Maia Szalavitz advanced the thoughtful national conversation on addiction by dissolving some of the most widespread misconceptions about the heroin epidemic in her March 6 Five Myths essay [Outlook]. Yet she did not highlight what many of us in the treatment and recovery world see as the most inaccurate and troubling myth. That is, the belief that addiction is a moral failing, a sign of weak or poor character. Rigorous research and neuroscience have proved that substance use disorder is a bona fide disease. [continues 94 words]
WASHINGTON - Sallie Taylor was sitting in her apartment in Northeast Washington one evening in January 2015 watching "Bible Talk" when her clock fell off the wall and broke. She turned and looked up. Nine District of Columbia police officers smashed through her door, pointed a shotgun at her face and ordered her to the floor. "They came in like Rambo," said Taylor, a soft-spoken 63-year-old grandmother who was dressed in a white nightgown and said she has never had even a speeding ticket. [continues 990 words]
WASHINGTON - Sallie Taylor was sitting in her apartment in Northeast Washington one evening in January 2015 watching "Bible Talk" when her clock fell off the wall and broke. She turned and looked up. Nine District of Columbia police officers smashed through her door, pointed a shotgun at her face and ordered her to the floor. "They came in like Rambo," said Taylor, a softspoken 63-year-old grandmother who was dressed in a white nightgown and said she has never had even a speeding ticket. [continues 516 words]
America' s epidemic of heroin and prescription pain reliever addiction has become a major issue in the 2016 elections. It's worse than ever: Deaths from overdoses of opioids (the drug category that includes heroin and prescription analgesics such as Vicodin) reached an all-time high in 2014, rising 14 percent in a single year. But because drug policy has long been a political and cultural football, myths about opioid addiction abound. Here are some of the most dangerous- and how they do harm. [continues 1494 words]
Pursuing Drugs and Guns on Scant Evidence, D.C. Police Sometimes Raid Wrong Homes - Terrifying Residents Sallie Taylor was sitting in her apartment in Northeast Washington one evening in January 2015 watching "Bible Talk" when her clock fell off the wall and broke. She turned and looked up as nine D.C. police officers smashed through her door. A shotgun was pointed at her face, and she was ordered to the floor. "They came in like Rambo," said Taylor, a soft-spoken 63-year-old grandmother who was dressed in a white nightgown and said she has never had even a speeding ticket. [continues 3913 words]
The District recently marked the first anniversary of its legalization of recreational marijuana. And as the city is home to so many fitness minded people, it's likely that at least a few of them are wondering whether it makes sense, or whether it's even safe, to incorporate pot into their exercise regimens. Given the long-standing illegality of marijuana, there is not a large body of evidence about its effects on the human body. However, I spoke with a professional athlete who offered his own large body as testimony to the benefits of engaging in physical activity while stoned. [continues 1206 words]
Regarding the Feb. 28 editorial "Gun violence: 7,548 incidents and counting": As a retired detective, I do not understand why the editorial board failed to mention the huge role that drug prohibition plays in the deaths of so many of our youths. Young people are shot-sometimes shot dead-every day because of their employment in the drug trade in the United States. Given the justified concern for the death toll from guns, why continue to support our nearly 50-year-long, trillion-dollar, highly unsuccessful modern prohibition? Howard Wooldridge, Adamstown [end]
The legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and the District has led to a so-called "green rush" of prospectors looking to cash in. Can the commercial potential from this newly sanctioned vice revitalize a newspaper industry struggling in the Internet age? Documentarian Mitch Dickman's "Rolling Papers" follows Ricardo Baca, marijuana editor at the Denver Post since 2013, to find out. Yet despite slick production values, this look at the intersection of two potentially fascinating subcultures - journalists and stoners - yields only half-baked results. ALCHEMY Jake Browne's journalism job: Pot critic, writing reviews of such strains as Glass Slipper and Banana Kush for the Cannabist, a publication devoted to marijuana in the Denver Post. [continues 217 words]
The Feb. 15 editorial "Success in Colombia" focused almost entirely on counterinsurgency success against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and thus was another sad example of willful amnesia about U.S. drug control policy impacts abroad. Ignored by the editorial were the equally important counternarcotics goals and impacts of Plan Colombia. After 15 years and almost $10 billion in U.S. aid, the question needs to be asked if U.S. taxpayers received their money's worth from this investment in the largest drug control program in the annals of the war on drugs in the Western Hemisphere. Today, Colombian cocaine production is increasing. Moreover, Colombia is a major source of heroin in the United States' national epidemic, with Maryland a sad case in point. [continues 88 words]
Matthew L. Springer's Feb. 4 letter, "Secondhand marijuana smoke is harmful, just like tobacco smoke," comparing cannabis (marijuana) smoke to cigarette smoke, is laughable. While cigarette smoke is enough to gag a maggot and cause emphysema, cannabis is nothing like it. In 5,000 years of documented use, cannabis has not killed a single person, while cigarettes kill more than 1,000 Americans daily. Cannabis smoke may be unpleasant, but it won't kill anyone. Stan White, Dillon, Colo. [end]
I've been an emergency room physician for more than 30 years. Every shift, I see broken legs, lacerations, cases of pneumonia and more. On the surface, none appears related to the rising rates of drug addiction and crime plaguing our society. But they are. Recently, I treated a man with an abscess on his inner thigh about the size of cantaloupe. We had complications trying to give him an IV with pain medicine because years of drug abuse had scarred his veins. He was clearly a drug user with an addiction problem, but his medical record will read only "abscess." [continues 572 words]
