On May 27, Judge Paul A. Magnuson—a Reagan-era appointee serving in the federal Minnesota District Court—dismissed the federal consent decree that was sought by the DOJ under the Biden administration. A consent decree is a legally binding agreement between two parties—in this case the federal government and the city and its police department—by which the city must reform its policing practices and procedures, under court supervision. The parties avoid going to trial.

Judge Magnuson dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be refiled by a future administration. His decision immediately followed the five-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death on May 25, which was commemorated in Minneapolis and around the United States.

It also came just days after Trump’s DOJ announced it would be withdrawing from any further civil rights litigation against police departments, stating that consent decrees “would have imposed years of micromanagement by federal courts … and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of compliance costs.”

On May 21, as Reuters reported, the DOJ said it was shutting down investigations and reversing misconduct findings in legal cases concerning Minneapolis; Louisville, Kentucky; Phoenix, Arizona; Memphis, Tennessee; Oklahoma City; the Louisiana State Police; Trenton, New Jersey; and Mount Vernon, New York.

“Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” stated Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. “Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division’s failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees.”

“We are disappointed but not surprised … The current policies remove any accountability efforts that were put in place before.”

Surraya Johnson, director of the Criminal Justice Reform Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, is among many advocates deeply concerned by the Trump administration’s actions.

“We are disappointed but not surprised that the DOJ discontinued their civil rights investigations and consent decrees that were entered into from the previous administration,” she told Filter.

In New Jersey, the Biden-administration DOJ found in 2024 that Trenton police were violating people’s rights, but that never led to a court-ordered consent decree.

“Unfortunately as it relates to Trenton specifically, [the investigation] is not a marker of a real change in policing that has occurred,” Johnson said. “There was not a consent decree entered into there … while the Trenton Police Department has undergone training, we don’t believe that [means] a real, substantial change in policing, or healing between the police and Black communities.”

Minneapolis policing became the focus of intense scrutiny as Floyd’s murder sparked a movement for racial justice and a reckoning on policing across the US and around the world.

While Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder and each of the other officers involved in the encounter was convicted on federal and state charges, the police department itself was put under investigation—accused of constitutional violations, excessive use of force, and racial profiling and discrimination, among other things.

“The bottom line is that we are doing it anyway. We will implement every reform in the 169-page [state] consent decree.”

Both the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, in June 2020, and the federal DOJ, in April 2021, opened civil rights investigations into the Minneapolis Police Department and the city.

The state moved faster, and in 2022 found “probable cause that the City and [ police] engage in a pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act.” That led to a consent decree that the parties signed in March 2023. Among its provisions, it requires officers to de-escalate and not use force as retaliation; bans some pretexts for stops including those based on the smell of marijuana; bans consent searches during stops; restricts use of Tasers and pepper sprays; and bans training on “excited delirium.”

This state consent decree remains in force. And after Judge Magnuson’s May 27 decision, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) stated: “The bottom line is that we are doing it anyway. We will implement every reform in the 169-page consent decree.”

The DOJ, under President Joe Biden and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, issued the findings of its own investigation in June 2023. The city agreed “in principle” to enter a consent decree to avoid going to trial. But the DOJ didn’t reach terms of an agreement with the city until January, just before Biden left office. The federal decree, which will now not apply, would have mandated training cops to de-escalate and avoid use of force, increased efforts to end racial discrimination, and reformed responses to incidents involving people with behavioral health disorders, among other provisions.

Trump’s opposition to pursuing such reforms through these legal processes has been crystal clear.

“The current policies remove any accountability efforts that were put in place before,” Johnson said. “We have a lack of accountability over these police departments where civil rights violations have been found.”

“We can impact this change in spite of any terrible policies coming down.”

Hopes for reform now rest with cities and states. “Here in New Jersey, there is legislation that has been introduced to put in place police accountability including [Civilian Complaint Review Boards] with subpoena power, [and] banning chokeholds and the use of excessive force,” Johnson said.

Reform advocates will have less recourse if local governments fail to follow through, without the possibliity of the federal government forcing them to act. Yet Louisville and Minneapolis are among cities whose mayors have expressed the intent to continue implementing reforms and police accountabilty measures, and Johnson thinks much can still be accomplished.

“We believe change comes from the ground up,” she said. “We believe actions from the state and local level can be effective to hold police departments accountable and get some of these reforms, and counteract some of the negative policies of the DOJ … We can impact this change in spite of any terrible policies coming down.”

Photograph of Minneapolis police, two days after the murder of George Floyd, by Chad Davis via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The post Judge Dismisses Federal Consent Decree for Minneapolis Police appeared first on Filter.

On January 6, Minneapolis City Council voted 12-0 to approve a consent decree with the federal DOJ. A consent decree is analogous to putting a city on probation after it has broken the law. About 30 police departments and jail systems nationwide were under a consent decree with the federal government as of 2023, according to the Vera Institute of Justice. Under such legal agreements, a city will promise to make changes to an agency under federal supervision—in this case, to reduce discrimination and violence perpetrated by the Minneapolis Police Department.

This consent decree is the result of federal investigations and a civil rights lawsuit following Floyd’s murder, which sparked a nationwide protest movement against police brutality and anti-Black racism, including demands to defund the police and end civil liability protections for cops.

In June 2023, the DOJ announced an agreement it had reached with Minneapolis. The federal government found the city and police department had violated federal law and the United States Constitution—including through police use of excessive force, up to unjustified deadly force; discrimination against Black and Indigenous residents; violation of free speech rights; and discrimination against people with behavioral health disabilities.

“It was important that we get it right. We owe that to people here in Minneapolis. This was not a race to the finish line.”

Both sides “agreed in principle” to resolve the disputes through a court-ordered consent decree, rather than go to trial.

“Every American deserves policing that is fair, equitable, and non-discriminatory,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, at the time. “The protests that unfolded across Minneapolis, and the country, underscore the urgency behind our efforts to ensure that police departments respect constitutional rights, while garnering public trust. We will stand by the people of Minneapolis as we work to institute reforms that are lasting and enduring.”

The consent decree puts the Minneapolis Police Department under jurisdiction of a federal judge, and covers a range of new policies including police and civilian interactions, discipline, investigations of misconduct, and stronger requirements for the police chief to act on complaints.

Here’s some of what it requires Minneapolis police to do:

* Use de-escalation and avoid use of force in incidents. The department will write new policies, including training and review policies for use of force.

* Enforce the law fairly and impartially, and bar racial discrimination in enforcement.

* Respect the rights of people with behavioral disabilities in emergency response.

* Provide confidential mental health counseling to all police and public safety employees.

* Fairly investigate officer misconduct, and hold officers accountable.

* Protect the free speech rights of people who record, criticize and protest against the police.

