A new report by the Justice Policy Institute confirms that anti-gang legislation that advocates locking up gang members, charging them with status crimes and charging more juveniles as adults doesn't work. In fact, it adds to the gang problem.

Mass arrests, stiff prison sentences often served with other gang members and other strategies that focus on law enforcement rather than intervention actually strengthen gang ties and further marginalize angry young men, according to the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that advocates alternatives to incarceration.

"We're talking about 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds whose involvement in gangs is likely to be ephemeral unless they are pulled off the street and put in prison, where they will come out with much stronger gang allegiances," said Judith Greene, co-author of "Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies."

The full report is available here.

As to the current and past versions of Sen. Diane Feinstein's anti-gang bill, which I have addressed and opposed numerous times on TalkLeft, the report finds:

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The House Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security is holding a hearing at today at 10:00 am on the DEA's regulation of pain medecine. The live feed is here. The witnesses:

• Joseph T. Rannazzisi
  Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Diversion Control United States Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Department of Justice Washington, DC
• David Murray
  Director of Counter Drug Technology, ONDCP, The White House Washington, DC
• Edward J. Heiden Ph.D.
  Heiden Associates Inc., Washington, DC
• Valerie Corral
  Founder of WAMM, Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana Davenport, CA
• Siobhan Reynolds
  President, Pain Relief Network, Santa Fe, NM
• John Flannery
  Attorney, Campbell, Miller, Zimmerman, PC, and Author of Pain in America and How the Government Makes it Worse Leesburg, VA

John Flannery and Siobhan Reynolds will be excellent witnesses. You can read Ms. Reynolds' written testimony here. It begins:

Thank you for asking me to speak on the current situation facing patients in chronic pain. We come to you seeking your protection from the Drug Enforcement Administration, an agency out-of-control, an agency that has demonstrated no respect for the rights of ill Americans, nor for the rule of law itself…

It's time we got the DEA off the backs of pain doctors so the 75 million Americans who live in chronic pain can get some relief.

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In 2006, a report called the Illinois Study was released. It claimed that double-blind sequential lineups did not produce more valid eyewitness identifications. Prosecutors have since relied on that study to contest 30 years of research that shows they are more reliable than simultaneous identification procedures.

Now, a new report is out by leading researchers in the country finding that the Illinois study was flawed.

A blue ribbon panel of social scientists, convened by the Center for Modern Forensic Practice of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the Illinois Eyewitness Identification Field Study, which challenged 30 years of academic research into eyewitness identification procedures, was itself crippled by a design flaw that made the study's conclusions a dangerous basis for shaping public policy.

The Eyewitness Identification Reform Blog says there's no way to put lipstick on this pig.

The new findings are available here (pdf).

Scooter Libby gets off scot-free for lying and obstructing justice. What happens to those convicted of marijuana offenses? They face life-long consequences.

Marijuana Policy Project reports that The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics has issued the first study of its kind on consequences of a pot conviction. It's available here.

Some of the findings:

• Sanctions triggered by a marijuana conviction can include loss of access to food stamps, public housing, and student financial aid, as well as driver's license suspensions, loss of or ineligibility for professional licenses, other barriers to employment or promotion, and bars to adoption, voting, and jury service.

• Sanctions triggered by felony marijuana convictions can be more severe than those for a violent crime — and a felony can be as little as growing one marijuana plant or possessing over 20 grams of marijuana.

The report even lists the sanctions by severity and state. Where's the best place for a convicted pot offender to live?

A warning for doctors:

“Be afraid.”

No matter what you have learned in medical school, if you are prescribing opioids in doses that seems high to narcotics agents and prosecutors, you are at risk of a trial. And once you enter the courtroom, anything can happen.

Federal prosecutors who aren't licensed to practice medicine are increasingly substituting their own judgment for that of doctors who, in the opinion of the Justice Department, are prescribing too many pain pills to their patients. John Tierney explains why physicians who take an aggressive approach to pain management should not

... feel safe until doctors’ prescribing practices are judged by state medical boards, as they were until the D.E.A. and federal prosecutors started using criminal courts to regulate medicine. The members of those state medical boards don’t always make the right judgment, but at least they know that there is more to their job than counting pills.

