{"id":7444,"date":"2017-06-03T07:01:23","date_gmt":"2017-06-03T07:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=2671795"},"modified":"2017-06-03T07:01:23","modified_gmt":"2017-06-03T07:01:23","slug":"it-took-the-trump-administration-just-a-month-to-turn-obama-era-drug-policy-on-its-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/it-took-the-trump-administration-just-a-month-to-turn-obama-era-drug-policy-on-its-head\/","title":{"rendered":"It took the Trump Administration just a month to turn Obama-era drug policy on its head"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/it-took-the-trump-administration-just-a-month-to-turn-obama-era-drug-policy-on-its-head\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"large-10 large-centered small-12 columns\">\n<div class=\"entry-meta-date\">Published: Jun 2, 2017, 11:36 am \u2022 Updated: Jun 2, 2017, 6:54 pm<span class=\"single-comments-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/06\/02\/trump-jeff-sessions-drug-policy-marijuana\/80656\/#disqus_thread\" class=\"commentsNameLink\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"byline\">By <strong>Christopher Ingraham<\/strong>, <em> The Washington Post<\/em><\/p>\n<p>My third son, William, was born on April 28. I\u2019ve spent the past month or so getting to know him (thanks, Washington Post\u2019s generous parental leave policy!), and not paying much attention to federal drug policy.<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out I missed quite a bit. In the month of May alone, the Trump administration, particularly Attorney General Jeff Sessions\u2019 Justice Department, steadily ratcheted up its tough-on-crime rhetoric and put in place some policies that give that rhetoric some real-world bite.<\/p>\n<p>You may have missed them too, as many of the decisions were made with little fanfare, and all of them came amid a steady string of revelations about Russia, Paris, Comey, Kushner and even covfefe. Here\u2019s a recap of everything that happened while I was out changing diapers.<\/p>\n<h3>Mandatory minimums are back<\/h3>\n<p>The big news last month was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/05\/12\/sessions-drug-sentencing-policy-holder-memo\/79394\/\">a memo from Sessions directing federal prosecutors to pursue the most severe penalties possible<\/a> for any crime, including drug offenses. That means more mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug crimes, a policy that the Justice Department administration had backed away from under President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<p>In the latter years of the Obama administration, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had instructed federal prosecutors to seek less severe prison sentences for certain nonviolent drug offenders. Sessions\u2019s directive reverses that policy.<\/p>\n<p>The net effect of the change is that more people will be going to federal prison, reversing a decline in the federal prison population in recent years. Sessions laid the groundwork for this in February when he directed the Justice Department to start using private prisons again to \u201cmeet the future needs of the federal correctional system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sessions defended the move as a \u201ckey part of President Trump\u2019s promise to keep America safe,\u201d citing a recent uptick in homicides in some cities.<\/p>\n<p>But the best available research suggests that harsh prison sentences do little to deter crime. <a href=\"https:\/\/nij.gov\/five-things\/pages\/deterrence.aspx\">Sessions\u2019 own Justice Department, citing decades of research<\/a>, states that \u201csending an individual convicted of a crime to prison isn\u2019t a very effective way to deter crime\u201d and that \u201cincreasing the severity of punishment does little to deter crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, imprisonment often has the opposite effect, according to the DOJ\u2019s research division: \u201cInmates learn more effective crime strategies from each other, and time spent in prison may desensitize many to the threat of future imprisonment.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>A drug war hardliner is reevaluating federal marijuana policy<\/h3>\n<p>One of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/05\/30\/justice-department-marijuana-sessions-steve-cook\/80381\/\">key architects of Sessions\u2019 sentencing memo was Steven Cook<\/a>, a former federal prosecutor and a lifelong hard-liner on criminal justice issues. Cook is now considering changes to policies governing marijuana and civil asset forfeiture, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p>While Cook didn\u2019t give away any details of his agenda, he told the AP that \u201cwhen you put criminals in prison, crime goes down.\u201d As noted by the Justice Department research above, Cook\u2019s formulation is simplistic and largely inaccurate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSteve Cook thinks that everyone who commits a crime ought to be locked up in jail,\u201d said Bill Killian, a former U.S. attorney who worked with Cook in the past.<\/p>\n<p>Marijuana use remains a crime at the federal level, regardless of what state regulations say. The Obama administration chose to largely ignore state-level legalization efforts. If Cook intends to reverse that approach, even partially, it could prove disastrous for the country\u2019s $6.7 billion legal marijuana industry \u2013 to say nothing of the 33 million adults who use the drug.