Salvia Mania Sweeps State Legislatures as Bans Spread Across County
StopthedrugWar.org
March 11th 2009

After more than five years of examination, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has yet to find that salvia divinorum is dangerous or addictive enough to merit placement as a scheduled drug under the Controlled Substances Act, but that isn't stopping legislators across the land from moving to criminalize it or restrict its sales despite the lack of any real evidence that it does anything more than take its users on a psychedelic journey of a no more than a few minutes duration.

The Nebraska legislature voted 44-0 last Friday to add salvia and its active ingredient, Salvinorin A, to Schedule I of its controlled substance list, the same as LSD and psychedelic mushrooms. The state of Nebraska is going to save its youth from themselves by sending them to prison for up to five years for having some leaf or extract, and up to 20 years for selling it.

The man behind the campaign to ban the plant, Attorney General Jon Bruning, pronounced himself satisfied. "I'm pleased with the legislature's vote today to ban salvia," Bruning said. "I think it is important that salvia not be allowed to be used by members of the public."

Nebraska's northern neighbor, South Dakota, is on the verge of doing the same. A bill pronouncing the salvia "threat" an emergency easily passed the House two weeks ago and a Senate committee this week. Under the emergency legislation, a ban would go into effect immediately upon the governor's signature of the bill.

And the Kentucky House Tuesday voted 99-0 to make it illegal to possess, buy, sell, or cultivate salvia. The sponsor of that bill, Rep. Will Coursey (R-Benton) told his colleagues the plant was a safety risk.

Meanwhile, similar bills have been filed or proposed in Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.

Thirteen states -- Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Virginia -- have classified salvia as Schedule I under state drug laws. Three more -- Louisiana, Maine, and Tennessee -- restrict the sale of the plant. Maine and California ban it only for minors.

MAPS News - February 2009: Congress Asks Attorney General to Fix Bush’s DEA Wrongs

Dear Goldenseed,

Today, sixteen members of the United States Congress sent a letter to the newly appointed Attorney General Eric Holder on behalf of Professor Lyle Craker and MAPS’ proposed medical marijuana production facility! The letter requests that the Attorney General have the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) withdrawal the final order refusing Professor Craker a license to grow marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved research. Our friends at Americans for Safe Access orchestrated the letter signing. Among the signatories were Representatives Barney Frank, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich.

Of equivalent excitement, Health Canada, Canada’s equivalent of FDA, has approved our protocol for an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study in Vancouver, as a potential treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Our ibogaine research project is in jeopardy of having reduced enrollment due to: a lack of donations. The protocol is written to include 30 subjects at a cost of $1000 per subject. We have been unable to raise enough funds restricted to the ibogaine study at this time, and are planning to cap enrollment at 15 subjects if we don’t secure new funds. If you or someone you know is able to help fund the ibogaine study, please contact us immediately or donate online and note that the donation is for ibogaine research.



We have a special offer this month! We are giving away postcard sets of visionary artist Michael Brown’s (AKA Michael Divine) magnificent paintings Illume, The Three Jewels, One, and Surrender. We will give away a set of the four postcards to any current member who makes a donation of $20 or more, or any new member who donates $35 or more. As always, your generosity will support the psychedelic research renaissance as we work determinedly to legitimize the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana.

Details about the Craker/Marijuana case, the Canadian MDMA/PTSD study, the ibogaine project, and much more are below.

Sincerely,

Randolph Hencken, MA

Here’s a sample of what is happening this month at MAPS:

1. Congress and Professor Craker Respond to Bush Administration and DEA’s Obstruction of Scientific Freedom
2. Health and Human Services and National Institute on Drug Abuse Place Another Hurdle in Front of Marijuana Vaporizer Research
3. Mimi Peleg Provides Guidance to Medical Marijuana Facility in Israel
4. Ibogaine Study Enrolls Tenth Patient – Study Still Needs Funding
5. Flagship US MDMA/PTSD Study Final Monitoring Visit
6. MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Helps Israeli Subject with PTSD from the 1967 Six-Day War
7. Health Canada Approves MDMA/PTSD Protocol Design
8. MAPS is Seeking Volunteer Grant Writer for MDMA/Studies
9. Gift of the Month: Artist Michael Brown Postcards

MAPS News: Healing Hearts and Minds in 2009 - January

Dear Goldenseed,

Are you aware that your support of MAPS is not only helping to heal victims of sexual assault, trauma from war, and other causes of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but is also helping to heal the wounds of the war on drugs? Let me explain.

Have you heard that Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN, has been selected to be the next United States’ Surgeon General? Just two months ago, Dr. Gupta reported enthusiastically about the success of our US Phase 2 MDMA/PTSD pilot study. This means that the Nation’s Doctor is going to be walking into his new post in charge of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps with a fresh memory of the benefits and successes of psychedelic psychotherapy. Dr. Gupta will be one of Barack Obama’s go-to-people for insight into health-related issues. MAPS supporters can now hope that our research and goals will be spoken of highly to the occupant of the highest office of the United States!

MAPS as an organization has always been open to have honest dialogue with the press. This is why Dr. Gupta reported our research on CNN and why in the last few months MAPS’ research has been reported in The Economist, Nature, the London Independent, ABC News Online, BBC, New Scientist, the Calgary Herald, and the Sarasota Herald Tribune, among others.

Every time someone with exaggerated fears of MDMA, psychedelics and marijuana, reads or sees one of these positive news stories, they have to reevaluate their beliefs. Due to gobs of anti-drug propaganda, most people who have never used MDMA believe that it is a very dangerous drug without medical benefits. MDMA does have its risks, as does every drug, and these risks are substantially increased in non-medical contexts. Nevertheless, in medical research, MDMA’s risks are minimal and its medical benefits are remarkable. People with the false notion that MDMA is excessively dangerous are forced to rethink why this drug is illegal when they learn that people with PTSD have been cured after MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Similarly, when someone learns that marijuana can safely ease a plethora of ailments, they have to rethink why marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug (considered to have a high potential of abuse and no currently accepted medical use).

Your support of MAPS is educating and changing the minds of the public about the misconceptions used to support drug prohibition. MAPS’ work in the lab is healing the hearts and minds of our subjects. Outside of the lab, your support for MAPS is healing hearts and minds warped by the war on drugs.

We at MAPS request your continued support in this New Year as we work diligently towards our goal of making a society where psychedelic psychotherapy and medical marijuana are legally available, without fear, for all those who need it. Please help MAPS by sharing this email news update with your friends who don’t already receive it. If you haven’t yet become a member, we invite you to do so immediately by going to maps.org/donate.html

Sincerely,

Randolph Hencken, MA
MAPS Communications and Marketing Director

Plan Colombia Didn't Work, GAO Report Says
DrugWarChronicles
November 9th 2008

Washington's ambitious $6 billion investment in wiping out Colombia's coca crops and cocaine production has been a failure, the GAO said in a report released Wednesday. The aid program, known as Plan Colombia, had a goal of reducing Colombian coca and cocaine production by half between 2000 and 2006, but instead of shrinking, coca production was up 15% and cocaine production was up 4%, the review found.

Or, as the GAO diplomatically put it: "Plan Colombia's goal of reducing the cultivation, processing, and distribution of illegal narcotics by 50 percent in 6 years was not fully achieved."

