WASHINGTON (AP) — The betting was that law-and-order Attorney General Jeff Sessions would come out against the legalized marijuana industry with guns blazing. But the task force Sessions assembled to find the best legal strategy is giving him no ammunition, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, a group of prosecutors and federal law enforcement officials, has come up with no new policy recommendations to advance the attorney general’s aggressively anti-marijuana views. The group’s report largely reiterates the current Justice Department policy on marijuana.
It encourages officials to keep studying whether to change or rescind the Obama administration’s more hands-off approach to enforcement — a stance that has allowed the nation’s experiment with legal pot to flourish. The report was not slated to be released publicly, but portions were obtained by the AP.
Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and blamed it for spikes in violence, has been promising to reconsider existing pot policy since he took office six months ago. His statements have sparked both support and worry across the political spectrum as a growing number of states have worked to legalize the drug.
Threats of a federal crackdown have united liberals, who object to the human costs of a war on pot, and some conservatives, who see it as a states’ rights issue. Some advocates and members of Congress had feared the task force’s recommendations would give Sessions the green light to begin dismantling what has become a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar pot industry that helps fund schools, educational programs and law enforcement.
But the tepid nature of the recommendations signals just how difficult it would be to change course on pot.
Some in law enforcement support a tougher approach, but a bipartisan group of senators in March urged Sessions to uphold existing marijuana policy. Others in Congress are seeking ways to protect and promote pot businesses.
The vague recommendations may be intentional, reflecting an understanding that shutting down the entire industry is neither palatable nor possible, said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies marijuana law and was interviewed by members of the task force.
“If they come out with a more progressive, liberal policy, the attorney general is just going to reject it. They need to convince the attorney general that the recommendations are the best they can do without embarrassing the entire department by implementing a policy that fails,” he said.
The task force suggestions are not final, and Sessions is in no way bound by them. The government still has plenty of ways it can punish weed-tolerant states, including raiding pot businesses and suing states where the drug is legal, a rare but quick path to compliance. The only one who could override a drastic move by Sessions is President Donald Trump, whose personal views on marijuana remain mostly unknown.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Rather than urging federal agents to shut down dispensaries and make mass arrests, the task force puts forth a more familiar approach.
Its report says officials should continue to oppose rules that block the Justice Department from interfering with medical marijuana programs in states where it is allowed. Sessions wrote to members of Congress in May asking them — unsuccessfully so far — to undo those protections. The Obama administration also unsuccessfully opposed those rules.
The report suggests teaming the Justice Department with Treasury officials to offer guidance to financial institutions, telling them to implement robust anti-money laundering programs and report suspicious transactions involving businesses in states where pot is legal. That is already required by federal law.
And it tells officials to develop “centralized guidance, tools and data related to marijuana enforcement,” two years after the Government Accountability Office told the Justice Department it needs to better document how it’s tracking the effect of marijuana legalization in the states.
Most critically, and without offering direction, it says officials “should evaluate whether to maintain, revise or rescind” a set of Obama-era memos that allowed states to legalize marijuana on the condition that officials act to keep it from migrating to places where it is still outlawed and out of the hands of criminal cartels and children. Any changes to the policy could impact the way pot-legal states operate.
The recommendations are not surprising because “there’s as much evidence that Sessions intends to maintain the system and help improve upon it as there is that he intends to roll it back,” said Mason Tvert, who ran Colorado’s legalization campaign. He pointed to Sessions’ comment during his Senate confirmation hearing that while he opposed legalization, he understood the scarcity of federal resources and “echoed” the position of his Democratic predecessors.
But in July, he sent letters to Colorado and Washington that stirred concern, asking how they would address reports they were not adequately regulating the drug.
It remains unclear how much weight Sessions might give the recommendations. He said he has been relying on them to enact policy in other areas. Apart from pot, the task force is studying a list of criminal justice issues. The overall report’s executive summary says its work continues and its recommendations “do not comprehensively address every effort that the Department is planning or currently undertaking to reduce violent crime.”
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Showing posts with label task force. Show all posts
Showing posts with label task force. Show all posts
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Monday, June 19, 2017
The blind leading the blind
The American opiate crisis continues to spiral out of control with no end in sight. And the numbers stagger the mind.
More than half a million Americans died of drug overdoses from 2000 to 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Each day, 91 people in this country will die from an opioid overdose — more than 33,00o a year.
And although the opioid addiction epidemic is global in scale, it is uniquely dire in the United States. We account for 4.4 percent of the global population, and yet we gobble up about 80 percent of the worldwide opioids supply.
Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. and opioid addiction is driving this epidemic. In 2015, more than 20,000 overdose deaths were reported related to prescription pain relievers, with another 13,ooo overdose deaths related to heroin.
About 80 percent of new heroin users started out misusing prescription painkillers.
To put the data in perspective, opioid deaths now surpass the peak in death by car crash in 1972, AIDS deaths in 1995 and gun deaths in 1993.
To battle this deadly crisis, President Donald Trump in March created the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Epidemic, an advisory committee designed “to review the state of drug addiction and the opioid epidemic and make recommendations regarding how the Federal Government can best address this crisis.”
On Friday, the task force will hold its first meeting at the White House, to be livestreamed beginning at 12:30 p.m. EST.
Almost immediately after announcing the committee, Trump selected New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to lead it. Clearly, solving America’s opioid epidemic will take bipartisan cooperation. This is simply not an issue in which there is much disagreement.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) welcomed the news of the task force. “Drug overdose deaths, the majority of which are from heroin and prescription opioids, are a national crisis,” McCaskill said in a written statement. “We’ll need the help of Governor Christie, President Trump, and others at all levels of government, from any party affiliation, if we’re going to make progress and save lives.”
But many health professionals and cannabis advocates are wary of Trump’s task force. Nearly all the members selected to the committee have spoken out against marijuana legalization — which runs counter to the overwhelming majority of the American people. Christie, an ardent longtime opponent of cannabis regulation, will lead these members:
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, former U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy, Dr. Bertha Madras of Harvard Medical School and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. All but Cooper have a record of conflating cannabis consumption with opioid addiction. When you add the fact that Attorney General Jeff Sessions clearly wants to put the brakes on cannabis reform, you can understand the trepidation of marijuana advocates.
“Governor Christie has zero percent credibility on drug policy,” Eric Altieri, the executive director of NORML, told Forbes last month. “When it comes to cannabis’ relationship to opioids from real-world experience, not bluster and rhetoric, states that have medicinal and recreational cannabis laws on the books see lower rates of overdose, lower rates of use, and lower rates of opioids being prescribed to patients,” Altieri added.
In Forbes’ story titled “Chris Christie Is The Last GOPer Who Should Be Leading Our Opioid Fight,” Altieri slammed the N.J. governor and unsuccessful presidential candidate as a suitable task force chairman:
Christie has spent much of his time as governor (and, as it happens, much of the opioid crisis) fighting the rising tide of calls for cannabis reform in his state. Last week, as part of opioid-themed comments, Christie even called the ever more crucial and commonplace drive to bring regulated adult and medical cannabis use to New Jersey “total stupidity” and “baloney,” and described any tax revenues from the industry as “blood money. …
In response, NORML released an open letter to the governor days later, explaining in simple terms how scientific and social research have repeatedly shown that cannabis offers quite the opposite of “baloney” in the face of opioid addiction. Citing years of evidence-based conclusions, the letter pointed out, “It makes no sense from a public health perspective, a fiscal perspective, or a moral perspective to perpetuate the prosecution and stigmatization of those adults who choose to responsibly consume a substance that is safer than either alcohol or tobacco.”
According to a 2106 survey published in The Journal of Pain, patients suffering from chronic pain report a 64 percent decrease in opioid use. They also experience fewer negative side effects and say their quality of life is better than what they experienced under opioids.
A 2o14 study published in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, revealed that opioid overdose deaths were roughly 25 percent lower in states that allowed medical cannabis compared with those that did not.
Even the the National Institute on Drug Abuse disagrees with Christie. According to NIDA:
Some preliminary studies have suggested that medical marijuana legalization might be associated with decreased prescription opioid use and overdose deaths. … Additionally, data suggests that medical marijuana treatment may reduce the opioid dose prescribed for pain patients, and a recent study showed that availability of medical marijuana for Medicare patients reduced prescribing of medications, including opioids, for their pain.
The Christie-led task force meets just days after a firestorm over Sessions’ desire to crack down on states that have medical marijuana programs in place — defying 94 percent of the American public. Sessions, who oversees the DEA, continues to mistakenly conflate the opioid crisis with marijuana consumption.
The members selected to the opioid crisis task force appear to share the views of Christie and Sessions. Here is a brief rundown of each member:
N.J. Gov. Chris Christie
As noted above, Christie is one of the nation’s leading voices in the anti-legalization movement. Last month, he had this to say about legalization: “We are in the midst of the public health crisis on opiates. But people are saying pot’s OK. This is nothing more than crazy liberals who want to say everything’s OK.” Clearly, his comments run counter to the scientific evidence.
