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

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Op woensdag 20 april 2016 18:29 schreef heiden6 het volgende:

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Het gaat om een test, maar het uiteindelijke doel is legalisering van bepaalde drugs die medische toepassingen zouden kunnen hebben (waaronder MDMA). Ook bij legalisering van cannabis heeft dit in de VS een rol gespeeld in het proces. Daarnaast is de indeling van MDMA als schedule 1 drug (zwaarste categorie) is onder andere gebaseerd op de aanname dat het geen medische toepassingen heeft. Die indeling wordt onder andere gebruikt voor het bepalen van de strafmaat na een drugsgerelateerde veroordeling.

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Op woensdag 20 april 2016 18:37 schreef heiden6 het volgende:

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Ik natuurlijk ook niet, maar ik dacht ik post even een toelichting voor de mensen die minder goed op de hoogte zijn (post hier eigenlijk wel eens iemand anders dan wij twee? ).

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Canada to introduce legislation to decriminalize recreational cannabis | World news | The Guardian

Country will bring forth laws to decriminalize and regulate recreational weed in spring of 2017, health minister announced at UN general assembly in New York

Canada’s Liberal government will introduce legislation to decriminalise and regulate recreational marijuana in spring 2017, according to the health minister, Jane Philpott.

The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, promised during last year’s election campaign that his government would legalise recreational marijuana, following the US states of Washington and Colorado, but the time frame has been unclear.

Related: Colombian president: prohibitionist drug policies have been a 'failure'

Philpott, speaking on Wednesday at a special session of the UN general assembly in New York on drug problems around the world, said the Canadian law will ensure marijuana is kept away from children and will keep criminals from profiting from its sale.

“We will work with law enforcement partners to encourage appropriate and proportionate criminal justice measures,” she said. “We know it is impossible to arrest our way out of this problem.“

Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, the government’s point man on legalisation, has emphasised that current laws that make marijuana illegal remain in effect.

Medical marijuana is a separate issue from recreational marijuana in Canada and is already legal. Canada’s medical marijuana growers say a jump in the number of illegal marijuana dispensaries as the federal government decides how to regulate the drug is costing them customers.

Medical marijuana patients in Canada are set to regain the right to grow their own cannabis after a federal court judge in March struck down the ban introduced by the previous Conservative government.

Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Marijuana Kills Cancer Cells, Admits the U.S. National Cancer Institute | Natural Society

National legalization of marijuana may be drawing a smidgeon closer. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), one of the federal government sponsored agencies, has just updated the FAQs on its website to include recent studies on marijuana showing that it can and has killed cancer cells.

These are the findings of studies NCI have included:


Bron: naturalsociety.com

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Verdachten mega-drugszaak vrijgesproken | NOS

Het Openbaar Ministerie heeft bot gevangen in een van de grootste drugszaken ooit in Nederland. De verdachten die volgens het OM achter een transport van vier ton cocaïne zaten, zijn vandaag vrijgesproken.

De drugs zaten verstopt op een krakkemikkige boot die in de zomer van 2003 strandde in Vlissingen. Aan boord vond de douane 4050 kilo cocaïne, verstopt in verborgen ruimtes. Het was de grootste drugsvondst tot dan toe in Nederland. De straatwaarde bedroeg zo'n 200 miljoen euro.

Een aantal direct betrokkenen, zoals bemanningsleden, werd veroordeeld. Onderzoek naar de opdrachtgevers en financiers van het transport bleef uit door gebrek aan rechercheurs. Tot het OM de zaak zes jaar later toch weer oppakte en nog eens zeven jaar later (eind 2015) voor de rechter bracht.

De verdachten, onder wie een Amsterdamse vastgoedhandelaar, ontkenden iedere betrokkenheid bij het drugstransport. Volgens hun advocaten heeft het proces onnodig lang op zich laten wachten en waren belangrijke getuigen in de zaak onbetrouwbaar. Zij voorspelden een zeperd voor justitie.

Volgens de rechtbank zijn de verklaringen van getuigen in de zaak inderdaad niet betrouwbaar genoeg. Verder is er te weinig bewijs. De verdachten zijn daarom alle vier vrijgesproken.

Of het OM de zaak na dertien jaar nog een vervolg geeft door in hoger beroep te gaan, is nog niet bekendgemaakt. Voor een van de mannen had justitie zelf al vrijspraak gevraagd, voor de anderen waren celstraffen geëist van twee tot zes jaar.

Bron: nos.nl

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LePage vetoes bill aimed at increasing access to overdose antidote - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

Gov. Paul LePage vetoed a bill Wednesday that would allow pharmacists to dispense an anti-overdose drug without a prescription, saying that allowing addicts to keep naloxone on hand “serves only to perpetuate the cycle of addiction.”

The Legislature passed the bill “under the hammer” – or unanimously without a roll call – this month as part of lawmakers’ attempts to address Maine’s growing opioid addiction epidemic.

Maine already allows family members of addicts to receive prescriptions for naloxone hydrochloride – also commonly known by the brand name Narcan – which quickly counteracts the potentially deadly effects of an opiate overdose. The bill, L.D. 1547, aims to make the antidote even more readily available by allowing a pharmacist to dispense naloxone without a prescription to individuals “at risk of experiencing an opioid-related drug overdose” or to a friend or family member of someone at risk.

The legislation would also allow police and fire departments to obtain a supply of naloxone and provides immunity to pharmacists or health care professionals who dispense the antidote when “acting in good faith and with reasonable care.”

But in his veto letter sent to lawmakers on Wednesday, LePage said the bill would allow pharmacists “to dispense naloxone to practically anyone who asks for it.”

“Naloxone does not truly save lives; it merely extends them until the next overdose,” LePage wrote, repeating a contention that has caused controversy before. “Creating a situation where an addict has a heroin needle in one hand and a shot of naloxone in the other produces a sense of normalcy and security around heroin use that serves only to perpetuate the cycle of addiction.”

Pharmacy chains such as Rite Aid and CVS already dispense naloxone without a prescription in other states. About 30 states allow sales of the drug without a prescription.

CVS requested the bill in Maine after receiving a letter from U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine asking the chain to expand the availability of the antidote. The bill got support from both law enforcement and health organizations during the legislative hearing.

LePage has stirred controversy before with his suggestions that naloxone has become a sort of life-saving crutch for opioid addicts as he points to reports of drug users who have been revived multiple times from overdoses by police or rescue squads. Bill supporters reacted strongly on Wednesday to his statement that the antidote merely extends lives “until the next overdose.”

“With this insensitive statement, Gov. LePage is insinuating that Mainers suffering from addiction are beyond reach – that they cannot be saved,” Sen. Cathy Breen, D-Falmouth, said in a statement. “I disagree. Narcan can be the difference between an early grave and an intervention that can put an addict on the path to recovery. We know that Narcan saves lives. It is incumbent on us to make sure it is readily available.”

There were 272 drug overdose deaths in Maine in 2015, representing a 31 percent increase over the previous year.

“If we have the chance to save even one life, we must seize it,” House Assistant Majority Leader Rep. Sara Gideon, D-Freeport, said in a statement. “Putting this proven life-saving medication into more hands will save lives and spare families the unthinkable loss of a loved one to a preventable overdose.”

In his veto letter, LePage said the state must address the “root causes of the problem” by stopping drug traffickers bringing heroin into Maine, expanding education and prevention efforts and addressing prescribing practices that provide a gateway to heroin abuse.

The Legislature will take up L.D. 1547 and all other vetoed bills during a session on April 29. It takes a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to override a gubernatorial veto.


Bron: www.pressherald.com

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Mexico's president proposes legalising medical marijuana | World news | The Guardian

Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto has announced plans to introduced laws to legalise medical marijuana and increase the quantity anyone can carry and consume for recreational purposes from five grams to 28 grams. His plan would also free some prisoners convicted of possessing small amounts of marijuana.

The proposed laws, he said on Thursday, would stop “criminalising consumption” and also authorise the use of medicines made from a base of marijuana and or its active ingredients.

The initiative, which will now go to the senate for debate, signals a shift for Peña Nieto, who says he has never smoked marijuana and has openly opposed its legalisation.

Related: UN backs prohibitionist drug policies despite call for more 'humane solution'

It follows his announcement earlier this week at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs, UNgass, in which Peña Nieto called for more prevention, partial decriminalization and a public health approach.

Although Mexico – along with Colombia and Guatemala – had lobbied the UN to bring forward the special session from its original date of 2018, Peña Nieto had originally planned to skip the meeting. He made a U-turn under criticism at home. Mexico, which sees enormous shipments of drugs smuggled through its territory to the US, has been hit hard by violence stemming from a 10-year crackdown on drug cartels and organised crime that has claimed more than 100,000 lives.

Medical marijuana made national news in Mexico last summer after the parents of an eight-year-old named Graciela Elizalde won the right to use a medicine containing cannabinoids to treat Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a condition causing hundreds of daily epileptic seizures.

In November, the supreme court also granted injunctions to four individuals seeking permission to cultivate and consume marijuana for recreational reasons – a move that activists believe paves the way to broader decriminalisation.

