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This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

More bad apples in the Big Apple, a major drug corruption scandal brews in Tulsa, the city of Oakland pays big for bad cops, a Georgia deputy cops a plea, and a South Carolina state trooper goes down.
Chronicle
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Coalition Calls on Obama to Withdraw Michele Leonhart DEA Nomination

Drug reformers have been grumbling about the Obama administration's decision to nominate acting DEA head Michele Leonhart to be permanent DEA administrator since it was announced. Now, a drug reform coalition is calling on Obama to withdraw her nomination, citing recent DEA raids on medical marijuana providers. But there's more than that.
In The Trenches

Press Release: Medical Marijuana Advocacy Groups Call on Pres. Obama to Withdraw Nomination of Michele Leonhart

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                                 

JULY 21, 2010

Following Recent Raids, Medical Marijuana Advocacy Groups Call on Pres. Obama to Withdraw Nomination of Michele Leonhart to be DEA Administrator

Obama’s DEA Head Must Follow Stated Medical Marijuana Policy, End Obstruction of Marijuana Research, and Base Marijuana Rescheduling on Science Rather Than Ideology

CONTACT: Steve Fox: 202-905-2042 or [email protected]; or Mike Meno: 202-905-2030 or [email protected]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, a coalition of organizations supportive of medical marijuana patients and providers (see list of organizations below) is calling on President Obama to withdraw his nomination of Michele Leonhart to serve as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Ms. Leonhart, who is currently the DEA’s acting-administrator, has not demonstrated that she is capable of leading the agency in a thoughtful manner at a time when 14 states have enacted medical marijuana laws and science is increasingly confirming the therapeutic benefits of the substance.

            Under Leonhart's leadership, the DEA has staged medical marijuana raids in apparent disregard of Attorney General Eric Holder's directive to respect state medical marijuana laws. Most recently, DEA agents flouted a pioneering Mendocino County (CA) ordinance to regulate medical marijuana cultivation by raiding the very first grower to register with the sheriff. Joy Greenfield, 69, had paid more than $1,000 for a permit to cultivate 99 plants in a collective garden that had been inspected and approved by the local sheriff.

            Informed that Ms. Greenfield had the support of the sheriff, the DEA agent in charge responded by saying, “I don’t care what the sheriff says.” The DEA's conduct is inconsistent with an October 2009 Department of Justice memo directing officials not to arrest individuals “whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

            Ms. Leonhart has also demonstrated that she is unable to be objective in carrying out the duties of the administrator as it relates to medical marijuana research. In January 2009, she refused to issue a license to the University of Massachusetts to cultivate marijuana for FDA-approved research, despite a DEA administrative law judge’s ruling that it would be “in the public interest” to issue the license. This single act has blocked privately funded medical marijuana research in this country. The next DEA administrator will likely influence the outcome of a marijuana-rescheduling petition currently before the agency. It is critical that an administrator with an open mind toward science and research is at the helm.

            “With Leonhart’s nomination pending, one would expect her to be more — not less — respectful of the Department of Justice and the rights of individuals in medical marijuana states,” said Steve Fox, director of government relations at the Marijuana Policy Project. “Such behavior is an ominous sign for the future of the DEA under her leadership. Moreover, she has continually demonstrated her desire to block privately funded medical marijuana research in this country. The Obama administration has reversed many Bush administration policies over the past 18 months. It is time to transform the culture at the DEA by either withdrawing Leonhart’s nomination or directing her to change her attitude toward medical marijuana.”

#   #   #   #   #

The following organizations are calling on President Obama to withdraw the nomination of Ms. Leonhart if she does not end the attacks on individuals acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws and commit to making decisions related to medical marijuana based on science, not a personal anti-marijuana bias:

 

California NORML

Drug Policy Alliance (DPA)

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)

Marijuana Policy Project (MPP)

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP)

 

With more than 124,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. For more information, please visit www.mpp.org.

####

In The Trenches

Flex Gets Great Response at NAACP Nat’l Conf.

