The World Wide War on Drugs #6 -Is de zinloze "oorlog" over?

quote:

Op woensdag 15 januari 2014 08:59 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Beter legaliseren dan dit soort situaties.

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op woensdag 15 januari 2014 10:02 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Dat komt door die drugsverslaafde yanks, die zijn bereid miljarden te betalen.

quote:

Op woensdag 15 januari 2014 10:02 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Dat komt door die drugsverslaafde yanks, die zijn bereid miljarden te betalen.

quote:

Op woensdag 15 januari 2014 10:02 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Dat komt door die drugsverslaafde yanks, die zijn bereid miljarden te betalen.

quote:

Op woensdag 15 januari 2014 10:40 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]

Niet precies, wat er in Michoacan aan de hand is weer wat anders.

Dit zijn autodefensas, bevolking die het niet ingrijpen van de regering zat zijn en zelf op de georganiseerde misdaad jagen. Massa-vigilantisme

Het grote probleem hier is eerder afpersing en kidnappings waar sommige bendes zich mee bezig houden.

quote:

Op woensdag 15 januari 2014 11:50 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

Als drugs legaal is dan kun je met je gewelddadigheid en gewetenloosheid daar geen geld aan verdienen. Dan zou je het van je groene vingers moeten hebben of zo.

quote:

DEA admits marijuana legalization 'scares us'

A top official at the US Drug Enforcement Administration has said that legalizing marijuana, a drug that a majority of Americans are now in favor of decriminalizing, is “reckless and irresponsible.”

James L. Capra, the chief of operations at the DEA, was responding to a question from a senator Wednesday when he admitted authorities are nervous about the prospect of legalization measures, which are becoming more popular throughout the US after decriminalization initiatives passed in Colorado and Washington.

“I have to say this…going down the path to legalization in this country is reckless and irresponsible,” he said. “I’m talking about the long term impact of legalization in the United States. It scares us.”

Cannabis remains illegal under federal law, which trumps conflicting state law. Yet US President Obama has said his administration will not enforce federal marijuana restrictions in states where it has been decriminalized.

Were that not the case, the DEA would be responsible for cracking down on pot shops. The agency, in fact, has sustained heavy criticism because it continues to harass grow operations in California, Montana, and elsewhere where the drug is now legal for medicinal purposes.

Sales in Colorado began on January 1 and will begin in Washington within the coming months.

“There are more dispensaries in Denver than there are Starbucks,” Capra said, as quoted by the Washington Post. “The idea somehow people in our country have that this is somehow good for us as a nation is wrong. It’s a bad thing.”

An October Gallup poll found that more Americans than ever admitted they are in favor of legalizing marijuana. The number, which stands at 58 percent, has slowly increased in the decades since Gallup first asked the question in 1969, when a mere 12 percent were in favor of legalization.

Along with Colorado and Washington, 21 states have laws protecting medical marijuana for citizens with serious illnesses. Yet even more are poised to join the fray, with lawmakers in California, New York, and elsewhere suggesting in recent weeks that pot will become more accessible in their state in some form within the next 12 months. A Washington Post poll compiled this week found that Washington DC residents favor decriminalization by a 2:1 ratio.

Yet Capra made it clear on Wednesday that he remains unconvinced.

“This is a bad experiment,” he said. “It’s going to cost us in terms of social costs.”

He went on to describe an international drug conference in Moscow, where officials from around the world wondered if the US is easing its hardline stance in the War on Drugs.

“Almost everyone looked at us and said: Why are you doing this, you’re pointing a finger at us as a sources state,” he said. “I have no answer for them. I don’t have an answer for them.”

Lawmakers and cannabis advocates alike expect legalization measures to help boost struggling government budgets by attracting tourism dollars and tax revenue. Yet dozens of current and former law enforcement officials from around the nation have spoken out against the changes as the conversation has gone on. One reason, critics say, is because marijuana arrests and seizures indirectly provide resources for the DEA.

Last year, for instance, marijuana lobbyists attacked Bensinger, DuPont & Associates – a company founded by anti-pot crusaders under US President Nixon that now specializes in corporate drug testing – penned an open letter to a Senate committee criticizing the Obama administration’s stance on marijuana.

The letter, as quoted by US News & World Report, advised that cannabis is “a dangerous and addictive drug” which “significantly impacts” society as a whole – and worker productivity in particular.

Robert DuPont was the White House drug czar under Nixon and then President Ford, and Peter Bensinger was a high-ranked DEA official through the 1970s. Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance in New York, said that the issue is both professional and personal for people like DuPont, Bensinger, and others who currently serve in the DEA.

“They realize they are going to suffer the fate of the people who ran the bureau of prohibition [of alcohol] in the ‘20s and ‘30s, and that must be a little demoralizing,” Nadelman said. “So they are trying to justify their life’s work.”

quote:

Op vrijdag 17 januari 2014 09:53 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Was Operation Fast And Furious Really Part Of A Secret Deal Between The DEA And Mexico's Sinaloa Drug Cartel?

quote:

According to Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, a highly placed member of the Sinaloa cartel and the son of top Sinaloa leader Ismael El Mayo Zambada, the deal involved the cartel providing information about rival Mexican drug gangs to the DEA in exchange for the U.S. government agreeing not to interfere with Sinaloa shipments into the United States and the dismissal of criminal charges against cartel participants.

In a series of court fillings in a criminal case against Zambada-Niebla filed in the federal court in Chicago, it is alleged that the U.S. efforts were part of a strategy previously employed by the U.S. government in combatting Colombian drug cartels whereby the government would divide and conquer by making sweetheart deals with one cartel in order to gain information to be used in destroying the cooperating cartels rivals.

The El Universal report is based not only on interviews with DEA and cartel memberssome currently incarcerated in Mexican jailsbut additionally based on the above-referenced court filings in the U.S. District Court.

quote:

Honduras keurt neerhalen drugsvliegtuigen goed

quote:

Het parlement van Honduras heeft gisteren een wet goedgekeurd die het mogelijk maakt om drugsvliegtuigen neer te schieten. In de wet staat dat geweld is toegestaan om een verdacht vliegtuig te laten landen. Op bevel van de minister van Defensie mag een toestel zelfs worden neergehaald.

quote:

Op zaterdag 18 januari 2014 10:56 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

[..]

quote:

Burgemeester Heerlen vindt drugslab in wijk 'schandalig'

quote:

'Schandalig dat op deze manier onschuldige mensen in gevaar worden gebracht. Je moet er niet aan denken wat er gebeurd zou zijn als de zaak was ontploft.'

quote:

Depla nam zondag een kijkje bij het pand. 'Je ziet dit de laatste tijd steeds vaker in het zuiden van Nederland', zei de burgemeester. 'De resten worden vervolgens in de natuur gedumpt.'

quote:

Dertig doodstraffen in Vietnam wegens drugssmokkel

Een Vietnamese rechter heeft vandaag dertig mensen ter dood veroordeeld wegens het smokkelen van heroïne. Dat heeft de Vietnamese staatstelevisie bekendgemaakt. 21 mannen en negen vrouwen stonden de afgelopen drie weken terecht in een massaproces.

De veroordeelden maakten deel uit van een netwerk dat via Vietnam bijna twee ton heroïne van Laos naar China smokkelde.

Vietnam heeft zeer strenge drugswetten. Het bezitten of verhandelen van zeshonderd gram heroïne kan iemand al de doodstraf opleveren. In Vietnamese cellen zitten bijna zevenhonderd ter dood veroordeelden.

quote:

As Uruguay moves to legalise cannabis, is the ‘war on drugs’ finished?

quote:

‘We know prohibition has never worked, whilst demand remains,’ said Rolles. ‘So we have a choice: either responsible governments can take control of the drugs market or we leave it in the hands of violent criminal profiteers. There’s no third option in which drugs magically disappear.

quote:

Gevangenbewaarder vast voor hennepteelt

Een 41-jarige cipier van de gevangenis in Roermond is vandaag aangehouden voor hennepteelt. De man uit Brunssum zit vast, bevestigde zijn advocaat Serge Weening naar aanleiding van een bericht van De Telegraaf.

De schoonvader en schoonmoeder van de man werden vorige week al aangehouden voor handel in hennep. De politie wilde de aanhouding van de 41-jarige maandag niet bevestigen.

quote:

Christie Calls for Alternatives to Incarceration and Expanded Drug Treatment

Trenton, NJ—Governor Chris Christie today took the oath of office for a second term and delivered his inaugural address at the War Memorial in Trenton. During his inaugural address he called for an end to the drug war and compassion for those suffering from drug addiction.

“We will end the failed war on drugs that believes that incarceration is the cure of every ill caused by drug abuse. We will make drug treatment available to as many of our non-violent offenders as we can and we will partner with our citizens to create a society that understands this simple truth: every life has value and no life is disposable,” Christie said during his inaugural speech this morning.

The governor expressed desire to help those struggling with drug addiction in a bipartisan manner. “And, while government has a role in ensuring the opportunity to accomplish these dreams, we have now learned that we have an even bigger role to play as individual citizens. We have to be willing to play outside the red and blue boxes the media and pundits put us in; we have to be willing to reach out to others who look or speak differently than us; we have to be willing to personally reach out a helping hand to a neighbor suffering from drug addiction, depression or the dignity stripping loss of a job,” said Christie.

Governor Christie’s inaugural remarks are being applauded by drug policy reform advocates.

“I was delighted to be present for the Governor’s swearing in and to hear him make such promising remarks surrounding drug policy reform in our state,” says Roseanne Scotti, New Jersey State Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Legislation is desperately needed to reverse the counterproductive and discriminatory consequences of the failed war on drugs. The Drug Policy Alliance and advocates throughout New Jersey look forward to working with the Christie administration to address the unacceptable and unjust consequences of the drug war.”

quote:

Op donderdag 23 januari 2014 07:01 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
http://m.volkskrant.nl/vk(...)avigationItemId=2664

Dodelijk vanwege hoge gehalte aan MDMA?

quote:

Hennepteelt in Tilburg levert zo’n 800 miljoen per jaar op

quote:

In Tilburg wordt jaarlijks tussen de 728 en 884 miljoen euro verdiend met de illegale teelt van hennep. Dat meldt NRC Handelsblad vandaag. De omzet van de lokale drugshandel is daarmee even groot als de totale begroting van deze Brabantse gemeente van 200.000 inwoners.

quote:

Volgens de onderzoekers bewijst de studie naar de situatie in Tilburg dat de hennephandel zo omvangrijk is dat er sprake is van een serieuze bedreiging voor de veiligheid en integriteit van de samenleving. De drugshandel is uitgegroeid tot een criminele industrie die steeds meer de legale en economische en juridische infrastructuur corrumpeert.

quote:

Noordanus zegt dat de hennep uit zijn gemeente wel voor de export bestemd móét zijn. Iedere Tilburger zou zich de hele dag suf zou moeten blowen om het op te krijgen.


