People in Oregon who are arrested while in the possession of small amounts of drugs will no longer face felony charges. Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed HB 2355 into law on Tuesday, reducing the classification of possession of certain quantities of drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Individuals convicted of the misdemeanor now face up to one year in prison. Prior to this move, those same individuals faced up to five years in prison for possession of any amount of cocaine and methamphetamine, and up to 10 years for heroin and MDMA, according to the Huffington Post.

Per the new law, individuals may be charged with a misdemeanor if they are found to be in the possession of less than two grams of cocaine or methamphetamine, less than one gram of heroin, less than 40 pills of oxycodone, less than one gram or five pills of MDMA (also known as ecstasy), or less than 40 units of LSD. Individuals possessing larger amounts of those drugs can still face felony charges.

The law also contains a provision to combat profiling of people “based solely on the individual’s real or perceived age, race, ethnicity, color, national origin, language, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, political affiliation, religion, homelessness or disability.”

In 2014, California became the first state to defelonize minor drug crimes after voters approved Proposition 47. The ballot measure also included the reclassification of other felonies such as certain theft and fraud charges as misdemeanors.

In recent years, the U.S. federal government has begun to rethink sentences for some drug-related crimes. CBS reported in 2016 that more than 26,000 federal drug offenders had received shortened prison terms as a result of sentencing guidelines changes that the U.S. Sentencing Commission approved in 2014. The reevaluation of drug penalties is not just occurring in the U.S., but has become a global effort. Countries are working to lessen the power of organized crime and promote rehabilitative treatments for drug users.

Changes to federal drug policies in the U.S. may be slow to progress under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. But states like Oregon could play a significant role in ending the “war on drugs” through drug defelonization and rehabilitating drug users rather than imposing harsh penalties on them.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Possession of Small Amount of Drugs No Longer a Felony Offense in Oregon appeared first on Law Street.

Apparently, someone lost their luggage, and they’re probably pretty upset about it. Bags that washed up on two beaches in Norfolk on England’s east coast turned out to contain almost 800 pounds of cocaine, worth more than $60 million. A member of the public found the drugs, packed in colorful North Face bags.

The National Crime Agency deals with organized crime in the UK, and responded to the find. “This is obviously a substantial seizure of class A drugs and its loss will represent a major blow to the organized criminals involved,” said Matthew Rivers from the NCA border investigation team. He added that the place where the bags showed up was most likely not the intended destination–they were found outside two small towns with a couple of thousand people each, Hopton-on-Sea and Caister-on-Sea. The NCA is working with the coastguard to try to determine where the drugs were supposed to go.

Investigation after £50m cocaine found on Norfolk beaches > https://t.co/ieKU1kGOku pic.twitter.com/GT6PoGYkCW

— Norfolk Police (@NorfolkPolice) February 10, 2017

This is not the first time drugs on the loose ended up on a beach in the British Isles. In October, a torpedo-like device with over $5 million of cocaine inside was found stranded on a beach in Western Ireland and was believed to have been there for weeks or months before anyone noticed. There was another similar incident in 2008. And the biggest cocaine seizure in the UK was water related as well–three tons in 2015, worth over $620 million, found in a ship off the coast of Scotland. That seizure led to the arrest of two Turkish nationals.

Drug trafficking to the United Kingdom is estimated to cost law enforcement £10.7 billion a year, which is about $13.3 billion. The amount of cocaine imported every year is believed to be somewhere between 25-30 tons. And though it’s not very likely that someone will come forward to claim this most recent case of lost drugs, the NCA took the opportunity to have some fun with it.

And you thought your missing luggage was bad… If anyone wants to claim it, we’re keeping it safe for you https://t.co/SVrrG8t30p

— NationalCrimeAgency (@NCA_UK) February 10, 2017

Soon there were a bunch of jokes about the drug find, with some saying they should make a version of the show “Narcos,” and various members of the public suggesting that they could take care of the bags.

@EdmondBeech @NorfolkPolice Somewhere very safe. But the rightful owners can come and collect it anytime

— NationalCrimeAgency (@NCA_UK) February 10, 2017

But the NCA doesn’t take criminal activity lightly.

@EdmondBeech@NorfolkPolice Well not if you aren’t smuggling cocaine into Norfolk or involved in some other serious crime. Are you…?

— NationalCrimeAgency (@NCA_UK) February 10, 2017

Norfolk police urged members of the public to get in touch if they find anything suspicious…or this weird!

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post 800 Pounds of Cocaine Wash up on English Coast appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to the RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through the top five controversial and crazy stories in the world of law and policy each day. So who is ranting and who is raving today? Check it out below:

US Government Issues Guidance on Transgender Access to Public School Bathrooms

Because we all need a little hand-holding on how not to be jerks, the Obama administration is releasing guidelines on how to deal with transgender bathroom use. The letter tells public schools how to make sure none of their students are discriminated against. Any state or school that does not abide by the administration’s “interpretation of the law” could face major consequences, like loss of federal aid, as seen in the current battle with North Carolina.

The federal policy on use of bathrooms by transgender students triggered a swift reaction https://t.co/NV7ldBZS0I pic.twitter.com/8hJLjecQd4

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 13, 2016

Flint Lets It Rain for the Month of Pay To Clear Out Pipes

The State of Michigan is encouraging Flint residents to use up all the water their hearts desire this month because it will be footing the bill. As with most things that are free, the scenario will play out as a win-win–Flint residents get 100 percent free water and the city’s pipes will be flushed out after remaining sedentary for months. And who knows, maybe Flint will get to clear its name as well? 

President Obama drinks filtered city water in Flint, Michigan, to show it’s safe https://t.co/s3RKh6Savu pic.twitter.com/1avslXmJgR

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) May 4, 2016

Twitter Suspends Azealia Banks’ Account After Her Rampage on Zayn Malik

The 23-year-old rapper has seen better days. We all fondly remember the inappropriate but fun “212,” right? But today Banks seems to have lost her damn mind. Her recent kerfuffle with singer Zayn Malik comes as no surprise as she’s been involved in several Twitter feuds, like a bizarre one with Sarah Palin. Azealia Banks’ hate finally caught the attention of Twitter admins for ‘abusive tweets and behavior” and she has since been suspended.

The World’s Oldest Person Died Today

At 116 years old, Susannah Mushatt Jones passed away. Born in 1899, the Alabama native had seen a whole century pass and then some. The internet is in awe of what this woman must have seen and endured in her great lifetime. Another centenarian,  Emma Morano-Martinuzzi is now the world’s oldest person, also 116 years old. So what IS the secret to a long life?

A Story of three smugglers and their $3M drug stash

This week three women touched down in O’Hare International Airport from a trip Japan. No one would ever guess they were carrying a buttload of opium and heroin worth over $3 million dollars in street prices. These cute little old ladies almost got away with it too, if it weren’t for those darned customs agents. They are each being held on $50,000 bond.

Rant Crush

RantCrush collects the top trending topics in the law and policy world each day just for you.

The post RantCrush Top 5: May 13, 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

Drunken bachelors, polite burglars, and children’s toy cars–all great additions to this week’s weird arrests. Check out the top five in the slideshow below:

Very Good Try

Image courtesy of Katsuhiro Osabe via Flickr

Amanda Schweickert, 28, of Sardinia, New York, was arrested after police noticed that she had no front license plate, and a fake license plate on the back of her car. That fake plate was made of cardboard–and not even well done. See it here.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Weird Arrests of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

Early in the morning on January 8, the notorious cartel leader Joaquin Guzman, also known as El Chapo, was captured, yet again, by Mexican authorities following a heated gun battle at his hideout. While Guzman’s story has a number of interesting subplots, including his multiple previous escapes and an interview with Sean Penn, it also points to something: the ongoing war on drugs taking place with its epicenter in Mexico. However, this has not always been the state of things, as South America, particularly Colombia, was once home to the heart of drug trafficking and its most infamous leader Pablo Escobar. But the recent arrest highlights how that center has moved north and, not coincidently, much closer to the U.S. border. Read on to see how the heart of the drug trade has shifted in recent years, what impact that has had in Mexico, the role of the United States, and if capturing El Chapo really makes any difference in the larger war on drugs.

