The World Wide War on Drugs #11 - User 2600 is baaasssss

quote:

Medicinal cannabis products to be legalised

Specialist doctors in the UK will be able to legally prescribe cannabis-derived medicinal products by autumn, the home secretary has announced.

Those that meet safety and quality standards are to be made legal for patients with an "exceptional clinical need", Sajid Javid said.

It follows high-profile cases involving children with severe epilepsy being denied access to cannabis oil.

Others forms of cannabis will remain illegal.

'Exceptional circumstances'

Mr Javid's decision was made after the chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs said patients with certain medical conditions should be given access to the treatments.

Their advice was part of a review into medicinal cannabis launched by the home secretary following an outcry over Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley being denied access to cannabis oil.

The parents of the boys, who have rare forms of epilepsy, say it controls their seizures.

The Home Office recently granted them licences to access the treatments.

Mr Javid said: "Recent cases involving sick children made it clear to me that our position on cannabis-related medicinal products was not satisfactory.

"That is why we launched a review and set up an expert panel to advise on licence applications in exceptional circumstances.

"This will help patients with an exceptional clinical need but is in no way a first step to the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use."

'Birthday present'

Billy Caldwell's mother, Charlotte, said Mr Javid's announcement had been made on her son's 13th birthday.

"For the first time in months I'm almost lost for words, other than 'thank you Sajid Javid'," she said.

"Never has Billy received a better birthday present, and never from somebody so unexpected...

"But, crucially, my little boy Billy can now live a normal life with his mummy because of the simple ability to now administer a couple of drops a day of a long-maligned but entirely effective natural medication."

Cannabis is classed as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it is judged to have no therapeutic value but can be used for the purposes of research with a Home Office licence.

The decision by the Home Office will put certain cannabis-derived products into Schedule 2 - those that have a potential medical use - and will place them in the same category as cocaine and heroin, among other drugs.

The Department for Health and Social Care and the Medicines and Health products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will now develop a clear definition of what constitutes a cannabis-derived medicinal product so they can be rescheduled and prescribed, the Home Office said.

In the meantime, clinicians will still be able to apply to an independent expert panel on behalf of patients wishing to access these products.

The home secretary said licence fees for applications made to the panel will be waived, and those already granted will not be charged.

'Safer medicines'

The home secretary's decision was welcomed by campaigners and health experts.

Donna Kinnair, from the Royal College of Nursing, said the decision was "very welcome".

Dr Tom Freeman, senior academic fellow at King's College London, said Mr Javid's decision would have a "substantial impact on research by facilitating the development of safer and more effective medicines".

Former justice minister Sir Mike Penning, who was among those appealing for Alfie Dingley to be given a special licence for medicinal cannabis, welcomed the announcement but said there were still unanswered questions about which treatments would be rescheduled.

"Any move to restrict medical cannabis in the UK to a very narrow range of derived products, each requiring full pharmaceutical trials, thereby blocking out the many products available overseas, will lead to great disappointment and be a missed opportunity."

quote:

Synthetic cannabis deaths spike in New Zealand, igniting legalisation debate

Medics say they are called to dozens of overdoses from drug that is cheaper and more addictive than natural product

The number of fatal overdoses from synthetic cannabis use has soared in New Zealand, going from two deaths in five years to 45 in 12 months.

The emergency St John ambulance services said it received about 30 call-outs a week relating to synthetic cannabis overdoses. The drug could be bought in corner stores very cheaply before it was outlawed in 2014.


New Zealand’s two major political parties have proposed bills to legalise medicinal cannabis, recognising a correlation between the spike in synthetic cannabis deaths and the expense and illegality of natural cannabis.

The executive director of the Drug Foundation Ross Bell said legalising natural cannabis would go a long way to curbing people’s use of synthetic cannabis, which was far more potent, addictive and dangerous. “Let’s legalise natural cannabis to get rid of synthetic stuff,” Bell told Radio NZ.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labour party has long supported legalising cannabis for medicinal use, and in a shock move this week the conservative opposition National party proposed its own bill to legalise the drug, despite opposing legalisation for more than a decade.

The National party’s medicinal marijuana bill proposes that medicinal cannabis products be approved in the same way a medicine is approved by regulator Medsafe, that medical practitioners should decide who has access to the drug, that cultivators and manufacturers must be licensed and products will be pharmacist-only medicine.

Opposition leader Simon Bridges said: “New Zealanders deserve greater access to high-quality medicinal cannabis products to ease their suffering but we must have the right regulatory and legislative controls in place.”

Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick’s bill on legalising medicinal marijuana failed on its first reading in January, but as part of its coalition deal with Labour, Ardern has promised she will hold a referendum on legalising recreational marijuana use before the end of 2020. “I’ve always been very vocal about the fact that I do not believe people should be imprisoned for the personal use of cannabis,” said Ardern.

“On the flip-side, I also have concerns around young people accessing a product which can clearly do harm and damage to them.”

quote:

Middle-class cocaine use fuels London's rising violence, says Sadiq Khan

Mayor says action needed against party-goers who buy drug as well as gang members

quote:

'Centrum Amsterdam is 's nachts wetteloze stadsjungle zonder gezag'

quote:

Volgens de ombudsman is het probleem niet zomaar op te lossen door meer agenten en handhavers in te zetten. "Wat ik zie is dat de handhavers die er zijn, vreselijk hun best doen. Maar het probleem is groter dan ze aankunnen."

"Ze hebben ook niet de goede bevoegdheden om op te treden. Handhavers worden nu in hun gezicht uitgelachen", zei Zuurmond. "En dan zijn er zomaar zestig tot zeventig dealers in zo'n gebied die daar best heel veel geld staan te verdienen. En dat terwijl we met elkaar hebben afgesproken dat dat niet mag."

quote:

President Santos on the Drug War: "The Cure Has Been Worse Than the Disease"

The outgoing president of Colombia takes a frank look at the failed "War on Drugs" and maps a way forward.

More than a century ago, in 1912, representatives from countries around the world signed the International Opium Convention, aiming to curb the abuse of opium, cocaine and other illicit substances. Fifty years later, in 1961, the United Nations adopted the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, establishing a global framework for the control and prohibition of psychoactive substances. In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs.

After more than 106 years of head-on battle, we must now assess, with brutal honesty, where we stand. The conclusion will not be positive. Drugs continue to be one of the main challenges facing societies throughout the world. An effective policy tonight illicit drugs should have led to a reduction in trafficking and use. Yet data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report show that between 2006 and 2015, worldwide consumption by adults remained stable.

High levels of consumption, of course, have an effect on public health. In 2015, we lost 28 million years of healthy life to disabilities and premature deaths caused by the abuse of illicit substances, according to UNODC estimates.

But we are not only losing the war on the public health front. U.S. law enforcement agencies have arrested at least 1.4 million people for drug violations annually since 1997. But despite these high numbers, the availability of drugs on the streets has not diminished. Criminal organizations wreak violence and terror and represent a threat to individual security, national security and even global security. Also, drug-trafficking mafias consistently seek to corrupt state institutions and democracy.

In the world, and particularly in Colombia, we invest billions of dollars a year chasing the dream of a drug-free world. In the last 10 years, for example, we have eradicated about 2.5 million acres of coca through aerial and manual spraying. Still, according to UNODC statistics for 2016, 361,000 acres remain under cultivation. Colombian authorities have made more than 1 million drug seizures since 1993. While such figures demonstrate Colombia’s efforts to fight drug trafficking, they also show we’re on a stationary bicycle, spinning our wheels instead of moving forward.

The policy prescription we have used for years, based mainly on punitive repression, has not solved the problem. We must look for an alternative course of treatment. We cannot insist on a strategy that focuses on repression of small peasant producers and consumers — the weakest links in the drug trafficking chain.

We need a global drug policy free of prejudice, based instead on empirical evidence and, above all, recognition that there will always be drug users. Drug use should be a matter of public health, not law enforcement. Society wins when it sends addicts to rehabilitation and loses when it locks them in prison.

At the 2016 Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly on drugs (the result of a proposal by Colombia), some steps were taken in the right direction. The outcome document included a section on respect for human rights as a component of drug policies. We also managed to broaden the focus on public health through prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of drug users, and strengthened the members’ autonomy to apply the agreement according to their country’s particular circumstances.

Despite these advances, we are still far from reaching a new global consensus to frame the problem and devise global solutions and goals.

The drug problem must be approached from a comprehensive perspective that addresses individual links of the supply chain separately. Enforcement must focus on the criminal organizations that profit from drug trafficking and are the leading engines of violence. We must also act decisively against the trafficking of supplies and precursor chemicals for drug production, and against money laundering as well.

As for the weakest links in the chain – small producers and drug users – we must offer solutions based on respect for human rights. We must provide the former with substitution options and invest in public services that change the conditions incentivizing them to produce illicit crops. For the latter we must implement drug use prevention campaigns and provide rehabilitation programs.

In Colombia, peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) offers us a unique opportunity to overcome the illicit crops problem structurally. In the past, fumigated areas were immediately replanted, since they were under FARC protection and lacked a government presence. Now that the conflict is over, the state is establishing a permanent presence, offering legal opportunities for alternative forms of development as well as public goods and services.

In collaboration with the United States, we are advancing a plan to combine eradication and substitution, aiming to halve coca crops in five years. In the last year we have managed to add more than 62,000 families to the Voluntary Crop Substitution Program. Crop substitution is much more difficult than crop destruction, but it is the only route to a lasting solution that is in line with alternative development and environmental protection imperatives. We also maintain an aggressive program of forced eradication. In the last year and a half, we have manually eradicated close to 173,000 acres of coca.

We have not let down our guard in our fight against the criminal organizations that control the drug business. In 2017 alone, we seized record figures of cocaine (about 480 tons) and heroin (957 pounds).

Colombia will continue to fight this scourge with determination. For us, it has been – and continues to be – a matter of national security.

The War on Drugs has taken too many lives: The cure has been worse than the disease. In Colombia, we have paid a very high price for it, perhaps the highest of any nation.

The time has come for the world to take a moment of sober reflection. We must study, seriously and rigorously, the efforts that have been made around the world to regulate the drug trade, in order to learn from our successes, as well as our difficulties and failures.

It is time to accept the reality that as long as there are drug users there will be drug suppliers – and that there will always be drug users.

The solution is not so simple as advocating for the legalization of drugs. Nor will it come from a debate about who is solely responsible. Under the principles of common and shared responsibility that we adopted decades ago, we all are. Those who say this is solely a problem of drug-producing countries are mistaken.

It is time we talk about responsible government regulation, look for ways to cut off the drug mafias’ air supply, and tackle the problems of drug use with greater resources for prevention, care and harm reduction with regard to public health and the social fabric.

This reflection must be global in scope in order to be effective. It must also be broad, including participation not only of governments but also of academia and civil society. It must reach beyond law enforcement and judicial authorities and involve experts in public health, economists and educators, among other disciplines.

But above all, it must be an innovative, intelligent reflection based on facts. Reaching a consensus – a new, global consensus – that is more balanced, more effective and more humane is essential if we are to face this challenge of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

quote:

The police are losing the war against London's illegal rave scene

It’s one o’clock in the morning in a dimly lit basement beneath an office block on Hackney Road and the rhythmic wailing of the building’s fire alarm is discordantly mingling with the flickering drums and grinding bass of Ed Rush and Optical’s 1998 dark drum and bass classic, 'Alien Girl'.

At the edge of the crowd that has started to mass in front of a sprawling soundsystem, cigarette smoke is mingling with paint fumes as a punk girl wearing a black tutu rapidly spray paints on one of the basement walls.

As the siren blares out a raver carrying a torch and wearing a camouflage jacket walks methodically through the tangle of people on the dancefloor, stopping at certain points to gaffer-tape black bin sacks over the smoke detectors that are dotted across the low ceiling of the basement.

Seconds after the final smoke detector is taped up the alarm abruptly cuts out, leaving the bass to swirl through the smoke and paint fumes uninterrupted.

Tonight, this empty four-storey building has been taken over by some of London’s most active free party soundsystems, becoming a frontline in the city’s war on, what the police call, “unlicensed music events”.

Over the last decade, as licensing requirements in the capital have become more onerous and the number of legitimate nightclubs in London has halved, illegal raves have seen a renaissance.

The number of unlicensed parties in London nearly doubled between 2016 and 2017, according to data collected by SCO-36, a Metropolitan Police intelligence unit.

As illegal raves have proliferated, the Met has increasingly associated them with public order and drug offences and allocated more resources to prevent them from happening. In March, the Metropolitan Police released a statement saying it had “renewed” its focus on unlicensed music events over recent years “following the deaths of young people and serious disorder”.

This followed statements from Detective Chief Inspector John Oldham, the Head of Crime at the Met’s Public Order Command, who said his police force had changed its tactics regarding unlicensed music events in 2015, and started to prioritise the surveillance of suspected organisers.

Covert tools now used by the Met’s Public Order Command include online monitoring and the use of intelligence collection officers that are sent into venues. Speaking in January, Oldham said he expected that the ongoing crackdown would lead to a significant decline in illegal raves over 2018.

“I think that we’re at the cusp of having a drastic effect on them in terms of turning the corner and making the numbers go down,” he said.

But, so far, this hasn’t happened.

About an hour after the location of the party is released, the trickle of people pouring in through the gap in the gate turns into a flood.

On Hackney Road, small groups assemble in the streets and lock bicycles to railings before following the sound of thumping bass down a back street and, eventually, through a gap in some chained gates into the building’s car park.

Inside the yard a group of people are milling around next to a loading bay – chatting and smoking cigarettes. Others form part of a rapidly expanding queue to the building’s narrow doorway.

One girl in a black and white checked dress is wearing a plastic tiara in honour of the royal wedding, which concluded just 12 hours before and saw film stars and aristocracy pile into an ancient building where they listened to Bach, Schubert, and Fauré.

“Did you watch the royal wedding?” she asks as she stands in the queue. “Now it’s time for a different kind of British tradition.”

At the door a fiver is handed over and pink permanent marker is scribbled onto each person’s hand as they enter. Within minutes, the cold, empty office block becomes a sweaty pit – with a gridlocked throng of revellers clutching balloons crushing into the staircase that leads to the basement.

The crowd ranges from shell suit-wearing full-time squatters with asymmetrical haircuts to bearded accountants and dreadlocked virtual reality tech entrepreneurs.

Ancient, mohawked speed freaks mingle with vegans in hemp robes. There are men wearing hoop earrings and gold-trimmed sportswear. Anarchists, hippies, transvestites, and young, spray can-toting teenagers.

All are united by one thing: the desire to party without being constrained by the rules laid down by a club, a licensing body, or the law.

As the building starts to fill up with people and the party moves up a gear, on the ground floor speakers start to be unloaded from a white van and another rig is assembled.

This is raving stripped down to its most basic elements: big soundsystems, minimal lighting, no searches at the door, no ID checks, no fixed set times, no closing time, and no maximum capacity.

Instead of expensive drinks, cans of beer and balloons of nitrous oxide, pumped straight from a large blue cylinder, are being sold for two pounds each at a makeshift bar.

Instead of bouncers, squat dogs trot about, winding their way through people’s legs. Instead of toilets, traffic cones have been wedged upside down into holes in the concrete floor in an area next to the bar that has been partitioned off with a shoulder-high piece of wooden fence.

Above the cones '"Ladies Toilets” has been scrawled on the wall in spray paint. Despite the intentions of the Metropolitan Police, 2018 has been studded by scores of anarchic parties like this in London – from low key events, discreetly tucked away in dilapidated industrial estates to outdoor raves in the city’s rural nooks.

There have also been audacious building hijackings, like when rave crews took over the abandoned Coronet Theatre in late January, putting on a party for hundreds of people as police vehicles lined the roads outside.

Nearly all of these parties have gone off without any problems, but not every hastily arranged rave in an abandoned building ends well.

The lack of security at some illegal parties makes them vulnerable to gangs that are willing to use violence to make fast money, and parties can be marred by tragic deaths from drug overdoses. Last Halloween two people were shot when gunmen wearing masks let off semi-automatic weapons at an illegal party in Leyton, and over the course of 2014 two teenage boys died after taking drugs at separate unlicensed raves in London.

The Met says incidents like these justify its ongoing crackdown, but free party crews argue there are just as many issues with drugs and violence at licensed music events, and heavy-handed police tactics often cause more problems than they solve.

In November 2015, when the Met first started to harden its stance against squat parties, one instalment of the notorious Scumoween raves resulted in pitched battles between partygoers and police officers in Lambeth.

A total of 26 officers and a police dog were hurt in the clashes and 54 people were arrested.

Afterwards, both the free party crews and the police blamed each other for the rioting, with ravers saying the police were too aggressive and unwilling to negotiate a resolution. The police complained of being attacked and taunted by the crowd.

The investigation into the 2015 Scumoween cost the Met more than half a million pounds, according to information provided to Mixmag under freedom of information laws. Those behind some of the more brazen illegal parties say the police effort to clampdown on London’s rave renaissance is a futile waste of public resources.

“The police may say they are conducting 'intelligence-led operations' - but the truth is they really don’t have a clue what they are dealing with,” says a member of one of the most active London free party crews, who asked to be referred to as Dave, though this is not his real name.

“One of the big mistakes the police make is that they always want to know who ‘the organiser’ is.

“Really, there is no single organiser at these parties. They don’t understand just how random it is. It’s not like we have a rigid plan. There’s a lot of chance involved.”

Dave says his crew doesn’t charge people to get into parties unless they are collecting funds for a cause.

On the night of the party in the Hackney office block money is being raised for the Brufut Education Project, a scheme to provide education to children in Gambia that has been supported by several rigs in the London freeparty scene since 2010.

“We’re not trying to make money,” says Dave.

“We don’t want a fight and we don’t want to cause any trouble. All we want to do is have a good time, take drugs, and listen to music.”

The world of legitimate clubbing and promotion has been turned on its head by the rise of social media, with marketing teams doing everything possible to generate viral advertising campaigns and “Instagenic” moments.

But in the free party scene, much has remained the same since the late eighties, when the likes of Carl Cox and Paul Oakenfold were making a name for themselves at rural raves on the outskirts of London.

Most illegal parties still use the last-minute release of the location via a voicemail message as a tactic to try and stop the police from shutting the party down in its early stages – allowing the rave to reach a size where the police risk prompting a riot if they try to shut it down.

“Promoters at Printworks or Fabric want the maximum number of people seeing details of their party on Facebook and Instagram,” says a member of one crew.

“For us it’s the opposite – it’s offline and it’s about friends of friends. It’s the most organic reach you’ll ever get.”

Part of the reason that London is seeing surging demand for illegal parties is down to simple economics, according to the free party veteran and acid techno innovator Chris Liberator.

"Working people can’t buy homes. They've got no foothold in any part of London’s environment whatsoever - and very little cultural representation."

Chris, who released the tongue-in-cheek squat party anthem One Night In Hackney in collaboration with Dave The Drummer in 2004, says illegal parties can be seen as a way for people to take back part of the city and make it their own - even if it is just for one night.

"Cultural expression does not work within a strict set of rules. At most big clubs now you have to jump through hoops to get in. At some you literally have to bring your passport.

"There are people in their fifties who have been raving for 30 years and they don’t want to be literally humiliated when they go out.

"This is not the Handmaid’s Tale or some dystopian future. This is a normal London night out. We shouldn’t have to go through all this kind of stuff.

