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U.S. - House passes bill (SITSA) to escalate drug war / Bill dies in Senate

S.J.B.

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House to vote on 'dangerous' bill to escalate drug war, potentially ban kratom
Sal Rodriguez
June 14th, 2018
Los Angeles Daily News

In an effort to show the House of Representatives is serious about taking on the opioid overdose problem, the House is considering dozens of bills dealing with the issue.

Among them is H.R. 2851, The Stop Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues (SITSA) Act, which would significantly expand the powers of the Department of Justice to unilaterally prohibit synthetic drugs chemically similar to currently banned drugs and determine penalties accordingly.

If passed, the bill would merely perpetuate the false, simplistic and misguided notion that the solution to the opioid overdose problem is more prohibition, more punishment and fewer liberties.

The bill has drawn widespread criticism from across the political spectrum.

"Instead of passing legislation that would have a negative fiscal and societal impact on communities across America, Congress should instead continue the work of criminal justice reform advocates across the country," argues Adam Brandon from FreedomWorks. "Increasing access to treatment opportunities and targeting the international drug trade, not addicted individuals, would best enhance public safety and reduce the threat presented by the opioid crisis."

Read the full story here.
 
I'm already pissed and concerned over this.

Do you guys think this is as big a threat to Kratom as the last ban attempt they made, or do you think this will just end up flopping and is nothing to be too concerned about?

And if it were to go in effect, when we would know?

I mean when is this decision going to be made/when will know the consequences of this proposal?

And are there any politicians in power and in congress that are opposing this?
 
Expect it to pass. Both R's and D's are all for the drug war and shoving us all into prison over a little dope.
 
making heroin cocaine and meth illegal seemed to work out really well for them.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." Einstein
 
Expect it to pass. Both R's and D's are all for the drug war and shoving us all into prison over a little dope.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Read this guy from Reddit's post:


Legal Perspective on SITSA: All you need to know


"Law Student here who has written on the topic of Kratom bans and the appropriate action to take should the worst happen. I want to backup from SITSA and elaborate on where we are and what are options are and why you all need to take a deep breath and relax but also stay vigilant. We are not in as bad of a position as you think.
So the attorney general has three options assuming SITSA is passed these are emergency scheduling under 21 USC 811 (h), permanent scheduling under 21 USC 811 a, and SITSA scheduling. All three are bad cases for the attorney general to make.
Just to fill you in on each form of scheduling here goes:


  • Temporary scheduling

This is the statutory language;
" If the Attorney General finds that the scheduling of a substance in schedule I on a temporary basis is necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to the public safety, he may, by order and without regard to the requirements of subsection (b) relating to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, schedule such substance in schedule I if the substance is not listed in any other schedule in section 812 of this title"
This basically means that the attorney general can schedule without getting preclearance from the department of health and human services in their recommendation. Then the attorney general publishes a rule in the register demonstrating that the substance meets the imminent threat to public health, and has a high potential for abuse and lack of accepted and safe medical use. Under this route the AG bans for two years without judicial. However the court in Touby v. US said that prosecutions under those who posses temporarily banned substances can be challenged in court (this is huge for SITSA). The AG already backed out of this route and opened the beginning stages of option two, permanent scheduling.
2) Permanent scheduling
Under permanent scheduling 21 USC 811 a requires a full hearing on the record which will take a year or longer given the extensive process of scheduling hearings (see the DEA MDMA hearings that took two years), then if we lose there we get judicial review which will likely add two more years to the process. Not to mention the weak regulatory case that the DEA has in actually banning kratom because it does not meet the abuse standard required under 21 usc 811 and 812. The DEAs legal counsel probably knows this and it really isn't a good case.
The language is here:
" The Attorney General shall, before initiating proceedings under subsection (a) to control a drug or other substance or to remove a drug or other substance entirely from the schedules, and after gathering the necessary data, request from the Secretary a scientific and medical evaluation, and his recommendations, as to whether such drug or other substance should be so controlled or removed as a controlled substance. In making such evaluation and recommendations, the Secretary shall consider the factors listed in paragraphs (2), (3), (6), (7), and (8) of subsection (c) and any scientific or medical considerations involved in paragraphs (1), (4), and (5) of such subsection. The recommendations of the Secretary shall include recommendations with respect to the appropriate schedule, if any, under which such drug or other substance should be listed. The evaluation and the recommendations of the Secretary shall be made in writing and submitted to the Attorney General within a reasonable time. The recommendations of the Secretary to the Attorney General shall be binding on the Attorney General as to such scientific and medical matters, and if the Secretary recommends that a drug or other substance not be controlled, the Attorney General shall not control the drug or other substance. If the Attorney General determines that these facts and all other relevant data constitute substantial evidence of potential for abuse such as to warrant control or substantial evidence that the drug or other substance should be removed entirely from the schedules, he shall initiate proceedings for control or removal, as the case may be, under subsection (a). "
3) SITSA (this is a weak argument to assuming it passes)
To dispel a few rumors about SITSA