Many states now have laws allowing medical use of marijuana. New Mexico's law, passed a few months ago, has a new twist. It is the first law that requires the state to produce its own pot.

The law, effective Sunday, not only protects medical marijuana users from prosecution _ as 11 other states do _ but requires New Mexico to oversee a production and distribution system for the drug.

"The long-term goal is that the patients will have a safe, secure supply that doesn't mean drug dealers, that doesn't mean growing their own," said Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico.

The state Department of Health must issue rules by Oct. 1 for the licensing of marijuana producers and in-state, secured facilities, and for developing a distribution system.

The other states with medical marijuana laws:

Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Maryland's law doesn't protect patients from arrest, but it keeps defendants out of jail if they can convince judges they needed marijuana for medical reasons.

The picture above is of Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)in 1969 when he was a student at Hofstra University. From his Wikipedia entry:

"He ran for student senate and opined in the school newspaper that his fellow students should vote for him because he knew that 'these conservative kids don't f*ck or get high like we do...

Fast forward to the present, and Sen. Coleman opposes the legalization of marijuana. In a recent form letter his office sent out he wrote:

"I oppose the legalization of marijuana because, as noted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, marijuana can have serious adverse health affects on individuals. The health problems that may occur from this highly addictive drug include short-term memory loss, anxiety, respiratory illness and a risk of lung cancer that far exceeds that of tobacco products. It would also make our transportation, schools and workplaces, just as examples, more dangerous."

Lawyer Norm Kent went to college with Coleman and now serves on the NORML Board of Directors. He fired off this response to Coleman, which is just great reading. While I will highlight below, I encourage you to read the whole thing.

Newsweek examines teen drinking this week. Experts say pot is better for them than alcohol:

Even if they don't become alcoholics, teens who drink too much may suffer impaired memory and other learning problems, says Aaron White of Duke University Medical Center, who studies adolescent alcohol use. He says parents should think twice about offering alcohol to teens because their brains are still developing and are more susceptible to damage than adult brains.

"If you're going to do that, I suggest you teach them to roll joints, too," he says, "because the science is clear that alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana."

The DEA of course sends a contrary message. Just last week, Mark R. Trouville, chief of the DEA's Miami office, announced at an indoor marijuana grow bust:

"This ain't your grandfather's or your father's marijuana," Trouville said. "This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you."

The Sunday New York Times Magazine ran an extensive feature on the feds busting doctors who in their view over-prescribe pain medication.

It's very long and contains interviews with convicted doctors and their patients. I was left with the sense that the doctors were unjustly prosecuted, that it shouldn't be up to a DEA agent to decide how much pain medication a patient needs, and that pain medication is not as dangerous or addictive as the Government has made it out to be.

As TChris wrote here,

The attorney generals of 30 states have complained that the DEA's confusing and overreaching interference with medical judgment has denied patients necessary pain relief.

And it's not just the doctors who suffer.

At least one group is fighting back -- the Pain Relief Network.

Most creators would probably prefer to have their intellectual property pirated than to be robbed at gunpoint. And then there's this point of view:

NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton suggests that society wastes entirely too much money policing crimes like burglary, fraud, and bank-robbing when it should be doing something about piracy instead.

"Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned," Cotton said. "If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year."

Ken Fisher takes issue with Cotton's odd sense of priorities.

You may see Paris, you may see France, but in Delcambre, Lousiana, you won't see underpants.

In an attack on baggy trousers, the Mayor is signing an ordinance that imposes a possible 6 month jail sentence and hefty fine for those who wear baggy pants that expose their underwear.

“This is a new ordinance that deals specifically with sagging pants,” Ayo said.

“It’s about showing off your underwear in public.”

Why is alternative means of self-expression so threatening to people? See below:

Back in the 90's, when I used to debate New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, then in private practice, on cable news shows, he was unequivocally opposed to all use of marijuana.

He's changed his mind.

"On many issues, hopefully you learn, you study, you evolve,” the governor said. “This is one where I had, as a prosecutor, a presumption against the use of any narcotic which wasn’t designed purely for medicinal and medical effect, and now there are ways that have persuaded me that it can be done properly.”

New York is almost ready to legalize medical use of marijuana. The hang-up is not whether it should be legal, but how users will acquire it.

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