The World Wide War on Drugs #7 - Uruguay is tegen, wie volgt?

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Several Massachusetts doctors associated with prospective medical marijuana dispensaries are reportedly facing intense pressure from the federal government to cut ties with those companies.

Citing sources, the State House News Service reports at least two physicians have already resigned from their positions with medical marijuana organizations after federal agents with the D.E.A., which controls the licensing of doctors to prescribe controlled medications, threatened to revoke their licenses to prescribe certain medications.

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Colorado’s poster boy for ‘stoned driving’ was drunk off his gourd

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In January, Keith Kilbey crashed his car into a couple of parked Colorado police cars. The cars were blocking the entrance to an exit ramp, and their lights were flashing at the time Kilbey hit them. Shortly after the accident, a Colorado State Patrol (CSP) spokesman said Kilbey was high on pot the night of the crash and that he had been charged with driving under the influence of drugs. “This time we were fortunate,” warned CSP Corporal H. Cobler, “but many officers across the nation are not so lucky.”

In the state where recreational pot had just become legal, Kilbey became the poster boy for the dangers of driving while stoned. And with good reason. A sky-high driver who couldn’t even see the bright flashing lights of a couple of parked police cruisers confirmed all the predictions from law enforcement about the highway carnage Colorado would see after legalization. The CSP posted the incident on its Facebook page, and commenters responded by linking the incident to Amendment 64, the measure that legalized marijuana.

The Denver Post ran the headline “Colorado State Patrol says stoned driver crashed into 2 Patrol vehicles” and included a stock photo of a bag of joints. Denver’s alt weekly, the Westword, quoted extensively from police sources about how Kilbey’s wreck illustrated the dangers of driving while stoned. Denver’s Fox 31 reported: “Man charged with driving while stoned after hitting CSP vehicles.” The headline from Denver’s ABC7 was “Suspected stoned driver hits 2 Colorado State Patrol vehicles investigating a crash on I-76 ramp,” and for emphasis added on another line, “Driver suspected of being on drugs.” Colorado 9News asked, “Is weekend wreck a sign of ‘high’ times in Colorado?” then tied the wreck to an earlier fatal accident in which the driver was high on meth and heroin. From (ironically enough) the conservative news outlet the Blaze: “Man Allegedly High on Marijuana Made a Big Mistake on a Colorado Interstate.” Colorado’s 9News ran the story “Driver who hit 2 state troopers’ cars was high on pot” with an accompanying video that interspersed images of pot plants and an anonymous guy exhaling pot smoke with footage from inside of a car. And the CBS affiliate and Denver proclaimed, “Troopers Say Man Who Crashed Into Patrol Car Was Stoned.”

In a more nuanced piece published about a months after the crash, the Denver Post’s John Ingold noted that neither Kilbey’s official summons nor the incident report made any mention of pot.

This week, Keith Kilbey accepted a plea bargain. Here’s the headline from the Denver Post:

. Drunk, stoned driver takes plea deal after car crash in Adams County

Wait, Kilbey was drunk? Neither drunk nor alcohol appeared in any of those previous stories.

In fact, Kilbey had a blood-alcohol concentration of .268, more than three times the legal limit. The current legal limit is .08. People with Kilbey’s BAC typically experience severely impaired motor function, loss of consciousness and memory blackout. Kilbey also had pot in his system, about twice the state’s legal limit. But tests for pot impairment are a lot less precise, and pot itself has a much less pronounced effect on motorists than alcohol. (Scroll down to see the graph and link to the corresponding study under the section headed “Drugged driving is a concern, but it’s overblown” in this piece from Vox.) Kilbey’s alcohol consumption was by far the more likely cause of his impairment on the night of his wreck.

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Mother of Four Cures PTSD With MDMA

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Rachel Hope describes how MDMA dramatically transformed her life in just 6-8 hours. Rachel Hope is a mother of four who used MDMA to cure a life-long battle with PTSD. Rachel was given the MDMA as part of her participation in a Maps.org study. The study found MDMA-assisted psychotherapy cured 83% of participants with treatment-resistant PTSD, compared to 25% cured with psychotherapy alone.

