Prescription heroin case going to Supreme Court By Andrea Woo Globe and Mail March 25, 2014

 

 

 

Subject: Ayahuasca Dialogues Research Job Description

Could you please forward this to your relevant networks and/or promising individuals?

Thanks!

Best,

Joshua

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Joshua Wickerham

Chief Advisor

Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council

www.EthnobotanicalCouncil.org

ESC hiring Ayahuasca Dialogues field researchers to interview stakeholders in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru

 

Title: Field Researcher (Consultant, part time)

Location(s): (at least one person will be hired in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru)

 

About the ESC:

Our mission and work: The Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council (ESC) is a nonprofit organization launched in 2013 dedicated to transforming lives by assuring the sustainability and safe use of traditional plants. We believe that the best way to encourage people to work safely and sustainably with traditional plants is to help make best practice more visible and accessible to the market. We offer ESC members a voluntary assurance system whereby good work is recognized and rewarded. Assessment criteria are based on sustainability and safety principles and criteria developed by consensus through ESC’s Plant Dialogues.

 

The Ayahuasca Dialogues: The flagship Plant Dialogue is the ESC Ayahuasca Dialogues to build consensus about the safe use and sustainability of ayahuasca in ways that protect seekers, benefit traditional knowledge holders, enrich local communities, and protect biodiversity and the natural environment. The Ayahuasca Dialogues will establish the Ayahuasca Agreement that outline principles and criteria for determining ayahuasca site safety and sustainability best practices and good cultivation techniques. Ayahuasca centers and practitioners can then request to have their performance assessed according to the content of the Ayahuasca Agreement. The voluntary assessment process and results will be transparent so as to encourage learning and community self-improvement, and then communicated consistently to attract conscientious visitors.

 

About the field researcher positions: ESC Field Researchers are responsible for interviewing key stakeholders in countries or regions in which the ESC is working to grow the Ayahuasca Dialogues, including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. ESC Research Associates will work with the ESC Research Coordinator and Chief Advisor to reach out to and interview stakeholders and report findings to the ESC Ayahuasca Dialogues team. The research will be guided the Ayahuasca Dialogues Research Committee (ADRC).

 

Key responsibilities: Contact and conduct interview stakeholders associated with ayahuasca centers, indigenous groups, government departments, cultivators, and others working with ayahuasca, as agreed with the ESC, guided by the ADRC, and based on stakeholder mapping.

·         Suggest and interview additional stakeholders.

·         Keep careful notes according to the interview guidelines

·         Report findings to the ESC in Spanish or English as appropriate with explanatory notes in either English or Spanish.

 

Qualifications:

·         At least a bachelor’s degree in a relevant subject, preferably masters or PhD.

·         Experience conducting interviews or field research.

·         Experience working in fields related to this research, such as sustainable economic development, sustainable tourism, horticulture, qualitative research, or other relevant disciplines.

·         Fluent or near-fluent Spanish or Portuguese and advanced English abilities.

 

Personal attributes:

·         Professionalism, diplomacy, and constructive attitude.

·         Ability to learn quickly.

·         Ability to build and maintain trust with stakeholders.

 

Expectations:

·         Candidates should be able to work independently, from home, and in the field.

·         Candidates will be expected to put together a budget estimate and timeline for research to be approved by the ESC before traveling to conduct research.

 

Start Date: As early as April 20, 2014.

 

To Apply: Please submit CV and cover letter to “recruiting {a} ethnobotanicalcouncil [*] org” with the subject line: “Field Researcher, [name of country]” as soon as possible. Submissions will be received on a rolling basis. Final deadline for submission is April 15, 2014.

 

Remuneration:

Compensation will be based on the number of interviews completed and submitted satisfactorily to the ESC. Payments will be made on a monthly basis on approved interview results.

 

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Supporters of supervised injection site rally on Parliament Hill CTV News March 23, 2014

 

Colombia Reports
March 24, 2014

The darker side of the US-Colombia war on drugs (Part 1/3)
http://colombiareports.co/darker-side-us-colombia-war-drugs-part-13/

Anti-drug trafficking and production policies are a hot topic these days. On
March 13th, several Latin American countries spoke at the United Nations
about the need for a new framework regulating anti-narcotics strategies and
moving beyond supply-reduction policies.
In Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos spent much of last year advocating
new ways of conceiving the War on Drugs in the Americas and the issue is
currently being negotiated at the Havana peace talks between the government
and the FARC.

