• Letter of the Week

    Letter Of The Week – End Prohibition, California

    Newshawk: Published Letters Awards www.mapinc.org/lteaward.htm

    END PROHIBITION, CALIFORNIA

    Re “Legalizing is a dangerous choice” (Insight, Aug. 22): San Mateo
    Police Chief Susan Manheimer claims that after marijuana is
    legalized, drug cartels will continue to profit from selling
    it. That’s ridiculous.

    As a former police chief myself (Seattle, 1994-2000), I’d
    respectfully like to ask Manheimer to show us the wine cartels that
    grow grapes in our national parks to compete with the legal and
    regulated alcohol industry.

    Back here in reality, of course, we know that once America ended its
    failed experiment with alcohol prohibition, violent gangsters were no
    longer able to keep selling booze on the black market for a profit.

    Similarly, we can drive street dealers out of business when we take
    marijuana out of the shadows and place it under the control of safe,
    regulated, licensed businesses. Passing Proposition 19 will be good
    for police and for citizens who want safer streets. It’s the last
    thing the drug cartels want.

    Norm Stamper, Eastsound, Wash.

    Pubdate: Thu, 26 Aug 2010

    Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)

    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n679/a06.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Marijuana Gateway Risk Overblown: Study

    A young woman smokes a joint outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. New research suggests use of marijuana as a teen is not a major factor in using hard drugs later in life. (Jonathan Hayward)
    Ethnicity, employment better predictors of hard drug use

    Long-held fears that the use of marijuana will lead to harder drugs are overblown, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.

    The research, in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that other factors, such as whether or not a person has a job, or is facing severe stress, are far more predictive of future hard drug use than whether they smoked pot as a teenager.

    “Employment in young adulthood can protect people by closing the marijuana gateway, so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities,” said co-author Karen Van Gundy.

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    The Next Frontier Of Drug Policy Reform

    by Ethan Nadelmann

    Ethan Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

    For those of us who fought long and hard to reform the notorious 100-to-one crack/powder cocaine disparity in federal law, the Fair Sentencing Act, signed by President Obama on August 3, is at once a historic victory and a major disappointment. It’s both too little, too late and a big step forward.

    The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which punished the sale of five grams of crack cocaine the same as 500 grams of powder cocaine, reflected the bipartisan drug war hysteria of the day and was approved with virtually no consideration of scientific evidence or the fiscal and human consequences. The argument for reform has always been twofold: sending someone to federal prison for five years for selling the equivalent of a few sugar packets of cocaine is unreasonably harsh, and it disproportionately affects minorities (almost 80 percent of those sentenced are African-Americans, even though most users and sellers of crack are not black).

  • Drug Policy

    CMA Journal Article Backs Drug Injection Site

    Federal government accused of ignoring addicts by opposing Vancouver site

    An article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal slams the federal government for its efforts to shut down Insite in downtown Vancouver, Canada’s only safe injection site for drug addicts.

    Injection booths at Insite in Vancouver. Insite is the first legal supervised injection site in North America and is located in Vancouver’s east side. Injection booths at Insite in Vancouver. Insite is the first legal supervised injection site in North America and is located in Vancouver’s east side. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)A co-author of the paper has told CBC News he believes the federal government should stand aside, allow the centre to operate, and abandon an appeal to the Supreme Court

    “We’ve concluded after reviewing the evidence that Insite is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, and furthermore that we’re very concerned that the federal government has misled on the science,” said Dr. Michael Rachlis, a professor of health policy at the University of Toronto.

    Insite was established in 2003, when there was a Liberal government in Ottawa, but has been fighting for its survival since the Conservatives came to power in 2006.

    ‘We’re calling on the federal government to drop the current action they have in the Supreme Court.’ — Michael Rachlis, University of Toronto

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Smoking Marijuana Relieves Some Pain: Study

    Smoking marijuana does help relieve a certain amount of pain, a small but well-designed Canadian study has found.

    People who suffer chronic neuropathic or nerve pain from damage or dysfunction of the nervous system have few treatment options with varying degrees of effectiveness and side-effects.

    Neuropathic pain is caused by damage to nerves that don’t repair, which can make the skin sensitive to a light touch.

    Cannabis pills have been shown to help treat some types of pain but the effects and risks from smoked cannabis were unclear.

    Smoked cannabis for chronic neuropathic pain: a randomized controlled trial, http://mapinc.org/url/THI4fclA

  • Drug Policy

    What makes drugs illegal?

    Drug Policy Question of the Week – 8-31-10

    As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 8-23-10. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3042

    Question of the Week: What makes drugs illegal?

