The Kickham Comment - Boston Criminal Attorney Blog
In my previous post on this topic, I wrote about how prosecutors in Massachusetts must prove that any allegedly illegal substances that the Commonwealth accuses a defendant of possessing, using, or distributing, have actually been tested by a qualified chemist in the state drug lab, and that the substance is indeed either a controlled substance or an illegal drug. That’s the first, threshold legal issue in any Massachusetts drug offenses prosecution. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Drug Offenses
Massachusetts Drug Crimes: Charged Doesn’t Mean Guilty – Part One of Two
When what you do in your profession involves defending as legal counsel people who have been charged with some very serious crimes, a common question is “How can you defend people who have been accused of such serious crimes?” My answer, as a Wrentham Mass. criminal defense attorney, is always the same: “Because they may be legally innocent.”
Drug crimes are an area that many people misunderstand – or perhaps more accurately, mis-context. They often assume that anyone charged with a Massachusetts drug offense must be some kind of drug-crazed criminal, or the local version of something like a ‘drug lord.’ Hardly. In fact, the truth is almost anything but this. Some examples? Being found by police to be carrying a controlled substance without a prescription on your person. This could happen while traveling through Logan Airport, or even if stopped in your car by police. Or providing any of your prescription pain medication to another person because they were in pain and couldn’t locate or get an appointment with their own doctor right away. Or selling or buying more than an ounce of marijuana to another (yes, pot.) Or a student who gives some of his or her Ritalin prescription to a friend in advance of exams. The list goes on and on. As a Massachusetts drug charges lawyer, I can say with certainty that 85%-90% of my Massachusetts drug charges clients are definitely not dangerous drug criminals. Continue reading
BIG PHARMA OWNS OBAMA: DEA KEEPS POT CLASSIFIED WITH HEROIN
No, the title of this post is not some Republican campaign slogan, and it’s not a joke, either.
Barack Obama’s Drug Enforcement administration (DEA) today issued its final decision that marijuana is to remain on the federal government’s list of the most highly dangerous and regulated drugs, the Associated Press reported today. The decision followed a petition by the governors of Washington state and Rhode Island to reclassify pot into a far less severe category. Note: That petition by the governors of the above states was filed at the DEA in 2011 – yes, it has taken the DEA five years to arrive at not only any decision in this matter, but the most scientifically and socially unsupported decision possible. This is your tax dollars at work: Stonewalling, inefficiency, foot dragging.
So why would the federal government take five years to reach this insulting and unsupportable decision? Two words: Politics and money – inseparable bedfellows. You see, controlled substances (regulated drugs) are classified by the DEA into five different “schedules” – from the most dangerous drugs that the federal government has declared have no medicinal value (“Schedule 1”,) to the least dangerous drugs that the DEA has declared do have medicinal value (“Schedule 5”.) Example: Heroin is classified as a Schedule 1 drug. Care to know where marijuana has been classified, for over 70 years? Correct: Schedule 1 – along with the likes of heroin – and extremely dangerous drug, with extremely high addiction potential.
Ending Massachusetts Drug Crimes, 101
In my previous post on this subject of ending drug violence, I talked about how black markets and the violent crime that flows from them are created by government prohibition . This is what prohibition of any substance or material, causes. If the federal government made drinking water illegal tomorrow, black markets and criminals that manipulate them would crop up overnight. If milk – yes, milk, were for some reason made illegal, there would be criminals dealing milk – complete with controlling territories to distribute it. Violent crime would be created, complete with gangs and turf wars. Police would battle these gangs and murders and mayhem would follow. Raids would be conducted, arrests would be made, defendants would be prosecuted, billions of dollars would be spent – and the crime bosses that controlled the production and distribution of water or milk would never be defeated.
