XPost: alt.drugs, alt.hemp, rec.drugs.psychedelic
XPost: talk.politics.drugs

Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1136 -- 7/07/21
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1136

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

Table of Contents:

1. FEDERAL APPEALS COURT TAPS THE BRAKES ON DRUG INDUCED HOMICIDE
PROSECUTIONS OF DRUG USERS [FEATURE]
Prosecuting drug users for murder when they score together and one of
them overdoses just isn't right, a federal appeals court has ruled. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jun/24/federal_appeals_court_taps

2. HISTORIC FEDERAL DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION BILL INTRODUCED [FEATURE]
For the first time, a federal drug decriminalization bill will be filed
in Congress. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jun/15/historic_federal_drug

3. MEDICAL MARIJUANA UPDATE
South Dakota steps into the age of medical marijuana, governors in New
Jersey and Pennsylvania sign bills easing the burden on patients, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jul/06/medical_marijuana_update

4. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
A South Carolina prison guard gets caught smuggling dope in a Rice
Krispies treat, a Birmingham cop is facing some problems, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jul/07/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

5. HOUSE DEMOCRATS ADVANCE MARIJUANA BANKING, DC POT SALES BILL, NC
MEDMJ BILL ADVANCES, MORE... (6/24/21)
The Veterans Administration comes out against a medical marijuana
research bill for veterans, House Democrats move a bill that would
provide protection to banks doing business with marijuana firms and
allow pot sales in DC, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jun/24/house_democrats_advance

6. RI MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION PUSH HITS BUMP, UN WARNS PANDEMIC COULD
PROPEL DRUG USE, CULTIVATION, MORE... (6/25/21)
There's progress on medical marijuana this week in the South, a key
Rhode Island lawmaker slams the brakes on a marijuana legalization push,
and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jun/25/ri_marijuana_legalization_push

7. CLARENCE THOMAS QUESTIONS FEDERAL MARIJUANA PROHIBITION, ONDCP
REPORTS ON COLOMBIA COCA, MORE... (6/28/21)
A major pharmaceutical company settles with the state of New York over
opioid distribution, Minnesota lawmakers are on the verge of passing
policing reforms, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jun/28/clarence_thomas_questions

8. CA PSYCHEDELIC DECRIM BILL ADVANCES, MARIJUANA GETS LEGALIZED IN
THREE STATES THIS WEEK, MORE... (6/30/21)
The Rhode island legislature is on the verge of passing a bill allowing
drug checking and safe consumption sites, Mexico's Supreme Court again
declares marijuana prohibition unconstitutional, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jun/30/ca_psychedelic_decrim_bill

9. ME SENATE DEFEATS DRUG DECRIM BILL, HOUSE APPROVES MARIJUANA RESEARCH LANGUAGE, MORE... (7/1/21)
Medical marijuana is now legal in South Dakota, Austin activists roll
out a municipal marijuana decriminalization initiative, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jul/01/me_senate_defeats_drug_decrim

10. RI LEGISLATURE PASSES SAFE INJECTION SITE BILL, CA COERCED TREATMENT
BILL ADVANCES MORE... (7/2/21)
The Mississippi Supreme Court continues to smack down the will of the
people on medical marijuana, a coerced drug treatment bill advances in California to the dismay of reformers, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jul/02/ri_legislature_passes_safe

11. NJ GOVERNOR SIGNS MEDMJ TELEHEALTH BILL, SD ACTIVISTS PREPARE 2022 LEGALIZATION INITIATIVES, MORE... (7/6/21)
A Rhode Island marijuana legalization bill gets a hearing but appears
doomed this year, a South Dakota Native American reservation opens the
state's first medical marijuana dispensary, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jul/06/nj_governor_signs_medmj

(Not subscribed? Visit https://stopthedrugwar.org to sign up today!)

