Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Marijuana violations have taken over 10,000 truck drivers off the road this year, adding more supply chain disruptions

Delayed packages, bare grocery store shelves, and inflated prices have become the norm for American consumers over the past two years. While the COVID-19 pandemic has been the catalyst, there are other challenges causing supply chain issues, including a lack of truck drivers to transport goods from one place to another. In late 2021, the American Trucking Associations reported that the driver shortage had risen to an all-time high of 80,000, partly due to the aging population and shrinking wages.

In response, the Biden administration vowed in December to get more truck drivers on the road by boosting recruitment efforts and expediting the issuing of commercial licenses. However, that won’t have an effect on another hurdle: disparate marijuana laws across the U.S. that are contributing to an increase in violations. In 2022, a growing number of truckers are being taken off the job, which could soon worsen the already suffering supply chain.

As more states legalize recreational marijuana—four of which did so in the past year and three more are expected to by the end of 2022—more truck drivers have tested positive for the substance. As of April 1, 2022, 10,276 commercial vehicle drivers have tested positive for marijuana use. By the same time in 2021, there had been 7,750 violations. That’s a 32.6% increase year over year.

Truck drivers who travel cross-country face inconsistent state regulations as 19 states have legalized recreational marijuana and 37 states permit it for medicinal purposes. But even if a driver used marijuana or hemp-based products like CBD while off duty in a state where those substances are legal, they could still be faced with a violation due to the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) zero-tolerance policy at the federal level.

“While states may allow medical use of marijuana, federal laws and policy do not recognize any legitimate medical use of marijuana,” a DOT handbook for commercial vehicle drivers reads. “Even if a state allows the use of marijuana, DOT regulations treat its use as the same as the use of any other illicit drug.”

Stacker looked at what’s causing thousands of truckers to be removed from their jobs, and the looming domino effect of the continued supply chain disruptions.

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US Hits Highest Number of Overdose Deaths in History as White House Adds Billions to Drug War Budget

In March, the Biden administration announced a historic and massive increase in funding for National Drug Control Program agencies. For FY 2023, the US plans on spending $42.5 billion to continue fighting the failed war on drugs. This month, the Centers for Disease Control also released some historic numbers — as the US spends more on the drug war than ever in history, more people have died from drug overdoses than any recorded time in American history.

107,000 — that is the number of people who overdosed on drugs in 2021. Overdoses involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids surpassed 71,000, up 23% from the year before. There also was a 23% increase in deaths involving cocaine and a 34% increase in deaths involving meth and other stimulants, according to the CDC.

Upon releasing these numbers, the White House called the sharp increase in overdose deaths “unacceptable” and promised to spend more money fighting an already failed drug war. While some of that budget will go toward treatment, most of it will go toward enforcement — because it has worked so well in the past.

“The net effect is that we have many more people, including those who use drugs occasionally and even adolescents, exposed to these potent substances that can cause someone to overdose even with a relatively small exposure,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse said in a statement, calling this latest increase “staggering.”

It is indeed staggering. Most people in this country now know someone who has died from an overdose and despite this massive increase in deaths, the United States government is going to attack it with more of the same — and it is costing taxpayers dearly. In the last 4 years, enforcement has gone up — at a rate of 5,000 percent — clearly illustrating that it is having no effect at all.

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Gov. Newsom Proposes Eliminating One of California’s Many Marijuana Taxes

The latest California budget submitted by Gov. Gavin Newsom could go a long way in fixing the state’s ailing recreational marijuana industry by fully eliminating an oppressive cultivation tax.

Newsom’s May revisions to the 2022–23 fiscal year budget call for some significant statutory changes to the state’s cannabis tax system. The biggest change would be zeroing out the cultivation taxes beginning in July. The excise tax of 15 percent would remain intact.

When Californians voted to legalize recreational marijuana cultivation and sales back in 2016, the industry ended up saddled with state and local taxes that make it inordinately costly to attempt to sell or buy cannabis legally. As a result, the black market for marijuana still dominates sales in a state where it’s legal to buy it. Industry analysts estimate about $8 billion in black market marijuana sales annually in California—double the amount of marijuana purchased through licensed dispensaries.

