This week in the War on Drugs: Saving Lives Through Criminalization

[Elixir]

Colorado has a new law on the floor:
"Knowingly having more than 1 gram of fentanyl would be felony under change to Colorado bill. >> The amendment is a response to criticism from law enforcement that the 2019 bill didn’t go far enough to reduce overdose deaths."

Well isn't that speshil?
A gram of fentanyl is enough to kill 500 people.
Or, a dealer could dilute it 100:1 with flour or whatever they use. The way I read this, the dealer, busted with several grams of his newly prepared dilution, could argue that what he was caught with was a tiny fraction of a gram of fentanyl. Would he get off? What if the dilution was 1000:1? 100,000:1?
I think the technicality would be successfully argued at some point. Meanwhile, we can pay to incarcerate lots of end users found with less than a milligram or two of fentanyl, if their dealer has sufficiently adulterated it.

Don't get me wrong - I HATE fentanyl. I won't even allow it to be administered to me for surgery. But reducing its lethality by felonizing amounts that would kill 500 people hardly seems like "the solution", when most people who die from it haven't ever even seen that much of it. Enough of ANY drug to kill 500 people should probably be illegal to possess, if any of them are. Personally I don't think drugs should be outlawed whatsoever. But if you're going to start locking people up for ingesting stuff, it would be wise to be take care with the wording of the statutes intended to let you do that.

(As an aside, waaaay back in 1969 an person I knew got caught with a bunch of LSD. The law at the time referred specifically to "d-lysergic acid diethylamide". The substance that was apprehended contained both that dextro isomer as well as a lambda isomer of the same molecule. His lawyer argued chemistry to the jury, and got them so confused that they declared a mistrial. The prosecution declined to go down that rathole again, so he walked. This "gram of fentanyl" law would probably produce similar cases and outcomes.)

 

[Toni]

Yeah, I remember my organic chemistry prof telling us that anybody who could get a C in the class could manufacture the so called designer drugs which would vary from the ones outlawed by only one small group…

 

[Elixir]

Yeah, I remember my organic chemistry prof telling us that anybody who could get a C in the class could manufacture the so called designer drugs which would vary from the ones outlawed by only one small group…

Soon after that case, a lot of laws were amended with the magic phrase "and its salts", in an attempt to cover at least some/most common variants of supposedly illegal substances.

 

[steve_bank]

Colorado has a new law on the floor:
"Knowingly having more than 1 gram of fentanyl would be felony under change to Colorado bill. >> The amendment is a response to criticism from law enforcement that the 2019 bill didn’t go far enough to reduce overdose deaths."

Well isn't that speshil?
A gram of fentanyl is enough to kill 500 people.
Or, a dealer could dilute it 100:1 with flour or whatever they use. The way I read this, the dealer, busted with several grams of his newly prepared dilution, could argue that what he was caught with was a tiny fraction of a gram of fentanyl. Would he get off? What if the dilution was 1000:1? 100,000:1?
I think the technicality would be successfully argued at some point. Meanwhile, we can pay to incarcerate lots of end users found with less than a milligram or two of fentanyl, if their dealer has sufficiently adulterated it.

Don't get me wrong - I HATE fentanyl. I won't even allow it to be administered to me for surgery. But reducing its lethality by felonizing amounts that would kill 500 people hardly seems like "the solution", when most people who die from it haven't ever even seen that much of it. Enough of ANY drug to kill 500 people should probably be illegal to possess, if any of them are. Personally I don't think drugs should be outlawed whatsoever. But if you're going to start locking people up for ingesting stuff, it would be wise to be take care with the wording of the statutes intended to let you do that.

(As an aside, waaaay back in 1969 an person I knew got caught with a bunch of LSD. The law at the time referred specifically to "d-lysergic acid diethylamide". The substance that was apprehended contained both that dextro isomer as well as a lambda isomer of the same molecule. His lawyer argued chemistry to the jury, and got them so confused that they declared a mistrial. The prosecution declined to go down that rathole again, so he walked. This "gram of fentanyl" law would probably produce similar cases and outcomes.)

What is your point?

Kids are dying from a number of drugs. We can't keep drugs out of the hands of kids.

