Reuters
Thursday Nov 5, 2009

Dutch among lowest cannabis users in Europe - report

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch are among the lowest users of marijuana or cannabis in Europe despite the Netherlands' well-known tolerance of the drug, according to a regional study published on Thursday.

Among adults in the Netherlands, 5.4 percent used cannabis, compared with the European average of 6.8 percent, according to an annual report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, using latest available figures.

A higher percentage of adults in Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and France took cannabis last year, the EU agency said, with the highest being Italy at 14.6 percent. Usage in Italy used to be among the lowest at below 10 percent a decade ago.

Countries with the lowest usage rates, according to the Lisbon-based agency, were Romania, Malta, Greece and Bulgaria.

Cannabis use in Europe rose steadily during the 90s and earlier this decade, but has recently stabilised and is beginning to show signs of decline, the agency said, owing to several national campaigns to curb and treat use of the drug.

"Data from general population and school surveys point to a stabilising or even decreasing situation," the report said.

The policy on soft drugs in the Netherlands, one of the most liberal in Europe, allows for the sale of marijuana at "coffee shops", which the Dutch have allowed to operate for decades, and possession of less than 5 grams (0.18 oz).

Nearly a fifth of the 228 coffee shops in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, a popular draw for tourists, are scheduled to be shut down because they are too close to schools.

The full report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is available at r.reuters.com/vef87f

(Reporting by Reed Stevenson; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

Tri-City Herald
Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009

Maine becomes 5th state to allow pot dispensaries

By CLARKE CANFIELD

PORTLAND, Maine Voters approved a referendum making Maine the fifth state to allow retail pot dispensaries, but medical marijuana advocates say it won't become like California, where hundreds of marijuana shops have popped up and come under critical scrutiny.

California, Colorado, New Mexico and Rhode Island allow for places where medical marijuana patients can legally buy pot. Maine voters gave their approval Tuesday, 59 percent to 41 percent.

Referendum opponents pointed at Los Angeles as proof that cannabis outlets are a bad idea. There, the district attorney has vowed to crack down on places that are selling the drug to people who don't qualify.

But Ethan Nadelmann of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance said there's no chance Maine would become like Los Angeles, which he called the "wild west West" of medical marijuana, because of stricter provisions.

Maine law requires that dispensaries be licensed by the state, while California law does not, he said. Maine law also narrowly defines medical conditions for which patients can be prescribed pot, while California allows doctors to recommend it for virtually any ailment.

"You aren't going to see hundreds of dispensaries popping up all over Maine," Nadelmann said. "You're going to see a more regulated system."

Nonetheless, the director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency said the language of the Maine referendum lacks proper oversight and control. The potential exists for a dispensary to become "nothing more than a storefront for the criminal activity of drug dealing, which is the experience in California," said Roy McKinney.

"If there isn't sufficient oversight, inspection, audits, etc., the potential is there for criminal activity to flourish," he said.

Fourteen states have laws allowing some use of marijuana for medical purposes. Maine's medical marijuana law, first approved in 1999, allows the use of pot for debilitating conditions such as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis.

The original law allows patients to possess up to 2 1/2 ounces of pot and up to six marijuana plants, but many of those patients don't have a legal way to obtain it. The new law will give them places where they can buy it.

The number of dispensaries has exploded in California and Colorado. Los Angeles alone has up to 800 of them by some estimates, and Colorado has about 100. New Mexico has one and Rhode Island doesn't have any.

While many cannabis clubs have sprouted in Los Angeles, most California towns and cities have rules that regulate them on the local level and reflect the local values and attitudes, said Allen St. Pierre of the National Organizatoin for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

In Maine, dispensaries are more likely to show up in liberal-leaning cities and towns, he said.

"Obviously, the Portlands of the world will have more than Aroostook County," he said, contrasting Maine's largest city with the state's conservative northernmost county.

More states could adopt measures to allow for marijuana dispensaries with the recent announcement that the Obama administration would not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers under federal laws as long as they conform to state laws, said Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project.

"I think it's a signal to the states, to voters and state legislatures, that this is something we can do without getting into a fight with the federal government, which nobody wants," he said.

 

http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/annual-report/2009

 

Good update of the European drug situation.

Associated Press
November 4, 2009

Colorado ski town legalizes pot

DENVER -- The Colorado ski town of Breckenridge has voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana.

Early returns Tuesday night showed the proposal winning with 72 percent of the vote. The measure would allow adults over 21 to have up to 1 ounce of marijuana.

The measure is largely symbolic because pot possession remains a state crime for people without medical clearance. But supporters said they wanted to send a message to local law enforcement to stop busting small-time pot smokers.

The vote comes as communities nationwide are struggling with how to enforce pot laws at a time when medical marijuana has surged in popularity.

