Drug trafficking is speeding deforestation in Central America #drugpolicy

Friday, January 31, 2014 | | 0 comments

 

 

Another example of the widespread, diverse and unpredictable problems of drug prohibition.

 

 

Drug trafficking is speeding deforestation in Central America
By Matt McGrath
BBC News
January 30, 2014

 

 

 

 

Strengthening Open-Mindednss in the Liberal Arts with Psychedelics

Thursday, January 30, 2014 | | 0 comments

 

 



"On June 19, 2013, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences issued a report that bemoaned the sorry state of the humanities and social sciences in higher education. They presented several reasons for this drop-off. Here we look at a different reason: a fundamental topic of the humanities is the human mind and its fullest development, but the liberal arts have systematically neglected a major advance on how to study our minds—some would claim the major advance. Shamefully, when they see the word psychedelic, many scholars' minds snap shut.  Put simply, the "psychedelic renaissance" (e.g., Cooper 2012, Sessa 2012) ...

continued at:

http://realitysandwich.com/216423/strengthening-open-mindedness-in-the-liberal-arts-and-sciences/



 

scientific american article on psychedelics - media coverage #drugpolicy

| | 1 comments

 

 

 

research on MDMA

Daily update January 31, 2014

NEWS

Raw Story

Prestigious 'Scientific American' calls on US to open doors to LSD ...

Raw Story - ... national ban on psychoactive drug research, noting that LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and cannabis all "had their origins in the medical pharmacopeia.".

Flag as irrelevant

Scientific American pushes back against know-nothing drug warriors

Chicago Tribune (blog) - The editors of Scientific American ...this week called for an end to the national ban on psychoactive drug research, noting that LSD, psilocybin, MDMA ...

Flag as irrelevant

 

 

 

 

 

Marijuana patients hope police won't enforce new pot laws #drugpolicy

| | 0 comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marijuana patients hope police won't enforce new pot laws
New Health Canada regulations require pot growers and sellers to obtain licenses by April 1
CBC News
January 29, 2014

 

 

 

 

Prestigious 'Scientific American' calls on U.S. to open doors to LSD, MDMA, pot research

| | 2 comments

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/30/prestigious-scientific-american-calls-on-u-s-to-open-doors-to-lsd-mdma-pot-research/

Prestigious ‘Scientific American’ calls on U.S. to open doors to LSD, MDMA, pot research

 

Cannabis, LSD, psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”), MDMA (the “ecstasy” drug) and other psychedelic drugs all have significant potential medical uses, as illustrated in the limited research organizations like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science have facilitated over the years. But the war on drugs and resulting classification of those psychoactive substances as Schedule I—meaning with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration—has caused a national research blockade and left that medical potential almost completely untapped.

The editors of Scientific American—the 168-year-old magazine to which scientists like Albert Einstein have contributed—this week called for an end to the national ban on psychoactive drug research, noting that LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and cannabis all “had their origins in the medical pharmacopeia.”

More than 1,000 scientific publications chronicled the uses of LSD for psychotherapy during the mid-’60s, and MDMA similarly complemented talk therapy through the ‘70s, the article points out.And “[m]arijuana has logged thousands of years as a medicament for diseases and conditions ranging from malaria to rheumatism.”

Scientific American lamented the fact that since the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 declared these psychoactive drugs void of any medical use—and three United Nations treaties extend similar restrictions to much of the world—a catch-22 has arisen: “these drugs are banned because they have no accepted medical use, but researchers cannot explore their therapeutic potential because they are banned.”

The article notes that the few privately funded studies that have looked at these compounds have “yielded tantalizing hints that some of these ideas merit consideration. Yet doing this research through standard channels … requires traversing a daunting bureaucratic labyrinth that can dissuade even the most committed investigator.”

As a result, psychologists are left wondering “whether MDMA can help with intractable post-traumatic stress disorder [as work with combat veterans has shown], whether LSD or psilocybin can provide relief for cluster headaches or obsessive compulsive disorder and whether the particular docking receptors on brain cells that many psychedelics latch onto are critical sites for regulating conscious states that go awry in schizophrenia and depression,” the article notes.

Additionally, while doctors in 20 states (and counting) can recommend medical marijuana, researchers aren’t allowed to properly study its effects. Scientific American notes that this leaves “unanswered the question of whether the drug might help treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, nausea, sleep apnea, multiple sclerosis and a host of other conditions.”

Like many researchers, therapists and drug policy activists have been saying for decades, it is time to allow scientific researchers to do their jobs and find out what these substances can actually do—and in order for that to happen, the U.S. needs to reschedule these substances and effectively lift its research blockade.

As the Scientific American article concludes, the endless obstructions to research caused by current scheduling have meant a research standstill for Schedule I drugs.

This is a shame. …  If some of the obstacles to research can be overcome, it may be possible to finally detach research on psychoactive chemicals from the hyperbolic rhetoric that is a legacy of the war on drugs. Only then will it be possible to judge whether LSD, ecstasy, marijuana and other highly regulated compounds—subjected to the gauntlet of clinical testing for safety and efficacy—can actually yield effective new treatments for devastating psychiatric illnesses.”

The more trusted publications like Scientific American come out and call for change, the closer we will be to medical research and scientific facts that liberate us from the medical Dark Ages when it comes to psychoactive drugs.

 

 

 

Dutch town halls demand powers to decriminalise cannabis production #drugpolicy

Wednesday, January 29, 2014 | | 0 comments

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The Amsterdam Herald
Monday, 27 January 2014 20:42

Dutch town halls demand powers to decriminalise cannabis production

Written by Gordon Darroch

Twenty-three local mayors have drawn up plans to authorise and regulate the production of cannabis in the Netherlands.

The manifesto aims to resolve a long-standing anomaly in Dutch drugs policy. Small amounts of soft drugs can be purchased by individuals in licensed coffeeshops, but the wholesale trade remains illegal and criminals run the supply chain.

Municipal politicians say the current approach is "hamfisted" and are stepping up pressure on the justice department to allow them to license legal suppliers. Some councils have even contemplated cultivating cannabis themselves.

They say the current system is unworkable, dangerous and a burden on the criminal justice system. A quarter of all urban fires in the Netherlands are estimated to be "hemp related".

Around 77 per cent of prosecutions are drugs-related, limiting the prosecution service's capacity to pursue other offences. And criminal gangs steal an estimated €180 million worth of electricity from the power networks to supply illegal hemp farms.

Paul Depla, mayor of the Limburg town of Heerlen, told TV current affairs show Brandpunt: "It is scandalous that we as authorities are giving criminal networks total freedom and putting citizens in danger. It really has to stop."

Major cities

The scheme has been backed by the mayors of major cities including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven.

But it is likely to come up against stiff opposition from justice minister Ivo Opstelten, who has pursued a more hardline policy in the last three years.

Tourists are now officially banned from visiting coffeeshops – though their presence is tolerated in most major towns and cities, including Amsterdam – and the number of coffeeshops has steadily been reduced in recent years.

The alternative manifesto is due to be presented in Utrecht on Friday.

"The nationwide introduction of certified and regulated weed production is the solution that addresses the health of users and community safety and tackles organised crime," claims the document.

It goes on to say the current regime is a "unacceptable" and "undermines the fabric of Dutch society".

Pressure is growing on the cabinet to revisit its drug policy. Last week Labour MP Marith Rebel became the first politician in the coalition parties to speak out against Opstelten when she called for him to "take the municipalities' accounts seriously".

Opstelten has argued that international treaties would block any attempt to legalise the  cultivation of recreational drugs.

But law professor Jan Brouwer, of Groningen University, told Brandpunt that there was a get-out clause: "It is an offence but you're not obliged to prosecute. We have exploited this in the sale at the front door and could do it for cultivation as well."

Other restrictions have been introduced by the current government to force coffeeshops near schools to shut down or move and ban them from selling cannabis with a high THC content.

In 2012 an attempt to turn coffeeshops into private clubs where members would have to put their names register was abandoned when local mayors complained it had led directly to a rise in street dealing.

Source: NRC: Wietmanifest burgemeesters 'niet partijpolitiek'

Brandpunt: Manifest van burgemeesters voor eigen wietteelt

Read previous story: Coalition MP calls on Dutch justice minister to review ban on cannabis cultivation



-- 
 
Tom Blickman
Transnational Institute (TNI)
Drugs & Democracy Programme
De Wittenstraat 25
1052 AK Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: + 31 20 662 66 08
Fax: + 31 20 675 71 76 
Email: drugs@tni.org
http://www.tni.org/drugs
http://ungassondrugs.org

 

 

FW: Why the U.S. should legalize marijuana #drugpolicy

| | 0 comments

Miami Herald
January 26, 2014


Why the U.S. should legalize marijuana

By Peter Hakim and Cameron Combs

Tiny Uruguay made waves a month ago by becoming the first nation anywhere to
fully legalize the sale and use of recreational marijuana. Colorado and
Washington, however, had already beaten them to the punch, and a handful of
other states are expected soon to follow suit.

In addition, 18 states and the District of Columbia permit marijuana for
medical purposes. A proposal to legalize medical marijuana could appear on
Florida's ballot in November.

What this all means is that the United States is without a national policy
toward marijuana. Although legally banned throughout the country by federal
law, cannabis use is, in practice, governed by an incoherent patchwork of
state regulations, and further muddled by staggering disparities in
enforcement and punishment.

To be sure, legal marijuana comes with costs and risks. Some studies suggest
it interferes with learning and motivation. But keeping marijuana illegal
also carries a high price tag. Particularly devastating are the human costs
of arresting and jailing thousands upon thousands of young Americans each
year.

Legalizing cannabis, a step most Americans now favor, is the only way out of
this jumble, particularly after President Obama made clear that he would not
enforce a federal ban on marijuana use in those states where it was now
lawful. "We have other fish to fry," he said. In another interview, he said
marijuana is no more harmful than alcohol.

Legalization should also contribute to easier relations with Mexico and
other neighbors to the south on issues of public security.

To be sure, legal marijuana comes with costs and risks. The American Medical
Association considers cannabis a " dangerous drug" while the American
Psychiatric Association asserts that its use impedes neurological
development in adolescents and can cause the "onset of psychiatric
disorders."

Some studies suggest it interferes with learning and motivation. It should
be anticipated that legalization will lead to greater use, at all ages, as
marijuana becomes more accessible and less expensive, and the cultural and
social stigmas surrounding its consumption literally go up in smoke. Abuse
and addiction - including among juveniles - will rise as well.

But keeping marijuana illegal also carries a high price tag. Particularly
devastating are the human costs of arresting and jailing thousands upon
thousands of young Americans each year. Roughly one-third of all U.S.
citizens are arrested by age 23. Racial and ethnic minorities are most
vulnerable. African-American marijuana users are over three times more
likely to be arrested and imprisoned than whites, even though the two groups
consume the drug at virtually the same levels.

With cannabis accounting for roughly half of total drug arrests,
legalization would sharply reduce this egregious disparity. It would also
save money by reducing the U.S. prison population. A half a million people
were incarcerated for drug offenses in 2011, a ten-fold jump since 1980 - at
an average annual cost per prisoner of more than $20,000 in a
minimum-security federal facility.

Cannabis legalization would also help to lift an unneeded burden from U.S.
foreign policy in Latin America, where Washington's drug war has long
strained diplomatic relations.

Most governments in the hemisphere have concluded that U.S. anti-drug
policies are just not working and, in many places, are actually contributing
to mounting levels of crime, violence and corruption. Few Latin American
countries are actively contemplating legalization a la uruguaya but nowhere
is there much enthusiasm for cooperating with the United States in its
continuing efforts to eradicate drug crops and interrupt drug flows.

Most governments in the hemisphere have concluded that U.S. anti-drug
policies are just not working and, in many places, are actually contributing
to mounting levels of crime, violence and corruption.
Colombia has been a notable exception. With U.S. support of nearly $10
billion, the country has become far more secure in the past dozen years.