Burgemeester: export wiet is het echte probleem

De burgemeester is op zichzelf niet tegen het initiatief van gemeenten voor gereguleerde wietteelt om te zorgen dat coffeeshops legaal kunnen worden bevoorraad, maar hij vindt de omvang van de export het echte probleem. De opsporing en bestraffing van illegale hennepteelt moet nog krachtiger worden aangepakt. Een internationale aanpak is nodig.

quote:

Op woensdag 15 januari 2014 08:59 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Beter legaliseren dan dit soort situaties.

quote:

Honderd vaten drugsafval gedumpt bij Tilburg

quote:

Mexico's 'vigilante monster'

quote:

Mexico's army and federal police were recently deployed to the Mexican state of Michoacan to deal with the ongoing battle between the Knights Templar drug cartel and vigilante groups known as "autodefensas".

Formed in February 2013 as a response to the state's unwillingness and inability to safeguard its people, these self-defense forces have succeeded in "liberating" a number of areas from cartel control, and have refused to comply with orders to disarm.

According to an AP report titled "Mexico Gov't Faces Vigilante Monster It Created", the US State Department "said that the warring between vigilantes and the cartel is 'incredibly worrisome' and [that it is] 'unclear if any of those actors have the community's best interests at heart'".

This is a curious assessment coming from an entity that prefers to showcase its concern for Mexican community interests by destroying Mexico's agriculture and industries via free trade schemes and by converting the country into a battlefield in the war on drugs.

Since drug war operations were outsourced to the Mexican administration in 2006, over 77,000 persons have reportedly been killed in related violence, while the US has exploited attendant opportunities for imperial meddling in Mexico's national security and other arenas.

Incidentally, Michoacan is the very site of the launching of the 2006 edition of the drug war, which has been characterised by rampant corruption including high-level collaboration between cartels and members of the army, police force and political scene.

The reign of near-total impunity in Mexico means that state security forces are not held accountable for crimes committed in the name of the ostensible war on organised crime, such as torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

The reign of near-total impunity in Mexico means that state security forces are not held accountable for crimes committed in the name of the ostensible war on organised crime, such as torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Indeed, had the AP wanted to paint an unambiguous picture of just how the alleged "vigilante monster" was created, some reference might have been made to relevant monstrous behavior on the part of representatives of the state.

Instead, the article simply notes that the autodefensas have enjoyed "months of unofficial tolerance" and that they have been "more successful than the government" in combating the Knights Templar.

The recent confirmation of an alliance between the US government and Mexico's notorious Sinaloa cartel meanwhile renders US offers of assistance in Michoacan even more tragically hilarious.

quote:

Prestigious ‘Scientific American’ calls on U.S. to open doors to LSD, MDMA, pot research

Cannabis, LSD, psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”), MDMA (the “ecstasy” drug) and other psychedelic drugs all have significant potential medical uses, as illustrated in the limited research organizations like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science have facilitated over the years. But the war on drugs and resulting classification of those psychoactive substances as Schedule I—meaning with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration—has caused a national research blockade and left that medical potential almost completely untapped.

The editors of Scientific American—the 168-year-old magazine to which scientists like Albert Einstein have contributed—this week called for an end to the national ban on psychoactive drug research, noting that LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and cannabis all “had their origins in the medical pharmacopeia.”

More than 1,000 scientific publications chronicled the uses of LSD for psychotherapy during the mid-’60s, and MDMA similarly complemented talk therapy through the ‘70s, the article points out. And “[m]arijuana has logged thousands of years as a medicament for diseases and conditions ranging from malaria to rheumatism.”

Scientific American lamented the fact that since the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 declared these psychoactive drugs void of any medical use—and three United Nations treaties extend similar restrictions to much of the world—a catch-22 has arisen: “these drugs are banned because they have no accepted medical use, but researchers cannot explore their therapeutic potential because they are banned.”

The article notes that the few privately funded studies that have looked at these compounds have “yielded tantalizing hints that some of these ideas merit consideration. Yet doing this research through standard channels … requires traversing a daunting bureaucratic labyrinth that can dissuade even the most committed investigator.”

As a result, psychologists are left wondering “whether MDMA can help with intractable post-traumatic stress disorder [as work with combat veterans has shown], whether LSD or psilocybin can provide relief for cluster headaches or obsessive compulsive disorder and whether the particular docking receptors on brain cells that many psychedelics latch onto are critical sites for regulating conscious states that go awry in schizophrenia and depression,” the article notes.

Additionally, while doctors in 20 states (and counting) can recommend medical marijuana, researchers aren’t allowed to properly study its effects. Scientific American notes that this leaves “unanswered the question of whether the drug might help treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, nausea, sleep apnea, multiple sclerosis and a host of other conditions.”

Like many researchers, therapists and drug policy activists have been saying for decades, it is time to allow scientific researchers to do their jobs and find out what these substances can actually do—and in order for that to happen, the U.S. needs to reschedule these substances and effectively lift its research blockade.

As the Scientific American article concludes, the endless obstructions to research caused by current scheduling have meant a research standstill for Schedule I drugs.

