Drugged: High on Marijuana uses visual effects and CGI to take the viewer on a trip through the human body. Using testimony from those who enjoy using the drugs, and those who have been addicted, the episode offers an insight into the realities of these drugs. Some of Britain and America’s top scientists and doctors will also explain the surprising bio-chemical effects of these popular drugs as well as their unintended consequences.
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By Anthony Papa
Is the Drug War the Next Big Civil Rights Issue?
How do we begin to address the connections between astronomical rates of incarceration, disintegration of black families, and the war on drugs?
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PROHIBITION ENABLES DEADLY DRUG TRADE
A Dec. 30 Columbian story “Safe streets” declared “For this story
we’ve looked at just three serious crimes, the kind folks might worry
about. We added assaults, burglaries and drug crimes for each area.”Excuse me? There weren’t enough rapes and murders so The Columbian
decided to fall back on the old standby “drugs”? What exactly is a
drug crime? Is DUI a drug crime? Is standing too close to the doorway
of a business while smoking tobacco a drug crime?The words “drug” and “crime” would not be found in the same sentence
if this ludicrous prohibition would end. Turf wars, crack babies and
a large percentage of juveniles using illegal drugs would be a thing
of the past. These issues aren’t of drugs but the illicit trade
prohibition propagates and the threat of criminal prosecution that
limits an abuser’s resources for help. The near 30,000 people killed
in Mexico haven’t been about drugs, but money.Drug abuse is a social-health issue … a crime? The only major drug
crimes that come to my mind are the Harrison Act, Marijuana Tax Act
and the Controlled Substance Act – crimes of a nation against its citizens.Jim Kennedy
Vancouver
Pubdate: Tue, 4 Jan 2011
Source: Columbian, The (WA)
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n000/a073.html
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By Maia Szalavitz
When an act of seemingly inexplicable violence like the Arizona massacre occurs, everyone is desperate for explanations. Some look to political rhetoric, some look to mental illness, some blame the parents, others point to marijuana. But what’s really at fault?
The reality is clearly complex. As researchers searching for the causes of violence and the roots of psychosis know, Jared Loughner’s behavior cannot easily be explained by a gene or a drug or culture or parenting. While each of those factors can be shown to have measurable effects, their relative contributions are often small or moderate and can’t be easily teased apart into a recipe of rampage in any individual case.
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Drug Policy Question of the Week – 1-10-11
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 1-10-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3220
Question of the Week: What are NAOMI and SALOME?
NAOMI stands for the “North American Opiate Medication Initiative.” It is a,
“two-centre, parallel, open-label randomized controlled trial aimed at testing whether heroin assisted treatment offers benefits over and above optimized methadone therapy in the treatment of individuals with chronic addiction who continue to use heroin despite having tried conventional treatments in the past.”
The NAOMI trials took place in Vancouver and Montreal, Canada.
SALOME stands for the “Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness,” and is defined as a,
“clinical trial that will test whether diacetylmorphine, the active ingredient of heroin, is as good as hydromorphone (also known as Dilaudid), a licensed medication, in benefiting people suffering from chronic opioid addiction who are not benefiting sufficiently from other treatments.” The SALOME trial is taking place in Vancouver.
NAOMI and SALOME are among a number of heroin maintenance clinical trials that have also occurred in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. According to a 2006 article in the Harm Reduction Journal, the outcomes of these trials were “unequivocally positive.” The article concluded that “prescribing heroin produces substantial declines both in illicit drug use and in criminal activity” and that it was “feasible to conduct a program that made heroin medically available.”
Like its European counterparts, the NAOMI trial found that, “Heroin-assisted therapy proved to be a safe and highly effective treatment for people with chronic, treatment-refractory heroin addiction. Marked improvements were observed including decreased use of illicit “street” heroin, decreased criminal activity, decreased money spent on drugs, and improved physical and psychological health.”
The SALOME trial was scheduled to begin in January 2010. Results would likely be available later this year.
These facts and others like them can be found in the Heroin Maintenance chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.
Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]
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TEACHABLE DRUG MOMENTS’? PLEASE
Regarding the Dec. 16 letter “Teachable drug moments”:
Shelley Mowrey of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America wants us to
be shocked at the video of Miley Cyrus smoking salvia divinorum.Mowrey calls it a “teachable moment,” which we parents should use to
“initiate a conversation” with our children about “drugs and alcohol.”Mowrey wants us to believe that her organization is privy to the
“single most effective way to raise healthy, drug-free children,” and,
at the same time, tells us that the average age for first drug use in
Arizona is 13, which is pretty much the same as it was 40 years ago
when this insane “war on drugs” started.“Healthy, drug-free children”? “Teachable moments”?
Forty years.
Three generations.
A trillion dollars spent, millions imprisoned, Mexico literally
bleeding to death at our doorstep.Tell me, what can we learn from watching a talented, successful,
charming young woman acting silly on YouTube that we don’t already
know?Rita Stricker
Chino Valley
Pubdate: Tue, 28 Dec 2010
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n000/a072.html
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By Rob Kampia
It’s with enthusiasm that I present this top-10 list for 2010. While there were a few disappointing losses — most notably the statewide ballot-initiative defeats in Oregon and South Dakota on November 2 — almost everything else demonstrated positive momentum for the marijuana policy reform movement.
In trying to make this list manageable, I haven’t listed (1) developments in clinical research; (2) developments in foreign countries; (3) the passage or defeat of local measures to tax medical marijuana, since these measures can be viewed as either good or bad; and (4) the progress that the Marijuana Policy Project made with moving our bills forward in the Delaware, Illinois, and other state legislatures where we haven’t yet achieved the ultimate victories we seek.
(In the interest of full disclosure: MPP, of which I am the executive director, played a significant role in five of the 10 victories below, assisted in an ancillary way in four, and played no role at all in one [the court cases]. They are listed in no particular order.)
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OUR LETTER WRITING HEROES
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #463 – Tuesday, January 4th, 2011
Since the Media Awareness Project was started as an email list over a
decade and a half ago a major goal has been to empower folks who
write letters to the editor in support of drug policy reform.It is with great pleasure that we announce today that Robert Sharpe
is our Letter Writer of the Year for 2010. Robert had 176 letters
and three OPEDs published during the year, bringing the total letters
published that we know of to 2, 414. He writes to newspapers all
over the world from his home. Robert writes as a volunteer for Common
Sense for Drug Policy. His published letters often have versions of
the title “Policy Analyst for Common Sense for Drug Policy,
Washington, D.C.” and sometimes a link to their website http://www.csdp.org/You may read his published letters at
http://www.mapinc.org/writers/Robert+SharpeRobert has provided his tips for letter writing success on this
webpage http://www.mapinc.org/resource/tips.htm -