Former R.I. Congressman Patrick Kennedy
Kennedy, a liberal Democrat who has publicly admitted to his past addiction to opioids, benzodiazepines, alcohol, stimulants and cocaine, is affiliated with Project Sam, an anti-cannabis organization. He crisscrosses the country and appears routinely on cable news programs vilifying cannabis legalization. Earlier this year, Kennedy was interviewed by Yahoo News and made the audacious claim that the medicinal use of marijuana was “a Trojan horse designed to addict people.” Kennedy says that Project Sam’s main focus is “educating the public about the harms of marijuana legalization.”
According to Kennedy, “marijuana destroys the brain and expedites psychosis. It’s just overall a very dangerous drug. In terms of neurobiology, there’s no distinction between the quality and types of drugs that people get addicted to. That’s why they call it a gateway drug. Addiction is addiction is addiction.”
Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker
Baker, a Republican, has supported medical marijuana but was a fought vigorously against recreational legalization in Massachusetts in last year’s election. NORML gives the governor an F grade for cannabis policy. During the 2016 campaign for legalization, Baker, a former health insurance executive, said “I’m going to oppose that and I’m going to oppose that vigorously … with a lot of help from a lot of other people in the addiction community.” He has also believes marijuana use is a “significant first step” toward addiction to other drugs. The “gateway theory” has been debunked over and over again. There is no science to support his claim.
Last year, he wrote an opinion piece in the Boston Globe headlined “Mass. should not legalize marijuana” in which he conflated cannabis use to opioid addiction.
Bertha Madras, Harvard Medical School Researcher
Madras is the former Deputy Director of Demand Reduction for the ONDCP and is the one non-politician on the task force. She authored a story in the Washington Post headlined “5 Reasons Why Marijuana is Not Medicine” and has fought against rescheduling marijuana. She has called marijuana legalization “tragic for our country”
N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, defeated incumbent Pat McCrory last November. McCrory was an ardent opponent of marijuana legalization. Cooper, so far, has been mum about his position on cannabis.
Source
More than half a million Americans died of drug overdoses from 2000 to 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Each day, 91 people in this country will die from an opioid overdose — more than 33,00o a year.
And although the opioid addiction epidemic is global in scale, it is uniquely dire in the United States. We account for 4.4 percent of the global population, and yet we gobble up about 80 percent of the worldwide opioids supply.
Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. and opioid addiction is driving this epidemic. In 2015, more than 20,000 overdose deaths were reported related to prescription pain relievers, with another 13,ooo overdose deaths related to heroin.
About 80 percent of new heroin users started out misusing prescription painkillers.
To put the data in perspective, opioid deaths now surpass the peak in death by car crash in 1972, AIDS deaths in 1995 and gun deaths in 1993.
To battle this deadly crisis, President Donald Trump in March created the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Epidemic, an advisory committee designed “to review the state of drug addiction and the opioid epidemic and make recommendations regarding how the Federal Government can best address this crisis.”
On Friday, the task force will hold its first meeting at the White House, to be livestreamed beginning at 12:30 p.m. EST.
Almost immediately after announcing the committee, Trump selected New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to lead it. Clearly, solving America’s opioid epidemic will take bipartisan cooperation. This is simply not an issue in which there is much disagreement.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) welcomed the news of the task force. “Drug overdose deaths, the majority of which are from heroin and prescription opioids, are a national crisis,” McCaskill said in a written statement. “We’ll need the help of Governor Christie, President Trump, and others at all levels of government, from any party affiliation, if we’re going to make progress and save lives.”
But many health professionals and cannabis advocates are wary of Trump’s task force. Nearly all the members selected to the committee have spoken out against marijuana legalization — which runs counter to the overwhelming majority of the American people. Christie, an ardent longtime opponent of cannabis regulation, will lead these members:
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, former U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy, Dr. Bertha Madras of Harvard Medical School and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. All but Cooper have a record of conflating cannabis consumption with opioid addiction. When you add the fact that Attorney General Jeff Sessions clearly wants to put the brakes on cannabis reform, you can understand the trepidation of marijuana advocates.
“Governor Christie has zero percent credibility on drug policy,” Eric Altieri, the executive director of NORML, told Forbes last month. “When it comes to cannabis’ relationship to opioids from real-world experience, not bluster and rhetoric, states that have medicinal and recreational cannabis laws on the books see lower rates of overdose, lower rates of use, and lower rates of opioids being prescribed to patients,” Altieri added.
