Czech archer tests positive for marijuana – official - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
PRAGUE — Czech archer Milan Andreas has tested positive for marijuana and is set to miss the Beijing Olympics, the Czech Olympic Committee confirmed on Tuesday.

“We have not had this officially, but Milan Andreas had a positive test for THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active chemical in marijuana). It appears he will not be nominated for Beijing,” committee spokesman Jan Martinek told the CTK news agency.

The 19-year-old told the agency he had taken marijuana in September last year without a thought for the consequences.

“The Olympics should have been the height of my career and instead it has turned into the greatest upset,” Andreas said of his Olympic participation.

Yeah, we can’t have a guy with a bow and arrow who smoked pot.  What an unfair competitive advantage he’ll have.  Right!  Look, I say if you can hit the bullseye with enough consistency to make an Olympic Team and you’re a pot smoker, then you’re a super-archer and deserve an extra medal.

I understand the arguments against steroids (don’t agree with them, but I understand them) and amphetamines and other substances because of the extra advantage they give to the athlete.  But weed?  How can they on one day tell us that pot is so awful because it will make you slow, fat, stupid, forgetful, unmotivated, and dirty, then on the next day suspend an Olympic class athlete for his use of pot?  If it were as bad as they say it is, he never would’ve stuck with archery long enough nor would he succeed against non-pot-smoking competitors.

Here’s the truth: athletes who like to get mellow prefer weed precisely because it doesn’t affect their performance!  A night of drinking can give you enough hangover that it really screws up your performance (Max McGee - first TD ever scored in a Super Bowl - notwithstanding) and the other drugs will mess you up in the long run (Michael Irvin, Mercury Morris).  When you’ve spent your entire life honing your body and skills to perfection, prudence dictates that if you’re going to pick an intoxicant, you pick the least harmful one.

Drug war mayhem instills a new fear - Los Angeles Times
CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO — Scooped up by gunmen as she walked near her home, 12-year-old Alexia Moreno hardly had a chance. The gangsters were driving straight into a shootout. Within minutes, she was dead, shot in the head as she cowered in the back seat.

It was two weeks before her sixth-grade graduation.

Alexia’s death in a city so accustomed to death struck a nerve because she was, in this city tortured by killings, broad-daylight gun battles and rampant kidnappings, an innocent victim.

In the last few days, the neighboring state of Sinaloa has been shocked by a wave of violence that has taken the lives of many innocents, including another 12-year-old girl. Authorities said Tuesday that more than 1,200 additional federal police were deployed to Sinaloa as part of a nationwide government offensive involving about 40,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police officers.

Gun battles interrupt traffic in the middle of the day along Triumph of the Republic Boulevard and the city’s other main drags; corpses, sometimes mutilated or headless, turn up at shopping centers and fast-food joints; hospitals come under machine-gun fire. Ominous voices break into emergency-frequency radio traffic, warning paramedics not to pick up bodies, journalists not to approach the scene.

Nearly a third of Mexico’s drug-related killings in this record year have been registered in Juarez and its surroundings.

Take last month, for example: In one not particularly unusual weekend, 17 people, including a journalist, were killed; the sister-in-law of a U.S. congressman was kidnapped; and a dozen businesses were set ablaze after receiving threats.

The month before that, Juarez’s top police commander resigned and fled after his second- and third-in-command were assassinated along with a dozen or so other officers, some named on a hit list.

Last year’s police commander was arrested in February on charges of attempting to smuggle a ton of marijuana into the U.S. through El Paso. He pleaded guilty in a U.S. court. Reyes said the police are being overhauled and screened in an effort to remove the corrupt and the drug users among them.

Up to 20% of the police force is corrupt and will be fired, said a senior official who requested anonymity because the purge is ongoing.

Innocent Mexicans are dying daily and law enforcement is crumbling all along the Mexican border as the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels fight it out for control over the trafficking of mostly marijuana into the United States.  Mostly low-grade marijuana that any cannabis connoisseur would turn down even if it were free.  The kind of marijuana that would never be able to compete against the top domestically-grown marijuana in the US.

You know what you never read about, at least in the past eighty years?  12-year-old girls shot to death in a turf war between rival bootleggers.  Marijuana never killed anybody, but marijuana prohibition is a serial killer.

Politicians urged to allow marijuana for health problems - 16 Jul 2008 - NZ Herald: New Zealand National news
Politicians are being urged to allow those with chronic health problems to use marijuana as a medicine.

The Health Select Committee has been confronted by supporters of a law change allowing cannabis to be used as a pain relief.

Reform supporter Billy McKee says users are often unemployed and ostracised by family members for using the drug.

Mr McKee says there are also problems for people having to grow it, when burglars break in.

He says he has had his home burgled 10 times, and his dog killed.

Another supporter Will de Cleene says tolerance of medicinal cannabis may well provide the message to young people, that it is a medicine, instead of the illusion of the blind rebellion it currently garners.

He says patients who are having to using cannabis medicinally at the moment are doing themselves harm, because of the health risks associated with buying the drug on the black market.

Remember that New Zealand is country second only to the US in marijuana use, according to a recent WHO study.

Executions for Drug Crimes Are Resumed in Indonesia - NYTimes.com
JAKARTA, Indonesia — This country has resumed executions for serious drug crimes after a four-year hiatus, and Indonesia’s attorney general has warned drug offenders on death row that their executions may now be accelerated.

The resumption follows a decision last year by Indonesia’s Constitutional Court that upheld the death penalty for serious drug offenses.

Two Nigerians convicted of drug trafficking were the first to be executed for drug crimes after the long break. The two, Samuel Iwachekwu Okoye and Hansen Anthony Nwaliosa, were put to death on June 26.

All executions in Indonesia are by firing squad. Prisoners are taken to a field to stand in front of 12 men who each fire one shot aimed at the chest. If that barrage does not kill the prisoner, a commander stands ready to fire a point-blank shot to the head.

…Last October, the Constitutional Court ruled that a constitutional amendment upholding the right to life did not apply to capital punishment. The court added that the right to life had to be balanced against the rights of the victims of drug trafficking.

Indonesia executed the two Nigerians on the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, as a message to those trafficking drugs through the country.

Indonesia is fighting an epidemic of drug abuse. Its population of 238 million includes an estimated 18 million addicts, according to the Ministry of Health.

I’d be interested to know who the Ministry of Health counts as “addicts”, because we’re talking about 7.5% of the population (probably more if we factor out children, since it’s mostly the teen and young adult population we’re talking about.)  Here in the US, where we have no death penalty for drug trafficking, government surveys show 20 million Americans used any illicit drug in the past month.  You couldn’t call them all addicts, though, considering only 9½ million used something other than marijuana. I’ll bet what Indonesia are calling addicts are mostly just users.

Even if we go with the Indonesian figure of 7.5% of their population, it’s interesting to note the US figure of past-month drug users is 8.3%, and that’s only 8.3% of the population aged 12 and over.  So even with a death penalty for drug trafficking, Indonesia has about the same rate of drug users as the United States.

Swisster - Society - Backing grows in Bern for marijuana decriminalization
Four federal parties rally in support of an initiative to replace a ban on cannabis use for adults, while strictly enforcing its prohibition for those under 18. Swiss voters are set to vote on the issue, rejected by parliament four years ago, in a November referendum.

A coalition of federal Swiss political parties of various stripes has renewed a bid to decriminalize marijuana in the country. Elected members of the Radical, Christian Democrat, Socialist and Green parties on Friday endorsed an initiative that would regulate cannabis use while making it illegal for children under the of 18.

The initiative is scheduled to be voted on by Swiss voters on Nov. 30. The parties have urged people to say yes to the proposal. Members in Bern said the initiative offers a “reasonable policy” governing the use of marijuana that is preferable to the current prohibition.

They noted that the proposal effectively protects young people by banning it for those underage. However the group maintains that for adults smoking a joint is a personal choice over which each person can make their own decision.

Marijuana officially remains a banned drug in Switzerland though possession in small quantities for personal use is tolerated in many [states]. The politicians calling for changes to the law say the current prohibition has failed to cut use. Christa Markwalder, Radical member of parliament from Bern, said an estimated 500,000 people in Switzerland are regular or occasional users of cannabis. The more than 27,500 complaints lodged annually with police (based on 2005 figures) have only served to needlessly overload the police and judicial systems, Markwalder indicated.

As European travel guru Rick Steves is fond of saying, “In America, we get two choices: ‘hard on drugs’ or ’soft on drugs’.  In Europe they’ve found a third way: ’smart on drugs’.”  I’m really hoping that the Swiss vote to recognize their adult citizens right to smoke pot.  Then maybe they’ll put a poker and a loupe on that Army Knife of theirs…

Austria Legalizes Cannabis Cultivation for Medical Purposes
Austria’s parliament, for the nation’s medical and scientific purposes, has adopted a new bill allowing the cultivation of cannabis. This will, of course, be under the Health Ministry’s control.

The bill, approved by parliament during a late-night session Wednesday, will give the health and food safety agency AGES the exclusive right in Austria to grow the plant, which is otherwise categorized as a drug.

Michael Bach, president of the Austrian pain studies association OeSG, welcomed the new legislation, saying: “Any initiative that makes it possible to develop and provide new drugs for pain therapy is welcome.”

