Drug Policy Question of the Week – 8-3-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 8-3-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3488

Question of the Week: What is the difference between coca leaf and cocaine?

According to a paper from Yale University,

“Coca leaves are grown from bushes native to the Andes. The leaves contain alkaloids that can be extracted to produce commercial cocaine.”

The Transnational Institute says,

“Coca leaf consumption is an integral part of Andean cultural tradition and world view. The principle uses are [as an] energizer, medicinal, sacred, and social.”

And goes on to describe,

“One of the main properties of the coca leaf, which has been and continues to be used industrially, is its medical potential as an anaesthetic and analgesic.”

Accion Andina recounted that,

“A new use for the leaf was discovered between 1855 and 1860. Two German scientists …are given credit for having first extracted the pure cocaine alkaloid from coca leaves.”

A Fordham University Law Review article describes the leaf’s conversion to cocaine hydrochloride.

“After pulverizing [the leaves] into a coarse powder, alcohol is added and distilled off in order to extract the most pure form of cocaine alkaloid.” Cocaine anesthetizes and stimulates the central nervous system.”

However, according to Accion Annida,

“The prophetic “Legend of the Coca Leaf” presages us of the difference between the way the leaf is used traditionally in the Andes, and the corrupted form used by Western conquerors. As the Sun God said to the Andean wise man Kjana Chuyma: “[coca] for you shall be strength and life, for your masters it shall be a loathsome and degenerating vice; while for you, natives, it will be an almost spiritual food, for them it shall cause idiocy and madness”

These facts and others like them can be found on the new Coca Leaf subchapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 7-27-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 7-27-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3481

Question of the Week: What is the Single Convention Treaty?

A 2008 article in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics describes three key multilateral drug conventions in force today with the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as the centerpiece.

The Organization of American States goes on to describe the Single Convention as a

“universal system (replacing the various treaties signed until then) to control the cultivation, production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of narcotic substances, paying special attention to those that are plant-based: opium/heroin, coca/cocaine and cannabis.“

However, the 2010 report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur Anand Glover found that

“The primary goal of the international drug control regime, as set forth in the preamble of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs … is the “health and welfare of mankind”, but the current approach to controlling drug use and possession works against that aim.”

A 2007 report from another United Nations Special Rapporteur found that,

“Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals.”

Two weeks ago, the International Drug Policy Consortium reported that, citing the rights of indigenous peoples,

“Bolivia presented a formal notification of denunciation of the Single Convention to the UN General Secretary in New York” effectively withdrawing from the treaty.

The Consortium concluded,

“The 50th anniversary of the Single Convention this year in fact is an opportune moment to start considering a revision of some of its out-dated and misplaced provisions.”

This 7-27-11 program represents the 50^th segment I have produced for Dean Becker’s remarkable Drug Truth Network. Many thanks to all listeners for tuning into these programs and to Dean for broadcasting them.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 7-11-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 7-11-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3461

Question of the Week: Has Swiss drug policy been effective?

In a recent Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Joseph Califano and former drug czar William Bennett decried Swiss drug policy, saying,

“In the 1990s, Switzerland experimented with what became known as Needle Park, a section of Zurich where addicts could buy and inject heroin without police interference.  Policy makers saw it as a way to restrict a few hundred legal heroin users to a small area.  It soon morphed into a grotesque tourist attraction of 20,000 addicts that had to be closed before it infected the entire city.”

However, according to the Open Society Institute, in the 1970s

“The response of the Swiss authorities to more widespread use of narcotics was to revise the federal law on illicit drugs to define rigorous criminal sanctions…”

Then, “Increasingly desperate to find a way to control crime and social and health harms associated with injection drug use, in 1987 the Zürich authorities allowed people who used illicit drugs to gather in a defined space [that] came to be known as the “needle park.”

According the Beckley Foundation, in

“an official document dated September 7, 1994, the Swiss government defined the Four Pillars as constituting the foundation of its national drug strategy. [Pillars include] prevention, therapy, risk reduction and enforcement—to which innovative measures, such as drug treatments using prescription heroin, were added.”

The Open Society Institute concluded,

“The introduction of the Four Pillars strategy …. brought about a significant reduction of deaths directly attributable to drug use, such as overdose, and of deaths indirectly related, such as HIV and Hepatitis. Between 1991 and 2004, the drug related death toll fell by more than 50%”

These facts and others like them can be found on the Switzerland Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 7-6-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 7-6-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3454

Question of the Week: Does the military participate in the drug war?

According the Washington Law Office on Latin America (WOLA), in 1986 …

in 1986,  “…Bolivia became the scene of the first major antidrug operation on foreign soil to publicly involve U.S. military forces. One hundred sixty U.S. troops took part in Operation Blast Furnace…”

Three years later, in 1989 per the Department of Defense, Joint Task Force 6 was formed under the U.S. Army …

“to support local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies within the Southwest border region to counter the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.”

That same year per the Air Force Law Review,

“President George H. W. Bush’s so-called ‘Andean Initiative… involved the deployment of seven Special Forces teams and approximately 100 military advisors to Colombia, Bolivia and Peru…”

Unfortunately, in 2001,

“… a Peruvian A-37 interceptor, operating as part of a joint U.S.-Peruvian counternarcotics mission fired two salvos of machine gun fire into a small Cessna float plane. … Two people on the aircraft were killed, a U.S. missionary and her infant daughter.”

In 2006, according to WOLA,

“President [George W.] Bush ordered 6,000 National Guard troops to assist the Border Patrol for a two-year period in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.”

That same year, he signed a repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, but under public pressure, it was restored in 2007.

