tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-136382342024-03-07T02:38:44.819-05:00Sterling on Justice & DrugsEric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.comBlogger472125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-85971396347238728092020-06-04T17:46:00.000-04:002020-06-07T10:28:16.567-04:00Police Violence and Accountability: The Role of Drug Policy and a Vision of Reform<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">People around the world reacted with horror, <b>again,</b>
at the murder,<b> again,</b> of an unarmed person by police in the United
States. On May 25, 2020, a Minneapolis, MN, USA, police officer steadily knelt
on the neck of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd" target="_blank">George Floyd</a> for nearly nine minutes, slowly crushing the life
out of Mr. Floyd with an incomprehensible cold-blooded nonchalance. Mr. Floyd
was a 46-year old Black man, unarmed, not resisting, and suspected of an offense
involving $20. Only days earlier, a video was leaked of the February 23, 2020
murder of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Ahmaud_Arbery" target="_blank">Ahmaud Arbery</a>, an unarmed 25-year old Black man, by law enforcement
vigilantes in Glynn County, GA, USA. On March 13, 2020, at about 1 a.m.,
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Breonna_Taylor" target="_blank">Breonna Taylor</a>, a sleeping, unarmed 26-year old Black woman, was shot eight
times and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/03/no-knock-warrant-breonna-taylor-was-illegal/" target="_blank">killed by police who forced their way into her apartment in Louisville, KY, USA, on a "no-knock" warrant issued</a>, looking for a drug suspect who lived 10 miles away.
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Around the world, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators and
thousands of organizations have been declaring their solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter
and all who protest these murders and the unceasing abuse of power by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country" target="_blank">police and security forces around the world</a>. In the U.S., about 1000 persons are killed by the police annually (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/?nid" target="_blank">1004 in 2019; 991 in 2018, Washington Post</a>).<b> </b>U.S. cultural dominance has the
effect of highlighting these deaths, yet officially over <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Drug_War" target="_blank">5000 persons</a> have been killed (or as many as 12,000 according to human rights groups) in
the Philippines by police and security forces since June 2016, to cite a
representative instance of a global pandemic of unlawful police violence and
misconduct.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">These murders are only the most dramatic culmination of
wholesale police misconduct. People around the world are sick and tired of being
routinely harassed by law enforcement officers and security forces, very
frequently under the pretext of suspicion of possession or distribution of
drugs. Countless times, every day in every nation, without any lawful justification,
people are stopped, questioned, and frequently assaulted as they are searched
for contraband or weapons. These stops are always accompanied by the threat of
violence, explicit or implicit! In many places, these threats are part of a
systematic extortion racket by the police and security forces -- the
consequence of failing to pay a demanded bribe is violence or arrest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Large populations -- people of color in the United States,
and religious and racial minorities and residents of poor neighborhoods in
almost every nation – are fully aware of the culture of impunity surrounding
police and security forces and live in dread that any police stop can result in
incarceration, severe physical injury or death. This culture of violence
is global. From the favelas of Brasil to the islands of the Philippines, from
the People’s Republic of China to the Russian Republic, from the United States of America to the Republic of
South Africa, from Nigeria to El Salvador, from Syria to Jamaica -- the world’s police are generally
not accountable to the communities they purport to serve. Whether the police
are following the orders of autocrats like President Duterte in the Philippines
or are indifferent to or in defiance of the civilian authorities in many
American cities, there is a global crisis of police violence and
unaccountability. In all these instances, this unlawful violence is part of a
wholesale violation of human rights and due process rights -- including rights
of freedom of association, expression, free exercise of religion and privacy --
that is justified and financed by the “war on drugs” and supported by the
colonialist ideology of prohibition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Drug prohibition exemplifies the fundamentally flawed
psychology of “justice” systems that harsh punishment -- imposed or threatened –
is the foundation of good behavior and the just retribution for misconduct. The
flaw is that harsh punishment does not work. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While some lethal police violence grows out directly out of individual
racism, one thread of institutional or organizational toleration for police violence
grows out of a rationalization that “street justice” is necessary and deserved to
compensate for the inefficiencies of prosecutors and courts that fail to punish.
The toleration of extra-judicial violence builds a culture of impunity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">People who use drugs are prime targets for “street justice”
and police violence. Due to the illegality of drug use, people who use drugs do
so privately to avoid attracting attention. Yet, in many parts of the world, drug
use is widespread and normative behavior, and justice system bureaucracies are
unable to impose legal punishments on most drug users. Police, as the primary
warriors in the “drug war” and able to impose the punishment on the spot, often feel justified using “street justice” -- intimidation, violence and
confiscation of property in illegal stops -- in order to carry out the “war on
drugs” and advancing its century-old goal of punishing drug users.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The specific legal and political character of the problem of
police violence varies. In some nations the violence of the police follows the
policies of the rulers -- elected or not, civilian or not. In other
nations, police violence is simply tolerated as one of the perquisites of the
office, and the price endured of having police provide some measure of state
sanctioned social control. And in other nations, such as the United States, the
police violence is formally unauthorized but institutionally protected by Jim
Crow-style legal doctrines of “qualified immunity” and collective bargaining
agreements ratified by city, county and state governments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Police misconduct seems to be intrinsic to most legal
systems. Worldwide, the criminal justice bureaucracies are organized primarily
to impose punishment, and operationally are largely indifferent to injustice.
Police perjury, if not engaged in by every police officer, is so widespread
that only the most egregious instances of police falsehoods are commented upon
by court personnel or acted upon. Prosecutors in most nations routinely accept
the cases brought by police and proffer the testimony of police witnesses.
Judicial officers throughout the world generally favor police testimony and the
representations of prosecutors. Concepts of due process set forth in
Constitutions, national charters, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
are widely disregarded around the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">People of color in the United States, people who use drugs,
and disadvantaged people everywhere know an encounter with a police officer is
an extraordinarily risky situation that has the potential to become a
life-changing catastrophe. In most white-dominated societies, the police are
particularly uncontrolled in their behavior toward racial minorities. In some
parts of the United States, the contemporary state and municipal police forces
arose from the slave patrols created to prevent enslaved persons from running away
or rebelling. The authority to catch escaped enslaved persons and “deliver
[them] up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be due,” is today
still part of the text of the U.S. Constitution (Art. IV, sec. 2, cl. 3). In
other parts of the United States, the early functions of the police were to
protect property-owning elites from immigrants, the indigenous and internal
migrants. Supposed “crimes” such as vagrancy or loitering have for generations
been used to control people of color, the poor, the young, and those with
disabilities, emotional distress, mental illness or the disease of addiction.
Legal reforms of the abuse of those outmoded laws have been circumvented in
much of the United States by the use of the drug laws.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course, we oppose violence, theft, violation of human
rights and exploitation. However, drug prohibition empowers criminals and
criminal organizations to exploit the peasants and farmers who cultivate poppy,
coca, and cannabis. The inevitable disagreements of commerce, when they arise in
the illegal drug trade, can only be resolved through violence because the
nonviolent dispute resolution mechanisms of legal commerce are unavailable. The
trade in highly valuable illegal drugs, carried on outside the legitimate
channels of commerce, can only be protected by illegal armed groups, and their
exchange for cash is perpetually at risk of armed robbery. This is a greater problem, of course, in the consumer countries. Sadly, throughout
the world, police agencies are corrupted by the illegal drug trade. One
must consider how extensively the resistance of the police everywhere to
oversight, regulation and accountability by management and civil society is due
to dependence of police officers on income from the illegal drug trade and
bribery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thus, not only is the war on drugs the pretext for the
initiation of police-civilian contact for the purpose of extortion,
surveillance, social control and invidious racial subjugation, but the war on
drugs is a driver of police resistance to accountability.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It should go without saying that there is a legitimate role
for proper policing, but policing as it has been practiced demands wholesale
reform of police and domestic security agencies worldwide. It must be acknowledged that policing as currently organized is dangerous, but police behavior and misconduct have fueled enormous resentment and inflamed passions for revenge. Enforcing unpopular laws in a high-handed manner increases the risk of violent resistance to police officers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But many police agencies are so tainted by a culture of impunity and grievance that they must be
reconstituted from the ground up. Entirely new management needs to be
hired, empowered to vet potential recruits. The functions of the police
services need to be wholly reorganized. Police in the community have the
responsibility to bring services to individuals and families that are troubled.
Whenever there is a response to a call for service, a key question a police
officer should ask is, “Are everyone’s needs in this household being
met?” The primary role of the police should be crime prevention. The
investigation of crime is a specialized function of the police, not its primary
function. The primary goal of the police agencies should be maximizing health
and safety, not “law enforcement.” The police should be as vigilant about
pollution, chemical spills, adulterated food, labor exploitation because of the
many victims who are powerless, as they are about their more traditional defense
of property and certain classes of “violence.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Police should not be trained to self-identify as “crime
fighters.” Recruits need to be carefully screened, and properly trained to
create a culture of service to the communities in which they operate and to be
scrupulous honesty. Police training regarding encounters with the public must
be completely reconceptualized to conflict de-escalation and to deprioritize
the use of force. Police officers must be paid an appropriate professional
salary. Internal systems of management, control and discipline must be vibrant
and transparent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now is the time to stand with #BlackLivesMatter and those
who are demanding not only accountability by the police for their acts of
misconduct, but wholesale, structural reconstruction of the criminal justice
system and the role of the police within it.</span></div>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style>Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-51208095719892627242019-11-19T19:28:00.002-05:002019-11-19T19:30:44.855-05:00True and False about Legalizing Marijuana<a href="https://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/politics/the-big-with-jeff-d-alessio/article_00beb3b6-78bb-5608-93f7-6267d6ee6f67.html" target="_blank">From the Big Ten by Jeff D'Alessio</a>, Editor of the Champaign, IL News-Gazette, about legalizing marijuana.<br />
Eric E. Sterling<br />
Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D- South Bend, IN)<br />
IL State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago)<br />
Emily Dufton<br />
Ed Rosenthal<br />
Debby Goldsberry<br />
John Walters<br />
Kevin Sabet<br />
Hope Wiseman<br />
Eli McVey<br />
<br />Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-56749933555324535302019-08-27T18:26:00.000-04:002019-08-27T18:26:13.286-04:00"Addiction Nation" author Timothy McMahan King interviewed by Rev. Alexander SharpThis <a href="https://newdrugpolicy.org/2019/08/interview-with-author-timothy-mcmahan-king/" target="_blank">short interview</a> on the website of Clergy for a New Drug Policy addresses key issues in addiction and public policy. Al Sharp asked excellent questions.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-42614847105623139522019-08-02T18:16:00.000-04:002019-08-02T18:18:38.858-04:00Pell Grants for Prisoners? @JoeBiden, this is a good ideaFrom <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/01/transcript-night-second-democratic-debate/?utm_term=.d218bf715671" target="_blank">transcript of Second Democratic Debate, night 2</a>.<br />
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TAPPER: Welcome back to the CNN Democratic presidential debate. We are live from Detroit.</div>
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I
want to turn now to criminal justice. Mr. Vice President, Senator
Booker called your new criminal justice reform plan, quote, "an
inadequate solution to what is a raging crisis in our country," unquote.
