The World Wide War on Drugs #8 - Demonstraties in Mexico

MS-13 - Root Of All Evil

Reefer Madness (1936) Full Movie

Retired Police Captain demolishes the War on Drugs

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Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2013: Peter Hitchens - There is No War on Drugs

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Mexico: protests gather pace with fate of student teachers still unknown

Latest march sees thousands demand return of 43 students who went missing last month after being attacked by police

Pressure continues to mount on the Mexican authorities to find 43 student teachers who disappeared three weeks ago in the southern city of Iguala, many of them after being arrested by local police.

Thousands marched through the resort city of Acapulco on Friday calling for the return of the students alive in the latest in a series of protests around the state of Guerrero, where the events happened, as well as in other parts of the country and abroad.

At the same time police on horses with sniffer dogs are searching the hills around Iguala for signs of the students.

Since the students went missing on 26 September, after being attacked by municipal police and unidentified gunmen, at least 19 mass graves have been discovered in these hills.

Federal attorney general Jesús Murillo said on Tuesday that none of the 28 bodies found in the first five graves belonged to the missing students. No information has yet been made public about the bodies found in any of the others.

Friday’s march in Acapulco took place under stormy skies, filling the boulevard that rings the resort’s famous bay. It was headed by relatives of the disappeared, as well as a sizable contingent of other students from Ayotzinapa, the name of their famously radical teacher training college that is also in Guerrero.

With tension running high prior to the protest, the US embassy issued a warning to tourists to stay away from the march. The city’s authorities suspended classes at local schools, urged businesses to shut up shop, and citizens to stay at home.

The march, however, was notably peaceful with no sign of the kind of violence that has accompanied some previous demonstrations. On Monday protestors burned out government buildings in the city of Chilpancingo, the state capital.

Apparently worried that such events could reduce solidarity for their cause, some 300 students from the college spent Thursday sweeping and removing rubbish from the streets in Chilpancingo. One of the organisers told local newspaper El Sur that they wanted to show thanks to residents of the city for their support.

The case of the disappeared students has become a powerful symbol of the broader failure of municipal, state and federal authorities to contain the influence of organised crime in Guerrero, with striking parallels evident in several other parts of the country.

A local drug cartel that calls itself Guerreros Unidos had allegedly infiltrated the municipal government of Iguala from the mayor down. Mayor José Luis Abarca is now on the run.

This week the investigative TV news programme Punto de Partida broadcast testimonies of relatives of people disappeared at checkpoints at the entrance to Iguala. The check points were reportedly set up by the police and the cartel together in order to prevent rival gangs from entering the city.

Alejandro Ramos, of a local human rights group, told the programme that relatives of people disappeared in Iguala are beginning to tentatively come forward in the hope that their loved ones will now also be included in the search for the students.

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'Cannabisbeleid leidt tot corrumpering van hele maatschappij'


De regering-Michel I gaat het gebruik en bezit van alle drugs, zowel voor minder- als meerderjarigen, opnieuw vervolgen. Het staat haaks op de bevindingen van econoom Paul De Grauwe en toxicoloog Jan Tytgat. De Leuvense professoren pleitten voor legalisatie en regulatie van het cannabisgebruik. "Het cannabisbeleid leidt tot een corrumpering van de hele maatschappij."

Gedaan met het gedoogbeleid: op federaal niveau komt een nultolerantie op drugsbezit en -gebruik, zoals nu al het geval is in Antwerpen . Het staat haaks op de bevindingen van professoren Paul De Grauwe en Jan Tytgat, die op 9 oktober in het Hollands College van de KU Leuven bespraken wat een betere oplossing zou kunnen zijn.

De professoren evalueerden eerder dit jaar de drie belangrijkste doelstellingen van het gedoogbeleid: het aantal afhankelijke personen verminderen, een afname van fysieke en psychosociale schade en ten slotte "een daling van de negatieve gevolgen van het cannabisfenomeen voor de samenleving".

Tytgat noemde het hoog tijd voor een kritische evaluatie met betrekking tot de beleidsnota waarin het huidige cannabisbeleid staat. "We hebben vanuit onze expertise in bepaalde domeinen toch een aantal legitieme en valabele argumenten om te zeggen: zo kan het niet voort."


