Time to kill the sacred cow of pot prohibition
By David Seymour
The Province
March 23, 2010

Reuters
Sunday, March 21, 2010

Marines offer cash in fight against Afghan opium

By Mark Chisholm

COMBAT OUTPOST REILLY, Afghanistan (Reuters) - After weeks of intense fighting over the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, U.S. Marines are now taking cautious aim at the drugs trade, with a programme designed to pay opium farmers to destroy their own crops without a fight.

The goal of the new programme is to tackle the drugs trade that fuels the insurgency -- without alienating farmers whose livelihoods depend on a crop they planted last year.

Last month, thousands of Marines fought to drive the Taliban out of Marjah, a major hub for the trafficking and trade of opium in southern Helmand, the province that produces most of the world's raw material for heroin.

Now, with opium poppies blooming and at waist height, some of those forces are pushing into surrounding areas of Marjah where the Taliban's footprint is still scattered across poor farming communities that depend on modest incomes from the drug crop.

"I spent a lot of money on these poppy fields, until now we haven't made enough money. We just make money to buy bread from the profits,"
70-year-old Mohammad Hanif, who lives in a village about 11 km (7 miles) from Marjah, said.

When a team of Marines paid him a visit on Saturday, Hanif was afraid they would destroy his crop -- a past strategy employed by NATO forces and the Afghan government which has sown resentment among farmers and increased support for the Taliban.

The new strategy, the Marines wanted to inform Hanif, involves paying farmers the value of their next harvest in return for them destroying their poppies themselves and growing legal alternatives using seeds provided by the Afghan government.

"For this programme I am happy, as they gave me money for the damage,"
Hanif said.

"They are positive and open to the new Afghanistan rules as far as burning the poppy fields and giving them money for that. They are ready to burn their poppy fields because they have not had anything like that before," said Corporal Junior Joseph of Kilo Company of the Third Battalion, Sixth Marines.

Hanif's neighbour Mohammad Gul also welcomed the programme after cautiously greeting the Marines and initially denying he was growing opium poppy at all. After a Marine interpreter assured him that his trade was an open secret, he agreed to the scheme.

"We think it's a good programme, we are homeless and must support our children. If the government destroys everything there's nothing left for us. So it's a good programme," Gul said.

The meeting between the farmers and Marines from Kilo Company marks the unit's first foray into tackling drug cultivation in Nad Ali since landing in Marjah, a key plank of NATO's strategy in the district which ultimately seeks to establish full Afghan government control in the area.

Corporal Joseph was hopeful that the poppy scheme would pay-off and took comfort in the initial positive response from Hanif and Gul.

"Before it was the Taliban, pretty much taking over and doing whatever.
So with the government willing to buy it, they are pretty open to the new rules," he said.

The Marines stir mixed feelings among residents. One young man complained to the Marines that they never leave his family alone and asked why they kept bothering them. He declined to give his name.

At a shura -- or council meeting -- earlier this week, other villagers complained about Marines entering their homes when women were present, failing to show enough cultural sensitivity in a devoutly Islamic and rural place, and failing to adhere to their own rules on searching civilian homes.

(Writing by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Peter Graff)

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NPR
March 19, 2010

Exploring The Taliban's Complex, Shadowy Finances

By Peter Kenyon

The Taliban have long been associated with the opium trade.
Counterterrorism officials say the group has developed what amounts to a sophisticated taxation regime that yields money from the production, processing and transport of opium from Afghanistan.

But cracking the extremist group's finances has proved far more complex than just following the flow of drug money. Counterterrorism officials say the Taliban also pull in funding from diverted Muslim charitable donations and "protection money" from convoys seeking to resupply U.S.
forces in Afghanistan.

Hard figures are elusive, and estimates vary widely, but the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that from 2005 to 2009 the Taliban took in $450 million to $800 million from opium production and trafficking.

The Taliban have also moved beyond poppy growers to extract money from farmers growing wheat and other staple crops.

Beyond that, there is a steady stream of cash that flows to the Taliban, wittingly or otherwise, from Muslim charities and religious institutions outside Afghanistan.

'Charitable' Donations

Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies, says many of those donations come from the oil-rich countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC.

"There [is] a network of charities in the GCC countries which directly support institutions in Pakistan which are supporting financially these extremist movements such as the Taliban," Mir says. "And our estimates are in Afghanistan that between $150 [million] to $200 million every year reaches directly to Taliban via this network of charities that exists in the Gulf countries."