Why is Senator Booker wrong?</div>
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<b>BIDEN</b>: Well, I
don't -- I think he is wrong. I think we should work together. He has a
similar plan. I think that we should change the way we look at prisons.</div>
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Right
now, we're in a situation where, when someone is convicted of a drug
crime, they end up going to jail and to prison. They should be going to
rehabilitation. They shouldn't be going to prison. When in prison, they
should be learning to read and write and not just sit in there and learn
how to be better criminals.</div>
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<b>And when they get
out of prison, they should be in a situation where they have access to
everything they would have had before, including Pell grants for
education,</b> including making sure that they're able to have housing,
public housing, including they have all the opportunities that were
available to them because we want them to become better citizens.</div>
</blockquote>
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Vice President Biden seems to be mixed up on the details. <a href="https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/aid-info-for-incarcerated-individuals.pdf" target="_blank">According to a U.S. Department of Education Feb. 2019 fact sheet</a>, <b>once you "get out of prison" a person with a conviction generally is <u>eligible</u> </b>for Pell grants and other assistance. (Exceptions: (1) Your adult conviction was for possessing or selling drugs when you were receiving federal financial aid. You can become eligible -- pass two unannounced drug tests from a drug rehabilitation program or complete an approved drug program. (2) Your conviction was for a "sexual offense" and you were subject to involuntary civil commitment post conviction.) Not surprisingly, the Vice President's <a href="https://joebiden.com/justice/" target="_blank">"Criminal Justice" plan</a> claims it would enable "formerly incarcerated persons" to become eligible for Pell grants -- but that is the current law.</div>
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"In fact," as Vice President Biden likes to say, one of the infamous provisions of the 1994 Crime Bill said <b>people <i>currently</i> in state or federal prison are not eligible for Pell grants</b> (Section 20411. Awards of Pell Grants to Prisoners Prohibited. Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Public Law 103-322, Sept. 13, 1994 <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1070a" target="_blank">(20 U.S.C. 1070a(b)(6))</a>). </div>
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However, an Obama Administration reform created a "Second Chance Pell" experimental program for persons in prison. According to a Department of Education <a href="https://blog.ed.gov/2019/04/answering-frequently-asked-questions-second-chance-pell/">FAQ on Second Chance Pell in April 2019</a>, "so far this award year (July 1, 2018- June 30, 2019) there are currently
10,048 students receiving Federal Pell Grant funds from 64
institutions." That does not seem to be an impressively large number of prisoners studying at the college level out of an state and federal prison population of 1.5 million (2016).</div>
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<div data-elm-loc="374">
This program was based on a <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR266.html" target="_blank">2013 RAND Corporation study,</a> funded by the Justice Department: </div>
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<h3 id="key-findings-">
Key Findings<span style="font-weight: normal;">: Correctional Education Improves Inmates' Outcomes after Release</span></h3>
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<ul>
<li>Correctional education improves inmates' chances of not returning to prison. </li>
<li>Inmates who participate in correctional education programs had a 43
percent lower odds of recidivating than those who did not. This
translates to <b>a reduction in the risk of recidivating of 13 percentage
points. </b></li>
<li>It may improve their chances of obtaining employment after release.
The <b>odds of obtaining employment post-release among inmates who
participated in correctional education was 13 percent higher t</b>han the
odds for those who did not participate in correctional education.</li>
<li>Inmates exposed to computer-assisted instruction learned slightly
more in reading and substantially more in math in the same amount of
instructional time.</li>
<li>Providing correctional education can be cost-effective when it comes to reducing recidivism</li>
</ul>
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<br />
<b>A program with such benefits should be expanded. It would be great if Vice President Biden's Pell Grant reforms zeroed in on what actually needed to be fixed!</b></div>
Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-82761186679626906502019-07-30T19:24:00.001-04:002019-07-31T05:51:37.931-04:00Candidate Joe Biden on Criminal Justice -- An incomplete strategy In advance of the next debate round of Democratic candidates for President,
former Vice President Joseph Biden unveiled <a href="https://joebiden.com/Justice/" target="_blank">his criminal justice plan</a>. As a
“criminal justice plan” for the U.S. government, in many respects, it is quite
shockingly inadequate. Generally, the analyses I’ve seen of his plan frames it as a
mea culpa for his years of leading crack down policy-making, and naturally, and
as a riposte in his battle against other candidates for president. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/23/20706987/joe-biden-criminal-justice-reform-plan-mass-incarceration-war-on-drugs" target="_blank">German Lopez at Vox explains its virtues well, noting these highlights:.</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The plan includes many ambitious goals: decriminalize marijuana,
eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crimes, end the
death penalty, abolish private prisons, get rid of cash bail, and
discourage the incarceration of children. All of it is aimed at reducing
incarceration and fixing “the racial, gender, and income-based
disparities in the system,” according to Biden’s campaign. </blockquote>
Certainly it
is commendable as a crime prevention strategy and as a justice reform strategy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those are good ideas, but <b>as a comprehensive
criminal justice strategy for the U.S. Department of Justice and federal investigative
agencies it is utterly incomplete.</b><br />
<br />
What is most striking to me, and I think is most important, is that there is
no agenda for how to properly use the U.S. Justice Department to fight crime. There
appears to be nothing that should be a priority assignment for the thousands of
federal prosecutors around the country, or the tens of thousands of federal
investigators.<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>* <b>There is no strategy or
agenda for mass shootings or gun violence. He promises to issue something, “in
the months ahead.”</b> Developing a meaningful response to mass shootings is actually
quite challenging, but surely the man who had been the leader of Senate
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee for 20 years can put something on the
table regarding background checks, interstate trafficking in firearms, or fencing
stolen firearms.<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>* <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There is nothing about antitrust violations,
banking or securities regulatory violations and fraud, tax fraud and evasion, credit card fraud, consumer
protection, telemarketing fraud, identity fraud, or fraud in general.</b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> * There is nothing about addressing cyber attacks, terrorism, organized crime or illegal
pollution and environmental crimes.</b> (Biden says “he’ll<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> require states to fix environmental
health problems in prisons, such as a lack of clean water and clean air.”) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> * <b>There is nothing about the role of the Department of Justice in investigating public corruption. </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b> </b>All of these are extremely important criminal justice responsibilities of the U.S.
Department of Justice. It takes criminal referrals from the regulatory agencies -- these need to be encouraged. The
nation cannot rely on state enforcement agencies for this work.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sadly these serious and uniquely
federal crimes have frequently been downplayed by the U.S. Department of Justice
that for decades has wrongly favored drug enforcement, and
crimes that could be prosecuted by state authorities. Biden’s plan, so far, maintains a status quo that ignores “crime in the suites.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Americans are being attacked by
fraud hourly. <a href="https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/03/top-frauds-2017">According to
the Federal Trade Commission, <b>in 2017, 1.1 million Americans reported that they
were targeted by a fraudulent scheme, </b>and suffered losses of over $905 million.</a>
If you are like me, multiple times a day our telephones ring with a crook
trying to get us to give them our credit card numbers. They pretend to be
calling from Microsoft to “fix your broken computer,” from IRS or the Justice
Department warning that we are about to be arrested, our cousin or dear friend lost a
wallet and desperately need money or is jailed and needs bail money, or some other scam. We are being inundated with
attempts to defraud us if we have a fax number, an email address or a
telephone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The 1.1 million is surely is an undercount as that is only the number of those who reported these attempts to the FTC. </span>Fighting this climate of fraud is something an honest
President of the United State should direct the Department of Justice to work
on. <a href="https://financialregnews.com/banking-industry-suffered-2-2-billion-fraud-losses-2016/">Why, even
the banks estimate they lost $2.2 billion in fraud in 2016.</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b>* There is nothing about prosecution
of criminal violations of civil rights. </b>Prosecution of actual instances of
police misconduct – such as the killing of Eric Garner – the kinds of
prosecution that happened in Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney King, are
not part of this Biden criminal justice agenda</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Biden promises investigations of systemic
patterns of police misconduct in order to obtain consent decrees to reorganize
the management of police departments. That is a good thing, but there were 992
persons fatally shot by the police in 2018, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police-shootings-2018/?utm_term=.dcf1cd0b7644">according
to The Washington Post</a>. Investigating those shootings (and the countless
incidents that are not fatal shootings) is the kind of job the U.S. Department
of Justice has the resources and independence to carry out.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Again, the agenda is a very
wise statement of what to do about preventing crime, and how prisoners should
be properly treated while in custody. The philosophy is the right philosophy.
