Drug WarRant

This is from back in 2009

SUBJECT: Breaking the UNGASS Impasse on “Harm Reduction” […]

Summary

Negotiations for the UNGA special session have hit an impasse, created by EU insistence on adding the controversial term “harm reduction” to various parts of the draft UNGASS action plan and political declaration. While Canada, an opponent of the term’s inclusion, is considering conceding to EU demands, other opponents are standing firm with the U.S. in preventing such a problematic element’s inclusion. Mission has engaged counterparts at every level, from experts to ambassadors in an attempt to break the impasse and find compromise language. Mission believes there is increasing pressure within the EU to resolve this gridlock and avoid an embarrassing showdown at the March Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) but some delegations will be inclined to hold this issue hostage up until the opening of the CND, in hopes the US will relent. To facilitate EU compromise, Mission recommends that the Department reach out to various capitals and the European Commission to help underscore the firmness of U.S. resolve-both to our allies and to the EU, before the EU horizontal group meeting in Brussels on February 4. Mission has urged like-minded countries here (Japan, Russia, Colombia) to take similar actions. End Summary.

EU Crusade on “Harm Reduction”

There have been difficult negotiations in Vienna on the “harm reduction” issue in the demand reduction chapter of the draft UNGASS action plan (Ref A) and political declaration. The Czech Republic reiterated this demand on January 26 on behalf of the presidency. The plan will be annexed to the political declaration expected to be issued by ministers attending the high-level segment of the UNGASS review meeting in Vienna March 10-12, 2009. The main
divide is between EU advocates for including “harm reduction” in the plan, and those who oppose such inclusion, namely U.S., Russia, Japan, Colombia and possibly Canada. Although opposed to harm reduction, Canada’s experts in Ottawa are receptive of a recent compromise (including the term in a footnote rather than in the text), and we understand that Ottawa will have a discussion on the political level to decide how to handle this issue.

The U.S. succeeded in keeping “harm reduction” out of the declaration at that time thereby increasing harm throughout the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMIgT_NGgek

Mexican protesters begin 3-day march seeking end to drug war

Hundreds of protesters began a three-day march to Mexico’s capital Thursday, demanding peace in the war between the government and drug cartels.

Some carried signs bearing the names of victims of the brutal wave of drug-related violence that has hit many parts of the country. Others who gathered in the central Mexican city of Cuernavaca toted a large black banner that said “STOP THE WAR.”

One of the most persistent enemies of finding real solutions to the violence is the pathetic war mentality that is completely blind to the fact that they’re throwing gasoline onto the fire. That same traditional war mentality also convinces them that any suggestion other than continuing the present course is an unacceptable “retreat” or “surrender.”

“Retreating from the fight is not an option. Quite the opposite. We must redouble our efforts, because if we stop fighting, they are going to kidnap, extort and kill all over the country,” Calderon said. “Because marching back means things will get worse. If we retreat, we will allow gangs of criminals to walk all the streets of Mexico with impunity, assaulting people without anyone stopping them.” […]

In his statement Wednesday, Calderon acknowledged that some Mexicans are less committed to — and afraid of — his fight against criminals. But he showed no sign of changing his approach.

“Just like you, I also want a Mexico without violence. I want a peaceful Mexico. But this goal will not be accomplished with false exits. The solution is to stop the criminals, who are the enemies of Mexico,” he said.

Perhaps the people of Mexico are stepping up and saying “This is my house that’s burning down and you keep throwing gasoline on it. Stop it! Take your gas can and back away — I don’t care if you call it retreat or something else, but our house doesn’t need your kind of help.”

It’s finals week and the end of an extremely busy semester.

OK, this music video isn’t for everyone, and it certainly is not going to do much to convert those who are opposed to legalization and the cannabis culture, but I think it’s very well done on a number of levels.

We don’t fear no plant.

Getting Relief in Wartime: Opioids, Pain Management, and the War on Drugs by Siobhan Reynolds

Siobhan does a good job of showing the flaws in the government’s latest push to fight prescription drug abuse.

