Just say No-pioid

Jeff Landry has this fascinating idea that a major national health crisis has come about because medicine isn't expensive enough.

Since Louisiana expanded Medicaid, 441,000 more people in the state have enrolled and are receiving health care coverage. The Louisiana Department of Health says Medicaid expansion has helped more than 13,000 people receive substance abuse treatment.

Prior to the expansion, Landry said, Medicaid covered about 500,000 prescriptions compared to the roughly 900,000 prescriptions covered today.

“We already know that we’re having an epidemic, so when we put a program in place that about doubles the amount of free prescriptions available to people, think about that. That’s literally like putting drugs on the street for free,” Landry said.

One supposes we shouldn't have to justify this with a response.  Grace does anyway.  Meanwhile, Landry will be happy to accept your leftover pain pills if you want to bring them to him. Surely this makes more sense than treating people for addiction.  
 

Leon's hard line

Leon Cannizzaro just wants to protect you from the "flock" of dangerous weed smokers. But unfortunately a "stupid" law won't let him do that.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro called a city ordinance that lowered penalties for pot possession “stupid” during a talk at a meeting of the Rotary Club of New Orleans on Wednesday.

Speaking in response to a Rotarian’s question, Cannizzaro suggested that both marijuana users and dealers will flock to the city in response to the ordinance, which made first-offense marijuana possession punishable by a $40 fine.

“Stupid legislation, that’s all I can say about that. If you wanted to change the law, go to Baton Rouge and make it uniform throughout the state of Louisiana. Don’t have a special provision which decriminalizes or lessens the penalty for marijuana, a crime, in the city of New Orleans,” Cannizzaro said.

He does know that some of our legislators have been trying to push statewide decriminalization for years now and making only headway, right?  He has to know that. He should know since the Louisiana District Attorneys Association played a role in undermining the last serious attempt in 2015.  The DAs are loathe to give up any coercive tool they can use to beat pleas and testimony out of people as Cannizzaro himself demonstrated just this week.

New Orleans victims advocates are against the use of material witness warrants to force victims of domestic abuse and sex crimes to testify in court.

However, Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro says in some rare cases, it's necessary to put a victim or witness in jail to get a dangerous criminal or sex offender off the streets.

"If I have to put a victim of a crime in jail, for eight days, in order to...keep the rapist off of the street, for a period of years and to prevent him from raping or harming someone else, I'm going to do that," Cannizzaro said.

Tuesday, the judicial watchdog group "Courtwatch NOLA" released a report, taking issue with the use of material witness warrants.

"What kind of picture this paints for folks coming victims that are scared and want to come forward, to call police and talk to law enforcement if they know they are going to be incarcerated," Courtwatch NOLA Executive Director Simone Levine said. "We think this is a real disincentive."

This year the DAs are standing in the way of more substantial criminal justice reform for similarly bullheaded reasons.

Louisiana sends more nonviolent people to prison, per-capita, than any of its neighbor states. And this difference is not driven by crime. Louisiana has a similar crime rate to South Carolina and Florida, for example, but sends nonviolent offenders to prison at twice the rate of South Carolina and three times the rate of Florida.

When they hear this fact, the district attorneys balk. They say that many of those people have pled down from violent charges; they say that others have committed additional crimes in the past and therefore should be considered dangerous. They make these excuses and claims without data in an attempt to distract from the task force's comprehensive and data-driven assessment of our state's criminal justice system.

Leon and pals want to be able to arrest you for holding weed, throw you in jail if you are afraid to testify, and  keep  you in jail for a long time for the crimes you might have committed other than those you have actually been convicted of.  All of this flies in the face of public sentiment, by the way, which appears to be lining up in favor of reform.

Large majorities favor three criminal justice reform proposals included in the 2017 Louisiana Survey: Shorter sentences for people convicted of non-violent crimes (75 percent); more alternatives to prison – such as drug treatment or rehabilitation programs – for people convicted of non-violent offenses (86 percent); and abandoning mandatory minimum sentences in favor of more flexibility for judges to determine sentences (72 percent).