As the Minnesota Star Tribune reports, timing plays a crucial role here: The negotiations between Minneapolis and the feds didn’t begin until 2024, and the final announcement came just two weeks before Trump will be sworn in on January 20. Assistant Attorney General Clarke acknowledged this at a January 6 press conference, saying, “It was important that we get it right. We owe that to people here in Minneapolis. This was not a race to the finish line.”

“While a consent decree is not a panacea, we hope that it is an important step toward reducing civil rights violations by the Minneapolis Police Department.”

In a statement shared with Filter, Teresa Nelson, legal director for the ACLU of Minnesota, commended the agreement. “The ACLU-MN welcomes the news that the DOJ and City of Minneapolis have finalized a consent decree aimed at addressing the systemic racism and violence that has permeated the Minneapolis Police Department for decades,” Nelson said. “While a consent decree is not a panacea, we hope that it is an important step toward reducing civil rights violations by the Minneapolis Police Department and that it will help the community hold the department accountable for its actions.”

Minneapolis is already under another court-ordered decree with the state, which the Minnesota Department of Human Rights signed in March 2023. That agreement was also approved by a unanimous city council vote, and followed the state’s own investigation into the Minneapolis police.

Minnesota had opened a human rights investigation on June 1, 2020, days after Floyd’s death. In 2022, state officials released their report finding “probable cause that the City and [Minneapolis police] engage in a pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act.”

This agreement requires a police Review Panel, to oversee the department’s enforcement practices; created stricter requirements for documenting use of force; required all officers to state the reason for any stop; increased mental health resources for police; increased required training for officers and supervisors; and required the department to ask for public feedback on its policies online and in person.

Hanging over all of this is the fact that when Donald Trump becomes the 47th president, he will bring a very different set of priorities to the DOJ. Trump has nominated Harmeet Dhillon—a conservative lawyer serving as the Republican Party’s national committeewoman for California—to lead the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, replacing Clarke.

Dhillon made her name as a Trump-friendly “culture warrior” on hot button social issues, as NBC News describes. She repeatedly sued California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) over his statewide COVID-19 pandemic restrictions; defended former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a gender discrimination suit; and currently represents a woman who is suing a health care company, expressing regret after receiving gender-affirming care as a teenager.

In December, Maya Wiley, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, criticized Trump’s decision to nominate Dhillon.

“The nomination of Harmeet Dhillon to lead this critical civil rights office is yet another clear sign that this administration seeks to advance ideological viewpoints over the rights and protections that protect every person in this country,” she stated. “Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them. Rather than fighting to expand voting access, she has worked to restrict it.”

Trump’s record from his previous term is another indicator. Under Trump’s leadership, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sought far fewer consent decrees with police departments than it had under the Obama administration, as Clarke herself noted in a 2020 op-ed, and overall took fewer enforcement actions related to racial discrimination.

Trump’s DOJ additionally tried to pull out of pending consent decrees with the cities of Baltimore and Chicago, and specifically refused to open a “pattern and practice” investigation into racial discrimination at the Minneapolis Police Department after Floyd’s murder.

For now, Minneapolis’ new consent decree has to be signed off by the judge for the federal US District Court for the District of Minnesota, before it can take effect.

Photograph of George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis by Vasanth Rajkumar via WikiMedia Commons/Creative Commons 4.0

The post Minneapolis Police Consent Decree Has Uncertain Future Under Trump appeared first on Filter.

In an organization that builds power with low-income people to end HIV/AIDS, mass incarceration, homelessness and the drug war, our member-leaders’ lives illustrate how the overdose crisis is exacerbated not only by lack of housing and health care, but by criminalization.

This past spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released provisional data reporting 108,317 overdose deaths in 2023. It represented a slight decline in annual overdose deaths for the first time since 2018. We want to celebrate decreasing overdose deaths, but there should be nothing to celebrate when hundreds of thousands of people are still dying from preventable causes.

Even when we win long-fought policy demands, Black and Brown communities are routinely left behind in implementation.

The number of loved ones we’ve lost to preventable overdose within the VOCAL family underscores this unconscionable reality. It is why we organized International Overdose Awareness Day actions outside of Governor Hochul’s office in New York City and Governor Abbott’s mansion in Austin, and at Injustice Square in Louisville. Politicians must immediately act on the solutions we know will work, not increase criminalization or policing.

Across VOCAL’s issue-based campaigns, our members are on the frontlines organizing for policies of justice and equity, and politics of love and compassion. But frustratingly, even when we win long-fought policy demands, Black and Brown communities are routinely left behind in implementation.

While overall rates of overdose deaths among white people have stabilized or decreased, Black and Brown people remain in an escalating crisis. Among demographics, Native American people have had the highest overdose death rate since 2018. Black communities have had the second-highest death rates since 2020. And among Latine people, overdose deaths have continued to increase.

Disparities are driven by the deep-rooted impacts of the racist and classist “War on Drugs”—better understood as a war on people.

We see these alarming trends in the states where we are organizing. In Kentucky, the 2023 overdose death rate among Black residents was 51.8 percent higher than among white residents. In New York, while overdose death rates among white people remained largely the same from 2020-2023, rates among Black and Latine people increased by 24 percent and 12 percent, respectively. In Texas, all residents experienced an increase in overdose deaths from 2020- 2023, yet Black and Latine people suffered the biggest increases.

These disparities are not driven by differences in drug use. People of all races and ethnicities use drugs at similar rates. Disparities are instead driven by the deep-rooted impacts of the racist and classist “War on Drugs”—better understood as a war on people. This war prioritizes arrests and criminalization over the stable housing and income, health care, and family and community support that all reduce overdose risks.

Black people are incarcerated at three times their share of the general population, and overdose is the leading cause of death upon release. Black patients continue to have far less access to lifesaving medications, like buprenorphine, than white patients.

In Pennsylvania, Black overdose deaths increased by 50 percent from 2019-2021; Black Pennsylvanians who passed away were half as likely as white people to have received naloxone. Black and Latine New Yorkers, meanwhile, continue to be overrepresented in shelters, and overdose continues to be their leading cause of death. In Boston, people experiencing homelessness are 12 times more likely than the general population to die of an overdose.

Headlines and politicians declare victory and priorities move on—leaving Black and Brown communities with broken promises, the same systemic issues, and the blame for not overcoming these conditions.

Simply put, the communities most criminalized and stigmatized are dying at the highest and fastest-growing rates. This is no cause for celebration. This is not progress.

Time and again, at the earliest signs of progress, headlines and politicians declare victory on a social issue and policy priorities move on—leaving Black and Brown communities with broken promises of relief, the same systemic issues that created the crisis to begin with, and the blame for not overcoming these conditions.

VOCAL-US and all our state chapters approach this work knowing that the issues impacting our communities are driven by institutional oppression, not personal failings.

In 2015, the New York Times gave the overdose crisis a white, sympathetic face. More than 40 years after the United States declared the War on Drugs and began filling prisons with Black and Brown people for drug use, politicians representing outspoken middle-class, suburban white families declared: Punishment is out, compassion is in.

In response, there was an infusion of funding and resources, decarceration, decriminalization and a partial shift from punishing drug use to treating it as a health issue. This was a political strategy to lessen the impacts of the drug war on white communities.

Meanwhile, the drug war and overdose crisis raged on in Black and Brown communities. Just like white families, Black and Brown families have been asking for what will keep us whole and safe—and again and again, the relief comes too little, too late. It’s clear that the gentler drug war wasn’t for our communities.

Our people need OPC, and we will keep organizing until we get them in every state.

In our fight to dismantle the drug war—and the overdose crisis it caused—grassroots organizing is the only path forward. We must continue organizing for policies that are anti-racist and equitable and address our communities’ needs—even when we are told they’re unpopular. Because when the drug war hit white, suburban families, we saw that what is politically popular is a matter of will, not fact.

Building powerful movements is how we win, and we are honored to be part of this week’s national action for OPC. At VOCAL, we often remind each other that people cannot celebrate wins, or whatever their dreams may be, if they are dead. Our people need OPC, and we will keep organizing until we get them in every state.

This International Overdose Awareness Day, let us all commit to holding power accountable—to organizing towards decriminalization, extensive harm reduction infrastructure and divestment from the drug war. Our lives, and the futures of our communities, depend on it. 

Photograph from August 28 protest in New York City by Sarah Duggan/Drug Policy Alliance

This article is part of a short series produced in collaboration with the Drug Policy Alliance to mark Overdose Prevention Center National Solidarity Week. The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, previously received an unrelated restricted grant from DPA. Filter’s Editorial Independence Policy applies.

The post For Black and Brown Communities, the Overdose Crisis Is Still Escalating appeared first on Filter.

The research, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in June, focuses on both fatal and nonfatal police shootings in urban, suburb and rural areas from 2015-2020. Researchers from Vanderbilt and Johhs Hopkins University, led by Julie A. Ward, PhD, pulled data from the Gun Violence Archive—a resource that collects data from thousands of police departments, media, government and other sources.

The team found that in rural areas, rates of police shootings—proportional to population—were similar to urban areas, and sometimes even higher. Circumstances leading to police involvement prior to the shootings—often domestic violence incidents, traffic stops or shooting reports—were also similar. People’s unmet behavioral health needs are a related issue everywhere. And in a devastating but unsurprising finding: Black, Indigenous and Hispanic people are overall more likely than white people to be shot, injured or killed by police in every type of area.

“Expectations of use of force as a typically urban phenomenon may be influenced by urban media outlets’ broader reach and alignment with a longstanding research focus on urban crime.”

Despite such findings, the researchers noted the relative lack of available information about non-urban police shootings.

“Expectations of use of force as a typically urban phenomenon may be influenced by urban media outlets’ broader reach and alignment with a longstanding research focus on urban crime,” the authors wrote. “However, a cross-sectional 2015−2017 analysis found that per capita rates of fatal shootings by police were comparable between urban and rural areas by most measures of rurality … Yet, the circumstances of these shootings across the urban−rural continuum remain unknown.”

The researchers found that 34 percent of all police shootings over the five-year period happened in urban areas, 22 percent in the suburbs, and 45 percent (a total of 4,729 incidents) in primarily rural areas. Police shootings in rural areas were also slightly more likely to be fatal; 58 percent of rural victims did not survive, versus 53 percent in urban areas. About 9 percent of shooting victims across all areas were unarmed.

Paul Hirschfield is the director of the criminal justice program at Rutgers University. He wasn’t involved in this study, but has led his own research on policing trends in the United States, showing how US cops are far more lethal than those in other Western countries, like France and Australia.

“In urban departments there are a few things that constrain shootings—like gun control,” he told Filter of the new study’s findings. “The typical citizen is not a gun owner, whereas in a rural area not only do you have more gun owners but also more lax restrictions and maybe anti-government sentiments.”

“Another factor would be [law enforcement] accountability structures,” he continued. “In urban departments there’s often several layers of review.” On the other hand, “If you’re in one of these rural departments and you shoot someone, it’s more likely you know your sheriff personally, your police chief. There might be people in the prosecutor’s office that know you, not to mention the media and general public might be less critical and diligent in pursuing accountability.”

“If you don’t experience [so many] incidents, paradoxically, the more likely you are to overreact.”

One factor that seems to change based on where you are is the officers involved in the incident. The farther away you are from big cities, the greater the likelihood that a county sheriff’s office—rather than a local police department—carried out a shooting. There’s also a greater chance of multiple police agencies and offices being involved in a single incident. The research found that in 83 percent of urban police shootings, shots were fired by the local department; that was the case in less than half (43 percent) of rural shootings.

Hirschfield explained that while human experiences of issues like domestic violence and mental health might be similar across different areas, police officers’ professional experiences with such issues may vary greatly.

“[A rural cop] might not be used to dealing with folks in a psychotic episode or suddenly pulling out a gun,” he said. “They may overreact to threats. The more threats you experience, the greater is your ability to discern levels of threats. Whereas if you don’t experience those incidents, paradoxically, the more likely you are to overreact.”

Some cities and states—among them Eugene, Oregon; Denver, Colorado; and the states of New Jersey and New York—have implemented non-police responder programs. Such teams can take emergency calls related to homelessness, mental health or substance use that don’t require immediate police attention. Some programs, notably CAHOOTS in Eugene, have proven successful in reducing violent or fatal police interactions. But when they aren’t given the adequate staff and funding, they are obviously less effective. Could more of them be expanded and brought to the countryside?

“If efforts only target local police agencies and not state police or county sheriffs, we’ll be missing a big piece of the issue in rural areas.”

“Some of the promising efforts we are seeing include a re-design of dispatch systems to better integrate trained crisis responders into police and fire department dispatch,” lead study author Julie Ward wrote in an email to Filter. “Some places are using co-responder models where clinicians and police respond together; others are developing independent crisis response teams.”

“Additionally, we’ve seen efforts to introduce more police oversight, including through local policies and agency procedures to set clearer parameters around police use of force or to require that medical responders be included when medical needs are involved,” she continued. “Part of what this research has shown is that if these policing-focused efforts only target local police agencies and not state police or county sheriffs, we’ll be missing a big piece of the issue in rural areas.”

Hirschfield added that reducing police violence will require more than just police-focused reforms—it also means addressing the social factors that may result in cops being called to the scene at all.

“What can you do to reduce these incidents?” he asked. “Unfortunately the biggest factor is outside the direct control of police, and that’s the prevalence of guns. It’s of singular importance in explaining this data. You would have to control civilian access to firearms.”

