven prisoners dead, with two escaped prisoner later killed by authorities. Pinon had been jailed at the prison since 2010 on a 224-year sentence for murder. Authorities blamed the prison assault on the Mexicles, saying it was attacked by at least 25 of them. Also among the escapees was the Mexicles' number-two man, Cesar Vega.

Death Toll Rises as Mexican Authorities Hunt Down Juarez Prison Attackers, Escapees. At least seven people were killed in a gunfight as Chihuahua state investigators worked to hunt down the perpetrators of Sunday's attack on a Ciudad Juarez prison, as well as 25 prisoners who escaped. The attack was orchestrated by the Mexicles, a Juarez gang long affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel, who long-imprisoned leader and his number two were among the escapees. In the Tuesday shootout, two state investigators and five Mexicles members died.

Here is the good, the bad, and the ugly in international drug policy developments in 2022. (Read about 2022's good, bad and ugly in domestic drug policy here.)

With the withdrawal of US and coalition forces and subsequent rapid collapse of the Afghan government in August 2001, the Taliban once again took power in Kabul. During its earlier rule, it banned opium cultivation in 1997 (with little impact) and again in 2000. But after the Taliban was overthrown in late 2001, the country saw two decades of massive opium production, making Afghanistan the world's leading supplier of opium and heroin, accounting for more than 80 percent of global supply throughout this century.

Upon resuming its control of the country, the Taliban once again instituted a ban on opium cultivation, making a formal announcement of a ban in April 2022. Even now, at the end of the year, it is too early to tell how serious the Taliban are or how effective the ban will be, although UN Special Representative in Afghanistan Roza Otunbayeva reported in December that there is evidence the ban is being implemented. "Fields planted before and after the declaration have been destroyed," she said. "We will not be able to verify the actual implementation of this ban until early next year but the intention behind it is commendable. Nonetheless, the ban will have a negative effect on the income of individual farmers as few alternative livelihood programs were put in place."

This year, though, the opium crop is "the most profitable in years," the UN reported in November, with cultivation up by nearly a third and prices soaring because of the looming ban. Sowing of the 2023 crop was supposed to be done by November, and it is unclear how much uncertainty about how the ban will be enforced has affected the sowing of the crop. The answer will come in the spring when it is harvest time for the poppy crop.

2. Colombia Elects a Former Guerrilla Drug War Critic as President

In an election that has overturned a decades-long status quo in Colombian politics and threatens to upend US-Colombia relations, former leftist guerrilla and Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro won the presidency in June. He beat his competitor, Trumpian businessman Rodolfo Hernández, by a margin of 50.44% to 47.03%.

Petro is a harsh critic of the US-imposed war on drugs, which he says has cost a million Latin American lives even as the US has spent $20 billion since the days of Plan Colombia to wage a drug war entwined with a vicious counterinsurgency. That spending may have helped drive the leftist guerrillas of the FARC to the negotiating table -- a peace accord was signed in 2016 -- but it has not stopped the coca and cocaine trade, which is now undergoing a boom.

After Petro's election, but before he took office in August, a truth commission appointed as part of the 2016 peace accords called for the government to quit focusing on suppressing illicit drugs and instead take the global lead in moving to "strict legal regulation" of those substances. It recommended a new approach to illicit drug production that focuses more on sustainable development and less on the eradication of coca. The commission's recommendations are non-binding, but Petro has said he will follow them.

Petro has been in office for less than six months, but he already held a first assembly of coca growers and called for a regional assembly to discuss hemispheric drug policy. He has also angered the US by vowing not to extradite drug traffickers, and threatening to move toward cocaine decriminalizationand ban the spraying of coca fields with herbicides.

Cocaine decriminalization is not happening yet, but marijuana legalization is. A legalization bill has passed the House and Senate, clearing the way for final votes early next year. Look for Colombia to continue to steer a course away from drug war orthodoxy as the Petro presidency continues.

3. Duterte Leaves Office but His Philippine Drug War Legacy Lingers

Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte became ex-president Duterte in June, having finished his six-year term and leaving a legacy of bloody drug war killings. The Philippines National Police have officially admitted killing more than 6,200, but human rights groups put the total toll of dead in Duterte's drug war at around 30,000, with many killed by shadowy vigilantes.

The widespread drug killings under Duterte were condemned by Western governments and human rights groups and sparked an investigation by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.

Duterte's successor, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., the son of the deposed former dictator, is attempting to portray his own drug policies as distinct from Duterte's lethal efforts, but he's made clear that he is not planning to undertake a policy change, his claim to focus on rehabilitation has yet to substantially materialize, and the government's few current "drug rehabilitation" programs are involuntary, coercive, and expose drug users to further stigma.

And Philippines police are continuing to kill people in the name of fighting drugs, albeit at a lower level than during the Duterte era. In November, police tried to claim the death toll was "very minimal," saying only 46 people had been killed since June 30, when Marcos took office. But the government's habit of lying, obstructing, and obfuscating, so well developed under Duterte, appears to remain intact under Marcos. An independent estimate from the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center put the actual number of people killed in drug war incidents at 127, nearly three times the police number.

4. Mexico's Drug War Continues Unabated

Four years into his six-year term, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is having no more luck with his "kisses not bullets" approach to his country's violent drug trafficking organizations than his predecessors did with their various efforts to rein in the so-called cartels. After four years of AMLO, the country has seen 140,000 murders, most of them committed by the cartels. That is a 61 percent increase over the same four-year period under his immediate predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto.

AMLO has also scrapped the Federal Police, replacing them with the National Guard, which he wants to fold into the armed forces. In a worrying sign, the military is now shouldering more and more of the overall responsibility for dealing with violent.

And it is not working. The competing cartels periodically take a respite from trying to kill each other and go to work terrorizing the state and its agents, as was the case in August and September, when the cartels and allied gangs rampaged across four states, shutting down roads and businesses, burning vehicles and businesses, and attacking police and troops, including a stunning series of attacks in Tijuana.

Meanwhile, the cartels continue to work away assiduously at their main enterprise: exporting massive amounts of methamphetamine and fentanyl into the United States.

5. Canada's British Columbia Wins Approval for Drug Decriminalization

Faced with an intractable drug overdose problem, British Columbia, long a leader in progressive approaches to drug policy, in October 2021 requested an exemption from the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to allow it to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. Health Canada granted that exemption in June 2022.

The new measure goes into effect on January 31, 2023 and will extend three years to January 31, 2026. Under the decrim plan, possession of up to 2.5 grams of those drugs (cumulatively) will not result in arrest or confiscation of the drugs. While decriminalization is a first in Canada, activists in Vancouver and throughout the province are critical of the low weight limits and of the fact that minors will continue to be arrested regardless of the weight of the drugs they are carrying.

British Columbia's pending drug decriminalization will be first for Canada, but it's not the first in North America. Mexico decriminalized drug possession in 2009 and Oregon voters decriminalized drug possession in 2020.

