• Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net - International

    UN Expert Calls For A Fundamental Shift In Global Drug Control Policy

    At a press conference in New York on Tuesday 26 October, at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly, one of the UN’s key human rights experts will call for a fundamental rethink of international drug policy.

    Anand Grover, from India, is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, whose mandate is derived from the UN Human Rights Council. Mr Grover’s annual thematic report, to be presented on October 25/26, sets out the range of human rights abuses that have resulted from international drug control efforts, and calls on Governments to:

    * Ensure that all harm-reduction measures (as itemized by UNAIDS) and drug-dependence treatment services, particularly opioid substitution therapy, are available to people who use drugs, in particular those among incarcerated populations.

    * Decriminalize or de-penalize possession and use of drugs.

    * Repeal or substantially reform laws and policies inhibiting the delivery of essential health services to drug users, and review law enforcement initiatives around drug control to ensure compliance with human rights obligations.

    * Amend laws, regulations and policies to increase access to controlled essential medicines

    * To the UN drug control agencies, Mr Grover recommends the creation of an alternative drug regulatory framework based on a model such as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

    The report is the clearest statement to date from within the UN system about the harms that drug policies have caused and the need for a fundamental shift in drug policy.

    The report has been welcomed by the European Union in the EU statement on crime and drugs to the UN General Assembly.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Latinos Also Especially Screwed Over by Pot Prohibition

    Though Not As Much As Blacks

    By Jacob Sullum

    Last week the Drug Policy Alliance released a report that showed blacks in California are much more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, even though they are less likely to smoke pot. Today another DPA report highlights similar, though less dramatic, disparities between Latinos and non-Hispanic whites. In a coordinated move, the National Latino Officers Association, citing marijuana prohibition’s disproportionate impact on Latinos, today endorsed Proposition 19, California’s pot legalization initiative. The National Black Police Association and the California NAACP are supporting Prop. 19 for similar reasons.

    The authors of the DPA report, led by Queens College sociologist Harry Levine, found that from 2006 to 2008 “major cities in California arrested and prosecuted Latinos for marijuana possession at double to nearly triple the rate of whites,” despite the fact that “U.S. government surveys consistently find that young Latinos use marijuana at lower rates than young whites.” Out of 33 cities examined in the report, Pasadena, Santa Monica, and Alhambra—where Latinos were almost three times as likely to be busted for marijuana offenses— had the biggest disparties. In Los Angeles, which accounts for one-tenth of the state’s population, the ratio was 2 to 1.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - DrugSense - Feature

    Could Legalizing Marijuana in California Help Cure Breast

    Newshawk: Medical Marijuana www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/54
    Pubdate: Tue, 26 Oct 2010
    Source: AlterNet (US Web)
    Author: Mary Jane Borden

    For 70 years, we’ve been taught that marijuana has no accepted
    medical use and that its high potential for abuse demands absolute
    prohibition. Medical research has been nearly impossible since
    obtaining the substance for legitimate studies is restricted by the
    federal government.

    But for a moment, forget the anti-drug ads of stoned teenagers
    passing the bong and click instead on the National Library of
    Medicine’s website, “Pubmed.gov.” Look under “breast cancer and
    cannabinoid” and you will find studies in scientific journals like
    Breast Cancer Research and Treatment that should warrant immediate
    action: “Our data demonstrate the efficacy of CBD in pre-clinical
    models of breast cancer. The results have the potential to lead to
    the development of novel non-toxic compounds for the treatment of
    breast cancer metastasis…”

    A study in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics says, “These results
    indicate that CB1 and CB2 receptors could be used to develop novel
    therapeutic strategies against breast cancer growth and metastasis.”
    And this from the journal Molecular Cancer: “these results provide a
    strong preclinical evidence for the use of cannabinoid-based
    therapies for the management of ErbB2-positive breast cancer.” What’s
    more, this basic research also extols the safety of potential
    cannabinoid therapies.

