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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 17 2017, @06:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the Shocked!-Absolutely-shocked,-I-say! dept.

Congress has responded strongly to a joint investigation by CBS and The Washington Post (archive) about Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) employees becoming lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry, and the passage of a bill in 2016 hobbling the DEA's ability to go after opioid distributors and suspicious drug sales:

Lawmakers and the Drug Enforcement Administration are facing tough questions following an explosive joint investigation by "60 Minutes" and The Washington Post that says Congress helped disarm the DEA.

Drug overdose deaths in the United States have more than doubled over the past decade. The CDC says 188,000 people have died from opioid overdoses from 1999 to 2015.

Joe Rannazzisi used to run the DEA's diversion control. He told "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker that the opioid crisis was aided in part by Congress, lobbyists and the drug distribution industry. The DEA says it has taken actions against far fewer opioid distributors under a new law. A Justice Department memo shows 65 doctors, pharmacies and drug companies received suspension orders in 2011. Only six of them have gotten them this year.

[...] [The] DEA's efforts may have been undermined by the so-called "revolving door" culture in Washington. At least 46 investigators, attorneys and supervisors from the DEA, including 32 directly from the division that regulates the drug industry, have been hired by the pharmaceutical industry since the scrutiny on distributors began.

From The Washington Post:

The chief advocate of the law that hobbled the DEA was Rep. Tom Marino, a Pennsylvania Republican who is now President Trump's nominee to become the nation's next drug czar. Marino spent years trying to move the law through Congress. It passed after Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) negotiated a final version with the DEA.

For years, some drug distributors were fined for repeatedly ignoring warnings from the DEA to shut down suspicious sales of hundreds of millions of pills, while they racked up billions of dollars in sales. The new law makes it virtually impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious narcotic shipments from the companies, according to internal agency and Justice Department documents and an independent assessment by the DEA's chief administrative law judge in a soon-to-be-published law review article. That powerful tool had allowed the agency to immediately prevent drugs from reaching the street.

Political action committees representing the industry contributed at least $1.5 million to the 23 lawmakers who sponsored or co-sponsored four versions of the bill, including nearly $100,000 to Marino and $177,000 to Hatch. Overall, the drug industry spent $102 million lobbying Congress on the bill and other legislation between 2014 and 2016, according to lobbying reports.

President Trump said he would "look into" the reports about Tom Marino, his pick for "drug czar" (the actual name of the position is the Director of National Drug Control Policy).

Do you support "re-arming" the DEA?

Update: Tom Marino, Trump's Pick As Drug Czar, Withdraws After Damaging Opioid Report

Previously:
President Trump Declares the Opioid Crisis a National Emergency
Study Finds Stark Increase in Opioid-Related Admissions, Deaths in Nation's ICUs
CVS Limits Opioid Prescriptions


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by stormreaver on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:52AM (5 children)

    by stormreaver (5101) on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:52AM (#583409)

    I'll consider supporting the "re-arming" of the DEA when anyone can show me the authority given to the federal government to give to the DEA to ban/restrict/prohibit possession/use/commerce involving any sort of plant or drug.

    I'm not going to debate this in subsequent postings, since I already know you've made up your mind; and no facts will ever change it. But the end of Article 1, Section 8 is the authority you seek:

    The Congress shall have Power...To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for
    carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other
    Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of
    the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

    Congress has the power to make any law that does not conflict with the Constitution. Although they frequently make stupid laws, the Constitution grants them the power to do so. That power includes making laws that establish Federal agencies, and the power to destroy those same Federal agencies.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by JNCF on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:18PM

    by JNCF (4317) on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:18PM (#583421) Journal

    "All Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, " != "any law that does not conflict with the Constitution," the reason they call this the elastic clause is because some folks like to stretch the semantics of it.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Virindi on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:06PM

    by Virindi (3484) on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:06PM (#583460)

    The text you quoted does not say anything like your interpretation. Let's examine the text and determine the modern English meaning.

    all Laws which shall be necessary and proper

    This part is pretty easy. "Laws needed".

    for carrying into Execution

    A modifier for "laws needed", those needed in the "execution". What is execution? It is close to a synonym for "enforcement". It is the action of the government which compels those laws to be followed, the action which brings about the result directed by those laws. "Executing" a law is to cause it to have effect in the world. This is the same meaning that applies to the "Executive" Branch.

    Okay! What can they execute?

    the foregoing Powers

    Webster defines "foregoing" as: "listed, mentioned, or occurring before". The powers mentioned previously in the text of the Constitution. Typically in laws, this type of statement applies to things in the same section. Whether it applies to this section only or the entire previous text is immaterial here. We will assume it means the entire previous text for simplicity.

    and all other Powers vested by this Constitution

    So not only the powers previously mentioned, but additionally, all powers given by the Constitution.

    in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof

    ...to the federal government.

    Okay, we're done. Here's what we have:

    "The Congress shall have power to make"..."laws needed" "to enforce" "powers previously listed" "and all other powers listed in the Constitution" "which are given to the federal government".

    You said:

    Congress has the power to make any law that does not conflict with the Constitution.

    But this is not so, they only have the power to make laws which enforce previously listed and otherwise granted powers, not just anything nonconflicting.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:14PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:14PM (#583469) Journal

    Congress has the power to make any law that does not conflict with the Constitution.

    The problem is that these laws conflict with the Constitution, particularly civil asset forfeiture laws.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:02PM

    by Whoever (4524) on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:02PM (#583514) Journal

    Please show me where the Constitution grants the power to Congress to regulate what substances we can put into our bodies.

    It took an amendment to the Constitution to ban alcohol. Now, because the Supreme Court re-wrote the Commerce Clause in Wickard v. Filburn and subsequent cases, apparently Congress can do this.

    But that doesn't make the decision correct. If Republicans and "Originalists" had any integrity, they would acknowledge that the word "affects" does not appear in the Commerce Clause and that Wickard v. Filburn and all the decisions that follow it were wrongly decided.

  • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday October 17 2017, @07:02PM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Tuesday October 17 2017, @07:02PM (#583599) Homepage Journal

    I can tell you're a very smart cookie. Have you thought about becoming a judge? I need a lot, a lot of judges in my federal courts. #MAGA 🇺🇸