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In Mexico, fears of a 'lost generation'
Violence among young soars as drug cartels recruit more minors
By William Booth and Steve Fainaru
Washington Post
November 3, 2009

The promise of safer inhalation
By Evan Wood
National Post 
November 2, 2009

Fiorito: Why tough drug laws won't work
Toronto Star
November 2, 2009

David Nutt: my views on drugs classification
David Nutt, the government's former chief drugs adviser, on how he formulated his controversial views on drugs
The Guardian (UK)
November 3, 2009

Creating a Culture of Prevention

Please find attached a flyer for a free event on Nov 17^th 2009

<<flyerNov3.pdf>>

This is the third in a series of events around how to  create a culture of prevention from harmful drug use in Vancouver.

It is being organized by the City of Vancouver and a broad-based coalition of partner groups. Please help us spread word of this event by forwarding this e-mail to your networks.

Registration is required. Please click on the link in the flyer.
The flyer contains yet another link for a networking document, if you wish to send us information about you/your organization

If you cannot open the attachment, please visit http://vancouver.ca/fourpillars/ to view the information and to register or call 604 829-2003.

Drug Policy
City of Vancouver

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To unsubscribe click here: http://list.vancouver.ca/u?id=62368.01d425b36aebb4225df17c6733e726fa&n=T&l=vancouver_prevention_network&o=56974

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http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2171179

The end of prohibition
Getting high, gay marriage and going to Cuba will soon be legal in the U.S.
By Jacob Weisberg
National Post
November 3, 2009

Drugs policy must be based on evidence
Ministers can't expect to get the best advice if scientists know they can be sacked for telling the scientific truth as they see it
By Sue Blackmore
Guardian (UK)
November 3, 2009

The Guardian
Tuesday 3 November 2009

Editorial

Drugs: The 40-year failure

Comparing the dangers of ecstasy and equestrianism was provocative, as indeed was Professor David Nutt's more recent suggestion, which led to his sacking last week, that "politicised" drugs classifications concealed the reality that alcohol does more harm than LSD. To that extent - and to that extent only - the home secretary, Alan Johnson, had a point in suggesting that the top drugs adviser whom he dismissed on Friday had strained the limits of his scientific remit, and was effectively campaigning.

Instead of instantly demanding Prof Nutt's scalp, Mr Johnson should have paused to reflect on why this distinguished academic had been moved to stir up such trouble. With further resignations on Sunday, from the drugs advisory council's senior chemist and its leading pharmaceuticals representative, and with additional resignations a possibility, the home secretary attempted in the Commons yesterday to conceal the stark reality that the problems here are about more than one man. But behind the scenes a review of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is already under way. News that this has a wide remit suggests that other questions are being asked. While a systematic response to the crumbling of the ACMD is absolutely in order, a probe into what is right and what is wrong with the body itself is entirely upside down. The council evaluates the evidence as it always has. The reason respected experts are fleeing has nothing to do with the ACMD's own work. Instead, it is because its most important findings are being routinely ignored in the course of a war on drugs, where reason has long ceased to have any force.

Speakeasies, moonshine and gangsterism live on in folkloric infamy, even though the disastrous American experiment in prohibition only lasted for 13 short years. It has been three times as long since the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act instigated its own unwinnable war. In the late 1960s there were 2,000 registered drug addicts, together with a perhaps similar number who lived their life below the radar. Four decades on there are 360,000 problem drug users. Addicts scramble to spike their veins with dangerously adulterated substances that sell at inflated prices, while modern-day Al Capones clear up. As well as accompanying an explosion in damaging narcotic use, strict prohibition has gone hand in hand with an equally remarkable increase in recreational dabbling, making criminals of a huge minority of young people along the way. Half the government, as well as the Conservative leader and three US presidents in a row, have used drugs in their own youth, and yet punitive laws continue to threaten others who do the same with prison. The three-year sentence that a teenager can receive for providing friends with a few ecstasy tablets snuffs out his future far more surely than any drug, and does so at great expense to the taxpayer.

The overall story has long been one of fear-mongering and rank hypocrisy, but the debasement of the ACMD is a comparatively recent twist. The home secretary suggested yesterday that - if Professor Nutt is put to one side - the general pattern has been for it to inform government policy. Actually, while it retains influence on the minutiae, on the big questions it has now been thrice ignored in short order - over cannabis and ecstasy it argued for lesser penalties than ministers wanted, as it would also have done in the case of magic mushrooms if the government had bothered to ask. Meanwhile the Conservatives' chief complaint yesterday was to ask why the committee had not been nobbled more quickly. David Cameron presides over a party which wants to step up the doomed draconianism, scuppering important attempts to medicalise the treatment of addicts. The politicians from the main parties are thus united in continuing to talk rot. It is hardly surprising that the experts feel a need to make themselves heard - and do so in rather blunt terms.


--
Drugs & Democracy Programme
Transnational Institute (TNI)
De Wittenstraat 25 | 1052 AK Amsterdam (The Netherlands) Tel +31-20-6626608 | Fax
+31-20-6757176 Email drugs@tni.org http://www.tni.org/drugs/