"I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be health and safety rules. I’m just saying what people feel and a lot of people do not want to play, all the time, by a set of rules that pretty much take the fun out of everything."

As the rave spirals into the early morning the pounding techno in the basement disintegrates into a scattering of broken beats and synth lines as the French breakcore DJ Stazma The Junglechrist opens his set with the track Fluent from his ‘Fluorhydrique’ EP, which is set to be released on the Houston-based label Defunkt Records. Gradually, Stazma drags the rave into a new dark and chaotic phase, ushering in a chopped-up, reconfigured sprawl of drum patterns and juddering bass sounds.

Upstairs, on the ground floor, a different kind of chaos is unfolding as a mishmash of jazz and Afrobeat oddities are played out. The psychedelic '70s Soviet jazz of Aleksandr Zatsepin smoothly slides into the disco flute riffing of Jimi Tenor and funk drumming of Tony Allen, which in turn transitions into ‘Juan Pablo’ by South London’s new age jazz pioneers Ezra Collective.

The growing strength and diversity of London’s illegal rave scene is partly being driven by higher costs and stricter rules at mainstream clubs, according to Tommy, a member of the collective Broken Note.

“London is becoming less and less available for any promoters to do anything,” he says.

“Forget making a profit – you’ll be lucky if you don’t lose money on renting a venue because of all the overheads and costs involved. What that has resulted in is an incredibly strong underground art and music scene.”

Broken Note’s sound is a relentlessly heavy mishmash of dubstep, drum ‘n’ bass, techno, metal, and punk rock.

It was originally forged in the squat parties of Hackney Wick 13 years ago and its members have witnessed London’s free party scene fluctuate over the years.

“When we first came into the scene there was a lot of techno guys around like Dave The Drummer and Chris Liberator,” he says.

“We kind of picked up where they left off ethos and format-wise, but it's a new sound for a new generation.”

Over the last few years Broken Note has taken its sound to clubs and festivals in the US, South America, Australia, Japan and Thailand.

“We’ve played all over the world at this point, but I feel that the core of what keeps us on track is remembering why we do it and how we started,” says Tommy.

“It’s never been about making money. We always try to go into the studio with the same mentality as if we are taking a rig into a warehouse."

Manchester-based DJ and producer Gore Tech manages the label Exe Project and says it’s the unpredictability that keeps him coming back to the London freeparty scene, despite the risk of police raids and occasional loss of equipment.

“I know lifelong ravers that have been completely put off the scene after a single night when it all goes wrong,” he says. “It can be terrifying – people running everywhere and police sending in dogs.

“But I still find it exciting to breathe life into these huge structures that are otherwise abandoned.

“In a club often everything sounds great and the DJ will usually walk away happy with the engineering, but when you are in a building that isn’t actually designed for music you get some incredible, unexpected effects,” he says.

“You can listen to a DJ perform on a massive sound system four rooms away and hear the reverberation of the asbestos Artex roof. It becomes very environmental.”

As pale morning light drifts though the windows on the ground floor, the jazz DJ is replaced by Oliotronix, a female Estonian DJ-producer dressed in NASA overalls with her entire face painted bright blue who proceeds to bombard the room with pounding 8-bit techno via a bastardised Gameboy with enhanced bass and a 3.5mm line out socket soldered into it.

Speaking after the party, Stazma says London’s illegal parties often give opportunities to uncompromising producers and DJs that are deemed uncommercial by licensed nightclubs and venues.

“The spirit at these parties is unique,” he says. “What I like about the English guys, especially the free party crews in London, is that they come to rave hard to super weird music.

“Places like this, where making money is not the main objective, need to exist for musical progression to occur – and this underground experimentation paves the way for changes in more mainstream music scenes.”

Oliotronix agrees.

“There is a freedom you rarely experience in London’s legitimate clubs,” she says. “You’ve got this huge diverse audience - all harmoniously working together - bringing their art, bringing their sound system, their time, their skills, their effort.

“It’s a kind of cooperation that is unseen in most of mainstream society”

When the police arrive, at around 9am, dozens of ravers are lounging around in the car park in the morning sun.

While the officers negotiate with a small group at the gate they are generally ignored by the huddled groups of smokers and drinkers that fill the yard – some sitting on battered armchairs that have been fished out of a nearby skip.

After around 40-minutes at the gates the police drive away. It seems like a deal has been brokered and the, now very hot and sweaty, party in the basement is free to carry on without interruption.

Outside, conversations range wildly from deranged nonsense, to discussions on the pros and cons of playing jazz at a squat rave, to reminiscences about other parties – an oral history of the anarchic underbelly of the UK’s electronic music scene.

Castlemorton Common. Reclaim The Streets. Keith from Desert Storm.

“Rigs come and go, but the free party scene is doing ok,” mulls one squatter as he sits in the sunshine, patting Zeus, a sociable Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross.

“Every time a law is introduced or the police change their tactics it just burrows a bit deeper underground.”

Wil Crisp is a freelance journalist, follow him on Twitter

quote:

Too many people are dying. New Zealand needs to talk about decriminalising drugs

The nation’s drug laws are 40 years old and have done little to solve the problem, writes a Green Party MP

The status quo approach to drug policy is broken. I refuse to accept that we’re helplessly and cluelessly bound to continue repeating past mistakes. It’s past time to end the war on drugs, and the pain and suffering associated with it, in favour of an evidence-based approach.

Politicians have it within their power to do so, and the people they represent have every right to be calling for urgent, cross-party action.

This week, New Zealand’s chief coroner released the information that in the past twelve months, up to 45 people in this country have died as a result of synthetic cannabis.

There’s a number of ways to respond to that fact, but I hope the starting point for many is a human response: a sense of loss. These are unnecessary deaths.

We do not know the details yet – there is a substantive coroner’s report on the way – but if the previous reports of deaths of the same nature are anything to go by, these people will be among the most vulnerable in our society.

There will be an important spate of commentary following this news, most of which will call on politicians to do “something”, and I think it’s time we talked frankly about what that something should be.

New Zealand’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 is over 40 years old. It sets out the penalties and punishments for production, supply, and possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia.

Yet, despite the deemed intention, the approach laid out in the Act has done little to decrease the misuse of drugs. In fact, the New Zealand Law Commission’s thorough 2010 report on controlling and regulating drugs demonstrated drug use stats have remained largely unmoved.

So what is it we, as a society, want politicians to do?

There will be many who’ve experienced loss and heartache as a result of drug consumption. There will be many who are angry. Many will be asking for us to just get rid of the damn things.

But how do we get rid of something that’s plagued society, arguable since its modern conception?

Without a shadow of a doubt, I can foresee the beating of the drum for harsher penalties. But when we’ve had 40 years of penalties and punishment, how could we at all follow the logic that more of the same will produce a different result?

Despite all of our best efforts, and even in the toughest jurisdictions in the world, drugs have not gone away. They’re not going to. No amount of punishment is going to make that happen.

So how do we deal with the fact that we live in a world where drugs exist? Do we genuinely want to reduce harm, or do we want to continue to beating the problem with a blunt and broken instrument?

There has to be a point at which we say enough is enough. There are absolutely no excuses, beyond comfort or cowardice, for resorting to tired tropes and rhetoric and giving into the irrationality of the “war on drugs” when it is literally costing people’s lives.

This “war” has done the opposite of eradicate drugs. It’s pushed the problem into the shadows, where it has become more complicated, more harmful, and more difficult to deal with. Who’s going to stick their hand up and ask for help when they risk going away in handcuffs?

More than fifteen years ago Portugal decriminalised all personal possession and consumption of all illicit substances. People were no longer locked up for drugs, but referred to health and addiction services. Overdose deaths, drug-related crime, problematic drug use, and of course incarceration rates have all decreased.

The evidence is there. It’s not only strong, but has a 17-year track record. Portugal is the only country in the world so far to have abandoned the archaic punitive approach, meanwhile increasing support for abuse and addiction and has seen massive, substantive, and sustainable drug harm reduction.

It’s time for New Zealand to have the necessary, bold conversation focused on genuinely ending drug harm in our country. Let’s ground that conversation in evidence. Let’s look at what works.

Moral crusades are costing lives. Knee-jerk penalisation not only costs silly amounts of money, it multiplies the problem.

So what are we waiting for? If we want to do “something”, it’s past time we did the something that works.

Chlöe Swarbrick is a member of parliament for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the party’s Sensible Drug Law Reform spokesperson.

quote:

Op zaterdag 28 juli 2018 16:21 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
"we met elkaar hebben afgesproken"

SPOILER

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

quote:

Middle-class cocaine users are hypocrites, says Met chief

Cressida Dick criticises those with progressive politics whose drug use fuels violence

quote:

The Metropolitan police commissioner has criticised hypocritical middle-class cocaine users who care about fair trade and organic food, but who she said have been fuelling the drug trade.

Cocaine was used by an estimated 875,000 people in 2017-18 according to the latest crime survey for England and Wales – the highest number in a decade and a 15% year-on-year rise.

Cressida Dick, the UK’s most senior police chief, said: “There is this challenge that there are a whole group of middle-class – or whatever you want to call them – people who will sit round … happily think about global warming and fair trade, and environmental protection and all sorts of things, organic food, but think there is no harm in taking a bit of cocaine. Well, there is; there’s misery throughout the supply chain.”

Use of cocaine in England and Wales is higher than at any point in the past 10 years and the EU drugs agency has said purity of street cocaine is also at its highest level in a decade.

The Tottenham MP, David Lammy, citing reports from Interpol and Europol, has said the white middle-class market for cocaine was booming at the same time that many of the killings were being fuelled by an increase in the movement of drugs, particularly the class A substance.

John Coles, head of special operations at the National Crime Agency, has said gangs’ drug activities “are in part fuelling the surge in violent crime in London.”

There has been a sharp rise in the number of arrests of teenagers for drug dealing, prompting concern about young people being groomed to work as drug mules in county lines operations.

Dick described the cocaine problem in the capital as one “which goes well beyond the police” with “high demand ... causing many of the challenges”.

At the other end of the social spectrum she said the Met has been raiding crack houses and her officers were applauded on an estate after arresting suspected drug dealers a fortnight ago.

In another example of the effect on Londoners’ lives, she said: “I met a little girl the other day who was saying ‘I feel concerned by ... the paraphernalia’, she didn’t actually use that word, but, ‘the paraphernalia of drug dealing I get in my staircase’.”

Her words echoed those of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, last week. He criticised people who took cocaine at “middle-class parties” believing it to be a victimless crime.

In May, the justice secretary, David Gauke, said middle-class people who used cocaine “should feel a degree of guilt and responsibility” when they saw stories of teenagers being murdered in Hackney, east London.

Drugs and gangs have been behind the spate of “street homicides” in London that have mainly involved young people, Dick said. There have already been 87 homicides this year, compared with 117 in the whole of last year.

Recently published national statistics showed a surge in serious offences such as murder, manslaughter and stabbings, helping to fuel concerns about violent crime. However, Dick said the picture was stabilising.

“What I can report is that in the last several weeks, we have seen the rates of many categories of violent crime, I would describe as beginning to stabilise,” she said. “I mean by that they are definitely not increasing, they are indeed flattening, and in some categories they are reducing.”

Dick said there had been “continuous reductions” in scooter-enabled crime since last summer – although there was a rise which she described as a “blip” in June – and that knife crime involving under-25s was starting to fall.

There had only been one “street homicide” in July, Dick said: 18-year-old Latwaan Griffiths died of stab wounds after being dropped off at hospital in Camberwell, south London, by a moped rider.

“In the first five months of 2018 we saw on average around 15 homicides per month, for June and July the average was around six a month,” she said.

Dick made violent crime her priority when she became commissioner. Since she set up the violent crime task force, consisting of more than 150 officers, with £15m of funding from Khan, in April, it has made more than 500 arrests and taken more than 200 knives and offensive weapons and13 firearms off the streets.

Det Supt Sean Yates from the task force said police officers could not solve the problem alone, particularly with children being pulled into violence at a younger age.

“There should be conversations had in schools, not necessarily by police officers but by teachers with their children. The teacher understands the class dynamic,” he said.

“We’ve seen an explosion in social media, all young children now have got phones. It’s not unknown for seven or eight-year-old children to have phones. They are being exposed to violent incidents intentionally or not because they’re viewing this on social media.

“The teacher knows the classrooms better than any police officer would, and they can have those conversations one-to-one with children about what they might be being exposed to, what they’re witnessing, or if they’re peripherally being drawn into it.”

Dick said the Met had conducted more than 10,000 weapon sweeps since April, yielding 1,200 knives, 140 firearms and 450 other offensive weapons. She said 74 people had been charged and 123 arrested in relation to the 87 homicides this year.

Dick defended stop and search, which is controversial for its disproportionate use against black people, saying it had led to more than 200 of the arrests made by the task force.

quote:

Dodelijke explosie Arnhem veroorzaakt door drugs

De explosie in een flat in Arnhem die deze week aan twee mannen het leven kostte, is ontstaan door een chemische reactie bij de verwerking van drugs. Er werd al vermoed dat drugs de oorzaak waren en onderzoek door de politie heeft dat bevestigd.

Bij de ontploffing en de daaropvolgende brand in de flat in Arnhem-Zuid raakten maandagavond drie mannen zwaargewond. Een van hen werd bij buren onder de douche gezet, een tweede rende de sloot in. Beiden overleden later in het ziekenhuis. De derde betrokkene ging ervandoor, maar werd de volgende ochtend ergens anders in Arnhem gevonden.

Frans kenteken

Een van de twee doden is de 33-jarige bewoner van het appartement. Het andere slachtoffer is nog niet geïdentificeerd. Ook van de zwaargewonde man is nog geen identiteit bekend. Vermoedelijk komen zij uit het buitenland, waardoor de identificatie langer gaat duren. De zwaargewonde man is nog niet verhoord.

De politie heeft gisteren bij de flat twee auto's in beslag genomen. Een van de voertuigen had volgens Omroep Gelderland een Frans kenteken.

Het appartement is tijdens het politieonderzoek bewaakt door een eenheid die bestaat uit speciaal getrainde agenten met automatische wapens. De politie wilde op die manier voorkomen dat anderen drugs zouden meenemen.

quote:

Georgia Becomes First Former Soviet Country to Legalize Marijuana Consumption

The country of Georgia has legalized the consumption of marijuana, making it the first former member of the now-defunct Soviet Union to do so.

In a Monday ruling, the nation’s constitutional court ruled that punishing an individual for using cannabis restricts an individual’s freedom as the plant can only potentially cause harm to the user, Radio Free Europe reported. The court ruled that punishing a person for using pot will only be allowed if their actions put a third party at risk. Cultivation and selling will remain a punishable offense, however.

Speaking to reporters after the ruling, legalization campaigner Zurab Japaridze, who filed the suit with the top court, hailed the decision as making Georgia “a freer country.”

"I would like to congratulate everybody on the decision made by the Constitutional Court,” Japaridze said, according to local English-language newspaper Georgia Today. “Administrative punishment for consumption of marijuana was revoked by the Constitutional Court, which means that consumption of marijuana in Georgia is now legal," he explained.

The decision comes after the same court last November ruled to decriminalize consumption of marijuana. The country’s Criminal Code previously allowed for individuals to be punished for repeatedly using cannabis and possessing more than 70 grams of the dried plant.

While campaigners and opposition politicians, who have campaigned for legalization for several years, welcomed the legalization as a major victory, ruling party officials decried the decision.

“I do not agree with the decision of the Constitutional Court,” said Akaki Zoidze, chair of the healthcare committee in Georgia’s parliament, according to local media. “Marijuana consumption should be allowed only for medical purposes…our aim was not to make marijuana accessible for everyone but to reduce the number of drug-addicts.”

Georgia now joins a growing number of countries around the world that have taken steps to legalize and regulate cannabis.

Back in 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to decide to legalize and regulate the plant for recreational use. Cultivation, buying and selling are also legal, although closely regulated by the South American nation’s government. In June, the Parliament of Canada passed legislation that will see recreational marijuana legalized by October, also allowing for the regulation of cultivation and sales. Many other countries have moved to decriminalize cannabis for personal use as well.

Although pot remains completely illegal at the federal level in the U.S., nine states have moved to legalize the plant for recreational use, while over 30 have done so for medical purposes. With the majority of Republicans and Democrats supporting legalization, Canada’s decision to legalize, and with southern neighbor Mexico exploring legalization as well, federal legalization will likely come soon.

Georgia, a former Soviet Union member that has recently sought to improve ties with Moscow, has now moved to legalize marijuana, but Russia remains a staunch opponent to global legalization efforts. Following Ottawa’s June decision, Russia lashed out, calling the move a “breach” of Canada’s “international legal obligations.”

quote:

Fentanyl drug deaths rise by nearly a third in England and Wales

Fatalities linked to synthetic opioid increased by 29% in a year, according to ONS figures

Deaths caused by the drug fentanyl rose by nearly 30% last year, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

While statistics show that the rate of deaths from drug poisoning in England and Wales has remained steady – 66.1 deaths per 1 million people (3,756 deaths) – fatalities involving the synthetic opioid fentanyl were up 29%. There were 75 deaths in 2017, up from 58 deaths in 2016.

Fentanyl has been found mixed with street heroin, causing accidental overdose in users. The drug can be up to 100 times stronger than heroin and is sometimes prescribed as a painkiller for the terminally ill.

One type of fentanyl, carfentanyl, is 10,000 times stronger and is used as an elephant tranquilliser. It was first seen mentioned in death certificates in 2017 and accounted for 27 deaths, 87% of the 31 deaths related to types of fentanyl in 2017.

In April 2017, after a spate of deaths linked to fentanyl in northern England, Public Health England issued a warning to heroin users to be extra careful when using the drug, urging them to test a small amount first and not to take it alone.

The ONS statistics also show that deaths from cocaine were up for the sixth year in a row. There were 432 deaths related to the drug in 2017, compared with 371 deaths in 2016.

In June a report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) found that purity of street cocaine across Europe was at its highest level in a decade and the number of people seeking treatment for use of the drug was on the rise.

Deaths caused by new psychoactive substances (NPS), such as the drug Spice, halved in 2017. There were 61 deaths from NPS in 2017, down from 123 in 2016. In 2016, the government introduced a blanket ban on the importation, production or supply of most NPS.

Rates of drug misuse deaths in England were highest in the north. The north-east had the highest rate of drugs deaths, with 83.2 deaths per 1 million people. The north-west had a rate of 64.7 deaths and Yorkshire and the Humber 54.5. London had the lowest rate of deaths of any region, with 24.6 per 1 million people in 2017.

Ellie Osborn, a health analysis statistician at the ONS, said: “The figures published today show that the level of drug poisoning deaths in 2017 remained stable.

“However, despite deaths from most opiates declining or remaining steady, deaths from fentanyl continued to rise in 2017 as did cocaine deaths which increased for the sixth consecutive year.”

Karen Tyrell, executive director at the drugs charity Addaction, described the statistics as devastating. “It’s such needless waste of life and a tragedy for so many families and loved ones. We have so much more to do. The truth is that most drug related deaths are preventable.

“People who use opioids (like heroin) often have cumulative physical and mental health problems. Most of them have had very difficult, often traumatic lives and we’re letting them down if we don’t give them the best care that we can.

“Nobody wakes up in the morning and decides to become dependent on drugs. Everyone deserves help, and we know that every person can recover with the right support.”