Anti-Drug War Movement Emerges in Mexico

After four years of war that has left nearly 40,000 people dead, countless more disappeared, and soldiers on the streets of every state in the country, many Mexicans are finally “fed up” with President Felipe Calderón’s drug policy. This weekend, Mexicans in at least 25 of the country’s 31 states will protest to “stop the war, for a just and peaceful Mexico.” Protests are also planned in solidarity in at least twelve cities in Europe, Canada, the United States, and Brazil.

Mexico: Netizens Put Death of Osama Bin Laden in Context

I found this by blogger Richard Grabman appropriate:

The government here, at the behest of the United States, targeted – and killed – any number of supposedly indispensable men in generic evil-doing business. While there’s a tendency to give these groups inappropriate names like “cartels,” or ridiculously inflated bureaucratic terms like “Transnational Criminal Organizations,” the Mexican fight has been against a known – and not all that complicated – an enemy: gangsters.

Every time some “drug king-pin” has been blown away we’re told it’s an incredible victory for the government and the “war on drugs”… and the result is more violence, more mayhem. […]

The U.S. has supposedly been waging not a war on Al Qaida, but a “war on terror” – the abstract noun that may have on[c]e referred specifically to Bin Laden’s organization, and by extension similar armed ideological movements, but has proven elastic enough to cover nearly any organized violent resistance to the status quo.[…]

What frankly scares quite a number of people here is not that the criminals might “win,” but that the state will lose legitimacy. Or, that in its infinite expansion of the “war on terror,” the United States will drop the pretense of “cooperation” and simply intervene directly in this country. Which, of course, would lead to resistance, which would be labeled “terrorism,” which would require more intervention….

Drug Policy that promotes security: The paradox of de-securitisation – a new paper by Transform Drug Policy Foundation.

Most interesting non-story: Marijuana crops planted outside Osama Bin Laden’s compound; farmers growing ganja near terror lair

You can see the reporters trying to find a way to make a story out of this, but the simple fact is that marijuana is popular everywhere and grows just about anywhere. That’s probably the only story there.

In an interview with Robert Naiman reported in the Huffington Post, Presidential candidate Gary Johnson was asked about the drug war.

RN: I wanted to ask you about your opinion the “war on drugs.” This is kind of a signature issue for you, I wanted you to talk about the cost, your perception of the failure, and particularly the implications of the “war on drugs” for people in other countries, particularly in Mexico and Latin America, Mexico where thousands of people have been killed in the war on drugs there, Central America where there is now apparently a big expansion of the criminal drug trade. So tell me about your thoughts on the war on drugs, and what you think the U.S. should be doing instead, particularly as that relates to the impact of the war on drugs on other countries.

Gary Johnson: As Governor of New Mexico, what my pledge was, and what I did, and I’m really proud of this, and I said I was going to do this, that everything was going to be a cost-benefit analysis. Everything. What are we spending our money on, and what are we getting for the money that we’re spending. That there wouldn’t be any sacred cows, that politics was going to be the last consideration on the list, that first and foremost it was going to be about the issues, and understanding the issues. So when it comes to the war on drugs, I’m opposed to the war on drugs A through Z. But I came at it initially from the standpoint of – and, you know, there’s naivety, I guess, on a broad number of issues, and this is after I’m elected, one of them is, I guess I really didn’t understand that half of everything we spend on law enforcement, the courts, and the prisons is drug-related, and when you think about that, that is just staggering.

And when you think about what are we getting for half law enforcement, half the courts, and half the prisons? Well what we’re getting, is we’re arresting 1.8 million people a year in this country, which I point out is the population of New Mexico, that gets arrested every single year. And, we now have 2.3 million people behind bars. We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. And this is America? Liberty, freedom, the personal responsibility that goes along with that? I guess, except when it comes to your own body and what the decisions are surrounding that.

