A study was published today by a British Medical Journal that looked at global trends of illegal drugs and the effect on the public health. The prestigious journal, The Lancet, had findings that point to Australia and the neighboring country of New Zealand as the countries that use more marijuana and amphetamines than the rest of the world per capita.

The study also showed that marijuana and amphetamine use is rapidly growing around the world. The study showed that as much as 15  percent of the population “down under” that are between the ages of  and  had used marijuana in 2009 – the last year that all the data was available for them to use in the study. For comparison, the same study found that North Americans use was at about 11 percent.

The lowest use would be the birthplace of cannabis, the place where it is indigenous. Asia had the lowest marijuana use reported at 2.5 percent, but the study does caution that obtaining data in some of these regions of less developed countries was difficult and may attribute to the very low reported usage rates.

One of the study’s authors, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland, said that Australia’s marijuana usage rates have actually been steadily declining in the last decade. But Hall says that availability of marijuana in rural areas of Austraila and New Zealand make it difficult to police, and culturally the acceptance of using intoxicants in general are more accepted in those countries and even at the center of social life downunder.

The global data study found that marijuana was by far the world’s most consumed illicit drug. Estimated at anywhere from 125 million users to 203 million users of marijuana, it far outpaces other illicit substances. The second on the list of most used illicit substances was amphetamines, used by an estimated 14 million to 56 million, and cocaine has an estimated usage by 12 million to 21 million users. But even with wide spread usage of illicit drugs by power users, Australians, just 1 percent of the deaths there can be attributed to illegal drugs. In Australia, tobacco use attributes to 12 percent of deaths there.

External Links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/world/asia/marijuana-use-most-rampant-in-australia-study-finds.html

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Hemp Headlines – NORML’s Top 10 Events in Marijuana for 2010

• #10 NORML Launches The NORML Women’s Alliance
  In January NORML launched the NORML Women’s Alliance (NWA) – a nonpartisan coalition of prominent, educated, successful, geographically diverse, professional women who believe that cannabis prohibition is a self-destructive and hypocritical policy that undermines the American family, sends a mixed and false message to our young people, and destroys the cherished principles of personal liberty and local self-government. Visit the NWA online at: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=8059.
• #9 Arizona Becomes The 15th State To Legalize Medical Cannabis
  Arizona voters in November narrowly passed Proposition 203, making Arizona the 15th state to allow for the physician-supervised use of marijuana. Regulations overseeing the new law, which allows for the licensed production and dispensing of medical marijuana to state-authorized patients, are expected to be finalized by April 2011. Lawmakers in New Jersey also passed medical marijuana legislation in 2010, although that law has yet to be implemented. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=8403.
• #8 United Kingdom, Other Countries Approve Marijuana Spray As Medicine
  British health regulators in June approved the sale and marketing of Sativex, an oral spray consisting of natural cannabis extracts (primarily the plant cannabinoids THC and cannabidiol aka CBD) as a treatment for symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Regulators in Spain and New Zealand also approved the prescription use of the drug in 2011. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=8232.
• #7 NORML Launches NYC Times Square Ad Campaign
  NORML debuted a pair of digital ads this spring on the CBS Super Screen in New York City’s Times Square. NORML’s ads appeared eighteen times per day on the CBS’s digital billboard, located on 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues. Approximately 1.5 million people walk by the billboard each day. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=8163.
• #6 California Supreme Court Affirms State’s Medi-Pot Possession Laws Are A Floor, Not A Ceiling
  The California Supreme Court unanimously ruled in January that the state’s medical marijuana possession and cultivation guidelines, enacted by the legislature in 2004, do not supersede the broader patient protections provided by California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996. In a 53-page decision (The People v Patrick K. Kelly), the Court found that patients who possess quantities of medical cannabis above those recommended under the state’s 2004 law (six mature or twelve immature plants and/or eight ounces) may still be afforded legal protections if this amount is “related to meet (the patient’s) current medical needs.” Read the full story at: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=8093.

