Seattle Hempfest is held the third weekend in August each year. The next Seattle Hempfest is August 19-20-21, 2011,.
It’s open to the public on Friday from 12 noon to 8 pm, and on Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 8 pm. Admission to Seattle Hempfest is free.
The event spans three Seattle waterfront parks: Centennial Park, formerly Elliott Bay Park (North Entrance), Myrtle Edwards Park, and Olympic Sculpture Park (South Entrance).
Re: “Grow op kids need help,” Editorial, July 30.
I must take issue with your editorial regarding the removal of children from homes where there is illegal marijuana being grown.
You spoke of the authorities and the parents, but you forgot the children themselves. What impact do you think it has on a child when the police storm a home, arrest the parents and then tell the children they are being taken away to a strange place by strangers for an unknown length of time? Where are those children going to be placed? Who will be caring for them? When can they see their parents again? Can you assure them the parents still love them? How do you assure those children they have done nothing wrong and are not being punished, as you hand them over to strangers?
To remove a child from his or her known world is one of the most frightening things one can ever do to a child. It has a far deeper traumatic impact than does parental neglect or punishment and once it happens, that emotional trauma can never be erased. These are a few of the factors your editorial neglected to consider.
Grace Isaak
Calgary
— MAP Posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.
Pubdate: Tue, 02 Aug 2011
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2011 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/letters.html
Website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n495/a06.html
According to The New York Times, America’s war on drugs has entered a new phase: It’s so successful that the CIA is planning to send retired military personnel and private contractors to Mexico to bring the battle to the doorstep of the organized crime cartels. Well, that’s not quite the story. The decision to deploy mercenaries in Mexico is definitely from the Times, but the part about the success of the drug war is pure Washington spin.
Indeed, the idea that the federal government is prepared to commit more money and more lives – and that Mexican officials are prepared to let Yanquis join the fight – is testament to desperation on both sides of the border. The war on drugs, now in its fifth decade, was never winnable. All that’s keeping it going is bureaucratic inertia, and a lot of politicians who would rather destroy civil government in Mexico than admit that it takes more than true grit to prevail.
As was the case last year, most respondents believe the “War on Drugs” has been a failure.
Many Americans continue to believe that marijuana should be legalized, but are not supportive of making other drugs readily available, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,003 American adults, 55 per cent of respondents support the legalization of marijuana, while 40 per cent oppose it.
The groups that are the most supportive of making cannabis legal in the U.S. are Democrats (63%), Independents (61%), Men (57%) and respondents aged 35-to-54 (57%).
However, only 10 per cent of Americans support legalizing ecstasy. Smaller proportions of respondents would consent to the legalization of powder cocaine (9%), heroin (8%), methamphetamine or “crystal meth” (7%), and crack cocaine (7%).
Across the country, 64 per cent of respondents believe America has a serious drug abuse problem that affects the entire United States, while one-in-five (20%) perceive a drug abuse problem that is confined to specific areas and people. One-in-twenty Americans (5%) think America does not have a serious drug abuse problem.
Only nine per cent of respondents believe the “War on Drugs”—the efforts of the U.S. government to reduce the illegal drug trade—has been a success, while two thirds (67%) deem it a failure.
Re: “Legal drugs and gangs,” July 1.
The editorial on the failed “war on drugs” is music to the ears of the criminal justice professionals who make up Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. We know, from personal experience, that prohibition enriches criminal gangs and fosters criminal activity while doing nothing to reduce drug use and the attendant violence in our cities.
Forty years of the so-called “war on drugs” in North America has actually increased the supply and potency of illegal drugs. Countries which have removed criminal penalties for drug use, such as the Netherlands and Portugal, have achieved declines in use and addiction.
Prohibition is a threat to public safety. Making drugs illegal has created a profitable black market, and participants in the underground economy can settle their disputes only by violence. Uninvolved bystanders and police officers often pay the price.
So many police officers and prosecutors are bogged down in drug enforcement that serious crimes go unsolved. In 1963, before the “war on drugs,” all but 15 per cent of murder cases in the U.S. were solved. Today, 40 per cent of murders never lead to a conviction, even though law enforcement now has vastly better forensic tools and technology.
Let’s legalize drugs and bring the trade above ground where we can regulate and control it.
John Anderson
Chair, Criminology Department
Vancouver Island University
— MAP Posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.
Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jul 2011
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2011 Times Colonist
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
TORONTO – Crack addicts in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside will soon be able to pick up free, clean crack pipes from their local health authority as part of the city’s harm-reduction strategy to curb the transmission of diseases through pipe sharing.
Advocates say the new pilot project, which hits streets in October, will help health care and social workers connect with at-risk drug addicts, potentially bringing them into the health care system and exposing them to rehab options.
By Neill Franklin, Executive Director, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)
Last month I was interviewed on CNN.com as part of the network’s coverage of the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon declaring the “war on drugs.” It was just one of thousands of articles, broadcasts and blog posts featuring the voices of police officers, politicians and scholars marking an anniversary that offers little to celebrate. Many commentators across the political spectrum eagerly welcomed the opportunity to seriously examine the failures of our drug policies, evaluate possible reforms and opine on what it all might mean.
But not everyone was as excited by the opportunity for reflection on how we can make drug policy more effective. After reading my interview on CNN.com, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy apparently contacted the news organization and demanded equal time to defend the Obama administration’s continuation of U.S. drug prohibition policies.
The published response presents a rare and revealing window into the thinking behind the nation’s drug policy at the beginning of the fifth decade of the “war on drugs.” The transcript is of great interest to anyone who wants to understand why — despite clear scientific evidence, real-world experience and political opportunity — a policy that is so obviously failed and is so profoundly harmful is able to continue year after year.
The NAACP on Tuesday passed what it called a “historic” resolution calling for an end to the war on drugs.
The resolution comes as world leaders are taking a hard look at the 40-year “war,” and also as new data shows widened racial disparities within the U.S.
“Today the NAACP has taken a major step towards equity, justice and effective law enforcement,” NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said in a statement Monday. The resolution was approved by delegates at the annual NAACP convention in Los Angeles. “These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidenced-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.”
The NAACP noted that African Americans are 13 times more likely to go to jail for the same drug-related offense than their white counterparts. The resolution endorses the expansion of rehabilitation and treatment programs as an alternative to sending drug offenders to prison. It also endorses the expansion of methadone clinics and other proven treatment protocols.