It Started in South America Now it’s Here

To understand the importance of capturing someone like El Chapo, or even the Mexican drug trafficking industry in general, it is necessary to travel one step backward to Colombia. The Colombian drug trade really took off in the 1970s when marijuana traffickers began trading in cocaine because of increased American demand for the drug. Trafficking cocaine was considerably more profitable than marijuana and the growth in profits caused a dramatic increase in the scale of smuggling.

The amount of money in this industry led to the formation of two incredibly powerful competing cartels, the Medellin and the Cali Cartels. The Medellin Cartel, known for its ruthlessness and use of violence, was epitomized by its leader, the notorious Pablo Escobar. The Cali cartel, on the other hand, was much more inconspicuous, reinvesting profits in legitimate businesses and using bribery instead of violence to get its way. The competition between these two groups turned violent, eventually involving the Colombian government and even the United States.

In the 1990s, these two groups were finally undone by concerted efforts between the local Colombian government and U.S. advisors that led to their leaders being either imprisoned or killed. Since their peak, these empires have fragmented, as smaller groups took control over various parts of the cocaine-producing process. While the violence in Colombia has decreased, though not disappeared altogether, the dominant player in the drug trafficking world has shifted to Mexico.

Going North

Mexico had originally been the final corridor through which Colombian cocaine passed before entering the United States. Before Mexico, cocaine had been smuggled through the Caribbean to cities like Miami. Ultimately, though, those routes were shut down by the United States. During the peak years of operation in Colombia, Mexico was little more than a path into the United States. However, this began to change with the demise of the Cali and Medellin cartels, coupled with continued American pressure and aid packages to help the Colombian government fight the local drug trade. Due to fragmentation and weakening Colombian cartels, the center of the drug trade shifted north in Mexico. Mexico served as a natural hub due to its earlier involvement in distributing the drugs produced in Colombia.

While the Mexican cartels came to dominate the illegal drug trade, their rise preceded the actual demise of their Colombian brethren. Much of the history of modern cartels in Mexico can be traced back to one man, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. Gallardo was responsible for creating and maintaining the smuggling routes between Mexico and the United States. When he was arrested, his network splintered into several parts, laying the groundwork for many of the cartel divisions that exist today. The first major successor was the AFO or Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization. However, its status was usurped by the Sinaloa Cartel under El Chapo’s control.

The Sinaloa Cartel is believed to control between 40 and 60 percent of the drug trade in Mexico with that translating into annual profits of up to $3 billion, but it is only one of nine that currently dominate Mexico. The activities of these cartels have also expanded as they are now involved in other criminal activities such as kidnapping, extortion, theft, human trafficking, as well as smuggling new drugs to the United States.

The rise of the Mexican cartels can be attributed to other factors aside from the demise of the Colombian groups. One such factor was the role of the Mexican government. During the important period of their ascendancy, the cartels were largely left alone by the Mexican government, which was controlled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for 71 years. When the PRI’s grip on power finally loosened, the alliance with the cartels also shredded.

The growth of the Mexican cartels may also have been the result of economic problems in the United States. Stagflation in the United States led to higher interest rates on loans, which Mexico could not pay. In order to avert an economic crisis, several international institutions stepped in to bail Mexico out, which shifted the government’s focus from its economy to repaying debt. As a result of aggressive policies directed toward Mexican workers and because of the deleterious effects of the NAFTA treaty, there was a dramatic loss of jobs and a shift to a more urban population.

In this new setting, there were few opportunities available, making positions with drug cartels one of the few lucrative options along with growing the crops like poppy, which is used to create the drugs themselves. According to farmers interviewed by the Guardian, growing poppy is the only way for them to guarantee a “cash income.” An increase in the availability of firearms and other weapons smuggled south from the United States only added to the violence and chaos. The video below depicts the history of the Mexican drug trade:

Impact on Mexico

These endless wars for control between cartels in Mexico have taken a significant toll on the country. Between 2007 and 2014, for example, 164,000 people were killed in America’s southern neighbor. While not all those murders are drug-related, some estimates suggest 34 to 55 percent of homicides involve the drug war, a rate that is still incredibly high.

Aside from the number of deaths, all of the violence has influenced the Mexican people’s trust in the government as a whole. That lack of faith may be well founded as the weaknesses of the judicial and police forces are widely known. When the PRI was the single ruling party, it had effectively served as patrons to the drug cartels where an understanding was essentially worked out between the two. When the PRI lost its grip on power, this de-facto alliance between the government and the cartels also splintered. Without centralized consent, individuals at all levels of government as well as in the judiciary and police became susceptible to bribes from the various cartels.  In fact, many were often presented with the choice of either going along with the cartels in exchange for money or being harmed if they resisted. The corruption and subsequent lack of trust in authorities have gotten so bad that some citizens are forming militias of their own to combat the cartels.

Role of the United States

In addition to the impact that the U.S. economy has in terms of job opportunities, particularly since the passage of NAFTA, the United States has had a major impact on the drug trade in two other ways. First are the U.S. efforts to curb the supply of drugs, which were organized as part of the overall war on drugs. While the United States has had a variety of drug laws on the books, it was not until after the 1960s that the government took direct aim at eliminating illicit substances. In 1971, President Nixon formally launched a “war on drugs,” taking an aggressive stance implementing laws like mandatory minimum sentencing and labeling marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which made it equivalent to substances like heroin in the eyes of the law.

This emphasis on drug laws only intensified under President Reagan, whose persistence in prosecuting drug crimes led to a large increase in the prison population. During Reagan’s presidency, Congress also passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986, which forced countries receiving U.S. aid to adhere to its drug laws or lose their assistance packages. These policies more or less continued for decades, often with more and more money being set aside to increase enforcement. Only in recent years has President Barack Obama offered much of a change as he has overseen modifications in sentencing and the perception of medical marijuana laws.

This focus on supply extends beyond the U.S. border as well. First, in Colombia, the United States repeatedly put pressure on the Colombian government to fight the drug traffickers. With these efforts still ineffective and with violence mounting, the United States again poured money into the country, helping to finance needed reforms in the Colombian security forces and for other things like crop eradication. In Mexico, a similar approach followed as a series of presidents, beginning in the 1980s, took on much more combative roles against the cartels with the approval and support of the United States. The United States helped support an armed forces overhaul to combat the traffickers and root out corruption within the Mexican armed forces, which had begun to permeate as a result of low wages. In Mexico, successive governments even went so far as to send the military into cartel-dominated cities and engage in assaults. While Presidents Zedillo, Fox, and Calderon sent in troops and met with some immediate success, in the long term it led to mass army defections, greater awareness of the reach of the drug economy, and ultimately other cartels filling the void where government forces were successful.

Since the inception of the drug war, the United States has spent an estimated $1 trillion. Primarily what the United States has to show for this is a number of unintended consequences such as the highest incarceration rates in the world. Another is one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDs of any Western nation fueled, in part, by the use of dirty syringes among drug users.