  • We have no recourse once it is banned because the bill bars judicial review

This is only partially true, while it will bar judicial review during the rule making stage, all we have to do is get someone arrested for small possesion of Kratom then we are entitled to challenge the constitutionality or statutory construction by the DEA of the law
2) The laws broad language will per se give the authority to ban Kratom
This really isn' true also. In administrative law many of the issues dealt with come down to the two mostly binary modes of statutory interpretation. First is textualism, what does the text of the bill say, any textualist judge will absolutely rule in our favor seeing as the drug is clearly and textually committed to stopping synthetic lab created substances not natural plants. The DEA tried to ban hemp in a way that was contrary the marijuana statute and the court in HIA v. DEA (2004) 9th circuit shot them down. A textualist would see the language of the bill and its explicit title and clearly demonstrate that the DEA overstepped its statutory authority.
The next mode of interpretation is the pragmatist mode, mostly these guys look to the intent of the bill along with its language., this is again a slam dunk seeing as the legislative history, senate sponsor statements regarding fentanyl, and the bills title clearly and expressly without doubt limit the bill to synthetic substances.
3) There is also a vagueness argument but that doctrine isn't well established in challenging regulatory delegation by congress.
Bottom line is none of these provisions that the DEA has access to really pass the Chevron smell test, chevron is the doctrine that courts use when scrutinizing agency interpretation of their own statute. Step 1 requires a reading of the statute to see if there is ambiguous if the language is clear (which it is in this case) the clear language and intent of congress controls we could really stop here, however step two says if no ambiguous law exists was it a permissible construction of the statute, even in this case the answer is no because of the legislative history and clear intent of congress.
So please relax and get ready to fight for an amendment. We have plenty of legal options and we are in a position of strength to continue to fight at the federal level. For those of you who terror post every time one of these things happen please just relax and call when the AKA asks for you to do so."
 
Also, does anyone wanna break down what this message from the AKA means that was just posted earlier?

I'm dense when it comes to this legal language, but it still makes it sound like we many people are WAY over estimating the impact of this possibly proposed bill, and I THINK it seems to suggest it was just shut down in the house?? But I'm not sure...you guys interpret it for me please LOL:



[h=2]NEW MESSAGE FROM THE AKA, BEA AND KRATOM UNITED[/h]Call to Action


This was posted on another forum this morning and I didn't see it here yet.
Important Message from AKA, BEA and Kratom United
Attention Kratom Warriors:
When a call to action is ready we will let you know. We know it's hard to "do nothing" but there are 2 groups that have a lobbyist and another group that has an entire lobby firm. These are federal lobbyist and they have not advised advocates to launch a call or email campaign yet.
PLEASE DON'T DO ANYTHING NOW!!!
Be Patient and Wait for our CALL-TO-ACTION.
"It is simply a House Board vote on Friday. After that it moves to Senate Judiciary Committee. That is where We will focus all of our efforts. Even at that this fight is a long way from over and it is not a fight we will lose." ~AKA Admin~
UPDATE:
American Kratom Association
SITSA UPDATE (6/14)
The House Rules Committee voted on party lines, 6-4, to reject the Pocan/Gosar/Polis amendment that would have protected kratom from the SITSA scheduling authority given to the Attorney General. This was not a vote on the merit of the amendment, but rather a procedural vote by the Republicans to reject ANY amendment that was not discussed or voted on by the Committee of jurisdiction.
The SITSA bill was originally assigned to two Committees: The House Judiciary Committee, and the House Energy & Commerce Committee. When the SITSA bill was marked up by the House Judiciary Committee, the amendment to exempt kratom was not offered because of confusion by Chairman Goodlatte and his staff about the position of the kratom community on SITSA. A newly formed group at the time had published a statement on their new website supporting SITSA, and the Judiciary Committee staff were directed to that statement by a member of that newly-formed advocacy organization, and they mistakenly believed that statement represented the views of the mainstream kratom community.
The House Energy & Commerce Committee intended to debate and accept amendments on SITSA in a Hearing, but that plan was short-circuited by direction by the House Leadership that all "opioid-related" bills would be voted on by Friday of this week, and there was no time to schedule a Hearing on SITSA, so the Committee waived jurisdiction and the SITSA bill was send to the House Rules Committee.
The important point for the Kratom Nation to understand is that the vote in the House Rules was not on the merits of the amendment but was actually a procedural maneuver to block a number of other amendments that had not been heard in the Judiciary Committee.
The SITSA bill, when passed by the House on Friday this week as anticipated, will go to the Senate Judiciary Committee where the kratom amendment will be presented and debated. We will fight hard to have the amendment accepted.
We understand that many people feel the need to call their House of Representatives member. We do not feel that it would be of benefit. We will continue to focus our efforts on the Senate Judiciary Committee. We are Not asking for calls to them yet. This could change at any time, when that does happen, we will issue a Formal Call-to-Action.
FOR ANYBODY WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW THIS WORKS:
The House Legislative Process**:**•First, a Representative sponsors a bill.•The bill is then assigned to a committee for study.•If released by the committee, the bill is put on a calendar to be voted on, debated or amended.•If the bill passes by simple majority (218 of 435), the bill moves to the Senate.•In the Senate, the bill is assigned to another committee and, if released, debated and voted on.•If the Senate makes changes, the bill must return to the House for concurrence.•The resulting bill returns to the House and Senate for final approval.•The President then has 10 days to veto the final bill or sign it into law.
Re: H.R.2851 - SITSA ActThe Rules Committee already voted and no further amendment can be added to the bill in the House. It is a done deal! On Friday, the House simply will vote on passing the bill to the Senate and it is likely to happen. All efforts now has to focus on the Senate Judiciary Committee which has the authorities to make changes to the bill...It is a long and complicated process. The fight is far from over.
Meanwhile, please be patient and await for AKA's CTA. Thank You All!
 
I have no idea what you mean by all that gibberish.


Neither do I LOL, but i didn't write it, it was from Reddit.

I was basically asking someone else to interpret it for me.

But from what I can glean from reading it, is that anyone who thinks this means that there's necessarily going to be some instant ban of Kratom is getting overly worked up, that it may never be banned, or maybe it will, but there's a super long process involved.

The post above the last one was written by a law student explaining all the procedure that needs to happen for Kratom to actually be banned, and that there's a whole lot of hoops to jump through for anyone to make it happen.

Basically, it's anything but a sure thing, but beyond that, I don't understand much of it lol.

If anyone else who understands better wants to interpret, feel free.
 
Alert! New bill SITSA will ban research chems, nootropics, kratom, brain sups

www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/8r7ipn/this_is_pretty_much_the_biggest_redalert_towards/

"?6)Schedule A (A)In general The drug or substance?

(i)has?

(I)a chemical structure that is substantially similar to the chemical structure of a controlled substance in schedule I, II, III, IV, or V; and

(II)an actual or predicted stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system that is substantially similar to or greater than the stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system of a controlled substance in schedule I, II, III, IV, or V"



So anything that is stimulating, relaxing, or possibly psychoactive that works can be made into a schedule drug within 30 days without the normal procedures for drug scheduling that usually involves the FDA and Department of Health and Human Services,. This covers pretty much all brain supplements, nootropics, and research chemicals. With this we will never see a new brain supplement or rc and nearly all can be removed with a whim.



Here's the full bill. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr2851/text
 
Seems like a version of the NPS that spent the last five years in the gym, eating ungodly amounts of protein rich food, getting juiced up whenever possible.
 
Supposedly the AKA has now gotten 9 scientists to work on a letter to the FDA stating that they don't believe Kratom is a dangerous drug.

Of course, no one ever listens to scientists, but this is at least a good thing.
 
This could really be the final nail in the psych rc coffin. :(
 
This could really be the final nail in the psych rc coffin. :(

I hope not.

I don't use many RCs, but I've gotten away with Fluro Phenibut, and there's always Phenibut which doesn't really count as an RC, as well as the Dark Net, which I have absolutely no idea how to use, but where there's a will there's a way and I'm sure there will still always be some people who figure out a loop whole to get them.

Lets not get worried too early.

What about Kratom though?

Do you really think it'll be banned?

I'm still not convinced it will be.

I think they have a long road to cover to really get rid of it, and that long road gives me a lot of time to stock up haha.
 
^The problem would lie in less demand coming from the USA impacting manufacturing. The UK introducing a similar bill has already made a huge impact on the rc scene, which was the first nail.

I really don't see why kratom won't be banned. For all the support it gets online, "least damaging opiate" really doesn't cut it with government officials.
 
[Edit: Directed at politicians supporting this crap bill, though it's likely they'll never read it]:

I thought many of you were for small government. Curious that you've overlooked it this time, hypocrites.
 
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Just came back to edit this and SJP said what I have been thinking since moments after originally posting this. It left me puzzled because I totally misinterpreted ro4eva's comment as a statement to those who have posted responses in this thread, not as a statement to the politicians behind this bill.

My bad. I didn't say anything bad but provided my opinion on how this isn't small government...and I'm pretty sure it was completely redundant. Sorry for wasting space with this instead of deleting it but I wanted to acknowledge my mistake.

So yeah, ro, I agree. This definitely isn't small government, my idea on that would be 'let the people consume what they wish....it's their own body afterall'
 
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republicans control things, so more prison sentences and schedulings of everything under the sun are in order


GEO corp (for profit prisons is behind this) its an excuse to jail more people. And they definitely paid out their bribes (1.7 M) to congress recently so I am assuming they will get what they want.
 
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Just came back to edit this and SJP said what I have been thinking since moments after originally posting this. It left me puzzled because I totally misinterpreted ro4eva's comment as a statement to those who have posted responses in this thread, not as a statement to the politicians behind this bill.

My bad. I didn't say anything bad but provided my opinion on how this isn't small government...and I'm pretty sure it was completely redundant. Sorry for wasting space with this instead of deleting it but I wanted to acknowledge my mistake.

So yeah, ro, I agree. This definitely isn't small government, my idea on that would be 'let the people consume what they wish....it's their own body afterall'

My apologies - I should have worded it differently so that it would be more clear that it's directed at political "representatives" supporting these regressive piece-of-shit bills (likely after being legally bribed in one way or another and then told by the "donors" to do their bidding).

I have had (and will continue to have) nothing but admiration and respect for BL in general, and I fully support their mission statement.

And I fully support your right to consume your intoxicant(s) of choice, because in reality, it's nobody's business but your own. I might suggest some harm reduction, but I do it only because I care about your well-being. I mean that with all my heart, good day :)
 
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