CrimProf Blog

Questioning new Marijuana Tax

From NPR.com: California's potential $16 billion budget shortfall has led state officials to an unusual source for tax revenue — medical marijuana storefronts. In a state where it's legal to buy prescription pot, those shops generate millions of dollars each year. But there's just one problem — buying and selling marijuana is still a federal crime.

Richard Lee, owner of a coffee shop and marijuana dispensary in Oakland, says he's proud of the more than $200,000 a year he pays in sales tax. His store sells marijuana buds in one-eighth ounce bags.

"We have one medium grade on our menu, that's $30 an eighth plus tax," Lee says. "And three high grades, that's $40 an eighth plus tax, so it comes to $44 with tax, sales tax included."

Medical marijuana advocates estimate that the aggregate annual sales tax revenue that's paid by the approximately 400 dispensaries in California is $100 million. Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, says the state actually makes it easy for pot venders to do business without revealing their product by issuing generic "sellers permits." Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

State COurt Rules that People May Carry small Amount of Pot with Dr's Note

From sfgate.com: A person who carries a small amount of marijuana with a doctor's note allowing medical use can't be convicted of dealing the drug just because police thought he was a dealer, a California state appeals court ruled Friday.

In overturning an Orange County man's conviction for possessing marijuana for sale, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana said the prosecutor needed more evidence of sales than the opinion of a sheriff's deputy who specialized in investigating narcotics dealers.

The defendant, Christopher Chakos, was arrested in December 2004 in Rancho Santa Margarita near the medical office where he worked as a phlebotomist, drawing blood for lab tests. Officers found seven grams of marijuana in his car, along with a doctor's note recommending pot for his pain and depression.

They found more marijuana, in varying amounts, in a search of his apartment, along with a digital scale and a closed-circuit camera system.

The marijuana totaled about 6 ounces, less than the 8 ounces that medical marijuana patients can possess under state law. But Chakos was convicted of possession for sale based on expert testimony by Deputy Christopher Cormier, who conducted the search and said he had concluded Chakos was a dealer. Chakos was placed on probation for three years.

Cormier based his conclusion on the exact amount of marijuana in the car, which he said was typical of dealers, and the presence of the scale and the camera system at the apartment, despite defense testimony that the camera system belonged to Chakos' half brother.

Cormier said he had taken part in more than 100 drug investigations, but acknowledged that none involved a medical marijuana patient with a doctor's note.

The appeals court relied on a 1971 state Supreme Court ruling overturning a possession-for-sale conviction of a man who was using Methedrine, a trade brand of a type of methamphetamine, with a doctor's prescription. The court in that case said the arresting officer, who concluded the man was a dealer, lacked experience in cases involving the medical use of otherwise illegal drugs.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

1000 Feet Drug Law Becomes More Stringent in Oregon

From statemenjournal.com:The 1,000-foot zone around Oregon schools to protect students from drug dealing appears to have gotten a little tighter. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled unanimously last week that prosecutors do not need to prove a dealer knew that a drug sale was within 1,000 feet of a school.

Williamette University CrimProf Laura Appleman said the ruling follows the principle established in other states that have established drug-free zones around schools.

"I think that's typical with drug crimes when you're looking ... at the social harm as opposed to the mental intent of the seller," Appleman said.

he case involved a man who was convicted in the sale of cocaine to an informant working with an undercover police officer at a high school in Portland.

The defendant had argued during his trial that the jury be instructed that a conviction required that he knew the sale occurred within 1,000 feet of school property. The trial judge rejected the argument, but it was upheld by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the appeals court, saying that requiring knowledge of the distance from the school only would give drug dealers an incentive to claim they did not know how close they were to school grounds.

Chief Justice Paul De Muniz wrote the drug zone law was clearly intended "to give drug dealers a reason to locate the 1,000 foot school boundary and stay outside of it." Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Farmers Ask Federal Judge to Declare Hemp Rope, Not Dope

From washingtonpost.com: On Wednesday, Hauge and David C. Monson, a fellow aspiring hemp farmer, will ask a federal judge in Bismarck, N.D. to force the DEA to yield to a state law that would license them to become hemp growers.

"I'm looking forward to the court battle," said Hauge, a 49-year-old father of three. "I don't know why the DEA is so afraid of this."

The law is the law and it treats all varieties of Cannabis sativa L. the same, Bush administration lawyers argue in asking U.S. District Judge Daniel L. Hovland to throw out the case. The DEA says a review of the farmers' applications is underway.

To clear up the popular confusion about the properties of what is sometimes called industrial hemp, the crop's prospective purveyors explain that hemp and smokable marijuana share a genus and a species but are about as similar as rope and dope. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Another Boston Cop Pleads Guilty to Drug Trafficking

From NYTimes.com: A third Boston police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to drug trafficking charges for protecting truckloads of cocaine during an FBI sting operation.

Roberto Pulido, 42, entered the plea following two days of damaging testimony at his federal trial.

Authorities said Pulido was the ringleader of a group of three officers who received thousands of dollars from men they believed were drug dealers, but were actually undercover FBI agents. The officers escorted two truckloads of cocaine into Boston in 2006. They were arrested in July 2006 in Miami, where they went to collect $35,000 for protecting a drug shipment a month earlier.

