Fentanyl in stimulants like meth and cocaine is driving a fourth wave of opioid overdoses, Vancouver's pioneering safe injection site marks 20 years in service, and more.

The InSite safe injection site in Vancouver, which marks 20 years of operation this week. (PCS Community Services Society)

Senate Banking Committee Set to Vote on SAFE Banking Act by Month's End. The Senate Banking Committee is set to vote on the SAFE Banking Act (S.1323) on September 27, "a Senate source familiar with the discussions" told Marijuana Moment Friday.

That source confirmed earlier media reports that the vote was coming. The date is not yet official, so it could change, but the expectation is that it will take place the week of September 25, the source said.

What amendments—if any—will be offered or adopted remains unclear, although there has been talk about revisions to a key section on broad banking regulations, as well as changes concerning Small Business Administration access and stock uplisting for the marijuana industry.

Drug Policy

Fentanyl-Adulterated Meth and Cocaine Is Driving a Fourth Wave of Drug Overdoses. A study published Thursday in the scientific journal Addiction finds that drug overdoses involving both fentanyl and cocaine or methamphetamine have increased 50-fold since 2010, now account for nearly one-third (32 percent) of all fatal overdoses and are responsible for some 35,000 deaths.

"We're now seeing that the use of fentanyl together with stimulants is rapidly becoming the dominant force in the U.S. overdose crisis," said Joseph Friedman, the lead author of the study and a researcher at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. "Fentanyl has ushered in a polysubstance overdose crisis, meaning that people are mixing fentanyl with other drugs, like stimulants, but also countless other synthetic substances."

The authors described the phenomenon as a "fourth wave" of the ongoing opioid crisis that began with the rise in prescription opioids around the turn of the century, followed by the rise of heroin around 2010 as authorities tightened the screws on prescription opioid prescribing and the arrival of fentanyl around 2013.

International

Vancouver's Safe Injection Marks 20 Years in Operation This Week. Vancouver Coastal Health and the PHS Community Services Society, the two groups that run InSite, the city's pioneering safe injection site—the first one in North America—are celebrating 20 years of operation this week. On Friday, they met in front of the East Hastings Street location to commemorate the occasion.

"Insite was a really important step forward in terms of drug policy and harm reduction, and to be here 20 years after we opened, it just feels incredible," said Jeff West, manager of harm reduction for Vancouver Coastal Health. "Not only was Insite important to the community as a safe space, a symbol of a more progressive drug policy, it also is a really important public health intervention," said West.

PHS first set up InSite as an unsanctioned site and only later got permission from Health Canada to operate, but it has been there ever since. And it has done so with the approval of local, provincial, and federal authorities, as well as Vancouver Police and the Coastal Health Authority. It survived a challenge from the Conservative national government of Stephen Harper, which was slapped down by the Supreme Court.

"Insite saves lives. Its benefits have been proven," wrote Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin in her decision.

British Columbia to Ban Drug Use Near Parks and Playgrounds. The province has decriminalized the possession of personal use amounts of illicit drugs in a bid to get a grip on the overdose crisis, but now British Columbia Premier David Eby legislation is being drafted to ban drug use near parks and playgrounds.

The provincial Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions said Thursday that the federal government had approved the changes expanding the are where drug possession remains illegal.

Drug possession was already prohibited on school grounds and at child care facilities, but as of next Monday, it will also be prohibited within 15 meters of playgrounds, water parks, and skate parks.

Public intoxication remains a crime.

"I hope and expect that people, even when struggling with addiction, will understand the importance that we've all got to live in the community together, and if there's a place that's funded and safe and appropriate to use, that you should be going to that health-care site rather than to a site that's used by children," Premier Ebe said.

Mark Haden, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Population and Public Health, said in an interview Thursday that the province is "tweaking" its decriminalization policy "in response to some pushback from mayors who are saying 'this isn't working particularly well for us because it's disempowering the police.'"

Haden said the province's move is not "dealing with the real problem of prohibition." "We have a supply-chain problem that decriminalization isn't resolving," he said. "It's the supply-chain problem that's actually killing people."

