The World Wide War on Drugs #9 - Legal Highs are Go!

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The drug law reform debate needs less patenalism | SBS Life

On Wednesday scores of health experts, law reform campaigners, law enforcement officials and politicians attended a cross-party summit on drug law reform in Parliament House.

The resulting Canberra Declaration on Illicit Drugs summarised the clear consensus of those in the room, and many in the health sector more generally: the war on drugs has failed. Compelling evidence was presented demonstrating that tough, punitive laws against drugs didn’t only fail to deter use, but they actually increased harm.

The reframing of the drug law debate from a criminal issue to a health issue is an attractive proposition for those campaigning for more rational, evidence-based policy. But does a new approach that emphasises treatment instead of punishment risk falling into the same trap as our current paternalistic and morally driven policies?

The most frustrating aspect of any debate around drug law reform is how quickly calls to decriminalise or legalise drug use are conflated with promoting their use. For decades now the tabloid media in Australia, most notably The Daily Telegraph, and more recently the Courier-Mail, have responded to calls for decriminalisation with ludicrous front-page stories claiming campaigners want to sell drugs to children.

The war on drugs has failed.

NSW Premier Mike Baird has killed off attempts to introduce pill testing in the state, arguing it would “support illegal drug dealers” and promote drug use. Pill testing is the lowest hanging fruit of drug law reform. It would not even require changes to the law, just the provision of resource to provide on-site testing of drugs at music festivals in an attempt to stop the needless deaths of young partygoers. Pill testing was a measure explicitly supported by attendees at the Parliamentary drug summit.

How to fight an unwinnable war on drugs
Lots of Australians enjoy using illicit drugs, and will continue to do so regardless of the law. It’s time for an honest discussion about drug reform. We’re sacrificing people’s lives.

There is absolutely no evidence that pill testing would increase drug use, but there is substantial evidence that it saves lives. Baird’s position seems predicated on the idea that if he just keeps telling people to stop taking drugs they magically will. It’s a fantasy. Humans have been consuming mind and body altering substances for thousands of years. The chances of drug use being stamped out because a conservative politician talked about them in a stern way are absolutely zero. Reform advocates are correct to argue that the current approach is antiquated, naïve and harmful. But I don’t think they should stop there.

There is absolutely no evidence that pill testing would increase drug use, but there is substantial evidence that it saves lives.

While drug law reform campaigners are absolutely right in arguing for changes to our drug policy, most of the loudest voices in the campaign still approach the issue from a paternalistic perspective. They still agree that drugs are bad and drug use should be discouraged, but through harm minimisation measures rather than criminal sanctions. When doctors publicly accept drug use will continue to occur, regardless of policy settings, you can detect their frustration – they understand the evidence and the reality, but they wish it wasn’t the case.

I think it’s time to take the debate one step further and start a conversation about whether there is actually any inherent problem with recreational drug use. The line between drugs that we allow people to consume (alcohol and tobacco) and the drugs that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars and countless police hours trying to prohibit people from accessing (cannabis and MDMA, for example) are completely arbitrary.

It’s not about safety – in pure, regulated forms, drugs like cannabis and MDMA are safer than alcohol. Most of the safety issues stem from the fact that the market for these drugs is completely underground and controlled by criminal syndicates. A number of states in the US have fully legalised recreational cannabis use and the sky hasn’t fallen in.

Why is alcohol the only legal form of relaxing inhibition? Why not the high from cannabis or the buzz from MDMA?

It seems bizarre that we prevent festivalgoers from consuming drugs like cannabis and MDMA, when most of the money in holding large concerts is made from plying them with copious amounts of a more dangerous drug: alcohol.

There’s clearly no objective position prohibiting people from enjoying themselves in an altered state of mind, that’s exactly what alcohol does. But why is alcohol the only legal form of relaxing inhibition? Why not the high from cannabis or the buzz from MDMA?

Again, full legalisation does not need to equate to a promotion of use. Alcohol and tobacco are legal, but politicians and the police don’t run around telling everyone to use them. They’re relatively easy to access, but we still fund community campaigns warning of the dangers of addiction and overconsumption, as well as providing treatment services. Why would it be any different with recreational drugs?

The 5 most addictive substances on earth – and what they do to your brain
What are the most addictive drugs? This question seems simple, but the answer depends on whom you ask.

I can understand why health professionals are desperate to reframe the drug debate by focusing on harm minimisation, particularly for “hard” drugs like ice and heroin. Our current policy settings are failing and letting down the most vulnerable members of our community. But an umbrella approach that seeks to treat these drugs in the same way as recreational substances like cannabis and MDMA lacks nuance. Partly this has to do with the background of the experts dominating the debate. They largely come from health and legal backgrounds and are unlikely to be recreational drug users themselves. As valuable as their experience is, it should be supplemented with the views of actual drug users.

The Parliamentary drug summit and ensuing Canberra Declaration showed more and more politicians and experts are willing to critically examine our existing approach to drugs. It was a building block in the long campaign for reform. But despite the calls for policy to be “evidenced based”, there was a definite lack of evidence regarding some of the paternalism on display. It’s time for a bigger discussion, one that involves drug users and breaks down the arbitrary distinction between the drugs society says we’re allowed to consume and the drugs that could see us thrown into jail.

Australia's recreational drug policies aren't working, so what are the options for reform?
When doctors are going against the rule of law to save lives, we have a problem.

Bron: www.sbs.com.au

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7,827 Drug Cases Called into Question After Police Lab Tech Caught Faking Test Results - Counter Current News

drug-test-falsified

Passaic County, NJ — A lab technician for the New Jersey State Police’s Office of Forensic Science has ‘retired’ early after being caught falsely identifying a substance as marijuana without conducting the proper tests. On Monday, Deputy Public Defender Judy Fallon issued a memo to Public Defender Joseph Krakora explaining Kamalkant Shah’s falsified report:

“Laboratory Technician II Kamalkant Shah of the New Jersey State Police Laboratory (in Little Falls) has been found to have ‘dry labbed’ suspected CDS specimens. Basically, he was observed writing ‘test results’ for suspected marijuana that was never tested.”

According to NJ Advance Media, “Ellie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal Justice of the Attorney general’s office, said in [a] Feb. 22 letter to county prosecutor’s offices that Shah ‘failed to appropriately conduct laboratory analyses in a drug case.’”

The letter, released from the Attorney General to the news outlet on Wednesday, disclosed that “Mr. Shah was observed in one case spending insufficient time analyzing a substance to determine if it was marijuana and recording an anticipated result without properly conducting the analysis.”

“The letter advised prosecutors to disclose this information to defense counsel,” NJ Advance Media reported.

The former technician’s indiscretion in that singular marijuana case has now called into question thousands of drug cases he conducted tests for, as the one in question was only the first observed instance of his dishonesty.

As Fallon noted, “Mr. Shah was employed with the lab from 2005 to 2015; obviously all his ‘results’ have been called into question.”

“In Passaic County alone, the universe of cases possibly implicated in this conduct is 2,100. The Prosecutor’s Office is still in the process of identifying them. Their plan is to submit for retesting specimens from open cases,” she said.

Shah’s fraudulent testing, overall, may have affected 7,827 drug cases on which he worked. Fallon also indicated the Little Falls crime lab provides testing for other law enforcement agencies across the state, not just the State Police.