“This is a shame. … If some of the obstacles to research can be overcome, it may be possible to finally detach research on psychoactive chemicals from the hyperbolic rhetoric that is a legacy of the war on drugs. Only then will it be possible to judge whether LSD, ecstasy, marijuana and other highly regulated compounds—subjected to the gauntlet of clinical testing for safety and efficacy—can actually yield effective new treatments for devastating psychiatric illnesses.”

The more trusted publications like Scientific American come out and call for change, the closer we will be to medical research and scientific facts that liberate us from the medical Dark Ages when it comes to psychoactive drugs.

quote:

Op donderdag 30 januari 2014 16:53 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Burgemeesters eisen gereguleerde wietteelt

quote:

Tientallen burgemeesters en andere vertegenwoordigers van 35 gemeenten, daarin vooropgegaan door VVD-coryfee Frits Bolkestein, hebben vrijdag in Utrecht een manifest ondertekend om het reguleren van wietteelt mogelijk te maken. Ze willen dat het Rijk ook de productie van wiet gedoogt, net zoals nu al de verkoop ervan gedoogd wordt. Minister Ivo Opstelten van Veiligheid en Justitie weigert dit tot nog toe.

quote:

Minister Opstelten van Justitie liet vandaag nog maar eens weten helemaal niets te zien in gereguleerde wietteelt. 'Ook al komen er tien manifesten, het antwoord blijft vol overtuiging nee', zei hij voorafgaand aan de ministerraad tegen de NOS. Volgens de minister zullen de gemeenten het daarmee moeten doen. Hij gaat over het drugsbeleid in Nederland, en niet de gemeenten, zo benadrukte hij.

quote:

Op vrijdag 31 januari 2014 13:38 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]


[..]


[..]

We wisten al dat Opstelten niet iemand is van de feiten en argumenten. Hij heeft slechts een overtuiging.

quote:

Op vrijdag 31 januari 2014 13:43 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

Wietteelt blijft illegaal

"Blowen is heel slecht".

Kan iemand deze mongool uit zijn lijden verlossen, alstublieft?!

quote:

Op vrijdag 31 januari 2014 13:38 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]


[..]


[..]

We wisten al dat Opstelten niet iemand is van de feiten en argumenten. Hij heeft slechts een overtuiging.

quote:

Op vrijdag 31 januari 2014 13:43 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

Wietteelt blijft illegaal

"Blowen is heel slecht".

Kan iemand deze mongool uit zijn lijden verlossen, alstublieft?!

quote:

Op vrijdag 31 januari 2014 13:43 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

Wietteelt blijft illegaal

"Blowen is heel slecht".

Kan iemand deze mongool uit zijn lijden verlossen, alstublieft?!

quote:

Congress debates Obama’s “schizophrenic” marijuana policies

A administration official confirmed to Congress on Tuesday that, in spite of President Obama’s recent comments, the administration still opposes state-based efforts to legalize marijuana.

The administration has been “consistent in its opposition to attempts to legalize marijuana and other drugs,” Michael Botticelli, the deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the House Oversight Committee’s Government Operations subpanel.

Congress deemed marijuana a harmful drug under the Controlled Substances Act, he said, and “the Department of Justice’s responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged.”

The comments follow Mr. Obama’s assertion that it is “important” to let the experiments with legalization in Colorado and Washington state proceed, and that marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the subpanel, suggested the president’s attitude may contribute to the growing use of marijuana among adolescents.

“Given the recent statements... the president may, in fact, be a major contributor now to some of the declines we see in the perception of risk” associated with the drug, Mica said. “We’re going from ‘Just say no,’ to ‘I didn’t inhale,’ now it’s 'Just say maybe.’”

Obama: Marijuana not "more dangerous" than alcohol
Synthetic marijuana use down, but real pot use up among teens

Mica added, “We have the most schizophrenic policy I have ever seen.”

Botticelli insisted that the administration is attempting to take a “balanced” approach that rejects the so-called “war on drugs” but also rejects legalization efforts.

“The president has indicated this is a public health challenge and that we need to deal with it as a public health challenge,” he said.

Nevertheless, the White House and Congress are left in an awkward spot, now that two states have legalized the drug for adults, while 20 states and the District of Columbia have approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

In fact, while the subpanel discussed the matter, the D.C. city council voted overwhelmingly in favor of decriminalizing marijuana possession. The D.C. vote puts Congress on the spot, since the federal legislative body technically has authority over all Washington, D.C., municipal laws.

Before the new law goes into effect, it must go through a 30-day period during which Congress could pass a resolution “disapproving” of it. Congress could also use the power of the purse as leverage over the District.

While Congress in recent years has shown more deference to the District’s lawmaking, it has a history of intervening on this issue -- the District approved medical marijuana use in 1998, but it took more than 10 years for Congress to let the city implement the new rules. This year, however, Congress doesn’t seem inclined to get involved.

A committee aide for Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Tom Carper, D-Del. -- whose committee has jurisdiction over D.C. issues -- said Carper has yet to take a position on whether Congress should intervene or not.

Mica said in a statement to CBS News that the city council vote is “just one more example of the conflict between state and federal law... This is a discussion that is long overdue.”

While Mica criticized the president’s recent remarks, some Democrats at Tuesday’s hearing defended them.

“I think the president was exactly right,” Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said with respect to Mr. Obama’s point that poor kids, along with minorities, are more likely to get “locked up” for smoking pot.

Cummings said he has “serious questions about the disparate impact of federal government’s enforcement policies on minorities.”

Those concerns are exacerbated, he said, by the divergent laws at the state level.

“It’s one thing when you have equal enforcement, but it's another thing when some people are engaged in purchasing marijuana in the streets and other ones in the suites.” he said. “You have many African-American young men... spending long sentences sitting in prison while others law enforcement don’t even touch.”

quote:

Britain's war on drugs 'unwinnable', says Nick Clegg

Deputy Prime Minister says Liberal Democrats will publish alternative strategy this year after completing study of decriminalisation in Uruguay and some US states

Nick Clegg has said that the war on drugs is "unwinnable" and that Britain must end the "conspiracy of silence" surrounding the issue.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that the Liberal Democrats will publish an alternative strategy this year after completing a study of the impact of decriminalisation of marijuana in Uruguay and some US states.

Mr Clegg, while stopping short of calling for full decriminalisation, favours a health-based approach to treating drug users.

He told the BBC that for too long politicians have refused to consider alternatives to the war on drugs because it is "all too controversial".

"If you are anti-drugs, you should be pro-reform," he told the BBC.

During a visit to Colombia he said that the war on drugs has led to "terrible conflict" and cost tens of thousands of lives.

Liberal Democrat calls for a Royal Commission to investigate Britain's drug policy have been rejected by the Conservatives.

Mr Clegg told The Sun newspaper that the war on drugs is ultimately "unwinnable".

quote:

Obama, Who Evidently Has Not Read the Controlled Substances Act, Denies That He Has the Power to Reclassify Marijuana

quote:

In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper that aired last night, President Obama tried to dodge responsibility for eliminating the contradiction between his recent comments about marijuana and its classification as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act:

quote:

Instead of answering that question, Obama started talking about a "public health" approach to marijuana (a subject I address in another post). But notice that Obama at first denied that the executive branch has the power to reschedule drugs, saying "what is and isn't a Schedule I narcotic is a job for Congress." As Tapper pointed out, that's not true.

quote:

The DEA argues that marijuana satisfies the first criterion because people like to consume it for nonmedical purposes, which according to the DEA qualifies as abuse. It's illegal, after all. According to that definition of abuse, prohibition justifies itself, which hardly seems fair. A more reasonable view defines abuse as harmful, excessive, or problematic use. Regardless of which definition you prefer, it is hard to see in what meaningful sense marijuana has a higher abuse potential than, say, the barbiturates and benzodiazepines on Schedule III. According to the DEA, even dronabinol has a lower abuse potential than marijuana. What is dronabinol? A synthetic version of THC—the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

The DEA says marijuana meets the second criterion—no currently accepted medical use—not because the drug is ineffective at treating symptoms such as nausea, pain, and muscle spasms (in fact, the Obama administration concedes the medical utility of cannabinoids) but because such uses have not gained wide enough acceptance within the medical community. Given the subjectivity of that judgment, it amounts to saying that marijuana has no accepted medical use because the DEA deems medical use of marijuana unaccceptable. The agency likewise does not accept that marijuana can be used safely, although it obviously can, as Obama conceded when he observed that alcohol is more dangerous.

The DEA clearly is bending over backward to keep marijuana on Schedule I, and nothing in the CSA requires it to do that. It could easily apply the CSA's criteria in a way that would make marijuana less restricted, and the decision not to do so is ultimately Obama's. He is the one who appointed the current DEA administrator, a hardline holdover from the Bush administration who is so committed to prohibitionist orthodoxy that she recoils in horror at the thought of a hemp flag flying over the Capitol and could not restrain herself from openly criticizing Obama, notionally her boss, for his scientifically uncontroversial statement about the relative hazards of marijuana and alcohol. He is the one who, despite his avowed commitment to sound science and his own statements to the contrary, allows the DEA to insist marijuana is so dangerous that it must be more tightly restricted than cocaine, morphine, oxycodone, and methamphetamine.

quote:

Joanne Csete: Why the US needs to change its drug policy

As the world mourns the loss of the exceptional talents of Philip Seymour Hoffman, perhaps one fitting tribute to his passing from a suspected drug overdose would be to focus on how such deaths can be averted in the future.

Such a focus means shedding a light on ways in which US drug policy—not uniquely, but very unfortunately—sets the stage for deaths such as this in its intransigent focus on being “clean” above being safe.

People of Hoffman’s generation who grew up and went to school in the United States were the beneficiaries of billions of dollars’ worth of government “drug prevention” programs that were based on the standard oldies of the “drug free society” songbook. The refrains became familiar as they were repeated in classroom drug education, slick and widely disseminated “public service” ads, and pronouncements of policy makers:

Using any drugs was a sign of weak character and something to be ashamed of.
There are only two kinds of people in the world with respect to drugs—clean and unclean.
All use of all drugs—ALL—is equally evil and would ruin your life.

Hoffman’s peers who became teenagers in the 1980s in the Netherlands would have benefited from the policies of a government which concluded that young people were inclined to try cannabis and unlikely to be completely stopped from doing so, and it would be good to give them a way to get it without having to interact with a heroin dealer. Thus were born the famous “coffeeshops” of Dutch cities. But that kind of policy requires a realistic idea about the futility of “eradicating” drug use as well as a nuanced idea of the relative harms of various kinds of drugs. Hoffman and his American friends wouldn’t have been exposed to such notions.