Dear friends,

Last week I presented 10 Rules for Dealing with Police at the NAACP National Conference. The panel hosted by NAACP's Criminal Justice Program was focused on youth and the criminal justice system.

The 200-member audience was mostly high school and college-aged, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better reception. The video got an enthusiastic round of applause. More importantly, everyone stayed for the Q&A, which went beyond the allotted hour.

Before the screening, I asked if anyone had received any kind of know-your-rights training. Only a handful raised their hands. But afterward, their new knowledge inspired sophisticated questions covering Miranda rights, PATRIOT Act, videotaping police and more.

Needless to say, I’m proud to see 10 Rules resonating with NAACP and communities of color in the way we hoped it would. We’ve long anticipated that our success would depend on the ability to meet the needs of diverse audiences. We’re excited to see the film earning praise from the NAACP, libertarians and police departments alike.

Sincerely,

Steve

 

 

P.S. If you support this public education work, please consider making a small or large tax-deductible donation online. You may also send a check donation (made out to Flex Your Rights) to P.O. Box 21497, Washington, DC 20009.

In The Trenches

Time is Running Out! Tell Congress to Vote Yes on Crack Reform

Announcement

Sentencing Project
 

Tell Congress To Vote Yes for Crack Cocaine Sentencing Reform


This week, the House of Representatives may vote on legislation, recently passed by the Senate, to reduce the 100 to 1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine to 18 to 1. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, S. 1789, would also eliminate the simple possession mandatory minimum (5 years for 5 grams without intent to distribute), limit the excessive penalties served by people convicted of low-level crack cocaine offenses, and increase penalties for high-level traffickers. The U.S. Sentencing Commission estimates the changes could reduce the federal prison population by 3,800 over 10 years.

Champions for sentencing fairness are urged to contact their representative in the House today to ask them to vote yes for the Fair Sentencing Act. Call the U.S. Capitol Switch Board at 202-224-3121 and ask for your representative. They will patch you through to the correct office.

Once you reach your representative, tell them you support the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, S. 1789 because:

•    The current 100 to 1 cocaine sentencing disparity is unfair. The five-year penalty for possessing as little as five grams of crack cocaine is the same for selling 500 grams of powder cocaine. The law imposes excessive prison sentences for low-level crack cocaine offenses that often exceed penalties for offenses involving powder cocaine trafficking.
•    The current 100 to 1 cocaine sentencing disparity exacerbates racial disparity in federal prisons. Over 80% of those serving time for a crack cocaine offense are African American, despite the fact that two-thirds of users are white or Hispanic.
•    The Fair Sentencing Act, S. 1789, is an historic opportunity to advance justice and restore faith in the criminal justice system. A broad consensus among criminal justice experts, law enforcement organizations, and policymakers has emerged that concludes the current 100 to 1 disparity cannot be justified. Organizations endorsing reform include: the NAACP; Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; American Bar Association, American Civil Liberties Union; the National District Attorneys Association; and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.
•    The Fair Sentencing Act will also save taxpayers money. Replacing the irrational 100:1 ratio with a new 18:1 ratio will save $42 million over five years, according to Congressional Budget Office.

When you have completed your call to your representative, please email [email protected] and say how it went.  Also, please consider forwarding this email to a friend.

Thank you for joining the effort to reduce the crack cocaine sentencing disparity.

 

The Sentencing Project is located at 1705 DeSales Street, NW 8th Floor, Washington, DC 20036.  Send an email to The Sentencing Project.

The Sentencing Project is a national, non-profit organization engaged in research and advocacy for criminal justice reform.

