In 2010, Colorado lawmakers took a meaningful step towards drug law reform by passing House Bill 1352, which nibbles at the edges of the disastrous War on Drugs by amending some of Colorado’s controlled substance statutes (see my HuffPost Denver piece on HB 1352).

And while lawmakers continued that reform momentum this year, those efforts were tempered by other bills that expanded an already intrusive and expensive drug law regime that returns questionable public safety value.

For instance, the 2011 Colorado Legislature voted overwhelmingly to create new drug felonies (and thus new drug felons) by passing Senate Bill 134 which added synthetic cannabinoids and the naturally occurring Salvia Divinorum as Schedule I illicit drugs under Colorado’s Uniform Controlled Substances Act.

The Legislature in 2011 also involved itself in human resource decision making by local school districts by passing House Bill 1121, which among other things bars those convicted of a drug felony from employment with a school for five years from the time of conviction. This despite a lack of any evidence that the hiring of drug felons by school districts is a problem in Colorado.

But in the same session where Colorado lawmakers expanded the scope and reach of Colorado’s drug laws, they also passed several drug law reforms.

In this ivoices.org podcast, I interview Christie Donner about these reforms, and what they are meant to accomplish. Besides being the Executive Director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, Christie is also on the Drug Policy Task Force of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ). The three bills were generated out of recommendations of the CCJJ and all have been signed into law by Governor Hickenlooper. The bills are:

Senate Bill 96, which excludes Class 6 felony drug possession convictions as a qualifying offense to be convicted under Colorado’s habitual offender statute.

House Bill 1064, which establishes a presumption in favor of granting parole to an inmate who is parole eligible and serving a sentence for a drug use or possession felony that was committed before August 11, 2011 (inmates must meet other criteria related to their behavior in prison and criminal history to be eligible for the presumption).

House Bill 1167, which shortens the time frame people convicted of certain drug crimes (schedule is staggered based on the seriousness of the offense) must wait before petitioning the court to seal that criminal record.

For a more thorough explanation of these reforms give a listen here.

In this ivoices.org podcast, I interview Christie Donner about three drug law and drug offense sentencing related bills passed in the 2011 Colorado legislative session. Besides being the Executive Director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, Christie is also on the Drug Policy Task Force of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ). The three bills were generated out of recommendations of the CCJJ and all have been signed into law by Governor Hickenlooper. The bills are:

Senate Bill 96, which excludes Class 6 felony drug possession convictions as a qualifying offense to be convicted under Colorado’s habitual offender statute.

House Bill 1064, which establishes a presumption in favor of granting parole to an inmate who is parole eligible and serving a sentence for a drug use or possession felony that was committed before August 11, 2011 (inmates must meet other criteria related to their behavior in prison and criminal history to be eligible for the presumption). This a companion bill to last year’s drug law reform bill HB 1352, described in my Huffington Post piece here.

House Bill 1167, which shortens the time frame people convicted of certain drug crimes (schedule is staggered based on the seriousness of the offense) must wait before petitioning the court to seal that criminal record.

Give a listen here.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the contemporary war on drugs in the United States. In 1970, a Democrat-controlled Congress passed and Republican President Richard M. Nixon signed into law the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control act, which consolidated and updated all previous federal drug laws. Included in the legislation was the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which established five categories (or “schedules”) of regulated drugs based on their medicinal value and potential for addiction, and which remains the legal framework for the war on drugs. In 1971, Nixon declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one in the United States” (a ludicrous statement) and the modern drug war was launched.

For a fuller examination of the history, and consequences, of drug prohibition in the United States, see my co-authored (with Dave Kopel) monograph on the issue, The Drug War against Civil Liberty and Human Rights, published by the Liberal Institute of the Friederich Naumann Foundation.

To mark the occasion, I am re-reading Mark Bowden’s terrific book, Killing Pablo, the story of the rise and fall of Colombian criminal and terrorist Pablo Escobar, who in the 1980s became fabulously wealthy, powerful and infamous due to drug-prohibition, much the same way American criminal Al Capone became fabulously wealthy, powerful and infamous a half-century earlier due to alcohol prohibition.

