Posts Mentioning RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  MaryJane 9:53 pm on January 15, 2012 Permalink  

  US Criminal Justice System 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 1-11-12

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 1-11-12. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3706

  Question of the Week: How many people are under the control of the U.S. criminal justice system?

  An April 2011 report by the Justice Policy Institute begins by stating,

  “The United States is home to the world’s largest prison population. … the U.S. has only 5 percent of the world’s population but holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners …”

  There are several components to the U.S. criminal justice system. Quoting the Institute,

  “The entry point into the criminal justice system is typically through law enforcement. … In the U.S., when a person is charged with an offense they may be detained in jail until their trial or they may be released to await their trial in the community through a variety of mechanisms … people are said to be “remanded,” which is a summons to appear before a judge at a later date. If they are not released pretrial they can be “remanded to custody” until their court proceeding; if they are convicted, they can be remanded to custody prior to sentencing or during an appeal process … Pretrial detention is associated with a higher likelihood of both being found guilty and receiving a sentence of incarceration over probation, thus forcing a person further into the criminal justice system. In the United States, this is particularly important because of the sheer numbers”

  What are those numbers?

  In 2010 there were approximately:

  4,000,000 people on probation

  840,000 on parole

  207,000 in federal prison

  1,300,000 in state prison

  and 749,000 in local jails

  For a total of 7,100,000 people under the control of the U.S. Criminal Justice system.

  These facts and others like them can be found in the “U.S. Corrections Population” Table in  Prisons & Jails Chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.

   
• 

  MaryJane 9:28 pm on January 15, 2012 Permalink  

  Marijuana Prisoners 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 12-19-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 12-19-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3677

  Question of the Week: How many people are in prison for marijuana?

  Aficionados will recall that there are important statistics in drug policy that must be computed. These include the number of marijuana arrests and the number of people behind bars for marijuana offenses.

  To calculate the number of “marijuana prisoners,” two reports are necessary.

  Report #1 is “Prisoners in 2004,” from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Table 1, page 2. Find these numbers:

  Total Federal Prisoners in 2004 =  170,535

  Total State Prisoners in 2004 =  1,244,311

  Report #2 is, “Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004,” again from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, page. 4. Find these numbers:

  Percent of federal prisoners held for drug law violations in 2004 = 55%

  Percent of state prisoners held for drug law violations in 2004 = 21%

  Marijuana/hashish, Percent of federal drug offenders, 2004 = 12.4%

  Marijuana/hashish, Percent of state drug offenders, 2004 = 12.7%

  Now, do the math,

  Multiply total prisoners times the percent of prisoners held for drug law violations. Then multiply this product times the percentage of marijuana offenders. The result is:

  Federal marijuana prisoners, 2004 = 11,630

  State marijuana prisoners, 2004 = 33,186

  Total federal and state marijuana prisoners in 2004 = 44,816

  Thus, those in prison for marijuana offenses represent about 12.6% of those incarcerated for drug law violations and 3.2% of total state and federal prisoners. It should be noted that these numbers exclude those among the 700,000+ inmates who may be in local jail because of a marijuana arrest.

  These facts and others like them can be found in the Prisons and Drugs Chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.

   
• 

  MaryJane 4:52 pm on January 15, 2012 Permalink  

  Cannabis rescheduling 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 12-15-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 12-15-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3671

  Question of the Week: How can cannabis be rescheduled?

  According to the Congressional Research Service, the current scheduling scheme for various drugs called the Controlled Substances Act

  “was signed into law as the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.”

  Found under Title 21 of the U.S. Commercial Code. Subchapter I, Section 812 the CSA

  “established five schedules of controlled substances, to be known as schedules I, II, III, IV, and V.”

  In “Initial Schedules of Controlled Substances,” the CSA placed marijuana and its derivatives under Schedule 1, the most restrictive of the five categories.

  Note usage of the term initial. In theory, the schedule of cannabis or any other drug (there are hundreds) can be upgraded (to a more restrictive schedule) or downgraded (to a less restrictive one).