The problem is that for all its efforts to eliminate supply, the United States has done much less about demand, its other contribution to the drug trade. In fact, the United States is widely regarded as the number one market in the world for illegal drugs. To address demand instead of concentrating on supply, the United States could shift more of its focus to programs that educate or offer rehabilitation to drug users, which have been shown to be effective in small scale efforts.  Certain states have begun to decriminalize or legalize marijuana, a step which will certainly reduce the number of inmates and may also reduce levels of drug-related violence. Yet there is no single way to outright reduce the demand for drugs and some view decriminalization as actually fueling the problem. The following video provides an overview of the resources invested into the United Stats’ war on drugs:

The Importance of Capturing El Chapo

Considering all of the resources and efforts put in place, it is important to consider how much of an impact El Chapo’s arrest will actually have. Unfortunately, it looks like the answer is not much, if any at all. In fact, even El Chapo himself weighed in on his arrest’s effects on the drug trade, telling Sean Penn in an interview, “the day I don’t exist, it’s not going to decrease in any way at all.” El Chapo’s point is clearly illustrated through the number of drug seizures at the border. While exact amounts fluctuate, nearly 700,000 more pounds of marijuana were seized in 2011 than in 2005. The amount of heroin and amphetamines seized has also gone up as well.

The following video details El Chapo’s most recent capture:

His most recent arrest was actually his third; the first two times he escaped from maximum security prisons in stylish fashions, which is one of the reasons that U.S. authorities want Mexico to extradite him. Regardless of where he is ultimately held, since his first arrest in 1993 the drug trade has not suffered when he or any other cartel leader was captured or killed, nor has it suffered from the growth in seizures.

In fact, one of the major points of collaboration between Mexican and U.S. authorities has been on targeting, capturing, or killing of the kingpins of these cartels. While these operations have been successful in apprehending individuals, what they really result in is the further fragmentation of the drug trade. While some may argue that detaining top leaders and fragmenting the centralized drug trade is a mark of success, evidence suggests this is not so.

Conclusion

Aside from relocating the hub of the drug trade to Mexico, the war on drugs has had several other unintended consequences such as high civilian deaths, persistently high rates of HIV infection, and massive levels of incarceration to name a few. While the United States has had some success targeting suppliers and traffickers, it has been unable to reduce demand domestically.

Those involved in Mexico faced a similar conundrum. Not only do citizens in Mexico not trust their government, many of them have become dependent on the drug trade and shutting it down could actually hurt the economic prospects of many citizens.

While El Chapo’s most recent capture has the potential to provide the government with some credibility, it still may not mean much. Even if he is prevented from escaping again or running his old empire from jail, someone will likely take his place. That is because the drug trade does not rely on individuals but on demand and profits. Until these issues are addressed and Mexican citizens have legitimate alternatives to joining cartels, it does not matter how many cartel leaders are arrested, the situation will remain the same.

Resources

CNN: ‘Mission Accomplished’: Mexican President Says ‘El Chapo’ Caught

Frontline: The Colombian Cartels

Borderland Beat: The Story of Drug Trafficking in Latin America

Congressional Research Service: Mexico: Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking Organizations

Jacobin: How the Cartels Were Born

Frontline: The Staggering Death Toll of Mexico’s Drug War

Council on Foreign Relations: Mexico’s Drug War

Drug Policy Alliance: A Brief History of the Drug War

Matador Network: 10 Facts About America’s War On Drugs That Will Shock You

The Washington Post: Latin American Leaders Assail U.S. Drug ‘Market’

The Huffington Post: Why The Capture of ‘El Chapo’ Guzman Won’t Stop His Cartel

The Guardian: Mexican Farmers Turn to Opium Poppies to Meet Surge in US Heroin Demand

CIR: Drug Seizures Along the U.S.-Mexico Border

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Finding El Chapo: What his Arrest Means for Mexico and the Drug Trade appeared first on Law Street.

Ireland is taking a radical approach to dealing with drugs. The nation plans on decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, heroin, and cocaine in what’s being called a “radical cultural shift.”

Ireland’s approach comes from a public health angle; Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, the Minister in charge of the National Drugs Strategy stated:

Too often those with drug problems suffer from stigma, due to a lack of understanding or public education about the nature of addiction. This stigma can be compounded for those who end up with a criminal record due to possession of drugs for their own use. Addiction is not a choice, it’s a healthcare issue. This is why I believe it is imperative that we approach our drug problem in a more compassionate and sensitive way.

In addition to decriminalizing the drugs, Ireland will set up supervised injection facilities, where users are monitored by medical professionals. The aim there is to keep users from consuming drugs on the street, where they can be a harm to themselves and others, for example, by using dirty syringes that could spread disease.

Ireland isn’t the first country to take this approach. Portugal undertook similar steps in 2001, when it decriminalized all drugs, and emphasized the need for public health spending and efforts. Since then, the rates of drug use among both young people and adults have been dropping.

The logic behind this approach is simple–if the illegality and stigma of possessing drugs are minimized, people will be more likely to get help. A study by the Cato Institute after Portugal took similar steps found that the biggest deterrent to addicts coming forward to receive treatment was the fear of arrest. Additionally, eliminating the costly burden of prosecuting and incarcerating individuals frees up that money to be used for rehabilitation efforts.

While the possession of drugs will be decriminalized, it will still be against the law to sell, distribute, or profit from drugs. This measure aims to only help those who have fallen victim to the disease of addiction. Ó Ríordáin further explained:

Above all the mode must be person-centred and involve an integrated approach to treatment and rehabilitation based on a continuum of care with clearly defined referral pathways.

It’s become almost overwhelmingly clear that a tough-on-drugs approach doesn’t necessarily work–the United States alone provides a depressing case study to that effect. If Ireland sees successful results along the lines of Portugal, other countries may follow suit.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Radical Cultural Shift: Ireland to Decriminalize Certain Drugs appeared first on Law Street.

It’s the end of the week, which means its time to relax and reflect on all the stupid things people have done this week. Specifically, some fantastically odd arrests. Check out the slideshow below:

An Unexpected Getaway Car

Image courtesy of Eric Eggertson via Flickr

A still-unidentified woman was arrested after shoplifting at a Rochester, New York mall. But it was her transportation to and from the mall that makes the arrest newsworthy. She took a limo to the mall, allegedly stole about $300 in merchandise, then called the limo to come pick her up again. Police picked her up too.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Weird Arrests of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

I spent all of last week in Costa Rica, so I had a lot of catching up to do when I returned. And when I went to check my news feed for weird legal stories to write about here, it did not disappoint. A man shot both an armadillo (or an armadilla, as it is pronounced in the South) and his mother-in-law (I feel as if there is a good mother-in-law joke in there somewhere), and a 70-year-old woman was arrested for smuggling cocaine in her girdle – though for me, the real crime there is that someone still wears a girdle in this day and age.

The Shot Heard Round the Yard

The expression kill two birds with one stone recently took on a whole new meaning. A Georgia man was out shooting armadillos with his pistol. It is, apparently, encouraged in his town to shoot armadillos in general, but pistols are not the gun of choice in such a situation. Why? Because if you shoot an armadillo with a pistol, here is what might happen:

• The bullet ricochets off the animal’s sturdy back;
• The bullet then hits a fence;
• The bullet ricochets off the fence;
• The bullet flies through the back door of your mother-in-law’s mobile home;
• The bullet goes through the recliner where your mother-in-law is sitting; and,
• The bullet finally stops … after hitting your mother-in-law in the back.

The lady in question walked away just fine and is not pressing charges; however, I would not recommend any of you mom-in-law haters out there try this at home. It might not work out so well for you.