She added: “After 20 years in this sector, I know for sure that we need to do a much better job of providing safe and non-judgmental advice. The reality is there aren’t enough trustworthy places to get support around drugs and alcohol.”

quote:

'Twee doden na drugsgebruik tijdens dancefestival Tomorrowland'

quote:

In België zijn tijdens het dance-festival Tomorrowland twee vrouwen overleden na drugsgebruik, meldt de VRT op basis van bronnen. In één van de twee gevallen ging het naar verluidt om xtc-gebruik.

De vrouwen kwamen niet uit België. Over hun identiteit is verder niets bekend.

Het dancefestival werd tijdens de twee weekends tussen vrijdag 20 en zondag 29 juli gehouden in de plaats Boom. Het eerste slachtoffer nam de drugs in tijdens het eerste weekend. Ze overleed een kleine week later in een ziekenhuis in Antwerpen.

De tweede vrouw gebruikte de drugs een weekend later op Tomorrowland. Ook zij bezweek een paar dagen later in het ziekenhuis.
Niet op de hoogte

De politie zegt niet op de hoogte te zijn van een niet-natuurlijk overlijden. Ook Tomorrowland zegt niet op de hoogte te zijn.

Eerder liet de federale politie al weten dat er tijdens de twee weekends 63 drugdealers op heterdaad zijn betrapt. Onder hen was een aantal Nederlanders.

quote:

Cannabis petition reaches vote threshold in under 24 hours

Petition to legalise 'coffee shops' selling cannabis in Luxembourg will now be debated by lawmakers

It took very little time for petition 1031 on the Luxembourg government's website – calling for the legal sale of cannabis in 'coffee shops' – to reach the 4,500-signature threshold.

This means the petition will now be debated in parliament.

A coffee shop based on the Dutch model – and, therefore, the legalisation of cannabis sales under controlled conditions – is the aim of petition 1031, filed in May on the Chamber of Deputies website.

The petitioner cites a current policy of "acquiescence" in the sale and consumption of cannabis and argues for legalisation to curb drug trafficking in Luxembourg.

The petition claims coffee shops would not only reduce pressure on police forces but also create jobs.

Strict conditions would ensure cannabis sales adhered to certain rules, according to the petition.

For example, trade in cannabis within 500 metres of a school would be prohibited, and no more than five grams per person at a time would be sold, it says.

The demand appears to be a popular one in Luxembourg. The petition was filed at the end of May and released for signatures on Wednesday 13 June.

By Thursday morning at 10:30am, it had already reached 5,162 signatures.

This means that the required 4,500 signatures needed for it to be debated in parliament was reached and surpassed in fewer than 24 hours.

Earlier this spring, in a survey conducted by TNS-Ilres, 56% of Luxembourg's residents supported the legalisation of cannabis for non-medical purposes.

quote:

Police chief calls for more cannabis clubs where drug can be used and traded safely

North Wales police and crime commissioner says ‘war on drugs’ will continue to fail without radical change

A police chief has called for cannabis users to be allowed to freely grow and sell the drug without fear of arrest in cannabis clubs, saying the “war on drugs” would continue to fail if radical changes were not made.

Arfon Jones, the police and crime commissioner for north Wales, has campaigned on the issue for most of his tenure and is now calling for Spanish-style “collectives”, where cannabis users sell homegrown drugs to each other.

Hundreds of cannabis clubs are already registered across the UK where the drug is traded and used in a safe and controlled space but not sold to the general public. Club members pay about £35 a year to join and gather on a regular basis, sometimes weekly, to smoke and share the drug.

Details are available online on websites such as United Kingdom Cannabis Social Clubs (UKCSC), which has 75 clubs registered across the country.

Jones visited the Teesside cannabis club earlier this year and also travelled to Switzerland to learn how different drug programmes work.

He said: “I support a legalised and regulated cannabis market with age restrictions and the personal cultivation of a certain number of plants. It has been clear for a very long time that the so-called war on drugs has failed. I am sympathetic to the Spanish-style cannabis clubs which grow their own cannabis for regulated consumption by their members.”

Jones said he worked in an area, Wrexham, where there have been well-documented drugs problems. He called for a change in the way substance abuse was viewed and treated by society as a whole.

He added: “My views on this issue were formed over many years working as a police officer, seeing the futility of locking up people with problematic drug use, only to see them come before the courts again and again.

“There is an expectation that drug-taking and the antisocial behaviour are police matters. That is not the case. We deal with the symptoms but other agencies should be dealing with the underlying causes.

“Saving lives by adopting sensible harm reduction measures would be a win-win for everybody.”

Greg de Hoedt, head of UKCSC, which was set up in 2011 to advise and advocate for change, started the network after being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. He spent six months in the US after he found that medicinal cannabis alleviated his suffering.

He said: “Most of the clubs are founded with at least one or two members that require cannabis medicinally, so it’s a built-in ethos and understanding that cannabis helps people. Whether they like it or not, when people find out they have a medical condition that cannabis can be helped by and they look around for support, their first port of call is their local cannabis social club.”

He said that since the network was set up he was not aware of any police raids, or any member being arrested entering or leaving any cannabis club. De Hoedt also claimed members included magistrates, bank managers, nurses and television actors.

One of its members – the Teesside club, run in a city centre office block, with 180 members paying £45 annually – has been open for four years. Now its founder, Michael Fisher, 33, wants to expand the model across the UK.

He said: “What we’ve had here is a lot of success, in 14 months, where we’ve gone from about 60 to 70 members to around 180 people.

“The conversation around cannabis is changing and it is becoming more acceptable to talk about. We don’t feel the need to hide in the shadows about it. Something I would like to see is more clubs, across the country.”

Although still illegal, Fisher said Cleveland police tolerated the use of small quantities of the drug, and he described local officers as “very supportive”.

But the Home Office has issued a reminder that recreational possession, cultivation and supply of marijuana remain illegal and that it expected the law to be enforced.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The trade and possession of recreational cannabis is illegal, regardless of where you use it.

“Scientific and medical evidence is clear that recreational cannabis use can cause harm to individuals and society. Those using it should be in no doubt that if they are caught they face prosecution and a jail term of five years. How police choose to pursue investigations is an operational decision for chief constables, but we expect them to enforce the law.”

quote:

Op zaterdag 28 juli 2018 16:21 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
En de criminaliteit daalt maar door:

[..]

[..]

quote:

How America Convinced the World to Demonize Drugs

Much of the world used to treat drug addiction as a health issue, not a criminal one. And then America got its way.

In Baltimore, a young black man is sent to prison for felony cannabis possession. In Glasgow, Scotland, an apartment door is kicked in by the drugs squad. In Afghanistan, a field of poppies is incinerated from the air. In Mexico, police corrupted by drug cartels are implicated in disappearances and massacres.

The War on Drugs is generally presented as a global phenomenon. Each country has its own drug laws and enforces them as they see fit. Despite small regional differences, the world—we are told—has always been united in addressing the dangers of illicit drug use through law enforcement.

This is a lie.

When one traces back the history of what we now call the War on Drugs, one discovers it has a very specific origin: the United States. The global development of the drug war is inseparable from the development of US imperialism, and indeed, is a direct outgrowth of that imperialism.

Prior to the 19th century, drugs now illegal were widely used across the world. Remedies derived from opium and cannabis were used for pain relief, and less widely for "recreation." Queen Victoria herself was fond of both opium and cannabis, before being introduced to cocaine later in life.

Then came the American railroads.

Thousands of Chinese workers came to America during the mid-1800s to build the Central Pacific Railroad. Once the track was complete, however, they immediately became regarded as a threat to white American workers. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the only US law to ever successfully ban immigration solely on the basis of race.

One method of stirring up anti-Chinese hatred was to attack the practice of opium smoking. Although morphine and laudanum were popular as a medicine throughout the US, Chinese opium was seen as a threat to American Christian morality, and particularly to American Christian women.

By 1881, as the Exclusion Act was being debated in Congress, reports began flooding out of San Francisco of opium dens where "white women and Chinamen sit side by side under the effects of this drug—a humiliating sight to anyone with anything left of manhood."

Newspaper editorials thundered that the Chinese opium menace must be wiped out lest it "decimate our youth, emasculate the coming generation, if not completely destroy the population of our coast," and that for white Americans, smoking opium was "not at all consistent with their duties as Capitalists or Christians."

Crucially, however, the first modern prohibition regime was not founded in America itself, but in its first overseas colony. In 1898, America conquered the Philippines in the Spanish–American War. Charles H. Brent, the openly racist Episcopal bishop of the Philippines, despised opium users, and appealed to President Roosevelt to ban this "evil and immoral" habit. By 1905, Brent had succeeded in installing the first American prohibition regime—not in the US itself, but in the Philippines.

Unsurprisingly, the ban failed. Bishop Brent decided that continued opium use must be the fault of the booming trade in China, and wrote again to President Roosevelt, urging that the US had a duty to "promote some movement that would gather in its embrace representatives from all countries where the traffic and use of opium is a matter of moment." The idea of international control of the drug trade had been born.

In the American debate, drug addiction had been framed as an infection and contamination of white America by foreign influences. Now, that vision was internationalized. To protect white American moral purity, the supply of drugs from overseas had to be curtailed at their source. As the campaigner, Richard P. Hobson had it, "like the invasions and plagues of history, the scourge of narcotic drug addiction came out of Asia."

In 1909, America succeeded in convening the first International Commission on Opium in Shanghai. Representing the US was Bishop Brent and the doctor Hamilton Wright, who was to become a major force in the American prohibitionist movement. For the next century, almost every major international conference and commission on drug control was formed through American pressure and influence.

Interestingly, despite what we are told about the "special relationship," the country that offered the most consistent and organized resistance to the American drive toward drug prohibition was the United Kingdom. Time and again, Great Britain diplomatically frustrated American attempts to impose prohibition regimes and establish international protocols.

This was partly because the British were themselves operating lucrative opium monopolies in their own overseas colonies, but also because they resented "overtones of high-mindedness and superior virtue." Britain had its own system of dealing with drug addiction—treating it as a medical rather than a law enforcement issue—and, for a long time, resisted the moralizing hysteria of the American approach.

But it was difficult for the US to push the prohibition of drugs on the rest of the world while not enforcing it itself. Wright began spearheading a fresh campaign for full drug prohibition within the US—once again built almost entirely on racial prejudice.

But this time, a new drug had emerged to capture America's fevered imagination, with a fresh racial minority to use it to persecute. The drug was cocaine, and the minority was African Americans. In 1910, Wright submitted a report to the Senate stating that "this new vice, the cocaine vice… has been a potent incentive in driving the humbler negroes all over the country to abnormal crimes."

There followed an explosion of headlines linking black people to cocaine use and criminality. The New York Times ran a typical story under the headline "NEGRO COCAINE FIENDS—NEW SOUTHERN MENACE." The story tells of "a hitherto inoffensive negro" who had reportedly taken cocaine and been sent into a frenzy. The local police chief was forced to shoot him several times to bring him down. Cocaine, it was implied, was turning black men into superhuman brutes. As the medical officer quoted in the article put it, "the cocaine nigger sure is hard to kill."

This hysteria resulted in the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, instituting the prohibition of drugs across the United States. Over the next 50 years, America would aggressively seek to internationalize its form of prohibition across the world.

Harry J. Anslinger was appointed the head of the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930. Alcohol prohibition was about to be repealed, and this tiny department must have seemed like a dead-end posting. But Anslinger embarked on a campaign of political and media manipulation that was to build drug prohibition into a key plank of both US domestic and foreign policy. He was to remain head of the FBN for 32 years, serving under five presidents and holding his office longer than any other senior civil servant except Herbert Hoover.

Anslinger was, in many ways, the architect of the modern War on Drugs—and the archetype of the American model of the moralizing drug warrior. Anslinger was ruthless in his crusade, often stooping to methods that were unethical and, at times, actually illegal—particularly in the monitoring and persecution of artists, scientists, and intellectuals he saw as a threat.

He was also a race baiter. In order to whip up hysteria in the press, Anslinger incessantly played on racial fear and prejudice, linking cannabis to Hispanic people, cocaine to African Americans, and heroin to the Chinese.

Chinese people, he warned, had "a liking for the charms of Caucasian girls," using opium to force them into "unspeakable sexual depravity." The increase in drug addiction, he insisted, was "practically 100 percent among negro people," who would party with white women, "getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy."

Anslinger was not content to simply wage his crusade within the US. Throughout the 1930s, he lobbied the US government to pressure the rest of the world to adopt a prohibitionist approach.

Then came the Second World War. Every country in the world emerged from the war significantly poorer, save one: the United States. Anslinger and his underlings lost no time in leveraging America's newfound hegemony to force the other nations of the UN toward a prohibition model. They ensured that versions of the Harrison Act were written into the laws of the occupied Axis powers, and Anslinger had himself been appointed as the US representative to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the newly formed United Nations.

Every aspect of international relations, from military protection to trade deals to aid programs, became a carrot or a stick to coerce other states to adopt the American way. Charles Siragusa, a high-ranking FBN agent, laid out these bullying tactics explicitly: "Most of the time… I found that a casual mention of the possibility of shutting off our foreign aid programs, dropped to the proper quarters, brought grudging permission for our operations almost immediately."

Other countries were absolutely aware of this stitch-up and resented being forced to adopt American norms in order to satisfy racial arguments internal to the US. The British delegate to the CND complained that, had it not been "for the white drug problem in the US." other nations might have been left alone to pursue their own drug policies. Another UK representative expressed his frustration that at the CND, "Chairman Anslinger… continually confused his position as Chairman and as US representative."

From the end of the War in 1945, it took 16 years of American behind-the-scenes bullying, but eventually, Bishop Brent's dream of a blanket international ban on illicit drugs was realized. The 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was passed, intended to bring the confusing tangle of all previous drug treaties and conventions into line. This was the result of a US-drafted, and US-sponsored, resolution. It was an American policy, serving American interests—and the hallmarks of crusading American prohibitionism are threaded through its core.

The 1961 Convention is the only convention in the history of the UN to use the word "evil," stating that "addiction to narcotic drugs constitutes a serious evil for the individual and is fraught with social and economic danger to mankind."

Torture, apartheid, and nuclear war are not described in these terms. Genocide is referred to in UN documents as an "odious scourge" or "barbarous acts," but never as actually "evil." That the UN, founded in the ashes of world war and the Holocaust, finds drug addiction the only phenomenon worthy of this word is a testament to just how heavily American moralizing pressure was brought to bear.

The Single Convention laid out the international standard of placing drugs in different "schedules" to determine their levels of danger, the punishments for trading them, and their potential benefits to medicine and science. This Convention forms the basis for almost every individual country's drug legislation. When other nations have threatened to deviate from the American model, the automatic sanctions written into the Single Convention are what keeps them in line.

A full inventory of how the United States has fully militarized the drug war around the world since the signing of the Single Convention in 1961 would take several books to explore. From sponsoring death squads in Latin America, to the DEA undertaking Special Forces-style missions in Afghanistan, to the old-fashioned method of making eligibility for US foreign aid and preferred trade status based on cooperation with drug eradication and interdiction activities, the War on Drugs has consistently functioned as an arm of US military and economic hegemony.

Governments around the world—even that of Britain, which once resisted the prohibition approach and offered an alternative model—claim that it is right that they continue to "fight the war on drugs." When they say this, one should never forget they are enacting an American policy that was forced on the rest of the world. A policy, moreover, derived from some of the ugliest and most shameful threads in US history itself. The War on Drugs is not a global conflict—it is an American conflict that has become globalized. We should all examine its failures and think twice about continuing to fight it.

This article contains extracts from the book Drug Wars, published by Ebury Press.

quote:

Beleggerscongres over cannabis in Nederland: 'Er zit veel potentie in'

Belegger Michael Kraland (68) bedacht en organiseert het eerste beleggerscongres over cannabis in Nederland. Volgens hem zit er veel potentie in de markt. "Heineken maakt al drank met cannabis. Je kan het voor van alles gebruiken."

De Cannabis Capital Convention, eind september, moet vooral beleggers, vermogensbeheerders en ondernemers trekken, vertelt Kraland aan RTL Z vanuit Ierland, waar hij woont.

Sprekers zijn analisten van de Duitse investersbank Berenberg Bank, medewerkers van een groot cannabisverwerkingsbedrijf uit de VS maar ook Nederlandse bedrijven die zich bezig houden met cannabis, zoals Bedrocan. Dit bedrijf produceert sinds 2003 medicinale cannabis voor het ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport.

Corona stapt in cannabis

Volgens Kraland is deze beginnende markt volop in beweging en stappen steeds meer grote bedrijven in de cannabisindustrie. Reden om beleggers enthousiast te maken en ze te informeren.

Zo werd deze week bekend dat Constellation Brands, de producent van Coronabier, 3,4 miljard euro steekt in de Canadese wietproducent Canopy Growth. Vorig jaar nam Constellation Brands ook al een belang in het bedrijf.

Canada koploper

In Canada is het gebruik van cannabis vanaf september legaal. "Daar is nu een groot aantal bedrijven opgestaan die iets met cannabis doen. Hun omzetten stellen niet heel veel voor maar ze hebben beurswaardes van hier tot Tokyo", laat een woordvoerder van Bedrocan weten.

Of dat enthousiasme overslaat naar Europa, is volgens hem de vraag. "De Noord-Amerikaanse markt is echt heel anders."

Niet meer roken, maar likken

Toch ziet Kraland volop vooruitgang aan deze kant van de oceaan. "Bovendien denk ik dat Canada leidend kan zijn voor veel andere landen op het gebied van regelgeving."

De markt wordt volgens hem ook steeds breder. "Er komen steeds producten bij. De trend is echt: niet meer wiet roken, maar op andere manieren binnenkrijgen." Te denken valt aan lolly's, cake en oliën.

'Geen witbier maar wietbier'

Als voorbeeld van hoe enthousiast grote bedrijven deze markt omarmen noemt hij Heineken. Een dochter van deze brouwer, Lagunitas, kwam deze zomer met Hi-Fi Hops.

In dit bruisende water, dat geschonken zal worden bij de borrel op het congres in Amsterdam, zit naast THC (de stof die je stoned kan maken) ook CBD. Dit laatste zou zorgen voor een blij gevoel. Kraland, overtuigd: "Over een paar jaar zullen we ook geen witbiertjes maar wietbiertjes drinken."

Grootste risico: overwaardering

Zijn er naast deze jubelverhalen dan weinig risico's voor beleggers? Nee, dat ook weer niet, zegt Kraland die al zijn hele leven belegt.

Naast het bekende 'je kunt al je geld kwijt raken' ziet hij zelf twee risico's: "Of het gaat allemaal toch niet zo'n vaart lopen en dan zijn er een groot aantal bedrijven die echt overgewaardeerd worden." Als dat gebeurt, kan de waarde van je belegging heel snel dalen.

Het congres in Amsterdam vindt op 26 september plaats. Er zijn 300 kaarten beschikbaar. "En mocht het nou echt stormlopen, dan organiseren we er nog één", aldus Kraland.

quote:

Omzet speed- en xtc-handel hoger dan die van Albert Heijn

Criminelen hebben vorig jaar in Nederland voor minstens 18,9 miljard euro aan xtc en amfetamine geproduceerd. En de overheid verzuimt deze lucratieve criminele handel effectief te bestrijden. Dat staat in een onderzoek van de Politieacademie dat vandaag is gepubliceerd.