That goes back to the normalization of drugs in the culture in the 60s.

In my 60s high school there was pot, psychedelics, and amphetamines. Drug metaphors are now part of the language.

The idea that we are going to get out of the mess with treatment programs is shallow minded.

One of the past Mexican drug lords said explicitly he was using drugs to corrput the USA.

The normally harsh oppressive Chinese govt appears to be looking the other way on illegal drugs like fentanyl being manufactured and sent to the USA.

I remember the 70s when Rockefeller pretty much choked off pot sales in NYC and the region with harsh jail terms.

Rockefeller Drug Laws - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the statutes dealing with the sale and possession of "narcotic" drugs in the New York State Penal Law. The laws are named after Nelson Rockefeller, who was the state's governor at the time the laws were adopted. Rockefeller had previously backed drug rehabilitation, job training and housing as strategies, having seen drugs as a social problem rather than a criminal one, but did an about-face during a period of mounting national anxiety about drug use and crime.[1] Rockefeller, who pushed hard for the laws, was seen by some contemporary commentators as trying to build a "tough on crime" image in anticipation of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976.[2] The bill was signed into law on May 8, 1973.

Under the Rockefeller drug laws, the penalty for selling two ounces (57 g) or more of heroin, morphine, "raw or prepared opium", cocaine, or cannabis or possessing four ounces (113 g) or more of the same substances, was a minimum of 15 years to life in prison, and a maximum of 25 years to life in prison. The original legislation also mandated the same penalty for committing a violent crime while under the influence of the same drugs, but this provision was subsequently omitted from the bill and was not part of the legislation Rockefeller ultimately signed. The section of the laws applying to marijuana was repealed in 1977, under the Democratic Governor Hugh Carey.

The adoption of the Rockefeller drug laws gave New York State the distinction of having the most severe laws of this kind in the entire United States—an approach soon imitated by the state of Michigan, which, in 1978, enacted a "650-Lifer Law", which called for life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole for the sale, manufacture, or possession of at least 650 grams (1.43 lb) of cocaine or any Schedule I or Schedule II opiate.

By the 1980s, the drug laws were a major driver of incarceration in New York City, as NYPD started policing street-level drug markets much more

The drug problem is a case of reaping what we sow.

 

[bilby]

Truly it is said that if you remember the 1970s, you weren't there.

Prohibition doesn't work.

Prohibition has never worked.

Prohibition creates organised crime, high incarceration rates, and higher rates of abuse of whatever substance you prohibit.

People like to use drugs. This causes problems. Those problems are invariably less bad than the problems you get when people both use drugs and face criminal sanction for that use.

Making something illegal doesn't prevent it from occurring, but it does prevent effective regulation of it.

Tobacco companies are evil. But not as evil as illegal drug cartels.

Alcohol causes massive social problems. But not as many, as widespread, or as severe as those that resulted from the 18th Amendment.

There's no particular or important difference between nicotine or alcohol addiction; and heroin or cocaine addiction, other than the former being legal and the latter criminal.

 

[steve_bank]

A little history on drug addiction in the USA. The 19th century opium epidemic. Opium was a profitable trading commodity. Opium dens. Pay your money, lay down and smoke opium. Opium and cannabis derivatives were common in 'patent medicines'.

The difference between then and now is if you had no one to support you with your addiction and could not take care of yourself you went off somewhere and died.

There was also an alcohol addiction problem. The temperance movement did not come out of nowhere.

There is a great old movie The Lost Weekend about someone going cold turkey off of alcohol.

There are 30s-40s movies on drug addiction. One is Man With The Golden Arm with Sinatra as heroin addicted gambler. People knew what addition was, but it was considered a minorities issue and part of the artist communities. Out of sight out of mind.

It became a crisis in the 60s when it reached into the mainstream young middle class. Out of the cutural shadows.

Inside the Story of America’s 19th-Century Opiate Addiction

Doctors then, as now, overprescribed the painkiller to patients in need, and then, as now, government policy had a distinct bias

www.smithsonianmag.com

By 1895, morphine and opium powders, like OxyContin and other prescription opioids today, had led to an addiction epidemic that affected roughly 1 in 200 Americans. Before 1900, the typical opiate addict in America was an upper-class or middle-class white woman. Today, doctors are re-learning lessons their predecessors learned more than a lifetime ago.


