U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:46 am

U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill

First Posted: 10/7/11 01:01 PM ET Updated: 10/8/11 12:51 AM ET

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) -- even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they're carried out. The new law, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA, the massive federal law that prohibits drugs like marijuana and strictly regulates prescription medication.

"Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for reforming the country's drug laws. "The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you're there wouldn't be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime."

The law could also potentially affect academics and medical professionals. For example, a U.S. doctor who works with overseas doctors or government officials on needle exchange programs could be subject to criminal prosecution. A U.S. resident who advises someone in another country on how to grow marijuana or how to run a medical marijuana dispensary would also be in violation of the new law, even if medical marijuana is legal in the country where the recipient of the advice resides. If interpreted broadly enough, a prosecutor could possibly even charge doctors, academics and policymakers from contributing their expertise to additional experiments like the drug decriminalization project Portugal, which has successfully reduced drug crime, addiction and overdose deaths.

The Controlled Substances Act also regulates the distribution of prescription drugs, so something as simple as emailing a friend vacationing in Tijuana some suggestions on where to buy prescription medication over the counter could subject a U.S. resident to criminal prosecution. "It could even be something like advising them where to buy cold medicine overseas that they'd have to show I.D. to get here in the U.S.," Piper says.

Civil libertarian attorney and author Harvey Silverglate says the bill raises several concerns. "Just when you think you can't get any more cynical, a bill like this comes along. I mean, it just sounds like an abomination. First, there's no intuitive reason for an American to think that planning an activity that's perfectly legal in another country would have any effect on America," Silverglate says. "So we're getting further away from the common law tradition that laws should be intuitive, and should include a mens rea component. Second, this is just an act of shameless cultural and legal imperialism. It's just outrageous."

Conspiracy laws in general are problematic when applied to the drug war. They give prosecutors extraordinary discretion to charge minor players, such as girlfriends or young siblings, with the crimes committed by major drug distributors. They're also easier convictions to win, and can allow prosecutors to navigate around restrictions like statutes of limitations, so long as the old offense can be loosely linked to a newer one. The Smith bill would expand those powers. Under the Amsterdam wedding scenario, anyone who participated in the planning of the wedding with knowledge of the planned pot purchase would be guilty of conspiracy, even if their particular role was limited to buying flowers or booking the hotel.

The law is a reaction to a 2007 case in which the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals threw out the convictions of two men who planned the transfer of cocaine from a Colombian drug cartel to a Saudi prince for distribution in Europe. Though the men planned the transaction from Miami, the court found that because the cocaine never reached the U.S. and was never intended to reach the U.S., the men hadn't committed any crime against the United States.

But the Smith bill goes farther than necessary to address that outcome in that case. "They could have limited this law to prohibiting the planning of activities that are illegal in the countries where they take place," Piper says. "That would have allowed them to convict the guys in the Miami case. There was an amendment proposed to do that and it was voted down on party lines. They intentionally made sure the bill includes activities that legal in other countries. Which means this is an attempt to apply U.S. law all over the globe."

It wouldn't be the first time. Over the last several years, a number of executives from online gambling companies have been arrested in U.S. airports and charged with felony violations of U.S. gambling, racketeering and money laundering laws, even though the executives were citizens of and the companies were incorporated in countries where online gambling is legal.

Last May, one U.S. citizen saw how the policy can apply in reverse. Joe Gordon, a native of Thailand who has lived in America for 30 years, was arrested while visiting his native country for violating Thailand's lèse-majesté law, which bans criticism of the Thai royal family. Gordon had posted a link on his blog to a biography of Thailand's king that has been banned in Thailand.

In recent years, officials have also attempted to impose U.S. white collar crime policies on other countries as well, such as pressuring Switzerland to soften its privacy laws to help American officials to catch tax cheats and money launderers.

But Silverglate says the Smith bill breaks new ground. "I'm horrified by the pressure on Switzerland, and that's probably the libertarian in me, but at least there you have an argument that there's an American interest at stake. Here, I don't see any interest other than to a desire to impose our moral and cultural preferences on the rest of the world."
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby eyeno » Sat Oct 08, 2011 2:42 pm

I was just getting ready to post this article myself. This is almost too much to believe. These people have gone completely insane.
User avatar
eyeno
 
Posts: 1878
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 5:22 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby StarmanSkye » Sat Oct 08, 2011 3:26 pm

I know nothing these utterly corrupt Corporate-Kleptocratic Ruling Elite Imperialist scum do should surprise, disgust or outrage me anymore -- But like this latest overreach insanity, they DO.

The venal hypocrisy of it all leaves me grasping after words sufficient to express what I feel -- It just boggles ...
StarmanSkye
 
Posts: 2670
Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2005 11:32 pm
Location: State of Jefferson
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby Laodicean » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:54 pm

Taking one from Anslinger's playbook. They're so desperate it's pathetic.
User avatar
Laodicean
 
Posts: 3514
Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:39 pm
Blog: View Blog (16)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby Simulist » Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:19 pm

If I ever meet Lee Greenwood, I'm gonna mash him in the mouth.*

(And that's BEFORE I call him by his real first name: "Melvin.")