Het onderzoek naar de productie en aanpak van synthetische drugs is uitgevoerd onder leiding van hoogleraar Pieter Tops van de universiteit van Tilburg. Het is voor het eerst dat de omvang van de productie en verkoop uitgebreid is doorgerekend.

Omzet nog hoger

Het bedrag van 18,9 miljard is volgens het rapport nog een voorzichtige schatting, gebaseerd op straatprijzen in binnen- en buitenland. "Hoogstwaarschijnlijk ligt de werkelijke omzet beduidend hoger", schrijven de onderzoekers.

Zij vermoeden dat een groot deel van de miljarden in de zakken verdwijnt van Nederlandse drugscriminelen. De omzet van Nederlandse producenten en handelaren wordt geschat op minimaal 3 tot 5 miljard.

Hoeveel winst ze precies maken, is onduidelijk. Naar schatting verdienden alleen de producenten al ruim 600 miljoen euro; handelaren maakten nog meer winst. Vermoedelijk strijken tussenhandelaren en straatdealers in andere landen het meeste geld op, omdat het grootste deel van de Nederlandse pillen en poeders in het buitenland wordt verkocht.

18,9 miljard is:

. Hoger dan de jaaromzet van Philips en Albert Heijn
. Net zoveel als de begrotingen van de ministeries van Justitie en Veiligheid en Defensie bij elkaar
. Meer dan het bruto nationaal product van landen als IJsland of Cambodja

Hoewel Nederland de onbetwiste marktleider is op het gebied van synthetische drugs en criminelen daar goud geld aan verdienen, treedt de overheid volgens het onderzoek nauwelijks op. Het beschermen van de volksgezondheid, economie of diplomatieke relaties is belangrijker dan de aanpak van drugshandel, constateren de onderzoekers.

De politie is niet in staat de xtc- en amfetaminehandel effectief te bestrijden. Er zijn te weinig rechercheurs die onderzoek doen, waardoor de pakkans laag is. Vooral de 'grote jongens' ontspringen vaak de dans. Bovendien zijn de straffen voor drugshandel in Nederland relatief laag.

Ook al worden aan de lopende band drugslabs opgerold en zijn er een aantal grote acties geweest tegen de handel in synthetische drugs, "de algemene indruk blijft dat opsporingsinstanties hooguit een deuk kunnen slaan in een almaar grotere boterberg". De informatiepositie over drugscriminelen is belabberd, de aanpak versnipperd en overheidsdiensten delen te weinig gegevens met elkaar.

Ligging en infrastructuur

Volgens de onderzoekers beseft de Nederlandse regering onvoldoende dat ons land het ideale vestigingsklimaat biedt aan criminelen. "De ligging en infrastructuur zijn gunstig voor internationale ondernemers in legale en illegale branches."

De onderzoekers noemen China een "mega-facilitator" voor de xtc- en amfetamineproductie in Nederland. Veel grondstoffen, chemicaliën en ketels die nodig zijn om de drugs te maken, komen uit China. Toch wordt weinig druk uitgeoefend door de Nederlandse overheid om daar iets aan te doen.

Volgens de onderzoekers wordt het gevaar van de drugsindustrie in Nederland onderschat. De laatste jaren wordt de xtc-wereld gewelddadiger, zitten drugslabs verstopt in woonwijken en neemt het aantal afvaldumpingen toe. "De brede aanpak ervan zou een topprioriteit moeten zijn voor de Nederlandse regering", aldus het rapport.

quote:

Waarom Nederland absolute grootmacht is op gebied van xtc en speedhttp://nos.nl/artikel/2247481-waarom-nederland-absolute-grootmacht-is-op-gebied-van-xtc-en-speed.html

quote:

Twintig cent kost-ie om te maken. Twintig euro levert-ie op in Australië. Het zijn megawinsten die drugscriminelen boeken met de Nederlandse xtc-pil.

Vandaag bleek uit onderzoek van de Politieacademie dat het afgelopen jaar wereldwijd voor minstens 18,9 miljard euro aan Nederlandse xtc en speed is verkocht. Als het gaat over de handel in synthetische drugs is Nederland een absolute grootmacht.

Die toppositie bekleedt Nederland al tientallen jaren. Hoe kan dat? Volgens het onderzoek, onder leiding van hoogleraar bestuurskunde Pieter Tops, moeten we voor een antwoord eerst terug in de tijd.

Van oudsher tolerant

Speed en mdma (de werkzame stof in xtc) zijn hier pas relatief laat verboden. Daardoor konden producenten in de jaren 80 al een vooraanstaande positie verwerven op de pillen- en poedermarkt.

Van oudsher staat Nederland tolerant ten opzichte van drugs. Ook nu is de overheid traag met het verbieden van designerdrugs. "Nederlandse criminele netwerken krijgen hierdoor nieuwe markten als het ware in de schoot geworpen", schrijven de onderzoekers.

De aanpak van drugs heeft bij de overheid maar weinig prioriteit, constateren ze. "Als het erop aankomt, hebben in Nederland andere belangen al snel de voorkeur boven de bestrijding van synthetische drugs."

Zo weigert Nederland afspraken over drugsbestrijding te maken met grondstoffenleverancier China, omdat daar nog altijd de doodstraf wordt uitgevoerd. In eigen land heeft de volksgezondheid prioriteit; een hardere aanpak kan leiden tot slechtere kwaliteit drugs en dus meer doden.

Actie? Pas onder buitenlandse druk

Volgens het rapport wijst de geschiedenis uit dat Nederland pas in actie komt onder grote buitenlandse druk. Dat gebeurde bijvoorbeeld in de jaren 90, toen een Amerikaanse drugsbestrijder Nederland een narcostaat noemde. Een typering die onlangs ook weer opdook.

Buitenlandse druk leidde destijds even tot een steviger aanpak van xtc-handelaren, tot de aandacht na een paar jaar weer verslapte. Een latere poging de markt te verstoren, heeft juist averechts gewerkt. Het lukte om de belangrijkste grondstoffen voor xtc te verbieden, maar producenten vonden vervangende stoffen die ook nog eens veel goedkoper bleken.

Het gevolg: de prijs van xtc daalde en de pillen werden alleen maar sterker. Omdat criminelen meer stoffen gingen gebruiken en bepaalde chemicaliën nu zelf maken, is er inmiddels ook meer drugsafval dan ooit.

De duistere wereld achter XTC

Volgens het onderzoek spelen de producenten al jarenlang een kat- en muisspel met de overheid. Zodra een bepaalde grondstof is verboden, ontwikkelen ze een nieuwe, vergelijkbare stof en moet de procedure om xtc-grondstoffen te verbieden opnieuw. "Zoals Tom en Jerry achter elkaar aanzitten, zo ziet de strijd tussen de wetgever en de drugsproducenten er ook ongeveer uit", is te lezen in het rapport.

Ook een belangrijke factor voor de enorme Nederlandse drugsindustrie is de gebrekkige opsporing. Naar schatting houden in Nederland 200 agenten zich bezig met het bestrijden van synthetische drugs. Al lange tijd wordt geklaagd over het gebrek aan capaciteit en slagkracht.

Twee acties op korte termijn? Dat kan niet

Een rechercheur geeft in het rapport een tekenend voorbeeld over het gebrek aan capaciteit en slagkracht.

"Van een bekende groep wisten we dat ze komende donderdag iets zouden gaan doen. Het zou om een grote deal gaan van meer dan een miljoen. Daar wilden we bij zijn. Dus we trommelen twee arrestatieteams op en twee observatieteams. Een helikopter gaat de lucht in en een peloton ME staat klaar voor de afscherming."

"Maar op het moment suprême gebeurt er niks. Wij maar wachten. En op allerlei plekken observeren en informeren. We vinden niks en ontbinden de actie."

"Even later ontdekken we wat er aan de hand was: de hoofdpersoon had zich een stuk in zijn kraag gezopen en was tot in de middag van de buitenwereld afgesloten gebleven. We krijgen sterke aanwijzingen dat de deal nu naar de vrijdagavond is verplaatst, maar op zo'n korte termijn krijg ik alle manschappen niet opnieuw bij elkaar. We moeten het laten lopen."

Er worden wel successen geboekt, zoals het oprollen van grondstoffenhandel Party King, het overnemen van online marktplaats Hansa en het oprollen van extreem grote labs en opslagplaatsen voor chemicaliën. Maar ze laten volgens de onderzoekers vooral zien hoe groot de omvang van het probleem is, in plaats van dat ze de criminaliteit werkelijk een zware slag toebrengen.

De gebrekkige opsporing zorgt ervoor dat de pakkans klein is, zeker voor de grotere criminelen. Bovendien deelt Nederland van alle Europese landen de laagste straffen uit in drugszaken. "Veel criminelen weten dit en houden er vermoedelijk rekening mee", stellen de onderzoekers.

In het rapport verklaart een opsporingsambtenaar waarom vanuit hier pillen naar bijvoorbeeld Australië worden gestuurd, in plaats van dat ze daar worden gemaakt:

"De straffen zijn op dit punt draconisch in Australië. Waarom zou iemand dat doen als één telefoontje met een Nederlandse crimineel genoeg is om zoveel pillen te bestellen als je wilt, in de kleur die je wilt, het logo dat je wilt, de werkzame stoffen mag je bepalen, het wordt afgeleverd waar je het wilt hebben, voor een prijs waarvoor iemand anders het nooit kan maken en die ook nog van een superieure kwaliteit zijn."

Complex en tamelijk chaotisch

Voor de politie is ook lastig te doorgronden hoe de criminele netwerken precies in elkaar steken. De xtc-wereld is "complex en tamelijk chaotisch". De een regelt chemicaliën, de ander ketels, weer een ander zoekt plekken om een drugslab te beginnen of vindt de 'koks'. Er wordt in wisselende samenstellingen gewerkt; vaste groepen zijn er nauwelijks. Wanneer iemand wegvalt na een arrestatie, is er altijd wel iemand te vinden die de lege plek inneemt.

En dan is Nederland ook nog eens gunstig gelegen. We zijn internationaal georiënteerd, hebben uitstekende verbindingen met de rest van de wereld, een goed financieel stelsel én een oeroude handelsgeest. Er is zoveel legaal zakelijk verkeer, dat het illegale deel nauwelijks opvalt. Nederlandse drugsproducenten en -handelaren zijn relatief betrouwbaar en kunnen leveren over de hele wereld, steeds vaker via internet.

Die combinatie van factoren heeft Nederland tot de marktleider op xtc- en amfetaminegebied gemaakt. Een miljardenindustrie dus, volgens het rapport van vandaag.

Resteert de vraag: waar zijn die enorme drugswinsten dan? "We weten doodeenvoudig niet goed waar het blijft", schrijven de onderzoekers daarover. Vermoedelijk wordt veel geld in het buitenland in vastgoed gestoken of weggezet in belastingparadijzen.

quote:

614 miljoen gram speed en 972 miljoen xtc-pillen: Nederland is wereldkampioen synthetische drugs

quote:

Het zijn onthutsende cijfers: 614 miljoen grammen amfetamine en 972 miljoen xtc-pillen. Dit is wat Nederlandse criminelen in 2017 produceerden aan synthetische drugs. Hoogstwaarschijnlijk ligt de totale productie in al die illegale laboratoria overal in het land, nog aanzienlijk hoger. Ruim 600 duizend kilo speed en bijna één miljard xtc-pillen. Voorzichtig geschat. De straatwaarde is wereldwijd 18,9 miljard euro.

quote:

‘De pakkans van Nederlandse topcriminelen is gering’, schrijven de onderzoekers. Politie en justitie weten wie de grote jongens zijn, maar men mist de mankracht, het geld, de opsporingsbevoegdheden en het organisatievermogen om dichtbij te komen. Een politieman: ‘In een lab wordt nooit een verdachte aangetroffen die verantwoordelijk is voor de financiën. We lopen alleen tegen de sukkels aan.’

quote:

Peru and Bolivia are unlikely allies in the war on drugs

IN THE early 1980s Peru’s government founded Ciudad Constitución to be the capital of the country’s Amazon region. Today, it serves as the capital of Peru’s war on drugs. Clandestine airstrips etched into the jungle make the area a hub for smugglers. They form part of an “air bridge”, with small planes flying in from Bolivia to pick up cocaine paste or refined cocaine, stopping in Bolivia to refuel and then heading to Brazil, from which the drug is dispatched to Europe. A single plane can carry 300kg (660lb) of cocaine, worth some $350,000.

Peru and Bolivia, which co-operate to disrupt the air bridge, are an odd anti-drug duo. Peru is a partner of the United States, from which it gets $120m a year to fight the narcotics trade. Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, once led a coca growers’ union and in 2008 expelled the United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration. Both countries allow some coca cultivation (for traditional uses like chewing). Bolivia nearly doubled the area on which farmers can grow coca to 22,000 hectares in 2017.

The United States has “decertified” Bolivia’s anti-drug programme every year since 2008 and contends that Bolivia, like Venezuela, has “failed demonstrably” to carry out international and American drug-control policies. Yet Peru is the bigger producer. It grows enough coca to make 410 tonnes of cocaine a year, while Bolivia’s potential is 275 tonnes. Most of the cocaine seized in Bolivia comes from Peru.

Neither country is winning the battle against it. In Peru, smugglers restore airstrips as soon as police dynamite them, says Héctor Loayza, the general in charge of Dirandro, the anti-narcotics agency. Bolivia has more aircraft and airstrips, in part because “air taxis” are used as transport in forested areas, such as the Beni department. Dirandro and FELCN, Bolivia’s anti-drug police, identified hundreds of flights in the first half of this year but seized only six planeloads of drugs, partly because of the time it takes to scramble helicopters.

Sometimes the narcs’ perseverance beats the smugglers’ ingenuity. Last October Mr Loayza’s agents found 1.3 tonnes of cocaine that had been shaped into irrigation pipes. But such successes are exceptions. FELCN and Dirandro each interdicted only around ten tonnes of coca-based products in the first half of 2018.

Marco Ibáñez, FELCN’s chief, complains that his force of 1,400 agents is about “one agent per airstrip”. Policing Bolivia’s 1,000km (620-mile) border with Peru, as well as its 3,300km border with Brazil, is a “struggle”. Both agency chiefs plead for more manpower. Even more important, they say, would be authorisation to shoot down suspected drug flights. “All we need is the green light, and the next day” smugglers will abandon the air bridge, says Mr Loayza. He points out that, in 2016, traffickers mistakenly thought that two aircraft had been shot down. The drug flights “disappeared for two months”, he says.

If the governments had their way, their agents would get that tool. Bolivia approved a law in 2014 that allows air interdiction. The defence minister, Javier Zabaleta, said in July this year that it would be implemented as soon as a new radar system was operational. Peru passed a similar law in 2015.

In fact, neither country is likely to shoot down drug flights. The United States has been opposed to the tactic since 2001, when Peru mistakenly downed a plane carrying American missionaries. The European Union will dissuade Bolivia, to which it gives ¤35m ($40m) a year in anti-drug aid. Shoot-down laws violate international law, wrote Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg, a legal scholar, last year. Besides, the practice would encourage armed groups to chaperone drug shipments overland, spreading criminality.

A better idea, until drugs are legalised, would be to strengthen co-operation between Peru and Bolivia. Peru, for example, does not share intelligence. The United States could encourage teamwork, by treating Bolivia not as an enemy, but as an ally in the drug war.

quote:

Op zondag 26 augustus 2018 01:01 schreef broodjepindakaashagelslag het volgende:
Toch maar legaliseren, levert een hoop centjes op voor de schatkist.

quote:

California: Teen Marijuana Use Declines Post-Legalization

CALIFORNIA: Marijuana use by adolescents continues to decline in California, according to statewide data provided by the California Healthy Kids Survey, a biennial survey funded by the Departments of Health and Education.

Among 7th graders, 4.2 percent reported ever having used cannabis during the years 2015 to 2017, as compared to 7.9 percent during the years 2013 to 2015 (-47 percent). Among 9th graders, 17.4 percent reported ever having used cannabis during the years 2015 to 2017, as compared to 23.1 percent during the years 2013 to 2015 (-25 percent). Among 11th graders, 31.9 percent reported ever having used cannabis during the years 2015 to 2017, as compared to 37.9 percent during the years 2013 to 2015 (-16 percent).

The percentage of teens reporting using cannabis multiple times and/or repeatedly within the past 30 days also declined for all age groups.

“These initial reports confirm that legalizing and regulating cannabis doesn’t increase youth marijuana use, but rather it has the opposite effect,” said Ellen Komp, deputy director of California NORML. “The fact that the biggest drop in reported use came from younger age groups is a particularly encouraging indicator of the success of regulation.”

California law legalized the adult use, possession, and cultivation of marijuana by adults in November of 2016. Retail adult use marijuana sales did not go into effect until January 1, 2018.

The findings are consistent with those of other studies and surveys from other states finding that the enactment of adult marijuana use laws is not associated with upticks in young people’s use of marijuana or access to the substance.

quote:

Nederland gebruikt veel minder XTC pillen dan geschat

Recent kwam het rapport “Waar een klein land groot in kan zijn” uit van Pieter Tops, Judith van Valkenhoef, Edward van der Torre en Luuk van Spijk (allemaal werkzaam bij de Politieacademie), waarin twee sensationele uitspraken worden gedaan. Ten eerste wordt gesteld dat er in Nederland per jaar voor 18 916 882 439 (18,9 miljard) aan synthetische drugs wordt geproduceerd. Ten tweede wordt gesteld dat er in Nederland per jaar 194 313 376 pillen worden gebruikt. Deze tweede stelling is duidelijk fout, wat ook gerede twijfel oproept over de waarheid van de eerste stelling. De toon van zowel het rapport als de verkorte notitie die ermee gepaard ging verraadt sensationalisme; wellicht hebben de auteurs hun opzienbarende conclusies onvoldoende grondig gecontroleerd?

Het rapport ligt al breder onder vuur. Legalize plaatste een analyse en in de Volkskrant verscheen een pleidooi voor legalisering en regulatie van de productie van de betreffende middelen (e.g. XTC). Deze kritiek is terecht; het rapport zet in op criminalisering, opsporing, en sanctionering alsof dit een doel is in plaats van een middel. Dit is wellicht niet vreemd gegeven de oorsprong van het rapport in de politieacademie; tegelijkertijd mag men hopen dat het politieapparaat in de eerste plaats tot doel heeft zichzelf overbodig te maken, in plaats van zichzelf aan het werk te houden.

De foute schattingen

In tabel 3.4 op pagina 41 van het rapport wordt gesteld dat de onderzoekers schatten dat er in 2017 in Nederland 971 566 879 XTC-pillen zijn geproduceerd. Er wordt uitgegaan van 157 milligram MDMA per pil (en een straatprijs van ¤ 3,50 per pil; zie verder bijlage 1 op pagina 239). In tabel 3.6 op pagina 43 van het rapport wordt gesteld dat 20% van de XTC-pillen die in Nederland worden geproduceerd ook in Nederland wordt gebruikt (en dat 80% wordt geëxporteerd) en dat er dus jaarlijks 194 313 376 XTC-pillen in Nederland worden gebruikt.

Als elke Nederlander XTC zou gebruiken, dan zou elke Nederlander dus per jaar 194 313 376 / 17 000 000 = 11 pillen gebruiken. Dit lijkt al onrealistisch, maar misschien zijn er wel een paar gebruikers die zo veel gebruiken dat het toch mogelijk is dat een kleinere groep gebruikers toch bijna 200 miljoen pillen per jaar gebruikt. Gelukkig hebben we hier data over.