It is also a story of the wild abandon with which American drug warriors were (and still are) willing to irresponsibly grow the size and power of government, “reinterpret” inconvenient laws, blur the line between soldier and police, launch military actions, throw away ridiculous amounts of tax dollars, and waste both lives and liberty in a futile effort to stop free Americans from consuming politically incorrect substances. From Killing Pablo (page 54):

In April of 1986, the president [Reagan] had signed National Security Decision Directive 221, which for the first time declared drug trafficking a threat to national security. The directive opened the door to direct military involvement in the war on drugs, which was placing a growing emphasis on attacking the crops, labs and traffickers in Central and South America. This was an unprecedented mixing of law enforcement and military missions, and Reagan directed that any American laws or regulations prohibiting such an alliance were to be reinterpreted or amended. The Departments of Defense and Justice were directed to “develop and implement any necessary modifications to applicable statutes, regulations, procedures and guidelines to enable U.S. military forces to support counter-narcotics efforts.” Beginning that summer, U.S. Army troops joined DEA agents and Bolivian police in raiding fifteen cocaine processing labs in that country.

For an explanation of how U.S. drug war efforts in Andean Ridge countries has thwarted free-market capitalism, destroyed the livelihood of subsistence farmers, enriched narco-terrorists and criminal thugs, strengthened the role of the military, weakened civilian rule, and propped up government corruption, see my chapter (again, co-authored with Dave Kopel) “A Foreign Policy Disaster” in the book, The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the Drug War (Accurate Press, 2004).

In early February, the Independence Institute, the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, and the Pew Center on the States held a panel event on the ongoing work of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) and the prospects for criminal sentencing, parole, and other criminal justice related reforms in the 2011 Colorado General Assembly.

The event brought together sometimes disparate interests including advocates for limited government, criminal justice reformers, representatives of both the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar and the Colorado District Attorney’s Council, and lawmakers, including a Denver Democrat and a Colorado Springs Republican.

The remarks of all the panelists are available as audio files, and well worth listening to for anyone with an interest in criminal justice issues in Colorado.

My own very brief introductory remarks available here.

Remarks by Pat Steadman, Colorado State Senator and CCJJ drug policy task force member available here.

Remarks by Mark Waller, Colorado State Representative and CCJJ commissioner available here.

Remarks by Maureen Cane, Policy Director of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar and CCJJ task force member available here.

Remarks by Tom Raynes, Executive Director of the Colorado District Attorneys Council and CCJJ task force member available here.

Remarks by Christie Donner, Executive Director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition and CCJJ task force member available here.

State spending does not drive the prison population.  Rather, just like an entitlement, the prison population drives state spending.  The legislature’s ability to affect the prison caseload, and thus the corrections budget, rests in its prerogative to write, and when necessary, re-write the state’s criminal sentencing and parole laws and policies.

In 2010, Colorado lawmakers passed and Governor Ritter signed a half-dozen sentencing and other criminal justice-related bills that were generated out of the work of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ).  All of these bills were fairly modest in scope (an appropriate enough approach to most criminal justice reform efforts), but taken together it was the most significant effort at sentencing reform, and thus prison spending reform, in Colorado in the last twenty-five years.  Indeed, the last time the Colorado legislature took this big a swipe at sentencing was in 1985 with House Bill 1320, which not only increased the minimum sentences for crimes of violence, but also doubled the maximum penalties for all levels of felony crimes, regardless of the nature of the crime, in Colorado’s presumptive sentencing range.  Colorado taxpayers have been paying the price of runaway prison spending, with a less-than-clear public safety benefit, ever since.

The CCJJ is still working, and there will be both more recommendations and more sentencing and criminal justice-related bills in the 2011 Colorado General Assembly.  So the Independence Institute is teaming up with the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition and the Pew Center on the States to throw a panel event to find out just what is on tap for sentencing reform in Colorado this year.

The event will be Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 5:00 PM at the University Club, just north of the Colorado State Capitol.  Panelists include State Representative and CCJJ commissioner Mark Waller; State Senator and CCJJ drug task force member Pat Steadman; Christie Donner, Executive Director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition and CCJJ task force member; Richard Jerome from the Pew Center on the State’s Public Safety Performance Project and yours truly from the Independence Institute.

Details available here.  And after you RSVP, you can get prepped for the event by reading the sentencing reform section of the Independence Institute’s Citizens’ Budget project.

The New York Times has a disturbing story on mission creep by the DEA in the disastrous war on drugs. From the Times:

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.

The dramatic growth in the size and scope of the American drug war bureaucracy is actually a solid example of how big, intrusive government is both perpetuated and expanded.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed into law the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act, which consolidated and updated all previous federal drug laws. Part of this legislation was the Controlled Substances Act, which remains the legal framework for the contemporary war on drugs.