“Substances drawn from cannabis have been used for medical purposes more and more in the last few years,” he added.

Possession of or dealing in cannabis incurs a 6-month prison sentence in Austria.

Hooray for the Austrians in providing better medical options for their people.  It really feels like the tide is turning worldwide and in America regarding medical marijuana.  Michigan will be voting on a citizen initiative this year and similar measures gained traction in Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Missouri, before failing at one step of the legislative process or another.

Rasta pot smokers win legal leeway in Italy | International | Reuters
ROME (Reuters) - Rastafarians caught in possession of marijuana in Italy may now have legal recourse, thanks to a high court ruling made public on Thursday.

Italy’s Court of Cassation ruled that since the Rastafari religion considers marijuana a sacrament, its members should be given special consideration when it comes to possession — and how much makes a drug trafficker.

The case before the judges dealt with a reggae musician who was sentenced to 16 months in prison by a lower court in Perugia after being found in possession of enough marijuana to roll 70 cigarettes.

The Court of Cassation annulled his sentence, saying the amount appeared appropriate for personal use considering the heavy amounts that Rastafarians smoke, and ordered an appellate court in Florence to review the case.

“He was convicted because of the amount … for trafficking, but it was for his own personal use,” said the defendant’s lawyer, Caterina Calia.

Rastafari, a religion that emerged in Jamaica in the 1930s, considers Ethiopia its spiritual home and that country’s former emperor, Haile Selassie, a divine figure.

Up to 10 percent of Jamaicans identify themselves as Rastas, but they are virtually unheard of in Roman Catholic Italy.

No disrespect intended, but personally, I find the religious use exception for ganja sacrament a bit troubling.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely 100% agree that if you sincerely believe ganja is a sacrament that brings you closer to Jah / God / Allah, then you should be free to smoke it.

What troubles me is that I’m an atheist, so I have no mystical supernatural tales to protect my use, and I shouldn’t need any.  Why is it that people who can never in a court of law prove that God wants them to smoke weed get immunity from prosecution, but I go to prison because I only believe in stuff that can be proven?

Then there is the question of which religions get that special immunity.  No religion under 70 years old need apply.  Rastas may get this break in Italy, but in the US sincere Americans who believe in ganja sacrament get to do time because their religion is younger than marijuana prohibition, so they must have formed the religion as an excuse to get high.

It’s like the medical marijuana situation.  Of course I want cancer and HIV patients to have medical marijuana; you’d have to be blackhearted not to.  But I want perfectly healthy people to have that right, too.

I guess it just seems absurd to me that if you had Jamaican Rasta, a disabled Californian, and me all passing around the same blunt, you’d have a believer, a patient, and a criminal.

A World Health Organization survey of 17 countries, conducted by some of the world’s leading substance abuse researchers, found that we have the highest rates of marijuana and cocaine use.The numbers are startling. In the United States, 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent

Some of the most striking numbers are from the Netherlands, where adults are permitted to possess a small of marijuana and purchase it from regulated businesses. Some U.S. officials have claimed that these Dutch policies have created some sort of decadent cesspool of drug abuse, but the new study demolishes such assertions: In the Netherlands, only 19.8 percent have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure.

Even more striking is what the researchers found when they asked young adults when they had started using marijuana. Again, the United States led the world, with 20.2 percent trying marijuana by age 15. No other country was even close, and in the Netherlands, just 7 percent used marijuana by 15 — roughly one-third of the U.S. figure.

It seems counter-intuitive to drug warriors, but the more you try to stamp out drug use through arrests and incarceration, the more drug use you get.  And speaking of prison, drugs are quite easy to get there, too.  So if we can’t even keep drugs out of the hands of people who are locked up behind prison walls, guarded 24 hours a day by men with guns, and searched and surveilled every day, how do we really expect to keep drugs out of the hands of free adults?

Bloomberg.com: U.S.
Cocaine and marijuana have been tried by more Americans than residents of 16 other countries surveyed, researchers said, even though tough U.S. laws seek to discourage the use of the drugs.

In the U.S., 42 percent said they had used marijuana and 16 percent had tried cocaine, according to the study published in the journal of the Public Library of Science. In the Netherlands, where people can go to cafes to smoke marijuana, 20 percent have tried that drug and 1.9 percent sampled cocaine.

The higher incidence of drug use in the U.S. may be linked to the nation’s relative affluence, not its anti-drug laws, said James Anthony, chairman of the epidemiology department at Michigan State University’s medical school in East Lansing, Michigan, and an author of the study.

“Drug use is related to income, but does not appear to be simply related to drug policy, since countries with more stringent policies toward illegal drug use did not have lower levels of such drug use than countries with more liberal policies,” the study’s authors wrote.