_________
*Well, not really. But it's a nice thought.
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
    — Alan Watts
User avatar
Simulist
 
Posts: 4713
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:13 pm
Location: Here, and now.
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby Saurian Tail » Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:38 pm

Think Ayahuasca trips. These monsters will do anything ... anything to keep people from seeing through their bullshit.
"Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him." -Carl Jung
User avatar
Saurian Tail
 
Posts: 394
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:30 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby Simulist » Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:42 pm

Yep.
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
    — Alan Watts
User avatar
Simulist
 
Posts: 4713
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:13 pm
Location: Here, and now.
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:45 pm

Saurian Tail wrote:Think Ayahuasca trips. These monsters will do anything ... anything to keep people from seeing through their bullshit.



coincidence
I was listening to this when I read your reply

starting at 1:10

Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby Saurian Tail » Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:53 pm

^^^^ Thanks for this SLAD. Listening to it now.
"Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him." -Carl Jung
User avatar
Saurian Tail
 
Posts: 394
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:30 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby 82_28 » Sat Oct 08, 2011 9:27 pm

Goddamn, am I tired of this place. Just sick and tired. This shit is sooooo broad that it can essentially cover anything necessary to fuck anybody over for anything under the sun. Who the fuck are these totalitarians? Do they not inhabit the same Earth we all do? Who's bidding are they following?

This makes perfectly no sense.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
User avatar
82_28
 
Posts: 11194
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:34 am
Location: North of Queen Anne
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby undead » Sun Oct 09, 2011 3:24 pm

The lizard aliens from outer space doth protest too much - they are afraid. Fuck them and their poison pills. Everyone should grow cannabis and sell it in order to undermine the failing capitalist economy. When everyone else on the planet is being eaten alive by radiological cancers we will be the only ones left. They are trying to drag the entire human race to the grave with them.

The Hopi Prophecy wrote:The United States will be destroyed, land and people, by atomic bombs and radioactivity. Only the Hopis and their homeland will be preserved as an oasis to which refugees will flee. Bomb shelters are a fallacy. "It is only materialistic people who seek to make shelters. Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the great shelter of life. There is no shelter for evil. Those who take no part in the making of world division by ideology are ready to resume life in another world, be they Black, White, Red, or Yellow race. They are all one, brothers."

The war will be "a spiritual conflict with material matters. Material matters will be destroyed by spiritual beings who will remain to create one world and one nation under one power, that of the Creator."


You would think that with laws like this, the people who claim to be anti-establishment and cling to the ignorant fallacies of the drug warriors would get with the program. Please throw out the sour grapes, I don't care if you can't handle getting high. This is important. Don't criticize it. Don't minimize it. If it doesn't fit with your program then please get with the times, because the times are running out fast.
┌∩┐(◕_◕)┌∩┐
User avatar
undead
 
Posts: 997
Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 1:23 am
Location: Doumbekistan
Blog: View Blog (1)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby Saurian Tail » Sun Oct 09, 2011 11:22 pm

82_28 wrote:Goddamn, am I tired of this place. Just sick and tired. This shit is sooooo broad that it can essentially cover anything necessary to fuck anybody over for anything under the sun. Who the fuck are these totalitarians? Do they not inhabit the same Earth we all do? Who's bidding are they following?

This makes perfectly no sense.

The problem is that you are a sane human being 82_28.
"Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him." -Carl Jung
User avatar
Saurian Tail
 
Posts: 394
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:30 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby elfismiles » Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:29 am

Aha! Figured this was already posted here ... just reposted it elsewhere on the forum before finding this thread.

Fucking INSANITY!!!! Fucking Texas Lawmakers!!
User avatar
elfismiles
 
Posts: 8512
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:46 pm
Blog: View Blog (4)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby Gnomad » Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:48 am

I thought the US drug policy already was imposed globally since whenever.
(what a travesty of law this development is, anyway)
la nuit de tous approche
Gnomad
 
Posts: 525
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:01 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House

Postby Laodicean » Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:10 pm

U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill


NYPD Narcotics Detective Admits Cops Regularly Plant Drugs On Perps

A former NYPD Detective testified last week that he regularly saw police plant drugs on innocent people as a way to meet arrest quotas. Ex-Detective Stephen Anderson, who worked in the Queens and Brooklyn South narcotics divisions, was called to testify in the trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny, who has been charged with falsifying public documents and business records. Mister Anderson's testimony was intended to reveal that, as the Daily News puts it, cop corruption wasn't limited to a single squad. In fact, it's pretty widespread!

Anderson was busted for helping plant cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008. He testified yesterday that he did it to help out fellow officer Henry Tavarez, whose "buy-and-bust" arrests had been low. "I had decided to give him [Tavarez] the drugs to help him out so that he could say he had a buy," Anderson testified in Brooklyn Supreme Court. Anderson avoided jail time by pleading guilty and agreeing to testify against other officers swept up in the corruption bust. (The two men that got flaked received a $300,000 settlement from the city.)

The corruption I observed... was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators," Anderson testified, according to the Post. Asked by Justice Gustin Reichbach how he felt about setting up innocent men, Anderson replied, "It's almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they're going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway." And don't worry about Mister Anderson; because of his plea deal, he'll be out of prison in a couple of years anyway.

Reacting to Anderson's testimony, Gabriel Sayegh of the Drug Policy Alliance says, "One of the consequences of the war on drugs is that police officers are pressured to make large numbers of arrests, and it’s easy for some of the less honest cops to plant evidence on innocent people. The drug war inevitably leads to crooked policing - and quotas further incentivize such practices."

http://gothamist.com/2011/10/13/nypd_na ... tifies.php
User avatar
Laodicean
 
Posts: 3514
Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:39 pm
Blog: View Blog (16)
Next

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 167 guests