My title is, obviously, a takeoff on the old rhyme, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away."
The principal effect of the sentencing reform bill introduced in the Senate last week will be to go softer on drug dealers, of course including heroin dealers.
Is this the time to go softer on heroin dealers?
This story from the Chicago Tribune gives us a clue: "74 Overdoses in 72 Hours: Laced Heroin May Be to Blame."
In fact, I have no clue whether actual facts about the damage that drugs cause will have any effect on sentencing reform; I guess I tend to doubt it. Lowering drug sentences has never been about been protecting the public. It's about ideology -- as well as, it now seems, fact-free and, it's depressing to see, occasionally slanderous religious bullying by such people as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
Seems obvious that approaching these issues as a criminal justice matter with very harsh sentences has not worked to date, so we ought to try something else, no? I would start by looking at marijuana reform based on early research that states with operational medical marijuana systems have lower opiod overdose rates.
Would you join me, Bill, in advocating significant federal herion sentencing reform should only come after significant federal marijuana prohibition reform?
"Seems obvious that approaching these issues as a criminal justice matter with very harsh sentences has not worked to date, so we ought to try something else, no? I would start by looking at marijuana reform based on early research that states with operational medical marijuana systems have lower opiod overdose rates."
Don't I keep hearing on SL&P that correlation is not causation? I guess that has now become "inoperative." And as I said once before, without contradiction, people do not move down from smack to pot. They move up from pot to smack. Drug users seek a higher high, not a lower one. I don't know a single expert in drug abuse who thinks otherwise. Can you name one?
"Would you join me, Bill, in advocating significant federal herion sentencing reform should only come after significant federal marijuana prohibition reform?"
Depends on what specifically is meant by the gossamer word "reform."
Here are just a few links from a quick google search about cannabis as a step-down or exit drug:
http://www.unitedpatientsgroup.com/blog/2014/12/15/is-cannabis-a-gateway-drug-or-an-exit-drug/
http://mikuriyamedical.com/about/can_write.html
http://www.leafscience.com/2014/02/01/marijuana-may-lower-use-alcohol-harder-drugs/
http://www.potbotics.com/medical-marijuana-the-exit-drug/
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/16066359.2012.733465
http://www.substance.com/can-we-unlock-marijuanas-potential-as-an-exit-drug/8312/
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0092816
Unfortunately, federal prohibition has thwarted significant research on these fronts. So here is my mission-statement suggestion, which perhaps we can together draft for possible floor amendment to the SRCA 2015:
In light of the on-going heroin epidemic, sentencing changes in the SRCA 2015 will not apply to heroin offenses until 2020, and in the intervening five years, marijuana will be moved off schedule 1 and placed on schedule 2 of the CSA and a federal block grant will be devoted to studying states with marijuana reform to see if those states are proving more successful in stemming the harms and crimes resulting from the heroin epidemic. The US Sentencing Commission shall be tasked with studying the results of these efforts and make further sentencing and drug policy reform recommendations to Congress by the end of 2019.
Sound good to you?
1. Aren't those links to advocacy groups?
2. I think there are settled criteria for drug scheduling. To have scheduling directly changed by a political body strikes me as a risky precedent, and one the defense side could regret in short order.
I think a better proposal would include two changes to yours: Instead of rescheduling, I would have Congress direct the DEA and the FDA to act expeditiously on requests to approve pot research (without dictating a result); and I would change "2020" to "3020."
Just kidding on that last part. I can't imagine any circumstances where I would take it easier on heroin trafficking. In my opinion, making money by selling a drug that ruins you before it kills you, and selling it to people who have lost control or are about to lose control of their lives, is immoral. It's morally superior to hack into someone's savings account, and that's not too hot either.