When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one part of the American people to affirm the political bands which connect them to the other parts, and to assume within the nation, the connected and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of their fellow citizens requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to affirm their connection.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among us, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and, if they choose the path of alteration, to abandon old and institute new legislation, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing the powers of government in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that legislation long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to repudiate the integral connection among Americans, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such legislation, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Such has been the patient sufferance of African Americans; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to advocate the end of Prohibition. The history of the present War on Drugs is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having as a direct consequence the severing of the connection between African Americans and the rest of the American polity.

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Illegals Aren't The Only Worry Americans Encounter With Open Borders

The two groups with the most to lose with a Donald Trump victory on Nov. 8 would be the Mexican drug cartels and their Chinese suppliers. The reason is pretty simple: Mr. Trump has made securing the border his principal campaign theme. If the border is secured by a wall or some combination of means against the flood of illegal aliens and potential terrorists, then it automatically puts a major hit on the flow of narcotics across the border. If they can't get the illegals in, they can't get the dope in, either.

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The District's 'State' Fair Can Celebrate Marijuana, the Leading Agricultural Crop

It's difficult to hold a state fair when the District of Columbia is not even a state and is unlikely to become one, but a fair is always fun, with displays of pigs and cows and the bounty of the field, usually with a Ferris wheel and a midway offering unlikely freaks and games where the customer is never always right.

The District's "State" Fair, to be held Aug. 28, a Sunday, at Storey Park on First Street NE, won't have a lot of agricultural exhibits because truth to tell there are not many amber waves of grain on a fruited plain between the Anacostia and the Potomac Rivers. But what the District does have, more or less, is something 46 states don't have. Marijuana is to the District what rice is to Arkansas, corn to Nebraska, wheat to North Dakota, cotton and catfish to Mississippi and blackberries to Oregon.

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In his June 24 Federal Insider column, "Does the DEA share blame in the opioid fight?," Joe Davidson asked if the Drug Enforcement Administration shoulders some of the blame for the nation's opioid deaths. Do gun manufacturers take responsibility for the end user? In the chemical industry, in which I have worked for more than 30 years, we have product stewardship. We take responsibility for the products we make from the time we manufacture them to the end user's actions. We call this "cradle to grave" accountability.

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Chinese Fentanyl From Mexico Is Just One Lethal Legacy of Open Borders

There is also the Open Borders of things. What are they bringing with them? Heroin? Cocaine? Methamphetamines? And now fentanyl? Plus the murder and gang violence that are a part of this trade?

On June 9, The New York Times ran this headline on Page A1: "Drug That Killed Prince Is Making Mexican Cartels Richer, U.S. Says." The first line of the story reads, "The drug that killed Prince has become a favorite of Mexican cartels because it is extremely potent, popular in the United States - and immensely profitable, American officials say."

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Chuck Rosenberg, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, had a fairly easy time at Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where his efforts to change the opaque culture of the agency won praise.

Then it was Sen. Richard J. Durbin's time to ask questions.

The Illinois Democrat wasted little time with niceties. He wanted to know whether the DEA is one of the bad guys in the fight against opioid addiction.

"Who is responsible when it comes to decisions made that have created this and made it worse?" he asked. The DEA, according to Durbin. He quoted Rosenberg's testimony about the DEA's enforcement activities against "the violent cartels and drug trafficking gangs responsible for feeding the heroin and prescription drug epidemic in our communities." But that strategy has "one key element missing, and it is an element that you have responsibility for," he told Rosenberg. "That is the overproduction of opioids by the pharmaceutical industry." The numbers are staggering. In 2014 alone, the industry put 14 billion opioid pills on the market with DEA approval, "enough for every adult in America to have a one-month prescription," Durbin said. More than 28,000 people overdosed and died from prescription opioid and heroin, an illegal opioid, that year. Many heroin addicts started with prescription opioids.

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WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that evidence found by police officers after illegal stops may be used in court if the officers conducted their searches after learning that the defendants had outstanding arrest warrants.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in the 5-to-3 decision, said such searches do not violate the Fourth Amendment when the warrant is valid and unconnected to the conduct that prompted the stop.

Justice Thomas's opinion drew a fiery dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said that "it is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this type of scrutiny."

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The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government - or that's how it works in theory, anyway.

In practice, though, court decisions over several decades have created so many exceptions to this constitutional principle as to render it effectively meaningless in many real-world situations.

On Monday, the Supreme Court further weakened the Fourth Amendment by making it even easier for law enforcement to evade its requirement that stops be based on reasonable suspicion. The justices ruled 5 to 3 that a police officer's illegal stop of a man on the street did not prevent evidence obtained from a search connected to that stop to be used against him.

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Safe Injection Site Physician Testifies on Opioid Epidemic

The U.S. Senate turned to Vancouver for answers to America's drug woes on Wednesday, flying in the B.C. doctor behind a prescription heroin study to testify about his pioneering treatment trial.

Dr. Scott MacDonald, lead physician at Providence Health Care's Crosstown Clinic, spoke at the request of the Republican-dominated Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the Senate's most powerful committee.

"In British Columbia we need every tool in the toolbox to rise to the challenge the opioid epidemic presents," MacDonald told committee members. "Of course we would like to see an end to people dependent on heroin but for those already suffering it is essential to provide care, and care based on evidence.