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

1. FEDERAL APPEALS COURT TAPS THE BRAKES ON DRUG INDUCED HOMICIDE
PROSECUTIONS OF DRUG USERS [FEATURE] https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/jun/24/federal_appeals_court_taps

A woman who bought heroin with a pair of friends, one of whom shortly
afterward suffered a fatal overdose on the drug, is not a murderer, at
least according to the US 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. That was the
June 1 ruling in US v. Semler (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca3/19-2319/19-2319-2021-06-01.html),
a case that may not set binding precedent, but does send a signal to the prosecutors and the judiciary that the federal courts do not want to see
a federal law aimed at so-called drug kingpins applied to mere drug users.

As described in the decision, the case began when two heroin-addicted Philadelphia women, Emma Semler and her old drug rehab buddy Jennifer
Werstler, went to score heroin together at Wertsler's request. They were
joined by Semler's sister Sarah, who drove them to the West Philadelphia
locale where they bought their heroin. It is unclear who actually
purchased and then shared the heroin. The trio then shot up in the
restroom of a nearby KFC restaurant. Werstler began to show signs of overdosing, and the Semler sisters "attempted to revive Werstler by
splashing cold water on her, then left the bathroom and called their
mother for a ride home. They did not call 911 or alert anyone to
Werstler's condition."

Werstler was later discovered by a KFC employee, who called 911, but
EMTs arrived too late to save her and she was pronounced dead. Her
official cause of death was "adverse reaction to heroin."

Semler was then indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District
of Pennsylvania with "distribution of heroin resulting in death,"
punishable by a 20-year mandatory minimum prison sentence. As an added
bonus, she was also charged with doing so within 1,000 feet of a school,
as well as aiding and abetting on both counts. She was found guilty at
trial and sentenced to 21 years in prison.

Semler appealed, arguing that friends sharing jointly procured drugs did
not qualify as drug distribution and that the district court had erred
in refusing to allow a jury instruction to that effect, as well as
erring in failing to instruct the jury that there had to be a "proximate
cause" for it to convict.

Scott Burris, JD, is a professor of both law and public health at Temple University and directs Temple's Center for Public Health Law Research.
He is also Semler's appellate counsel and coauthor of an amicus curiae
brief (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3717117)
supporting Semler, which nicely laid out the issues at play.

"This case presents the Court with an opportunity to determine the
proper scope of the Drug Distribution Resulting in Death (DDRD)
sentencing enhancement provision," the abstract explains. "The
provision, its parent statute, and the totality of modern federal law
and policy to stem the overdose crisis are intended to target major drug traffickers. Research suggests that DDRD prosecutions routinely pervert
this intent, indiscriminately deploying DDRD and similar provisions to
target end consumers of illicit drugs affected by addiction. Rather than deterring drug trafficking, such prosecutions deter help-seeking during overdose events and interfere with overdose prevention measures. This
cuts at cross purposes to overdose crisis response, leading to more, not
fewer deaths."

The 3rd District Court of Appeals agreed, vacating Semler's conviction
and sending her case back for retrial using proper legal instructions
for jurors. "We hold that the definition of 'distribute' under the
Controlled Substances Act does not cover individuals who jointly and simultaneously acquire the possession of a small amount of a controlled substance solely for their personal use," wrote Judge Jane Richard Roth.

It was a victory, if not a complete exoneration, for Emma Semler and any
other drug user federal prosecutors in the 3rd Circuit might have been
thinking about charging under that statute. Hopefully it also serves as
a distant early warning signal for states that have passed drug induced homicide laws, as well as for state-level prosecutors, who are zealously embracing them to convict low-level drug users as murderers.

The Health in Justice Action Lab at Northeastern University School of
Law reported (https://www.healthinjustice.org/drug-induced-homicide)
that the number of states with such laws jumped from 15 to 25 in from
2009 to 2019, while the number of drug induced homicide prosecutions
hovered at near zero from the 1970s until the early 2000s. Then, as
overdose deaths jumped, so did prosecutions, rising to 100 per year by
2011 before skyrocketing to nearly 700 per year by 2018.

