• Cannabis & Hemp - Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    Marijuana Arrests

    Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-10-11

    As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-10-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3581

    Question of the Week: How many people were arrested for marijuana last year?

    Every September, the FBI releases its annual “Crime in the United States” report that counts arrests in the United States according to a number of categories, among them drugs.

    This report doesn’t make marijuana arrests obvious. Instead, these numbers must be gleaned by computing them.

    To do so, one starts by referencing Table 29 of Uniform Crime Report, which lists the estimated number of arrests by category. Note that drug arrests for 2010 equaled 1,638,846. Those for reported categories like disorderly conduct, fraud and burglary equaled about 615,000, 189,000 and 290,000 each.

    Then, to compute arrests for marijuana, the separate parent webpage to Table 29 must be referenced. The “Download Arrest Table Excel” link on this page goes to a spreadsheet version of the “Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations Percent Distribution by Region, 2010” table at the bottom of the page. Here you will find percentages for total arrests by substance positioned against these percentages by region.

    Marijuana arrests must be computed by multiplying the percentages for possession and for Sale/manufacturing times that aforementioned total number of drug arrests for 2010.

    Doing the math, at 6.3% of total drug arrests, there were about 103,000 Americans arrested for selling or manufacturing marijuana in 2010. At 45.8% of total drug arrests, there about 751,000 Americans arrested for merely possessing marijuana in 2010. Together, arrests for both selling and possessing marijuana added to a total of 854,000 arrests in 2010.

    Sound complicated? Probably so for numbers of that magnitude.

    These facts and others like them can be found in the tables at the bottom of the Marijuana chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

     

     

  • Drug Policy - Law Enforcement & Prisons - Question of the Week

    Federal Agencies

    Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-6-11

    As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-6-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3576

    Question of the Week: What federal agencies enforce drug laws?

    A new table based on a 2009 report from the RAND Corporation can be found in the Drug War Facts Interdiction chapter. This table lists a number of federal agencies that investigate and enforce drug laws. Among these are the United States Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy or ONDCP.

    Under the Department of Defense, the Defense Information Systems Agency and its Anti-Drug Network engage in information sharing and data mining. The U.S. Northern Command oversees the continental United States and Alaska. The Joint Task Force North under the Northern Command stops transnational threats like drug smuggling. The U.S. Southern Command operates counterdrug operations in Central and South America. Its Joint Interagency Task Force South prevents illegal trafficking within the Caribbean.

    The Drug Enforcement Administration or DEA has several divisions. Its National Security Intelligence Section interfaces with the intelligence community. The DEA’s Operation Pipeline targets private motor vehicles involved in drug trafficking, with its counterpart, Operation Convoy, handling commercial vehicles. The El Paso Intelligence Center is a major hub for disseminating drug related intelligence data. DEA Mobile Intelligence Units assist state and local drug-enforcement challenges.

    The ONDCP operates 31 High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas or HIDTAs that collect counterdrug intelligence. Each HIDTAs has a Regional Intelligence Center associated with it.

    The Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force focuses major drug-smuggling and money-laundering operations, while the multi-agency National Joint Terrorism Task Force brings together more than three-dozen other government agencies that collect and process terrorist intelligence.

    A graphical map of these and other federal agencies created by the RAND Corporation can be found at the bottom of the aforementioned table.

  • Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    Opiate Use

    Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-1-11

    As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-1-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3570

    Question of the Week: Is opiate use increasing?

    Each year around this time, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration releases its National Survey on Drug Use and Health that reports the prevalence of illicit drug use in the US population age 12 or older.

    Trendable from 2002 onward, the data measure “lifetime” and “monthly” use of various illicit drugs, alcohol and tobacco. “Lifetime” use means having tried a drug just once. “Monthly” use equates to consuming an illicit drug at least once per month. NSDUH calls “monthly” use “current use.”

    What is striking about these data, but under reported in their analysis, is the growth in the use of opiates, specifically heroin and pain relievers, often opiates as well. In the nine years since 2002, among the drugs showing the largest “lifetime” growth in users were pain relievers at +17.4% over 2002 and heroin at +12.5% over 2002.

    “Monthly” usage of heroin at +44% and pain relievers +16.5% grew the most quickly over their 2002 respective user populations. There were an estimated 5.1 million users of illicit pain relievers in 2010, over 700,000 more than in 2002.

    The increasing use of these illicit drugs is tragically reflected in the headline of a recent Los Angeles Times article entitled, “Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the U.S.” Citing 2009 data in a 2011 National Vital Statistics Report and naming these drugs as the culprit, the article read,

    “Claiming a life every 14 minutes … This is the first time that drugs have accounted for more fatalities than traffic accidents since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979.”

    These facts and others like them can be found in three data tables within the Drug Use chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

  • Letter of the Week

    And of Marijuana (IV)

    Re: Pot Dangers ( III ), letter, Oct.  4; Marijuana Has No Place In Society, letter, Sept.  30; A Misguided Sense Of Justice, letter, Sept.  28.

