West Coast Cities Are Letting Drug Addicts Kill Themselves

At the Washington Examiner, "Liberals in the biggest cities on the West Coast have made it easier for drug addicts to die from overdoses based on the fallacy that letting drug addicts destroy their own lives is some form of compassion."

Three New Yorkers Ordered Cocaine From the Same Delivery Service. All Died From Fentanyl.

I don't do this stuff. I didn't even know coke was popular these days. And you can order it from a delivery service? Hmm.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Cocaine, long popular among New York professionals, is now often tainted with fentanyl, catching users unprepared and driving drug fatalities":

NEW YORK—Ross Mtangi, a trading executive at Credit Suisse Group AG, left his Manhattan penthouse in March 2021 with his laptop and told his pregnant partner he was going to work.

He checked into a nearby hotel and tuned in to work calls. Later, he texted for cocaine from a drug delivery service. A man wearing a baseball cap, cross-body bag and face mask appeared on hotel surveillance.

Mr. Mtangi, 40 years old, missed a follow up meeting. His sister and her partner found him dead at the hotel the next day. Police found on a table translucent black baggies that contained lethal fentanyl mixed in with the cocaine.

In the East Village, first-year lawyer Julia Ghahramani, 26, texted the same delivery service the same day. She also died. She had just started her career remotely at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

Social worker Amanda Scher, 38, did the same. She died in the Greenwich Village apartment she shared with her Chihuahua-Corgi rescue dog. It was a stone’s throw from where she had received her master’s degree at New York University.

The three high-achieving New Yorkers had texted the DoorDash-style cocaine delivery service on a late winter Wednesday. They all died from the illicit fentanyl that had been mixed into it.

Fentanyl is a powerful legal opioid, prescribed for cancer patients and others with severe pain. Traffickers have found it is easy and inexpensive to make. The illicit form has spread throughout the illegal drug market, turning up in heroin as well as pills stamped out to look like oxycodone or Adderall and other drugs.

Dealers also cut it into cocaine, a stimulant, to be more potent and addictive, introducing the drug to unsuspecting buyers. A tiny amount of fentanyl can kill unseasoned users.

“Hey try not to do too much because it’s really strong,” read a text sent to Ms. Scher later that night from the delivery number. Ms. Ghahramani missed seven calls from the number.

Sassan Ghahramani, Ms. Ghahramani’s father, said the fentanyl in his daughter’s cocaine was like having cyanide appear in an alcoholic drink during Prohibition.

“Julia was a driven professional with everything to live for. Never in a billion years would she have touched anything with fentanyl,” he said. “This is like putting bullets in people’s brains.”

‘Can u come thru?’

March 17 in New York City is usually festive for St. Patrick’s Day. In 2021, the parade was canceled for a second year and most big company offices were shut. Only around 30% of adults in the city had received at least a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

In the East Village, Ms. Ghahramani, the litigation associate, was one of millions of young Americans starting their career outside of a workplace. She had graduated virtually from Columbia Law School in May 2020 while her parents snapped photos of her and the screen in their Greenwich, Conn., living room.

The daughter of Iranian-born Mr. Ghahramani, an investment research firm founder, and Lily Ann Marden, a real estate finance executive, Ms. Ghahramani made a vow in high school to somehow change the world. She helped give pro bono legal advice to immigrants and advocated for gun control. She spoke on the steps of City Hall as a main organizer of a “March for Our Lives” attended by 150,000 following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in February 2018.

For much of the pandemic, Ms. Ghahramani retreated to her family’s home to work remotely and spend time with her parents and younger twin siblings.

Her final week, Ms. Ghahramani headed back to her Avenue B apartment, saying she had work to do before a family trip the next weekend to celebrate the Persian new year. Ms. Ghahramani told friends and family the workload was intense but that she was loving her first job.

On Wednesday, Ms. Ghahramani sent a text to a phone that prosecutors said belonged to the alleged dispatcher for the drug delivery service, Billy Ortega.

