• Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    Who declared war on drugs?

    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.

     

  • Letter of the Week

    Utter Failure

    Pubdate: Fri, 17 Jun 2011
    Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
    Copyright: 2011 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
    Author: Buford C. Terrell
    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n390/a10.html

    Regarding “Hard stuff; Get real about dealing with illegal drugs” (Page B11, Tuesday), the emperor has no clothes. Thank you for your editorial praising the report of the Global Commission on Drugs. That commission, whose membership included some of the most conservative Republicans from recent administrations, showed what almost everyone knows but is afraid to mention: The 40-year-old War on Drugs is a costly and destructive failure.

    It’s time to strip this tired old fraud bare and look for better ways to deal with the problems of drug misuse.

    In particular, those looking to reduce government spending should look at the trillion dollars wasted so far. How much could be saved by closing down the DEA and the Office of Drug Control Policy and removing the 50-plus percent of those in federal prison who are there for nonviolent drug offenses?

    The Global Commission has pointed out the emperor’s nudity. Now it is up to us to construct a proper, noncriminal wardrobe for our drug policy.

    Buford C. Terrell, Stafford

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Consultation on Proposed Improvements to the Marihuana Medical Access Program

    In response to concerns heard from Canadians, the Government of Canada announced on June 17, 2011 that it is considering improvements to the Program. The proposed improvements would reduce the risk of abuse and exploitation by criminal elements and keep our children and communities safe.

    Health Canada would like to hear from Canadians about the improvements under consideration. Interested Canadians will have an opportunity to comment on the proposed improvements starting June 17, 2011. The comment period will close on July 31, 2011.

    Interested Canadians are invited to provide feedback on a short discussion document by clicking on the link below titled “Consultation Document”.

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Call Off the Global Drug War

    By JIMMY CARTER

    Atlanta

    IN an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.

    The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders.

    These recommendations are compatible with United States drug policy from three decades ago. In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts. I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”

  • Letter of the Week

    Bodily Rights

    Pubdate: Sat, 11 Jun 2011
    Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
    Copyright: 2011 PG Publishing Co., Inc.
    Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
    Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
    Author: Amesh A. Adalja, M.D.
    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n360/a01.html

    BODILY RIGHTS

    I applaud the conclusions of the Global Commission on Drug Policy — detailed in Tony Norman’s June 3 column (“Ease Up in Drug War? Smart But Unlikely”) — that announce what has become patently obvious for decades: The war on drugs is a misguided effort that foments violence and abets organized crime.

    However, I fear the commission’s conclusions will fall on willfully deaf ears. Until Americans embrace the idea that people have an inalienable right to do what they wish with their bodies — even if their actions are harmful — no amount of rational persuasion or empiric evidence will succeed.

    AMESH A. ADALJA, M.D.

    Butler

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    40 Years of Drug War Hasn’t Worked

    “Time for a Change,” Says 9-Year Veteran

    By Eric Sterling, AlterNet

    The “War on Drugs” was launched by President Richard Nixon 40 years ago this week. In 1980, at the end of its first decade, I began a nine-year career as a “captain” in the war on drugs. I was the attorney in the U.S. House of Representatives principally responsible for overseeing DEA and writing anti-drug laws as counsel to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime.

  • Hot Off The 'Net - What You Can Do

    On 40th Anniversary of “War on Drugs,” Cops Release Report Showing its Failure

    Obama’s Drug Czar Says He Ended “War on Drugs” Two Years Ago

    Cops Hand-Deliver Report to Drug Czar’s Office While Czar Refuses to Meet

    WASHINGTON, DC — In conjunction with this week’s 40th anniversary of President Nixon declaring “war on drugs,” a group of police, judges and jailers who support legalization released a report today showing how the Obama administration is ramping up a war it disingenuously claims that it ended two years ago.

    Following the report’s release at a press conference this morning, the pro-legalization law enforcers attempted to hand-deliver a copy to Obama administration drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, who is a former Seattle chief of police. Instead of making time to listen to the concerns of fellow law enforcers who have dedicated their careers to protecting public safety, he simply sent a staffer to the lobby to receive a copy of the cops’ report.

  • Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    International Policy

    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 - Hot Off The 'Net

    The Price of Prohibition

    Forty years after Nixon declared war on drugs, it’s time to give peace a chance.

    By Jacob Sullum | June 15, 2011

    Forty years ago this Friday, President Richard Nixon announced that “public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.” Declaring that “the problem has assumed the dimensions of a national emergency,” he asked Congress for money to “wage a new, all-out offensive,” a crusade he would later call a “global war on the drug menace.”

    The war on drugs ended in May 2009, when President Obama’s newly appointed drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, said he planned to stop calling it that. Or so Kerlikowske claims. “We certainly ended the drug war now almost two years ago,” he told Seattle’s PBS station last March, “in the first interview that I did.” If you watch the exchange on YouTube, you can see he said this with a straight face.

    In reality, of course, Richard Nixon did not start the war on drugs, and Barack Obama, who in 2004 called it “an utter failure,” did not end it. The war on drugs will continue as long as the government insists on getting between people and the intoxicants they want.