    Some of the U.S.  hysteria about marijuana seems to be rubbing off on Canadians.  I don’t doubt Dr.  Henry T.  Chuang’s sincerity in opposing its use, but I think the problems he refers to would pale in comparison to those caused by alcohol in his city.

    I am a middle-aged male business owner who experimented with pot then left it behind with my youth.  I never thought about it again.  But almost a decade ago, I had an acute back injury that left me, temporarily, unable to sleep, with no appetite and in a lot of pain.  I did not want to use the Oxycodone I had been prescribed.  A friend of a friend brought in some marijuana and suggested I try it.  I was amazed.  The pain subsided and I ate a huge meal.  Then I went to bed and had the first good sleep I’d had in weeks.

    I haven’t smoked it since, but that episode proved to me that there is both a need and place for marijuana in our society and it’s beyond time that it should be legalized and regulated.  Demonizing and further criminalizing it is unjust and counterproductive.

    Robert Chapman

    Oakville, Ont.

    Pubdate: Thu, 06 Oct 2011
    Source: National Post (Canada)
    Copyright: 2011 Canwest Publishing Inc.
    Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
    Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
    Author: Robert Chapman
    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n603/a03.html
    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n603/a04.html
    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n610/a06.html
    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n614/a10.html
    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n614/a12.html

    NORML

  • Drug Policy

    Insight on Insite

    It has been interesting to observe the fallout from the recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision which allows Insite, Vancouver’s largest supervised injection facility (SIF), to remain in operation.

    In essence, the SCC found that the rights of the clients and staff of Insite to Insite outweigh any salutory effects arresting them for drug possession at Insite might have.

    As the SCC put it:

    … the effect of denying the services of Insite to the population it serves is grossly disproportionate to any benefit that Canada might derive from presenting a uniform stance on the possession of narcotics.

    The court rejected the argument that Insite is a health facility under provincial rather than federal jurisdiction, but they agreed that, in this case, the Controlled Drugs and Subtances Act (CDSA) infringes on Charter rights.

  • Letter of the Week

    A Misguided Sense of Justice

    Re: Pot Growers Face More Jail Than Rapists, Sept.  23.

    I read with disbelief the proposed criminal code changes that appear to suggest that the Canadian government thinks growing marijuana is equal to pedophilia.  I would rather have someone grow 1,000 pot plants than for them to harm a single child.  The U.S.  “war on drugs” has been a complete failure, and has contributed significantly to that country’s current dismal economic situation.  Why is our government dragging us down that dead end road?

    Jim Selover

    Edmonton

     

    Pubdate: Wed, 28 Sep 2011
    Source: National Post (Canada)
    Copyright: 2011 Canwest Publishing Inc.
    Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
    Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
    Author: Jim Selover
    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n597/a03.html

  • Drug Policy

    Insite victory an embarrassment for Harper

    Denial of health services and increased risk of death among drug users outweighs any benefit from absolute prohibition on drug possession

    By Peter McKnight, Vancouver Sun

    If nothing else, Friday’s unanimous Supreme Court of Canada decision on the future of Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site, reveals the federal government’s striking ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And in spectacular fashion.

    The plaintiffs, after all, lost on both of their primary grounds of appeal, yet still managed to win the case. The plaintiffs’ first argument, which previously persuaded the B.C. Court of Appeal, concerned the doctrine of interjurisdictional immunity, while the second argument, which previously convinced the B.C. Supreme Court, concerned section 7 of the Charter. Yet, while these two arguments swayed lower courts, the Supreme Court of Canada wasn’t having any of either.

  • Letter of the Week

    Facts About Pain And Cannabis

    ‘Christine’ says arthritis is not an excuse to take illegal drugs, and ‘it’s a known fact that cannabis leads to paranoia’ ( LT, September 2 ).

    Firstly, it is not an ‘illegal drug’, it is the possession, cultivation and supply that is illegal.

    There is a big distinction there: the law is aimed at people, not substances.

    Secondly, paranoia is a mental health problem experienced by some people and whilst cannabis may worsen it for some, it eases it for others – there is plenty of information online to confirm that.

    An estimated 3 to 5million people in the UK use cannabis, many to ease dreadful pains and suffering that prescribed medication does not touch.  They are not all paranoid, by far.

    Furthermore, cannabis as plant material is now available on prescription, through doctors, pharmacists and clinics, in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Canada and many US states.

    Pain is no excuse to break the law – but it is a justifiable reason and anybody who suffers or is watching somebody suffer ought to understand that.

    People who possess or grow cannabis in their own homes for their own use and do no harm to others ought not to be punished.

    That is where the law is at fault.

    Alun Buffry

    Norwich

     

    Pubdate: Fri, 16 Sep 2011
    Source: Lancashire Telegraph (UK)
    Copyright: 2011 Newsquest Media Group
    Contact: [email protected]
    Website: http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4381
    Author: Alun Buffry
    Reference: http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/opinion/letters/9230722.Pain_no_excuse_to_break_law/