The World Wide War on Drugs #12 - Legalize not criminalize

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http://uitspraken.rechtsp(...)1243&showbutton=true

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Aan de verdachte is ten laste gelegd dat zij in de periode van 1 juli 2015 tot en met 14 november 2015, al dan niet alleen, in haar woning aan de [adres 2] , een ruimte voorhanden heeft gehad waarvan zij en haar mededader wisten dat die bestemd was tot het plegen van een in artikel 11, derde en vijfde lid van de Opiumwet.

Deze tenlastelegging is gebaseerd op het bepaalde in artikel 11a van de Opiumwet en heeft, gelet op het bepaalde in artikel 11, lid 3 van de Opiumwet betrekking op bedrijfsmatige of professionele hennepteelt en voorts, gelet op het bepaalde in artikel 11, lid 5 van de Opiumwet op een grote hoeveelheid hennep en/of hennepplanten.

Het hof is met de advocaat-generaal en de raadsman van oordeel dat in het onderhavige geval noch van bedrijfsmatige of professionele hennepteelt, noch van een grote hoeveelheid planten sprake is geweest. De inmiddels onherroepelijk veroordeelde mededader van verdachte had immers op de zolderverdieping van hun gezamenlijke woning in een kweektent met een oppervlakte van ongeveer drie vierkante meter een hennepkwekerij in werking waarin op het moment van de ontdekking daarvan vijfentwintig hennepplanten stonden. Volgens de verklaring van die mededader hadden in diezelfde kweektent eerder in totaal veertig planten gestaan. Aanwijzingen voor bedrijfsmatig of professioneel handelen blijken niet uit het dossier.

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Hoofd landelijke recherche: 'Wie cocaïne snuift, helpt de misdaad'

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Nederland wordt overspoeld met ­cocaïne. Hoofd Wilbert Paulissen van de landelijke recherche vindt ­betere mondiale samenwerking bittere noodzaak, zegt hij op een internationaal congres in Fort Voordorp.

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We moeten structuréél nauw samenwerken met de bronlanden, de andere transitielanden zoals wij zijn en de afzetlanden. Zonder elkaar de schuld te geven.

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Ik wil de gebruiker niet criminaliseren, maar we zouden drugsgebruik wel anders kunnen benaderen. Ondubbelzinnig het signaal geven dat je als gebruiker een keiharde criminele wereld laat floreren.

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The lost decade in the global war on drugs

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Auditorium Pictet B
Maison de la Paix
Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2
1202 Geneva

Monday 28 January 2019
17h30 - 19h
Followed by a reception

In 2009, UN member states set 2019 as the target date for eradicating the illegal drug market. Next year, the international community will take stock of progress and delineate the global drug strategy for the next decade. In the absence of a formal review for the last 10 years of drug control, the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) has produced a civil society shadow report, which assesses the progress made, or lack thereof, against the objectives of 2009. The analysis shows that the scale of drug cultivation, production, trafficking and use has increased exponentially over the past decade, and the negative impacts on human rights have been severe.

This conference aims to encourage an exchange of ideas on policy and practice regarding drug control policies at the multilateral level and discuss how punitive drug policies impact the International Geneva mandates.

The event will be available on live-stream here:

The Lost Decade in the Global War on Drugs

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Op vrijdag 25 januari 2019 19:50 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Het is natuurlijk raar om drugsgebruikers (die niet voor drugsverboden zullen zijn) de schuld te geven van de gevolgen van de War on Drugs.

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Op zondag 27 januari 2019 06:18 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:

[..]

Tegen beter weten in...

Overheden zijn idd verantwoordelijk voor de war on drugs en de excessen die daar mee gepaard gaan.

Drugsmisbruikers zijn verantwoordelijk voor drugdoden, drugskinderen, gebroken gezinnen en een berg criminaliteit waar je niet goed van wordt.

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Verslaving is een probleem dat je niet met “cafeïne is ook maar een drug” onder het tapijt veegt.

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Er is een oplossing voor dit probleem: geef mensen een toekomst. Investeer in mensen, investeer in onderwijs.

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Maar als je bewust niet mee wil doen, dan moet dat vroeg gesignaleerd en aangepakt worden.

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Psychiatrists cancel cannabis debate after no one would argue for criminalising users

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A debate on whether criminalising people who use cannabis protects against mental ill health did not take place because no one agreed to argue that current UK law protects the health of people who take the drug.

Instead, only David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, spoke on 23 January at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London.

The motion to have been debated was: “Decriminalising cannabis use will lead to higher rates of mental illness.”

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MyrtleClarke19 twitterde op zaterdag 26-01-2019 om 07:24:29 Nobody to argue against @ProfDavidNutt, love it. Journalists are always asking us who they can contact to "represent the other side" in the name of "balanced reporting". They battle to find credible prohibitionists. We must be doing something right. https://t.co/eeKpYwmaAu reageer retweet

The Lost Decade in the Global War on Drugs

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In 2009, UN member states set 2019 as the target date for eradicating the illegal drug market. Next March, the international community will take stock of progress and delineate the global drug strategy for the next decade. In the absence of a formal review for the last 10 years of drug control, the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) has produced a civil society shadow report, which assesses the progress made, or lack thereof, against the objectives of 2009. The analysis shows that the scale of drug cultivation, production, trafficking and use has increased exponentially over the past decade, and the negative impacts on human rights have been severe.

This conference aims to encourage an exchange of ideas on policy and practice regarding drug control policies at the multilateral level and discuss how punitive drug policies impact the International Geneva mandates.

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'County lines': huge scale of £500m drug industry revealed

Crime agency reveals trebling of individual phone numbers used by criminal gangs linked to murder and exploitation

The scale of the “county lines” trade, in which criminal networks exploit thousands of children and vulnerable adults to funnel hard drugs from cities to towns and rural areas, is greater than crime-fighting chiefs previously thought, with a fresh assessment revealing a £500m industry linked to murder and sexual exploitation.

County lines involves gangs in cities such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool using children as young as 11 to deal mostly heroin and crack cocaine over a network of dedicated mobile phones.

The number of individual phone numbers identified by law enforcement officials as being used on established county lines networks is now 2,000 – nearly three times the 720 previously established, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

In its annual assessment of the county lines trade, the NCA said the phone numbers were linked to about 1,000 branded networks, with a single line capable of making £800,000 profits in a year.

County lines offenders have been caught using mass marketing text messages to advertise drugs with promotions such as two-for-one deals and free samples, the report revealed.

The majority of victims groomed into working for gangs are 15- to 17-year-old boys but children as young as 11 have been safeguarded and girls have been targeted.

Many victims are recruited over social media, with offenders luring them by showing off images of cash, designer clothing and luxury cars, but vulnerable girls and women are being targeted by men who create the impression of a romantic relationship before subjecting them to sexual exploitation.

Vulnerable drug users are at continuing risk of serious violence, including loss of life, with a number of murders identified as having county lines links.

Nikki Holland, the director of investigations and county lines lead at the NCA, told journalists at the agency’s headquarters in south-west London that profits from the county lines trade nationwide were estimated at about £500m.

Releasing the 2018 assessment, Holland said: “Tackling county lines is a national law enforcement priority. We know that criminal networks use high levels of violence, exploitation and abuse to ensure compliance from the vulnerable people they employ to do the day-to-day drug supply activity.

“Every organised crime group trafficking drugs is a business which relies on cashflow. County lines is no different. What we will continue to do with our law enforcement partners is disrupt their activity and take away their assets.

“We also need to ensure that those exploited are safeguarded and understand the consequences of their involvement. This is not something law enforcement can tackle alone – the need to work together to disrupt this activity and safeguard vulnerable victims must be the priority for everyone.”

Holland said the increase in the phone numbers identified did not reflect a worsening of the problem, rather an increasing awareness among law enforcement of the scale.

The greatest number of county lines originate from the Metropolitan police area at about 15%, followed by the West Midlands police area at 9% and Merseyside at 7%.

About 21% of cases involve vulnerable adults trafficked or exploited into the county lines trade and 17% of cases involve “cuckooing” – when gangs set up dealing bases by taking over the homes of addicted or otherwise vulnerable people, including people with disabilities.

Gangmasters target children with impoverished backgrounds, who have experienced family breakdown or intervention by social services or exclusion from school, the report said.

The offenders also target drug addicts who allow the use of their property but often end up building up debt with the network, which they have to pay back through further offending. Adult victims often live with mental health conditions including depression and anxiety.

Many victims are recruited in “importing” towns – locations which are receiving drugs from major cities to sell on, the assessment said.

There has been an increase in the use of short-term lets and guesthouses, including using the accommodation website Airbnb, the NCA revealed.

Rail network hubs such as Birmingham New Street, Clapham Junction, Manchester Piccadilly, St Pancras International and Waterloo have been identified as key points of access by the NCA but other less obvious hubs are likely to be frequently used.

The assessment comes at the end of a week of enforcement action across the country, which saw 600 arrests connected to county lines.

More than 400 vulnerable adults and 600 children were referred to safeguarding following the coordinated activity, which included the execution of warrants at addresses, visits to vulnerable people including those at risk of cuckooing, and officer engagement with private hire companies.

There were 40 referrals to the national referral mechanism (NRM), which assesses individuals as potential victims of human trafficking or modern slavery.

More than 140 weapons were seized, including 12 firearms, swords, machetes, axes and knives, and cash totalling more than £200,000 and significant amounts of drugs were seized.

The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Duncan Ball, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for county lines, said: “Last week’s targeted work on county lines gangs shows how police forces across the UK are working together to dismantle these networks and protect the young and vulnerable people who are exploited by them.”

Meanwhile, two drug dealers were found guilty on Tuesday of murdering a man who had ordered drugs on a deal line branded “RJ”.

Juned Ahmed, 18, and Ashraf Hussan, 20, stabbed Peter Anderson, 46, multiple times at just after 4pm on 25 July last year in Cambridge.

It is not known whether the attack was a result of mistaken identity in relation to a robbery on Ahmed the day before, or “simply because they didn’t like the way he looked”, but Anderson was left seriously injured.

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Almost half a century after it began, here’s how America’s ‘war on drugs’ is still devastating Latin America

The drug trade has so effectively penetrated state institutions that even the top echelons of the police force and the military have been linked to cartels

If you need insight into the alarming levels of social and political violence and the degradation of Latin America’s already fragile democracies in recent decades, you should pay attention to the dramatic increase of cocaine and marijuana trafficking.

Since the promotion of the so-called “war on drugs” by the United States during the 1970s, crime related to drug trafficking has increased, becoming one of the key problems faced by the region. Some 50 years later, it’s worth questioning what it has meant for the countries in which narcotics are produced and trafficked.

It’s all too clear that the drug war has not managed to stop the flow of illegal substances to consumers. In the case of the coca plant, government policies have barely managed to reduce areas of land in which the crop is cultivated, and technological advances have enabled a greater level of production per hectare.

On the other hand, drug use has not visibly reduced; in many countries in which drugs are produced and trafficked, consumption rates have actually increased.

A few years after the start of the drug war, the cocaine trade had already infiltrated the highest echelons of power in several countries in the region.

Around this time in Colombia, Pablo Escobar had already gained notoriety as a drug baron, and was preparing to move into politics, a strategy that would later be substituted by the criminal violence industry.

Over subsequent decades, drug money financed the activities of a variety of armed groups, resulting in the explosion of the paramilitary phenomenon in Colombia – a phase known as the “degradation of the internal armed conflict”, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of killings and the displacement of millions.

While under siege due to national armed conflicts in several countries in the late 1970s, Central America experienced an increase in the influence of military power structures.

The triumph of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in 1979 provoked the intensification of pressure from the US on the region, in what could be considered one of the last stands of the Cold War.

US agents negotiated with Honduran drug baron Juan Ramón Matta, in order to finance with dirty money the Nicaraguan Contras and the counterinsurgency in Guatemala and El Salvador. Honduras (and Guatemala) would later form a key part of the cocaine route, serving as a bridge between the South American producer countries and Mexico.

At the turn of this century, major Mexican cartels entered by force in Central America as a result of the Mexican drug war led by president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012). Following their arrival, the levels of violence in the region drastically increased, leading the three countries of the so-called Northern Triangle (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) to become amongst the most violent on the planet.

