tagged w/ Decriminalization
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Blacks In Government (BIG), a group representing the interests of African-American government employees at the federal, state, county and municipal levels, overwhelmingly passed a resolution at its national delegates meeting last week calling for an end to the failed and racially biased "War On Drugs."
The resolution, which will be delivered to President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, calls for "alternatives to incarceration that may, in part, include a model to regulate and control the distribution of some drugs."
The resolution pointed to the words of Maryland State Police Major Neill Franklin and U.S. Marshal Matthew Fogg, both members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of police, judges, prosecutors and prison wardens who support legalizing and regulating drugs.
BIG and LEAP noted that African Americans constitute 53.5 percent of all persons in prison because of a drug conviction, despite the fact that blacks are no more likely than whites to use drugs.
"I personally witnessed racially biased enforcement procedures when I ran a joint DEA task force," said Fogg, a former U.S. marshal and a past BIG national first vice president. "When I requested equal enforcement of upscale suburban areas, I met internal resistance."
The BIG resolution calls for "a federal investigation for solutions to eliminate the pretense and continued arrest and incarceration of African Americans at extraordinarily disparate rates for drug related charges."
In passing the anti-Drug War resolution, BIG joins other African-American groups that have taken similar positions, such as the NAACP, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and the National Black Police Association.
"The war on drugs has put blacks behind bars for drug offenses at more than 10 times the rate of whites, even though the evidence consistently shows that blacks are no more likely to use or sell currently illicit drugs than whites are," Fogg said. "It is time to end this virtual race war."
To see the full text of the BIG resolution, click
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/08/black_government_employees_call_for_end_to_war_on.phpBlacks In Government (BIG), a group representing the interests of African-American... more
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Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
(See the world's most influential people in the 2009 TIME 100.)
The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.
The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html#ixzz1WcNUeNJUPop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not... more
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[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media alerts and legislative advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up here.]
The consumption of cannabis, even long-term, poses few adverse effects on cognitive performance, according to clinical trial data to be published in the scientific journal Addiction.
Investigators at the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University, Center for Mental Health Research assessed the impact of cannabis use on various measures of memory and intelligence in over 2,000 self-identified marijuana consumers and non-users over an eight-year period. Among cannabis consumers, subjects were grouped into the following categories: ‘heavy’ (once a week or more) users, ‘light’ users, ‘former heavy’ users, ‘former light’ users, and ‘always former’ — a category that consisted of respondents who had ceased using marijuana prior to their entry into the study.
Researchers reported: “Only with respect to the immediate recall measure was there evidence of an improved performance associated with sustained abstinence from cannabis, with outcomes similar to those who had never used cannabis at the end point. On the remaining cognitive measures, after controlling for education and other characteristics, there were no significant differences associated with cannabis consumption.”
They concluded, “Therefore, the adverse impacts of cannabis use on cognitive functions either appear to be related to pre-existing factors or are reversible in this community cohort even after potentially extended periods of use.”
Separate studies have previously reported that long-term marijuana use is not associated with residual deficits in neurocognitive function. Specifically, a 2001 study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry found that chronic cannabis consumers who abstained from the drug for one week “showed virtually no significant differences from control subjects (those who had smoked marijuana less than 50 times in their lives) on a battery of 10 neuropsychological tests. … Former heavy users, who had consumed little or no cannabis in the three months before testing, [also] showed no significant differences from control subjects on any of these tests on any of the testing days.”
Additionally, studies have also implied that cannabis may be neuroprotective against alcohol-induced cognitive deficits. A 2009 study by investigators at the University of California and San Diego reported that binge drinkers who also used cannabis experienced significantly less white matter damage to the brain as compared to subjects who consumed alcohol alone.
For more information regarding the impact of cannabis on brain function, see NORML’s factsheet ‘Cannabis and the Brain: A User’s Guide,’ here.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML... more
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In a new initiative, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some important new, gamechanging recommendations in its Drug Policy Report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. Could this really be the end of the War on Drugs? Will we really stop sending people to prison for drugs? Will we really legalize marijuana and relax the laws on other drugs?
Check out the whole article, The End of a 40 Year Old Drug War Conspiracy is finally in Sight, on Conspiracy Watch, at http://www.conspiracywatch.net/2011/06/end-of-40-year-old-drug-war-conspiracy.htmlIn a new initiative, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some important new,... more
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As a sign that reefer madness may be subsiding; attitudes about the criminalization of marijuana may be changing among the elders of our society, as the more than 70 million of the baby boomer generation, one to widely experiment with recreational drug use, have and will become grandparents.
