May 14, 2004
Russians eliminate prison terms for drug possession.
The Moscow Times
reports new laws have gone into effect which reduce drug possession, at least in limited amounts, to an administrative infraction rather than a criminal offense. That's a big step forward in restoring civil liberties there, and once again shows how the rest of the world is moving ahead of the US in this area.
Under a new law that came into effect this week, drug users can possess a greatly increased amount of an illegal substance -- for instance, 20 grams of marijuana or 1.5 grams of cocaine -- without the risk of being thrown in jail.
The law has been criticized by the Federal Anti-Drug Service, which says it hampers the battle against drugs, but praised by those who work to rehabilitate drug addicts, who predict more addicts will now seek help.
President Vladimir Putin signed an amendment to the Criminal Code in December stipulating that possession of no more than 10 times the amount of a "single dose" would now be considered an administrative infraction rather than a criminal offense. Punishment would be a fine of no more than 40,000 rubles ($1,380) or community service.
It then took five months to hammer out what would be considered the single dose of various drugs.
Ten times the amount of a single dose, as set in the government resolution that came into effect Wednesday, is 20 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of hashish, mescaline or opium, 1.5 grams of cocaine, 1 gram of heroin or methamphetamine, and 0.003 grams of LSD.
Anyone caught in possession of these amounts or less cannot legally be detained, a spokeswoman for the Moscow branch of the Federal Anti-Drug Service said. Instead, a report will be filed and the fine will be determined by a court.
The
Moscow Times puts articles behind a paywall after a couple of weeks, so the link to the article won't be valid after a while.
permalink, posted by mike on Friday, May 14, 2004 at 03:16 PM
January 24, 2004
US to treat seniors who purchase foreign prescriptions same as heroin users.
As you may have heard, the Bush administration, using as their tools the FDA, which is now pretty much owned and controlled by the large pharmaceutical corporations, is moving to make the purchase or possession of prescription drugs purchased from outside the country illegal. While most attention on this focuses on the fact that they want to force to pay people much more for drugs that they could purchase much cheaper elsewhere, underlying this is the fact that they are in effect making foreign pharmaceuticals a "controlled" substance, and that they will begin prosecuting those who sell, purchase or possess them the same as they do heroin or crack dealers and users. Maybe not quite yet, but they are moving in that direction. They seriously intend to enforce their new rules, and that means arrests and prosecutions and jail terms. The first step is to declare them "dangerous" and "unsafe" and then to move from there. They do this one step at a time, but all of the legal precedents are in place, and their intention is clear, so now it's just a matter of time.
See this NY Times article,
F.D.A. Begins Push to End Drug Imports, on the latest moves by the FDA. It's rather frightening, especially the fact that they are going ahead with this despite open and vigorous opposition by local government officials across the country.
A second "blitz" inspection by federal drug and customs officials of medicines imported from Canada has found that nearly all of the almost 2,000 packages opened contained foreign versions of American pharmaceuticals that officials said might not be safe.
... The inspections, whose results are to be formally announced next week, form part of a coordinated push by the Bush administration to stop drug imports and defuse a budding confrontation between Washington and the states.
The city governments of Springfield, Mass., and Montgomery, Ala., are already helping buy drugs from Canada to save money for themselves and their employees. And officials in more than a dozen states and scores of towns, cities and counties have said that they may do the same.
The F.D.A. commissioner, Mark McClellan, said in an interview that the results of the inspections, which took place in November, demonstrate that drugs ordered from Canada are often manufactured in distant corners of the world. After an earlier survey, the agency announced in September that most of the imported drugs it inspected were counterfeit knockoffs. Neither round of inspections included any chemical tests on the drugs.
Asked if the pills reviewed in the latest survey were unsafe, Dr. McClellan answered, "We just don't know, because it's so hard to tell."
Governors and mayors leading the charge for Canadian drugs flatly dismiss Dr. McClellan's safety concerns. Many point out that even though the value of drug imports from Canada probably topped $700 million last year, the F.D.A. has yet to identify a single patient harmed by the trade. And they say that Health Canada, which regulates drugs in Canada, is just as rigorous as the F.D.A.