Yet Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia's president and arguably Washington's
closest ally in the region, is now a leading advocate of alternative drug
strategies. In an exhaustive report last year, prompted by President Santos,
the Organization of American States analyzed a range of alternative policy
approaches, including cannabis legalization.

Few Latin American countries are actively contemplating legalization a la
uruguaya. But many have stopped arrests for use and possession of marijuana,
and virtually all are keeping a close watch on developments in Uruguay.
Nowhere is there much enthusiasm for cooperating with the United States in
its continuing efforts to eradicate drug crops and interrupt drug flows.

A decision by the U.S. government to legalize marijuana would be a bold step
toward breaking today's bureaucratic and political inertia and opening the
way for a genuine hemisphere-wide search for alternative strategies.

Cannabis legalization will not be a cure-all. It will not solve other
critical drug abuse problems or change the security question dramatically -
and as noted, it comes with substantial risks. It would not be an attractive
option if there were other ways to address the twin tragedies of mass
imprisonment of young Americans and Washington's ineffective and widely
unpopular anti-drug programs overseas. But nothing else is visible on the
horizon.


--
Drugs & Democracy Info <drugs@tni.org>
Transnational Institute (TNI)
De Wittenstraat 25 1052 AK
P.O.Box 14656 1001 LD
Amsterdam - The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 662 6608 / Fax: +31 20 675 7176 http://www.tni.org/drugs


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Florida's top court puts medical marijuana initiative on November ballot #drugpolicy

Tuesday, January 28, 2014 | | 0 comments

 

 

From: AddictionNewsDaily@ccsa.ca [mailto:AddictionNewsDaily@ccsa.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 8:41 AM
To: Dr. Mark Haden
Subject: CCSA Addiction News Daily / Toxicomanie au quotidien CCLT - 28.01.2014

 

 

Florida's top court puts medical marijuana initiative on November ballot
By Bill Cotterell
Reuters
January 27, 2014

 

 

 

 

Cannabis Legal, Localities Begin to Just Say No #drugpolicy

| | 0 comments

The New York Times
January 26, 2014

Cannabis Legal, Localities Begin to Just Say No

By KIRK JOHNSON

YAKIMA, Wash. - The momentum toward legalized marijuana might seem like an
inevitable tide, with states from Florida to New York considering easing
laws for medical use, and a full-blown recreational industry rapidly
emerging in Colorado and here in Washington State.

But across the country, resistance to legal marijuana is also rising, with
an increasing number of towns and counties moving to ban legal sales. The
efforts, still largely local, have been fueled by the opening, or imminent
opening, of retail marijuana stores here and in Colorado, as well as by
recent legal opinions that have supported such bans in some states.

At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues from marijuana
sales - promised by legalization's supporters and now eagerly anticipated by
state governments - that could be sharply reduced if local efforts to ban
such sales expand.

But the fight also signals a larger battle over the future of legal
marijuana: whether it will be a national industry providing near-universal
access, or a patchwork system with isolated islands of mainly urban sales.
To some partisans, the debate has echoes to the post-Prohibition era, when
"dry towns" emerged in some states in response to legalized alcohol. "At
some point we have to put some boundaries," said Rosetta Horne, a
nondenominational Christian church minister here in Yakima, at a public
hearing on Tuesday night where she urged the City Council to enact a
permanent ban on marijuana businesses.

Though it seems strongest in more rural and conservative communities, the
resistance has been surprisingly bipartisan. In states from Louisiana to
Indiana that are discussing decriminalizing marijuana, Republican opponents
of relaxing the drug laws are finding themselves loosely allied with
Democratic skeptics. Voices in the Obama administration concerned about
growing access have joined antidrug crusaders like Patrick J. Kennedy, a
Democratic former United States representative from Rhode Island, who
contends that the potential health risks of marijuana have not been
adequately explored, especially for juveniles - and who has written and
spoken widely about his own struggles with alcohol and prescription drugs.

"In some ways I think the best thing that could have happened to the
anti-legalization movement was legalization, because I think it shows people
the ugly side," said Kevin A. Sabet, a former drug policy adviser to
President Obama and the executive director and co-founder, with Mr.
Kennedy, of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. The group, founded last year,
supports removing criminal penalties for using marijuana, but opposes full
legalization, and is working with local organizations around the nation to
challenge legalization.

"If legalization advocates just took a little bit more time and were not so
obsessed with doing this at a thousand miles per hour," he added, "it might
be better. Instead, they are helping precipitate a backlash."

In Washington, the Yakima County Commission has already said that it plans
to ban marijuana businesses in the unincorporated areas outside Yakima city.
Clark County, Washington, is considering a ban on recreational sales that
would affect the huge marijuana market in Portland, Ore., just across the
Columbia River. And the state's second most populous county, Pierce, just
south of Seattle, said last month it would bar recreational businesses from
opening.

Pockets of retrenchment have emerged in other states as well. In California,
one of 20 states and the District of Columbia that allow marijuana use for
medical purposes, a state appeals court said late last year that local
governments could prohibit the growing of medical marijuana. Fresno County
promptly did so, becoming the first county in the state, medical marijuana
advocates said, to ban all marijuana cultivation.

Lawmakers in Oregon are considering a bill that would allow municipalities
to restrict or prohibit medical marijuana. Colorado's recreational marijuana
law opened for business Jan. 1 with retail sales, but dozens of local
governments, including Colorado Springs, the state's second-largest city,
have prohibited marijuana commerce.

National politicians, from Mr. Obama on down, appear just as conflicted.
Mr. Obama said last week that he believed the "experiment" in Washington
State and Colorado should be allowed, and Attorney General Eric H.
Holder Jr. said Thursday that the Justice and Treasury Departments were
developing guidelines to make it easier for legal marijuana businesses to
obtain banking services, currently prohibited under federal law. But at the
same time, a senior federal Drug Enforcement Agency official recently
expressed alarm that marijuana use and access are spreading so rapidly.