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Committee Tries to Understand Supervised Clinic Concept As Crosstown Clinic Physician Testifies to Its Efficacy

Members of a U.S. Senate committee looking to confront drug abuse struggled with the concept of prescription heroin and raised concerns about supervised-injection sites increasing crime as they heard testimony on Wednesday from a B.C. doctor who helped lead one of the most radical interventions in North America.

Scott MacDonald, physician lead at Providence Health Care's Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at a hearing in Washington titled "America's Insatiable Demand for Drugs: Examining Alternative Approaches." He was one of four experts invited to speak, and the only one from outside the United States.

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ARLINGTON - Arlington's chief of police wasn't in his office on Wednesday, June 15. Instead, he was in Washington D.C.

Arlington Police Chief Fred Ryan was testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at a hearing on alternative approaches to combating the opioid addiction crisis. He was speaking as a representative of the Police-Assisted Addiction Recovery Initiative (PAARI), sharing his experiences fighting heroin and other drugs in Arlington with an approach emphasizing getting opioid users into treatment.

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The marijuana policy landscape changed rapidly between 2002 and 2013. During that time, 13 states passed medical-marijuana laws, nearly as many relaxed penalties for marijuana use, and Colorado and Washington became the first states to fully legalize recreational pot use.

Opponents of marijuana liberalization warned that these changes would bring devastating consequences, particularly for kids. The president of National Families in Action, an anti-drug group, warned that commercial marijuana would "literally dumb down the precious minds of generations of children." Psychiatrist Christian Thurstone, an outspoken opponent of Colorado's marijuana legalization, argued that "the state's relaxed laws have made the drug widely available - and irresistible - to too many adolescents."

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Regarding the May 22 front-page article "Struggling to look away from the screen":

Since when is mislabeling a condition as an addiction helpful to the patient or the public? The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as a chronic brain disease that affects neurotransmission within the reward section of the brain. The dysfunction in these circuits leads to "an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors." Compulsive Web use has not yet been documented as a behavioral condition, for example gambling, that is an addiction.

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The Explosion of Smuggled Mexican Heroin Is Killing Thousands

"Lobos" has made another bust. Back in December, the K-9 dog Lobos and his human partner, Fayette County Texas Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Randy Thumann, made a routine stop on Interstate 10 and Lobos' super nose turned up $4 million in liquid methamphetamine hidden in the vehicle of two Mexican nationals.

A month later, the law enforcement pair made another stop on I-10. This time, Lobos found $428,000 in cash hidden away in a Honda Odyssey driven by Jose Cortez, 28, and Maria Martinez, 26, both Mexican citizens.

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Marijuana Is the Trendy Herb for Those Who Want to Get Baked During Dinner

As Matt Doherty wrapped up his cooking demonstration, a woman in the audience raised her hand to ask a question: How long would the cannabis-infused butter he had shown them how to make keep in the fridge?

"I've never had it go bad," replied Doherty, the manager of a Capitol Hill hydroponic supply store. He paused. "It doesn't last long in my house."

The audience at the cannabis food festival "Blazed and Glazed" giggled a little too hard at the joke. Many of the onlookers had arrived at culinary incubator Mess Hall as baked as a tray of the green herb that Doherty had put in the oven.

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Congress Should Create a New Federal Research Classification for Scientists.

JUNE 30 could be a red-letter day for federal policy on marijuana: The Drug Enforcement Administration has promised to decide "in the first half of 2016" whether to change the drug's status under the Controlled Substances Act. At present, it is on Schedule 1, meaning it has "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse" and is among "the most dangerous drugs . . . with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence," according to the DEA. Other Schedule 1 drugs include heroin and ecstasy; and for many people, including those who have petitioned the DEA to "reschedule" pot, marijuana simply doesn't belong in that category-because it isn't that dangerous, and because, they argue, it has medicinal uses.

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Each week, In Theory takes on a big idea in the news and explores it from a range of perspectives. This week, we're talking about drug scheduling. Need a primer? Catch up here.

There are rumors that the federal government may soon lift its ban on marijuana, but that wouldn't end marijuana prohibitions in the United States. This incongruity is the result of federalism: the ability of each jurisdiction - the federal government and every state - to maintain its own laws as to which drugs are illegal and which are not.

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David Umeh's rented SUV yanked to a halt in front of the glass-and-steel facade of City-Center DC, glitzy home to Gucci and Dior and Hermes and the next customer of the marijuana revolution.

A young woman slid out the passenger side and strode up to a man still dressed in the sharp gray suit of a Washington nine-to fiver waiting outside the center's tony apartment building. He grinned as she handed him a bottle of apple juice with lemon and mint, for which he had shelled out upward of $55. "Fresh-pressed," she told him, sticking to the script that Umeh had taught her.

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Pot Advocates Find High Hopes Dashed at White House

WASHINGTON - It took a pot-smoking protest outside the White House, but on Monday, advocates for marijuana legalization were set for a historic face-to-face meeting with the Obama administration about easing laws governing the drug. Except, it wasn't. Leaders of the successful ballot measure fight that legalized marijuana in the nation's capital said they were granted a White House meeting, but it was with two junior-level staffers in Obama's Office of National Drug Control Policy.

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Marijuana Advocates Had Hoped to Speak With Obama, Got Staffers

It took a pot-smoking protest outside the White House, but on Monday, advocates for marijuana legalization were set for a historic face-to-face meeting with the Obama administration about easing laws governing the drug. Except, it wasn't. Leaders of the ballot-measure fight that legalized marijuana in the nation's capital said they were granted a White House meeting, but it was with two junior-level staffers in President Obama's Office of National Drug Control Policy.

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