The DA in Houston takes a step back from a softer touch on drug charges, Colombia sets goals for voluntary coca crop substitution, and more. 

The Tenderloin in San Francisco. The city is three months into a crackdown on drug use and sales there. (SFPD)

Harris County, Texas, Reverses Policy on Low Level Drug Charges. Citing an "increasing public safety threat due to fentanyl," Harris County (Houston) District Attorney Kim Ogg has announced that she is reversing an April policy change that required police to have drugs tested before charges could be filed if the amount of drugs in question was less than four grams. That effectively meant that many miniscule drug possession cases were never charged.

Under the new policy, which went into effect this week, the DA's Office will again evaluate every drug possession case regardless of the amount of drug seized as long as probable cause is established "through the expert testimony of two officers with drug enforcement experience."

But the cops will still be responsible for submitting "seized substances to the appropriate lab and to request testing and analysis, for presentation of the case to a grand jury," according to a memo setting out the changes. In the memo, DA Ogg acknowledged that the change could cause some delays in case filings and that district courts have "regularly" dismissed pending drug cases that did not move because of slow evidence processing.

"We need labs that work," Ogg said. "The courts are ready. The State of Texas, my office representing the people, are ready. The police are ready. And we need a crime lab that gives us evidence."

San Francisco Provides Update on Crackdown on Open Air Drug Markets. A crackdown on the drug trade and public drug use in the Tenderloin and SOMA (South of Market Street) neighborhoods of the city that began June 1 has resulted in "significant increase in drug seizures and arrests in the first three months of the City’s efforts to shut down open-air drug markets," the city said Friday.

During the last three months, both local and state law enforcement agencies combined have made hundreds of arrests under drug laws and for outstanding warrants, and seized 103 kilos of narcotic, including 56 kilos of fentanyl. These numbers don’t include additional federal efforts being conducted by the Drug Enforcement Agency. The SF District Attorney’s Office has seen a record number of felony narcotics cases.    

Some 300 of the arrests were for drug sales and another 123 were arrests of wanted fugitives. Another 450 arrests were made using public intoxication laws against public drug users. Additionally, playing a support role in the city, the California Highway Patrol and National Guard have made another hundred drug arrests.

As a result of this operation the District Attorney’s Office has seen a record number of felony narcotics cases presented and filed year to date since 2018. Through August 23, of this year 656 felony narcotics cases were presented of which 566 were filed (86% filing rate) compared to the previous record of 574 cases presented in 2018 and 476 cases filed.   

"Shutting down open air drug markets is critical to the safety of our neighborhoods and the overall health of our City," said Mayor London Breed. "The work that our city agencies and state and federal partners are doing to confront this crisis has to be sustained and expanded and we can’t continue to accept the existence of these drug markets on our streets. I want to thank Governor Newsom for his support in delivering resources, as well as our federal leaders, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. We will continue to offer help to people in crisis, but we must hold people accountable who are hurting our communities."    

While it is clear that more people are being funneled into the criminal justice system, whether more arrests and prosecutions will result in fewer overdoses and better quality of life remains to be seen.

International

Belize Police Discover Coca Plantation with Half Million Plants. Police on Tuesday announced that they had discovered a coca plantation in the Toledo region that held an estimated 500,000 coca plants. The raid comes weeks after police destroyed a cocaine manufacturing lab in the south of the country.

Cocaine has traditionally been grown in three Andean nations—Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru—but in recent years plantings have been discovered in Belize, Guatemala, and southern Mexico. A small number of labs have also been uncovered.

The plantings and labs are believed to be the work of Mexican drug trafficking organizations, which largely control the flow of cocaine to the north.

Colombia Sets Coca Crop Substitution Goal of a Thousand Square Kilometers Over Next Four Years. Government officials said Thursday that the country is aiming for the voluntary substitution—not forced eradication—of a thousand square miles of coca crops over the next four years. The announcement marks a policy shift that emphasizes seizing cocaine over destroying coca plants.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), coca cultivation in 2021 (the last year for which data is available) covered some 787 square miles, so if the government removes 250 square miles per year from the crop, it should reduce the crop each year by about one-third.

