By Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance
Some anniversaries provide an occasion for celebration, others a time for reflection, still others a time for action. This June will mark forty years since President Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” identifying drug abuse as “public enemy No. 1.” As far as I know, no celebrations are planned. What’s needed, indeed essential, are reflection — and action.
BROKE CALIFORNIA IS WASTING MONEY ON BUSTS
It has been 15 years, and law enforcement still thinks the medical
marijuana laws are confusing. As long as marijuana is not taxed and
regulated like booze and tobacco, this is going to happen. Law
enforcement has to do this to prop up their belief in reefer madness.
They will always look for a way to trip up those dope-smoking hippies
and throw them in jail. It is interesting that law enforcement
doesn’t get paid extra for going after murderers and rapists, but
they do get federal dollars for targeting marijuana. This current
bust (“The road ahead is filled with potholes,” Jan. 27) cost about a
million taxpayer dollars. I would have rather seen this money going to schools.
When my wife had cancer, marijuana sure helped her through the rough
times. I wonder what those involved in the bust will do when one of
their loved ones needs medical marijuana.
When marijuana is regulated like booze and the laws are well defined,
this will end, but until then some cop will be spending taxpayer
money trying to find ways around Proposition 215 and SB 420. Our
state is broke; we can’t continue to waste money this way. Does
anybody feel any safer since this bust went down?
Gary Gall
Cambria
Pubdate: Thu, 3 Feb 2011
Source: New Times (San Luis Obispo, CA)
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n000/a006.html
By Jacob Sullum
A new YouGov poll commissioned by The Economist finds most Americans support marijuana legalization. Here is the question:
Some people say marijuana should be treated like alcohol and tobacco. They say it should be regulated and taxed and made illegal for minors. Do you agree?
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they agreed, while only 23 percent disagreed. The remaining 19 percent had no opinion. This is the strongest support for legalization that I can recall seeing in a nationally representative poll. A Gallup poll in late October found that 46 percent of Americans favored legalization, a record for that organization’s surveys. (By comparison, support was under 30 percent in Gallup polls taken during the late 1970s, a time that today is remembered as relatively pot-tolerant.) As far as I know, the only other survey to find majority support for legalizing pot was a May 2009 Zogby poll in which 52 percent of respondents favored that position. The question in that survey was pretty slanted in favor of legalization, however.
Drug Policy Question of the Week – 2-5-11
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 2-5-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3256
Question of the Week: What are Special Rapporteurs?
Shortly after enacting its charter in 1946, the United Nations established the Commission on Human Rights. According to its 2009 report, the Commission’s Human Rights Council fields,
“independent human rights experts with mandates to investigate, report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.”
Some experts are called Rapporteurs, a French term for “reporter.” Rapporteurs carry out their designated mandates via “special procedures.” There are currently 31 thematic and 8 country mandates.
Special Rapporteurs have issued several reports on mandates germane to drug policy.
The May 2010 “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, [by] Philip Alston,” stated,
“…in Afghanistan, the US has said that drug traffickers on the “battlefield” who have links to the insurgency may be targeted and killed. This is not consistent with the traditionally understood concepts under [international humanitarian law].”
The Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
“decided to devote particular attention in 2010 to the issues of the detention of drug users.”
The August 2010 “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health,” conceded,
“While drugs may have a pernicious effect on individual lives and society, this excessively punitive regime has not achieved its stated public health goals, and has resulted in countless human rights violations.”
The report then concluded,
“The primary goal of the international drug control regime … is the “health and welfare of mankind”, but the current approach to controlling drug use and possession works against that aim.”
These facts and others like them can be in the Human Rights – United Nations section of the Civil Rights Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.
Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]
Drug Policy Question of the Week – 1-26-11
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 1-26-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3243
Question of the Week: What are Entheogens?
A paper in the Journal of Consciousness Studies defined entheogens as,
“psychoactive agents more generally known as psychedelics (etymologically, mind manifesting) or hallucinogenic … that bring one in touch with the Divine within.”
A 2009 Cornell Law School research paper went on to state that,
“The word entheogen is believed to translate into the phrase “God inside us”. In the literal sense this word refers to plants, shrubs, fungi and seeds used for centuries in religious or shamanic rituals for the purpose of obtaining revelations, spiritual enlightenment, or healing illnesses. Some of these substances include, Ayahuasca, Amanitas Muscaria, Blue Lotus, Hawaiian Baby Woodrose and Morning Glory Seeds, Salvia Divinorum, Khat, Kanna, San Pedro Cacti, Kratom, Henbane, Yopo and Mandrake. There are many more, some of which are illegal (such as DMT, Kava Kava, Cannabis and Psilocybin Mushrooms)…”
Wikipedia includes LSD, Ibogaine, and even ethanol, aka alcohol as entheogens.
The Cornell paper noted that,
“The first scholar to highlight the sacramental use of psychoactive substances was de Felice [who put] forward the hypothesis that the use of psychotropic substances is deeply embedded in human culture, and that it is intrinsically intertwined in a most basic human instinct — the search for transcendence. Thus, he proposes, the use of psychotropic substances is at the roots of perhaps all religions.”
The Cornell paper finally asks, is
“the legal status of many entheogens … another example of legislative inertia and a defect in the law? Are these drugs harmful enough to warrant criminalization? Or, alternatively, are these drugs, with their connection to peoples’ spiritual beliefs, to be protected … as an expression of people’s religion?”
These facts and others like them can be found in the new Entheogens Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.
Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]
DrugSense recognizes Officer Howard J. Wooldridge (retired) of
Buckeystown, Maryland for his three published letters during January,
which brings his total published letters that we know of to 227.
Howard is a Drug Policy Specialist with Citizens Opposing Prohibition
You may read his published letters at:
http://www.mapinc.org/writers/Howard+Wooldridge
Most Americans believe that the country’s forty-year “war on drugs” has failed. Yet, despite the costs and growing opposition to US anti-narcotics strategy across Latin America, the US debate on drug policy remains muted. According to Rethinking US Drug Policy, a report released in January by the Inter-American Dialogue, what is most needed now is a far-reaching debate on alternative approaches that could reduce the risks and damage from the trafficking and abuse of illegal drugs. The report proposes a series of US government initiatives to begin a thorough rethinking of US drug policy.
On February 10, the Inter-American Dialogue will hold a public discussion on the findings and recommendations of the report at an event on Capitol Hill.
Read the official press release.
http://www.thedialogue.org/uploads/Drug_Policy/Press_Advisory.pdf
A LIFE WITHOUT PAIN
Re “Puff piece” by Nick Miller (SN&R Feature, January 20):
I just read your article and I only wanted to comment on one thing: I
was raised by Mr. Mackey’s motto: “Drugs are bad!”
I was hit by a car at age 13 and afterward suffered from terrible
headaches, nausea that ruined my ability to hold down a job or spend
time with my children. I missed out on so much because of my head
injury. Finally, after feeling like a guinea pig for years on drugs
that were “legal” but did no good, I tried marijuana. Not only did
the pain become tolerable, but the nausea was relieved, and I found
not only could I spend time with my family but I could also hold down
a job (part time). The gratitude I felt was enormous. Finally, I
could live a real life!
I hope someday people who don’t need marijuana will understand that
there are people out there who do. We are law-abiding, regular people
who just hope for a life without pain and discomfort. We pay our
taxes, we stop at red lights, we don’t rob liquor stores. We just
want to feel like everyone else does: Fine.
Kristi Caye
via e-mail
Pubdate: Thu, 27 Jan 2011
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n040/a01.html
Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)