weedforneed.com

Posts Tagged ‘war on drugs’

As the country of origin for the war on drugs, the USA is the perfect example to overview the consequences of such measure.

As some Americans have been, and continue to be, pointing at the utility of such measures, Tony Newmann, communications director for the Drug Policy Alliance gives his view on the conception of drugs:

ALL OF US USE DRUGS, BUT ONLY SOME OF US GO TO JAIL!

Despite a $40 billion a year “war on drugs” that is premised on the goal of creating a “drug-free society,” our country is swimming in drugs.

Most people start using drugs before they even leave the house in the morning.  Yes, that first cup of coffee is what many of us need to start the day.  The next drug that millions of Americans use, sometimes up to 20 times a day, is our nicotine! And then, after a long day of work, many of us head to a local bar or to our refrigerator and pour ourselves a cocktail, ice cold beer or a nice glass of wine.

And I’m just getting started.  There are over 100 million Americans who have used marijuana.  Thirty years after Nancy Reagan told us to “Just Say No,” half of high-school seniors will try marijuana and 75% will try alcohol before they graduate.  And what about the college students who use Ritalin to help them focus and put in long hours at the library? And how about all of the superstar athletes who use performance enhancing substances? What about all of the men ( and women ) who are deeply grateful forthe “little blue pill”? And how about the businessmen who stay up until three in the morning with the help of a “little bump”?

Drugs are so popular because people use them for both pleasure and for pain.  Drugs can be fun.  How many of us enjoy having some drinks and going out dancing? How many of us enjoy a little smoke after a nice dinner with friends? Many people bond with others or find inspiration alone while under the influence of drugs.  On the flip side, many people self-medicate to try to ease the pain in their lives.  How many have us have had too much to drink to drown our sorrows over a breakup or some other painful event? How many of us smoke cigarettes or take prescription drugs to deal with anxiety or stress? Throughout recorded history, people have inevitably altered their consciousness to fall asleep, wake up, deal with stress, and for creative and spiritual purposes.

While it is clear that drug use doesn’t discriminate and the majority of us are using one drug or another, the reality is that the war on drug users does discriminate.  More than 1.8 million people are arrested every year on nonviolent drug charges.  In New York City, “moderate” Mayor Bloomberg’s police arrested close to 50,000 people for marijuana possession in 2009 – and 87% of those arrested were black and Latino, despite similar rates of marijuana use as whites.  The reason for the discrepancy is that the NYPD stops and frisks blacks and Latinos – but not white people.  Last week the New York Times ran a front page story that showed blacks and Latinos were nine times more likely to be frisked than whites.

The racist enforcement of drug laws is not limited to just New York or just marijuana.  Thanks to the mass incarceration of people for nonviolent drug law violations, the U.S.  is the world’s leading jailer.  The U.S.  has 5% of the world’s population but has 25% of the world’s prison population.  Nationally, blacks are 13 times more likely to be incarcerated on drug charges as whites, despite similar rates of drug use.

Why are some drugs legal and other drugs illegal today? It’s not based on any scientific assessment of the relative risks of these drugs – but it has everything to do with who is associated with these drugs.  The first anti-opium laws in the 1870s were directed at East Asian immigrants.  The first anti-cocaine laws, in the South in the early 1900s, were directed at black men.  The first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and the Southwest in the early 1900s, were directed at Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans.

Too often, the stereotypical “drug user” is someone we see panhandling on the street or the image of a young person of color.  The reality is that most Americans use some drugs and most families include someone who is dealing with addiction to a legal or illegal drug.  By declaring a “war on drugs” we have declared a war on ourselves, our families, and our communities.

We have to learn how to live with drugs, because they aren’t going anywhere.  Drugs have been around for thousands of years and will be here for thousands more.  We need to educate people about the possible harms of drug use, offer compassion and treatment to people who have problems, and leave in peace the people who are not causing harm.  And we need to take action against the incarceration of so many of our brothers and sisters who are suffering behind bars because of the substance that they choose to use.

In little over 8 minutes Judge Jim Gray from Orange County, California, explains what 6 groups benefit most from drug prohibition AND he gives 6 clear reasons why cannabis should be legal!

The only thing we would like to correct, is that you actually have to be 18 or older (not 16 or older) to buy weed in coffeeshops in the Netherlands (Holland)

The Czech Republic is bringing in some very interesting legislation in 2010.

From January 1st, individuals in possession of 15 grams of cannabis or less will not be charged with a crime in the Czech Republic. The new laws, which decriminalize the possession of ‘small amounts’ of most currently illegal drugs, are based on a  Justice Ministry proposal which was approved by the Czech government earlier this month.

Previously, there were few clear definitions of what level of drug possession was treated as ‘small’, since standards were based on internal police directives and could change from region to region. The new legislation clearly defines how much of each substance is considered a ‘small amount’ under the law. Individuals in possession of this amount or less will not be charged with a crime.

Additionally, the new laws seem to make it possible for individuals to grow up to five cannabis plants. However, if current Dutch legislation is anything to go by, this may not necessarily include indoor growing with lamps, nor allow households with several adults to grow five plants each.
In any case, this new legislation is a big step in the right direction and we hope that other European countries will be inspired by the Czech move towards a sane drug policy.

Three years ago, former U.S. Attorney John McKay was somewhere near the front lines of the nation’s drug war.

Directing federal prosecutions in Western Washington before he was fired in 2006 by the administration that appointed him, McKay’s office sent marijuana smugglers and farmers to prison on decade-long terms. It indicted a loudmouth Canadian pro-pot activist for selling cannabis seeds by mail order.

So the crowd at an Edmonds auditorium could have been forgiven its surprise on Monday when McKay stood on stage with travel author and decriminalization advocate Rick Steves and declared that, of course, he is “against stupid laws.”