6. Saudi Arabia Resumes Death Penalty for Drug Offenses

After halting executions of drug offenders in January 2020, Saudi Arabia suddenly and without warning resumed them on November 10. Two weeks later, it announced that 20 men had been executed for drug offenses. Dozens of people remain on death row for drug offenses and face imminent execution.On November 22, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights urged the Saudi government to halt the imminent execution of one drug prisoner and called on the Saudi authorities to adopt an official moratorium on executions for drug-related offenses, commute death sentences for drug-related offences, and guarantee the right to a fair trial for all defendants, including those accused of committing such crimes, in line with the law and its international obligations.

Nearly three dozen NGOS led by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, Harm Reduction International, and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty have called on the International Narcotics Control Board and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to act on urgent measures in response to the series of drug-related executions carried out by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since November 10.

Globally, 146 countries, including 20 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, have abolished the death penalty. The United Nations does not consider drug offenses to be among the most "serious" crimes that would warrant the death penalty, and resort to the death penalty for such offenses contradicts the standards of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the International Narcotics Control Board.

7. Pakistan Moves to End Death Penalty for Drug Offenses

At year's end, Pakistan's lower house, the National Assembly, passed the Control of Narcotic Substances Amendment Bill 2022, which abolishes the death sentence for drug dealing and converts it into a life sentence. The bill comes as the country has seen a spate of executions for different sorts of offenses since 2014, when it lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of a terrorist attack on an army school that left 132 children dead.

The vote came just weeks after Saudi Arabia's execution of three Pakistani nationals when it suddenly resumed drug executions in November.

Earlier in the year, the Senate Standing Committee on Anti-Narcotics approved keeping the death penalty for certain trafficking offenses, but in September, President Arif Alvia approved the amendment allowing for life sentences instead.

8. Russia Weaponizes Its Draconian Drug Laws to Turn American Athlete Brittney Griner into a New Cold War Political Pawn

Russia has long used its draconian drug laws against its own citizens, including dissidents, but this year the Kremlin was able to deploy them as a means of pressuring the United States when Russian customs officials arrested American women's basketball star on drug trafficking charges as she entered the country to play off-season pro ball a week before Russian troops invaded Ukraine.

Russia has theoretically adopted the decriminalization of small-scale drug possession, but officers commonly find just enough of a drug to file criminal charges, as was the case with Griner. Although Griner was found with vape cartridges containing less than a gram of medically-recommended cannabis oil, she was charged not with drug possession but with smuggling "a significant amount" of proscribed drugs, a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to ten years.

She was duly convicted in a Russian court and sentenced to 9 ½ years in a Russian prison, creating an embarrassment and distraction for the Biden administration, which faced mounting pressure to win her release. After months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, a prisoner swap was announced, and Griner was released in December in exchange for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had been sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison in 2011 (after already serving three years in pretrial detention).

9. European Countries Move Down Path to Marijuana Legalization

Late last year, Malta became the first European country to legalize marijuana, and this year, several other countries have been taking steps along the same path. In June, Luxembourg move to enact marijuana reforms, although it has retreated from "legalization" to "regulation," and is proposing the decriminalization of up to three grams of marijuana and allowing the cultivation of up to four plants at home. The government had originally proposed full-blown commercial legalization back in 2018 and says that still remains its goal.

In October, Germany unveiled its marijuana legalization plan. The health ministry rolled out a plan that includes the decriminalization of the possession of up to 30 grams of marijuana as well as allowing for the sale of marijuana to adults in a regulated marketplace. The German government will also consult with the European Union's executive commission to ensure that the legalization plan complies with EU laws and will move forward "on this basis" only if the EU approves.

And in November, the Czech Republic began drafting a marijuana legalization bill. The country has already legalized medical marijuana and decriminalized the possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana for adult use, but the country's center-right governing coalition has now begun the process of a drafting a full marijuana legalization bill. The issue was pushed by the Czech Pirate Party, the smallest member of the governing coalition, which said legalization would "make the Czech Republic a freer country" and "bring billions into public budgets."

10. Thailand Kind of, Sort of Legalizes Marijuana

In June, the Thai government removed marijuana from the country's narcotics list, allowing people to grow all the weed they want and freeing more than 3,000 marijuana prisoners. But the law only legalizes marijuana extracts containing less than 0.2 percent THC, meaning that while people can grow all the plants they want, consuming what they produce will remain technically illegal, as is the case with sales now.

But that has not stopped the use and sale of full-potency marijuana. What began as a flowering of edibles and tinctures shops in June has now morphed into a full-blown recreational marijuana scene, with thousands of dispensaries of dubious legality and the government impotently warning a tide of marijuana tourists they are not welcome.

The government's marijuana moves have been confusing and controversial, and the government is attempting to bring some order to the situation with a 95-article Marijuana Bill that seeks to regulate gray areas around cultivation, consumption, and sales. That bill is expected to be passed before the country's next general in May.

Law enforcement officers and prosecutors systematically violate the constitutional rights of innocent property owners and interstate drivers, seizing cash and other valuable items without legitimate probable cause, which deprives individuals of much-needed funds in their possession. Police agencies seize additional property like vehicles, houses, businesses, and other tangible items, then auction these items off by executing a well-planned civil forfeiture lawsuit even if a person who owned the property or properties hadn't been convicted of a crime. State and local governments then split the proceeds with the law enforcement agency that made the seizure.

That is civil -- as opposed to criminal -- asset forfeiture. Civil forfeiture law only requires prosecutors to prove a mere preponderance of the evidence, a lesser threshold than the beyond a reasonable doubt standard required in criminal cases. In practice, property targeted under civil forfeiture is usually seized unless the property owner hires an attorney to contest the proceeding, but people whose monies or properties have been seized often lack the means to challenge such actions.

Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association, said the lower standard allows police to hit criminals in their pocketbooks even if they can't place them behind bars. "Civil asset forfeiture is intended to try and take a bite out of organized criminal syndicates by getting at their profit margin," he told KERA TV. "If we do away with civil asset forfeiture, who benefits the most? It's organized crime."

Documentation of thousands of asset forfeiture cases by the Institute for Justice (IFJ), a Washington, DC-based public interest law firm, challenges Lawrence's line because it found police confiscated small amounts of money from individuals instead of big hitters who are involved with organized crime which means not everyone who has their money taken is into high-level crimes. Many aren't guilty of anything except for having a substantial amount of cash when police erroneously profile them as criminals.

Forfeited assets including cash proceeds are lucrative for government and law enforcement agencies. In 2018 alone, reports IFJ, 42 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government seized over $3 billion; $500 million was forfeited under state law and the government seized $2.5 billion within the Department of Justice and the Treasury forfeiture program.

IFJ is fighting tooth and nail against alleged abusive practices in Texas by filing a class-action lawsuit last year against the Harris County District Attorney's Office headed by elected Democrat Kim Ogg and Ed Gonzalez the elected Harris County sheriff.

"Texas has some of the worst civil forfeiture laws in the country, and what's driving this is the fact that police and prosecutors get to keep the property they seize. They can use it to buy better equipment, to buy better automobiles, and pay salaries, IFJ attorney Scott Bullock said more than a decade ago. Little has changed since then.

