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On the heels of
yet another study which found that supervised injection sites encourage patrons to seek treatment, the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, an organization funded by the Drug Free America Foundation, whose mission is, among other things, “To advocate no use of illegal drugs and no abuse of legal drugs” and “To oppose legalization of drugs” is complaining to sympathetic media that they are being bullied by harm reduction advocates.Specifically, the DPNOC’s “Director of Research,” Colin Mangham is upset that his reputation is being damaged by a lawsuit filed against him for “publishing” lies and distortions about InSite, Vancouver’s supervised injection facility, and harm reduction in general, in an online “journal” owned by the DFAF.
I am reminded of Ben Stein’s move “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” in which Stein whined that proponents of “intelligent design” and critics of evolution are being discriminated against in colleges, universities and anywhere else empirical evidence and the scientific method are still respected. At least we know we have them on the back foot for a change.
Supervised injection site epitomizes warped philosophy in Downtown Eastside
By Mark Hasiuk, Vancouver Courier September 15, 2010
[snip]
“The best thing you can say about harm reduction advocates is that they are reductionists–they are reducing a complex human problem to a simple thing,” said David Berner, the newly appointed executive director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, an abstinence-based organization (soon-to-be headquartered in Vancouver) founded by former Conservative MP Randy White. “We need to get money and human energy back into prevention, education and treatment.”
[snip]
But criticizing Insite can come with a price. In the high stakes world of harm reduction, where government grants provide vital lifeblood, reputations are brutally defended. Critics targeted and bullied.
Just ask Colin Mangham.
Last September, the Portland Hotel Society, co-operators of Insite, slapped a defamation and slander lawsuit on Mangham, a 60-year-old research scientist and addictions expert whose 2007 RCMP-funded report published in the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice questioned the findings of Insite researchers. “Statements made about improving public order, saving lives and getting people into detox are misleading and based on data that just isn’t there,” said Mangham, during a recent phone interview from his home in Langley.
[snip]
Where are the transitional fossils? The evidence for common ancestry and decent with modification just isn’t there.
Ten years in, Vancouver’s great harm reduction experiment keeps rolling along, leaving rows of victims in its wake. Addicts get sicker, critics assailed, while an entire neighbourhood rots from the inside out.
Wonder if this is what Philip Owen had in mind?
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Policymakers should consider allowing the licensed sale of cannabis for recreational use, says one of the UK’s leading researchers of the drug.
Professor Roger Pertwee is to make the call in a speech at the British Science Association festival in Birmingham.
He is expected to say radical solutions have to be considered because he believes the current policy of criminalising cannabis is ineffective.
But the government insists decriminalisation would not work.
The dismissal last year of Professor David Nutt as the previous government’s leading drugs adviser showed it was in no mood to consider relaxing the status of cannabis as an illegal class B drug.
It is a view shared by the current government, but Prof Pertwee, an expert on cannabis-like chemicals, is to tell scientists that he, like Professor Nutt, believes it is a policy that is doing more harm than good
“I’m talking about harm minimisation,” he told BBC News.
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We, the undersigned, petition Mr. Vic Toews, Canada’s Public Safety Minister, to immediately approve Mr. Marc Emery’s application for a treaty transfer from the U.S. to Canada.
A media figure for marijuana and drug law reform, Mr. Emery is a Canadian citizen who carried out all his activities in Canada. His seed selling business never contracted any US-based employees, and no business was ever conducted on U.S. soil. Yet, when the Canadian government refused to charge or punish him, Mr. Emery was extradited to the United States to be punished under much harsher laws.
Therefore, we urge that you please grant Mr. Emery’s request for a prison transfer so that he at least may serve out the remainder of his sentence in Canada.
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We’re going to make a statement. We’re going to show our movement is strong, and that we can win in November.
On one day, September 13, the Prop 19 campaign will raise $50,000 — $1,000 for each day left until Election Day, November 2. This couldn’t be more important and timely, so we need everyone to stand up and chip in.