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Op vrijdag 6 juni 2014 02:24 schreef Blue_Panther_Ninja het volgende:
http://www.alternet.org/n(...)-edible-pot-freakout
Maureen Dowd wrote in her New York Times column today that a marijuana chocolate bar she ate put her in an 8-hour hallucinatory state. Dowd, who was visiting Colorado, said she became immobilized on her hotel-room bed.
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It turns out the Dowd ate way too much of her chocolate bar (she was supposed to cut it into 16 pieces, but ate an undisclosed portion). However, she claims it was not properly labeled. And after sharing her own cautionary tale and warning others of the potential dangers of edibles, she referenced a 19-year old Wyoming college student who jumped off a balcony and a Denver man who shot his wife to death after over partaking.

En dit was haar eerste keer.

What Maureen Dowd's Absurd Weed Stunt Tells Us About Privileged White People

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Op maandag 9 juni 2014 20:14 schreef heiden6 het volgende:

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Ik geloof echt niet dat dit zo gegaan is als er wordt verteld, het is ofwel een verzonnen verhaal of opzettelijk zo gedaan.

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Mexico May Follow U.S. On Marijuana Legalization

The president of Mexico dubbed the drug war "failed policy," and hinted strongly that Mexico, the source of most of America's illegal drugs, could follow the U.S.'s lead on marijuana legalization.

Marijuana prices for cartel-connected farmers have plummeted in recent years as the U.S.'s drug policy becomes more and more lenient. Keeping marijuana illegal in Mexico makes no sense when the plant is legalized north of the border, President Enrique Pena Nieto told Madrid-based newspaper El Pais in an interview published Sunday, according to Reuters.

And as everyone -- including Maureen Dowd -- now knows, marijuana policy is changing rapidly in America, with the drug available for medical use in almost half of the country.

These words are just that: words. But they're the strongest words yet from a sitting Mexican president, whose predecessors have said much the same thing after leaving office.

Marijuana is legal in two American states -- Washington and Colorado. California muffed a chance to be the first state to end marijuana Prohibition in 2010, thanks in large part to interference from the federal government. And at least one leading leftist in Mexico says that as soon as California goes legal, the war on marijuana in Mexico will end.

In Mexico, possession of small quantities of drugs is legal. Trafficking huge quantities to satisfy American demand is not, and a military-style crackdown on cartel activity led to today's state of war between Mexican drug traffickers and the police and military.

This isn't good. It would take a fool to posit otherwise, and Pena Nieto is no fool. Following up on the "failed policy" admission, he added that Mexico can't continue on a "road of inconsistency" with liberalizing drug policy in America.

However, he is also practical.

Others who have come before him have said much the same thing about the efficacy of Mexico's war on drugs. Vicente Fox, who served as president from 2000 to 2006, criss-crossed the United States last year with that message -- one he also delivered in San Francisco in September with a strong addendum: legalize all drugs now.

Pena Nieto does not feel that way. He voiced strong support for keeping marijuana production illegal in Mexico, according to other sources.

Still, hearing the man in charge of Mexico say that it's time to rethink failed policy is a step toward sanity, and possibly fewer panga boats and catapults sending cartel-grown brick weed into the United States.

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Report Unveils How DEA Has Systematically Blocked Research and Reclassification of Marijuana, MDMA, and New Synthetic Drugs

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On Wednesday, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) will hold a press tele-conference to accompany the release of their new report, “The DEA: Four Decades of Impeding and Rejecting Science”. The report – which is being made available today – documents a decades-long pattern of systematically obstructing medical research and ignoring scientific evidence.

In a series of historic votes late last month, the U.S. House approved a bipartisan measure prohibiting the DEA from undermining state medical marijuana laws, as well as two amendments prohibiting the DEA from interfering with state hemp laws. The votes were seen as a rebuke to the DEA and DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, who is under increasing pressure to step down.

“The DEA is a police and propaganda agency,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “It makes no sense for it to be in charge of federal decisions involving scientific research and medical practice, especially when its successive directors have systematically abused their discretionary powers in this area. The time is long past for a top-to-bottom review of this rogue agency.”

Despite substantial evidence confirming marijuana’s medical benefits, the DEA has opposed efforts to reform federal policy to acknowledge marijuana’s medical value and made it very difficult for researchers to obtain marijuana to study its medical efficacy.