I know may people just won’t believe this. They think the best thing we can do, is just keep fighting and prosecuting Massachusetts drug crimes, and drug crimes all across the country. My response is based on three different qualification levels: 1) As a Massachusetts drug crimes lawyer; 2) As someone who has a degree in Economics, and 3) As someone who is a student of history. NO AMOUNT of government arrests and prosecution of drug criminals will EVER eliminate the presence of drug lords, drug dealers, drug users, or drug victims. It is sociologically, politically, and legally impossible. I refer you to one simple word: Prohibition. When the federal government illegalized alcohol in 1920 through the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a black market for all kinds of alcohol was created overnight. It took less than a few weeks for major criminal enterprises to erupt, the most famous being led by Al Capone. Thousands of murders were committed; violence in cities and towns across America erupted; tens of thousands of arrests were made. Hundreds of millions of dollars (in 1930’s value) were spent battling it through police departments and court prosecutors, led by Elliot Ness and his “Untouchables.” The end result? Utter failure. Finally, after 13 years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, the federal government woke up and ended prohibition in 1933, through the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. A massive waste.
If we legalized drugs that are illegal today, we would achieve two positive and immediate effects: 1) We would destroy the power, control, and the wealth that illegal drug organizations now control. Whether drug lords in Colombia and Mexico, or drug dealers on the streets of our cities, they’d be out of business, overnight. The violence and terrorism that surrounds drug use would cease. 2) We could treat users of unhealthy and addictive drugs as health problems, not lock them up as criminals. In the process, we would save billions of taxpayer dollars, make our communities safer places to live, and help addicts recover by putting them in clinics, not jails. As a Norfolk County Massachusetts drug offenses lawyer with decades of experience handling Massachusetts drug cases, I can assure you this is so. For those who are still unconvinced, I suggest they visit this site: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a progressive organization of present and former police officers and other law enforcement officials, as well as former prosecutors, who agree: Keeping drugs illegal only creates crime and keeps drug addicts hostage to their addictions.
Massachusetts Drug Offenses: Let’s Get Smart Helping Offenders, not Tough
Readers of this blog will notice that there has been quite a gap since my last published post here, on March 17, about Massachusetts drug defendants no longer being subjected to having their Massachusetts drivers’ licenses suspended, for having a prior drug conviction. The reasons for the gap in posts have been that several posts that had been published since March 17 have recently been taken down due to some technical errors. My apologies, and so let’s get things back to current.
My post today has to do with a topic that my readers know well: The utter, abysmal, pathetic and shameful failure that has been what politicians and government types have for over 50 years now called the “War on Drugs.” Idealized in its infancy and first iterations, it sounded great, didn’t it? The federal government, handing out billions of dollars to themselves and state & local police agencies, would arrest every single “drug user,” “drug dealer,” and anyone in between – all in the name of a “safer,” “healthier” society. What did this “war” – which has cost taxpayers hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars (yes, that’s billions with a “b”,) ever produce? Most prominently, it:
Massachusetts Drug Bill Would Shield Addicts From Prosecution: Smart Public Policy
I’ve posted in this blog previously about how Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello introduced his own Department policy of not prosecuting addicts who come in to his police department with illegal drugs and/or drug paraphernalia, seeking medical treatment for their addiction. I wrote of how sensible, humane, and long-past due this type of rational thinking is, and of how Chief Campanello’s approach should be emulated, not only across Massachusetts, but across the United States.
Well, it seems that this hope, may become a reality. Through legislation recently filed by Gloucester state Representative Ann-Margaret Ferrante, persons who appear at any Massachusetts police department, seeking medical treatment for a drug addiction, would not be criminal charged or prosecuted for a Massachusetts drug offense – so long as that person is acting in good faith. Addicts seeking help with recovery could turn in unwanted heroin and other drugs, without fear of criminal prosecution. Continue reading
Governor Charlie Baker’s Plan to Restrict M.D.’s Opioid Prescriptions: Misdirected Energy
Here in Massachusetts, we’ve got a serious problem involving heroin use. A lot of deaths have resulted, and clearly, we need to address this problem. No one, including myself, disputes that.
But you can rely on government to step in and largely botch the potential solutions to a given problem. Entirely unproductive efforts, misguided approaches and hundreds of billions of dollars of wasted taxpayer money have been the combined legacy of this country’s utter and abject failure to address drug use that is harmful. For the past 40+ years, the federal and state governments have dramatically called this effort, the “War on Drugs.” And it has been no more effective than the “War on Poverty.” (Look around you, if you doubt that.)