Peña Nieto strongly opposed the ruling but responded by proposing a series of five forums on the drugs issue. Those results were released Monday and included prevention, facilitating the medical use and investigation of controlled substances and dealing with drugs “from a perspective of human rights”.

Polls show Mexicans are mostly opposed to medical marijuana, though opposition has softened over the past six months. Polling firm Parametría found 71% of Mexicans are opposed to recreational marijuana, though 64% approved using it for medicinal purposes.

The president’s initiative on medical marijuana comes as Mexico’s record on human rights has been questioned and Peña Nieto’s approval rating reaches record lows.

Security analyst Jorge Kawas saw the measure sparing some individuals the indignity of the problematic Mexican justice system, but doing nothing “with the supply side of the equation.”

He added, “I see [drug legalization] as almost a non issue” in Mexico’s domestic politics, though “it could give some positive press abroad and at the same time provide some important front-page space in the national papers.”

Bron: www.theguardian.com

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'Je weet nu al dat er vanavond weer dronken mensen komen' | NOS

Voor veel artsen van de Spoedeisende Hulp is het bepaald niet hun favoriete dienst, de zaterdagavond. "Al is het maar omdat dronken mensen erg vervelend zijn voor andere patiënten", zegt Crispijn van den Brand, voorzitter van De Nederlandse Vereniging van Spoedeisende Hulp Artsen en zelf ook arts.

"Zaterdagavond is de stapavond, dus je weet nu al dat ze vanavond weer binnenkomen", vertelt hij. "Je zal maar als oudere je heup breken en tussen al die dronken mensen terechtkomen. Dat lijkt me erg vervelend."

De artsen van de Spoedeisende Hulp zijn het zat en willen dat de verkoop van alcohol aan banden wordt gelegd. De Eerste Hulpafdelingen in de binnensteden hebben zo veel last van dronken patiënten dat ze om strenge maatregelen vragen. Zo willen ze dat de regels voor de verkoop van alcohol op één lijn komen met die van de verkoop van sigaretten.

"Niet alle dronken mensen zijn vervelend, maar er zijn er genoeg met een agressieve dronk", zegt Van den Brand. "Het is wel eens gebeurd dat iemand die te veel had gedronken zomaar de behandelkamer van een andere patiënt binnenliep. Dat is zeer onwenselijk."

Naast agressie hebben de eerstehulpposten ook te maken met de troep die de dronken mensen achterlaten. "Ze plassen in de behandelkamer, kotsen de wachtkamer onder en trappen gewoon rotzooi."

We richten ons wel op XTC, maar alcohol is de grote boosdoener.

Ook Michiel Gorzeman merkt dat. Hij werkt al tien jaar als hulparts op de spoedeisende hulp in het Amsterdamse ziekenhuis OLVG en daarvoor deed hij hetzelfde in andere ziekenhuizen. "Het is overal hetzelfde. En het gaat niet alleen om de overlast. Onder invloed van alcohol gebeuren er ook veel ongelukken. Zoals kaakfracturen na het vallen met de fiets waarna een operatie nodig is. Veel mensen komen bij ons na vechtpartijen of aanrijdingen waarbij dronken mensen betrokken zijn."

Het personeel heeft van alle soorten patiënten het meeste last van dronken mensen. Ze zijn zijn vaak agressief. "Het gaat dan om bedreigingen, er wordt gespuugd, of met dingen gegooid", zegt Gorzeman. "Slechts af en toe komen er achteraf excuusbriefjes."

Ook in het OLVG is de zaterdagnacht geen favoriete dienst, "maar we doen het met elkaar. En als er dan een dronken Superman wordt binnengebracht na een incident op een vrijgezellenfeest moet je toch even lachen."

Wat betreft Gorzeman is het nu wel echt tijd om goed te kijken naar de gevolgen van het overmatige drankgebruik. "We richten onze pijlen op XTC en andere drugs, maar alcohol is de grootste boosdoener van agressie naar personeel en van persoonlijk leed, waar je het ook vraagt."

Bron: nos.nl

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Zaak-Checkpoint moet van Hoge Raad weer over | NOS

De Hoge Raad heeft de strafzaak van coffeeshop Checkpoint in Terneuzen twee keer terugverwezen naar het hof. In 2012 verklaarde het gerechtshof in Den Haag in deze lang slepende zaak dat het OM deze zaak niet voor de rechter had mogen brengen. In 2014 deed het hof in Amsterdam hetzelfde. Nu moet een derde gerechtshof, dat in Den Bosch, de zaak in behandeling nemen.