Young people struggling with opiate use in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Switzerland and Germany would have had good access to non-judgmental services that would have offered information and support for minimizing the worst consequences of drug use, including illness and linked to overdose death. The state would even have offered the possibility of medically supervised use of heroin of known doses and known purity, virtually eliminating overdose risk. And young people would have known that if they were worried about the toxicity of drugs or about problems with injection, there were places where they could go to inject under the eyes of medical professionals.

Those services require a policy that values people’s ability to keep themselves alive while they are struggling with problematic drug use. In the United States, such an idea is heresy because the priority is to eradicate the unclean and condemn the moral weakness of people who consume drugs.

Even without knowing the details of the rehabilitation services that Hoffman and other privileged Americans have access to, one can know that the culture of the shame of drug use is always hard to overcome. Indeed, an important benefit of the kinds of services and support for drug related harm reduction that remain out of reach in the United States is that they send a radically different message from the prohibitionist standard—that everyone has the right to information and other means of not just staying alive, but having a good quality of life.

When governments recognize that drug dependence is, as the World Health Organization puts it, a chronic relapsing condition, the persistent characterization of addiction as a moral flaw is seen for the harmful and stigmatizing rant that it is. In addition to driving people to keep their drug problems hidden, this culture of stigma constrains resource allocation for policies, programs, reality based educational materials, and social support that would address overdose risk and other drug-related harms at many levels.

It is impossible to know how much people struggling with drug dependence, famous or otherwise, can rise above the image of drug use in the public mind as a social scourge. The American tragedy is that they even have to try.

I declare that I have read and understood the BMJ group policy on declaration of interests and I have no relevant interests to declare.

Joanne Csete is the deputy director of the Open Society Global Drug Policy Program. Prior to joining the Open Society Foundations, she was associate professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York, where her research focused on health services for marginalized and criminalized populations, especially people who use illicit drugs, sex workers, prisoners and detainees, and people living with HIV.

quote:

Forgive and Forget

On drug sentencing, a growing number of Republicans are ready to shed the party’s law-and-order image in favor of reform.

Rand Paul had been talking for 20 minutes, strumming all the familiar chords. He was the gala keynoter for the annual American Principles Project, a 5-year-old social conservative group best known recently for running TV ads against Liz Cheney. (The ads, funded by APP’s political arm, attacked Cheney’s advocacy for “government benefits for gay couples.”) Paul had criticized the New York Times, defended the now-lapsed cuts of sequestration, and warned that a “Republican-lite” party was doomed to lose. Standard stuff.

So he started challenging the crowd. “As Christians, we believe in forgiveness,” said Paul. “I think the criminal justice system should have some element of forgiveness.” There are, sure, human terrors who need to be locked up. “But there are also people who make youthful mistakes who I believe deserve a second chance. In my state, you never vote again if you’re convicted of a felony. But a felony could be growing marijuana plants in college. Friend of mine’s brother did 30 years ago. He has an MBA. But he can’t vote, can’t own a gun, and he’s a house-painter with an MBA, because he has to check a box saying he’s a convicted felon.”

Paul’s audience, consisting of social conservatives, congressional candidates, and radio hosts, listened or nodded along.

“These are ideas not many Republicans have talked about before,” Paul said. “I think if we talk about these ideas, we take them to the minority community, often the African-American and sometimes the Hispanic community—3 out of 4 people in prison are black and brown! But if you look at surveys on who uses drugs, whites and blacks and Hispanic use at about the same rate. You don’t have as good an attorney if you don’t have money. Some of the prosecution has tended to go where it’s easier to prosecute people.”

The crowd stayed with him.

quote:

Op vrijdag 31 januari 2014 13:43 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

Wietteelt blijft illegaal

"Blowen is heel slecht".

Kan iemand deze mongool uit zijn lijden verlossen, alstublieft?!

quote:

Nick Clegg: Britain must join debate on new approach to war on drugs

Deputy PM angry at Tory refusal to debate alternatives and says: 'If you are anti-drugs, you should be pro-reform'

Nick Clegg has dragged the case for reforming the drugs laws to the centre ground of British politics, saying that blanket prohibition has seen cocaine use triple in less than 20 years, a trend that has helped perpetuate conflict and violence in South America.

Writing in today's Observer, after a week in which he visited Colombia to learn first-hand the devastating effects that Europe's enthusiasm for cocaine has had on the country, Clegg said the UK needed to be at the heart of the debate about potential alternatives to blanket prohibition and that he wanted to see an end to "the tradition where politicians only talk about drugs reform when they have left office because they fear the political consequences".

The deputy prime minister said such an approach "has stifled debate and inhibited a proper examination of our approach. Put simply, if you are anti-drugs, you should be pro-reform".

His comments will be seen by some observers as politically expedient, designed to distance the Lib Dems from the Tories in the runup to the next election. In his article, Clegg expresses his frustration "at my coalition partner's refusal to engage in a proper discussion about the drugs problem".

In some of the most outspoken comments on the issue by a serving British politician, Clegg laments the current situation in which "one in five young people have admitted taking drugs in the last year", and "cocaine use has more than trebled since 1996" and claims that "every time someone dies of an overdose it should shame our political class".

Looking to 2016, when the UN is due to hold a meeting to discuss potential reform of its prohibitionist drug conventions, Clegg states: "The UN drug conventions badly need revising. I want European countries to work together to agree a common position in favour of reform to take to that discussion in 2016. The UK can lead the debate in Europe and Europe can lead the debate in the world. But we must be prepared to start afresh with a new mindset and be prepared to do things differently."