Prosecutors played recordings of conversations in which Pulido was heard discussing the drug protection, as well as other criminal activities he was allegedly involved in, including the sale of steroids and the buying and selling of fraudulent store gift cards. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Determining a Daily Dosage of Marijuana

From latimes.com: Patients using marijuana for ailments ranging from chronic back pain to cancer are allowed by Washington state law to possess a two-month supply of the drug. But medical marijuana doesn't come with a standard dose or even a standard method of taking the drug.

The 1998 law has never spelled out how much usable pot nor how many plants make up a 60-day supply.
Now the Legislature has demanded an answer to the question by July, and the state is holding hearings to ask experts and citizens for their opinions on how to determine a two-month supply.

"There is so much you will have to take into account," says Joanna McKee, founder of Seattle's Green Cross Patient Co-op. "What about people who eat it? How different is the amount they need from people who smoke it?"

McKee was one of many who spoke at a state health department public meeting this month in Seattle. More than 100 people attended, and about 45 people spoke. Another meeting in Spokane drew similar numbers. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Survey Shows Youths are Blind to the Risks of Meth

From USATODAY.com: Despite methamphetamine's addictive and sometimes deadly effects, one in three youths sees little or no risk in trying the illegal drug, a new survey finds.

Nearly one in four youths believes meth "makes you feel euphoric or happy" or helps you lose weight, and the same number said it would be "very" or "somewhat easy" to obtain meth, according to a first-ever national use and attitudes survey about the drug released Tuesday.

And yet, in a finding that might be of comfort to parents, three out of four youths said they are strongly opposed to using meth.

The survey of 2,602 students age 12-17 was done by The Meth Project, a non-profit Palo Alto, Calif.-based project that aims to reduce first time meth users through advertising campaigns.

About one in six youths has either a friend or a family member who has used or been treated for meth addiction, the survey found. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Cocaine: Price Up, Purity Down

From USATODAY.com: Tough action by Mexico is driving down the cocaine supply in 26 U.S. cities, a recently declassified Drug Enforcement Administration analysis shows, an encouraging drop in narcotics crossing the border that law enforcement officials hope will continue.

As evidence of the short supply, prices have spiked sharply and purity has decreased since September 2006, says the analysis, which previously had not been made public. A gram of pure cocaine sold for about $118.70 in the spring, a 29% increase from last fall. Purity decreases when dealers add other ingredients, such as baby formula and sugar, to stretch the supply. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

University of KY College of Law Starts Rural Drug Prosecution Assistance Project

University of Kentucky College of Law students and recent graduates are gaining valuable 'hands on' experience, while commonwealth attorneys' offices, the Department of Public Advocacy, and the judiciary in rural parts of Kentucky are receiving effective help in fighting drug-related crime under the Rural Drug Prosecution Assistance Project (RDPAP).

These promising results were cited today by U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as he received an update about the innovative program in the UK law school.  McConnell earmarked federal funds for the RDPAP from the U.S. Department of Justice.

"I am pleased to hear about the successes of this project so far," said McConnell.  "This is a worthwhile program that helps our justice officials, UK law students, and citizens."

In all, McConnell secured a total of $2.5 million in funding for RDPAP.

To date, the project has paid for 83 summer internships for first and second-year UK law students and a total of 15 placements of recent UK law graduates to assist the criminal justice system in rural parts of Kentucky. Implementation of the program began in the summer of 2006.

RDPAP places highly-qualified law students in rural counties as ssistant commonwealth attorneys, public defenders (for the Department of Public Advocacy), and as clerks to Circuit Court judges, with special emphasis on drug-related cases. [Mark Godsey]

Groups are Attempting to Ban Salvia Divinorum

From chron.com: A drug discovered by Mexican shamans has hooked both scientists and the YouTube set.

These groups, among others, are cautiously tracking moves to ban Salvia divinorum, an herb-based hallucinogen used spiritually by Mazatec Indians from the Oaxaca area, and increasingly popular among teens and college-age students, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Scientists hope the drug, sometimes referred to as "diviners sage" and "magic mint," might lead to new treatments for some of the world's worst diseases.

Available at smoke shops and from Internet distributors, including one based in the Heights, Salvia has been spotted in Texas school districts, including in the Waco area where a state lawmaker has vowed to outlaw it, and at area college campuses, according to Drug Enforcement Administration officials in the Houston region. It is still legal in most places.

So far the drug has stayed below the radar of local schools, but as classes start next week, administrators say they are prepared to treat Salvia as they would any other drug banned from campus. And if social networking sites are any indication, at least some Houston-area teenagers are using it.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Afghan Opium Production is on the Rise

From washingtonpost.com: Despite the presence of 35,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, the drug trade there is going gangbusters. According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Afghan opium production in 2006 rose a staggering 57 percent over the previous year. Next month, the United Nations is expected to release a report showing an additional 15 percent jump in opium production this year while highlighting the sobering fact that Afghanistan now accounts for 95 percent of the world's poppy crop. But the success of the illegal narcotics industry isn't confined to Afghanistan. Business is booming in South America, the Middle East, Africa and across the United States.

Thirty-six years and hundreds of billions of dollars after President Richard M. Nixon launched the war on drugs, consumers worldwide are taking more narcotics and criminals are making fatter profits than ever before. The syndicates that control narcotics production and distribution reap the profits from an annual turnover of $400 billion to $500 billion. And terrorist organizations such as the Taliban are using this money to expand their operations and buy ever more sophisticated weapons, threatening Western security.