“In the Netherlands, despite a less restrictive approach, the population hasn’t taken up cannabis smoking to the extent that’s true in U.S., or New Zealand,” Anthony said.

Trying to find a link between drug use and drug enforcement doesn’t make sense, said Tom Riley, spokesman for the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington.

“The U.S. has high crime rates but we spend a lot on law enforcement and prison,” Riley said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Should we spend less? We’re just a different kind of country. We have higher drug use rates, a higher crime rate, many things that go with a highly free and mobile society.”

Yes, Mr. Riley, we should spend less.  Or, more accurately, we should spend a lot of that prison and drug war money for funding education and drug treatment.

I’m confused by the idea that we have higher crime and drug use rates because we are a “highly free and mobile society”.  I’ve never been outside the United States (a sin I will repent for someday), but aren’t Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Israel, Japan, and New Zealand “highly free and mobile societies”?  (You also have the irony of a spokesman who represents an agency sworn to lock you up if you smoke cannabis saying we are “highly free”.)

And if you do a little more digging, you’ll find that the racist underpinnings of the drug war are really what they are referring to by a “highly free and mobile society”.  I’ve read this line from the Drug Czar before, when confronted with the metrics of their own failures in reducing drug problems in the US: you can’t compare the US and Europe (the Netherlands) because we have different cultures.

“In addition to the factors measured in this study, the role of culture, drug availability and knowledge about drug use are likely to be important in the types and patterns of drug use throughout the world,” said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, NIDA director. “Even within the United States, rates and patterns of substance use differ based on geographical location and ethnicity, among other factors.”

According to your own NIDA report on Drug Use Among Racial / Ethnic Minorities (pg 51), use of marijuana among whites is more prevalent than Hispanic use, but less prevalent than black use.  However, all drug use, legal and illegal, was far less prevalent among Asians/Pacific Islanders.  So, couldn’t you say that the ethnic problem in America regarding drugs includes the white Americans, too?  The white folks in the Netherlands aren’t using as much drugs as the white folks in America.

State to allow farmers to grow hemp | NEWS.com.au
NEW laws will allow New South Wales farmers to grow cannabis crops for industrial use, the state government says.

But the hemp plants will not be varieties containing any significant amount of the active substance in illicit cannabis.

The Hemp Industry Bill will allow farmers to grow hemp (cannabis sativa) for use in skin care products, paint, load-bearing masonry, insulation and as an additive to wool, Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said.

Such production is already permitted in Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, the [Australian Capital Territory], Victoria and Western Australia.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries would work with farmers to make sure crops were only grown under a licence by applicants of good repute, Mr Macdonald said.

The licensing system would stop industrial hemp being used as a camouflage for the marijuana variety of hemp, which contains a high concentration of the illicit cannabis drug THC, he said.

The legislation would pave the way for a potentially lucrative industrial hemp industry, providing farmers with the additional option of another fast-growing summer crop, Mr Macdonald said.

Yet another sensible government allowing its people to grow non-drug cannabis.  Yet another place overseas for our American dollars to flow to fulfill the domestic demand for hemp products that our struggling family farmers aren’t allowed to grow.  And, interestingly, yet another scenario where ignorant politicians don’t realize you can’t use industrial hemp to camouflage consumer cannabis, because hemp will cross-pollinate the cannabis and ruin its potency, and cannabis will cross-pollinate hemp and ruin its fiber potential.

Reyes relative kidnapped; U.S. helps secure release - El Paso Times
A woman who reportedly is a relative of Congressman Silvestre Reyes was kidnapped in Juárez, then released with the help of U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Reyes, D-Texas, declined to comment. The kidnapping was first reported on the Narcosphere Web site, which attributed the report and knowledge of the victim’s relationship to Reyes to a DEA official in El Paso.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was the lead U.S. agency in the incident, but the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration were also involved. However, neither agency would release any details, including when the incident took place.

The incident comes as kidnappings have become more common in Juárez possibly due to drug trafficking gangs snatching victims targeted for death or marks held for ransom to raise funds for the ongoing war for control of the region’s smuggling corridor.

Fears of kidnappings, extortion and violence that has claimed nearly 500 lives this year have caused some Juarenses to move to El Paso and even seek asylum in the United States.

The killings have continued daily. Monday, an unidentified man’s dismembered body was found in Rancho Anapra, state police said. The head, arms and legs were found in separate backpacks about 50 meters away from the torso, which was wrapped in a blanket. At least four deaths occurred Tuesday.

A group of about 300 owners of junk yards, mechanic shops, used-car lots and other auto-related businesses have closed down because of kidnappings and robberies, the Norte de Ciudad Juárez newspaper reported Tuesday.

