IN THE NEWS

Cannabis Not Linked with Psychosocial Harm

(Reuters Health) - Various reports indicate that young people who use cannabis tend to experience psychological and social problems. However, there is no evidence that marijuana use is directly linked with such problems, according to the results of a study published in The Lancet. "Currently, there is no strong evidence that use of cannabis of itself causes psychological or social problems," such as mental illness or school failure, lead study author Dr. John Macleod of the University of Birmingham in the UK told Reuters Health. More...

"I love it, especially like my grandma used to make … the taste is heavenly."

Using centuries' old recipes to make the butter at home, Latvians use only soaked, roasted and milled cannabis seed, sometimes mixing it together with oil or butter. And unlike the soft drug cannabis, it is legal. [Read More]

IN THE NEWS

"We will be discussing cannabis and its potential in South Africa's industrial sector, in agriculture and in health and from the criminal and police perspective." Du Plessis, an information technology engineer, said he had undertaken a six-year study and found that it could be used in low-cost housing. [Read More]

IN THE NEWS

And Justice for All?

By Brian H. Kehrl, In These Times
April 30, 2004

The U.S. Supreme Court for the first time is examining the validity of opening federal courts to foreigners, and what Congress intended when it drafted a nondescript, sentence-long law more than 200 years ago that has been used recently to defend international victims of human rights abuses.

On March 30, the High Court heard arguments on two combined cases involving the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 (ATCA), a law interpreted to allow foreign victims of human rights violations the ability to sue in federal court. The cases involve a Mexican doctor who was arrested and brought to the United States by Mexican nationals hired by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Dr. Humberto Alvarez-Machain was charged in 1990 with participating in the murder of a DEA agent in Mexico but was acquitted after two years of court battles for lack of evidence. The presiding judge called the government's charges "wild hunches and speculation" when he dismissed the case. [Read More]

FLASHBACK

In May 2001 the United States gave the Taliban $43 million to promote policies against growing opium

The liberal Dutch laws on soft drugs, whose use is not allowed but condoned in a tacit acknowledgment that there are insufficient police to arrest all offenders, have been a thorn in the side to more law-and-order-oriented European countries. [Read More]

War on Drugs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The expression "War on Drugs" refers to a governmental program, or series of programs, intended to suppress the consumption of certain recreational drugs. The term was first used by Richard Nixon in 1972 to describe the United States' programs. Later, President Reagan added the position of drug czar to the Cabinet. Equivalent terms are now used in many other countries as well. There is no known example of such policies successfully eradicating drug use or addiction.

Most countries have a very similar set of prohibited drugs. Some exceptions exist; most notably, Islamic countries mostly prohibit the use of alcohol, while most other states allow at least adults to purchase and consume alcohol. All countries regulate the manufacture, distribution, marketing and sale of some or all drugs, such as by using a prescription system. Only certain drugs are banned with a "blanket prohibition" against all use. However, the prohibited drugs generally continue to be available through the illegal drug trade. Many countries allow a certain amount of personal use of certain drugs, but not sale or manufacture. Some also set a specific amount of a particular drug, above which is ipso jure considered to be evidence of trafficking or sale of the drug.

The War on Drugs utilizes several techniques to achieve its goal of eliminating recreational drug use:

• specialized law enforcement agencies, officers and techniques
• information campaigns to educate the public on the real or perceived dangers of recreational drug use
• streamlined enforcement and evidence-gathering procedures

By Robert Scheer, AlterNet
April 13, 2004

On May 15, 2001, I blasted the Bush administration for rewarding the Taliban for "controlling" the opium crop with $43 million in U.S. aid to Afghanistan, to be distributed by an arm of the United Nations. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced the gift, specifically mentioning the opium suppression as the rationale and assuring that the U.S. would "continue to look for ways to provide more assistance to the Afghans." [Read More]

IN THE NEWS

ONCE AGAIN REASON AND CREATIVITY SACRIFICED ON THE ALTAR OF IDEOLOGY AND STABILITY AS SECURITY COUNCIL WARNS DRUGS THREATEN AFGHAN STABILITY AND KARZAI CALLS FOR JIHAD-STYLE STRUGGLE AGAINST OPIUM
 
On April 6, endorsing the results of last week's Afghanistan's reconstruction conference in Berlin, the Security Council called on the world to redouble its efforts to eliminate the opium trade. In fact, the Council identified narcotics as one of the greatest threats to Afghanistan's stability, as the country
produces three-quarters of the world's opium that is needed to refine heroin.
 
According to the Agence France Press, in his first press conference since the Berlin Conference,
where donors pledged $8.2 billion for an Afghan development plan of three years, President Hamid Karzai, called upon the elders to "struggle against narcotics very strongly, jihad-style," as "narcotics is one of the things which threatens our dignity, our economy, our agriculture. It threatens our government and our roots - and it is against our religion."
 
Statement by Marco Perduca, Executive Director of the International Antiprohibitionist League and UN
Representative of the Transnational Radical Party:
 
"In an unfortunate series of events, happening within the UN and in Afghanistan, we have witnessed once again reason and creativity sacrificed on the altar of ideology and stability. When it comes to drugs, it seems like the international community is incapable of finding alternative ways of addressing the issue, reaffirming, time and again, prohibition as the only possible "cure" for the "disease". A diagnosis that has proved ineffective for over three decades now.
 
What is even more worrying is President Karzai's declaration to launch a holy war on drugs - just like the Talibans in 2000 and 2001 - with the hope to eradicate a formidably lucrative crop in the name of
God. Paradoxically, poppy could in fact help the development of a sustainable and effective Afghan economy, but its production would need to be legalized in an effort to devise more effective ways to govern the phenomenon, taking it away from the war-lords turned drug-lords.
 
If the production and consumption of drugs could happen within a legal framework rather than in the current Narco-Mafia governed context, licit poppy from Afghanistan could be used to produce licit heroin for Europe's harm reduction programs (not to mention other non narcotic products).
 
The same day the Security Council launched its appeal, the Financial Times published a picture of a young Afghani peasant demonstrating against poppy eradication. The liberation of Afghanistan should also mean the liberation from failing models and dogmas."

IN THE NEWS

SMOKING BAN VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS