The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover-Up in Oaklandby Ali Winston & Darwin Bondgraham (2023, Atria Books, 467 pp., $30 HB)
The killing of Tyre Daniels by Memphis police officers who were members of an aggressive anti-crime unit has reignited longstanding public concerns about police brutality and, more broadly, police culture. How is it that American police generate an Eric Garner, a Philandro Castile, a Breonna Taylor, a George Floyd, a Tyre Daniels, another dead person of color and another, on a regular basis?
As the brief list above suggests, and as the massive wave of protests in towns and cities across the land in the wake of the George Floyd killing confirms, thuggish, sometimes murderous cops are not just a Memphis problem. Almost every big city police department has its own legacy of scandalous brutality, much of it linked to the enforcement of drug prohibition. Oakland, California, is no exception.
In the case of the gritty East Bay city, it was the Riders scandal two decades ago that was so outrageous it generated mass protests, a criminal trial of the police involved, and a successful civil lawsuit that resulted in the Oakland Police Department force to operate under the supervision of a federal judge enforcing a consent decree.
In The Riders Come Out at Night, veteran investigative journalists Ali Winston and Darwin Bondgrahm use the Riders scandal as the fulcrum with which they pry open the inner workings of a police department long notorious for corruption and brutality. It's a tale not just of cop acting like criminals but also of a departmental culture more interesting in protecting its own than protecting the citizenry and elected officials more interested in playing "tough on crime" politics than ensuring that the police do not abuse the public.
Like the Memphis SCORPION unit now under the spotlight, the Riders were a specialized crime-fighting unit, celebrated for their aggressive tactics against drug dealers and other scofflaws and held up as an example for incoming rookie officers. A growing pile of police brutality complaints vanished into the police bureaucracy that was supposed to address them, and it took one of those rookie officers, sickened by what he was witnessing from his trainers, to finally bring the scandal into the open.
When it broke, it broke big, with four of the Riders eventually going to trial for the assaults and other crimes they committed (one of them fled and remains a fugitive to this day), only to escape criminal punishment after being vigorously defended by lawyers paid for by the police union. But they and the department could not escape a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of 119 Oakland residents that resulted in a federal consent decree forcing the department into oversight by a federal judge. That was 2003. The department remains under that consent decree to this day because it has been unable or unwilling to make the reforms necessary to satisfy the judge.
Since that 2003 consent decree went into effect, the Oakland PD has suffered renewed scandals on a regular basis, ranging from run of the mill police killings to the killing of four Oakland cops by one man in an incident that laid bare deficiencies in police training to the scandal around Oakland (and other) cops having sex with a troubled teen. And then there was the killing of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station—not by an Oakland cop but by a BART officer—and the Oakland Police's thuggish response to protests around that killing. And the spying on and attacks on Occupy protestors in 2011.
And on and on. It's as if the Oakland Police is a recidivist organization. The authors describe a culture within the department that has been historically racist, sexist, and anti-worker, dating back to anti-Chinese policing in the late 1800s, the Ku Klux Klan presence in the force in the 1920s, and the violent suppression of strikes in the 1930s. It bashed hippies in the 1960s and terrorized black Oaklanders in the 1980s and 1990s as it prosecuted the war on drugs.
It also generated a decades-long resistance movement, often led by the families of the people the department killed that has managed to impose reforms. And it eventually inspired the consent decree under which the department still labors, but it's always two steps forward, one step back.
As they examine this sordid history, Winston and Bondgraham concede that the department has changed, become less deadly and more transparent, and even occasionally capable of punishing miscreants within the ranks. But they argue that the transformations necessary to civilize policing in Oakland (and elsewhere) are greater than the institution of the police:
Whether policing in Oakland will ever get to the point where most people can agree it has been fundamentally transformed—no longer anything like the institution the Riders thrived in, no longer the force that terrorized Black Oakland after World War II and well into the 2000s—depends very much on whether there are broader societal shifts. So long as Oakland and the rest of America is riven by extreme race and class inequalities and the power of the federal government is not brought to repair the economies of destitute cities and rural areas, and deal with the intergenerational trauma that leads to despair and hopelessness, then it's very likely the police will continue serving more or less the same function they have for well over half a century: containing and repressing the symptoms of broader social problems through violence.
The Riders Come Out at Nightis thoroughly researched, compellingly written, and eye-opening. It is also an achingly timely examination of the role of police in society and how we figure out who will guard us from the guardians. This is a real contribution to the literature of policing in America, and it does not paint a pretty picture.
A Denver rabbi busted for using magic mushrooms in his healing sees charges dropped, US drug wholesalers are leaving some psychiatric patients in the lurch as a crack down on distributing controlled substances rolls out, and more.