Fallon wrote that the Prosecutor’s Office for Passaic County has not yet formulated a strategy to deal with the fallout of the falsified reports. She indicated the difficulty of identifying all the potential cases whose outcomes were influenced by the inaccurate, or downright absence, of testing:

“The larger, and unanswered, question is how this impacts already resolved cases, especially those where the specimens may have been destroyed.”

Assistant Public Defender Kevin Walker issued a statement saying there is not currently “a practical mechanism for identifying all the cases involving” Shah. According to Peter Aseltine, spokesman for the Attorney General, State Police are reportedly working with prosecutors to comb over cases that may be affected by Shah’s false reports.

“The prosecuting attorneys are going to have to do that, by reviewing the records from the Little Falls lab and cross-referencing them with their files,“ he said. “We assume the prosecutors will do that promptly. Pending that review, we are going to keep all our options on the table, including filing motions to vacate convictions in appropriate cases.“

Aseltine, like other officials, highlighted that only one case was observed to be fraudulent, but that “in an abundance of caution, we have identified every case that Shah worked on since he began working in the North Regional Lab Drug Unit in 2005, and we have notified the county prosecutors, advising them to alert defense attorneys in those cases.”

NJ Advance Media reported that “several attorneys who deal with criminal matters said Wednesday that it wouldn’t likely affect the large number of defendants who pleaded guilty to drug possession.” This assessment apparently does not consider the deep flaws of plea bargains in the American justice system, which make up 90% of court outcomes in the United States, and often result from defendants’ fears they cannot fight the power of the courts — leading even the innocent to take plea bargains. The Drug War, specifically, has led to astronomically high rates of plea deals and prison time, all for individuals who have not committed violence against others.

In spite of the great burden his actions have placed on individuals and the justice system, at large, Shah has not been charged with any crimes. Aseltine said Shah was suspended without pay on January 12, and is “believed to have retired.” Shah enjoyed a salary of over $100,000 per year for the ten years he worked for the State Police.

Unfortunately, his is not an isolated incident. Inaccurate and falsified reporting has plagued the justice system and its related appendages for decades. For example, as the Washington Post reported last year:

“The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.”

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a former prosecutor, commented on the FBI’s scandal last year, but his sentiments — barring his allusion to executions, which are rare for drug cases — could be easily applied to the current debacle in New Jersey:

“These findings are appalling and chilling in their indictment of our criminal justice system, not only for potentially innocent defendants who have been wrongly imprisoned, and even executed, but for prosecutors who have relied on fabricated and false evidence despite their intentions to faithfully enforce the law.”

This article (7,827 Drug Cases Called into Question After Police Lab Tech Caught Faking Test Results) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. Image credit:Amitchell125. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article at edits@theantimedia.org.
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Bron: countercurrentnews.com

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Mexico opposition demands action after allegations by El Chapo's daughter | World news | The Guardian

Daughter of cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán said he poured money into politics, and deals with authorities played role in his prison break

Daughter of cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán said he poured money into politics, and deals with authorities played role in his prison break

Opposition politicians in Mexico have pounced on comments made to the Guardian by the daughter of recaptured cartel capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, alleging the country’s most wanted man poured money into politics and that his outlandish escape was part of a pact with the authorities – a deal supposedly broken with his arrest earlier this year.

Related: El Chapo entered US twice while on the run after prison break, daughter claims

“What El Chapo’s daughter said is a strong revelation, which must be investigated and must be taken seriously,” said two-time presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who leads early polls for the 2018 elections. “[President Enrique] Peña Nieto cannot stay silent.”

National Action Party spokesman Fernando Rodríguez Doval told the newspaper Reforma: “A clear disavowal, an authentic clarification [is needed] because it’s a very sensitive issue [and] above all because it’s hanging over this matter of there being complicity on the part of prison authorities in the escape.”

Guzmán’s wife, meanwhile, entered damage control mode, saying in a statement that Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz was not the drug lord’s daughter and only started contacting him in prison after his January 2014 arrest.

“We completely disavow this woman’s declarations and the relationship she claims to have with Joaquín and the family,” Emma Coronel, Guzmán’s spouse since 2007, said in a statement on Saturday night.

Her statement also said Guzmán’s first contact with Ortiz – who says she visited her father in prison – came after his 2014 capture, coinciding with letters containing claims of parentage.

Coronel also dismissed claims that she and her twins lived in Los Angeles. Yet the statement acknowledged the Guzmán responded to the letters and did not deny the paternity claims. Instead, his wife said that the family knows nothing about Rosa Isela’s mother.

“Joaquín’s sister[s] affirm that they have never known of the existence of this person, hence it is more than obvious that she has no idea of what she is saying, since no one in the Guzmán Loera family and not even Joaquín himself identifies her,” the statement said.

The disavowal and petty politicking added to the intrigue of case, which has caused a sensation in the Mexican media and discomfort for an image-conscious presidential administration. It also continued the media management attempts by the drug lord’s kin – in which El Chapo has been portrayed as more a family man and over-the-hill farmer than a feared cartel kingpin.

The interview raised eyebrows in Mexico for its assertions, such as the suggestion that El Chapo twice travelled to the US while on the lam to visit his daughter – another claim Coronel disputed. Claims of his illegally funding political campaigns, not uncommon in Mexico but seldom proven, made headlines, too.

“All I know is that my dad told his lawyer to deliver some cheques to [a politician’s] campaign, and asked that he respect him,” said Ortiz, 39, who was born in the Guadalajara area and lives in California.

“If there’s a pact, they don’t respect it. Now that they catch him they say he’s a criminal, a killer. But they didn’t say that when they asked for money for their campaigns. They’re hypocrites.”

Related: Californian, businesswoman, 'narco junior': El Chapo's American daughter

Manlio Fabio Beltrones, president of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), did not respond to questions about dirty money possibly making it into campaigns, but dismissed the family’s claims that El Chapo – whose lawyers want his extradition expedited – is enduring intolerable prison conditions such as not being able to sleep.

“What a paradox, right? A criminal complaining of poor treatment,” he told reporters. “We also think he should be extradited to the United States and that he pay for his offenses or his crimes in this country and that country, too.”

Analysts expect opposition politicians to opportunistically attack the PRI over the allegations of drug money ending up politics, but see little enthusiasm for proceeding with a proper investigation.

“If one is charged and tried, they all fall,” said Fernando Dworak, an analyst and political consultant in Mexico City. “The rules are made so that politicians cover up for each other.”

Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Cel en werkstraf voor voormalig VVD-raadslid De Kruif | NOS

Voormalig VVD-gemeenteraadslid Kathalijne de Kruif uit Maarssen is veroordeeld tot een half jaar gevangenisstraf waarvan vijf maanden voorwaardelijk. Ze kreeg van de rechtbank Midden-Nederland ook een werkstraf van 240 uur opgelegd. Omdat ze al in voorarrest heeft gezeten, hoeft ze niet meer de gevangenis is.

De Kruif, die fractievoorzitter van de VVD was in de gemeente Stichtse Vecht, krijgt de straf voor witwassen en valsheid in geschrifte. Ze werd niet veroordeeld voor deelname aan een criminele organisatie.

Vier anderen werden daar wel voor veroordeeld. De hoofdverdachte kreeg een gevangenisstraf van 42 maanden opgelegd. De anderen kregen straffen variërend van 34 maanden celstraf tot taakstraffen in combinatie met een voorwaardelijke straf.