Opium’s history in the United States is as old as the nation itself. During the American Revolution, the Continental and British armies used opium to treat sick and wounded soldiers. Benjamin Franklin took opium late in life to cope with severe pain from a bladder stone. A doctor gave laudanum, a tincture of opium mixed with alcohol, to Alexander Hamilton after his fatal duel with Aaron Burr.


The Civil War helped set off America’s opiate epidemic. The Union Army alone issued nearly 10 million opium pills to its soldiers, plus 2.8 million ounces of opium powders and tinctures. An unknown number of soldiers returned home addicted, or with war wounds that opium relieved. “Even if a disabled soldier survived the war without becoming addicted, there was a good chance he would later meet up with a hypodermic-wielding physician,” Courtright wrote. The hypodermic syringe, introduced to the United States in 1856 and widely used to deliver morphine by the 1870s, played an even greater role, argued Courtwright in Dark Paradise. “Though it could cure little, it could relieve anything,” he wrote. “Doctors and patients alike were tempted to overuse.”

Freud thought cocaine was a wonder drug at first . In the orignal stories Sherlock Holmes is an addict. In one story Holmes asks Watson for the 7% 'solution'. or 'Watson the needle'.

 

[bilby]

Nobody's suggesting that addiction isn't a problem.

Just that prohibition doesn't solve that problem, while introducing more problems, and exacerbating existing ones.

Banging on about the problems is just pointless noise, when you have no effective solution.

Drugs are bad. Prohibition is worse. Now what?

 

[bilby]

There was also an alcohol addiction problem. The temperance movement did not come out of nowhere.

There still is an alcohol addiction problem. The temperance movement not only failed miserably to reduce, much less eliminate, this problem; They also succeeded in creating the massive organised crime problems that were the hallmark of prohibition era America.

The existence of a problem is NOT evidence that your proposed solution is a good idea.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, I remember my organic chemistry prof telling us that anybody who could get a C in the class could manufacture the so called designer drugs which would vary from the ones outlawed by only one small group…

A lot more advanced than I encountered in organic chemistry--given the recipe, yes, we certainly could have done it, but we never got into detail on figuring out what you would have to do to get the desired result.

 

[Toni]

Yeah, I remember my organic chemistry prof telling us that anybody who could get a C in the class could manufacture the so called designer drugs which would vary from the ones outlawed by only one small group…

A lot more advanced than I encountered in organic chemistry--given the recipe, yes, we certainly could have done it, but we never got into detail on figuring out what you would have to do to get the desired result.

We weren't given recipes or instructions either. We just were told that we had the basic knowledge if we had the inclination.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, I remember my organic chemistry prof telling us that anybody who could get a C in the class could manufacture the so called designer drugs which would vary from the ones outlawed by only one small group…

The law is an ass, and often written in such a way as to generate unintended loopholes.

I recall that my dad (who is a physical chemist and an explosives expert) was called as an expert witness in the trial of some youths who had been caught during a riot with a crate of petrol bombs (aka Molotov cocktails).

The defence was arguing that despite the name including the word 'bomb', these devices were not in fact explosives, and therefore the defendants couldn't be charged under the Explosives Act.

My father confirmed their assertion; And pointed out that the defendants were, however, guilty of several breaches of the Petroleum Act (a law that was intended to ensure that fuel suppliers conducted their business in a safe manner).

It's rarely a good idea to try to be a smartarse in a court of law. Something that many lawyers don't seem to understand.

 

[Hermit]

Kids are dying from a number of drugs. We can't keep drugs out of the hands of kids.

That goes back to the normalization of drugs in the culture in the 60s.

In my 60s high school there was pot, psychedelics, and amphetamines. Drug metaphors are now part of the language.

The idea that we are going to get out of the mess with treatment programs is shallow minded.

One of the past Mexican drug lords said explicitly he was using drugs to corrput the USA.

The normally harsh oppressive Chinese govt appears to be looking the other way on illegal drugs like fentanyl being manufactured and sent to the USA.