Psilocybin mushrooms. You still can't sell these legally to the public in Oregon, as Shroom House found out. (Pixabay)
Psychedelics Denver Drops Charges Against Mushroom Rabbi Who Promotes Religious Psychedelic Use. In the wake of voters' decision last month to legalize psilocybin, the chemical compound found in psychedelic mushrooms, the Denver district attorney announced last week that his office was dropping charges against Ben Gorelick, who had been arrested in February on charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. Gorelick operates Sacred Tribe,, a multifaith community that combines psilocybin use and ideas rooted in Jewish tradition. The DA's office said it dropped the charges against Gorelick "in light of voters' decision" to pass Proposition 122, which legalized the growing and sharing of psilocybin by people 21 and over. While the February bust put an end to psilocybin ceremonies for the rest of this year, Sacred Tribe continued to hold Shabbat dinners and other activities
Portland Police Raid Shroom House, Store Where Psychedelic Mushrooms Were Being Sold Openly. Shroom House, a Burnside Avenue herbal shop that had been openly selling psilocybin mushrooms for the past two months amidst a rising crescendo of publicity is no longer selling psilocybin mushrooms after Portland police raided it last Thursday. Police said they seized 22 pounds of psilocybin, along with $13,000 in cash and made four arrests, including store owner Steven Tachie Jr., 32. Oregon voters passed on initiative in 2020 that decriminalized the mushrooms within narrow therapeutic confines and another initiative that decriminalized drug possession in general, but they didn't pass anything that allowed for the unlicensed sale of psilocybin mushrooms. Tachie and one other person are facing 10 felony counts of money laundering and 10 counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, police said.
Opiates and Opioids
Drug Wholesale Crackdown in Response to Opioid Crisis Is Making Access to Some Psychiatric Drugs Problematic. US drug wholesalers who have been hit with huge cash settlements over their role in the country's opioid crisis are responding by cracking down on "suspicious" orders from pharmacies. That move is preventing some pharmacists from being able to dispense a combination of stimulants and sedatives commonly prescribed by psychiatrists for patients suffering conditions such as anxiety and ADHD. The move by AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson Corp came after a $21 billion nationwide opioid settlement in July. Now, pharmacists are reporting that they are being cut off from distributing any controlled substances by the distributors after filling prescriptions for psychiatric drugs such as the stimulant Adderall, used for treating ADHD, and Xanax, used as an anti-anxiety drug. The distributors imposed the bans because pharmacies had filled prescriptions written by doctors who were frequent prescribers of controlled substances or who had filled prescriptions for both stimulants and sedatives for the same patients. Some members of the American Psychiatric Association complained that pharmacies were no longer comfortable filling some combination prescriptions out of fear of being blacklisted. "This is detrimental potentially to many patients who have comorbid anxieties along with ADHD, or sleep issues along with ADHD,"said Matthew Goldenberg, president-elect of the Southern California Psychiatric Society. "I think it's a trickle-down effect from the opiates."
International
Mexican Opium Poppy Production is Up, New Report Finds. A joint report this week from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the government of Mexico finds that opium poppy cultivation increased by 12 percent in the 2019-2020 season over the year before. Cultivation is occurring in areas that have long seen poppy crops, such as Oaxaca and Guerrero in the southwest, Nayarit in the west, and the northwestern Golden Triangle within the states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Sinaloa. Faced with rising resort to the synthetic opioid fentanyl, opium production had been declining since the 2016-2017 season, but that trend was broken in 2019-2020. "Despite the eradication campaigns by the Mexican government, the opium gum market persists and continues to be a very profitable activity," the report stated. "Opium gum can be stored for long periods of time, allowing it to be marketed when conditions are optimal for the farmer."
Wisconsin's Republican legislative majority is out of step with the people when it comes to freeing the weed, an Idaho medical marijuana initiative campaign takes a first step, and more.
Magic mushrooms. An Oakland church argues that they are a protected religious sacrament. (Greenoid/Flickr)
Marijuana Policy
Wisconsin Poll Shows Very Strong Support for Marijuana Legalization. A new poll from the Marquette Law School shows support for marijuana legalization in the state at an all-time high of 69 percent of registered voters. That's an eight-point jump since the school's last poll just five months ago. Eighty-one percent of Democrats, 75 percent of independents, and 51 percent of Republicans said they back legalization in the latest poll. A GOP legislative supermajority entrenched through gerrymandering does not care. It hasn't even approved medical marijuana except for low-THC cannabis oil.
Medical Marijuana
Idaho Activists Launch Medical Marijuana Ballot Push for 2024. Activists organized as Kind Idaho have filed a proposed 2024 medical marijuana ballot initiative that is essentially identical to one it filed two years ago but which did not end up qualifying for the ballot. The measure would allow patients with qualifying conditions to buy medical marijuana at state-licensed dispensaries or grow up to six plants at home if a dispensary were unavailable or getting to one would impose a hardship on the patient. "Now the waiting game begins," said Joseph Evans, the group's treasurer. "We will be in contact again in five weeks when we come in to pick up and review the changes the [attorney general] suggests."
Psychedelics
Oakland Church That Uses Psychedelic Mushrooms as Sacrament Sues over Police Raid. The Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants, an assembly of the Church of Ambrosia, has filed a lawsuit alleging civil rights violations against the city of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department after police raided the church, which used magic mushrooms as a sacrament, in 2020. The suit charges that the police raid violated its 1st and 14th Amendment rights and that the city's land use code bars them from conducting religious ceremonies and sacraments with psychedelics and marijuana inside the church.