Bron: nos.nl

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Former Latin American leaders urge world to end war on drugs 'disaster' | World news | The Guardian

Former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico write op-ed on ‘outdated drug policies’ and denounce UN for secrecy ahead of special assembly on drugs

Three former presidents of Latin American nations have urged the world to end the “unmitigated disaster” of the war on drugs, and denounced the United Nations for secrecy and shortsightedness ahead of the first special assembly on drugs in 18 years.

“Outdated drug policies around the world have resulted in soaring drug-related violence, overstretched criminal justice systems, runaway corruption and mangled democratic institutions,” wrote Fernando Henrique Cardoso, César Gaviria and Ernesto Zedillo, respectively the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.

The former presidents said that experts, statistics and a review of their “own failures on this front while in office” led them to “an unavoidable conclusion: the ‘war on drugs’ is an unmitigated disaster”.

While in office in the 1990s, the three leaders fought the drug trade by the usual, often violent, methods. Cardoso tried to eradicate marijuana production in Brazil, Zedillo began war against Mexican cartels that exploded in the second half of the decade, and Gaviria fought Pablo Escobar’s cocaine empire.

Escobar tried to assassinate Gaviria in a plane bombing, and the president’s administration killed the drug lord in 1993, a killing that Gaviria called “a step toward the end of drug trafficking” and proof “it is possible to defeat evil”.

But the three ex-presidents have spent the 2000s calling for decriminalization and regulation of drugs, and in 2009 Cardoso wrote for the Observer that decriminalization “breaks the silence about the drug problem”.

Drugs are “not first and foremost a matter for the criminal justice system”, he wrote. “Repressive policies towards drug users are firmly rooted in prejudice, fear and ideological visions, rather than in cold and hard assessment of the realities of drug abuse.”

While the three hailed the UN for holding an assembly on drug abuse on 19 April, they excoriated its methods in Friday’s op-ed. “What was supposed to be an open, honest and data-driven debate about drug policies has turned into a narrowly conceived closed-door affair,” they wrote.

The UN has blocked the majority of member states and various health and human rights groups from participating, according to the leaders, and the drafted declaration “perpetuates the criminalization of producers and consumers” rather than moving toward treatment for addicts.

Cardoso, Gaviria and Zedillo instead call for all UN nations to “end the criminalization and incarceration of drug users”, and to abolish capital punishment for related offenses: “It is a medieval practice that should be stamped out once and for all.”

Finally, they call for regulation of drugs to replace “the obvious failure of most existing drug laws”.

Related: My uncle and heroin: ‘What surprises me most – you have no teeth’ | Sarah Resnick

“This is not as radical as it sounds,” they add, citing the example of Switzerland’s healthcare plan for heroin addicts, Portugal’s decriminalization, Uruguay’s regulated marijuana market, and the nearly two dozen US states that have legalized marijuana for medicinal or recreational use. Cardoso has in the past also cited the Netherlands’ lax marijuana laws and liberalized drug laws in Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia.

The ex-presidents call echoes, at least in part, remarks made by several US presidential candidates this year when asked about a growing epidemic of heroin and painkiller abuse. Democratic candidates have said they support a shift toward treatment first, and some Republican candidates have said they favor improved treatment and reforming sentencing laws around drugs.

Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, also criticized the UN’s handling of drug abuse and law enforcement on Friday. “Drugs are dangerous, but current narcotics policies are an even bigger threat,” he said in a statement. “This is because punishment is given a greater priority than health and human rights. Prohibition has had virtually no impact on the supply of or demand for illicit drugs.”

Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Verdachten grote witwaszaak weer vrij | NOS

Twee leidinggevenden van coffeeshop The Grass Company die worden verdacht van het witwassen van ruim twintig miljoen euro, zijn vrijgelaten. Ze werden woensdag opgepakt.

De twee blijven wel verdachten in de zaak. Er loopt al jarenlang een onderzoek naar de coffeeshop. Het Openbaar Ministerie vermoedt dat een deel van de inkoop van cannabis tussen 2002 en 2014 niet goed in de boeken is vastgelegd. De illegale opbrengsten zouden volgens het OM zijn belegd in meerdere landen in Europa en Azië.

"Het Openbaar Ministerie is er blijkbaar na vijf jaar onderzoek niet in geslaagd deze twee hoofdverdachten langer vast te houden dan twee dagen", laat Sidney Smeets van Spong Advocaten weten.

Johan van Laarhoven, oprichter van de coffeeshopketen, zit in Thailand een straf uit van 103 jaar voor het witwassen van geld dat hij in Nederland had verdiend met de verkoop van softdrugs, schrijft Omroep Brabant. Advocaat Gerard Spong reist zaterdag naar Bangkok om met de man over de zaak te praten.

"Ze hebben Van Laarhoven door de Thaise rechter laten veroordelen, terwijl nu blijkt dat de Nederlandse rechter deze verdachten zelfs geen drie dagen vast wil zetten", aldus Smeets.

Bron: nos.nl

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Arrestaties voor smokkel van 1200 kilo cocaïne | NOS

Twee mannen uit Oldambt zijn deze week opgepakt voor de smokkel van 1200 kilo cocaïne. De drugs hebben een straatwaarde van zeker dertig miljoen euro.

De cocaïne is begin dit jaar gevonden op een boot die was gestrand. De mannen waren opvarenden van een sleepboot die december vorig jaar van Paramaribo naar Rotterdam is gevaren. Waarschijnlijk zijn de drugs vanaf de sleper overgeheveld op boot, meldt RTV Noord.

Afgelopen dinsdag heeft de politie woningen doorzocht in Oldambt, Barendrecht en Rotterdam. Daarbij zijn onder meer laptops, telefoons en usb-sticks in beslag genomen. Ook werd een luchtdrukpistool gevonden.

De rechter-commissaris oordeelde vandaag dat de mannen nog zeker twee weken blijven vastzitten. De politie verwacht nog meer mensen op te pakken.

Bron: nos.nl

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Americans Want Congress Members To Pee In Cups To Prove THEY Aren't On Drugs - Counter Current News


While Congress pushes for drug tests for food stamp recipients, most Americans like the idea of drug testing members of Congress even better.

A YouGov poll found that 78% of U.S. citizens are in favor of requiring random drug testing for members of Congress. A full 62% said they “strongly” favor this, compared with only 51% who feel the same way about food stamp and welfare recipients.

The support for this move was bipartisan, as 86% percent of Republicans, 77% of Democrats and 75% of independents support the mandatory drug tests for members of Congress.

It would seem that more Americans aren’t worried about drugs, they are upset with the hypocrisy of U.S. lawmakers, who carry on this charade of a “War on Drugs” while using the very things they pass laws against.

A cargo ship which has been linked to anti-drug Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell was stopped and searched before departing from Colombia recently, with approximately 90 pounds of cocaine found on board by the Coast Guard. But now, Senator McConnell is doubling down on his reputation as an “Anti-Drug Senator” by railing against legalized marijuana.

The Senate Minority Leader said that he is firmly “against legalizing marijuana,” even while this has put him at odds with his Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes.

McConnell acknowledged that marijuana is “not in the same category as heroin,” even if it is treated as such by the DEA. Still, he said that legalizing the plant could “completely transform your society in a way that I think certainly most Kentuckians would not agree with.”

“I don’t think an answer to this, honestly, is to go in a direction of legalizing any of these currently illegal drugs,” McConnell explained. “This whole movement in various parts of the country is a big mistake.”