In Forbes’ story titled “Chris Christie Is The Last GOPer Who Should Be Leading Our Opioid Fight,” Altieri slammed the N.J. governor and unsuccessful presidential candidate as a suitable task force chairman:
Christie has spent much of his time as governor (and, as it happens, much of the opioid crisis) fighting the rising tide of calls for cannabis reform in his state. Last week, as part of opioid-themed comments, Christie even called the ever more crucial and commonplace drive to bring regulated adult and medical cannabis use to New Jersey “total stupidity” and “baloney,” and described any tax revenues from the industry as “blood money. …
In response, NORML released an open letter to the governor days later, explaining in simple terms how scientific and social research have repeatedly shown that cannabis offers quite the opposite of “baloney” in the face of opioid addiction. Citing years of evidence-based conclusions, the letter pointed out, “It makes no sense from a public health perspective, a fiscal perspective, or a moral perspective to perpetuate the prosecution and stigmatization of those adults who choose to responsibly consume a substance that is safer than either alcohol or tobacco.”
According to a 2106 survey published in The Journal of Pain, patients suffering from chronic pain report a 64 percent decrease in opioid use. They also experience fewer negative side effects and say their quality of life is better than what they experienced under opioids.
A 2o14 study published in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, revealed that opioid overdose deaths were roughly 25 percent lower in states that allowed medical cannabis compared with those that did not.
Even the the National Institute on Drug Abuse disagrees with Christie. According to NIDA:
Some preliminary studies have suggested that medical marijuana legalization might be associated with decreased prescription opioid use and overdose deaths. … Additionally, data suggests that medical marijuana treatment may reduce the opioid dose prescribed for pain patients, and a recent study showed that availability of medical marijuana for Medicare patients reduced prescribing of medications, including opioids, for their pain.
The Christie-led task force meets just days after a firestorm over Sessions’ desire to crack down on states that have medical marijuana programs in place — defying 94 percent of the American public. Sessions, who oversees the DEA, continues to mistakenly conflate the opioid crisis with marijuana consumption.
The members selected to the opioid crisis task force appear to share the views of Christie and Sessions. Here is a brief rundown of each member:
N.J. Gov. Chris Christie
As noted above, Christie is one of the nation’s leading voices in the anti-legalization movement. Last month, he had this to say about legalization: “We are in the midst of the public health crisis on opiates. But people are saying pot’s OK. This is nothing more than crazy liberals who want to say everything’s OK.” Clearly, his comments run counter to the scientific evidence.
Former R.I. Congressman Patrick Kennedy
Kennedy, a liberal Democrat who has publicly admitted to his past addiction to opioids, benzodiazepines, alcohol, stimulants and cocaine, is affiliated with Project Sam, an anti-cannabis organization. He crisscrosses the country and appears routinely on cable news programs vilifying cannabis legalization. Earlier this year, Kennedy was interviewed by Yahoo News and made the audacious claim that the medicinal use of marijuana was “a Trojan horse designed to addict people.” Kennedy says that Project Sam’s main focus is “educating the public about the harms of marijuana legalization.”
According to Kennedy, “marijuana destroys the brain and expedites psychosis. It’s just overall a very dangerous drug. In terms of neurobiology, there’s no distinction between the quality and types of drugs that people get addicted to. That’s why they call it a gateway drug. Addiction is addiction is addiction.”
Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker
Baker, a Republican, has supported medical marijuana but was a fought vigorously against recreational legalization in Massachusetts in last year’s election. NORML gives the governor an F grade for cannabis policy. During the 2016 campaign for legalization, Baker, a former health insurance executive, said “I’m going to oppose that and I’m going to oppose that vigorously … with a lot of help from a lot of other people in the addiction community.” He has also believes marijuana use is a “significant first step” toward addiction to other drugs. The “gateway theory” has been debunked over and over again. There is no science to support his claim.
Last year, he wrote an opinion piece in the Boston Globe headlined “Mass. should not legalize marijuana” in which he conflated cannabis use to opioid addiction.
Bertha Madras, Harvard Medical School Researcher
Madras is the former Deputy Director of Demand Reduction for the ONDCP and is the one non-politician on the task force. She authored a story in the Washington Post headlined “5 Reasons Why Marijuana is Not Medicine” and has fought against rescheduling marijuana. She has called marijuana legalization “tragic for our country”
N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, defeated incumbent Pat McCrory last November. McCrory was an ardent opponent of marijuana legalization. Cooper, so far, has been mum about his position on cannabis.
Source
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