Here in Yakima, an agricultural city of wine and apples, population 93,000,
each side in Tuesday's often emotional two-hour Council meeting talked about
risk. Proponents of the ban said they feared that neighborhoods and
cherished patterns of life would be harmed by recreational marijuana
businesses. Opponents, including some marijuana business license applicants,
warned of economic harm and legal liability if the ban passed.

By the evening's end, the vote was not close - 6 to 1 for a complete
prohibition of marijuana businesses.

Yakima's course, council members said, was bolstered by the state's attorney
general, Bob Ferguson, who this month issued a nonbinding legal opinion that
local governments could ban recreational marijuana under I-502, the
initiative legalizing recreational marijuana that Washington voters approved
in 2012. Critics said Mr. Ferguson's reasoning flew against the intent of
the law, which says that marijuana must be available to all state residents.

But even before his opinion, resistance was growing. Across Washington,
local moratoriums or bans covering more than 1.5 million people - about one
in five residents - were in place by mid-January, according to a
pro-legalization research group in Seattle, the Center for the Study of
Cannabis and Social Policy.
http://cannabisandsocialpolicy.org/

On a broader level, some legal experts say the emerging opposition to legal
marijuana could lead to legal challenges that strike at the heart of the
legalization laws in Colorado and Washington - or affirm them.

Experts expect legal challenges to local bans from would-be marijuana
business operators. In anticipation of such litigation, some communities are
already claiming that they have the legal right to ban legal sellers and
growers because the drug remains illegal under federal law.

"Federal law trumps this," said Bill Lover, a Yakima City Council member who
voted for the ban.

"We don't think they win," said Alison Holcomb, the criminal justice
director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, and leader of
2012's ballot initiative. She added that legal precedents for states
ignoring federal law went back at least to the end of Prohibition, when many
states simply refused to enforce federal laws forbidding the sale of
alcohol. "This is essentially how alcohol prohibition was repealed,"
she said.

A deeper engine driving opposition to legal marijuana is anxiety about the
ways that the rapid expansion of marijuana shops and increasingly easy
access to the drug might change communities. None of the new local bans
affect possession of marijuana for personal use, which is legal statewide in
Washington.

"This is not about the adult being able to smoke a joint," said Mr.
Sabet of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. "It's about widespread access, it's
about changing the landscape of a neighborhood, it's about widespread
promotion and advertising, and it's about youth access."

Supporters of legalization say that because voters statewide approved a
system guaranteeing adults access to legal marijuana, they will push state
regulators and lawmakers to meet that mandate, possibly by pushing for
penalties against local governments that enact bans.

But Dave Ettl, a Yakima City Council member who voted for the ban, said he
was willing to risk penalties, saying he considered the promised tax
revenues from marijuana sales tainted.

"There's some money that's not worth getting," he said.

A version of this article appears in print on January 27, 2014, on page
A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Cannabis Legal, Localities
Begin to Just Say No.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/us/cannabis-legal-localities-begin-to-just
-say-no.html



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Transnational Institute (TNI)
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| Fax +31-20-6757176 http://www.tni.org/drugs http://www.druglawreform.info/
http://www.undrugcontrol.info/
Twitter: @DrugLawReform
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Turin votes in favour of legalizing cannabis- Italy #drugpolicy

| | 0 comments

The Local
14 January 2014

Turin votes in favour of legalizing cannabis

Turin's city council has approved a motion in favour of making the drug
legal for therapeutic purposes, making it the first of Italy's large cities
to do so.

The proposal is an appeal to the Italian Parliament that they "move from a
prohibitionist structure to one where soft drugs, particularly cannabis, are
legally produced and distributed". This means that while the vote doesn't
make it legal to consume, buy or sell cannabis for individual use yet, it
paves the way for a more tolerant view of the drug in the eyes of the law.

There are two parts to the proposal; the first called for the right to use
cannabis for 'therapeutic' purposes, something already permitted in Tuscany,
Liguria and Veneto, where as well as authorizing pharmacies to sell
cannabis-based products, experimental distribution of free medications
containing cannabis has been approved in hospitals, as well as direct
production of marijuana.

The second part is more drastic: it overrules the Fini-Giovanardi law, by
which offences involving cannabis are treated in the same way as those
involving cocaine or heroin. This would pave the way for legalization of
recreational cannabis use.

The vote passed narrowly, with 15 votes in favour, 13 against and six
abstentions, including the city's mayor Piero Fassino.

Centre-right politicians and the Catholic wing of the Pdl made up the
majority of the opposition to the measure, which was proposed by Marco
Grimaldi of democratic socialist party Sel.

Grimaldi told La Repubblica "Turin is the first large city in Italy to speak
out about the annulment of the Fini-Giovanardi law, and the legalization of
so-called light drugs. We want to put an end to the political prohibitition,
which has only served to give illegal traffickers hundreds of billions of
euros, and thousands of citizens a criminal record."

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Fraser Health preparing to provide harm reduction programs #drugpolicy

Monday, January 27, 2014 | | 0 comments

 

Fraser Health preparing to provide harm reduction programs
The City of Abbotsford has lifted its ban on programs
By Grant Sigaty
January 26, 2014

 

 

 

Study Reveals How Ecstasy Acts on The Brain – Therapeutic Uses

| | 0 comments

 

 

http://netbiocurator.com/2014/01/23/ecstasy-acts-on-the-brain/

Study Reveals How Ecstasy Acts on The Brain – Therapeutic Uses

job posting - BC Ministry of Health (Feb 3rd deadline)

Thursday, January 23, 2014 | | 0 comments

 

 

An external (i.e. public) job posting was put up on the BC Public Service website this week, for Manager, Mental Health/Substance Use Programs: https://search.employment.gov.bc.ca/cgi-bin/a/highlightjob.cgi?jobid=18098

 

Qualified applicants are encouraged to apply before the February 3rd, 2014 deadline!

