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IDPC July Alert #drugpolicy
On the street, you can see the harm caused by drug laws #drugpolicy
On the street, you can see the harm caused by drug laws
By David Bratzer
Ottawa Citizen
July 29, 2010
Injecting some safety #harmreduction
Injecting some safety
By Ian Mcinroy
Barrie Examiner
July 29, 2010
Medical Marijuana Dispensary Law is official!
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2010/07/medical_marijuana_now_legal.html
Medical marijuana now legal
Medical marijuana is now legal in the District of Washington after the Democrat-controlled Congress declined to overrule a D.C Council bill that allows the city to set up as many as eight dispensaries where chronically ill patients can purchase the drug.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) said in a statement the bill become law after Congress finished its business Monday night because neither the House nor Senate opted to intervene.
The council approved the bill in May, and under Home Rule Congress had 30 legislative days to review it.
"We have faced repeated attempts to re-impose the prohibition on medical marijuana in D.C. throughout the layover period," said Norton. "Yet, it is D.C.'s business alone to decide how to help patients who live in our city and suffer from chronic pain and incurable illnesses."
Although the bill has now cleared Congress, patients will likely have to wait at least several months before they can obtain the drug from a city-sanctioned dispensary.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and the Department of Health now have to establish regulations outlining who can bid for a license to open a dispensary.
The law allows patients with cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS and other chronic ailments can possess up to four ounces of the drug.
Patients will not be allowed to grow their own marijuana, but licensed companies will be able to sell the drug to people who first obtain a doctor's prescription.
The council also approved a provision in the 2011 budget that calls for medical marijuana to be subject to the city's 6 percent sales tax.
Underprivileged residents who qualify will be eligible to purchase their drugs free or at reduced cost.
Under the legislation, sponsored by council members David A. Catania (I-At
large) and Phil Mendelson (D-At large), both non-profit and for-profit organizations will be eligible to operate the dispensaries.
Even after the Department of Health licenses the dispensaries and cultivation centers, they could be delayed by a zoning process in which residents could protest where the dispensaries will be located. The legislation states the dispensaries will not be allowed to be located within 300 feet of a school.
Distributors also will be limited to growing no more than 95 marijuana plants at a given location, an apparent effort to keep dispensers within federal law that heightens penalties on anyone arrested with at least 100 plants.
The law caps a years-long struggle to act on a 1998 referendum in which 69 percent of District residents voted for to allow medical marijuana. Until last year, Congress blocked the city from enacting the referendum.
City leaders, hoping to avoid the quasi-legalization of the drug, say the District will have one of the most restrictive medical marijuana laws in the country. They fear a future Congress could reverse the law if it is abused.
--Tim Craig
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Attachment: http://drugsense.org/temp/yfCCqvDVy431500.html
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Justice Rocks 2010 - Free Music Festival Aug 15!
From: Gillian Maxwell [mailto:gillianmaxwell@telus.net]
Sent: 29 July, 2010 1:59 PM
Subject: Justice Rocks 2010 - Free Music Festival Aug 15!
From: Pivot Newswire [mailto:pryan=pivotlegal.org@mail262.us2.mcsv.net] On Behalf Of Pivot Newswire
Sent: July-29-10 1:26 PM
To: Gillian Maxwell
Subject: Justice Rocks 2010 - Free Music Festival Aug 15!
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US/UK: Is Drug Policy A Human Rights Abuser? #drugpolicy #humanrights
US/UK: Is Drug Policy A Human Rights Abuser?
openDemocracy
oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of July 19, 2010
Charles Shaw, 19 July 2010
A weekly summary of what's going on in drug policy and criminal justice reform in the US & UK.
See the Report here:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/charles-shaw/od-drug-policy-forum-front-line-report-week-of-july-19-2010
About the author:
Charles Shaw is a writer and activist living in the Bay Area of San Francisco. He is the author of Exile Nation: Drugs, Prisons, Politics and Spirituality and serves as editor for the Dictionary of Ethical Politics and the oD Drug Policy Forum.
Is Drug Policy A Human Rights Abuser?
Narcophobia: drugs prohibition and the generation of human rights abuses, authored by Dick Hobbs from the UK's London School of Economics
(LSE) and Brazilian journalist Fernanda Mena, further states that drug "prohibition enforcement has hindered the advancement of democracy and led to violence and increases in human rights abuses". The report attempts to demonstrate that there are global implications for drug laws as this huge global industry has devastating effects on poor producer nations, such as Burma.
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Drugs& Democracy
Transnational Institute (TNI)
De Wittenstraat 25
1052 AK Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Tel +31-20-6626608
Fax 6757176
http://www.tni.org/drugs/
http://colombiadrogas.wordpress.com/
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Dd-world mailing list
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Congress Passes Historic Legislation to Reduce Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity #drugpolicy
At 10, Portugal's Drug Law Draws New Scrutiny #drugpolicy #legalization #portugal
The Wall Street Journal
July 20, 2010
At 10, Portugal's Drug Law Draws New Scrutiny
By SUSANA FERREIRA
PORTO, Portugal—This country's move to decriminalize illicit substances—Europe's most liberal drug legislation—turns 10 years old this month amid new scrutiny and plaudits.