I remember the 70s when Rockefeller pretty much choked off pot sales in NYC and the region with harsh jail terms.

Rockefeller Drug Laws - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the statutes dealing with the sale and possession of "narcotic" drugs in the New York State Penal Law. The laws are named after Nelson Rockefeller, who was the state's governor at the time the laws were adopted. Rockefeller had previously backed drug rehabilitation, job training and housing as strategies, having seen drugs as a social problem rather than a criminal one, but did an about-face during a period of mounting national anxiety about drug use and crime.[1] Rockefeller, who pushed hard for the laws, was seen by some contemporary commentators as trying to build a "tough on crime" image in anticipation of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976.[2] The bill was signed into law on May 8, 1973.

Under the Rockefeller drug laws, the penalty for selling two ounces (57 g) or more of heroin, morphine, "raw or prepared opium", cocaine, or cannabis or possessing four ounces (113 g) or more of the same substances, was a minimum of 15 years to life in prison, and a maximum of 25 years to life in prison. The original legislation also mandated the same penalty for committing a violent crime while under the influence of the same drugs, but this provision was subsequently omitted from the bill and was not part of the legislation Rockefeller ultimately signed. The section of the laws applying to marijuana was repealed in 1977, under the Democratic Governor Hugh Carey.

The adoption of the Rockefeller drug laws gave New York State the distinction of having the most severe laws of this kind in the entire United States—an approach soon imitated by the state of Michigan, which, in 1978, enacted a "650-Lifer Law", which called for life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole for the sale, manufacture, or possession of at least 650 grams (1.43 lb) of cocaine or any Schedule I or Schedule II opiate.

By the 1980s, the drug laws were a major driver of incarceration in New York City, as NYPD started policing street-level drug markets much more

The drug problem is a case of reaping what we sow.

Let's read on from the Wikipedia article you quoted:

Both the New York and Michigan statutes came under harsh criticism from both the political left and the political right. William F. Buckley, one of the most conservative public figures in America, was staunchly against it, as well as many in law enforcement, who saw inherent unfairness in placing the non-violent crime of drug trafficking on a par with murder. Economist Murray Rothbard called the laws "draconian: long jail sentences for heroin pushers and addicts. The Rockefeller program, which proved finally to be a fiasco, was the epitome of the belief in treating a social or medical problem with jail and the billy club."[9] The laws also drew intense opposition from civil rights advocates, who claimed that they were racist, as they were applied inordinately to African-Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latinos.
...
Due to the implementation of the Rockefeller drug laws, incarceration rates were said to have risen since their inception in 1973, 150,000 New Yorkers being imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses.[11] Part of the reason for the rising incarceration rates was due to how the Rockefeller drug laws may have imposed harsher penalties for non-violent drug offenses, but crimes related to drug use did not decrease.
...
Another criticism of the Rockefeller drug laws has also been its distinct targeting of young minority males for as of the year 2000, black and Hispanic males made up over 90% of the population incarcerated by the Rockefeller Drug Laws.[11]

In other words, the Rockefeller Drug Laws are yet another example of harsher drug laws being an abject failure, but keep beating the drum about the need for them. It seems to make you feel as if you have something useful to say about the use of illicit drugs.

 

[Angry Floof]

Colorado has a new law on the floor:
"Knowingly having more than 1 gram of fentanyl would be felony under change to Colorado bill. >> The amendment is a response to criticism from law enforcement that the 2019 bill didn’t go far enough to reduce overdose deaths."

Well isn't that speshil?
A gram of fentanyl is enough to kill 500 people.
Or, a dealer could dilute it 100:1 with flour or whatever they use. The way I read this, the dealer, busted with several grams of his newly prepared dilution, could argue that what he was caught with was a tiny fraction of a gram of fentanyl. Would he get off? What if the dilution was 1000:1? 100,000:1?
I think the technicality would be successfully argued at some point. Meanwhile, we can pay to incarcerate lots of end users found with less than a milligram or two of fentanyl, if their dealer has sufficiently adulterated it.