His intervention comes as a growing number of US states move towards a regulated trade in marijuana, and at a time when increasing numbers of Latin American countries have stated that the war on drugs doesn't work and are demanding that the world consider alternative approaches.

During his visit, Clegg met the country's president, Juan Manuel Santos, as well as former paramilitaries, guerrillas and human rights representatives. "All were clear about the central role of the drugs trade in perpetuating conflict and violence and the need to build a better future," Clegg says. "Many people in Britain and the rest of Europe will be unaware of the impact drug use in western nations has on countries on the frontline of the drugs trade."

Reiterating his call for a royal commission on Britain's drugs laws, Clegg says future legislation should be based on "what works, not guesswork". The Lib Dems are conducting a review of international alternatives which will produce what Clegg claims is "the first proper UK government report examining different approaches in other countries".

It is clear the deputy prime minister believes there is a need for politicians of all parties to confront an issue in a non-partisan way if the harm caused by drugs is ever to be tackled successfully.

"If Britain were fighting a war where 2,000 people died every year, where increasing numbers of our young people were recruited by the enemy and our opponents were always a step ahead, there would be outcry and loud calls for change," Clegg says. "Yet this is exactly the situation with the so-called "war on drugs" and for far too long we have resisted a proper debate about the need for a different strategy."

His comments, which will dismay those who believe change will encourage drug taking, were warmly received by pro-reform campaigners.

"Bad drug policies have an international impact, whether it's black market related violence or borderless health crises," said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Open Society Global Drug Policy Foundation. "So charting a new course is the job of every country. A number of European countries developed great health services for people who use drugs but far less attention has been paid to the issues faced by producer and transit countries."

quote:

Mexican vigilantes drive out religious drug cartel from gang-held city

Dozens of vigilantes, who wear white T-shirts for identification, work with government forces to clear out cartel gunmen

Vigilantes who have driven a quasi-religious drug cartel from a series of towns in western Mexico entered a gang-held city on Saturday and were working with government forces to clear it of cartel gunmen, a leader of the movement has said.

Dozens of vigilante group members, who wore white T-shirts to identify themselves, were seen by an Associated Press journalist speeding into Apatzingan in the back of pickup trucks. The city of 100,000 in Michoacan state has been under effective control of the Knights Templar cartel for several years.

"Federal forces are working with self-defense groups," vigilante leader Hipolito Mora said over telephone from the centre of Apatzingan. "Guys from the self-defence groups are moving around the city, co-operating in certain ways with the federal government. Many, many people have been detained."

Mora said federal police controlled security in the city and both armed and unarmed members of the "self-defense" movement were working with them to identify Knights Templar hideouts. He said approximately 200 gang members were arrested, including the brother of one of its leaders, Enrique "Kiki" Plancarte. The government made no immediate comment.

The vigilantes' presence in the city is both a symbolic and tactical boost for the movement.

The control of the Knights Templar group was once so complete that it would have been unthinkable for any rival to enter Apatzingan. The Knights Templar often travelled in vehicles marked with its symbol, a red cross, and sponsored demonstrations calling for the federal police to leave the city.

The cartel promotes itself as a mystic Christian order dedicated to protecting the population from abuse at the hands of the military and police. It ran "training schools" including one in Apatzingan, that taught courses in leadership portraying cartel members as clean-living men of honour, steeped in Asian religion alongside Catholicism. Its members not only lived off methamphetamine and marijuana smuggling and extortion, but controlled much of the local economy.

In October, vigilantes tried to march into Apatzingan but were turned back by soldiers who said they couldn't enter with weapons. A convoy of hundreds of unarmed self-defence patrol members returned the next day and successfully entered the city, where they were met by gunfire, presumably from the Knights Templar.

In apparent retaliation to the attempted incursion, suspected cartel members mounted co-ordinated attacks on vigilante positions, killing five, according to police. They also destroyed government electrical facilities, including power distribution plants and electrical sub-stations, in 14 towns and cities around Michoacan, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people.

Mora said on Saturday that this latest incursion was "a triumph".

The vigilantes' knowledge of the city is already boosting government operations against the Knights Templar, according to Mora, who said self-defense force members were going door-to-door pointing out suspected cartel members to federal police and helping police man checkpoints on the roads in and out of the city.

"They're all around the city watching to see if members of the Knights Templar are coming or going," he said.

Mexico legalised the growing "self-defence" movement in Michoacan late last month, saying they would be incorporated into quasi-military units called Rural Defense Corps. Vigilante groups estimate their numbers at 20,000 men under arms.

Mora said vigilantes who have been formally incorporated into the Rural Defence Corps were armed, while those not yet registered had no weapons. He said he and his close associates were unarmed, and were there primarily to attend an afternoon rally for peace and the rule of law called by an Apatzingan clergyman who has opposed the Knights Templar.

Vigilantes began rising up last February against the Knights Templar reign of terror and extortion after police and troops failed to stop the abuses. Vigilante leaders have been asked to submit a list of their members to the Defense Department and are being allowed to keep their weapons as long as they register them with the army.

The military is giving the groups "all the means necessary for communications, operations and movement," according to the agreement.

quote:

Time for Britain and the rest of Europe to join the drugs debate

With America rethinking its policy on drugs, our MPs and MEPs need to make their own feelings known

It was with great foresight that a Conservative backbench MP stood up during a parliamentary debate in the House of Commons in 2002 and pleaded with the then Labour government to rethink its commitment to the "war on drugs". "I ask the Labour government not to return to retribution and war on drugs. That has been tried and we all know that it does not work."

Contributions like this have been all too rare from British politicians, particularly at a time when the debate about the merits of prohibition has changed so radically in recent years. That is most evident in the Americas, both North and South.

Over the past five years, Latin American support for the "war on drugs" has ebbed away. The so-called "drug-producing" nations have tired of bearing the brunt of the violence as they attempt to eliminate the supply of drugs to the "drug-consuming" nations to the north.

In Latin America the war on drugs presents a different order of threat than that posed in the US and Europe. The threat is an existential one because prohibition has the effect of driving profits and power into the hands of murderous cartels. They corrupt, challenge and often destroy the institutions of the state – the police, the judiciary and the body politic. Colombia very nearly succumbed to the cartels during a decade when drug-related violence tore the heart out of the institutions of the state and left many civilians dead. Politicians, public prosecutors and members of the judiciary were ruthlessly targeted. Many of the politicians who escaped death only did so because they were in the pay of the cartels. Welcome to the war on drugs.

Guatemala and Honduras are the new battle spaces, facing exactly the same challenges as Colombia did. No wonder Latin Americans are tired of paying such a high price. In recent years the presidents of Colombia and Guatemala – and international bodies and reports such as the Organisation of America States and the Global Commission on Drug Policy – are speaking with one voice: the war on drugs can never be won; we need to look at alternatives.

And while prohibition in the west poses its own challenges and creates its own misery, it is not a threat to the very fabric of the state. But since their citizens – largely – create the demand that fuels the war on drugs they have a moral responsibility that they have shamefully failed to acknowledge.

But the debate is changing in North America – as Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch makes clear in other pages today – and public opinion is driving significant policy changes. American states are introducing – or considering – a licensed, regulated market for marijuana. Since January, people can buy marijuana in Colorado for recreational purposes. Washington State will soon follow suit.

An indication of the new direction of travel came last month at the World Economic Forum when the Republican Texas governor Rick Perry said: "After 40 years of the war on drugs, I can't change what happened in the past. What I can do as the governor of the second largest state in the nation is to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalisation and keeps people from going to prison and destroying their lives, and that's what we've done over the last decade."

Last October, the head of the US Justice Department, Eric Holder, said: "As the so-called 'war on drugs' enters its fifth decade, we need to ask whether it, and the approaches that comprise it, have been truly effective… Today, a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities."

But in Britain we have heard nothing from frontline political figures. Until now, which is why Nick Clegg's intervention is a welcome one and may start a debate on the merits or otherwise of the war on drugs.

The onus is on those who support prohibition to make the case for prolonging a war that has evidently failed. Political figures in the UK and Europe need to engage with the changing tide of public opinion in the Americas and investigate whether market alternatives may provide a better solution than prohibition.

Perhaps the Conservative backbencher who entered the debate in 2002 and declared the war on drugs a failure would care to re-enter the debate? Especially as he is now the prime minister.

quote:

Why Mexico's 'drug war' is not about drugs

quote:

TIERRA COLORADA, Mexico — Major events these days in Mexico's seven-year-long criminal conflict have precious little to do with a war on drugs.

In the past year, the capture of town after town by volunteer police and citizen militias in the Pacific coast states of Michoacan and Guerrero has roiled and embarrassed President Enrique Pena Nieto's government.

Officials have dispatched thousands of troops and militarized police to contain the “self-defense” groups, which claim they're filling a vacuum left by incompetent or corrupt officials.

But many of the civilians taking on the gangs that control the region say they care little about illicit narcotics, which have been supplying US and Mexican consumers for decades. They just want the criminals to leave ordinary residents in peace.

“Drug trafficking is always going to continue,” says Neftali Villagomez, a 66-year-old butcher who now commands nearly 400 armed vigilantes in Tierra Colorada, a rural market town 35 miles north of the gang-ravaged resort of Acapulco.

“We aren't against drug traffickers,” he says. “We are against organized crime.”

quote:

Drug laws may be debated in Commons as petition passes 100,000 threshold

MPs may be forced to discuss the reform of Britain's drug laws after a petition calling for a Parliamentary debate on the issue collected more than 100,000 signatures

Reform of Britain’s drug laws could be debated in Parliament after a petition backed by Russell Brand and Richard Branson collected more than 100,000 signatures.

The e-petition was led by Green MP Caroline Lucas to urge the Government to review the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 within the next 12 months.

Her campaign was boosted when a number of celebrities, including Sir Richard Branson, Sting, Dame Joan Bakewell and Sir Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, backed the call for a rethink over drugs policy.

Brighton Pavilion MP Ms Lucas said that, with the Government is spending £3 billion a year on its drug policy, it was worth " checking whether Britain's current approach is value for money or money wasted".

As the petition has surpassed the required 100,000 signatures, it must now be considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee.

quote:

Op dinsdag 24 december 2013 20:29 schreef Nieuwschierig het volgende:
De waarheid is dat er in Nederland tienduizenden mensen/gezinnen hun inkomen halen uit de handel in drugs. Geld waar ze nauwelijks iets voor hoeven te doen, behalve risico lopen.
Zodra drugs legaal worden is er niets meer aan te verdienen en zullen deze figuren andere manieren zoeken om aan snel geld te komen.
Winkelovervallen, straatroof, autodiefstal en dat in aantallen die voor de staat totaal onbeheersbaar zijn.