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Dutch Smoking Ban Could Improve Marijuana Quality
Rumors of a smoking ban in the Netherlands have long threatened Amsterdam's popular coffeeshop scene, where customers can openly buy and smoke marijuana. In a bizarre turn, however, it looks like they've come up with an interesting compromise:New laws similar to those which took effect in England last summer, will ban the smoking of tobacco - but not cannabis - in enclosed public places in the Netherlands from July 1.Critics say the change will encourage users to turn to much stronger forms of the drug.Users will still be able to light up joints filled with pure cannabis but technically banned from mixing in tobacco. [The Telegraph]I just don't even know what to say about this. Common sense ought to dictate that businesses be allowed to choose what environment to offer their customers, but if you're gonna have a smoking ban, the marijuana exemption certainly takes the teeth out of it. For the hardcore marijuana enthusiasts among us, a friend sends this interesting assesment of the smoking ban's potential impact on Dutch marijuana culture:The popularity of mixing tobacco into joints is due in part to the widespread use of chemical fertilizers used when growing the commercial cannabis that is typically available in Dutch coffeeshops. "Chemmy" pot doesn't burn properly without tobacco, thus we may soon face an epidemic of joints that wonât stay lit.Lacking the tobacco option, coffeeshop customers may soon find themselves craving properly-grown organic cannabis, currently a rare find at most Dutch coffeeshops. If, to any extent, this change in the law results in increased use of more conscientious cultivation practices, the long term impact on the quality of Dutch cannabis could be substantial. Organic cannabis is more flavorful, softer on the lungs, and produces a more satisfying high. Moreover, proper organic methods can achieve the same yields as the destructive chemical/hydroponic technique that many growers believe is necessary to produce a sizable harvest. Experts such as Jason King have long lamented the poor quality of commercial cannabis available in Amsterdam and this new law may have the unintended effect of pushing things back in the right direction.Really? Well that sounds logical enough to me, I guess. You won't find that kind of analysis in The Telegraph, that's for sure.
Drug Cops Shouldnât be Paid With Confiscated Drug Money, But They Are
A disturbing report from NPR illustrates that many police departments have become dependent on confiscated drug proceeds in order to fund their anti-drug operations:Every year, about $12 billion in drug profits returns to Mexico from the world's largest narcotics market â the United States. As a tactic in the war on drugs, law enforcement pursues that drug money and is then allowed to keep a portion as an incentive to fight crime.â¦Federal and state rules governing asset forfeiture explicitly discourage law enforcement agencies from supplementing their budgets with seized drug money or allowing the prospect of those funds to influence law enforcement decisions.There is a law enforcement culture â particularly in the South â in which police agencies have grown, in the words of one state senator from South Texas, "addicted to drug money."Just pause for a second and think about the implications of a drug war that funds itself with dirty money. It is just laughable to think that such conditions could exist without inviting routine corruption, from our disgraceful forfeiture laws to the habitual thefts and misconduct that occur with such frequency that we're able to publish a weekly column dedicated to them. It is truly symbolic of the drug war's inherent hopelessness that illicit drug proceeds are needed in order to subsidize narcotics operations. If we ever actually succeeded at shrinking the drug market, we'd be defunding law-enforcement! Progress is rather obviously impossible under such circumstances.Drug enforcement is a job like any other, and police have mouths to feed, bills to pay, maybe a little alimony here or there. So they take their paycheck and sign out; I donât blame anyone for that in and of itself. But consider that law-enforcement operations artificially inflate the value of drugs, only to then hunt down those same proceeds, collect, and redistribute them within the police department. Morally, is that any better than the dealer who pushes dope to put food on the table?Really, a structure such as this is not designed to achieve forward momentum towards reducing drug abuse. It's the law-enforcement equivalent of subsistence farming and it ought to warrant income substitution programs not unlike those we push on the peasants of Colombia and Afghanistan. All of this lends substantial credence to the popular conception that "the drug war was meant to be waged, not won."Each day that the drug war rages on, its finely tuned mechanisms become more effective at sustaining itself and less effective at addressing the issues of drug abuse and public safety that supposedly justify these policies in the first place.