  The Congressional Research Service unfortunately notes that

  “Lawmakers have repeatedly rebuffed campaigns to reschedule marijuana under the CSA, a step that would permit marijuana to be used for some medical purposes. Likewise, courts have refused to carve out exceptions to the CSA, even for individuals who claim a dire need for the drug.”

  Thus, Congress has the authority to reschedule, as do the courts given the right case, but so far neither has done so.

  Robert Miklos in the Stanford Law Review counters that,

  “the CSA authorizes the Attorney General to [reschedule], in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the DEA. … the President would not need the consent of Congress to make this more fundamental change to federal law.”

  Thus, the President and his Executive Branch have the authority to reschedule cannabis, but so far refuse to do so.

  These facts and others like them can be found in the Crime and Medical Marijuana Chapters of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.

   
• 

  MaryJane 1:35 pm on January 13, 2012 Permalink  

  Synthetic Cannabinoids 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 11-30-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 11-30-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3650

  Question of the Week: What are synthetic cannabinoids?

  As described in an October 2011 report by Congressional Research Service,

  “Synthetic cannabinoids are substances chemically produced to mimic tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana. When these substances are sprayed onto dried herbs and then consumed through smoking or oral ingestion, they can produce psychoactive effects similar to those of marijuana.”

  A September 2011 issue of Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, explains that these agents are

  “… sold on the Internet as herbal mixtures under the brand names of “Spice,” “Spice Gold,” “Spice Diamond,” “Arctic Spice,” “Silver,” “Aroma,” “K2,” “Genie,” “Scene” or “Dream,” and advertised as incense products, meditation potpourris, bath additives, or air fresheners. These products are often referred to as “herbal highs” or “legal highs””

  They were developed according to the CRS by

  “Clemson University Professor John Huffman [who] is credited with first synthesizing some of the cannabinoids, such as JWH-018, now used in “fake pot” substances such as K2. The effects of JWH-018 can be 10 times stronger than those of THC.”

  Current Psychiatry reported that

  “many have been banned in several European countries, 18 U.S. states, and the U.S. military. In March 2011, the FDA placed 5 synthetic cannabinoids on Schedule I, making them illegal to possess or sell in the United States.”

  However, the CRS notes concerns about the DEA’s action, stating that,

  “Professor Huffman did not intend for K2 to be consumed by humans. He is, however, against adding synthetic cannabinoids to Schedule I, asserting that there is still much to learn about [them] …  Professor Huffman has created several synthetic cannabinoids that are seen as showing promise in treating skin cancers, pain, and inflammation.”

  These facts and others like them can be found in the Marijuana Chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.

   
• 

  MaryJane 1:14 pm on January 13, 2012 Permalink  

  Mandatory Minimum Sentencing 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 11-21-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 11-21-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3639

  Question of the Week: What are mandatory minimum sentences?

  As described by the Sentencing Project,

  “Along with the stepped-up pace of arrests in the 1980s, legislatures throughout the country adopted harsher sentencing laws in regard to drug offenses. The federal system, in particular, led the way with the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and … of 1988. Among a number of provisions, these laws created a host of severe mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses and affected the calibration of the federal Sentencing Guidelines, which were being formulated simultaneous to these statutory changes. The result of these developments was to remove discretion from the sentencing judge to consider the range of factors pertaining to the individual and the offense that would normally be an integral aspect of the sentencing process, thereby increasing the number of individuals in federal court exposed to a term of incarceration for a drug offense.”

  In its recent report to Congress, the United States Sentencing Commission contended that,

  “Sentencing data and interviews with prosecutors and defense attorneys indicate that mandatory minimum penalties that are considered excessively severe tend to be applied inconsistently.”

  The other unintended consequences of mandatory minimum penalties were enumerated by The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing to include,

  “significant increases in the costs of corrections due to longer prison terms and an increasing prison population; removal from consideration of other sentencing options that may prove to be less costly and/or more effective than mandatory incarceration; and Impact on … pleas or verdicts and offender eligibility for rehabilitation programs and early release.”

  The Commission concluded,

  “Addressing the growth in the state prison population, particularly involving drug-related offenders, requires systemic change.”