Oakland Police say the church was operating as a dispensary, and they acted after receiving a complaint. One officer, John Romero, applied for church membership, signed an agreement acknowledging the church is not a dispensary and bought 3.5 grams of marijuana, which the church says is intended for on-site consumption as part of its sacrament. Romero returned with a search warrant, damaged five safes, seized paperwork, inventory logs, $200,000 worth of marijuana and mushroom inventory, a computer, and $4,500 in cash. The church says it is about spirituality, not dope dealing."This is not just an excuse for selling drugs," church founder Dave Hodges said. "This is a sincere faith, and the work that I personally do with mushrooms is with the really high doses. There's no doubt in my mind that mushrooms were the first way our ancient ancestors understood there was more to this existence. They raided us like we were some kind of crime family they were taking down or a meth house," Hodges said. "They came in guns blazing, which they didn't need to do. They could've accomplished the same thing with two officers without their guns drawn. This was a classic smash-and-grab scenario where they took our sacrament, they took our money and they never filed any charges." The church is seeking a permanent injunction forcing the city to approve its land use application and to exempt religious use of entheogenic plants as part of the application process. "We would like for the Oakland PD to leave us alone and for the city of Oakland to consider us legitimate," Hodges said.
International
Thai Health Minister Says Pot-Smoking Tourists Not Welcome. Thai Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul discouraged people from visiting the country only to smoke weed. "We don't welcome those kinds of tourists," Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters when asked about recreational marijuana use among foreign visitors. The comments come just two months after Thailand largely decriminalized marijuana, leading to an influx of tourists and the opening of "cannabis cafes." Marijuana tourism could be a boon to the country's important tourism industry, which was badly wounded by the coronavirus pandemic, but the government says recreational use of the drug is not okay. But that could change, Anutin said: "It might come in the near future."
Arkansas election officials knock a marijuana legalization initiative off the ballot -- at least for now -- San Francisco's new DA cracks down on drug dealers, and more.
Kentucky did not do it, but maybe the federal government can obtain justice for Breonna Taylor.
Marijuana Policy
Arkansas Panel Rejects Marijuana Legalization Initiative. The state Board of Election Commissioners on Wednesday blocked a marijuana legalization initiative from Responsible Growth Arkansas from appearing on the ballot in November. The board rejected the popular name and ballot title for the measure, which has already accumulated enough voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. Responsible Growth Arkansas says it will appeal to the state Supreme Court. The board said it rejected the measure because members believed the ballot title didn't fully explain the measure's impact, but Responsible Growth Arkansas said the amount of detail demanded would make the ballot title "thousands and thousands of words long."
Law Enforcement
Feds Charge Four Louisville Cops in Breonna Taylor Case. The FBI has charged four Louisville police officers for their actions leading up to and during a March 2020 drug raid on the apartment of medical worker Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police gunfire after her boyfriend shot at what he believed to be intruders trying to break into the residence. Those charged include former Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers Joshua Jaynes, Brett Hankison, and Kelly Hanna Goodlett, as well as current LMPD sergeant Kyle Meany was also arrested Thursday by the feds. The feds are charging the four with civil rights violations, which include charges of obstruction of justice for actions they took after the raid. The four officers largely escaped justice at the state level, with only one charged, and later acquitted -- not for shooting Taylor but for endangering the lives of neighbors by wildly shooting several rounds into the building. The killing of Taylor became a major rallying cry in the summer of protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
San Francisco DA Cracks Down on Drug Dealers. Newly-elected District Attorney Brooke Jenkins on Wednesday announced tougher new policies to hold drug dealers accountable, saying anyone caught with more than five grams of drugs would no longer be referred to the city's drug court, that she will make use of sentencing enhancements for drug dealing within a thousand feet of a school, and will seek pretrial detention of fentanyl dealers in "extreme" cases. The move comes as Jenkins replaces former progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin, who was recalled amidst rising public concern over crime and squalor in the city. But the city's Public Defender called Jenkin's approach "regressive," saying it will disproportionately affect communities of color. "If District Attorney Jenkins truly wants to address the issues facing our city, she should not be relying on outdated and politically expedient soundbites about harsher enforcement," said Public Defender Mano Raju.
International
Brittney Griner Sentenced to 9 Years in Russian Penal Colony for Possessing Small Quantity of Cannabis Oil. American basketball star Brittney Griner was sentenced Thursday to nine years in a Russian penal colony after earlier being found of bringing cannabis oil into the country in her luggage. The guilty verdict was virtually a foregone conclusion in a criminal justice system that wins convictions in 99 percent of cases. Griner was detained by Russian authorities just a week before it invaded Ukraine, and her case is widely seen as part of the broader conflict between Russia and the United States over that conflict. Griner's attorneys say they will appeal the verdict. President Biden, who has been under pressure to win her release from her wife and the athletic community and whose administration is attempting to negotiate a prisoner swap for Griner, called her sentence "unacceptable," and vowed to continue all-out efforts to get her home.
Cannabis Cafes Emerge in Thailand. "Several" cannabis cafes have opened in Bangkok since the country decriminalized cannabis in June, despite the government's warning that the law's relaxation did not include recreational marijuana use. Recreational use has exploded under the new law, something that government officials have tried to discourage. Now, a parliamentary committee is working on a bill that could rejigger the rules and possibly impact the cannabis cafes. In the meantime, one café owner said his place had "hundreds" of customers every day. "Europeans, Japanese, Americans -- they are looking for Thai sativa. Cannabis and tourism are a match," he said.
Rhode Island is set to become the 19th legal marijuana state, West Virginia announces a big settlement with drug manufacturers over their role in the opioid crisis, and more.