“I think there has to be a shift in the paradigm,” said McKay, now a professor at Seattle University. “The correct policy change would be a top-to-bottom review of the nation’s drug laws.”

McKay joined a panel as part of an effort by Steves and the American Civil Liberties Union to, in their view, return rationality to discussions about the nation’s drug laws. They were joined there by Egil “Bud” Krogh, a former official in the Nixon White House who gained notoriety during the Watergate scandal, and state Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, an Edmonds Democrat who joked Monday about being dubbed by her colleagues the “Marijuana Queen of Northwest Washington” for her efforts on medical marijuana law reform.

While the panelists did not agree on all points, each said they see the need for substantive change in the way marijuana is regulated and offenders are punished. They also each spoke about the fears, or lack of courage, of elected officials in addressing issues surrounding the drug.

Steves and the ACLU launched the initiative last year partly as a response to that fear. The effort, built around an infomercial “Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation,” is aimed at encouraging citizens to discuss the issue openly.

“This is an issue that’s scary for people,” Steves said. “I have friends who oppose what I do on this issue because they’re worried about their kids. What they don’t understand is that so are we.”

Addressing the audience, a group mixed in age and outward appearance, Roberts argued that the law as it stands takes an unjust toll on minority communities. In essence, she said, it leaves law enforcement agencies to pursue people who are easiest to catch while their efforts could be more productively spent elsewhere.

At the same time, she said, lawmakers — even those who believe the laws to be unjust with regard to marijuana — are afraid of being branded soft on crime.

“As a community and a society, we’re afraid of crime,” Roberts said. “And if what you’re doing is being referred to as ’soft on crime,’ even without details, legislators respond negatively to it.”

Roberts also said the Legislature must revisit the state’s medical marijuana law, which, in her view, fails to adequately protect patients.

McKay, though, said such changes fail to address the larger problems with marijuana laws in the country.

Even as the Obama administration has adopted medical marijuana rules similar to those he advocated while U.S. Attorney — specifically, that federal agents not interfere with state medical marijuana regulations — McKay said that simply having federal agencies ignore the laws enacted by Congress does not go far enough.

“Federal law makes the possession of any amount of marijuana a crime,” McKay said. “So, even if you’ve got a certificate from your doctor, a federal officer could arrest you. … That’s just bad policy.”

McKay faulted Congress for failing to take initiative on the issue. It is not the place of federal prosecutors or law officers to make policy, he said, nor should the White House go it alone.

In the end, he argued, marijuana should not be lumped in with cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin as part of the war on drugs. Marijuana law, McKay said, “should look a lot more like alcohol (regulations) and a lot less like cocaine and methamphetamine (laws).”

Here is a list of some of the negative effects of the ban on cannabis:

1. The ban on cannabis means that in addition to the coffeeshops and people who grow for their own use, an illegal market in cannabis also exists. There is no possibility of control over this illegal market which leads to criminality, unsafe situations, and events that disturb the peace; and to which underage people have easy access.
2. The ban on cannabis makes large scale crops and export of the product into a lucrative source of income for criminal organizations which can then use this income for other criminal activities, or ‘wash’ it via money laundering operations that can disturb the legal economy.
3. The ban on cannabis encourages criminal and antisocial behavior: rules concerning safety and security (for growing and in the marketplace) are easily broken and this goes unpunished. Conflicts are resolved using violence.
4. The ban on cannabis leads to an increase in prices, as the producer in an illegal market calculates their risk into the price.
5. The ban leads to a migration of tourists to coffeeshops near the borders of the country, and the operation of ‘drug runners’ to transport the product. Simple solutions for this problem such as the proposal for a so-called ‘Weed Boulevard’ with legal supply logistics are held back by the ban on cannabis.
6. The ban on cannabis puts enormous pressure on the resources of the police and the justice system, which cannot then devote them to other, more important goals. Some of the methods used to enforce the ban limit the personal freedom of civilians and are a matter of contention in court.
7. The costs of enforcing the ban on cannabis are not justified by the results. Although the goal of the ban (an essential reduction in supply and demand) fails to come a single step closer, the ban itself is never brought forward for discussion.
8. The ban on cannabis damages the credibility of the government, given that the use of cannabis continues to be firmly naturalized in society.
9. The (world-wide) ban on cannabis is one of the pillars of the U.S. dominated War On Drugs, which has led to sizeable global violations of human rights; and severely damages both the environment, and the security of the populations of cannabis-producing lands.
10. The ban on cannabis impedes the development of the industrial applications of the plant, which is capable of making a very valuable contribution to a sustainable future.
11. The ban on cannabis makes it impossible to carry out standardized controls on the product. Therefore demands can hardly be placed on the product in terms of consistent quality, health, or accompanying information on the contents and effects of the product.
12. The ban on cannabis leads to unwelcome and unhealthy practices in production which negatively affect the quality and effects of the product, and thereby damage the health of the consumer.
13. The ban on cannabis criminalizes the cannabis consumer (over one million Dutch people), with negative social consequences for the people in question, their relationships, their family, and their home and work environment.
14. The ban on cannabis is a restriction of the right to freedom of expression. It legitimizes information about the supposed evils of cannabis, information that cannot be seriously tested for durability, credibility or truthfulness and yet is used as justification for the active enforcement of the ban.
15. The ban on cannabis damages the right of the individual to make decisions about his / her own body.
16. The ban on cannabis damages the right of the individual to possess a medicine that is necessary to maintain or support his or her health and wellbeing.
17. The ban on cannabis dissuades doctors from prescribing it to patients who could benefit from the effects; and delays the process of recognition of its medicinal applications in the treatment of multiple afflictions such as HIV and AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, cancer, and chronic pain.
18. The ban on cannabis denies the government the possibility of levying taxes on the product.