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THE WAR ON DRUGS
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THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC CONTINUES. As 2016 was ending,
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that opioid overdose deaths had topped 33,000, and with 12,000 heroin overdoses, junk had overtaken gun violence as a leading cause of death. The crisis has provoked a variety of responses at both the state and the federal levels. Last month Congress approved $1 billion in opioid treatment and prevention programs. The overdose epidemic also has prompted the loosening of access to the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone and prodded ongoing efforts to embrace more harm-reduction approaches, such as places for supervised injections. On the other hand, prosecutors in states across the country have taken to filing murder charges against those who sell opioids (prescription or otherwise) to people who then die of overdoses, more intrusive and privacy-invading prescription monitoring programs have been established and the tightening of the screws on opioid prescriptions is leaving some chronic pain sufferers in the lurch, while leading others to seek opioids on the black market.
OBAMA COMMUTES MORE THAN 1,000 DRUG WAR SENTENCES. In a bid to undo some of the most
egregious excesses of the drug war, President Barack Obama cut the sentences of and freed more than 1,000 people sentenced under the harsh laws of the 1980s — particularly the racially biased crack cocaine laws — who already have served more time than they would have if sentenced under current laws passed during the Obama administration. Obama has commuted more sentences in a single year than any president in history and more than the last 11 presidents combined. The commutations come under a program announced by former Attorney General Eric Holder, who encouraged drug war prisoners to apply for them. The bad news is that the clock will run out before Obama has a chance to deal with thousands of pending applications that are backlogged in the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
THE WAR ON DRUGS
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