Despite this latest clamor for a new framework, the United States pushes for
continuing the old ways of dealing with drug production and trafficking. The
Department of State released this March a report describing "the efforts of
key countries to attack all aspects of the international drug trade in
Calendar Year 2013" in which it gave US Congress a snapshot of what
countries are doing "right" and "wrong" in their fight against illegal
narcotics.

As expected, the report is not receptive to alternative strategies. The US
is extremely judgmental of Bolivia's defense of coca leaf for medicinal
purposes and a related UN anti-narcotic's body recently condemned Uruguay's
decision to take over the weed business. The UN tends to praise countries
when they follow US-formulated strategies and scolds others for failing to
reduce the supply of drugs. The United States Administration, after all,
sees itself as the victim of an uncontrollable flow of drugs into its
country, a fact that negatively affects its population and reduces its
economy's productivity.

But the "War on Drugs" logic is proving harder and harder to substantiate as
a legitimate policy. From a human rights perspective, a supply-reduction
strategy has simply caused disproportional damages to local communities.
From a policy perspective, the US sponsored "War on Drugs" has created
perverse incentives among various high government officials. Since it allows
government actors to extradite top paramilitary and guerilla members
involved in drug trafficking, the policy reduces the country's chances of
reconstructing truth –about serious human rights violations and government
officials'
responsibilities in the bloodshed.

This is the first of a series of articles tackling the reasons why the US
anti-narcotics strategy for Colombia is at once depraved, draconian and
outdated. This entry addresses extradition, which legitimizes the US prison
industrial complex and creates perverse incentives for Colombian government
officials. Not an easy task, unpacking the "War on Drugs"
demands that we look into the darker side of US-Colombia relations.
On the perversity of US sponsored extradition

The US State Department, said Colombia-US extradition has been "robust and
extremely productive". In 2013 only, "Colombia extradited 132 fugitives to
the United States", while over 1,600 individuals have been sent to US
prisons since 1997. Most of these individuals, says the Drug and Chemical
Control report, were extradited for drug-related crimes.

Despite the State Department's excitement for the policy's efficacy, the
issue of extradition fits into a two-fold logic that is more perverse than
sees the untrained eye. First, extradition legitimizes US prisons'
expansion –a trend based on the criminalization of cross-racial and
widespread social practices but that disproportionately imprisons
African-Americans. Second, extradition allows Colombian government officials
to conveniently dispatch criminals so they can avoid domestic, rigorous and
testimony-based investigations that may compromise their careers.

The logic of prison expansionism is indeed perverse: with only 5% of the
world's population, the United States holds a quarter of the globe's inmates
and disproportionately imprisons minority groups. Ronald Reagan officially
declared the drug war in 1982 by "using racially coded political appeals on
issues of crime and welfare to attract poor and working class white voters",
says Michelle Alexander, author of the bestseller book The New Jim Crow.
Today, "there are more African Americans under correctional control—in
prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade
before the Civil War began."
Amid such shocking racial justice crisis, it is hard to believe that the
State Department would brag about having Colombia fuel the number of inmates
in US prisons.

But, beyond legitimizing the US prison industrial complex, is it a rational
decision for the US to advocate for extradition of drug-trafficking-related
criminals?

According to prominent Colombian sociologist Alfredo Molano Bravo,
"extradition is, for the United States, a master key in its relationship
with Colombia since it is the principle upon which [the North American
country] exerts political control over [Colombia's] legal system."
Extradition not only allowed the US to take on and protect paramilitaries
but now allows the country to "impose its own interests in the Havana
negotiations and, judging from recent developments, to step into them", says
Molano.
Extradition as an obstacle: paramilitary demobilization

The "War on Drugs" is most perverse in the context of domestic
investigations for drug-related criminals, who also happen to be involved in
human rights violations. Unfolding the issue requires a bit of background.
In 2005, former President and Senator-elect Alvaro Uribe Vélez signed a
peace deal with far-right paramilitary groups and pushed Congress to issue a
bill known as the Justice and Peace Law. The bill was intended to serve as a
general framework to dismantle these groups and was part of a transitional
justice package aimed at providing judicial guarantees for former
paramilitaries in exchange of their demobilization. The initiative also
promised to take on all necessary measures to rebuild truth for all
committed crimes, provide reparations to victims and guarantee no repetition
for this bloody period in Colombian history.

Many of the top paramilitary commanders who demobilized were charged for
ordering crimes against humanity such as massacres and forced displacement
of rural communities; techniques they used to steal communities' lands and
secure strategic territories. These same high commanders, however, were also
charged with drug-trafficking crimes, which meant the US had requested them
for extradition. Since the large uproar against narco-politics in the 1980s,
Colombia conceived extradition as a way to avoid powerful drug dealers from
co-opting the State.