In a 2019 Utah Law Review article (https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1219&context=ulr), Northeastern law professor and faculty director of the Health in Justice
Action lab faculty adviser Leo Beletsky found while the laws are
ostensibly aimed at drug dealers, "half of those charged with drug
induced homicide were not, in fact, 'dealers' in the traditional sense,
but friends and relatives of the deceased." He also found that in cases
that involved a traditional "drug dealer," half of those prosecuted were
black or brown people who sold drugs to whites -- a fact he noted does
not fit the demographics of the United States or of drug dealers.

"In view of that context," he wrote, "these findings suggest that
drug-induced homicide charges are being selectively and
disproportionately deployed to target people of color. This disparate application can further reinforce already dire racial disparities,
particularly in the enforcement of drug laws and the length of
sentencing for drug-related crimes."

And, as the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) pointed out in its 2017 report,
An Overdose Death is Not a Murder: Why Drug Induced Homicide Laws Are Ineffective and Inhumane (https://drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/dpa_drug_induced_homicide_report_0.pdf),
those laws don't work to reduce overdoses: "Prosecutors and legislators
who champion renewed drug induced homicide enforcement couch the use of
this punitive measure, either naively or disingenuously, as necessary to
curb increasing rates of drug overdose deaths. But there is not a shred
of evidence that these laws are effective at reducing overdose
fatalities. In fact, death tolls continue to climb across the country,
even in the states and counties most aggressively prosecuting
drug-induced homicide cases."

"The Semler case is one more example of how the Drug War has warped our
legal system and led to mass incarceration," DPA senior staff attorney
Grey Gardner told the Chronicle in an email exchange. "Prosecutors
twisted the law to criminalize this young woman and subject her to a
more than 20-year sentence after several friends bought drugs to use
together and one suffered a tragic fatal overdose. Urging the jury to
convict one of them of drug distribution when each of these users were suffering from substance use disorder and using together was not only overreaching, it highlights the arbitrary nature of our drug laws."

It is also counterproductive, he added: "This prosecution and those like
it do nothing to make people safer, but instead put people in greater
danger. By elevating the threat of prosecution, they make it less likely
that people close to an overdose victim will call for help," he pointed out.

"Thankfully in this case the Court of Appeals rejected the prosecution's overbroad definition of distribution, but what's clear is that we need
an entirely new approach," said DPA's Gardner. "Instead of the failed
War on Drugs, we need to stop turning to the criminal legal system and
spending billions on these ineffective policing strategies. Instead we
need better approaches -- such as investments in drug checking, overdose prevention centers, and expanded access to naloxone -- to protect those
who are experiencing addiction and are at the greatest risk."

"The court seemed sympathetic to the view that criminal law is not the
best way to get at substance use disorder and the behavior of people
coping with it," Burris told the Chronicle in an email exchange.

The appeals court labeled its decision as non-precedential, meaning it
is not binding on federal district courts in its region, but it still
may have a broader impact in the federal courts, Burris explained.

"I think her lawyers are going to ask the court to reconsider that," he
said. "It is at least what we call 'persuasive authority' in that its
reasoning may be adopted voluntarily by other courts."

As for impact on state and local prosecutions, not so much, he added.

"It has no impact other than as persuasive authority," Burris said. "The
state attorney general and local district attorneys pursuing these cases
seem to think they are sensible and just, and they are hard to shake,"
he confessed.

"The overdose crisis is just one symptom of the fundamental disease of inequality and inequity in our country," was Burris's bottom line.
"Getting at that root cause requires a sea change in policy such that government at all levels -- and the people who elect the government --
commit to ensuring the basics of decent life to everyone: good work,
good housing, good education, good transportation, and a place of
respect in the community. In this the 'deaths of despair' idea seems to
be to get the problem just right. Of course, short of that, there are
many things to do: stop criminalizing drug use; create safe injection
sites everywhere they are needed; eliminate regulations that make
methadone and buprenorphine harder to get than the drugs whose use they
are meant to reduce."

================ ...
___________________

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>
___________________

bliss -- Cacao Powered... (-SF4ever at DSLExtreme dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cacao that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)