Last week, four members of the union of yonkeros (junk yard owners) were kidnapped and released after paying thousands of dollars, the Norte reported.

A current U.S. State Department travel alert for Mexico mentions that dozens of U.S. citizens were kidnapped or murdered in Tijuana in 2007.

As the US has strengthened its efforts to interdict cocaine and marijuana smuggled in boats through the Caribbean, smugglers have now switched to land routes through Mexico to move the drugs we Americans demand.  This has turned the northern border of Mexico into a war zone, with the Mexican police, army, bureaucrats, and judges often targeted by vicious Mexican drug gangs for kidnapping and assassination.

Just like the brutal criminal gangs of the ’20s and ’30s that terrorized our citizens the last time we enacted a prohibition against a popular drug.  Prohibition creates profit, potency, and violence - always has, always will.

Understanding the Netherlands’ marijuana policy - USATODAY.com
Cannabis is technically an illegal substance in the Netherlands, although you won’t get arrested for buying or smoking it in a coffee shop.

The Dutch have adopted a policy of “gedogen,” or blind eye, to its sale and use since 1976. The government distinguished between so-called “soft” cannabis drugs and “hard” drugs such as heroin or cocaine. That’s when coffee houses sprang up to sell and let people smoke.

In 1996, the Dutch government began to crack down on cannabis cafes. It now licenses them, bans them advertising their product, prohibits sales to anyone under 18, and limits sales and possession to 5 grams a day per person. Before, people could possess up to 30 grams. Since then, the number of shops in the country has fallen by about half — to 720 in the country. Last year, shops were forced to choose between serving alcohol and cannabis. Most chose cannabis. The sales aren’t subject to tax. However, owners pay taxes on the income they make from selling it.

The government and cannabis advocates say that regulating the sale and use of soft drugs results in less hard-drug addiction.

The facts speak for themselves (references to 2001-2002):

• Percentage of citizens aged 12 and over who have ever used cannabis:  US 37%, Netherlands 17%
• Percentage of citizens aged 12 and over who have used cannabis in the past month:  US 5.4%, Netherlands 3%
• Percentage of citizens aged 12 and over who have ever used heroin:  US 1.4%, Netherlands 0.4%
• Rate of incarceration per 100,000 residents:  US 701, Netherlands 100

There are smarter ways of dealing with cannabis and hard drugs than locking people up.

Report Clears the Air on European Marijuana Use | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 26.06.2008
Cannabis is the drug of choice in Europe, with 13 million people lighting up each month. A new report by Europe’s drug agency EMCDDA aims to debunk misconceptions that persist about the drug.

Twenty percent of European adults have tried cannabis at some point in their lives, according to a mammoth 700-page report by the EU’s The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

The report examines Dutch dope-selling in coffee shops, hashish smoking in London during the heady 1960s, and the state of Moroccan marijuana production. The report was released on Thursday, June 26, and coincides with the UN’s International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

The study doesn’t push for EU-wide legalization of marijuana, nor does it advocate harsher punishments. Instead, it aims to serve as an authoritative reference work on scientific research, legislation and policy issues associated with the drug in Europe.

Most European cannabis comes from Morocco, which supplies 80 percent of all resin seized in Europe. The report also looks at emerging supply lines from countries such as Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.

Not that all marijuana is being imported. In Britain, home-grown marijuana accounts for 50 percent of the market, according to the report.

The report also points out the differences between legislation in European countries. Portugal decriminalized cannabis use in 2000 and Luxembourg punishes possession with a fine. Meanwhile both Denmark and Italy have toughened laws.

It also examines the cost of cannabis, which gets more expensive as one heads north. Cannabis sells for 1.40 euros ($2.20) per gram in Spain while costing on average 21.50 euros per gram in Norway.

The report also claims to debunk the belief that modern-day cannabis is much stronger now than in the past. The report said that is an “urban myth” based on flawed data.

A 700 page report that tells the truth about cannabis without calling for harsh punishments and debunks the US drug czar’s “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” scare tactics?  Well, Happy International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking!  Maybe this will help Europe recognize that if they took the “illicit” out of the “trafficking”, they could tax the proceeds to fight “drug abuse”.

Drug use cost NZ society $1.3 bn, index shows - 24 Jun 2008 - NZ Herald: New Zealand National news
The Drug Harm Index, released yesterday, will help police determine the socio-economic costs from drug seizures and track the value of the drug trade in New Zealand.

It found that 373,310 people used cannabis, but only 17 per cent of these were frequent users.

There were 38,390 cocaine users, of which 88 per cent were frequent users.

Nearly 23,000 people used crystal methamphetamine (36 per cent of them often) and 81,890 took Ecstasy (24 per cent often).

So 83% of New Zealanders who use cannabis use it infrequently and responsibly, and the 63,462 who use cannabis often are almost as numerous as those who use coke, meth, and X (61,717).  Plus, we can’t say how many of the frequent users use more than one drug.

Male cannabis users took about 8 per cent more sick days than the average male worker and opioid users took 40 per cent more days.

I’m curious about how many more sick days were taken by alcohol users?  No matter - I can’t speak for New Zealand, but in America, the average number of paid sick leave days for first year employees is eight.  So if cannabis smokers took 8% more, that works out to an extra five hours off for sick leave.

But I also doubt the reality of those numbers.  How do male cannabis users track across the various fields of endeavor?  For example, you’re going to find more cannabis smokers working in a restaurant than in a boardroom.  Drug testing restricts the fields where cannabis smokers can work.  Are there more overall sick days taken in those fields than others?

While stimulants contributed 41 per cent of the total costs, figures showed that in 2006, police and Customs seized 33,480kg of cannabis compared with only 155kg of stimulants.

And police dealing with drug offences spent 55.8 per cent of their time addressing cannabis, against 43 per cent of their hours dealing with stimulant-related issues.

Sounds like a lot of time and effort spent by the New Zealand authorities to fight cannabis, a relatively-safe, socially-benign drug that 83% of users are using infrequently, to the detriment of fighting meth, a very dangerous, socially-devastating drug that 36% of users are abusing.  Kinda like here, huh?

There is a strange series of cases in Ontario, Canada, that call into question whether marijuana possession is truly illegal in the Great White North.

Clifford Long’s constitutional saga began in September 2005 when he was a passenger in a car stopped by police for a seatbelt infraction.

The officers conducted a search, allegedly found $40 worth of marijuana and Long joined the ranks of the more than 40,000 people still charged each year across Canada for simple possession of cannabis.

Long was acquitted in July 2007 when provincial court Justice Howard Borenstein accepted an argument by Long’s lawyer that Canada’s marijuana possession laws were unconstitutional because of flaws in the medical marijuana regulations.

Earlier this year, a Federal Court of Canada judge also found the medical marijuana regulations to be unconstitutional, a decision that is under appeal.

That got me to Googling, because I couldn’t figure out how a medical marijuana regulation would affect a non-medical possession case.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

Examining the US-Mexico Gun Trade - International Business News - Portfolio.com
When Americans think about the border, they tend to picture undocumented workers or clandestine river crossings. They don’t think about war. But what’s happening in Mexico now is a war—no other word seems suitable—and the most gruesome battles are taking place within miles of the U.S.?So far this year, more than 1,350 people have been murdered in drug-trafficking-related crimes in Mexico. Last year, according to tallies kept by Mexican newspapers, 2,500 people died; since 2001, the number is close to 10,000—twice the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These killings have become such an everyday part of life that there’s a special word for them: narcoejecuciones, or narcoexecutions. The murdered include police, judges, prosecutors, soldiers, reporters, politicians, and innocent bystanders. Shootouts in broad daylight, mass executions, and public assassinations have become routine.

There are, in fact, two drug wars raging in Mexico. One is between drug-trafficking organizations—in particular, the Sinaloa cartel and its main rival, the Gulf cartel—over control of smuggling routes to the U.S.?The belligerence is easily understood, given the stakes. The U.S. government estimates that the cross-border drug trade was worth as much as $25 billion last year. According to Mexico’s attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, $10 billion worth of drug proceeds crosses from the U.S. into Mexico each year in the form of bulk cash.

The other war is between the government and the cartels. Mexican presidents have pledged to end trafficking before, but [President] Calderón, who took office in 2006, seems, in contrast to his predecessors, to be sincere, and his policies are having some effect. He has dispatched tens of thousands of troops, locked up hundreds of traffickers, and undertaken sweeping reforms of the police and judiciary. With each salvo, however, the violence intensifies. The wars aren’t just Mexico’s problem, either. The U.S., with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, consumes more than half of the world’s drugs; most of the marijuana and methamphetamine, much of the heroin, and 90 percent of the cocaine comes from or through Mexico. “U.S. consumers are already financing this war,” Medina Mora tells me, “only it’s on the wrong side.”