Increased Pot Potency Just Proves That Marijuana Laws Have Failed
Everyday I read the Drug Czar's blog hoping that one afternoon I might happen upon something vaguely resembling an actual response to the reform movement's detailed and ongoing critiques of his work. Yet it never comes. Instead, I read that marijuana makes people sad, medical marijuana makes people sick, and school children love having their urine collected.Then today it happened. Overcome, perhaps, by excitement over the newest data on marijuana potency, the Drug Czar's blog linked editorials by MPP's Bruce Mirken and NORML's Paul Armentano. The post even contains quotes by Armentano and attempts to refute them: Claim 1: "...even by the University of Mississippi's own admission, the average THC in domestically grown marijuana -- which comprises the bulk of the US market -- is less than five percent, a figure that's remained unchanged for nearly a decade." (via the HuffingtonPost)Not exactly. The "domestic" samples analyzed in the University of Mississippi's report do not represent what's found in the U.S. market. "Domestic" samples refer to marijuana plants that were found in the process of being grown and were then eradicated by law enforcement in the U.S. The potency of these "domestic" specimens is far lower because those specimens are most often taken from immature plants that never reached full cultivation (maturity) for distribution and consumption in the illegal market. The "non-domestic" specimens in the report are from actual DEA street or border seizures, which are a different set of specimens from the "domestic" eradications. These samples more accurately represent the quality of marijuana that's smoked in the U.S. (The "non-domestic" label has been misinterpreted because the origin of the seized marijuana is not known.)It's just a jaw-dropping lecture to receive from the Drug Czar, who previously claimed that marijuana potency had increased "as much as 30 times" precisely by using weak domestic samples as his baseline. Well thanks for clarifying that, finally. Maybe ONDCP should send a press release to 2002 to warn everyone how full of crap they are.Moreover, if I understand this correctly, the Drug Czar is saying that all cultivated marijuana was labeled as "non-domestic" for the purposes of the latest report. It's true that police can't determine where the finished product originated, but calling it all "non-domestic" ignores the reality that most U.S. marijuana is grown here by Americans and not some terrorist overseas. The study thus implies wrongly that all domestic marijuana was seized before cultivation and that our entire market is dominated by imported foreign pot. And remember, they brought all this up in order to assure us that we donât know what we're talking about.The Drug Czar's second point is similarly problematic:Claim 2: "If and when consumers encounter unusually strong varieties of marijuana, they adjust their use accordingly and smoke less."The research cited in this argument undermines the author's own claim. The almost 20-year old study found that the effects of the marijuana were greater for the high THC doses of marijuana. Even though the 12 experienced users in the study were titrating, they ended up more intoxicated, and that was with marijuana that only had 1.3 percent versus 2.7 percent THC.It's just not true. As "Understanding Marijuana" author Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D. explains via email: â¦the Pushing Back website says "Even though the 12 experienced users in the study were titrating, they ended up more intoxicated," while the abstract of the article they are mentioning says "Active marijuana also increased subjective reports of drug effect over placebo, but not dose dependently" That is, the folks smoking real pot got higher than folks smoking placebo, but the folks with the stronger dose didn't get higher than the folks with the weaker dose.As always, it is just impossible to overstate the factual vacuum from which the Drug Czar's claims emerge before being tossed into the public debate like a turd into a hot sauna. These reflexive, involuntary fabrications are all the more galling when one considers that marijuana potency actually has increased and could theoretically be demonstrated without lying at all. We'd just as soon let them have their day if these recent reports didnât contradict numerous hysterical prior claims by these very same people, and if they didnât give rise to all sorts of nonsense about the fictitious risks of marijuana with more THC in it. Anyone struggling with that concept need look no further than the fact that FDA has approved a 100% THC pill called Marinol and the Drug Czar doesn't even pretend to worry about that.Increasing potency is not an argument against reforming marijuana laws; it's a symptom of marijuana prohibition as well as a towering exhibit of its failure. Note: For more on this, visit Marijuana Evolves Faster Than Human Beings, which I'm proud to say generated quite a bit of traffic to this site.