 

To learn more about this opportunity, see attached Word document or please contact Julie.Kirke@gov.bc.ca

 

End the Ban on Psychoactive Drug Research

| | 0 comments

 

 

 

 


 

End the Ban on Psychoactive Drug Research

It's time to let scientists study whether LSD, marijuana and ecstasy can ease psychiatric disorders

Feb 1, 2014

 


Discovery of new psychiatric medication, whether for the treatment of depression, autism or schizophrenia, is at a virtual standstill. As just one example, the antidepressants on the market today are no more effective at reversing the mood disorder than those that first became available in the 1950s.

New thinking is desperately needed to aid the estimated 14 million American adults who suffer from severe mental illness. Innovation would likely accelerate if pharmacologists did not have to confront an antiquated legal framework that, in effect, declares off-limits a set of familiar compounds that could potentially serve as the chemical basis for entire new classes of drugs.

LSD, ecstasy (MDMA), psilocybin and marijuana have, for decades, been designated as drugs of abuse. But they had their origins in the medical pharmacopeia. Through the mid-1960s, more than 1,000 scientific publications chronicled the ways that LSD could be used as an aid to make psychotherapy more effective. Similarly, MDMA began to be used as a complement to talk therapy in the 1970s. Marijuana has logged thousands of years as a medicament for diseases and conditions ranging from malaria to rheumatism.

National laws and international conventions put a stop to all that. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 declared that these drugs have "no currently accepted medical use" and classified them in the most stringently regulated category of controlled substances: Schedule I. The resulting restrictions create a de facto ban on their use in both laboratories and clinical trials, setting up a catch-22: these drugs are banned because they have no accepted medical use, but researchers cannot explore their therapeutic potential because they are banned. Three United Nations treaties extend similar restrictions to much of the rest of the world.

The decades-long research hiatus has taken its toll. Psychologists would like to know whether MDMA can help with intractable post-traumatic stress disorder, whether LSD or psilocybin can provide relief for cluster headaches or obsessive-compulsive disorder, and whether the particular docking receptors on brain cells that many psychedelics latch onto are critical sites for regulating conscious states that go awry in schizophrenia and depression.

In many states, doctors can now recommend medical marijuana, but researchers cannot study its effects. The uneasy status quo leaves unanswered the question of whether the drug might help treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, nausea, sleep apnea, multiple sclerosis and a host of other conditions.

 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Kofi Annan to Discuss Drugs at World Economic Forum Panel #drugpolicy

| | 0 comments

Drug Policy Aliance
22 January, 2014



Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Kofi Annan to Discuss Drugs at World Economic Forum
Panel

January 22, 2014 - By Tony Newman

The World Economic Forum in Davos will host a plenary session on drug policy
on Thursday, January 23. This is the first time that the prestigious
gathering has given such prominence to the issue.

The panel, moderated by Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo, is called "The
Drugs Dilemma: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business." Former UN
head Kofi Annan, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, Human Rights
Watch executive director Ken Roth and Texas Governor Rick Perry will be on
the panel.

"I've long wondered what it would take to persuade the Davos organizers to
put drug policy on the main stage of the forum," said Ethan Nadelmann,
executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "They clearly were moved by
the fact that some of the world's most distinguished statesmen, including
former UN Secretary Kofi Annan and former Brazilian president Fernando
Henrique Cardoso, are now deeply committed to ending the global war on drugs
and pushing the envelope of drug decriminalization. Drug policy reform as a
global political movement has come of age."

In recent years, debate and political will for drug policy reform has gained
unprecedented momentum in many parts of the world, especially Latin America
and the U.S.

In 2011, Kofi Annan, Paul Volcker and Richard Branson joined former
presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), César Gaviria (Colombia) and
Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico) and other distinguished members of the Global
Commission on Drug Policy in saying the time had come to "break the taboo"
on exploring alternatives to the failed war on drugs – and to "encourage
experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs,"
especially marijuana. More recently, current presidents Juan Manuel Santos
in Colombia, Otto Perez Molina in Guatemala, and José Mujica in Uruguay have
joined these calls for reform. In May, the Organization of American States
produced a report, commissioned by heads of state of the region, that
included marijuana legalization as a likely policy alternative.

Meanwhile, marijuana legalization has moved into the mainstream of U.S.
and international politics now that Colorado, Washington – and as of last
month, Uruguay – have become the first political jurisdictions in the world
to approve the legal regulation of marijuana.

In an interview with the New Yorker published Sunday, President Obama spoke
about his past drug use, said marijuana was no more dangerous than alcohol,
criticized racial disparities in marijuana arrests and said the new laws
legalizing marijuana in Colorado and Washington are 'important'.

The failed global war on drugs has dragged on for decades. It is time to put
all options on the table and find an exit strategy from the this unwinnable
war.

"The Drugs Dilemma: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business" panel
takes place Thursday, January 23 at 2:45 pm Davos Time and 8:45 am ET. You
can view all panels and sessions at http://www.weforum.org/

Tony Newman is the director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance
(www.drugpolicy.org)

--
Drugs & Democracy Info <drugs@tni.org>
Transnational Institute (TNI)
De Wittenstraat 25 1052 AK
P.O.Box 14656 1001 LD
Amsterdam - The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 662 6608 / Fax: +31 20 675 7176 http://www.tni.org/drugs


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free public education program exploring drugs, addiction, parenting and drug policy issues

Wednesday, January 22, 2014 | | 0 comments

Hi all,

For decades I have offered a free public education program which explores an honest approach to drugs, addiction and drug policy issues.  I recently retired from Vancouver Coastal Health and this program has been “adopted” by the organization Grief to Action and it is now freely available at St Mary’s Church in Kerrisdale, Vancouver and a free hot lunch is included. All are welcome. Details are in the poster attached.  Please spread the word!

Thanks,

Mark Haden

Adjunct Professor UBC School of Population and Public Health

Mark@markhaden.com

 

 

FW: The Human Rights Case for Drug Reform #drugpolicy

| | 0 comments

Subject: GEN: The Human Rights Case for Drug Reform

Human Rights Watch
January 10, 2014



The Human Rights Case for Drug Reform

How Drug Criminalization Destroys Lives, Feeds Abuses, and Subverts the Rule
of Law

By Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno

Nearly every country in the world plays a part—as producer, consumer, or
transit point—in the multibillion-dollar illicit drug trade that supplies
more than 150 million people every year and keeps on growing.