In the past two years, the drug war has become the Taliban's most effective recruiter in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's Muslim extremists have reinvigorated themselves by supporting and taxing the countless peasants who are dependent one way or another on the opium trade, their only reliable source of income. The Taliban is becoming richer and stronger by the day, especially in the east and south of the country. The "War on Drugs" is defeating the "war on terror." Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

US Cities Hit With Cocaine Shortage

From freep.com: Dozens of U.S. cities have been hit with a shortage of cocaine, causing prices to skyrocket as law enforcement efforts in the United States, Mexico and Central and South America disrupt sources.

White House drug czar John P. Walters said this week that reports from investigators across the country indicate what he called an unprecedented shortage of the drug in at least 37 cities.

Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Tuesday that the reports, most of which are gleaned from top-end investigations of drug organizations and often include wiretaps, suggest a declining supply that could lead to fewer people using the drug.

"This is on a wide scale," he said. "Obviously we're pleased. This means there are fewer people being harmed by the drug."

He said there was no way to strictly quantify the shortage nationwide or any particular markets.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

FBI Loosens Up Its Strict Pot Policy

From washingtonpost.com:  The buttoned-down FBI is loosening up: Under a little-noticed new hiring policy introduced this year, job applicants with a history of drug use will no longer be disqualified from employment throughout the bureau.

Old guidelines barred FBI employment to anyone who had used marijuana more than 15 times in their lives or who had tried other illegal narcotics more than five times.

But those strict numbers no longer apply. Applicants for jobs such as analysts, programmers or special agents must still swear that they have not used any illegal substances recently -- three years for marijuana and 10 years for other drugs -- but they are no longer ruled out of consideration because of more frequent drug use in the past.

Such tolerance of admitted lawbreaking might seem odd for the FBI, whose longtime director J. Edgar Hoover once railed against young thugs filled with "false courage from a Marijuana cigarette."

But FBI officials say the move is simply an acknowledgment of reality in a country where, according to some estimates, up to a third of the population has tried marijuana at some point. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Justice Dept. Cracks Down on Medical Pot Clinics in Cali.

From USATODAY.com: The U.S. Justice Department is unleashing a potent new weapon in its battle against California's hundreds of medical pot clinics, threatening landlords with arrest and property seizures for renting to tenants who flout federal drug laws.

Intensifying its crackdown on pot sales that are legal under California law but illegal under U.S. law, agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency executed search warrants Wednesday in raids on 10 marijuana dispensaries across Los Angeles.

As agents were moving in, Los Angeles' City Council voted 11-0 to tentatively approve a one-year moratorium on more medical marijuana stores, which have exploded in number in the past two years.

Federal officials estimate there are 400 storefront and office operations selling medical marijuana in Los Angeles and L.A. County, up from 20 two years ago and more than double the number at the start of the year, DEA Special Agent Sarah Pullen says. Law enforcement officials contend the sales have become a source for recreational pot users. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Marijuana Researchers Fight DEA to Grown Their Own

From washingtonpost.com: Armed with a legal decision in their favor, scientists and advocates of medical research on marijuana pressed the Drug Enforcement Administration yesterday to allow them to grow their own, saying that pot supplied by the government is too hard to get and that its poor quality limits their research.

The proponents said a DEA administrative law judge's recent ruling that it would be in "the public interest" to have additional marijuana grown -- and to break the government's monopoly on growing it -- had put them closer to their goal than ever before.

"The DEA has an opportunity here to live up to its rhetoric, which has been that marijuana advocates should work on conducting research rather than filing lawsuits," said Richard Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which has fought for years for access to government-controlled supplies to test possible medical uses of marijuana.

"It's become more and more obvious that the DEA has been obstructing potentially beneficial medical research, and now is the time for them to change," he said.

The agency has opposed petitions that would end the government's marijuana monopoly, saying that the current system works well and that allowing other growers could lead to more diversion to illicit use. All the marijuana produced for research is grown at the University of Mississippi and distributed through the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

But a petition filed in 2001 by University of Massachusetts agronomy professor Lyle E. Craker seeking to grow marijuana in his greenhouses has worked its way through the DEA appeal process and resulted in a ruling against the agency earlier this year. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

The School Drug Testing Controversy

From latimes.com: Concerned with high rates of adolescent substance abuse, hundreds of middle schools and high schools nationwide have quietly begun testing some or all students for drugs — to the dismay of some health and addiction experts.

Although less than 5% of all high schools have such programs, testing is now common in schools throughout Texas, Florida, Kentucky and parts of California. In Southern California, many private high schools have implemented drug testing, as have several public school districts in Orange County and San Diego. Nationwide, as many as 1,000 schools have established programs, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The number of schools administering drug tests is expected to grow. Federal funding for school drug testing increased 400% between 2003 and 2006. The Bush administration spent $8.6 million on such programs last year and has requested $17.9 million for fiscal year 2008.

"This is the best new idea to reduce the onset of drug use," says Dr. Robert L. DuPont, president of the Institute for Behavior and Health, a nonprofit drug policy organization that has studied school testing. "About half of high school seniors have used an illicit drug by the time they graduate and about one-quarter are regular users by the time they graduate. Those figures are worrisome."

School-based drug testing gives kids a reason to say no, say DuPont and other proponents. The tests are meant to identify students who are using and guide them into counseling or treatment programs before they develop addictions.