This is rather ironic, as back in November that drugs found on the ship, the Ping May, were carried by the vessel operated by The Foremost Maritime Corporation. That’s a company owned by Mitch McConnell’s in-laws, the Chao family.

Free Thought explained that “this connection is not only relevant because of the family connection, but also because the Chao family has often made large donations to McConnell’s campaigns.”

“In fact,” they continue, “the Chao family has been funding McConnell since the late 1980s. Years later, in 1993, McConnell married Elaine Chao and secured the Chao family as one of his primary sources for investments.”

A gift worth somewhere between 5 and 25 million dollars from the Chao Family made McConnel one of the richest senators in the country in 2008.

The Foremost Maritime Corporation is currently operating 16 dry bulk cargo ships, most of which are currently still in service.

What makes this case even more interesting is that McConnell is well known as a staunch prohibitionist. In 1996, McConnell sponsored “The Enhanced Marijuana Penalties Act”, a bill designed to increase the mandatory minimum sentencing for people caught with marijuana.

Luis Gonzales, an official with the Colombian Coast Guard in Santa Marta told The Nation that the Ping May’s crew were questioned as part of the investigation, but that they have yet to file any charges in the case.

Do you think there is anything strange about McConnell’s war on weed, considering his family’s link to smuggled, black market cocaine?

Perhaps those who deal in black market, unregulated drugs are trying to keep drugs illegal to make sure they maximize their black market profits?

Whatever the case may be, the majority of Americans are fed up with U.S. lawmaker hypocrisy and are ready to hold them to account. Do you think mandatory drug testing for members of Congress is a good idea?

Bron: countercurrentnews.com

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British man jailed in Canada after his friend's ashes were mistaken for drugs

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A British man spent six days in a Canadian prison after border agents mistook the ashes he was carrying in his luggage for ketamine.

Russell Laight, from the west Midlands, was flying from London Heathrow to Halifax in Nova Scotia on March 2 when his plane was diverted to St John's airport in Newfoundland.

Border service agents at St Johns searched his luggage, where they discovered the small bag containing the ashes of Simon Darby, a friend of Mr Laight's who died of cancer in December.

“He had spent a lot of time in Canada before he died,” said Laight of his friend. “One of his dying wishes was that some of his ashes be spread by his friends here (in Halifax).”

Agents ran tests on the bag - and the results came back positive for ketamine.

"I was very, very shocked," Laight told CTV. "I have nothing to do with anything like that in my life, so I didn't know where it came from, what it was, but as far as I'm concerned, it's supposed to be my buddy's ashes."

Laight was then permitted to call his family, and the friends he was visiting in Halifax, before being taken to jail in St John's.

"What a horrible place ... and they treat you like a dog there," he told the Telegram. "It's like, you're a criminal now. You deal with what you're offered. It was unbelievable."

Laight's friends in Halifax requested that a second test be carried out on the ashes - although he had to spend five nights in prison before the results arrived.

An in-depth analysis of the ashes confirmed there was no ketamine, or any other narcotics, in the bag.

Laight returned to court on Monday March 7, where the Crown withdrew all the charges.

Laight continued his journey to Halifax shortly afterwards - but has yet to have the ashes returned to him.

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The day police told Parliament to end the war on drugs

By Simon Oxenham

Last week Neil Franklin, a retired major from Marylyn State Police, led a troop of serving and former police chiefs, soldiers and a former spy into the Parliament to call MPs to end the war on drugs. Their testimony was damning and revealing.

Franklin opened the meeting with an explanation of the campaign's mission to "reduce crime, disease, death and addiction by ending the most socially destructive public policy since slavery." Franklin explained how his organisation of "police officers, agents, judges, criminal prosecutors, corrections officials and others" including over 180,000 members and supporters in over 180 countries share one goal, to end "the world’s longest war".

According to Franklin "we have been attempting to solve a public health crisis with criminal justice solutions and the results have been catastrophic". While repeated calls from academia and public health have failed to convince most politicians, the group hopes calls from within the criminal justice system will finally make them listen. What follows are all direct quotes, edited for concision.

Suzanne Sharkey (pictured above): Former Constable and Undercover Officer at Northumbria Constabulary

"When I look back at my time in the police I feel ashamed, I feel a sense of failure. I feel ashamed that I wasn’t arresting career criminals. I was arresting people from poor socially deprived areas with little or no hope whose crime was non-violent drug possession, a complete failure of the war on drugs. I believe that one of the biggest barriers for people with problematic substance misuse to seeking help and treatment is the current drug policy. It does nothing, it achieves nothing except creating more harm for individuals, families and society as a whole. All of us know the problems and what we need to do but rather than be united by the problems let’s be united by the solutions. Solutions based in health, education and compassion rather than criminalisation."

PCC Ron Hogg: serving police and crime commissioner for Durham spoke alongside Mike Barton, the chief constable of Durham police force. The pair made headlines last year for effectively decriminalising small-scale cannabis growers and users in Durham.

"We are very clear in our view in Durham constabulary that the war has failed, that it won’t succeed and it never will succeed and we have to change our views and the way we approach things. The whole purpose of a drugs policy must be to minimise the harms that drugs cause to individuals and to our communities and optimise the benefits that drugs can bring.

"Heroin and crack cocaine addiction is responsible for 43% of acquisitive crime. Responsible for 33% of fraud as people commit crimes to feed their habits. This appears to many to be a satisfactory situation, we don’t think that’s the way things should be going forward. That’s why we’ve taken a stand in Durham. We’ve put our heads above the parapet to produce new ways of tackling drug and alcohol addiction.

"As we dismantle one organised crime group there’s another one ready to come and take its place but what you do find is the levels of violence and organisation tends to increase incrementally as we go forward. So we really have to break the cycle if we’re going to do something significant."

Annie Machon – Former Mi5 Officer tasked with investigating terrorist logistics



"I first came to the knowledge that the war on drugs was an abject failure when I was working as an intelligence officer at Mi5 in the 1990s. One of my tasks was to investigate terrorist logistics and to do this I worked very closely with customs and excise, both the national investigations division and at ports. During that time I learned from them that even at that time they viewed the war on drugs as unwinnable. I learned about the massive overlap in funding between the illegal drugs trade and terrorist organisations, and this is global not just in Northern Ireland in the 1990s. We see this time and time again, in Afghanistan, in some of the Latin American countries where terrorist organisations are largely funded by drug money. We've seen most of West Africa descend into a kind of narco-state where armed militias compete for drug territory.

"On the one hand we have prohibition that pushes the war on drugs underground and creates huge conflicts globally. On the other hand we are fighting the war on terror which is largely funded by this war on drugs. So it strikes me as illogical unless it's a very clever circular business model that has been only too successful.

"We know this is going on because bank after bank has been fined record numbers for being caught money laundering. In 2009 the sheer scale of the corruption of our banking industry became clear. In 2009 a man named Antonio Maria Costa, then head of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime went on the record saying after the financial crash of 2008, but for drug money many large international banks would not have had any cash liquidity.

"By ensuring prohibition ends we would be able to end the biggest crime wave our world has ever seen. We would be able to protect millions if not billions of people around the planet who have been ravaged not just by the drug war, crimes and the vicious violence but also by terrorist groups funded largely by this trade who continue to maim and kill around the planet too."

Patrick Hennessy – Served as a grenadier guard officer in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now a practicing barrister.