Don't get me wrong - I HATE fentanyl. I won't even allow it to be administered to me for surgery. But reducing its lethality by felonizing amounts that would kill 500 people hardly seems like "the solution", when most people who die from it haven't ever even seen that much of it. Enough of ANY drug to kill 500 people should probably be illegal to possess, if any of them are. Personally I don't think drugs should be outlawed whatsoever. But if you're going to start locking people up for ingesting stuff, it would be wise to be take care with the wording of the statutes intended to let you do that.

(As an aside, waaaay back in 1969 an person I knew got caught with a bunch of LSD. The law at the time referred specifically to "d-lysergic acid diethylamide". The substance that was apprehended contained both that dextro isomer as well as a lambda isomer of the same molecule. His lawyer argued chemistry to the jury, and got them so confused that they declared a mistrial. The prosecution declined to go down that rathole again, so he walked. This "gram of fentanyl" law would probably produce similar cases and outcomes.)

What is your point?

Kids are dying from a number of drugs. We can't keep drugs out of the hands of kids.

That goes back to the normalization of drugs in the culture in the 60s.

In my 60s high school there was pot, psychedelics, and amphetamines. Drug metaphors are now part of the language.

The idea that we are going to get out of the mess with treatment programs is shallow minded.

One of the past Mexican drug lords said explicitly he was using drugs to corrput the USA.

The normally harsh oppressive Chinese govt appears to be looking the other way on illegal drugs like fentanyl being manufactured and sent to the USA.

I remember the 70s when Rockefeller pretty much choked off pot sales in NYC and the region with harsh jail terms.

Rockefeller Drug Laws - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the statutes dealing with the sale and possession of "narcotic" drugs in the New York State Penal Law. The laws are named after Nelson Rockefeller, who was the state's governor at the time the laws were adopted. Rockefeller had previously backed drug rehabilitation, job training and housing as strategies, having seen drugs as a social problem rather than a criminal one, but did an about-face during a period of mounting national anxiety about drug use and crime.[1] Rockefeller, who pushed hard for the laws, was seen by some contemporary commentators as trying to build a "tough on crime" image in anticipation of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976.[2] The bill was signed into law on May 8, 1973.

Under the Rockefeller drug laws, the penalty for selling two ounces (57 g) or more of heroin, morphine, "raw or prepared opium", cocaine, or cannabis or possessing four ounces (113 g) or more of the same substances, was a minimum of 15 years to life in prison, and a maximum of 25 years to life in prison. The original legislation also mandated the same penalty for committing a violent crime while under the influence of the same drugs, but this provision was subsequently omitted from the bill and was not part of the legislation Rockefeller ultimately signed. The section of the laws applying to marijuana was repealed in 1977, under the Democratic Governor Hugh Carey.

The adoption of the Rockefeller drug laws gave New York State the distinction of having the most severe laws of this kind in the entire United States—an approach soon imitated by the state of Michigan, which, in 1978, enacted a "650-Lifer Law", which called for life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole for the sale, manufacture, or possession of at least 650 grams (1.43 lb) of cocaine or any Schedule I or Schedule II opiate.

By the 1980s, the drug laws were a major driver of incarceration in New York City, as NYPD started policing street-level drug markets much more

The drug problem is a case of reaping what we sow.

Drug abuse is a health issue, not a moral issue. I know most of us were brought up in that backward mentality that problems must be punished and shamed rather than understood with intelligence and compassion, and if that didn't work, just condemn them to hell.

Thank goodness some of us have grown up and have learned better than that. What's really shallow (as well as shameful) is that the crime/punishment/condemn/judge mentality as a go-to approach to problems is itself addictive.

Also, cannabis is not harmful. Go condemn alcohol if you want to at least pretend to care about actual problems.

 

[Elixir]

What is your point?

My first point was regarding how inept the people are who make laws against things about which they know jack shit.
The second one was just an anecdote from the 60s. I thought that was clear. Plus a foot note about the comical way in which the legislature then tried to "fix" it.

I remember the 70s when Rockefeller pretty much choked off pot sales in NYC and the region with harsh jail terms.

So do I. That was the epitome of "War on Drugs" stupidity. Probably caused more American mortality than all the other wars combined.

 

[steve_bank]

What is your point?

