Young Voters on Marijuana, Fentanyl in Pill Form & More

Here are five things you should know about criminal justice reform this week: 

“This legislation is crucial in bridging the gap between workforce shortages and Coloradans with a criminal history who are trying to break their way out of cycles of incarceration.”

Colorado is set to be the latest state to make it easier for people returning from incarceration to access occupational licenses as House Bill 24-1004 awaits a signature from the Governor. The advancement is just one of several that have passed in the Centennial State. Other bills that have passed this session include a limit on law enforcement's use of prone restraints, an extension of the legislature's oversight work on jail standards, and the approval of a working group focused on improving the metrics collected on the justice system.
 

"If there's two things young people love, it's weed and criminal justice reform."

The DEA formally announced its intention to reschedule marijuana Thursday. The Biden administration effort is likely to be popular among young voters even as some advocates have pointed out it's an incremental step. In fact, the question for most experts familiar with the issue is not whether young voters support the pending rule, but whether or not they care enough to make it part of their decision at the polls this fall. While an October poll showed that nearly 6 in 10 voters between 18 and 25 supported rescheduling marijuana -- including 74% of Democrats, 55% of independents, and 41% of Republicans -- a Harvard youth poll released last month showed that economic concerns are top of young voters' minds.


“If we’re going to be focused on organized retail theft... we should focus on the organizational aspect of people stealing large quantities and holding it for resale, not single moms stealing diapers and things like that.”

As Oklahoma looks to wrap up its 2024 legislative session, the red state that has led the nation in data-driven criminal justice reform in recent years has a mixed slate of pending and approved bills. With three weeks left to go, an effort to reduce the felony retail theft threshold remains under consideration in the Senate and the legislature continues to deliberate overriding a veto issued earlier in the session for a bill that would allow survivors of domestic abuse to petition a court for a reduced sentence. Policy areas already settled for the year include a bill that increased the penalty for strangulation, one that made it more difficult to obtain records associated with the death penalty, and a measure that streamlines the processing of multiple expungement requests in a single county.


"We need to educate the people who do not knowingly use opioids that they are at high risk of being exposed to fentanyl if they buy pills in an illicit manner."

Almost half of all illicit fentanyl seized in the U.S. in 2023 was in pill form, according to a new report in the International Journal of Drug Policy. The shift represents a concerning trend over the past five years, because fentanyl in pill form can often look like other drugs and may be taken mistakenly. The concentration of pill-form seizures was higher in western states, which also account for a disproportionately high share of fentanyl seizures overall -- 43%. There, 85% of the fentanyl seized was in pill form.


“He never got to know his kids. He let the power of his drugs sweep him away.

Preliminary CDC data on overdoses painted a grim picture with a glimmer of hope this week, as U.S. overdoses topped 100,000 for the third year in a row but declined slightly from the previous year. According to the release, which is subject to adjustments in the coming weeks and months, 107,543 people died as a result of overdoses in 2023. The year-over-year change in overdose deaths varied drastically in different regions of the country with some states --  Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and Maine among them -- seeing significant improvements, while others, like Alabama, saw large increases. Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, continue to be the leading cause of overdose deaths.