Drugs

It came as no surprise -- but disappointing nonetheless -- when this week Sessions reversed course on the Obama administration's efforts to reduce efforts to seek the maximum possible sentencing ranges against non-violent drug dealers. This week's memorandum (text here) on the topic from Sessions...

Praised be the judges who speak out against the drug war. Senior federal trial Judge Mark W. Bennett (N.D. Ia.) publicly admits feeling "greatly conflicted about my role in the 'war on drugs.'" (See also here.) Fourth Circuit senior Judge Andre Davis Jon Katz,...

Each year, the relevant dialogue about marijuana legalization moves even further as a serious dialogue rather than anything susceptible to being portrayed as stoners' folly. Worldwide each year, marijuana becomes more accepted for medicinal purposes and more widely legalized and decriminalized for recreational purposes. April...

Virginia is far behind the medical marijuana states that have made marijuana possession and use lawful for numerous medical ailments. Virginia law limits legal marijuana medicinal use (only in the form of cannabidiol oil ("CBD oil") and THC-A oil) to epilepsy, and pursuant to a...

Using police drug sniffing dogs is fraught with unreliability. as further addressed here, here, and here. Despite this unreliability, Virginia law poses substantial hurdles to a criminal defendant's obtaining by a records subpoena data about the training and performance of the case's drug dog. Fortunately...

Some unpublished cases need to be published, including this month's Virginia Court of Appeals opinion concluding that the evidence was insufficient to convict a man driving a rental car without authorization, where the glove compartment contained a handgun and twenty grams of cocaine. Roy v....

Virginia's 2017 legislative session concluded with the following two important criminal law bills: 1. On February 18, 2017, I blogged that legislative efforts failed to exempt marijuana 251 dispositions (enabling an ultimate dismissal of a drug possession charge after a finding of facts sufficient to...

Even though a Virginia 251 disposition (enabling dismissal of a first-time drug possession case after successful probation completion) can be a Trojan Horse, a 251 ordinarily is preferable to a conviction. Recently, the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate made efforts to convert mandatory...

Every once in awhile, the United States Supreme Court issues a great decision for criminal defendants. For instance, in March 2013, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that police need probable cause to believe the existence of relevant criminal activity before taking a drug-sniffing dog to...

The drug war is bankrupt. Federal, state and local governments have poured billions of dollars into the drug wars for over five decades, with little more to show for it than America's failed trillion dollar years-long war in Vietnam. Sun Tzu wisely advised against long...