But health officials, by and large, oppose school-based drug testing. NAADAC, the Assn. for Addiction Professionals, has released a statement critical of such programs. And in March, the American Academy of Pediatrics cautioned against random school-based drug testing until more research is completed. The two groups are among those who say testing is not reliable enough, violates trust between adults and teens and is not set up to deal effectively with students who have positive results.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Drug Dealers Pedals Candy Flavored Drugs

From dallasnews.com: The names are cute and hip, but the products drug dealers are peddling with them are deadly nonetheless, according to police who are struggling to keep up with the latest gimmicks aimed at getting young kids hooked on narcotics.

"Cheese" – crushed nighttime cold tablets laced with heroin – has dominated the attention of local narcotics agents as the mixture infiltrates Dallas-area public schools. At least 21 young people have died by overdosing on the drug.

But authorities are on the lookout for other drugs with catchy names, too – especially candy-flavored methamphetamine that appears to be spreading from west to east across the U.S. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Mexican Drug Lords are Multitasking

From denverpost.com: Mexican drug lords are taking over the business of smuggling immigrants into the United States, using them as human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in cocaine shipments across the same border.

U.S. and Mexican law-enforcement officials told The Associated Press that drug traffickers, in response to a U.S. border crackdown, have seized control of the routes they once shared with human smugglers and in the process are transforming themselves into more diversified crime syndicates.

The drug gangs get protection money from the immigrants and then effectively use them to clear the trail for the flow of drugs.

Undocumented immigrants are used "to maneuver where they want us or don't want us to be," said Alonzo Pena, chief of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona.

Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in Tucson, said smugglers are carrying drugs along paths once used primarily by illegal immigrants. New fences and National Guard troops have helped seal the usual drug routes, and vehicle barriers are forcing traffickers to send more drugs north on the backs of cartel foot soldiers, he said.

The advent of drug-trafficking extortionists along the border also may be responsible for much of the drop in illegal immigration that U.S. officials have attributed more directly to better enforcement, Mexican officials and analysts say.  Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Communities Collapse for Re-entry of Former Drug Cons

From NPR.com: In the 1980s and '90s, more than 1 million people in the United States were arrested each year on drug charges. Most went to prison. And for years, that's where they stayed… until now.

Hundreds of thousands of inmates, all by-products of a nearly four-decades-old war on drugs, are now pouring out of the nation's prisons. For the most part, they all return to the neighborhood they came from. Many of their communities are collapsing under the burden. Listen. . . [Mark Godsey]

NPR Examines the War on Drugs

In a five-part series, The Forgotten War, NPR examines the progress in the past 38 years and the challenges ahead in the war on drugs.  The series is the result of six months of interviews of more than 100 people — including former drug czars, former addicts and drug smugglers, and Drug Enforcement Agency agents on the frontlines of the war. The series looks at efforts to fight drug production in Colombia and thoughts on how the widespread incarceration of drug offenders in the late 1980s and early '90s is affecting American cities today. Here is Part 1 of 5. . . [Michele Berry]

Pressure Builds in Crack vs. Coke Controversy

From USATODAY.com: Momentum is building in Congress to ease crack cocaine sentencing guidelines, which the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics say have filled prisons with low-level drug dealers and addicts whose punishments were much worse than their crimes.

Federal prison sentences for possessing or selling crack have far exceeded those for powder cocaine for two decades. House Crime Subcommittee chairman Robert Scott, D-Va., a longtime critic of such sentencing policies, plans to hold hearings on crack sentences this year. In the Senate, Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama is drawing bipartisan support for his proposal to ease crack sentences.

"I believe that as a matter of law enforcement and good public policy that crack cocaine sentences are too heavy and can't be justified," Sessions says. "People don't want us to be soft on crime, but I think we ought to make the law more rational."

The mandatory federal sentencing guidelines passed by Congress in 1986 require a judge to impose the same sentence for possession of 5 grams of crack as for 500 grams of powder cocaine: five years in prison.

Congress passed the sentencing laws just after the fatal crack overdose of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias on June 19, 1986, and as crack was emerging in urban areas, says Alfred Blumstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who researches crime. Crack cocaine was associated with violent, open-air drug markets, he says.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Police Held in Contempt For Refusing to Return Medical Marijuana

From NPR.com: Police in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa will find themselves in an odd position Tuesday — in front of a Superior Court judge, defending themselves on contempt of court charges.

It all stems from the police department's refusal to give up 19 pounds of confiscated marijuana. And it highlights an interesting question: What are police supposed to do, when the California medicinal marijuana law conflicts with federal drug laws?

The case started when Shashon Jenkins was standing one day on the back balcony at his old apartment building, when the calm and quiet of one morning in suburban Santa Rosa was harshly interrupted.

"When I looked over, and peered over the balcony, officers were running into the next apartment, guns drawn," he said. "Officers ordered me back inside my house."

Police were raiding Jenkins' neighbor for narcotics. They caught sight of Jenkins on the balcony, holding a stem of marijuana in his hand. So after their raid next door, the officers crowded onto the stairwell outside Jenkins' apartment, and came knocking.

"It was very tense, seven firearms, very intense," Jenkins said.

Police raided Jenkins' home, arrested him, seized a number of lights for growing plants and 45 full-grown plants. In all, it was more than 19 pounds of pot. Later, at Jenkins' hearing, he produced witnesses and paperwork to confirm that he legally uses medicinal marijuana to treat chronic back pain. He also has caregiver status — that means he grows medical marijuana for those patients unable to grow it themselves — and so the district attorney dropped the case.

The judge ordered police to return Jenkins' belongings, including the armload of marijuana. Police said no. Listen. . . [Mark Godsey]

Pot Growers Move to the Suburbs

From csmonitor.com: Raids on 40 houses in 12 suburban Georgia counties over the past two weeks are one recent sign of what police say is a national trend in marijuana marketing: growing the illicit crop year-round indoors, using suburban homes as "grow-houses."

Grow-houses – a spacious incarnation of the old grow-room – have proliferated like suburban-garden gnomes, as antidrug squads have chased growers off remote mountainsides and out of cornfields. In these basements, lights hum with thousands of watts across a sea of plants lodged in a hydroponic soup of nutrients. Upstairs, there's usually no furniture, police say, except a cot, a chair, and a rabbit-ear TV.

"It's the most impressive thing I've seen in 20 years of law enforcement," says Lt. Jody Thomas of the Fayette County Drug Taskforce.

Police say the 'burbs give growers a degree of solace and safety, protected by suburbia's premium on privacy and even a 2001 US Supreme Court ruling that prevents law officers from aiming heat-sensing equipment at homes unless they first obtain search warrants.

The trend also signals that "production is moving closer to consumption" – a path that leads straight to the suburbs, says Jon Gettman, editor of the Bulletin of Cannabis Reform in Lovettsville, Va., which promotes legalizing marijuana for medicinal use.

Alarm about suburban pot-growing is rising, and some worry that efforts to eradicate crops grown outdoors are driving the illicit industry to become more entrenched in middle-class America, a la Showtime's hit TV show "Weeds," about a suburban mom who sells pot.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

High School Kids Latest Drug Problem: "Cheese"

From dallasnews.com: Same drug, different package. Younger dealers, too.

Law enforcement experts say high school kids – some of whom are gang members – appear to make up the loosely organized packagers and sellers of "cheese," the latest incarnation of heroin making its way into mostly Hispanic schools in northwest Dallas.

The heroin that is being cut with Tylenol PM to make cheese comes from the same sources that have been funneling the drug north from Mexico for years, according to police. But cheese represents the latest attempt to hook a new generation of customers, most of whom grew up with "Just Say No" commercials and are, by and large, averse to sticking needles in their arms – the traditional delivery method for heroin.

"These are street-level people who have figured out a way to make a little bit of heroin go a long way, and make a lot of money," said James Capra, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas office, which is working with the Dallas Independent School District's police force to combat the growing problem.  Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

War in Iraq & Afghanistan Leads to Reduced "War on Drugs" Surveillance Efforts

From LATimes.com: Stretched thin from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has sharply reduced its role in the war on drugs, leaving significant gaps in the nation's narcotics interdiction efforts. Since 1989, Congress has directed the Pentagon to be the lead federal agency in detecting and monitoring illegal narcotics shipments headed to the United States by air and sea and in supporting Coast Guard efforts to intercept them. In the early 1990s, at the height of the drug war, U.S. military planes and boats filled the southern skies and waters in search of cocaine-laden vessels coming from Colombia and elsewhere in South America.  But since 2002, the military has withdrawn many of those resources, according to more than a dozen current and former counter-narcotics officials, as well as a review of congressional, military and Homeland Security documents.

Internal records show that in the last four years the Pentagon has reduced by more than 62% its surveillance flight-hours over Caribbean and Pacific Ocean routes that are used to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and, increasingly, Colombian-produced heroin. At the same time, the Navy is deploying one-third fewer patrol boats in search of smugglers. The Defense Department also plans to withdraw as many as 10 Black Hawk helicopters that have been used by a multi-agency task force to move quickly to make drug seizures and arrests in the Caribbean, a major hub for drugs heading to the United States.  And the military has deactivated many of the high-tech surveillance "aerostats," or radar balloons, that once guarded the entire southern border, saying it lacks the funds to restore and maintain them.  Full story here from LATimes. . . [Michele Berry]

Anti-Cruising Laws Aim to Drive away Wandering Cars

Cruisin' town is about to get a little tougher in Binghamton, NY if City Councilman Pat Russo's anti-cruising legislation passes.  Three years ago, Russo counted 22 times as the same vehicle passed his Pine Street porch. Prompted by wandering vehicles that he said frequent his downtown neighborhood, Russo has asked the city attorney to draft "anti-cruising" legislation that would prohibit cars from cruising in designated areas at certain times. Under Russo's envisioned law, vehicles that pass by a specific sign more than three times in a three-hour period could be stopped, questioned and fined.  "This gives a police officer an opportunity to stop people looking for drugs, looking for prostitutes," Russo said. "I guarantee you'll get 10 guys in one night."

Similar laws have passed legal challenges in other municipalities. In York, Pennsylvania a community of about 40,000 people in southern Pennsylvania, a no-cruising law withstood a legal challenge in the late 1980s, when the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the city.  Longmont, Colorado, a city of about 80,000 people north of Denver, passed an anti-cruising law in the summer of 2006 after persistent problems with gang-related cruising.  The Longmont law provides exceptions for emergency, government and livery vehicles, as well as drivers who have "legitimate business activities" or are headed to and from a religious service. Milwaukee, Wisconsin has one too; you can read about it in the "Frequently Forgotten Ordinances" link of the city's webpage.

Binghamton Police Chief Steven Tronovitch mentioned that police officers in his department have the authority to stop vehicles for questioning and ask them what they're doing in the area without an anti-cruising law. "Sometimes that could escalate into something that is probable cause," he said.  But he welcomes any legislation that makes his officers' jobs easier. Full Story from PressConnects.com. . . 

