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In 1989, President George Bush sat in the Oval Office and looked into the camera to deliver a passionate speech. The history of drug legislation in the U.S. is complicated, and it only really started around 1909. Drugs, of course, have changed over the years, as has the stigma surrounding them, but even today, it almost goes without saying that it's illegal to have any of them on federal property — even the now-widely accepted marijuana. Read about the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to crack down on illicit fentanyl supply chains HERE.
Flanked by Fat Joe, Harris urges DEA to 'get to it' on its marijuana review
He added that he was stepping forward to make the admission to prevent it from surfacing later and potentially impacting his father's political career. Ford went on record to say that although he didn't condone drug use, he did laud his son's honesty (via Time). Slick also has one of the most epic stories ever told about drugs in the White House. Slick had attended an all-girls finishing school called Finch College, and it was also the alma mater of Richard Nixon's daughter, Tricia. The Nixons were in the White House when Tricia decided to host a tea party for her school's prior graduates.
Gerald Ford's son and wife went public
Today’s progress is one of many actions that President Biden has taken to counter the global threat posed by the trafficking of illicit drugs into the United States that is causing the deaths of a hundred thousand Americans annually, as well as countless more non-fatal overdoses. There is bipartisan consensus, on the one hand, that draconian drug laws have been a travesty and, on the other, that the Constitution has nothing to say about them—even as high courts abroad have been leading the charge for drug liberalization. “Constitutional courts are increasingly ruling that the decision to use narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances falls within the scope of the moral autonomy of adults,” the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the Organization of American States noted in 2014. In democracies as diverse as Argentina, Canada, Georgia, and South Africa, constitutional protections for personal drug use are taking off.
White House clinic improperly distributed controlled substances during previous administrations, new report says - NBC News
White House clinic improperly distributed controlled substances during previous administrations, new report says.
Posted: Fri, 26 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
George Bush's drug policy speech was surprisingly controversial
It also calls for actions that will expand access to evidence-based treatments that have been shown to reduce overdose risk and mortality. Finally, it emphasizes the need to develop stronger data collection and analysis systems to better deploy public health interventions. In defense of their decisions, these judges cited the value of judicial restraint and warned of the legal chaos that could result if they recognized too many claims of personal liberty or constitutionalized hard calls about the dangerousness of various substances.
Chants of ‘shame on you’ greet guests at White House correspondents’ dinner shadowed by war in Gaza
Importantly, constitutional arguments can also be addressed to audiences other than courts. Many of the institutional considerations that have made judges reticent to wade into drug debates don’t apply to the other branches. The White House on Tuesday announced a government-wide plan to respond to a growing number of overdose deaths involving xylazine, also known as “tranq” and “the zombie drug,” a veterinary tranquilizer that can be particularly dangerous when mixed with opioids like fentanyl.
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Unfortunately, there’s a big disconnect between the frequency of quality problems that trigger FDA recalls and the agency’s stand on generic drug quality. The plan also proposes incentives and penalties to induce hospitals to adopt more resilient sourcing of essential drugs. To assess how well they respond, the White House proposes a “Hospital Resilient Supply Program” that will score each hospital’s purchasing practices. Those who buy from drugmakers that are highly rated by the Manufacturing Resiliency Assessment Program will score better than those that do not. So will hospitals that buy drugs in quantity rather than relying on “just-in-time” delivery. Hospitals that execute long-term contracts to ensure stable supply will also receive higher scores—and the incentives that come with them.
White House takes a stab at lowering drug prices, but ignores a big piece of the puzzle • Ohio Capital Journal - Ohio Capital Journal
White House takes a stab at lowering drug prices, but ignores a big piece of the puzzle • Ohio Capital Journal.
Posted: Thu, 08 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
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In a statement, FDA spokesperson James McKinney said the agency "remains committed to issuing the tobacco product standards for menthol in cigarettes and characterizing flavors in cigars" as a top priority. "The administration's inaction is enabling the tobacco industry to continue aggressively marketing these products and attracting and addicting new users," Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, said in a statement. The official said they are asking for more time to hear from outside groups, especially on the civil rights side. The Biden administration said Friday it would again delay a decision on a regulation aiming to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes, citing the "historic attention" and "immense amount of feedback" on the controversial proposal by the Food and Drug Administration. Reece says even simple questions, like someone asking her how she slept, gives her an opportunity to connect about mental health.
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To help advance these Administration efforts, President Biden has requested $26 billion for prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery support services in his FY24 budget request. In addition, President Biden is requesting $1.55 billion in his supplemental budget request to strengthen these support services across the country. The Biden-Harris Administration has initiated new measures to disrupt the trafficking of illicit fentanyl and its precursors into American communities and dismantle the firearms trafficking networks that enable drug traffickers to grow their enterprises.