But as a plan for managing and governing the criminal justice establishment,
it’s an incomplete.<br />
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</style> Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-18168035559845050262019-07-24T16:23:00.000-04:002019-07-24T16:31:57.513-04:00Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act won't deliver<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">The <a href="https://blog.norml.org/2019/07/23/historic-judiciary-committee-chairman-introduces-bill-to-end-federal-marijuana-prohibition/" target="_blank">Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, introduced July 23, 2019 </a>simultaneously by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), is a major step toward a just and logical marijuana policy in the United States. A central feature of the legislation is the creation of a Community Investment Grant Program to benefit those communities and individuals who have been hurt by marijuana prohibition.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">Specifically, the </span></span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">Community Investment Grant Program</span></span> would provide "eligible entities with funds to administer services for individuals most adversely impacted by the War on Drugs, including—</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> (1) job training; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> (2) reentry services;</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> (3) legal aid for civil and criminal cases, including expungement of cannabis convictions;</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> (4) literacy programs;</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> (5) youth recreation or mentoring programs; and</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> (6) health education programs."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">This is good stuff, but the grant program is funded by an "Opportunity Trust Fund" that is funded by a tax on all legal cannabis products (except for medical cannabis). <b>The tax is set at 5 percent of the price of the cannabis product is sold.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">Taxing is important and hard. <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/22/20703014/mark-kleiman-criminal-justice-drug-policy-expert-died" target="_blank">Mark Kleiman</a> wrote an excellent analysis of the issues involved in drug taxation in his 1992 treatise, <i>Against Excess, </i>pp. 69-80. Taxes are designed primarily for revenue, but influence behavior. Taxes can reduce unwanted behaviors, but can lead to evasion. If a tax is hard to collect and easily evaded that is counterproductive. Excessively high taxes, such as <a href="http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/hemp/taxact/mjtaxact.htm" target="_blank">the infamous 1937 tax of $100 per ounce of marijuana</a> if transferred to a person who was not registered as a physician, etc. was intended as a prohibition. (For comparison, a new Ford sedan cost $850.)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">Taxing the price seems stupid to me, </span></span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">completely aside from the question of whether this percentage is the right amount.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">First, we have seen that in the states, such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/04/the-price-of-legal-pot-is-collapsing/?utm_term=.428044cef046" target="_blank">Washington</a> and <a href="https://www.thecannabist.co/2017/10/02/colorado-marijuana-prices-national-wholesale/88740/" target="_blank">Colorado</a>, that have first legalized retail sales of marijuana, that the retail price has been steadily dropping. Once this law takes effect, it is likely that the source of funds for the program is going to <b>start shrinking</b>. If we believe that the Community Investment Grant program is a good idea and needs to be funded, relying on a tax that is going to produce less revenue over time is not a good idea. Relying on the price of marijuana that is going to be declining means that the remedial effects of this program will shrink, not grow. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">Second, we need to think about the impact of the taxation on behavior, i.e., on the consumption of THC and how high people are getting. As a public health matter, using the tax to reduce the amount of intoxication is a good idea. For the millions of recreational users -- once a week or so -- the amount of the tax will be negligible. But for those who use many times a day, the taxation becomes a more serious way to influence behavior by both depressing use or encouraging entry into treatment if use is problematic. Taxing the volume of THC being sold is the best public health approach.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">Of course higher taxes are not "free." A tax that is easily and widely evaded is a problem, and collection can be challenging. If there is wide disparity in the state tax rates on cannabis products, interstate smuggling of cannabis will become like the interstate smuggling of low-taxed cigarettes.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">Thus, third, the tax should be imposed at the point of production, not at the retail level, where evasion is easy.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">There is extensive evasion of high state and city taxes. In
Chicago, <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.2.2.61" target="_blank">according to a 2010 paper</a>, as much as 3/4 of the cigarettes consumed in Chicago were obtained outside the city to avoid paying a $2.68 per pack tax. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">In New York City, </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">the current combined city and state tax on a package of 20
cigarettes is $5.85. <a href="https://www.mackinac.org/strong-link-between-cigarette-tax-and-illegal-smuggling-rates" target="_blank">Last year, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy estimated</a> that 56% of the cigarettes consumed in New York State were smuggled and the state lost $1.5 billion in tax revenue.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">And, as we saw with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner" target="_blank">Eric Garner, who was killed by New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo on the suspicion of selling "loosies" (single, untaxed cigarettes)</a>, the enforcement of these taxes can range from erratic to catastrophic.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">Taxing at the retail level is counterproductive and potentially dangerous.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span>Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-76029991601192186542018-09-04T13:22:00.002-04:002018-09-04T13:22:37.833-04:00"Equal Justice Under Law" -- Abandoned by President Donald J. TrumpFor most of us, "equal justice under law," is a national promise and ideal that is supremely important. Yes, many of us feel justice as applied is not equal and this promise is hollow. But we subscribe to the ideal, we hold it up!<br />
<br />
Historically, our national leadership affirms "equal justice under law" -- indeed it must affirm this -- as our common objective, and a guiding principle of the Executive and Judicial branches of the government -- federal and state.<br />
<br />
I have hesitated to begin to identify the problems that President Donald Trump creates by his various statements that have revealed a disrespect for the law and the norms that the President should uphold as a matter of custom and decorum. They are simply too numerous and frequent to spend the time.<br />
<br />
But his <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1036681588573130752" target="_blank">tweets</a> on September 3 criticizing U.S. Attorneys (actually criticizing the U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney General Jeff Sessions) in bringing criminal charges on behalf of the United States against two Members of Congress because this prosecution might effect the outcome of the November 2018 elections were especially shocking.<br />
<br />
Of course the accused Members of Congress are entitled to a presumption of innocence, but they are not entitled to impunity.<br />
<br />
The President's <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1036681588573130752" target="_blank">tweets</a> create the impression that he believes that his political supporters ought to not be prosecuted, even if there is probable cause to charge them with felony conduct. This is different than his pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio (who lost his attempt to be a Republican nominee to the U.S. Senate from Arizona). In the exercise of his pardon authority, it is <i>his</i> authority in Article II, section 2. But to attack the Justice Department, which is responsible for operating under the "Equal Justice Under Law" principle in every case, demonstrates his belief that his personal moral values ought to prevail in the management and administration of the Department of Justice.<br />
<br />
The President's cronies must never be immune from prosecution, and that President Donald J. Trump does not agree demonstrates that he does not understand the key feature of his oath of office, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." (Article II, Section 1, last clause).<br />
<br />
This should trouble all of us.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-53400632855555181802018-09-04T12:56:00.002-04:002018-09-04T12:56:36.989-04:00Prison Strike 2018 -- Stop slave wages and amend the 13th Amendment<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/08/21/prison-strike-2018-attica/" target="_blank">The Intercept reported on the summer 2018 prison strike</a>. It will be very interesting to see what attention it generates and what the outcomes will be. Among the shocking features of our incarceration policies are the very low wages paid to inmates for their labor. A year and half ago, <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/" target="_blank">Prison Policy compiled prison wages, state by state.</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">For prisoners, having the opportunity work is a good idea, but it must be compensated at the prevailing scale to be fair and meaningful. There are many problems with the U.S. Constitution -- the electoral college system and the equal representation of each state in the U.S. Senate are two that come quickly to mind -- but one of the worst is the continued authorization of slavery as punishment for the conviction of a crime in the 13th Amendment as slavery is being outlawed in general.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, <b>except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,</b> shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."</i> (Ratified Dec. 18, 1865 by 27 states) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">This provision of the Constitution sanctifies slavery as a status for being convicted of a crime </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This provision of the Constitution authorizes "slave wages" for inmates working in the nation's correctional system. This is a provision that should be amended by Congress and the States.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The continuation of the
Constitutional protection of slavery has terrible consequences. As provided by
the Constitution, this status of protected slavery is not limited only to the
serving of a sentence, but can be understood a lifetime second-class status
that helps undermine the rehabilitation of the formerly incarcerated. It helps
to maintain the reluctance to fully reintegrate those who have offended back
into the economy and the community.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Today, prisoners are paid a few
cents per hour for their labor, justified by this provision of the
Constitution. Work is a valued distraction from the boredom of
imprisonment. Prisoners want to work. Meaningful work in prison is a valuable
experience for transitioning to employment at the end of a sentence. Work in
prison should be encouraged! But as long as prison labor can be equated as
slavery and involuntary servitude it is tainted. Prison work, often hazardous
-- working on farms, working with power tools and machinery, working in risky
environments -- should be subject to OSHA. And prison employees should be subject
to workplace protections against injury (worker's compensation, protection
against hazardous materials, and from harassment and discrimination, etc.)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">But as a matter of policy,
slave labor wages, due to the 13th Amendment, pervert the valuable experience
of work for prisoners.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">By failing to adequately compensate
prison labor:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> * work
becomes associated with exploitation and fosters resentment against employers
and increases alienation about our economic system;</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> * the labor
undercuts wages paid to people employed in the regular labor market whose
products and services compete with those of the prison employer;</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> * prisoners
cannot send meaningful funds home to families, helping to support children,
which provides a stronger basis for family re-integration at the conclusion of
a sentence (a strong family connection being an important factor in reducing
the risk of recidivism);</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> * prisoners
cannot purchase telephone time to stay in communication with family;</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> * families
of prisoners have to subsidize their loved ones in prison, creating additional
stresses on families that have lost a bread winner;</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> * prisoners
cannot save money to serve as a first and lost month rent for housing when they
are released from incarceration increasing the likelihood that they will
immediately become homeless and at high risk to use illegal drugs and return to
criminal conduct.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><style><font size="3">
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--</font></style><span style="font-size: small;">Is Congress working to eliminate the protection of slavery in the 13th Amendment which begins, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States..."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">No.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">In the current 115th Congress, two Republicans in the House, Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX) and Rep. David Young (R-IA) have introduced <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-resolution/936?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%2213th+amendment%22%5D%7D&r=2" target="_blank">H. Res. 936 </a>to recognize June 19, as "Junteenth Independence Day," that notes that the 13th Amendment was adopted.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="legDetail">
<span style="font-size: small;">On January 29, 2018, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-resolution/385?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%2213th+amendment%22%5D%7D&r=1&overview=open#content" target="_blank">S. 385,</a> "National Trafficking and Modern Slavery Prevention Month" in January 2018, noting that the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 was enacted "under the authority of Congress to enforce the 13th Amendment" and "updated the post-Civil War involuntary servitude and slavery statutes." It was approved by the Senate very quickly, but on February 7, a week after the month ended. </span></div>
<div class="legDetail">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="legDetail">
<span style="font-size: small;">But there is an opportunity for Congress to help prisoners but abolishing slavery in the U.S., period, but amending the 13th Amendment.</span></div>
<br />Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-66883086455315631292018-01-04T11:46:00.001-05:002018-01-04T18:20:32.749-05:00End of Cole Memorandum regarding Federal-State marijuana "stand off" 1st news<a href="https://www.marijuanamoment.net/sessions-rescind-memo-state-marijuana-laws/" target="_blank">Associated Press</a> has reported that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is planning to suspend the 2013 U.S. Department of Justice Memorandum (known as the "Cole Memorandum") that has been interpreted to give the states the green light to legalize and regulate marijuana within their borders after Colorado and Washington voters adopted laws to legalize adult recreational use of marijuana and the growth and distribution of marijuana for that purpose.<br />
<br />
Here is the <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000160-c219-dcd4-a96b-f739f1ee0000" target="_blank">new memorandum</a> from A.G. Sessions issued on Jan. 4, 2018. It says that all the general criteria that U.S. Attorneys are supposed to use in deciding what cases to prosecute should be applied to marijuana cases. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/367410-senator-says-sessions-broke-pledge-to-him-on-marijuana-policy" target="_blank">U.S. Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) has said that this move violates a pledge that Sessions made to him.</a> Gardner is threatening to start blocking Senate confirmation of Department of Justice nominations in retaliation. <br />
<br />
The 2013 Memorandum expanded on earlier memoranda from 2009 and 2011("Ogden Memorandum") that were limited to state medical marijuana programs.<br />
<br />
Sessions, as a Federal prosecutor, was especially hostile to drug offenders, and as U.S. Senator, regularly spoke out against any kind of marijuana law reform.<br />
<br />
Stay tuned to see what the actual details of the Session's new policy look like.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-5551292521254753202017-09-29T21:42:00.000-04:002017-09-30T15:21:12.358-04:00Yom Kippur 1990 -- Defending Religious Liberty<style>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">September 29, 1990</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">Statement <span style="font-family: serif;">o</span>f Reuben A. Snake, Jr. (1937 - 1993)</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">Coordinator, Native American Religious Freedom Project</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">A Gathering Of Native American Religious Leaders To</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">Obtain Guarantees Of Religious Liberty</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> BACKGROUND: In the spring 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court abandoned well-established free exercise of religion precedents in case involving a member of the Native American Church who worked for a drug treatment program that required staff to be "drug-free." He was fired because he used peyote in his worship. He sought unemployment compensation but Oregon denied it. His appeal went to the Supreme Court which upheld Oregon. The court ruled that the drug law is a law of general applicability, not designed to block religious practice. Almost all religious denominations joined to ask Congress to restore the old precedent. Members of Native American Church were alarmed about implications of this precedent. The Quaker lobby, Friends Committee on National Legislation had a long relationship with the Indians and the Native American Church. A meeting to plan a strategy was called for Washington. At the last minute, FCNL asked Eric Sterling, a Quaker and recently retired counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and expert on drug law, to join the meeting. He suggested a political and media strategy to educate Congress, the news media and other faiths about the Native American Church. The Native American Religious Freedom Project was created and based in Eric's office at the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. The events were: (1) A press conference at a teepee erected just to the west of the Capitol on the site of the future National Museum of the American Indian including a representative of U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs; and (2) A worship service of the Native American Church with the holy medicine, peyote. Eric made many calls to find a location where the worship could be held without a police raid. Finally he found that the National Park Service would be happy to host the worship and set aside an area in Greenbelt National Park for that purpose for Sept. 29-30. After the press event, and the speeches, including the one below, worship was held in three sacred fireplaces created by three different branches of the Native American Church of North America in Greenbelt. At the conclusion of the all night worship at dawn on September 30, a celebratory meal was shared by all participants.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"> Senator Inouye, Church President
Emerson Jackson, honored guests, as an American it is inspiring to stand here
at the foot of the U.S. Capitol to exercise two of our basic American rights,
the freedom of speech, and the right to petition the government for a redress
of grievances.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Native Americans have been associated
with the liberty of the American people since the founding of the nation. In
1773, at the Boston tea party, the early protestors against British royal
tyranny dressed as Mohawks because Indians, in England and in Europe, were a
symbol of American liberty. Indians, and our way of life, were the very symbol
of American liberty adopted by the earliest American revolutionaries. But four
or five centuries before that dramatic event, even before Christopher
Columbus sailed from Spain, the Five Nations of the Iroquois confederacy formed
a government under a constitution called the Great Law of Peace. Consider some
of the enlightened features of that government -- parliamentary-type
government, separation of politics and religion, separation of civil and
military government, the concept of checks and balances, veto, referendum, and
so forth. Those governmental concepts were so remarkable, books were written
about them in the European languages. These concepts became known to John Locke
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, European political philosophers, whose writings are
cited in identifying the sources of the U.S. Constitution. The free exercise of
religion was among the many features of that great Native American government,
and the freedom of religion is one which many of us take for granted today.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On September 15, 1620, English
subjects sailed from Plymouth, England, to seek refuge from religious persecution.