That last part sounds a little questionable if you ask me; what does he do when he pulls over a car just to question its passengers and they blow him off because they think they're free to leave?  Does he arrest them for "fleeing"?  [Michele Berry]

Has the Baseball Doping Probe Hit a Fourth Amendment Foul?

The 18th-century amendment is being put to a 21st-century test centering around the Major League Baseball doping probe.  Major League Baseball has found itself embroiled in a federal investigation into whether some of its biggest stars, like Barry Bonds, used performance-enhancing drugs. But civil-liberties advocates worry that a recent legal ruling in the case will reach far beyond the diamond and give the government broad search-and-seizure powers in the digital age. At the heart of the case is how much freedom the government has to pursue crimes discovered in electronic files while searching for evidence against other people and how much protection the 4th Amendment affords information in a computer database about people other than those targeted by investigators. 

In late December '06, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the government's power to seize computer files from two laboratories that performed mandatory drug tests on major leaguers, including files of professional hockey players and other nonsports patients tested by the labs. George Washington CrimProf Orin Kerr commented, "The Supreme Court has never applied the Fourth Amendment to computers. The federal courts of appeals are beginning to decide a bunch of cases: in 2006, there were 20 or 30 in the broad area of how the Fourth Amendment applies to computers. But each case is very fact-specific and narrow, so the law remains pretty murky." Story from the Wall Street Journal in post-gazette.com. . . [Michele Berry]

7 Ton Pot Bust Highlights Houston as Narcotic Trafficking Hub

From chron.com: Authorities charged a truck driver with narcotics trafficking Thursday after seizing more than 7 tons of marijuana, highlighting what experts described as Houston's, in Harris County TX,  leading role as a distribution center for illicit drugs.

An anonymous tip led drug agents to the drab warehouse in northwest Harris County late Wednesday, where they said they found one of the largest marijuana stashes they've seen in recent memory.

Inside wooden crates were 502 bundles of marijuana that had been wrapped in plastic and coated with calcium carbonate to mask the odor. Authorities said the 15,000-pound haul had a street value of $25 million to $40 million.

"We've always been a major hub for narcotics trafficking," said Houston Police Capt. Stephen Smith. "Almost everything from Mexico comes through Houston." Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

High Powered Afghan Heroin Leads to Many American Deaths

From latimes.com: Supplies of highly potent Afghan heroin in the United States are growing so fast that the pure white powder is rapidly overtaking lower-quality Mexican heroin, prompting fears of increased addiction and overdoses.

Heroin-related deaths in Los Angeles County soared from 137 in 2002 to 239 in 2005, a jump of nearly 75% in three years, a period when other factors contributing to overdose deaths remained unchanged, experts said. The jump in deaths was especially prevalent among users older than 40, who lack the resilience to recover from an overdose of unexpectedly strong heroin, according to a study by the county's Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology.

According to a Drug Enforcement Administration report obtained by The Times, Afghanistan's poppy fields have become the fastest-growing source of heroin in the United States. Its share of the U.S. market doubled from 7% in 2001, the year U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban, to 14% in 2004, the latest year studied. Another DEA report, released in October, said the 14% actually could be significantly higher. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Study: Young Men Experiment with Marijuana Before Alcohol

From post-gazette.com: Contrary to popular belief, smoking marijuana need not be a steppingstone between using alcohol and tobacco and experimenting with illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

Researchers led by Ralph E. Tarter, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Pharmacy, found that nearly a quarter of the young men they studied used marijuana before they began drinking or smoking cigarettes.

It's the reverse of what's known as the "gateway hypothesis," in which drug use is thought to progress from alcohol and tobacco to marijuana to hard drugs.

The researchers determined also that the likelihood of developing a substance abuse problem was similar in youngsters who followed the traditional gateway drug use pattern and those who followed the reverse pattern.

"This is actually quite novel, this idea," Dr. Tarter said. "It runs counter to about six decades of current drug policy in the country, where we believe that if we can't stop kids from using marijuana, then they're going to go on and become addicts to hard drugs."

But the data doesn't support that contention, he noted. The findings were published in this month's American Journal of Psychiatry. Rest of article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Asia: the New Meth Powerhouse

Oregonlive.com: While Mexican cartels struggle to obtain chemicals needed to make meth, Asian meth traffickers retain easy access to ephedrine in the manufacturing countries of India and China. As a result, Asia has become a meth powerhouse that U.S. and international officials say could easily supply the United States.

"The risk is significant," said Mike Chapman, who ran the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's offices in East Asia until August. "Just by the sheer volume of methamphetamine that's being produced in this region, you would have to be naive to think that the stuff isn't going to make its way to the U.S."

Roughly 15 million of the world's 25 million users of crystal meth live in Asia, according to the United Nations. In the Philippines, where meth is known as "shabu," a government survey last year showed 10 percent of residents ages 10 to 44 had used the drug in the past six months. Fewer than 1 percent of Americans ages 12 and older reported using meth in the past year.

Asian crime syndicates meet the burgeoning demand by acquiring meth ingredients in bulk from India and China, home to eight of the world's nine leading manufacturers of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.