Why You Shouldn't Try to Eat Your Marijuana if You're Pulled Over
It's a popular tactic in an emergency, but it can easily backfire:His mouth packed with marijuana, a teenager asked a deputy if he could spit the cannabis out before he was arrested on multiple drug charges, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office.Andrew Alexander Alvarez, 17, of Merioneth Drive, Fort Walton Beach, is charged with possession of Percocet, tampering with evidence, possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.A deputy stopped a vehicle in front of the Coast Guard station and noticed the driver and Alvarez seemed to be hiding something, he wrote in the arrest report.Alvarez would only mumble after he got out for questioning. Then he "requested that I allow him to spit the cannabis out onto the shoulder," the deputy wrote. [nwfdailynews.com]I've never tried eating a bag of pot, but I suspect it's considerably more chewy than panicked potheads anticipate. Good stuff is like gum, and the schwag is full of gross seeds and stems. You can't win. A gram or less might go down easily enough, but you're left with skunk breath and green teeth. The advantage of no longer having actual pot may be tipped on its head when a pissed off cop charges you with tampering and DUI. At the very least, don't try to eat your pot when you absolutely have no chance of eating it all. Come on, have some respect for yourself and other people who enjoy marijuana and donât want to be associated with this silliness. That said, I cannot blame anyone who lives in fear of our cruel laws and endeavors desperately to protect themselves from the pernicious, haunting consequences of even the pettiest drug arrest. I understand. If our drug laws cause people to freak out and try to eat all their drugs when they get pulled over, then there's something wrong with our drug laws.But as long as you're living amidst this madness, you're better off knowing your rights than making a meal of your marijuana.
And the snitch goes on, or, Save the chidren!
Nowhere is the evil of the drug war more evident than in the use of children as pawns.
Current scenario of HIV/AIDS Interventions in Chennai
Current scenario of HIV/AIDS Interventions in Chennai
U.S. Government Stopped Research After Finding That Marijuana Slowed Cancer Growth
NORML's Paul Armentano has a disturbing account of the history of government research regarding the benefits of THC as a potential cancer treatment:Not familiar with this scientific research? Your government is.In fact, the first experiment documenting pot's potent anti-cancer effectstook place in 1974 at the Medical College of Virginia at the behest federalbureaucrats. The results of that study, reported in an Aug. 18, 1974,Washington Post newspaper feature, were that marijuana's primarypsychoactive component, THC, "slowed the growth of lung cancers, breastcancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged theirlives by as much as 36 percent."Despite these favorable preliminary findings (eventually published thefollowing year in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute), U.S.government officials refused to authorize any follow-up research untilconducting a similar - though secret - clinical trial in the mid-1990s. Thatstudy, conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program to the tune of $2million, concluded that mice and rats administered high doses of THC overlong periods had greater protection against malignant tumors than untreatedcontrols.However, rather than publicize their findings, government researchersshelved the results, which only became public after a draft copy of itsfindings were leaked to the medical journal AIDS Treatment News, which inturn forwarded the story to the national media. [timesheraldonline.com]They haven't studied the issue since. And because the U.S. government holds a monopoly on "legal" marijuana that could be used for research purposes, they've been able to prevent independent researchers from further investigating marijuana's promising anti-cancer properties. Armentano notes that research overseas continues to produce very encouraging results.Unfortunately, our government's blockade against marijuana/cancer research is so mindless and vindictive that it's almost impossible to convince anyone that they do things like this. It's a terrible and frequent conundrum for reformers that if we accurately describe the behavior of our opposition, we end up sounding crazy.