The federal government maintains a monopoly on the production of only one drug: marijuana. Researchers who want to conduct clinical trials of its therapeutic value are typically frustrated by bureaucratic obstacles. In 2007, a DEA Administrative Law Judge ruled that this decades-long monopoly was harmful to the public interest and should end – but the head of the DEA, Michele Leonhart, rejected the ruling. State legislators and voters have taken matters into their own hands by making marijuana available for medical use at the state level. Almost half of all Americans now live in a state where medical marijuana is legal to one degree or another.

"The DEA has obstructed research into the medical use of marijuana for over 40 years and in the process has caused immeasurable suffering that would otherwise have been treated by low-cost, low-risk generic marijuana," said Rick Doblin, executive director of MAPS. "The DEA’s obstruction of the FDA approval process for marijuana has – to the DEA’s dismay – unintentionally catalyzed state-level medical marijuana reforms.”

Wednesday’s teleconference will feature medical researchers, members of Congress, medical marijuana patients and advocates.

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Akkoord Amsterdam: 'Voortrekkersrol wietteelt', meer sociale huurwoningen

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De partijen spraken ook af dat de stad een voortrekkersrol moet spelen bij het mogelijk maken van gereguleerde wietteelt.

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West Africa should decriminalise drugs - Obasanjo commission

Low-level drug offences should be decriminalised in West Africa, according to a high-level report.

The West Africa Commission on Drugs says drug cartels are undermining the region by using it to transit cocaine.

The commission, headed by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, says the cartels should be tackled but that punishing the personal use of drugs does not work.

It argues that current policies incite corruption and provoke violence.

Drug trafficking and consumption have become major issues in West Africa since the turn of the century.

Efforts around this time to stem the flow of cocaine from the producing countries of Latin America to consumers in the US and Europe led criminals to target West Africa as a new route.

Dramatic events like the crash landing of a Boeing 727 full of cocaine in Mali in 2009 have alerted the authorities to the problem.

The new report, commissioned by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, estimates that the annual trade in cocaine alone through West Africa is now worth $1.25bn (£744m) - more than the total of foreign direct investment in the region.

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Op donderdag 12 juni 2014 16:00 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Het artikel gaat verder.

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Op donderdag 12 juni 2014 16:38 schreef Individual het volgende:

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Ik heb een week op een West Afrikaans eiland gezeten dat helemaal vol stond met wietvelden (en cashewbomen) en de politie kwam er niet door de voodoo op het eiland. Een kg bushweed kostte daar ¤5.

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Op donderdag 12 juni 2014 16:41 schreef OllieWilliams het volgende:

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South American Drug Trade Deja Vu

Peru, after overtaking Colombia as the world's top producer of coca, cocaine's main ingredient, in 2013, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced this week that Peru greatly decreased cocaine cultivation, reducing coca production by 17.5 percent. U.N. officials herald it the "most remarkable reduction rate achieved in the last 14 years."

But no one is declaring victory in the war on drugs quite yet: Although Peruvian yields are down, the price of coca leaves has increased by 30 percent. Similarly, the price of base cocaine has increased more than 17 percent. Most importantly, the street form -- cocaine hydrochloride -- increased almost 32 percent from 2013 prices, according to the UNODC. Though authorities have squeezed the supply of coca and its products some, demand remains high. Moreover, if the Andean drug trade's history is any indication, supply will simply shift to another country.

Drug researchers call this the "balloon effect" -- where pressure from the authorities in one country or region pushes drug production elsewhere. Squeezing the balloon at one end causes drug producers to compensate and expand into another. Since the U.S.-led war on drugs began in the 1980s, the balloon effect has shaped the cocaine trade.

In 2013, fumigation and forced eradication of coca crops in Colombia finally hit a turning point and the South American nation bequeathed its crown as the world's top coca producer to its neighbor, Peru. Both the United States and the U.N. declared it a milestone. Unsaid was that the Colombian government's efforts to crack down on production -- in part under the banner of Plan Colombia, the U.S.-backed effort to combat left-wing guerrillas and drug traffickers -- simply shifted production to Peru.

Colombia and Peru have swapped the cocoa-producer champion crown for decades. In the mid-90s Peru launched an intense eradication campaign and Colombia was back on top. In 1990, Colombia was only responsible for 19 percent of the global coca market, behind top producers Bolivia and Peru. By 1997, it was the world's top producer. See the pattern here?