The threat to North America was evident in August, when Indian police accused Canadian Gurdish Singh Toor, 29, of running an Indian-Chinese-Canadian network that procured hundreds of pounds of ephedrine for meth cooks in Canada. Toor spent his early years as a drug dealer in the Pacific Northwest. He was accused of selling 13,000 Ecstasy pills in Gresham in 2001 and later pleaded guilty. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Anti-Crime Zones Quilt the Nation, Prompt Debate

Here is a column from Townhall.com about the sex offender-free, drug-free, and gun-free zones that seem to be popping up everywhere and instigating debate along the way (post about sex offender residency restrictions ripe for challenge in the Supreme Court). Mainly, critics wonder (1) if these laws are effective or counterproductive and (2) if they even pass constitutional muster.

An excerpt of the column: Across the country, politicians are eager to draw magical circles of protection they claim will banish evil and keep children safe. It's an easy, cheap way of opposing what everyone opposes and supporting what everyone supports. But the resulting crazy quilt of drug-free, gun-free and molester-free zones is ineffective, sometimes counterproductive and frequently unjust.

Sex offender-free zones. Consider the Georgia woman who was labeled a sex offender because she performed fellatio on a 15-year-old when she was 17. Last year she had to move because she was too close to a day-care center. Now she and her husband may have to move again because they're too close to a school bus stop, a location added to the state's list of restrictions in April. Georgia's law, which has been challenged in federal court, also would exile all 490 registered sex offenders in DeKalb County, mostly men who as teenagers had consensual sex with younger girls. It even applies to sex offenders dying in nursing homes. Other states have narrower laws, but police and prosecutors still worry that onerous restrictions on where sex offenders may live will push them onto the streets or discourage them from complying with registration requirements, making them harder to track...

The same can be said of the gun-free school zones designated by state and federal laws. They are not likely to deter anyone bent on violence. Worse, they advertise that all the law-abiding people at a school are unarmed and therefore easy prey...

Drug-free zones, which trigger enhanced penalties for drug dealing or possession within a certain distance (usually between 500 and 1,500 feet) of locations such as schools, parks and day-care centers, likewise mainly affect people other than their official targets. Ostensibly aimed at protecting children, they typically boost prison sentences for drug offenses that involve only adults. A December 2005 report from New Jersey's sentencing review commission found that students were involved in only 2 percent of cases where drug-free zones were invoked. Because they cover so much territory, the zones have become an excuse for harsher punishment rather than a deterrent to selling drugs near minors. Full story from Townhall.com. . . [Michele Berry]

Heroin Use on Rise in U.S.

From indystar.com: While the drug still makes up a minority of the cases at Indianapolis' drug court, heroin is increasingly easy to find on the city's streets, according to police, as it is elsewhere in Indiana and the nation.

"I'm seeing a lot, lot more heroin," said Jamie Guilfoy, an IPD narcotics detective since 2001. "I never saw any up until the last year."

The emerging trend is nationwide, with cities such as Minneapolis; Dallas; Covington, Ky.; and Salt Lake City also reporting heroin upswings. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has confiscated heroin in slightly declining amounts the past two years, but from 2001 to 2005, seizures were up more than 50 percent compared with the previous five years.

The trend is alarming, noted a U.S. Justice Department study released last week, because heroin, more than other abused drugs, is a multifaceted plague.

"Although overall abuse levels for heroin are lower than levels for other drugs, including cocaine and marijuana, the consequences of heroin abuse are far-reaching in terms of heroin-related deaths, treatment admissions and emergency department mentions," said the National Drug Threat Assessment 2007. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

UK: Police Urge State-funded Prescription of Heroin to Addicts

In England, senior police officer, Howard Roberts, urged the UK to follow Holland and Switzerland's lead and begin the state-funded (NHS-funded) prescription of heroin to addicts, in efforts to treat them and reduce crime.  The program would cost £12,000 a year for each addict to be treated this way, but proponents believe the treatment would be cost-effective in the long run because users steal at least £45,000 worth of property a year to feed their addictions. Widespread trials of such programs in Holland and Switzerland show users turning away from crime to feed their habits when they were prescribed drugs. Story from IndependentOnline.  Meanwhile, here in the U.S., debate continues (here and here) over Louisiana's controversial "heroin lifers" case. [Michele Berry]

Govt. May Start Hair Drug Testing Employees

From newsday.com:  Men pay to make it grow. Women spend lavishly to dye, cut and coordinate it with their wardrobe. But these days, hair isn't just a key accessory to looking good.

It also can give government agencies a way to determine who might be abusing drugs in the workplace. Currently, the federal government is reviewing whether to expand its existing employee drug-testing guidelines to include analyzing hair for evidence of illicit drug use.

As screening methods for hair, saliva and sweat have improved in recent years, there has been a long-running and often contentious debate over whether these should be added to the current gold standard, the urine test.

Forensic experts agree there are benefits to both urine and hair analysis. Although urine testing can find traces of a drug for about five days after being ingested, trace amounts of a chemical substance entrapped in the cortex of a hair strand can be found up to three months later.

But in July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration abruptly backed away from a proposal that would allow federal agencies the leeway to include saliva, sweat and hair testing along with urine tests, officials said.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Khat Fights and Cultural Clashes

When should culture be taken into account in criminal prosecutions and to what extent?   Though used sparingly, carving out cultural exceptions in drug laws is far from a novel concept.  Not that long ago, SCOTUS allowed a small Brazil-based church in New Mexico to continue the use of hallucinogenic tea, which contains the illegal drug DMT.  The Utah Supreme Court dealt with the question fairly recently, too, when it decided that a couple that started a religion using peyote for ritual shouldn't face federal drug charges. 