My first point was regarding how inept the people are who make laws against things about which they know jack shit.
The second one was just an anecdote from the 60s. I thought that was clear. Plus a foot note about the comical way in which the legislature then tried to "fix" it.

I remember the 70s when Rockefeller pretty much choked off pot sales in NYC and the region with harsh jail terms.

So do I. That was the epitome of "War on Drugs" stupidity. Probably caused more American mortality than all the other wars combined.

My counter argument is how inept it is to decriminalize drugs and expect there to be no consequences.

We are awash in advertising for pharmaceuticals and supplmnts that offer magic results without any effort. Our wide open free market economy has creted a drug dependent culture. Anxious take a pill to bring you down. Depressed take a pill to bring you up. Bored take a halucingen, put on headphones, and trip out.

In the 70s I was in Ct near NYC. Rockefeller's harsh drug laws definitely lowered the availability of pot.

We have had peoplee doibg crack in our doorway and I have seen people publicly shooting up. Bus drivers are compaining peopel are smoking crushed drugs on the buses filling it up with smoke affetcng drivers.

Pray tell, exactly what is your solution to the drug problem? Keep in mind I went through the drug scene in the 60s and 70s. Thankfully I grew out of it.

ow do we deal with an adult selling drugs to minors? I am all ears.

 

[Elixir]

Pray tell, exactly what is your solution to the drug problem?

Can you say “Portugal”?
Not that it’s a perfect model, but it beats the hell out of the epic shitshow that is the War on Drugs.

 

[Trausti]

Pray tell, exactly what is your solution to the drug problem?

Can you say “Portugal”?
Not that it’s a perfect model, but it beats the hell out of the epic shitshow that is the War on Drugs.

Portugal is a good model, but many seem to misunderstand it. Decriminalization is not legalization. The police still take the drugs. The offender faces a community council rather than a court, and that council decides what to do with the offender. If the quantity of drugs is over a certain amount, the offender could face prison. The goal should be to get people off the poison. And the Portuguese determined that community nudging is best.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, I remember my organic chemistry prof telling us that anybody who could get a C in the class could manufacture the so called designer drugs which would vary from the ones outlawed by only one small group…

A lot more advanced than I encountered in organic chemistry--given the recipe, yes, we certainly could have done it, but we never got into detail on figuring out what you would have to do to get the desired result.

We weren't given recipes or instructions either. We just were told that we had the basic knowledge if we had the inclination.

I'm not talking about recipes for creating drugs per se, I'm talking in general--we did not get into figuring out what you would need to do to cause a specific alteration of the molecule. We understood what was happening in a given reaction, but we never got into anticipating exactly what would happen or how you would go about causing a specific alteration.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, I remember my organic chemistry prof telling us that anybody who could get a C in the class could manufacture the so called designer drugs which would vary from the ones outlawed by only one small group…

The law is an ass, and often written in such a way as to generate unintended loopholes.

I recall that my dad (who is a physical chemist and an explosives expert) was called as an expert witness in the trial of some youths who had been caught during a riot with a crate of petrol bombs (aka Molotov cocktails).

The defence was arguing that despite the name including the word 'bomb', these devices were not in fact explosives, and therefore the defendants couldn't be charged under the Explosives Act.

My father confirmed their assertion; And pointed out that the defendants were, however, guilty of several breaches of the Petroleum Act (a law that was intended to ensure that fuel suppliers conducted their business in a safe manner).

It's rarely a good idea to try to be a smartarse in a court of law. Something that many lawyers don't seem to understand.

I believe that defense would have worked in the US, you don't get to convict someone of something they weren't charged with.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Pray tell, exactly what is your solution to the drug problem?

Can you say “Portugal”?
Not that it’s a perfect model, but it beats the hell out of the epic shitshow that is the War on Drugs.

Portugal is a good model, but many seem to misunderstand it. Decriminalization is not legalization. The police still take the drugs. The offender faces a community council rather than a court, and that council decides what to do with the offender. If the quantity of drugs is over a certain amount, the offender could face prison. The goal should be to get people off the poison. And the Portuguese determined that community nudging is best.

The problem with your position is that there is nothing the state can impose that will remove the desire for drugs. Rehab will fail if the patient doesn't truly want to quit.