Drugs

Behind the seemingly innocent exteriors of plenty of hotels lie illegal drug possession and illegal drug transactions. Unless the hotel is knowingly receiving payola for such activity, the hotel can be expected to seek police intervention to stop the activity. Abdul Lateef Salahuddin learned that...

On January 12, 2017, the National Academy of Sciences released its lengthy report on "Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids." The report is too lengthy for me to have reviewed yet. A cursory check seems to show the report's recognizing potential medical benefits of cannabis/marijuana,...

Settlement negotiations are an essential part of most criminal defense work, whether the negotiations seek an outright dismissal, continuance for possible dismissal with or without dismissal conditions, or any other number of resolutions right up to convictions involving amended or dropped charges and/or agreements as...

In Virginia, marijuana possession is a misdemeanor but hashish oil possession is a felony. How is that possible, when hashish oil comes from marijuana and when the Virginia Code does not define hashish oil?

After all the dizzying strides that the marijuana industry has made in Colorado and other states where marijuana has become lawful, and continued efforts to legalize domestic hemp production, the Trump administration's marijuana policies may make federal litigation all the more necessary and extensive to...

In Virginia, if a criminal misdemeanor statute lists no possible jail time, then the offense actually is a Class 1 misdemeanor, carrying up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500. Va. Code § 18.2-12.

Unrepresented criminal defendants do all sorts of harmful things to themselves when they appear for their trial date without a lawyer. One recent situation took the cake.

If one or more people want to be foolhardy enough to use or share methamphetamine, why do we need to waste limited police resources and government money on finding and nabbing them, rather than letting them suffer their own consequences of using the drug, until...

It always is all the more an honor when a NORML chapter invites me to speak at one of their gatherings. My most recent such speaking engagement was at the Northern Virginia NORML's August 9 meeting in Arlington, Virginia. There, my talk on marijuana reform...

Drug detection is about chemistry, and even prosecutors' chemists -- with a never-ending stream and often backlog of alleged drugs to test while still testifying in court -- can get drug testing wrong, particularly with being challenged by mental and physical exhaustion with their heavy...