Felipe Tascon, the director of the government's illicit crops substitution program, said Colombia and the U.S. had committed to replacing 50% of 2021 crop levels. "Everyone says this goal is crazy," Tascon said. "If you look at it as a policing issue, coercing people, it's impossible. If you look at it as an economic issue, about giving economic opportunities to those families to produce something else, it's achievable."

The new crop substitution goals come amid a crash in coca prices in the country caused by oversupply and contested drug trafficking routes, providing farmers with an economic incentive to try something new. 

Maine's congressional delegation is worried about alleged illegal Chinese marijuana grows, US Sentencing Commission statistics show that US citizens--not illegal immigrants--dominate the fentanyl trade, and more.

The US-Mexico border. Fentanyl is coming through ports of entry, not in immigrants' backpacks. (Creative Commons)

Maine Congressional Delegation Asks Attorney General to Shut Down Alleged Chinese Marijuana Grow Operations. Responding to a "federal memo" circulating within the US Border Patrol that alleged there were 270 properties in the state linked to illegal Chinese marijuana grows and that they could generate $4 billion a year in revenue, the Maine congressional delegation on Thursday sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland (D) urging the Justice Department to shut down the grows

The "federal memo" is questionable. First released by the conservative media source The Daily Caller, the memo (as characterized by the Daily Caller) does not rely on federal statistics but on reports from state and local law enforcement. It also has some funny numbers, including the claim that a plot with 100 plants could generate $5.4 million over three growth cycles in a year. If you crunch the numbers, the comes out to $17,000 per plant per cycle, which would require multi-pound harvests of each plant every four months. Such yields are typically associated with long-growing outdoor plants harvested once a year, not hothouse plants harvested every four months.

Still, the congressional delegation was concerned: "These illegal growing operations are detrimental to Maine businesses that comply with State laws, and we urge the Department of Justice to shut them down," the Maine delegation wrote in Thursday’s joint letter to the nation’s top law enforcement official.

They also sought answers to several questions, including: who produced the memo, what is the Justice Department doing to tackle illegal grows, how are profits returning to the country of origin, and is Justice aware of alleged Chinese ownership.

Nevada Regulators Approve Three More Marijuana Consumption Lounges. The state's Cannabis Control Board on Tuesday approved three more applications for marijuana consumption lounges, raising the number of licenses issued so far to seven. The board approved licenses for Deep Roots Harvest and Global Harmony, which operate Las Vegas pot shops , as well as KV Group in the southern Nevada town Pahrump.

In June, the board issued the first three licenses, for Cheyenne Medical in unincorporated Clark County, Common Sense Botanicals Nevada in Washoe Valley, and Planet 13 in Las Vegas.

The board also loosened air-ventilation standards for consumption lounges, a move that came after operators complained that the large upfront investment  and ongoing energy costs of operating the ventilation systems were economically not feasible for most operators and near impossible for social equity licensees.

Also Tuesday, regulators loosened air-ventilation standards for marijuana consumption, which provided more clarity for operators to move forward with construction plans in one of the nation’s largest tourism markets.

Despite the licensing actions, the only legal consumption lounge currently open in the state is the NuWu Cannabis Marketplace located on tribal land near downtown Las Vegas.

Opiates and Opioids

Despite Widespread Belief That Migrants Are Smuggling Fentanyl from Mexico, Nine Out of Ten Fentanyl Trafficking Busts Are of US Citizens. A recent NPR-Ipsos poll found that 39 percent of Americans and 60 percent of Republicans believe "Most of the fentanyl entering the US is smuggled in by unauthorized migrants crossing the border illegally," but that belief is mistaken.

According to data from the US Sentencing Commission, US citizens accounted for 89 percent of people convicted of fentanyl trafficking, a number 12 times greater that the number of illegal immigrants convicted on those charges.

Similarly, 93 percent of border fentanyl seizures occurred at legal ports of entry or interior vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes. That elevates the prospect for US citizens—who are subject to less scrutiny—to be successful fentanyl smugglers. Just 0.009 percent of people arrested by the Border Patrol for illegal border crossings were found with any amount of fentanyl.