According to his lawyer, Mr. Ortega was a stay-at-home dad in a house in rural New Jersey. According to prosecutors, Mr. Ortega arranged drug deals from the house. He pleaded not guilty to causing the three deaths and distributing drugs and is awaiting trial.

“Can u come thru?,” Ms. Ghahramani wrote.

“I’ll send them right now if you want.”

“That would be great thank you really appreciate it.”

“No worries we family.”

After getting the text, prosecutors said, Mr. Ortega asked a courier, Kaylen Rainey, to handle the day’s deliveries. Mr. Ortega sent him Ms. Ghahramani’s address and instructions to collect $200, prosecutors said, citing texts on their phones.

Prosecutors said Mr. Rainey lived in an apartment registered to Mr. Ortega’s family in public housing in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

He and another courier rented Zipcars to deliver drugs to neighborhoods across Manhattan, prosecutors alleged, collecting up to thousands of dollars a stop. Mr. Rainey pleaded not guilty to causing the deaths and distributing drugs and is awaiting trial.

Nine minutes after the texts, according to police and surveillance footage, Mr. Rainey buzzed Ms. Ghahramani’s apartment bell.

Around six hours after the delivery, her phone pinged.

“Hey” “Hey you there”

Seven calls came in that night and the next morning from the delivery-service number.

Ms. Marden woke that morning in Connecticut knowing something was wrong because she hadn’t heard from her daughter. A friend of Ms. Ghahramani went to the apartment and found her dead, holding her phone. Persian pastries she had ordered for the weekend were in the refrigerator.

“She made a mistake,” Mr. Ghahramani said. “She had a hit of coke and unbeknownst to her it was loaded with fentanyl and it killed her.”

Derailed lives

Cocaine has long had allure in New York City, where in the 1980s it became associated with jet setting clubbers and elite professionals. Usage estimates in the city remain higher than the roughly 2% national rate of Americans taking the drug annually for the past two decades.

The addition of fentanyl into supplies in the past decade has tripled the yearly number of New Yorkers dying. Of 980 cocaine deaths in 2020, 81% involved fentanyl, according to the most recent New York City health department data. The number of people dying from cocaine alone has held steady in the low hundreds.

Drug use overall rose during the pandemic, which derailed work routines and social lives. Fentanyl helped drive total drug fatalities higher. Deaths hit an annual high of 107,521 people in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up 51% since 2019. Three-quarters of the 2021 deaths involved fentanyl, the CDC said.

New York City authorities have been warning of the risks of unknowingly taking fentanyl in cocaine and of its increased presence in cocaine seized by police. Health officials put up posters and sent drink coasters to clubs warning cocaine users to start with a small dose and to have naloxone, an opioid reversal drug, on hand to counter an overdose. They are handing out fentanyl testing strips that can be used to test cocaine and other drugs for fentanyl’s presence.

Multiple people died within hours from tainted cocaine in Long Island, N.Y., and in Newport Beach, Calif., last year. Nine were killed in Washington, D.C., in January. Law-enforcement officials said dealers often use coffee grinders or other basic equipment to cut drugs and prepare them for sale, which can result in deadly batches...

Pot Legalization Fails in California

Well, it hasn't failed in making weed available at your local dispensary, it's failed to meet up with the claims of Proposition 64 proponents from back in 2016.

An interesting piece, at the Los Angeles Times, "Inside California’s pot legalization failures: Corporate influence, ignored warnings":

SACRAMENTO — Architects of the effort to legalize pot in California made big promises to voters.

But six years later, California’s legal weed industry is in disarray with flawed policies, legal loopholes and stiff regulations hampering longtime growers and sellers. Despite expectations that it would become a model for the rest of the country, the state has instead provided a cautionary tale of lofty intentions and unkept promises.

Compromises made to win political support for Proposition 64, the 2016 initiative to legalize cannabis, along with decisions made after it was approved by voters that year, unleashed a litany of problems that have undermined the state-sanctioned market.

At the root of the failure: an array of ambitious, sometimes conflicting goals.

