• Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net - International

    Global Commission on Drug Policies

    Ex world leaders, Branson launch drugs campaign
    Sir Richard Branson
    GENEVA — Former world leaders and other personalities including Virgin chief Richard Branson on Monday launched a global drive to tackle drug abuse, amid signs that a crackdown on drugs crime is failing.

    “There is a growing perception that the ‘war on drugs’ approach has failed,” the Global Commission on Drug Policies said in a statement, as it began an inaugural two day meeting in Geneva.

    The commission, a private venture chaired by ex-Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, also includes the former presidents of Mexico and Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo and Cesar Gaviria, ex-EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana and former Norwegian minister and international negotiator Thorvald Stoltenberg.

  • What You Can Do

    Your Interview with the President

    On Tuesday January 25 at 9 p.m. ET, President Obama will deliver his 2011 State of the Union Address, which will be streamed live at http://www.youtube.com/worldview

    You can submit your questions for the President for an exclusive YouTube Interview that will take place just two days later, on January 27.

    What would you like to ask the President about the most important issues our country faces? You have until Wednesday January 26 at midnight ET to submit your question.

  • Hot Off The 'Net - International

    U.S. Rejects Indigenous Rights in Favor of Failed War on Drugs

    Strong-arms Other Countries to Follow Suit

    By Daniel Ernesto Robelo, Alternet

    Why is the United States formally objecting to Bolivia’s request to the UN to allow its ancestral practice of coca leaf chewing?

    Last week the United States formally objected to Bolivia’s request to the United Nations to allow the ancestral practice of coca leaf chewing. In doing so, it revealed the corruption, hypocrisy and futility of the global war on drugs, which it clearly values over the rights of indigenous peoples.

    Bolivia’s proposal is modest. It would strike two clauses from the 1961 U.N. Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs, which require that coca chewing “be abolished within twenty-five years” after taking effect. The existing system of cocaine prohibition would remain.

  • International

    The War On Drugs Is Lost

    By Fernando Henrique Cardoso

    SAO PAULO-The war on drugs is a lost war, and 2011 is the time to move away from a punitive approach in order to pursue a new set of policies based on public health, human rights and common sense. These are the core findings of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy that I convened, together with former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Cesar Gaviria of Colombia.

    We became involved with this issue for a compelling reason: the violence and corruption associated with drug trafficking represents a major threat to democracy in our region. This sense of urgency led us to evaluate current policies and look for viable alternatives. The evidence is overwhelming that the prohibitionist approach, based on repression of production and criminalization of consumption, has clearly failed.

    After 30 years of massive effort, all prohibitionism has achieved is to shift areas of cultivation and drug cartels from one country to another (the so-called balloon effect). Latin America remains the world’s largest exporter of cocaine and marijuana. Thousands of young people continue to lose their lives in gang wars. Drug lords rule by fear over entire communities.

    We ended our report with a call for a paradigm shift. The illicit drug trade will continue as long as there is demand for drugs. Instead of sticking to failed policies, that do not reduce the profitability of the drug trade – and thus its power – we must redirect our efforts to the harm caused by drugs to people and societies, and to reducing consumption.

  • Letter of the Week

    Letter Of The Week

    WAR ONLY ON CERTAIN DRUGS

    Re: “Losing the drug war,” by Charles Guerriero, Saturday Letters.

    Guerriero writes, “American drug policy toward marijuana yields
    nearly one million arrests annually; nine of 10 are for personal
    possession. We have nothing to show for all this madness, as
    marijuana is easier to obtain than alcohol for minors and use has
    only risen since the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.”

    I am a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, and I do not believe
    that the War On Certain Drugs has helped this country one bit. Study
    after study proves that tobacco and alcohol kill millions and that
    marijuana kills no one.

    Paraphrasing the words of a columnist from years ago: “Alcohol makes
    people violent. Marijuana just makes people hungry and boring.”
    Alcohol is legal and should be. So should marijuana.

    There is no reason whatsoever for our government to spend time,
    resources, or manpower fighting against it. Republicans, wake up. You
    drink beer or wine or whiskey.

    You know you do. Those who smoke marijuana are doing the same thing.

    Duh. Stop spending my money on the War On Certain Drugs.

    Michael Casey, Garland

    Pubdate: Fri, 14 Jan 2011

    Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)

    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n000/a002.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp - What You Can Do

    A National Call to Action!

    Activist Boot Camp, February 19-20, 2011

    The National Call to Action is the nation’s first medical cannabis virtual skill-building conference. Re-pledge your commitment to safe and legal access by joining thousands of your fellow activists for two days of community-building, skill-sharing, and strategic planning.

    For nearly a decade ASA has been hosting trainings and workshops to build capacity among our base and mobilize our activists. When we began this work, ASA focused on the battles in California. Today our scope is national, and we get pleas from almost every state asking us to help them activate their base and build a strategy to ensure safe access.

    ASA is hosting this conference virtually to better reach the thousands and thousands of patients and activists who need our trainings – we know that in these tough economic times we’ll train with more breadth and depth if we’re able to bring ASA to the masses, rather than the masses to ASA.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    DEA Postition on Marijuana

    The campaign to legitimize what is called “medical” marijuana is based on two propositions: first, that science views marijuana as medicine; and second, that the DEA targets sick and dying people using the drug. Neither proposition is true. Specifically, smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science–it is not medicine, and it is not safe. Moreover, the DEA targets criminals engaged in the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana, not the sick and dying. This is true even in the 14 states that have approved the use of “medical” marijuana.

  • Hot Off The 'Net - International

    Mexico’s Ex-President Vicente Fox: Legalize Drugs

    As Mexico drowns in drug related bloodshed — suffering almost 12,000 murders in 2010 — it is perhaps unsurprising that government critics turn up their screaming that the war on drugs isn’t working. But it was a bit of a bombshell when former president Vicente Fox added his voice to the chorus. The cowboy-boot wearing leader, who ruled Mexico from 2000 to 2006, had once declared the “mother of all battles” against crime and rounded up drug kingpins. But before he left office, he had witnessed the first big spike in violence as the narcos retaliated. In August of 2010, evidence surfaced that his vision had changed when he wrote on his blog that prohibition wasn’t working. Now, in a recent interview with TIME in his hometown in Central Mexico, he explains that his views have moved on to the other end of the spectrum: favoring full-on legalization of production, transit and selling of prohibited drugs. Fox is most explicit about marijuana, but argues that the principle applied to all illegal drugs.