Maybe the sentiment of the "large majorities" will prevail in the legislature despite the hard line taken by Cannizzaro and the DAs. But you never know with those guys. They are pretty famous for passing "stupid legislation" in their own right.

Speaking of steps we'd like to skip

It's tiresome that we have to go through this awkward stage of marijuana sorta legalization.  In order to arrive at a common sense policy (if we ever do.)

Smoking a joint in New Orleans could be treated like a minor traffic infraction if an ordinance drawn up by City Councilwoman Susan Guidry becomes law.

The proposed change builds on Guidry’s previous effort to have police de-emphasize arrests for possession of marijuana. An ordinance passed in 2010 allowed officers to issue summonses rather than arrest those with small amounts of the drug.

Not to come down too hard on Guidry’s idea  (it's good to push the envelope as much as one can) but until the state legislature moves for full decriminalization,  you're going to end up with some confusing scenarios. This kind of officer discretion, for example,  looks like an equal protection or racial discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen.

Officers would still be able to make arrests under the more punitive state law instead of the municipal code, something Guidry suggested could be used in cases where a known drug dealer is caught with only a small amount of marijuana on him. State law allows for a fine of up to $500 and up to six months in jail for a first offense when an offender has more than 14 grams of marijuana and up to eight years in prison for a fourth offense.

If the ordinance is passed by the council and signed by Mayor Mitch Landrieu, officers would be able to choose whether to use the city ordinance or the state law when deciding how to deal with suspects found in possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Because nothing the city does can override state law, officers would always be able to choose which one to use in any given case. Guidry said having the two sets of laws would allow officers to continue to make arrests if they feel the situation warrants it.

Yeah, see, that is.. not ideal.  If you're gonna get into these weeds, you might as well go ahead and legalize it altogether.

Maybe we should drug test Gambit

A few weeks ago, Gambit endorsed Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne in the gubernatorial election.  Here's what their editorial says.

We cannot afford another culture-warrior governor who’d rather grandstand on social issues than solve the structural problems that hold our state back. We can do better. We must do better.

Here is how Jay Dardenne proposes to do better. 

Dardenne, a Baton Rouge Republican, had run a clean, upbeat campaign in his bid for governor, rolling out folksy and decidedly positive TV ads that had a “Morning in America” feel to them. But his latest ad promising to drug test beneficiaries of welfare and unemployment insurance is the political equivalent of tossing raw meat to the most ravenous, base voters.

Drug testing welfare recipients has become an increasingly popular political gimmick in red-state America, but the results of drug testing recipients of food stamps shows that drug use among that population is much, much lower than the general populace based on how few welfare recipients actually test positive for drugs

It's also incredibly wasteful.  That column goes on to cite some figures from Think Progress  collected from seven different states.

Missouri spent more than $336,000 to drug test nearly 39,000 welfare applicants, of whom 48 tested positive for drugs. That comes to $7,000 per positive result. Utah spent $65,000 to test 9,500 applicants and busted 29, or $2,200 per positive result. And on and on. The evidence shows that welfare recipients, overwhelmingly single mothers and their dependent children, are not druggies

There's also this to consider. Drug testing is big business and, in Florida, it's already proven to be a big hellmouth of corruption. 

Conveniently, Rick Scott pushed mandatory drug testing—provided, in part, by his wife’s company, Solantic^⁠. Scott transferred his $62 million stake^⁠ in the company to his wife only a few months before mandating drug testing for state employees and welfare recipients. Many companies provide drug testing^⁠, including Quest, LabCorps, Roche, and Mobile Diagnostic Testing. There are programs by DATIA and others on how to start your own testing business or become a contractor^⁠. 

On the other hand, Gambit assures us that Dardenne is "a man guided by his inner moral compass" so that's probably not something we have to worry about, right?

How do you fake memorialize that which is not yet dead?

Somewhat incoherent protest

While the Louisiana Legislature started considering potential marijuana reform earlier this year, and New Orleans has taken small steps to change how marijuana users are penalized, marijuana's "prohibition" remains. Several groups, however, will take to the streets of the French Quarter Oct. 11 to welcome the end of anti-marijuana laws.