The case of Colombia is paradigmatic. The Peace Agreement signed by the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla group in 2016, fuelled expectations amongst the civilian population in general and human rights defenders in particular, but as yet it has failed to deliver the promised results.

According to the Information System regarding Aggressions against Human Rights Defenders from 2016 to June 2018, 263 human rights defenders were assassinated, with a significant increase in the number of attacks being registered in 2018.

The influence of organised crime groups in Colombia’s power structures was highlighted by the revelations of the notorious “parapolítica” scandal, which saw more than 60 senators imprisoned for their links with illegal armed groups.

The Central American case presents several parallels with Colombia. The were a series of bloody civil wars in the region during the 1980s and 1990s which ended with the signing of Peace Agreements, the last of which being in Guatemala in 1996. Since then, however, the levels of violence in the region have not diminished.

Following the end of a conflict which left more than 200,000 dead and 45,000 forcibly disappeared, certain power structures in Guatemala reconfigured and ended up participating in the new models of organised crime, repression, and territorial control.

The relationship between important political and military groups with drug traffickers has grown stronger since the 1980s.

After the 2009 coup d’état, Honduras experienced a period of political degradation, which led to major militarisation and a severe increase in organised crime activity and violence. The drug trade has so effectively penetrated state institutions that even the top echelons of the police force and the military have been linked to the cartels.

The serious levels of violence and impunity that the country faces have been major factors in propelling forced migration in Honduras, currently in the news due to migrant caravans making their way towards the United States.

But the state response in the context of the drug war has only served to further aggravate the situation. The eradication of coca in Colombia, for example, hasn’t generated particularly positive results.

One report shows that 38 leaders and members of the National Coordination for Coca, Poppy Seed and Marijuana Producers have been assassinated between 2017 and June 2018. And on top of that, there’s been an increase in authoritarianism and the implementation of emergency measures, justified by the supposed aim of combatting criminal activity.

In Honduras, militarisation of public security has seen an increase in human rights violations, especially in moments of acute political crisis. It’s no coincidence that in the key countries on the drug trafficking route homicide rates are among the highest on the planet, and far above those considered by the UN as representative of epidemic violence.

The work of human rights defenders has become particularly dangerous, to almost heroic proportions. These people put their own lives on the line and are forced to confront a culture of fear and silence violently imposed by organised crime groups born out of the drug war paradigm. According to a 2016 Global Witness report, in Honduras alone, 123 environmentalists were murdered between 2009 and 2016.

Putting a stop to an illegal economy which has reached these heights obviously requires great international coordination, including the tireless persecution of activities related to money laundering in the international banking system.

But we won’t achieve this while there is a lack of transparency in the financial sector, and while tax havens continue to operate. The solution to the global drug dilemma should be based on human realities.

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Mexican president declares 'drug war' over

Mexico has deployed its army since 2006 to fight its powerful drug cartels.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador declared the country's war on drugs over Wednesday, saying his government would no longer prioritise using the army to capture cartel kingpins.

However, critics questioned the announcement, pointing out that the leftist president has not taken the army off the streets as he pledged during his campaign, and is proposing the creation of a national guard that opponents say would permanently militarise the country.

Mexico has deployed its army since 2006 to fight its powerful drug cartels.

But the strategy has been widely criticised. Although it has led to the capture of a string of high-profile kingpins, it has also been accompanied by a tidal wave of violence, as the fragmented cartels wage war on each other and the army.

Asked in his daily press briefing if his government had taken down any kingpins since he took office in December, Lopez Obrador said that was no longer the strategy.

"There's no war. There is officially no more war. We want peace, and we are going to achieve peace," he said.

"No capos have been arrested because that is not our main purpose. The main purpose of the government is to guarantee public safety... What we want is security, to reduce the daily number of homicides."

Mexico has registered more than 200,000 murders since the military was sent into the streets 13 years ago, and some of its states have homicide rates on par with the most violent countries in the world.

Last year was the most violent on record, with 33,341 homicides.

Lopez Obrador has proposed a series of social programmes he says will end the poverty that drives violent crime.

But he is also pushing for a national guard with tens of thousands of soldiers that would officially bring civilian police duties under military control.

There is a "clear contradiction" in Lopez Obrador's statements Wednesday, said security expert Alejandro Hope.

"His anti-crime strategy barely changes anything, it's not different from that of previous governments, and even accentuates the use of the armed forces for public security," he told AFP.

Rights groups say the national guard plan would militarise the country permanently.

The measure, which requires a constitutional amendment, has passed the lower house, and must now clear the Senate and half the state legislatures.

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White House Releases National Drug Control Strategy

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Today, Jim Carroll, the newly sworn-in Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), released the Administration’s National Drug Control Strategy, which establishes the President’s priorities for addressing the challenge of drug trafficking and use.

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The negative consequences of the trafficking and use of illicit drugs, along
with the toll that drug misuse and abuse is taking across America, have endangered too
many communities, ruined too many families, and taken the lives of too many of our
fellow Americans .
The Trump Administration’s
National Drug Control Strategy
is focused on
reversing these developments, saving American lives, and setting our Nation on a path
to being stronger, healthier, and drug-free. This
Strategy
is intended to guide and focus
Federal government efforts along three complementary lines of effort. First, we must
reduce the size of the drug-using population by preventing initiates to illicit drug use
through education and evidence-based prevention programs. Second, we must reduce
barriers to treatment services so that access to long-term recovery is available for those
suffering from substance use disorder. And finally, we must drastically reduce the avail
-
ability of these drugs in the United States through law enforcement and cooperation with
international partners to lessen the negative effects of drug trafficking that impact the
safety of our communities and the well-being of our citizens.
While this
Strategy
reflects the President’s top priority to address the current
opioid crisis and reduce the number of Americans dying from these dangerous drugs,
it also sets us on the path to develop further the capability, knowledge, and infrastructure
to respond to the evolving nature of the drug threat as we move deeper into the
twenty-first century.
This is a
Strategy
of action. It reflects our understanding of the complex interplay
between the availability of drugs in the U.S. market and their use, anticipates changes
in the drug environment in both the public health and law enforcement domains, and
allows us to adapt our actions and make lasting progress against this historic national
security, law enforcement, and public health challenge. Most importantly, it demands our
full effort and a relentless focus on delivering results. The American People should expect
nothing less .

James W. Carroll
Director of National Drug Control Policy

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Nog nooit zoveel cocaïne onderschept in Rotterdamse haven als vorig jaar

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Nog nooit hebben de opsporingsdiensten zoveel cocaïne in de Rotterdamse haven onderschept als in 2018. In totaal gaat het om 18.947 kilo, verstopt in 109 zendingen, meldt het OM.

In 2017 was de hoeveelheid onderschepte cocaïne juist afgenomen ten opzichte van het jaar daarvoor. Alles bij elkaar hebben de douane, FIOD, Zeehavenpolitie en Openbaar Ministerie in 2018 drie keer zoveel cocaïne onderschept als in het voorafgaande jaar.
Zuid-Amerika

Een van de opvallendste vangsten, zegt het OM, was een partij van 1300 kilo cocaïne verstopt in een partij diepgevroren blokken kippenlevertjes.

Rond de kerstperiode werden er tien partijen cocaïne onderschept met een gewicht van bij elkaar opgeteld zo'n 4000 kilo. Alle tien zendingen kwamen uit Zuid-Amerika, uit onder andere Suriname, Brazilië, Ecuador en de Dominicaanse Republiek.

Naast cocaïne werd vorig jaar ook 3378 kilo hasj, 241 kilo marihuana en 58 kilo heroïne onderschept in de haven van Rotterdam.

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Purdue Pharma’s ‘Project Tango’ was a secret plan to profit off opioid addiction caused by their drugs, court filing says

Even as Purdue Pharma was publicly brushing off concerns about opioid addiction, the company was secretly planning to profit off the epidemic, according to a newly unredacted court filing by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

But the company never followed through on the plan, called “Project Tango,” says an amended complaint and jury demand filed in connection with Healey’s lawsuit against opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma and its board members.

Healey filed the suit in Suffolk Superior Court in June.

The suit alleges that former Purdue Chairman and President Richard Sackler and other Sackler family members and Purdue board members knew how addictive opioids were, yet marketed them aggressively anyway. She said the company misled doctors and consumers about the addiction and health risks of opioids, including OxyContin.

Her filing details Purdue’s aggressive marketing, which aimed to get doctors to keep more people on higher doses of opioids for longer periods of time.

More details about the lawsuit have become available as the redactions have been removed from Healey’s brief under court order. The order was in response to a motion filed by The Boston Globe and STAT that was later joined by Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and WBUR.

Purdue Pharma said in a statement released earlier this month that Healey's complaint "irresponsibly and counterproductively casts every prescription of OxyContin as dangerous and illegitimate, substituting its lawyers' sensational allegations for the expert scientific determinations of the Food and Drug Administration and completely ignoring the millions of patients who are prescribed Purdue Pharma's medicines for the management of their severe chronic pain."

“The complaint is littered with biased and inaccurate characterizations of these documents and individual defendants, often highlighting potential courses of action that were ultimately rejected by the company,” Purdue Pharma wrote in its statement.

Healey filed a bombshell brief accusing Purdue Pharma and its executives of illegally profiting from addiction.

The latest copy of the filing, released Thursday evening, reveals for the first time the existence of the “Project Tango” proposal, which board member Kathe Sackler pitched to the Purdue Pharma board in 2014.

Publicly, the company had been telling doctors that opioid addiction was the fault of addicts, and their drugs would not cause addiction if taken by a “trustworthy” person and used correctly.

However, the new documents say Purdue Pharma knew opioids would cause addiction and considered getting into the business of selling drugs to treat addiction.

Sackler wrote in internal documents that opioids and addiction are “naturally linked” and Purdue Pharma should consider becoming an “end-to-end pain provider,” providing opioids to treat pain, and then offering suboxone to treat addiction.

The documents noted the large increase in opioid addiction over the prior five years and said opioid addiction “can happen to any-one.” Sackler wrote that the market for addiction treatment was attractive due to “large unmet need for vulnerable, underserved and stigmatized patient population suffering from substance abuse, dependence and addiction.”

Healey wrote in her brief, “The Tango team mapped how patients could get addicted to opioids through prescription opioid analgesics such as Purdue’s OxyContin or heroin, and then become consumers of the new company’s suboxone.”

Although that proposal was dropped, company officials again discussed profiting off addiction in June 2016, this time by selling the drug Narcan, which can revive someone after an overdose. They considered marketing Narcan to the same doctors who were prescribing large amounts of opioids.

“Purdue’s analysis of the market for NARCAN confirmed that they saw the opioid epidemic as a money-making opportunity, and that the Sacklers understood — in private, when no one was watching — how Purdue’s opioids put patients at risk,” Healey wrote.

As the public became more concerned about opioid addiction, long-time employee Craig Landau, applying for the job of CEO that he eventually got, proposed that Purdue take advantage of other companies backing away from the market by becoming the country’s dominant opioid seller.

The court filing also says Purdue Pharma knew its drugs were being abused.

At a 2010 board meeting, Purdue staff gave the board a list of doctors who were suspected of allowing opioids they prescribed to be diverted and abused, along with the amount of sales each doctor generated. The list included 12 doctors in Massachusetts.

Staff reported that Dr. Michael Taylor of New Bedford wrote more than 500 prescriptions for OxyContin over two years, providing Purdue with nearly $400,000. They told the board that Dr. Alan Chua of Brookfield prescribed OxyContin more than 1,000 times, providing more than $430,000 to Purdue.

A year later, the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Medicine took away Chua’s medical license for improper prescribing. Three years later, the Board of Registration of Medicine took away Taylor’s license, and he was convicted in court of prescribing opioids without a legitimate medical purpose.

Four patients died after overdosing on opioids prescribed by those two doctors.

There were eight members of the Sackler family on Purdue’s board of directors. Between 2007 and 2016, the Sacklers voted to pay themselves a total of $4.2 billion from the company’s profits, according to the court filing.

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'Drugstest bij automobilist is onwettig'

De rechtbank heeft een 23-jarige man uit Groningen vrijgesproken van het rijden onder invloed van cannabis omdat het geleverde bewijs onwettig is.

De uitspraak kan volgens advocaat Peter Koops van Trip Advocaten in Groningen grote gevolgen hebben.

In maart vorig jaar werd de man aangehouden omdat hij als bestuurder van een auto onder invloed was van cannabis. Onderzoek wees een te hoge waarde van de stof THC aan in zijn bloed.

Commercieel bedrijf niet gemachtigd

Dergelijke onderzoeken worden doorgaans uitgevoerd door het aan justitie gelieerde Nederlands Forensisch Instituut (NFI). Het instituut besteedt de onderzoeken echter uit aan Humicon B.V. in Maastricht. Dit commerciële bedrijf is niet gemachtigd om dergelijke onderzoeken uit te voeren. Humicon beschikt niet over de vereiste accreditatie die de betrouwbaarheid moet garanderen.

Advocaat Koops voerde dit tijdens de rechtszaak aan waarop de politierechter een streep door het bewijs haalde en de verdachte vrijsprak.

OM in hoger beroep

Het Openbaar Ministerie is het niet eens met de Groninger politierechter en gaat in hoger beroep. ,,Het moederbedrijf van Humicon is gevestigd in Duitsland en die beschikt wel over de vereiste accreditatie’’, zegt een woordvoerster. Wat de gevolgen zijn van de uitspraak is nog niet te overzien. Niet uitgesloten is dat lopende zaken worden opgeschort tot er een uitspraak is in hoger beroep.

Dat het NFI onderzoeken uitbesteedt heeft te maken met grote interne problemen en de hoge werkdruk bij het instituut. Advocaat Koops zegt in een reactie: ,,We hebben in Nederland keurige wetten, maar de uitvoering en handhaving is ondermaats.’’

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World Health Organization recommends reclassifying marijuana under international treaties

Global health experts at the United Nations are recommending that marijuana and its key components be formally rescheduled under international drug treaties.

The World Health Organization is calling for whole-plant marijuana, as well as cannabis resin, to be removed from Schedule IV, the most restrictive category of a 1961 drug convention signed by countries from around the world.

The body also wants delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and its isomers to be completely removed from a separate 1971 drug treaty and instead added to Schedule I of the 1961 convention, according to a WHO document that has not yet been formally released but was circulated by cannabis reform advocates.

Marijuana and cannabis resin would also remain in Schedule I of the 1961 treaty. They are currently dual-designated in Schedules I and IV, with IV being reserved for those substances that are seen as particularly harmful with limited medical benefits. (That’s different from the US federal system, under which Schedule I is where the supposedly most dangerous and restricted drugs — like marijuana, heroin, and LSD — are classified.)

WHO is also moving to make clear that cannabidiol and CBD-focused preparations containing no more than 0.2 percent THC are “not under international control” at all. It had previously been the case that CBD wasn’t scheduled under the international conventions, but the new recommendation is to make that even more clear.

Cannabis extracts and tinctures would be removed from Schedule I of the 1961 treaty under the recommendations, and compounded pharmaceutical preparations containing THC would be placed in Schedule III of that convention.

The practical effects of the changes would be somewhat limited, in that they wouldn’t allow countries to legalize marijuana and still be in strict compliance with international treaties, but their political implications are hard to overstate.

Taken together, recommendations, if adopted, would represent a formal recognition that the world’s governing bodies have effectively been wrong about marijuana’s harms and therapeutic benefits for decades. WHO’s new position comes at a time when a growing number of countries are moving to reform their cannabis policies. As such, a shift at the UN could embolden additional nations to scale back or repeal their prohibition laws — even though legalization for non-medical or non-scientific reasons would still technically violate the global conventions.

“The placement of cannabis in the 1961 treaty, in the absence of scientific evidence, was a terrible injustice,” said Michael Krawitz, a US Air Force veteran and legalization advocate who has pushed for international reforms. “Today the World Health Organization has gone a long way towards setting the record straight. It is time for us all to support the World Health Organization’s recommendations and ensure politics don’t trump science.”

The WHO recommendations were initially expected to be released at a meeting in Vienna in December, but the announcement was delayed for unknown reasons. The proposals will next go before the UN’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs, potentially as soon as March, where 53 member nations will have the opportunity to vote on accepting or rejecting them.

A number of countries that have historically opposed drug policy reforms, such as Russia and China, are expected to oppose the change in cannabis’s classification.

Other nations, like Canada and Uruguay, which have legalized marijuana in contravention of the current treaties, are likely to back the reform, as are a number of European and South American nations that allow medical cannabis.

It is not clear how the United States will vote. While the country has historically pressured other nations not to reform their own marijuana policies, the reality of legalization in a growing number of US states has made that kind of pressure increasingly untenable in recent years.

The Trump administration moved last year to revoke Obama-era prosecutorial guidance that generally urged non-intervention with local marijuana laws. But the president himself has voiced support for letting states set their own cannabis policies without interference, and attorney general nominee William Barr said during his confirmation hearing that he would not “go after” companies relying on the now-rescinded cannabis guidance.

Thus, it remains to be seen how the administration will direct its UN representative when it comes time to weigh in on the proposed changes to marijuana’s status under international law.

If the recommendation on CBD is adopted, however, it could potentially have far-reaching implications in the United States. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration determined that CBD does not meet the criteria for federal control — except for the fact that international treaties to which the United States is party could potentially be construed as requiring it.

“If treaty obligations do not require control of CBD, or if the international controls on CBD change in the future, this recommendation will need to be promptly revisited,” the FDA wrote, adding that the US scheduling placement of CBD should be “revisited promptly” if international treaty obligations changed. Under the clarification being recommended by WHO, no one would be able to argue that CBD is globally scheduled.

The WHO’s new cannabis rescheduling recommendations come in the form of a letter, dated January 24, from the Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the body’s director general, to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Guterres was Portugal’s prime minister when the country enacted a policy of decriminalizing drug possession, a move he touted in a speech to the UN’s Commission on Narcotics Drugs last year.

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Amanda Feilding: ‘LSD can get deep down and reset the brain – like shaking up a snow globe

The campaign to legalise LSD in Britain is gathering pace. The force behind the movement is an English countess for whom lobbying – and experimenting – has been a life’s work

If you were to close your eyes and conjure the headquarters of a 50-year campaign to legalise and license psychedelic drugs, you might well see “Brainblood Hall”. A Tudor hunting lodge, surrounded by three concentric moats and formal boxwood topiary, it appears, as you approach along its winding drive on a wintry afternoon, to be ready to whisper all kinds of curious stories. There are plenty from which to choose. The Black Prince used to hunt from a house on this site. Lewis Carroll based the chessboard landscape of Alice Through the Looking-Glass on the watery Oxfordshire moorland that extends in all directions. And Aldous Huxley set his first novel, Crome Yellow, here after visiting for tea with Lady Ottoline Morrell in 1921.

Amanda Feilding, who grew up here and returned to live in the manor after the death of her parents, is the natural heir to all of those associations. She is an eye-bright woman of 76, a spirited talker and an attentive listener, with that ingrained aristocratic habit of passing off wild and whirling eccentricity as mundane routine. For the past half century, she has led an indefatigable – and mostly frustrated – campaign to relax the prohibition on research into psychedelic compounds, particularly LSD. What long seemed a hopeless quest, a one-woman battle against the massed artillery of the “war on drugs”, has recently begun to turn in her favour. Feilding has lately been dubbed the “Queen of Consciousness” by the New Scientist. I have arranged to meet her to talk about the ways in which her half century of lobbying seems finally to be paying off.

It is, appropriately enough, by no means straightforward to find Beckley Park (Feilding nicknamed it Brainblood Hall in the 1960s). The postcode I’ve keyed in to satnav first takes me to an MoD firing range. Directions from the landlady of the local pub lead to a golf club car park. By the time I eventually locate the correct unmarked mile-long track, the low sun is losing its brightness on the red walls of the old lodge, lending it an off-grid glow.

Feilding, who also enjoys the titles the Countess of Wemyss and March, and Lady Neidpath, courtesy of her husband, Jamie Charteris, has converted an outbuilding into the two-storey nerve centre of her lobbying operation. Downstairs, her team of five researchers and interns is at computer screens. Upstairs, in a beamed loft, we sit down to tea and biscuits while she talks me through the latest pile of data and research literature and the little, brightly coloured fMRI scans of the brain – this one on LSD, that one not.

Feilding started her campaign from her kitchen table toward the end of the 1960s. But after a while, she thought: “Well, I can’t try to change global drug policy and carry out scientific research as just me. I have to become a foundation.” She was, she says, “lucky or clever” in getting serious scientists to support her. Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who famously had the first LSD “trip” in 1943 after accidentally dosing himself with the compound he was analysing as a cure for migraine, became a lifelong ally. He was joined on the Beckley Foundation’s advisory board by luminaries including Professor Colin Blakemore, director of the Oxford University Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, and his counterpart at Cambridge, Professor Trevor Robbins.

In the past few years, since the controls on experimentation with psychedelics have been relaxed, the Beckley Foundation has sponsored research programmes at Imperial College London and elsewhere to explore the effects of LSD on the brain, particularly in treating long-term depression. These studies are part of the science that begins to suggest psychedelics may have a role to play in treating everything from alcohol addiction to Alzheimer’s disease to post-traumatic stress disorder. Significant headlines first resulted from a Beckley-funded study at Johns Hopkins University in 2016, detailing the positive effects of using psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, to combat depression in terminally ill patients.

That study was the starting point for a book-length investigation by the influential New York Times writer Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics, which topped the bestseller lists last year. Feilding had been arguing for many of Pollan’s findings all her adult life: “We have been stuck with SSRIs [such as Prozac or Zoloft] as our only tool for treating depression,” she says now, “and meanwhile there has been an epidemic of mental illness.” It is Feilding’s as yet unproved belief that LSD in controlled dosages has the capacity to “get deep down in the brain and reset ‘the wish to get better’ – like shaking up a snow globe”. She began microdosing herself in her 20s. “We used to call it a psychovitamin,” she says. “It makes you more lively, you enjoy your thoughts more. You can find your flow.”

In the years since President Nixon outlawed LSD in the wake of the Charles Manson trials, prohibition codified in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, it has been virtually impossible for pharmacologists to show an interest in Hofmann’s “wonder drug”. One of the reasons that Feilding has been able to keep the argument going through those years, however, is that she has existed outside the academic establishment. She has no university degree. It would be fair to say, however, that her credibility as an advocate has not always been helped by her storied history with self-experimentation. This reached an infamous extreme in 1970, when Feilding became enthralled by the ancient practice of trepanning, the drilling of a hole in the skull, in the belief that it would expand consciousness and reduce neurosis (a practice that, needless to say, has zero support in the medical profession). Following the example of her former lover and mentor Bart Huges, a Dutch natural scientist with whom she first experimented with LSD, Feilding carefully bored a hole in her own skull using a dentist’s drill.

She made an artful film of the process, designed to be shown to the curious (somewhat gruesome clips from which are discoverable on the internet). The film did not endear her to mainstream science, but that experience was nothing new.

“Funnily enough, growing up here as children, we always were so far out of society,” she says, cheerfully. “My parents had no cash for heating or petrol or toys or school uniform or whatever. I was always very isolated. So becoming a pariah made not much difference to me. And I always had a couple of other pariahs for company.”

That rebellious streak was inherited from her father, whose mother had been a friend of Nietzsche and “all that lot in Europe”. He used to do his hedging and ditching at Beckley at night, by torch and candlelight, because he believed daylight should be reserved for making art – he was a painter who didn’t really sell. Feilding trailed around after him at all hours. He read her Seven Pillars of Wisdom when she was six.

Her mother was potentially less forgiving, an impassioned Catholic who believed that her daughter should live at home until she married. “I have to say, I admired her in old age, though,” Feilding says, with characteristic brightness. “There I was, druggy, trepanned, unmarried, with two sons – bastards, as she might have seen them – and she didn’t mind a bit.”

Before the light outside goes, Feilding insists that we have a wander around the grounds, where the seeds of her curiosity were sown. Out among the ancient hedges and ponds she points out the mound and tree stump that she believed housed a private god figure; her game, aged five or six, was to find ways to make that god laugh, “that kind of orgasm experience that I think a lot of young children have and then forget”.

Feilding did not forget. She wanted afterwards, she says, to recreate that childlike intensity of experience. She discovered pot at 16 and left her convent school when she won the science prize and the nuns refused to present her with her chosen book about Buddhism. She decided to continue her education by going in search of her godfather, a man named Bertie Moore, who had been “a spycatcher in the war” and was by now living as a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka. Feilding, with £25 in her pocket, got as far as the Syrian border, where she spent some time living (of course she did) with Bedouins before returning to study comparative religion with an Oxford professor and fine art at the Slade school in London.

Her first experience with LSD was nearly her last. An acquaintance spiked some coffee she was drinking with a massive dose and she spent three months recovering from the “psychic wound” in a little hut she points out at the end of the garden. She was eventually persuaded out of the hut to a party at which Ravi Shankar was playing, in London. It was there that she met Huges, who had not long returned from Ibiza, where he had been making his own LSD. Huges was a man after her own seeker’s heart. He had been, she suggests, the top medical student in the Netherlands.

“Then,” she says, “he called his daughter Marijuana, and trepanned himself, and inevitably they failed him in his finals.”

The day after they met, Huges followed her down here and they started their hallucinogenic romance. As Feilding explains this former life, in digressive fits and starts, fretting a little that she is saying too much, she leads me through the twilit garden, over well-trodden stepping stones, pointing out a pond she dug “based on sacred geometries”, with a half-submerged colonnade as if from a forgotten civilisation.

It is hard to separate her from her habitat in the dusk; she says she thinks of the house as her soul. She feared she was going to have to lose it when her parents died. The house went up for sale and Drue Heinz, the baked beans heiress, expressed an interest. Feilding eventually managed to secure it by – she suggests, half-joking – letting her two young sons hide in the woods with air rifles to frighten off prospective buyers and by indulging in some financial smoke and mirrors with the bank.

Her desire to stay was wrapped up with the experiences she had here with Huges. His cultish philosophy, which she imbibed enthusiastically, along with his drugs, was based on the notion that in evolving to stand upright, human beings had lost some of the vital blood volume in their brains. One result, Huges argued, apparently persuasively, was that the ego had come to dominate more vital connections with the external world. The broad hypothesis was that LSD, with its action on blood capillaries, restored that connection, flooding the senses and allowing us to experience the world something like a newborn baby did. The key to controlling those trips, Feilding discovered, remembering the hypoglycaemic collapses of her diabetic father, was to keep sugar levels high in the blood as the drug depleted the body’s energy.

At some point in these experiments, Huges made the mistake of explaining his brain-blood-volume thesis to a journalist. A few nights later, Feilding says, there was a knock at the door of her London flat and two burly gentlemen (“from the Home Office or wherever”) advised Huges that he should return to his native Holland. He was, Feilding says, unable to return to the UK for 25 years.

As she completes this story, Feilding leads me into the main house itself, with its panelled walls and huge stone fireplaces and Ottoman rugs and tapestries. She fetches down a skull from her mantelpiece and shows me its several trepanned holes. The skull, she insists, was recovered from the grave of an Irish chieftain from 700BC; it is the cue for a brief history of skull boring in ancient cultures in Germany, India and Central America. The practice was, she believes – not entirely in step with received anthropological wisdom – most commonly associated with the priesthood, those with access to the best drugs. “The ones with the holes in the head became the shaman.”

And what about her own experience with the dentist’s drill. Did it change her life?

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she says. She recalls in passing a terrible journey home from Amsterdam back in the 1970s, when she had gone to visit Huges and had taken strychnine instead of mescaline and nearly died. When she got to London, Joey Mellon, her fellow traveller with Huges and subsequently the father of her sons, was trying and failing to make a hole in his skull with this “ancient handheld trepan”. Was that a moment, I wonder, when she felt their experiments might have been going too far?

“I took it more as an example of how not to trepan,” she says. “When I did it myself, I was very careful; I had practised for a long time.”

She lost the movie of the operation for a while, but rediscovered it. I wonder how it felt to watch it now?

“Actually, I think it is rather beautiful,” she says. “And terribly English. It starts with the bird, of course, who flies off from the attic window.”

The bird in question was a tame pigeon that Feilding had found as an orphaned squab, fed using a paintbrush, and which subsequently lived with her for 15 years, coming and going from the house as it pleased, sometimes sitting on her shoulder, Long John Silver style. “Birdie” was the reason she did not follow Huges to Holland. “He is,” she says with certainty, “the reason I know telepathy exists. He would look at me before he flew off, as if to say, ‘You poor person, why don’t you fly away with me over the river?’”

She pauses, laughs. “I know that sounds mad, but to my mind it was not mad at all.”

Keen to return to the challenges of the present, Feilding takes me back up to her loft office and her excitement at the current Beckley-sponsored research. When I mention Pollan’s book she expresses dismay that although the New York Times writer visited her here, he did not acknowledge in his book her work in shaping the debate around legalisation. “He wrote me out of it,” she says. “I have learned it is quite easy to write a woman out.”

She leafs through some of the foundation’s reports on her desk.

“When I got involved, global drug policy was in the dark ages,” she says. “I was really just interested in cannabis and the psychedelics and horrified how they were classified in the same bag as all other drugs, heroin and cocaine and the rest.”

Feilding launched a series of seminars through the foundation, Society and Drugs: A Rational Perspective, which drew in speakers and policy-makers from across the world. She leveraged her influence to help frame a more realistic approach by the UN and sympathetic governments toward cannabis in particular. Psychedelics remained more of a taboo subject. Sir David Nutt, another of her Beckley Foundation advisory board, lost his job as chair of the Home Office committee on the misuse of drugs in 2009 for stating that “the drug ecstasy is [statistically] no more dangerous an addiction than horse riding”. He could have gone further, Feilding suggests. “Cannabis and psychedelics are non-addictive. They have been used as medicines since the beginning of human history. I think,” she says, “our meetings were quite influential in persuading important people of that fact.” (Nutt, now chair of the neuropsychopharmacology programme at Imperial, later confirms to me how “Amanda’s remarkable vision and energy have led to transformational changes in both international drug policy and research with psychedelic drugs”.)

A faith in conventional scientific method seems to have partly supplanted some of the more speculative theories that Feilding adopted from Huges. In the years before the latter’s death in 2004, she dismissed some of his later conjecture, she recalls, as “rubbish”.

I wonder if any of the research she has done with Imperial College has vindicated Huges’s original blood brain notion? She admits it has not. When she helped to lead the first brain imaging study with LSD, the scans did not reveal the increase of blood supply she had been expecting, though they did show a decrease in what she calls the “conditioned reflex mechanism”, the controlling effect of the ego. The principal investigator in the study, Robin Carhart-Harris at Imperial, subsequently suggested that blood flow was probably “a little bit of a sideshow… The brain doesn’t fundamentally work through flowing blood. That’s part of it, but we know that the function is electrical, so why don’t we measure the electrical signals?”

Those signals, on Feilding’s primary-coloured fMRI scans, seemed to illustrate the mechanism that Aldous Huxley more poetically described as the opening of the doors of perception. Feilding points me to the patterns of colour on the brain scans. “The activity in the visual centre on the brain connects with a dozen other centres, so you get this flood of emotion and memory and colouring and music,” she says. “That is what people have been trying to describe.”

When Feilding launched this landmark study at the Royal Society in 2016, she did so in honour of Hofmann, who had always wanted to be welcomed there, but never was. Hofmann remained president of the Beckley Foundation right up until his death, aged 102, in 2008.

Had he died frustrated that his “elixir” had apparently been consigned to scientific history?

“No, Albert was a very happy man,” she says. “He felt this was a gift he had been allowed to give the world. Though the world didn’t seem to want it then, he knew it would at some point. I promised him I would get it re-established and that’s what we are doing.”

The study that she is “zooming in on” is the trial of psychedelics with terminally ill patients. “It clearly brings this contentment to many people,” she says. The original small, double-blind study showed a range of responses, but 80% of those involved showed significant decreases in depressed mood and more than two-thirds announced their experience with psilocybin as one of the top five most meaningful experiences in their lives. Does it matter, does Feilding think, if such experiences are illusory, a pharmacological trick?

“If it makes your dying better, and gives comfort to all those around you, who cares?” she says. “And perhaps it gives us a glimpse that we are more connected to the world outside ourselves than we think.”

Does she retain the faith in a meaningful universe that she felt as a child?

“Well, it is utterly amazing, whatever you call it. And on every scale: billions of stars, billions of neurons. I think it’s reasonable to believe there is some kind of connection between all of it.”

She returns to other favourite strands of research – a collaboration in Brazil using ayahuasca to make neurons fire in a petri dish; her plans to look into the ways psychedelics might encourage “brain plasticity” in Parkinson’s patients; an idea to try to prove enhanced cognitive function by studying the effects of LSD on winning strategies in the board game Go; policy roadmaps for the regulation of cannabis and MDMA.

She punctuates these accounts with occasional expressions of the pressures all this work places on her time. Feilding remains very involved in the lives of her sons: Cosmo, the youngest, is a film-maker, most recently of The Sunshine Makers, a documentary about 60s counter-culture; Rock, five years older, “rebelled” to become deputy leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, until his abrupt departure after the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire, a “terrible, terrible time” that Feilding has no wish to discuss in detail. She has two grandchildren, twin boys aged five. Does she have enough time to spend with them, I wonder, or, rather, does she never think her work is done?

“No,” she says quickly, “I love the work, but then I sometimes think, what am I doing? I love the research but I don’t love the policy.”

Whatever the case, she suggests determinedly, now that she feels she is winning “after 45 years of not winning” she is not going to give up soon. It’s pitch dark outside by now and Feilding walks me out to the car. She is anxious that I concentrate on the work rather than the personal history. I reassure her as far as I can, though it seems to me that you cannot separate one from the other. Then she waves me off, and I watch her in the rear-view mirror disappear back into the shadows of Brainblood Hall and her lifelong mission.

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VOC presenteert bidbook in Den Haag D. BERGMAN (VOC)
13 februari 2019

De zon scheen uitbundig toen we dinsdag rond het middaguur het Haagse Plein opliepen, langs het Torentje van premier Mark Rutte naar de postkamer van de Tweede Kamer, midden op het Binnenhof. Gewapend met een steekkarretje met daarop vijf zware dozen met in totaal 225 splinternieuwe VOC bidbooks, elk in een envelop met naam en VOC logo. Honderdvijftig stuks voor alle leden van de Tweede Kamer, vijfenzeventig voor die van de Eerste Kamer.

Frames en feiten
Het was een vlekkeloos begin van een lange dag in het hol van de leeuw. Later die middag presenteerden we het nieuwe VOC bidbook, ‘Het cannabis dossier – De frames en de feiten’ in perscentrum Nieuwspoort. Samen met bestuurslid Freek Polak en onze adviseur mr. John Roozen lichtten we het bidbook toe aan de pers.

We hadden het eerste exemplaar eigenlijk willen overhandigen aan André Knottnerus, voorzitter van de adviescommissie voor de wietproef, maar hij legde in een vriendelijke mail uit dat leden van de commissie geen ‘representatieve activiteiten richting belanghebbenden’ kunnen ontplooien.

5 cannabis mythen
Het nieuwe VOC bidbook is met 40 pagina’s het dikste tot nu toe. Op de cover staat de Canadese premier Justin Trudeau en de tekst die hij tweette op 17 oktober 2018, de dag dat cannabis legaal werd in zijn land:

‘Profits out of the hands of criminals. Protection for our kids. Today cannabis is legalised and regulated across Canada’


In het eerste van de zes hoofdstukken passeren vijf hardnekkige mythen over cannabis de revue. Wie weleens een krant leest, een journaal of talkshow bekijkt of een Kamerdebat voorbij ziet komen, kent ze wel. De exportmythe, de omzetmythe (‘de 800 miljoen van Tilburg’), de mythe van de internationale verdragen, de mythe van de Gateway of Stepping Stone theorie en de schizofrenie mythe.

Verdwijntruc
Na het uit de weg ruimen van de belangrijkste frames, misverstanden en vooroordelen richten we de blik over de grens. In twee hoofdstukken komen de spectaculaire ontwikkelingen in Noord- en Zuid Amerika en in Europa aan de orde. Het vierde hoofdstuk, ‘Van Wietwet naar zinloos experiment’, biedt een analyse van het beleid van de afgelopen decennia en de pogingen om de cannabisteelt te reguleren.

Veel aandacht is er voor de verdwijntruc van dit kabinet, die de al door de Tweede Kamer aangenomen Wietwet van D66 in de ijskast schoof, in ruil voor een wietexperiment dat al dreigt te mislukken nog voordat het goed en wel is begonnen.

Kleine thuisteler
De disproportionele strijd tegen de kleine thuisteler is de titel en het onderwerp van hoofdstuk vijf. De excessen rond de wet Damocles staan in schril contrast met de situatie rond thuisteelt in zeven Amerikaanse staten en acht landen, van Spanje tot Zuid-Afrika waar thuisteelt gewoon is toegestaan.

Het laatste hoofdstuk, ‘Perspectief en potentie’, begint met een citaat uit een brief van de directeur van de VNG, de organisatie waar alle Nederlandse gemeenten bij zijn aangesloten. De brief is gericht aan justitieminister Ferdinand Grapperhaus en gaat over de wietproef van het kabinet:

“Dit wetsvoorstel is puur bedoeld voor experimenten binnen Nederland. We dienen ons er van bewust te zijn dat daar ook in het buitenland ontwikkelingen gaande zijn die van invloed zijn. In ons land is inmiddels een groot cluster van agrotechnologische ondernemingen en kennisinstituten ontstaan vanwege veranderingen in beleid in andere landen (Canada, Verenigde Staten, Uruguay, Denemarken). Er ontwikkelt zich een robuuste, professionele legale, economische infrastructuur die de potentie heeft om op een kwalitatief verantwoorde en gecontroleerde manier producten te telen en te distribueren.”

Regulering op zijn VOC’s
In hoofdstuk zes laten we zien hoe ver die robuuste, professionele legale economische infrastructuur zich al heeft ontwikkeld. Denk aan de THC- en CBD-drankjes van Heineken-dochter Lagunitas, de Nederlandse kassenbouwers die goud verdienen in de legale wietindustrie in de VS en Canada, de deal van drankgigant Constellation Brands met Canopy Growth, de opkomst van edibles en concentraten etc.

We sluiten het bidbook af met ons eigenlijke ‘bid’: hoe vindt het VOC dat het verder moet met het cannabisbeleid? Citaat: ‘De stichting VOC blijft zich inzetten voor een inclusieve regulering van cannabis in Nederland. Concreet betekent dit:

-Thuisteelt door volwassenen voor persoonlijke consumptie is wettelijk toegestaan
-Cannabis Social Clubs zijn wettelijk toegestaan
-Mensen die een strafblad hebben met alleen cannabis gerelateerde overtredingen, kunnen werken in de legale cannabisindustrie en vergunningen krijgen
-Voor professionele teelt dienen de principes van de vrije markt te gelden, maar er worden maatregelen om te garanderen dat zowel grote als kleine bedrijven en telers kunnen gedijen
-De diversiteit en variëteit van het aanbod dienen te worden gewaarborgd
-Aan het terugdringen van het aantal coffeeshops moet een einde komen, gezien hun aantoonbare maatschappelijke belang
-Volledige legalisering van cannabis is het einddoel van het beleid’

Verspreid het wietwoord
Deze week versturen we het nieuwe VOC bidbook per post aan de burgemeesters van alle 103 coffeeshopgemeenten, journalisten, wetenschappelijke bureaus van politieke partijen, woningbouwverenigingen, verslavingszorginstellingen en andere stakeholders.

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Steeds meer sterke xtc in omloop, ketamine 'mainstream' tijdens uitgaan

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Hoewel aan het gebruik van harddrugs grote risico's kunnen zitten, zijn alcohol en tabak nog altijd het dodelijkst.

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Rotterdamse politie vindt 1500 kilo cocaïne tussen Braziliaanse mango's

Een strafrechtelijk onderzoek naar een Rotterdamse douanier heeft succes gehad: gisteren heeft de politie ongeveer 1500 kilo cocaïne onderschept in een container met mango's uit Brazilië. De verdachte douanier is aangehouden.

De autoriteiten hadden de man al langer in het vizier. Begin dit jaar startte de Rijksrecherche onder leiding van het Openbaar Ministerie een onderzoek naar de man van 37.

Uit informatie van de douane bleek dat de man mogelijk betrokken was bij de invoer van een verdachte container. Die werd gisteren aan een grondig onderzoek onderworpen waarbij de cocaïne werd ontdekt tussen de dozen mango's.

De verdachte wordt morgen voorgeleid aan de rechter-commissaris. De drugs, met een straatwaarde die in de tientallen miljoenen loopt, zijn vernietigd.

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United Nations and World Health Organisation call for drugs to be decriminalised

But member states still want narcotics to be illegal

The United Nations and World Health Organisation have issued a call for drugs to be decriminalised.

Buried in a joint release on ending healthcare discrimination, the organisations called for the “reviewing and repealing punitive laws that have been proven to have negative health outcomes” by member states.

Among a number of measures, this included “drug use or possession of drugs for personal use”.

While the WHO has previously called for drugs to be decriminalised in the context of HIV reduction, the UN has limited its calls to health- and evidence-based solutions to drug abuse.

Last year, nations meeting at the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs maintained a criminal approach to narcotics, despite strong concerns from a number of countries.

But last month, on the International Day Against Drug Abuse, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for tackling the problem through “prevention and treatment,” adhering to human rights.

He said: “Despite the risks and challenges inherent in tackling this global problem, I hope and believe we are on the right path, and that together we can implement a coordinated, balanced and comprehensive approach that leads to sustainable solutions.

“I know from personal experience how an approach based on prevention and treatment can yield positive results.”

Mr Guterres was Prime Minister of Portugal when the country launched its landmark drug decriminalisation programme, which also introduced greater resources for drug prevention and treatment projects.

Portugal saw its drug fatalities fall to one of the lowest in Europe and also reduced the prevalence of HIV among injectors.

But the illegal drugs trade is a complex international issue. Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Yury Fedotov, used his statement for the day to highlight the challenges posed by narcotics.

“The nexus between drugs, crime and terrorism and reveals a shifting pattern of relationships,” he said.

“As new threats appear, including spreading methamphetamine and new psychoactive substances, old ones continue to thrive. Business models are evolving too, with cybercrime and the darknet increasingly playing a role.”

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Is Marijuana the World’s Most Effective Treatment for Autism?

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Aran’s colleagues in the global pediatric community were still calling for caution in 2015. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which is staunchly opposed to legalization of marijuana, had just issued a policy statement opposing medical marijuana outside the regulatory process of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). (The AAP still maintains that stance.)

But Aran was starting to see evidence in his favor. His first inkling that cannabis could work for autistic kids came from anecdotal reports of parents who had used the drug to treat children with epilepsy. The rationale behind the treatment, and the reason it worked, came down to the marijuana plant’s two primary chemicals: the psychoactive agent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and the antipsychotic cannabidiol (CBD).

The brain is filled with cannabinoid receptors, which are named after the plant and function like special locks to which THC is the key. When THC binds to cannabinoid receptors in the brain, several sensations flood the body, what marijuana users call “the high.”

CBD works differently, and often with opposite effects. It doesn’t bind directly to cannabinoid receptors, it’s not psychoactive, and it doesn’t alter how the brain functions. Instead, CBD interacts with the brain indirectly. That process, called modulation, combats psychosis, depression, inflammation, anxiety and depression. While it’s THC that gets people stoned—and poses a potential danger to immature brains—it’s the plant’s CBD that relaxes them and counters anxiety, making it relevant to epilepsy and autism.

A healthy human brain runs on a balance of excitation and inhibition, a push and pull that regulates information as it flows through the chemical synapses in our head. With excitation, cells fire, transmitting information and signals. Inhibition keeps that flow of traffic in check. Like high-pressure water flowing through a narrow hose, these two systems work together to distribute information without overloading the system.

People with epilepsy suffer from reduced inhibition, which causes seizures. Over the past five years, a handful of successful studies on the use of cannabis, all employing specialized strains with little to no THC, have shown CBD is a legitimate treatment for certain forms of severe pediatric epilepsy. Doctors believe the drug works because CBD increases inhibition, thus helping to prevent the firing of seizure-triggering neurotransmitters, the brain’s chemical messengers. And because CBD does not cause a high, it’s believed that it presents little risk to the developing brain of a child when administered on its own.

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Nederlandse wietteler opgepakt in Barcelona
.
De Spaanse politie heeft een Nederlandse man opgepakt die in Barcelona twee wietplantages runde. Hij zou vanuit Spanje Nederlandse coffeeshops bevoorraden.

Bij de inval van de politie werden in totaal 4000 planten gevonden. Ook werden drie Spanjaarden gearresteerd, meldt de Spaanse krant El Periodico. Twee van hen hielden zich bezig met het verwerken van de oogst, de derde deed het transport naar Nederland.

400.000 euro straatwaarde

Volgens de politie zou de marihuana na het oogsten een straatwaarde van ongeveer 400.000 euro hebben gehad. De faciliteiten, zoals de lampen en luchtfilters, zijn volgens de politie ook nog zeker een ton waard. De elektriciteit werd illegaal afgetapt.

Als dekmantel runde de Nederlander op een industrieterrein een handelsonderneming in landbouwproducten en kunstmest. De twee hennepkwekerijen werden ontdekt nadat eind vorig jaar bij de gemeente verschillende klachten waren binnengekomen over een penetrante stank in de buurt.

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Op zaterdag 23 februari 2019 18:28 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
80% van de NL-se drugsproductie zou voor export zijn? Of word er in werkelijkheid meer geïmporteerd?

[..]

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Ketamine-Based Antidepressant Nasal Spray Gets FDA Greenlight: Reason Roundup

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration just approved a depression treatment derived from ketamine. A surgical anaesthetic turned party drug, ketamine has been enjoying a comeback this decade as an off-label treatment for clinically depressed patients who don't respond to other therapies.

Esketamine, a product recently approved by the FDA, is the first antidepressant "in decades to work in a completely new way in the brain," reports the Washington Post. "Older antidepressants target the neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine. Esketamine affects the receptor for a different brain chemical called glutamate." More:

. The spray acts within hours, rather than weeks or months as is typical for current antidepressants, and could offer a lifeline to about 5 million people in the United States with major depressive disorder who haven't been helped by current treatments. That accounts for about one in three people with depression. [...] Esketamine must be administered under medical supervision and can only be used in a certified doctor's office or clinic, according to the conditions of the FDA approval. It is to be taken with an oral antidepressant.

Studies of ketamine-derived antidepressant treatments have been going on now for more than two decades, with the first study published in 2000. "Several studies now provide evidence of ketamine hydrochloride's ability to produce rapid and robust antidepressant effects in patients with mood and anxiety disorders that were previously resistant to treatment," noted an array of scientists in JAMA Psychiatry back in 2017.

An FDA advisory committee voted in February to recommend approval of Esketamine, with only two members of the committee voting no despite having more mixed evidence than with many previous antidepressants.

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Op woensdag 13 maart 2019 18:42 schreef Zomaar-een-Chinees het volgende:
Ik hoorde Alex Jones opperen dat VS drugsgelden witwast. Maar hoe zou dit dan werken. Wat ik me wel kan voorstellen is wanneer de overheid geld inpikt van deze drugscriminelen. Om hoeveel geld zou dit dan gaan?

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The campaign for a 'drug-free world' is costing lives

Global policy on drug control is unrealistic, and has taken a harsh toll on millions of the world’s poorest people

_{Louise Arbour is former high commissioner for human rights. Mohamed ElBaradei is director-general emeritus of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel peace prize laureate. They are both members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy}

Drug control efforts across the world are a threat to human dignity and the right to life.

In 2017, more than 70,000 people died from a drug overdose in the US. Among the reasons for these deaths are the lack of access to health and harm-reduction services, as well as the fear of legal repression, which often dissuades people who use drugs from asking for help.

More than two-thirds of these deaths were linked to opioids. At the same time, millions of people across Africa have been unable to access opioids for pain relief because of decades of fear of these drugs being diverted to the illegal, recreational market, forcing people there to endure – and often die in – serious pain.

In the Philippines, thousands of people have been killed extrajudicially in a brutal anti-drug campaign that began in 2016. And in Colombia, two years after a historic peace agreement, and the promise of better livelihoods, rural communities are braced for a return to crop eradication by aerial spraying with the chemical glyphosate.

These stories reflect just some of the harmful consequences of drug control. But why are these violations still taking place? In several declarations and documents, governments have committed to “respecting, protecting and promoting all human rights, fundamental freedoms and the inherent dignity of all individuals” in the development and implementation of drug policies. What is happening in Colombia, in Africa, in the Philippines and in the US tells us that something is very wrong with this global commitment.

The first problem lies with the founding aspiration of the international drug system: to create a “drug-free society”, which countries have sought to achieve through prohibition, enforced by repression. We believe this is an illusion.

Almost all civilisations and cultures throughout history show evidence of the use of some mind-altering substance or other. Aiming for a “drug-free world” means hoping to eradicate a near-universal human impulse. The result can only be, as we have seen in the past decades, a war whose costs can be counted in the loss of life and dignity of millions of people.

This war has demonstrably failed. Ten years ago, the international community established this month as a target date “to eliminate or reduce significantly and measurably” the illegal cultivation, production, trafficking and use of controlled drugs. During these same 10 years, opium poppy and coca cultivation have in fact increased, and a large number of potent synthetic drugs were designed. Nor have harsh drug control policies worked to address the harms associated with addiction.

Instead, drug control efforts have taken a harsh toll on the health and human rights of some of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people. These policies have stripped our most vulnerable fellow citizens of their basic dignity.

This human rights failure is the product of political choices made of several factors, including fear, moral panic, lack of pressure of public opinion for reform and denial of facts. Unfortunately, in Vienna this month, these same choices will lead the international community to renew the global response to the “world drug problem” based on prohibition and repression.

We know this is preventable and avoidable. The world deserves drug policies that are respectful of human rights and dignity, and more effective at reducing drug-related harm.

The past four UN high commissioners for human rights have repeatedly asked countries to address the violation of fundamental rights in drug control. On 15 March in Vienna, a coalition of UN agencies, human rights experts and a few progressive governments, led by the United Nations Development Programme and the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy at the University of Essex, launched the international guidelines on human rights and drug policy. It provides practical recommendations for better ways for the global community to manage the risks related to the presence of drugs, and restore human dignity to millions of people harmed by decades of drug prohibition.

The guidelines shift the conversation from the eradication of drugs to the nourishment of human development. Beyond merely highlighting the fundamental rights that are violated by repressive drug policies, they focus on providing better solutions for drug control. These include the right to benefit from scientific progress, particularly in risk reduction, pain relief and addiction treatment, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to a fair trial, the right to privacy, and the freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, expression and information.

Several countries have started to usher in reforms based on these principles. These include the decriminalisation of low-level drug offences in at least 26 countries, the use of legal exemptions to enable traditional communities to maintain their sacred relationship with plants in several Latin American and Caribbean nations, and more than 117 safe injection facilities in 11 countries around the world.

We challenge the rest of the global community to join them.

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Card Tricks – The Propaganda Fuelling Prohibition

I am unable to go out socially much due to PTSD but when I do I am often seen with a pack of cards. It is amazing; a group of people, some I know, others who just want to be entertained and manipulated into believing I have achieved the impossible. I could perform all night as I get a high doing something I shouldn’t be able to do according to doctors who see me struggling to talk or keep my head straight as strangers mill around me.

I start by doing an illusion I developed when I was very ill. It takes mind reading to another level. I can see some people trying to get one step ahead, looking to see what I am doing. They are easily controlled, I just take them where they want to go – or is it where they don’t want to go? Then there are those that are just going along with you. They know it isn’t magic, they just accept what’s happening.

You shouldn’t gamble with a magician. As I move along I do an impromptu demonstration, the cards travel freely, hidden and exposed at will, just as I want them too. Spectators look where I want them to look. They hear and feel what I want them to hear and feel. They do exactly what I want them to do.

Reading this introduction, you may be thinking it’s a simple trick. A hustle to entertain or gain a few pounds from an unsuspecting tourist using the Three Card Monty.

The reality is you are experiencing this every day. It is the smoke and mirrors, the magical illusion and misdirection that you experience regularly. Tactics used to manipulate everyone that the war on drugs is being won.

As a serving police officer I worked on drug crime from various angles, in varying degrees, from undercover work and investigating money laundering to recovery of assets or dealing with the media. Initially you look and see these methods and think they all have a key role in fighting the ‘war on drugs’. But what you get is misdirection. Information is worked by politicians and the media like playing cards in the hands of a magician.

They wrongly portray the war on drugs as something that can be won. Misdirection is a powerful tool for the magician just as it is for the politicians and the media, hiding the blatant failures of drug policy and the tactics used to fight the war on drugs.

I am reminded of a 2017 news headline, “Birmingham gangs banned from city in landmark ruling.” The article below explained that named gang members were banned from entering the city centre or associating with each other and were required to register mobile phones and vehicles with police. Over 80 people from the home office and police had given evidence.

These sentences were achieved at astronomical cost but what are the real results? What are the public getting for their money?

To answer that, we need to look at criminals and how they often work. They can register a mobile and/or a vehicle with police, then simply use others that are not tied to them, a method commonly used by criminals to avoid surveillance and maintain contact with each other without being detected.

As for entering the city centre, they will have others do their work there for them, or just do it themselves anyway. We know these things because criminals use similar tactics when bail conditions are applied to them. They don’t stop. They just find other ways of going about their business.

The final question you may be asking is, how will the bans be enforced? And the answer is, with great difficulty and at great expense. We are looking at a very expensive order that will be broken because it costs too much money to enforce. It is what we call a ‘toothless tiger’. Society is led to believe they’ve been dealt one card, where in reality the card in their hands is a completely different one.

Being involved in various investigations I saw police officers spend over a year investigating the finances of individual criminals or gangs, to gain little or nothing in the retrieval of funds from convicted people. When assets were seized it was often after pro-longed court cases, challenging legislation. This was a great expense to the taxpayer for little gain. The net effect of the war against drugs is minimal.

We have all seen sensational “Drug dealers sentenced to 100 years” headlines without ever clicking through to find that the number of convictions was high and the lengths of jail terms were relatively low. The true results of investigations are not always obvious to the public. They are distracted by a card with large numbers on it while the card with the cost of the operation or the true impact it will have is being buried in the pack, hidden among all the other cards.

I use to applaud headlines and results in court, such as the order made in Birmingham. They portrayed an element of success for modern policing methods. But it is only by looking past misdirecting headlines to the real results of the war on drugs that we can start to realise prohibition has failed. Regulation of drugs is the way forward. Don’t let the magician distract you with a card trick in one hand while hiding the real facts from you with the other.

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Weer handgranaat gevonden in Spuistraat Amsterdam; ook explosief in Utrecht

In Amsterdam en Utrecht zijn vannacht handgranaten gevonden. In de hoofdstad was het voor de tweede keer in een etmaal raak in de Spuistraat. Het explosief werd rond 03.30 uur vlak bij een coffeeshop ontdekt. De granaat is weggehaald door de Explosieven Opruimingsdienst.

Gisteren werd op ongeveer dezelfde plek ook al een handgranaat gevonden. Een schoonmaker zag hem liggen en belde de politie. Wie de granaten heeft neergelegd en waarom is nog niet bekend.

Eerder deze maand ontplofte er in de Spuistraat een granaat bij de club Mad Fox. Die is toen per direct gesloten.

Autobedrijf Utrecht

Ook in een bedrijfspand op industrieterrein Nieuw Overvecht in Utrecht is afgelopen nacht een handgranaat gevonden. De EOD heeft het explosief onschadelijk gemaakt. Over de achtergrond is niets bekend.

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Op zondag 5 mei 2019 00:37 schreef broodjepindakaashagelslag het volgende:

[..]

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Lachgas verboden op vrijwel alle Bevrijdingsfestivals

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Historische vondst: 1000 jaar oude drugs van sjamaan gevonden in Bolivia

In Bolivia is een historische vondst gedaan. In een grot zijn een tasje van aan elkaar genaaide vossensnuiten, een gedecoreerde houten snuifpijp en resten van cocaïne gevonden van duizend jaar oud. In het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift PNAS beschrijven onderzoekers de archeologische vondst die inzicht geeft in het Bolivia van duizend jaar geleden.

Waarschijnlijk was de gevonden tas met in totaal vijf hallucinerende stoffen van een sjamaan. "Dat is bijzonder, want door de volledigheid van de vondst krijgen we inzicht in hoe belangrijk het sjamanisme 1000 jaar geleden was", zei Edward de Bock, conservator Latijns-Amerika van voor de kolonisatie bij het Wereldmuseum vandaag in Nieuws & Co.

Sjamanen nemen hallucinerende middelen en zouden zo in contact komen met een andere wereld, en met voorouders. Op die manier zouden sjamanen antwoord vinden op uiteenlopende vragen, van waar de regen blijft tot hoe een ziekte bijvoorbeeld genezen moet worden.

"We hebben altijd wel geweten dat er sjamanen waren", zegt De Bock. "Er waren allerlei vondsten gedaan, maar deze compleetheid geeft een geweldig inzicht van de complexiteit van het sjamanisme."

Volgens hem geven de vijf hallucinerende poeders aan dat er toen veel kennis over de werking daarvan was bij de sjamaan van wie de tas was.

"En het tweede waar de onderzoekers op wijzen is dat deze poeders uit zeer uiteenlopende ecologische zones komen. Dat betekent dat er over duizenden kilometers handel was, of de sjamaan in kwestie zelf naar verschillende gebieden getrokken is."

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As legal marijuana booms, Denver votes on decriminalizing hallucinogenic mushrooms

Mile High City is first in nation to vote on psilocybin mushrooms, which would still be illegal but 'de-prioritized'

If you thought legalized marijuana truly put the "high" in the Mile High City, wait until you hear what Denver is up to now. On Tuesday, residents will vote on whether to effectively decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms, the hallucinogen used by some cultures for religious purposes for centuries, and outlawed by the federal government since 1970.

The movement to "Decriminalize Denver" is the nation's first public referendum on "magic mushrooms," after an effort in California failed to reach the ballot last year. Initiative 301 would apply only to Denver, not the entire state of Colorado. It would place into city code the directive that enforcing laws for personal use or possession of psilocybin mushrooms "shall be the lowest law enforcement priority in the City and County of Denver," though having the mushrooms would still technically be illegal. The mushrooms would not be available in the city's cannabis dispensaries, and sales would still be classified as a felony. They would remain classified a Schedule I drug under federal law, as is marijuana, with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."

The image of hallucinogens as chemicals that launch users into a swirling mélange of colors and voices, presumably impairing one's ability to drive or operate heavy machinery, can be tough to overcome. But supporters say the mushrooms' powerful mind-altering qualities can have long-term positive effects on addiction, depression, chronic pain, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, in addition to the eight-hour journeys into the mystic.

Psilocybin is not addictive, does not lead to overdoses and is not thought to have long-term side effects, research has shown. It is a naturally occurring compound in some fungi. A number of studies have shown positive effects on people addicted to opioids, alcohol or tobacco, as well as diminished depression and anxiety. Researchers have found such benefits to mushrooms that the Food and Drug Administration has granted "breakthrough therapy" status to study psilocybin for treating depression. The FDA describes breakthrough therapy as designed to expedite development of a drug after preliminary evidence shows "the drug may demonstrate substantial improvement over available therapy."

Kevin Matthews was a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who was forced to retire due to major depression. He returned to Denver and struggled for years until he tried mushrooms for the first time.

"It was one of the most profound experiences of my life," he said. "It cleared the fog and lasted for weeks and weeks after. It enabled me to see outside the box of my own depression."

Matthews is now the campaign manager for the Denver Psilocybin Initiative, which he said has raised about $45,000 and is advertising almost exclusively on social media and posters around Denver. There is no organized opposition and no polling. He sees the initiative as the start of a national conversation about the healing powers of psilocybin and stands ready to start working with government and police officials on Wednesday, if the initiative passes on Tuesday.

Even in weed-friendly Denver, the government and police may need more convincing. Mayor Michael Hancock is opposed to the initiative, though his office declined to elaborate on why. The Denver police declined to offer a position. Denver District Attorney Beth McCann said, "At this point, I don't think it's a good idea."

"We're still figuring out marijuana, and even though things are going well so far, we're still measuring the impacts on the people of Denver," McCann said.

She said there has not been a rise in violent crime around pot dispensaries, but there has been a rise in hospital visits by young people and children associated with marijuana intake. McCann said she wanted to see more research on the short- and long-term benefits and side effects of mushrooms. She noted that the referendum does not truly decriminalize mushrooms but only de-prioritizes it for police, who can still make arrests.

Statistics show Denver police arrested about 50 people in each of the past three years for sale or possession of mushrooms, and prosecutors pursued only 11 of those cases.


McCann said she feared Denver, already becoming a haven for marijuana tourists, would become a preferred destination for drug users of all stripes. She also was not enamored of the idea of psilocybin-infused drivers. "The idea that we're driving around while hallucinating is not reassuring," the prosecutor said.

Matthews acknowledged the possibility of abuse of hallucinogens if they become more widely available.

"There is a risk. I'm not belittling that," Matthews said. "There's a responsible way to use it. Just like with alcohol, it's something to be used responsibly."

For Matthews, that means in a safe environment, with friends, in the proper dosage. "The last thing most people would want to do is get behind the driver's wheel when they're under the influence," he said.

Taken properly, the mushroom can have profound effects, many studies have shown. "Classic psychedelic use is associated with reduced psychological distress and suicidality in the United States adult population," a 2015 paper from the University of Alabama found. Imperial College London has published a number of studies showing positive effects on depression. And in 2006, researchers at Johns Hopkins University studied 36 people who took high doses of psilocybin and then were monitored for the next eight hours as they relaxed a couch and listened to classical music.

"67 percent of the volunteers," the Hopkins study found, "rated the experience with psilocybin to be either the single most meaningful experience of his or her life or among the top five most meaningful experiences of his or her life ... to be similar, for example, to the birth of a first child or death of a parent." The study was entitled, "Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance."

But getting the American government to embrace similar enlightenment is a tedious process, so in the case of marijuana, activists simply took their case to the voters. That's happening again in Denver, where activists gathered 5,000 signatures required to put the measure on the ballot. Attorney Noah Potter, who writes a blog about "psychedelic law" and deconstructs the problems with American drug law, helped Matthews write the language that is proposed to become law in Denver.

It started with activists getting medical marijuana passed in 1996 in California, Potter said, "because the regulatory system is nonresponsive to facts. It's a non-evidence-based regulatory system." The government's disdain for the growing body of reports on psilocybin, Potter said, "is one of the reasons why it's necessary to do these end runs around government."

The initiative has largely flown under the radar, especially nationally. "I think it'll pass," said Jeff Hunt, director of the conservative Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University.

Hunt added, "Colorado's a very libertarian state. We're in the midst of a backlash against the 'War on Drugs,' to the current feeling that marijuana's harmless."

He said since Colorado legalized marijuana, there had been a 151 percent increase in marijuana-related traffic fatalities, and that a survey found 60 percent of pot users admitted to driving while high. Hunt said 10 percent thought it made them drive better.

Hunt has been critical of how marijuana was legalized in Colorado and feels there should be the level of education on pot that there is on tobacco. He also said no one has studied how mushrooms might interact with other medications. "We've got to rein in the idea that this is a miracle drug," Hunt said.

Matthews said mushroom use can be challenging, and a "bad experience" can happen. The Hopkins study said "31 percent of the group ... experienced significant fear."

Matthews said the campaign "has a lot to do with educating the people of Denver, and the American people, about psilocybin and what it does. A recreational model wouldn't work. But we've had 50 years of blatant government misinformation about mushrooms and their prohibition. It's going to take some time to change the minds of people. We just don't think that anybody should go to jail for possessing a mushroom."

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All illegal drugs in Mexico could be decriminalized in radical government plan

.. A five-year policy document by the Mexican government has included a plan to decriminalize illegal drugs.
.. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said lifting prohibition was the only real way to curb drug use.
.. It is estimated that Mexico's drug gangs rake in as much as $29 billion a year from the United States.

Mexico has drafted plans to decriminalize all currently illegal drugs after admitting that the current "war on drugs" is endangering public safety.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sketched out the country's radical change of plan in his administration's National Development Plan for 2019-2024, released last week.

Under a new approach, drugs would not become legal, but arrests would be replaced by enforcing medical treatments including detoxification programs and attempts to break addictions.

"The only real possibility of reducing the levels of drug consumption is to lift the ban on those that are currently illegal," Obrador's policy statement read, "and redirect the resources currently destined to combat their transfer and apply them in programs— massive, but personalized—of reinsertion and detoxification."

In 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon deployed more than 6,500 Mexican soldiers to battle drug traffickers in what is seen as the beginning of the country's modern "war on drugs."

A 2018 report from the Congressional Research Service has estimated that since that year, 150,000 people have died because of organized gang killings.

Obrador's statement has described Mexico's current prohibitionist strategy as unsustainable and a danger to everyday Mexicans.

"Public safety strategies applied by previous administrations have been catastrophic: far from resolving or mitigating the catastrophe has sharpened it."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has estimated that as much as $29 billion in cash flows across the border to Mexican drug gangs each year.

Last month, President Donald Trump said he would give Mexico a year to stem the flow of illegal drugs and migrants over the southern border or he would impose auto tariffs, and potentially close the border.

Those comments rowed back from an earlier threat by Trump to close the border in April this year.

In Europe, Portugal decriminalized drug possession in 2001 and has maintained a non-prohibition stance ever since. A study conducted in 2015 by the CATO Institute suggested that while rates of heroin use in Portugal had not declined, drug-related outcomes — such as deaths due to drug usage and sexually transmitted diseases — had decreased sharply.

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Mexico Wants to Decriminalize All Drugs and Negotiate With the U.S. to Do the Same

Mexico’s president released a new plan last week that called for radical reform to the nation’s drug laws and negotiating with the United States to take similar steps.

The plan put forward by the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, often referred to by his initials as AMLO, calls for decriminalizing illegal drugs and transferring funding for combating the illicit substances to pay for treatment programs instead. It points to the failure of the decades-long international war on drugs, and calls for negotiating with the international community, and specifically the U.S., to ensure the new strategy’s success.

“The ‘war on drugs’ has escalated the public health problem posed by currently banned substances to a public safety crisis,” the policy proposal, which came as part of AMLO’s National Development Plan for 2019-2024, read. Mexico’s current “prohibitionist strategy is unsustainable,” it argued.

The document says that ending prohibition is “the only real possibility” to address the problem. “This should be pursued in a negotiated manner, both in the bilateral relationship with the United States and in the multilateral sphere, within the [United Nations] U.N.,” it explained.

Drug reform advocates have welcomed AMLO’s plan. Steve Hawkins, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, told Newsweek that the Mexican president’s plan “reflects a shift in thinking on drug policy that is taking place around the world, including here in the U.S.”

“The war on drugs has been extremely costly, not just in terms of government resources, but also human lives, and it has failed to accomplish its objective,” he explained. “Prohibition policies have, by and large, caused more harm to people and communities than the drugs they were intended to eliminate, and they haven’t come anywhere close to eliminating the supply or the demand.”

Last October, the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a global coalition of 170 nongovernmental organizations working on drug policy issues, released a report that highlighted the “spectacular” failure and global increase in violence that has been caused by the war on drugs. Instead of curbing the problem, “consumption and illegal trafficking of drugs have reached record levels,” Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand and a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, wrote in the document’s foreword.

The IDPC report found that there had been a 145 percent increase in drug-related deaths over the previous 10 years. The number of deaths reached an estimated 450,000 in 2015 alone. Drug overdose deaths have also skyrocketed, with 71,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. alone in 2017. Additionally, one in five prisoners globally are incarcerated due to drug-related crimes, often for simply possessing cannabis or other illicit substances.

“Mexico’s president is rightly identifying one of the major drivers of violence and corruption in his country: the prohibition of drugs,” Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for ending the war on drugs, said in an emailed statement to Newsweek. “The next step is to translate words into action, by pursuing both a domestic and international agenda of drug policy reform, grounded in respect for human rights.”

AMLO’s policy plan shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Mexican voters. During his campaign and after winning election, he has consistently called for major reforms to his country’s prohibition on drugs. Mexico’s Supreme Court also issued its fifth ruling on cannabis prohibition at the end of last October, determining that punishing people for using the drug violated the constitution. Mexican lawmakers have since worked to push forward legislation to regulate the use of recreational mairijuana.

“More and more countries are developing programs for regulating cannabis for medical and adult use, and there is a growing sentiment that drug use should be treated more like a public health matter than a criminal justice issue,” Hawkins told Newsweek .

Canada became the first major major economic power to legalize and regulate the sale of recreational cannabis last year. With Canada’s decision to legalize and Mexico pushing to decriminalize all drugs, the U.S. may soon find itself isolated by its neighbors when it comes to drug policy. Although 10 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana, and more than 30 have legalized some form of cannabis for medicinal use, it remains classified as a Schedule 1 illegal drug by the federal government.

Polls have shown that legalizing marijuana nationwide enjoys bipartisan support. Republicans and Democrats have come together in Congress to support legalization as well as protecting states that have already legalized at the local level. President Donald Trump has previously suggested he is supportive of easing laws surrounding marijuana, although his administration has given mixed messages.

Attorney General William Barr said last month during testimony before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that he would "still favor one uniform federal rule against marijuana." However, he added that he thought the "way to go is to permit a more federal approach so states can, you know, make their own decisions within the framework of the federal law."

Decriminalizing all drugs is not a perspective that is widely advocated or discussed in Washington. This week though, Denver became the first city in the country to pass a ballot measure to fully decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms, commonly known as magic mushrooms or simply shrooms.

“The vote [in Denver] shows again that the public is ahead of politicians on drug law reform—and shows the power and potential of public action in demanding it!,” the drug policy foundation Transform said in an email to supporters.

How the U.S. would respond to AMLO’s plan remains to be seen. Globally, however, it’s clear the conversation around drugs has shifted. Countries from Uruguay to South Africa to Georgia to Thailand have been reforming their drug laws, specifically when it comes to cannabis. Meanwhile, momentum has increased in the past few years within the U.S. as state after state has pushed through medical or recreational marijuana legalization.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, who co-founded the bipartisan Congressional Cannabis Caucus in 2017, told Newsweek last summer that he envisions marijuana will soon be traded across North American borders. “In the course of the next decade, I think there will be a North American cannabis market,” he said. If AMLO’s plan succeeds, that cross-border cannabis market could more likely come to fruition.

“Governments are increasingly finding they can neither justify nor afford maintaining the war on drugs,” Hawkins pointed out. “Leaders are looking for exit strategies, as we are now seeing in Mexico."

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Duitse grenspolitie vangt zorgwekkend veel drugs uit Nederland

Aan de grens tussen Nederland en Duitsland is goed te zien dat Nederland een draaischijf is geworden voor de internationale drugscriminaliteit. Grote zorgen zijn er in Duitsland vooral over de enorme toename van de hoeveelheden harddrugs die vanuit Nederland naar Duitsland komen.

Het afgelopen jaar verdubbelde de hoeveelheid drugs die aan de grens tussen Nederland en de deelstaat Noordrijn-Westfalen werd onderschept. Voorheen vingen politie en douane aan dit stukje grens zo'n 250 kilo per jaar, nu is dat 500 kilo. De Duitse politievakbonden trekken aan de bel en hopen dat ook de Nederlanders meer mankracht gaan inzetten.

Thomas Mischke, vakbondsbestuurder voor de Bundespolizei bij de politievakbond BDK, vindt de ontwikkeling ernstig, vooral omdat er te weinig personeel is aan de grens om de drugsexport een halt toe te roepen. "Er gaat geen week voorbij of we hebben vangsten van meerdere kilo's. Bijzonder bezorgd ben ik over het feit dat ineens synthetische drugs, zoals crystal meth, die voorheen uit Oost-Europa kwamen, nu ook uit Nederland komen."

En ook de hoeveelheid onderschept drugsgeld stijgt. Vond de politie van Noordrijn-Westfalen tot 2017 zo'n 400.000 euro per jaar in auto's. Vorig jaar was dat al bijna 3 miljoen. Ook de verstopplaatsen laten zien dat de koeriers steeds professioneler worden. Met ingenieuze hydraulische technieken zijn geld, drugs en wapens in auto's weggewerkt.

De vakbondsman wil de grenzen natuurlijk niet sluiten, zegt hij. Maar hij wil wel dat de grenscontroles samen met de Nederlanders drastisch worden uitgebreid en dat er ook weer faciliteiten komen aan de grens van waaruit de politie haar werk kan doen. "Voor criminelen zijn de grenzen geheel open maar voor ons niet. En we missen de grenskantoren die tegenwoordig weg staan te rotten."

"We moeten nu opereren vanuit een kantoor twintig kilometer verderop. En dat werkt vertragend. Bovendien werken vele diensten geheel langs elkaar heen", zegt Mischke.

Omdat de grenzen al heel lang open zijn, worden de controles uitgevoerd door vijf mobiele teams, de zogeheten Grensoverschrijdende Politieteams (GPT). Duitse politieagenten jagen samen met Nederlandse collega's van de Nationale Politie of de Koninklijke Marechaussee op verdachte voertuigen. Hoewel deze mobiele teams succesvol zijn gebleken, moeten ze volgens de vakbond enorm worden uitgebreid.

Mischke doet een oproep. "We willen graag dat de Nederlanders nog meer gaan samenwerken binnen onze teams, zodat we de stijgende criminaliteit samen kunnen bestrijden om zo meer veiligheid voor onze burgers te creëren."

Volgens Andor van Leerdam, brigadecommandant van de Koninklijke Marechaussee, komt er uitbreiding. Er zal van de vierhonderd nieuwe krachten die nu nog in opleiding zijn, ook een deel aan de Duitse grens gaan werken. "Lag tot nu toe de focus op de luchthavens, in de toekomst willen we ook hier nog meer present zijn", zegt Van Leerdam.

Steekproeven

De Duitse politie krijgt er volgend jaar maar liefst 12.500 mensen bij. Daarvan komt een deel de grens met Nederland versterken. "We werken al sinds 1958 nauw samen met de Nederlanders. Dat moet zo blijven, want we kunnen heel goed van elkaars bevoegdheden en techniek gebruik maken", zegt Christoph Weber, plaatsvervangend commandant van de Bundespolizei in Kleve.

Bij een landelijke gezamenlijke actiedag vorige week woensdag zijn langs de gehele grens door Nederlandse en Duitse autoriteiten ruim tienduizend mensen gecontroleerd. Daarvoor werden zelfs de snelwegen afgezet en moest het verkeer via de vluchtstrook langs de controle.

Ook op die dag waren de vangsten van de Duitsers en Nederlanders aanzienlijk: er zijn 33 mensen aangehouden, er werden 79 strafbare feiten geregistreerd in het kader van de Opiumwet en er waren 27 overtredingen in het kader van de Vreemdelingenwet. Aan de Duitse kant werd vijf kilo cannabis, vier kilo amfetamine en ruim tien kilo cocaïne onderschept.

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Gemeente Eindhoven doet niet mee met wietproef

De gemeente Eindhoven doet niet mee aan het experiment met de teelt van staatswiet. In een brief aan de gemeenteraad schrijft de burgemeester dat hij zich niet kan vinden in de opzet en voorwaarden van het experiment.

"Ik realiseer me dat dit besluit haaks staat op het aanbod dat ik het kabinet in oktober 2017 deed om het experiment samen met de partners in Eindhoven vorm te geven", schrijft burgemeester John Jorritsma (VVD). "Nu de contouren van het experiment bekend zijn, zie ik geen andere keus dan de inschrijving aan mij voorbij te laten gaan."

Samen met het college van B en W heeft de burgemeester zich gebogen over het experiment. Ook heeft hij gesproken met de belangenvereniging van coffeeshops in Eindhoven. De coffeeshops kunnen zich niet vinden in de eisen die gesteld worden aan de voorraden die ze mogen hebben en vinden dat ze te weinig invloed krijgen op het aanbod van de telers.

Kritiek

Ook is er kritiek op de eis dat in een deelnemende gemeente alle coffeeshops moeten meedoen aan de proef. Jorritsma vindt het onwenselijk om coffeeshops die niet meedoen te sluiten, omdat daardoor straathandel kan ontstaan met risico's op verstoring van de veiligheid en de openbare orde.

De burgemeester verwacht verder dat de effecten op criminaliteit, veiligheid, overlast en de volksgezondheid in de landelijke proef te klein zullen zijn, schrijft Omroep Brabant. Bovendien vindt hij dat er veel meer gemeenten moeten meedoen om tot een representatief onderzoek te komen. Het kabinet wil niet meer dan tien gemeenten toelaten tot de proef.

Ook denkt Jorritsma dat het budget van 2 miljoen euro per jaar dat door het Rijk voor de landelijke proef beschikbaar is gesteld, niet genoeg is om alle kosten te dekken. Zo zal er meer politie voor controle nodig zijn.

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Bedrijven testen personeel op alcohol en drugs, ook al mag dat niet

Het mag niet, maar toch doen minstens tientallen bedrijven in de industrie, in de havens en de chemie het: testen of werknemers onder invloed zijn van alcohol of drugs. Dat blijkt uit een rondgang van de NOS. De bedrijven doen dat omdat ze vinden dat de veiligheid belangrijker is dan de privacy van werknemers.

De Europese AVG-privacyregels, die een jaar geleden ingingen, verbieden bedrijven om personeel te testen op alcohol en drugs, zegt de Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, de toezichthouder. Het mag alleen als er een speciale wettelijke regeling is en die is er slechts voor een beperkt aantal beroepen, zoals piloten, treinmachinisten en schippers. De bedrijven riskeren hiermee een boete.
'Mensen onder invloed kunnen grote incidenten veroorzaken'

Een Nederlands bedrijf wilde, op voorwaarde van anonimiteit, wel vertellen waarom het noodzakelijk is om te testen. "Er wordt gewerkt met zeer gevaarlijke stoffen. Wij hebben als bedrijf verplichtingen op het gebied van veiligheid en het bieden van een veilige werkomgeving. Mensen onder invloed maken fouten en kunnen zeer grote incidenten veroorzaken."

"Wij testen op alcohol en drugs, maar proberen zoveel mogelijk maatregelen te nemen om de privacy te waarborgen. Zo worden testen van tevoren aangekondigd, worden mensen willekeurig gekozen, gebeurt het anoniem en worden geen gegevens bewaard of geregistreerd. Iemand die positief test wordt 24 uur de toegang tot het terrein ontzegd en de leidinggevende wordt niet direct geïnformeerd." Het gaat dan om testen die aantonen of iemand op dat moment onder invloed is.

De organisatie van haven- en industriebedrijven in Rotterdam bevestigt dat tientallen ondernemingen hun personeel testen. "Onze leden worden geconfronteerd met tegenstrijdige wetgeving: aan de ene kant de privacywetgeving en aan de andere kant de veiligheidswetgeving. Voor ons gaat veiligheid altijd voor", zegt Deltalinqs-voorzitter Steven Lak. "Wij vinden dat de Tweede Kamer de wet moet aanpassen."

Het komt regelmatig voor dat werknemers tegen de lamp lopen, vertelt Stephan Roelofs van Be Responsible. Dat adviesbureau helpt bedrijven om alcohol- en drugsvrij te werken. "Een paar weken geleden nog een kraanmachinist. Die rook naar alcohol en moest van de werkgever een alcoholtest doen. De machinist bleek zo'n 2,5 promille te blazen." Dat staat gelijk aan grofweg tien tot twaalf glazen bier.

Be Responsible helpt bedrijven ook om te gaan met dit soort problematisch drank- en drugsgebruik. "We koppelen mensen aan de juiste zorg. Deze persoon mag voorlopig niet op de kraan werken. Er is sprake van alcoholisme en daar moet eerst aan gewerkt worden."

Een ander voorbeeld van Roelofs: "Een vrachtwagenchauffeur van in de vijftig, die dronk 1,5 liter Beerenburg per dag. Hij moest 's ochtends eerst een limonadeglas vol drinken, anders trilde hij te veel om de sleutel in zijn autoslot te krijgen. Hij zit nu sinds twee weken in een verslavingskliniek."

Testapparatuurfabrikant Dräger levert onder meer een wangslijmtester aan bedrijven. "Deze test op methamfetamines, thc, opiaten, amfetamines, cocaïne en benzodiazepinen", zegt Marlou Verspruij.

"We horen van klanten dat tussen de 5 en 8 procent van de medewerkers positief test op een van deze drugsgroepen. Het wordt steeds normaler gevonden om iets te gebruiken. Ik denk dat testen daarom nodig is om een veilige werkvloer te creëren."

Het bedrijf Arbofit voert alcohol- en drugstesten uit bij organisaties. "Wij faciliteren een behoefte in de markt", zegt René Buitelaar van Arbofit. "Het gaat om bedrijven met verhoogde veiligheidsrisico's: in de petrochemie, productie, in de haven en het vervoer. Het gaat nooit om bedrijven in een kantooromgeving. Men vindt dat het veiligheidsbelang prevaleert boven het individuele privacybelang en bedrijven proberen het zo netjes mogelijk te doen."

"Wij ontkennen op geen enkele wijze het grote belang van een veilige werkplek", zegt een woordvoerder van de Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens. "De vraag is hoe je erachter komt of iemand nuchter zijn werk doet. Er zijn allerlei manieren: oplettende teamleiders, elkaar erop aanspreken, het bevorderen van een veiligheidscultuur, een intensief hr-beleid."

"Maar wij trekken een duidelijke grens bij het afnemen van lichaamseigen stoffen en het verzamelen van medische gegevens. Dit mag echt alleen bij uitzondering, als je dit wettelijk regelt in een democratisch proces."

FNV: alleen onder zeer strikte voorwaarden

Vakbond FNV is tegen het routinematig testen van personeel. "Maar voor functies met een hoog veiligheidsrisico kan een periodieke test overwogen worden, onder strikte voorwaarden en als uiterste middel", zegt Rik van Steenbergen van de FNV.

"Want het is een behoorlijke inbreuk op de privacy en lichamelijke integriteit. Als het er in de praktijk op neerkomt dat grote groepen werknemers getest gaan worden die zelf niet omgaan met gevaarlijke stoffen of grote ongelukken kunnen veroorzaken, dan zijn we daar fel op tegen."

Werkgevers: 'regel dit'

Werkgeversorganisaties VNO-NCW en MKB Nederland willen dan ook dat het kabinet gaat regelen dat er meer wettelijke testmogelijkheden komen voor bedrijven. De huidige situatie levert volgens de werkgevers potentieel gevaarlijke situaties op voor medewerkers, omwonenden of zelfs voor de continuïteit van nutsvoorzieningen.

"Het is belangrijk dat hier nu stappen gezet worden vanwege de veiligheid", aldus een woordvoerder. "Dit wél mogelijk maken behoeft een concrete wetswijziging."

Maar of en hoe het kabinet dit zal doen, is nog onduidelijk. Minister Dekker voor Rechtsbescherming zei onlangs wel dat het kabinet over het onderwerp met vakbonden en werkgevers in gesprek gaat. "We gaan bespreken in welke specifieke gevallen de behoefte bestaat voor het afnemen van alcohol- en drugstesten met het oog op de veiligheid. Hierbij dient rekening gehouden te worden met het belang van werknemers bij bescherming van hun privacy."