In late 2007, the Bush administration, which counts Calderón as one of its few friends in Latin America, announced the Mérida Initiative. If passed by Congress, it will provide Mexico with $1.4 billion in equipment and training over three years. But the initiative, with its unprecedented outlay of funds, is fraught with contradictions, since it would go to fight the flow of weapons coming in illegally from the U.S. More than 90 percent of the A.T.F.’s traces of guns seized in Mexico lead to the States. The Mexican ambassador recently estimated that 2,000 guns cross the border every day. Even if that figure is halved, it’s a trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

So prohibition of cannabis fuels the profit in trafficking marijuana across the border. With those profits, traffickers finance the flow of easily-purchased guns over the border. Our prohibitionary policies are funding the execution of innocent Mexicans and arming the executioners. Were it legal, Americans would buy, sell, and grow domestically and completely undercut the profits of these murderers as well as destroy much of their business. If Mexico followed suit their poor farmers could grow vast fields of industrial hemp or fine connoisseur cannabis, and some of those trafficking in the border drug war could turn into legit import/exporters.

But a prohibitionist will tell you the blood is on the hands of the US recreational marijuana smoker. Why, if only nobody smoked cannabis, nobody in Mexico would have to die! Because the prohibitionist sees the world in black and white and “Just say no” makes sense to him or her. The fact that humans used cannabis for thousands of years and will continue to use it despite all prohibitions doesn’t come up.  It’s evil and it must be eliminated, they think, and any idea of accepting evil in the name of harm reduction is unthinkable.

Besides, from a business point-of-view, unlimited funding for a project whose goal is to eliminate something that cannot be eliminated sounds like a pretty good profit-making venture for law enforcement, private prisons, and gun manufacturers.

The Irony of Holland’s Smoking Ban: You can Still Have Your Joint, but Only if it’s Pure - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News
In July, the Dutch government will introduce a nationwide smoking ban in bars, cafes and restaurants, aimed at protecting workers. But it will also make life a lot harder for the country’s infamous coffee shops, where customers will only be allowed to smoke pure cannabis.

…Dutch Health Minister Ab Klink has no plans to make any exceptions. Coffee shop employees, he argues, also have the right to protection from tobacco smoke.But [a coffee shop owner] claims it’s a specious argument. After all, people who apply for jobs in a coffee shop know that smoking is the company’s core business. “If the boys are old enough to be sent to Afghanistan, then you can’t tell me that people want to protect them from smoke in the workplace. They’re old enough to decide on their own. They can vote, they can go to war — but now they won’t even be allowed to make this decision?”

Perversely, the law, intended to protect workers from smoke, only applies to tobacco. In the Netherlands, that has resulted in a rather bizarre result: Smoking pot or hashish in coffee shops will remain legal; it just can’t be mixed with tobacco. If someone wants to roll their joint with tobacco, then they have to smoke it outside….

Besides, it will be difficult to monitor whether someone has secretly rolled his joint with tobacco or not. [Another coffee shop owner] feels the world has been turned on its head in Holland. “In every other country they do just the opposite — there they check whether there is cannabis inside,” he says with a laugh.

There are exceptions to the ban. If an establishment can set up a separate room or add a glass partition to ensure that employees are not exposed to tobacco smoke, then smoking is permitted in those rooms as long as service is not provided.

It’s also possible that officials will place a low priority on policing the smoking ban in coffee shops and, in a typically Dutch fashion, a situation would be created in which smoking would be officially banned but still tolerated.

I’ve always been leery of the indoor tobacco smoking bans being promulgated in the US and around the world.  I was a musician for many years and would have loved to have sung in a smoke-free room.  I get the point about employees not being subject to dangerous secondhand smoke.

On the other hand, some jobs have risks.  We still let men go into the bowels of the earth and mine coal for thirty years and they’re breathing far worse air than a part-time server would at a smoky tavern.

I can see banning smoking in public buildings, but I wouldn’t have banned smoking from bars (or in this case, coffee houses.)  Instead, I would tell workers that they have the choice whether they wish to work in an environment with dangerous air, but I’d also tell the management that they must cover at 100% any health care costs of their workers (that’s a US argument, obviously, since the rest of the world has some form of national health care.)  You’d see these business owners doing what they could to provide cleaner air, whether that was air scrubbers or banning smoking.

Knesset outlaws sale of bongs, often used for marijuana consumption - Haaretz - Israel News
The Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee approved on Sunday a law banning the sale of bongs — water pipes often used for the smoking of marijuana.

The law, which was approved in the second and third readings, prohibits the sale and import of apparatuses geared for the production and consumption of illicit drugs. The main objective of the new law is to put an end to the sale of bongs at stores adjacent to educational institutions.

The law stipulates that the punishment for the sale of bongs will not exceed five years incarceration. However, the Knesset committee withdrew the clause that prohibits the possession of paraphernalia used for personal drug use.

Even before the new law was approved, the existing law prohibited the sale and possession of devices used to produce or consume drugs, and even attached a maximum 20 year jail sentence as a penalty to such a crime, but the existing law is difficult to enforce because the courts insist that the device in question contain at least traces of illicit substances.