Ovid Ned can attest to Harris County's questionable seizure tactics. On January 31, 2016, Houston Police patrolmen stopped Ned while he was driving a new Jeep Compass in the 10700 Block of Bentley Street in far North Houston. Since Ned didn't have a state driver's license he was arrested on the spot. While conducting an inventory of the vehicle for towing purposes the officers discovered 26.98 grams of hydrocodone inside a pill bottle in the vehicle's glove box. Police confiscated $948.00 tucked in Ned's pants pocket. A charge of possession with intent to deliver hydrocodone was filed against Mr. Ned. As a bonus, the officers seized Ned's cash claiming the funds were the result of illegal narcotic sales.

But while he potentially faced a stiff prison sentence, Ned's luck was as hot as a pair of winning craps dice because a Harris County prosecutor dismissed the drug charge on June 15, 2016. To the prosecutor's surprise, Ned had a valid prescription for the hydrocodone, but in a second go-round, Ned crapped out. Harris County asset forfeiture prosecutors filed a case against his money and managed to grab every red cent without convicting the alleged member of the 5th Ward Circle Street gang of anything.

Houston Police stated in the seizure report they believe the cash was drug money because Ned was a documented gang member with a lengthy criminal history involving narcotics, and they further allege finding three boxes of plastic sandwich bags in the trunk of the vehicle.

Prosecutor Angela Beaver argued that Ned "was selling the pills." Beaver explained how opioid dealers often obtain several prescriptions from pain clinics.

"All they have to do to make the criminal case go away is to produce one of these prescriptions so that the possession is not illegal," Beavers said. "It does not mean the money seized is not contraband."

What Beavers failed to mention is all her office had to do was contact Ned's doctor to verify the authenticity of the prescription. Nor did Beavers show proof that Ned engaged in scouting for doctors to write bogus prescriptions to account for the drugs he possessed at the time he was arrested.

"Taking property without a criminal conviction is a violation of the owners' civil liberties," said IFJ attorney Arif Panju. "There is a principle of being innocent until proven guilty, and forfeiture just takes that and flips it on its head. That raises all sorts of constitutional problems."

The IFJ scored a victory at the US Supreme Court that limits forfeitures in state cases where the value of what is seized outweighs the seriousness of the connected crime.

US Supreme Court Justices Weigh In

US Supreme Court justices realize how civil forfeitures can become excessively punitive and that in such cases the constitutional protections must attach to balance the law. Forfeitures of property without proof of the owner's wrongdoing, merely because it was 'used' in or was an instrumentality of crime has been permitted in England and this country, both before, and, after the adoption of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

In the case of Leonard vs. Texas, Justice Clarence Thomas questioned: "whether the Court's treatment of the broad modern forfeiture practice can be justified by the narrow historical one."

Leonard vs. Texas entails a story of two men, vehicle driver James Leonard and passenger Nicosa Kane. Police stopped the men in Texas as they headed down an interstate known for heavy drug trafficking. When the officer saw a locked safe in the trunk he questioned the men about the contents of the safe. According to the officer, both men gave conflicting stories about the safe. James told the officer the safe belonged to his mother and that he was to buy a house in Pennsylvania. Once the safe was opened the officers discovered the mother lode, a cool $201,000. A bill of sale for a house was also found in the safe.

The state immediately seized the funds. Leonard's mother, Lisa Olivia Leonard, filed a lawsuit listing herself as the innocent owner of the cash-filled safe. At the trial court hearing, the presiding judge issued a forfeiture order meaning Ms. Leonard lost the cash. She appealed the verdict. Rejecting Leonard's innocent-owner defense the court of appeals, citing the suspicious circumstances of the stop and the contradictory stories between James Leonard and Nicosa Cane, court concluded that the government proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the money in the safe was either the proceeds of a drug sale or intended for such activity.

The US Supreme Court denied Leonard's petition for certiorari on March 6, 2017. No news reports are showing whether Leonard won her money back.

Meanwhile, states like Arkansas and Michigan have passed legislation to require that a person must first be convicted of a crime before forfeiture proceedings can start. Texas state Republicans and Democrats have proposed similar legislation.

Difference Between Criminal Law and Civil Forfeiture Asset Law

The key feature of Texas civil forfeiture law is how it shifts the burden of proof onto the person who had their property seized to prove their property wasn't connected to a crime. Unlike a criminal trial where the evidence is brought against an individual, in civil forfeitures, the government proceeds against the property (or seized cash) as if the property itself assisted in the commission of a crime.

For instance, when it comes to civil law forfeitures the government only needs to meet a lower preponderance of the evidence to snatch away someone's property which means a person can have their property taken without being convicted of a crime.

"Who could afford to have their life savings taken away for more than two years with no hearing and no opportunity to go before a judge?" asked IFJ Senior Attorney Wesley Hottot.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office has declined to comment publicly about the IFJ lawsuit.

Harris County DA Office Dismisses Dope Cases by Corrupt Houston Police Narcotic Officers And Keeps the Seized Tainted Cash

Harris County prosecutors in Houston dismissed numerous drug cases and recommended the reversal of the cases of other defendants arrested by terribly corrupt Houston police narcotic officers Gerald Goines and Stephen Bryant, the narco officers responsible for one of Houston's most scandalous acts of sheer violence when Goines lied to obtain the January 2019 search warrant that led to the shooting deaths of two innocent people, 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle and Tuttle's wife, 58-year-old Rhogena Ann Nicholas. They were gunned down by police after Goines fabricated a search warrant and executed the same warrant at the couple's home.

Goines claimed his informant purchased heroin from the couple when no informant had entered the home and made a drug buy. Five additional officers were shot during the raid as well as what became the sensational, deadly raid on Harding Street in the East End of town. There have been at least three dozen instances in recent years when Goines' Narcotics Squad #15 seized lots of cash, jewelry, and vehicles based on misleading statements and even outright lies to justify narcotic search warrants.

Despite the criminal cases being dropped or dismissed, the Harris County Civil Asset Forfeiture Division still seized the "crime-tainted" cash and property. For example, on July 24, 2018, Andrew Hebert, of 4524 Alvin Street in Houston was strolling over to his 2017 Buick Lacrosse parked in the driveway when police swarmed him like flies. Narcotic officers Goines and Bryant said they saw Hebert make a hand-to-hand dope delivery to an individual. A search of Hebert's residence yielded assorted narcotics and $10, 965.00. Police seized the funds and Hebert had a second seizure of $1,765.00. When news broke about the scandal involving Goines and Bryant's involvement in the death of the East End couple the District Attorney's Office dropped the dope case against Hebert but still, the prosecutors kept his money.

The same thing happened to Christopher White's $2,465 and Andre Thomas's $2,700. Criminal charges were dropped due to Goines's involvement in their narcotics cases, but they never saw the money again. Goines and Bryant are facing a laundry list of federal civil rights criminal charges ranging from obstruction of justice, making false statements, falsifying records, and depriving the deceased victims of their constitutional right to be secure against unreasonable searches. State charges against Goines include first-degree murder. That trial remains pending.

Transporting Cash to Buy a Truck Isn't a Crime

Included in the Institute for Justice class action lawsuit is the case of Ameal Woods and Jordan Davis from Natchez Mississippi, who lost $42, 300 to Harris County Civil Asset Forfeiture Enforcement. Ameal Woods was traveling from Natchez to a suburb outside Houston called Katy, Texas, -- when he happened to encounter a Harris County Sheriff Patrol Sergeant on May 19, 2019. The sergeant pulled Woods over in the 2300 block of I-10 driving a new Nissan Sentra for allegedly "following a tractor-trailer too closely."