Hoe vaak gebruiken XTC-gebruikers?

Er zijn een aantal bronnen over gebruiksfrequentie van XTC-gebruikers. Ik werk hier met het Grote Uitgaansonderzoek, omdat dit in hoofdstuk 12 van het rapport wordt besproken, en met de gegevens uit de steekproeven van de Party Panel rondes in 2015, 2016, en 2018, omdat we hier heel gedetailleerde frequentie-informatie hebben verzameld.

Zoals op pagina 196 van het rapport staat, wordt geschat dat ongeveer 2,9% van de 16-65-jarige populatie XTC gebruikt; dit komt uit op ongeveer 390 000 mensen.

Het is belangrijk om te beseffen dat het Grote Uitgaansonderzoek en Party Panel niet zijn opgezet om representatieve steekproeven te werven. Er wordt veelal online geworven waarbij veel deelnemers van te voren al verwachtingen zullen hebben over de inhoud van de vragenlijst. Daarom is een over- of onderschatting van de prevalentie van middelengebruik aannemelijk; en dit geldt ook voor schattingen met betrekking tot de hoeveelheid. Bij het Grote Uitgaansonderzoek en de Party Panel rondes uit 2015 en 2016 is overschatting plausibel (hierbij weten deelnemers dat het over middelengebruik gaat, en dus is het aannemelijk dat de vragenlijst vooral interessant zal zijn voor mensen met een interesse in middelengebruik), en bij de Party Panel ronde uit 2018 is onderschatting plausibel (deze ronde betrof seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag, en er deden vooral vrouwen mee; vrouwen gebruiken minder, en omdat de link met middelengebruik hier zwakker is, is ook niet geselecteerd op mensen die middelengebruik interessant vinden).

In het Grote Uitgaansonderzoek (pagina 197 van het rapport) wordt geschat dat van degenen die in het afgelopen jaar XTC hebben gebruikt, 18% een keer gebruikte, 53% een paar keer, 19% een keer per maand, 9% een paar keer per maand, 1.1% eens per week, en 0.3% een paar keer per week (niemand gebruikt dagelijks of bijna dagelijks). In de Party Panel ronde uit 2015 (over hooggedoseerde XTC en XTC laten testen) waren deze percentages respectievelijk 19.9%, 49.4%, 16.1%, 13.4%, 0.7%, en 0.5%. In de Party Panel ronde uit 2016 (over het bezoeken van de eerste hulp in het uitgaansleven) waren deze percentages respectievelijk 23.5%, 46.9%, 13.8%, 13.8%, 1.8%, en 0.2%. Tot slot zijn deze percentages in de Party Panel ronde uit 2018 (over seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag) 35.6% voor een keer, 43.8% voor een paar keer per jaar, 11.0% voor eens per maand, 6.8% voor een paar keer per maand, en 2.7% voor een paar keer per week.

Deze schattingen zijn relatief homogeen: alleen de laatste Party Panel ronde komt uit op lagere gebruiksfrequenties. Dat betekent dat ofwel ongeveer dezelfde selectie heeft plaatsgevonden in de steekproef, ofwel er weinig selectie heeft plaatsgevonden met betrekking tot gebruikspatronen, wat zou betekenen dat de steekproeven met betrekking tot die variabele als relatief representatief zouden kunnen worden beschouwd. Deze steekproeven lijken dus vergelijkbaar, en we kunnen deze data dus gebruiken om verdere (wellicht iets te hoge) schattingen te maken.

We maken dan verder de aanname dat alle Nederlandse XTC-gebruikers dezelfde gebruikerspatronen hebben als het uitgaanspubliek. Hier is natuurlijk ook het een en ander op aan te merken; maar de kans dat deze steekproeven toevallig bijzonder weinig XTC gebruiken is laag.

In Party Panel zijn de gebruiksfrequenties niet uitgevraagd in categorieen, maar exact: deelnemers gaven aan hoe vaak ze in het afgelopen halfjaar XTC hadden gebruikt (per week, per maand, of in totaal). Omdat we deze exacte aantallen hebben, kunnen we nu uitrekenen hoeveel pillen er per jaar in Nederland worden gebruikt als we nog een laatste aanname maken: het aantal pillen per sessie. Ik werk hierbij met de Party Panel 2015 data. Deze zijn openbaar toegankelijk op https://partypanel.nl/resultResources/15.1/report.html (deze tabel staat in tab “Wave Specific Analyses”, en dan naar kopje “XTC consumption in pills per year per person and in total”.

In plaats van een aanname te maken, heb ik voor 1 tot en met 10 pillen per gebruiksgelegenheid uitgerekend hoeveel pillen er per jaar gebruikt zouden worden. Ik heb bovendien uitgerekend hoeveel milligram MDMA iemand dan per gebruiksgelegenheid zou gebruiken, weer uitgaande van 157 milligram per pil. Vervolgens heb ik de gemiddelde gebruiksfrequentie vermenigvuldigd met het aantal pillen per gebruiksgelegenheid om tot een schatting van het aantal pillen per jaar per persoon te komen. Toen heb ik dat vermenigvuldigd met het aantal gebruikers in Nederland (390 000) om tot het totale aantal afgenomen pillen per jaar te komen. Tot slot staat in de laatste kolom het totale aantal pillen dat in Nederland geproduceerd wordt als inderdaad 20% in Nederland wordt afgezet (dus het vijfvoudige van de vierde kolom).

[tabel]Pills per occasion Milligrams MDMA per occasion Pills per year per person Total pills per year Total pills per year times five
1 157 7.175202 2798329 13991644
2 314 14.350404 5596658 27983288
3 471 21.525606 8394987 41974933
4 628 28.700809 11193315 55966577
5 785 35.876011 13991644 69958221
6 942 43.051213 16789973 83949865
7 1099 50.226415 19588302 97941509
8 1256 57.401617 22386631 111933154
9 1413 64.576819 25184960 125924798
10 1570 71.752022 27983288 139916442[/tabel]

Als iemand 10 pillen neemt, zou diegene 1570 milligram, oftewel 1.6 gram, MDMA innemen in een gelegenheid. Dit is niet realistisch; we zouden veel meer incidenten hebben als mensen zoveel zouden nemen. Maar zelfs met deze forse overschatting zouden we nog maar op 27983288, of 28 miljoen, pillen per jaar komen in Nederland.

In Party Panel 15.1 hebben we ook gevraagd wat voor dosis deelnemers een hoge dosis vinden (zowel in pillen als in milligram), en wat hun voorkeursdosis is (weer in zowel pillen als milligram). Deelnemers gaven aan dat ze 2.37 pillen een hoge dosis vonden, en 1.57 hun voorkeursdosis. In grammen gaven ze aan dat ze 208 milligram MDMA een hoge dosis vonden, en 166 milligram hun voorkeursdosis.

Dit bevestigt dat de aanname dat mensen 10 pillen van 157 milligram MDMA per gelegenheid nemen niet realistisch is. Een schatting van 3, maximaal 4 pillen per gelegenheid lijkt plausibeler (maar is dan nog fors aan de hoge kant). We komen dan uit op een totale pillenconsumptie van 11 193 315 oftewel 11 miljoen pillen in Nederland.

Dit is een groot verschil met de schatting van 194 313 376 uit het rapport; het is om precies te zijn 5.76% van deze schatting. Dat is geen verwaarloosbaar verschil in schatting: zelfs als er een decimaal verkeerd zou zijn geplaats in de schatting uit het rapport zou dit nog steeds een onrealistische schatting zijn. Er is dus iets fundamenteel fout gegaan met deze berekeningen.

Overigens nog een aantekening bij hoofdstuk 12. In tabel 12.3 worden de ‘ooit prevalenties’ getoond. Voor XTC was deze in 1997 2.5, en in 2017 7.6%. Dit wordt vervolgens genoemd als aanwijzing dat het gebruik toeneemt. Dit is echter niet logisch: gegeven dat XTC nog maar recent gebruikt wordt, en de ‘ooit prevalentie’ nooit kan afnemen (als je eenmaal een keer XTC hebt gebruikt, tel je de rest van je leven mee), is het logisch dat de ‘ooit prevalentie’ tussen 1997 en 2016 is gestegen. Mensen die rond 1930 zijn geboren zijn immers pas rond hun 50ste in de gelegenheid gekomen om deze uitgaansdrug te gebruiken. De kans dat zij toen nog actief waren in het uitgaansleven is verwaarloosbaar, maar zij telden wel mee toen de ‘ooit prevalentie’ in 1997 is gemeten (zij waren toen rond de 67). Twintig jaar later, in 2016, zal een deel van deze niet-gebruikende groep zijn overleden. Mensen die twintig jaar jonger zijn waren rond de 30 toen XTC zijn intrede deed in Nederland; van hen zal een groter deel in de gelegenheid zijn geweest om XTC te gebruiken, en bovendien zal een veel kleiner deel zijn overleden in 2016. Kortom: een stijging in de ‘ooit prevalentie’ is een noodzakelijk gevolg van de manier waarop ‘ooit prevalentie’ werkt in combinatie met de relatief late intrede van XTC in Nederland, en zegt dus niets over stijgende prevalentie tussen 1997 en 2016.

Waar kwamen de verkeerde getallen vandaan?

Hoe kan het dat de aantallen geconsumeerde XTC-pillen zo schromelijk zijn overschat in “Waar een klein land groot in kan zijn”?

Misschien zijn de schattingen voor de totale productie correct, maar wordt bijna uitsluitend geëxporteerd. Dit is echter inconsistent met de lage kwaliteit van XTC-pillen die in de landen om ons heen beschikbaar is.

Misschien is de productie minder efficiënt dan de auteurs veronderstelden, kloppen dus hun berekeningen op basis van grondstoffen niet, en ligt de productie vele malen lager dan zij schatten.

Of misschien klopt een andere parameter niet. Ze geven aan dat ze conservatief hebben gerekend; dat betekent dat hun indruk van conservatieve waarden van de gebruikte parameters wellicht fout is.

Hoe dan ook is het vreemd dat er geen reality-check heeft plaatsgevonden. 200 miljoen is zo’n groot getal dat ook iemand die geen onderzoek doet naar XTC-gebruik zou kunnen bedenken dat dit niet mogelijk is.

Nu is schatten altijd heel moeilijk; en fouten maken is menselijk. Ik hoop dat de auteurs de bandbreedte van realistische XTC-consumptie zoals hier voorgerekend kunnen gebruiken om zelf de fouten in hun berekeningen te vinden, zodat ze die kunnen corrigeren.

In de tussentijd maakt het rapport wel duidelijk dat het huidige middelenbeleid in haar huidige intensiteit, maar vooral, in haar fundamentele aard, faalt. Het is tijd om pas op de plaats te maken en te evalueren.

Drugscriminaliteit: letterlijk oplossen

Het beleid in Nederland met betrekking tot drugscriminaliteit is tot nu toe altijd gericht geweest op repressie. Of er nu rekenfouten zijn gemaakt of niet, dit rapport maakt zeer duidelijk dat dit geen effectieve aanpak is. Wat is dan wel verstandig beleid?

Zoals de teksten die ik in het begin aanhaalde voorstelden: legalisering en regulatie van middelengebruik lijkt veruit de verstandigste oplossing. Dit ontneemt het criminele circuit in één klap haar afzetmarkt in Nederland. Bijkomende voordelen zijn dat de regulatie en toezicht mogelijk worden. Een van de grootste gevaren van middelengebruik is het per ongeluk gebruiken van een te hoge dosis of het gebruiken van een middel waar onverwachte of zelfs giftige actieve ingrediënten in zitten. Dit risico is in een klap geëlimineerd. Legalisering zet dus niet alleen het criminele circuit buitenspel, maar redt bovendien levens. Dit effect wordt nog sterker als je de voordelen met betrekking tot preventie meeneemt: een ander groot risico van middelengebruik is het zogenaamde ‘polydruggebruik’, het mixen van verschillende middelen. Regulatie maakt het mogelijk gebruikers veel beter voor te lichten over deze risico’s (i.e. bij aankoop van de middelen).

Verder verdient deze extra preventie zichzelf terug: de BTW die kan worden geheven over de verkoop van drugs kan hiervoor betalen. Op pagina 42 wordt gerekend met kosten voor een XTC-pil van 157 milligram MDMA van ¤ 0,20 per pil. Als XTC-productie zou worden gereguleerd zouden pillen een lagere dosis moeten bevatten om verstandige dosering door gebruikers te faciliteren. Aangenomen dat de dosis niet het grootste deel van de kosten vormt (de pillen bevatten ook bindmiddel, en afschrijving van het materiaal moet ook worden meegenomen), zullen pillen van bijvoorbeeld 80 milligram waarschijnlijk niet maar ¤ 0,10 kosten, dus laten we uitgaan van ¤ 0,15 per pil. Deze pillen kunnen dan voor ¤ 2,50 per stuk worden verkocht; hiervan is dan 21%, oftewel ¤ 0,44, BTW. Bij verkoop van 11 miljoen pillen komt er dan bijna 5 miljoen vrij voor preventie. Er kan ook een hoger tarief worden gerekend; voor genotsmiddelen kan bijvoorbeeld een 50% tarief worden gehanteerd. Zelfs dan is productie lucratief voor ondernemers; per pil van ¤ 2,50 heeft de ondernemer dan een omzet van ¤ 1,25 en een winst van ¤ 1,10. Bij consumptie van 11 miljoen pillen komt er dan bijna 14 miljoen vrij voor preventie. Gegeven dat ook de testservices (voor drugs; zie https://www.drugs-test.nl) dan niet meer nodig zijn, blijft er na intensivering van preventie wellicht zelfs geld over. Expertise die inmiddels is opgebouwd met betrekking tot verslavingspreventie kan zich dan in parallel richten op echte verslaving en voorlichting aan gebruikers van de nu legale middelen, en het is denkbaar dat dit laatste deels langzaam afgebouwd kan worden waardoor er middelen vrijkomen voor bijvoorbeeld ouderenzorg.

Misdaadbestrijding zou dan haar handen vrij hebben om zich te richten op export van de middelen. Door zich te richten op import benadeelt zij immers de producenten minder dan door zich te richten op de export: als een grondstof niet wordt geleverd, zijn er nog geen kosten gemaakt, dus kunnen er gewoon andere kanalen worden ingezet. Als in plaats daarvan een eenmaal vervaardigde partij niet geëxporteerd kan worden zijn de risico’s en de kosten voor de producenten veel hoger, waardoor Nederland een minder aantrekkelijk productieland wordt.

De beste oplossing voor drugscriminaliteit is dus letterlijk oplossing in de legale samenleving, in plaats van bestrijding. Dit redt levens, bespaart de samenleving geld, en zet de criminaliteit buitenspel.

twitter:

barrymc2010 twitterde op zondag 02-09-2018 om 14:31:15 The #WarOnDrugs corrupts those who are meant to enforce it... how do advocates of #prohibition expect to win their "war" without destroying our free society when they can't even stop drugs getting into our prisons because prison guards are tempted into smuggling? https://t.co/zjCGLgNXJb reageer retweet

quote:

Steep rise in prison officers smuggling drugs into jails

Hundreds of staff have been sacked or disciplined for passing contraband, including weapons and mobile phones, to inmates, according to Ministry of Justice figures

Hundreds of prison officers have been sacked for smuggling drugs, weapons and mobile phones into jails, the Observer has learned.

The number of staff found taking contraband into prisons in England and Wales has risen by 57% in the past six years, according to ministry of justice (MoJ) figures obtained through a freedom of information request, with 341 either dismissed, excluded, convicted or cautioned by police. In 2017, there were 71 cases of staff smuggling compared with 45 in 2012.

Surging levels of staff corruption is the latest obstacle in a long line faced by the government in the escalating prisons crisis, amid record levels of violence, suicides and drug seizures, with campaigners blaming austerity and a reliance on imprisonment to tackle crime.

Ben Crewe, deputy director of Cambridge University’s Prisons Research Centre, said staff cuts and a larger proportion of inexperienced officers meant that “those in post are more vulnerable to corruption”.

Last week the Observer revealed that hundreds of crucial, experienced staff have left the prison service and despite a recent recruitment drive to bring in 2,500 more prison officers, the latest figures show that there are still 6,800 fewer operational staff – equivalent to a fifth of the workforce – than in 2010.

A report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons published in July found that Wandsworth prison in London, which is the most overcrowded in Britain, had stopped using CCTV cameras and x-ray body scanners on visitors to detect contraband due to “a lack of staff”.

Andy Cook, director of the Centre for Social Justice, said the figures were “deeply concerning” and called for the government to enforce body scanners at all prisons. He added: “Britain’s prisons are in crisis and ministers need to get a grip. Drugs are at the heart of this, fuelling violence, suicide and completely undermining the likelihood that prisoners will be able to turn their lives around.”

Drugs were found 13,119 times in prisons in England and Wales last year, more than 35 incidents per day on average. The number of finds has trebled since 2014, after years of relative stability, with some smugglers resorting to technologies such as drones to deliver goods. The value of the UK prison drug market is an estimated £100m, according to the Prison Officers Association.

Other banned items include alcohol, mobile phones, legal highs, cameras, sound recording devices and any type of weapon or ammunition.

Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, blamed the poor state of prisons and called for greater funding. “The market that makes smuggling in drugs and mobile phones so lucrative has been driven by a deterioration in prison conditions,” he said. “The best way to reduce the supply of drugs and mobile phones into prisons is to reduce the demand for them. This means ensuring that prisons are properly resourced.”

Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said inmates should be allowed to do constructive work and activities to “take the edge off the misery of life inside”. He added: “Genuine incentives – such as the prospect of release to work or study on temporary licence – give a powerful reason to say no when drugs are on offer as well as preparing prisoners for successful permanent release.”

Earlier this year a former prison officer was jailed after taking mobile phones, chargers and sim cards into HMP Forest Bank in Salford. In 2016, a guard was arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle drugs into the crisis-hit HMP Birmingham, the G4S-run institution which was seized back into state control last month. A damning inspection had found that prisoners used drink, drugs and violence with impunity.

A Prison Service spokesperson said the MoJ was considering the creation of a prison-specific offence for corruption, adding: “The overwhelming majority of our prison staff are hard-working and honest but we remain vigilant to the threat posed by corruption and wrongdoing of a very small number of our staff.”

quote:

First ever trials on the effects of microdosing LSD set to begin

In Silicon Valley they say taking tiny amounts of the hallucinogenic drug increases creativity and productivity, but is it all in the mind?

Silicon Valley geeks say it sharpens their thinking and enhances creativity. Other people say it lifts the fog of depression. A novel experiment launching 3 September 2018 will investigate whether microdosing with LSD really does have benefits – or whether it’s all in the mind.

Microdosing using psychedelic drugs – either LSD or magic mushrooms – is said to have become very popular, especially with people working in the Californian digital tech world, some of whom are said to take a tiny amount one or more days a week as part of their routine before heading to work. It’s not for a psychedelic high, though – it’s to make them more focused.

Microdosers tend to use either tiny amounts of LSD – as little as one-fifteenth of a tab – or of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. The study is recruiting just those who use LSD, because of the difficulty in disguising even ground-up mushrooms in a capsule.

But it’s illegal. So how many people are microdosing is unknown and there is only anecdotal evidence of the effects and any downsides. In a bid to learn more, the Beckley Foundation, which was set up to pioneer research into mind-altering substances, and the unit it funds at Imperial College London, will launch the first ever placebo-controlled trial of microdosing on Monday, 3 September 2018.