"It is so blindingly obvious you have to question that there are grown up people with important jobs who don't see this themselves — you can't fight a war on a thing! As someone who has fought two or three wars against people and states, you can't fight a war on a thing.

"In Helmand more than 400 British servicemen, countless hundreds of Afghan servicemen and civilians who are often forgotten when we talk about this, hundreds of Americans, Canadian, French, Estonian soldiers, amongst others, all lost their lives in Helmand, which produces half of Afghanistan's opium.

"What we didn't understand in the army while I was there. What we don't seem to have understood for most of the time that we were spending billions of pounds and losing people there, but what is certainly the case is that the people we are fighting in Helmand, who I was fighting, were probably not Taliban in the sense that they'd signed up, come over the border from Pakistan, and want to create a new government in Kabul.

"Sanguin is just a crazily brilliant example of this. The last bit of Sanguin which as we speak, is under Government of Afghanistan control — if there is such a thing – both in the sense of control and the sense that there is a government in Afghanistan. The last bit of Sanguin is what is known as Forward Operating Base Jackson for the British and American servicemen who went there. It is now known as Sanguin District Centre. It was the first building that the para's bought and negotiated their way into in 2006 and it became the headquarters of British operations. It was one of the houses of a guy called Lal Jan who was a prominent operator from the Ishaqzai tribe tribe in Helmand, who before the British arrived, controlled the Sanguin Bazaar where he levied a tax on most of the opium that went through it, the most lucrative thing going. They weren't around when the British came in, so this building which is now the Sanguin DC was sold to the British not by the owner but the owner's rival tribe's elder who obviously saw a great way of getting his rival out. He gave up this house for a couple of thousand dollars, for a house that wasn't his and the British and the Americans and now the Afghan security forces have been there ever since.

"The majority of the fighting that has been done, over eight years, 106 British servicemen, about 100 Americans in Sanguin alone, has been from members of this tribe from the guy who wants his house back and wants control of the market where he can level the tax on opium back. It's just staggering to think that this is what it comes down to.

"The Helmand economy is the opium economy. When I was there we weren't being shot at too much because despite what we were being told further up the chain we weren't so stupid as to not go into every village and say 'we're not going to touch your poppy' and arguably the upturn in violence against coalition forces came in 2009 and in 2010 when the American marine brigade started saying 'oh hang on, weren't we supposed to eradicating poppies? Well that isn't a strategic consideration but let's do that'. Funnily enough, when everybody's livelihood started going up in smoke they started planting IEDs. If you want a starting point on how illogical and illiterate this whole process is, look there.

"One of the last and most depressing administrative tasks I had to do when I decided I was leaving the army was I had to kick out one of my best soldiers. He was a 21 year old lance corporal who had failed a compulsory drugs test because he had taken a pill at a festival having come back from seven months in Afghanistan where he had put seven of his best mates in a box. The guy that signed his discharge papers —my boss, who is also an absolutely brilliant soldier, he'd had a six month rack on the knuckles earlier that year for his drink driving conviction. In 2008 15 people died from MDMA related deaths — and goodness knows what that actually means, dehydration other substances etc — while 1350 serious life changing injuries resulted from drink driving and 350 fatalities, which is almost as many lives as we lost in Helmand over 14 years."

Paul Whitehouse: Former Chief Constable for 8 years at Sussex Police, with 30 years experience in policing.

"I was the first member of the Durham constabulary drugs squad. I was put into a taskforce charged with detecting offenders who were committing offences which the previous year had not existed. What they were doing was suddenly illegal. How do you maintain faith with a community when you're saying — no you can't do that! 30 years in the police service made it absolutely clear to me that the policy you adopt whether you are in government, whether you are running a police force or running anything else for that matter should depend on evidence.

"Prohibition has failed in alcohol and because it failed with alcohol it isn't going to work with drugs. It cannot possibly work while we spend money on criminalising people who are doing probably less harm to themselves than some of the people who go binge drinking.

"One of my abiding memories is of a politician called Michael Howard, when he was home secretary and I was a chief constable and we were invited to a lunch in London to celebrate the ten year anniversary of an organisation called Addaction. There was a fairly big table filled with the great and the good, you can visualise it. He was the guest of honour because he was Home Secretary and I was there representing the police service. We were the only two people around the table who didn't drink alcohol and I remarked about that and he came back and said 'thank you, I hadn't wanted to say it but I endorse that policy, how can we say that alcohol that causes untold harm – just look at domestic violence etc – if we think alcohol is that bad why don't we ban it? Because it won't work and we should take the same view on drugs"

Hubert Wimber: Former Police Chief in Münster, Germany

"Since the turn of the century we have established a good and trusting cooperation between the community in Münster and the police. It depends on the fact that in 2002 we established the first drug consumption room in our city and the second in Germany. Heroin users can shoot up in good hygienic conditions and with the opportunity for medical attendance. "At that time this was against the resistance of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime in Vienna. Since that time we have no disorder problem in the public area of Münster caused by drug consumers. For example 180,000 used needles are exchanged in the consumption room each year. Before these would be found in the public parks and the children's playgrounds in the city, this was a real disorder problem".

James Duffy: Former Head of Strathclyde Police

"Prohibition has been an out and out failure. It hasn't worked anywhere in the world. Anywhere at all. I joined the police in 1975. In 1975 we talked about tenner bags. I left 32 years later. We still talk tenner bags. If inflation had kept pace with it, it would have been £147. That didn't happen. Prohibition doesn't work and the reason I know it doesn't work with absolute certainty is that if you had a drug free street or town or village, anywhere in your country you wouldn't be able to get near it for politicians, because they would all be standing there saying 'look what we've done'.

"It doesn't work for lots of reasons. In Scotland we have 350,000 casual cannabis users, if we put them into a vote in parliament they would get nine or ten seats, they don't get that. We have 55,000 heroin addicts. We lock them up. We put them in jail, where it costs us nearly £150,000 a week to keep them there. It's almost as bad as things are in America where between 1971 and 2007 they put 39 million people in jail for non-violent drug offences. Prohibition doesn't work. There is a demand for it and simply saying no doesn't stop demand.

"The thing you have to say about your drug dealers is they are the people who decide what drugs they give away and sell to your children and your grandchildren. They are the people who will decide what it's cut with, what the strength will be, what the effect will be. They don't ask for ID. They will sell it to whoever has the money. That's a shameful situation and we've allowed that to continue for the last 45 years by the continued prosecution under the Misuse of Drugs Act and the idea that prohibition will make a difference. It has not and it will not and we need to change that.

"If we don't change that and you are quite happy to sit on your hands we will be having this debate in 10, 12, 15 years time and in that time the number of people who die as a result of the misuse of drugs will increase. It is a public safety issue.

"The government are always telling us that the use of drugs is going down, but it's going down marginally. To the extent that in the next 70 years it will be back at where the 1970's levels were. We don't have 70 years to wait, it needs to be addressed now.

"It's a real public health issue for a number of reasons. In my home country of Scotland we have a terrific Scotch whisky industry. It's supported by the government, it's publicised by the government, it's legalised, it's regulated, they make obscene amounts of tax to pay for this place. 7000 people die a year from alcohol in Scotland. The tobacco industry employs lots of people, raises a great deal of tax and we have 13,000 deaths in Scotland every year from tobacco. From all of my investigations I cannot find a single recorded death from cannabis anywhere in the UK.