The Louisiana Cannabis Coalition, Louisiana Herbs and the LSU Chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy host a "jazz funeral" for marijuana prohibition Oct. 11. The march begins at 3 p.m. at Canal and Bourbon streets. At 4 p.m., it moves from Bourbon to St. Ann Street and ends at Jackson Square, where the rally continues until 7 p.m.

I know I read some blurb this week about NOPD continuing to favor arrests in weed possession cases despite the option to issue summons.  But I can't remember where I read this.  Instead here is a story where New York cops prefer pistol whipping.

Robert Adley likes the giggles

Senator Adley is co-sponsoring a bill in the Louisiana Legislature introduced by J.P.Morrell that would decriminalize marijuana possession.

Sponsored by state Sen. J.P. Morrell, the bill would make possession of marijuana a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison. Under current law, first-time marijuana possession is a misdemeanor; subsequent charges are felonies. The maximum sentence for the third offense is 20 years in prison.

A few weeks ago a less good bill in the House which would have kept the felony charge but reduced the proscribed sentence was deferred, supposedly because Austin Badon forgot to call the Sheriffs Association ahead of time to ask them if it was ok.

The Sheriffs don't like this bill either, of course. But it's worth noting that several conservatives like Senator Adley do.

Referring to Morrell’s bill and the state’s budget problems, Adley said, “We can’t fill up the jails on simple possession charges. We don’t have the money to keep them.”

Adley said that smoking marijuana as a Marine courier in Vietnam during the 1960s has led him to conclude that the dangers of the drug are overhyped. “People were better off smoking it than drinking alcohol,” he said. “They just got the giggles. The more whiskey they drank, the meaner they got.”

The Senate bill goes before committee on Tuesday.  Who knows, maybe it will do better than the Bible bill did today.

If it somehow manages to become law, though, it will be interesting to see how Chief Serpas's statistics-focused NOPD handles it.  Serpas and DA Cannizzaro have previously announced their intention to arrest fewer people on simple possession charges. But, as long as the criminal penalties still exist in statute, those charges can and have been pressed.

Recently Serpas told WGNO he was most worried about encountering marijuana users in the context of.. what else.. one of his renowned traffic checkpoints.

NOPD Police Chief Ronal Serpas says whatever lawmakers decide it’ll be up to law enforcement officers to enforce the changes.

“Marijuana, alcohol, any kind of synthetic drugs, they affect the way people drive and that’s one of the things we’re most concerned about is impaired driving.”

Serpas says he's concerned about impaired driving and I guess we'll take his word for that.  Last year the Times-Picayune reported that, while DWI arrests are way up under Serpas, the rate of traffic accidents due to driver impairment is unchanged. But whether the chekcpoints actually make the roads safe isn't important.  The pretext they provide officers to conduct arbitrary stop-and-searches, on the other hand, sure is a neat bonus. 

Here's a recent Democracy Now! interview with Matt Taibbi. His new book is about contrasts between the way the US justice system treats the superwealthy as opposed to.. pretty much everyone else. In the interview here he's talking specifically about how the drug laws can be used to intimidate people in absurd ways. 

MATT TAIBBI: So, HSBC, again, this is one of the world’s largest banks. It’s Europe’s largest bank. And a few years ago, they got caught, swept up for a variety of offenses, money-laundering offenses. But one of them involved admitting that they had laundered $850 million for a pair—for two drug cartels, one in Mexico and one in South America, and including the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico that is suspected in thousands of murders.

And in that case, they paid a fine; they paid a $1.9 billion fine. And some of the executives had to defer their bonuses for a period of five years—not give them up, defer them. But there were no individual consequences for any of the executives. Nobody had to pull money out of their own pockets for permanently. And nobody did a single day in jail in that case.

And that, to me, was an incredibly striking case. I ran that very day to the courthouse here in New York, and I asked around to the public defenders, you know, "What’s the dumbest drug case you had today?" And I found somebody who had been thrown in Rikers for 47 days for having a joint in his pocket. So—

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s—is that even illegal?