The story of the Puritan pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts to
achieve religious freedom is one of the best-known stories in American history.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is tragic to say however, that we
are now in a situation in the United States of America where we can no longer
take such a fundamental right, the free exercise of religion, for granted. As
venerable as the heritage of religious liberty has been in America, religious
liberty is now in jeopardy for all minority religions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"> Last April, in
the case of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/494/872" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith</i></a> [494 U.S. 872, 110 S. Ct. 1595, 108 L. Ed. 2d 876, 1990 U.S. Lexis
2021 (1990)], a case involving Native American religious liberty, the U.S.
Supreme court threw out its long standing precedents and declared that no
longer does the government have to show that laws which burden and restrict
religious liberty must be justified by a compelling government interest. Even
very large religious organizations issued protests and sought a rehearing in
the court. The Baptists, the Methodists, Jewish groups, dozens of religious
groups, and over 50 of America's most distinguished constitutional law
professors sought a rehearing of the court's decision.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But consider the implications of
this case from our perspective. The U.S. Supreme court reversed a long line of
settled cases in order to rule that the use of the sacrament of Native American
worship, the holy medicine, peyote, is not protected under the First Amendment
of the constitution. They said, in our case, our religious exercises, our form
of worship, the use of our holy sacrament, is not protected by the constitution.
The court said that Native Americans, who have enjoyed religious liberty on
this land since before the pilgrims fled here, are no longer entitled to religious
liberty. This trampling of Native American religious liberty is intolerable. Our
people have been using the holy medicine, peyote, for thousands of years, thousands
of years.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For the last twenty years, the American
people have been suffering an epidemic of abuse of refined chemical drugs like
cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, PCP, and so forth. American cities are crawling
with violence and crime. This is a terrible tragedy, and this kind of drug abuse
is also a problem for some Indian youth. But there is no peyote drug abuse
problem. I defy the justices of the Supreme Court to find newspaper reports of
drive-by shootings in connection with the holy medicine. I challenge anyone
concerned about the problem of drug abuse to find examples of dope peddlers selling
the holy medicine in America's school yards and play grounds. The idea is preposterous.
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We don't have a peyote abuse problem
in this nation. Yet the widespread fear, bordering on panic, about the tragedy
of drug abuse has clouded the minds of the justices. In the name of the war on drugs,
our use of our holy medicine is restricted. In the name of the war on drugs,
our guarantee of free exercise of religion has been violated. In the name of
the war on drugs, the religious freedom of every American has been placed in
jeopardy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The consequences are outrageous. For
decades Native Americans have endured the harassment and persecution of law
enforcement authorities ignorant of, or indifferent to, our ancient ways of
worship. The law reports are filled with tragic cases of our men and women
dragged from worship, or from their homes, to jail cells and to courtrooms,
forced to defend themselves, to justify themselves to the ignorant and the callous.
But in those degrading circumstances, we could always point, confidently, to
the First Amendment's guarantees of free exercise of religion, and
know that ultimately we would prevail. Now, unbelievably, we are no longer
assured that we will prevail.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This has been intolerable to us,
this is intolerable to us, and it is intolerable to every American who treasures
their right to worship God without government interference.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the Native American Church every
day is a holy day, but today is special. In the Hebrew calendar, today is Yom
Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most solemn day of Jewish worship. Many Jewish
friends of Native Americans invited to join us this morning explained that they
could not worship with us here, for they would be in their own temples in
prayer.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For many of the 5741 years of the Hebrew
calendar, the Jewish people have suffered oppression on account of their
religion. Today, 199 years after the American Bill of Eights was adopted, we
are thankful that the Jewish people feel free to worship without fearing
government harassment. But ladies and gentlemen, today the 250,000 members of
the Native American Church are not free to worship God without fear of government
harassment. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Church President Emerson Jackson has
declared tomorrow a day of prayer for peace. Today, hundreds of our people are preparing
for a night-long Native American Church service and prayer for peace. But many
of our elders, who have traveled thousands of miles to be here to worship in
our nation's capital, who have experienced the indignities of religious
persecution, expressed to the organizers of this worship service a great fear
-- will we be arrested? Will we be arrested? We have had to
call law enforcement authorities -- attorneys general, prosecutors, assistant
state's attorneys, narcotics units -- around the region to assure ourselves
that our worship will proceed undisturbed by the hideous specter of a police
raid. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"> I ask my
brothers and sisters who are Christians, my brothers and sisters who are Moslem,
my brothers and sisters who are Hindus, my brothers and sisters who are Buddhists,
my brothers and sisters who are Jewish, do any of you worry that your worship
services will be raided by the police? Do any of you feel it necessary to call
the police in order to set up a worship service? Do any of you have to explain
to law enforcement officers that you have a right to worship your God in your own
manner?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I ask my brothers and sisters who
are Christians, do you need permission from your state alcoholic beverage
control commission to give sacramental wine to communicants under the age of
21? Do your priests need licenses from the government to perform a mass? Of
course not, but under the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Smith</i>
decision, that shocking possibility may yet come to pass.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I ask my brothers and sisters, when
they tell their children about their religious rites, do they have to warn
their little ones about the police? Do they have to explain that they should
not be ashamed because of the special police "interest" in their
worship? I ask the American people, does this sound like the religious life we
expect to live in the United States of America? Well my brothers and sisters,
this unbelievable condition burdens our worship. This relic of prejudice
burdens our worship. This government involvement in our religion burdens our
worship, and it is intolerable.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Today, at the highest point in Washington,
overlooking our little press conference, the National Cathedral is being
dedicated. Today the last stone is being placed in that beautiful monument to
the central importance of God and prayer in American life. It is profoundly
ironic that just as that glorious cathedral is being completed and dedicated in
our nation's capital, the U.S. Supreme court has jeopardized the status of
every minority religion, and it has done so in a case involving Native American
Church members using the holy sacrament of our church.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We are here today with one simple
message -- we demand that our use of our sacrament, the holy medicine peyote,
be fully protected by law without qualification. We ask no more, we expect no
more, and we are entitled to nothing less!</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Why must we stand here and defend
our religion? Why must we tell you that our church is a good church? Why must
we tell you that we do not tolerate drug abusers or alcoholics in our church? We
are reduced to this posture because of laws passed and enforced in an
atmosphere of almost total ignorance about Native Americans.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Perhaps we should not be surprised.
Like most Americans we like to go about our business quietly and without
drawing attention to ourselves. One of the central teachings of our church is
humility. We have never held a press conference before. We have never drawn attention
to ourselves before. We are uncomfortable this morning, but to protect
ourselves, we have a duty. We are here today to tell the American people that
our worship is sacred, it is legitimate, it is profound, it is good, it is
wonderful in the eyes of God, it is wonderful for our people, and we must, we
must pray the way God has taught us.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Americans, you have taken much from
us. You have benefited from us in many ways. You have left us little land, you
have taken away our traditional livelihoods. Do not allow the government to
take our religious freedom away. We urge you to join us in supporting the
"Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1990," H.R. 5377. But this is
only a first step. The bill does not go far enough. It does not specifically
protect our worship, the one that the Supreme Court chose to disregard and deny
protection. We urge that the bill be amended to specifically protect Native American
religious freedom. That is not too much to ask. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Soon we will be returning to our
homes across America and to our children and grandchildren. We will say we engaged
in the political process, we spoke to the American people and to the national
news media. We went to Washington, and we told our story. Can we tell our
children, "we succeeded, you are now safe"? Can we tell our children,
"we have brought back for you the security, the safety, the certainty that
you, our children, and your children can worship God as we have been
taught"? It is our prayer that we can!</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">* * * * *</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mr. Snake was assisted in the preparation
of these remarks by Eric E. Sterling, Executive Director of the Criminal
Justice Policy Foundation. The Native American Religious Freedom Project was
housed and supported by the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Washington,
DC. Please contact Eric Sterling if you would like more information about the
occasion on which these remarks were made. Eric Sterling was introduced to Mr. Snake by <a href="http://www.jayfikes.com/" target="_blank">Jay C. Fikes</a>, then with the <a href="https://www.fcnl.org/" target="_blank">Friends Committee on National Legislation.</a></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000bb" target="_blank">Religious Freedom Restoration Act</a>, reversing <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/494/872" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Employment Division ofOregon v. Smith</i></a> (494 U.S. 872, 110 S. Ct. 1595, 108 L. Ed. 2d 876, 1990
U.S. Lexis 2021 (1990)), passed Congress overwhelmingly and was signed on
November 16, 1993 by President Clinton (P.L. 103-141). It had no provision specifically
addressing the religious use of peyote. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000bb%E2%80%931" target="_blank">The Act prohibited any unit ofgovernment from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion unlessthe government demonstrates that the application of the burden to the person isin the furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the leastrestrictive means of furthering that governmental interest.</a> (The law can be
found at <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-107/pdf/STATUTE-107-Pg1488.pdf" target="_blank">107 Statutes at Large 1488</a>. It was H.R. 1308, 103rd Cong., House
Report 103-88, and Senate Report 103-111). On June 25, 1997, the U.S. Supreme
court held the Religious Freedom Restoration Act unconstitutional <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">as applied to the states</b>. </span><span style="color: #534dc1; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-2074.ZO.html" target="_blank">City of Boerne, Texas v. P.F. Flores,Archbishop of San Antonio</a> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">(521
U.S. 507, 117 S. Ct. 2157, 138 L. Ed. 2d 624, 1997 U.S. Lexis 4035, (1997).</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On October 6, 1994, President Clinton
signed Public Law 103-344, the "American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments
of 1994," to protect the traditional use of peyote by Indians for religious
purposes throughout the United States. (108 Statutes at Large 3125). <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/hr4230/text" target="_blank">The billpassed the U.S. House of Representatives on August 8, 1994, and passed the U.S.Senate on September 26, 1995. (H.R. 4230, 103rd Cong.</a>, House Report 103-675).