Granny’s Got a Drug Cartel

It’s not often that we hear of a story where people are trying to find out what’s inside a 70-year-old woman’s underwear, but recently at JFK airport TSA officials did just that. Olive Fowler is not your average little, old lady. Sure, she wears girdles and granny panties just like everyone else, but her Victoria’s Secret is a little darker than most of the others.

Sweet lil’ Olive was spotted at JFK sweating profusely – wait! As anyone of her generation could tell you, women don’t sweat, they glisten – and avoiding the eyes of cops. So she was taken away for additional screening. The TSA officials found more under her girdle than they had bargained for, in the form of $73,000 worth of cocaine. She was taken away by the authorities and will likely face jail time.

The moral of this story is that you should not judge a book by its cover. Even the dusty ones that look old and boring can be a gold mine (which now gives new meaning to the expression digging for gold).

Ashley Shaw

Ashley Shaw is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Granny Arrested For Smuggling Cocaine in Her Girdle at JFK appeared first on Law Street.

Hey y’all!

Yet again I have to question what is wrong with the female teachers in this country. Back in January, two teachers were arrested for allegedly having a beach sex party with five male students in California. Yesterday these two sick, sad teachers were hit with new charges. Melody Lippert, 38, and Michelle Ghirelli, 30, are both charged with a felony count of unlawful sexual intercourse and a felony count of giving a controlled substance to a minor. Ghirelli has also been charged with a felony count of oral copulation of a minor.

According to Ghirelli’s attorney, Stephen DeSales:

We intend to plead not guilty and intend to vigorously defend this case. What you will get from the district attorney is what they think they can prove. There’s two sides to every story.

I’m sorry, how is there a second side to this story that would make sense? These two women had sex with young boys at a beach and supplied the booze and drugs to go along with it.

I’m a few months shy of 30 and the idea of sex with a teenager is just repulsive, not to mention wrong. How do teachers and administrators at schools expect parents to feel comfortable sending their kids there when there is the possibility that their child is being preyed upon by the very people who are supposed to be protecting and teaching them?

I hope these women are convicted swiftly and thrown in jail. Registered sex offenders immediately!

I’m so disgusted by the number of female school teachers who have been arrested and convicted of sexual encounters of some kind with their students. It is unreal. I used to always suspect male teachers more than anyone, wrong I know but true. Nowadays you can’t go a month without hearing about some female teacher having some kind of sexual encounter with a student. Something is fundamentally wrong with these women and clearly the punishment is not strict enough to deter any of them from doing what they are doing. Perhaps the laws need to be revisited and a harsher punishment should be considered. These women are predators. These women are pedophiles. Desperate, pathetic disgusting pedophiles.

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Felony Charges For Teachers Involved in Cocaine & Sex Trip appeared first on Law Street.

Heroin addiction is a scary reality for many Americans. It’s often an ongoing roller coaster involving several rehab stints, withdrawal, and lifelong addiction struggles. And it’s unfortunately becoming a more common phenomenon. Today, the drug is no longer an outlier compared to its competitors.  It has been identified by some as the new drug of the upper-middle class. Is this a fair assessment? Here are the facts.

What is heroin?

Heroin received its name from the “hero-like,” invincible effect the drug provides its user. It is also called by other names on the street including: H, Junk, Smack, Big H, Hell Dust, and countless others. Additives can change the color from white (pure heroin) to rose gray, brown, or black. Heroin can be laced with a variety of poisons and/or other drugs. It is injected, smoked, and snorted.

What is the science behind heroin?

From a scientific perspective:

Heroin is an opiate made from the chemical morphine, which is extracted from the dried latex of the opium poppy. Morphine is extracted from the opium latex, and these chemicals are used to make opiates, such as heroin, diamorphine and methadone. Heroin is the 3,6-diacetyl derivative of morphine (hence diacetylmorphine) and is synthesised from it by acetylation.

So what does that mean? Essentially, heroin is an opiate–a drug created from opium that sedates, tranquilizes, and/or depresses the body. It’s similar to a common base in a variety of pain killers–morphine. Opium comes from the cultivation of poppy seeds.

Effects of Heroin                                                     

Heroin users report several effects that differ based on the individual. Heroin can cause a temporary state of euphoria, safety, warmth, and sexual arousal. It can also create a sense of disconnect from other people, causing a dreamlike state and/or sense of floating. It is a depressant, rather than stimulant like cocaine, and it can be used as a self-medicated pain reliever.

Adversely, users can immediately experience vomiting, coughing, constipation, hypothermia, severe itching, and inability to orgasm. Long-term effects include rotten teeth, cold sweats, weakening of the immune system, respiratory illnesses, depression, loss of appetite, insomnia, and tuberculosis. Although this is not a direct effect, the sharing of needles from intravenous injection can often lead to AIDS, Hepatitis C, and other fatal infections.

After the effects wear off, users will start to feel extreme withdrawal symptoms if another dose is not administered. The symptoms of withdrawal can include “restlessness, aches and pains in the bones, diarrhea, vomiting, and severe discomfort.”

How do Americans get heroin?

Afghanistan is the “world’s largest exporter,” producing over 80 percent of the world’s opium. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Afghan poppy cultivation and opium industry amassed $3 billion in 2013, a 50 percent increase from 2012.

Overall, Mexico is the largest drug supplier to the United States. Specifically, Mexico produces Black Tar Heroin, one of the “most dangerous and addictive forms of heroin to date.” This variety looks more similar to hash than powder and can cause sclerosis and severe bacterial infections.

Colombia is the second largest Latin American supplier to the United States. Colombian cartels historically distribute from New York City and are in “full control of the heroin market in the Eastern United States.”

The “Golden Triangle” includes the countries of Burma, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Before the escalation of the Afghan opium market, these southeastern Asian countries reigned over the world’s opium production.

Is it true that middle class heroin use is on the rise?

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study in 2014 about the changing demographics of heroin users in the last 50 years. Over 2,800 people entering treatment programs participated in self-surveys and extensive interviews.

The results do seem to indicate that heroin is transitioning to the middle class. It is leaving the big cities and becoming more mainstream in the suburbs. Of course, there has been heroin drug use in suburbia before; however, now there is a marked increase.

In the 1960s, the average heroin user was a young man (average age of 16.5) living in a large urban area. Eighty percent of these men’s first experiences with an opioid was heroine. Today, the average heroin user is either a male or female in their twenties (average age of 23). Now, 75.2 percent of these users live in non-urban areas and 75 percent first experienced an opioid through prescription drugs. Almost 90 percent of first-time heroin users in the last ten years were white.

In New York City, doctors and drug counselors report a significant increase in professionals and college students with heroin addictions, while emergency rooms also report an increase in opiate overdoses. In Washington D.C., there has been a 55 percent increase in overdoses since 2010.

Why Heroin?

With all this information readily available through school systems and the internet, why is the educated, middle class turning to heroin? Factors may include increases in depression, exposure to painkillers, and acceptance. The perception of the heroin junkie has changed. A user can snort heroin (bypassing the track marks from injection) and go undetected by those around. It can be a clandestine affair–an appealing notion if the user does want to keep their drug use secret.

Anxiety disorders are the largest mental illness in the United States today, affecting more than 40 million Americans. In a country that loves to self-medicate, heroin offers a false yet accessible reprieve from anxiety and depression.

Prescription drug users also move to heroin. Prescription drugs are expensive and only legally last for the prescribed amount of time. To name a few, these gateway prescriptions drugs come in the forms of hydrocodone (Vicodin), fentanyl (Duragesic), and oxycodone (OxyContin). From 1999-2008, prescription narcotic sales increased 300 percent in the United States. Unlike these expensive prescriptions, a bag with approximately a quarter-sized amount of heroin can be sold for $10 off the streets. The transition isn’t hard to imagine, especially when the desired effects are similar.