Mexican Drug War Analysis: It's Not Going Well
Reuters offers a dismal assessment of the Mexican drug war entitled "ANALYSIS-Mexico's Calderon bogged down in bloody drugs war". I'm left wondering, of course, why it is that one is said to be "analyzing" when pointing out that the drug war is failing. Must we place Mexico under the microscope in order to observe that there's a "bloody drugs war" going on there? Isn't that just a fact?Calderon's first move on taking power 18 months ago was to launch a bold $7 billion army-led assault on powerful drug cartels, vowing to wrest back control of violence-scarred northern border states.His army busts have put a string of senior smugglers behind bars and captured truckloads of cocaine and cash.But the top drug lords are still free, and disrupting years-old trafficking alliances and protection networks has sparked an explosion in killings between rival gangs who dump hacked-off heads and tortured bodies in public.The bloodshed has dented Calderon's popularity and left him bogged down in a vicious war with the odds of winning it stacked against him.Calderon, 45, has defined success as reducing the violence, but drug murders have instead soared to more than 4,000 since his offensive began, and the turf wars intensified this year.Perhaps one technically engages in analysis when suggesting that the odds of winning are stacked against Calderon, but we don't really need some credentialed academic to tell us that, do we? Has anyone ever won a drug war?
Get your Marc Emery warning here.
Too much doom and gloom ,weather wise,has the prince of pot down in the dumps today.In a press release,the first in months(could there be something else on his mind?)Canada's Marc Emery says the weath
Will John McCain Avoid Running a "Tough-On-Crime" Campaign?
The prevailing wisdom among reformers has been that Obama's good positions on medical marijuana, needle exchange, and sentencing reform would draw fire from the McCain campaign. Bogus "soft-on-crime" attacks against democrats have been a staple of past republican presidential campaigns, and Obama's already been smeared on this issue. But McCain himself has thus far steered clear of that path.Now, The Washington Post points to some recent McCain comments that suggest a more reasoned approach to the crime issue than many have been anticipating:PHILADELPHIA -- The question for Sen. John McCain at a town hall meeting here was one of those softballs that Republicans historically use to demonstrate their law-and-order toughness: What are you going to do about teen gangs?â¦But the Republican presidential nominee did not talk the way many Republican candidates do about the need for a crackdown on gangs, or tougher prison sentences or a need to enforce gun laws. (The answer might have been different had former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani been the nominee. The former mayor repeatedly talked about crackdowns on crime.)Instead, McCain repeated his belief that gang members "need mentors. I think they need role models" and related a story about a program run by a Baptist college in Arkansas. "We've go to have mentors.""We've also got to give them an opportunity and a path and away out," he added. "Some of these gangs have now become almost international ... incarceration has sometimes made them worse criminals when they get out than they are when they went in."Given the opportunity to pounce atop the law & order podium, McCain instead sounds more thoughtful, endorsing education and even acknowledging the unintended consequences of massive incarceration. Other than a passing reference to stopping drugs at our border, all of this is pretty easy to swallow.We've heard disappointing statements from McCain on medical marijuana and the drug war in general, but none of that precludes the senator from recognizing the need for alternatives to incarceration. It's an issue that's generating increased public awareness and could become an asset to Obama if McCain appears indifferent. Needless to say, a bipartisan consensus on reducing incarceration would be a powerful step forward, even if neither candidate is prepared to support the drug policy overhaul that's necessary to achieve it.Unfortunately, painful experience has taught us not to expect a presidential campaign free of mindless tough-guy crime rhetoric and it's way too soon to take comfort in what we've seen so far. Even if McCain aims to stay out of the fray, we can expect attacks on Obama's pro-reform positions to intensify as the contest heats up. As always, what matters won't be those positions in and of themselves, but whether Obama is prepared to defend them with confidence and vigor.Update: Tom Angell suggests that it's a mistake to even concede the term "tough-on-crime" to those who think hurling human beings behind bars at alarming rates will make us safer. He's right that bad policies create new crimes, cause more of the old ones, and distract police from what should be their primary public safety priorities. The drug war isn't tough, it's clumsy and barbaric.(This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
World Record Marijuana Crop Gets Blown Up By Fighter Jets
What do you do if you find the world's largest marijuana stash? Call in the airforce!The crack teams discovered 236.8 tons of cannabis buried in vast trenches in the desert. The drugs had a minimum street value of £225 million, and weighed more than 30 double-decker buses, officials said.Lieutenant General Abdul Hadi Khalid, Afghanistan's deputy interior minister, said: "This is a new world record in the global war on drugs."â¦British fighter jets were called in from nearby Kandahar Airfield to smash open the underground stores. A Nato spokesman said the planes dropped three 1,000lb bombs on the trenches, before troops from the commando unit known as 333 doused the wreckage with petrol and set them alight. [scotsman.com]There's something tragically ironic about using fighter jets to launch air strikes on a plant that's never killed anyone in the history of the world. Are you having fun yet, brave desert drug soldiers? Someone get these guys some volleyball nets before they nuke a poppy field.