After congressional inaction, President Biden issues an executive order on criminal justice reform. (whitehouse.gov)
Marijuana Policy
Georgia Voters Approve Marijuana Legalization Ballot Question. State voters sent a strong signal to lawmakers Tuesday by overwhelmingly approving a non-binding ballot question on marijuana policy. Voters were asked: "Should marijuana be legalized, taxed and regulated in the same manner as alcohol for adults 21 years of age or older, with proceeds going towards education, infrastructure and health care programs?" A whopping 80 percent of them answered "yes."
Rhode Island Legislature Approves Marijuana Legalization. Both the House and the Senate voted Tuesday to approve a marijuana legalization bill, Senate Bill 2430. Gov. Dan McKee (D) is set to sign it into law today. The law will allow people 21 and over to possess, grow, and purchase limited amounts of marijuana. It also includes expungement and social equity provisions. Once the bill is signed into law, Rhode Island will become the 19th state to free the weed. Look for our feature story on this later today.
Opiates and Opioids
West Virginia Announces Settlement with Opioid Manufacturers. State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Wednesday that the state had reached a $161.5 million settlement with two drug companies over their role in the opioid epidemic. The settlement came as the trial in the state's lawsuit against Allergan and Teva was nearing its end. Morrisey touted the settlement as "record-breaking," saying it was the highest per capita settlement in the country and blasted the two companies as "helping fuel the opioid epidemic in West Virginia by engaging in strategic campaigns to deceive prescribers and misrepresent the risks and benefits of opioid painkillers."
Criminal Justice
President Biden Signs Executive Order to Advance Accountable Policing, Strengthen Public Safety. Marking the second anniversary of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, President Biden on Wednesday issued a broad-ranging executive order to advance accountable policing and enhance public safety. The move comes after Congress largely failed to act on policing reform in the wake of the killing and the mass protests it generated. Among other provisions, the order creates a new national database of police misconduct, restricts the use of no-knock search warrants, bans the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints unless deadly force is authorized, requires new standards limiting the use of force for all federal agencies, restores the Obama administration's restrictions on the transfer of military equipment to law enforcement agencies, requires an updated approach to recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention of law enforcement officers; requires all federal law enforcement agencies to track data on use of force; directs a government-wide strategic plan to propose interventions to reform the criminal justice system; and requires full implementation of the First Step Act.
Austin voters say adios to no-knock warrants, Colombia's most powerful cartel gets unruly after its leader's extradition to the US, and more.
Colombian drug lord "Otoniel" upon his arrest last October. (Colombian National Police)
Marijuana Policy
Missouri Activists Turn in Double the Signatures Needed for Marijuana Legalization Initiative. Activists with Legal Missouri 2022, the folks behind a marijuana legalization constitutional amendment, announced Sunday that they had turned in more than 385,000 raw voter signatures in a bid to get the measure on the November ballot. That is more than twice the 171,592 valid voter signatures necessary to qualify, meaning that the measure has almost certainly qualified for the ballot. Initiative campaigns typically try to get a cushion of 20-30 percent more signatures that required to account for rejected signatures, but Legal Missouri has a cushion of more than 100 percent.
Drug Policy
Austin, Texas, Voters Overwhelmingly Approve Marijuana Decriminalization, Ban on No-Knock Warrants. Austin residents voted overwhelmingly in support of a municipal ballot measure that decriminalizes marijuana possession and bans police from using no-knock warrants. Some 85 percent of voters said "yes" to the measure. Now, the city council must codify the results into law, but the council already passed a 2020 resolution to end misdemeanor marijuana arrests, which will now become law. Similarly, officials said police in Austin execute just a handful of no-knock raids each year, but now that number will go to zero.
International
Head of Colombia's Gulf Clan Cartel Extradited to US. Dairo Antonio Úsuga, known as Otoniel, alleged head of the Gulf Clan cartel, was extradited to the United States last week to face drug smuggling conspiracy charges. Otoniel had been Colombia's most wanted man for the past decade before being captured in his jungle hideout last October. The Gulf Clan emerged out of rightist paramilitaries who worked with the Colombian government in the long-running civil war with the leftist FARC. Many in Colombia want him to supply information about atrocities committed by paramilitaries during the conflict, which officially ended with a peace treaty between the FARC and the government in 2016. He already faced Colombian charges of murder, illegal recruitment, kidnapping for ransom, sexual abuse of minors, terrorism, and illegal possession of weapons, as well as drug trafficking.
Colombia's Gulf Clan Cartel Stages "Armed Strike" After Leader's Extradition to US. In response to the extradition of their leader, Dairo Antonio Usuga, known as Otoniel, to the US to face drug trafficking charges, the Gulf Cartel launched a four-day "armed strike" beginning last Thursday. They blocked roads and set fire to dozens of vehicles. The Interior Ministry said "more than a hundred vehicles (...) were hit" in the first two days of the action.
Colombian Military Deploys More Troops to Combat Gulf Clan Cartel. The Colombian military is beefing up its already extensive presence in the country's north in response to an "armed strike" called by the Gulf Clan cartel in response to the extradition of its leader Dairo Antonio Usuga, known as Otoniel, to the US to face drug trafficking charges. There were already about 50,000 government troops in the region, but now another 2,000 have been deployed. They would be tasked, among other things, with securing roads so that hard-hit commerce can be restored, he said. The Gulf Clan cartel, Colombia's biggest, is estimated to account for between 30 and 60 percent of all cocaine exported from Colombia.
Bad behavior by the dope squad in Springfield, MA, leads to a consent decree with the Justice Department, the Senate pot legalization bill won't be filed this month after all, and more.
