Criminal Justice
Back from parental leave, the Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham has a long post on how U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ratcheted up drug enforcement. It concludes that the administration considers drug use “a crime to be policed and punished, rather than a public health problem.”
Under fire for his advocacy of mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, Sessions apparently improvised by saying the policy is really about guns.
In March I argued in Slate that Sessions will probably not go after state legal businesses. While Sessions’ favored policies appear designed to send more cannabis users to prison and abandon more opioid addicts, the political dynamics that I believed would protect the industry remain in place.
California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, an ally of cannabis and President Trump, said Sessions is “not a monster.” “He’s a guy who thinks he’s doing well by helping other people from being addicted to opiates because marijuana leads to opiates,” Rohrabacher said. "Well, I gotta have a nice talk with him and say, 'No, marijuana does not lead to opiates.’”
A Marine veteran in Oklahoma who was facing life in prison for growing six plants will not have to go to prison following a public outcry.
Sessions could be swept up in special council Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, the AP reported.
Lawsuits filed by former cops in Cheverly, Md. alleged, among other violations, that Police Chief Harry “Buddy” Robshaw instructed “his white officers that if they saw a black person outside late at night they were to stop the person and ascertain why they were in the town of Cheverly." Robshaw also allegedly ordered his cops that “if there is more than one black person in a car there is marijuana present and they should investigate.”
The U.S. Supreme Court made it more difficult to sue police who barge into houses after being provoked.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected the confiscation of a grandmother’s house after her son sold a small amount of marijuana. Elizabeth Young, 72, has been fighting the case for seven years.
Detroit shut down 167 illegal pot shops, about half the city’s total.
Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen argues that, “Trump’s entire administration can be understood through the lens of his weird, consistent, unwavering adherence to a 1980s concept of the War on Drugs.”
Some Congressional Republicans are pushing for tougher minimum sentencing laws. Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R), who’s working on the legislation had previously supported reducing mandatory minimums.
The Secret Service is loosening restrictions on past marijuana use, in line with other federal law enforcement agencies.
An appeals court upheld the conviction and life without parole sentence for Ross Ulbricht, who founded the dark web drug marketplace Silk Road.
It’s fairly common for Colorado weed to leak into illegal out of state markets.
Despite a ballot measure to regulate the industry, I found that L.A. cannabis businesses still fear raids by local authorities. There have been raids in Mendocino Co., Calif. ahead of new regulations.
A California bill would make it an infraction to use cannabis in a motor vehicle. Tougher DUI laws already exist in the state. A California lawyer argues that legalization could lead to an increase in police searches.
The California state Assembly passed a bill that would bar state and local law enforcement from assisting federal enforcement of marijuana laws.
While border agents sometimes ban Canadians from entering the U.S. if they’ve admitted to past marijuana use, they appear not to ban Mexicans for the same reason.
Australian woman Schapelle Corby arrived home in Brisbane after serving a twelve and a half year sentence in Indonesia for smuggling weed into that country. Her case received extensive media coverage and were a point of contention between the countries.