MATT TAIBBI: No, in New York City, actually, it’s not illegal to carry a joint around in your pocket. It was decriminalized way back in the late '70s. But with part of the now past stop-and-frisk, what they do is they would stop you, and then they would search you and force you to empty your pockets. When you empty your pockets, now it's no longer concealed, and now it’s illegal again. So they had—in that year, they had 50,000 marijuana arrests, even though marijuana—having marijuana was technically decriminalized at the time.

So, my point was: Here’s somebody at the bottom, he’s a consumer of the illegal narcotics business, and he’s going to jail, and then you have these people who are at the very top of the illegal narcotics business, and they’re getting a complete walk. And that’s just totally unacceptable.

Serpas's sobriety checkpoints aren't NOPD's only answer to stop-and-frisk.  Sometimes, they randomly stop bicyclists too.  Which is what happened to the subject of the lede to the Lens article we began this post with. 

Bernard Noble was visiting his father in New Orleans three and a half years ago when two cops spotted him riding a bicycle. They stopped Noble, frisked him and found a small amount of marijuana — the equivalent of two joints.

Noble, a 47-year-old truck driver and father of three, is now serving a 13-year prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of marijuana possession. It was his seventh drug possession conviction in Orleans and Jefferson Parish.  He originally was sentenced to five years, but Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro Jr. appealed and got a longer sentence.

Since Serpas' policy response to the bills in the legislature appears to be a redoubling of his efforts at traffic enforcement, it isn't hard to imagine more scenarios like these even if marijuana possession is partially decriminalized in Louisiana.  It won't be, so we don't have to worry too much about that particular irony.  But between a DA holding out for longer sentences in possession cases despite his own stated policy and the impaired drivers who are actually  bicyclists, there's plenty of that to go around. Perhaps enough to inspire a giggle from Senator Adley when he's in the right state.

Everybody hates Badon's bill

State Rep. Austin Badon had to pull his bill to lessen penalties for marijuana possession from consideration today.  The bill was opposed by speakers from the ACLU as well as from the libertarian leaning conservative Pelican Institute on the grounds that it did not go far enough in the direction of full decriminalization.

This afternoon in a chat with the The Lens, Sen. JP Morrell also characterized Badon's bill as being a bit lukewarm for his liking. 

I think Rep. Badon's bill is well intended but it doesn't go far enough. The problem it poses, during this legislative session, is that it is a "compromise" that, if successful could lead people who are considering my bill to reconsider their support 

Morrell is supporting a Senate version that would reduce possession charges to misdemeanors. Under Badon's bill, marijuana possession would remain a felony.

But what really got to Badon was the opposition of the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association whose support he had counted on. One supposes, in fact, the bill was as moderate as it was specifically to court the Sheriffs.  They said no anyway. 

But, Badon deferred discussion on his bill Thursday -- and said he doubted he would bring it back up for discussion -- after Sheriffs' Association head Mike Ranatza testified against the bill in front of committee.

Badon said the LSA had indicated to him that they would remain neutral on the bill, as the Louisiana District Attorneys Association did Thursday; Ranatza would not comment on the blow up, but was overheard telling state Rep. Steve Pylant, R-Winnsboro, "I never spoke to him since last year" on the bill.

It's kind of weird that Badon would have been caught this flat-footed by the Sheriffs, even stranger that he would not have been in contact with them, even.  In any case, he made a point of  demonstrating frustration afterwards.

When asked to comment on Ranatza's statement that there had been no discussion, Badon told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, "B---s---...His leadership has to be called into question...You don't do that in this body."

Badon was seen avoiding Ranatza after the vote was taken, slipping out the back as he called, "Austin! Austin!" behind him. Badon said, "I'm not in a good frame of mind, Mike."

If only there were a safe, legal way available to help him calm down....

Oh well.  Morrell's Senate bill is still forthcoming. And the House will undoubtedly take this up again.  Part of me wonders if Badon might have decided to stall his own bill on purpose just to see if the Senate version offers some room to hammer out something better.  He clearly wasn't happy with this version.

Badon agreed with Esman and said he wished the bill went further, but he was forced to compromise: "It's a good bill. I wish it would do more but it is a consensus bill."