Mir says he recently asked Bahrain's foreign minister what can be done to halt the money flowing to the Taliban.

"He recognized the problem," Mir says. "But he responded there is no mechanism in the region to monitor the transfer of charity funding. And I think it would be good if the United States government, in cooperation with the countries in the region, creates a mechanism in order to monitor. And he also mentioned licensing of the charity organizations."

Analysts say that in a region where nongovernmental aid groups and charities operating domestically often face severe scrutiny and regulation, such lack of oversight on the religious charities seems a glaring omission.

Financing The Enemy

Other sources of Taliban revenue include extortion rackets that target various groups - including, indirectly, U.S. taxpayers. Resupply convoys navigating the hazardous Afghan highway system frequently have to hire security firms to protect them, and as often, these security firms pay off militias that control key stretches of road.

A November article in The Nation magazine highlighted the phenomenon.
The author, journalist Aram Roston told NPR's Fresh Air that militia commanders, some of whom support the Taliban, are finding it extremely lucrative.

The payoffs can amount to "potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.
It's a huge chunk of the security part of the logistics operation,"
Roston says. "It's really worse than irony: It's, in some cases, just funding the same people you're fighting."

Iran's Modest Support

At a December international security conference in Bahrain, a constant topic was Iran's alleged meddling in the region's conflicts, including Afghanistan.

U.S. Gen. David Petraeus told the gathering that Iran is also causing problems for the International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, in Afghanistan, the allied NATO forces battling the Taliban. But Petraeus described the support as modest.

"Enough to cause problems for ISAF and Afghanistan in general, but not so much [as] to enable the Taliban to succeed," Petraeus said. "Needless to say, it is not in Iran's interest - a Shiite-led state's interest - to see a Sunni extremist, ultraconservative movement once again take control of Afghanistan."

Defense analyst Christopher Langton says massive financial resources aren't necessary for a group like the Taliban because committing acts of terrorism is relatively cheap compared with waging a war. Still, he said, money can and does play a role in Afghanistan, in sometimes surprising ways.

"For example, Taliban will pay their fighters on a day-to-day basis more than the Afghan National Police pay their police," Langton said. "So in an area where loyalties may be divided, it might be a better deal, if you want to make money just to feed your family, to do a couple of days'
fighting for Taliban, or even a bit more."

Fixing A Corrupt Government

The U.S. and other governments say they are making progress in blocking some channels of the Taliban's funding. But many experts point to Afghanistan's massive corruption problem as a critical and daunting obstacle.

Clare Lockhart, who directs the Institute for State Effectiveness in London, says Afghanistan desperately needs to get its civil servants back on the job and revitalize the public institutions that are so important to tracking the flow of money into, out of and around the country.

Lockhart emphatically does not agree with those who say Afghanistan is beyond the rule of law, and says the war and ensuing aid effort combined to weaken the government's ability to deal with corruption.

"I think one of the myths about Afghanistan is that 'Afghanistan is ungovernable.' When I arrived and went around the country in early 2002, in most of the provinces there were functioning finance offices and civil service offices," Lockhart says.

"Actually, one of the tragedies of the last few years," she adds, is that "many of those civil servants actually left their jobs, and they became drivers, assistants and translators for the aid effort instead."

Lockhart says that's one reason the Afghan government can't keep track of money flows in the country, such as the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of customs revenue that pours into Afghanistan each year.

"One of the reasons it's so important to have a public finance system that collects that is that if the national treasury of the government of Afghanistan isn't collecting it, then those funds are probably being collected by somebody else," Lockhart says. "So trying to get a better understanding of the legitimate flows of money, and trying to get a handle on the illegitimate flows - the proceeds of crime, of extortion, of tolls, of bribery - is really important."

It is important and fairly straightforward, analysts say, unless you're also trying to fight a war against the Taliban and other insurgents.

But if Lockhart and those who agree with her are correct, until Afghanistan restores its public institutions and empowers them to track, regulate and report on the flows of money in the country, the financial front in the war against the Taliban will not be winnable.
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Hi Mark,

 

I am writing on behalf of Dr. Evan Wood to ask if you would distribute a job posting to your list serve.  

 

We are currently looking to hire an administrative assistant with the Urban Heath Research Initiative at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence and I have attached the job description to this email.   All interested applicants can forward their resumes to my attention (details below).