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SPECIAL: Best Radical Rants of 2010

• “Radical” Russ takes on the reefer madness of Gil Kerlikowske and Bill Bennett

Cannabis activist in New Zealand staged a protest in Wellington that ended when a group of protesters invaded the police station with a large cart full of burning marijuana. The group had been demonstrating on parliament grounds earlier last Thursday by smoking marijuana openly in front of police and security as part of an ongoing campaign of civil disobedience. The crowd began shouting and cheering when one of the organizers declared a war on the country’s drug laws

The rest is here:
New Zealand Protesters Push Shopping Cart Full of Burning Marijuana Into Police Station

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Hemp Headlines

1. Four North Carolina football players charged with maintaining a “drug house” over 6 grams of cannabis
2. Medical marijuana hears testimony in Tennessee; would not allow for home grow
3. Sixteen hydroponics stores shut down after nationwide sweep in New Zealand

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• New study confirms ineffectiveness of urine testing to promote safety in the workplace or identify drug users

The ten-year ban handed down to veteran rugby league player Vince Whare makes him another casualty of injustice in our 35 year-old war on drugs, said New Zealand NORML President Phil Saxby today.

The Canterbury Bulls’ prop has just been suspended from any involvement in sport for a decade by the Sports Tribunal of New Zealand after testing positive for cannabis use. He tested positive for cannabis twice before, once in 2005 and then again in 2006.

“The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code requires third-time doping offenders to be banned for at least eight years, but cannabis is no more a performance-enhancing drug than alcohol”, Mr Saxby said. “What would happen to sport if all alcohol-using players were banned after 3 drinking offences?”

“This is blatant discrimination against a man who chooses to relax with a substance that’s better for his health than alcohol. That cannabis is illegal has no bearing on his ability to play rugby, nor his right to play the game.”

“If sports bodies are concerned about their image, the focus should be on alcohol, not cannabis,” said Mr Saxby. “Half of all serious violent offences and one third of all offences in New Zealand are committed by offenders who have been drinking; while alcohol is associated with almost fifty percent of all reported incidents of sexual violence.”

“How is it that Robin Brooke can be drunk and grope a girl and not get banned? Sports bodies have a double standard – you can be publicly drunk and behave indecently, but receive more lenient treatment than if you simply get caught for smoking a joint at home. Is that really what we want young people to believe?”

“Whare’s punishment at the hands of the Sports Tribunal is far harsher than any court would have handed down. For the next ten years, this man can no longer have anything to do with the game he loves and is very, very good at. He can’t coach, he can’t run the line, or referee or be an official. This sentence is almost medieval in its harshness!” Mr Saxby concluded.

NORML New Zealand is far and away the most successful and active international chapter of NORML.  Fully 8% of the web traffic I get here on the Stash is from New Zealand, making it the country second only to the US in web traffic here.

While NORML’s primary mission is to end adult marijuana prohibition in America, we are proud of the international chapters, like the one recently formed in Spain, NORML España, carrying on the NORML legacy and mission in other countries.  If you are outside the USA and would like to help form your country’s national NORML Chapter, send an email to start@norml.org.

Following the announcement from the Auckland cannabis connoisseur’s club calling themselves ‘The Daktory’ of plans to expand nationwide, Otago University NORML is proud to announce a new season for the protest action of cannabis consumption that takes place every Wednesday and Friday at 4:20pm on the Otago University Union Lawn.

Otago NORML believes that with the continuing expansion of the twice weekly 420 sessions that a formal clubrooms style premise along the lines of The Daktory is the logical next step.

After the successful defence of former Otago NORML leader Abe Gray in court for cannabis possession, receiving a Section 106 discharge without conviction, the group has launched a free and anonymous website for fellow cannabis accused to educate about legal procedures and share examples and experiences of being wrung through the already clogged court system. Bushlawyer.co.nz went live on January 10th and interest is steadily growing.

Our most active international chapter is New Zealand NORML, headed up by Chris Fowlie.  A full 8% of the web traffic I get here at the Stash comes from New Zealand.  It’s good to see that the university students are also NORML in New Zealand.  I think I may have to go visit someday…

Just looking at some of the podcast statistics when I noticed this:

Quarterly downloads map for the podcast

It is no surprise that 80% of the downloads for the Daily Audio Stash podcast come from the US.  What’s fascinating to me is that the 2nd place country isn’t Canada or Great Britain, but New Zealand!  A full 8% of all Stash downloads!