GRAND Magazine, the online magazine for today's grandparents, released today results from their poll question which appeared in the March/April issue. It asked readers if it was time to legalize marijuana. 85% responded that they agreed it was.
The pot proponents argued that it is hypocritical to outlaw pot when cigarettes, alcohol and fat-laden foods are legal but account for so many health issues among our population. They point out that marijuana is used to treat medical symptoms such as pain and nausea, and that in some states it is legal for shops to dispense medical marijuana. The billions that are spent in the U.S. on policing and courts related to this issue could be spent on better schools or infrastructure.
Circa the 1960s began a time with widespread experimentation with many recreational drugs. Grandparents who are part of the baby boomer generation (those born from 1946 to 1964) have a unique perspective on marijuana, having come of age during a time when pot use became mainstream. 21st century grandparents are a group with a growing influence on the country's youth as 5,000 adults each day in the U.S. becomes a grandparent, and are the primary caregivers for nearly 6 million children. In fact 75 percent of all non-parental care of children is provided by a grandparent, representing a large shift in family dynamics. Now it seems that as they guide and influence new generations, they view marijuana use increasingly as a harmless indulgence rather than a gateway to a lifetime of drug abuse.As a sign that reefer madness may be subsiding; attitudes about the criminalization of... more
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VIA Kevin Drum, Keith O'Brien reports in the Boston Globe on a new study showing positive results from Portugal's nine-year-old experiment in drug decriminalisation. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, rates of hard- and soft-drug usage in Portugal were soaring, along with hepatitis and HIV rates.
Faced with both a public health crisis and a public relations disaster, Portugal’s elected officials took a bold step. They decided to decriminalize the possession of all illicit drugs—from marijuana to heroin—but continue to impose criminal sanctions on distribution and trafficking. The goal: easing the burden on the nation’s criminal justice system and improving the people’s overall health by treating addiction as an illness, not a crime.But nearly a decade later, there’s evidence that Portugal’s great drug experiment not only didn’t blow up in its face; it may have actually worked. More addicts are in treatment. Drug use among youths has declined in recent years. Life in Casal Ventoso, Lisbon’s troubled neighborhood, has improved. And new research, published in the British Journal of Criminology, documents just how much things have changed in Portugal. Coauthors Caitlin Elizabeth Hughes and Alex Stevens report a 63 percent increase in the number of Portuguese drug users in treatment and, shortly after the reforms took hold, a 499 percent increase in the amount of drugs seized—indications, the authors argue, that police officers, freed up from focusing on small-time possession, have been able to target big-time traffickers while drug addicts, no longer in danger of going to prison, have been able to get the help they need.
Some researchers caution that Portugal's results may be due not so much to tolerance for drug possession as to making more treatment available. But of course these two always go hand in hand, in any harm-reduction strategy for drug use: it's only by decriminalising possession that you get problem users to come in for treatment.
Portugal is far from the only country that's embraced such harm-reduction strategies, and the verdicts everywhere seem to be similar: they may lead to greater usage of soft drugs, they don't seem to lead to significant increases in hard-drug usage, and they significantly reduce the costs of drug addiction to society. That doesn't mean that drug policy disappears from the political agenda in countries that move towards harm reduction. The newspapers in the Netherlands reported today on a very American-seeming scandal: a website set up by an association of heroin users in Amsterdam, intended to provide addicts with advice on health and safe non-infectious usage, could be read as effectively providing how-to advice on how to shoot up, accessible to web surfers of any age. A conservative-leaning Dutch youth expert wants the site to be somehow restricted to those over the age of 12. But it's instructive to read the reaction of a council member from the right-wing, laissez-faire VVD party, which currently leads the Dutch governing coalition:
On the one hand, we must ensure that the lowest possible number of people use that stuff. On the other hand, if they do, they should use clean needles, not borrow them from each other. And they should try to limit the health risks. That's the perspective from which I look at the site.
This is a perfectly rational conservative perspective. And the fact is that Amsterdam's heroin-addict population has been stable or falling for two decades. That's even though, since 2002, the Dutch authorities have been doing something even more radical than Portugal's for heroin users: they've been giving them free heroin, as long as they show up to inject at government-run "safe injection points", under the eyes of police and health staff. Dutch drug researchers now say that the youth population "doesn't relate to hard drugs at all", and that there's no danger that Dutch kids reading the advice site will find heroin use attractive. They're more likely to find it pathetic.