Then-President Uribe decided to extradite 14 paramilitary leaders to the
United States in 2008, which clearly signaled it was more important for the
government to comply with extradition agreements than investigating
massacres and systematic forced displacement. Three years later, the
International Center for Transitional Justice wrote about extradition that
"'the agreements and negotiations regarding criminal charges' and the
sentences against paramilitaries' had negatively affected [these actors']
willingness to cooperate with Colombian legal proceedings"; extradition had
done a major disfavor to truth-building efforts.

Beyond the massive harm caused to victims' right to truth, reparations and
non-repetition guarantees, extradition of paramilitary leaders—key actors
for establishing what happened in Colombia during the 1990s and early 2000s
bloodshed—heavily handicapped the Colombian legal system.
For example, Uribe is currently investigated for involvement with these
far-right paramilitary groups while he was a state governor in the 1990s,
but spontaneous declaration hearings vital for the investigation are only
available through Skype and filtered by US prison staff coordination, which
makes much harder to establish his responsibility.

Uribe's alleged paramilitary involvement also casts doubt on the official's
motivation to extradite these 14 top commanders. In light of these obscure
coincidences, many are right to point out that extradition may indeed be an
extremely convenient way of dispatching criminals abroad so that government
officials' can avoid domestic investigations that demonstrate their unlawful
behavior.
Extradition and Havana: all over again?

While the push for modernizing and fact-checking the efficacy and adequacy
of the US sponsored "War on Drugs" will remain high throughout Latin
America, rethinking the policy in Colombia implies confronting a dark past.
Particularly, the counter-productive effects of extradition demand that
government officials avoid repeating past mistakes with the
about-to-demobilize FARC guerilla group. Regardless of the peace talks'
outcomes, civil society should know that extradition implies way more than
just "sending criminals abroad"; it implies Colombia's ability to rigorously
and independently reconstruct its own history and actually overcome 50+
years of bloody armed conflict.


--
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.druglawreform.info/en/home
http://www.tni.org/work-area/drugs-and-democracy

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New report: UN stuck in denial over cannabis regulation

While the global drug control regime reaches moment of truth

Press release by TNI/GDPO
Swansea/Amsterdam, Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The current trend towards legal regulation of the cannabis market has become irreversible and requires an urgent dialogue by UN member states on the best models for protecting people’s health and safety, argues a new report. The question facing the international community today is no longer whether there is a need to revise the UN drug control system, but rather when and how to do it. 

The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition: the History of Cannabis in the UN drug control system and options for reform - by the Transnational Institute and the Global Drug Policy Observatory - is released the day before UN member states gather in Vienna for a special ‘high level segment’ of the annual UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND).

The report unveils the long and little-known history of cannabis regulation from the late 19th century when it was widely used for medical, ceremonial and social purposes to the post-WWII period when US pressure and a potent mix of moralistic rhetoric and unreliable scientific data succeeded in categorising cannabis as a drug with ‘particularly dangerous properties’ on a par with heroin in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It also brings the history up-to-date with more recent developments as an increasing number of countries have shown discomfort with the treaty regime’s strictures through ‘soft defections’, such as turning a blind eye, decriminalisation, coffeeshops, cannabis social clubs and generous medical marijuana schemes. These have stretched the legal flexibility of the conventions to sometimes questionable limits.  

Tom Blickman of the Transnational Institute and co-author of the report said, “The UN drug control agencies, such as the INCB and UNODC, too often treat the three drugs conventions (1961, 1971 and 1988) like the tablets of stone given to Moses, immutable pillars of truth that can not be questioned nor reformed.” The history of cannabis control, as outlined in the report, reveals however that decisions made in the past were often based on political negotiations, unsubstantiated allegations and colonial and racist attitudes, according to Blickman. “The inclusion of cannabis in the UN drug control system more than 50 years ago was an historical error and needs to be re-assessed.”

Martin Jelsma of the Transnational Institute and co-author added, “It is time for the UN and member states to open their eyes and acknowledge that, due to systemic flaws and anachronistic provisions in the conventions, countries in search of alternative cannabis policies have no choice other than breaching the treaties in order to better protect people’s health, safety and human rights”.

The report outlines specific options for reform and assesses their potential for success. These options include: WHO review and modification of cannabis scheduling; state parties amending the treaties; modifying the conventions ‘inter se’ between specific states only; or denunciation of the treaty and re-accession with a reservation (carried out recently by Bolivia in order to defend indigenous rights and the use of coca leaf in its natural form).  