Consequenties van repressieve aanpak

De hoogste prioriteit die het parlement heeft gesteld, was de preventie van cannabisgebruik, waaruit eigenlijk een repressieve aanpak volgde. Maar hier komt de paradox: hoe intensiever de repressie, hoe schaarser de drug is, hoe hoger de prijs en hoe winstgevender de verkoop ervan. "De overheid is verplicht heel veel middelen te steken in het bestrijden van illegale verkoop, maar dat los je niet op, op die manier, want uiteindelijk is het effect van die aanpak buitengewoon klein. Ondanks de repressieve aanpak blijft de consumptie van cannabis stijgen", legde De Grauwe uit.

De repressieve aanpak heeft ook andere gevolgen. Een van die gevolgen is dat de hele sector in de criminele sfeer leeft: iedereen die daar actief is, is crimineel op een of andere manier, wat aangeeft dat hij niet terugdeinst voor criminele activiteiten. "Het leidt tot een corrumpering van de hele maatschappij, met enorme problemen van corruptie, waarbij drugsgeld wordt gebruikt. Op die manier destabiliseert de maatschappij en dat heeft alles te maken met het feit dat de productie en verdeling van cannabis illegaal is", stelde De Grauwe.


Gevaar voor volksgezondheid

Het beleid heeft ook negatieve invloeden op de volksgezondheid, zowel individueel als maatschappelijk. "Als ik terugkijk op de laatste 20 jaar met betrekking tot cannabis, dan zie ik dat het aantal cannabisdossiers en het aantal inbeslagnames van cannabisplanten die ik als deskundige gevraagd wordt te onderzoeken, in stijgende lijn gaan", waarschuwde Tytgat.

Inderdaad: door de repressieve aanpak is de controle op de kwaliteit, compositie en reinheid van de cannabis niet mogelijk. Ook het gebruik van pesticiden of voedingsstoffen is moeilijk te controleren. Zo kan het dat er in de illegale plantages slechte omstandigheden zijn en daardoor kan de cannabis schadelijke schimmels, bacteriën en andere vervuilingen bevatten.

"In 2013 zijn er al meer dan 1.000 illegale plantages opgedoekt en dan kennen we nog niet diegenen die onontdekt blijven. Als je dat in perspectief ziet met 10 of 20 jaar geleden, is dat werkelijk een vertienvoudiging. Dus dan kan je moeilijk beweren dat de federale beleidsnota effectief werkt en zijn doelstellingen haalt", benadrukte Tytgat.


Regulering? Eerst legaliseren

Volgens De Grauwe zijn er twee belangrijke elementen: legalisatie en regulatie van het cannabisgebruik. "Iets dat niet legaal is, kan je niet reguleren. De illegale drugs van vandaag kan je niet reguleren, precies omdat ze illegaal zijn", wist hij. De professor, tegenwoordig actief aan de London School of Economics and Political Science, voegde daaraan toe dat dat kan zoals in het biermodel of het tabaksmodel.

De Grauwe en Tytgat geen voorstanders van drugs, maar volgens hen worden ze moreel in een hoekje geduwd en ze moeten zich daarin defensief opstellen. "We willen de zaak liever op een pragmatische manier behandelen", klonk het in koor. Het probleem op deze wijze oplossen kan ertoe leiden dat "het crimineel karakter ervan kan verdwijnen".

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Psychedelic Mushroom Compound Found to Grow and Repair Brain Cells

You may know them as “shrooms”, “Magic mushrooms”, psilocybic mushrooms, or you may not know them at all. They are a natural plant that, like marijuana, is banned by the U.S. Government. But like marijuana, these mushrooms may not be without medical properties. Like marijuana, they could deserve a place on natural medicine shelves for their ability to treat depression, eradicate mental illness, and improve cognition – not in police evidence rooms.

According to research from the University of South Florida, psilocybin, the active component within psychedelic mushrooms, is able to grow new brain cells—potentially offering treatment for mental illness and improving cognition.