The Sergeant allowed Woods to sit in his patrol car while he checked Woods' license and prepared a warning citation. As these transactions took place, the sergeant wrote the following in his offense report: "Mr. Woods was having facial tremors, labored breath, shifting around in his seat, licking his lips and belching, all signs of stress," the officer wrote in his report.

Whether the officer first asked Woods if he was transporting dope or money or if anything out of the ordinary triggered the officer's suspicion remains unclear. In the officer's report, he said that Woods claimed to be carrying $30,000 in his rented vehicle and that his girlfriend Jordan Davis rented the car. Woods said the money was to buy a used tractor-trailer to expand his trucking business back home in Mississippi.

The deputy recovered the money wrapped in separate packages. When asked where he got the funds Woods said his wife gave him part of it, and that a niece loaned him some as well. The deputy also claimed Woods had explained to him that his girlfriend Jordan Davis had given him part of the money from her tax returns.

To verify Woods's story, the deputy sergeant said he called Jordan Davis from his cell phone while sitting on the road with Ameal Woods and that Davis said she hadn't gotten her tax return yet. Ameal Woods denied his girlfriend had talked with the sergeant about her tax return. Once the money was taken, the sergeant gave Woods an incident report number detailing the seizure and Woods was cut loose at the scene.

Ameal Woods recalled seeing no drug dog at the scene. But in a final seizure report submitted to the county by a different deputy, the deputy stated a drug dog made a hit on the money Woods was carrying, which means the dog detected an odor of illegal drugs on the seized money.

National Geographic and several more prominent news media outlets reported in 2009, that a definitive study showed "Nearly nine out of ten bills circulating in the United States are tainted with cocaine." In 1994, the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that in Los Angeles, out of every four banknotes, on average more than three are tainted by cocaine or another illicit drug.

Questions swirled among the IFJ attorneys as to why it took slightly over two years before the Harris County District Attorney's Office in Houston served Ameal and Jordan with legal notification of the forfeiture.

IFJ attorneys said there is a scheme by Texas lawmen and the District Attorney's Office to take cash from travelers without legit probable cause, particularly if the individuals are African Americans and Mexicans.

Forfeiture Complaints Raise Suspicion

What infuriates the IFJ attorneys was the suspicious composition of the forfeiture complaint by a Harris County Deputy Sheriff identified as Greg Nason, who, according to the lawsuit "was not at the scene when the money was seized from Ameal Woods."

The Attorney's investigation uncovered more peculiar activities. Unsurprisingly, IFJ attorneys identified 113 seizure affidavits rife with errors and misspelled words "written by an officer who was not at the time and place of seizure." At least 80 of those affidavits were written by the same Officer Greg Nason. Just as the discovery of some of the poorly worded sentences wasn't enough, the attorneys noticed 'cut and paste' testimony with different fonts, and erroneous dates and the deputy even referred to tangible cash when the seized property was a vehicle.

Dog Makes Alert on Proceeds Later; Not At The Scene

IFJ attorneys also discovered 92 cases (including the Ameal Woods case) where a drug dog reportedly alerted "after police seized property." The key word is "after" the incident took place, not at the scene. Ameal assured his attorneys that no dog sniffed his money at the scene.

"The government cannot copy-and-paste its way to probable cause," said IFJ. Managing Attorney Arif Panju. "Probable cause means more than simply having a large sum in cash and an after-the-fact dog alert."

Retired Harris County Sheriff Department Narcotic Detective Joe Harris told Drug War Chronicle, "Unless there was an ongoing investigation that hasn't been revealed, what we used to do is if we target a person for carrying lots of money, money suspected to be from selling drugs we would have a dog come to the scene to see if the dog hit on the money. If the dog hits on the money we seize it right then", not later on unless a person is arrested with drugs and carrying money at the same time," Harris said.

Harris went on to explain that when a dog makes a hit on a vehicle this is when to get a warrant to search for narcotics.

Between 2018 and 2020, the Harris County District Attorney Forfeiture Division collected $15.9 million in forfeiture revenue. Over $7.5 million was spent on police salaries and overtime.

Texas Gunslingers Battle for Reform

Harris County prosecutors in Houston unified with their compatriots in law enforcement against proposed laws to restrict civil asset forfeiture over the last few years. Several bills have been filed in the state's legislature by Democrats and Republicans to prevent Texas prosecutors from seizing citizens' money and other assets unless they'd been convicted of a crime.

During one 2019 legislative hearing at the state capitol in Austin, Harris County Civil Forfeiture prosecutor Angela Beaver said criminal charges were filed in all but 5% of Harris County seizure cases in 2018. State Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston), who has filed legislation to require convictions for forfeiture. Scoffed at Beavers' numbers.

"I'm going to tell you as a practicing lawyer in Harris County, I don't think you're being honest with this committee," he said.

"Well, we have the stats," she shot back.

But a study of Harris County statistics by the Texas Tribune suggested the prosecutor's numbers were wrong. The Tribune found that during the first six months of 2016, 15 percent of asset seizures did not include criminal charges connected to the stated reason for the seizure -- such as a drug crime -- and nearly 40 percent of seizures did not result in a related conviction or guilty plea.

Proposed Changes to Modify the Way Property is Seized in Texas

To add an extra boost to eliminate civil asset forfeitures against a person's property, although the person hasn't been criminally convicted in a court of law, State Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) and then-Republican Senator Konni Burton filed identical bills requiring law enforcement and prosecutors to secure a criminal conviction before property can be legally seized, instead claiming the seized property was more likely than not connected to a crime.

Texas Civil asset forfeiture law needs much reform to equal the playing field for defendants to have a better shot at proving their money or property wasn't intended for criminal activities. The biggest stake in the foray is how prosecutors and law enforcement abuse civil forfeitures to tilt the scales in their favor and undermine the constitutional rights of American citizens.

Democratic State Reps. Harold Dutton and Senfronia Thompson will attempt to re-introduce House Bill 251 in the legislative session beginning in January 2023, to reform Texas civil asset forfeiture Law. Their goal is to make it so that state prosecutors must first convict a person in criminal court to legally seize the individual's property that may or may not be connected to the crime with which they were charged.

Drug War Chronicle contributor and news reporter Clarence Walker can be reached at [email protected]

The good, the bad, and the ugly in US domestic drug policy this year.

Drug overdoses hit a record high in 2022, but may have peaked. (Creative Commons)

According to Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in December, the nation's fatal drug overdose epidemic has peaked. After reaching a record high of more than 110,000 fatal overdoses in the 12-month period ending in March, that number declined to 107,735 in the 12-month period ending in July, the last month for which data is available. That is a two percent decline from the March high.

While the decline is welcome, drug overdose numbers are still 25 percent higher than they were two years ago and double what they were five years ago. According to the CDC, synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, were implicated in more than two-thirds of overdose deaths and stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine were involved in nearly one-third. But some fraction of stimulant-implicated overdose deaths are not caused by the stimulants themselves but by stimulant users being exposed to drugs cut with fentanyl.