    It all has to do with a federal law passed in 1970. According to a 2009 Congressional Research Service report,

    “With increasing use of marijuana and other street drugs during the 1960s, notably by college and high school students, federal drug-control laws came under scrutiny. In July 1969, President Nixon asked Congress to enact legislation to combat rising levels of drug use. Hearings were held, different proposals were considered, and House and Senate conferees filed a conference report in October 1970. The report was quickly adopted by voice vote in both chambers and was signed into law as the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. … Included in the new law was the Controlled Substances Act.”

    The CSA can be found under Title 21 of the U.S. Commercial Code. Subchapter I, Sections 801-971 specify drug control and enforcement.

    Under the CSA, drugs are classified into one of five schedules. In theory, Schedule I is reserved for those drugs determined to be the most dangerous and to require the most control. Drugs in Schedules II-V are thought to be safer and thus progressively less tightly controlled.

    Schedule I drugs include heroin, MDMA, Ibogaine, LSD, Marijuana, Mescaline, Peyote, Psilocybin, Tetrahydrocannabinols, and GHB. Schedule II drugs include opium, coca, cocaine, fentanyl, and methadone. Anabolic steroids, buprenorphine, and ketamine are found in Schedule III with diazepam (or valium) and zopiclone (or Lunesta) in Schedule IV. In small dosages often for cough syrups, opium and its analog codeine can also be found in Schedule V.

    These facts and others like them can be found in the Crime 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].

  • Letter of the Week

    Letter Of The Week – Legalizing Drugs Could Diminish Dangers

    Newshawk: Published Letters Awards www.mapinc.org/lteaward.htm

    LETTER OF THE WEEK

    LEGALIZING DRUGS COULD DIMINISH DANGERS

    Norm Jackson evidently feels strongly the most effective way to
    minimize the harm caused by drugs is to prohibit them by law
    (“Legalizing marijuana makes no sense,” June 16). Didn’t we try that
    with alcohol, only to realize that prohibition caused more harm than
    before, including deaths and blindness caused by adulterated booze?

    Adulterated street heroin killed my 19-year-old son in 1993, so I
    vehemently disagree with Jackson. We should legalize all recreational
    drugs and stop throwing gazillions of dollars down a rat hole
    persecuting a vulnerable minority whose drugs of choice differ from
    those chosen by “respectable” people.

    Alan Randell

    Victoria, British Columbia

    Pubdate: Thu, 19 Aug 2010

    Source: New Times (San Luis Obispo, CA)

    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n462/a09.html

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Six Drug Czars, and Between Them They Can’t Muster a Decent Argument for Marijuana Prohibition

    By Jacob Sullum

    “Our opposition to legalizing marijuana is grounded not in ideology but in facts and experience,” say drug czar Gil Kerlikowske and his five predecessors in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece that urges Californians to vote against Proposition 19. They argue that voters should listen to them because they are “experts in the field of drug policy, policing, prevention, education and treatment.” If this is the best case the experts can make against marijuana legalization, they had better call in the amateurs.

    Kerlikowske et al. say it’s not true that “legalizing and taxing marijuana would generate much-needed revenue,” because everyone will grow his own, thereby avoiding sales and excise taxes. Although “people don’t typically grow their own tobacco or distill their own spirits,” they say, marijuana is different because it is “easy and cheap to cultivate, indoors or out.” If growing pot were as easy as the Six Drug Czars imply, there would not be much of a market for all the books and periodicals that explain how to do it properly. In any case, one could also say that tomatoes are “easy and cheap” to grow, or that beer is “easy and cheap” to brew. I’ve done both, but I still buy tomatoes and beer in stores. The supply is more reliable and varied, and it’s a lot easier. Accounting for the time and effort required to grow tomatoes and brew beer, buying them in the store is cheaper too, even though I have to pay taxes on them.

  • Drug Policy

    Google to Run Just Say Now Ads Censored by Facebook

    UPDATE!

    From FireDogLake http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/08/25/google-to-run-just-say-now-ads-censored-by-facebook/

    By: Michael Whitney Wednesday August 25, 2010 12:21 pm

    Good news from Google: the search giant has accepted our marijuana legalization ads.

    The ads were removed by Facebook, which said the ads featuring a marijuana leaf were in violation of its policy – a decision the social networking site made after serving no fewer than 38 million impressions of the ads earlier this month. The ads will begin running on Google’s advertising network immediately.

    Google’s decision to run the ads is an affirmation that the search network is mature enough to run ads that are clearly political speech.

    Bruce Fein, former Associate Attorney General for President Ronald Reagan and Just Say Now advisory board member, had this to say:

    “Facebook’s concocted prissiness over political advocacy is more to be disparaged than imitated. Freedom of expression is made of sterner stuff.  Google deserves applause for exposing Facebook to shame.”

    Ouch.

    These ads were also accepted by Google:

    You can see  the censored ads and sign our petition to Facebook protesting their decision here.