This is something for policymakers to ponder when attempting to come up with solutions for the fentanyl problem. 

Another Republican files another border fentanyl bill, Seattle's mayor has a plan to deal with open-air drug use, and more.

As part of a criminal justice reform bill signed into law by Gov. Pritzker (D), Illinois will reduce drug testing of parolees.

Hickenlooper Reintroduces Bill to Prepare Federal Government for Marijuana Legalization. Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) recently reintroduced the Preparing Regulators Effectively for a Post-Prohibition Adult Use Regulated Environment (PREPARE) Act, a bill that directs the Attorney General to develop a framework for federal cannabis regulation. Though cannabis is currently illegal at the federal level, many states have followed Colorado's safe and legal model. The PREPARE Act establishes a federal commission, modeled after Colorado's regulatory commission, to advise the government on proper safeguards for federal cannabis legalization.

>"Colorado's is the model for a safe, well-regulated marijuana market," said Hickenlooper. "Let's build on that success with federal regulation."

The PREPARE Act-established federal commission would advise on the development of a federal regulatory framework modeled after state cannabis regulations, consider barriers and suggestions for regulating cannabis similar to alcohol, identify ways to remedy the disproportionate impact cannabis prohibition has had on minority, low-income, and veteran communities, and include representatives from relevant federal agencies and offices, individuals nominated by Senate and House leadership, industry representatives, and representatives of state and local governments.

Drug Policy

House Republican Files Bill to Confiscate Cartel Assets, Use Them to Pay for Border Wall. Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA) has filed the Build the Wall and Fight Fentanyl Act, which would allow US authorities to seize the assets of Mexican drug cartels and use them to construct a wall at the southern border and to fight fentanyl.

The measure would establish two funds at the Treasury Department, the "Southern Border Wall Fulfillment Fund" and the "Combating the Fentanyl Epidemic Fund." Both funds would be run by the Department of Homeland Security.

"Criminal drug traffickers have smuggled enough fentanyl into our country to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States, and tragically, too many families know the pain of losing a loved one to this deadly crisis. We must fight fire with fire to protect our families, our children, and our communities," Feenstra said in a statement.

According to the DEA, however, the vast majority of drugs smuggled into the US from Mexico go through ports of entry, not unwalled portions of the border.

Seattle Mayor Unveils New Proposal to Fight Open-Air Drug Use. Mayor Bruce Harrell (D) on Monday announced a new plan to cut down on open-air drug use in the city and increase access to addiction treatment. The plan will include guidance to police on when to make an arrest and make drug possession a gross misdemeanor, bringing the city into conformity with state law. The state's drug possession statute had to be redone after the state Supreme Court threw it out in the Blake case in 2021.

"What's the same is it adopts the state law that we call the post-Blake Fix, and under the post-Blake Fix, you may recall, the officers were required to give referrals before arrests were made," said Harrell. "The legislature came out with the fix. That's what's the same, is that we are adopting the state law. What's quite different is we went more specific on what an arrest looks like and what it should not look like. It also brings in the threat of harm standard, which makes it clear, that if people are a threat to others, if they are in an area where people are trying to catch the bus, or where they are trying to shop or bring their kids in a stroller, these areas need to be safe, and it gives us the ability to make arrests when they need to happen," said Mayor Harrell.

The plan also includes $27 million to invest in facilities, treatments and services to address the opioid crisis. The measure needs to be approved by city council members, which Harrell said he is confident will happen and before a two-week break at the end of the month.

Drug Testing

Illinois Governor Signs Bill to Limit Drug Testing of Parolees. Gov. JB Pritzker (D) has signed into law a criminal justice reform bill, Senate Bill 423, that limits drug testing of parolees, among other provisions.

"Today, I will sign legislation that focuses our Mandatory Supervised Release system on creating successful outcomes for those who were formerly incarcerated and improves the safety and peace of our communities," Pritzker said in a statement last Friday. "This legislation supports the reintegration of individuals into the community while lowering the possibility of recidivism, increasing public safety, and lowering taxpayer costs," he added.