2. Neither Marijuana Legalization nor Banking Access Pass Congress

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) vowed to make passage of a marijuana legalization bill a priority in this Congress, but it didn't happen. While the House passed a legalization bill, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act (HR 3617) in April, Schumer and congressional allies didn't even roll out a draft version of their Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act until this July -- 18 months after this Congress began -- and it never exhibited enough bipartisan support to go anywhere in the evenly divided Senate.

Schumer and his Senate allies also repeatedly blocked efforts to get a bill to allow state-legal marijuana businesses access to financial services through the Senate. The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act (HR 1996) passed the House in April, and Senate allies tried repeatedly to attach it as an amendment to various spending bills, only to be stymied by Schumer and his holdouts for full-blown legalization. At year's end, though, while Schumer was finally ready to move forward with it, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) came out in opposition, helping to scuttle one last effort to tie it to a defense appropriations bill.

3. With Biden's Signature, A Standalone Marijuana Reform Bill Becomes Law for The First Time Ever

For the first time ever, Congress passed and in December the president signed into law a stand-alone marijuana reform bill, the bipartisan Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act (HR 8454). Some marijuana reform measures have been passed before, but only as part of much broader appropriations bills. The aim of the bill is to facilitate research on marijuana and its potential health benefits. The bill will accomplish this by streamlining the application process for scientific marijuana studies and removing existing barriers for research by allowing both private companies and research universities to seek DEA licenses to grow their own marijuana for research purposes.

4. Three More States Legalize Marijuana

In May, Rhode Island became the 19th state to legalize marijuana when the General Assembly passed and Gov. Dan McKee signed into law the Rhode Island Cannabis Act. Sales to any adult over 21 at medical marijuana dispensaries that acquired "hybrid retail licenses" began in December.

And in November, voters in Maryland and Missouri approved marijuana legalization initiatives. Maryland's Question 4 came not from the people but from the legislature and amends the state constitution and mandates that the General Assembly "shall provide for the use, distribution, possession, regulation and taxation of cannabis within the state." Missouri's Amendment 3 overcame multi-sided opposition not only from the usual suspects in law enforcement and the political establishment but also from civil rights groups and marijuana industry insiders to eke out a narrow victory. As of December 8, possession of up to three ounces by adults is no longer a crime, but sales to adults will not begin until next year.

But there were also losses at the ballot box this year. The Arkansas Adult Use Cannabis Amendment garnered only 43.8 percent of the vote, while North Dakota's Initiated Statutory Measure No. 1 managed only 45.1 percent, and South Dakota's Initiated Measure 27 came up short with only 46.6 percent of the vote. The South Dakota defeat was especially bitter, given that just two years ago, voters there approved a broader marijuana legalization initiative with 54 percent of the vote only to see it invalidated by the state Supreme Court.

5. The Year of Fentanyl Test Strip Decriminalization

Fentanyl test strips, which detect the presence of the powerful synthetic opioid in all different kinds of drugs (cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, etc.) and formulations (pills, powders, and injectables) are recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a valuable harm reduction strategy and are increasingly seen by the states as a crucial tool in the fight to reduce drug overdose deaths. When the Biden White House first endorsed their use in 2021, they were considered illegal drug paraphernalia in a majority of states.

Not anymore. As of the end of 2022, 31 states have now legalized or decriminalized fentanyl test strips, with Alabama, Georgia, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Wisconsin doing so this year alone. But that leaves 19 states, mostly in the South and including Florida and Texas where they remain banned.

6. Colorado Becomes Second State to Approve Natural Psychedelic Reforms

Three years after voters in Denver opened the door to psychedelic reform by approving a municipal initiative that made possession of psilocybin mushrooms the lowest law enforcement priority, voters statewide have approved an initiative that decriminalizes plant- and fungi-derived psychedelics and creates a program for the therapeutic administration of such substances. On Election Day, voters approved Proposition 122, the Natural Medicine Health Act, with 53.55 percent of the vote. The victory makes Colorado the second state to enact reforms decriminalizing a natural psychedelic and setting up a program for therapeutic use. Oregon voters led the way on that by approving Measure 109 in 2020.

Proposition 122 has two main prongs: First, it decriminalizes the personal use, possession, and cultivation by people 21 and over of dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine, mescaline (not derived from peyote), psilocybin, and psilocyn, as well as providing for the sealing of conviction records of people who have completed sentences for the use or possession of those substances. The measure sets no personal possession limits. Second, it creates a "natural medicine services" program for the therapeutic administration of the specified psychedelics and creates a rubric for regulated growth, distribution, and sales of those substances to entities within the program. Only psilocybin and psilocin would be okayed for therapeutic use until 2026. Then regulators could decide on whether to allow the therapeutic use of DMT, ibogaine, and mescaline.

7. Marijuana Social Consumption Lounges Spread

Ever since the first states legalized marijuana a decade ago, one question for users was where to go to smoke their newly legal product. Most states ban smoking outdoors in public or indoors pretty much anywhere except one's home -- and even that can be an issue if your landlord isn't down with it. One solution is allowing places for marijuana users to toke up in a convivial setting, the marijuana social consumption lounge, whether as part of a retail shop or as a standalone business.

Social consumption lounges are now legal in 11 states -- Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Nevada -- although they are not actually up and running yet in some of them. Massachusetts has two lounges now operating; in New Jersey, regulators just approved rules for them; in Nevada, regulators just issued 20 provisional licenses; in New York, they're still waiting for regulators to act; and in California, the state's dozen or so lounges are set to double in number as more localities okay them. Meanwhile, the nation's capital could be next: In the District of Columbia, the city council just approved a bill allowing them.

8. Safe Injection Sites Are Operating in the United States

Safe injection sites, the harm reduction intervention proven to save lives after years of operation in more than a hundred cities in Australia, Canada, and Europe, are finally getting a toehold in the US. New York City's two safe injection sites have just celebrated their first birthdays after opening in late 2021, and in Rhode Island, a two-year pilot program is underway.

But there will be no safe injection sites in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed a bill that would have allowed pilot programs in major cities across the state. And the fate of a proposed Philadelphia safe injection site -- and the Biden administration's attitude toward them -- remains in doubt. That facility was initially blocked by the Trump Justice Department, and two years later, the Biden Justice Department has yet to substantively respond to lawsuit from the site's would-be operators. Just this month, a federal judge gave DOJ just 30 more days to respond. A positive response would remove the obstacle to further expansion of such sites that fear of federal prosecution brings. Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service has thoughtfully released a report about other options for getting them up and running, such as passing budget amendments similar to those blocking the Justice Department from interfering in marijuana laws.

9. In DC and New York City, Gray Market Weed Finds a Way

In both the nation's capital and the nation's largest city, unregulated marijuana vendors have popped up to supply pent up demand as both cities endure legalization without legal marijuana sales. In New York City, it's only a matter of time before taxed, licensed, and regulators marijuana retailers are able to open, but in the interregnum between legalization and legal access, the pot scene has gone hog wild with marijuana being sold everywhere -- head shops, bodegas, even from folding tables on street corners -- with one particularly hysterical estimate putting the number at "likely tens of thousands of illicit cannabis businesses." The market isn't waiting for the regulators, and its emergence could undercut the legal businesses waiting in the wings. The city has undertaken limited enforcement efforts, but to little effect so far.