Coffeeshop Checkpoint was jarenlang de grootste coffeeshop van Nederland. Om dagelijks 2000 tot 3000 klanten van softdrugs te voorzien was meer dan de toegestane voorraad van 500 gram nodig. De gemeente gedoogde dat met medeweten van het OM, totdat het OM besloot om in te grijpen, de eigenaar en medewerkers te vervolgen en Checkpoint te sluiten.

De rechtbank in Middelburg veroordeelde de eigenaar tot 16 weken cel, maar het hof in Den Haag oordeelde in 2012 dat het OM niet tot vervolging had mogen overgaan, omdat de gemeente en het OM de situatie jarenlang hadden gedoogd en het OM daarmee het recht om te vervolgen had verspeeld. De Hoge Raad was het niet met het vonnis eens en verwees de zaak naar het gerechtshof in Amsterdam. Dat kwam in 2014 tot dezelfde conclusie als het hof in Den Haag.

De Hoge Raad vindt dat het hof in Amsterdam zijn uitspraak over de niet-ontvankelijkheid van het OM onvoldoende heeft gemotiveerd. Ook sluit de Hoge Raad niet uit dat de eigenaar kan worden vervolgd voor deelname aan een criminele organisatie.

Bron: nos.nl

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Van der Steur: zware criminaliteit altijd via rechter | NOS

Minister Van der Steur heeft twijfels bij het aanpakken van drugscriminelen buiten de rechter om. "Ik vind dat onwenselijk als het betekent dat er een lagere straf wordt gegeven voor bepaalde vormen van criminaliteit."

Eerder vandaag werd bekend dat het Openbaar Ministerie en de politie in Noord-Brabant bij drugscriminaliteit steeds vaker gebruik maken van de ZSM-aanpak (Zo Snel Mogelijk). Er worden dan - buiten de rechter om - afspraken gemaakt met een drugscrimineel.

Die afspraken gaan dan bijvoorbeeld over het in beslag nemen van geld of goederen. Dat is volgens deskundigen soms effectiever dan het voeren van een jarenlange procedure.

Tot nu toe werd de methode al wel toegepast bij lichtere vergrijpen als winkeldiefstal, maar volgens 'Noord-Brabant' werkt het ook bij zwaardere vergrijpen door drugscriminelen.

De minister van Veiligheid en Justitie zegt dat het vaker toepassen van de ZSM-aanpak een afweging is, die het OM mag maken. "Het OM in Nederland is onafhankelijk." Maar hij wil wel in gesprek met de landelijke leiding van het OM om precies te horen hoe vaak en bij welke delicten de aanpak kan worden ingezet.

"Ik denk dat het een belangrijk uitgangspunt is van ons beleid dat zware criminaliteit gewoon via de rechter moet worden bestraft."

Bron: nos.nl

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Op donderdag 28 april 2016 11:46 schreef broodjepindakaashagelslag het volgende:
Drugsvangst ter waarde van 100 miljoen euro in Rotterdam

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Op donderdag 28 april 2016 11:46 schreef broodjepindakaashagelslag het volgende:
Drugsvangst ter waarde van 100 miljoen euro in Rotterdam

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Op donderdag 28 april 2016 11:46 schreef broodjepindakaashagelslag het volgende:
Drugsvangst ter waarde van 100 miljoen euro in Rotterdam

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The War on Drugs Failed, So Why Isn't It Over?

At the request of Latin American leaders who have grown weary of bloody battles over drugs, the United Nations held a summit last week on the "world drug problem" at its headquarters in New York City. For a moment, it seemed as if the global war on drugs was beginning to crumble under its own weight.

Before the summit even began, the UN officials were under fire for making concessions to powerful countries with harsh drug control regimes and failing to push the global discourse beyond the decades-old treaties that laid the foundation for international drug prohibition. Hundreds of political leaders and policy groups condemned the summit's guiding statement for refusing to recognize that decades of prohibition have done more harm than good, fueling mass incarceration, organized crime, infectious diseases and general bloodshed across the world while failing to reduce supply or demand.

At a press conference during the summit, Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of the UK and a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, said the UN system is "increasingly divorced from reality." Former Columbian president and commission member César Gaviria, whose country has been violently ravaged by the drug war, said the idea that governments can rid society of drugs is "totally unrealistic" because 50 years of prohibition have "totally failed." The commission, which supports drug decriminalization, is made up of current and former leaders from several countries, including Mexico, Switzerland, Canada and the United States.

Clearly, the global conversation around drugs has changed since the last drug summit in 1998. There, UN leadership declared that a "drug-free world" could be achieved within 10 years, a goal that now seems laughable. Since then, drug decriminalization in countries like the Czech Republic and Portugal has been linked to improvements in public health, and marijuana legalization efforts in major UN member states, including the United States and Canada, have caused political fissures throughout the stubborn institutions of prohibition. These efforts may well be undermining the international drug control framework altogether.

Calls for drug legalization are going mainstream, but millions of people continue to be arrested for nonviolent drug offenses each year, including 1.5 million in the US alone. Political leaders are only starting to catch up, at least on paper. Shortly before the UN summit, Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, along with 1,000 political and cultural leaders, signed a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling for "a new global response to drugs" and declaring 20th century drug control regimes to be "disastrous for global health, security and human rights."

The signatures of two major US presidential candidates on an international statement effectively condemning the global drug war mark a stark departure from decades of US policy. However, the letter appeared to have had little impact on the summit beyond a kerfuffle between UN security and activists dressed in prohibition-era costumes who showed up to distribute copies of it. The US served as the de facto leader of a global drug crackdown for decades after President Richard Nixon first declared the war on drugs, with the intention of crushing the Black liberation and antiwar movements. Yet recent changes in policies at home have left the United States in an awkward position on the current global stage.

Daniel Raymond, a spokesman for the Harm Reduction Coalition, a US-based group that sent advocates to the summit, told Truthout that the US diplomats have found themselves in a "double bind." The US, Raymond said, must convince its international partners that a multibillion-dollar legal and medical marijuana industry in nearly half of US states can be reconciled with responsibilities to longstanding international drug control agreements.

"The US seems to have taken a middle-of-the-road approach in these negotiations: They are trying to play nice with everybody and keep all parties at the table," said Raymond, who added that the US is more focused on UN procedure than real policy goals. "Because the United States has skin in a lot of different games, they have taken a less proactive role in the UN negotiations and occupied the middle."

Hillary Clinton and Obama's Drug War Legacy

Beyond a handful of outspoken progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans, drug policy reform never enjoyed much political capital in Washington, until recently. The movement for Black lives and widespread protests against law enforcement have drawn national attention to the drug war's contributions to mass incarceration and racism in the criminal legal system. Meanwhile, the nation's "opioid crisis" has put a whiter, wealthier and more politically salient face on drug addiction.

President Obama has responded by reducing sentences for some federal drug war prisoners and declaring the opioid crisis a public health challenge instead of a criminal problem. His current drug czar, Michael Botticelli, has been praised for prioritizing treatment over incarceration, when it comes to people charged with drug possession, but the White House continues to support law enforcement crackdowns on drug trafficking, which can drag marginalized people perceived as dealers into the criminal legal system. The administration has also been less than transparent about efforts to allow certain addiction medications in prisons, where people with opioid addictions are often cut off from prescribed regimens.

If elected, Hillary Clinton is expected to take a similar path. President Obama has asked Congress to appropriate $1 billion to combat the opioid crisis with treatment and prevention, and Clinton has proposed to spend $10 billion over the next decade. Clinton touts her support for reducing mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and has said she would prioritize treatment over prison time for low-level offenders, but she has said nothing about defanging drug war institutions like the scandal-ridden US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Bernie Sanders says that the war on drugs has "failed" and proposes to go even further than Clinton by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and removing marijuana from the list of federally outlawed drugs, but his chances of winning the Democratic nomination are increasingly slim.

Critics of the drug war predicted years ago that state laws prohibiting marijuana would slowly fall like dominos despite federal prohibition. These state-level initiatives provide perfect political cover for Clinton and the Republican candidates, who fear alienating older, socially conservative voters but know that the majority of people in the US now support marijuana legalization.

Clinton does not support legalizing weed, but she has promised not to interfere with state marijuana reforms, and to direct federal agents to focus on violent criminals instead of pot smokers. Republicans Donald Trump and even archconservative Ted Cruz, who have said little about drug policy beyond the debate over securing the US-Mexico border, agree that states should be free to decide the issue on their own, even if they personally oppose legalization. Only Ohio Gov. John Kasich has expressed firm opposition to legalization.

Marijuana has long been the media's drug policy bellwether, but legal weed alone will not stop the violence ravaging Mexico, Latin America and cities across the United States. Allowing the vast marijuana industry to go legit would certainly put a dent in the profit margins of drug cartels, but it may also increase competition in black markets for drugs like cocaine and heroin, making those trades even more dangerous and bloody than they already are.

Still, localized marijuana legalization flies in the face of federal law and longstanding international drug control agreements, which continue to label marijuana as dangerous and illegal. US diplomats affirmed the three major drug prohibition and anti-trafficking treaties last week along with the rest of the UN, suggesting that these agreements are open to interpretation or can simply be ignored by policy makers on the ground.

"Once you start to say there is a place for legalization in controlled markets, then the [UN drug control] conventions can mean anything that you want them to," Raymond said. "At the same time, you are pretending that they say something solid."