So going back to 1999, I came to the conclusion… that 90% of the drug problem is prohibition-related, not use-related. That’s not to discount the problems with use and abuse, but that ought to be the focus. So in 1999, I advocated then, I advocate it now. Legalize marijuana. Control it, regulate it, tax it. It’s never going to be legal to smoke pot, become impaired, get behind the wheel of a car, do harm to others. It’s never going to be legal for kids to smoke pot or buy pot. And under which scenario is it going to be easier for kids to smoke pot or buy pot? The situation that exists today, where it’s virtually available anywhere, and the person that sells pot also sells harder drugs? Or a situation where to purchase it, you would have to produce an ID in a controlled environment, like alcohol, to be able to buy it. I think you can make the case that it would be harder to buy it, in that controlled environment.

When it comes to all the other drugs – [marijuana] is the only drug that I’m advocating legalizing – but when it comes to all the other drugs, I think what we ought to really be concentrating on are harm reduction strategies – the things that we really care about, which is reducing death, disease, crime, corruption – in a nutshell, it is looking at the drug problem first as a health issue, rather than a criminal justice issue.

So here we have the border violence with Mexico. 28,000 deaths south of the border over the last four years. I believe that if we legalize marijuana 75% of that border violence goes away, because that’s the estimate of the drug cartel’s activities that revolve around the drug trade. The drug trade – prohibition – these are disputes that are being played out with guns, rather than the courts. Control this stuff, regulate this stuff, take the money out of drugs, and so goes the violence.

This is the advantage of a Gary Johnson candidacy. Public discussions about the drug war.

New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg had a hard time making himself clear on his radio show. After a question about medical marijuana he incoherently tried to show why he opposed it while clearly describing the arguments for the overall legalization of drugs.

Choire Sicha provides the transcript.

“The argument is that the only ways you’re ever going to end the drug trades is legalize drugs and take away the profit motive and that to legalize—the corruption funds enormous dislocation of society. Mexico, you know, thousands and tens of thousands of people have been killed in the wars of the government trying to clamp down on the drug dealers.

There’s no easy answer to any of these things.

Nobody really — there are places where they legalized drugs. And then whether it destroyed the society or didn’t is up to debate, again.”

Huh?

No, I don’t think it really is up to debate. It’s like saying “And then whether unicorns caused the extinction of the dinosaurs is up to debate again.” It really isn’t. I mean you could debate it just for fun, but there’s no valid reason.

It’s fascinating that, as a supposed opponent of legalization, he gives a pretty clear account of the reasons for legalization, but seems utterly incapable of coherently stating why we shouldn’t.

Ah, but that’s the beauty of being a politician. No need to actually make sense.

Conservatives in Canada won a decisive victory with a full majority for the next four years under Stephen Harper.

Harper has not been a friend to drug policy reform and, in fact, has been an advocate for a U.S.-style drug war.

I don’t really know enough about Canadian government to speculate as to how things are likely to move over the next four years.

What do our Canadian readers have to say?

The Telegraph discovers The generation that will not give up on drugs

Illegal drug use remains a normal part of life for many people even as they settle down and approach their thirties, new research has revealed. […]

The long-term study, conducted by the University of Manchester, found that while drug use falls as people move out of their teens and early twenties, it remains acceptable for many. […]

It said there was a “matter-of-factness” about social drug use among young people that had extended into their adult lives.

The study also learned that for most of them this was not a problem. It didn’t lead to the breakdown of social order or destruction of lives.

“But far from being out of control, the majority of drug-taking adults appear to be pretty similar to those who seek evening and weekend time out, relaxation and fun through alcohol consumption.

“These adults do not reject the mainstream. Their lives, outside their drug use, sit comfortably amongst these values. However we see them, they appear to accept drug taking as a fairly ordinary, normal activity that is OK.”

And yet, we spend billions and kill thousands in a futile attempt to prevent them from leading their ordinary, normal lives.

Over at Heightened Sense, there’s a very interesting article talking about Major Neill Franklin, Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and his “Road to Damascus” moment that finally led him to realize that prohibition was wrong and needed to be changed.

It’s a tragedy that it took the death of a friend for that realisation to have stuck for good, but it’s so often the case with policy that it never matters until it’s personal.

I’ve gotten way too little sleep this weekend.

I hear we’ve won the war on terror, so I guess that’s a good thing. Now we can focus on winning that pesky war on drugs, right?