California officials vowed to help small farmers thrive but also depended on the support of big cannabis operators backed by venture capital funding, who helped proponents of Proposition 64 raise $25 million and won a key concession after its approval. The result was a licensed recreational cannabis system that benefited large companies over smaller growers who are now being squeezed out of the market.

The state set out to simultaneously cripple illegal operators and reduce marijuana-related criminal penalties to address racial injustices imposed by the long-running “war on drugs.” Far from reducing illegal weed, those efforts instead allowed the black market to flourish after legalization with the help of organized crime operations that run massive unlicensed farms and storefront dispensaries in plain view, bringing crime and terrorizing nearby residents. And those raided by police are often up and running again within weeks or days.

While making legal pot available across the state, officials created regulatory loopholes that allowed large swaths of California to ban marijuana sales. Though voters approved legalization, cities and counties have been skittish: Most rejected allowing cannabis businesses in their jurisdictions, resulting in only a fraction of the predicted number of licensed dispensaries operating.

A glut of cannabis produced by licensed and unlicensed farmers has driven down what small farmers can get for their crops, resulting in many facing financial ruin. Licensed businesses complain of stifling taxes and high overhead costs.

Many of the serious problems the state now faces were predicted seven years ago by a blue ribbon commission chaired by Gavin Newsom, then California’s lieutenant governor.

The commission urged restraint on taxing the legal market and limits on licensing to prevent big corporate interests from dominating the industry. The panel, which included law enforcement and civil liberties activists, also recommended robust enforcement, particularly against large illegal growing operations.

This is the story of how the promise of Proposition 64 went so wrong, and how the state’s grand vision proved so elusive...

RTWT.

Emily Bazelon, Charged

At Amazon, Emily Bazelon, Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration.

Bloodied Man in Hospital Gown Broke Into Cole Valley Home Early Saturday Morning (VIDEO)

It's a neighborhood in San Francisco, the most unlivable city in America. 

See Dion Lim on Twitter.

Hard Times for High Times

A fascinating piece, at Politico, "How Legal Weed Destroyed a Counterculture Icon."

Blue Exodus: California Is a Failed State

It's Jon "Ex-Jon" Gabriel, at the Arizona Republic, "California is a failed state. How do we know? They're moving to Arizona in droves":

Driving across Arizona, it’s hard not to notice a surge in California license plates. The reason for this is becoming more apparent every day. California is a failed state.

After nearly a decade of one-party rule, the once-Golden State is tarnished, possibly beyond repair. Listing all the problems facing our neighbors across the Colorado River would require several books, so I’ll only highlight a few.

The fifth-largest economy in the world and home to many of the greatest technology companies on Earth can’t keep the lights on. The state’s three largest utilities turned off power to more than 410,000 homes and businesses on Friday, Aug. 21, then again to half as many Saturday, Aug. 22.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sprung to action on Monday by announcing more blackouts. "We failed to predict and plan these shortages,” the governor said. “And that's simply unacceptable."

But accept it he did, noting that the state’s near-religious promotion of solar and wind power left a gap in the reliability of its power grid. You don’t say.

Wildly unpredictable events, like August being hot, never occurred to Newsom last October when he signed six more bills to kill off his state’s fossil fuel industry. Shutting down one of California’s two nuclear plants certainly didn’t help. Perhaps their plan to close the second one in 2024 will have different results.

So have those to stop homelessness

Documentary filmmaker Christopher Rufo’s latest work reveals the tragic failure of the city’s homeless policies. In “Chaos by the Bay,” he shows the results of well-meaning progressive efforts, from decriminalizing homelessness to plying addicts with free drug paraphernalia, alcohol and cannabis. For the most part, rampant mental illness has been left untreated...

Still more.

Tucker Carlson: 'Civilization Itself Is Coming Apart' (VIDEO)

Watch the whole thing:

Homelessness in San Francisco

What a nightmare.

From Heather Mac Donald, at City Journal, "San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless."