Case Study: Understanding Suburban Heroin Use

Young upper-middle class adults are generally perceived as being granted every opportunity and foundation for success. Parents can afford a comfortable lifestyle and access to decent education for their children. So the question continues: why are so many from this walk of life turning to heroin? Through the funding of the Reed Hruby Heroin Prevention Project, the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy conducted a report Understanding Suburban Heroin Use, to “demonstrate the nuanced nature of risk and protective factors among the heroin interviewees.” A risk factor puts a person in danger of using heroin, while a protective factor reduces the chance of use.

The overriding connection among the interviewees is the “experienced degree of detachment between parent and child and the overall lack of communication.” Contrary to common stereotypes, verbal, physical, and/or earlier drug abuse wasn’t vital in providing a pathway to heroin. A large portion of the answers, proved in these case studies, seem to be the previous emotional health of the users.

Example One

Interviewee one is a 31-year-old male who transitioned from pills to heroin. He is described as athletic, articulate, and candid. He was raised in an upper-middle class Chicago suburb. Although his family was close and intact, he experienced a sense of loneliness. His parents practiced a more hands-off approach to parenting that made him feel like an adult at an early age. His parents didn’t drink or abuse drugs during his childhood. His brother was diagnosed with ADHD, while he was not, although he experienced “restlessness.”

He was caught smoking marijuana at age 14 by his father, quit for a couple months, then resumed. His parents assumed he remained clean because he received good grades and they liked his group of friends. At age 17, he chose to work rather than attend college after graduating high school a semester early. He was earning almost as much income as his father. At 17, he tried his first opioid with a friend whose medical condition allowed easy access to OxyContin. When the prescription ran dry, they turned to heroine. He rationalized the transition thinking if he could handle OxyContin, he could handle heroin. Six months later, he was using approximately $100 worth of heroin daily and eventually moved to violent and illegal actions to sustain his supply. He admitted:

Heroin gave me something. It made me feel the best I have ever felt…Maybe I think love was missing. Like, love. I think. I that, uh, because I always felt like alone. Like even though I had good family, I always felt alone. Different.

Example Two

Interviewee two is a 27-year-old female from the western suburbs of Illinois. She is described as attractive, cheerful, and helpful. She was raised in an educated, wealthy family. She was a cheerleader in high school and earned good grades. There aren’t any psychological or substance abuse problems in her family. She felt disconnected from her siblings as they were much older and felt distant from her parents, as well. Her parents often “bickered” but never had big fights. When she confided in her mother as a child that she might be depressed, her mother seemingly brushed it off.

She started smoking pot in junior high at age 15. Although social, her group of friends was not part of the most popular crowd. This was a constant concern. She maintained a B average and continued with sports, while starting to smoke marijuana every day. An after-school job paid for this habit. When her parents found drug paraphernalia in her room, they didn’t probe the situation and just sent her to her room. Searching for a personal connection, she started dating an older boy. She connected with his parents in a way she could not with her own. During senior year, they both started using cocaine, which became a daily habit. She eventually transitioned to heroin, because as she put it in an answer to one question:

Heroin made me feel real mellow like I had not a care in the world. I had a lot of “what am I doing with my life” and physical pain that I was covering up.

After losing her job, she pawned her belongings with a variety of her parents’ things, and stole from others. She refrained from turning to prostitution, although she heard of other girls going down that road. She finally sought out help after witnessing her boyfriend get pistol-whipped and robbed during a drug exchange.

What does this tell us about heroin use?

There are similarities and differences to all of the case studies in this project. In these two examples, the users come from seemingly sturdy homes and backgrounds. The stereotypes of drug users aren’t present in these cases; however, they both felt distant from the people around them at an early age in life. They also wanted to avoid internal and external pressures. This glimpse into the lives of users offers some potential answers to the question of why relatively well educated, middleclass Americans may turn to heroin.

Fighting Back

In March 2014, the United States Department of Justice and the Attorney General Eric Holder vowed to take action against the “urgent public health crisis” of heroin and prescription opiates. Holder claimed that between 2006-2010, there was a 45 percent increase in heroin overdoses. To start, Holder pushed law enforcement agencies to carry the “overdose-reversal drug” Naloxone and urged the public to watch the educational documentary “The Opiate Effect.” Holder also outlined the DEA plan as follows:

Since 2011, DEA has opened more than 4,500 investigations related to heroin. They’re on track to open many more. And as a result of these aggressive enforcement efforts, the amount of heroin seized along America’s southwest border increased by more than 320 percent between 2008 and 2013…enforcement alone won’t solve the problem. That’s why we are enlisting a variety of partners – including doctors, educators, community leaders, and police officials – to increase our support for education, prevention, and treatment.

Conclusion

Heroin has seen a migration to the middle class. But what can we do to stop it? Many of these new users are already educated on the adverse effects of heroin and know the bottom line. A fear of health concerns isn’t enough. We need to stop it at the source, whether it is gateway prescription drugs or emotional health. Substance abuse is a disease to be cured, not the label of a criminal. The Affordable Care Act and Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act aim to expand behavioral health coverage for 62.5 million people by 2020. Every addict, regardless of demographics, should have the ability and necessary tools to recover.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Justice Department: Attorney General Holder, Calling Rise in Heroin Overdoses ‘Urgent Public Health Crisis,’ Vows Mix of Enforcement, Treatment

JAMA Psychiatry Releases: Demographics of Heroin Users Change in Past 50 Years

Reed Hruby Heroin Prevention Project: Understanding Suburban Heroin Use

Additional

About Health: What Heroin Effects Feel Like

Anxiety and Depression Association of America: Facts & Statistics

The New York Times: The Middle Class Rediscovers Heroin

Original Network of Resources on Heroin: Heroin By Area of Origin

RT: America’s $7.6 Billion War on Afghan Drugs Fails, Opium Production Peaks

Tech Times: Study Profiles New American Heroin Addicts

Foundation For a Drug Free World: The Truth about Heroin

WTOP: Heroin Use Rises in D.C. Among Middle, Upper Class

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Actress Lindsay Lohan and her mother Dina filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News, Sean Hannity, and Hannity’s guest commentator Michelle Fields on February 2 over allegations that the mother and daughter did cocaine together.

The alleged statements occurred on a February 4, 2014 Hannity episode where Fields and Hannity discussed celebrity drug overdoses. Fields can be heard saying, “Lindsay Lohan is doing cocaine with her mother.”

Mediaite.com has a clip of the segment, which you can view here.

The Lohans are seeking compensatory and punitive damages and “will continue to suffer severe mental and emotional distress; embarrassment and humiliation; pain and suffering; and economic loss, including loss of income, entertainment and acting contracts, present and future diminished income and economic opportunities,” according to E!.

Moreover, E! further reports that a Fox News spokesperson issued a statement saying, “We will defend this case to the fullest. The remark about which Lindsay and Dina Lohan complain was made on live television by a guest nearly a year ago. We removed the segment from our archives altogether last February and also apologized on-air. At that time, the Lohans did not make any demands for money, and we are surprised they are doing so now.”

A big issue in the case will likely surround when Fox News took down the segment. Nevertheless, I want to talk about a more elementary, and arguably more interesting, area of defamation law that will have an immediate effect on the case’s outcome.

In slander cases, the first question that needs to be asked is if the statement is true or false. If the statement is true here, then Lohan’s case will not succeed.

If the statement is false, victory or defeat in slander cases comes down to various burdens of proof that a potential plaintiff needs to prove. Burdens of proof in a slander case vary depending on whether the plaintiff is a private citizen or public figure. Since the younger Lohan is a global celebrity, she will likely qualify as a public figure, and in particular a general purpose public figure. Being a general purpose public figure, she will have to prove that Fields’ statement was made with knowledge that the statement was false or that Fields said the statement with a reckless disregard to the statement’s falsity. In other words, Lohan will have to prove that Fields made the statement with actual malice.

Lohan’s mother may classify as a different type of public figure, that is, a limited purpose public figure. A limited purpose public figure is someone who is a private citizen who thrusts herself into a public controversy. Limited purpose public figure must also prove that a defamatory statement was made with actual malice. Nevertheless, an argument can be made that Lohan’s mother is a general purpose public figure because of her Living Lohan fame.

Regardless, given the recent multimillion dollar libel verdict in favor of Jesse Ventura, I doubt that Fox News will want to prolong this issue all the way to trial, despite its statement that it will defend the case to the fullest. I will be surprised if the case is not settled out of court.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article referred to Lohan’s suit as libel; the suit is one of defamation.

Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry is a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law whose goal is to become a publishing and media law attorney. He has interned at William Morris Endeavor, Rodale, Inc., Columbia University Press, and is currently interning at Hachette Book Group and volunteering at the Media Law Resource Center, which has given him insight into the legal aspects of the publishing and media industries. Contact Joe at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Lindsay Lohan Sues Fox News Over Cocaine Use Statement appeared first on Law Street.

The huge influx of snow in the Northeastern part of the United States didn’t stop this week’s weird arrest nominees from doing some truly stupid stuff. Check out the slideshow to learn about the top weird arrests of this week.

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Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Weird Arrests of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

This week’s weird arrests of the week is one of my favorite yet, with a celebrity appearance, an Instagram celebrity appearance, and a magician’s great near-arrest. Read on to learn about the weirdest arrest stories to surface over the last week.

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Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Weird Arrests of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

This was a fun week for weird arrests–full of drugs, more drugs, and drunk escorts. Read on to see the top five strangest and weird arrests of the week.

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Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Weird Arrests of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

The Supreme Court has an exciting new term ahead of it, and today’s case is no exception. This week the justices will hear arguments in Heien vs. North Carolina, a case that at its core poses one very simple question: should police officers be held to a higher standard? It’s a timely question, given the events of this summer, and one whose answer may hold some interesting ramifications.

In 2009, a man named Nicholas Heien was with another man who was driving his car in North Carolina when he was pulled over for having a busted tail light. Officers ended up searching the car — which belonged to Heien — and discovering a relatively substantial amount of cocaine. Heien was arrested and charged with drug trafficking.

Now under North Carolina law, if Heien was pulled over because he was breaking a law, and the subsequent search yielded the cocaine discovery, that would have been legal. The problem is that he wasn’t actually breaking a law when he was pulled over — technically, as long as you have one functioning tail light, you’re operating within the law in North Carolina. The officer who pulled him over was simply wrong about the law.

The Fourth Amendment reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Fourth Amendment requires that searches are lawful — and there’s significant evidence to suggest that the search of Heien’s car was not. There needs to be reasonable suspicion that a law has been violated in order to conduct that search. A non-functioning brake light, which is not even illegal, is simply not enough.

Heien lost his original trial. He then won an appeals case, but lost in the North Carolina State Supreme Court. The case will now be making its way to the Supreme Court, which will have to figure out whether the North Carolina Supreme Court made the right decisions saying that Heien’s arrest was fair, even though the cop who pulled him over was ignorant of the laws in the state in which he worked.

The State Supreme Court held that requiring officers to be walking encyclopedias of the states’ laws is ridiculous and creates much higher standards than the Fourth Amendment mandates. But the dissenters pointed out that allowing that kind of subjectivity could create a sort of slippery slope. In the dissent, Justice Robin Hudson wrote:

The danger in adopting a new constitutional rule here is that this particular case seems so innocuous: Of course it is reasonable that an officer would pull over a vehicle for a malfunctioning brake light. But this new constitutional rule will also apply in the next case, when the officer acts based on a misreading of a less innocuous statute, or an incorrect memo or training program from the police department, or his or her previous law enforcement experience in a different state, or his or her belief in a nonexistent law.

Then there’s the context of this August to discuss. The events in Ferguson propelled a national dialogue, one that was opened by stop-and-frisk laws, militarization of our police departments, and dozens of other issues around the country about the power of our police departments. Obviously, none of these examples are about the same kind of issue — the cops in Heien’s case obviously did not shoot anyone. But it does hark back to that question: what leniency do we give to our cops?

In the United States, not knowing a law is no excuse for breaking it. Should not knowing it also be an excuse for incorrectly enforcing it? Now, that’s up to the Supreme Court to decide.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Police Decisions Up for Debate in Today’s SCOTUS Case appeared first on Law Street.

]]> https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/police-decisions-debate-todays-scotus-case/feed/ 0 26197 https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/issues/law-and-politics/is-the-fair-sentencing-act-of-2010-appropriate/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/issues/law-and-politics/is-the-fair-sentencing-act-of-2010-appropriate/#comments Fri, 05 Sep 2014 21:05:19 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=8204

As a part of the "war on drugs," a law was passed in 1986 that criminalized the use of illegal substances. The two substances, powder and crack cocaine, were criminalized differently, leading to inconsistent laws and a notable lack of fairness in sentencing. In 2010, the Fair Sentencing Act was passed in an effort to remedy this disparity. Now, four years down the road, it's important to look back and evaluate its impact. Read on to learn about the law, its supporters and dissidents, and results.

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Featured image courtesy of [Valerie Everett via Flickr]

As a part of the “war on drugs,” a law was passed in 1986 that criminalized the use of illegal substances. The two substances, powder and crack cocaine, were criminalized differently, leading to inconsistent laws and a notable lack of fairness in sentencing. In 2010, the Fair Sentencing Act was passed in an effort to remedy this disparity. Now, four years down the road, it’s important to look back and evaluate its impact. Read on to learn about the law, its supporters and dissidents, and results.

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The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed during the heart of the war on drugs. It was the first big piece of legislation, and it included mandatory minimum sentences for the possession of certain drugs.

Powder cocaine is white, and true to its name, powdery. There are many ways in which to consume cocaine, but the most well known is by “snorting” it, or inhaling through the nose. Under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, if you were found with at least 500 grams of cocaine, the minimum mandated sentence was five years without parole. Crack cocaine is smoked, and is created when cocaine, water, and baking soda are combined. Under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, if you were found with just five grams of crack cocaine, the minimum mandated sentence was also five years without parole.

That means that crack cocaine was criminalized at a 100:1 ratio in comparison to powder cocaine. In addition to being unfair, the standards have been criticized as inherently racist. Watch the video below for more information this.

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Fair Sentencing Act of 2010

The Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), signed by President Obama, was passed by the 111th United States Congress. The law’s primary provisions reduced disparities in the differences between the amount of powder cocaine and crack cocaine needed to trigger federal penalties under the law. It also eliminated the mandatory five-year minimum sentencing provision required under the previous law. The FSA made fundamental changes to U.S. drug law, including the removal of the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for first-time possession of crack cocaine, an increase in the amount of crack cocaine that is required for a federal mandatory minimum prison term to apply, and the increase of financial penalties for trafficking a controlled substance. Sentencing judges are allowed to consider violence and other aggravating factors.

The FSA requires the U.S. Sentencing Commission to take specific measures regarding sentencing. These include raising sentencing guidelines for those convicted of violence in relation to a drug offense, include aggravating and mitigating factors in its consideration of punishments for drug offenses, and present a report to Congress detailing the FSA’s impact on sentencing for drug offenses.