Two More Horrible Drug Raid Disasters
Derrick Foster is the latest person facing prosecution after mistaking a drug raid for a robbery and firing on the intruders, who turned out to be police. He's gainfully employed, has no criminal record, and wasn't involved in any drug activity. But, of course, police are pushing the theory that he wanted to kill some cops on purpose. Concerned that Foster's innocence could result in him being foundâ¦innocent, the local police union is going around intimidating potential character witnesses.In yet another raid-gone-wrong, police heard that Ronald Terebesi, Jr. was smoking crack in his house (smoking, not selling). So they threw a flashbang grenade in his window, smashed down his door with a battering ram and killed a disoriented man who "charged" at them. 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan is now dead because police went nuts in order to stop a guy from smoking crack.
Bob Barr's Newfound Drug War Opposition Shows That Anything is Possible
No drug warrior has played a greater role in the development of my own political identity than Bob Barr. At eighteen, I registered to vote specifically to support Initiative 59 to protect medical marijuana patients in Washington D.C. Despite passing with a massive 69%, Initiative 59 was blocked from implementation by an amendment written by Bob Barr, Congress's most proud drug war champion of the 1990's. Dreaming of a day when my voice in our democracy would never again be held hostage to callous drug war demagoguery, I became a student of criminal justice and political science, and eventually, a proud soldier in the growing movement for drug policy reform. That, in short, is the path that brought me here today. And it is with that in mind that I read these words from Bob Barr, published yesterday:â¦when government attempts to solve our societal problems, it tends to create even more of them, often increasing the size and depth of the original problem. A perfect example of this is the federal War on Drugs.For years, I served as a federal prosecutor and member of the House of Representatives defending the federal pursuit of the drug prohibition.Today, I can reflect on my efforts and see no progress in stopping the widespread use of drugs. I'll even argue that America's drug problem is larger today than it was when Richard Nixon first coined the phrase, "War on Drugs," in 1972. [Huffington Post]Barr's mea culpa is no masterpiece of drug policy reform advocacy. It breaks no new ground. It even rambles tragically about the virtues of employment drug screening, only to end suddenly and disappointingly. But I'll take it.Once our loudest opponent, Barr is now the presidential nominee of the pro-drug reform Libertarian Party. He has partnered with the Marijuana Policy Project to lobby for medical marijuana and now bravely admits "I was wrong about the war on drugs," publicly and for all to see. Obviously, the drug war isn't going to end tomorrow just because Bob Barr doesnât like it anymore. But that's not the point. What all of this serves to illustrate is that no one is immune to the truth. There is no heart so hard, no skull so swollen as to be rendered impermeable to the principles of peace, justice, and compassion. Our opponents don't have invisible forcefields around their brains. They are vulnerable to the truth every moment of every day that they walk the earth. With that in mind, we would be wise to welcome and embrace those who break free, for whatever reason, from the icy death grip of prohibitionist political posturing. We must set a precedent of acceptance so that others might soon follow Mr. Barr across the threshold. (This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
Vietnam Orders Police to Win the Drug War by August
It's gonna be a busy summer over there:The Prime Minister has declared a new campaign against drugs from the beginning of June rill the end of August.The campaign needs to bring about a great positive change in drug prevention and control, affirmed Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.â¦Forces will be tasked with eliminating all places selling drugs, arresting all drug dealers and gaining complete control over the drug business. [vietnamnet.vn]No matter how many times I hear it, this kind of talk never ceases to amuse me. According to the article, they've created new drug laws to replace the old ones that "did not address funding for fighting drugs". Did they forget to fund their drug war? Is that what this means? Anyway, now they have funding so if you're selling drugs in Vietnam, you have until August.
