Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1187 -- 5/12/23

[Bobbie Sellers]

Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1187 -- 5/12/23
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psm...@drcnet.org
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1187

A Publication of StoptheDrugWar.org
David Borden, Executive Director, bor...@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Table of Contents:

1. CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW: BIZARRO
A tale of synthetic cannabinoids, the Analogues Act, and the twisted
journey of two Florida hustlers.
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2023/may/11/chronicle_book_review_bizarro

2. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
A sticky-fingered Pennsylvania drug task force commander heads to
prison, a small-town Alabama cop gets caught planting dope, and more.
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2023/may/10/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

3. NIDA ISSUES $5 MILLION GRANT TO STUDY SAFE INJECTION SITES, MASSIVE
HONDURAS COCA PLANTATION, MORE... (5/8/23)
A New York bill increasing civil penalties for illicit pot shops is
signed into law, Oregon regulators approve the nation's first licensee
for therapeutic psilocybin services, and more.
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2023/may/08/nida_issues_5_million_grant

4. OH LEGALIZATION INIT GATHERING SIGNATURES, CA DRUG WAR REPARATIONS,
MORE... (5/9/23) BLACKS
Marijuana legalization hits a bump in New Hampshire, Jordan kills a
Syrian drug trafficker in a cross-border air strike, and more.
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2023/may/09/oh_legalization_init_gathering

5. DEA EXTENDS TELEHEALTH FOR BUPRENORPHINE, COLOMBIA LEGAL POT BILL
ADVANCES TO SENATE, MORE... (5/10/23)
Washington State bans discrimination against potential new hires over
off-the-job marijuana use, Senate drug warriors file a bill aimed at
counterfeit pills, and more.
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2023/may/10/dea_extends_telehealth

6. SAFE BANKING ACT GETS SENATE HEARING, IRAN HANGS THREE COCAINE
TRAFFICKERS, MORE... (5/11/23)
Kansas becomes the latest state to legalize fentanyl test strips, the
Arizona Senate folds psilocybin research funds into a budget bill, and more.
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2023/may/11/safe_banking_act_gets_senate

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================

1. CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW: BIZARRO
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2023/may/11/chronicle_book_review_bizarro

Bizarro: The Surreal Saga of America's Secret War on Synthetic Drugs and
the Florida Kingpins It Captured by Jordan S. Rubin (2023, University of
California Press,, 267 pp,, $27.95 HB)

Burton Ritchie was the owner of the Psychedelic Shack, a head shop in
Pensacola, Florida. In addition to t-shirts and incense and posters and
bongs, he also sold synthetic cannabinoids -- lab-created chemicals with
psychoactive effects, some quite different from those of marijuana --
that went by names such as K2 and spice.

With his partner, Ben Galecki, the enterprising entrepreneur decided to
get deeper into the profitable action, creating a company to manufacture
the stuff in bulk with synthetic cannabinoids manufactured by Chinese
chemical companies. Aware that he was skirting the edge of legality
after the original compound JWH-018 was federally scheduled, Ritchie
quarantined new shipments of different, unregulated synthetic
cannabinoids until they had been tested in labs and verified not to be
federally banned substances.

A fan of the Superman comic franchise, Ritchie dubbed his product
Bizarro and packaged it with a reverse Superman logo in various flavors.
(Ritchie would replace the word "flavors," though, with the word
"scents" in order to maintain the fiction that the products were "not
intended for human consumption," as noted on the label.)

Ritchie and Galecki made a quick fortune with Bizarro and got out of the
business as federal heat on the industry heightened. After their Bizarro
factory was raided -- not because of Bizarro but because neighbors
thought it was an illegal pot grow -- Ritchie contacted the DEA,
provided product samples and invoices to a DEA agent and volunteered to
shut the business down immediately on the agent's say so, because, as he
said repeatedly, he didn't want to "fight city hall." The agent told
them not to worry about it.

But they were still spooked and sold their company. Now, they're sitting
in federal prison, doing lengthy sentences for the sale of analogues of
banned synthetic cannabinoids. Bizarro tells the story of how they ended
up there.

It centers on a bizarre piece of drug war legislation, the Reagan-era
Analogues Act, which criminalized the production and distribution of
chemical compounds "substantially similar" to already controlled
substances. The problem is that "substantially similar" has no defined
meaning. It is not a term of science. And that means no one knows if a
substance is "substantially similar" enough to a controlled substance to
merit prosecution under the statute unless a federal prosecutor tries to
make the case -- and a jury buys it.

Even more bizarrely, the DEA conducts analyses of potential analogues
and decides whether they are analogues or not -- but does not make that
information publicly available, which results in people being prosecuted
for substances they didn't even know were illegal.

Journalist and former Manhattan narcotics prosecutor Jordan S. Rubin
takes the reader through the legislative history of the Analogues Act,
the battles among DEA chemists over whether or not substances were
"substantially similar" enough to controlled substances to be banned
(and their purveyors prosecuted), and the twists and turns of a number
of legal cases, particularly Ritchie and Galecki's, as jurists,
prosecutors, and defense attorneys sparred over the meaning and
application of the law.

It's a fascinating bit of drug war history, and prosecutions under the
Analogues Act are largely history now. That is because federal
prosecutors are leery of rolling the dice with juries. They have lost
enough cases to know that analogue prosecutions under the act are no
sure thing.

But now, Rubin reports, they have something better: class-wide
scheduling. In 2018, the DEA used its emergency powers to schedule all
fentanyl-related substances on a class-wide basis, meaning that the
substance was illegal if it met the broad structural criteria laid out
by the DEA. The substance need not behave like fentanyl at all -- it is
still illegal. And unlike fentanyl, which is Schedule II, the analogues
are classified as Schedule I, even though no one knows if they are
better, worse, or the same as fentanyl, or whether they could be helpful.

This raises some of the same issues around civil rights and science that
the Analogues Act prosecutions did. And it is an ongoing issue. The
DEA's temporary scheduling has been extended repeatedly, and the Biden
administration is calling on Congress to make it permanent -- much to
the dismay of drug reformers and researchers. Bizarro shines a spotlight
on the surrealistic story of the original Analogues Act and provides the
reader with some inkling of what the supercharged version being
contemplated now could deliver. It is a brisk and thoughtful addition to
the literature of drug policy.



================ ...
___________________

It's time to correct the mistake:
Truth:the Anti-drugwar
<http://www.briancbennett.com>

Cops say legalize drugs--find out why:
<http://www.leap.cc>
Stoners are people too:
<http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
___________________

bliss -- Cacao Powered... (-SF4ever at DSLExtreme dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cacao that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.