How to End the War on Drugs

To end the war on drugs, the conversation around the uppers, downers and psychedelics with tougher reputations than weed must change as well. Politicians must accept a few facts, and not just behind closed doors, where drug reform lobbyists often find sympathetic lawmakers who claim their hands are politically tied.

First of all, humans have used psychoactive drugs for thousands of years and won't be stopping anytime soon. From caffeine to codeine, drug use is inevitable in all realms of society, whether drugs are legal or not. We know this because prohibition has failed so miserably at its stated goal. Criminalizing drugs does not reduce the amount of harm they can cause; in fact, it has the opposite effect. Proven harm reduction strategies and medical treatments for addiction, on the other hand, can help make drug use safer for everyone.

We must also change the way we view drug users, who are much less dangerous than the drug warriors, as it turns out. Last month, an international team of experts sponsored by Johns Hopkins University pointed to the UN's own data showing that only 11 percent of drug users worldwide are considered "problem users" because they have an addiction or drug abuse disorder. Drug prohibitionists, however, wrongly assume that there is no difference between use and abuse, and total abstinence is the only acceptable way to approach certain drugs. This mentality has fueled sensational and racist myths about "crack babies," "bath salt zombies" and "reefer madness."

Meanwhile, anti-drug laws have contributed to lethal violence, forced displacement, human rights abuses and an increase in the transmission of diseases like HIV and hepatitis C, according to the team sponsored by Johns Hopkins. The researchers called on governments to embrace harm reduction strategies like syringe exchange and decriminalize all minor drug offenses, suggesting that doctors and public health experts, not cops and politicians, should be guiding our personal and political decisions about drugs. Every day, people use drugs of all kinds without seriously hurting themselves or others, while the police are busy locking people in cages and reinforcing stigma that drives users underground and away from social services.

Research continually shows that drugs become much less dangerous when users can access health care and knowledge about how drugs work. That's why honest public drug education based around reality, not just abstinence, is so crucial to ending the drug war.

Dr. Carl Hart, a neurologist who has studied the effects of illicit drugs for years, argues that drugs often deemed too dangerous to be legal could actually improve the quality of some people's lives if used correctly. Many artists and writers could safely use amphetamines, for example, to boost their creativity and focus, as long as they stay hydrated, remember to eat and get enough sleep afterward. If we replace stigma with science and common sense, drugs begin to look more like complex tools than vice when used properly.

The global war on drugs will end when all nations agree that drug users have human rights, including the right to get high if they want to, as humans have always done. What happens after that is still up for debate. Activists agree that decriminalization is necessary, but not all agree that legalization is advisable. Decriminalization removes criminal penalties for using and possessing drugs, while legalization allows for some form of drug market regulated and sanctioned by the government. Governments could choose to regulate drugs for quality control and divert tax revenues to health care and addiction treatment, but they could also set up corporate monopolies on production and distribution and use drugs as a source of profit and social control.

Luckily, there are people all around us who can inform our political decisions on drugs: drug users. People who use drugs are best positioned to explain their own needs and provide insight on the real-life impacts of drugs and drug policy, so we can all decide what's best for our own bodies and communities. Drug users and doctors, not diplomats and drug warriors, should be leading the conversation. Until that happens, the war on drugs -- and on the millions of human beings who use, produce and sell them -- is certain to continue.

Mike Ludwig is a Truthout reporter. Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.

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A man is arrested after police found drug paraphernalia in a suspicious home in Camden, N.J., Oct. 22, 2006. Many activists agree that drug decriminalization is necessary, but not all see legalization as the best course of action. (Photo: Tyler Hicks / The New York Times) A man is arrested after police found drug paraphernalia in a home in Camden, New Jersey, October 22, 2006. (Photo: Tyler Hicks / The New York Times)

At the request of Latin American leaders who have grown weary of bloody battles over drugs, the United Nations held a summit last week on the "world drug problem" at its headquarters in New York City. For a moment, it seemed as if the global war on drugs was beginning to crumble under its own weight.

Before the summit even began, the UN officials were under fire for making concessions to powerful countries with harsh drug control regimes and failing to push the global discourse beyond the decades-old treaties that laid the foundation for international drug prohibition. Hundreds of political leaders and policy groups condemned the summit's guiding statement for refusing to recognize that decades of prohibition have done more harm than good, fueling mass incarceration, organized crime, infectious diseases and general bloodshed across the world while failing to reduce supply or demand.

At a press conference during the summit, Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of the UK and a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, said the UN system is "increasingly divorced from reality." Former Columbian president and commission member César Gaviria, whose country has been violently ravaged by the drug war, said the idea that governments can rid society of drugs is "totally unrealistic" because 50 years of prohibition have "totally failed." The commission, which supports drug decriminalization, is made up of current and former leaders from several countries, including Mexico, Switzerland, Canada and the United States.

