Colorado justice commission suggests lighter penalties for drug possession

There is more and more cannabis related news breaking daily some good and bad... And also some HUGE steps in the right direction. Sunday the Denver Post reported...

"A commission of Colorado criminal justice leaders voted Friday to recommend reduced penalties for possessing marijuana and other illegal drugs.

If Colorado legislators adopt the recommendations, possessing up to 4 ounces of marijuana would become a petty offense instead of a criminal misdemeanor, and possessing 8 to 16 ounces would become a misdemeanor instead of a felony.

The Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice also favored lower-level felony charges for possessing a few grams of cocaine or methamphetamine and reducing the charge for illegally possessing various prescription drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor. It excepted possession of "date-rape" drugs, which would remain a felony." Denver Post

Now granted this is a great start. Being personally arrested over ten times in several Colorado cities it is good to see that the judges agree that is time to re-think the drug laws not only in this state but throughout the country. It is although not good enough. We will not be happy unless any and all laws regarding cannabis are removed.

The Drug War and the Constitution

I think I may have found the best argument on the web with regards the drug war and how it violates the very principles of our Constitution and The Bill of Rights. The Aurthur Paul Hager is the 2000 Libertarian Senate nominee of the Indiana Libertarian Party. Hager received 33,992 votes for 1.6% of the total vote.

I'd like to draw your attention to companion notes that I put together for this talk. They're located on the tables out back there, and I think that those of you who are doing CLE have them in your manuals.

Well, I'm going to attempt to descend into the murky depths of political philosophy and Constitutional analysis. At the outset, I do have a caveat: the arguments I am going to be presenting have never been endorsed by Congress or the courts and I hope that during the question and answer session we can get into this in a little bit more detail.

The thesis that I want to advance today is that the drug war and the laws that prohibit the private consumption of certain drugs are un-Constitutional. Prohibition laws, themselves, violate every tenet of limited government that is embodied in our Constitution.

To begin, let me pose a question: why was it necessary to amend the Constitution in order to prohibit the drug alcohol? And, while you are cogitating on that: how is it possible to prohibit other drugs without going through the formal amendment process? Well, I think, in order to answer these questions, it's necessary to take a look at what the Constitution is supposed to be.

At the recent confirmation hearings of Judge Clarence Thomas (uh, Clarence Thomas, by the way, -- he and I have at least two things in common: we're both ex marijuana users [chuckles from the audience], and we're both married to attorneys) -- in any case, there was a lot of discussion at the hearings about natural law and natural rights. Just about all of the participants seemed to agree that our system recognizes the existence of "inalienable" natural rights and that government exists to "secure" those rights for its citizens. It's just as well that they agreed on that -- the architects of our system of government, in fact, had that principle in mind, and they viewed the Constitution as being a blueprint for a limited government in which those powers that were to be made available to the federal government would be listed. If a power is not listed in the Constitution, it is not supposed to be available to the Federal government. Two hundred odd years ago, when the Bill of Rights -- which we're here to celebrate -- was being debated, there were those who opposed the Bill of Rights on the grounds that, uh, they're completely unnecessary. It's redundant -- the rights already exist and therefore they don't have a place in the Constitution. In fact, they made the argument that a Bill of Rights is dangerous because at some future point in time, people would get the idea that if a right wasn't to be found in the Constitution -- like privacy -- it did not exist. Perhaps the best articulation I've ever seen of this principle is to be found in The Federalist Papers...

The rest of this excellent article can be found at the Drug War Library

David Nutt: Governments should get real on drugs

IF THERE is one thing that politicians can and should do to limit the damage caused by illegal drugs, it is to take careful note of the evidence and develop a rational drug policy. Some politicians find it easier to ignore the evidence, and pander to public prejudice instead.

I can trace the beginning of the end of my role as chairman of the UK's official advisory body on drugs to the moment I quoted a New Scientist editorial (14 February, p 5). Entitled, fittingly enough, "Drugs drive politicians out of their minds", the editorial asked the reader to imagine being seated at a table with two bowls, one containing peanuts, the other the illegal drug MDMA (ecstasy). Which is safer to give to a stranger? Why, the ecstasy of course.

I quoted these words in the Eve Saville lecture at King's College London in July. This example plus other comments I have made – such as horse riding is more harmful than ecstasy – prompted Alan Johnson, the home secretary, to say that I had crossed the line from science to policy. This, he said, is why I had to go.

But simple, accurate and understandable statements of scientific fact are precisely what the advisory council is supposed to provide. Why would any scientist take up some future offer of a government advisory post when their advice can be treated with such disdain?

As well as ignoring its own advisers, the UK is falling out of step with international trends. When Portugal softened its drugs laws in 2001, drug use remained roughly constant, but ill health and deaths from drug taking fell. Decriminalisation quietly crept up the agenda in Vienna this year at a meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, where governments heard new, independent evidence on how the harms of criminalisation were outweighing the benefits. In August, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico approved a law decriminalising possession of small amounts of marijuana and other drugs. And just last month, Eric Holder, the US attorney general, instructed federal prosecutors to stop hounding medical users of marijuana in the 14 states where such use is legal.

No one doubts that heavy users of marijuana are risking trouble with their mental health. What I have simply pointed out is that we need a consistent policy, recognising that heavy users of alcohol and tobacco are more numerous and are causing themselves – and others – even more trouble through their indulgence.

Policies that ignore the realities of the world we live in are doomed to fail. This is true for just about all the biggest issues that we confront, from energy and climate to criminal justice, health and immigration. I'm not arguing that science dictate policy; considerations such as cost, practicality and morality also have a role. But scientific evidence should never be brushed aside from the political debate.

The current British government has said repeatedly that it wants its policies to be evidence-based, but actions speak louder than words. On ecstasy, for example, it made policy first, sought advice second – and cynically rejected the advice it was given. The result is shambolic policy-making which gives great cause for concern if that is how governments operate more generally.

The results of a government inventing its own reality and acting on it can be seen in the appalling consequences the George W. Bush presidency had for world peace, the environment and human rights. The message for the British government is a simple one: don't exclude rational argument in order to exploit a visceral public response. Politicians have to win the hearts and minds of their electorate. If your policy is informed by an underlying moral imperative, be open about what that is, and don't try to disguise it with a veneer of pseudo-science. We ignore scientific evidence at our peril.


Original Article New Scientist
David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, was chairman of the UK government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he was dismissed last week by the UK home