Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

There is a budget crunch in state government so every agency is looking to save its budget.  The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs is no exception.  Director Darrell Weaver has just announced a “spike” in drug deaths in Oklahoma.  He calls it a crisis.

There were 577 who died of drugs in 2009.  Hydrocodone (Lortab) led the list as cause of 130 deaths, an increase of 17 deaths from the year before.  Oxycodone followed wit 117, then methadone, which lead the list in 2002, caused 84 deaths in 2009, but it was down from 110 deaths in 2008.  Cocaine caused 37 deaths, a decrease of 13 from the year before.

The use of different usage drugs and deaths caused by drugs will vary and certainly the use of drugs has been increasing in the last several years.  But why does that justify a separate agency to enforce the drug laws?    Every police officer, every deputy sheriff, every highway patrol trooper and town marshal and Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent is enforcing the drug laws every day.   If that isn’t enough, there are many federal law enforcement officers in the state of Oklahoma, including the F.B.I., who enforce the federal drug laws, which mirror state drug laws.  So why does Oklahoma need a separate agency with a separate budget, separate buildings and salaried employees and pensions dedicated to enforcing the drug laws?  Of course such an agency is always pushing the emergency alarm, calling for higher penalties and more money for their agency.

The drug war is similar to the military war fought by our national defense.  There is always a fear of invasion just as there is a fear of drug crazies running around the country.  There is always to announce a “crisis.”  The fears are real because the dangers are real, but the manipulation of this fear and threat is a very old bureaucratic trait.  There is no such thing as enough tax-payer money going to feed that will feed either the defense department or the drug agencies.  They have become empires unto themselves, and anyone who has any pause in giving them everything they ask for is tarred as unpatriotic.

Notwithstanding there is a real danger from the misuse of drugs, that danger need not necessarily be attacked like a military target.  If it is, that approach may remind observers more of the quagmire in Vietnam more than World War II: always more money needed, always more troops needed, but always more explanations and alibis instead of success.  Victory is just barely out of reach- always.  Just give us another 12% increase of funding and we’ll lick this thing for good.

Part of the problem is that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs is almost oriented almost exclusively for punitive action, for “law enforcement.”  This has not proved to reduce the use of drugs any more than the American military had the prospect of outlasting Ho Chi Minh.  Drug education and prevention is given only superficial investment even though some different approach, like education and some new looks at prevention will be needed if we are going to seen anything different in the next decades.

Why don’t all the millions of dollars of cash money that flows to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs every year from forfeitures go to drug prevention instead of more automatic weapons, bullet-proof vests, bullets, and black SUVs instead of to teaching children the perils of using drugs without threatening them?  At least going through the motions keeps the empire in business.

A new study has just concluded that ninety per cent of American currency carries traces of cocaine.  Does that matter?  You bet it does matter to anyone arrested with cash on them, whether they are innocent or guilty of a crime.

What every criminal defense lawyer knows, but few of the average citizens know, is that the trace of drugs on money is a law enforcement device to take cash away from citizens and to convict them for criminal offenses.  This is one of the “tools” that law makers have shoveled to “law enforcement” to help fight crime, i.e., take away those impediments to police efficiency, to wit;  the rights of citizens.

Of course, if you believe only criminals ever need their Constitutional rights, then you will not care.  And if you ever need your to exercise your any of your rights under the Constitution, you will have no cause to complain when you discover these rights are not waiting for you to pick up at your leisure on the foyer table.

U.S. currency has a life of about 20 months.  In that span, bills pick up dirt, food, germs and drugs.  Some currency is used in dope deals or even to use drugs but not all of it.  A bill that goes through a currency counter at the bank can pick up traces if some previous bill carried a trace.  Those bills have fewer traces than others. Some bills were found to have .008 micrograms, which is several thousands of times than a single grain of sand.  Apparently the cocaine binds to the dye in money.

But if that trace can be found by scientific means, law enforcement can find it.  And if you had it in your possession, then law enforcement can demand you explain. Routinely, drug teams, highway patrol troopers, and deputy sheriffs seize cash they find in someone’s possession. It the cash is found near drugs, it is legally presumed to be the fruits of illegal drug activity when you file your petition in district court in an effort to regain your money.  No crime need to have been committed nor alleged.  This is a forfeiture action, and the aw enforcement officers’ team gets to keep the money to buy fancy vehicles, etc.

Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth presented his paper at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society showing $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills were more likely to be positive for cocaine than $1 bills.  Drug teams would probably not bother with mere $1 bills anyway.

Professor Zuo also found geographic variations in his findings.  Rural areas had less cocaine trace.  One hundred percent of the money from Miami, Boston, and Detroit.  Also, American money had the highest percentage of traces with 90 per cent of 234 bank notes tested.  Canada had 85 per cent, followed by Brazil with 80 per cent.  The lowest percentages were from China with 20 per cent and Japan with 12 per cent.

The drug taint should not be a health problem, Health agencies have advised people to wash their hands after touching cash.  Disease-causing organisms such as staphylococcus aureus and pneumonia-causing bacteria have detected on paper bills. A 2002 study published in the Southern Medical Journal, 94 per cent of tested bills had potentially disease causing organisms.  But Adam Negrusz, associate professor of forensic sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he is not worried about adverse effects on the general health from these drug traces.

Professor Negrusz published a study in 1998 with similar findings.  His study compared freshly minted currency with currency collected from circulation in a Chicago suburb.  The study found 92.8 per cent of the circulated money had traces of cocaine, but none of the uncirculated money had any trace.    He noted that while such drug traces are not a general health problem, that they could be a serious problem to anyone who handles a lot of cash.

A new study has just concluded that ninety per cent of American currency carries traces of cocaine.  Does that matter?  You bet it does matter to anyone arrested with cash on them, whether they are innocent or guilty of a crime.

What every criminal defense lawyer knows, but few of the average citizens know, is that the trace of drugs on money is a law enforcement device to take cash away from citizens and to convict them for criminal offenses.  This is one of the “tools” that law makers have shoveled to “law enforcement” to help fight crime, i.e., take away those impediments to police efficiency, to wit;  the rights of citizens.

Of course, if you believe only criminals ever need their Constitutional rights, then you will not care.  And if you ever need your to exercise your any of your rights under the Constitution, you will have no cause to complain when you discover these rights are not waiting for you to pick up at your leisure on the foyer table.

U.S. currency has a life of about 20 months.  In that span, bills pick up dirt, food, germs and drugs.  Some currency is used in dope deals or even to use drugs but not all of it.  A bill that goes through a currency counter at the bank can pick up traces if some previous bill carried a trace.  Those bills have fewer traces than others. Some bills were found to have .008 micrograms, which is several thousands of times than a single grain of sand.  Apparently the cocaine binds to the dye in money.

But if that trace can be found by scientific means, law enforcement can find it.  And if you had it in your possession, then law enforcement can demand you explain. Routinely, drug teams, highway patrol troopers, and deputy sheriffs seize cash they find in someone’s possession. It the cash is found near drugs, it is legally presumed to be the fruits of illegal drug activity when you file your petition in district court in an effort to regain your money.  No crime need to have been committed nor alleged.  This is a forfeiture action, and the aw enforcement officers’ team gets to keep the money to buy fancy vehicles, etc.

Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth presented his paper at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society showing $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills were more likely to be positive for cocaine than $1 bills.  Drug teams would probably not bother with mere $1 bills anyway.

Professor Zuo also found geographic variations in his findings.  Rural areas had less cocaine trace.  One hundred percent of the money from Miami, Boston, and Detroit.  Also, American money had the highest percentage of traces with 90 per cent of 234 bank notes tested.  Canada had 85 per cent, followed by Brazil with 80 per cent.  The lowest percentages were from China with 20 per cent and Japan with 12 per cent.

The drug taint should not be a health problem, Health agencies have advised people to wash their hands after touching cash.  Disease-causing organisms such as staphylococcus aureus and pneumonia-causing bacteria have detected on paper bills. A 2002 study published in the Southern Medical Journal, 94 per cent of tested bills had potentially disease causing organisms.  But Adam Negrusz, associate professor of forensic sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he is not worried about adverse effects on the general health from these drug traces.

Professor Negrusz published a study in 1998 with similar findings.  His study compared freshly minted currency with currency collected from circulation in a Chicago suburb.  The study found 92.8 per cent of the circulated money had traces of cocaine, but none of the uncirculated money had any trace.    He noted that while such drug traces are not a general health problem, that they could be a serious problem to anyone who handles a lot of cash.