Clearly, the global conversation around drugs has changed since the last drug summit in 1998. There, UN leadership declared that a "drug-free world" could be achieved within 10 years, a goal that now seems laughable. Since then, drug decriminalization in countries like the Czech Republic and Portugal has been linked to improvements in public health, and marijuana legalization efforts in major UN member states, including the United States and Canada, have caused political fissures throughout the stubborn institutions of prohibition. These efforts may well be undermining the international drug control framework altogether.

Calls for drug legalization are going mainstream, but millions of people continue to be arrested for nonviolent drug offenses each year, including 1.5 million in the US alone. Political leaders are only starting to catch up, at least on paper. Shortly before the UN summit, Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, along with 1,000 political and cultural leaders, signed a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling for "a new global response to drugs" and declaring 20th century drug control regimes to be "disastrous for global health, security and human rights."

The signatures of two major US presidential candidates on an international statement effectively condemning the global drug war mark a stark departure from decades of US policy. However, the letter appeared to have had little impact on the summit beyond a kerfuffle between UN security and activists dressed in prohibition-era costumes who showed up to distribute copies of it. The US served as the de facto leader of a global drug crackdown for decades after President Richard Nixon first declared the war on drugs, with the intention of crushing the Black liberation and antiwar movements. Yet recent changes in policies at home have left the United States in an awkward position on the current global stage.

Daniel Raymond, a spokesman for the Harm Reduction Coalition, a US-based group that sent advocates to the summit, told Truthout that the US diplomats have found themselves in a "double bind." The US, Raymond said, must convince its international partners that a multibillion-dollar legal and medical marijuana industry in nearly half of US states can be reconciled with responsibilities to longstanding international drug control agreements.

"The US seems to have taken a middle-of-the-road approach in these negotiations: They are trying to play nice with everybody and keep all parties at the table," said Raymond, who added that the US is more focused on UN procedure than real policy goals. "Because the United States has skin in a lot of different games, they have taken a less proactive role in the UN negotiations and occupied the middle."

Hillary Clinton and Obama's Drug War Legacy

Beyond a handful of outspoken progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans, drug policy reform never enjoyed much political capital in Washington, until recently. The movement for Black lives and widespread protests against law enforcement have drawn national attention to the drug war's contributions to mass incarceration and racism in the criminal legal system. Meanwhile, the nation's "opioid crisis" has put a whiter, wealthier and more politically salient face on drug addiction.

President Obama has responded by reducing sentences for some federal drug war prisoners and declaring the opioid crisis a public health challenge instead of a criminal problem. His current drug czar, Michael Botticelli, has been praised for prioritizing treatment over incarceration, when it comes to people charged with drug possession, but the White House continues to support law enforcement crackdowns on drug trafficking, which can drag marginalized people perceived as dealers into the criminal legal system. The administration has also been less than transparent about efforts to allow certain addiction medications in prisons, where people with opioid addictions are often cut off from prescribed regimens.

If elected, Hillary Clinton is expected to take a similar path. President Obama has asked Congress to appropriate $1 billion to combat the opioid crisis with treatment and prevention, and Clinton has proposed to spend $10 billion over the next decade. Clinton touts her support for reducing mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and has said she would prioritize treatment over prison time for low-level offenders, but she has said nothing about defanging drug war institutions like the scandal-ridden US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Bernie Sanders says that the war on drugs has "failed" and proposes to go even further than Clinton by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and removing marijuana from the list of federally outlawed drugs, but his chances of winning the Democratic nomination are increasingly slim.

Critics of the drug war predicted years ago that state laws prohibiting marijuana would slowly fall like dominos despite federal prohibition. These state-level initiatives provide perfect political cover for Clinton and the Republican candidates, who fear alienating older, socially conservative voters but know that the majority of people in the US now support marijuana legalization.

Clinton does not support legalizing weed, but she has promised not to interfere with state marijuana reforms, and to direct federal agents to focus on violent criminals instead of pot smokers. Republicans Donald Trump and even archconservative Ted Cruz, who have said little about drug policy beyond the debate over securing the US-Mexico border, agree that states should be free to decide the issue on their own, even if they personally oppose legalization. Only Ohio Gov. John Kasich has expressed firm opposition to legalization.

Marijuana has long been the media's drug policy bellwether, but legal weed alone will not stop the violence ravaging Mexico, Latin America and cities across the United States. Allowing the vast marijuana industry to go legit would certainly put a dent in the profit margins of drug cartels, but it may also increase competition in black markets for drugs like cocaine and heroin, making those trades even more dangerous and bloody than they already are.

