Tag: war on drugs

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Worldwide Protests Erupt Over the Racist, Failed War on Drugs

On June 26, people in over 100 cities in at least 46 countries will speak out against the war on drugs. It is difficult to overstate how much of a failure the war on drugs has been. By any reasonable standard it has done much more harm than good. Drug trafficking-related violence has soared, our prisons are stuffed with drug offenders (many of them non-violent), with minorities disproportionately represented. It is a costly, global economic disaster with economic gains from cannabis and other drugs restricted to the black market. Scientists are kept from studying cannabis, a plant that has proven to ease the suffering of countless medical patients—and those patients are forced to break federal law if they want to obtain their medicine. Even by […] Read More

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Attorney General Holder Just Took a Big Step To Help Prisoners of America’s War on Drugs

The Attorney General is urging the U.S. Sentencing Commission to let some people serving excessive sentences for nonviolent drug crimes get out of prison early. Attorney General Eric Holder supported an initiative yesterday that would let tens of thousands of incarcerated nonviolent drug users petition for shorter prison terms, but federal defenders and advocacy groups noted that the proposed strategy is not nearly as sweeping as those they and judges have recommended. In April, the U.S. Sentencing Commission approved a proposal to lower the guidelines for federal drug offenses two levels for defendants sentenced after Nov. 1, 2014. It estimated that the move would reduce average sentences by 23 months. The commission will vote next month on whether to let that amendment apply retroactively. During […] Read More

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Latinos are Fed Up with the War on Drugs

California’s prisons are outrageously overcrowded, and Latinos say it’s time for drug sentencing reform. A bill that would significantly reform California’s drug sentencing laws is poised for approval in the state Senate, and a new poll showing strong support for sentencing reform among Latino voters could help push it over the top. Senate Bill 1010, the Fair Sentencing Act, would equalize the penalties for sale of crack and powder cocaine. Under current California law, crack offenses are treated more harshly than powder cocaine offenses. The bill would also equalize probation requirements and asset forfeiture rules for offenses involving the two forms of the same drug. Sponsored by Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), the bill passed the Senate Public Safety Committee last month and the Senate […] Read More

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New York’s Pot Arrests Haven’t Slowed Down and Are As Racist as Ever [VIDEO]

New York is on track to arrest 28,600 people for pot possession this year, most of them minorities. New York’s new Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio ran a significant portion of his election campaign on his promise to end the racialized policing practices of his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. Law enforcement practices under Bloomberg, and Rudolph Giuliani before him, disproportionately targeted poor communities of color and led to the arrests of tens of thousands of people per year for carrying tiny amounts of marijuana. Sadly, the city is currently on track to hit 28,600 marijuana possession arrests under the new de Blasio administration—on par with the average arrests during the Giuliani years. And similar to stats from Bloomberg’s time in office, minorities account for 86 percent of […] Read More

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You Can Have Your Kids Taken Away for Smoking Legal Pot

Marijuana may be legal in Colorado, yet harsh drug war laws still penalize society’s most marginalized women. The following story first appeared on RH Reality Check.  It is no secret that marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington ushered in internationally unprecedented progressive drug policy in the United States. What is lesser understood, however, is that these new “experimental” reforms do not necessarily peel back all of the many, punitive layers of drug war enforcement. Despite the prevailing notion that the consequences of marijuana prohibition are determined in criminal courts for crimes like possession and sale, some of the harshest punishments are steeped in ever-complicated family law and Child Protective Services (CPS). Well-intentioned marijuana policy reform thus often leaves women, who are more likely to be […] Read More

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How US-Led War on Drugs Devastates Impoverished Farmers and Fails to Slow the Drug Trade

A new report reveals that the 12-year war on drugs in Afghanistan has been a disaster. Afghanistan is the number-one cultivator of opium poppies and exporter of heroin in the world, despite the United States spending $7.5 billion to eradicate the crop, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR). The report acknowledges that the 12-year war on drugs has failed to free the country of opium poppy production—just the opposite, in fact. Using statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the report found that the amount of land used to cultivate poppy increased 36%, an all-time high. The Afghan government had set a goal of reducing poppy production by 50%. Afghan counter-narcotics agencies work under the […] Read More

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5 Reasons the War on Drugs Is a Costly Economic Disaster

A new report reveals obscene wastes of money and humanitarian disasters. The global war on drugs is the cause of some of the biggest public health and social justice disasters of our time, from violent, billion-dollar cartels to mass incarceration targetingcommunities of color and locking people up for profit. On top of everything, the drug war is shockingly expensive according to a groundbreaking report released May 7 by the London School of Economics. The report exposes the injustices of the drug war by examining its true costs. Five Nobel Prize economists, as well as national leaders and professors, weighed in, reaching the overall conclusion that policies need to move away from heavy law enforcement to public health and humanitarian-based efforts. The foreword of the report […] Read More

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As Marijuana Refugees Flock to Colorado, Will Medical Community Force Rewriting of U.S. Drug Laws?

20 states and the District of Columbia have approved, and regulate in some capacity, marijuana for medical purposes. The following first appeared on Democracy Now!:  Currently 20 states and the District of Columbia have approved, and regulate in some capacity, marijuana for medical purposes. However, insurance companies do not cover the costs of such prescriptions. Federally, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, making it against the law to possess. But the debate over marijuana is growing. We speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dave Philipps of the Colorado Springs Gazette. His most recent article is “As success stories of kids fighting seizures with cannabis oil mount, legal landscape is changing.” We also speak to the pioneering medical marijuana doctor Dr. Margaret Gedde and a mother who […] Read More

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Here’s How Marijuana Works Better Than Opiates To Control Pain

It’s all in the way human brains are hardwired. The following article first appeared in Cannabis Now:  One compelling argument for the legalization of medical marijuana is its ability to ameliorate intense pain. Currently available technologies have helped us gain understanding of cannabis, as well as its more-commonly-accepted opioid counterparts, and the affects they have on pain. In 2010, as an attempt to gain insight on pain’s function in the brain, Oxford University conducted a study using fMRI machines and the standard tricks of psychology. Volunteers were monitored during zaps of pain to their feet. Some areas, they were told, had the potential to be unsafe. In those spots, the volunteers reported their pain levels as being higher. In reality, all of it was safe. Interestingly, in the fMRI […] Read More

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12 of the Biggest Myths About Marijuana Debunked

The arguments against legalization simply don’t hold up. For decades, cannabis opponents controlled the messaging around the popular plant and cultivated any number of lies about its effects. This built up a powerful stigma against marijuana, the effects of which have not worn off. The racist, expensive and failed U.S. war on drugs continues to rage on. The criminalization of cannabis users and distributors remains a top priority in that war. The government stubbornly classifies it as a dangerous Schedule I substance with no medical value, despite stacks of evidence to the contrary. While many acknowledge the truth about cannabis—that it is healthier than alcohol and more effective than pharmaceutical drugs in treating a number of illnesses—and more than half of all Americans want it legalized, […] Read More