By all accounts, Colombia has been and remains the world's number one coca and cocaine producer. It is estimated that 90% of the cocaine reaching the US is from Colombia. Despite years of aerial eradication with herbicides, as well as manual eradication, Washington and Bogotá have been unable to put a serious dent in the Colombian coca and cocaine trade. The inability to suppress coca and cocaine production "can be explained by measures taken by coca farmers to counter US and Colombian eradication efforts," the report said.

The report calls for aid cuts and advises US and Colombian officials to "develop a joint plan for turning over operational and funding responsibilities for US-supported programs to Colombia." It also called for USAID, which has administered more than $1.3 billion in alternative development funding, to come up with methods of measuring whether its efforts were having any impact.

The GAO did give Washington and Bogotá credit for improving Colombia's security climate "through systematic military and police engagements with illegal armed groups and by degrading these groups' finances." But, as we reported last week, Amnesty International has found that the human rights situation in Colombia remains atrocious, with thousands of killings each year and between two and three million Colombians displaced and living as refugees.

With Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House, Plan Colombia's days could be numbered, and a report like this one ought to kill the beast. But don't be surprised if it doesn't.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Joins Drug Legalization Chorus
DrugWarChronicles
19th October 2008

During a conference in Tegucigalpa bringing together UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) officials and drug ministers from 32 Latin American and Caribbean nations, the conference host, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya called for legalizing drug use. In so doing, he joins a growing list of Latin American leaders singing the same tune.

Legalizing drug use, or more accurately, decriminalization, would de-fang international drug trafficking organizations and free Honduras of the financial burden of attempting to impose drug prohibition, Zelaya said. "The trade of arms, drugs and people... are scourges on the international economy, and we are unable to provide effective responses" because of the global drug prohibition regime, Zelaya said Monday at the opening of the 18th meeting of regional leaders against drug trafficking.

Drug users should be considered patients, not criminals, Zelaya said. Drug users could be treated by health care professionals instead of arrested or harassed by police. And the state could stop throwing money down a rat hole, too, he added. "Rather than continue to kill and capture traffickers, we could invest in resources for education and training," the Honduran leader said.

Like the rest of Central America, Honduras is plagued by illegal drug syndicates typically using the country as a transshipment point for Colombian cocaine headed for the North American market. It is also seeing increasing drug use levels as some of the product inevitably falls off of the back of the truck.

With his remarks Monday, Zelaya is joining what could become an emerging Latin American consensus. Just days ago, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose country is plagued with prohibition-related violence, called for the decriminalization of small amounts of drugs. The government of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is actively pushing decriminalization there. In Brazil, the courts are leading the way to decriminalization. Meanwhile, Bolivia and Venezuela are openly feuding with the US, in part over drug policy issues. In August, officials of the left-leaning Mexican PRD, the largest opposition party, asked party legislators to consider calling for drug legalization as part of a 'grand national accord' to deal with violence and insecurity in the country.

The talk of legalization by Latin American political leaders is often imprecise -- do they mean decrim or legal, regulated production and sales? -- and to the degree they are really talking only about decriminalization -- not legalization -- the enactment of such policies will fail to reduce some of the harms associated with drug prohibition, although they will reduce certain harms suffered by drug users. But Latin America appears to be on the verge of showing its northern neighbor a thing or two when it comes to humane and effective drug policies.

Kosovo Has Lowest Illicit Drug Prices in Region
News2020.com
September 28th 2008

Budget-conscious European junkies looking for the biggest bang for their drug buck might want to visit Kosovo, if a report from Balkan Insight is accurate. According to the report, Kosovo has the lowest street prices for illicit drugs in the entire Balkan region.

Kosovo is the former Serbian province largely populated by ethnic Albanians who broke away from Serbia in 1999. It is currently a UN-administered territory still occupied by several thousand US and NATO troops.

According to the US State Department's 2008 report on international drug trafficking: "Kosovo is a transit point for Afghan heroin moving to Western Europe by way of Turkey. Narcotics traffickers capitalize on weak border control in Kosovo. The Kosovo Border Police is a young service, lacks basic equipment, and only has a mandate to patrol the "Green Border" (area where there are no official, manned borders or administrative boundary line gates) from two to three kilometers beyond the actual border and administrative boundary lines. NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR) has roving teams that patrol the green border up to the actual border and administrative boundary lines, but traffickers easily take advantage of numerous passable roads leading into Kosovo that lack border or administrative boundary line gates. Moreover, narcotics interdiction is not part of KFOR's mandate; they seize narcotics they happen to encounter while performing their duties, but they do not actively investigate narcotics trafficking. Kosovo Border Police and Customs agents are susceptible to corruption. Kosovo officials are attempting to tackle the problem, but United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) officials believe some officers allow narcotics shipments."

Albania and Kosovo are also the home of well-organized Albanian drug trafficking organizations that helped fund the Kosovo independence movement. Ironically, the NATO blockade of Serbia during the Kosovo crisis accelerated the growth of the Eastern European organized crime groups that are now smuggling Afghan heroin into Europe. By blockading Serbia, the center of the East European economy, NATO sanctions created the conditions for a rapid expansion of clandestine activities.

Now, a gram of heroin in Kosovo goes for as little as 10 Euros, compared to 15 to 25 Euros in Bosnia & Herzegovina, 25 to 40 Euros in Macedonia, and at least 25 Euros in Albania and Serbia. You can get a gram of cocaine in Kosovo for 50 Euros, while that same gram would cost 60 Euros in Macedonia and Bosnia and 70 Euros in Albania and Serbia. Prices for marijuana, around 5 to 10 Euros a gram, however, are similar throughout the region.

Balkans prices are significantly lower than in Western Europe, where the UN Office on Drugs and Crime put the average price per gram of heroin in 2006 at 67 Euros, or in the US, where the UN had a gram of heroin going for $170. That 50-Euro gram of cocaine you bought in Kosovo would cost you 85 Euros on average in the rest of Europe.

Walters Continues US Attack on Venezuela Anti-Drug Efforts
Stopthedrugwar.org
Sept:12th 2008

The US government continued its attack on Venezuelan anti-drug efforts this week, with Office of National Drug Control Policy head John Walters saying that President Hugo Chavez's stance toward the cocaine trade represents a "global threat," especially for Europe. In recent weeks, ahead of looming US government certification of other countries' compliance with US drug policy objectives, US officials have accused Venezuela of being responsible for about one-quarter of the cocaine smuggled out of Latin America.

Venezuela has repeatedly denied that it is shirking on anti-drug efforts. It says that it has cooperative anti-trafficking agreements with other countries, but it refuses to allow the US DEA to operate in its territory and accuses the US of heavy-handedness.

Drug czar Walters wasn't showing a light touch Tuesday in Stockholm, where he addressed an international anti-drug conference. "The problem is not that Chavez needs or doesn't need US help, the problem is that Hugo Chavez is not acting," Walters told the Associated Press during a break in the conference. "He is not only threatening the safety and security of the people of Venezuela," Walters said. "It is a growing global threat; he is putting Europe at risk."

But Venezuela can point to large seizures over the past few years, including some 20 tons of cocaine seized so far this year, according to figures made available by the Venezuelan embassy.