  These facts and others like them can be found in the Mandatory Minimum Sentencing chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.

   
• 

  MaryJane 9:16 pm on November 21, 2011 Permalink  

  Marijuana Voters 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 11-4-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 11-4-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3616

  Question of the Week: What is the marijuana vote?

  An October Editorial from the Christian Science Monitor lauded the federal crackdown on California medical marijuana by stating,

  “Pot smokers are a small minority. They are containable … .”

  Are “pot smokers” indeed a small containable minority?

  According to the U.S. Census, 16 million voters in 2008 were Black, 12.3% of the total vote. About 8 million Hispanics and 3 million Asians cast their ballots respectively at 7.4% and 2.6% of the 2008 vote. The youth vote, those 18-24, numbered 12.5 million, 9.5% of the total 2008 vote.

  Applying the National Survey on Drug Use and Health to the Census voting data can compute the “marijuana vote” comprised of 2008 “past year” or “monthly” marijuana users. Because of its illegality, self interest may compel these individuals to vote for candidates who are more lenient toward pot.

  At respective 9.8% and 5.9% of the total 2008 vote, “marijuana voters” numbered about 13 million, with around 7.8 million making up the “medical marijuana vote.” These values are well within ranges that define minority voting blocs like Hispanics, Asians and youth.

  According to Northwestern University Searle Center article,

  “in 2004 less than 2.5 percentage points separated President Bush and Senator Kerry and the margin in 2000 between then-Governor Bush and Vice-President Gore was less than half a percentage point.”

  The Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan declared,

  “the minority support for Obama was instrumental in his success.”

  With almost 40% of the youth vote reporting past year marijuana use, perhaps pot smokers will be not be so “containable” when their support becomes instrumental to candidate success in the 2012 election.

  These facts and others like them can be found in the Civil Rights Chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.

   
• 

  MaryJane 11:15 pm on November 19, 2011 Permalink  

  Prohibition 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-29-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-29-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3606

  Question of the Week: How similar is Ken Burns’ ‘Prohibition’ to the Drug War?

  Many aficionados have probably seen “PROHIBITION,” the

  “three-part, five-and-a-half-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed.”

  Viewers of this film can’t help but see strong similarities between this era and the 21^st Century drug war.

  Substituting the word “drug” for “alcohol,” PBS states that prohibition was,

  “intended to improve, even to ennoble, the lives of all Americans, to protect individuals, families, and society at large from the devastating effects of DRUG abuse.”

  In bold letters, PBS declares,

  “Prohibition turned law-abiding citizens into criminals, made a mockery of the justice system, caused illicit DRUGS to seem glamorous and fun…”

  The similarities between the Prohibition 1 and Prohibition 2 are substantiated by more than words. Consider these statistics. Despite the fact that 25 million people were made criminals by arrests for illegal drugs during the last 15 years, 120 million Americans – roughly half of everyone over age 12 – made a mockery of drug laws by reportedly using an illegal drug in 2010.

  As PBS concludes,

  “The film [Prohibition] raises vital questions that are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago – about means and ends, individual rights and responsibilities, the proper role of government and finally, who is — and who is not — a real American.”

  These facts and others like them can be found in the Alcohol, Crime and Drug Usage Chapters of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org. Please visit the PBS website pbs.org to learn more about the Prohibition series.

   
• 

  MaryJane 9:15 pm on October 17, 2011 Permalink  

  Marijuana Arrests 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-10-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-10-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3581

  Question of the Week: How many people were arrested for marijuana last year?

  Every September, the FBI releases its annual “Crime in the United States” report that counts arrests in the United States according to a number of categories, among them drugs.

  This report doesn’t make marijuana arrests obvious. Instead, these numbers must be gleaned by computing them.

  To do so, one starts by referencing Table 29 of Uniform Crime Report, which lists the estimated number of arrests by category. Note that drug arrests for 2010 equaled 1,638,846. Those for reported categories like disorderly conduct, fraud and burglary equaled about 615,000, 189,000 and 290,000 each.

