D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser vowed Monday to crack down hard on suppliers of synthetic drugs after a spike in overdoses sent dozens to area hospitals in the past month.
Bowser plans to introduce emergency legislation this week that would give the D.C. police chief authority to shut down any business found selling the drugs for a period of 96 hours while police investigate.
The legislation would also institute a "two-strike rule," allowing the police chief to shut down any two-time offenders for a period of up to 30 days, coupled with a $10,000 fine -- five times as much as the current penalty.
Newer incarnations of the drugs -- previously referred to as "synthetic marijuana" for their mimicking of marijuana's effects -- produce symptoms that more closely resemble the hallucinogen PCP, officials said.
"When synthetic marijuana hit the market, it was more likely to make you euphoric. Now it's making you more likely to be psychotic or hallucinate," Nesbitt said at the news conference.
[Police Chief Cathy] Lanier said that shift has caused some users to behave violently.
"We have had homicides that were carried out by persons high on those synthetic drugs and didn't recall what happened," Lanier said.
I thought the next line especially ironic in a city in which campaigns for drug legalization and quasi-legalization are all the rage in think tanks and academia:
D.C. Council member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7), who flanked Bowser along with two other council members and city officials Monday, said that sales of the drugs had become so "blatant" in Ward 7 that some residents might believe them to be legal.
Seems like just another reason to legalize less dangerous drugs like real marijuana so that folks can get a safe and legal high....
But if I am recalling correctly, your position is that ALL drugs should be legalized and regulated, not just the less dangerous ones.
P.S. When you get in a car, as zillions of younger people do while stoned, there is no such thing as a "safe high."
I am eager to start by legalizing less dangerous drugs to see if we get significant improvements in (1) personal liberty, (2) harms from black markets, both to users and those impacted by the violence and other crimes typically associated with black markets, and (3) benefits to taxpayers in the form of tax revenues and less expenditures to support goverment growth to enforce prohibition.
The repeal of alcohol Prohibition seemed to create improvements on all these fronts, and now I want to try marijuana. If that also goes well and leads, in my view, to a societal net cost/benefit positive, I am eager to go the same route on other substances. And, notably, this basic philosophy about government prohibition/regulation also applies to other forms of potential dangerous forms of recreation ranging from hunting to boxing to gambling to driving very fast.
As for your P.S., you are right that driving while stoned can be dangerous, but the evidence I have seen indicates it is far less dangerous than (1) driving while drunk, (2) driving while texting, and (3) driving in the absence of red-light cameras. If roadway safety is your chief concern, we should worry more about these other threats caused on the road by zillions of younger people.