The <a href="https://www.narf.org/" target="_blank">Native American Rights Fund (NARF)</a> played a major role in enacting this
legislation. Robert M. Peregoy, Esq. (1947-2015) was senior counsel for NARF, 1514 P Street,
NW, Washington, DC 20005, tel. 202-785-4166; and </span></span><a href="http://www.walterechohawk.com/?page=home" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">Walter Echo Hawk</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">,
Esq., then at NARF's Boulder, CO office, 303-447-8760 </span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A book about the religious use of peyote
and the political struggle that this speech was a part of was published in 1996
by Prof. Huston Smith (1919-2016) with the collaboration of Mr. Snake, </span><span style="color: #534dc1; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-American/dp/0940666715" target="_blank">One Nation Under God, The Triumph of theNative American Church</a> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;">(1996).</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The autobiography of Reuben Snake
was published in 1996, </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reuben-Snake-Your-Humble-Serpent/dp/1574160079" target="_blank"><span style="color: #534dc1; font-size: 13.0pt;">Reuben
Snake, Your Humble Serpent, Indian Visionary and Activist</span></a><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reuben-Snake-Your-Humble-Serpent/dp/1574160079" target="_blank">,</a> as told to Jay C. Fikes. Both books were
published by <a href="http://www.clearlightbooks.com/shop/one-nation-under-god-the-triumph-of-the-native-american-church/?attribute_pa_binding-type=hardcover" target="_blank">Clear Light Publishers</a>, 823 Don Diego, Santa Fe, NM 87505
(800-253-2747).</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Two documentary movies were made in
the course of the lobbying for this law. “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110822/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt" target="_blank">The Peyote Road</a>" and "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181177/" target="_blank">YourHumble Serpent</a>” by film maker <a href="https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/rhines-documentaries-highlighted-current-issues/" target="_blank">Gary Rhine</a>, (1951-2006), Kifaru Productions.</span></span></span></span></div>
Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-22865898753273996692017-09-25T11:49:00.000-04:002017-09-25T11:49:49.390-04:00Nicholas Kristoff (New York Times) on Portugal's effective and humane drug policyPublished on September 24, 2017,<b> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/opinion/sunday/portugal-drug-decriminalization.html?mcubz=1&_r=0" target="_blank">"How to Win A War on Drugs,"</a></b> the lead story in the Sunday Review section of <i>The New York Times.</i><br />
<br />
The heart of this report is how Portugal's decriminalization drug policy, adopted in 2001, focusing on public health outreach and not using criminal justice resources against drug users, has dramatically reduced deaths, HIV, and the number of heroin users.<br />
<br />
Concludes Kristoff, "The lesson that Portugal offers the world is that while we can't eradicate heroin, it's possible to save the lives of drug users -- if we're willing to treat them not as criminals but as sick, suffering human beings who need helping hands, not handcuffs."<br />
<br />
Exactly, treat drug users as human beings, and if when they are suffering, help them.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-46322598550335390792017-09-22T16:01:00.000-04:002017-09-26T12:15:37.833-04:00Pot Prisoners Profiled in Rolling Stone -- Victims of the flawed goals of the "war on drugs" approach<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/pot-prisoners-meet-five-victims-of-the-war-on-drugs-w502337" target="_blank"><i>Rolling Stone</i></a> magazine (Sep. 13, 2017) has profiled five prisoners serving incredibly long sentences even though marijuana cultivation and sales are now legal in eight states.<br />
I provide the background and a critique. Take a few minutes and click on <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/pot-prisoners-meet-five-victims-of-the-war-on-drugs-w502337" target="_blank">this link.</a><br />
You can go to <a href="https://www.lifeforpot.com/" target="_blank">Life for Pot</a> to learn even more about these injustices.<br />
<br />
<br />
It is clear that the nation is thinking differently about how to handle "the drug problem" than it did in 1986. Then, the goal of drug policy was the cessation of distribution and use of drugs, and reliance upon punishment to achieve it. Today we know that policy has failed.<br />
<br />
However, many of us struggle to clearly articulate our objective. Most urgently, our goal must be to <b>save the lives of drug users.</b> We witnessed over 60,000 drug poisonings and overdoses in 2016, up from less than 8,000 when Ronald Reagan was declaring drug war.<br />
<br />
If we are going to <b>save the lives of drug users</b> then we need new policies, founded on the belief that drug users lives matters. What is killing drug users?<br />
<br />
1. Forced abstinence. Arresting drug users and putting them in jail reduces their tolerance. When they get out, <b>we know</b> that many will return to drug use. With their reduced tolerance their risk of overdose skyrockets. We coerce drug users into treatment. Treatment works, when you are ready and convinced. But there is <b>always the risk of relapse.</b> Again, tolerance has gone down and risk of overdose death is huge! Our good intentions are killing drug users. Methadone treatment does not reduce tolerance and even though there are overdoses with clandestine and diverted use, it is a relatively safe and highly effective treatment modality.<br />
<br />
2. Poisoned drugs. Many drug dealers want to supply drugs to their friends and community, and make some money in the process. Most distributors of drugs are not vicious fiends. They know they are breaking the law and they want to be rewarded for taking the risks of law-breaking and doing business with other criminals who may be highly dangerous. They are providing a highly desired product to very desperate people. They often use drugs with their customers. Their customers are frequently family, friends, neighbors, and school mates. They don't want them to be hurt or to die. But they have no ability to know the quality of what they get from the traffickers above them.<br />
<br />
Higher level traffickers are often indifferent to human life. They often have killed rivals to their leadership, killed underlings to discipline their employees, and perhaps killed officials, law enforcement officers or journalists who threatened their business. They have no product liability insurance, indeed they can't be sued for defectively lethal products. For many traffickers, the reputation they want is not about pure product or honorable dealing, but about their lethality and their willingness to use violence against any threat. To add dangerous ingredients that adulterate their drugs is perfectly okay if that enables them to boost their profits.<br />
<br />
Our current drug policy is designed to keep the drug manufacturing and distribution in the hands of dangerous criminals, not well managed pharmaceutical companies. Our policy is designed to keep drugs dangerous and threaten users with death. These tens of thousands of deaths each year are not merely the "collateral damage" of a smart strategy, they are the foreseeable result of a stupid drug policy that does not put the lives of drug users in the center of the strategy. Under the old policy, a dead drug user is not a dead child or dead sibling or parent -- a drug user has no value except as an object lesson to others who are not yet drug users. Under the old strategy a drug user's life is not worth saving. Indeed, a dead drug user allows a prosecutor to seek a homicide indictment against a distributor, and do what prosecutors do best.<br />
<br />
For a sane and compassionate society, our drug policy should be to <b>minimize the suffering of drug users.</b> That means get clean drugs to drug users and keep the drugs affordable to minimize the hassle to obtain them. It means helping drug users get housing, jobs, education and counseling.<br />
<br />
Under our current policy drug users are kicked out of housing, kicked out of school, fired from their jobs, and removed from treatment programs. Imagine hospitals that only admitted people with the simplest symptoms and least serious diseases, and kicked out those who got sicker because they "failed" treatment.<br />
<br />
Certainly, as a minimum as we legalize marijuana, we must not leave behind in prison those whose conduct today would no longer be criminal.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-39296482984341727922013-12-15T13:53:00.000-05:002013-12-15T13:53:22.811-05:00Guns, gun control, gun violence, etc. and drug legalizationThere was a very smart commentary by Richard Feldman, head of the <a href="http://www.independentfirearmowners.org/2013/" target="_blank">Independent Firearms Owners Association (IFOA)</a>, in <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/12/12/newtown-gun-rights-editorials-debates/4004253/" target="_blank">USAToday</a> (Dec. 12, 2013) about the largely pointless debate about "guns" after the Newtown, CT.<br />
<br />
Among Feldman's conclusions: <b>"It's time we
remove incentives encouraging criminals to use, rather than avoid, guns."</b><br />
<br />
In a Dec. 15 email to the Executive Directors of Drug Policy Alliance, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, NORML, and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation on Dec. 15, Feldman elaborated:<br />
<br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">"</span><span style="background: yellow; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">It's time we
remove incentives encouraging criminals to use, rather than avoid, guns" </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">The incentives I
refer to are of course that guns are the main only option
when dealing in black market goods - no call to 911 if stolen, no use of the
courts for product distribution or supply dislocation - only the ability to use
force, and that force is mainly from the barrel of a gun.</span><br />
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> </span> <br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Let me be blunt: The
organized firearm community has a vested interest in this [drug legalization] movement even if many
of the established organizations don't! IFOA supports [drug] legalization
because it makes sense and lowers harm.</span></b> </blockquote>
<br />
A key point of Feldman's was confirmed -- without any acknowledgement of the significance of the data -- in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/12/13/not-only-newtown/" target="_blank"><i>The Washington Post</i></a>, (Dec. 14, 2013). <b>Twenty-four percent of all the children under 10 deliberately shot and killed with a firearm in 2012 was killed due to "random violence, drive-by shootings, and neighborhood gun battles."</b> That sounds like killings associated with the drug trade!<br />
<br />
Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-72705149092460034392013-11-16T11:12:00.002-05:002013-11-20T15:27:05.865-05:00Edward H. Jurith, Drug Policy Leader and Attorney, 1951-2013<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk6kdnJfJZzYMh1e_sjZ8APevDi1QHhlWir6jf1K1zR3vON02uZsX1saBOx5yx9du8tIaokBVt5DNwmpBcoBxFXNT1cpLvUlUFWmlX-DPHt8BueNFGY1NBZP2BKrCjoi5luq7onA/s1600/Ed+Jurith+at+mic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk6kdnJfJZzYMh1e_sjZ8APevDi1QHhlWir6jf1K1zR3vON02uZsX1saBOx5yx9du8tIaokBVt5DNwmpBcoBxFXNT1cpLvUlUFWmlX-DPHt8BueNFGY1NBZP2BKrCjoi5luq7onA/s1600/Ed+Jurith+at+mic.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Edward H. Jurith, a key figure in American drug policy making since the early 1980s, died peacefully at home in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, November 9, 2013. Ed has been my friend since 1981.<br />
<br />
Ed served at very senior levels in the <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/11/12/remembering-our-colleague-ed-jurith" target="_blank">Office of National Drug Control Policy at the White House</a> for almost 20 years, including serving as Acting Director for almost all of 2001 at the start of the Bush Administration and during 9-11. Ed had been Director of Legislative Affairs, General Counsel and finally Senior General Counsel at ONDCP, beginning in the Clinton Administration. At the beginning of the Obama Administration he was again Acting Director until Gil Kerlikowske was confirmed on May 7, 2009.<br />
<br />
Ed also represented the United States for many years in the <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/en/About-WADA/Governance/Executive-Committee/" target="_blank">World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on the Executive Committee</a> and as chair of the Education Committee.<br />
<br />
Ed was a very distinguished lawyer. For over twenty years he was a leading member of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Substance Abuse, and at the time of his death was chair of its successor entity, the <a href="http://www.americanbar.org/groups/health_law/interest_groups/substance_abuse.html" target="_blank">Task Force on Substance Use Disorders of the Health Law Section</a>. He was also a very popular <a href="http://www.wcl.american.edu/faculty/jurith/" target="_blank">adjunct professor of law at the Washington College of Law at American Universit</a>y.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim1Epei5RC8QURRfG0NsTiNQQLxHMjNmLoxFsWqcF6aBaZArdYBYOI5Mz4lhyphenhyphenOJpBDF5sg7HdO7WevaMSF40Oeikzi7D2tRjglFu1zmvTPGl-RNdGMBgZ8xgd542fGMtawaumaHw/s1600/Ed+Jurith+in+front+of+books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim1Epei5RC8QURRfG0NsTiNQQLxHMjNmLoxFsWqcF6aBaZArdYBYOI5Mz4lhyphenhyphenOJpBDF5sg7HdO7WevaMSF40Oeikzi7D2tRjglFu1zmvTPGl-RNdGMBgZ8xgd542fGMtawaumaHw/s1600/Ed+Jurith+in+front+of+books.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Ed was a son of Brooklyn, NY. He graduated from Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn in 1969, American University<i> cum laude</i> in 1973, and Brooklyn Law School in 1976. He practiced criminal law in Brooklyn and was involved in politics. He worked with U.S. Rep. Leo Zeferetti (D-NY), from Brooklyn, who in 1981 became the Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control (SCNAC). That year, Mr. Zeferetti brought Ed back to Washington to be Counsel to the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control (SCNAC).<br />