“But there are also a lot of people in mental health crises or drug-induced psychoses,” he added. “[These data] can underscore, especially in rural areas, the lack of access to treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, how lack of basic housing and health supports can exacerbate these conditions.”

Photograph by Bwave via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 3.0

The post Police Shootings in Rural Areas Are Common, But Much Less Visible appeared first on Filter.

Details are still scarce, including the precise cause of Mitchell’s death, but here’s what we know so far.

Police claimed that Mitchell “caused a disturbance” and “fought with security guards,” which led to guards trying to remove him from the building. In a video shared on Facebook and republished by CNN, Mitchell is seen being held to the ground outside the hotel entrance. Four individuals, appearing to be of different races, are restraining him as bystanders watch.

Mitchell is heard repeatedly shouting “Please,” and “I’m sorry.” The people holding him down respond, “Stay down” and “Stop fighting.”

“This is what happens when you go into the ladies room,” calls out one guard, who appears white.

Mitchell’s devastated family is demanding answers and accountability.

William Sulton and B’Ivory Lamar, attorneys for the family, told local outlet TMJ 4 that they reviewed security footage from the Hyatt. Sulton said Mitchell’s injuries included broken ribs: “They beat him to death.”

Mitchell’s family members have also reviewed the video, which is not yet public. According to the family and attorney Ben Crump—a civil rights lawyer who has represented the families of George Floyd and Trayvon Martin, among others—it shows that Mitchell was running away from someone in the hotel, for reasons unclear.

They say the video shows that Mitchell first ran into the gift shop, then tried locking himself in the women’s bathroom before he was dragged out by security guards and severely beaten outside the entrance.

“I went right into hysterical mode. Once they pulled out a picture of him for us to identify him, it was all bad.”

Nayisha Mitchell, D’Vontaye’s sister, told Filter that detectives came to their home at around 10 pm on the night of his death. They simply told her that something happened to Mitchell down at the hotel, and that he wasn’t shot or stabbed, but gave few other details.

“I went right into hysterical mode,” she said. “We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. Once they pulled out a picture of him for us to identify him, it was all bad. We broke down. My mom got up and broke down real bad, as well as myself.”

Mitchell had two children and a wife.

“Me and my brother were really close,” Nayisha Mitchell said. “I’m the oldest out of the kids, and he’s right under me. We spent quite some time together and had a really close relationship.”

“Cooking was one of his passions,” she added. “He loved to draw; dancing was another one. He also liked to write little rap songs. He had a lot of talents.”

The names of the people involved in Mitchell’s death have not been publicly revealed. They included security guards at the hotel, but may also have included non-security personnel.

“The conduct we saw from several associates on June 30 violated our policies and procedures, and does not reflect our values as an organization or the behaviors we expect from our associates,” said the hotel’s owner, Aimbridge Hospitality, in a July 12 public statement. “Following review of their actions, their employment has been terminated. We will continue our independent investigation and do everything we can to support law enforcement with their investigation into this tragic incident.”

According to attorneys for Mitchell’s family, the group of four included both an off-duty and an on-duty security guard, a bellman and a front desk clerk. One anonymous employee, interviewed by TMJ 4, claimed he was “forced to help” with restraining Mitchell. The person said they did not strike Mitchell, but saw one of the other employees hit him in the head with a baton.

“We still don’t know what happened in the beginning, that’s the unclear part.”

“They were basically ripping him out of his clothes,” Mitchell’s wife, DeAsia Harmon, said at a press conference. “To do him like that and to embarrass him like that. To destroy his character. To take away his dignity. That was so wrong of them to do.”

But at this point, Mitchell’s family is still in the dark about key events that day.

“We still don’t know what happened in the beginning, that’s the unclear part,” Latrisa Giles, his cousin, told Filter. “Even from the video some of the family has seen from the inside, D’Vontaye was defending himself. He wasn’t trying to fight back or cause a nuisance, he was defending himself while they were attacking him.”

Giles was angered by early news reporting on Mitchell’s death.

“The media was reporting that a man went into the Hyatt and was causing a nuisance and then when police arrived he was unresponsive,” she said. “They left out a big chunk of stating that he was beaten to death. That’s when the passerbys who saw what was going on started reporting, because they saw how the Hyatt and everyone was trying to sweep this under the rug. It wasn’t until the families started making noise before anyone started saying anything.”

Mitchell’s death has already ignited protests. Protesters marched outside the home of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm on July 16, calling for criminal charges to be filed against the hotel workers. A group also marched downtown on July 18, around the security zone erected around the Fiserv Forum, where the Republican National Convention was taking place that week.

It does not appear that any law enforcement were involved in Mitchell’s death, nor any firearms, though the security guards may have been armed. Wisconsin, where I live, allows private security guards to carry firearms openly, and I regularly see guards with guns, even at the grocery store.

But it was law enforcement that killed Samuel Sharpe, a Black, 43-year-old unhoused veteran, who was fatally shot in Milwaukee by five police officers from Columbus, Ohio, on July 16. Protestors have bee calling for justice in his case alongside that of Mitchell.

The officers had been called from out of state to assist with securing the GOP convention, but the incident took place over a mile from the RNC security zone, separated by interstate highway 43. Sharpe was carrying two knives, according to images shared by the police, and the officers opened fire after he allegedly “lunged” at another man.

But Sharpe had multiple sclerosis. “If the police had known that, they would have known he wasn’t lunging forward. He was stumbling,” Angelique Sharpe, his sister, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Everyone that knew him knew he walked like he was drunk. He stumbled because of the multiple sclerosis.”

“We’re going to keep protesting at the Hyatt, the DA’s office and letting them hear us.”

Although Mitchell’s death involved hotel employees, the distressing video images harken back to those of George Floyd, who was murdered by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020. Despite the global protests that erupted that year, too little has changed.

The Milwaukee Police Department stated on July 12 that it had referred four charges of felony murder related to the incident to the Milwaukee County District Attorney. The DA’s office is reportedly investigating Mitchell’s death as a homicide. But the DA’s office isn’t taking further action to file charges, pending an autopsy. The autopsy could take a period of weeks to complete.

Mitchell’s family is determined to keep the pressure on.

“We’re going to continue to protest, get out there and speak about it,” Nayisha Mitchell said. “Waiting on this autopsy, it doesn’t look like anything is going to happen. Until then we’re going to keep protesting at the Hyatt, the DA’s office and letting them hear us. We want justice.”

Photographs of D’Vontaye Mitchell used with permission from Latrisa Giles.

The post Family Demands Justice for D’Vontaye Mitchell, Killed in Milwaukee appeared first on Filter.

Ramaphosa signed the bill the day before national elections began. With the votes now counted, his party—the African National Congress (ANC), political home to the late President Nelson Mandela and the movement that ended Apartheid—has failed to win a majority for the first time in 30 years.