No-knock raids come under scrutiny in a new Washington Post report. (Creative Commons)
Marijuana Policy
Senate Marijuana Legalization Bill Filing Delayed. The Senate marijuana legalization bill championed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, will not be filed later this month as the trio originally planned, Schumer said Thursday. Instead, he said, the senators are now on track to file the bill before the August recess. The House has already passed its version of a legalization bill, the MORE Act (HR 3617). The House has also repeatedly passed an interim measure aimed at providing access to financial services to state-legal marijuana businesses, the SAFE Act (HR 1996), but Schumer and his allies in the Senate have blocked action on that, saying they want the legalization bill passed first.
Medical Marijuana
Oklahoma Bills to Rein in Medical Marijuana Industry Advance. The Senate Business, Commerce and Tourism Committee advanced a number of bills to regulate the state's booming medical marijuana industry Thursday. House Bill 3813 would give Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority investigators the power to seize illegal medical marijuana products and to make arrests, as well as referring evidence, reports, and charges to law enforcement and prosecutors. It passed 11-0. The panel also passed House Bill 3208, which would enact a two-year moratorium on new medical marijuana business licenses, on a vote of 9-2. House Bill 4055 would require public utilities to provide the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority with reports concerning how much water and electricity a grow facility uses. It passed on a vote of 8-3. House Bill 4411 would remove a limit of two facility inspections a year on medical marijuana operations and require at least one inspection annually. It passed on a vote of 11-0. And House Bill 3971 would let the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority employ "secret shoppers" to verify that retail outlets are complying with laws. It passed 10-1.
Law Enforcement
Some Cops Are Moving Away from Pretextual Traffic Stops. For decades, police have relied on pretextual traffic stops—stopping a driver, frequently a Black driver, for a trivial infraction, such as no license plate light or an expired inspection sticker—as a tool for looking for drug and gun law violations, but the New York Times reports that some departments are now moving from the practice as evidence mounts that they "not only disproportionately snare Black drivers but also do little to combat serious crime or improve public safety, and some escalate into avoidable violence, even killing officers or drivers." The newspaper cited the death in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of Patrick Lyoya, an unarmed 26-year-old Black man who was pulled over for a mismatched license plate and, after a brief struggle, was apparently shot in the head from behind, but he was only the latest of at least 400 unarmed people killed by police in traffic stops in the last five years. Big cities such as Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Seattle have or are enacting policies restricting stops for minor violations, so has the state of Virginia, and smaller cities such as Berkeley, California, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and Lansing, Michigan.
No-Knock Raids Increasingly Common, Judges Act as Rubber Stamps. As part of a series of reports on how no-knock search warrants are obtained and executed, the Washington Post finds that "the dangerous police tactic has grown in use as judges routinely authorize requests for the surprise raids with little apparent scrutiny of claims by officers." It cited recent cases of raids turned deadly, including the killing of an unarmed Black man in a West Baton Rouge, Louisiana, motel room in a raid that turned up 22 grams of drugs, the killing of a 63-year-old Black man in his home in a raid that netted nine grams of drugs, and the notorious Houston raid that led to a gun-battle in which two innocent White homeowners were killed. The no-knock warrants are supposed to be carefully evaluated by judges, but “judges generally rely on the word of police officers and rarely question the merits of the requests, offering little resistance when they seek authorization for no-knocks,” a Washington Post investigation has found. The searches, which were meant to be used sparingly, have become commonplace for drug squads and SWAT teams." The Post found that at least 22 people have been killed in no-knock raids since 2015, 13 of whom were Black or Hispanic. In at least five raids, police killed someone who was not their target. There were also at least 24 other searches that ended in killings, but the newspaper was unable to determine what sort of warrant was involved.
Springfield, Massachusetts, Police Agree to Consent Decree Over Out of Control Narcotics Unit. The Justice Department in July2020 issued a report accusing the Springfield police narcotics unit of using excessive violence with impunity, and now, the police and the Justice Department have announced they have agreed on terms for a consent decree enacting a series of policing reforms. "Officers will report all uses of force, including punches and kicks, something which was not previously required in the Springfield Police Department," said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. "In addition, officers have a duty to intervene to prevent excessive force." The decree also calls for the city's new civilian police commission to have a budget and subpoena power. The police department's dope squad was disbanded in 2021 after the criticism, but the consent decree will apply to the entire police force. Police union leaders had no comment.
Georgia cops will pay for a misbegotten massive pot bust, the US and Russia criticize each other in remarks at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, and more.
Psychedelics
Colorado Activists Finalize Decision on Psychedelic Reform Initiative. New Approach PAC and state-level activists have decided which of four psychedelic reform initiatives they filed will actually be the subject of a 2022 signature gathering campaign. They have requested permission from the state to begin signature gathering for Initiative 58, the Natural Medicine Health Act. The measure would legalize psilocybin, as well as creating "healing centers" where people could use the drug for therapeutic forces. The campaign will need 124,632 valid voter signatures by August 8 to qualify for the November ballot.
Law Enforcement
"Cartersville 64," All Busted for Less Than an Ounce of Weed, Win Settlement with Cops. Police in Cartersville, Georgia, went to a house on a report of gunshots on New Year's Eve 2017, claimed they smelled marijuana, entered the house without consent or a warrant, found less than an ounce of marijuana, then arrested all 64 people in the house, most of them people of color, for marijuana possession because it within "everyone’s reach or control." Prosecutors dropped the charges within days, but that wasn't the end of it. The Southern Center for Human Rights and a local law firm filed a lawsuit over the bust, and it has now been settled. The defendants — the Cartersville Police Department, Bartow County Sheriff’s Office and the Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force — will pay $900,000 as part of the settlement.
