Alternet.org has a very thoughtful article by three members of the New York City Bar Association's Drugs and the Law Committee on the way international treaties impact efforts to legalize marijuana in the U.S.
The U.S. has signed the Single Convention on Narcotics (1961) and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides that federal law and treaties are the "supreme Law of the Land." The various states are governed by these treaties, and thus limit the ability of any state to legalize marijuana. This is certain to become an issue in the summer and fall of 2012 as the voters of Washington State, Colorado and Oregon consider initiatives to legalize marijuana. If one or more of these pass, these international treaties will be a factor in how the federal government responds.
The authors -- Heather J. Haase, Esq., Nicolas Eyle, and Joshua Schrimpf, Esq. -- note that the international consensus behind these treaties is being shaken.
A major change in the traditional protocol of the treaties -- don't rock the boat -- is coming from Bolivia. When Bolivia (and Peru) acceded to the Single Convention (what we in the U.S. call ratifying the treaty), they agreed to ban their long-time practices of coca chewing and drinking coca tea after 25 years (Article 49.2(e), Single Convention of Narcotics). Since 1987, they have not been in compliance.
A couple of years ago, Bolivia rewrote its constitution and decided to try to change the requirement that it disapprove of coca use. (Bolivia's President, Evo Morales, came to political prominence as the leader of the union of coca growers!).
Bolivia tried to get the U.N.'s Commission on Narcotics Drugs to change the prohibition on coca use, unsuccessfully.
Now Bolivia is using different approach which is to "withdraw" from the treaty (called "denunciation," Article 46, Single Convention on Narcotics) and then joining the treaty again ("accession," Article 40) but with reservations (Article 50.3). The reservation can be rejected if it is objected to by one-third of the countries that are party to the Single Convention within twelve months after a country notified the U.N. Secretary General it wants a reservation. That means that one-third of the 183 nations ("parties") have to object.
This type of strategy is outlined in chapter 6 in the excellent book by Robin Room, Benedict Fischer, Wayne Hall, Simon Lenton and Peter Reuter, Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate, (Oxford U. Press, 2010).
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
International treaties vs. marijuana legalization
Friday, July 06, 2012
Young adult unemployment at record high
CNNMoney reports that young adult unemployment is so bad, an enormous fraction of them have stopped looking for work. The rates are approaching those of the Great Depression, it says.
The War on Drugs is a major feature of this unemployment that the press continues to ignore.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Rev. Alexander Sharp on decriminalizing marijuana
Rev. Alexander Sharp blogs about decriminalizing marijuana in Chicago.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, June 22, 2012
Federal agents point gun at head of 11-year old girl: Obama Justice Department says, Okay
Reason.com has a report on the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress brought by the Avila family against the U.S.
In 2007, DEA agents mistakenly raided their southern California home. Agents burst into the bedrooms of two girls -- one 11-years old and the other 14-years old -- yelled in their typical fashion "get down on the fucking ground," held a police weapon to the head of the 11-year old and dragged her from her bed because she was paralyzed with fear, and then handcuffed them, and forced them to lie face down on the floor for half an hour, while they ransacked the house.
The Obama Administration defended the agents, and in its brief to the court minimized and trivialized the agents' conduct. Dragging a girl out of her bed is described as "assisting her to the floor." The conduct was called "entirely reasonable under the circumstances."
The brief was signed in June 2011 by Laura Duffy, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California appointed by Obama at the urging of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), and by Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division (appointed in April 2009). On Feb. 27, 2012, West was appointed Acting Associate Attorney General, filling the number three job in the Department of Justice.
Does the Obama Administration have any sense that accountability for the conduct of law enforcement officers is necessary for the law to have legitimacy?
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
June 2012: The new direction of marijuana politics?
Jill Harris, managing director of strategic initiatives at Drug Policy Action (the political arm of the non-profit Drug Policy Alliance), has an op-ed in USATODAY on June 20, 2012 that concludes that key Democratic office holders and a couple of key primaries are the "weather vane" pointing to the political logic of marijuana decriminalization specifically and reform more generally.
The policy case for marijuana decriminalization is over 40 years old now. The concept was advanced by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse in its 1972, and about a dozen states enacted such laws in the early 1970s. Ms. Harris is making an excellent political case that this reform is once again politically safe; indeed politically astute.
I am thrilled that she was able to have this op-ed published in one of the most important newspapers. But I would be much more confident if this op-ed column had been authored by a professional political commentator. If so, political advisers to the President and Democratic candidates would probably pay closer attention.
Consider some history of marijuana and politics. A key prize in President Bill Clinton's successful campaign for re-election in 1996 was California, which he won with 51%. (President Georg H.W. Bush won California in 1988 with 51%, but Clinton won California in 1992, with only 46%). That year, the medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215, received one million more votes than Bill Clinton! In 2004, George Bush won re-election in Montana as voters there passed a medical marijuana initiative. And in 2008, as Obama carried Michigan, voters passed a medical marijuana initiative. Blue state, red state -- it doesn't matter.
In May 2011, the legislatures of three states sent medical marijuana legislation to their governors, who signed the laws. In recent weeks, Connecticut became the 17th medical marijuana state, the New Hampshire legislature sent a medical marijuana act to their governor (who has threatened a veto), and Rhode Island's legislature enacted a marijuana decriminalization law. (And as I noted earlier, the candidates more sympathetic to marijuana reform won primary elections in Oregon and Texas!)
In 2007 and 2008, the Obama political team outmaneuvered the premier national political machine of the past 20 years, the Clinton organization, to snatch the Democratic nomination. As incumbent, he has been unchallenged for renomination in his party. But it is clear that he has failed to re-energize the young people who rallied and volunteered for him. When it comes to marijuana, the administration of Barack Obama seems to think the zeitgeist is locked on 1995! Perhaps this is because Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder turned marijuana policy over to a DEA Administrator who spent her career in California and Washington with photographs of the two George Bush's on her wall.
Perhaps Obama and his team believe the Attorney General's misrepresentations to the House Judiciary Committee and the public that the Justice Department crusade against medical marijuana is merely designed to help states enforce conformity to their laws. If so, they appear to be sitting in a 1995 medical marijuana time capsule. On this issue, sadly out of touch and deaf to their savvy colleagues like Andrew Cuomo and Rahm Emanuel, the Obama team's self-delusion points to a Mitt Romney inauguration next January.
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