Portugal's decriminalization regime has caught the eye of regulators in Europe and beyond since it was implemented in 2001. Proponents credit the program for stanching one of Europe's worst drug epidemics. Critics associate it with higher crime and murder rates. Approaching a decade in force, it is providing a real-world model of one way to address an issue that is a social and economic drag on countries world-wide.
Norway's government formed a committee to look at better strategies for dealing with drug abuse and sent two delegates to Portugal in early May.
Danish politicians have also talked of moving toward full decriminalization. In March, Danish parliamentarian Mette Frederiksen of the opposition Social Democrats praised the Portuguese model.
"For us, this is about the addicts leading a more dignified life," she told Danish daily Berlingske. "We want to lower the death rates, the secondary symptoms and the criminality, so we look keenly to Portugal."
Decriminalization has been criticized by United Nations bodies. In its
2009 annual report, the International Narcotics Control Board expressed "concern" over approaches that decriminalize drugs or introduce alternative treatments. "The movement poses a threat to the coherence and effectiveness of the international drug-control system and sends the wrong message to the general public," the board wrote.
In July 2000, Portugal moved beyond previous liberalization regimes in places like the Netherlands by passing a law that transformed drug possession from a matter for the courts to one of public and community health. Trafficking remained a criminal offense but the government did away with arrests, courts and jail time for people carrying a personal supply of anything from marijuana to cocaine to heroin. It established a commission to encourage casual users to quit and backed 78 treatment centers where addicts could seek help.
In 2008, the last year for which figures are available, more than 40,000 people used the rehab centers and other treatment programs, according to the Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction, a branch of Portugal's Ministry of Health. The ministry says it spends about €50 million ($64.5
million) a year on the treatment programs, with €20 million more provided through a charity funded by Portugal's national lotteries.
Before decriminalization, Portugal was home to an estimated 100,000 problem heroin users, or 1% of the country's population, says João Goulão, director of the Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction. By 2008, chronic users for all substances had dropped to about 55,000, he says.
The rate of HIV and hepatitis infection among drug users—common health issues associated with needle-sharing—has also fallen since the law's
2001 rollout.
Portuguese and European Union officials are loath to give publicly funded treatment centers sole credit. They say the drop in problematic drug users could also be attributed to heroin's declining popularity in Portugal and the rising popularity of cocaine and synthetic drugs among young people.
At the same time, Portugal's drug-mortality rate, among Europe's lowest, has risen. Mr. Goulão says this is due in part to improved methods of collecting statistics, but the number of drug-related fatalities can also be traced to mortality among those who became addicted to heroin during the country's 1980s and 1990s epidemic.
Violent crime, too, has risen since the law's passage. According to a
2009 report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Portugal's drug-use and murder rates rose in the years after decriminalization. The general rise in drug use was in keeping with European trends, but the U.N. noted with some alarm that cocaine use doubled and cocaine seizures jumped sevenfold from 2001 to 2006.
Murders rose 40% in the period. The report tentatively links that with drug trafficking, but points out overall murder rates in Portugal remain low.
Pedro do Carmo, deputy national director of Portugal's judiciary police, says he doesn't see link the rise in violent crime with decriminalization. Instead, he praises the program for reducing the fear and stigma attached with drug use. "Now, when we pick up an addict, we're not picking up a criminal," he says. "They are more like victims."
The Portuguese began considering drug decriminalization following a leap in heroin addiction decades ago in the country, a major entry point for drug trafficking from Latin America and North Africa.
The then-ruling Socialist Party government of Prime Minister António Guterres launched a political debate to discuss how to resolve the problem. Members of the right-wing People's Party decried any tolerance for drug use, saying it would invite drug tourism.
Mr. Guterres's government pushed through a full decriminalization law. A subsequent center-right coalition led by José Manuel Barroso, now president of the European Commission, didn't repeal it.
The legislation was the first in a series of liberal policy shifts in this predominantly Roman Catholic country. In May, President Aníbal Cavaco Silva ratified a law allowing same-sex marriage, making it the sixth European country to do so. In 2007, Portugal went from having among the toughest restrictions on abortion to among the most liberal.
Portugal's focus on close-knit community and protecting the family may be at the heart of many of these reforms, say some observers. In a 1999 report that paved the way for new drug legislation, current Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates implored that "drugs are not a problem for other people, for other families, for other people's children."
Portugal's rehab clinics, called Centros de Atendimento de Toxicodependentes, are central to the strategy. In the lively northern port city of Porto, dozens of patients pop in daily to the Cedofeita rehab center to pick up free doses of methadone. Others have scheduled therapy or family counseling sessions, also free.
"The more they can be integrated in their families and their jobs, the better their chances of success," says José González, a psychiatrist at Cedofeita. Mr. González says that about half of his 1,500 patients are in substitution treatment, 500 of which take methadone daily. He says there is no defined model or timeline for treatment.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, a Lisbon-based European Union agency, says methadone or other substance-substitution programs are generally viewed as successful but has observed that some Portuguese are beginning to question long-term methadone therapy.
"Now that the epidemic is under control for the most part, people start asking questions," says Dagmar Hedrich, a senior scientific analyst with the EMCDDA. "The question now is what is going to happen next? There is a part of the population who do not have the possibility of leaving the treatment."
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About Mark Haden
Mark's listserv has become an invaluable hub of information about drug policy and reform efforts. This blog will serve as an archive for future mailings.