In 1973, Congress created the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, consolidating the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs; the new agency also included agents from the U.S. Customs Service and the Central Intelligence Agency. The 1973 DEA had fewer than 1,500 special agents and a budget of around $75 million.

In 2009, the DEA had over 5,200 special agents and its budget was over $2.6 billion. Moreover, as the Times article continues, “The D.E.A. now has 87 offices in 63 countries and close partnerships with governments that keep the Central Intelligence Agency at arm’s length.”

In other words, American taxpayers are now the proud owners of the world’s drug police force, and then some.

But the DEA is just one part of a vast, and ever-expanding American drug war bureaucracy. As Independence Institute research director Dave Kopel and I describe in a 2005 monograph for the Liberal Institute of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (Potsdam, Germany):

In 1989, President George W. Bush created the cabinet level Office of National
Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to oversee and coordinate U.S. drug policy. In charge
of the new agency is a „Drug Czar.“ In the United States – a constitutional republic
– a high level government official in charge of a powerful internal law enforcement
agency is referred to by the same term as an absolute Russian tyrant…The U.S. Justice Department operates its own drug intelligence agency.

The new Department of Homeland security, created in response to the Sept.
11th terrorist attacks, devotes considerable resources to fighting drugs rather than
fighting terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Border Patrol,
all of which are heavily involved in narcotics interdiction and enforcement.
The U.S. Department of State has a Bureau of International Law Enforcement
and Narcotics Affairs.

For fiscal year 2005, the ONDCP is scheduled to distribute over $12,000,000,000
to a variety of federal agencies-above and beyond the agencies’ own budgets-for
the drug war, including the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, both the
Justice and State Departments.

In addition, the ONDCP conducts a public relations advertising campaigns
against drug users, and against citizen efforts to change American drug policies.
One television commercial claims that Americans who smoke marijuana are helping
terrorists.

The federal government organizes and leads multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency
narcotics task forces combining local and state police agencies throughout the
United States. Just in Colorado (a state with less than 2% of the U.S. population),
there are at least 20 such task forces operating. Thus, the federal government
takes a lead role in directing state and local law enforcement of state and local
drug laws. Such federal control is contrary to the American Constitution, which,
as James Madison explained, includes the principle that state and local law enforcement
would be independent of the federal government.

The domestic federal drug war budget is over $20,000,000,000 dollars today;
add in state and local spending and the total exceeds $40,000,000,000.
To put this in perspective, the average monthly Social Security retirement
check in the U.S. in 1972 was $177. Presently, the payment averages slightly more
than $900 a month. If, however, Social Security benefits had increased at the
same rate as drug war spending, today’s check would be around $30,000 a month.

For an in-depth look at the consequences (both to American taxpayers and citizens of other countries) of being the world drug police, check out the chapter “A Foreign Policy Disaster” in the book, “The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the Drug War” (Accurate Press, 2004). Also co-authored by myself and Dave Kopel.

Ever heard of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (or CCJJ)?  On this week’s Devil’s Advocate, I am joined by Colorado State Public Defender Doug Wilson and Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, both members of the commission, to check on what issues the commission has taken up this year, and what kind of legislative recommendations might come out of the CCJJ in the next General Assembly.  That’s tomorrow, November 12 at 8:30 PM on Colorado Public Television 12.  Re-broadcast the following Monday at 1:30PM.

Our friends at the libertarian litigation firm the Institute for Justice (IJ) are trying to fight the insane world of civil asset forfeiture laws. Where the police can take your property without arrest, without prosecution, and without much of a reason. Where you must prove that you are innocent while fighting the presumption of guilt. Talk about turning the justice system on its head! Take a look at how ridiculous this crazy world is in this new IJ video:

In their massive Policing for Profit report, IJ graded each state’s asset forfeiture laws, and how they protect citizen’s property. Unfortunately, only 3 states in the entire country received a grade of “B” or better, with Colorado getting a hard-earned “C.” Our Justice Policy Initiative Director Mike Krause wrote briefly about the report and Colorado’s asset forfeiture laws in this article.

In May, Governor Ritter signed into law six criminal justice reform bills generated out of the work of the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ). On this week’s Devil’s Advocate (still loving this new name!), State Representative Claire Levy (D, Boulder) and Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, both members of the commission, join me to discuss the significance of the CCJJ bills and where the work of the commission might go from here. That’s this Friday at 8:30 PM on KBDI, Channel 12, re-broadcast the following Monday at 1:00 PM.