 

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In The Trenches

Press Release: Hearing to Assess Alternatives to Incarceration For Drug-Involved Offenders

For Immediate Release Contact: Nathan White, (202) 225-5871 Oversight Hearing to Assess Alternatives to Incarceration For Drug-Involved Offenders Washington D.C. – Chairman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today announced a Domestic Policy Subcommittee hearing entitled “Quitting Hard Habits: Efforts to Expand and Improve Alternatives to Incarceration for Drug-Involved Offenders.” The hearing will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 22, 2010 in room 2154 Rayburn House Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to focus on front-end alternatives to incarceration for drug-involved offenders and abusers of illegal drugs. It will examine the extent to which and why (or why not) these efforts have been effective in reducing the levels and associated harms of incarceration, reducing recidivism, effectively treating drug abuse, and improving other social outcomes and which approaches (or mix approaches) are best suited to accomplishing these goals. This hearing is held as part of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee’s mandate as the authorizing committee for the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the House of Representatives. http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=1&extmode=view&extid=192 ###
Latest News

Oakland approves plan to license medical marijuana farms

Oakland City Council voted Tuesday to license up to four large-scale marijuana farms in industrial areas to supply the city's four medical marijuana dispensaries, and promised to later review policies that could include smaller and medium-size farmers. Critics, many of them small growers or patient collectives who said they risked arrest to supply much of the $28 million worth of product sold at dispensaries last year, complained that the new cultivation ordinance will put them out of business in favor of big-box, big-money growers with deep pockets and political connections.
Latest News

Abandoning moralistic war on drugs becomes centrepiece of AIDS meeting

Prohibitionist policies, heavy on law enforcement and moralizing and light on science and reason, have failed to curtail the market for illicit drugs. Now, a Canadian-led initiative that calls on governments to abandon the moralistic war on drugs and adopt evidence-based drug policies has become a centrepiece of the 18th International AIDS Conference being held in Vienna. Particular emphasis is being placed on drug users because drug use is the root of the explosive growth HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe.
Latest News

Pharmacy board bans K2 synthetic marijuana

In a move that will likely drive the sale of it underground into the black market, the Iowa Board of Pharmacy voted Tuesday to ban the sale of K2, a synthetic version of marijuana that is sold as incense. The pharmacy board's move is temporary; it would take legislative action to make it permanent. Iowa House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, predicted legislators from both parties would be "friendly" toward any proposal to make the ban permanent.
Chronicle
Steve Deangelo and James Anthony, Oakland City Council Meeting
Steve Deangelo and James Anthony, Oakland City Council Meeting

Oakland Okays Indoor Medical Marijuana Mega-Farms (FEATURE)

The city of Oakland is about to take medical marijuana production to a new level. It just passed an ordinance that will allow for four city-permitted industrial-scale cultivation operations. Small- and medium-scale growers have not been included in the scheme yet, and while council members have said they will address that, the community is concerned and speaking out about it.
Blog
Phil Smith
Phil Smith

Oakland Okays Mega-Pot Farms

At about 11:15 Pacific time Tuesday night, the Oakland City Council passed an ordinance that would allow for four permitted industrial-scale medical marijuana cultivation facilities. In response to widespread concerns among the medical marijuana community, it also vowed to work on permitting medium-sized grows in the fall and to defer any crackdown on medium-sized grows until after the first large-scale permits are issued in January. Patients can still grow up to 32 square feet and to three-person collectives can still grow up to 96 square feet without permits. Look for a Chronicle feature story on this historic vote to be posted in the morning.

Blog
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The New Politics of Marijuana Reform

MPP's Mike Meno nails it in this piece at Huffington Post. It's almost as if he's been reading my mind (or my blog). He's got some more great examples of how the surging marijuana policy debate is shaking up party politics this election season. Anyone who still doesn't understand that marijuana is no longer a third-rail political issue is in for some big surprises in the coming years, and possibly as soon as November.