For the last three decades, San Francisco has conducted a real-life experiment in what happens when a society stops enforcing bourgeois norms of behavior—in the name of compassion toward the homeless. The results have been the opposite. https://t.co/QOREy5oiAV via @HMDatMI

— City Journal (@CityJournal) October 7, 2019

The stories that the homeless tell about their lives reveal that something far more complex than a housing shortage is at work. The tales veer from one confused and improbable situation to the next, against a backdrop of drug use, petty crime, and chaotic child-rearing. Behind this chaos lies the dissolution of those traditional social structures that once gave individuals across the economic spectrum the ability to withstand setbacks and lead sober, self-disciplined lives: marriage, parents who know how to parent, and conventional life scripts that create purpose and meaning. There are few policy levers to change this crisis of meaning in American culture. What is certain is that the ongoing crusade to normalize drug use, along with the absence of any public encouragement of temperance, will further handicap this unmoored population.

RTWT.

Decriminalizing Hard Drugs

It's Nicholas Kristof, with a long piece at NYT, FWIW:

Seattle is in effect decriminalizing the use of hard drugs, @NickKristof writes. It is relying less on the criminal justice toolbox to deal with drug abuse and more on the public health toolbox. https://t.co/3YvnxDaxAM

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) August 23, 2019

Decriminalizing Magic Mushrooms

California is the acid-trip state.

At the Los Angeles Times, "How a trip on magic mushrooms helped decriminalize psychedelic plants in a California city."

How a former City Hall staffer’s trip on magic mushrooms last fall helped Oakland become the first city in California to decriminalize psychedelic drugs, including peyote and ayahuasca. https://t.co/1wX6sdVcQ8

— Hailey Branson-Potts (@haileybranson) June 22, 2019

San Diego Hash Oil Labs

Jennifer Delacruz reports, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

What Happened to California's 'Bustling' Recreational Marijuana Market?

Hey, don't blame me --- I voted against this stupid legalization plan.

At LAT, "One year of legal pot sales and California doesn’t have the bustling industry it expected. Here’s why":

California’s legal pot market hasn’t performed as state officials and the cannabis industry had hoped. https://t.co/mQaVVpbCO0

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 27, 2018

When Californians voted in 2016 to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, advocates of the move envisioned thousands of pot shops and cannabis farms obtaining state licenses, making the drug easily available to all adults within a short drive.

But as the first year of licensed sales comes to a close, California’s legal market hasn’t performed as state officials and the cannabis industry had hoped. Retailers and growers say they’ve been stunted by complex regulations, high taxes and decisions by most cities to ban cannabis shops. At the same time, many residents are going to city halls and courts to fight pot businesses they see as nuisances, and police chiefs are raising concerns about crime triggered by the marijuana trade.

the numerous challenges when he takes office in January as legislators hope to send him a raft of bills next year to provide banking for the pot industry, ease the tax burden on retailers and crack down on sales to minors.

“The cannabis industry is being choked by California’s penchant for over-regulation,” said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, a pro-legalization group. “It’s impossible to solve all of the problems without a drastic rewrite of the law, which is not in the cards for the foreseeable future.”

After voters legalized marijuana two years ago under Proposition 64, state officials estimated in there would be as many as 6,000 cannabis shops licensed in the first few years. But the state Bureau of Cannabis Control has issued just 547 temporary and annual licenses to marijuana retail stores and dispensaries. Some 1,790 stores and dispensaries were paying taxes on medicinal pot sales before licenses were required starting Jan. 1.

State officials also predicted that legal cannabis would eventually bring in up to $1 billion in revenue a year. But with many cities banning pot sales, tax revenue is falling far short of estimates. Based on taxes collected since Jan. 1, the state is expected to bring in $471 million in revenue this fiscal year — much less than the $630 million projected in Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget.

“I think we all wish we could license more businesses, but our system is based on dual licensing and local control,” said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state Bureau of Cannabis Control, referring to the requirement that cannabis businesses get permission from the state and the city in which they want to operate.

Less than 20% of cities in California — 89 of 482 — allow retail shops to sell cannabis for recreational use, according to the California Cannabis Industry Assn. Cities that allow cannabis sales include Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and San Diego.