  Then, to compute arrests for marijuana, the separate parent webpage to Table 29 must be referenced. The “Download Arrest Table Excel” link on this page goes to a spreadsheet version of the “Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations Percent Distribution by Region, 2010” table at the bottom of the page. Here you will find percentages for total arrests by substance positioned against these percentages by region.

  Marijuana arrests must be computed by multiplying the percentages for possession and for Sale/manufacturing times that aforementioned total number of drug arrests for 2010.

  Doing the math, at 6.3% of total drug arrests, there were about 103,000 Americans arrested for selling or manufacturing marijuana in 2010. At 45.8% of total drug arrests, there about 751,000 Americans arrested for merely possessing marijuana in 2010. Together, arrests for both selling and possessing marijuana added to a total of 854,000 arrests in 2010.

  Sound complicated? Probably so for numbers of that magnitude.

  These facts and others like them can be found in the tables at the bottom of the Marijuana chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.

   

   

   
• 

  MaryJane 9:05 pm on October 17, 2011 Permalink  

  Federal Agencies 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-6-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-6-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3576

  Question of the Week: What federal agencies enforce drug laws?

  A new table based on a 2009 report from the RAND Corporation can be found in the Drug War Facts Interdiction chapter. This table lists a number of federal agencies that investigate and enforce drug laws. Among these are the United States Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy or ONDCP.

  Under the Department of Defense, the Defense Information Systems Agency and its Anti-Drug Network engage in information sharing and data mining. The U.S. Northern Command oversees the continental United States and Alaska. The Joint Task Force North under the Northern Command stops transnational threats like drug smuggling. The U.S. Southern Command operates counterdrug operations in Central and South America. Its Joint Interagency Task Force South prevents illegal trafficking within the Caribbean.

  The Drug Enforcement Administration or DEA has several divisions. Its National Security Intelligence Section interfaces with the intelligence community. The DEA’s Operation Pipeline targets private motor vehicles involved in drug trafficking, with its counterpart, Operation Convoy, handling commercial vehicles. The El Paso Intelligence Center is a major hub for disseminating drug related intelligence data. DEA Mobile Intelligence Units assist state and local drug-enforcement challenges.

  The ONDCP operates 31 High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas or HIDTAs that collect counterdrug intelligence. Each HIDTAs has a Regional Intelligence Center associated with it.

  The Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force focuses major drug-smuggling and money-laundering operations, while the multi-agency National Joint Terrorism Task Force brings together more than three-dozen other government agencies that collect and process terrorist intelligence.

  A graphical map of these and other federal agencies created by the RAND Corporation can be found at the bottom of the aforementioned table.

   
• 

  MaryJane 8:55 pm on October 17, 2011 Permalink  

  Opiate Use 

  Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-1-11

  As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-1-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3570

  Question of the Week: Is opiate use increasing?

  Each year around this time, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration releases its National Survey on Drug Use and Health that reports the prevalence of illicit drug use in the US population age 12 or older.

  Trendable from 2002 onward, the data measure “lifetime” and “monthly” use of various illicit drugs, alcohol and tobacco. “Lifetime” use means having tried a drug just once. “Monthly” use equates to consuming an illicit drug at least once per month. NSDUH calls “monthly” use “current use.”

  What is striking about these data, but under reported in their analysis, is the growth in the use of opiates, specifically heroin and pain relievers, often opiates as well. In the nine years since 2002, among the drugs showing the largest “lifetime” growth in users were pain relievers at +17.4% over 2002 and heroin at +12.5% over 2002.

  “Monthly” usage of heroin at +44% and pain relievers +16.5% grew the most quickly over their 2002 respective user populations. There were an estimated 5.1 million users of illicit pain relievers in 2010, over 700,000 more than in 2002.

  The increasing use of these illicit drugs is tragically reflected in the headline of a recent Los Angeles Times article entitled, “Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the U.S.” Citing 2009 data in a 2011 National Vital Statistics Report and naming these drugs as the culprit, the article read,

  “Claiming a life every 14 minutes … This is the first time that drugs have accounted for more fatalities than traffic accidents since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979.”

  These facts and others like them can be found in three data tables within the Drug Use chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.