A New Global Psychedelic Microdosing Survey

It will be unique, says Balázs Szigeti, the study leader. The cost and the illegality of LSD would make a conventional study prohibitively expensive. So he has hit on a way of running it by inviting those who already microdose to join a “self-blinded” study. They will take either what they usually use in a capsule or an identical dummy capsule instead, without knowing which is which. They will complete questionnaires and tests and play cognitive games online, and only at the end will they learn whether they were happy and focused because of LSD or because they thought they were using LSD.

“The people who microdose right now are not an average random set of people from the street,” he said. “They are very likely to have used psychedelics before and have preconceptions about them.

“You are doing something novel and exciting and that you believe in – and you know you are doing it. It is absolutely no surprise that you are getting a positive effect.”

Those who volunteer to take part will be sent a manual which describes in great detail how to set up the gel capsules – some containing the tiny piece of blotting paper loaded with a small dose of LSD that they normally use and others that are empty – and then randomly assign them over four weeks. Smartphone-readable QR codes in envelopes containing the doses for each week will reveal what was taken and when at the end of the trial.

The Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann, who first synthesised LSD in 1936 and began taking it years later, was said to have microdosed in his old age. Those who do it talk of a sense of flow and focus with none of the extreme hallucinogenic sensations associated with the drug. “It has become popular in Silicon Valley as a way to increase creativity and productivity,” said Szigeti. “I was interested in this and looked at the scientific literature. To my great surprise I found there were zero studies on microdosing. If you go online there are hundreds and hundreds of people expressing very positive outcomes but this is completely novel terrain in scientific literature.”

Amanda Feilding, director of the Beckley Foundation, has spent her life supporting research into psychedelic drugs. “Since I first learned about LSD in 1966, before it was made illegal, I became aware of its great potential value for health and cognitive enhancement,” she said.

She gets a lot of correspondence on microdosing from San Francisco, she said. “I think it is spreading but it is impossible to tell how much it is happening because no one knows. There has been a lot of talk about it in the last few years.” At low doses, she says she thinks of it “almost as a psycho-vitamin”.

“I think it could give a boost to vitality, an improvement in mood possibly.” People have reported that it has lifted their depression, while others say it makes them feel more excited about their work.

“One can’t and doesn’t want to encourage people to microdose, but it is interesting to try to gather data in a slightly more scientific way from people who are doing it,” she said.

David Erritzoe, who is working on the study with Szigeti, said it is “in all ways an unusual project” piloted with a small group of people. They found the self-blinding feasible. “They could do it and they found it fun and stimulating,” he said. Those taking part could break the blind themselves if they so wanted but, he said, “hopefully they will be on board and try to get it right by following the manual.” He and Szigeti say if the results are interesting, more conventional trials ought to be carried out.

quote:

'It lifted me out of depression': is microdosing good for your mind?

Little research exists on the effects of tiny doses of hallucinogens, but devotees of the practice report remarkable benefits

Erica Avey, 27, microdosed on LSD for eight months, using an analogue that was legal in Germany, where she was living. “I started microdosing essentially because I was in a really depressed stage of my life. It was for mental health reasons – mood balancing, mood management. It was hard for me to leave my apartment and do normal things as a human being,” she said.

Depression or sadness are very common reasons for starting; Avey was unusual only in that she could be open about it. Her workplace knew and thought it was fine. “As long as I wasn’t out of control or permanently high at work they were quite OK.”

She took about 15 micrograms (a whole tab is 100 micrograms). “That was a good amount for me. Some people take as little as six,” she said. She adopted a popular protocol – one day on, three days off.

It worked for her. “It definitely had the effect I wanted,” she said. “It lifted me out of a pretty deep depression. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what it has done to me in the long-term. I think it has changed me.” She had been “pretty negative”, she said, mindlessly going through social media, plagued with obsessive thoughts.

“I’m able to be more mindful of my emotions. If I’m feeling sad, that’s OK. I don’t obsess anymore. I don’t dwell on it. I don’t get worked up about it.”

She and others spoke of becoming more aware of the need to be active, cut down on alcohol and eat healthily. She talked of heightened energy and heightened awareness. In the beginning she felt more productive and creative, but later that became more of a problem.

“I was able to get all my work done but around 2pm to 3pm I would hit this wall of really needing to go out for a walk, a need to be moving,” she said. And although it lifted her depression, she felt more anxiety. “There were one or two experiences when I did feel a bit overwhelmed. If people experience high levels of anxiety, I don’t think this is for them.”

Microdosing, for her, is a transformative psychological experience and she is not the only one who feels it is in danger of being misused in Silicon Valley. “To think of people using this just to write code faster does seem a bit superficial. But it might be good for them. They might re-evaluate their lives in ways.”

It’s not the answer to everything. She left her job and moved on. In a blog, Avey wrote: “There’s no magic pill. Microdosing is not a good-time-guaranteed, call-now ‘remedy’ or quick fix. Our minds are in conversation with our environments. We create and are created by our contexts. And in many cases, we don’t need drugs, just a new environment.”

Alex, 35, (not his real name) is a paramedic in the NHS and can tell nobody that he microdoses. Severely depressed, he turned down his GP’s offer of antidepressants which he had tried before without success, he said. He did a lot of reading and researching online before experimenting with microdoses of LSD.

“What struck me was that there was no discernible difference at first,” he said. “I’d never tried LSD recreationally before so I had no idea what to expect. I stared at a blank wall every now and then just to make sure I didn’t see any hallucinations, but there was nothing. Weirdly, it’s not until the next day, in retrospect where you look back, that you realise you handled things, or reacted to things differently. It’s so subtle it’s easy to miss. But it definitely worked.

”I continued taking it for approximately three months – sometimes I’d take a dose before work (around 9 mcg dose). I found that whilst it improved my concentration, I didn’t want to become dependent on it for that purpose. Once I was out of that ‘black hole’ cycle I stopped taking it, but I will take it again if I need to.”

Adam, 30, (not his real name) lives in Germany and has been microdosing on magic mushrooms for five months, on and off. He also follows the one day on, three days off protocol. He says he is stereotypical of those who microdose: “someone who has been struggling with more or less intense depression all my life.” Before he started, this spring, he was stuck in a rut, he said. “I lost interest in my everyday activities. I had no sense of pride or joy.” He was drinking too much red wine after work to calm down.

Microdosing, he says, “doesn’t make me feel better. It forces me to reflect on things. It helped me to reshape my daily habits.” He got back into exercise – running on the days he microdosed, going to the gym the day after. He ate and slept better.

There are downsides. “I can get a little anxious on dosing days,” he said. He talks of underestimating challenges, having to confront things and not duck them, whether thoughts or encounters with strangers. On microdosing days, he said, he is exhausted and in bed by 10pm. The second day brings an afterglow, he said, which is more pleasant.

He too does not believe microdosing should be used to try to boost your career. “I’m not a big fan of people promulgating microdosing to a bunch of CEOs to increase their work,” he said.

quote:

Hoe cash en coke Antwerpen in de greep krijgen: ‘De haven is zo lek als een vergiet’

quote:

Volgens de politiediensten in Antwerpen gaat ongeveer 80 procent van de cocaïne die in Antwerpen aan land komt, direct door naar Nederland.

quote:

European Drug Report

quote:

We are pleased to present the EMCDDA’s annual analysis of the drug phenomenon in
Europe. The European Drug Report 2018: Trends and Developments
provides a timely insight into Europe’s drug problems and responses. Our flagship report is built on a thorough review of European and national data that highlights emerging patterns and
issues. This year it is accompanied online by 30 Country Drug Reports and resources containing full data arrays and graphics, allowing an overview for each country.

Our report is designed to equip our stakeholders with a comprehensive overview. It will
also provide an early warning of new drug trends, help identify priorities for national and
local strategic planning, enable comparisons between countries and support evaluations
through the provision of data on trends. The report is complemented by our recent triennial
publication, the Health and social responses to drug problems: a European guide
(2017).

This year, for a wide range of substances, we are seeing some worrying signs of increased
levels of drug production now taking place within Europe, closer to consumer markets.
Technological advances facilitate this development, and they also connect European drug
producers and consumers to global markets via the surface web and darknet. We also note
that the increase in cocaine production in South America is now having an impact on the
European market, bringing both increased risk of health problems for users and more
complex challenges for law enforcement, as traffickers modify and switch supply routes.
Emerging evidence of the increased availability and use of crack cocaine in Europe is also
a cause for concern and requires monitoring.

quote:

The undersea and the ecstasy: MDMA leaves octopuses loved up

quote:

What happens when you give an octopus MDMA? It sounds like a question that might flit through the meandering mind of someone who had been dabbling in psychedelics. But now the matter has become the focus of an unlikely-sounding scientific experiment to uncover the ancient origins of social behaviour.

quote:

Zorgen om ‘staatshasj’ bij coffeeshops én Kamerleden

Tijdens het 'wietexperiment' moet illegaal geïmporteerde hasj wijken voor door de overheid gecontroleerde 'nederhasj'. Maar het gaat nooit lukken om de kwaliteit van Marokkaanse hasj te evenaren, zegt Joachim Helms, coffeeshophouder en voorzitter van de Bond van Cannabisdetaillisten. "Het is alsof je Franse wijn in Nederland wilt produceren."

Ook in Marokko, het hart van de wereldwijde hasjproductie, denken ze dat. "Onze kwaliteit is veel beter dan de Nederlandse", claimt een Marokkaanse cannabisboer. "Het gaat Nederland nooit lukken net zulke goede hasj te maken", bevestigt een ander. "De grond, het klimaat, alles is hier beter."

Wiet op de daken

Marokko is de grootste cannabisproducent ter wereld. Volgens een controleorgaan van de Verenigde Naties komt 42 procent van de cannabis wereldwijd uit Marokko. Een groot deel daarvan wordt naar Europa gesmokkeld, onder meer naar Nederland.

De cannabisplant is alom aanwezig in het Rifgebergte. De wiet groeit niet alleen tegen alle berghellingen, maar ook langs de weg, in voortuinen, achtertuinen en rond moskeeën. Geoogste wiet wordt gedroogd op daken, in woonkamers, gangen en toiletten. De Marokkaanse cannabisboeren hebben achterkamertjes met honderden kilo's cannabis.

Het productieproces van hasj is zeer arbeidsintensief: de cannabisbloemen worden stukgeslagen op een fijnmazig doek dat over een schaal is gespannen. Een kleine hoeveelheid kleverig poeder blijft over. Hier worden plakken hasj van geperst.

Overheidsexperiment

In Nederland worden dit najaar de gemeenten geselecteerd die gaan meedoen aan het overheidsexperiment waarbij coffeeshops legaal met hasj en wiet worden bevoorraad. Nu is die bevoorrading aan de zogenaamde 'achterdeur' van coffeeshops nog illegaal. Alleen de verkoop van kleine hoeveelheden wiet en hasj aan de consument wordt gedoogd.

Om aan die kromme situatie een einde te maken en de drugsmaffia buiten spel te zetten, gaan zes tot tien gemeenten meedoen aan een test waarbij ook de aanvoer van wiet en hasj wordt gereguleerd. Er worden vijftien soorten nederwiet en tien soorten nederhasj aangeboden, zo is het plan.

Zwarte markt

Als ze in de deelnemende coffeeshops geen Marokkaanse hasj mogen verkopen heeft dat grote gevolgen voor het experiment, denkt coffeeshophouder Helms. "Zo'n kwart van de klanten rookt hasj. Zij zullen zich alsnog tot de zwarte markt wenden, terwijl het juist de bedoeling is de illegale handel tegen te gaan."

Ook de Tweede Kamer maakt zich zorgen. "Coffeeshops moeten in het experiment in een keer al hun buitenlandse hasj wegdoen", zegt Kathalijne Buitenweg (GroenLinks). "Dat is een weinig aantrekkelijk scenario, zeker in een experiment dat misschien maar vier jaar duurt."

"Het is een complex vraagstuk, want je wilt niet dat de straathandel toeneemt", zegt initiatiefnemer voor wietregulering Vera Bergkamp (D66). "Bovendien moet de proef aantrekkelijk zijn voor coffeeshops die meedoen. Aan de andere kant willen we controle op de kwaliteit hebben en criminele handel niet langer toestaan."

'Schimmiger'

Coalitiepartij D66 en oppositiepartij SP stellen deze week nog vragen over de buitenlandse hasj aan de ministers Ferdinand Grapperhaus (CDA) van Justitie en Bruno Bruins (VVD) voor Medische Zorg. Kees van der Staaij (SGP) vindt het in ieder geval geen optie om de buitenlandse hasj te blijven gedogen, zoals de coffeeshops willen. "Dan slaat het experiment nergens op en wordt het nog schimmiger."

Ook burgemeester Paul Depla van Breda is daar geen voorstander van. "Het experiment is bedoeld om de achterdeur eindelijk te reguleren. Dan kun je niet accepteren dat coffeeshops met één been in de criminaliteit blijven staan door de aanvoer van illegaal geïmporteerde hasj."

Bovendien verwacht Depla dat Nederlandse kwekers snel met een vervangend product komen voor de Marokkaanse hasj. "Nederland is helaas heel goed in allerlei drugs maken. Dan zou het mij hogelijk verbazen als alles hier kan worden geproduceerd, behalve die hasj."

Legale import

Er gaan ook stemmen op om de import van Marokkaanse hasj te reguleren en legaliseren. "Waarom zou je die boeren die Nederland al decennia van hasj voorzien nu buiten willen sluiten?" vraagt Martin Jelsma zich af. Hij is directeur drugsresearch van de internationaal opererende denktank Transnational Institute (TNI). "Natuurlijk zijn er juridische obstakels, maar met zorgvuldig overleg tussen Marokko en Nederland moet het kunnen. Het is geen makkelijk proces, maar wel een noodzakelijk proces."

Het lijkt een utopie, maar de ontwikkelingen rond de legalisering van cannabis gaan razendsnel. In zowel Uruguay als verschillende Amerikaanse staten is de productie en verkoop al legaal, Canada volgt volgende maand.

quote:

Canada signs on to U.S.-led renewal of war on drugs

Canada was rebuked on Monday by a group of world leaders and experts on drug policy for endorsing a Trump-led declaration renewing the “war on drugs” and for passing up a critical moment to provide global leadership on drug regulation.

The Trudeau government’s decision to sign on to the declaration, released by the White House on the sidelines of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first attendance at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, contradicts Ottawa’s previous skepticism of Washington’s drugs war at home and abroad, and comes just weeks before cannabis legalization in Canada.

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark said she believed that both Canada and Mexico − which also signed the declaration even though president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has repeatedly said that the “war on drugs” has failed and he will pursue new policy − likely have signed on reluctantly, held hostage by the North American free-trade agreement talks in Washington, over which a critical deadline looms.

Countries that signed the “Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem” were promised an invitation for their leader to attend a kick-off event with Mr. Trump in New York. The statement was not drafted in the usual multilateral process of a declaration from the UN and the wording was presented as non-negotiable. One hundred and thirty countries signed but 63 did not; the dissenters include major U.S. allies such as Germany, Norway and Spain.

The statement reiterates the primacy of international “narcotics control” efforts, with an emphasis on criminalization and the role of law enforcement. It does not contain the word “human rights”; advocates for harm reduction and against mass incarceration have been trying to inject a rights-focused approach into international drug policy.

Early on, the United States enlisted Russia and the Philippines − where President Rodrigo Duterte has declared a “drug war” that has resulted in more than 20,000 extrajudicial killings of suspected drug users − as “co-hosts” of the statement.

A panel of the former heads of government who lead the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a respected, non-partisan body, said here that they had expected Canada not to sign.

"It’s clear that a good third of the signatories have already moved along the path [to regulation] – they’re being hypocritical and sucking up to Trump – it’s pathetic and painful,” said Maria Cattaui, a commission member from Switzerland.

Ms. Clark added, “It’s giving in to bullying and extortion and it’s outrageous.”

She speculated that it was the state of NAFTA talks that got Canada and Mexico to sign. “Knowing the New York environment very well – I suspect that many countries have come under great pressure to sign for a range of reasons – they may, for example, be involved in delicate negotiations with the U.S. at the present time.”

However Alex Lawrence, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Canada’s approach to addressing drug issues is consistent with the UN treaties the Trump statement endorses, cannabis regulation notwithstanding. “Canada participated in and signed the Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem [because] Canada remains a strong supporter of the international drug-control framework and will continue working with our international partners to advance the objectives of the UN drug conventions,” he said. “The legalization of cannabis does not change our commitment to meeting the overarching goal of these conventions – protecting the health and safety of people.”

Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of Britain, called the Canadian endorsement a diplomatic decision rather than a policy one.

“I guess there was a judgment to be made, which from my days in government I can understand, why they did it – if you’re fighting lots of battles at once, you probably decide which battles to choose,” he said.

But he said that Canada’s actions speak louder than the statement endorsed in New York. “[Canada] clearly also thinks that a new approach needs to be tried out.”

Mr. Clegg, Ms. Clark and others were in Mexico City for the launch of a commission report entitled Regulation: the Responsible Control of Drugs, released here in recognition of the brutal toll the drug war has taken on this country, where at least 100,000 people have died in the militarized response to narco-trafficking. Mr. Lopez Obrador has said that he will take a different tack from his predecessors. “It’s been absurd what they have done to try to extinguish fire with fire, to use only brute force, coercive measures, police, the navy, soldiers, prisons, tough threats and harsher laws," he said on the campaign trail late last year. “No, that does not work, it’s been proven.”

Commission members emphasized this point on Monday. “The international drug control system … has to evolve to meet the needs of the reform-minded states and there are such states – Canada is the latest example,” Ms. Clark said.

“Canada has moved to legal regulation of cannabis knowing that a strict interpretation of the current international drug compliance system would see it non-compliant."

quote:

Former world leaders call for worldwide legalisation as ‘war on drugs has failed’

A group including 12 former heads of state has called for drugs to be legalised worldwide, as the war on drugs has ‘failed’, a report published today said.

The report ‘Regulation: The Responsible Control of Drugs’ by the Global Commission on Drug Policy found that arresting drug dealers has had little effect. Instead, governments should introduce regulated markets for drugs – and turn away from global policies which require prohibition and punishment.

‘The international drug control system is clearly failing,’ said Helen Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand. ‘The health … of nations is not advanced by the current approach to drug control.’

‘Current drug policies are reducing neither the demand nor the supply of illegal drugs, quite the contrary, while the increasing power of organized crime is a sad reality,’ writes Ruth Driefuss, the former president of Switzerland and chair of the commission. By taking control of illegal drug markets, the report argues governments can weaken the powerful criminal gangs that have grown despite decades of efforts to stamp them out.

The commission chose to launch its report in Mexico, whose criminal gangs are top suppliers of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana to the United States and where gang-related violence has driven murders to a record high. ‘Mexico is the most important country in the fight against drugs,’ said former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria. Mexico’s recent history exemplifies the report’s claim that evidence shows arresting drug traffickers has little impact on drug supply and may increase violence.

Just over 10 years ago, Mexico intensified its battle with drug gangs by sending out the military to battle traffickers. While dozens of kingpins have been captured or killed, the number of gangs operating in Mexico has multiplied as new criminal leaders step into the breach and battle over turf. The commission recommends governments open participatory processes to shape reforms toward regulation.