<br />
The Select Committee on Narcotics was responsible for investigating and reporting on the entire range of drug abuse issues. At that time, I joined the staff of the House Subcommittee on Crime, chaired by U.S. Rep. William J. Hughes (D-NJ), responsible for overseeing federal drug enforcement programs and processing amendments to the Controlled Substances Act in addition to money laundering, organized crime, gun control, pornography and other issues. Mr. Hughes was also a member of the Select Committee on Narcotics and I staffed his participation on the Select Committee. Thus I attended many hearings that Ed organized.<br />
<br />
From the start there was a friendly professional tension between us. The
Narcotics Committee had a very focused agenda and a fair deal of staff and budget, and some very senior and powerful members, including, after 1983, Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY), a very senior member of the New York Delegation, a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, and a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus. But it had no power to
report legislation. It could hold hearings and press conferences and
issue reports and press releases -- but the Select Committee could not write any bills. The
Crime Subcommittee had a very broad agenda: we had a smaller staff and drugs was just one of many
important issues that we had to address. But we could
write and move legislation to amend the drug laws or to modify DEA's powers. That was genuine power.<br />
<br />
In 1983, the Select Committee on Narcotics organized a study mission to Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Jamaica to oversee U.S. anti-narcotics activities in those countries, to learn about those countries narcotics problems and anti-narcotics activities, and to meet with the top political, law enforcement and judicial officials of those countries to convey U.S. concerns about narcotics. Mr. Hughes and our Ranking Republican Member, Harold Sawyer (R-Michigan), arranged to accompany the SCNAC, and they were able to bring our subcommittee chief counsel, our Republican associate counsel, and me, an assistant counsel, as well. Since the trip was a Select Committee show, I did not have to work as hard as Ed and his colleagues, but those intense experiences strengthened our bond.<br />
<br />
By 1984, I was often sharing with other staff and others my view that the war on drugs was a mistake and that some form of legalization of drugs would better fight crime and protect public health than prohibition. After my deep involvement in the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 -- along with Ed and his colleagues on the Narcotics Select Committee, as well as the House leadership, I carried out a strategy to leave the Judiciary Committee and work full time to end drug prohibition.<br />
<br />
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">By 1987, Ed had been promoted to Staff Director
of the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. After I left Capitol
Hill, Ed and I became friendly sparring partners on a number of occasions when
the fundamentals of drug policy were being challenged.</span><br />
<br />
In 1990 or '91, the American Bar Association established a Special Committee on the Drug Crisis, and Ed and I both were able to participate.<br />
<br />
A few years later, the Special Committee was formalized as the Standing Committee on Substance Abuse. Ed, then the General Counsel of the White House "drug czar," was warmly welcomed. I was appointed by the ABA Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities -- the powerful organizational home the ABA's "liberals" -- to be their liaison to the standing committee. The Standing Committee strongly embraced an ABA-Join Together study that identified the crippling problem of continued stigmatization of persons in recovery, and Ed and I worked together on ABA policy to address that. Ed took the lead in encouraging the ABA House of Delegates to endorse Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP), but the proposed policy was defeated on privacy grounds. Today PDMPs are widely respected tools to identify doctors who are irresponsibly prescribing prescription narcotics or persons who are using multiple doctors and pharmacies to obtain large quantities of opiates and diverting them away from legitimate pain patients.<br />
<br />
At the ABA Standing Committee, after a few years, most lawyers would move on to another project in the ABA, but Ed and I stayed on. When the <i>Raich v. Ashcroft</i> medical marijuana case headed for the Ninth Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals, Ed and I began to collaborate on what became a series of continuing legal education programs on the subject held at three ABA annual meetings over the years. Prominent members of the ABA, including judges, served on the Standing Committee, but rarely with the experience in drug policy matters that Ed and I had. Often some matter of drug policy would provoke a mini-debate between us. A number of times I was told by one or another member how educational, stimulating and respectful they found our impromptu debates.<br />
<br />
On Feb. 7, 2007, Ed spoke to a forum that I moderated, hosted by the Drugs and the Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association, on proposed legislation to regulate medical marijuana in New York State. As always he was generous with his time, completely prepared, powerfully cogent in making his points, and unfailingly polite and gracious before an audience largely composed of those opposed to his position.<br />
<br />
Ed Jurith was an extremely intelligent and diligent lawyer deeply dedicated to making the world around him better. He built an enormous network of friends who treasured his relaxed and open sense of humor, and his loyalty. We all knew him as a man who told the truth and honored his commitments. We learned how he adored his wife and boys, and treasured his joy as a father and husband.<br />
<br />
In early August when I learned that ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske was being promoted to Customs Commissioner, I hastily wrote a blog and threw out some prominent names as appropriate successors, such as former Baltimore City and Howard County Health Commissioner Peter Beilenson, U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), or U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO). But as I reflected on who, in the real world, would really be the most effective successor, I realized it would be Ed Jurith. Ed knew every aspect of the job, he had the long experience of working closely with Congress, with all of the involved federal and international agencies, and with all the private and state agencies in the field regarding prevention, treatment and enforcement. Ed also had profoundly good judgement. He knew what could work, and what wouldn't and had the courage and drive to fight for what was needed. His vision of the work was not driven by ideology, by partisan advantage seeking, or by personal ambition. He deeply wanted to free individuals, families and communities of the pain of substance use disorders. He was not interested in preserving organizational budgets or fiefdoms, but in justice and mercy. I knew that open support from a "drug legalizer" like me was not the most strategic approach, and so I worked behind the scenes to put Ed's candidacy for ONDCP Director before the President, the Vice President and other key players. If Ed's treatment for cancer had not failed to restore him, I think we could have found the perfect ONDCP Director to work with Attorney General Eric Holder and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to re-balance our drug policy in a world with the parity for treatment and expanded coverage of the Affordable Care Act, with legal marijuana in Washington, Colorado, and other states, and medical marijuana being demanded by legislatures and voters across the nation. His death is a real loss to the nation and the world, as well as his family and friends.<br />
<br />
I shall my conclude this tribute to Ed Jurith with a much longer version of a story I briefly told his family and friends after his funeral mass Friday.<br />
<br />
Advocates of "drug policy reform" or drug legalization (and journalists,
civic association and academic programmers) often have a hard time
finding prominent, qualified representatives of the
prohibition-based national drug strategy to debate in public forums.
What legalizers criticize as their opponents' strategy of trying to win
the argument by ignoring its legitimacy, or an unwillingness to risk the
embarrassment of defending the indefensible, is partly a legitimate
unwillingness to face what is often a highly partisan audience willing
to indulge itself with mocking laughter and snarky outbursts.<br />
<br />
Ed Jurith was unafraid of critical audiences and faced them often, always with grace and good humor. I witnessed both the rudeness of the pro-legalization audiences in mocking the government's spokesman, and Ed's self-composed presentation.<br />
<br />
On March 17-18, 2000, three very prominent New York City institutions arranged a two-day conference on the questions, "Is Our Drug Policy Effective? Are there Alternatives?" The distinguished sponsors were the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (now known as the New York City Bar Association), the New York Academy of Medicine, and the New York Academy of Sciences. The proceedings were to be transcribed and were published in the <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Fordham Urban Law Journal</span> (Vol. XXVII, No. 1, October 2000, pp. 3 - 361). Forty-two distinguished experts across a wide range of fields were invited to speak. Most of the well known drug legalizers or critics of the status-quo policy were on the program: former Mayor Kurt Schmoke of Baltimore, MD, Ethan Nadelmann, JD, PhD, U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet (SDNY), Harvard Professor Lester Grinspoon, David Boaz of the Cato Institute, et al.<br />
<br />
Ed was invited and knew that it would be a hostile audience, but he was willing to come. In fact he was the only representative of the federal government. His remarks were greeted by jeers and laughter. Near the end of his remarks he said, "I was surprised that when I showed those slides earlier there was laughter concerning youth misbehavior and marijuana use.You may not believe the data, but I do not believe anyone thinks that it is healthy for young people to abuse drugs. This is the cynicism we need to get beyond." (p. 46).<br />
<br />
Mayor Schmoke made the next speech, and I followed him. At the beginning of my remarks I said,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I want to commend my old friend and colleague, Ed Jurith, for his thoughtful presentation a few minutes ago and for his willingness to come and speak to what he anticipated was going to be a critical audience, not a warmly receptive audience. I do not see you, Ed, in the audience, but Ed has always been a man whom I could talk to in a very civil and informed manner about drug policy, even though we have disagreed. Ed is an honorable and bright public servant who is genuinely committed to the public interest in these matters." (pp.53-54).</blockquote>
<br />
Ed, thank you for being my rival, ally and partner, and always my friend.<br />
<br />
Ed's family would welcome gifts in Ed's memory to be made to his high school <i>alma mater</i>, <a href="http://www.blmhs.org/page.cfm?p=229" target="_blank">Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn, NY.</a>Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-11949673412753245222013-08-16T15:05:00.000-04:002013-08-16T15:05:02.197-04:00Is the Silk Road the infrastructure of a Libertarian future?<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/2/" target="_blank">Forbes has a fascinating interview</a> with The Dread Pirate Roberts, the assumed name of the purported CEO of the Silk Road, a website for the anonymous sale of prohibited drugs and other contraband. Anonymity is the key, and the site relies upon the digital currency Bitcoin. The Dread Pirate Roberts argues that he is motivated by his libertarian philosophy to advance personal and economic freedom, and the opportunity to make what is probably millions of dollars.<br />
<br />
The Pirate thinks he is going to change the world in favor of freedom. U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is demanding that the government take down the Silk Road. As this anonymous commerce grows, it may become the alternative justification the NSA/DEA/CIA/FBI/IRS needs to justify to an angry public their massive invasions of privacy. <br />
<br />
Take ten minutes and <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/2/" target="_blank">read this</a> and think about the future, and the lessons of the past.<br />
<br />
Kudos to Andy Greenberg of the Forbes staff.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-74847223848657193232013-08-16T14:43:00.002-04:002013-08-16T14:43:15.465-04:00I Owed Drug Czar Kerlikowske an Apology<a href="http://justiceanddrugs.blogspot.com/2013/08/drug-czar-kerlikowske-leaving-ondcp.html" target="_blank">My post in early August</a> about the promotion of "drug czar" Gil Kerlikowske from ONDCP director to Customs Commissioner was both erroneous and impolite. Mr. Kerlikowske undertook a number of important public health measures that embraced "harm reduction" that I did not know about. Yet I unfairly criticized his tenure at ONDCP because of my ire at what I thought were uninformed comments about drug legalization and marijuana, and what I thought was posturing in describing federal drug policy as "balanced." <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-e-sterling/i-owed-drug-czar-kerlikow_b_3745908.html" target="_blank"> I spell this out at Huffington Post.</a> I owed Mr. Kerlikowske and the readers of Huffington Post, and this blog, an apology. I mailed an apology to Mr. Kerlikowske to his office. I apologize to you for not checking the facts before I published.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-13965513818264026342013-08-02T13:27:00.000-04:002013-08-02T23:47:27.572-04:00Drug Czar Kerlikowske leaving ONDCPCorrections below.<br />
On August 2, President Obama nominated Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to be the Customs Commissioner.<br /><br />Kerlikowske has been an unimaginative drug czar, often invisible. Having come from Seattle, Washington where he had been police chief, he was shrouded with hope that he would have enlightened views about harm reduction and marijuana use and enforcement. Those hopes were soon dashed. His office has accomplished little and his public statements have been uninspiring. He demonstrated no ability to influence the federal bureaucracy, and left ONDCP irrelevant in national drug policy efforts. ONDCP's role in forums of the United Nations, such as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, has been to stifle adoption of harm reduction, a singularly backward approach. His departure is good news for drug policy but bad news for the Department of Homeland Security and people who care about Customs enforcement.<br /><br />Once again, Obama has an opportunity to reshape drug policy. Perhaps he could nominate<a href="http://www.bobbyscott.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=267&Itemid=61" target="_hplink"> U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott</a> (D-VA), a leader in drug policy and criminal justice policy reform in Congress;<a href="http://www.conversationswithgreatminds.com/video/conversations-wgreat-minds-dr-peter-beilenson-are-healthcare-co-ops-coming-p1" target="_hplink"> Peter Beilenson, M.D.</a> (CEO of Evergreen Health Co-Op; former Howard County, MD health commissioner, and former health commissioner under Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke); or <a href="http://polis.house.gov/uploadedfiles/updated_jp_bio.pdf" target="_hplink">U.S. Rep. Jared Polis</a> (D-CO) who also served for six years on the Colorado State Board of Education, including serving as Chairman. These men would bring a long missing sophisticated vision of drug policy to the White House.<br /><br />CORRECTION!<br />At the Spring 2012 Meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Resolution 55/7 endorsing the use of Naloxone as a technique to prevent opiate overdose deaths was adopted with amazing speed. The U.S. appeared to have dropped its long-standing opposition to harm reduction measures and explicit overdose prevention strategies. The U.S. emissaries were representatives of Kerlikowske's ONDCP. <br /><br />In November 2012, <a href="http://harmreduction.org/overdose-prevention/overdose-news/address-kerlikowske/" target="_hplink">by video, Kerlikowske addressed the conference of the Harm Reduction Coalition</a> in Portland, OR, and asked to work together.<br /><br />In the past year, there has been important evidence of constructive policy change in ONDCP. I apologize for misrepresenting Kerlikowske's record.<br />
<br />
<br />Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-51405852853875714752013-07-23T16:34:00.001-04:002013-07-23T16:34:31.599-04:00Perpetrator of egregious racial disparities in law enforcement touted for Obama's cabinetThere is <a href="http://dragon.soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/levine/Testimony-Memo-NYS-Senate-Marijuana-Arrests-June-2011.pdf" target="_blank">a prima facie case</a> that the New York City Police Department has systematically denied rights protected by the U.S. Constitution to tens of thousands of individuals that it has arrested over the past decade for misdemeanor possession of marijuana. <a href="http://justiceanddrugs.blogspot.com/2013_06_01_archive.html" target="_blank">I asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the prima facie case of criminal and civil violations of these rights by the NYPD and its leadership two years ago</a>.<br />
<br />
This program is NOT the stop and frisk policy of the NYPD to look for illegal firearms by stopping suspects in high crime neighborhoods; this a completely different program of violating constitutional rights.<br />
<br />
With the resignation of Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Commissioner of the NYPD, Raymond Kelly, is being touted as a potential nominee to be her successor. His nomination by President Obama would be an outrage.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-88427202078584725822013-07-22T19:24:00.001-04:002013-07-22T19:24:18.387-04:00Marijuana and the free exercise of religion: The prosecution of Roger ChristieMarijuana, as a mild psychedelic drug, can lead to changes in perception that many people find are spiritually profound. For decades, people around the world have used marijuana as a sacrament. These practices have been organized in some cases as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Zion_Coptic_Church" target="_blank">Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church</a> or the <a href="http://www.ndsn.org/june93/church.html" target="_blank">Israel Zion Coptic Church</a>, and its adherents are often colloquially called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari_movement" target="_blank">Rastafari (Some Rastafari consider the terms "Rastafarian" and "Rastafarianism" to be offensive.)</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/us/marijuana-infused-faith-challenges-the-definition-of-religion.html?smid=pl-share" target="_blank">The New York Times on July 19, 2013 writes</a> about the prosecution of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Christie" target="_blank">Roger Christie</a>, the founder of The Hawai'i Cannabis (THC) Ministry, in federal court in Hawai'i on charges of marijuana trafficking. Christie has been in federal custody for over three years having been denied bail repeatedly.<br />
<br />
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b>Do we have more religious liberty or less than the residents of the American colonies three hundred years ago?</b> </span></b></h3>
<br />
In the late 17th century, New Jersey was two provinces, East New Jersey along the west side of the Hudson River and the ocean coast south of New York, and West New Jersey along the east side of the Delaware River and along the Delaware Bay. Much of West New Jersey was settled by Quakers. In 1664, the <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nj02.asp" target="_blank">Concessions and Agreements of West New Jersey</a>, one of the earliest written constitutions in the world, provided a very broad protection for religious liberty.<br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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[Sixth] Item.
That <b>no person</b> qualified as aforesaid within the said province at any time
<b>shall be anyways molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any
difference in opinion or practice in matter of religious concernments, who do
not actually disturb the civil peace of the said province</b>; but that<b> all and
every such person and persons may, from time to time and at all times, freely
and fully have and enjoy his and their judgments and consciences in matters of
religion throughout the said province, they behaving themselves peaceably and
quietly and not using this liberty to licentiousness nor to the civil injury or
outward disturbance of others; any law, statute, or clause contained, or to be
contained, usage or custom of this realm of England to the contrary thereof in
anywise notwithstanding</b>.</div>
</blockquote>
Later in 1676, a <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nj05.asp" target="_blank">Charter and Fundamental Laws of West Jersey</a> provided: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4 align="center">
CHAPTER XVI</h4>
That no men, nor number of men upon earth, hath power or authority to
rule over men's consciences in religious matters, therefore it is
consented, agreed and ordained, that no person or persons whatsoever
within the said Province, at any time or times hereafter, shall be any
ways upon any presence whatsoever, called in question, or in the least
punished or hurt, either in person, estate, or priviledge, for the sake
of his opinion, judgment, faith or worship towards God in matters of
religion. But that all and every such person, and persons may from time
to time, and at all times, freely and fully have, and enjoy his and
their judgments, and the exercises of their consciences in matters of
religious worship throughout all the said Province. </blockquote>
This liberty was affirmed again in 1681 in a document quaintly titled, <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nj08.asp" target="_blank">"Province of West New-Jersey, in America, The 25th of the Ninth Month Called November. 1681,"</a> entered into by, "the Governor and Proprietors, freeholders and inhabitants of West New
Jersey, by mutual consent and agreement, for the prevention of
innovasion and oppression, either upon us or our posterity, and for the
preservation of the peace and tranquility of the same; and that all may
be encourage to go on cheerfully in their several places: We do make and
constitute these our agreements to be as fundamentals to us and our
posterity:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>X.</b> That<b> liberty of conscience in matters of faith and worship
towards God, shall be granted to all people within the Province</b>
aforesaid; who shall live peaceably and quietly therein; and that none
of the free people of the said Province, shall be rendered uncapable of
office in respect of their faith and worship. </blockquote>
Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn.<br />
<br />
In 1701, William Penn, the proprietor of Pennsylvania, signed a <a href="http://www.constitution.org/bcp/penncharpriv.htm" target="_blank">Charter of Privileges</a> that provided great religious liberty to the inhabitants.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
That <b>no Person</b> or Persons, inhabiting in this Province or Territories,
who shall confess and acknowledge One almighty God, the Creator, Upholder and
Ruler of the World; and profess him or themselves obliged to live quietly under
the Civil Government,<b> shall be in any Case molested or prejudiced, in his or
their Person or Estate, because of his or their conscientious Persuasion or
Practice</b>, nor be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious Worship, Place
or Ministry, contrary to his or their Mind, or to do or suffer any other Act or
Thing, contrary to their religious Persuasion.</blockquote>
The Liberty Bell of Philadelphia was cast in the 1750s in order to celebrate that Charter of Liberties!<br />
<br />
It is inconceivable that Roger Christie or the members of his ministry would have been prosecuted for their use of marijuana in Pennsylvania or West New Jersey in those times. It is outrageous that he and has co-defendants are being prosecuted for using marijuana for religious and spiritual purposes today.<br />
<br />
Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-13651430217808311202013-07-18T15:25:00.002-04:002013-07-18T15:27:41.094-04:00Race and Criminal Justice: the case du jourOver the years, I have often been asked to comment on the conduct and outcome of popular criminal trials such as the O.J. Simpson and Trayvon Martin trials. I am a former criminal defense lawyer. One thing I know is that if you have not been in the courtroom for the entire trial, it is b.s. to express an opinion about the trial -- the correctness of the verdict or the conduct of the judge or the attorneys. A second hand report does not tell you how a witness actually comes across, or the impact of a particular ruling or argument.<br />
<br />
If I wanted to retain my professional integrity I had to resist the attraction of the studio and the pleasure of puffing up my ego -- a T.V. camera and make-up did not qualify me to be an expert commentator on a trial I was not inside of.<br />
<br />
It is also b.s. to extrapolate from any verdict a conclusion about American society or the American justice system. I think <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/law-and-justice-and-george-zimmerman/277772/" target="_blank">Andrew Cohen from the Brennan Center on Justice does a very good job</a> noting the limits of what a criminal trial is about in the context of the Trayvon Martin -- George Zimmerman trial.<br />
<br />
It is data, not single high-profile criminal trials that tell us about how the justice system works, and how it is anything but colorblind. Obviously relevant to the Martin - Zimmerman case, a very interesting study of the racial disparity in how courts in the nation find
that fatal shootings are justified or not is discussed by John Roman at the
Urban Institute<a href="http://blog.metrotrends.org/2013/07/american-criminal-justice-color-blind-statistics/" target="_blank"> here</a>. He writes,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Black Americans are far less likely to be adjudicated as justified in
using deadly force in a firearm-related death. The difference between
rates of justifiable rulings in cases with a white shooter and a black
victim and cases with a black shooter and a white victim are
astonishing.<br />
In fact, they dwarf every other racial disparity in an already
racially unbalanced criminal justice system. The differences are so
great that any notion that justice in America is color-blind is at risk.</blockquote>
<br />
Regarding the Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman case, I think I can comment about the widespread commentary on this tragic case:<br />
<br />
I am struck by how large a number of commentators on the Internet are convinced that their hypothesis about how the shooting took place is the truth. People are inclined to interpret bits of evidence to draw broad and certain conclusions. See<a href="http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/2013-07-trayvon-not-about-race-think-again" target="_blank"> this thread on The Crime Report</a>, for example.<br />