Eighty-two of Los Angeles County’s 88 cities prohibit retail sales of recreational marijuana, according to Alexa Halloran, an attorney specializing in cannabis law for the firm Solomon, Saltsman & Jamieson. Pot shops are not allowed in cities including Burbank, Manhattan Beach, Alhambra, Beverly Hills, Inglewood, Compton, Redondo Beach, El Monte, Rancho Palos Verdes and Calabasas.

“While some cities have jumped in headfirst, we've taken a deliberate approach,” said Manhattan Beach Mayor Steve Napolitano, “to see how things shake out elsewhere before further consideration. I think that's proven to be the smart approach.”

Voters have also been reluctant to allow cannabis stores in their communities.

Of the 64 California cities and counties that voted on cannabis ballot measures in the November midterm election, eight banned the sale of cannabis or turned down taxation measures, seven allowed sales and 49 approved taxes on pot businesses, said Hilary Bricken, an attorney who represents the industry. Among them, voters in Malibu approved pot shops while Simi Valley residents voted for an advisory measure against allowing retail sales.

Javier Montes, owner of Wilmington pot store Delta-9 THC, says he is struggling to compete with a large illicit market unburdened by the taxes he pays as a licensed business.

“Because we are up against high taxes and the proliferation of illegal shops, it is difficult right now,” Montes said. “We expected lines out of our doors, but unfortunately the underground market was already conducting commercial cannabis activity and are continuing to do so.”

Montes, who received his city and state licenses in January, says his business faces a 15% state excise tax, a 10% recreational marijuana tax by the city of Los Angeles and 9.5% in sales tax by the county and state — a markup of more than 34%.

He says there isn’t enough enforcement against illegal operators, and the hard times have caused him to cut the number of employees at his shop in half this year from 24 to 12.

“It’s very hard whenever I have to lay people off, because they are like a family to me,” said Montes, who is vice president of the United Cannabis Business Assn., which represents firms including the about 170 cannabis retailers licensed by the city of Los Angeles...

I mean, who could've foreseen the problems? (*Eye rolls.*)

Still more.

Melissa del Bosque, Bloodlines

At Amazon, Melissa del Bosque, Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty.

Californians Can Now Buy Recreational Marijuana (VIDEO)

It was pretty much "recreational" before this anyway, but it least the change in the laws bring the "medical marijuana" fiction to an end.

At LAT, "A 'monumental moment' for fully legal marijuana in California":

Will Senn has been waiting his whole life for this. Californians can now go to the store and buy marijuana, and his shop is opening its doors at 7 a.m. on New Year's Day.

Senn's Urbn Leaf in San Diego was among the first to get a state-issued license to sell pot for medical and recreational uses. He hired 15 more workers to accommodate what he expects to be a crush of new customers to flood into his shop, which had previously specialized in cannabis for medicinal purposes.

"This is what a lot of activists in the industry have been working for since the 1990s when Dennis Peron opened his first marijuana shop for AIDS patients in San Francisco," said Senn, 32. "It's a monumental moment and we are ecstatic to be a part of it."

The KindPeoples Collective in Santa Cruz plans to give out T-shirts to the first 420 people who show up to buy weed Monday.

CEO Khalil Moutawakkil, 33, said the legalization of marijuana for recreational use is a major change that has been too long in coming. "This is essentially going to eliminate prohibition on the plant of the last 400 years and return the plant back to the people," he said.

Still, don't expect pot shops on every corner. In recent weeks, hundreds of businesses have applied for temporary licenses to engage in the marijuana business, but industry officials expect a slow rollout as most cities in California have not yet given their approval, a prerequisite to getting a state license. As of Friday, 49 retail licenses had been issued by the state for businesses to sell recreational pot.

Sales for recreational use are allowed in cities including Los Angeles, West Hollywood, San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland, Santa Cruz and San Jose, but many proposed pot shops in those cities will not have a state license by the start of the year.

The state has not yet issued a retail permit for a store in Los Angeles, which plans to issue local licenses in the coming weeks.
At least 300 other cities, including Riverside, Fresno, Bakersfield, Pasadena and Anaheim, don't allow pot sales for non-medical purposes, according to industry officials.