CAST,a bad idea but at least an idea
Vancouver has turfed it's controversial and often arrogant Mayor for the November election.In a surprise runoff for the candidacy of the NPA's leader,Peter Ladner has defeated Sam Sullivan.As a city c
Stop Making Excuses and Go Watch 'The Wire'
It has come to my attention that many of you still haven't seen HBO's The Wire. This includes several people I otherwise generally admire and consider well informed. So, I've prepared a list of common excuses for not having seen The Wire and refuted them:Excuse #1: I don't have HBO.Response: Seasons 1-4 are available on DVD. And the show is over, so I'm not sure it's even airing anymore anyway. Rent it, dude.Excuse #2: I'm not really that into TV shows. Response: The Wire is so accurate and poignant that I'm not sure it even counts as TV. Besides, it doesnât have commercials.Excuse #3: There were 5 seasons. How will I catch up?Response: Really easily. It's the most captivating thing ever filmed. By the end of the 1st season, you'll understand. By the end of the 3rd, you'll have sent me a thank you note.Excuse #4: I'm a hardworking drug reform activist/staffer. I work 50+ hours a week and just haven't gotten around to it.Response: You suck. The Wire is the most realistic depiction of drug war policing and the politics of crime ever produced. It's far more accurate than the evening news. If this is what you're passionate about, then you must accept David Simon's glorious gift to our movement and bask in its brilliance. You'll learn 50 things you never saw in any drug policy book or blog. Excuse #5: I hate cop shows.Response: That's because you've never seen The Wire. This ain't Law & Order: Criminal Intent. You won't find Vincent D'Onofrio squirming around until everyone gets pissed off and waives their right to remain silent. In conclusion, go watch The Wire. Start with season 1 and work your way through. It just gets better each season, so be patient if it doesn't blow your mind immediately. You will better understand the war on drugs, which will make you a better activist. And you'll be able to discuss the show without anyone ruining it by telling you who gets killed. I'm not promising that the drug war will end if you watch The Wire, but I guarantee that it will continue until you do.
Stop Making Excuses and Go Watch 'The Wire'
It's come to my attention that many of you still haven't seen HBO's The Wire. This includes several people I otherwise generally admire and consider well informed.
People are Getting Themselves Arrested Just So They Can Sell Drugs in Jail
From England comes yet another example of how drug prohibition has failed in more ways than we can even think of. DRUG dealers are getting themselves sent to prison because they can make huge profits in a few weeks behind bars.They are raking in tens of thousands of pounds from operations while inside jails.With a captive market, they can charge fellow inmates more for drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine than they can sell them for on the outside. [Daily Express]Needless to say, if you can't keep prisons drug free, what are we doing trying to eradicate the drug economy on the outside? Seriously, just imagine you call the cops cause someone's breaking into your house, but they're busy down the road dealing with a guy who's showing everyone his penis just so he can go to jail and sell drugs. Add another item to the list of phenomena that are so stupid they can only be caused by drug prohibition.Now that the very institutions which are supposed to intimidate drug dealers have become yet another instrument of drug prohibition profiteering, can we please regulate the stuff and force these jerks to get a damn job?