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By Dr. Andrew Weil, Founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine
If an American doctor of the late 19th century stepped into a time warp and emerged in 2010, he would be shocked by the multitude of pharmaceuticals that today’s physicians use. But as he pondered this array (and wondered, as I do, whether most are really necessary), he would soon notice an equally surprising omission, and exclaim, “Where’s my Cannabis indica?”No wonder — the poor fellow would feel nearly helpless without it. In his day, labor pains, asthma, nervous disorders and even colicky babies were treated with a fluid extract of Cannabis indica, also known as “Indian hemp.” (Cannabis is generally seen as having three species — sativa, indica and ruderalis — but crossbreeding is common, especially between sativa and indica.) At least 100 scientific papers published in the 19th century backed up such uses.
Then the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 made possession or transfer of Cannabis illegal in the U.S. except for certain medical and industrial uses, which were heavily taxed. The legislation began a long process of making Cannabis use illegal altogether. Many historians have examined this sorry chapter in American legislative history, and the dubious evidence for Cannabis addiction and violent behavior used to secure the bill’s passage. “Under the Influence: The Disinformation Guide to Drugs” by Preston Peet makes a persuasive case that the Act’s real purpose was to quash the hemp industry, making synthetic fibers more valuable for industrialists who owned the patents.
Meanwhile, as a medical doctor and botanist, my aim has always been to filter out the cultural noise surrounding the genus Cannabis and see it dispassionately: as a plant with bioactivity in human beings that may have therapeutic value. From this perspective, what can it offer us?
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TIME FOR CALIFORNIA TO END THE UNWINNABLE MARIJUANA WAR
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #452 – Sunday, September 11th, 2010
Kevin Zeese, the president of Common Sense for Drug Policy
www.csdp.org wrote the following for posting to various websites,
including ours.The facts presented both in the article and the references may assist
you in writing letters in response to the many articles, both pro and
con, appearing in California newspapers.Proposition 19 news clippings may be found at http://mapinc.org/find?272
To date only about a dozen letters on our side which mention
Proposition 19 have been published in California newspapers. In an
election that may be close your letters could influence enough voters
to make the difference.A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed,
it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead -
Pubdate: Sat, 11 Sep 2010
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/rxc0sghl
Copyright: 2010 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Author: Mike Carter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?196 (Emery, Marc)CANADA’S ‘PRINCE OF POT’ SENTENCED TO FIVE YEARS FOR SELLING MILLIONS
OF CANNABIS SEEDSMarc Emery, Canada’s “Prince of Pot” and a powerful voice in the
debate over the decriminalization of marijuana, was sent to federal
prison for five years on Friday for selling millions of cannabis
seeds by mail and phone order, the culmination of a five-year
prosecution and plea agreement that saw Emery extradited from Vancouver.In a statement to U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez and in a
letter to the court, Emery admitted his attempt to force a change in
U.S. and Canadian drug laws through “civil disobedience” and flouting
the laws was “overzealous and reckless.”“I acted arrogantly in violation of U.S. federal law,” he wrote. “I
regret not choosing other methods — legal ones — to achieve my
goals of peaceful political reform.“In my zeal, I had believed that my actions were wholesome, but my
behavior was in fact illegal and set a bad example for others,” he said.The five-year prison sentence was no surprise. Emery and the
government had agreed to it as part of a deal that saw Emery
surrender to U.S. authorities in May after fighting extradition from
Canada for four years.Two clerks who worked for him at his seed store in Canada had pleaded
guilty earlier and received probation.Emery was indicted in 2005, and at the time, the then-director of
Drug Enforcement Administration, Karen Tandy, called Emery’s 2005
arrest a “significant blow” to drug trafficking and the
“marijuana-legalization movement.”“Drug-legalization lobbyists have one less pot of money to rely on,”
Tandy said at the time.Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n745.a04.html
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DrugSense recognizes Alan Randell of Victoria, British Columbia for
his three letters published during August which brings his career
total, that we know of, to 499.You may review his superb letters at http://www.mapinc.org/writer/Randell+Alan