To combat this trade, many countries over recent decades have launched
so-called "wars on drugs" that entail crackdowns on participants large and
small in the drug business, including harsh penalties for users.

Human Rights Watch has long documented the widespread human rights abuses
resulting from this approach: in the United States, the devastatio n that
disproportionate prison sentences for drug offenses have wrought on
individuals and their families and disturbing racial disparities in drug law
enforcement; in Mexico, the killings committed in the name of combatting
drugs; in Canada, the US, and Russia, how fear of criminal law enforcement
deters people who use drugs from accessing necessary health services,
exposing them to violence, discrimination, and illness; in Afghanistan and
Colombia, how narcotics production has fueled armed groups opposed or allied
to the government; in India, Ukraine,and Senegal, how cancer patients suffer
severe pain due to drug control regulations thatrender morphine
inaccessible; and in China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, the "drug rehabilitation
centers" where people are subjected to torture, forced labor, and sexual
abuse.

But there was a growing sense within Human Rights Watch that this approach
did not go far enough—that the problem did not lie merely with
ill-considered policies or their abusive execution. Rather, the
criminalization of drugs itself seemed to be inherently problematic.
especially when it came to personal possession and use, imposing the full
force of the criminal justice system to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate
appeared contrary to the human rights to privacy and personal autonomy that
underlie many rights.

Heavy emphasis on enforcing criminal prohibitions on drug production and
distribution was also dramatically enhancing the profitability of illicit
drug markets and fueling the growth and operations of groups that commit
atrocities, corrupt authorities, and undermine emocracy and the rule of law
in many countries.

In my own work as Human Rights Watch's Colombia researcher from 2004 to
2010, it was clear that the llicit drug market was a major factor in the
country's long-running war involving left-wing guerrilla groups, right-wing
paramilitary groups, and security forces.

Certainly, Colombia's staggering levels of abuse—massacres, killings, rape,
threats, and kidnappings that displaced more than 3 million people—had roots
that went beyond the drug trade and predated the explosion in the cocaine
market in the 1970s. But most armed groups in Colombia in some way
benefitted from the illicit trade. The paramilitaries, in particular, were
among Colombia's biggest druglords.
often, they threatened or killed people living on land they wanted to
control for coca production or as drug transportation corridors. Illicit
drug profits helped pay for their weapons and uniforms, wages for their
"soldiers," and bribes for public officials to evade justice for their
crimes.

So it became increasingly difficult— as we documented the atrocities, called
for justice, and pressed the US to enforce human rights conditions on its
assistance (the US provided Colombia more than US$5 million in mostly
military aid in 2000-2010)—to ignore that many of the abuses we advocated to
end would inevitably continue in some form unless US and global drug policy
itself changed.

My later work on US policy towards such countries as Afghanistan and Mexico,
and on the US criminal justice system, only strengthened my view—which
others at Human Rights Watch shared—that drug criminalization was inherently
inconsistent with human rights.

After much discussion, the organization in 2013 adopted a policy calling on
governments to decriminalize all personal use and possession of drugs.
We also urged them to consider—and eventually adopt—alternative policies on
the drug trade to reduce the enormous human rights costs of current
approaches.

Change is urgent, as our research consistently shows.

Medellín: The More Things Change,the More They Stay the Same

Alex Pulgarín knew a lot about the power that the illicit drug trade gave to
criminals—and the damage it could inflict.

When I interviewed him in 2007, he was a fresh-faced 30-year-old with an
easy smile wholooked younger than his age but spoke with the confidence of a
seasoned player in the complicated politics of his city, Medellín, a major
hub for Colombia's cocaine trade.

As a child in the 1980s, Alex witnessed the bloody "war" the infamous
Medellín cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar waged against Colombia's government
in a bid to secure a ban on extraditions to the US. The car bombings,
airplane hijackings, and frequent assassinations that Escobar ordered
garnered Medellín the label, "murder capital of the world."

So many rejoiced when Colombia n security forces, with US backing, killed
Escobar in 1993. But the bloodletting didn't end there. As the world turned
its attention elsewhere, others discreetly filled his shoes.

One of them was Diego Murillo, also known as "Berna," a former Escobar rival
who in the 1990s went on to build his own drug trafficking empire in
Medellín, forging close ties with the paramilitaries. As a teenager in a
low- income neighborhood, Alex saw his peers get swept into a seemingly
endless cycle of brutality and death as Berna and others battled for control
over the city.

But when I interviewed Alex, city officials were claiming that Medellín had
turned a corner. The government and paramilitaries had announced a "peace
deal," and hundreds of young men had turned in weapons at demobilization"
ceremonies, signing up for government stipends. Former paramilitary leaders
received reduced prison sentences. Homicide rates were near their lowest in
years.

Among those who supposedly demobilized was Berna. Several of his henchmen
formed the Democracy Corporation, a group with the ostensible mission of
working with the city to help demobilized paramilitaries get education and
jobs and reintegrate into society.

But Alex told a different story. The corporation, he said, was a front for
organized crime, still under Berna's control. The government's backing gave
the corporation a veneer of legality, allowing it to exert political
influence while retaining its ruthless dominance over much of the city.
"Peace with a knife to your throat," as Alex called it.

A Democracy Corporation leader, Antonio Lopez ("Job"), had ordered his
accomplices to kill demobilized individuals who disobeyed h im—especially
"coordinators," point people for the demobilized in each neighborhood.
Others confirmed what Alex said: the apparent peace that Medellín was
experiencing was not due to Berna's demobilization, but rather the result of
his monopoly over crime in the city after he defeated most competing groups.
And he was retaining that control in part through the Democracy Corporation.

While Alex knew many people in the world of local crime, he had taken a
different path. He had become an activist, joined the left-leaning
Democratic Pole party, and won a spot on his neighborhood action council.
Respected and well-liked, he dreamed of running for higher office.