Curiously, Walters did not mention US ally Colombia as a "global threat" because of cocaine production. Venezuela produces no cocaine, but Colombia is the world's largest producer. Similarly, while it is entirely possible that Venezuela, which shares a long and wild border with Colombia, may indeed see a quarter of the Colombian cocaine supply transit its territory, Walters had nothing to say about the other countries in the region responsible for the other three-quarters of Colombia's cocaine traffic.

Afghan Opium Production Declines Slightly From Record Levels
DRC.net
August 30th 2008

With the West's occupation of Afghanistan now nearing the seven-year mark and plagued by an increasingly powerful and deadly insurgency revitalized by massive profits from the opium trade, Western officials gained some small solace this week when the United Nations announced that opium production there had declined slightly from last year's record level. But the small decline comes as the Taliban and related insurgents are strengthening their grip on precisely those areas where opium cultivation is highest, and the light at the end of the tunnel is, at best, only a distant glimmer.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008, released Tuesday, total Afghan opium production this year will be 7,500 metric tons, down 6% from last year's all-time record of 8,200 tons. Also, according to the survey, the amount of land devoted to opium production declined 19%. The UN said the total crop had decreased by a smaller number than the amount of land because farmers in key opium-producing provinces were producing bumper crops.

The UN attributed the decline in production to drought conditions and the efforts of a small number of Afghan governors and tribal and religious leaders to persuade farmers to give up the illicit crop. It also crowed that the number of opium-free provinces in the country had risen from 13 to 18, although it failed to mention that farmers in those provinces had, in many cases, merely switched from growing poppies to growing cannabis.

This year, almost all opium cultivation -- about 98% -- is now concentrated in seven provinces in south-west Afghanistan that house permanent Taliban settlements and are home to related trafficking groups that pay taxes to various Taliban factions on their opium transactions. The Taliban is making between $200 and $400 million a year off taxing poppy farmers and traders, Costa said earlier this year. In the report, Costa referred to Helmand province, one of the most Taliban-dominated in the country. "The most glaring example is Helmand province, where 103,000 hectares of opium were cultivated this year -- two thirds of all opium in Afghanistan," Costa wrote. "If Helmand were a country, it would once again be the world's biggest producer of illicit drugs."

The UN said that manual eradication played almost no role in the decline, affecting only about 3% of the crop. What manual eradication did accomplish was the deaths of some 77 anti-drug workers and police at the hands of insurgents and angry farmers. On Wednesday, Costa told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that he should abandon manual eradication as useless and even counter-productive.

While Afghan poppy production is down slightly, it still surpasses global demand for its illicit end products. And after several years of crops greater than global demand, it is likely that Afghan traders are sitting on huge stockpiles of opium, so even if production were to be slashed substantially, it would cause no significant disruption in the global markets for opium and heroin.

Still, with the war news from Afghanistan seemingly growing worse by the day, UN and Western officials were eager to jump on any good news they could find. "The opium flood waters in Afghanistan have started to recede," Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the Vienna-based UNODC, wrote in the report. "This year, the historic high-water mark of 193,000 hectares of opium cultivated in 2007 has dropped by 19 percent to 157,000 hectares."

The Bush administration welcomed the report, saying it provided vindication for its much-criticized anti-drug policies in the country. But a State Department spokesman told the Washington Post, "the drug threat in Afghanistan remains unacceptably high. We are particularly concerned by the deterioration in security conditions in the south, where the insurgency dominates."

The US Agency for International Development (USAID), in charge of efforts to provide alternative development for farmers as part of the broader US counter-drug and counter-insurgency strategy, also looked for the silver lining in the storm clouds over Afghanistan. Its efforts are "paying off for Afghanistan in the war against poppy production," it said in a press release Tuesday.

The British foreign office also joined the chorus, with FCO Minister Lord Malloch-Brown releasing a statement welcoming the report's findings. "This shows that the Afghan government's Drug Control Strategy is starting to pay dividends," he said.

Still, Malloch-Brown warned there is a long way to go. "However, there is no room for complacency," he said. "Afghanistan is still the world's biggest supplier of heroin. High cultivation levels are concentrated in the unstable south, where we are working with the government of Afghanistan, local governors, and international partners to build security and governance."

Other, non-governmental observers were much less sanguine about what the slight decline in opium production signified. "I don't think there has been any real progress made at all," said Raheem Yaseer, assistant director of the University of Nebraska-Omaha Center for Afghanistan Studies. "But there has been so much money and pressure invested that they feel they have to justify their efforts. It's true that cultivation has ended in some provinces, but other areas are compensating for that."

A large part of the problem is that too many important players are involved and profiting from the trade, said Yaseer. "There are lots of strong, powerful people involved -- influential people in the Afghan government, governors, parliamentarians, provincial police commanders -- and unless they are suppressed, nothing will change. There is lots of concern expressed, but the business is hot and everyone is making money," he said.

Yaseer also pointed to the increasing ability of insurgents to wreak havoc. "Security is horrible, it's getting worse and worse precisely in those growing areas, and where the security gets worse, there are more opportunities for the drug business," he said. "Everyone takes advantage of the lack of security and the chaos."

The UNODC reports provides only "false hope," said the Senlis Council, the Paris-based drugs and security nonprofit that has long proposed buying up illicit poppy crops and diverting them into the licit medicinal market as a means of getting a handle on illicit production and the support for political violence it provides.

"Opium is the cancer destroying the south of Afghanistan," said Emmanuel Reinert, the group's executive director in a Wednesday statement. "Current counter-narcotics policies are failing to address the loss of the southern provinces to the dual scourges of poppy production and terrorism."

The decrease in poppy cultivation will have a minimal effect on the drugs trade, given the exponential growth in opium production since 2002. "This decrease is no more than a ripple in the ocean," Reinert added. "Without an urgent change of direction in the country's counter-narcotics policies, the international community will be unable to prevent the consolidation of opium production in the south of the country, and the consolidation of the Taliban which is financed by the illegal drugs trade."

Instead of pushing farmers into the waiting arms of the Taliban and related insurgent groups by pursuing crop eradication, the West and the Afghan government should revisit the Senlis proposal, which was rejected out of hand when introduced in 2005, said Senlis policy analyst Gabrielle Archer. "It is clear that a long-term, sustainable solution is required to solve Afghanistan's opium crisis -- and prevent the insurgency's funding by illegal cultivation," she said. "Poppy for Medicine would allow farmers to diversify their crops, and give Afghanistan an opportunity to be part of a legal pharmaceutical industry. We need the Afghan people on our side if we are to be successful there, and this initiative could go a long way to winning back much-needed hearts and minds, which would be highly beneficial for our troops fighting there."

The hearts and minds of the Afghan population are turning increasingly against the West and the country's occupation by foreign troops, warned Yaseer, ticking off a seemingly endless series of incidents where Afghan civilians have been killed by coalition forces, the most recent being the reported deaths of 90 civilians -- 60 of them children -- in a NATO bombing raid last week. That raid prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to call this week for a reevaluation of the foreign military presence in his country.

"Everyday there are new uproars in parliament and local councils," said Yaseer. "They say there is no difference between the Soviets and the coalition forces. They bombard whole villages in the middle of the night because they hear four or five Taliban are there. These killings keep happening all the time, and people are fed up with it. This is all developing very rapidly now. 'Why did you bring this war to Afghanistan?' the people ask. The gap between the people and the government is growing larger every day," Yaseer said.

With coalition military casualties on the rise, the Taliban grown fat off opium profits and ever more aggressive, and growing hostility to the West in the Afghan population, a minor down-turn in opium production doesn't look so impressive.

Move in Poland to loosen Marijuana Laws
News2020.com
August 23rd 2008

According to Polish Radio, a campaign to loosen the marijuana laws is underway in Poland. A petition to the Ministry of Justice requesting the legalization of marijuana for personal use has already been signed by hundreds of people, including drug rehab specialists and members of Monar, a nonprofit group that works with addicts, the HIV/AIDS positive, and the homeless.
Now, would-be legalizers are trying a new tack: direct contact with members of parliament (MPs). "Cannabis canvassers" recruited via the Internet have been paying visits to politicians in an effort to win them over, and it seems to be working. The canvassers have already collected the signatures of five MPs, including former health minister Marek Balicki.
Legalization of personal possession (or decriminalization) would be a step forward for Poland. Under current law, possession of even small amounts of marijuana is a serious criminal offense.

Prosecutors Want Five Years for North Dakota Man Who Bought $32 Worth of Salvia Divinorum on eBay
DrugWarChronicles
August 16th 2008

Kenneth Rau, the Bismarck, North Dakota, man who suffers the dubious distinction of being the first person in the United States prosecuted under laws criminalizing the possession of salvia divinorum, has been offered a plea deal under which he would serve five years in state prison, he told the Chronicle this week.
Salvia is not illegal under federal law. The DEA considers salvia a drug of interest, but despite several years of observation has yet to move to place it under the Controlled Substances Act. A DEA spokesman told the Chronicle recently that the plant is being reviewed to see if it meets the criteria for inclusion on the list of controlled substances.

But driven by little more than the now infamous YouTube videos of young people under the influence acting strangely and the story of one Delaware youth whose parents blamed his suicide on salvia, state legislators have not waited for the DEA's measured considerations to act. Since Delaware became the first state to ban salvia, at least eight others, including North Dakota, followed suit. Moves are currently afoot in a number of other states to join the club, with Florida and Virginia being the latest states to pass laws criminalizing the plant.
Salvia became illegal in North Dakota on last August 1, after a bill sponsored by three Republican lawmakers, state Sens. Dave Oelke and Randel Christmann and state Rep. Brenda Heller, sailed through the legislature earlier that year. None of the three legislators responded to Chronicle requests for comment this week.

Rau has said he did not know the drug was now illegal when he bid on an eight-ounce bunch of salvia leaves and was pleasantly surprised when his $32 bid came in highest. The local TV station's web site has inadvertently supported Rau's contention. When the Chronicle first wrote about Rau's case in April, that site's online version of the news report about Rau's arrest was still pulling up salvia ads by Google. (From the east coast at least it is still doing so as of this writing.) Rau emailed the link to Drug War Chronicle, proving that the salvia ads are showing up on computers in North Dakota.
Burleigh County States Attorney Cynthia Feland did not respond to Chronicle calls seeking confirmation or denial of the plea deal. Rau said the deal was offered through his attorney, Benjamin Pulkrabek, from just across the Missouri River in Mandan.
"My lawyer told me she offered me five years if I pleaded guilty," said Rau. "He said he didn't think I would take it, but he had to ask. He was right -- I am not going to accept that. I just don't think depriving someone of his freedom for some dried plant leaves is right."
Rau, a bottling plant worker with an interest in herbalism, altered states, and religion and spirituality, was arrested by Bismarck police on April 9 when they searched his home looking for his adult son, who was on probation for drug charges. Police found a marijuana pipe, eight ounces of salvia leaf, a quantity of amanita muscaria mushrooms, and a number of other herbal products.

Salvia divinorum, a member of the Mexican mint family, has been used by Mazatec shamans for hundreds of years. Smoking or chewing the leaves, or more commonly, concentrated extracts, can produce intense, albeit short-lived hallucinogenic experiences. While the plant has become notorious through YouTube videos of young people smoking it and behaving strangely, it is also of interest to "psychonauts," or people attempting to explore consciousness through herbal means.
Although Rau bought the salvia leaf on eBay for $32, he faces a possible 20-year sentence after being charged with possession of the now controlled substance with the intent to distribute, based on prosecutors' assertions that the leaf contained hundreds of possible doses. He also faces a marijuana possession charge for the pipe. Although prosecutors originally charged him with possession of psilocybin because of his amanita muscaria mushrooms, they have since figured out that amanita does not contain psilocybin and have dropped that charge.
Researchers say that while salvia's effects on consciousness may be disquieting, the plant has not been shown to be toxic to humans, its effects are so potent it is unlikely to be used repeatedly, and its active property, salvinorin A, could assist in the development of medicines for mood disorders.

Daniel Siebert is a salvia researcher and host of the salvia information web site Sage Wisdom. In Siebert's view, while salvia should be subject to some sort of regulation, sending someone like Rau to prison for years for possessing it is almost obscene.

I think salvia should be regulated in the same way we regulate alcohol," he said. "Its effects are quite different, but there are some parallels in terms of the possible dangers from its use. Like alcohol, people can exhibit dangerous behavior if they take excessively high doses. That's why we prohibit driving while intoxicated or allowing minors to drink. But it's obvious that many, many people can enjoy alcohol without getting into trouble with it, and they should not be subjected to harsh penalties. Neither should adults who want to use salvia."

Not that the drug will ever be a popular recreational drug, he said. "Salvia can be very strange and interesting, but it's not something most people consider fun, it's not a recreational kind of experience," he said. "Most people find it bewildering; it's not something most people are motivated to repeat. It won't ever become a popular drug. The main reason people seem interested in it is because the media keeps putting out these sensational stories comparing it to LSD or marijuana. That creates a misleading impression, and people who try salvia expecting something like that are usually disappointed."

"Siebert was sympathetic to Rau's predicament. "I'm shocked and appalled that they can put people in prison for using salvia for personal use," he said. "The drug had just been made illegal there, and he says he didn't know it was illegal. I think that's believable -- most people wouldn't know about an obscure law being passed."

Kenneth Rau now faces a lonely struggle. North Dakota is not noted for its abundance of attorneys skilled in defending cases involving arcane plants, and national organizations have yet to respond to his entreaties for help, Rau said.

Still, Rau is trying to get a defense together. "I'm hoping to take depositions from people like Dr. Andrew Weil or Daniel Siebert or other experts," he said. "I'm looking for attorneys in their vicinities who might be willing to take a deposition."
And he hinted that he may also attempt a jury nullification strategy. "My defense will be to fall back on the fact that the jury is the ultimate judge of the law," he said. "They don't have to listen to the judge; they have the power. Let the jury decide what kind of state they want to live in," he said.
No trial date has been set yet. In the meantime, Rau continues working full-time for a soft drink bottler and subjecting himself to court-ordered humiliations. "I'm trying to live my life," he said. "I've got a full-time time job and another one on the weekends. I also have to take pee tests twice a week and pay them $26 a week for that privilege, on top of trying to pay for lawyers."

A Family Traumatized, two Dogs Dead, Another Day in the Drug War
DRCNet
August 11th 2008

This newsletter has reported or opined on the issue of paramilitarization in policing many times. This week that outrage struck in my own figurative backyard. At 7:00pm Wednesday, in the tiny DC suburb of Berwyn Heights, a SWAT team from the Prince Georges County, Maryland, police department, stormed a home, killed two dogs, then handcuffed one of the homeowners and his mother-in-law on the floor for hours as the dogs' blood drained around them.

That homeowner happened to be the mayor of the town, a fact which has drawn a lot of attention to the incident. Unfortunately, as reckless as this police squad's actions were, and as tragic the outcome, it is by no means unique. One study has estimated the number of SWAT raids nationwide at about 40,000 per year, and the killing of both dogs and people has occurred many times. One mother and child who lost their dog to a SWAT team spoke out in an interview with one of our supporters two years ago.

The rationale for the home invasion was that a package of marijuana -- 32 pounds of it -- had been delivered to the home. What was mentioned in the reporting, though, but not reflected on, is that the package had actually been brought to the home by the police! The sequence of events is both revealing and nauseating. A drug dog in Arizona smelled marijuana inside a package at the post office, addressed to the mayor's wife. Police brought the package to Maryland, and disguised as postal workers delivered it the house. The box sat outside all day. When Mayor Calvo came home, he brought the box inside, placed it near the door, and went upstairs. The SWAT team then stormed the house, killed the dogs, and locked the people up.

There are plausible ways in which the family can have had nothing to do with the package, despite it having been mailed to them, and Calvo and his wife seem unlikely lawbreakers. Police have yet to file any charges. Still, suppose that someone living in the home is guilty. Would that justify the actions of the police?

Absolutely not. The idea that a man returning to his home and moving a package from his porch to his hallway, should trigger a SWAT raid, by a SWAT team that had literally been waiting in hiding to see him move the package, is criminally insane. They didn't wait for the package to go inside because of any tactical purpose. They waited because they wanted to use the action of bringing the package inside as evidence. They had all literally all day to figure out some way of being able to arrest the residents of the home without murdering their dogs! They didn't even have to bring the package to the house -- they already had the address with which it had been marked. They could have simply called the individuals in for questioning, or conducted an ordinary search or arrest warrant, waited for Mayor Calvo or his wife to walk up and approach them on the street, almost anything other than what they did.

And as evidence goes, moving the package inside the doorway is worthless anyway, or should be. Would you bring a package that arrived in your mail inside, maybe even open it to see what it contains? Doing so would prove nothing about your knowledge of the contents. So even that weak rationale falls to pieces.

The town's police chief, Patrick Murphy, who was not involved in the raid or informed of it, had wise words to say in the aftermath: "You can't tell me the chief of police of a municipality wouldn't have been able to knock on the door of the mayor of that municipality, gain his confidence and enter the residence," he told the Washington Post. "It would not have been a necessity to shoot and kill this man's dogs." He really wishes the narcs had contacted him about it first, and the tragedy thereby prevented.

But while the fact that this was the mayor's house makes the action even more deranged, it would be a mistake to regard that as the reason not to use a SWAT team. The truth is that entering a home in that fashion is unnecessary, and therefore wrongful, almost all of the time. SWAT teams are meant for emergency or other high-intensity situations -- hostage situations and the like -- not routine drug enforcement. But even if there had been 200 pounds of marijuana, or 2,000 pounds, there would still be no excuse. Invading a home in this manner endangers people and animals and property, for no good reason, if there is any other way of dealing with the situation.

Grow Lights Now Illegal in South Australia
DrugwarChronicles
July 27th 2008

The state government of South Australia has made the possession of lights, reflectors, and associated equipment that can be used for growing marijuana a criminal offense punishable by up to two years in prison. Also included in the list of proscribed horticultural items are carbon filters, evaporators, heating tools, stirrers, funnels, and flasks. Under the new statute, people caught in possession of such items will have to prove they have a legitimate reason for having them or face criminal penalties.

"These are the tools of the lucrative but deadly drug trade," said state Attorney General Michael Atkinson in remarks reported by Adelaide Now. "They're used in sophisticated set-ups and two-bit backyard operations alike.
This government will prosecute anyone who has these illegal drug-making devices -- unless they can give a good explanation."

Atkinson scoffed at the notion anyone would be using such equipment for anything other than growing pot. "With the amount of hydroponic equipment being sold, you would think South Australia was the hydroponic tomato capital of Australia," he said. "Alas, we do not produce as many hydroponic tomatoes as hydroponic cannabis."

Atkinson said banning such equipment was the best way to attack the drug trade, which he characterized as dominated by biker gangs. "It's no secret that those who have these items aren't planning to bake biscuits for the Girl Guides," he said. The move will "make a big dent" against pot growing, he promised.

US Leads in Cannabis, Cocaine Use, Global Survey Finds
DrugWarChronicles
July 12th 2008

Despite decades of harshly punitive policies aimed at reducing illicit drug use, the US has the world's highest rates of drug use, according to a study using World Health Organization (WHO) data that compared global drug use rates. Harsh drug laws do not correlate "simply" with drug use rates, the study found -- a finding critics of drug prohibition were quick to jump on.

The study, Toward a Global View of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, and Cocaine Use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys, examined a cohort of some 54,000 people in 17 countries who had undergone WHO's Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) and looked at their use of four drugs: alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, and tobacco.

Not all countries in the world were included, rates of participation varied from country to country, and researchers acknowledged uncertainty about the reliability of people reporting their own drug use. "Nevertheless, the findings present comprehensive data on the patterns of drug use from national samples representing all regions of the world," said the report's editors.

The study found that 16.2% of Americans had tried cocaine at least once, more than three times the number in any other country surveyed. In four countries (Colombia, Mexico, Spain, and New Zealand), use rates were between 4% and 5%, while in five others (Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands), use rates were between 1% and 2%. In the remaining countries in the survey (Israel, Ukraine, Lebanon, Nigeria, South Africa, Japan, China), use rates were under 1%.

Americans led in cannabis consumption as well, with 42.4% of adults reporting having tried the drug at least once, although New Zealand, with 41.9%, was only a few tenths of a percentage point behind. The cannabis-friendly Netherlands was a distant third at 19.8%, followed by France (19.0%), Germany (17.5%), and Spain (15.0%). Use rates for Asian and African countries were significantly lower.

A vast majority of survey participants from the United States, Europe, Japan and New Zealand had consumed alcohol, compared to smaller percentages from the Middle East, Africa and China. The data also revealed socioeconomic patterns in drug use. Single young adult men with high income had the greatest tendency to regularly use drugs, although researchers reported women were rapidly closing the existing gender gap in drug use.

"Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly and is not simply related to drug policy, since countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones," the researchers concluded, citing in particular the difference in cannabis use rates in the punitive US (42%) versus those in the land of Dutch cannabis coffee shops (20%).

The point that drug policy seems to have little impact on drug use rates is not new -- researchers such as NYU's Harry Levine and now-retired Dutch academic Peter Cohen have been trumpeting similar findings for years -- but it is worth repeating, again in the researcher's own words: "The US, which has been driving much of the world's drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies... The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the US, has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in nation level rates of illegal drug use."

Surprisingly, the Office of National Drug Control policy seemed to agree, with its spokesman, Tom Riley, telling Bloomberg News Service in response to the study that trying to find a link between drug policy and drug use doesn't make sense. "The US has high crime rates but we spend a lot on law enforcement and prison,'' Riley said. "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."

That's not a line the drug czar's office commonly takes. Instead, it more typically rails against reforms "sending the wrong message," but Riley was singing a different tune when confronted with the research findings.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) agrees. In an op-ed submission by MPP communications director Bruce Mirken, the group called US drug policies "a crashing failure" and hailed the study. "This study is important because it's the first time a respected international group has surveyed drug use around the world, using the same questions and procedure everywhere," Mirken wrote. "While many countries have their own drug use surveys, the questions and methodology vary, and comparisons between countries are difficult. This new study eliminates that problem."

And Mirken found himself in the unusual position of agreeing with Riley. "In fact, ONCDP's latest excuse for the failure of US drug policies -- that enforcement and penalties don't really have much effect on rates of use -- is probably just about right. But it also dynamites any justification for our current marijuana laws."

It also begs the question of why, in the face of evidence that treating drug use harshly and inhumanely doesn't work, we continue to resort to it.

Coca Production Up Last Year, UN Reports
News2020.com
June 21st 2008

In an annual report released Wednesday, Coca Cultivation in the Andean Region, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found itself "surprised and shocked" to announce that the amount of land devoted to coca growing in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru had risen to more than 181,000 hectares, or more than 700 square miles. That is a 16% increase over 2006 figures and the highest level of cultivation since 2001.

Colombia, which remains the region's largest coca and cocaine producer despite a seven-year, $5 billion dollar US effort to wipe out the crop, had the most dramatic increase, jumping up 27%. Cultivation increased 5% in Bolivia, where a coca-friendly government is de facto allowing small increases, and 4% in Peru, where a non-coca-friendly government is in constant low-level conflict with coca growers.

"The increase in coca cultivation in Colombia is a surprise and shock: a surprise because it comes at a time when the Colombian government is trying so hard to eradicate coca; a shock because of the magnitude of cultivation," said UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa. "But this bad news must be put in perspective," he added in desperate search of a silver lining. "Just like in Afghanistan, where most opium is grown in provinces with a heavy Taliban presence, in Colombia most coca is grown in areas controlled by insurgents", Costa said, noting that half of all cocaine production and a third of all cultivation occurs in just 10 of the country's 195 municipalities.

But despite the increase in coca cultivation, cocaine production remained stable. Last year, global potential production of cocaine was 994 metric tons, according to the UNODC, while in 2006, it was 984 metric tons. The UNODC pointed to lower yields as a result of pressure from massive aerial eradication, which caused farmers to seek out peripheral lands and resort to smaller, more dispersed coca patches.

"In the past few years, the Colombian government destroyed large-scale coca farming by means of massive aerial eradication, which unsettled armed groups and drug traffickers alike. In the future, with the FARC in disarray, it may become easier to control coca cultivation," Costa predicted rosily.

Last year, Colombia's drug police, working with US funds and US contractors, sprayed herbicide on 160,000 hectares of coca and manually eradicated another 50,000 hectares. But as in the past, Colombia's coca growing peasants, faced with few alternatives, have adapted rapidly, negating the gains of the eradicators.

While Congress has gone along with the $5 billion experiment to eradicate coca in Colombia in the last year of the Clinton administration and throughout the Bush presidency, the clamor is rising on Capitol Hill for a shift in emphasis in US aid. Currently, the aid goes 80% to security forces and 20% for development assistance. Solons can rightly ask just what they've been getting for all that money.

Argentine Courts Throw Out Drug Possession Charges
Stop The Drug War
June 14th 2008

In April, judges in Argentine federal courts in the province of Buenos Aires threw out drug possession charges against two young men arrested at a 2007 electronic music festival, saying they were unconstitutional. Last week, more Argentine courts weighed in, with a group of judges echoing that ruling as they considered the case of a young man arrested for marijuana possession.

The judges dismissed the charges, saying that criminalizing drug possession without showing harm to others violated the Argentine constitution. "Criminalization will only apply in cases where the possession of narcotics for personal consumption represents a danger for the public health of others," the judges announced, according to a report from the Associated Press.

For the past several years, the Argentine government has been working on a rewrite of the country's drug laws, but judges there are not waiting for the legislature to do its work. Their rulings are winning the support of constitutional scholars and are in line with the attitudes of the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Anibal Fernandez, the minister of justice, security, and health, has publicly denounced the country's drug laws as a "catastrophe."

"This criterion fits in well with the laws of more civilized nations," Daniel Sabsay, an Argentine constitutional scholar, told Buenos Aires's Clarin newspaper. "I believe that with this, the sense of a broadening of freedom is respected."

Cocaine use rises after three years of decline
News2020.com
June 9th 2008

COCAINE use among young people in Britain is on the rise after three years of decline, a survey showed last week. More than one fifth of 16 to 24 year-olds admitted using the drug once a month in the latest figures for 2005/2006 compared 17/2 per cent in 2003/2004, according to the European Union’s drugs agency. Meanwhile, cannabis use in the UK has fallen from 46.9 per cent in 2003/2004 to 41.2 per cent.

Beer sales fall flat in British pubs
News2020.com
June 9th 2008

Beer sales in pubs are at their lowest level since for decades, brewers said last week. Seven million fewer pints are now being sold in Britain per day compared to the beer market’s 1979 peak- a drop of22 per cent according to the British Beer and Pub Association. In pubs beer sales have fallen 49 per cent since 1979 but supermarket and off-licence sales have increased over the same period, lessening the decline. One of the reasons is the move towards drinking at home. Another is the increasing popularity of wine. But Britons are drinking up to a third more than they realise. This is because wine and beer are getting stronger and glasses are larger. The Office of National Statistics recalculated alcohol levels so a glass of wine now equals two units and a half pint of beer could equal two units. The average man drinks almost 20 units a week, up from 16 under previous measurements. Women who thought they drank 6.5. units actually drink nine.

Brazil Appeals Court Rules Drug Possession Not a Crime
News2020.com
May 31st 2008

At the end of March, a Brazilian appeals court in São Paulo declared that possession of drugs for personal use is not a criminal offense. Several lower courts had previously ruled in the same way, but the ruling from the São Paulo Justice Court's 6th Criminal Chamber marked the first time an appeals court there had found Brazil's drug law unconstitutional as it pertains to simple drug possession.

The ruling came in the case of Ronaldo Lopes, who was arrested with 7.7 grams of cocaine in three separate bags on the night before Carnival began in 2007. Lopes acknowledged that the drugs were his and said they were for his personal use. Lopes was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison as a drug trafficker. But the appeals court judges threw out the trafficking charge since it was based on an anonymous complaint. It then threw out the possession charge, saying it was unconstitutional.

In his opinion in the case, Judge José Henrique Rodrigues Torres said the law criminalizing drug possession for personal use was invalid because it violated the constitutional principles of harm (there is no harm to third parties), privacy (it is a personal choice), and equality (possessing alcohol is not a crime). "One cannot admit any state intervention, mainly repressive and of penal character, in the realm of personal choice, especially when it comes to legislating morality," he said.

The ruling applies only to Lopes, but can be used as a precedent in other court proceedings. There is no word yet on whether the Brazilian government will appeal.

The ruling comes nearly two years after Brazil changed its drug laws to depenalize -- but not decriminalize -- drug possession for personal use. Under that law, drug possession is still a criminal offense, but penalties are limited to fines, fees, education, and community service.

In his opinion, Torres cited earlier decisions by now retired Judge Maria Lúcia Karam, who told the Chronicle this week the appeals court decision was "praiseworthy" and "significant."

"The praiseworthy ruling by a Court of Appeals in São Paulo, proclaiming the unconstitutionality of the Brazilian law that criminalizes drug possession for personal use, is a remarkable moment in Brazil's judicial history," she said. "This is a decision of great significance. This is the first time a Brazilian appeals court has clearly stated that a law that criminalizes drug possession for personal use contradicts the Constitution and the international declarations of human rights. This is the first time that a Brazilian appeals court has clearly stated that drug possession for personal use is a behavior that matters only to the individual, to his or her privacy, and to his or her personal choices. This is the first time that a Brazilian appeals court has clearly stated that the state is not authorized to interfere within this sphere of privacy. This is the first time that a Brazilian appeals court has clearly stated that the individual shall be free to be and to do whatever he or she wants, while behaving in such a way that does not affect any rights of others," Karam said.

The decision should reverberate through the Brazilian courts, said Karam. "This is a real precedent, and it should encourage other Brazilian courts and judges to also accomplish their main mission, that is to guarantee liberty and all other fundamental rights of individuals, to actually respect the Constitution and the international declarations of human rights," she said.

"This is good news," agreed Luiz Paulo Guanabara, head of the Brazilian drug reform group Psicotropicus. "The 2006 drug law reform did away with prison sentences for people possessing illicit drugs for personal use, but under that law, drug users were still criminals who could be penalized by community service or fines and fees. This is an advance," he said.

"Amazing," said Martín Arangurí Soto, a graduate student in political science in São Paulo and Drug War Chronicle's Spanish and Portuguese translator. "The Justice Court of São Paulo is a very conservative court. It was among the ones that banned the marijuana marches at the beginning of this month," he noted. "Does this mean the marijuana march is on next year? They won't be able to argue that it is an 'apology for drug use,' because possessing for personal use is not a crime anymore."

Drug law reform is a work in process in Brazil, said Guanabara. "This is a timely decision because the new law is not carved in stone and must be amended to fit social reality. Now we have the chance to quit unjustly criminalizing people for consuming this or that substance or carrying illicit drugs for personal use."

One of the remaining issues to be resolved is what quantity of drugs is considered personal use, said Guanabara. "There is no set quantity to distinguish users from dealers," he explained. "This ruling is notable because the defendant was caught carrying more than seven grams of cocaine. If he had lived in a slum and been detained with that same amount he would have been considered a drug dealer and subjected to the same penalties as someone caught with 10 kilos of cocaine, which is one of the more irrational aspects of our drug laws."

Beyond the impact the ruling could have on the lives of drug users, it also shows how far Brazil has come, said Guanabara. "The drug policy discussion has reached the mainstream in Brazil," he said. "When Psicotropicus was created just a few years ago, the topic was taboo and people who spoke in favor of drug policy reform were regarded as lunatics or advocates against the 'indisputable' crime of possessing, using or selling the forbidden drugs."

LSD Inventor Albert Hofmann Dead at Age 102 RIP........
Dylan Tweney
Wiredscience
May 1st 2008

Albert Hofmann, the pioneering Swiss chemist and advocate of psychedelics who discovered the hallucinogenic properties of LSD, died Tuesday. He was 102.
Hofmann reportedly died of a heart attack at his home in Basel, Switzerland.
Hofmann's most famous discovery happened on April 16, 1943. He was researching the synthesis of a lysergic acid compound, LSD-25, when he inadvertently absorbed a bit through his fingertips. Intrigued by the effect it had on his perception, Hofmann decided further exploration was warranted. Three days later, on April 19, he ingested 250 micrograms of LSD, embarking on the first full-fledged acid trip. That day became known among LSD fans as "bicycle day" because Hofmann began experiencing the drug's intense effects on his bicycle trip home from the lab.

In his autobiography, LSD, My Problem Child, Hofmann remembered his discovery this way:
"In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."

The experience led Hofmann to begin experimenting with other hallucinogens and he became an advocate of their use, in both the arenas of psychoanalysis and personal growth. He was critical of LSD's casual use by the counterculture during the '60s, accusing rank amateurs of hijacking the drug he still refers to as "medicine for the soul" without understanding either its positive or negative effects.
In a celebration of Hofmann's 100th birthday in 2006, Hofmann told the crowd of well-wishers -- which included 2,000 researchers, scientists, artists and historians -- that "LSD wanted to tell me something. It gave me an inner joy, an open mindedness, a gratefulness, open eyes and an internal sensitivity for the miracles of creation."

Hofmann was also the first scientist to synthesize psilocybin, the active ingredient in psilocybin mushrooms, in 1958.

It takes time to cut through the haze, but a clearer picture does emerge.
News2020.com
April 8th 2008

Gordon Brown wants to take a tough stand on drugs, starting with the regrading of marijuana as a class B drug. Almost as if it was imitating the effects of the drug itself, the debate surrounding the reclassification of cannabis has become increasingly hazy of late. The Government's drug advisory body is expected to recommend it keeps its current class C status, ranking it alongside painkillers and stress medication, rather than return it to class B with the likes of amphetamines.

That would once again require police to arrest anyone found in possession of the drug rather than simply caution them.

Gordon Brown, though, wants to upgrade it – a move he believes would send out a clear message that smoking dope is damaging to health and socially unacceptable.

Opinions on the matter are deeply divided, even among the agencies working with drug users, and mental health charities.

It takes time to cut through the haze, but after a careful study of the facts, a clearer picture does emerge.

The new report – commissioned amid fears about the growing availability of stronger "skunk" strains of cannabis – cites one important piece of evidence.

Significant new research from Keele University has severely dented the theory that cannabis use can cause schizophrenia. It has found that far from cases of the illness increasing in line with growing cannabis use in the UK in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, they have actually fallen. The same goes for incidences of psychosis.

Concerns of a link, however, remain, with a growing consensus that the drug seems to trigger or exacerbate the condition in a relatively small number of cases. There is also no doubt that its long-term usage increases the risk of lung cancer, high blood pressure and infertility.

The other great fear about former home secretary David Blunkett's downgrading of the drug in 2004, that it would lead to an explosion in use, also appears to have been unfounded.

Official research suggests cannabis use has actually fallen slightly over the last four years. Although that is probably unrelated to Mr Blunkett's decision, the reclassification has certainly not led to increased problems.

John Arthur, of Crew 2000, an advice and support group for Edinburgh's young drug users, is convinced that keeping cannabis class C is the right decision.

"Cannabis must be the most researched drug in terms of mental health problems," he said.

"There're around three million regular users of cannabis in the UK and if there were associated mental health problems you would think it would come through a lot more.

"There's absolutely no doubt that it can make existing problems worse, but it's completely dose dependent and will pass when the drug is out of the system. There's no evidence that's been produced to show it actually causes mental illness.

"Cannabis is like any other drug, including nicotine, alcohol and caffeine. All of them have an impact on mental health.

"There's always been strong cannabis around, but people don't tend to use the same amount, in the same way they don't use the same amounts of stronger types of alcohol. They only use the amount it takes to get them where they want to go."

