• Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net - International

    Drug Policy in Portugal

    The Benefits of Decriminalizing Drug Use

    By Artur Domoslawski

    In 2000, the Portuguese government responded to widespread public concern over drugs by rejecting a “war on drugs” approach and instead decriminalized drug possession and use. It further rebuffed convention by placing the responsibility for decreasing drug demand as well as managing dependence under the Ministry of Health, rather than the Ministry of Justice. With this, the official response toward drug dependent persons shifted from viewing them as criminals, to treating them as patients.

    Drug Policy in Portugal: The Benefits of Decriminalizing Drug Use is the second in a series of reports by the Open Society Foundations’ Global Drug Policy Program that documents positive examples of drug policy reform around the world (the first being From the Mountaintops: What the World Can Learn from Drug Policy Change in Switzerland). Drug Policy in Portugal describes the process, context, ideas, and values that enabled Portugal to make the transition to a public health response to drug use and possession. Now, with a decade of experience, Portugal provides a valuable case study of how decriminalization coupled with evidence-based strategies can reduce drug consumption, dependence, recidivism, and HIV infection, and create safer communities for all.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net - Law Enforcement & Prisons

    Too Many Cops?

    The crime rate is down but police forces are growing. We’re poorer as a result, but not necessarily any safer.

    by Ken MacQueen, and Patricia Treble

    This spring, Tamara Cartwright dropped off an envelope at her local post office outside Lethbridge, Alta. A friend had sent her a jar of hemp-based ointment, so she replied with a thank you card, wrote her name and return address on the envelope and, in a decision certain to haunt her for years to come, enclosed four grams of her homegrown marijuana, enough for perhaps four cigarettes. On an April morning some days later she returned to the post office to pick up another package. Moments later, police pulled her over, handcuffed her, put her in a cruiser and hauled her off to the police station.

    It made quite a spectacle, says the 41-year-old mother of four, who suffers from colitis and is one of more than 10,000 medical marijuana patients registered with Health Canada. “It was embarrassing,” she says. “I was still in my pyjamas.” She emerged four hours later with a trafficking charge for giving away those four grams.

    Her charge is part of a recent marked increase in arrests for cannabis offences. Cannabis arrests jumped 13 per cent in 2010 to 75,126. Of those, almost 57,000 were for simple possession, a 14 per cent jump from the year before. (The statistics reflect cases where the arrest was the most serious charge a person faced, not the thousands more where a pot charge was tacked onto a string of more serious crimes.) The cannabis arrest rate is an anomaly at a time when the overall crime rate in 2010 fell to its lowest level since the mid-1970s.

    Ironically, Cartwright’s legal predicament may be linked to that falling crime rate, which comes at a time when policing costs are climbing relentlessly and the number of sworn officers in Canada is at its highest level in almost 30 years. It may simply be that with less overall crime, police have the time, staffing and inclination to focus on minor drug arrests. The vast majority of those arrested are younger than 24, and mostly male, if past findings hold true. And the majority of those arrests are for pot possession, “the low-lying fruit,” as Dalhousie University criminologist Christopher Murphy puts it.

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Calgary addicts no longer given crack pipes

    CBC News Aug 19, 2011

    Alberta health officials will no longer hand out free crack pipes to addicts in Calgary.

    For three years Alberta Health Services [AHS] has been quietly handing out clean crack pipes to drug users on the street through a mobile van program called Safeworks.

    Continues: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2011/08/19/calgary-crack-pipes-street-health.html

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    The War on Drugs: Doubling Down on a Bad Bet

    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.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Majority of Americans Ready to Legalize Marijuana

    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.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Crack Pipe Pilot Program Sparks Social Media Debate

    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.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Understanding Obama’s “War on Drugs”

    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.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    NAACP Calls For End To “War On Drugs”

    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.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Amy Winehouse: Reflections from Two Drug Policy Activists

    By Tony Newman and Meghan Ralston

    Like many of you, we heard the sad news about Amy Winehouse’s death on Facebook. The news spread quickly. Her friend Russell Brand immediately issued an incredible tribute to her, which was one of the most widely discussed responses to her sudden death. Most people immediately assumed that a drug overdose must have taken Amy’s life. We don’t know how she died, and on some level, it doesn’t really matter. She was young, talented and apparently haunted with struggles none of us will ever understand. She used drugs. And now she’s gone.

    We have worked at the Drug Policy Alliance for many years and spend most days thinking about drugs, our country’s drug policies and the people whose lives are impacted by them. We spend most days advocating for, and trying to help, people just like Amy. Here are some of our reflections on the tragic death of Amy Winehouse.