Growing global demand is a big factor in shifting supply locations. Even though demand for cocaine is dropping in the United States -- still the world's largest cocaine consumer -- it's up in Brazil, Europe, and Africa, according to the 2013 U.N. World Drug Report. Colombia is the United States' largest cocaine supplier but Brazil -- the No. 2 cocaine market and No. 1 crack-cocaine market -- and Europe are supplied by Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Peru's crackdown will undoubtedly move coca central again but exactly where is unclear. History makes Colombia and Bolivia top contenders. Coca growers in Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, and Brazil are trying to increase production in those countries.

Meanwhile, Brazil is also becoming a vital transit route for shipping cocaine to West Africa and Europe, where markets are growing. Brazilian consumption, as well as trade of the substance, will only open up more emerging markets to the high of cocaine. And as incomes rise in Asia, cocaine consumption there will likely spike, possibly more than making up for Americans' shrinking appetite.

As before, the South American drug trade will find a way to persevere.

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Ganja free: Jamaica decriminalises marijuana for personal use

'Being caught with a spliff' will no longer mean a criminal record, says justice minister, with fines given instead for small amounts

Jamaica is to decriminalise the possession of small amounts of marijuana, joining the trickle of countries moving to soften laws on the drug known on the Caribbean island as "ganja".

The country's minister of justice, Mark Golding, announced that Jamaica's prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, and her cabinet had decided to amend the Dangerous Drugs Act.

"Cabinet approved certain changes to the law relating to ganja. These relate to possession of small quantities of ganja for personal use, the smoking of ganja in private places and the use of ganja for medical-medicinal purposes," he said.

"Approval has been given also to a proposal for the decriminalisation of the use of ganja for religious purposes."

Uruguay recently became the latest country to legalise marijuana use, joining several countries in Europe as well as the US states of Colorado and Washington.

Possession of small quantities of the drug would become a non-arrestable, ticketable infraction in Jamaica resulting only in a fine, Golding said.

"Too many of our young people have ended up with criminal convictions after being caught with a spliff, something that has affected their ability to do things like get jobs and get visas to travel overseas," Golding said.

The government would propose a bill in the Jamaican parliament soon to expunge the criminal records of people convicted of possessing small amounts of the drug, which is grown widely across Jamaica.

The change means that a person cannot be arrested if in possession of up to 57 grams (2oz) of marijuana in a public space.

Anyone ticketed will be given 30 days to pay the fine, failure of which will result in it becoming a minor offence, resulting in the offender doing court-ordered community service.

Golding said the possession of ganja for religious or therapeutic purposes as prescribed by a registered medical practitioner, or for scientific research by an accredited institution, would also be decriminalised.

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‘Revisit Laws To Fight Drug Scourge’

KUALA LUMPUR: The worsening drug smuggling and abuse in the country has led to the Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation (MCPF) calling for a review of existing laws.

MCPF vice-chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said frequent drug busts at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and elsewhere, either by the police or the Cu stoms, were alarming.

“Judging by the exposure, arrests and quantity of drugs confiscated, it appears that the drug issue in the country is endless, and what has been uncovered so far could just be the tip of the iceberg.

“If the statistics released by the authorities are anything to go by, it certainly appears that the death sentence has not deterred people from getting involved in the drug trade.

“We call on the government to review our existing laws with regards to the mandatory death penalty, and why it has not been a deterrent to potential drug traffickers. Looking at the drug problem today, we are certain that Malaysia will not be drug free by 2015,” he said.

Lee added that all incoming flights carried the message that Malaysia has stringent anti-drug laws which carries the death penalty for drug trafficking if proven guilty.

“But this has not deterred traffickers from taking a gamble in this trade. The time has come for the government to revisit various legislation related to drug issue and take necessary steps to fight the number one enemy in the country,” he said.

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Albanian police hit with grenades during cannabis crackdown

Police try to enter Lazarat village where authorities believe gangs produce about 900 metric tonnes of marijuana a year

Authorities say suspected gang members have fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns at hundreds of police officers who tried to enter a village in southern Albania as part of a crackdown on marijuana production.

Police said nobody was hurt in the pre-dawn attack on Monday outside Lazarat, where authorities believe gangs produce about 900 metric tonnes of cannabis a year. The drug production is estimated to be worth about ¤4.5bn (£3.6bn) – roughly half the country's GDP.

They said about 500 lightly armed police, including special forces officers, surrounded the village overnight after a smaller force was repelled over the weekend by small arms fire that injured one villager.