The study, published in Experimental Brain Research, says psilocybin is able to bind to special receptors in the brain that stimulate healing and growth. In the case of these mushrooms, brain cell growth occurs. In mice, the researchers found psilocybin to actually help repair damaged brain cells and cure or relieve PTSD and depression.

Lead researcher, Dr. Juan R. Sanchez-Ramos, tested the effects of psilocybin by training mice to fear an electric shock when they heard a noise associated with the shock. Then, by giving them psilocybin, the mice were able to stop reacting to the noise-trigger much faster than those mice not treated with the mushroom compound.

. “The proposition that psilocybin impacts cognition and stimulates hippocampal neurogenesis is based on extensive evidence that serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine or 5-HT) acting on specific 5-HT receptor sub-types (most likely the 5-HT2A receptor) is involved in the regulation of neurogenesis in hippocampus,” says Dr. Sanchez-Ramos according to NaturalNews. “The in vitro and in vivo animal data is compelling enough to explore whether psilocybin will enhance neurogenesis and result in measurable improvements in learning.”

Other research also shows that this same compound could greatly help with depression, helping the majority of participants in one study achieve great well-being.

Psilocybin is referred to as a “nootropic” agent, or one that has numerous functions in the brain that can improve hippocampus health. The hippocampus is part of the brain responsible for learning as well as converting short-term memory to long-term memory. New brain cells in the hippocampus from the psilocybin translates into a healthier and sharper brain overall.

The research on psychedelic mushrooms is limited—far more limited than the research on marijuana. Because these mushrooms are known for causing hallucinations, unguarded self-treatment isn’t recommended. However, this plant, like marijuana, does not deserve a place in the Schedule I classification of illegal substances. Like marijuana, the U.S. government has determined ‘shrooms as having no medicinal value’—an obviously-flawed determination.

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Op maandag 20 oktober 2014 17:17 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

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Dus in de VS heeft men medicinale wiet maar de onderzoekers van de mushrooms beweren hier dat wiet het geen medicische effecten hebben.

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Op maandag 20 oktober 2014 17:39 schreef OllieWilliams het volgende:

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"Net als marihuana zouden deze paddo's wel eens niet zonder medicinale werking kunnen zijn." niet + zonder = met

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Op maandag 20 oktober 2014 19:38 schreef OllieWilliams het volgende:

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Dieptriest is het. Nee, ronduit schandalig. Als je dingen op basis van schadelijkheid en maatschappelijke gevolgen verbiedt, dien je daar wetenschappelijke onderbouwingen voor te leveren. Wetenschap speelt momenteel geen enkele rol in het drugsbeleid, het wordt bijna religieus benaderd. "Drugs zijn slecht, dat is me altijd verteld dus het is zo. Waarom zouden ze anders illegaal zijn?"

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Afghan opium poppy yield hits all-time high

Farmers grew ‘unprecedented’ 209,000 hectares of opium poppy despite US spending $7.6bn on counter-narcotics efforts

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has hit an all-time high despite years of counter-narcotics efforts that have cost the US $7.6bn (£4.7bn), according to a US government watchdog.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported that Afghan farmers grew an “unprecedented” 209,000 hectares (516,000 acres) of opium poppy in 2013, surpassing the previous high of 193,000 hectares (477,000 acres) in 2007, said John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

“In past years, surges in opium poppy cultivation have been met by a coordinated response from the US government and coalition partners, which has led to a temporary decline in levels of opium production,” Sopko said in a letter to the secretary of state, John Kerry, the defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, and other topUS officials.

“The recent record-high level of poppy cultivation calls into question the long-term effectiveness and sustainability of those prior efforts,” he said on Tuesday.

Afghanistan produces more than 80% of the world’s illicit opium, and profits from the illegal trade help fund the Taliban insurgency. US government officials blame poppy production for fuelling corruption and instability, undermining good government and subverting the legal economy.

The US has spent $7.6bn on counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan since launching the programmes following the start of the 2001 war, it said.

Sopko said the UN drug office estimated the value of poppy cultivation and opium products produced in Afghanistan in 2013 at about $3bn, a 50% increase over the $2bn estimated in 2012.

“With deteriorating security in many parts of Afghanistan and low levels of eradication of poppy fields, further increases in cultivation are likely in 2014,” Sopko said in the letter.