"I might not be the brain of Britain but even I can work out that we are targeting the wrong things. We wouldn't ban alcohol because it doesn't work, we like a drink. We wouldn't ban tobacco because the lepers at the gate outside like a smoke. We wouldn't ban gambling because people like a wee bet. All things in moderation, so why do we think that by banning drugs through prohibition we can stop this. We can't.

"Politicians in this place and other places have the ability and the powers to change things. They need to start putting their heads above the parapet."

Norman Lamb: Liberal Democrat MP and former health minister in the coalition government was the only MP to speak. Norman is presenting a motion at the Lib Dem spring conference calling the party to support a regulated cannabis market.

"It's time to call time on the most discredited policy and that is the war on drugs. Started incidentally by the most discredited of US Presidents, President Richard Nixon. It has been spectacular in its failure. We have managed to provide an annual multibillion dollar industry straight into organised crime internationally, fuelling terrorist networks. We have managed at the same time to criminalise very many of our young people blighting their career prospects for doing something that only affects themselves. We choose to criminalise them whilst at the same time probably 50% of our current government have taken drugs in their time but happened to get away with it, so haven't had their lives blighted. Yet they maintain the argument that we continue to prosecute people. It is the height of hypocrisy. For me this should be a health issue."

Bron: www.politics.co.uk

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NIH: Nearly 6 Million Americans Suffer From ‘Marijuana Use Disorder’


(CNSNews.com) – Nearly six million Americans - or 2.5 percent of adults in the U.S. - suffer from “marijuana use disorder”, according to a new study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

The study was released as a record number of ballot proposals to either legalize or decriminalize marijuana have been proposed in 16 states this year, according to BallotPedia.

“Marijuana use disorder is common in the United States, is often associated with other substance use disorders, behavioral problems, and disability, and goes largely untreated,” according to NIAAA, which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The findings from NIAAA’s National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) study were published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Dr. Bridget Grant and eight co-authors interviewed 36,309 participants over the age of 18 about their use of drugs and alcohol and “related psychiatric conditions” over a 12-month period between 2012 and 2013.

“In keeping with previous findings, the new study found that past-year and lifetime marijuana use disorders were strongly and consistently associated with other substance use and mental health disorders.”

Researchers found that the 6.3 percent of the study participants who smoked pot an average of 274 days per year had “lifetime diagnoses” of marijuana use disorder, which “was associated with other substance use disorders, affective disorders, anxiety, and personality disorders.”

“To be diagnosed with the disorder, individuals must meet at least two of 11 symptoms [listed in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] that assess craving, withdrawal, lack of control, and negative effects on personal and professional responsibilities,” the study stated.

“Severity of the disorder is rated as mild, moderate, or severe depending on the number of symptoms met.”

“The new analysis complements previous population-level studies by Dr. Grant’s group that show that marijuana use can lead to harmful consequences for individuals and society,” NIAAA director George Koob commented.

Marijuana use disorder is most common in men under the age of 45. “The risk for onset of the disorder was found to peak during late adolescence and among people in their early 20s, with remission occurring within 3 to 4 years,” the study found, noting that mental disabilities “persist even after remission.”

“Findings suggest the need to improve prevention and educate the public, professionals, and policy makers about possible harms associated with cannabis use disorders and available interventions,” the researchers concluded.

Marijuana (cannabis), classified as a Schedule I substance, has “no currently accepted medical use and [has] a high potential for abuse,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Although marijuana has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat any medical condition, the FDA has approved two synthetic cannabinoids – dronabinol and nabilone – which are available to patients in pill form.

Despite legalization in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia, the use and distribution of marijuana is still illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering whether to hear a federal lawsuit filed in 2014 by the States of Nebraska and Oklahoma requesting that the high court throw out Colorado’s Amendment 64, which legalized the use of recreational marijuana. Colorado voters approved the measure in 2012.

The lawsuit argues that “the State of Colorado has created a dangerous gap in the federal drug control system” that has caused “irreparable injury” to its two neighboring states.

Related: Drug Traffickers Seek Safe Haven Amid Legal Marijuana

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Bron: www.cnsnews.com

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Zes jaar celstraf voor criminelen die drugslab runden | NOS

Twee mannen van 30 en 37 jaar uit Noord-Brabant zijn veroordeeld tot een gevangenisstraf van zes jaar voor bezit van een raketwerper en grote hoeveelheden grondstoffen voor xtc-pillen. Ze zouden een drugslaboratorium hebben gerund in een loods in Eindhoven.

De 46-jarige eigenaar van de loods moet twee jaar de cel in wegens medeplichtigheid. Hij had de grondstoffen voor de huurders besteld in China.

De politie ontdekte het drugslaboratorium in 2014 bij een inval in de loods in Eindhoven. Er lagen ruim 16.000 liter formamide en andere grondstoffen voor xtc-pillen. De drugs die hiermee gemaakt hadden kunnen worden, zouden een straatwaarde van 144 miljoen euro hebben.

Ook lagen er twee geweren, patroonmagazijnen en een geladen granaatraketwerper in de loods.

De straffen zijn iets lager dan het Openbaar Ministerie twee weken geleden tijdens de rechtszitting had geëist.

Bron: nos.nl

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New Zealand's 'cannabis crisis': smokers confirm chronic shortage | World news | The Guardian

Police seizure of 9,000 cannabis plants sees demand for marijuana far outstrip supply across New Zealand


For once, there’s a bigger problem in New Zealand than its flag being confused with Australia’s: a chronic shortage of marijuana.

The “catastrophic” situation was first reported on by Don Rowe, a staff writer at The Spinoff, who wrote that New Zealand’s most popular illegal substance was “almost unobtainable in any meaningful amount right now”.

“Blame it on the police, the gangs, the weather or just the grow cycle of your average cannabis harvest; no matter which way you slice it, it’s dry out there.”

The island nation is understood to punch above its weight in terms of cannabis consumption with 42% of all adults over 15 having tried the substance, despite penalties ranging from a NZ$500 fine for possession to a two to 14-year prison sentence for growth, cultivation, supply or manufacture.

Usage is most common among people aged 15 to 24, especially men.

Related: Cannabis-growing 'nuns' grapple with California law: 'We are illegal'

Christian, 42, said the current shortage had forced him to seek a prescription for anti-depressants from his doctor in mid-December. “I haven’t had problems sourcing it for the last 14 years.”

Rowe reported that prices had been driven sky-high, with an ounce – typically available for between NZ$300 and $350 – retailing for “well over $400 in some cases”.

“‘Tinnies’, $20 since time immemorial, have not fluctuated in price,” he wrote – though he added that some apparently fell “well short of the expected one gram minimum weight”.

New Zealand Police have been contacted for comment on the apparent shortage.

Jordan, 22, confirmed the report to Guardian Australia. Current prices were high for poor-quality product, he said, with “crappy tinnies and $50 bags going for nigh on $100”. “A lot of people are selling terrible indoor stuff – or old rotted plant, which is even worse.”

Earlier this month, 9,000 cannabis plants were netted by police in their annual aerial recovery operation across the top of the South Island and the west coast – a significant increase in last year’s yield of about 4,000 plants. Thirteen people face a range of drug and firearms charges as a result.

Operation commander Grant Andrews told Fairfax that it was “a success in the fact we have removed that much cannabis”.

But Jordan indicated that the current shortage may have taken root in 2015. He’d heard, through the grapevine, that flooding in the lower North Island and upper South Island early last year had caused “a whole bunch of extra stock” in storage to rot.