Police said they would continue the crackdown on drug producers to "liberate Lazarat from criminals".

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YourAnonCentral twitterde op maandag 16-06-2014 om 17:11:24 Meanwhile... Activists are planting #weed in public all over the #UKVia @VICEUKhttp://t.co/jg2XyP0mOH http://t.co/8ikzlNbJfD reageer retweet

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Op maandag 16 juni 2014 18:18 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Drugstoerist mag uit coffeeshop worden geweerd

In de strijd tegen drugstoerisme mogen gemeenten bepalen dat buitenlanders niet in coffeeshops mogen komen.
Drugstoerist mag uit coffeeshop worden geweerd
Foto: ANP
De Raad van State heeft dat woensdag bepaald over de regel waar coffeeshops uit Tilburg en Maastricht twee jaar tegen hebben geprocedeerd.
Het voorkomen van drugstoerisme en de bestrijding van georganiseerde criminaliteit zijn volgens de rechter legitieme doelen om indirect onderscheid te maken naar nationaliteit van de bezoekers.
Er zijn geen andere, minder ingrijpende maatregelen, oordeelt hij.
Wietpas
De regel werd bedacht door het vorige kabinet. Coffeeshops mogen alleen leden toelaten (het zogeheten besloten clubcriterium) en alleen volwassenen die in Nederland wonen, kunnen lid van een coffeeshop worden (ingezetenencriterium), en een zogenaamde 'wietpas' krijgen.
In de praktijk controleren echter alleen een paar gemeenten in het zuiden van Nederland of coffeeshops aan drugstoeristen verkopen.
In Maastricht sloot burgemeester Onno Hoes vorig jaar veertien coffeshops tijdelijk, omdat ze het verbod hadden overtreden. Vier daarvan bleven dicht in afwachting van de uitspraak van de Raad van State.
'Teleurstellend'
Marc Josemans, voorzitter van de Vereniging van Officiële Coffeeshops in Maastricht (VOCM), noemt het besluit van de Raad van State "teleurstellend en wrang".
Volgens Josemans is een meerderheid binnen de gemeenteraad van Maastricht tegen het zogeheten ingezetenencriterum, en zal burgemeester Hoes door lokale politici worden aangesproken op de kwestie. Er komt binnenkort een voorstel aan de orde.
Josemans put hoop uit een nieuwe procedure over de sluiting van zijn coffeeshop Easy Going door Hoes vorig jaar, toen er volgens Josemans duidelijk meer overlast was van straatdealers.
Tilburg
De Tilburgse vereniging van coffeeshops De Achterdeur hoopt dat de gemeente tot inkeer komt en onderkent dat de nieuwe regels niks hebben opgelost en dat de georganiseerde criminaliteit juist is toegenomen, reageerde woordvoerder Willem Vugs.
VVD
VVD-Kamerlid Ard van der Steur spreekt van een "terechte en logische uitspraak die voortvloeit uit de eerdere beslissing van het Europees Hof".
Van der Steur: "Nederland moet niet de grootste drugsdealer van Europa worden."
D66
Volgens D66 moet de uitspraak van de rechter gerespecteerd worden. De partij wil wel dat het beleid zo wordt aangepast dat burgemeesters zelf mogen beslissen of ze buitenlandse coffeeshopbezoekers willen weren.
Kamerlid Magda Berndsen: "Gemeenteraden zouden op basis van redenen als handhaving van de openbare orde en de volksgezondheid en met oog voor lokale belangen af moeten kunnen wijken van het door de minister opgelegde ingezeten-criterium."

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29 doodvonnissen in drugszaak Vietnam bevestigd

Een rechtbank in Vietnam heeft in hoger beroep 29 drugssmokkelaars tot de doodstraf veroordeeld en daarmee hun eerdere vonnissen bevestigd. De veroordeelden behoorden tot vier drugsbendes die tussen 2006 en 2012 bijna twee ton heroïne, amfetamine en xtc-pillen vanuit Laos via Vietnam naar China transporteerden.

Van één verdachte werd de doodstraf omgezet in levenslang. Hij had volgens de rechter minder heroïne gesmokkeld dan de anderen en hij had meegewerkt met justitie. Ook 59 anderen kregen levenslang. Het was het grootste proces tegen drugssmokkelaars ooit in Vietnam.

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.