 

Many thanks,

 

Tricia

Tricia Collingham

Administrative Assistant

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

608 - 1081 Burrard Street

Vancouver BC  V6Z 1Y6  Canada

Tel: 604-806-9142

Fax: 604-806-9044

tcollingham@cfenet.ubc.ca

http://uhri.cfenet.ubc.ca/

 

A new book that may be of interest: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/CHOOPI.html?show=reviews

 

see attached

 

Drug Situation in Vancouver (link to PDF, 53 pages)


Marijuana has therapeutic effects
Med Citizen
March 22, 2010

Mexican drug wars pose a deadly dilemma
The Chronicle Herald
March 22, 2010

 

 

More policing worsens drug violence: study
Illegal Trade; Argues that gangs step up when key players removed
By Tom Blackwell
National Post
March 23, 2010

Build a Global Youth Movement to End the Failed Drug War

International Liaison: Based in San Francisco, CA or Washington, DC

Students for Sensible Drug Policy is seeking a highly motivated, well-organized, multi-lingual individual to become the organization's first international liaison.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

Students for Sensible Drug Policy is a network of students dedicated to ending the destructive “War on Drugs.” SSDP works to create a world in which drug abuse is treated as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice issue.

Founded in 1998, SSDP is a grassroots organization of nearly 200 campus chapters who are served by a national staff of five, based in Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA. SSDP also has international affiliates in Canada, the UK, and Nigeria, as well as budding networks in Colombia, Australia, Mexico, and Indonesia.

ABOUT THE POSITION

This position is part of a new grant that will be used to expand the movement to end the War on Drugs by mobilizing students and youth in countries outside of the United States.

SSDP's target growth region for 2010 is Latin America, so qualified applicants must speak both English and Spanish fluently.

This position will be based out of either our Washington, DC or San Francisco, CA offices (please indicate preference in application), although the liaison will be expected to frequently travel for extended periods of time to other countries.

The international liaison will be charged with three primary responsibilities: International Growth and Assistance; International Coordination; and International Representation.

1) International Growth and Assistance: The international liaison will respond to inquiries that SSDP receives from students outside the U.S. and will also travel abroad to actively seek out students who will serve as leaders of SSDP affiliate organizations. He/she will be responsible for providing resources and training to new leaders on practices that have proven effective within our established networks, with the goal of helping each affiliate attain a state of autonomy.

2) International Coordination: The international liaison will ensure that SSDP affiliates are collaborating and learning from each other by facilitating constant communication among the leadership of those organizations. The liaison will also identify opportunities for SSDP members to travel internationally and experience other countries’ drug policies first hand.

In addition to cross-pollinating ideas and activists, the international liaison will coordinate international solidarity campaigns, such as a week of action in which all SSDP affiliates take part.

3) International Representation: SSDP’s international liaison will represent the perspectives and interests of all international SSDP networks during instances in which a single voice is required (during media appearances or United Nations meetings, for example).

QUALIFICATIONS

Qualified applicants must exhibit the following qualities/abilities:

* Fluency in English and Spanish.

* Experience with youth organizing or political advocacy.

* The ability to communicate orally with comfort and conviction, over the phone and in person.

* A love of travel, and proven ability to work well while "on the road."

* Comfort with working nontraditional hours (nights and weekends).

* A firm belief that students will play a key role in ending the War on Drugs.


The following qualifications are preferred but not necessary:


* Proficiency with Apple products, Google applications, and Facebook.

* Fluency in languages besides English and Spanish.

* Extensive knowledge of drug policy reform issues.

* Experience living in Latin America and working within the political system there.

* Experience with fundraising.


HOW TO APPLY:

Interested applicants should submit a one-page cover letter and one- or two-page resume to Executive Director Matthew Palevsky by using this application page: http://ssdp.org/careers.php

In your cover letter, please indicate (1) why you are interested in working with SSDP, (2) your opinion on drug policy, and (3) why you think this particular position is an ideal fit for your experience and skill set. Feel free to include any additional information you deem relevant, not to exceed one page.

Salary is $38,000 - $45,000, commensurate with experience. Benefits include health care and the satisfaction that comes along with changing the world for the better.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy is an equal opportunity employer. SSDP has a strong commitment to diversity and, as such, women, people of color, LGBT individuals, and individuals who have been directly affected by the Drug War are encouraged to apply.

If you submit a cover letter and resume, SSDP will respond to you within four weeks with either a request for additional documentation, or notification that your application is being considered.

Apply directly on our site for the quickest response: http://ssdp.org/careers.php?details=1&jobID=5