That “took out a massive chunk”, as much as 13 kilograms, he said. “But I don’t know how reliable that info [was].”

Thomas, 36, said variations in availability were par for the course, he said, when indoor-grown marijuana was hard to access even during periods of plenty as any operation of scale stood out “like a literal red flag to law enforcement”.

Related: Bud+Breakfast: the marijuana inn where wake and bake is a serious business

Supply tended to ebb and flow quite tangibly with growth and harvest – seasonal fluctuation that he found “quite charming”, he said.

“Like, living in a post-capitalist blah-de-blah society, I get much more of a sense of a naturally cultivated crop here than even at, say, the vege department down the supermarket. If there’s a drought, like there is now, word of what grows have been hit seems to travel about as fast and easily as the product itself would.”

Though he didn’t know how many links there were in the supply chain “from the growers themselves to the people who give me little baggies and take $20 notes”, he said there was robust information-sharing. His principal supplier was able to tell him within 24 hours when a specific roadside in the upper South Island – across a body of water from his home city – had been sprayed, disrupting the supply chain.

“But I have no way of knowing she’s being straight up,” he added. “She does smoke and sell a lot of illegal drugs after all.”

The shortage, at least, has rewarded those who showed foresight during times of plenty. One Aucklander told Guardian Australia that he was “coasting in 2016”. “I bought too much weed at the end of last year – it will last me until deep in April,” he crowed. “I’m a success story!”

Jack, 25, said the drought seemed to be mostly affecting marijuana users in the centre of the country – “the top of the South”, the capital city of Wellington and the surrounding region. “If you know a guy out west Auckland, you very rarely get droughts,” he said, attaching a photo of “proof”.

Whether or not New Zealand could lead the world in the use of cannabis for medicinal reasons is currently a topic of national debate, after associate health minister Peter Dunne announced a review of the guidelines for considering applications last month.

As it stands, the only approved medicinal cannabis in New Zealand is a mouth spray, Sativex, which costs over NZ$1,000 a month.

Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Buitenlanders mogen coffeeshops Sittard-Geleen niet meer in

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SITTARD - Ook Sittard-Geleen gaat buitenlanders weren uit de coffeeshops. Dat heeft burgemeester Sjaar Cox vanmiddag bekend gemaakt. Momenteel mogen buitenlanders nog wiet kopen in de shops, maar in navolging van Maastricht gaat de burgemeester hen de toegang verbieden.

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Drug violence and economic complexity in Mexico - Business Insider

ciudad obregon mexicoReutersPatrons seen at a taco stand as the body of a man lay on the pavement, in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, in 2010. According to local media, the man died after suffering a fatal heart attack.

The war on drugs that has raged across Mexico over the past decade has led to the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of thousands of people.

The human costs of the drug war and related violence are well known, but the chilling effect on Mexico's economic vitality has been harder to measure.

Recent research has shown that high levels of violence in Mexico — like the 7.6% increase in homicide rate the country experienced in 2015 — not only have a negative impact on workers, but also prevent complex economic activities from starting and growing.

"Increasingly economists are arguing that what really matters is not how much [people] participate in the market, but the particular sectors and industries in which these persons are participating," said Viridiana Rios, a scholar at Harvard and fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

"What violence is causing … is killing the industries that are complex. In those regions that are very violent, complexity cannot flourish," Rios said during a presentation at the Wilson Center in January.

"Those sectors that are complex require a lot of skills, like technology, like professionals, like ... software development, the aerospacial industry, the automobile industry, that require way more abilities," Rios added.

Monthly rate of change homicides Mexico Viridiana RiosChanges in monthly homicide rates in Mexico over the past three years. The country began seeing an increase in homicides in early 2015 that continued through the end of the year.

Mexicans are also leaving the country for higher education, in part because of violence, a trend that is depriving the country of workers with the requisite skills for advanced industries to grow.

Violence has a measurable effect on economic opportunity and growth in Mexico.

"An increase of 9.8% in the number of criminal organizations is enough to eliminate one economic sector," Rios wrote in a paper published in December. "Similar effects can be felt ... if gang-related violence increases by 5.4%," she said.

For every increase of 10 percentage points in homicide rates in Mexico, "you see an increase in unemployment in that region of half a point," Rios said at the Wilson Center. "Unemployment currently in Mexico is 5%, so for each 10 points of increase in the homicides rates, you see half a point extra on unemployment. That's pretty significant."

Economic sector resiliency MexicoViridiana RiosA measure of resiliency for economic sectors in Mexico. The higher the score, the less that sector is affected by violence.

"A violent Mexico is going to grow in industries that are naturally resilient to violence," Rios said, citing the capital-intensive electrical industry and mining, which has thrived in conflict-prone regions in the past, as sectors that can endure in the face of growing violence in Mexico.

Corporations could also adapt to high levels of violence, Rios said, as they have shown that they "can internalize the cost of violence, just like one more thing in their production function."

Jalisco CJNG cartel MexicoREUTERS/Alejandro AcostaPolice officers near the covered body of a person who died after a bus was set on fire in Guadalajara in 2012. Gunmen torched vehicles and blockaded roads in metropolitan Guadalajara during a military operation to arrest two leaders of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, local media reported, saying two people had died.

"Big companies operating in Mexico [aren't] affected that much by organized crime," Tom Wainwright, the former Mexico City reporter for The Economist and author of "Narconomics," told Business Insider.

An exception may be the oil industry, which loses billions of dollars a year to oil theft.

And if multinationals can operate in the face of organized violence, that doesn't mean they are immune to crime: Cartels have ransacked PepsiCo-owned trucks and extorted mining conglomerates operating in Mexico, as journalist Ioan Grillo has documented.

mexico oilReutersSoldiers at a gas facility of Pemex in Reynosa in 2012.

The retail industry and some service industries, however, could have more trouble functioning in violent environments.

Businesses in the tourism industry, for example, could struggle to attract customers, and businesses catering to local consumers may find it hard to escape the influence of criminal elements.

"The people that really hurt from the cartels are the small businesses. You go to a little shop in a place like Juarez, and extortion there is rife. Every business in a city like that is paying a weekly payment to the cartels," Wainwright told Business Insider.

"I spoke to a barman there, he said he just looked at it as if he had an extra employee — the cartel," Wainwright said.

"It was about the same as employing an extra person. It's just an extra cost of business that they have to learn to deal with, and if they don't deal with it, then they pay the consequences."

Economic growth rate in MexicoViridiana RiosThis map, based on homicide rates in 2015, shows in green where economic complexity could grow and in red where complex economic sectors could struggle. Areas in white didn't have enough information to measure.

Divergent trends in growth related to the viability of different industries have already started to emerge in Mexico.

States that are home to advanced industries like automotive and aerospace manufacturing, and border regions that benefit from trade with the US, had growth rates well above the national average in 2014.

But other regions in Mexico — heavily populated, underdeveloped, and poorly governed — have struggled to grow in recent years. (A problem exacerbated by ongoing turmoil in the oil industry.)

mexico doctor graffiti dangerREUTERS/Edgard GarridoA doctor walking past graffiti on a wall along a street in Mexico City in 2013.

"These differing trends threaten to aggravate already deep economic divides, creating virtuous and vicious circles in terms of infrastructure, education, and opportunities," Shannon O'Neil, the senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote last summer.