<\/p>\n<h3>Trump signals possible trouble ahead for medical marijuana<\/h3>\n<p>For several years now, the Justice Department has been prevented from aggressively targeting medical marijuana operations in states where they\u2019re legal due to a provision, known as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, included in omnibus spending bills. The amendment simply states that the Justice Department cannot use federal funds to interfere with the operation of medical marijuana programs in places where they\u2019re legal.<\/p>\n<p>That provision was recently renewed through Sept. 30. But in signing the spending bill it was attached to, Trump added a twist: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/05\/08\/trump-medical-marijuana-appropriations-spending-bill\/79081\/\">a signing statement indicating he would \u201ctreat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility<\/a> to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prior presidents have used such statements to ignore or undermine policies they disagreed with. If Trump were to do so on medical marijuana, it could set up an awkward showdown with one of his staunchest allies in Congress: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), co-author of the amendment.<\/p>\n<p>For his part, Rohrabacher doesn\u2019t think that will happen: \u201cIt would be a huge waste of his time and money, and why would he do that?\u201d he told the Orange County Register last month.<\/p>\n<h3>The DEA continues to wage war on marijuana, regardless of what the research says<\/h3>\n<p>At a speech at the Cleveland Clinic last week, Drug Enforcement Administration acting chief Chuck Rosenberg reiterated his belief that \u201cmarijuana is not medicine.\u201d This flies in the face of decades of research into the effects of marijuana use, most recently outlined in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/01\/12\/marijuana-research-review-united-states-health-benefits-risks-future\/71204\/\">a massive report by the National Academies of Sciences, Medicine and Engineering<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Rosenberg said that any potential medical application of marijuana should be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But such approval is nearly impossible to obtain because of the drug\u2019s strict regulation under federal law, creating a Catch-22: Marijuana is tightly regulated because it has no accepted medical use, and it has no accepted medical use because it\u2019s so tightly regulated.<\/p>\n<h3>A rhetorical escalation<\/h3>\n<p>In the past month, leading law enforcement figures have been deploying some of the apocalyptic anti-drug rhetoric that characterized much of federal drug policy in the \u201980s and \u201990s. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein recently gave a chest-thumping speech before DEA employees, calling them \u201cwarriors of freedom\u201d who were fighting an epidemic that is laying waste to society. Demand for illegal drugs is creating \u201ca cycle of death and despair,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Sessions, meanwhile, has been attempting to tie drug use with the rise of violent crime in some cities. \u201cWe know that drugs and crime go hand-in-hand,\u201d he said recently. \u201cDrug trafficking is an inherently violent business. If you want to collect a drug debt, you can\u2019t file a lawsuit in court. You collect it by the barrel of a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At another speech in West Virginia, Sessions warned of opiate-dependent babies who \u201cscream inconsolably and suffer from tremors, vomiting and seizures\u201d and who are \u201cat risk for developmental and health problems throughout the rest of their lives.\u201d The language echoes the early \u201990s panic over \u201ccrack babies\u201d that turned out to be largely unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n<h3>Trump admires a dictator\u2019s brutal anti-drug crusade<\/h3>\n<p>Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has encouraged his constituents to kill drug addicts and has overseen a bloody anti-drug crusade that\u2019s resulted in thousands of deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers and groups operating extrajudicially.<\/p>\n<p>In late April, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2017\/05\/24\/donald-trump-rodrigo-duterte\/\">Trump called Duterte to praise his drug war<\/a> and invite him to the White House.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n<h3>Trump\u2019s budget proposes deep cuts to addiction treatment<\/h3>\n<p>Medicaid provides coverage for substance abuse treatment for roughly one-third of all Americans dependent on opioid drugs.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/05\/26\/trump-budget-opioid-addiction\/80340\/\">Trump\u2019s budget would cut Medicaid nearly in half by 2020<\/a>, jeopardizing substance abuse coverage for the roughly 2.3 million opiate-dependent people who use it.<\/p>\n<p>That change is of a piece with the administration\u2019s general views on drug use \u2013 a crime to be policed and punished, rather than a public health problem.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .row --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the month of May alone, the Trump administration steadily ratcheted up its tough-on-crime rhetoric and put in place some policies that give that rhetoric some real-world bite. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[210,5662,233,6813,77,6814,6826,5667,9,6833,6855,5019,441,1,3,6963,1525,61,1736],"tags":[2788,5668,2811,6818,2655,6819,6828,5673,6835,6856,5022,3015,6966,4093],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}