Incoming Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has already started to hold town-hall reviews on violence and discuss potential ‘amnesty’ for non-violent drug traffickers and farmers. Members of his team have said Mexico will evaluate creating legal markets for marijuana as well as opium. The report calls for a renegotiation of the international treaties that created a ‘repressive’ strategy where drug users and low-level dealers face stiff prison sentences, but it cautions nations are far from a global consensus yet.

quote:

Regulation - The Responsible Control of Drugs

quote:

FOREWORD

The establishment of the Global Commission on Drug Policy was triggered by two observations:
the patent failure of the international drug control system and the national policies that implement
it; and the harm this drug control is causing to the health and safety of people and societies. The failure is easy to prove. Rather than meeting the objectives of the three international drug conventions, current drug policies are reducing neither the demand nor the supply of illegal drugs, quite the contrary, while the increasing power of organized crime is a sad reality. The harm to public and individual health is stark: not only is the number of – often deadly – poisonings increasing, but HIV and hepatitis C continue to spread among people who inject drugs and the general population. Moreover, the social fabric and state institutions are most affected by repressive policies targeting the most vulnerable, with corruption and violence causing more deaths, disappearances and displacement of people than wars do in certain countries.

The urgency of saving lives, of not leaving anyone without the care and respect they are entitled
to, and of defending democratic institutions constitute the commitment of the members of
the Global Commission. From five continents, these public figures consider it their duty to promote a change in the drug policy paradigm. By publishing reports such as this one, by taking positions on timely issues, and by holding public interventions and advocating with national and international policymakers, the Global Commission shares experiences, both negative and positive. The Commission contributes to the dissemination of scientific findings and evidence on the effects of drugs and drug policies, and tirelessly advocates for policies that are pragmatic,rational and respectful of human rights.

Such humane policies have produced positive results wherever they have been implemented,
evaluated and largely debated. They nevertheless faced, until lately, a real taboo. While some
countries still reject them, others are increasingly adopting them.

Public health measures aimed at mitigating drug-related risks have proven their efficiency in responding to HIV and hepatitis, reducing fatal overdoses, improving the health and social situation of people dependent on drugs, and empowering people who use drugs. Some countries still prefer to pursue the illusion of reaching a drug-free society. For that reason, harm reduction still struggles to claim its place in the international drug control regime. Nevertheless, it is slowly becoming a guiding principle of national health policies.

The criminalization of drug consumption and possession for personal use is also increasingly recognized as an obstacle to the effectiveness of health policies. Moreover, criminalization undermines the rule of law and fuels prejudices, stigma and discrimination against people and communities. Why punish people who cause no harm to others – even if they take a personal risk – when this results in incarceration crises that are unmanageable and inhumane? Why impose on people who have been convicted the burden of a criminal record? Shouldn’t a pragmatic allocation of public resources be based on the analysis of benefits and costs of punitive drug policies? In response to these questions, more and more societies and policymakers are deciding to stop chasing people who use drugs, and even to decriminalize consumption and possession for personal use.

People involved in non-violent, low-level activities related to the production, transit and sale of psychoactive substances suffer extremely disproportionate sentences. Some risk capital punishment or prison terms longer than those handed out for violent crimes. The personal, social and economic circumstances that could have driven people to engage in this illegal activity are rarely seen as reasons to lower sentences. The enjoyment of human rights, sustainable development and social cohesion call for proportionate sentencing, for alternatives to incarceration, or for amnesty, especially when policy and economic measures are put in place to allow these offenders to join the legal labor market.

One of the negative consequences of the international drug control system – and its double paradigm of prohibition and punishment – has become clearer in the last few years. For the large majority of world’s population, it hinders access to medicines, mostly analgesics and anesthetics, that appear simultaneously in the model list of essential medicines and in the illegal drugs schedules. This is only one “collateral damage” of the 40 years of the “war on drugs”, or an “unintended consequence” of the international drug conventions, to use the UN terminology.

However, the international conventions – even the most repressive of them, adopted in 1988 –
do not prevent a country from implementing policies necessary to protect public health, ease
access to essential medicines, decriminalize drug use and possession, or establish alternatives
to punishment for minor offences, according to “to its constitutional principles and the basic concepts of its legal system”.

Nevertheless, the international drug control regime continues to be based on a single premise: prohibition of any use of drugs beyond their medical and scientific use, thus forbidding their production, exchange, transport, sale and consumption. A demand for drugs exists, however, and if it is not satisfied through legal ways it will be satisfied by the illegal market. Prohibition has allowed criminal organizations to control the whole chain of drugs. Every region in the world suffers: from violence induced by turf wars over production areas and transit routes, from corruption and connivance of state institutions, and from laundering of drug money, which damages the legal economy and the functioning of democratic institutions. Collaboration among countries is necessary to face crime multinational enterprises.

A fundamental question regarding illegal drugs is still rarely asked. Who should assume the control of these substances that bear serious risks for health – the state or organized crime? We are convinced that the only responsible answer is to regulate the market, to establish regulations adapted to the dangerousness of each drug, and to monitor and enforce these regulations. This is already the case for food, for legal psychoactive substances, for chemicals, for medications, for isotopes and many other products or behaviors that comprise a risk of harm. This report shows that the regulation of currently illegal drugs is not only possible, it is necessary. The report reminds us that even if it takes the global community a long time to review the current drug conventions, no international convention frees states from their obligations towards their populations, to protect their lives, their health, their dignity, and to guarantee equal rights for all without discrimination

twitter:

StDrugsbeleid twitterde op vrijdag 28-09-2018 om 16:26:00 Jim Jeffries went a night with the police in Amsterdam's Red Light Districtto find out decriminalizing drugs prevents crime, saves money and increases trust in the police#DrugPolicy #police #crime #Amsterdam #cannabis @jimjefferies @jefferiesshow https://t.co/NFOWpHlFMB reageer retweet

quote:

Waarom een lage cocaïneprijs tot oorlog in 'narcopolder' Nederland leidt

"Normaal draait economie om 'may the best man win', maar in de onderwereld is het 'may the best man die'." Volgens misdaadjournalist Wouter Laumans tekent zich een grote onderwereldoorlog af vanwege de lage cocaïneprijs. Een te groot aanbod zou de markt verziekt hebben.

De politie wil er weinig over kwijt, maar de arrestatie van zeven mannen uit de regio Utrecht gisteren lijkt verband te houden met de gewelddadige drugsoorlog die de afgelopen jaren al tot een lange reeks liquidaties leidde.

Ook zijn er verschillende huiszoekingen geweest. "Daar is de politie op zoek naar zaken die bij liquidaties worden gebruikt, zoals snelle auto's en zware wapens", legt justitieredacteur Remco Andringa uit.

Recordvangst onderschept, maar geen effect

De oorzaak van de recente vetes zou de lage cocaïneprijs zijn. Die is namelijk enorm gedaald sinds er in Colombia een vredesverdrag met guerrillabeweging FARC ligt. De cokeproductie is daardoor enorm gestegen.

"De FARC was weliswaar een guerrillabeweging", legde correspondent Marc Bessems eerder uit. "Maar er was wel orde in deze gebieden en een duidelijke machtsverhouding." Het machtsvacuüm dat de FARC heeft achtergelaten wordt nu opgevuld door kleinere, concurrerende gewapende bendes. Zij dwingen vervolgens meer boeren coca te gaan verbouwen.

Het overschot belandt voor een groot deel in Nederland. "De prijs is daardoor inmiddels gedaald van 30.000 tot 34.000 euro per kilo naar 20.000 euro of lager", weet Laumans.

Het stijgende aanbod verklaart ook de recordvangsten die de politie de laatste tijd heeft onderschept: vorig jaar maar liefst 50.000 kilo cocaïne. Desondanks is dit succes maar relatief: er is geen effect op de straatprijs zichtbaar. "We schoppen wel een deuk in een pak boter, maar dat pakje boter is groot", zei Wilbert Paulissen, hoofd van de landelijke recherche, erover tegen EenVandaag.

Dat onderschrijft Laumans. "De havens van Rotterdam en Antwerpen zijn namelijk zo lek als een zeef. Er zijn daar veel corrupte douane-beambten", aldus de misdaadjournalist.

Coke tien keer lucratiever dan hasj

De lage prijs maakt de kartelbazen nerveus: zij zitten niet te wachten op nieuwe groepen die goedkope coke op de Nederlandse markt dumpen. Laumans: "Als je niet kunt delen, kun je ook niet vermenigvuldigen." Het gevolg is een dodelijke geweldsgolf, waarbij liquidaties regelmatig onschuldige slachtoffers maken.

Er lijkt nog geen zicht op een einde van de drugsoorlog. Maakt dat Nederland een narcostaat, zoals wel eens wordt beweerd? "We zijn geen narcostaat als Colombia of Mexico, maar meer de poldervariant hierop. Nederland is de draaischijf van Europa voor handel in cocaïne en andere drugs."

quote:

How the US Stopped a Possible Solution to the Heroin Epidemic

Before America's War on Drugs, the "British System" was successful in keeping addiction rates low and drug-associated crime nonexistent.

Lisa chops the heroin into a small beige line, about three inches long. She lifts it to her face and snorts it with expert precision. Then she turns and smiles. "Much better. Would you two like another cup of tea?"

The heroin we've just watched Lisa snort is no ordinary street smack. This is heroin supplied by the British state—prescribed to Lisa by her doctor, and provided by a pharmacist. It is completely pure, and to get it Lisa didn't need to encounter a single drug dealer, gangster or criminal.

There is so much controversy any time a so-called "progressive" approach to drugs is attempted in Britain—from safe consumption facilities to medical cannabis for suffering children—that the idea of people being prescribed heroin, rather than even methadone, to manage their addiction seems almost fantastical. Yet, Lisa is one of the last remaining remnants of a foundational tradition in British drug policy. The practice of prescribing heroin to manage addiction was originally invented in the UK—and was so entrenched here that it was formally known in international policy circles as the "British System". Throughout the early 20th century, as America began forcing its War on Drugs on the rest of the world, it was Britain that represented the most promising alternative model. The story of the British System, and of how it was dismantled under American pressure, has been all but forgotten. It shouldn't be. This story illuminates not only fascinating truths about drug policy, but about entire liberal traditions in British political history.

Throughout the 19th century opium was imported to Britain and sold everywhere from high street pharmacies to rural grocery stores. This was all completely legal. Most people used laudanum (a tincture of morphine and codeine) purely as a medicine. A few, such as the writers Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas De Quincey, took opiates seeking pleasure and mind expansion. Queen Victoria was fond of both opium and cannabis, before being introduced to cocaine later in life.

As technology and trade progressed, new professions emerged. Old-fashioned apothecaries gave way to a new class of professional pharmacists, and in 1868 the Pharmacy Act placed opium under pharmaceutical control with minimal regulation.

Britain emerged from the First World War a nation transformed. Women got the vote, and the first governmental Ministry of Health was founded in 1919. Debate immediately began on whether the medical profession or the Home Office should take the lead in the regulation of drug use.

The United States, the rising power on the world stage, had banned all drugs with the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, and was strongly pushing their moralizing, prohibitionist approach across the world. This received furious opposition from the British medical community. In 1923, WE Dixon, reader in pharmacology at Cambridge, wrote to The Times:

We do not seem to have learnt anything from the experience of our American brethren … cannot our legislators understand that our only hope of stamping out the drug addict is through the doctors, that legislation above the doctors' heads is likely to prove our undoing and that we can no more stamp out addiction by prohibition than we can stamp out insanity?

In 1924, a committee was formed to consider these questions, under the leadership of Sir Humphry Rolleston, President of the Royal College of Physicians. The result was the British System. Doctors could use their own discretion in prescribing heroin to treat addiction, with loose overall control remaining with the Home Office.

What is probably most striking about the discussions of the Rolleston Committee is their utter sobriety. There is not a hint of the moralizing hysteria that characterized conversations around drugs in America. Addiction is spoken about as an "unfortunate condition"—but never as "evil", never as a moral failure. And for about five decades, the British System was relatively successful. Between 1936 and 1953, the number of known drug addicts in Britain fell from 616 to 290, before rising again to 454 by 1960.

The idea of a Britain in which drug addicts could be numbered in the hundreds seems almost inconceivable today. At the same time in the US, with its prohibitionist model, the addict population was skyrocketing into the hundreds of thousands.

There is a very simple reason for this. Heroin addiction tends to spread through the black market—one addict introduces another to the drug, usually in order to finance their own habit. Under a system where users receive their drugs on prescription, there is simply no need to push the drug on anyone else.

The British System completely prevented the growth of the gangster-led black market that drove the spread of addiction in the US. One widespread rumor was that, in 1963, several New York mafia crime families came to London and met at the Hilton Hotel to discuss whether they should develop a drugs syndicate in the UK. They ended up deciding there was no point. Why bother when British doctors were already supplying the drugs?

Drug addiction in the era of the British System was confined to a tiny, insular community, largely centered around London's Soho. Unfortunately, almost all the denizens of this underground scene are long gone, but we did discover a memoir written by one user, who wrote under the pen name Barbateboy:

All of the drugs I used were obtained legally on doctor’s prescription from a clutch of chemists around London. There was Boots at Piccadilly, Blisses in Kilburn, John Bell & Croyden in Wigmore St.

Very few chemists stocked these drugs and so over time I ran into most junkies who were ‘scripping’. It was a small world… A camaraderie existed and we would gossip and discuss which doctors were cool and which were severe.

The drugs were of course pure, British Pharmaceutical…The heroin came by the grain (which is about one sixteenth of a gram), consisting of six tiny tablets called jacks, which perhaps gave rise to the expression ‘To jack up’. On private prescription it cost one and tuppence a grain, the cheapest hit in town. Half a jack was as much as a non-user could stomach... Fresh syringes and needles came with every ‘scrip’. There was very little reuse. I met many people, from taxi drivers to set designers, who held responsible jobs and lived otherwise normal lives.

The British heroin scene in this era was so small that we know the precise addresses of the pharmacies where addicts picked up their gear. Almost every account of this period stresses the importance of Boots at Piccadilly Circus and John Bell & Croyden in Wigmore St. These two chemists controlled most of the British heroin supply. Reflect on that for a moment—there was a time in living memory when the two biggest heroin dealers in Britain both had W1 postcodes, didn't engage in gang wars and paid their taxes every year.

The other crucial difference between life under the British System and American-style prohibition is that there was absolutely no link between addiction and other forms of criminality. When you get your prescription from a doctor, there is simply no need to steal to fund your habit.

When the American journalist Edgar May came over to report on the British System he wrote, "No one in England—from the toughest London detective to the most liberal-prescribing clinic physician—suggested to me that narcotics addiction increases criminal behavior… in England there is no cause-and-effect relationship." The creation of a criminal addict underclass seems to only emerge under a system of drugs prohibition.

By 1959, the number of known heroin addicts in Britain had dropped to 59, before rising to 342 by 1964. By today's standards these numbers are almost comically low. On all evidence, the British System seemed effective in preventing the spread of addiction and associated criminality. So what happened? How did it all fall apart?

Ultimately, the answer is that, in 1961, Britain was pressured into signing the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs—a US-led policy formally committing every member state to prohibition. The American architects of the War on Drugs despised the British System, and constantly briefed against it in policy documents and propaganda. It was thus inevitable that the British System would come under sustained diplomatic attack. But the immediate trigger for the breakdown of the system can actually be traced back to one rogue doctor in London.

Lady Isabella Frankau is a fascinating character. Trained in psychiatry, she began treating addicts in 1957. She prescribed without question. Any addict could come to her, claim they had lost their tablets—or that their usual NHS doctor was on holiday—and she would scribble out a new script.

Word went round the addict networks like wildfire, and Frankau became a magnet for hundreds of heroin users. When the great American jazz trumpeter Chet Baker came to London, she was his first stop. "She simply asked my name, my address and how much cocaine and heroin I wanted per day," he later recalled.

But Lady Frankau was no drug dealer. She was described by other doctors as a "well-meaning fool", but no one has ever suggested she prescribed for money. In fact, she often waived her consultation fee for poorer patients.

Unfortunately, some of those patients had no such scruples. Some addicts realized they could pick up extra supplies from Frankau, then sell them on. The writer Alexander Trocchi became notorious for this on the underground scene. This was the first emergence of a "grey market" in Britain—drugs acquired legally, but sold illicitly.

Then, in 1967, Lady Frankau died. In an instant, the hundreds of addicts who had relied on her were cast adrift. Into this gap in the market stepped the shadowy figure of Dr John Petro. Originally a brilliant doctor, Petro had been one of the first to administer penicillin with Alexander Fleming. Then, in 1966, he was injured in a road accident and, unable to practice, was facing bankruptcy.

Unlike Frankau, Petro wrote prescriptions to survive. He didn't even have an office, but would hold court at all-night coffee bars in Soho or the café at Baker Street Station, scribbling out prescriptions on napkins and cigarette packs.

Inevitably, someone tipped off the papers. The Sun and the Daily Mail both led with front-page stories: "Doctor Holds Drug Clinic In A Café" and "Drugs Clinic In Station Buffet". Over the next few months, Petro's chaotic practice became an incessant tabloid circus. Finally, in January of 1968, Petro was invited onto David Frost's TV program to explain himself. Immediately after the broadcast, he was arrested.

As easy as it is to blame rogue figures like Frankau and Petro, though, they were actually dealing with a problem of the government's own making. In 1964, following American pressure, legislation had passed that doctors would now need a special license from the Home Office to prescribe heroin, but that new treatment centers would be built to compensate. Those treatment centers were never built. And it was into this gap that the British black market was born.

Dr AJ Hawes, one of the major "junkie's doctors" of the era, wrote to The Observer in 1965, warning that "to cut off supply by prescription would be easy; it has already been done in the United States, where doctors are not allowed to prescribe for addicts, with the result that the provision of drugs has become a flourishing industry and addiction there increases yearly".

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened. Instead of fixing the problem of rogue doctors over-prescribing, the government pressured doctors doing valuable work. Addicts could no longer get prescriptions, so illegal heroin began trickling into the country to satisfy demand. Unlike America, this did not come from Italian mafia organizations, but from Chinese Triads working out of Hong Kong. Little red packets of south-east Asian heroin, stamped with an elephant design, began littering the gutters of Gerrard Street in London's Chinatown.

We can pick up this story in the memoir of the anonymous addict, Barbateboy, that we followed earlier:

The tabloid press had got all judgmental about the practice of prescribing drugs. [Harold] Wilson’s government, impotent in other respects, needed to be seen as effective … almost overnight all junkies were cut off from their supplies.

The contraband trade in Chinese heroin mushroomed. Nothing pure about it. A wrap of brown, white and black (unrefined opium) powder which had to be ground and then boiled in a spoon and sucked into the syringe through a wodge of cotton wool. There was no way to assess the strength of the dose. Over the next year I lost about six friends to overdose, all experienced junkies. The whole junkie scene exploded. It became a ‘pushed’ drug, and the number of users grew as they got younger.

The key phrase here is that heroin became a "pushed drug". Under the British System there was simply no financial incentive for gangsters to import the drug, or for one user to introduce it to another. As soon as heroin is outlawed, the potential profits of a black market become almost limitless. Dealers have a huge incentive to actively get more people addicted, and the easiest way for any user to finance their own habit is to sell a bit themselves. It is a pyramid structure in which every link in the chain is incentivized to introduce more people to the habit.

By 1971, when the Misuse of Drugs Act was finally passed, there were just over a thousand known heroin addicts in the UK. Over the following decades of prohibition, the black market would rocket that number into the hundreds of thousands.

But the British System wasn't killed completely. Even under the terms of the Misuse of Drugs Act, it is still technically legal for a doctor to prescribe heroin to patients in the UK. Instead of banning it outright, the government pulled a classic bureaucratic fudge—they made doctors apply for a special license, then stopped issuing them.

Lisa, who we watched snort her government supplied heroin, first got her prescription in the 1980s, at one of the last surviving Rolleston-era drug clinics, which had been bumping along under the radar since the 1920s.

She has maintained that prescription to this day. Before the script, Lisa lived an intensely chaotic life, selling gear to prostitutes to finance her own habit. She now works full time, owns her own flat and speaks lovingly of her daughter and granddaughter—neither of whom have ever touched illicit drugs. She credits this change in her life to one thing and one thing only: the precious slip of paper she gets from her doctor that allows her to live a relatively normal, productive life.

Lisa is a living fragment of a lost history. When Switzerland introduced Heroin Assisted Therapy to great success in the 1990s, they explicitly modeled their methods on the British System. Yet, almost no one in Britain itself is aware of this story. They should be.

Britain was once a world leader, building on a humane, liberal and pragmatic tradition to show an alternative route to the cruel and failing War on Drugs. With a little imagination and courage from its leaders, it could lead the world once again.

_{This article contains extracts from the book Drug Wars, published by Ebury Press.}

quote:

'Stevig alcohol drinken is slechter dan keer pilletje XTC', zegt Nijmeegse arts

quote:

Kramers reageert op de enorme problemen die de illegaliteit van XTC oplevert door gevaarlijke situaties bij illegale labs waar het gemaakt wordt en door het dumpen van het drugsafval. Dinsdag liet een busje met daarin lekkend drugsafval een lang spoor na in de Nijmeegse wijk Weezenhof. Woensdag meldde iemand een verdachte bestelwagen in Elst bij de politie. In het busje stonden 25 blauwe vaten met een onbekende vloeistof. Later op de dag vond de politie op een industrieterrein in Nijmegen nog eens 41 vaten, die voorzien waren van een sticker met het woord 'formamide'.

quote:

Smartphones en wiet: smokkel in gevangenis blijft hardnekkig probleem

quote:

Het lukt justitie maar niet om verboden spullen uit handen van gevangenen te houden. Gisteren lekte een video uit waarop te zien is dat criminelen in de gevangenis in Westzaan grote smartphones en wiet in hun cel hebben. En vandaag werd bekend dat een proef met een speciale lichaamsscanner is mislukt; smokkelwaar werd niet gedetecteerd.

Zelfs een hypermoderne gevangenis als die in Westzaan, waar de meer dan duizend gevangenen in de gaten worden gehouden door 1160 camera's, is dus kwetsbaar als het op smokkel aankomt. Maar dat verbaast specialisten niet.

"Het systeem is niet waterdicht te krijgen", zegt advocaat Hettie Cremers in het NOS Radio 1 Journaal. Zij komt vanwege haar werk veel in de gevangenis, zo ook die in Westzaan. "Het is een illusie dat er ooit een gevangenis zal zijn waar contrabande zoals drank, drugs en telefoons niet naar binnen wordt gevoerd."
Smokkel in luier

Smokkelaars, meestal bezoekende vrienden of familie, worden steeds creatiever in het verstoppen van de verboden spullen. Een wel heel bijzondere smokkelmethode werd vorig jaar door de politie bekendgemaakt. In de luier van een baby die met bezoekers van de gevangenis in Westzaan meekwam, werden telefoons en drugs gevonden.

Wat volgens Cremers niet helpt bij de aanpak van smokkel is dat de ingang van het complex in Westzaan erg onoverzichtelijk is. Advocaten en familie van gedetineerden lopen door elkaar, waardoor het druk wordt. "Dat is bij andere inrichtingen vaak gescheiden. Het is me echt opgevallen, zeker omdat het zo'n modern complex is. Dat zou een stuk beter kunnen, waardoor ze ook beter op contrabande kunnen controleren."

Ze zegt dat enkele bewakers in Westzaan tegen haar hebben geklaagd over een tekort aan collega's. Dat zou een andere oorzaak van de smokkelproblemen kunnen zijn.

Het is een punt dat ook FNV-bestuurder Yntse Koenen aansnijdt. Hij zegt op NPO Radio 1 dat er honderd beveiligers te weinig zijn. "Het is op zich niet zo raar dat het personeel onvoldoende zicht heeft op wat er gebeurt. Door sluiting van andere inrichtingen zijn er onlangs vijftig gedetineerden naar Westzaan gebracht, zonder dat het personeel dat daarbij hoort, mee is verhuisd."
Te weinig toezicht

Het gebrek aan toezicht is iets wat advocaat Cremers wél verbaasde. "Mij viel op dat de beelden onder het koken zijn gemaakt. Daar verwacht je toezicht, want daar wordt ook met boter en olie gewerkt en dat praktijk leert dat dat ook momenten zijn dat rekeningen worden vereffend. Het verbaast mij dat dit zo vrijelijk kan gebeuren."

Koenen zegt dat de medewerkers geschokt zijn over wat er is gebeurd. De vakbondsman blijft erbij dat gebrek aan toezicht aan de werkdruk ligt. "Ze hebben er met de komst van die vijftig gedetineerden een probleem bovenop gekregen. Ze moeten hen inwerken in het nieuwe regime, wegwijs maken en tegelijkertijd alles goed in de gaten houden. Dat kan natuurlijk niet."

Minister Dekker van Rechtsbescherming zegt in een reactie dat de overplaatsing van gevangenen en personeel naar andere gevangenissen in evenwicht. Maar, geeft hij toe, er kan in dit geval best iets fout zijn gegaan. "Dat is precies waar we nu onderzoek naar doen."

quote:

Ngo's: drugsbeleid VN is faliekant mislukt

Het antidrugsbeleid dat de Verenigde Naties al tien jaar uitvoert, is een complete mislukking, stellen bijna tweehonderd organisaties die zich wereldwijd met drugsproblematiek bezighouden.

De productie, verkoop en het gebruik van drugs zijn hoger dan ooit tevoren, terwijl de situatie alleen maar verslechtert door het antidrugsbeleid dat de Verenigde Naties sinds 2009 voeren, onder het motto: 'Een drugsvrije wereld, we kunnen het.'

Die bikkelharde conclusie stellen 174 ngo's in een lijvig rapport over de strijd tegen drugs. De organisaties willen daarmee de ogen openen van degenen die het VN-beleid in maart 2019 in Wenen zullen beoordelen en het nieuwe beleid moeten vaststellen.

Het rapport stemt somber: de productie van opium en cocaïne heeft in tien jaar recordhoogtes bereikt. Het aantal drugsgebruikers nam toe met een derde, het aantal wereldwijde cannabisgebruikers zelfs met 136 procent. Sinds 2009 kwamen er liefst 800 nieuwe drugssoorten op de markt.

De jaarlijkse omzet van de mondiale drugshandel wordt geschat op 370 tot 570 miljard euro, wat zorgt voor een continue stroom zwart geld dat moet worden witgewassen. Het aantal drugsdoden is tussen 2011 en 2015 met 145 procent toegenomen, naar 450.000.

Geweld en corruptie
Het beleid van de VN is vooral gericht op het met repressieve maatregelen inperken van de productie en handel in drugs. Het heeft allemaal een averechts effect, stelt het rapport. In plaats van de omvang van de internationale drugsmarkt te verkleinen, zorgen de maatregelen juist voor meer geweld, instabiliteit en corruptie, en daarbij voor grotere ver­diensten en militarisering van conflicten.

Als voorbeeld noemt het rapport Afghanistan, dat 86 procent van alle opium verbouwt. Door opiumgewassen te vernietigen, zoals VN-beleid is, zijn de criminaliteit en de macht van milities als de Taliban toegenomen.

Ook de buitenwettelijke executies op de Filipijnen en de bloedige strijd tussen Mexicaanse kartels zijn volgens het rapport (deels) het gevolg van het beleid van de VN.

Voorlichting geven
De onderzoekers concluderen dat de VN zich moet losmaken van een systeem waarin straf centraal staat. Ze wijzen op de positieve effecten van methoden die ook in Nederland worden gebruikt, zoals het beschikbaar maken van drugstests en voorlichten over de risico's van drugsgebruik.

De onderzoekers beseffen wel dat de kans klein is dat de VN het beleid zal aanpassen: in veel landen is een progressief drugsbeleid niet bespreekbaar.

quote:

Taking stock: A decade of drug policy - A civil society shadow report

quote:

Objective of the Shadow Report

‘Taking stock: A decade of drug policy’ evaluates the impacts of drug policies implemented across the world over the past decade, using data from the United Nations (UN), complemented with peer-reviewed academic research and grey literature reports from civil society. The important role of civil society in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of global drug policies is recognised in the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action on drugs, as well as in the Outcome Document of the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs. It is in this spirit that the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) has produced this Shadow Report, to contribute constructively to high-level discussions on the next decade in global drug policy.

Conclusion

The commitments and targets set in the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action have not been achieved, and in many cases have resulted in counterproductive policies. The Shadow Report also raises a number of issues on the past and future evaluation of global drug policies. Firstly, the Report highlights the urgent need to conduct more thorough and regular research on the broader range of impacts of drug policies at local, national, regional and international level.

Secondly, and related to the need for more research, the Report puts into question the sources of data currently being be used for such formal evaluations. These rely heavily on government reporting. A more comprehensive and balanced picture of the situation requires incorporating civil society and academic research. This is particularly important for sensitive issues related to drug policy and human rights.

And thirdly, the lack of progress made towards the drug-free targets, along with the negative consequences associated with efforts to achieve those targets, mean that member states should reflect upon what to measure. Focusing exclusively on measuring the scale of the illegal drug market is clearly not enough to understand the impact of drug policy on the key UN Charter commitments to health, human rights, development, peace and security. The third section of this Shadow Report attempts to provide some recommendations which we hope will provide a useful starting point for further discussions as to which goals and metrics could be considered for the post-2019 global drug strategy.


Recommendations
In preparation for the 2019 Ministerial Segment, the IDPC network recommends that:

The international community should consider adopting more meaningful goals and targets in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UNGASS Outcome Document and international human rights commitments, and move away from targets seeking to eliminate the illegal drug market.
Post-2019, member states should meaningfully reflect upon the impacts of drug control on the UN goals of promoting health, human rights, development, peace and security - and adopt drug policies and strategies that actively contribute to advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially for those most marginalised and vulnerable.
Global drug policy debates going forward should reflect the realities of drug policies on the ground, both positive and negative, and discuss constructively the resulting tensions with the UN drug control treaties and any human rights concerns associated with drug control efforts.
Beyond 2019, UN member states should end punitive drug control approaches and put people and communities first. This includes promoting and facilitating the participation of civil society and affected communities in all aspects of the design, implementation, evaluation and monitoring of drug policies.

quote:

Na Arjen Lubach wil ook Statenlid Joep van Meel xtc uit de illegaliteit: ‘Laten we dat na serieus onderzoek overwegen’

We moeten xtc niet in het bonusschap van de supermarkt gaan leggen. Maar laten we wel op basis van argumenten en degelijk wetenschappelijk onderzoek serieus overwegen om xtc te legaliseren.

Het tv-programma ‘Zondag met ­Lubach’ schonk begin deze week ruimschoots aandacht aan de problemen die we in Nederland en zeker in Brabant ervaren rondom het consumeren en produceren van xtc. Brabant kent een rijke uitgaansscene met vele discotheken, festivals en top DJ’s. Het gebruik van genotsmiddelen is al lang niet meer voorbehouden aan een enkele gabber op een underground feest, maar vindt in alle lagen van de bevolking plaats. Mensen die geloven in een wereld zonder genotsmiddelen hebben geen enkel realiteitsbesef. In 2016 heeft de VN op het UNGASS- congres het failliet van ‘the war on drugs’ uitgesproken. Op dit moment wordt er echter circa 60 procent van de capaciteit van justitie voor deze strijd ingezet. Gelukkig zet de overheid nu een eerste stap met het aangekondigde experiment met het legaal telen van cannabis. Als deze legalisering volledig wordt doorgevoerd komt er veel meer politiecapaciteit vrij om zich te richten op de georganiseerde criminaliteit en andere zware delicten.

Strafblad

We laten circa 1 miljoen mensen, veelal jongeren, aan hun lot over. Jaarlijks zijn er zo’n 10 tot 15 doden te betreuren en belanden circa 2000 mensen op de spoedeisende hulp door het consumeren van xtc. Dat komt onder andere door slechte voorlichting en een verdubbeling van de werkzame stof in een pilletje in de afgelopen 10 jaar. Daarnaast criminaliseert de overheid de groep xtc-consumenten ten onrechte. Je kunt immers al een strafblad krijgen voor het bezit van een gebruikershoeveelheid xtc, met alle gevolgen van dien. Wat mij betreft heeft de overheid hier een grote verantwoordelijkheid en mag (een deel) van de politiek in Den Haag niet langer wegkijken.

De problemen zijn vooral in Brabant immens groot. In 2017 zijn er alleen al in Brabant 27 xtc-labs opgerold, dat is bijna 33 procent van het landelijk totaal. Het grootste xtc-laboratorium dat Nederland ooit gekend heeft, werd afgelopen maart aangetroffen op het erf van een ‘keurige’ CDA-penningmeester in Leende. Een faciliteit met een omzet van maar liefst 10 miljoen euro per dag. Daarnaast lijdt de natuur en het milieu ernstig onder alle dumpingen van synthetisch drugsafval in Brabant. Meerdere keren per week is het raak. In 2017 werd er maar liefst 83 keer synthetisch drugsafval gevonden in Brabant en deze hoeveelheid loopt in 2018 waarschijnlijk nog verder op.

Legalisatie en vervolgens een degelijke regulering zouden een goede oplossing kunnen zijn voor de problemen. Dat wil niet zeggen dat we xtc in het bonusschap van de supermarkt moeten gaan leggen, maar wel dat het in gespecialiseerde winkels met gekwalificeerd personeel verkocht zou kunnen worden. Je kunt mensen dan namelijk goed voorlichten over de potentiële gevaren en de gebruiksdosering. Daarnaast kun je strenge kwaliteitseisen stellen aan de productie en deze in een gecontroleerde omgeving laten plaatsvinden. Er zijn overigens ook veel onderzoeken die erop wijzen dat het gebruik van genotsmiddelen niet toeneemt na legalisatie.

Selectief shoppen

Het is overigens veel te simpel om het containerbegrip ‘drugs’ te gebruiken. We praten immers over een breed scala aan middelen met totaal verschillende effecten en risico’s. Momenteel laat de wetgeving te wensen over en shoppen politici in Den Haag selectief in verschillende onderzoeken. Zo staan er middelen op lijst 1 van de Opiumwet (harddrugs) die minder schadelijk zijn dan cannabis dat op lijst 2 van de Opiumwet (softdrugs) staat.

In 2009 heeft notabene het Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu in opdracht van het ministerie, het rapport ‘Ranking van Drugs’ uitgebracht. Hierin heeft een groep van 19 deskundigen bestaande uit artsen, toxicologen, psychiaters, sociologen en de politie een rangschikking gemaakt van 19 genotsmiddelen. Men heeft gekeken naar hoe giftig en verslavend de betreffende middelen zijn en wat de maatschappelijke schade is. Opvallend in dit onderzoek is dat psychedelica (paddo’s en lsd) hierin als minst schadelijk uit de test komen. Beide middelen zijn niet verslavend en nauwelijks giftig maar zijn volgens de wet harddrugs, waardoor er tevens een groot maatschappelijk taboe op rust. De risico’s van xtc zijn ook relatief beperkt; het middel staat namelijk op plek 6 van minst schadelijke middelen (cannabis staat in vergelijking op plek 8).

Een ander opvallende uitkomst van dit onderzoek is dat er maar twee middelen schadelijker zijn dan alcohol en tabak, namelijk heroïne en crack. Het is wat mij betreft dan ook bijzonder naïef en hypocriet dat er bij een groot deel van de politiek in Den Haag een totale acceptatie bestaat voor de consumptie en zelfs het publiekelijk reclame maken voor ­alcohol (circa 1000 doden per jaar), maar dat men middelen als xtc, cannabis en psychedelica wegzet als de grootst mogelijke rotzooi en zo’n beetje de bron van al het kwaad in de wereld. Er zijn twee opties: of men is oprecht niet goed op de hoogte of men is bang om de achterban eerlijk te informeren.

Ik pleit dan ook voor een eerlijke discussie op basis van argumenten en degelijk wetenschappelijk onderzoek, zonder de onderbuikgevoelens te laten spreken. Daarnaast moeten we de Opiumwet opnieuw inrichten op basis van hoe schadelijk en verslavend middelen zijn.

quote:

Ketamine effectiever tegen depressie dan antidepressiva

Een behandeling met ketamine werkt veel sneller om een depressie te verlichten dan antidepressiva. Dat blijkt uit nieuw onderzoek.

De onderzoekers, onder leiding van het Mount Sinai Medical Centre, hebben hun bevindingen zaterdag gepresenteerd op de jaarlijkse bijeenkomst van de Amerikaanse vereniging voor psychiaters.

De depressie van patiënten die een behandeling met ketamine kregen, werd binnen 24 uur lichter. Normale antidepressiva doen er dagen of weken over om hetzelfde effect te bereiken.

Bij dit grootste klinische onderzoek naar ketamine tot nu toe werden 72 mensen betrokken. Allemaal hadden ze een depressie die na twee of meer soorten medicijnen niet minder was geworden.

Placebo

De eerste groep kreeg veertig minuten lang een infuus met ketamine, terwijl de tweede groep een placebo kreeg. De proefpersonen werden zowel na 24 uur als na zeven dagen geïnterviewd.

Na 24 uur bleek ruim 60 procent positieve effecten van ketamine te ervaren. Dat effect was na een week nog bij ruim 45 procent aanwezig. Bij de placebogroep leek 30 procent na een dag blij met het resultaat, terwijl dat na een week zakte naar nog geen 20 procent.

Toekomstig onderzoek moet uitwijzen of ketamine ook op lange termijn veilig en effectief is in de behandeling van depressies. Dat is hard nodig, omdat veel van de beschikbare behandelingen depressies niet of nauwelijks verlichten.

quote:

Agent op vakantie in Florida wordt aangezien voor drugsdealer

quote:

Een Zaanse agent die vakantie vierde in Florida heeft zijn Amerikaanse collega's een grote dienst bewezen. Dankzij hem heeft de politie daar informatie om een drugsbende op te rollen.

Toen de agent een Amerikaanse simkaart in zijn toestel plaatste, ontving hij plotseling foto's en video's van een grote hoeveelheid henneptoppen. "Nick, good price for you!"

De betreffende agent heet geen Nick, schrijft NH Nieuws. Hij had stomtoevallig het oude nummer van een drugsdealer gekregen. Omdat de handel in marihuana voor recreatief gebruik nog altijd verboden is in Florida, deelde de Zaanse politieman het aanbod met zijn plaatselijke collega's.

Die hebben het telefoonnummer en het gesprek overgenomen. De politie in Florida heeft een rechercheteam op de zaak gezet, om zo een grote drugsbende op te kunnen rollen.