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What were the arguments in favor of the FSA?

Proponents of the FSA argue that studies show that crack cocaine and powder cocaine are equally addictive and the government never had any scientific basis for believing otherwise. Moreover, the previous law created significantly disproportionate sentencing rules for drug offenders.  For example, under the old law a person found possessing five grams of crack cocaine was given the same punishment as a person possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine. Also, ten grams of crack cocaine was enough for a 10-year minimum sentence, but 1,000 grams of powder cocaine were required for the same sentence.

That disparity evinces a probable racial bias in the old law. In 1995, the U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that the law created “racial imbalance in federal prisons and led to more severe sentences for low-level crack dealers than for wholesale suppliers of powder cocaine. … As a result, thousands of people — mostly African Americans — have received disproportionately harsh prison sentences.” Crack Cocaine users in the U.S. are composed of 52 percent whites and 38 percent blacks, yet 88 percent of the sentences for crack cocaine-related offenses were imposed on blacks while only 4 percent were imposed on whites. The DEA Administrator under the Bush administration stated that because of the disparity “the credibility of our entire drug enforcement system is weakened.”

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What were the arguments against the FSA?

Opponents of the FSA argue that the new law may revive the dangers that the old law was intended to prevent. The severe sentences under the old law were justified by the facts that trafficking and distribution of crack cocaine more often involves violence and danger to the community than what generally comes with powder cocaine and the offenders more often have violent criminal histories.

Law Enforcement Organizations have also opposed the act, arguing that more severe sentences are justified because crack is often trafficked with weapons. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, 29 percent of all crack cases from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009 involved a weapon, compared to only 16 percent for powder cocaine. These police organizations advocate raising the penalties for possessing powder cocaine rather than lowering the penalties for crack cocaine carriers. Since crack cocaine distribution is generally conducted with more violence and risk to the public than powder cocaine distribution, it makes sense that the law treats participation in a more dangerous criminal culture as a more serious crime.

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What has been the reaction to the FSA?

The Fair Sentencing Act was a step in a good direction. It changed the much maligned crack cocaine to powder cocaine possession ration from 100:1 to 18:1. While some advocates call for a complete eradication of any discrepancies in sentencing, others point out that crack is known to be slightly more addictive, and is more likely to be involved with respect to violent crimes.

There’s also an argument about the retroactivity of this law. Retroactivity essentially means that the FSA would be applied to the thousands who are still in jail under the 1986 law. This could lead to reduced sentences for those prisoners. In 2013, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FSA is in fact retroactive; however, the government asked for an en banc review, which means that the entire panel, not just the individual judges involved in that case, review the possibility of retroactivity. In the en banc review, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed the original decision. At this point, the FSA is not applied retroactively.

The FSA has made headway. Around the time of its passage, it was estimated that ten years down the road, the federal prison population will decline by about 4,000 people. There’s still work to be done to make sure that everyone receives a fair sentence, based on his or her crime committed and not on arbitrary standards, but the FSA is absolutely a step in the right direction.

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 Resources

Primary

U.S. Congress: Fair Sentencing Act of 2010

United States Sentencing Commission:
Sentencing Guidelines for United States Courts

United States Senate Sentencing Commission: Fair Sentencing Act Amendment

Additional 

Ron Paul: Statement on the Fair Sentencing Act

ACLU: Fair Sentencing Act

Sojourners: The Fair Sentencing Act: A (Small) Step Towards Making Things Right

Sentencing Law and Policy: Fascination and frustration with “finality fixation” in en banc Sixth Circuit Blewett arguments

Madame Noir: How the Fair Sentencing Act Is Still Not So Fair

Brennan Center: Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013

Progessive: Drug sentencing reform doesn’t go far enough

Youth Today: Congress Passes Law to Reduce Crack/Cocaine Sentencing Disparities

Nation: Beyond the Fair Sentencing Act

Huffington Post: Fair Sentencing Act

Mic: Fair Sentencing Act: Are Crack Cocaine Laws Intentionally Racist?

FAMM: Crack Cocaine Mandatory Minimum Sentences

 

John Gomis

John Gomis earned a Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in June 2014 and lives in New York City. Contact John at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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]]> https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/issues/law-and-politics/is-the-fair-sentencing-act-of-2010-appropriate/feed/ 1 8204 https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/crime/civil-rights-discussion-new-issues-new-debaters/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/crime/civil-rights-discussion-new-issues-new-debaters/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2014 17:01:03 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=23047

Fifty years ago, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Johnson.

The post The Civil Rights Discussion: New Issues and New Debaters appeared first on Law Street.

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Image courtesy of [TheRealEdwin via Flickr]

Fifty years ago, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Johnson. Since then, the shape of the civil rights movement has transformed dramatically. Racial discrimination in voting, education, and employment began being combated by the activists of the 1950s and early 60s. Despite making progress since then, blacks and other minorities still face disparities, and they’re being addressed differently today. To further the cause, we need to know how the movement has changed.

What is the Civil Rights Conversation Today?

The transformation of civil rights and racial politics reveals what some scholars call the post-civil rights era. One such scholar, Howard Winant of University of California Santa Barbara, discussed what racism means in a modern context. In his piece “What is Racism?” he suggests that conservatives control the modern civil rights discussion. He says that the conservative revolution of the Reagan era created a wave of racial demands that used “individualism, competition, and laissez-faire” as its focal points. Although it was written in 1998, the principles he laid out are applicable today. Who are the conservatives engaging in discussions about civil rights now?

One politician stands out as taking the helm on civil rights issues from a political position: Rand Paul. Senator Paul of Kentucky, a libertarian Republican, has gained national attention. Although he may have started on the coattails of his father, former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, Senator Paul has made some interesting moves in his own right. From cosponsoring a criminal justice reform bill with Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), to introducing legislation to curb civil asset forfeiture, Paul is making noise in Washington.

Other conservatives are talking about civil rights outside of the capital, too. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill that expanded the state’s drug court system; the policy is designed to help non-violent drug offenders access rehabilitation rather than serve time in prison. Libertarian groups like the CATO institute are also leading the way on discussing discrimination with scathing research on topics like police aggression.

Is there a problem with conservatism in the civil rights discussion? According to Winant, “racism is rendered invisible and marginalized” because of the right-wing’s domination of the discussion. He suggests that the conservative uprooting of the civil rights discourse resulted in a conversation “which deliberately restricted its attention to injury done to the individual as opposed to the group, and to advocacy of a ‘color-blind’ racial policy.”

But Senator Paul is acknowledging the racial components. In a Politico article he notes, “I believe in these issues. But I’m a politician, and we want more votes.” He’s actually advertising himself as the most prominent congressperson advocating civil rights for minorities, while admitting his political ambition. By recognizing the detrimental effects that excessive police force and the war on drugs have on racial minorities especially, is Paul changing the civil rights discourse while maintaining its conservatism?

How American civil rights issues are progressed is called into question by Paul. He may be referencing the disadvantages minorities continue to face as a result of these problems, but is his approach in line with true civil rights activism? Winant would call for a great emphasis on group collaboration and celebration. Meanwhile, the conservative and libertarian influence on civil rights issues would ensure that the political discussion remain an individualistic one. This dichotomy is important to keep in mind when discussing civil rights issues today.

The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs is remarkably impactful on civil rights. “Tough on crime” anti-drug policies, which have proliferated since the Nixon administration, swell America’s prisons and disproportionately affect the black community. Two drugs in particular largely define the epidemic: marijuana and crack-cocaine.