International
US Uses CND Session to Blast Russia, Reiterate Drug Policy Stance. In remarks delivered Monday by Todd D. Robinson, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs ("drugs and thugs") at the 65th meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, the US criticized Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, as well as reiterating the US position combining public health and law enforcement approaches to the drug issue.
"For decades," said Robinson, "the UN Charter has stood as a bulwark to the worst impulses of empires and autocrats. Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is an attack on Ukraine as a UN Member State, on our Charter, and on the UN itself, including the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Russia’s choice for premeditated war is bringing catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. These actions contravene our commitments to protect the health and welfare of mankind, our single greatest purpose in the CND.
"Here, we speak together against those who believe they can violate the law for their own benefit – criminals, corrupt actors, and drug traffickers. How can we continue to speak against these bad actors when one among us is operating with similar lawlessness? We have lost trust in Russia as a UN Member State and CND member, and we will approach its participation in this and other UN bodies with serious skepticism. We must hold Russia accountable. In so doing though we cannot allow our critical work in the CND to be deterred."
Robinson added that the Biden administration's approach to drug policy "includes a focus on primary prevention, harm reduction, evidence-based treatment, and recovery support, and calls for public-private collaboration to remove barriers to high quality care, reduce stigma, and invest in evidence-based public health and public safety approaches," but added that " public health-focused efforts must also be complemented by effective international cooperation and law enforcement measures to reduce illicit manufacture and trafficking of drugs."
Referring to criticism from the US, Syromolotov said, "We are bewildered at the insistent attempts of some Member States to politicize the work of the current session. We are adamantly opposed to such black PR campaigns, which are not related to the mandate of the Commission. This approach damages the reputation of this important international body and could erode the trust of the world community in it. Russia is always committed to a constructive, substantive discussion in the Commission."
On marijuana: "It is unfortunate that today we see attempts to shatter this foundation and distort its essence, "said Syromolotov. "Legalization of free distribution of cannabis in such countries as the United States of America and Canada is a matter of serious concern for us. It is worrisome that several Member States of the European Union are currently considering violating their drug control obligations. Such approach is unacceptable. Strict compliance of all State Parties with their obligations under the conventions is the precondition for the smooth functioning of the global drug control regime. Russia is consistently advocating that only those States that are implementing the provisions of the conventions in good faith have the moral right to participate in the activities of the Commission. By applying a different approach, we risk undermining the authority of the Commission which is the policy-making body of the United Nations with prime responsibility for drug control matters."
On Afghanistan, whose opium production supplies a massive wave of heroin addiction in Russia: "Another matter of serious concern to us is the situation in Afghanistan," Syromolotov said. "Freeze on the national financial resources of Afghanistan made illicit opium poppy cultivation and production practically the only viable income source for the population."
The prospects for home marijuana gardens in the Garden State grow dim, black men are bearing the brunt of the fatal overdose crisis, and more.
Black men are dying of drug overdoses at a rate higher than any other demographic group. (Creative Commons)
Marijuana Policy
New Jersey Unlikely to Allow Home Marijuana Cultivation. Marijuana legalization proponent and incoming state Senate President Nick Scutari (D) has signaled that home cultivation of marijuana will not be allowed once the state's adult-use market launches. That launch date was originally set for the middle of next month but is now running behind schedule.
Scutari said he "did not see (home cultivation) happening right now" because it would only further the illicit marijuana market. "I'm not against marijuana being grown at home for medical purposes and maybe even just recreational purposes," Scutari said. "But we've got to let this industry… it's not even off the ground yet."
The issue of home cultivation is creating a divide between activists and marijuana businesses, with legal operators interested in minimizing home grows and protecting market share, while activists argue that medical marijuana patients in particular should have the right to grow their own.
Austin Marijuana Decriminalization, No-Knock Raid Ban Initiative Approved to Go Before Voters in May. The Austin City Council on Tuesday approved an activist-led initiative to decriminalize marijuana and ban no-knock police raids. That was the final obstacle on the path to putting the issue before city voters in municipal elections in May. The council could have adopted the measure as an ordinance, which activists said they would have preferred, but it instead deferred, leaving the call to the voters.
"The City Council's vote to schedule an election on the Austin Freedom Act is a testament to the incredible work of our organizers and volunteers who are fighting for progressive change in their community," Mike Siegel, political director of Ground Game Texas, said. "Thanks to their tireless efforts, voters will have the opportunity in May to end the criminalization of marijuana possession and the dangerous practice of no-knock police raids."
Medical Marijuana
Florida Bipartisan Bill Seeks to Tighten Regulations on Medical Marijuana. Democratic and Republican lawmakers are teaming up in a bid to make it more difficult to buy and sell medical marijuana-related products, and they are aiming at Delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in particular. Delta-9 THC is the most potent psychoactive compound found in marijuana, but Delta-8 also produces psychoactive effects and is considered legal under federal law because it has never been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration.