He said affordable deep-well technology brought to Afghanistan over the past decade had enabled Afghans to turn 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of desert in south-west Afghanistan into arable land, much of it devoted to poppy production.

In a letter responding to the findings, the US embassy in Kabul said the rise in poppy cultivation and decline in eradication efforts by provincial authorities was “disappointing news”. It said American officials were helping Afghans develop the ability to lead and manage a long-term counter-narcotics effort.

The embassy said the fight against poppy cultivation had had an impact on growers, resulting in a change in where the crop is planted.

“Essentially, poppy cultivation has shifted from areas where government presence is broadly supported and security has improved, toward more remote and isolated areas where governance is weak and security is inadequate,” it said.

Michael Lumpkin, the assistant secretary of defence for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said in a letter in response that the Pentagon had supported counter-narcotics operations by other US government agencies but was not responsible for managing poppy eradication programmes.

“In our opinion, the failure to reduce poppy cultivation and increase eradication is due to the lack of Afghan government support for the effort,” Lumpkin said.

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Zij twitterde over drugskartels, de kartels twitterden haar moord

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Fuentes Rubio was in haar vrije tijd een van de personen achter 'Valor por Tamaulipas' (Moed voor Tamaulipas), een van de grootste burgerjournalistieke initiatieven van Mexico met meer dan 100 duizend digitale volgers op Facebook en Twitter. Onder haar alias Felina berichtte ze over aanslagen, ontvoeringen en andersoortig drugsgeweld. 'Sinds 12:25 uur zijn er explosies en vuurgevechten in Cañada/Fuentes. Pickups rijden met hoge snelheid door de straat', aldus een van haar berichten. Of: 'In Balcones, op de hoek van de Evereststraat, staan twee witte Fords met drie gewapende mannen eromheen.' Ook vroeg ze slachtoffers om via haar medium hun verhaal te delen.

Twitteraars als Felina zijn in het noorden van Mexico populair omdat nieuws over drugsgerelateerd geweld daar lang niet altijd de lokale en regionale media haalt. Volgens de Committee to Protect Journalists, een Amerikaanse non-profitorganisatie, komt dat mede omdat er sinds 2006 al 17 Mexicaanse journalisten werden vermoord die zich ooit kritisch uitlieten over drugskartels. Een gevolg is dat burgers voor wat betreft lokaal nieuws vrijwel volledig afhankelijk zijn van vaak anonieme burgerjournalisten, zoals Felina.

Een gegeven dat tot grote onvrede bij de plaatselijke kartels leidt, blijkt wel uit de ongeveer 35 duizend euro die anderhalf jaar geleden beschikbaar werden gesteld in ruil voor de ware identiteit van Felina en haar collega's bij 'Valor por Tamaulipas'.

Maar ondanks de prijs op haar hoofd en aanhoudende bedreigingen bleef haar echte naam altijd geheim, totdat ze vorige week woensdag - volgens Mexicaanse websites bij toeval - werd ontvoerd samen met twee andere artsen. Toen haar kidnappers vervolgens op haar telefoon keken, zagen ze met wie zij eigenlijk te maken hadden, waarna ze besloten een punt te maken.

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Burgemeester liet studenten Mexico verdwijnen

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De burgemeester van Iguala, in het zuidwesten van Mexico, en zijn vrouw zijn verantwoordelijk voor de verdwijning van 43 studenten bijna een maand geleden. Deze beschuldiging uitte het Openbaar Ministerie woensdag. Het stel zou de plaatselijke politie en leden van de criminele organisatie Guerreros Unidos instructies hebben gegeven de jongeren te laten verdwijnen omdat zij een toespraak van de vrouw wilden verstoren.

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Uruguay’s superstar president bows out – but will his liberal marijuana laws survive?

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Overnight, the passage of the law turned Uruguay’s president, José Mujica, into an international progressive superstar. During his five-year presidency, Mujica, 79, revitalised Uruguay’s economy, slashed poverty from almost 21% to 11.5% and legalised abortion, making his country the first and only one in South America so far to do so. (Elsewhere in Latin America, abortion is available only in Cuba and in Mexico City).