Legalization has been long delayed. South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled back in 2018 that marijuana prohibition was unconstitutional, and ordered legislative change by 2020. Lawmakers finally introduced a cannabis bill that year, but it has only now become law.

The bill removes cannabis from the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act. Adults can grow and consume cannabis in the privacy of their homes, and give it to others as long as no money is exchanged. You can possess but not use it in public.

Buying or selling non-medical cannabis is still illegal, however; there will be no dispensaries, cannabis cafes or other types of businesses like we’ve seen in Canada and much of the United States. It’s hard to imagine that this set-up won’t lead to informal sales or trading. But as things stand, sales remain punishable with a prison term of up to 10 years. Possession of a quantity above the legal limit—yet to be determined—can lead to a sentence of up to five years. Using cannabis in a public place, while driving or in the presence of children is punishable by a 2,000 rand fine ($108).

The bill also provides for the expungment of past convictions for cannabis possession and growing, in some cases automatically, or else by the person filing an application.

The justice department will need to write additional rules to specify the maximum legal possession amount, regulations for transporting cannabis and how expungements will happen. It’s also possible that remaining criminal penalties could be revised.

“It was very much always a weapon of Apartheid. And we’ve called it the ‘last Apartheid law’ because South Africa has had 30 years for the government to realize.”

South Africa’s laws criminalizing cannabis are rooted in the Apartheid era, when the governing white Afrikaner minority imposed a system of legal segregation over the Black majority. The Apartheid regime’s 1971 anti-drug laws imposed a strict ban on cannabis, with sentences including 10 years in prison for possession of just one cannabis joint. These Apartheid drug laws primarily targeted Black South Africans, overwhelmingly for marijuana charges.

“When the laws were changing and the Apartheid people realized they could use this plant against the people, within six months of the 1971 Act there were 90,000 Black males arrested on dagga [cannabis] charges,” Myrtle Clarke, managing director at Fields of Green for ALL, told Filter. “So it was very much always a weapon of Apartheid. And we’ve always called it the ‘last Apartheid law’ because South Africa has had 30 years for the government to realize this law is sitting there doing damage.”

The laws were re-codified in 1992, during Apartheid’s last years. Clarke and her organization have spent years advocating for cannabis legalization in South Africa, and providing grassroots support to people arrested and charged. Clarke was directly involved in the pivotal 2018 Constitutional Court case.

In 1990, the Afrikaner-dominated National Party began negotiations to reform the Apartheid system. Mandela was released from prison, and the regime repealed the ban on the ANC and other political parties. South Africa’s post-Apartheid era began with Mandela and the ANC’s election victory in 1994.

But among the democratic reforms adopted, drug legalization didn’t make the cut. The ANC, which has governed ever since, kept the Apartheid drug laws on the books, and continued an aggressive policy of “militarized suppression, spraying and incarcerations” for cannabis, according to Thembisa Waetjen, a history professor at the University of Johannesburg.

Clark explained how her organization has run a victims support helpline for people impacted by cannabis criminalization since 2011. “What we try to do is coach people to be able to [defend] themselves, because you can if you know your rights,” she said. “We also have various lawyers who will do this at a reduced fee.”

“The police are definitely still intimidating people and searching their cars. Most of the time, they’re looking for a bribe.”

“Our helpline used to get 10 calls a day before 2018 [and the Constitutional Court ruling],” she continued. South African police statistics showed about 1,000 cannabis arrests per day before that year.

“Now we get maybe two or three [calls] a week. The police are definitely still intimidating people and searching their cars. Most of the time, they’re looking for a bribe.”

Analysis by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime showed how low-level drug arrests continued to dominate South Africa’s justice system. Researchers looked at a court in a suburb of Cape Town, and studied all the cases filed over a five-month period in 2019. Over half of all criminal charges were drug-related (52 percent), and nearly all of those (99 percent) were just for possession. Despite the 2018 Constitutional Court ruling, police were still making arrests for small-scale marijuana possession.

“This high proportion of drug-possession cases passing through the Wynberg court is a good indication of how arresting people who use drugs is placing a huge burden on South Africa’s entire criminal-justice system, particularly in magistrates’ courts,” the researchers wrote. “This means the majority of proactive and street-level policing is directed towards drug-related crime. If the data from the Wynberg courts is any indication, it also means that most of this policing effort is directed towards targeting offences for drug possession for personal use, rather than the retail, street-level drug trade.”

So why did President Ramaphosa finally sign the legalization bill only now, immediately before the national elections?

“It was a political ploy,” Clarke said. “It was more of a ‘saving face,’ instead of leaving it on his desk and at the mercy of whoever’s coming next. It’s a nice thing to have in his legacy. I think there were some people in his inner circle who said, ‘You promised, you better sign this now, and not leave it to the mess after the election.’”

The final election results were certainly messy for the ANC. The party earned 40 percent of the vote—still a plurality, but its lowest share since Apartheid ended, and not enough to form a majority government.

The nature of any eventual coalition will be important for cannabis reform going forward.

Major issues dragging on ANC support have reportedly included a struggling economy, high unemployment, crime and corruption, electricity and water shortages, and even hostility to immigration from other African nations. Younger voters, born in the post-Apartheid era, also have less loyalty to the ANC than their older counterparts.

The ANC will now either have to form a coalition government or attempt to govern without a parliamentary majority. President Ramaphosa may face internal pressure from his party to resign, and at least one potential coalition partner, uMkhonto we Sizwe (led by former President Jacob Zuma), has made his resignation a precondition of any alliance.

While the left-wing uMkhonto we Sizwe won almost 15 percent of the vote, the second-largest party is the centrist Democratic Alliance, which won 22 percent.

The nature of any eventual coalition will be important for cannabis reform going forward, not least because the minister of justice—a cabinet position appointed by the president—is responsible for issuing cannabis regulations. Clarke said that while she’s not aware of any position from uMkhonto we Sizwe, the Democratic Alliance does not support legalization. “But we will try our best to get them to have a conversation.”

Photograph of President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2021 by GovernmentZA via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The post South African Cannabis Legalization Comes as the ANC Loses Majority appeared first on Filter.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), weighed in on the proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act in an interview with the Star Tribune, published on May 24.

“We’ve had a policy for over half a century where so many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. We’ve had so many people arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated,” he said. “We know white, Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, but Black and brown incarceration rates are higher.”

Gupta said rescheduling is “going to be really important to remove barriers to critical research and perhaps drug development, and it could also lead to more research into the benefits of medical marijuana.”

However, while he said that “this decision is going to have a historic and long-lasting impact,” he also made several additional comments about the move that appeared to inflate the effects of the reform.

“It happens that Schedule III drugs are a much, much lower priority in that way—Tylenol with codeine and testosterone are in Schedule III,” the official said. “It will have an impact on racial disparity, incarceration and prosecutions. And whether in Massachusetts or West Virginia or Texas, Americans should be able to get treatment for their condition.”