Sponsored by Reps. Spencer Roach (R-North Fort Myers) and Andrew Learned (D-Brandon), House Bill 679 would increase regulations on Delta-8 and limiting the scope of products protected by the state's medical marijuana law. The bill would prohibit Delta-8 sales to people under 21, limit advertising toward children, create evaluation procedures for new products, and prevent medical marijuana treatment centers from selling licenses for profit.
Harm Reduction
Recent Overdose Surge Has Hit Black Men the Hardest. The Pew Research Center reports that amidst a record surge in drug overdose deaths, "while overdose death rates have increased in every major demographic group in recent years, no group has seen a bigger increase than Black men. As a result, Black men have overtaken American Indian or Alaska Native men and White men as the demographic group most likely to die from overdoses." Black men die of drug overdoses at a rate of 54.1 per 100,000, overtaking Native American men (52.1) and white men (44.2). Latino men died at a lower rate of 27.3 per 100,000, with Asian American men bringing up the rear with a rate of 8.5.
Despite significant advances made by governments around the world in humanizing drug control systems since the turn of the century, human rights abuses still seem to be taking place in the course of enforcing drug prohibitions in recent years and, in some cases, have only gotten worse.
The United States continues to imprison hundreds of thousands of people for drug offenses and imposes state surveillance (probation and parole) on millions more. The Mexican military rides roughshod over the rule of law, disappearing, torturing, and killing people with impunity as it wages war on (or sometimes works with) the infamous drug cartels. Russia and Southeast Asian countries, meanwhile, hold drug users in "treatment centers" that are little more than prison camps.
A virtual event last summer, which ran parallel to the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, shined a harsh light on brutal human rights abuses by the Philippines and Indonesia in the name of the war on drugs and also highlighted one method of combating impunity for drug war crimes: by imposing sanctions on individuals responsible for the abuses.
Event organizer and executive director of the organization David Borden opened the meeting with a discussion about the broad drug policy issues and challenges being witnessed on the global stage.
"Drug policy affects and is affected by many of these broad sustainable development goals," he said. "One of the very important issues is the shortfall in global AIDS funding, especially in the area of harm reduction programs. Another goal -- Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions -- is implicated in the Philippines, where President [Rodrigo] Duterte was elected in 2016 and initiated a mass killing campaign admitted by him -- although sometimes denied by his defenders -- in which the police acknowledged killing over 6,000 people in [anti-drug] operations [since 2016], almost all of whom resisted arrests, according to police reports. NGOs put the true number [of those who were] killed at over 30,000, with many executed by shadowy vigilantes."
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has proposed a formal investigation of human rights abuses in the Philippines drug war, but the court seems hampered by a chronic shortfall in funding, Borden pointed out.
"Former prosecutors have warned pointedly on multiple occasions of a mismatch between the court's mission and its budget," he said. "Recent activity at the conclusion of three different preliminary investigations shows that while the prosecutor in the Philippines moved forward, in both Nigeria and Ukraine, the office concluded there should be formal investigations, but did not [submit] investigation requests, leaving it [up to the] new prosecutors [to decide]. The hope is [that the ICC] will move as expeditiously as possible on the Philippines investigation, but resources will affect that, as will the [Philippine] government's current stance."
The government's current stance is perhaps best illustrated by President Duterte's remarks at his final State of the Nation address on July 26. In his speech, Duterte dared the ICC to "record his threats against those who 'destroy' the country with illegal drugs," the Rappler reported. "I never denied -- and the ICC can record it -- those who destroy my country, I will kill you," said Duterte. "And those who destroy the young people of my country, I will kill you, because I love my country." He added that pursuing anti-drug strategies through the criminal justice system "would take you months and years," and again told police to kill drug users and dealers.
At the virtual event, Philippines human rights advocate Justine Balane, secretary-general of Akbayan Youth, the youth wing of the progressive, democratic socialist Akbayan Citizens' Action Party, provided a blunt and chilling update on the Duterte government's bloody five-year-long drug war.
"The killings remain widespread, systematic, and ongoing," he said. "We've documented 186 deaths, equal to two a day for the first quarter of the year. Of those, 137 were connected to the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, or the armed forces, and 49 were committed by unidentified assailants."
The "unidentified assailants" -- vigilante death squads of shadowy provenance -- are responsible for the majority of killings since 2016.
"Of the 137 killed, 96 were small-time pushers, highlighting the fact that the drug war is also class warfare targeting small-time pushers or people just caught in the wrong place or wrong time," Balane said.
He also provided an update on the Duterte administration's response to ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's June 14 decision concluding her preliminary examination of human rights abuses in the Philippine drug war with a request to the ICC to open a formal investigation into "the situation in the Philippines."
In a bid to fend off the ICC, in 2020, the Philippine Justice Department announced it had created a panel to study the killings carried out by agents of the state -- police or military -- but Balane was critical of these efforts.
"[In the second half of 2020], the Justice Department said it had finished the initial investigations, but no complaints or charges were filed," he said. "They said it was difficult to find witnesses [who were willing to testify about the killings], but [the victims'] families said they were not approached [by the review panel]."
The Justice Department is also undercutting the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, an independent constitutional office whose primary mission is to investigate human rights abuses, Balane pointed out.
"The Justice Department said the commission would be involved [in the investigation process by the panel], but the commission says [that the] Justice [Department] has yet to clarify its rules and their requests have been left unanswered," Balane said. "The commission is the constitutional body tasked to investigate abuses by the armed forces, and they are being excluded by the Justice Department review panel."
