On Dec 8, 2011 H.R. 1254: Synthetic Drug Control Act of 2011 passed in the House of Representatives by roll call vote.  Much like the unscheduled “enbanc” expedited passage of the bill by the House Judiciary Committee on July 28th, 2011, the house vote was held under a suspension of the rules to cut debate short and pass the bill. This usually occurs for non-controversial legislation. In short, Rep. Charles Dent [R-PA15] and other House members have pulled out all the stops in order to bar public feedback on this bill, which will have many unveiled negative repercussions.  The totals were 317 Ayes, 98 Nays, 18 Present/Not Voting. Vote Details.

Next: The bill goes on to be voted on in the Senate. However, debate is already taking place on a companion bill in the Senate, S.605 -- David Mitchell Rozga Act, rather than on this particular bill, which is another measure to expedite the passage of this legislation. Thankfully, on September 8, 2011, NAHTA had been contacted by the Mike Levine, an Assistant Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) Health and Human Resources Division to aid in the CBO’s estimate of the economic impact of the legislation, so we have a ‘foot in the door’.

POTENTIAL EFFECT:
In short, H.R. 1254 and its companion bill S.605 strives to make “any material, compound, mixture, or preparation which contains any quantity of cannabimimetic agent” illegal.  The bills go on to further define “cannabimimetic agents” as any substance that is a cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1 receptor) agonist as demonstrated by binding studies and functional assays within the following structural classes:
`(i) 2-(3-hydroxycyclohexyl)phenol with substitution at the 5-position of the phenolic ring by alkyl or alkenyl, whether or not substituted on the cyclohexyl ring to any extent.

`(ii) 3-(1-naphthoyl)indole or 3-(1-naphthyl)indole by substitution at the nitrogen atom of the indole ring, whether or not further substituted on the indole ring to any extent, whether or not substituted on the naphthoyl or naphthyl ring to any extent.

`(iii) 3-(1-naphthoyl)pyrrole by substitution at the nitrogen atom of the pyrrole ring, whether or not further substituted in the indole ring to any extent, whether or not substituted on the naphthoyl ring to any extent.

`(iv) 1-(1-naphthylmethyl)indene by substitution of the 3-position of the indene ring, whether or not further substituted in the indene ring to any extent, whether or not substituted on the naphthyl ring to any extent.

`(v) 3-phenylacetylindole or 3-benzoylindole by substitution at the nitrogen atom of the in dole ring, whether or not further substituted in the indole ring to any extent, whether or not substituted on the phenyl ring to any extent.;

If these bills are allowed to become law, effectually, the law will be expanded to criminalize nearly all of the tested ingredients used to manufacture and produce Herbal Incense products in the present market.
But in reality, such a law will only force the market to seek new, readily available alternatives, rendering this proposed legislation immediately ineffective.

Because of this, along with compelling economic data, there that many states are abandoning further attempts to create prohibitive laws against synthetic cannabinoids.   It seems the public is re-discovering the negative social impacts of prohibition, and lack of historical evidence that market prohibition can demonstrate success within its own merits.

RELATED FACTS: The United States ranks number one in incarceration rates!  Ironically, the “land of the free”, imprisons more people than any other country on the planet, including China!  (Source)  The U.S. has over 2.3 million people behind bars while China, with 4 times the population has only 1.6 million. That’s right, with only 5% of the world’s population the U.S. incarcerates 25% of the world’s prisoners and people are imprisoned for things like writing bad checks and drug possession/use that wouldn’t even get a prison sentence in many countries. 

• The U.S. has 751 people incarcerated per 100,000 while Russia, the industrialized nation closest in rank, has only 627 per 100k.  In other countries it is far lower, with England at 151, Germany at 88, and Japan at only 63! 
• The incarceration rates of prisoners in the U.S. stayed about the same for half a century from 1925 to 1975 at about 110 per 100,000 people. Then, coinciding with the war on drugs the rate began to shoot up dramatically.

Put Simply, the “War on Drugs” alone has increased our incarceration rate by nearly 700% since 1975, with our streets no safer from criminal violence and our society no better off since that time period.
 (These numbers do not include those held in jails, since comprehensive information on those incarcerated in state and local jails was not collected until relatively recently.)

Continue reading at NowPublic.com: Marijuana Arrests Feed Insatiable U.S. Prison System | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/marijuana-arrests-feed-insatiable-u-s-prison-system#ixzz1gL2cU3L1