<br />
There is a great deal of white racism being expressed in the drawing of conclusions about the reasonableness of George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin, the reasonableness of his suspicions, the suspicious character of Martin's presence in the neighborhood, Martin's background etc. The verdict of acquittal is being interpreted as a validation of such opinions.<br />
<br />
A lot of white commentary is blind to the horror of Zimmerman's shooting of the 17-year old Trayvon Martin, and how how horrid is widespread acceptance by whites that a young black male walking down the street at night intrinsically merits suspicion. The proposition, "If there have been crimes and the suspects in those crimes were black, then any young black male is a suspect," is, to many whites, a reasonable one; even if to whites the alternate proposition, if it involved crimes with white suspects, and a young white male, would be absurd.<br />
<br />
To me, many lines of the <a href="http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/2013-07-trayvon-not-about-race-think-again" target="_blank">commentary such as this</a> help explain why the criminal justice system routinely and regularly reveals racial discrimination through disparate treatment and disparate outcomes that work to the detriment of people of color and to the benefit of whites pervasively -- many whites simply do not see their prejudices.<br />
<br />Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-47817415721263870822013-07-18T15:17:00.002-04:002013-07-18T15:17:43.019-04:00One year ago, Obama said he was going to look at Clarence Aaron's petition for commutation of sentenceOne year ago, President Obama, responding to front page stories in <i>The Washington Post</i> by Dafna Linzer, said he would <a href="http://justiceanddrugs.blogspot.com/2012_07_01_archive.html" target="_blank">review the petition for commutation of sentence</a> from Clarence Aaron. This was the petition that President George W. Bush's White House counsel was interested in granting, except that the Pardon Attorney misrepresented what was told to him by the federal judge and the U.S. Attorney.<br />
<br />
The Pardon Attorney was subsequently<a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2012/s1212.pdf" target="_blank"> condemned by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice</a>, but still has the job!<br />
<br />
So far, crickets! In the Obama Administration the wheels of justice grind slooooowly.Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-80040819652565020642013-07-18T13:06:00.002-04:002013-07-18T13:06:50.261-04:00Global reduction in crime: The Economist magazineThe <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21582004-crime-plunging-rich-world-keep-it-down-governments-should-focus-prevention-not?fsrc=nlw|hig|7-18-2013|6161452|35620495|NA" target="_blank">cover story</a> in the latest issue of <i>The Economist</i> magazine reports on the global trend of dramatically reduced crime in the developed world.<br />
<br />
Aging populations is one factor. Significantly improved policing, relying upon the analysis of data, and the proliferation of security cameras and devices have dramatically increased the likelihood that offenders will be caught. The best tool for deterring crime is to create the belief among potential offenders that they are likely to be caught quickly. A lot of the theoretical and practical application of this work has been explored by David Kennedy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in his books, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/deterrence-and-crime-prevention-david-m-kennedy?dref=838" target="_blank">Deterrence and Crime Prevention</a>, and<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/11/01/141803766/interrupting-violence-with-the-message-dont-shoot" target="_blank"> Don't Shoot</a>, and Mark A.R. Kleiman, a very prominent scholar of drug policy, in his book, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9018.html" target="_blank">When Brute Force Fails</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>What is least important in the decrease in crime are the increases in prison population, especially those increases due to massive long sentences adopted in the 1980s by the U.S. Congress and many state legislatures.</b><br />
<br />
In the case of Congress, these sentences -- often mandatory minimums -- were enacted in 1986 after it created the U.S. Sentencing Commission, but before the Commission could develop the politics-free sentences that was a primary reason for the commission's creation. Congress had no evidence that long sentences might be effective -- they filled the need for sounding tough in partisan political fights over crime which was a high stakes conflict between Republicans and Democrats in key election years.<br />
<br />
Now, at last there is bipartisan legislation that has a chance to help judges escape the mandatory minimums, the <a href="http://www.famm.org/federal/USCongress/BillsinCongress/S619TheJusticeSafetyValveActof2013.aspx" target="_blank">Justice Safety Valve Act</a>, S. 619, introduced by Senators Rand Paul (R-TN) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT).<br />
<br />
There are other hopeful developments elsewhere, too. In the House of Representatives, a bipartisan task force of the Judiciary Committee is now exploring the problems of over-criminalization and over-punishment. And in <a href="http://www.justice.gov/criminal/foia/docs/2013annual-letter-final-071113.pdf" target="_blank">a recent letter</a> to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the U.S. Justice Department finally concedes that sentencing reform is warranted.<br />
<br />
Of course many states started pulling back from the orgy of imprisonment. In New York, the prison population has been cut by one-quarter since 1990 and crime has fallen to the levels of the 1950s and 1960s!Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-55461873104146391192013-07-16T18:34:00.001-04:002013-07-18T13:10:38.966-04:00Partnership for a Drug Free America surrenders war on drugsThanks to <a href="http://nationalcannabiscoalition.com/2013/07/prohibitionists-admit-support-for-legalization-is-widespread/" target="_blank">Tom Angell</a> at <a href="http://www.marijuanamajority.com/" target="_blank">Marijuana Majority</a>, we know about a <a href="http://www.drugfree.org/newsroom/press-release-marijuana-survey" target="_blank">news release</a> from the Partnership for a Drug Free America (now the Partnership at drugfree.org) concedes that marijuana will be legalized and sets forth some of the minimum regulations that its says parents want.<br />
<br />
Here is the <a href="http://www.drugfree.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Marijuana-Attitudes-Survey-Summary-Report.pdf" target="_blank">survey drugfree.org released</a> today. <br />
<br />
It is clear that they understand the distinction between use and abuse, at last!<br />
<br />
It seems that they did not have the money to do a really good survey -- the margins of error are large 4.9 percent and for Washington and Colorado, 6.9 percent.<br />
<br />
Half of parents have used marijuana.<br />
<br />
32 percent of mothers and 37 percent of fathers support legalization of marijuana for social use by adults. <br />
<br />
Parents don't want uncontrolled legalization.<br />
<br />
<br />Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-27503971126694505922013-07-11T18:49:00.000-04:002013-07-11T19:36:20.308-04:00Will Verizon stop sending my communication info to NSA on July 19?The NSA global spying scandal broke a month ago.<br />
Today I read the four page <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order" target="_blank">SECRET order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court</a> (FISC) (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order" target="_blank">published by The Guardian</a> newspaper in Britain) signed by Judge Rodger Vinson on April 25, 2013 directing <b>Verizon</b> to turn over to the NSA,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<pre class="DV-textContents">on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration
of this Order, unless otherwise ordered by the Court,
an electronic copy of the following tangible things:
all call detail records or "telephony metadata"
created by Verizon for communications
(i) between the United States and abroad; or
(ii) wholly within the United States,
including local telephone calls.</pre>
</blockquote>
The order expires on Friday, July 19, 2013 at 5:00 p.m, ET. <br />
My home, office, Internet, GPS and cell phone service are all provided by <b>Verizon</b>. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/06/verizon-nsa-metadata-surveillance-problem.html" target="_blank">The "metadata" is highly revealing!</a><br />
<br />
<b>This is one of the most chilling things I have ever read -- a current official document that authorizes my government to spy on ME right now. It authorizes spying on me, my family, and everybody that I communicate with that is taking place RIGHT NOW!</b><br />
<br />
<br />
The order expires on Friday, July 19, 2013 at 5:00 p.m, ET. <br />
<br />
What happens then?<br />
Is the NSA going to the FISC to get an extension of the order? Perhaps the FISC is preparing the paperwork to get such an extension right now?<br />
<br />
Or will I, and <a href="http://www.statisticbrain.com/verizon-communications-company-statistics/" target="_blank">144,799,999 other Verizon customers</a> in the U.S., be "free" to communicate without the NSA monitoring our calls and communications after July 19? Should I feel "free" then, or should I presume that the spying will continue, this time, again secretly.<br />
<br />
<br />
Those who read this blog know that I frequently criticize the government, especially President Obama and <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/15/definitive-proof-that-eric-holder-lied-t" target="_blank">Attorney General Eric Holder</a>, in often strong terms. To what extent is the routine spying on ME also being tagged or flagged to pull information aside about my political activities or my personal activities?<br />
<br />
What kinds of routine pursuits of my curiosity would trigger some kind
of profile that would result in more of an investigation of me? What
kinds of lawful activities that I engage in might trigger a more intense review of my private
communications?<br />
<br />
What if I had looked up on the Internet the location of a gun store or gun show? Or a medical marijuana dispensary? Or the address of a government office building? Or made reservations to travel to Colorado or Washington, or Mexico? Do my communication with people in other countries about drug policy, politics, the economy, the criminal cartels, etc. trigger special surveillance? What about my appearance in movies like the currently-showing "How To Make Money Selling Drugs"? Is the government tracking my movements as reported on the GPS of my Verizon smartphone? Are my orders over the Internet of books and other things from Amazon.com or movies from Netflix being tracked? Is the government tracking my viewing of articles on the Internet?<br />
<br />
<br />
Are there Americans who already see this surveillance as perhaps the ultimate reason to disengage from the political process and the responsibilities of citizenship? Keep a low profile! "Don't fight City Hall!"<br />
<br />
One of the key features of a totalitarian state is that the public fears the state. To challenge the state is dangerous. The defining feature in the creation of that fear is extensive surveillance of private communication and travel. That surveillance was the hallmark of Stalin's regime, Hitler's regime, the Maoist regime, and the current repressive regimes in China, Russia and other nations.<br />
<br />
Read the secret order yourself. . . if you dare!<br />
<br />
Another interesting feature of the order is that it provides it shall be declassified on "12 April 2038." That's 25 years from now. If this secret order had not
been leaked by Edward Snowden, none of us would have known about this
massive spying operation for 25 years. <br />
<br />
What would
"declassification" mean in 2038? Does it mean that 4 pages of paper would be removed from a safe in a secret government building and placed into a file folder in cardboard box somewhere in a
government warehouse?<br />
<br />
Declassification on 12 April 2038. I will be 88 years old. Would I
then have the energy to protest that old invasion of my privacy? (Or
would I already be in prison for being too much of a citizen, namely, an enemy of the state?) Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13638234.post-82181483691635902252013-07-03T15:38:00.002-04:002013-07-03T15:38:33.098-04:00Washington State Marijuana regulations -- latestThe Washington State Liquor Control Board has published <a href="https://lcb.box.com/proposed-rules" target="_blank">almost final regulations</a> for implementing Initiative 501 for legal marijuana in the state. They are almost 42 pages long.<br />
<br />
There will be public hearings on the proposed rules August 6 to 8.<br />
On August 14, the Board will adopt the final rules.<br />
The rules will take effect on September 16.<br />
At that point the Board will begin, for 30 days, accepting applications to be a producer (grower), a processor, or a retailer of marijuana.<br />
Licenses will be awarded on December 1.<br />
It is not clear when licensees will be able to start producing and distributing marijuana. <br />
<br />
Comments from the public can be sent to the board:<br />
<strong>By mail:</strong><br />
Rules Coordinator<br />
Liquor Control Board<br />
P.O. Box 43080<br />
Olympia, WA 98504-3080<br />
<strong>By e-mail:</strong> <a class="mailto" href="mailto:rules@liq.wa.gov">rules@liq.wa.gov</a><span class="mailto"></span><br />
<strong>By fax:</strong> 360-664-9689<br />
<br />
<br />Eric E. Sterlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09061193531254728800noreply@blogger.com0