While marijuana laws across the country are loosening, black people are still 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for possession than white people. Employment opportunities are lost, and families are broken. Similarly, law enforcement’s aggressive response to crack, and the drug itself, ruined entire inner-city communities. Crack’s culturally-white counterpart, cocaine, was never targeted with nearly the same hostility. As the War on Drugs directly toppled black communities and severed their families, it caused a number of other issues in the realm of civil rights.

Excessive Policing

A primary issue is constitutionally-questionable policing. In an effort to confiscate assets involved in illicit drug transactions, law enforcement officers across the United States have been endowed with the authority to take money and property through a process called civil asset forfeiture. Roughly 80 percent of citizens in these cases are never charged with a crime, but police may seize their assets and use them to fund their department. Escalating since the 1990s, the militarization of police also results in excessive aggression against innocent people. With law enforcement offices across the country having easy access to federal military equipment, police take on unnecessary gear and, during a drug search or warrant serving, break into homes without knocking, traumatize people, and often kill innocents

The black community suffers disproportionately from both of these issues. A New Yorker article on civil asset forfeiture notes the disparities faced by blacks and minorities in these cases. For example, in Shelby County, Texas “the targets were disproportionately black or Latino.” The American Civil Liberties Union published an extensive report on police militarization and found that “the use of paramilitary weapons and tactics primarily impacted people of color.” Although blacks comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, 39 percent of SWAT deployments impacted blacks, according to the ACLU. Only 20 percent impacted whites.

The War on Drugs led to excessive law enforcement practices that are are unsavory in their own right. But issues such as these consistently impact blacks at disparate rates. While a variety of problems now face minorities such as food insecurity and strict voter identification laws, the criminal justice system holds a great deal of political attention.

In some ways, the discussions we have these days about civil rights look very different than those that were prevalent during the hey-dey of the civil rights movement. The movement certainly has changed, and new players are entering the debates. What’s important to keep in mind is that the leaders of the current civil rights discussion shouldn’t only ask what can be done for each and every minority. They should also question how today’s civil rights conversation affects the community as a whole.

Jake Ephros

Jake Ephros is a native of Montclair, New Jersey where he volunteered for political campaigns from a young age. He studies Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at American University and looks forward to a career built around political activism, through journalism, organizing, or the government. Contact Jake at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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I have made known how I feel about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.  The cliff notes version is that I think he is a joke.  My colleague Annaliese wrote a pretty funny sendup of him as well.  He has been discussed ad nauseum in the media as of late, mainly for being a mess of a […]

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I have made known how I feel about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.  The cliff notes version is that I think he is a joke.  My colleague Annaliese wrote a pretty funny sendup of him as well.  He has been discussed ad nauseum in the media as of late, mainly for being a mess of a politician and human being.

A few hundred miles away, a different city has been talking about a different politician. Rep. Radel is a freshman congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives and represents Florida’s 19th Congressional District.  In October, he was arrested for purchasing three-and-a-half grams of cocaine from an undercover police officer. This activity, of course, is frowned upon.

Rep. Trey Radel, courtesy of U.S. Government (Office of Congressman Trey Radel) via Flickr.

Ok, I have to be honest.  I did not bat an eye when I read about Radel and his nose candy purchase.  Person in a position of power decides that, in their free time, they want to play Tony Montana; also, today ends in “Y.”  Next controversy?

I got to thinking why I was so incensed about Mayor Ford, and so indifferent regarding Rep. Radel.  Here are my findings:

Their positions

Trey Radel is in his first term as a U.S. Representative. He was sworn in ten months ago, and is at the bottom of the Congressional totem pole.  In addition, there are literally 434 other people who do  the exact same job as Rep. Radel. There is enough of a buffer that a coke binge would not stop the wheels of legislation.  However Radel’s arrest has drawn the ire of many because he recently voted to drug test recipients of public monies like food stamps and welfare (the gall!). His reasoning: if you receive government money as a public benefit, you cannot do drugs. If you receive government money as a result of a job that you are doing, drugs are okay.

Rob Ford, on the other hand, is the executive of Toronto. You know, Toronto, the largest city in Canada.  Imagine the uproar if the mayor of a city like New York said that he was really drunk when he smoked crack?  Bloomberg would never. New York would also have de Blasio’s head.  It would not fly in any major American city: not Los Angeles, not Boston, not Washington, D.C.—oh wait.  Nevermind. Additionally, a mayorship inherently has more immediate power than a member of Congress could have from their job, and the duties of a mayor’s job has a more direct effect on constituents.

Their Images

Trey Radel is a 37-year old Floridian and former news anchor. The guys is good looking. Unfortunately, that helps.  Look, this is not the first time looks have been advantageous to a politician.  He is a favorite of the tea party, hip enough to tweet, and has a young family. Finally, cocaine has a different social connotation than crack. This dates back to the Reagan Administration and the war on drugs.  Drugs are still drugs, of course, but cocaine is more widely accepted as recreational or social.

Rob Ford, on the other hand, looks like a cartoon character.  He has been a public figure long enough to have many televised gaffes that have since been turned into .gifs many times over.  Additionally, crack is embarrassing. When Whitney Houston was accused of crack cocaine use, she explicitly stated that she made too much money to ever smoke crack cocaine.  The Chapelle Show’s Tyrone Biggums character was a hilariously accurate rendering of how most people imagine users of crack cocaine. To imagine the mayor of Toronto smoking crack, then, is particularly jarring.

Rob Ford, courtesy of Shaun Merritt via Flickr.

Their Reactions

Almost a month after his arrest, Radel’s office released statements that seemed to follow the tried and true “politician in trouble” response.  He acknowledged that he had a problem and wanted to take a leave of absence from the House of Representatives.  He mentioned that he’d let himself, his family, and his constituents down. His actions immediately after the arrest made it seem like he thought that the incident would remain under the radar.  This hypothesis is bolstered by the fact that, according to reports, he did not tell senior Congressional officials until recently. In the days since the widespread dissemination of his arrest details, Radel has vowed to seek treatment for his addictions.

Rob Ford’s reaction was atypical, to say the least.  He took Bill Clinton’s “definition of ‘is’ is” and ran it sixty yards to a touchdown in the game of “most ridiculous political excuses”.  You’ll recall that the Mayor said that he never lied, but instead was asked the incorrect question, which subsequently elicited an improper response.  Had the obviously inept reporter simply asked if he’d ever smoked crack, well then the answer would have been a resounding yes.  Duh.  Why? Because it’s the truth.  THE TRUTH.  Not habitually, and not voluntarily- he was just blackout drunk.  This nonsensical response is what one would expect from a crackhead.  With Ford, the jokes right themselves.

The Aftermath

What it comes down to is the potential for redemption. In America, we love a good comeback.  This is Radel’s first public slip up, and if he is smart it will be the last.  In addition, he is not the first member of Congress to be in this position. He can make a successful political comeback, and if he plays his cards right could even run for higher office.  Oh America, you truly are the land of dreams!

Ford, on the other hand, is in uncharted territory.  His behavior since the admission of smoking crack has gotten worse, believe it or not.  I mean, the man tried to tackle someone during a vote of no confidence of the Toronto legislature. He has taken the ultimate step towards irreverence and signed on for a reality television show. There is really nowhere for him to go but down- let’s just hope he puts the pipe down.

[Washington Post] [Post] [CNN]

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Featured image courtesy of [F l a n k e r via Wikipedia]

Peter Davidson II

Peter Davidson is a recent law school graduate who rants about news & politics and raves over the ups & downs of FUNemployment in the current legal economy. Contact Peter at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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