US Secret Service investigating as cocaine reportedly found in White House
Surging use of illicit drugs by Vietnam veterans, students, and college-educated professionals created new constituencies for reform. Government bodies issued report after report urging relaxation of the drug laws, especially the marijuana laws, as did establishment groups ranging from the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association to the Consumers Union and the National Council of Churches. Taking on Big Pharma to Deliver Lower Prescription Drug Costs for Seniors and FamiliesAfter decades of opposition, President Biden enacted a law that finally takes on Big Pharma and gives Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will save millions of seniors money on some of the costliest prescription drugs on the market. Meanwhile, Big Pharma also executed over $135 billion in mergers and acquisitions in 2023 alone, while passing the cost to consumers.
Though the opioid fentanyl has already been an action item for the White House, its association with the non-opioid drug xylazine created a worsening issue to tackle. The White House has developed a new strategy to reduce the growing number of overdose deaths linked to xylazine, a potent animal sedative that’s increasingly being combined with opioids and other drugs. Today, President Biden sent his Administration’s inaugural National Drug Control Strategy to Congress at a time when drug overdoses have taken a heartbreaking toll, claiming 106,854 lives in the most recent 12-month period.
Learn more about actions the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to address addiction and the overdose epidemic. An official familiar with the investigation told the newspaper that the amount of the substance was small. The congressional committees were briefed behind closed doors Thursday morning in response to a request last week from Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., who sent a letter asking Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle for a staff-level briefing on the investigation by July 14. The Situation Room, located in the West Wing, where staffers would also drop their phones before entering, has been undergoing construction work and was not in use at the time the baggie was found, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said last week.
The small plastic baggie with a powdered substance — which was found in a storage cubby at the White House on a Sunday evening this month — was subjected to advanced testing and examined at two federal labs, but no usable fingerprints or DNA were detected, the officials said. Never mind that Senate Republicans let the former president off the hook each time. The clownish lead investigator, House Oversight Committee chair and Fox News regular Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, last month told donors in a fundraising letter — notice a pattern here, Republican leaders playing to monied interests? — that instead of seeking Biden’s impeachment, he’ll send a criminal referral (again, crimes TBD) to the Justice Department.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre described the location as “highly traveled,” saying, “West Wing visitors come through this particular area.” She said staff-led tours were held Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the drug was found. The unusual breach of White House security was found July 2 when a uniformed Secret Service officer spotted a small plastic baggie in a storage cubby at the West Executive Avenue entrance on the ground level. Visitors, contractors, military personnel and staff members use the storage cubbies to drop off electronic devices and personal items not permitted in some areas of the West Wing. The vestibule is near the Situation Room, which is out of service for renovations; an alternative secure meeting room is being used for classified briefings during construction. Secret Service representatives briefed members of the House Oversight and Homeland Security committees on Capitol Hill on Thursday after lawmakers requested answers on the probe and security protocols at the White House. The Secret Service received results Wednesday from tests conducted by the FBI, “which did not develop latent fingerprints and insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons,” the Secret Service said in a statement Thursday.
Officers found the cocaine during a routine patrol, a Secret Service official said. Forensic work on the cocaine bag continued Thursday, though officials are setting low expectations that they will be able to identify who left it. The cocaine was found in an entrance area between the foyer and a lower-level lobby, the sources said. The entrance is near where some vehicles, like the vice president’s limo or SUV, park. It is one floor below the main West Wing offices and on the same floor as the Situation Room and a dining area. Investigators expect to be done with the investigation by Monday, said two sources familiar with the investigation.
The Strategy delivers on the call to action in President Biden’s Unity Agenda through a whole-of-government approach to beat the overdose epidemic. “Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered,” Secret Service officials said in the summary. Overseeing Tuesday’s panel and advocating for the administration’s federal action plan was Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris.
President Biden has made beating the overdose epidemic a key priority in his Unity Agenda for the Nation, including a focus on cracking down on global illicit drug trafficking and disrupting the flow of illicit fentanyl and its precursors. History suggests that constitutional advocacy could still do important work, notwithstanding the progress that has been made. American drug policy has been characterized by cycles of racialized moral panic and reactionary legislation, punctuated by periods of liberalization. Now that the country finds itself in another moment when humane, evidence-based drug reform is on the table, proponents would do well to entrench as much of it in constitutional law as they can before the next panic arrives. Some judges in the 1970s struck down criminal penalties for drug offenses as “cruel and unusual punishments” in contravention of the Eighth Amendment. After the Supreme Court held in 1962 that it is impermissibly cruel to punish people for the status of being an addict, a series of lower courts reasoned that it must likewise be cruel to punish them for procuring or consuming a drug to which they’re addicted.
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