There’s nothing about the potential rescheduling action that would specifically address racial disparities in criminal enforcement.

A Schedule III reclassification would not federally legalize marijuana, and since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the plant as a medicine that could be prescribed, the threat of criminal prosecution would remain in force for any cannabis-related activity.

Gupta similarly oversimplified the idea of marijuana’s potential availability as a prescription drug in another recent interview.

There’s nothing about the potential rescheduling action that would specifically address racial disparities in criminal enforcement. Penalties for certain marijuana-related activities would be reduced—and the policy change could theoretically signal to prosecutors that cannabis charges are an even lower priority—but it would not change the law in a way that would inherently affect the rate of prosecutions overall.

Asked about how a transition to Schedule III could impact the willingness of banks to work with state-licensed marijuana businesses, Gupta said that “we do know the drugs that are Schedule III are in legitimate interstate commerce within the federal system.”

Again, however, he was referring to FDA-approved drugs that can be prescribed by a health professional. The FDA typically does not approve botanical substances as prescription drugs; instead, it has so far only approved synthetic THC and CBD-based medications for the treatment of certain conditions.

A report published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) earlier in May also clarified that further action from the FDA would be needed before marijuana products become available by prescription.

“I’ll leave it to others to talk about the commercial process,” the drug czar said. “The focus for the president has been making sure Americans are able to get the help they need no matter where they live, and on the other side making sure we’re not [harming] people.”

Gupta was also asked about the possibility of a future administration reversing the rescheduling decision. He started by saying that Biden “has given the opportunity to Congress to take action,” and did so himself “because he could wait no longer.”

“The independent reviews of these agencies followed established processes and procedures in getting to this result. That process is driven through science,” he said. “I can’t provide any hypothetical answers to what may happen. This is a change that is driven by policy, by science, by data, regardless of the political process.”

“Rescheduling is a process that will continue to go on for the remainder of the year,” he said. “The historic nature of the actions we’re taking cannot be minimized.”

“The country’s drug policy overall has caused too many lives to be lost and others to be impacted negatively,” he continued. “The president has been very consistent: No one should be in jail for using or possessing marijuana. These steps to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III is a policy that is consistent with science in the 21st century.”

Former ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske said that cannabis is “not medicine” and that rescheduling was “all Big Cannabis.”

A former drug czar who served under President Barack Obama recently took a sharply different position on marijuana rescheduling. Former ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske said that cannabis is “not medicine” and that rescheduling was “all Big Cannabis.”

“This isn’t people my age that are just old hippies that want to open up a pot shop somewhere,” Kerlikowske said on the podcast of former United States Rep. Mary Bono (R). “This is a huge business like Big Tobacco. Absolutely.”

Meanwhile, the proposed rule to federally reschedule marijuana was officially posted on May 21, kicking off a public comment period that’s expected to elicit a major response from supporters and opponents of cannabis reform.

Marijuana reform advocates and stakeholders have made clear that they intend to leverage the opportunity, with some planning to support the reclassification while others intend to call for descheduling cannabis altogether. Prohibitionists are expected to oppose the incremental policy change and seek to keep marijuana in Schedule I, and there’s also a looming threat of litigation.

While the Department of Justice will take all public comments submitted by July 22 into consideration as it weighs the reform, it said in the notice that one of the topics it’s especially interested in hearing about is “unique economic impacts” of the rescheduling proposal, given that state-level legalization has created a “multibillion dollar industry” that stands to benefit from possible federal tax relief under the reform.

On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and colleagues have reintroduced legislation to federally legalize cannabis and impose certain regulations. The bill’s prospects are dubious in the current divided Congress, however.

Meanwhile, the top Democrat in the US House said that the Biden administration’s move to reschedule marijuana is a “step in the right direction” but should be followed up with congressional action, such as passing the legalization bill Schumer filed.

In a recent interview with Fox News, former DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson said it “absolutely looks like” the agency will follow through with rescheduling marijuana.

Biden has separately issued two rounds of mass pardons for people with federal marijuana possession convictions. Again, a Schedule III reclassification would not legalize cannabis or free people still incarcerated.

During his run for the presidency, Biden pledged to move cannabis to Schedule II—a stricter category compared to that now proposed by his administration.

Photograph by Kindel Media via Pexels

This story was originally published by Marijuana Moment, which tracks the politics and policy of cannabis and drugs. Follow Marijuana Moment on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for its newsletter.

The post Drug Czar Overstates Cannabis Rescheduling Impact on Criminalization and Race appeared first on Filter.

The idea has been considered by regulators for years. It was unsuccessfully proposed by then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb under the Trump administration in 2018. Under the Biden administration, the plan was first announced by the FDA in 2021, but has repeatedly been pushed back since.

Many observers attribute the Biden administration’s latest postponement to political motives in an election year. They ask how Black voters, a core Democratic constituency, would respond to a ban, when Black people who smoke overwhelmingly smoke menthols.

The announcement of the delay has sparked contrasting reactions—from dismay among anti-smoking advocates who say the ban would save lives, to relief among advocates who say consequences of prohibition would include a transition to illicit sales and more law enforcement targeting of Black communities.

“It’s a matter of when, not if.”

But as far as the FDA is concerned, it is only a delay—not an abandonment. Dr. Brian King, director of the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products, emphasized this in remarks to the E-Cigarette Summit in Washington, DC, on May 14.

These policies (the proposal would also ban flavored cigars) “remain a priority for the FDA,” King said, and his agency is “committed to seeing this through.”

“It’s a matter of when, not if” the proposed rules “see the light of day,” he added.

In announcing the postponement, the White House noted feedback from civil rights groups and others opposed to the ban. Organizations that oppose it or have expressed deep concerns include the ACLU, the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), the National Black Justice Collective and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, among many others.

“It is clear that there are still more conversations to have, and that will take significantly more time,” stated Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on April 26.

Becerra, known as a supporter of the ban, naturally made no mention of the upcoming presidential election, but advisers have reportedly warned the administration of electoral consequences.

“In theory, regulations and rules are based in science, but everything in Washington, DC, revolves around politics,” tobacco harm reduction advocate Gregory Conley, director of legislative and external affairs for American Vapor Manufacturers, told Filter.

“With polling consistently showing a tight November 2024 presidential race, the Biden administration is by all accounts concerned about holding together the coalition of voters that tend to drive Democratic victories,” he added. “Top among this list is African Americans.”

“Pro-ban activists have always had polling data showing that most African American voters support menthol prohibition,” Conley said. But he also suggested that people who personally face losing legal access to their preferred cigarettes, or those close to them, would be more likely to change or withhold their votes over this decision than people who are not directly impacted.

“Such policy is not a public health approach, and dangerous to the very communities the ban is meant to protect.”

Art Way is a drug policy consultant who has written for Filter about how nicotine and tobacco prohibitions, like those of other drugs, harm marginalized communities through the growth of unregulated markets and increased police interactions.

“A blanket ban on already-popular products that thrive in gray/illicit markets is symbolic,” Way told Filter. “Such policy is not a public health approach, and dangerous to the very communities the ban is meant to protect.”

Diane Goldstein, executive director of LEAP, also welcomes the Biden administration’s second thoughts. She has written for Filter that Black and Latinx communities would bear the brunt of enforcement stemming from the policy.

“This ban, while seemingly race-neutral, would have targeted Black smokers, for whom menthol products make up over 80 percent of sales, while leaving the tobacco products favored by white smokers completely legal,” Goldstein told Filter.

“The menthol ban is just another extension of the War on Drugs, which has sent incarceration soaring, saddled millions with arrest records that make it difficult for them to find jobs and stabilize their lives, and decimated police-community relations,” she continued. “We should be doing all we can to end these sorts of laws rather than expand them.”

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which seeks to restrict access to tobacco harm reduction products in the name of preventing youth vaping, is among many proponents of the ban.

“There is absolutely no reason to further delay a policy that has been studied for more than 12 years, is supported by overwhelming scientific evidence, and will save hundreds of thousands of lives,” said Yolonda C. Richardson, its president and CEO, and Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, in a joint statement in April, before the postponement was confirmed. “Make no mistake: Delays cost lives, especially Black lives.”

“Our work showed finalizing the ban could save 650,000 deaths by 2060 through greater smoking cessation.”

But the issue also divides the tobacco harm reduction community. For example, Global Action to End Smoking (previously the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, it relaunched on May 13), supports both access to safer nicotine products for adults who smoke and a menthols ban.

The organization released a May 1 statement from CEO Cliff Douglas, describing the Biden administration’s postponement as “a setback for public health.”

“In the proposed ban, the [FDA] cited modeling it funded from me and other national tobacco control experts,” the statement read. “Our work showed finalizing the ban could save 650,000 deaths by 2060 through greater smoking cessation.” Referencing death and disease among Black people who smoke menthols, it called the ban “an imperative step for social justice and health equity.”

“This delay is atrocious,” said Dr. David Margolius, director of public health in Cleveland, Ohio. “The longer that we wait, the harder it’s going to be to end the sale of menthol cigarettes. Any delay will result in more people dying in this country.”

Menthol is the only cigarette flavor that hasn’t already been banned in the US. Ban proponents say it is particularly insidious as it conceals the harshness of smoking cigarettes, making them easier to smoke and harder to quit. Other experts, such as Dr. Ray Niaura, a tobacco researcher and professor at New York University’s School of Global Health, have noted research indicating that menthols are not more harmful or addictive than other cigarettes.

Ban proponents emphasize not only the historical role of tobacco companies in marketing menthols to Black communities, but tobacco company funding for some organizations and individuals that oppose the ban. Most opponents of the ban do not receive such funding, however.

“Decades of evidence show that drug prohibition doesn’t work. We urge the Biden administration to implement a harm reduction approach to tobacco use.”

“From the start, we warned that such a ban would drive people to the illicit market, putting people’s health at risk, and would lead to more negative interactions between communities of color and police, putting people’s lives at risk,” Martiza Perez Medina, director of the office of federal affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, told Filter.

Rev. Al Sharpton is among other civil rights and social justice advocates to have spoken out about harmful repercussions of a ban for Black communities.

“Decades of evidence show that drug prohibition doesn’t work,” Perez Medina added. “We urge the Biden administration to implement a harm reduction approach to tobacco use.”

This is another area where the administration and FDA have received heavy criticism. Under its onerous PMTA (premarket tobacco product application) process for vapes, the FDA has rejected millions of applications, while authorizing just 23 tobacco-flavored vaping products—all now manufactured by tobacco companies—as “appropriate for the protection of public health.”

Most adults who switch from cigarettes to vapes prefer non-tobacco flavors, and some find these critical to switching. While many prefer not to revisit the taste of the cigarettes they left behind, it would seem logical that some people seeking to quit menthol cigarettes would find menthol vapes helpful. 

Global Action to End Smoking called for the FDA to authorize menthol vapes in its May 1 statement, saying that “the effectiveness of a menthol cigarette ban would be amplified significantly by the availability of less harmful mentholated nicotine products.”

Filter previously reported that in 2022, Brian King’s office at the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products intervened to overrule CTP scientists’ recommendation to authorize some menthol vaping products.

On May 14, Dr. King insisted: “We do not have a de facto ban on flavored e-cigarettes … You can say it until you’re blue in the face.” 

Harm reduction advocates have been saying it—and also some judges.

With experiences from state-level menthol cigarette bans in California and Massachusetts indicating illicit markets, increased enforcement and mixed impacts on smoking, both supporters and opponents of a national ban point to different evidence and cite the imperative for racial justice.  

We have no timeline from the Biden Administration or the FDA on when the ban might be formally raised again, and the November election adds another layer of uncertainty. But this issue, and the divisions around it, will not be going away.

Photograph (cropped) by Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 2.0

The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, has received grants from Global Action to End Smoking, from Reynolds American, Inc. and Altria (two companies which oppose the menthols ban), and (previously) from DPA. Art Way’s consulting clients have included Reynolds. Diane Goldstein is a member of the board of directors of The Influence Foundation, and LEAP was formerly The Influence Foundation’s fiscal sponsor. Filter’s Editorial Independence Policy applies. 

The post The Menthols Ban: Delayed, Divisive and Far From Dead appeared first on Filter.

The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on May 8, was led by Dr. Christopher M. Jones, director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. The researchers ran a cross-sectional study looking at a decade of data between 2011 and 2021.

They estimated that over 321,000 children lost at least one parent to overdose in that period, with the numbers worsening over time.

“It is devastating to see that almost half of the people who died of a drug overdose had a child,” Nora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said in a press release. According to the data, 650,000 adults aged 18-64 died of overdose between 2011 and 2021.

The devastation is impacting some demographics far more than others.

“No family should lose their loved one to an overdose, and each of these deaths represents a tragic loss that could have been prevented,” she continued. “These findings emphasize the need to better support parents in accessing prevention, treatment, and recovery services. In addition, any child who loses a parent to overdose must receive the care and support they need to navigate this painful and traumatic experience.”

The devastation is impacting some demographics far more than others. Indigenous children, in particular, lost parents to overdose at more than twice the rate of non-Hispanic white and Black children. And while parents of all demographics died at increasingly high rates over the study period, the rate for young, non-Hispanic Black parents—those aged 18-25—increased faster than for any other group, rising by an annual average of 23.8 percent. Parents of all genders died at increasingly high rates, but fathers were significantly more likely to die than mothers.

The trauma of losing a parent can extend for years—or generations—to come. A 2021 study, for example, found that children whose parents die for any reason are more likely to develop conditions like anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder or substance use disorder. Research has also found that children are likelier to engage in substance use and in suicidal behavior around the anniversary of a parent’s death. And being in the foster care system is associated with harmful or challenging outcomes, especially for youth “aging out” of foster care, like becoming homeless or incarcerated.

Many drug laws make it less likely for parents with issues around substance use to seek help that could keep them safer, for fear of punishment. For example, according to the study, at least 25 states and Washington, DC, consider drug use during pregnancy as “child abuse”—potentially leading to fines, loss of custody, involuntary commitment or even incarceration.

Better drug laws and more accessible harm reduction would reduce the toll for parents and children. But what are some measures that might help within the health care system, and what’s holding them back?

“We should be much more proactive in screening for opioid use disorder, certainly among women who are pregnant or have children,” Volkow told Filter. “We don’t screen sufficiently, so we are missing the opportunity to do an intervention. What’s clear is patients don’t necessarily report to their doctor they have an OUD. If the doctor doesn’t ask, most patients won’t tell them.”

“Patients may not want to go to the doctor because they don’t want to face the consequences as far as being put in jail and losing custody of their children.”

But she described obstacles to regular and ethical interventions of this kind. For one, health care providers who do screen and treat people for OUD find it difficult to be reimbursed by health insurance companies, leaving clinics covering the cost of services. For another, providers in many states are required by law to report pregnant people who are using drugs.  

“If you have these two challenges, one of them not sufficient reimbursement, and the other one these punitive practices by the state,” Volkow continued, “then on the one hand you have clinicians not interested in screening or treating because they won’t be reimbursed, but then the patients may not want to go to the doctor because they don’t want to face the consequences as far as being put in jail for being a women who’s pregnant taking drugs and seeking medication, and losing custody of their children.”

Parental drug use is the leading cause for children being separated from their parents and put in the foster system. One analysis found that from 2011-2017, the number of infants entering foster care grew by 10,000 every year. Black and Indigenous children are overrepresented in child welfare systems, which—like the mass incarceration that also separates families—is another way the drug war targets families of color.

Photograph by Eli Solitas via Unsplash

The post Over 321,000 Children Lost Parents to Overdose in a Decade appeared first on Filter.

This subjected the new family to multiple, stressful visits from Child Protective Services, which removes thousands of children from their homes. There were 14,657 children in New York State foster care in June 2021 (the most recent available data). Most were under the age of 6.

One senior director of foster care told News 10 that year that the state was “at the forefront of trends in child welfare,” and attributed the high number of young kids in the system to parents’ drug use: “In our experience, one of the biggest drivers for the higher rate of children age 5 and younger in foster care is a result of parental neglect and maltreatment impacted by opioid and methamphetamine use.” 

Back to the Sam’s Club salad. Without Jane’s permission or knowledge, staff at a health care facility in Upstate New York had administered a series of drug tests on a urine sample she gave when she went in for a possible urinary tract infection. The lab indicated a “presumptive positive” for opioids.

Even a poppy-seed bagel can be enough to trigger a false positive. According to a lawsuit filed by the organizations Pregnancy Justice and the New York Civil Liberties Union, even after Jane’s baby tested negative, her name remained on the child abuse register. The suit names another woman, Crystal H., as also having been drug tested without consent.

“Drug testing and its consequences subject parents to enormous fear.”

Garnet Health Medical Center (GHMC), operates multiple medical facilities in New York, including the one Jane attended. At each of them, obstetric patients were allegedly subjected to drug testing without their consent in recent years.

New York Attorney General Leticia James recently began investigating the secret drug testing, as Politico reported, submitting subpoenas to obtain patient records. In March, GHMC countered by asking a judge to block the subpoena, arguing that it’s overly broad and “appears to be motivated by political interests.”

Drug testing during or after pregnancy is still widespread in the United States. Consent is legally required in many contexts, but that’s often ignored and policies and practices vary by state.

Advocates point out that parental drug use does not demonstrate bad parenting, nor that a child is at risk. They emphasize that drug testing practices endanger the health and wellbeing of both parent and child.

“There are extremely negative consequences for maternal and infant health,” Emma Roth, senior staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice, told Filter. “Moms need to be together with their babies. They need skin-to-skin contact. They need to be able to breastfeed if they choose to.”

Roth, who is leading the lawsuit against GHMC, said her client desperately wanted to breastfeed but was denied by medical staff in the days after she gave birth, because of her false positive.

Jane may have had a false positive, but Roth stressed that pregnant people who use drugs should never be tested against their will, or subjected to punitive consequences as a result.

She said the worst thing you can do, in a case of physical withdrawal from opioids ingested in the womb, is to isolate a newborn baby. She pointed out that the recommended approach for newborn opioid withdrawal—which lasts a short time and does not present severe health risks—is skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding, if possible. A 2010 study led doctors at Yale’s School of Pediatrics to shift to a  Eat, Sleep, Console approach, which reduces the need for morphine treatment. Other medical facilities have followed suit.

“Drug testing and its consequences subject parents to enormous fear,” Roth added. “Instead of being happy about meeting their baby, they’re terrified their baby will be taken away.”

“A drug test is not a parenting test.”

The American Medical Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists both oppose non-consensual drug testing and punitive consequences during pregnancy, and call instead for voluntary, science-based care.

“Pregnant people in pain or struggling with substance use need comprehensive support and treatment, not judgment,” said Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, chair of the AMA Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force in a 2023 statement. “But judgment is often what they unfairly receive from some laws and statutes that imply any indication of substance use by a pregnant individual is automatically representative of child abuse.”

“Research has found that non-punitive public health approaches to treatment result in better outcomes for both pregnant individuals and babies,” he added.

Misogyny is one major factor behind punitive approaches to pregnancy and parenting. Racism is another, which has led to initiatives like Black Maternal Health Week, which took place from April 11-17.

Families of color are disproportionately separated by child protective systems. And Black people are tested at far higher rates than white people during pregnancy. The consequences include broken trust in doctors, which can discourage people from seeking prenatal treatment, putting their lives at risk.

“Black birthing people are three times as likely to die as white,” Jasmine Sankofa, executive director of the Movement for Family Power, told Filter. She described a slew of potential nightmares if someone’s drug test is positive, from having their baby and other kids taken away, to incarceration. And for what?

“A drug test is not a parenting test,” Sankofa observed. “Overall, fuck that.” 

*A pseudonym; the person’s name is redacted from the lawsuit.

Correction, April 29: The original version of this article repeated a claim, taken from reporting elsewhere, that AG James was collaborating with the ACLU/NYCLU in her investigation. This is in fact not true.

Photograph via Rawpixel

The post NY Cases Underline Harms of Drug Testing During Pregnancy appeared first on Filter.