The Justice Department review is also barely scraping the surface of the carnage, Balane said, noting that while in May the Philippine National Police (PNP) announced they would be granting the review panel access to 61 investigations -- which accounts for less than 1 percent of the killings that the government acknowledged were part of the official operations since 2016 -- the PNP has now decreased that number to 53.
"The domestic review by [the] Justice [Department] appears influenced by Duterte himself," said Balane. "This erodes the credibility of the drug war review by the Justice Department, which is the government's defense for their calls against international human rights mechanisms."
The bottom line, according to Balane, is that "the killings continue, they are still systematic, and they are still widespread."
In Indonesia -- where, like Duterte in the Philippines, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) also declared a war on drugs in 2016 -- it is not only extrajudicial killings that are the issue but also the increasing willingness of the government to resort to the death penalty for drug offenses.
"Extrajudicial killings [as a result of] the drug war are happening in Indonesia," said Iftitahsari, a researcher with the Indonesian Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, who cited 99 extrajudicial killings that took place in 2017 and 68 that happened in 2018, with a big jump to 287 from June 2019 through June 2020. She also mentioned another 390 violent drug law enforcement "incidents" that took place from July 2020 through May 2021, of which an estimated 40 percent are killings.
"The problem of extrajudicial killings [in Indonesia] is broader than [just] the war on drugs; we [also] have the problem of police brutality," Sari said. "Police have a very broad authority and a lack of accountability. There is no effective oversight mechanism, and there are no developments on this issue because we have no mechanisms to hold [the] police accountable."
Indonesia is also using its courts to kill people. Since 2015, Sari reported, 18 people -- 15 of them foreigners -- have been executed for drug offenses.
"In addition to extrajudicial killings, there is a tendency to use harsher punishment, capital punishment, with the number of death penalties rising since 2016," she said.
Statistics Iftitahsari presented bore that out. Death penalty cases jumped from 22 in 2016 to 99 in 2019 and 149 in 2020, according to the figures she provided during the virtual event.
Not only are the courts increasingly handing down death sentences for drug offenses, but defendants are also often faced with human rights abuses within the legal system, Sari said.
"Violations of the right to a fair trial are very common in drug-related death penalty cases," she said. "There are violations of the right to be free from torture, not [to] be arbitrarily arrested and detained, and of the right to counsel. There are also rights violations during trials, including the lack of the right to cross-examination, the right to non-self-incrimination, trial without undue delay, and denial of an interpreter."
With authoritarian governments such as those in Indonesia and the Philippines providing cover for such human rights abuses in the name of the war on drugs, impunity is a key problem. During the virtual event's panel discussion, Scott Johnston, of the U.S.-based nonprofit Human Rights First, discussed one possible way of making human rights abusers pay a price: imposing sanctions on them individually, especially under the Global Magnitsky Act.
That US law, which was based on one enacted in 2012 to target Russian officials deemed responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison, was expanded in 2016 to punish human rights violators around the globe by freezing their assets or denying them visas to enter the United States. A related law known by its spot in the US Code, "7031(c)," can also be used to deny visas to immediate familly members of the alleged abusers.
"In an era [when]... rising human rights abuses and also rising impunity for committing those abuses [are]... a hallmark of what's happening around the world, we see countries adopting these types of targeted human rights mechanisms [imposing sanctions] at a rate that would have been shocking even five or six years ago," said Johnston. "Targeted sanctions [like the Global Magnitsky Act] are those aimed against specific individual actors and entities, as opposed to countrywide embargos," he explained.
The Global Magnitsky program is one such mechanism specifically targeted at human rights abuses and corruption, and the United States has imposed it against some 319 perpetrators of human rights abuses or corruption, Johnston said. (The most recent sanctions imposed under the act include Cuban officials involved in repressing recent protests in Cuba, corrupt Bulgarian officials, and corrupt Guatemalan officials.)
"We've seen a continued emphasis on using these tools in the transition to the Biden administration, with 73 cases [of sanctions having been reported] since Biden took office," he noted.
And it is increasingly not just the United States.
"The US was the first country to use this mechanism, but it is spreading," Johnston said. "Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom, [and] the European Union all have these mechanisms, and Australia, Japan, and New Zealand are all considering them. This is a significant pivot toward increasing multilateral use of these mechanisms."
While getting governments to impose targeted sanctions is not a sure thing, the voices of global civil society can make a difference, Johnston said.
"These are wholly discretionary and [it]... can be difficult to [ensure that they are]... imposed in practice," he said. "To give the U.S. government credit, we have seen them really listen to NGOs, and about 35 percent of all sanctions have a basis in complaints [nonprofits]... facilitated from civil society groups around the world."
And while such sanctions can be politicized, the United States has imposed them on some allied countries, such as members of the Saudi government involved in the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi and in cases of honor killings in Pakistan, Johnston noted.
"But we still have never seen them used in the context of the Philippines and Indonesia."
Maybe it is time.
In addition to the speakers quoted above, our event also included Marco Perduca, representing Associazone Luca Coscioni, who served in Italy's Senate from 2007-2013.
Our event elicited responses from the government on Indonesia, live during the Questions and Comments section; and from the government of the Philippines in writing later. We also had questions and comments from Kenzi Riboulet Zemouli of NGO FAAAT; iDEFEND Philippines Secretary General Rose Trajano; and Gang Badoy Capati, Executive Director of Rock Ed Philippines, who was a speaker on our 2021 HLPF event.