"This has little to do with health and safety and everything to do with the pharmaceutical industry," said Peter A. Clavelle, mayor of Burlington, Vt., who said he intended to have a Canadian drug purchase program up and running for city employees and their families by March 1.
This is going to become a major campaign issue. And it's not just Democrats who are fighting it.
Some state officials say a showdown is inevitable.
"This is all going to come to a head in 2004," said Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a Republican. "Either the F.D.A. will sue somebody or throw someone in jail over this, or the pharmaceutical companies choke off supply, or the F.D.A. comes to their senses."
I guess a lot of things are going to come to a head in 2004.
permalink, posted by mike on Saturday, January 24, 2004 at 10:08 AM
British reclassify cannabis as Class C drug.
Great Britain is about to reclassify marijuana (they call it cannabis but who else does?) as a "Class C" drug, putting it on a level with prescription drugs. And "discouraging" police from making arrests for it. The Guardian has a
Q and A on it explaining what this means in general terms.
What will it mean in practice?
Arrest for smoking cannabis will be discouraged and most people caught in possession of the drug will face no legal action - although there will be possibility of a custodial sentence of up to two years if the police choose to proceed through the courts and obtain a summons. The maximum penalty will be reduced from five years in jail to two.
Is this decriminalisation?
No, cannabis use will still be a criminal offence. The penalty for possession with intent to supply - dealing - is to be cut from 14 years in jail to five, but - unlike straightforward possession - police will still make arrests.
Arrest is also likely for those who smoke the drug in "public view" or near playgrounds, schools, youth clubs and other places where children are likely to be.
A great step for civil liberties. But it's nonsense about it not being "decriminalized." Of course it's being "decriminalized." But that's nonsense too. There's no such thing. Something is either legal or it's illegal. There's no middle ground. You're either in jail or you're not. You either get arrested or you don't.
The idea that it's OK to "have" something, but not OK to "get" it is patently absurd. Surrealistic even. How can you "have" something without having "gotten" it??? Only a lawyer would come up with this insanity, and it's only lawyers who profit from such a situation.
This type of practice breeds great disrespect for the law. It tells people, especially kids, that the law is a game, and that you can play with technicalities and such, and that that's OK. But it's not. The law is a serious thing, such games are disgusting and show a deep and abiding contempt for the very principle of a law-abiding society.
And keeping it somewhat illegal like this gives the police a tool that they can use against poor people, or other socially disadvantaged groups, if they find it convenient.
The Guardian also has a
special section on Drugs in Britain which contains numerous articles on the subject.
permalink, posted by mike on Saturday, January 24, 2004 at 09:58 AM
September 12, 2003
Dutch want to ban police officers from pot shops.
Via the
Sydney Morning Herald is
this article reporting that some police officers are getting high on the job, and that the government wants to ban them from the coffee shops that sell pot.
Apparently the sight of stoned police arresting people for being stoned is a bit too much for them to take. No word on whether they will also be banned from bars that sell alcohol. I guess it's ok for drunk police to arrest people for being drunk.
The Dutch Government is worried that too many of its police officers are getting stoned on and off duty, and is to ban them from coffee shops that sell marijuana.
The Interior Minister, Johan Remkes, fears the spectacle of spliff-wielding police - in or out of uniform - is chipping away at the force's image, and opening it to accusations of hypocrisy.
"A police officer has an exemplary role to fulfil and has to show some authority," he told the newspaper De Telegraaf.
"They could be in a difficult position if they have to stop and search people for drugs."
The country's 1500 marijuana coffee shops, where customers can buy up to five grams at a time, are tolerated by the authorities. Hard drugs are not allowed. Mr Remkes says he wants to ban police officers from frequenting coffee shops both on and off duty
It's no laughing matter though. Pot doesn't do anyone any harm of course, but the article also reports that some police officers are doing much harder drugs than that, and have even been accused of selling ecstasy and cocaine to other officers.
Witnesses described occasions when officers were so high on ecstasy that they could not even find Amsterdam's main shopping street, Kalverstraat, just two minutes from the station.