This past week, in Wisconsin, Liban Moalin, 37, an Ethiopian-born Canadian citizen was convicted of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, in what some people are calling a "culturally insensitive drug case."  Moalin's conviction was based on his possession of khat, an evergreen shrub grown in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula and prized for its stimulating properties.  For millennia, East Africans and Arabs have chewed the plant's leaves and stems as a stimulant.  The Village Voice explains that khat is used the same way as the leafy version of chewing tobacco, balled into a side of a cheek. But the chewing lasts for hours and hours (usually some liquid— water, tea, or soda—is needed to ward off dry mouth) and the juice is swallowed, not spit out. 

Moalin was arrested in January after he took delivery of a shipment of the plants from a friend in Italy. But the shipment had been intercepted by U.S. Customs agents, then was delivered to Moalin by a Madison police detective posing as a Federal Express employee. The jury rejected claims by Moalin's attorneys that he didn't know khat was an illegal drug because it is the active ingredient in khat--cathinone, and not the plant itself--that is listed as a controlled substance in state law.  Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Farmer countered that marijuana itself isn't mentioned in statutes either, only its active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol is listed.  But everyone still knows it's illegal to use or possess.

Increasingly, police are cracking down on khat in cities where there are concentrations of East African immigrants.  These crack downs lead some to think that khat prosecutions represent a clash of cultures, aimed at targetting Muslims and finding legitimate, albeit pretextual, bases for deportations.  Still, others ask, what's wrong with enforcing the laws of the land, regardless of the offender's cultural background?  More on Khat from the Village Voice and the Moalin conviction from the Wisconsin State Journal  [Michele Berry]

Truth Serum: Still a Myth

washingtonpost.com: If there is a "truth serum" that works, it is a secret that nobody is giving up.

The debate earlier this year on interrogation techniques in the war on terrorism raised anew a question that goes back at least 2,000 years. Is there something you can give a person that will make him tell the truth?

In the 21st century, however, the answer appears to be: No. There is no pharmaceutical compound today whose proven effect is the consistent or predictable enhancement of truth-telling.

For the record, spokesmen for the Army medical research command, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the CIA say there is no work underway on truth serums.

Whether such a substance could ever be used legally is a question some legal scholars believe is still open. "In the United States, no law at either the state or national level makes the use of truth serum a crime per se," Jason R. Odeshoo wrote in the Stanford Law Review in 2004.

Information gotten through drug-aided interviews would not be allowed in a trial because of the Constitution's privilege against self-incrimination, but it might be legal to use truth serum "solely for intelligence-gathering purposes," he argued. Similarly, while the Geneva Conventions forbid its use against prisoners of war, if terrorism suspects aren't considered POWs the conventions wouldn't block it, he wrote. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Crack vs. Coke: Commission Considers Discrepancy in Sentences

From NPR.com: U.S. sentencing guidelines treat 1 gram of crack the same as 100 grams of powder cocaine. So crack users can get much longer prison sentences than powder users. For more than 10 years, that disparity has been the subject of heated debate. The U.S. Sentencing Commission is considering the 20-year-old law in public hearings.

When cocaine comes into the United States, it crosses the border in powder form. The powder travels from a smuggler to a wholesaler to a dealer, divided from kilograms into ounces, and then into grams. Then a dealer puts the powder into a microwave oven with other ingredients, and creates rocks of crack cocaine.

Attorney David Debold, who spoke on behalf of defense lawyers, told the sentencing commission that simple conversion has an enormous impact on the prison sentence for the guy caught holding the bag.

"Should the guidelines recommend such disparate treatment of two defendants," Debold says, "one who handles the drug in powder form, and the other one who handles it later in rock form?"

Listen. . . [Mark Godsey]

Marijuana Delivery: A Growing Trend With NYC's Elite

From seattletimes.com: In a city where you can get just about anything delivered to your door — groceries, dry cleaning, Chinese food — pot smokers are increasingly ordering takeout marijuana from drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction.

An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York City are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners.

The phenomenon isn't new. It has long been the case around the country that those with enough money and the right connections could get cocaine or other drugs discreetly delivered to their homes and places of business.

But experts say home delivery has been growing in popularity, thanks to a shrewder, corporate style of dealing designed to put customers at ease and avoid the messy turf wars associated with other drugs. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Easing the Stress of Death: Inmates Often Recieve Anti-Anxiety Drugs Before Execution

From washingtonpost.com: At least 19 of the country's 38 death penalty states offer sedatives and anti-anxiety drugs to condemned inmates before execution.

Though the practice does not violate national ethics standards for doctors and nurses who prescribe or administer the sedatives, it makes some death penalty opponents uneasy.

Condemned inmates in 11 states have received sedatives or anti-anxiety drugs before executions going back at least 12 years, according to a review by The Associated Press. Four death penalty states prohibit the drugs, including Texas, which has the country's busiest execution chamber.

Eight of 24 inmates put to death since Ohio resumed executions in 1999 took medication before they died by injection, according to logs of each prisoner's last 24 hours, which were obtained through a public-records request by the AP. Five inmates declined the drugs, and records don't indicate if drugs were offered in the remaining cases. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Two States Lead the Nation Towards Legalizing Marijuana

From USATODAY.com: Colorado and Nevada could become leaders in the movement to legalize marijuana, when voters decide Nov. 7 wheth