In Washington, DC, a congressional rider barring taxed and regulated marijuana sales has seen something similar, but with a DC twist: a multitude of shops that will "gift" you marijuana when you purchase some other item. The stores call themselves I-71 shops, after the 2014 initiative that legalized marijuana in the city and they even have their own industry association, which estimates there are a hundred or so of them. The city vowed a crackdown in August, but put that on hold the following month.

10. For the First Time, SAMSHA Funds Harm Reduction

In December 2021, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced that it would for the first time ever make grants available to harm reduction groups to "help increase access to a range of community harm reduction services and support harm reduction service providers as they work to help prevent overdose deaths and reduce health risks often associated with drug use." SAMSHA would make available $10 million a year in grants for the next three years.

And this year, the first tranche went out. Some 25 different programs from the Lost Dreams Awakening Center in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, to the Mile High Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in Denver, to the Los Angeles County Health Department got grants this year, almost all of them for $398,960. It's a drop in the bucket compared to federal spending on prohibition -- and compared to harm reduction's full funding needs -- but it's a start.

A small-town Pennsylvania police chief had a bad habit, an Indiana cop gets caught stealing dope from DEA Drug Take Back campaign, and more. Let's get to it:

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a former Elizabeth Borough police chief pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing drugs from an evidence locker. According to federal prosecutors, former Chief Timothy Butler "stole hundreds of bricks and bundles of heroin from the Elizabeth Borough Police Department for his own personal use," and Butler admitted in court that he stole and used the heroin. He pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government property. Butler also pleaded guilty to state charges in August 2019 that included two counts of theft, one count of drug possession, and one count of obstructing the administration of justice. He was sentenced to 55 months' probation on the state charges. He faces sentencing on the federal charge in April.

In Clarksburg, West Virginia, a former state prison guard was sentenced last Wednesday to a year and a day in prison for selling drugs to inmates. Joshua Quinn had pleaded guilty in October to one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and buprenorphine.

The marijuana industry will remain without access to many services after Congress failed to act this year, the GAO looks at how the drug czar's office is performing, and more.

Psychedelics

California Psychedelic Decriminalization Bill is Back. Four months after state Sen. Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) pulled his bill to decriminalize certain psychedelics when it was gutted in committee, the bill has been refiled. Senate Bill 58 would decriminalize magic mushrooms and ayahuasca -- but not LSD or MDMA -- and is being backed by veterans and mental health professionals. The bill decriminalizes only plant- or fungi-based psychedelics.

Drug Policy

GAO: Office of National Drug Control Policy Met Some Strategy Requirements but Needs a Performance Evaluation Plan. The Government Accountability Office reported Monday on the performance of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP -- the drug czar's office) and found that the 2022 strategy "fully met some legal requirements, including setting long-range, measurable goals to address drug misuse. The Strategy partially met others related to identifying the resources to treat substance use disorders. But, it didn't include a systematic plan for increasing data collection."

Also, "The 2022 Strategy and accompanying documents vary in their level of compliance with selected statutory requirements. The Strategy fully met some requirements, including those related to comprehensive, long-range, quantifiable goals, and targets to accomplish those goals. The Strategy partially met other selected requirements, including those related to identifying resources for the treatment of substance use disorders. The Strategy does not address some statutory requirements, including some related to future planning. For example, the Strategy is to contain a systematic plan for increasing data collection, including to enable real time surveillance of drug control threats. However, as of December 2022, ONDCP has not created such a plan. GAO recommended in 2019 that ONDCP routinely implement an approach to meet the requirements for the 2020 Strategy and future iterations. Doing so will better position ONDCP to ensure that future strategies completely address all of the statutory requirements."

Some Texas town officials are trying to run roughshod over the will of the voters on marijuana enforcement, sponsors of the SAFE Banking Act are not giving up hope yet, and more.

State-legal pot businesses seek access to financial services through the SAFE Banking Act. (Creative Commons)

Last Minute Push for SAFE Banking Act. With the curtain about to close on the current Congress, Senate sponsors of the SAFE Banking Act (HR 1996) are still trying to get the bill passed. Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Steve Daines (R-MT) tried and failed to get the bill attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, but now they're trying to get it attached to the omnibus funding bill, but again face Republican opposition, including from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Nine Republicans have previously sponsored the bill, but it would need 10 votes to overcome a filibuster. Earlier in the session, the bill was blocked by the Democratic leadership, which was holding out for a comprehensive marijuana legalization bill.

New Hampshire Lawmakers Filed Marijuana Legalization Bill. Incoming Democratic House leader Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester) is a main sponsor of a new marijuana legalization bill filed in the House last week. The bipartisan bill would legalize marijuana for people 21 and over and set up a system of taxed and regulated retail sales. While similar bills have failed in years past, Wilhelm said it is "long past" time for the state to stop "wasting scarce tax dollars and valuable local and state policing resources by continuing a restriction that has failed for decades and needlessly ruined the lives of many young and poor Granite Staters."

Texas Towns Seek to Undo Will of Voters on Marijuana Ordinances. Voters in five Texas towns and cities approved ending criminal enforcement of marijuana prohibition by voting for local ballot measures that ban arrests and tickets for possessing less than four ounces of weed. But elected officials in those localities are balking, with some saying the effort violates state laws and hinders police officers.

In Harker Heights, the city council repealed the ordinance two weeks after the vote. In Killeen, the Bell County DA attempted to undo the ordinance, but the city council approved it anyway. In San Marcos, the Hays County Criminal DA has asked for the state attorney general's opinion about enforceability of the ordinance, while in Denton, the city council certified the initiative, but the city manager opposes implementing part of it.

The US Pardon Attorney says federal marijuana pardon certificates are coming soon, an Irish parliament committee calls for drug decriminalization and regulation, and more.

Cocaine seized before it could reach its European market. (defensa.gob.es)

DOJ Official Details Plans to Provide Presidential Marijuana Pardon Certificates. US Pardon Attorney Elizabeth Oyer said Tuesday that people seeking presidential pardons for past federal marijuana convictions would soon get the opportunity to obtain certificates to do so, and that the application process should take less than ten minutes. Oyer noted that President Biden's recent pardon of some 6,500 federal marijuana offenders was "self-effectuating," meaning the pardons went into effect as soon as Biden announced them, but Biden's pardon proclamation directed the Justice Department to follow up with a certification process. The process is "very far along" and the certificates should be ready "soon," she added.

Opiates and Opioids

SAMHSA Proposes Update to Federal Rules to Expand Access to Opioid Use Disorder Treatment and Help Close Gap in Care. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), is proposing to expand access to treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) at a time when more than 107,000 Americans lost their lives to an overdose last year.

The proposal would update federal regulations that oversee OUD treatment standards, specifically 42 CFR Part 8, by allowing take home doses of methadone and the use of telehealth in initiating buprenorphine at opioid treatment programs (OTPs). Goals include providing greater autonomy to OTP practitioners, supporting recovery, and continuing the move toward flexibility in OTP that was extended at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

International

Irish Parliament Justice Committee Recommends Drug Decriminalization, Legalization. The Oireachtas (parliament) Justice Committee has recommended a host of changes to Ireland's drug policy, including examining legalizing and regulating some drugs, notably marijuana, and decriminalizing others. In its new report, the committee called for a three-pronged approach -- decriminalization, exploring drug regulation, and improving existing addiction services.