Hey Kiwis, we love ya here in the States.  Can we call you “kiwis”?  You can call us “yanks”, if you like.  I am definitely going to have to visit someday.

(Wairarapa Times-Age) Marijuana activist Phil Saxby passed through Wairarapa yesterday on a tour to drum up support for reform advocacy group Norml New Zealand.

Mr Saxby is president and spokesman of Norml – the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and he said Wairarapa has had a “strong branch here”.

The push to increase support for Norml comes as the New Zealand Law Commission undertakes a comprehensive review of New Zealand drug laws, and Mr Saxby wants Norml to be a consulting party in that review.

He said he was disappointed in the lack of Parliamentary support last week for a bill allowing medicinal cannabis use, particularly the fact that no National Party voters supported the conscience vote.

Mr Saxby said the health vote would have been a step towards achieving Norml’s aims.

He says the key to successfully dealing with cannabis is “treating it as a health issue rather than putting people in jail”.

Check out www.norml.org.nz for more information on cannabis law reform in the Southern Hemisphere.  While NORML is primarily about United States marijuana law reform, we are proud to help other countries apply the successful NORML principles and advocacy worldwide.  If you are reading or listening from a foreign country and you want to join with us in ending adult marijuana prohibition, just send me an email at stash@norml.org.

A cannabis smoking club is operating right under the nose of police in Auckland.

The Daktory has more than 1,000 members who openly flout the law.

Most people fly to Amsterdam to smoke dope so freely, but just two minutes from a West Auckland police station, members of the cannabis club The Daktory smoke dope every weekend.

“By definition cannabis is an illegal substance and yes we break the law. Every day, every day that I smoke a joint I break the law, sorry,” says Dakta Green, Daktory club founder,

The club is complete with a shop, smoking gear and creature comforts for some 1500 members who go there to smoke cannabis.

“Here we celebrate the cannabis culture. It’s an alcohol free zone, a drug free zone. Here we celebrate cannabis, anything at all to do with cannabis. We’ll talk about it, celebrate it, consume it, says Green.

via Cannabis smoking club under nose of Henderson police | NATIONAL.

Here in America, DEA would use forfeiture laws to seize that entire building and all the inventory within.  That’s thanks to some legislation known as the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act.  This Act was the re-introduction of the controversial RAVE Act, written by then Senator Joe Biden and cosponsored by many, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton [D-NY,] Senator Jon Corzine [D-NJ], Senator Mark Dayton [D-MN], Senator Richard Durbin [D-IL], Senator Edward Kennedy [D-MA], Senator Patrick Leahy [D-VT], Senator Patty Murray [D-WA], Senator Jack Reed [D-RI], Senator Charles Schumer [D-NY].  These Democrats failed to get the bill passed as a stand-alone RAVE Act, so the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act was repackaged as an amendment to the popular Amber Alert legislation, and passed without any public comment or debate.

(CNN) — A policeman was killed Friday during a day-long siege with a gunman at a house in the town of Napier, in New Zealand’s north island.

The body of Senior Constable Len Snee was recovered from the driveway of the house, where a 51-year-old gunman had been embroiled in a standoff with police since Thursday morning, New Zealand police said in a statement.

Two other police officers and a civilian were wounded in the confrontation, and are in critical condition in a hospital, police said. Authorities did not say what had prompted the incident.

CNN affiliate TVNZ identified the man as Jan Molenaar and said police had arrived at his house Thursday morning in Napier, about 200 miles southeast of Auckland, for a “standard cannabis raid.”

via Police officer killed in New Zealand standoff – CNN.com.

Fortunately, Constable Snee did not die in vain, because after the arrest of Molenaar, all marijuana farming has now ceased to exist in New Zealand.

Does anybody think any good has come from this “standard cannabis raid”?  What terrible harm had befallen the town of Napier that justified the death of a policeman and the wounding of two more and a civilian?  Is stopping a 51-year-old man from gardening in his home and getting high worth it?  Police should never be forced into this situation and citizens should never be forced to defend their home against police.