• Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Why is MMA OK and smoking dope isn’t?

    There seems to be little sense in which risks people find praiseworthy, and which we condemn, writes Dan Gardner

    Last week, a physicians’ group called on governments to make helmets mandatory for both children and adults on ski slopes. Lots of people support that. They feel that skiers should not be permitted to decide for themselves whether to wear a helmet because skiing without one is too dangerous. Two days later, Sarah Burke, a champion “superpipe” skier, died as a result of injuries sustained in competition. Burke was almost universally praised as a courageous and talented athlete who died doing what she loved.

    Does that make sense?

    Maybe it does. I don’t know. The question isn’t rhetorical.

    Risk is everywhere, always, which means we are constantly drawing lines, whether we are aware of it or not. We draw lines between risks that we are willing to personally engage and those we will leave to others. We draw lines between risk-taking that is praiseworthy and that which is foolish, between risks that should be promoted and encouraged and those that should not. We draw lines between what people should be free to decide for themselves and what should be regulated, restricted, or even banned.

    But we seldom compare the lines we draw and ask if, in juxtaposition, they make sense.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Marc Emery’s Advice for Aspiring Activists

    My wife Jodie Emery and I both receive thousands of letters and inquiries with impassioned pleas that read: “I want to do something to make a difference. I want to legalize marijuana. What can I do? Can you advise or help me start? Where do I begin?” This is a question, without rival, that we hear most often.

    It comes mostly from Americans and Canadians, but I have received the same question from India, Australia, Europe, the Philippines, Japan, and all over the world. It is a universal desire shared by many people in the cannabis culture the planet over.

    If all these millions of people, largely high school and college students, could be harnessed into productive purpose, it would be a huge political force indeed! But most people who consume cannabis and believe in its worth still do nothing to advance our cause in any meaningful way.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Get Busted for Marijuana; Work as a Police Informant; Get Killed

    By Tony Newman,

    No one has ever died from smoking marijuana. But getting busted with a small amount of marijuana has led to countless tragic deaths.

    This week, Shelley Hilliard, a 19-year-old woman from Detroit, was killed after working as a police informant. On October 20, Hilliard was arrested for a small amount of marijuana. The police offered her a way out: She could set up a drug deal. She called a drug dealer and said she had someone who wanted to buy $335 of cocaine and marijuana. When the dealer showed up he was arrested. The dealer was released, and three days later Hilliard was found dead in the streets. The dealer has been charged with murder.

    Hilliard tragic death brings back memories of Rachel Hoffman, the 23-year-old, Florida State graduate from Tallahassee who also worked as an informant after she was busted with a small amount of marijuana and Ecstasy. Hoffman was sent alone on a “buy and bust” and was given $13,000 to buy Ecstasy, cocaine and a gun. The men shot Hoffman five times, stole her car and credit card, and dumped her body into a ditch. This week Tallahassee approved a $2.6 million settlement with Rachel’s parents.

    These two women should still be with us on this earth, but were instead pawns in an unwinnable drug war that led to their violent deaths.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    LEAP visits Supervised Injection Site

    LEAP’s Executive Director, Neill Franklin, visits Insite in Vancouver, where vulnerable people can meet the chemical part of their addiction in a legal, regulated environment. Witness a working model of the benefits of moving away from the criminalization of drug abuse.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Frontline: Opium Brides

    The unexpected collateral damage of the counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan.

    Najibullah Quraishi journeys deep into the Afghan countryside to reveal the deadly bargain local farm families have been forced to make with drug smugglers in order to survive.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Champion of Pain Relief, Siobhan Reynolds Dead in Plane Crash

    All of us are irreplaceable to someone—but few are irreplaceable in the public sphere. Siobhan Reynolds, 50, founder of the Pain Relief Network, who died in a plane crash Christmas Eve, was the exception. She tirelessly, compassionately and at huge financial and emotional cost to herself, worked to debunk myths about opioid treatment of chronic pain that continue to emerge even now.

    The aspiring documentary filmmaker and mother of one was moved to activism by the overwhelming chronic pain suffered by her husband. Further spurred by learning that her son had inherited the same genetic disease, Reynolds was relentless.

    Why, she asked, when opioids can help treat chronic pain, are they frequently only available to the dying—but not if your agony will last years? Why, when addiction to opioids is actually rare, do we treat them as though everyone who takes these drugs is likely to get instantly hooked? And why do we seem to see addiction—even in the dying— as a worse side effect than agony or even death?

    To answer these questions, she educated herself in the intricacies of pharmacology, public policy, medicine and law. A master at simplifying complex stories for the media, Reynolds then used every means at her disposal to bring what she found to public attention.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Congress to Restore Federal Syringe Exchange Funding Ban

    Ban on Allowing States to Use HIV Prevention Money on Life-Saving Syringe Programs was Overturned in 2009 After 20-Year Struggle

    Reinstatement of Ban will Lead to Thousands of New HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C Cases Annually

    As part of the 2012 spending package being voted on today, Congress is restoring a ban on using federal funding for syringe exchange programs that reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and other infectious diseases. The ban, enacted in the 1980s and repealed in 2009, was largely responsible for hundreds of thousands of Americans contracting HIV/AIDS directly or indirectly from the sharing of used syringes. Advocates warn that restoring the ban will result in thousands of Americans contracting HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C or other infectious diseases next year alone.

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Count the Costs

    By George Murkin

    Far from eliminating drug use and the illicit trade, prohibition has inadvertently fuelled the development of the world’s largest illegal commodities market – a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars, controlled solely by criminal profiteers. Produced in collaboration with project supporters Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Transform Drug Policy Foundation, Release, the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy and Harm Reduction International, the latest Count the Costs briefing outlines how this illicit, unregulated market generates:

    Organised crime
    Street crime
    Mass incarceration
    Violent crime
    Crimes perpetrated by governments/states
    Vast economic costs in terms of drug war-related enforcement

    The briefing will form a key part of our outreach to mainstream NGOs working in the criminal justice sector, building on the endorsements Count the Costs has already received from organisations such as the Howard League for Penal Reform and Make Justice Work.