Badon was reluctant to postpone debate on his bill to lessen these penalties, however, and noted afterward he hadn't decided to bring it back up for another vote later: "I'm pretty livid. I don't want to make any rash decisions right now."

In other words, pulling it in the first place might not have been a "rash decision" either? Just speculating.

No #spon Zone

If  Drew Brees's face can sell us Jimmy Johns and NyQuil and boy bands and such, I don't see how this is really any worse.

From WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge:

A Louisiana mother has a warning for other parents after her teenage son had a bad reaction from smoking what she's calling a new synthetic drug.

Mary Hughes is on a mission to protect other kids.

It all started this past weekend with a little plastic bag of a product called "Blue Brees." The Denham Springs mom said her 16-year-old son got it as a present and smoked it, which led to a scary night.

"His eyes were basically real droopy," Hughes said. "His speech was very slurred. He had no emotion. He barely could stand and absolutely no emotion, so 'Zombieland' was really correct. He was a zombie."

Hughes admits her daughter, who is of age, bought the product at a store called Zombieland.

Assuming Brees has no contract to receive payment for his.. um.. endorsement here, this might actually be an improvement. On the other hand, the symptoms exhibited by the young man in this story scan awfully close to Brees's performance at Atlanta this year so maybe there is a connection after all.

Still, it's probably not an official NFL licensed product which means 1) It's probably not an approved supplement and so could violate the league's drug policy and get somebody in trouble. ... sort of like Adderall used to do.  And 2) you absolutely cannot sell it within the confines of the "Clean Zone"

NEW ORLEANS -- As New Orleans prepares to host the Super Bowl, the city is also preparing to enforce temporary rules inside a so-called "clean zone" surrounding events leading up to the big game.

Host cities agree to adopt "clean zone" ordinances to help control activities that conflict with NFL sponsorships and the integrity of the game.

City approval for things such as temporary structures, signage and advertising are tightly regulated in the zone.

The zone boundaries include much of downtown, the French Quarter and the CBD.

"These clean zones are areas that are free of temporary ambush marketing, signage and events and other recognition of conflicting sponsors of the NFL," said New Orleans Sports Foundation President and CEO Jay Cicero.

In other words, NFL marketing agreements will dictate the kind of signage you can display at your home or business, as well as what sorts of products you can distribute,  if it is located within the "clean zone" I guess because the NFL marketing agreements take precedence over constitutional niceties during Superbowl week.

This doesn't mean we can't figure a way to test the limits if we're creative.  According to the city's information packet about the "Clean Zone"

Any temporary signage approved by the City shall be required to consist of at least 60% Super Bowl/NFL branding, look and feel, and no more than 40% third party commercial identification.

So if any downtown business wants to display a banner that reads "Mitch Landrieu is Roger Goodell's bitch" it's probably okay to do that so long as 60% of the background consists of NFL logos.  The downside is if the city happens to cite you anyway I'm pretty sure your only recourse is to appeal to Paul Tagliabue because, again, NFL is the ultimate civil authority during Super Bowl week.

Also one footnote to this article worth highlighting is this.

"These clean zones are areas that are free of temporary ambush marketing, signage and events and other recognition of conflicting sponsors of the NFL," said New Orleans Sports Foundation President and CEO Jay Cicero.

The city forced ambush marketers to remove Coke and Power Aid advertisements from sidewalks in a similar clean zone during the NCAA Final Four Basketball tournament earlier this year.

That's interesting because, at the time, we were under the impression that the city's move against the Coke ads was based on citizen outrage at having the public sidewalks used as an advertising vector.  But, according to the WWL report, they were actually just enforcing their corporate agreement with the NCAA.  Guess we should have known. 

NOLA law enforcement actually does something (halfway) right

Meaning, if we have to go on enforcing rules against things that arbitrary social mores have artificially determined to be crimes, we may as well not be too dickish about it.

For some reason I missed this yesterday (No I was not high)

Eli pinpoints yet another way in which Louisiana is "bucking the trend"

Wake and Bake With Dan Gill

Who knew it was actually that kind of garden show?

Now that the new and improved NOLA.com social networking bazaar has become fully functional, I wonder if this means Dan will have the most "followers".