But Alex was now in Job's sights. A few months earlier, Job had asked him to
run for the Medellín City Council as the Democracy Corporation's candidate,
trying to capitalize on Alex's popularity. Alex would get a car, armed
guards, and a stipend if he agreed. He refused.

Instead, he began reporting what he knew to police and prosecutors,
recording his calls with coordinators who were being threatened and sharing
them with the authorities. He spoke during community meetings with
international agencies and the Catholic Church. "Aren't you afraid you'll
get killed?" I asked when we met. He brushed off the question.

Two years later, in 2009, it looked like Alex might emerge unscathed.
Berna had been extradited to the US, where he pled guilty to cocaine
trafficking charges and received a 31-year sentence from a federal court in
New York City. Job had been gunned down, reportedly by rivals, in an upscale
restaurant near Medellín. And Alex testified in a trial against another
Democracy Corporation member, John1 William López, or Me mín.
Several witnesses were murdered during the trial, but Memínwas convicted of
forcibly interfering with elections, conspiracy, and forced displacement.

But it is hard to escape the grasp of Colombia's criminal networks. That
December, armed men—Memín associates—accosted Alex on the street and shot
him several times in broad daylight. He died at the scene.

A Resilient and Lucrative Global Market

Profits from the illicit drug trade in Colombia have not only fueled the
country's conflict but have also enabled criminals to buy off or intimidate
public officials. More than 100 Colombian congress members and countless
othe r officials have been investigated in recent years for alleged
collusion with paramilitaries. In Medellín, new groups with shadowy
leadership structures have replaced Berna's organization, much as Berna's
had replaced Escobar's. Violence—often via threats and displacement—is
pervasive.

These problems extend well beyond Colombia. In many countries illicit drug
profits are an enormous motivator and funding source for groups that commit
atrocities, corrupt authorities, and undermine democracy and the rule of
law.

Indeed, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),
illicit drugs constitute the largest income source for transnational crime
and may account for one-fifth of all crime proceeds.
The UNODC also estimated the value of the 2003 global illicit drugs market
to be $322 billion at retail—higher than the gross domestic product of 88
percent of the world's countries at the time.

Afghanistan, for example, produces around 90 percent of the world's opium
(along with cannabis). In 2009, the late Richard Holbrooke, then-US special
representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, decried how enforcing drug
policies—particularly US efforts to eradicate poppy (a crucial crop for many
impoverished Afghan farmers)—drove people "into the arms of the Taliban."
But that has only been part of the picture. The illegal opium market has
dramatically distorted the country's power structure, bankrolling armed
groups such as the Taliban and local warlords responsible for numerous
atrocities. It also fuels rampant corruption, making efforts to apprehend
and prosecute those implicated in these crimes extraordinarily difficult.

Meanwhile, in Mexico the homicide rate has exploded, with at least 80,000
people killed in the country's "war on drugs" since 2007 (El Salvador,
Honduras, and Guatemala face similar problems). The US has provided more
than $2 billion in funding to Mexico to combat drugs during that time. Yet
the Mexican security forces deployed in the country's "war on drugs" have
themselves often been involved in torture, extrajudicial killings, and other
abuses.

Tougher Enforcement?

The US, Russia, and other countries, with UNODC support, have argued the
answer to the exploding violence and corruption around illicit drug markets
is to vastly expand enforcement. For decades, they have poured billions of
dollars into combatting drugs(some estimate at least $100 billion a
year).With varying degrees of lawfulness they have pursued, surveilled,
killed, extradited, prosecuted, and imprisoned kingpins and low-level
dealers alike. They have fumigated crops, paid farmers to grow other crops,
and interdicted shipments.

Yet, as the Global Commission on Drug Policy —a group of former presidents,
senior UN officials, and prominent public figures—stated in its June 2011
report, these vast expenditures have "clearly failed to effectively curtail
supply or consumption. Apparent victories in eliminating one source or
trafficking organization are negated almost instantly by the emergence of
other sources and traffickers.

"Indeed, as pressure increases in one place,the drug trade often shifts
accordingly. My native country, Peru, recentlyreplaced Colombia as the
world's largest producer of coca, according to UNODC—the same position it
occupied in the 1980s.

In turn, "tough" enforcement has created its own nightmare for human rights
protection. Thailand's 2003 "war on drugs" resulted in some 2,800
extrajudicial killings by state security forces in its first three months.
In Canada, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, and Ukraine, police have violently
mistreated people who use drugs. In Tanzania, police and quasi- official
vigilante groups brutally beat people who inject drugs. Russia's policies
have resulted in mass incarceration, often in environments that pose high
risk of HIV transmission, and detention of drug offenders without trial.

In countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, drug offenders face the death
penalty. Iran imposes a mandatory death sentence for various drug offenses.
Other countries impose grossly disproportionate punishment in drug cases.
The US, for example, has the world's largest reported incarcerated
population (2.2 million people in adult prisons and jails), insignificant
part due to harsh sentences for drug offenses. Nearly a quarter of all
prisoners—498,600 in 2011—including nearly half of federal inmates, were
serving time formostly low-level drug offenses. Some of those convicted, and
many of those arrested, have done nothing more than use drugs, yet they will
suffer the consequences of their conviction or arrest record for the rest of
their lives. For immigrants, convictions, even for nonviolent offenses, can
mean deportation and separation from their families.

US drug law enforcement is also marred by deep, discriminatory racial
disparities.Although whites and blacks use and sell drugs at comparable
rates in the US, blacks are arrested on drug charges at more than three
times the rate of whites and are imprisoned for drug convictions at ten
times the white rate.

The Harms of (Criminalizing) Drug Use

Proponents of criminalization of drug use often argue that it is necessary
to protect individuals' health and keep people from harming themselves or
others.

It is legitimate for government s to address societal harms that may result
from drug abuse. But policymakers too easily attribute social
problems—domestic abuse, unemployment, or violence—to illicit drug use, when
causes are more complex.

Imprisoning people who use drugs does little to protect their health:
prisoners often find that drug treatment—as we found in New Yo rk—is not
available. Recidivism of drug offenders is common.