Persistent and intense violence could solidify these trends, preventing economic development in some areas of Mexico, and if this kind of violence seeps into areas not previously affected by it, then it could have a negative effect on development there as well.

As Rios' research shows, prevalent violence won't necessarily prevent some industries from operating, but it may undermine the ability of Mexicans to foster and grow complex economic activities.

"Mexico could keep growing — it's just that it is not going to grow where we want it," Rios said.

The war on drugs that has raged across Mexico...

Funding Circle's Sam Hodges: 'Everyone has a plan, until you get hit in the teeth'

He left school at 16 and made millions revolutionising courtroom technology — here's Graham Smith-Bernal's advice for entrepreneurs

Bron: uk.businessinsider.com

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To end HIV in drug users, stop chasing the dream of a drug-free world | Susie McLean | Global development | The Guardian

Why does ‘harm reduction’ continue to be such a problem for global drug policy when it’s a proven way of reducing cases of HIV?

Globally, about 12.7 million people inject drugs and 1.7 million of them are living with HIV.

On average, one in 10 new HIV infections is caused by sharing injecting equipment, according to the World Health Organisation.

In 1998 and 2009 the UN declared its ambition to bring about a world free of drugs. Many countries continue to take a punitive approach to HIV and drugs, using arrests, incarceration, criminal penalties and compulsory detention to criminalise and punish users. Drug use is predicted to rise by 25% by 2050, with most of the increase in developing countries, and we understand better than ever the damage done by the war on drugs. So we hoped that last week’s 59th session of the UN’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) would drop the rhetoric of a drug-free world in favour of progressive approaches to global drug policy that would help us meet the UN target of ending Aids by 2030.

It looks as if we were wrong.

The evidence for the effectiveness of harm reduction interventions – reducing the negative consequences of drug use rather than focusing solely on reducing drug use – is described by UNAids as irrefutable (pdf) and all relevant UN agencies now endorse a harm reduction approach to HIV and drug use.

At the International HIV and Aids Alliance we know of epidemics being averted, or reduced, in settings as diverse as Australia, Vietnam, Ukraine, Malaysia, China, Portugal, Mauritius and Switzerland.

110,000 injecting drug users were diagnosed with HIV in 2014 alone. The need for evidence-based approaches to dealing with this public health emergency has never been more important.

Yet in Vienna last week, references to harm reduction, needle and syringe programmes and opioid substitution therapy (OST) were contested. The policy process has been widely criticised, and the negotiations heavily influenced by countries including Russia who are vetoing harm reduction in favour of a bald restatement of the decades-old illusion of a drug-free world.

About $100bn (£69bn) is spent annually on the war on drugs, and research by Harm Reduction International published in the Lancet this month estimated that a 7.5% redirection of that money towards damage mitigation programmes would practically end HIV among injecting drug users.

So why does harm reduction continue to be such a problem for global drug policy?

Russia is thought to have been active behind the scenes at the CND, blocking attempts at putting a more progressive approach on the agenda. The country is notable for its failure to control the spread of HIV, in particular among drug users. It is one of the few countries where the HIV epidemic continues to grow quickly. Among members of the Council of Europe, it has the highest number of newly diagnosed HIV infections. More than 93,000 were diagnosed last year and 54% were attributable to unsafe drug injection, according to the Moscow-based Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice.

It’s ironic that neighbouring Ukraine managed to halve HIV prevalence among injecting drug users (pdf) between 2008 and 2014, in large part because of harm reduction programmes. Yet OST is under threat in areas of east Ukraine annexed by separatist forces. Alliance for Public Health, a Ukrainian NGO, recorded 495 cases of HIV last year in the Donbas area (pdf). And dozens of OST programmes for more than 900 patients have closed since the military conflict began in 2014.

All OST programmes in annexed Crimea were closed by Russian authorities in May 2014. Eight hundred OST patients in Crimea have had their treatment terminated, and as a result at least 80 of them have died in the past two years.

With so many governments and organisations speaking out about the horrors of the drug war, why can’t the world come together to prioritise health, human rights and safety?

It’s hard to watch ideology triumph over science. And it’s unbelievable that UN member states are likely to recommit to another ineffective and dangerous policy on drugs when it is put before them in New York next month, at the first UN general assembly special session on drugs.

While this strange corner of the UN system in Vienna continues to promote the fantasy of a drug-free world, we will continue to urge states to commit to two words: harm reduction.

Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Breakthrough Molecular 3D Printer Can Print Billions of Possible Compounds

quote:

What will 3D printers ultimately evolve into? No one has a functioning crystal ball in front of them I assume, but a good guess would be a machine which can practically build anything its user desire, all on the molecular, and eventually atomic levels. Sure we are likely multiple decades away from widespread molecular manufacturing, but a group of chemists led by medical doctor Martin D. Burke at the University of Illinois may have already taken a major step in that direction.

Burke, who joined the Department of Chemistry at the university in 2005, heads up Burke Laboratories where he studies and synthesizes small molecules with protein-like structures. For those of you who are not chemists, small molecules are organic compounds with very low molecular weight of less than 900 daltons. They usually help regulate biological processes and make up most of the drugs we put into our bodies, along with pesticides used by farmers and electronic components like LEDs and solar cells.

Burke and his team have created a machine which could be described as a major breakthrough in the field of chemistry, a ‘molecule-making machine’. Sound futuristic? Well that’s because it is. The machine, which was described in a paper featured in today’s issue of Science, could best be described as a 3D printer for chemicals.

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"The vision for the future is that anyone who needs a specific small molecule can essentially print it out from their computer," explained Burke. "We are really excited about the immediate impacts that this will have on drug discovery."

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Nixon Policy Advisor Admits He Invented War On Drugs to Suppress 'Anti-War Left and Black People'

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At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

I must have looked shocked. Ehrlichman just shrugged. Then he looked at his watch, handed me a signed copy of his steamy spy novel, The Company, and led me to the door.

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Ending the war on drugs

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As a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, I have long argued that we need a different approach to drug policy, one that prioritises health over punishment, one that looks at the available evidence and draws the right conclusions.

My fellow Commissioners, many of them former Heads of State or Government, have spent much time on the frontlines of the global drug trade. So, last fall I invited a few of them, as well as some other experts, to share their perspective on what should and must be done to end the violence, the bloodshed, the suffering, and the waste that have been going on for nearly six decades now.

The result is Ending the War on Drugs, a collection of twelve insightful and accessible essays, that show how massive the impact of the drug wars has been on societies and economies everywhere – and what better and more effective alternatives could look like.

Ending the War on Drugs comes at the right time, because this is one of the few moments in time when drug policy is actually on the international agenda. Next month (April 19-21), UN member states will come together in the UN General Assembly to debate drug policy – for the first time in 18 years. This special session, also known as UNGASS, marks a rare opportunity to discuss and review the international treaties and conventions that have given legitimacy to drug prohibition and repression around the world.

The UN sits at the controls of all this, and member states have the power to change things. But progress has been sluggish, and there is growing fear that UNGASS in four week’s time will fail to deliver any meaningful results, held back by member states that still favour repressive policies the failed approach of the past. We must not let this happen and get those who have been on the fence to raise their voice for reform. I hope this book will contribute to that.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing excerpts and infographics from Ending the War on Drugs on Virgin Unite’s website. To purchase your own copy, visit http://po.st/WarOnDrugs. All proceeds for the book’s sale will go to Virgin Unite, our non-profit foundation.