"There's already a commencement on that journey [of decriminalization], we've seen that in recent years but that policy should be doubled down on and accelerated," said committee Chair James Lawless. He also argued that a "managed market" could make drugs safer than the existing black market. "In the regulation would be a concept of actually having a commercial product and having the product available, which can be monitored, managed, licensed, weighed, tested for compliance, for safety, for content in a way that it clearly is not at the moment," he said.

Europe's Biggest Port Drowning in Cocaine. The port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest, saw nearly 70 tons of cocaine seized in 2021, up 74 percent over 2020, according to Dutch customs. Rotterdam and the nearby Belgian port of Antwerp were the two main ports used by a Dubai-based "super cartel" allegedly supplying a third of Europe's cocaine. That group was busted last month, but the flow of cocaine is expected to continue. "It seems there are lots of buyers" in Europe," said Customs officer Ger Scheringa. "And if there is demand, it is supplied."

Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said the city is "drowning in cocaine" and deplored the violence that has accompanied the black market drug trade. Aboutaleb wants all ships coming from Latin America scanned, but that runs up against the imperatives of business. "The biggest challenge is to find a good balance between the speed of logistics for the port, and checking everything you want," said Scheringa.

Kansas lawmakers will push for a medical marijuana bill when the session begins in January, Connecticut's dispensaries will be able to sell to any adult beginning in January, and more.

The opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone. There is a move afoot to make it available OTC. (Creative Commons)

Connecticut Recreational Marijuana Sales Set to Begin January 10. The state Department of Consumer Protection, which regulates marijuana in the state, has announced that the state's seven existing medical marijuana dispensaries had "successfully completed the necessary steps for conversion to a hybrid license," allowing them to also sell to the adult recreational market beginning January 10. Sales will be limited to a "a total of ¼ ounce of cannabis flower or its equivalent per transaction," according to the DCP. The move comes more than a year and a half after Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed a marijuana legalization bill into law.

Medical Marijuana

Kansas Lawmakers Plan to Introduce Medical Marijuana Bill at Start of Session Next Month. Since the end of the last legislative session, members of the Special Committee on Medical Marijuana have been meeting, compiling data, and evaluating research, and now they say they are ready to file a medical marijuana bill at the beginning of the session beginning next month. "I think what I’m going to do is — and any member is more than welcome — is to take this information and create the bill," said. Sen. Rob Olson (R-Olathe), chair of the medical marijuana committee. "And I’m going to work on a bill with a couple members and then if anybody wants to sign on in the Senate, they’ll be more than able to sign onto that bill and introduce it at the beginning of session." He also called on House lawmakers to file similar legislation. "I think that’s probably the best way forward," Olson said. Kansas is one of the 13 states that have still not legalized medical marijuana.

Foreign Policy

White House Formally Continues Drug Trafficking State of National Emergency. The White House on Monday issued an executive order continuing a state of national emergency "to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by global illicit drug trafficking." Noting that drug overdoses are killing tens of thousands of Americans each year, the order warns that: "Drug cartels, transnational criminal organizations, and their facilitators are the primary sources of illicit drugs and precursor chemicals that fuel the current opioid epidemic, as well as drug-related violence that harms our communities.  International drug trafficking — including the illicit production, global sale, and widespread distribution of illegal drugs; the rise of extremely potent drugs such as fentanyl and other synthetic opioids; as well as the growing role of Internet-based drug sales — continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.  For this reason, the national emergency declared in Executive Order 14059 of December 15, 2021, must continue in effect beyond December 15, 2022.  Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 14059 with respect to global illicit drug trafficking."

Harm Reduction

Major Drug Maker Applies to Sell Over-the-Counter Naloxone. In a move that addiction experts say could save tens of thousands of lives, a major drug maker has applied to sell the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone over-the-counter. Emergent BioSolutions is now seeking permission to sell the drug without a prescription and says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed to fast-track its review. A decision is expected by the end of March. Drug policy experts agreed that making naloxone more widely available is an important step in reducing drug overdoses but raised one concern: price. If OTC naloxone is too expensive, many people using drugs on the street just won't buy it, said University of North Carolina drug researcher Nabarun Dasgupta. "If we have this resource scarcity mentality that this is an expensive product, this is a special product, then people will not take enough kits to do what they need to do."

As the lame duck congressional session ticks down toward its final days, not only have prospects for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's marijuana legalization bill faded into misty nothingness, even the more incremental but much clamored-for effort to provide state-legal marijuana businesses with access to the banking system remains undone.

marijuana shop robbery in Seattle (KOMO screen grab)

While Congress dithers, marijuana retailers, especially in the West, have been paying the price of having to operate with extremely limited access to the banking sector. As a new report from StoptheDrugWar.org (publisher of this newsletter) executive director David Borden demonstrates, that price is paid not only in stolen cash and traumatized employees and customers, but sometimes in lost lives. The report, Dangerous Delays: What Washington State (Re) Teaches Us About Cannabis Store Robberies analyzes some 165 armed robberies of marijuana shops in the state beginning in 2017, including a spate of nearly 100 reported robberies in a 4 ½ months beginning in late 2021.

"While SAFE was stalling in the Senate [last year], Washington State's cannabis community was in the grip of an unprecedented surge in armed robberies of cannabis stores," the report notes. "This occurrence, which began in November 2021 and lasted 4 ½ months, saw nearly 100 reported robberies affect roughly 80 cannabis stores, and ended with three people dead."

One of those killed was a marijuana shop employee; two were armed robbers.

The data on robberies comes from a unique resource, the "Uncle Ike's i502 Robbery Tracker." Uncle Ike's is a Seattle-area marijuana shop chain that has seen two of its stores victimized, one in White Center in 2018 and one in Lake City in 2021. Its list is compiled from media reports, police reports, and direct communication with store robbery victims.

The study analyzed robberies by whether they targeted cash or product or both; and for those that targeted cash, whether they aimed only at cash registers (front of the store) or safes (back of the store). It also examined the relationship between robbery targets and levels of aggression by robbers.

"Our analysis confirms that cash dominates as the target for cannabis store robberies," the report's executive summary says. "Product also plays an important role, but almost always in combination with cash; whereas cash on its own gets targeted in roughly 50 percent of the time, during the incidents for which we could determine what was targeted. Most burglaries, by contrast, appear to only target product."

The report also concluded that:

• Based on current incentives, there is little reason to believe that robberies targeting the back of a store will continue (as opposed to burglaries), or continue at the same level, if cash is removed from the equation. The great majority of such robberies are aimed at accessing cash in the safe, and without cash or with much less of it, that will no longer be lucrative.
• There will also be much less incentive to target the cash register at the front of the store, in the absence of strong profits there. Those are roughly half of the documented front-store robberies on Uncle Ike's. There's little reason to believe that front-store robberies targeting only cash will continue in that scenario.
• Data finds few examples of product-only robberies (as opposed to burglaries which are mainly product-only). That may suggest product alone does not provide enough incentive to sustain interest in doing robberies, particularly because burglary is a viable option to obtain the same product.