The most recent, and here in Massachusetts, most local example of this wasted and misdirected energy to address the heroin epidemic in Massachusetts? Gov. Charlie Baker’s recent proposal to limit the amount of painkillers that doctors can prescribe for patients, a product of his “Opioid Working Group,” which he assembled to “tackle” the heroin epidemic in Massachusetts. As part of his grand plan, Gov. Baker would step in between the privacy of doctors and patients, and actually prevent doctors from writing prescriptions for pain medications beyond a very small number of pills (maximum of 72 hour supply,) for seriously injured and ill patients, suffering from severe pain.
Massachusetts Employee Fired for Medical Marijuana Use: Speak Out, or You Could Be Next
Boston Fox TV25 has reported that a Brewster, Mass., woman has been fired for her job — for testing positive for marijuana use — even though she has a completely legal prescription from her doctor, to treat a serious disease that she has. That disease is Crohn’s Disease, a gastrointestinal ulceration disease which is extremely painful and difficult to live with.
The fired employee, a Cristina Barbuto, is not (apparently) being charged with a crime, and at present this is an employment law case, not a criminal prosecution. But as a Boston Massachusetts drug offense attorney, I can assure you that she may as well be accused of being a criminal. That this employer, Advantage Sales & Marketing LLC, would do this, is beyond embarassing to them: It is shameful that someone who has a legitimate medical ailment, and who has been given a legitimate medical prescription for treating that ailment, should lose her job, effectively branded as a “drug use violator.” While the law that made medical marijuana legal in Massachusetts over two years, overwhelmingly supported by a vast majority of Massachusetts citizens, doesn’t mandate that employers allow employees who have a valid cannabis prescription to take it while at work, the law clearly does not prohibit authorized employees from using at when not at work.
End Massachusetts Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentencing for Nonviolent Defendants – Part Two of Two
In my previous post on this subject, last week, I discussed how unjust, wasteful and counterproductive Massachusetts mandatory minimum drug sentences are.
In today’s post I’ll provide some examples: If you bought or sold a little over an ounce of pot from a friend, or anyone, were charged under the relevant Massachusetts statute and found guilty, a judge had no choice but to sentence you to a minimum jail sentence – as though you were the head of a Colombian drug cartel. If you are charged and found guilty of possession of drugs with intent to distribute within 300 feet of a designated school zone, you face a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 2 years – even if the transaction had absolutely nothing to do with kids attending the school. As a Boston and Wrentham, Massachusetts drug charges lawyer, I can assure you that all that mandatory minimum sentences have done is swell our already overcrowded prison system. With nonviolent drug offenders – at a cost to you and me of $50,000 per year. These people are not violent criminals, our streets become no safer a a result of their incarceration, violent crime still rages, and less prison space is available for violent criminals.
End Massachusetts Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentencing – Part One of Two
Readers of this blog know that I’ve made my opposition to mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, well known. It is a foolhardy, unjust, wasteful, and expensive approach to sound legal policy when it comes to Massachusetts drug crimes. As a Massachusetts drug charges attorney, I know this all too well.
In fact, I’ll call this foolish approach to criminal ‘justice’ just what it is: A knee-jerk, reflexive reaction advanced by get-tough-on-crime advocates, who never took the time to actually think about the results these sentencing laws would bring to Massachusetts drug defendants. In case you haven’t read anything on the subject of mandatory minimum sentencing, I’ll once again make it clear: It’s a pair of handcuffs, made just for a judge. You could also think of it as a mouth gag, made just for a judge. That’s because these law take all discretion and decision-making that a judge is supposed to exercise when it comes to sentencing, away from him or her: If a guilty verdict is returned on the charge, the judge has NO CHOICE but to sentence the defendant to the mandatory minimum sentence that the relevant statute calls for. And when it comes to Massachusetts drug offenses, some of these sentences can be shocking.