As a middle-age white man of comfortable means and right-of-center views on many issues, Imay have been oblivious to certain things longer than others. Recent headlines make it impossible to ignore disparities, however. An armed man in open revolt against the law of the land is killed by law enforcement officials ["Bundy patriarch shows no regrets," Politics & The Nation, Feb. 1]. There is hand-wringing and second guessing, even though his death occurs only after a month of confrontation and not-very-veiled threats. Contrast this with the deaths of unarmed African American males whose fates are decided by police officers in a matter of seconds. [continues 120 words]
The Jan. 31 front-page article "D.C. rules on smoking pot may go down in flames" described a "cloud of marijuana smoke" that rose from the audience at a Grateful Dead concert. That means the nonsmokers at the event were forced to inhale secondhand smoke. I doubt it would have been tolerated if audience members had lit tobacco cigarettes in the arena. Amid the controversies surrounding marijuana legalization, it's important to understand that smoked marijuana is not just a drug. There's a legitimate cardiovascular-health concern about exposure to the smoke itself, because secondhand marijuana smoke is similar to secondhand tobacco smoke, which impairs proper functioning of the arteries. [continues 116 words]
The District will begin studying whether to license private pot clubs under a measure that the D.C. Council approved Tuesday, potentially giving residents and visitors places to gather and smoke marijuana socially in the nation's capital as early as next year. The council action amounted to a compromise between allies of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who had sought to continue a complete ban on pot clubs, and a growing contingent of council members who had threatened to override the mayor and approve a plan to license clubs. Such an effort, they contended, would more fully implement a voter-approved ballot measure in 2014 that legalized pot in D.C. [continues 922 words]
When aging Grateful Dead members and their fans broke into song at Verizon Center late last year, a cloud of marijuana smoke rose from the audience. Under D.C. law, the collective exhale constituted more than enough for Mayor Muriel E. Bowser to swoop in and shut down the city's marquee sports arena - not just for the night, but permanently. The fact that she did not, or even threaten to, has emerged as Exhibit A of why the city's rules on when and where people can smoke pot have become unworkable and in need of change, say D.C. Council members and other critics of the mayor's law. They argue that because Bowser has never exercised the powers she sought a year ago to shut down a business large or small for public consumption, the law is effectively a sham and should be changed. [continues 1246 words]
The Jan. 7 editorial "Clouded judgment" regurgitated the same tired argument that the District is moving too fast to change discriminatory cannabis laws. But as council member Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1) said, there is no emergency that warrants a ban. Beginning July 17, 2014, the day the D.C. Council's decriminalization law went into effect, it stopped being a criminal offense to have cannabis clubs in the District. It wasn't a criminal offense to have private events, where the public is not invited and cannabis could be used behind closed doors. The decriminalization law says that the smell of cannabis is not probable cause for police action. Private cannabis clubs could have been created before Initiative 71 was voted on, but they weren't. By rubber-stamping the mayor's ban, the council inadvertently created the "smokeasy," a private residence where adults consume cannabis together. Is this the "unintended consequence" of poorly crafted emergency legislation? It's a hallmark of poor governance to enact laws to solve a problem that doesn't exist. By banning cannabis-using adults from gathering at private venues, the council created a problem. [continues 54 words]
Regarding the Dec. 29 letter "Who's to blame for a long sentence?": Lawrence J. Leiser of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys seems to stand alone in bemoaning President Obama's clemency initiative. Public-interest groups and legislators from the most conservative right to the most liberal left have joined in sponsoring and supporting sentencing reform legislation that would offer relief to prisoners, such as my brother, Weldon Angelos, who would serve essentially life sentences for low-level drug crimes. [continues 159 words]
The D.C. Council Nearly Overturns a Ban on Pot Outside Private Homes, Without Careful Consideration. SINCE IT hasn't even been a year since marijuana was legalized in the District, one would think (or hope, at least) that officials would tread carefully before making any drastic changes in the new and untested status quo. So the D.C. Council's recent antics about further relaxing controls on pot do not exactly inspire confidence. Indeed, they are cause for concern. At issue is how the council flip-flopped Tuesday on whether to lift a ban on pot smoking outside private homes, at such venues as rooftop bars, sidewalk patios and other places deemed to be private marijuana clubs. The council first voted 7 to 6 to keep the restrictions in place, but a supermajority of nine votes was needed; then Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) called council members to remind them of the unique problems the District faces in policing marijuana use. Her warning that the city would have no way to rein in open pot use if the rules were relaxed prompted two members to switch their votes. [continues 295 words]
How Lenient City Should Be About Open Smoking Is Still an Open Question For a brief time Tuesday, the D.C. Council embraced a new, much more relaxed version of marijuana legalization, voting to allow pot smoking at rooftop bars, sidewalk patios and most any other place a city resident declared to be a private pot club. That lasted just about 30 minutes. After appeals from Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who argued that there would be no way to rein in open pot use once current restrictions were lifted, the council reversed itself. [continues 833 words]
Danielle Allen equated education to reduce tobacco use with education plus decriminalization to reduce illicit drug use. DoesMs. Allen know of any instances in which innocent bystanders were killed by someone high on tobacco? People get killed all too often by someone high on an illicit drug. Just before reading Ms. Allen's column, I learned that my two darling nieces, one in preschool and the other in second grade, were killed in a high-speed, rear-end crash by a driver who seemed to be high on drugs. [continues 98 words]
Inside District of Columbia