Blog

Former Pain Prisoner Appearing on Penn & Teller "Bullshit" This Week

We are told that Richard Paey, the disabled Florida pain patient pardoned by Gov. Charlie Crist in 2007 after prosecutors twisted his attempts to obtain adequate opiate pain medication into drug dealing charges incurring a 25-year mandatory sentence, was interviewed for the upcoming Penn & Teller "Bullshit!" episode, "Criminal Justice." Showtime describes the "Criminal Justice" episode as follows:
Is America's criminal justice system weighed down with bad science, ineffective methods, incompetence and corruption? Penn & Teller set out to reveal that the only thing scarier than crime is America's war on crime.
"Criminal Justice" will start airing this Thursday at 10:00pm. In the meanwhile, you can read more about Richard Paey in our archive, at the Pain Relief Network or in the 2006 Sixty Minutes episode, "Prisoner of Pain."
Chronicle
Latest News

Ecstasy Effective As PTSD Treatment

Drug prohibition stiffles legitimate research, and research into MDMA's (Ecstasy) was long overdue. Clinical trial results just out suggest that MDMA can be administered to subjects with PTSD without evidence of harm and could offer sufferers a vital window with reduced fear responses where psychotherapy can take effect. Participants treated with a combination of MDMA and psychotherapy saw clinically and statistically significant improvements in their PTSD – over 80% of the trial group no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD.
Latest News

Large pot farms on verge of approval in Oakland

Oakland, CA is on the verge of giving the city's blessing to large-scale marijuana farms, a plan that has provoked a backlash from bud pickers for dispensaries, small-time growers and connoisseurs of cannabis who fear being pushed out of the booming pot business.
Latest News

Brazil's Drug Problem Shaping Foreign Policy

Two years ago, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso led the call for a "paradigm shift" in the country's drug policy. Instead of squelching supply through policing, Cardoso advocated for reducing demand by treating drug abuse as a public health issue. But deeply entrenched prohibitionist policies are hard to repeal, and it appears that Brazil not only remains committed to treating drugs as a problem for the police, it is also in the process of becoming the first country in Latin America whose drug use is pushing it to adopt a more aggressive foreign policy towards its neighbors.
Blog
D.A.R.E. class, Blacksburg, Virginia
D.A.R.E. class, Blacksburg, Virginia

DARE Attacks Marijuana Legalization While Praising Alcohol

[image:1 align:left caption:true]Skip Miller is the chairman of DARE America and, as you might guess, he's terrified of what could happen if marijuana becomes legal:


Do we really want to make it easier to get stoned?

Cut through the smoke and that's really what California voters will be deciding in November with Proposition 19, which would make this the only state to fully legalize marijuana — a drug with proven negative health consequences.
…
The concern with marijuana is not based on my personal disapproval or bias but upon what science tells us about the drug's effects. The science is clear: Marijuana is associated with physical and mental illness, poor motor performance and cognitive impairment. [San Jose Mercury News]

So according to Skip Miller, science compels us to keep marijuana illegal. Yet, as SAFER points out, his website takes a very different tone when it comes to alcohol:


Take a minute and think how often adults drink alcohol: a cold beer at a baseball game, a glass of Chardonnay with a piece of broiled fish, a gin and tonic on a warm day. Social drinking is an acceptable and pleasurable activity for millions of Americans. It relaxes you, curbs stress, and chases away inhibitions… [DARE.org]

 

Wait, what!? Although the statement goes on to acknowledge the problems associated with alcohol abuse, there's no question that DARE is going out of its way to defend recreational drinking. And I agree with every word. Teaching young people that there's nothing wrong with responsible drinking is important, even though I find it ridiculously weird that DARE, of all places, would seek to do that.

All of this just serves to highlight the mind-blowing prejudice and hypocrisy that underscores DARE's position on marijuana policy. If alcohol can be enjoyed responsibly by millions of adults, despite all the mayhem associated with it, then of course the same must be true of marijuana. On the other hand, if the potential for negative outcomes trumps the rights of responsible users, then why on earth is DARE applauding "acceptable and pleasurable" alcohol instead of insisting that science compels us to start arresting people for possessing it?

When pressed, the architects of this brainless disparity typically resort to some desperate nonsense about alcohol being accepted and familiar in our culture, as though marijuana just arrived on a boat sometime last year. These same idiots actually are the last remaining obstacle to broader social and legal acceptance of marijuana, and if only we could take away their precious beer, we'd find them at the bargaining table within 48 hours.