"Given what happened in Washington -- which could happen again -- it would be wholly unjustifiable for Congress to again put off enacting some form of the SAFE Banking Act," said Borden. "But there will be more left to do after Congress passes SAFE, for the robberies problem to be thoroughly addressed," Borden continued. "One remaining piece is to specifically greenlight purchase transactions, which is how cash enters the system. The current language of SAFE explicitly addresses only depository banking."

While the prospects for passage of the SAFE Banking Act grow dimmer each day, there remains the chance that the SAFE Banking Act Plus, which Schumer has been negotiating for the past several months and which also includes social equity provisions demanded by activists and some lawmakers, could move as a standalone measure before the session ends.

But if it doesn't move, the marijuana shops will remain at risk. There are steps that can be taken to ameliorate that risk, the report says.

"Security, worker training, and likely other factors, will continue to have importance for cannabusinesses, regardless of what happens with SAFE or further measures," the report states. "In the meanwhile, the cannabis community in other states can help, by duplicating the tracking effort pioneered in Washington by Uncle Ike's." Also, stores should improve employee training "with respect to emphasizing the reasons for cooperating with robbers and how to avoid escalating tensions in robbery situations."

States, for their part, should "provide funding for security measures to small and midsize cannabis stores," the report adds, and at the state and federal level, regulators should "review their policies with an aim toward facilitating greater adoption of electronic payment for cannabis stores."

Or Congress could just legalize marijuana.

12/16 report launch webinar:

The Nevada Supreme Court protects workers who use medical marijuana, the District of Columbia moves to radically reform its medical marijuana program, and more.

Minnesota Medical Marijuana Program Adds New Qualifying Conditions. The state Department of Health has announced it is adding irritable bowel syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder to the list of qualifying medical conditions for the state's medical marijuana program. The changes will go into effect on August 1, 2023. "We are adding the new qualifying conditions to allow patients more therapy options for conditions that can be debilitating,"said Minnesota Commissioner of Health Jan Malcolm. Two other conditions, gastroparesis and opioid use disorder were not approved.

Nevada

Nevada Supreme Court Rules Workers Fired for Off-Duty Medical Marijuana Use Can Sue Former Employers. The state's highest court ruled Thursday that workers who are medical marijuana patients can sue their former employers if they have been fired for off-duty marijuana use. The ruling came in the case of Jim Roushkolb, a registered patient who used medical marijuana to ease PTSD, anxiety, and other mental health issues arising from a 1995 assault. His former employer, Freeman Expositions, fired him in 2018 after he tested positive for THC in the wake of a workplace incident where a plexiglass sheet fell and shattered. All employees at the scene were ordered to take drug tests, and Roushkolb was fired even though the company knew he was a medical marijuana patient.

Ohio

Ohio Bill Would Expand Medical Marijuana Access. A measure that has already passed the Senate, Senate Bill 261, would add new qualifying conditions but more importantly would also let doctors recommend medical marijuana for any condition they deem necessary. Proponents are now trying to get in through the House in what is left of the state legislature's lame-duck session . "I think that that’s the best path we can go on,"said bill sponsor Sen. Nicki Antonio (D-Lakewood). "I think there’s a lot of value in being able to have this treatment opportunity available to people as an alternative to all kinds of things that may have other side effects."

District of Columbia

DC Council Approves Bill to Eliminate License Caps, Promote Equity, Provide Tax Relief, More. The city council on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to a bill that broadly reworks the city's medical marijuana program. The measure needs to pass a second reading at a yet unspecified date before going to the mayor's desk. The bill would eliminate caps on licenses for marijuana businesses, provide tax relief to operators, encourage greater social equity, create new businesses categories for on-site consumption lounges, and provide a pathway for current gray market "gifting" operators to enter the licensed market. The Medical Cannabis Amendment Act would also codify that adults can self-certify as medical marijuana patients. The bill was carried by Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) on behalf of Mayor Muriel Bowser (D).

An Ohio marijuana legalization bill gets a hearing, a Filipino father wins a small measure of justice for his young son killed in Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, and more.

Legal marijuana is one vote away in the Colombian legislature.

Ohio Marijuana Legalization Bill Gets House Hearing. A pair of legislators, Reps. Casey Weinstein (D-Hudson) and Terrence Upchurch (D-Cleveland) have sponsored a marijuana legalization bill,  House Bill 382, which got a hearing in the House Finance Committee Monday, but no vote. The bill would legalize the possession of up to 5 ounces by people 21 and over, as well a authorizing a marijuana regulatory agency within the Commerce Department to oversee licensing and regulation of marijuana production and sales. There are only a few weeks left in the legislative session, so the bill's prospects are clouded, but the p.air are also supporting a ballot initiative from the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. That initiative is currently before the legislature. If lawmakers fail to pass it, it would then go to the voters provided campaigners gather a second set of signatures.

Harm Reduction

Justice Department Asks Court for More Time in "Complex" Safe Injection Site Case. In a case where the Trump Justice Department sought (so far, successfully) block a Philadelphia safe injection site from operating, the Biden Justice Department is now asking a federal court for more time to respond in a lawsuit aimed at settling the legality of such sites in the United States. The group behind the safe injection site, Safehouse, had agreed to earlier delay requests but said it "did not consent" to this one and planned to file an opposition motion Tuesday. Justice said Monday that it "believes an additional two months are necessary to permit careful consideration of the government’s harm reduction and public safety goals.The discussions to date, which have involved coordination among multiple constituencies addressing a novel and complex subject matter, have been and continue to be productive,"it said, noting that DOJ had a status conference with Safehouse attorneys last month and "provided an update"to the court. Safehouse argued that Justice has had enough time and that people are dying of overdoses every day while the department dithers. While the Philadelphia site remains blocked for now, authorities in New York City opened the first officially sanctioned safe injection sites in the country last year. The Biden Justice Department did not seek to shut it down.

International

Colombian Senate Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill. The Senate on Tuesday approved a marijuana legalization bill on a 56-3 vote. The measure has already won initial approval in the Chamber of Representatives, but more votes are still required before it becomes law. Under the bill, authorities would have six months to set rules for the legal marijuana market. The bill would amend the constitution to support "the right of the free development of the personality, allowing citizens to decide on the consumption of cannabis in a regulated legal framework"and would mitigate "arbitrary discriminatory or unequal treatment in front of the population that consumes." The bill has won seven legislative votes, but because it is a constitutional amendment, it must be debated and voted on eight times over two calendar years. The next calendar year starts in less than a month.

Philippine Family Allowed to Correct Death Certificate Killed in Duterte's Drug War. An appeals court has granted Rodrigo Baylon's petition to modify the death certificate for his nine-year-old son, Lenin, who was killed by stray bullets in an operation where police in Caloocan City killed two women drug suspects. Lenin's official death certificate falsely claimed that he died from bronchopneumonia. The Reuters news agency has identified at least 14 other cases of drug war victims deaths' being falsely attributed to natural causes. Baylon's effort to correct his son's death certificate was rejected by a lower court in 2019, but the Court of Appeals agreed with him and ordered the cause of death changed to "gunshot wound," a ruling Baylon called "a small victory." Tens of thousands of people were killed in the bloody drug unleashed by then-President Rodrigo Duterte after he took office in 2016.