Dave Bewley-Taylor, co-author of the report and director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory said: “A promising way forward is for a group of like-minded countries to work together to assess different legal options and determine a roadmap for modernisation. This might lead to replacing the existing drug control treaties with a new framework, one more consistent with other UN treaties on human rights and in line with the latest scientific evidence on the best ways to reduce the harms associated with drug use.”

The meetings in Vienna this and next week, which review the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action on the ‘World Drug Problem’ and seek to outline plans for the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs in 2016, is an ideal time to start that dialogue.

Download the report at: http://www.undrugcontrol.info/rise-and-decline

Contact 

Tom Blickman (TNI)
Mob: +31 (0)6-21-53-58-09
Twitter: @tblickman

Martin Jelsma (TNI)
Mob: +31-(0)6-55-71-58-93
Twitter: @MartinJelsmaTNI

Dave Bewley-Taylor (GDPO)
Mob: +44-796-872-9091
Twitter: @gdpo_swan

---

 

Transnational Institute (TNI)
De Wittenstraat 25
1052 AK Amsterdam
Netherlands

Tel: +31-(0)20-6626608
Fax: +31-(0)20-6757176

drugs@tni.org

http://www.tni.org/drugs
http://www.undrugcontrol.info/
http://www.druglawreform.info/

 

Global Drug Policy Observatory (GDPO)
Research Institute for Arts and Humanities
Rooms 201-202 James Callaghan Building
Swansea University
Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP
United Kingdom

Tel: +44-(0)1792-604293

http://www.swansea.ac.uk/gdpo
twitter: @gdpo_swan

CMAJ – Canadian Medical Association Journal

NEWS

March 4, 2014

Canada opposes harm reduction policies for drug users

Draft guidelines for a new global drug control regime will be used to replace the 2009 framework that promoted "the war on drugs" polices favoured by US negotiators at the time. European negotiators are urging a stronger emphasis placed on harm reduction in the new statement. Photo credit: Jeng Niamwhan/iStock/Thinkstock

Four drug policy groups monitoring international negotiations underway on reforms to United Nations drug control policies say Canada has joined ranks with China, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Russia in aggressively opposing European endorsements of health policies aimed at reducing harms, such as HIV transmission, among drug users.

Canada also opposes the participation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in future UN drug policymaking sessions, observers report from the Vienna negotiations.

Those negotiations will culminate in a draft statement in March, outlining a new set of UN principles that will serve to guide talks by world leaders at the UN General Assembly in 2016. A new global drug control regime will be adopted to replace the 2009 framework at the Assembly. The 2009 statement did not endorse harm reduction, but promoted "the war on drugs" polices favoured by US negotiators at the time. European negotiators are pressing to have much stronger emphasis placed on harm reduction in the new statement.

At the latest negotiation session on Jan. 14, "Canada once again led the charge" against a UN endorsement for "risk and harm mitigation and reduction measures" according to the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a UK-based group at the negotiations. IDPC staff who spoke to CMAJ asked not to be named due to concerns they could be barred from observing future negotiations. In a blog report posted after the session, one IDPC observer stated that Canada was "very vocal throughout" the session and opposed any references to the term, "harm reduction."

In what IDPC staff describe as a "fascinating standoff," the European Union, alongside Norway and Switzerland, "have remained adamant that they would not accept any compromise on this language."  Negotiators for the USA have expressed support for specific interventions such as needle and syringe programs, the IDPC reports, "but not for the term harm reduction."      

Rick Lines, executive director at Harm Reduction International, a UK based group that works with the IDPC, says "To have a federal government get up at international forums and oppose programs that exist at home seems cruel and hypocritical."  Fines, who once worked on harm reduction in Canadian prisons, added that "when you oppose harm reduction you inevitably wind up on the same side as Iran, China and Russia."

Beatrice Fenelon, a spokesperson for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, says "the Government of Canada believes that the best way to address the public health consequences of injection drug-use is to prevent people from using illicit drugs in the first place." She refused to elaborate. "As negotiations of the ministerial statement for the high-level segment of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs are ongoing," she explained, "Canada is not in a position to discuss negotiating positions."

Canada also appears to have reversed its previous stand of including NGOs in its delegation to UN drug policy negotiations. At the recent session in Vienna, it asked delegates to delete text endorsing "the opportunity for an open, transparent and forward-looking discussion within the multilateral system on these issues," IDPC staff report.