Drug abuse is driven to a significant extent by fashion. If there's one thing government has going for it, it's the ability to make anything unfashionable. This insight into government's jujitsu-like capability to render the cool uncool should be more obvious to conservatives than to liberals. And yet, in America, the very people who are most distrustful of government's ability to do anything right are the ones who are steadfastly opposed to letting the government use its secret power of deadly uncoolness to fight drug abuse. It seems like a huge wasted opportunity.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/01/harm_reductionVIA Kevin Drum, Keith O'Brien reports in the Boston Globe on a new study showing... more
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Just hours before the state's legislative session ended Tuesday, the California Assembly voted to approve SB 1449, Sen. Mark Leno's bill to fully decriminalize simple marijuana possession. The bill passed the Senate in June and now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk.
The vote was 43-33 and largely along party lines. Democrats supported the bill 40-8, while Republicans opposed it 23-2.
Under current California law, possession of less than an ounce of pot is punishable by no more than a $100 fine, but is still a misdemeanor. That means people busted for a joint or a half-bag must be arrested, booked, and appear in court, and they get a criminal record. It also means meaningless work for the police and the courts.
Marijuana possession is the only California misdemeanor with a set maximum fine and no possible jail time. The Leno bill changes the offense to an infraction, meaning no arrest, no booking, no court appearance, and no criminal record.
"The penalty for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana is a fine of $100, with no jail time," Leno said on introducing the bill. "If the penalty is $100, with no jail time, that is an infraction. That is not a misdemeanor."
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/sep/01/california_legislature_passes_maJust hours before the state's legislative session ended Tuesday, the California... more
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Living in New Hampshire, I heard on the radio that the bill to decriminalization of cannabis in New Hampshire was denied.
"In New Hampshire, about 100 people rallied in the state capital of Concord on the eve of a Senate vote to decriminalize small amounts of pot. Some lit up joints as state troopers watched from inside the Statehouse.
The Judiciary Committee recommended unanimously that the Senate kill the bill passed by the House. The bill would allow adults to possess one-quarter ounce or less of the substance. It also would decriminalize transporting less than one-quarter ounce of the drug.
Anyone younger than 18 caught with one-quarter ounce or less would be subject to a $200 fine. The youth's parents would be notified and he or she would have to complete a drug awareness program and community service within one year of the violation. Failing to comply would result in a $1,000 fine.
Gov. John Lynch said he will veto the bill if it reaches him. Lynch vetoed a similar measure last year."
And the battle goes on.
http://www.wmur.com/politics/23187740/detail.htmlLiving in New Hampshire, I heard on the radio that the bill to decriminalization of... more
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Forgive the Bay Area-centric blog post, but I caught this story in the NY Times' new Bay Area blog: "The Idea of Decriminalizing Oakland 'Sideshows.'" The gist of it is that Oakland's mayor is asking if it would make sense to move sideshows to abandoned side streets where they could be conducted within the condoning view of the city.
I'm interested in this story for a few reasons.
1) VC2 Producer Kevin Epps once covered the Sideshow for Current in this amazing pod:
The Sideshow (Video)
2) The Bay Area section of the NY Times is fascinating to me. It makes sense for the Times to have a "Jersey" section or a "Philly" section - but the Bay Area is literally a continent away from their masthead's city name. Given how poorly local paper the SF Chronicle seems to be faring, maybe the NY Times is making a smart, savvy expansion. Is this the future for regional markets in the world of newspapers? Not big enough for your own paper, but big enough to get a section in someone else's?
3) Legalize it! Oakland is taking long strides in decriminalizing marijuana. Residents recently voted in a tax on marijuana in an overwhelming numbers. The city also offers the nation's first "Cannabis College": Oaksterdam University. (We also produced a VC2 story about that.) Is Oakland's new attitude toward decriminalization something we'll see expanded across other problem areas? First pot, then sideshows, then ____ ? Or is a city that spawned "Oaksterdam University" destined to go the way of The Wire's "Hamsterdam"?
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- New military robot complicates question of 'boots on the ground'
- One fifth of Californians are 'underemployed'
- Afghanistan round-up: Helicopters and a third surge
- Psst...tell Castro I said Hi-k thx Obama
- Deadly Baghdad blasts raise specter of securityForgive the Bay Area-centric blog post, but I caught this story in the NY Times'... more
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"It's inevitable that there will be some kind of legalization of recreational marijuana," Ammiano says. "How and where it's going to happen I think is an open question, but I think a lot sooner than later.""It's inevitable that there will be some kind of legalization of... more
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Register an account at http://www.change.org/ideas?order=top and vote for legalization and any other cause that you support! Obama will address the top-voted issues.