But those gains could be challenged by his successor, who will be decided among front-runner Tabaré Vázquez, a 74-year-old oncologist from Mujica’s own Frente Amplio (Broad Front) party; Luis Lacalle Pou, 41, an energetic conservative from the Partido Nacional (National party); and Pedro Bordaberry, 54, who is likely to throw his votes behind Pou in what opinion polls suggest will be a tightly fought second round between him and Vázquez on 30 November.

The two front-runners have already said that they will tinker with the marijuana law if elected, while Bordaberry, who the pollsters predict will take 18% of the vote, makes it clear that he has no time for it.

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Surprising source offers signs the global ‘war on drugs’ may be ending

William R. Brownfield, assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs summed up the key idea underpinning the shift at the United Nations on Oct. 9:

. Things have changed since 1961. We must have enough flexibility to allow us to incorporate those changes into our policies … to tolerate different national drug policies, to accept the fact that some countries will have very strict drug approaches; other countries will legalize entire categories of drugs.


The statement is hugely significant as it represents a new diplomatic doctrine and a potential tipping point in efforts to end the disastrous “war on drugs” that has lasted six decades.

It recognizes that immediate reform of the UN drug control conventions (the core of which is the 1961 Single Convention), while necessary, is not yet feasible. But it acknowledges that UN conventions should never serve as a barrier to improving global drug policies and that different policies will work for different regions and nations. Lastly, it accepts that member states can reinterpret the conventions in response to new scientific evidence and with careful regard to other international human rights norms and obligations — as Uruguay has done in the case of cannabis regulation.

The United States was a key architect of the international control system, begun in 1909, and has traditionally served as chief proselytizer for a repressive prohibitionist model globally. Although it initially rejected the 1961 Single Convention as too weak relative to its predecessor treaties, the United States soon embraced it as a useful mechanism to rally nations towards the global war on drugs, formally launched in the 1970s. The United States soon worked to strengthen the convention through successor treaties, funding initiatives and aggressive bilateral drug diplomacy.

Now that the United States has openly rejected the role of key bilateral enforcer the UN will likely cease to be a forum where states are pressured to pursue the war on drugs orthodoxy. Instead, it can become a forum that facilitates cooperation and discussion on a new range of policy approaches.

The main obstacle to this change will likely remain Russia and a coalition of conservative states that are reticent to move away from a militarized and repressive police response. Nevertheless, Russia, despite a strong grip on the UN drug control apparatus, will struggle to enforce its vision due to the post-Ukraine diplomatic freeze and a general recognition that Russia’s domestic drug policies have fuelled incarceration, human rights abuses and a HIV epidemic.

As states approach the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs, Brownfield’s framework provides a practical way forward. It allows states to push ahead with various national regulatory reforms, including regulated markets around the recreational use of certain drugs. It focuses diplomatic effort on preserving the ‘core’ of the conventions — nothing to do with national cannabis or coca leaf prohibitions, and everything to do with regulating licit markets for pain medicines.

And it focuses enforcement efforts on minimizing the impact of illicit markets through effective targeting of criminal gangs, rather than blanket enforcement of impossible global prohibitions. Finally, it allows regions to move ahead with case-specific policies that reflect their local needs, rather than acting as agents of a self-destructive global ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy.

The UN and member states are moving toward a more nuanced understanding that places the drug conventions within broader contexts of human rights, indigenous rights and other frameworks of health and human empowerment. As Brownfield points out, part of this shift is driven by the need to make rational determinations of resource allocation and interpret implementation of the conventions accordingly.

The United States federal government does not believe making U.S. states comply with drug conventions on cannabis is a good use of resources. Other nations should make similar, case specific, determinations.

Legal reform of the international drug conventions is certainly required but only prior national reforms will make that process seem necessary and inevitable to member states.

The course outlined in the Brownfield doctrine appears the best strategy to ensure the survival and modernization of the global drug control framework for the immediate future.

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Schippers vindt dat drugstests leiden tot 'schijnveiligheid'

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Het invoeren van drugstests op festivals vindt Schippers echter 'helemaal geen optie' omdat de tests geen absolute veiligheid kunnen garanderen.