In an earlier session on Dec. 5, IDPC staff report that Canada expressed opposition to an endorsement of "civil society engagement in the draft statement."

Don Macpherson, director of the Canadian Drug Policy Consortium, says Canadian negotiators adopted a similar position at drug talks sponsored by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission which he attended in Bogota, Colombia in December 2013. "The Canadian negotiators vigorously opposed proposals to expand the discussion of policy reforms," Macpherson says.

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Fenelon explained the tactics taken in Bogota by stating in an email that with the UN talks underway in Vienna "ample opportunities to debate drug policy" have been "programmed into the international agenda, and proposals for still further forums to conduct the same discussion serve to stretch limited resources."

Fenelon insists that Canada has consistently supported "enhanced civil society participation" at the UN talks in Vienna.

Canada's opposition to harm reduction strongly resembles the Russian position, which IDPC Executive Director Ann Fordham described as endorsing "the status quo" in a Twitter posting from a session she attended in Vienna on Nov. 5, 2013.

As the second-largest donor after the European Commission to UN drug control programs, Canadian negotiators in Vienna can be confident they will be heard.

By supporting Russia's position against harm reduction, Canada is allying with a country where HIV rates among intravenous drug users are as high as 50%, notes Mikhail Golichenko, a senior policy analyst and lawyer with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network in Toronto, Ont.

With an estimated 60 000 new HIV infections annually, says Golichenko, "Russia desperately needs to adopt harm reduction measures. Instead, with Canada's support, they are exporting their war on drug users internationally."

DOI:10.1503/cmaj.109-4714

 

http://www.cmaj.ca/site/earlyreleases/29jan14_Canada-opposes-harm-reduction-policies-for-drug-users.xhtml

 

 

The Denver Post
Monday, March 10, 204

Colorado saw $2 million in recreational marijuana taxes in January

By John Ingold

Colorado collected slightly more than $2 million in taxes on the sale of
recreational marijuana in the month of January, according to new figures
released by the state Monday.

The numbers are the first official tally of the historic January sales,
themselves a nationwide first. If the figures remain at that pace, sales and
tax revenues would fall below previous estimates of what Colorado could reap
from the sale of marijuana.

In January, Colorado collected $1.4 million from a special 10 percent sales
tax on recreational marijuana, plus another $416,690 from the state's
standard 2.9 percent sales tax, according to a news release Monday from the
Colorado Department of Revenue. Extrapolating from those figures,
recreational marijuana businesses did slightly more than $14 million in
retail sales during the month.

Most of the tax revenue came from stores in Denver, and the city reported it
collected $616,282 in local sales taxes from recreational marijuana sales in
January. In addition, the state will share $128,586 with the city from
statewide collections.

Recreational marijuana businesses paid $195,318 in excise tax during
January, which will be put toward school construction.

In total, 59 recreational marijuana businesses filed returns in January .

Both Gov. John Hickenlooper's budget office and legislative analysts have
predicted recreational sales for the first six months of 2014 would top $190
million.

The industry's swelling ranks - plus a state rule that exempted some early
marijuana transfers from excise tax - mean monthly tax totals may rise as
the year goes on. Barbara Brohl, head of the state Department of Revenue,
said it could be April before collections stabilize.

"We expect clear revenue patterns will emerge by April and plan to
incorporate this data into future forecasts," she said in a statement.
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Dear Friend,
I would like to invite you to a public event: "Exploring Psychedelic Medicines" at the SFU Segal Centre, on Tuesday, April 22, 2014 at 7:00 pm. Panel members will include Gabor Maté, Rick Doblin, Philippe Lucas, Ingrid Pacey and myself.  We will be discussing psychedelic medicines, addictions treatment and a new clinical study starting in Vancouver, testing MDMA-asssisted psychotherapy for the treatment of PTSD.  To buy tickets and find out more information, visit: http://www.maps.org/calendars/event/4299/ 

Please spread the word widely!!

See you there!

Mark Haden

Adjunct Professor UBC School of Population and Public Health

Mark@markhaden.com

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.leap.cc/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/LEAP_UN_Treaty_Amendment_2.26.1421-1.pdf

 

 

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The author contends that the Constitutional rights of freedom of the press, speech, religion, and assembly are parts of the Constitution because they facilitate the free and open exchange of ideas and that democracy depends on this. Psychedelic mindstates serve the same function, he claims, and deserve the same protection.

He cites cognitive processes and ideas that benefit from psychedelic experiences.

https://www.academia.edu/6325849/You_Have_a_Constitutional_Right_to_Psychedelics