Google Moderator also has a similar poll going, and marijuana is popular in almost each category!
Edit: You'll have to copy/paste this because Current won't let the whole thing become a hyperlink.
http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=409fRegister an account at http://www.change.org/ideas?order=top and vote for legalization... more
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The End of Prohibition
"I think this would be a good time for a beer," Franklin D. Roosevelt said upon signing a bill that made 3.2-percent lager legal again, some months ahead of the full repeal of Prohibition. I hope Barack Obama will come up with some comparably witty remarks as he presides over the dismantling of our contemporary forms of prohibition—laws that prevent gay marriage, restrict cannabis as a Schedule I Controlled Substance, and ban travel to Cuba. "You may now kiss the groom," perhaps, or—a version of the comment he once made about smoking pot—"I inhaled—that was the point."
Prohibition now is different from Prohibition then. When the 18th Amendment went into effect in 1920, it was a radical social experiment challenging a custom as old as civilization. Its predictable failure—the gross insult to individual rights, the impossibility of enforcement, the spawning of organized crime—came to an end when Utah, of all places, became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment in 1933. Today prohibition is a byword for futile attempts to legislate morality and remake human nature.
Our forms of prohibition are more sins of omission than commission. Rather than trying to take away longstanding rights, they're instances of conservative laws failing to keep pace with a liberalizing society. But like Prohibition in the '20s, these restrictions have become indefensible as well as impractical, and as a result are fading fast. Within 10 years, it seems a reasonable guess that Americans will travel freely to Cuba, that all states will recognize gay unions, and that few will retain criminal penalties for marijuana use by individuals. Whether or not Democrats retain control of Congress, whether or not Obama is re-elected, and whether they happen sooner or later than expected, these reforms are inevitable—not because politics has changed but because society has.
Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2234017/The End of Prohibition
"I think this would be a good time for a beer,"... more
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Every 18 seconds, an American is busted for drug possession, according to Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) crime statistics released Monday - but is the sum of the costs worth it?Every 18 seconds, an American is busted for drug possession, according to Federal... more
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The politics and policies of drug prohibition are a failure primarily because they are not effective in actually prohibiting people from obtaining and using drugs, and also because the evidence supporting those policies are weak.The politics and policies of drug prohibition are a failure primarily because they are... more
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On the one hand, marijuana is practically legal—more mainstream, accessorized, and taken for granted than ever before. On the other, kids are getting busted in New York City in record numbers. Guess which kids.On the one hand, marijuana is practically legal—more mainstream, accessorized,... more
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Far from protecting us and our children, the war on drugs is making the world a much more dangerous place.
SO FAR this year, about 4000 people have died in Mexico's drugs war - a horrifying toll. If only a good fairy could wave a magic wand and make all illegal drugs disappear, the world would be a better place.
Dream on. Recreational drug use is as old as humanity, and has not been stopped by the most draconian laws. Given that drugs are here to stay, how do we limit the harm they do?
The evidence suggests most of the problems stem not from drugs themselves, but from the fact that they are illegal. The obvious answer, then, is to make them legal.Far from protecting us and our children, the war on drugs is making the world a much... more
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While California is going bankrupt, one business is booming. "How Weed Won the West" is the story of the growing Medical Marijuana industry in the greater Los Angeles area, with over 700 dispensaries doling out the buds. Following the story of Organica, a southland dispensary owned by Jeff Joseph that was raided by the DEA in August of '09, the film shows that although much has changed with Obama in office, the War on Drugs is nowhere near over. From Kevin Booth, the producer/director of Showtime's "American Drug War", How Weed Won the West shows how California could be an example to the rest of the country by showing how legalizing marijuana can benefit the economy.
Starring Alex Jones, Ethan Nadlemann, Craig X Rubin, Doug Stanhope, Jeff Joseph, Theresa Blaylock, Don Duncan, Bill Kroger, and more.
A Kevin Booth Film
Edited by Ryan Kaye
Coming to DVD October 15!
Pre-order now at http://SacredCow.com
and get special VIP access to free digital download outtakes!While California is going bankrupt, one business is booming. "How Weed Won the... more
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