Instead, criminalization often compounds existing harms. Fear of law
enforcement can drive people who use drugs underground, deterring them from
accessing health services and increasing the risk they face of violence,
discrimination, and serious illness, as our research in Canada, the US, and
Russia has shown. Outside Africa, one-third of HIV infections are
attributable to contaminated injection equipment. But police enforcement of
drug prohibitions is a barrier to providing sterile syringes, and
incarceration makes it harder to treat and care for those already living
with HIV.

Aggressive laws and enforcement also contribute to the stigmatization and
abusive treatment of people who use drugs. Poor public education around
drugs and their risks means that, in many countries, there is littl e
understanding about the real harms that may flow from drug abuse, much less
how to prevent or treat them.

The Pitfalls of Involuntary Treatment

While criminalization is deeply problematic, extrajudicial systems of drug
control can also be extremely abusive. Thailand, for example, detains people
who use drugs without trial for extended periods in locked "treatment
facilities." In China, the 2008 Anti-Drug Law allows officials to detain
people who use drugs for up to six years with no trial or judicial
oversight.

In Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, people who use drugsare held in
government-run centers where they are often mistreated in the name of
"treatment." In Vietnam, detainees are used as forced labor to process
cashews or manufacture clothes for export. In Cambodia, they are subjected
to brutal punishments, including torture. In 2013, four years after we first
reported on this issue, we found that individuals held in these drug
detentioncenters are still being beaten, thrashed with ru bber water hoses,
forced to stand in septicwater pits, and sexually abused. Lack of due
process protections also renders these facilities convenient places to
detain people whom Cambodian authorities consider "undesirable"—including
homeless people and street children—in sporadic crackdowns often occurring
before visits of foreign dignitaries.

A Human Rights Approach to Drug Control

To ensure their drug policies are in line with international human rights
standards, governments should:

• Decriminalize personal use and possession of drugs for personal use.
Laws criminalizing drug use are inconsistent with respect for human autonomy
and privacy rights. Governments may limit these rights if necessary for a
legitimate purpose, such as preventing harm to others. But like other
private behavior that some may view as immoral (such as consensual
homosexual conduct among adults),there is no legitimate basis for
criminalization. Nor is criminalization necessary toprotect people who use
drugs: Governments have many non-penal measures to encourage people to make
good choices around drugs, including offering substance abuse treatment and
social support. Governments can also criminalize negligent or dangerous
behavior (such as driving under the influence) to regulate harmful conduct
by individuals who use drugs, without criminalizing drug use itself.

• Reduce criminal regulation of drug production and distribution.
Criminalization of the drug trade carries enormous human rights costs,
dramatically enhancing the profitability of illicit drug markets and fueling
the growth and operations of groups responsible for larg e-scale violence
and corruption. Finding alternative ways to regulate production and
distribution and cutting into illicit drug profits would allow governments
to weaken the influence of such groups and reduce the various
abuses—killings, disproportionate sentencing, torture, and barriers to
access to health care—that governments often commit in the name of fighting
drugs.

• Ground approaches to treatment and care in human rights, avoiding abusive
administrative sanctions and ensuring patients have access to needed
medications.Governments should close drug detention centers where people are
held in violation of international law and expand access to voluntary,
community-based drug treatment with the involvement of competent
nongovernmental organizations. They should also ensure that anyone with a
legitimate medical need for controlled medications like morphine or
methadone has adequate access to them.

Many alternatives to current policies have yet to be tested (except with
respect to alcohol). So governments should assess proposed solutions
carefully to reduce the risk they could lead to new problems or human rights
concerns.

Yet, there are some models to consider: Some governments have decriminalized
personal use and possession of illicit drugs or resisted enforcing certain
prohibitions. In Portugal, in conjunction with comprehensive harm-reduction
strategies, decriminalization had positive results; rather than
substantially increasing, drug consumption reportedly dropped in some
categories—as did recidivism and HIV infection. Researchers have also
developed theoretical models for potential systems of drug regulation with
varying ways of handling licensing, privatization versus state monopoly
control of supply, taxation, public health education, the protection of
children, and treatment. And some jurisdictions are beginning to put these
models into practice.

A Changing Landscape

The pendulum is starting to swing on drug policy, with Mexico, Guatemala,
and Colombia calling for a review of the global drug control regime. "As
long as the flow of resources from drugs and weapons to criminal
organizations [is] not stopped,"they said in a 2012 joint statement decrying
the failure of current prohibitionist strategies, "they will continue to
threaten our societies and governments."

In a study in 2013 onthe effectiveness of current policies, the Organization
of American States opened up a discussion about their costs and outlined,
without endorsing, various possible scenarios for future
development—including decriminalization.

In December, Uruguay approved a law legalizing marijuana and establishing a
regulated system of production and distribution for the drug, though a
compulsory treatment bill was also pending at time of writing.

Change is slowly happening in the US, too. Attorney General Eric Holder in
2013 issued guidance for federal prosecutors that would allow US states to
legalize marijuana, noting that a regulated market may further federal
priorities of combatting organized crime. Washington State and Colorado are
legalizing the possession, production, and distribution of marijuana for
recreational use; 20 other states have legalized medical marijuana.

Several UN agencies and special rapporteurs have called for drug detention
centers to close immediately. The United Na tions Children's Fund (UNICEF)
called for all children to be removed from Cambodia's centers; still, one in
10 people held in Cambodia's centers today is a child.

Indeed, progress has been limited and fragile. Criminalization remains the
tool of choice for drug control in most countries, where there is often li
ttle debate around harsh and counterproductive policies. Meanwhile, the de
vastating costs of the current approach—in lives lost to violence, people
subjected to long prison terms, barriers to health, harm to families and
communities, and damage to the rule of law—keep mounting.

It is time to chart a new course.

Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno is deputy director of the US Division.



--
Drugs & Democracy Info <drugs@tni.org>
Transnational Institute (TNI)
De Wittenstraat 25 1052 AK
P.O.Box 14656 1001 LD
Amsterdam - The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 662 6608 / Fax: +31 20 675 7176 http://www.tni.org/drugs


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