The new law still awaits approval in the second and third readings before the Knesset plenum.

If you think laws against marijuana are silly, try enforcing one against marijuana paraphernalia.  What, exactly, is the difference between an unused glass bong and a creative glass sculpture?  Under the old law, the glass “art” was paraphernalia once it has marijuana residue on it, but now, it’s illegal if it is “intended” for marijuana smoking.

We’ve seen this in other situations.  An article in this month’s High Times mentions how glass pipe importers have to not drill through the carb on pipes being imported and run a string through the pipe, because if the glass has one hole and is on a string, it’s “jewelry”, but if it has two holes, it is paraphernalia.

I anticipate clever Israeli stoners circumventing this law quite easily - unless Israel plans on making illegal two-liter soda bottles, apples, paper towel tubes, surgical tubing, little plastic bears that contain honey, or any of the myriad assortment of items with which one can fashion a bong.

ABC News: Record Drug Bust: 262 Tons of Hashish Seized
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has announced details of the largest drug seizure ever, as the result of a multi-year investigation in Afghanistan.

The DEA and Afghanistan’s National Interdiction Unit, along with the U.S. military and NATO forces, captured and destroyed 262 tons of hashish June 9 in a two-year operation dubbed “Albatross.”

The DEA executed search warrants at five narcotics processing centers and discovered numerous underground bunkers in the Kandahar province, which is still under control of the Taliban. Afghanistan’s National Interdiction Unit and the DEA arrested 12 suspects during the operation and seizure of the drugs, which had an estimated value of $400 million.

Some officials estimate that the drugs would have filled 30 double-decker buses. Hashish is resin derived from marijuana plants.

Drug production has increased sharply in Afghanistan since 2001, with estimates, for instance, that more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin comes from the country. The DEA has been operating in Afghanistan since 2002 to train Afghan narcotic forces and gather intelligence.

“People have traditionally thought of Afghanistan having a vibrant heroin crop, but we’re seeing more marijuana,” DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney told ABC News.

Because local police don’t enforce laws against the growing of marijuana, it has become more of a cash crop in the region. In late 2006, Canadian forces on patrol in Afghanistan encountered dense marijuana forests with plants at least 10 feet tall that the Taliban used for cover and protection.

U.S. forces, the DEA and Afghan forces destroyed the massive stash with explosives.

The Taliban?  Didn’t we oust those guys a few years ago?  Looks like that War on Terror is proceeding as successfully as the War on Drugs.

Regardless, once again, the prohibition of cannabis creates a lucrative market for drug dealers.  The Taliban wouldn’t be able to make much money off of hashish if Americans and others around the world could grow their own marijuana, press their own hash, or buy it at a liquor store.  But it would be a crop with enough potential that legit farmers could grow it and sell it on regulated international markets - not enough profit for a terrorist, but plenty of profit for a small family farmer.

Now experts say cannabis should be legal - Scotsman.com News
CANNABIS should be legalised and taxed, an influential Scottish think tank recommended yesterday, just weeks after the Government hardened its attitude towards the drug, reclassifying it as a class B substance.

The Scottish Futures Forum yesterday published a report on drugs and alcohol in Scotland, saying one way to tackle the problem of addiction to harder drugs was to tax and regulate cannabis.

Forum chairman Frank Pignatelli said studies of San Francisco, where cannabis is illegal, and the Netherlands, where it is decriminalised, showed that the idea is worth considering because it breaks the link with class A drugs. In the Netherlands, only 17 per cent of cannabis sellers were also selling drugs such as crack, cocaine and heroin, while in San Francisco it was more than 50 per cent.

The idea was one of several aimed at halving drug addiction in Scotland by 2025.

The forum’s suggestion has been welcomed by the Legalise Cannabis Alliance UK, which claimed Scotland is leading the way on the issue.

Don Barnard, a spokesman, said: “The Scots seem to have been taking a more mature view and I hope the recommendation is taken seriously.”

The idea has also been backed by the Greens. Patrick Harvie, MSP, said: “The current approach to criminalising drug users has been one of the most obvious failures of social policy over the last 50 years, and the Futures Forum should be thanked for their efforts to move the debate on. We broadly welcome their report.”

The only way that marijuana is a gateway drug is that it takes you to the gate of the drug dealer who is also selling harder drugs.  You know why scotch isn’t a gateway drug?  Because there is no shelf full of cocaine next to it at the liquor store.  When 1 out of 6 Dutch pot dealers offer hard drugs compared to 3 out of 6 San Francisco dealers, it becomes obvious that criminalization of cannabis is exacerbating hard drug use.