In 2010, “President Barack Obama announced the intention to send 1,200 National Guard troops to the border again. These troops will join the 340 already there under the ‘State Counter Drug Programs,’”

These troops remain there today.

These facts and others like them can be found on the “Brief Chronology of Domestic Military Involvement” table in the Military Participation Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 7-3-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 7-3-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3449

Question of the Week: What is the Posse Comitatus Act?

A definitive report from the Congressional Research Service released in 2000 states,

“Americans have a tradition, born in England and developed in the early years of our nation that rebels against military involvement in civilian affairs. It finds its most tangible expression in the nineteenth century Posse Comitatus Act, 18 U.S.C. 1385.”

Another Congressional Research Service report released in 2011 indicates that,

“The term “posse comitatus” means the “force of the county.” Its doctrine dates back to English common law, in which a county sheriff could raise a posse comitatus to repress a civil disturbance ….”

The Posse Comitatus Act was enacted in 1878 during post-Civil War reconstruction and amended in 1981. According to the CRS, the act reads,

“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

The 2000 CRS report noted that,

“The language of the Act mentions only the Army and the Air Force.” However, “Express statutory exceptions include the legislation which allows the President to use military force to suppress insurrection, and sections which permit the Department of Defense to provide federal, state and local police with information and equipment.”

According to the Washington Office on Latin America, the 1981 amendment,

“made the military the permanent “single lead agency of the Federal Government for the detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States.”

These facts and others like them can be found in the Military Participation Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 6-26-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 6-26-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3440

Question of the Week: Who declared war on drugs?

“America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”

According to a recent report by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, President Richard Nixon spoke these words on June 17, 1971.

Ironically, a New York University Law Review article noted, “When

President Nixon first declared a national War on Drugs, the policy focused on treatment rather than incarceration … the Nixon era marks the only time in the history of the War on Drugs in which more funding went toward treatment than law enforcement.”

Pew Center on the States reports that there were about 174,000 state prison inmates in 1972.

Nixon’s declaration was just the first, according to a Fordham Law Review article,

“[President Ronald] Reagan officially launched the “War on Drugs” on June 24, 1982, with the creation of the White House Office of Drug Abuse Policy. First Lady Nancy Reagan joined the movement, announcing the “Just Say No” campaign in 1982.”

State prison inmates in 1982 approximated 300,000.

The NYU article suggests that,

“With the Obama administration comes hope for scaling down the War on Drugs, though the collateral consequences remain for those who are presently incarcerated. The current director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske, has chastised the phrase “War on Drugs” as eliciting an inaccurate representation of the War on Drugs as a war on individuals.”

In 2010, there were over 1.4 million state prisoners, 1.2 million more than on June 17, 1971.

These facts and others like them can be found in the History section of the United States Chapter and in the Prisons & Jails Chapters of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 6-15-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 6-15-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3427

Question of the Week: What about international drug policies?

Several recent reports highlight the impact of the international War on Drugs and call for a reevaluation of it.

The first comes from a series called “Count the Costs: 50 Years of the War on Drugs,” by the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. The report, “The War on Drugs: Are we paying too high a price?” lists seven definable and tragic costs of the drug war and supports each referencable international statistics. Did you know that that…

“Up to 1000 people are executed for drug offences each year, in direct violation of international law”?

A similar report in the Count the Costs series, “War on Drugs: Undermining international development and security, increasing conflict,” lists seven definable ways that the drug war affects international economic development and security, again documenting each with referencable statistics. Did you know that …

the demand for cocaine in Europe has “turned Guinea Bissau from a fragile state into a narco-state in just five years.”?

The recent “Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy” indicted international drug war failure and listed eleven actionable principles. The report was co-authored by notable commissioners that included former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan as well as three former Latin American presidents, among others. The report summary succinctly concluded,

“Break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now.”

Some facts in the above reports and others like them can be found in the International Policy Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org. Listeners should note that there are seventeen Chapters and 341 Facts under this link on the Drug War Facts home page. Countries include U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico, a number of countries in the European Union, and Australia.

Drug Policy Question of the Week – 6-5-11

As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 6-5-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3413

Question of the Week: What are adverse drug events?

An article in the Connecticut Law Review defines the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the agency that

“regulates both the safety and effectiveness of prescription pharmaceuticals and certain medical devices. In addition to ensuring that prescription drugs are safe and effective before they are sold in interstate commerce, the FDA approves all information a manufacturer plans to provide physicians on a drug’s recommended use, contraindications, risks, and side-effects.”

The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) is the regulatory body that oversees over-the-counter and prescription drugs, and biological therapeutics. This agency has produced several trendable reports, including a data briefing covering 1996 to 2006.

This paper overviews the CDER’s Adverse Event Reporting System that compiles

“voluntary adverse drug reaction reports from [healthcare practitioners] and required reports from manufacturers … this system forms “the basis of “signals” that there may be a potential for serious and unrecognized drug-associated events [or reactions].”

Drug reaction numbers from this FDA system are now displayed in two Drug War Facts Tables, one called “Prescription Drug Product Approvals, Recalls and Adverse Event Reports” and the other named “AERS Patient Outcomes by Year,” both sourced directly from the FDA.

Both of these tables reflect troubling statistics. The former table shows that Adverse Drug Event reports to the FDA concerning prescription drugs soared by almost +75% for the six years (2002-2007) compared to the prior six years (1996-2001). Further, and perhaps more disturbing, adverse reaction outcome “deaths” totaling over 370,000 and “serious outcomes” eclipsing 2,300,000 occurred during the ten years from 2000 to 2009 for the prescription drugs tracked by this FDA system.

These facts and others like them can be found in the Regulation of Prescription Drugs section of the United States chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.