Voters paved the way for today in November 2016, with Proposition 64 earning 57% approval. The ballot measure made California one of eight states to approve the sale of cannabis for recreational use. Those 21 and older can purchase and possess up to an ounce of marijuana for recreational use and to grow up to six plants in their homes.

Even with greater access, there are still restrictions on when the drug can be used. State regulations prohibit smoking marijuana in many public places, including restaurants and theaters, where cigarettes are barred. And new laws make explicit you can't toke and drive.

More. 

Jeff Sessions Returns Department of Justice to Rule of Law

From Andrew McCarthy, at NRO, "On Criminal Justice, Sessions iss Returning DOJ to the Rule of Law":

A response to Joyce Vance and Carter Stewart

wo former top Obama-appointed prosecutors co-author a diatribe against Trump attorney general Jeff Sessions for returning the Justice Department to purportedly outdated, too “tough on crime” charging practices. Yawn. After eight years of Justice Department stewardship by Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, and after Obama’s record 1,715 commutations that systematically undermined federal sentencing laws, we know the skewed storyline.

The surprise is to find such an argument in the pages of National Review Online. But there it was on Tuesday: “On Criminal Justice, Sessions Is Returning DOJ to the Failed Policies of the Past,” by Joyce Vance and Carter Stewart, formerly the United States attorneys for, respectively, the Northern District of Alabama and the Southern District of Ohio. Ms. Vance is now lecturing on criminal-justice reform at the University of Alabama School of Law and doing legal commentary at MSNBC. Mr. Stewart has moved on to the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, fresh from what it describes as his “leadership role at DOJ in addressing inequities in the criminal justice system,” focusing on “alternatives to incarceration,” and “reducing racial disparities in the federal system.”

The authors lament that Sessions has reinstituted guidelines requiring prosecutors “to charge the most serious offenses and ask for the lengthiest prison sentences.” This, the authors insist, is a “one-size-fits-all policy” that “doesn’t work.” It marks a return to the supposedly “ineffective and damaging criminal-justice policies that were imposed in 2003,” upsetting the “bipartisan consensus” for “criminal-justice reform” that has supposedly seized “today’s America.”

This is so wrongheaded, it’s tough to decide where to begin.

In reality, what Sessions has done is return the Justice Department to the traditional guidance articulated nearly four decades ago by President Carter’s highly regarded attorney general, Benjamin Civiletti (and memorialized in the U.S. Attorney’s Manual). It instructs prosecutors to charge the most serious, readily provable offense under the circumstances. Doesn’t work? This directive, in effect with little variation until the Obama years, is one of several factors that contributed to historic decreases in crime. When bad guys are prosecuted and incarcerated, they are not preying on our communities. The thrust of the policy Sessions has revived is respect for the Constitution’s bedrock separation-of-powers principle. It requires faithful execution of laws enacted by Congress.

The thrust of the policy Sessions has revived is respect for the Constitution’s bedrock separation-of-powers principle. It requires faithful execution of laws enacted by Congress.

A concrete example makes the point. Congress has prescribed a minimum ten-year sentence for the offense of distributing at least five kilograms of cocaine (see section 841(b)(1)(A)(ii) of the federal narcotics laws). Let’s say a prosecutor is presented with solid evidence that a defendant sold seven kilograms of cocaine. The crime is readily provable. Nevertheless, the prosecutor follows the Obama deviation from traditional Justice Department policy, charging a much less serious offense: a distribution that does not specify an amount of cocaine — as if we were talking about a one-vial street sale. The purpose of this sleight of hand is to evade the controlling statute’s ten-year sentence, inviting the judge to impose little or no jail time.

That is not prosecutorial discretion. It is the prosecutor substituting his own judgment for Congress’s regarding the gravity of the offense. In effect, the prosecutor is decreeing law, not enforcing what is on the books — notwithstanding the wont of prosecutors to admonish that courts must honor Congress’s laws as written. Absent this Justice Department directive that prosecutors must charge the most serious, readily provable offense, the executive branch becomes a law unto itself. Bending congressional statutes to the executive’s policy preferences was the Obama approach to governance, so we should not be surprised that a pair of his appointed prosecutors see it as a model for criminal enforcement, too. But it is not enforcement of the law. It is executive imperialism. It is DACA all over again: “Congress refuses to codify my policy preferences; but I have raw executive power so I shall impose them by will . . . and call it ‘prosecutorial discretion.’” (In truth, it is a distortion of prosecutorial discretion.)

It should not be necessary to point out to accomplished lawyers that, in our system, “bipartisan consensus” is not a comparative handful of Democrats and Republicans clucking their tongues in unison. Yes, between leftist hostility to incarceration and libertarian skepticism about prosecutorial power, there is common ground among some factions of lawmakers when it comes to opposing our allegedly draconian penal code. But these factions are not much of a consensus. The only consensus that matters is one that drums up support sufficient to enact legislation into law. “Criminal-justice reform” is of a piece with “comprehensive immigration reform” and the Obama agenda: If it actually enjoyed broad popularity, resort to executive fiat would be unnecessary — Congress would codify it.

The criminal-justice “reformers” want mandatory-minimum-sentencing provisions eliminated and other sentencing provisions mitigated. Yet, despite the sympathetic airing they get from the “progressive” mainstream media, they are unable to get their “reforms” passed by Congress. How come? Because strong majorities of lawmakers understand themselves to be accountable to commonsense citizens — people who aren’t “evolved” enough to grasp how reducing the number of criminals in prisons will somehow decrease the amount of crime. Most of us benighted types proceed under the quaint assumption that, even in “today’s America,” the streets are safer when the criminals are not on them.

In light of the caterwauling about mandatory-minimum sentencing by people either unfamiliar with or in a state of amnesia about what the federal system was like before it was instituted, it is worth repeating: Such provisions mean that the public, rather than the judge, decides the minimum appropriate term for serious crimes. As a class, judges are elite products of American universities and tend to be more left-leaning than the general public. That is particularly the case with respect to President Obama’s 335 judicial appointees, many of them — like Obama himself, as well as Vance and Stewart — philosophically resistant to incarceration as a response to crime. We can certainly repeal mandatory minimums, but if we do, it will vest those judges with unfettered discretion to mete out punishment...

Sessions is Numero Uno in my book. I was bummed upon hearing the talk of his possible resignation. We really need this guy at the helm over there. He's MAGA.

Keep reading.

New Year's Eve Prankster Changes Hollywood Sign Overnight to Read 'Hollyweed' (VIDEO)

Well, this state is "Cali-weed" now, so I guess it's appropriate.

At ABC 7 Los Angeles, "HOLLYWOOD SIGN ALTERED TO READ 'HOLLYWEED' IN APPARENT NEW YEAR'S DAY PRANK."

#HOLLYWOODSIGN UPDATE: Crews working to remove black tarps after vandal alters landmark to read '#Hollyweed' https://t.co/cmkNgpA1D5 pic.twitter.com/bMuWRk6j8u

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) January 1, 2017

The Movement for Prison Reform on the Right

From Megan McArdle, at Bloomberg, "How the Right Changed Its Mind on Prison":

One of the heartening developments of the last few years has been the emergence of a serious movement for prison reform on the right. These people are not simply coming over to the left-wing side; they have their own ideas about de-escalating mass incarceration, and an increasingly serious commitment to doing so.

Political scientist Steven Teles has just released a new book on the phenomenon: “Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration.” I sat down with him on Thursday to ask him about the book and talk about what it might mean for the future of both criminal-justice reform and the Republican Party.

Keep reading.

California's Proposition 64 Has Deeply Divided the Medical Marijuana Community

Lolz.

This is interesting.

At LAT, "The push to legalize pot for all has deeply divided the medical marijuana community":

Come November, medical pot dispensary operator Lanette Davies won’t be joining others in her industry in voting for Proposition 64, a measure that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

The initiative could create a flood of new customers for Davies’ nonprofit Canna Care pot shop, which is located in the back of an industrial park on the outskirts of Sacramento. But Davies fears the Nov. 8 ballot measure will result in big corporations driving out small operators, and the government setting steep taxes and fees on cannabis that will put it out of reach for many of her mostly low-income customers.