    The science behind these studies finds that the human body contains
    its own internal system interrelated with molecules in the cannabis
    plant–AKA marijuana. A neurological signaling structure called the
    endocannabinoid system is now known to govern numerous bodily
    processes like appetite, pain, and even the birth of new brain cells.
    Cannabinoid receptors, called CB1 and CB2, are located in various
    cell membranes and activated by the body’s own cannabinoid molecules
    (endocannabinoids), as well as those unique to the cannabis plant
    (THC, CBD) and synthetically-derived cannabinoids like MarinolRegistered .

    And now, the latest research is proving that cannabinoids, as part of
    this bodily system, play a mitigating role in breast cancer.

    Breast cancer is a frightening diagnosis that will confront about 1
    in 8 American women this year. Some 40,000 will die from it. An
    unusual lump in a breast can grow through four increasingly incurable
    stages and sometimes into other tissue. Therapies involve invasive
    surgery, heavy radiation, and toxic chemotherapy. Current anti-cancer
    drugs may kill cancer cells, but they also destroy non-cancerous
    tissue and damage heart muscle. Intractable nausea and vomiting
    comprise just one side effect. The disease may be worse than the cure
    but the cure can also kill.

    But suppose some scientist has just come out of the jungle with an
    unknown plant that holds this much promise. It would be featured in
    the nightly news and on the front page of every newspaper. Well, we
    now have before us scientific clues that seem to point toward a
    revolution in breast cancer treatment, yet the government still
    manages to bury this amazing discovery.

    Why? Politics. The “Devil Weed” has always been a favorite target for
    tough-on-crime politicians. Over the decades, they have assembled a
    labyrinth of governmental agencies with multi-billion dollar budgets
    that enforce marijuana laws, ignore the science, thwart clinical
    research–and constantly reinforce anti-pot stereotypes.

    [continues] http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n870.a09.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Arresting Blacks for Marijuana in California

    Possession Arrests, 2006-08

    Levine, Harry G., et al. Arresting Blacks for Marijuana in California: Possession Arrests, 2006-08. Los Angeles: Drug Policy Alliance.

    The Drug Policy Alliance and the California State Conference of the NAACP have released a report that documents widespread race-based disparities in the enforcement of low-level marijuana possession laws in California. In the last 20 years, California made 850,000 arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana, and half a million arrests in the last 10 years. The people arrested were disproportionately African Americans and Latinos, overwhelmingly young people, especially young men. Yet, U.S. government surveys consistently find that young whites use marijuana at higher rates than young blacks. From 2006 through 2008, police in 25 of California’s major cities have arrested blacks at four, five, six, seven and even twelve times the rate of whites.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Smoke and Horrors

    By CHARLES M. BLOW

    Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.’s recent chest-thumping against the California ballot initiative that seeks to legalize marijuana underscores how the war on drugs in this country has become a war focused on marijuana, one being waged primarily against minorities and promoted, fueled and financed primarily by Democratic politicians.

    According to a report released Friday by the Marijuana Arrest Research Project for the Drug Policy Alliance and the N.A.A.C.P. and led by Prof. Harry Levine, a sociologist at the City University of New York: “In the last 20 years, California made 850,000 arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana, and half-a-million arrests in the last 10 years. The people arrested were disproportionately African-Americans and Latinos, overwhelmingly young people, especially men.”

    For instance, the report says that the City of Los Angeles “arrested blacks for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites.”

    This imbalance is not specific to California; it exists across the country.

    One could justify this on some level if, in fact, young blacks and Hispanics were using marijuana more than young whites, but that isn’t the case. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, young white people consistently report higher marijuana use than blacks or Hispanics.

    How can such a grotesquely race-biased pattern of arrests exist? Professor Levine paints a sordid picture: young police officers are funneled into low-income black and Hispanic neighborhoods where they are encouraged to aggressively stop and frisk young men. And if you look for something, you’ll find it. So they find some of these young people with small amounts of drugs. Then these young people are arrested. The officers will get experience processing arrests and will likely get to file overtime, he says, and the police chiefs will get a measure of productivity from their officers. The young men who were arrested are simply pawns.