The cultivation tax has been consistently eyed by industry analysts as a problem. This particular tax is unique among agricultural products in California, and due to the legislation passed in 2017 to establish tax authorities, it’s regularly adjusted for inflation. As a result, cultivation tax rates actually increased at the start of 2022 despite this big black market problem.

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Police Chief Arrested, Jailed for Running a Meth Distribution Ring

If we were to declare a winner in the War on Drugs today, there would be no question that drugs won. Despite tens of billions of dollars wasted, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives ruined or ended, and the construction of the largest prison population on the planet, the American drug problem is worse off now than it ever was before.

Nothing highlights this epic failure of the war on drugs quite like cops getting busted selling or using drugs. When the ones who are tasked with fighting this senseless war, choose the other side, this should be a red flag that it’s not working. And this happens all the time.

As the following example illustrates, even top cops have jumped ship and are choosing the side of drugs — shamelessly betraying the trust of the public they serve to use their badge to profit in this corrupt game.

A police chief in Oklahoma was arrested over the weekend for using his position to run a meth distribution operation. Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officials said law enforcement arrested Calvin Police Chief Joe Don Chitwood at his home after an investigation began in April.

“This investigation began in mid-April after receiving information that Chitwood was both using and selling methamphetamine in Hughes County,” Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesperson Mark Woodward said in the news release. “OBN and DEA worked a joint investigation that resulted in Chitwood’s arrest.”

Though police didn’t go into detail on the amount of meth found at Chitwood’s home, he was charged with multiple counts of distribution, meaning it wasn’t just a personal amount.

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‘Fact checkers’ claimed that the Biden regime was not distributing crack pipes… They were wrong once again

In February, news broke that the Biden administration was distributing free crack pipes as part of a program to distribute ‘safe smoking kits’ to cities across the country.  Hilariously, the grant used to fund the kits were part of a program aimed at advancing ‘racial equity’.

Fact-checkers pounced on the story immediately, labeling it false.  100PercentFedUp was fact-checked on Facebook for writing about the story.  Fact checks on major social media websites such as Facebook can lead to ‘shadow bans’, where a page’s reach is significantly reduced.

The fact-checkers claimed that the story, which originated from the Free Beacon, was inaccurate because the White House released a statement saying that the safe smoking kits they were funding would not contain crack pipes.  Despite the White House’s denials, they refused to discuss who applied for the grants or who would be receiving them, citing confidentiality.

Prominent Conservative activist Greg Price was kind enough to provide a compilation of these ‘fact checks’ on Twitter.

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Rochester woman fights to get back $8K seized in raid; she was not charged, no drugs found

In October 2020, Rochester police raided the West Main Street apartment of Cristal Starling and her then-boyfriend, who was suspected of dealing drugs.

No drugs were found, but police seized $8,040 in currency that Starling says was hers. Her boyfriend was arrested based on drugs found at another home, but he was later acquitted of the charges.

Starling has been trying to get her money back since the acquittal. She’s still trying.

The nonprofit Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, plans an appeal to a federal court, seeking to reverse a judge’s decision that federal and local police can keep Starling’s money. Starling’s case, Institute attorneys say, is typical of many forfeiture cases in the country: The money is not an overwhelming amount and the administrative process so convoluted that people who lose their money simply give up.

“This is very common where it’s a small amount of money,” said Institute attorney Seth Young.  “You don’t hire a lawyer and the maze of forfeiture procedures trips up a person who represents themselves and the person ends up losing their money.”

Starling tried, without the aid of a lawyer, to chase down her seized money. She also lost use of two cars, which were also taken then later returned. She had to pay for a rental car during those weeks, she said.

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Step by Step for Liberty: Cannabis Edition

In the early days of the state-level movement to legalize marijuana, we often got opposition from a surprising camp – libertarians.

You would think libertarians would be thrilled with laws rolling back cannabis prohibition, but for many, it wasn’t enough. Skeptical libertarians found a myriad of reasons to oppose legalization efforts, saying they “didn’t go far enough.”

The movement started in the early 1970s and really started to grow with the legalization of medical marijuana in California way back in 1996. Opponents protested, “what about everybody else?”

Some libertarians also opposed medical marijuana on principle, saying people shouldn’t need a state-issued “card” to access cannabis. They’re not wrong theoretically. Asking the government for permission is never desirable. But the fact is virtually all of these people carry a card so they can drive.

As the legalization movement grew and states started allowing recreational marijuana, libertarians often complained about the tax and regulatory schemes attached to cannabis legalization bills and used this as a reason to oppose reforms. Of course, you never heard any of these people arguing that it would be better for alcohol to be illegal rather than heavily taxed and regulated, as it is in most states.

Another common objection was that legalizing marijuana doesn’t help people who have already been convicted of marijuana crimes. Having a criminal record has lifelong consequences and millions of people have to go through life with this legal millstone tied around their necks simply because at some point they possessed or sold a plant. What about these people? Again, they would actively oppose legalization bills on this basis.

But think about the implied logic. We’re going to allow more people to get caught in this legal web because this bill doesn’t address the needs of people already caught in this legal web. Sounds self-defeating, doesn’t it?

In reality, all of these are legitimate concerns. These libertarian opponents were generally right about the problems inherent in most legalization schemes. They were good on the philosophy. But opposing legalization efforts because they “aren’t good enough” is a bad strategy.

Consider this: would a starving man turn down a slice of bread because it wasn’t a whole loaf?

Let’s be honest here. Today, we’re starving for liberty at every turn.

Sometimes you have to take what you get so you have the ability to move forward. If the man gets a slice of bread, he’ll have the energy to go for that loaf.

The same principle applies to legislative activism. Small steps forward often lead to more steps forward.

Thomas Jefferson understood this well. In fact, in a 1790 letter to the Rev. Charles Clay Jefferson said liberty is to be gained by inches.

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Despite Being Heavily Debunked, Dept. Releases Video Claiming Cop Nearly Died from ‘Exposure’ to Fentanyl

In case you’ve been completely in the dark for the last decade, you’ve likely noticed that the United States is currently in the midst of an opioid crisis. This crisis knows no demographic, no race, no gender, no age limit, and no occupation—it hits them all. Due to the government-imposed lockdowns, 2021 marked the deadliest year in history for fatal drug overdoses with fentanyl claiming the lives of countless individuals.

Because the state enforces a drug war which outlaws far safer alternatives, fentanyl has grabbed a large portion of the illegal drug market and these synthetic opioids that are extremely dangerous are flooding the streets. Make no mistake, fentanyl is dangerous and kills people by the thousands but the government’s response to it is causing far more harm than good.

Instead of realizing the dangers brought on by enforcing a war on drugs which has led to the thriving illicit fentanyl market, much of law enforcement resorts to violence, fear tactics and propaganda to unsuccessfully scare people into compliance. A video was released this week by the Thomasville police department and it is nothing short of “scary propaganda.”

According to the Thomasville Police Chief Mitch Stuckey, one of his officers nearly died after working a drug bust and was “exposed to fentanyl.”

“Our officer did everything right” but was still somehow exposed to the opioid and could have died, Stuckey told WKRG.

According to the chief, after the officer was “exposed,” he drove all the way back to the department — after wrapping up the bust — and only collapsed once he got in front of the department’s surveillance camera. The officer was then given Narcan and rushed to the hospital.

“The officers [who aided the victim] were shook up” by the experience, Stuckey said.

The department released the subsequent video and dozens of media outlets have since picked it up and have been spreading it around. The department has not released the toxicology reports, nor what the hospital has said.

“Fentanyl is the most dangerous drug,” Stuckey said, saying the officer must have touched it or had it on his clothes. “An amount as small as a grain of salt can be fatal.”

While it is certainly true that fentanyl is extremely dangerous, simply being near it or even touching it, cannot hurt you. It has to be ingested.

In reality, where the Free Thought Project chooses to live, it is not possible to overdose from coming in contact with the drug without actually ingesting it. It is not absorbed through the skin nor does it have deadly “fumes.” Though fentanyl is certainly dangerous, unless the Thomasville police officer ate it, snorted it, or injected it, his collapse was either faked or completely unrelated.

But don’t take our word for it, listen to Dr. Ryan Marino, MD Medical Toxicologist, Addiction Medicine Specialist and Emergency Physician Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, who has called out reports like this before.

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