Still, localized marijuana legalization flies in the face of federal law and longstanding international drug control agreements, which continue to label marijuana as dangerous and illegal. US diplomats affirmed the three major drug prohibition and anti-trafficking treaties last week along with the rest of the UN, suggesting that these agreements are open to interpretation or can simply be ignored by policy makers on the ground.

"Once you start to say there is a place for legalization in controlled markets, then the [UN drug control] conventions can mean anything that you want them to," Raymond said. "At the same time, you are pretending that they say something solid."

How to End the War on Drugs

To end the war on drugs, the conversation around the uppers, downers and psychedelics with tougher reputations than weed must change as well. Politicians must accept a few facts, and not just behind closed doors, where drug reform lobbyists often find sympathetic lawmakers who claim their hands are politically tied.

First of all, humans have used psychoactive drugs for thousands of years and won't be stopping anytime soon. From caffeine to codeine, drug use is inevitable in all realms of society, whether drugs are legal or not. We know this because prohibition has failed so miserably at its stated goal. Criminalizing drugs does not reduce the amount of harm they can cause; in fact, it has the opposite effect. Proven harm reduction strategies and medical treatments for addiction, on the other hand, can help make drug use safer for everyone.

We must also change the way we view drug users, who are much less dangerous than the drug warriors, as it turns out. Last month, an international team of experts sponsored by Johns Hopkins University pointed to the UN's own data showing that only 11 percent of drug users worldwide are considered "problem users" because they have an addiction or drug abuse disorder. Drug prohibitionists, however, wrongly assume that there is no difference between use and abuse, and total abstinence is the only acceptable way to approach certain drugs. This mentality has fueled sensational and racist myths about "crack babies," "bath salt zombies" and "reefer madness."

Meanwhile, anti-drug laws have contributed to lethal violence, forced displacement, human rights abuses and an increase in the transmission of diseases like HIV and hepatitis C, according to the team sponsored by Johns Hopkins. The researchers called on governments to embrace harm reduction strategies like syringe exchange and decriminalize all minor drug offenses, suggesting that doctors and public health experts, not cops and politicians, should be guiding our personal and political decisions about drugs. Every day, people use drugs of all kinds without seriously hurting themselves or others, while the police are busy locking people in cages and reinforcing stigma that drives users underground and away from social services.

Research continually shows that drugs become much less dangerous when users can access health care and knowledge about how drugs work. That's why honest public drug education based around reality, not just abstinence, is so crucial to ending the drug war.

Dr. Carl Hart, a neurologist who has studied the effects of illicit drugs for years, argues that drugs often deemed too dangerous to be legal could actually improve the quality of some people's lives if used correctly. Many artists and writers could safely use amphetamines, for example, to boost their creativity and focus, as long as they stay hydrated, remember to eat and get enough sleep afterward. If we replace stigma with science and common sense, drugs begin to look more like complex tools than vice when used properly.

The global war on drugs will end when all nations agree that drug users have human rights, including the right to get high if they want to, as humans have always done. What happens after that is still up for debate. Activists agree that decriminalization is necessary, but not all agree that legalization is advisable. Decriminalization removes criminal penalties for using and possessing drugs, while legalization allows for some form of drug market regulated and sanctioned by the government. Governments could choose to regulate drugs for quality control and divert tax revenues to health care and addiction treatment, but they could also set up corporate monopolies on production and distribution and use drugs as a source of profit and social control.

Luckily, there are people all around us who can inform our political decisions on drugs: drug users. People who use drugs are best positioned to explain their own needs and provide insight on the real-life impacts of drugs and drug policy, so we can all decide what's best for our own bodies and communities. Drug users and doctors, not diplomats and drug warriors, should be leading the conversation. Until that happens, the war on drugs -- and on the millions of human beings who use, produce and sell them -- is certain to continue.

Mike Ludwig is a Truthout reporter. Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.

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Twenty (Disappointing) Reasons To Keep Prohibition

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It is widely assumed that the so called ‘war on drugs’ (the war between drugs), has been a disastrous failure, and faced with mounting evidence and criticism, governments would eventually seek legislative and policy change.

The evidence presented is largely based upon an analysis of the inability of drug prohibition to reduce the supply and demand for banned substances, supplemented by a critique outlining the widespread harms caused by prohibition. However, with a different agenda and focus, it might be that this ‘evidence’ in terms of the failure to dent supply and demand, has over time (fifty years), become secondary to other government, business and organisational interests.

Seen in a different light, the Drug War has been a major success, providing considerable opportunities and benefits: