• Hot Off The 'Net - International

    UN, Western Nations Complicit in Drug Of…

    UN, Western Nations Complicit in Drug Offender Executions, Report Says

    from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #638, 6/25/10

    With the United Nations’ International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking set for tomorrow, the timing couldn’t be better for a new report from the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) decrying the complicity of Western governments and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in international drug control efforts that result in the execution of drug offenders.

    Tehran Take what happened in China on global anti-drug day 2008 as a case in point. As has been its wont in the past, the Chinese government used the occasion to execute numerous drug offenders, including Han Yongwan, a regional trafficker who had been arrested by police in Laos and later extradited to China. Han had been arrested thanks to the East Asian Border Liaison Office program, initiated by UNODC in 1993, and chiefly funded by the United Kingdom (24%), the United States (24%), Japan (24%), and Australia (10%). Other funders included the European Commission (3%), Sweden (3%), Canada (2%), and UNAIDS (5%).

    Although the European Commission and nearly all of the donor nations reject the death penalty, the funding of programs like the East Asian Border Liaison Office means that those governments and organizations are complicit, if inadvertently, in the application of the death penalty to drug offenders, the IHRA found in a report issued this week, Complicity or Abolition? The Death Penalty and International Support for Drug Enforcement.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Launch of world’s first prescription cannabis medicine

    Porton Down, UK, 21 June 2010: GW Pharmaceuticals plc (GWP:AIM) today announces the UK launch of Sativex®, its Oromucosal Spray for the treatment of spasticity due to Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Sativex® is the world’s first prescription cannabis medicine and the UK is the first country in the world to grant a full regulatory authorization for the product.

    Sativex® contains two cannabinoids or active ingredients – THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol). It is the first cannabinoid medicine derived from whole plant extracts from the cannabis sativa plant.

    Sativex®, available as a prescription only medicine, was developed by GW in specific response to calls from people with MS for a prescription cannabis-based medicine. Today’s launch means that MS patients suffering the spasms and cramping associated with spasticity have access to a new treatment option which has been shown to improve their symptoms where current treatments have failed.

    Sativex® is manufactured by GW under Home Office licence at an undisclosed location in the UK. The medicine is being marketed in the UK by GW’s UK licensee, Bayer Schering Pharma.

  • Drug Policy

    World Drugs Day June 26

    This film shows the hypocrisy of politicians who remain silent on the issue of drugs despite their own experiences and, more importantly, despite the fact people are executed to commemorate World Drugs Day.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    In Which Another Drug Warrior Extracts Facts From His Behind

    In Which Another Drug Warrior Extracts Facts From His Behind

    Another drug warrior invents facts. Check the video below from Stossel’s show last week, in which former ONDCP official and narcotics officer Paul Chabot debates former narcotics cop and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition speaker Neil Franklin.

    At one point, Chabot says the “majority” of crimes that take actual victims are committed by people under the influence of illegal drugs. That isn’t true. According to data from Chabot’s former employer, it’s around 22 percent at federal level, and 33 percent at the state level. And of course that doesn’t mean the drugs caused the crimes. Or even contributed to them. Though I’m sure there’s some of both. The only conclusion you can safely draw from those numbers is that there’s some overlap between people who use illegal drugs and people who commit violent and property crimes.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    World Drug Report 2010

    WDR2010In 2009, the United Nations Member States decided to make further and decisive progress, within a decade, in controlling illicit drug supply and demand. Many illicit drug markets have reached global dimensions and require control strategies on a comparable scale. In that context, there is a need to better understand these transnational markets and the manner in which they operate. This year’s World Drug Report is a contribution towards that objective. It opens with an analytical discussion of three key transnational drug markets: the markets for heroin, cocaine and amphetamine-type stimulants. The market discussion is followed by a presentation of statistical trends for all major drug categories. The latest information on drug production, seizures and consumption is presented. Finally, there is a discussion on the relationship between drug trafficking and instability.

  • Drug Policy

    Chris Selley: Our indefensibly blood-soaked drug laws

    Jamaican gangster and drug kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke, subject of a violent month-long manhunt in the slums of West Kingston, surrendered to authorities on Wednesday without a shot being fired. He happened to be dressed as a woman at the time, police gleefully announced, providing photo evidence — a darkly comic anticlimax to a senseless battle that killed 73 people and wounded 35 more. It’s no exaggeration to say that drug consumers in the world’s leading nations have blood on their hands. Their presidents and prime ministers have more.

    Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/06/24/chris-selley-our-indefensibly-blood-soaked-drug-laws/#ixzz0rob7tI38

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    My First Visit With My Husband, Marc Emery

    My First US Federal Prison Visit With my Heroic Political Prisoner Husband, Marc Emery by Jodie Emery – Friday, June 18 2010

    I went to visit Marc today for the first time at SeaTac FDC. Thankfully, I’m able to visit him even while he’s in SHU (“segregated housing unit”, solitary confinement). When I arrived at 1:30pm, it was very nerve-racking. I stepped up to the massive building’s entrance, got buzzed in, then found myself in a big lobby with a reflective glass booth and a little hole to pass ID and paperwork through.

    There was a table with the paperwork to fill out for visiting, but no pen. Thankfully there were some visitors there who had been through it all before and helped me figure out the process (and loaned me a pen), because you don’t get any answers from the staff. Visiting officially begins at 2pm on Fridays, but by 2:15 they just started processing, which took a very long time itself.