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Full-Text Articles in Law
No Rational Basis: The Pragmatic Case For Marijuana Law Reform, Eric Blumenson
No Rational Basis: The Pragmatic Case For Marijuana Law Reform, Eric Blumenson
Eric Blumenson
This article presents a critique of marijuana prohibition and suggests some alternative regulatory approaches that would be more productive and consonant with justice. Part I relies on a forty-year empirical record to demonstrate that (1) reliance on a law enforcement approach has aggravated rather than mitigated the risks involved with marijuana use, and (2) criminalization, which results in the arrest of more than 700,000 Americans annually for possession of any amount of marijuana, is an inhumane and destructive response to an act that almost 100 million Americans have committed. Part II assesses the relative merits of several alternative reform policies, …
In The Name Of Fetal Protection: Why American Prosecutors Pursue Pregnant Drug Users (And Other Countries Don't), Linda C. Fentiman
In The Name Of Fetal Protection: Why American Prosecutors Pursue Pregnant Drug Users (And Other Countries Don't), Linda C. Fentiman
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
For more than three decades, American prosecutors have been bringing criminal prosecutions against pregnant women based on their use of drugs while pregnant, with charges ranging from child abuse or neglect to murder. Almost all of these women are poor, and the vast majority are also women of color--many with histories of childhood sexual or physical abuse and mental disability. In all but three states-Alabama, Kentucky, and South Carolina--such prosecutions have been declared unconstitutional or the resulting convictions have been overturned. Nonetheless, prosecutions continue to be brought, in what can only be described as a crusade against pregnant women in …