Hmmmn. No, I won't go there. It really isn't a laughing matter. Police involvement in the drug trade is common throughout the world, especially in the US. If they're not directly involved, they're taking payoffs from the dealers. It may be just a minority of officers, but the majority are at least aware of what's going on, and refuse to do anything about it. Apparently in the curious "morality" of law enforcement, drug dealing is OK, but snitching on a fellow officer isn't.
The same goes for the stockholders and other financial industry professionals who help launder the profits, the prison industry which profits from guarding the "criminals", the lawyers who reap huge fees from both defending and prosecuting, and the politicians who collect enormous donations from all of these groups.
permalink, posted by mike on Friday, September 12, 2003 at 11:06 AM
June 05, 2003
California marijuana grower sentenced to one day.
The
NY Times reports on the end of the trial of a man proscecuted for growing marijuana for medical purposes for the city of Oakland.
A convicted marijuana grower was sentenced to one day in prison and fined $1,000 by a federal judge today, the most lenient sentence allowed under law.
The defendant, Ed Rosenthal, had faced a possible sentence of 100 years in prison and a potential fine of $4.5 million for his conviction in January on felony charges of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy.
"We are all delighted with what we view as as fair and just a sentence that could be imposed under the circumstances of Ed having suffered a conviction," one of Mr. Rosenthal's lawyers, Dennis P. Riordan, said.
Federal authorities arrested Mr. Rosenthal last year for growing marijuana to be sold for medicinal uses under the auspices of the City of Oakland's medicinal marijuana ordinance.
Though the Oakland ordinance is permitted under a 1996 California state proposition, there is no provision for growing marijuana under federal drug laws.
The judge, Charles R. Breyer of Federal District Court, had not allowed Mr. Rosenthal to raise medicinal marijuana as a defense, leading some jurors to later complain that they had been misled by the court. After convicting Mr. Rosenthal, several jurors requested a new trial, and when that failed, wrote to Judge Breyer urging leniency.
At a hearing today, Judge Breyer said it was reasonable to conclude that Mr. Rosenthal had believed he was acting legally. By making that determination, the judge was able to skirt some minimum sentence requirements, which could have put Mr. Rosenthal in prison for at least five years, his lawyers said.
Many issues in this case. Particularly what happens when a state passes a law that contradicts a federal law. Two-thirds of California's voters approved the use and growing of medical marijuana a few years ago, but the federal government has decided that they don't have the right to run their own lives.
permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, June 5, 2003 at 08:21 AM
June 04, 2003
US Marshals auction off car full of pot.
CNN reports that a Mexican man has won the right to sue the government for selling him a car with 199 pounds of marijuana in the bumpers, and then arresting him after he crossed the border with it.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the government's argument that it should be immune from Jose Aguado Cervantes' lawsuit was "so off the mark as to be embarrassing."
The appellate panel reinstated Cervantes' negligence claims against the government for allegedly failing to find and remove the drugs from the car he purchased in July of 1999 at a U.S. Marshals Service Auction in San Diego, California.
Four months earlier, the car was seized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service after it was used to transport illegal immigrants into the United States but agents apparently failed to notice 199 pounds of marijuana secreted in its bumpers, the court said.
permalink, posted by mike on Wednesday, June 4, 2003 at 09:24 AM
June 02, 2003
Leading Scottish lawyer calls for legalisation of drugs.
At least folks in other countries are starting to come to their senses regarding the war on drugs. The
Scotsman reports that a leading criminal lawyer has called for the complete legalisation of drugs there.
Donald Findlay QC said legalising narcotics such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis was the only way to "break the link" between users and dealers.
The advocate also attacked politicians and the Scottish Executive for failing to get to grips with the problem of drug abuse, accusing them of fostering a "tough on crime" image rather than looking for radical solutions.
Since the mid-1980s we have had drug offences. It is now more than 20 years on and the problem is continuing to grow.
permalink, posted by mike on Monday, June 2, 2003 at 07:55 PM
End of entries.