“Because of the double taxation and the permit fees, you are not going to have affordable medication,” Davies predicted as her customer bought a $33 bag of Jedi Kush marijuana. “The people who are going to suffer are those who are disabled, who are on low incomes. They are not going to be able to get life-saving medicine.”

She is not the only one concerned. Proposition 64 has split the medical cannabis community, with some seeing new opportunity and others fearing it will wreck a system that is working for nearly 800,000 medical pot card holders...

"Life saving medication."

That's good marketing, heh.

Frankly, "medical" marijuana's been a back-door legalization program for recreational users in any case, which has been the goal all along. I'm told that some dispensaries don't even ask for a "medical marijuana" card. You just cruise in there and cop your dope, bro.

So it's pretty rich that these hippies with the hip "Jedi Kush" baggies are all up in arms now that Big Marijuana's coming to town. Hey, you guys are the ones that got it going. Adapt or die, as they say.

Still more.

Seattle to Create Government-Financed 'Heroin-Injection Clinics', 'Safe Sites' for Junkies to Shoot Up

It's a terrible idea, but then, this is Seattle, the far-left freakazoid enclave on Puget Sound.

At LAT, "Seattle's new war on drugs: Giving heroin addicts 'safe sites' to shoot up":

Seattle officials are moving forward with a controversial plan for what would be the nation’s first supervised heroin-injection clinics — government-financed shooting galleries that supporters say can save lives but that critics say will only enable drug users.

A new 99-page task force study envisions at least two safe-use facilities — one in Seattle, another in the suburbs — where heroin addicts can legally take narcotics while being monitored by medical personnel who can administer aid or call 911 if needed.

The project is modeled after North America’s first supervised heroin haven, InSite, a government-funded injection facility 140 miles north in Vancouver, B.C., which in 13 years of operation has never had an overdose fatality, officials there say.

That success has inspired other cities — including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland — to consider government-approved safe sites for addicts to inject heroin. But Seattle is moving fastest, convinced there is “urgent need for action,” as the new study puts it.

“For me personally, what has worked,” says Seattle social worker Thea Oliphant-Wells, a task force member and recovering heroin addict for 11 years, “was to have harm-reduction folks engaging me long before I was ready to change my drug-abuse behavior. I promise you, when you give people the opportunity to get better, they will.”

Jeff Duchin, head of Seattle-King County Public Health, said the safe sites — officially known as Community Health Engagement Locations — will increase the odds for drug users to return to healthy lives by reducing overdoses, preventing HIV and other infections and cutting down on other drug-related medical problems.

The proposal has the support of King County’s chief executive and the mayor of Seattle, a city once dubbed by Rolling Stone as “Junkie Town.” Heroin use here and across the U.S. dripped, then spiked in the last decade as Americans addicted to pain killers such as OxyContin and Percocet looked to the streets for cheaper alternatives.

A United Nations study released this summer found that use of heroin has soared in the last two decades. U.S. deaths related to the narcotic have increased fivefold since 2000 and the number of U.S. users has tripled to one million in that time.

In King County, with good Samaritan laws that prevent prosecution of anyone who, in good faith, aids an overdose victim, and with wider use of the recovery drug Naloxone by first responders, overdose deaths actually dropped last year — 132, compared with 156 in 2014.

But from 2010 to 2014, the number of users seeking treatment here doubled from 1,439 to 2,886, and the death toll in 2015 was a third higher than two years ago.

With no apparent end to the upward trend, local officials say safe-use sites are a worthy intervention...

Sorry. I'm not convinced giving addicts a government-sponsored heroin safe space is the path to creating drug-free lives. The article needed to cite addiction experts who provide evidence why this isn't a great idea. It's still experimental at this point. My hunch is that enabling addicts to shoot up only legitimizes hardcore drug dependency. If you want to help people, get them into treatment. Drug use will continue to spike as long as government-financed bleeding-heart leftists enable drug addicts to get high.