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Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1040 -- 10/19/18
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org <https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1040>

A Publication of StoptheDrugWar.org
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Table of Contents:

1. HOW THIS RED STATE'S CRUEL METH LAWS ARE PUTTING WOMEN BEHIND BARS IN
RECORD NUMBERS [FEATURE]
In South Dakota, testing positive for drugs is a felony. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2018/oct/16/how_red_states_cruel_meth_laws

2. CHRONICLE AM: PA US ATTORNEY'S SIJ WARNING, MALAYSIA MEDMJ DEATH
PENALTY LIFTED, MORE... (10/15/2018)
The US Attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania tries to scare away a proposed
safe injection site in Philadelphia, Malaysia's cabinet puts a
"moratorium" on the death sentence for a medical marijuana provider --
and the country is likely to end the death penalty entirely as a result
of the case -- and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2018/oct/15/chronicle_am_pa_us_attorneys_sij

3. CHRONICLE AM: NEW DOJ TASK FORCE TO TARGET CARTELS, CA PAIN SUMMIT
NEXT MONTH, MORE... (10/16/18)
The Justice Department creates a new anti-cartel task force, a
California summit will address issues around chronic pain and the war on
drugs, the New York Assembly holds a hearing on marijuana legalization,
and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2018/oct/16/chronicle_am_new_doj_task_force

4. CHRONICLE AM: CANADA'S ERA OF LEGAL WEED BEGINS, VT COUNCIL REJECTS
SAFE INJECTION SITES, MORE... (10/17/18)
Marijuana is now legal in Canada, the Canadian government moves to allow pardons for people busted with small amounts of it, a Vermont governor's council rejects safe injection sites, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2018/oct/17/chronicle_am_canadas_era_legal

5. CHRONICLE AM: BLUMENAUER PRODS DEM LEADERS WITH MARIJUANA MEMO, INCB
SLAMS CANADA, MORE... (10/18/18)
The founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus has a plan to move legalization forward next year, Canadians are buying marijuana online
like crazy, the INCB isn't happy about it, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2018/oct/18/chronicle_am_blumenauer_prods

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================

1. HOW THIS RED STATE'S CRUEL METH LAWS ARE PUTTING WOMEN BEHIND BARS IN
RECORD NUMBERS [FEATURE] https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2018/oct/16/how_red_states_cruel_meth_laws

Like other Great Plains states, South Dakota has a methamphetamine
problem. But it's becoming increasingly evident that South Dakota also
has a problem with the way it deals with meth.

Because of its strict drug laws, the state is seeing a dramatic spike in
women being sent to prison for meth. According to a new report (https://www.sdnewswatch.org/stories/meth-epidemic-strict-laws-fuel-dramatic-growth-in-female-inmates/)
from the nonprofit South Dakota News Watch, the number of women in
prison in the state has jumped 35 percent since 2013, while the male
prison population has increased at only one-quarter of that rate. Nearly two-thirds of all women prisoners in the state are there for nonviolent
drug offenses. The state now has the fourth-highest incarceration rate
for women in the country, trailing only Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Kentucky.

Overall, about one-third of all inmates in the state are doing time for drug-related offenses, the majority of them for simple drug possession.
That's a higher percentage than most other states, where drug offenders
tend to make up somewhere around 20 to 25 percent of the inmate population.

The high drug-related incarceration overall and for women in particular
stems less from the prevalence of drug use than from the conservative,
largely rural state's reaction to it. South Dakota has not responded to
decades of failed war on drug policies by reforming them, but by
doubling down on them.

The state has not moved toward the defelonization of drug possession, as
at least 16 others have
(http://www.ajc.state.ak.us/acjc/drugs/misdechrt.pdf). Instead, it has
moved in the opposite direction. South Dakota has mandatory sentencing
laws that include prison for not only for the manufacture and
distribution of meth but also for simple possession.

State lawmakers and cops have long favored tough drug laws, and they are
still at it. This year, state Attorney General Marty Jackley (R) guided
bills through the legislature that heighten penalties for meth dealing
and increase sentences for dealers whose clients overdose and die.

But the state's most notorious and contentious drug law -- bone that is
sending hundreds of people to prison -- is the state's "possession by ingestion" statute. Otherwise known as an "internal possession" law, the statute allows for a felony conviction if a drug test reveals the
presence of illicit drugs in a suspect's system. (The law also applies
to marijuana, but the penalty for testing positive for pot is only a misdemeanor.)

The strictest in the nation, that law was upheld by the state Supreme
Court in 2004. Last year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers filed a
measure that would have slightly tweaked the law by removing marijuana,
but that bill was killed by a unanimous vote in the first committee that
heard it.

As of August, about nine percent of the male prison population and an astonishing 21 percent of the female prison population was doing time
for unauthorized ingestion of a controlled substance. That's right: More
than one out of five women prisoners in South Dakota is behind prison
bars for nothing more than having used drugs.

South Dakota law enforcement and lawmakers may be happy with the status
quo, but the man who actually runs the prison system isn't. State
Corrections Secretary Denny Kaemingk told South Dakota News Watch that
the cops' and courts' proclivity for busting and imprisoning women on
drug charges is creating an expensive and ineffective cycle of
imprisonment, release, and recidivism.

"We seem to think that locking individuals up is going to solve their
addiction problem," said Kaemingk, a former drug officer. "They're
coming to us in corrections and we're thinking that solves the problem,
and I think in many cases it makes the problem worse."

Criminalizing addiction, especially among women who are mothers,
Kraemingk said, creates a situation where the children are more likely
to end up in prison themselves. He pointed to national studies showing
that up to 80 percent of children who have parents behind bars will end
up there themselves.

"Imprisonment in South Dakota is generational," Kaemingk said. "The
females behind prison walls have experienced that as a child. The
generation we have back there now as inmates experienced the same things
when they were children."

Kraemingk and other relatively enlightened actors in the state are
pushing for enhanced treatment opportunities and expanding drug courts,
among other measures, to better deal with the situation, but nobody
seems to be talking about not involving these women in the criminal
justice system in the first place. A first step would be getting rid of
that hideous "possession by ingestion" statute. The next step would be defelonization or outright decriminalization of drug possession in the
state. Drug use absent harm to others should not be the state's business.

This article was produced by Drug Reporter (https://independentmediainstitute.org/drug-reporter/), a project of the Independent Media Institute.


==================================
___________________

It's time to correct the mistake: Truth:the Anti-drugwar
<http://www.briancbennett.com>
Cops say legalize drugs--find out why:
<http://www.leap.cc>
Stoners are people too:
<http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
___________________

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