Others working in the field remain concerned about the growing perception of cannabis as a "soft drug", an idea clearly reinforced by the C grading.

Chris Denmark, a research officer at Action on Alcohol and Drug Edinburgh, said many younger users were ignorant of the drug's dangers.

"A lot of people don't even view cannabis as a drug – it's become almost accepted," he said. "We've got really quite a young population smoking hash and that's been going on for a few years now. There has been two recent surveys of Scottish schools and there are kids under the age of 16 smoking it. I do think it's a dangerous drug. Calling it a 'soft drug' is a bit of a misnomer. Over the last few years there has been more and more evidence of a lot of potential problems being stored up by using cannabis."

One of the ironies of the debate is that it will have no impact on the approach of police in Scotland.

Gordon Meldrum, deputy director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said: "When cannabis was reclassified, the Scottish Police Service effectively made no change and the day-to-day reality is that there has been no change in policing style or stance.

"We still treat people found on the street with cannabis in exactly the same way. We still see cannabis as a dangerous drug and a number of recent studies have confirmed that. Cannabis is still viewed very much as a gateway drug – it's still the first drug that children and young people will try. We've a focus on cocaine and heroin, but we've never taken our eye off the ball as far as cannabis is concerned."

Given the latest medical research and drug use studies, it is hard to resist the logic that cannabis should be graded class C. Smoking dope is certainly a lot less dangerous than taking amphetamines, so from a clinical point of view C does make sense. The argument, though, is also about the broader message, as the Prime Minister points out, sending out signals to young people at some level about the dangers and acceptability of drugs.

But is there not as much danger of sending out confused signals about other drugs if we are to artificially raise the status of cannabis? Should drug laws encourage people to think amphetamines are no more dangerous than cannabis when they clearly are?

Our approach to drugs as a nation needs to be based on honesty and facts if the important warnings about their inherent dangers are to carry any weight with an increasingly savvy generation of drug users.

'discrimination by nationality'
News2020.com
April 5th 2008

A district court judge in the Dutch border city of Maastricht Tuesday overturned a municipal ordinance ordering coffee shops to refuse to serve foreign clients, according to reports compiled by NIS News. The city had imposed the ban as an experimental measure in 2005, in part to appease the neighboring Belgian, French and German governments, who complain that their citizens go to Holland to score, and in part to appease conservative Justice Minister Peit Hein Donner.
One coffee shop was shut down for three months in 2006 because it did not follow the ban on foreigners. But it reopened three months later.
In the meantime, a legal challenge to the ordinance wound through the courts. Now, a Dutch judge has ruled that because the sale of marijuana is legal in practice under Dutch law, ordinances barring foreigners from partaking in that legal activity amount to discrimination by nationality, which is banned by the Dutch constitution unless there are objective, reasonable grounds to justify it. The judge held that no such grounds exist in the present case.
As a Dutch city bordering neighboring countries where marijuana policies are not so relaxed, Maastricht has been the locus of numerous battles over marijuana sales. Just three weeks ago, courts ruled against its bid to set up coffee houses on a designated strip on the city's outskirts to mitigate congestion from foreign "drug tourists."

Ohio SWAT Officer Who Killed Young Mother in Drug Raid Gets Charged With Misdemeanors, Faces Eight Months at Most
StoptheDrugWar
March22nd 2008

Back in January, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a member of the Lima, Ohio, SWAT team shot and killed Tarika Wilson , 26, and shot and maimed her infant son, Sincere Wilson, as she held him in her arms as he and other SWAT team members executed a drug search warrant at the home Wilson shared with her boyfriend. The boyfriend was the object of the raid.

'graphic appearing on Lima SWAT team web site, removed after shooting Police have presented no evidence that Wilson acted in a threatening manner as the SWAT team burst into her home'

On Monday, prosecutors charged Chavalia with two misdemeanors -- negligent homicide in the death of Wilson and negligent assault in the wounding of her child -- that could see him spend a maximum of eight months in prison if convicted on both counts. Wilson's relatives and activists, many of whom allege a pattern of discriminatory policing by the Lima police, were outraged.

The shooting itself touched off heated city council meetings and protest marches. Many citizens and civil rights leaders, including national figures like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, had called for police and local elected officials to be held accountable. Those calls grew louder after Chavalia's charges were announced.

"Any time a man shoots through a baby and kills an unarmed woman, and is charged with two misdemeanors, I think it would be an understatement to say that that's unacceptable," said Jason Upthegrove, Lima NAACP president, in an interview with the Associated Press .

Upthegrove said the charges should have been more serious. He added that the Lima NAACP will ask the FBI and the Justice Department to investigate whether the case has been handled fairly.

"No one's above the law, even if he serves it," said Ivory Austin II, brother of Tarika Wilson. "Don't separate the police from the people. We are all equal in the society. Treat the police like you would treat the common man," he told the AP.

Lima Police Chief Greg Garlock said there was continued sadness over the shooting. "It's a sad day for us that one of our officers was indicted," Garlock said.

Vatican Updates List of Deadly Sins, Adds Drug-Taking, Drug-Selling
News2020.com
March 15th 2008

In an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano this week, the head of the Holy See's Apostolic Penitentiary announced that the Church had updated its list of mortal sins, and that drug-taking and -selling had made the list. The sale and use of drugs is sinful because they "weaken the mind and obscure intelligence," said Bishop Archbishop Gianfranco Gorotti.

Drugs aren't the only thing on the Vatican's mind. Along with drug-taking and -selling, the other new-fangled deadly sins are: polluting the environment; human experimentation, including cloning; excessive wealth; creating or deepening social injustice; abortion; and pedophilia.

The original seven deadly sins -- lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride -- were focused on individual behavior, but the modern version is aimed at the social context, said Gorotti. "While sin used to concern mostly the individual, today it has mainly a social resonance, due to the phenomenon of globalization," he said.

Within the seven sins, drugs was not in the top tier. The greatest danger for modern man was the seductive allure of bioethics, according to Gorotti. "You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos," he said.

"punishable by up to 21 years in prison"
News2020.com
March 10th 2008

Norwegian police have made a number of marijuana grow operation arrests this year, according to the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten . Gardens busted on Krakeroy Island, near Fredrikstad, and Kongsberg in Buskerud over the weekend were just the latest indications that cannabis cultivation is taking off in the land of the Norse.

Those two raids were the fourth in a week, and the 14th and 15th in recent months in southern Norway. Other garden busts have occurred in Telemark, Buskerud, Hedmark, and Ostfold counties. Many of the busts have involved Vietnamese growers, according to police.

Police believe many of the grow ops are linked, and the national crime unit, Kripos, has been called in to aid local investigators. "We've noticed that many of these cases bear similarities," said Kripos spokesman Atle Roll-Mathiesen. "We've gotten involved, to look at the links between them."

Scandinavian countries generally have tough drug policies, and Norway's drug laws are no exception. While small-time drug possession, including marijuana possession, is charged under a relatively lenient section of the Norwegian criminal code, drug cultivation or trafficking offenses, including those involving marijuana, are serious crimes punishable by up to 21 years in prison.

In Memoriam: Judge Eleanor Schockett of LEAP

Jack Cole of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition wrote the following memorial for one of LEAP's most active leaders, Judge Eleanor Schockett. We reprint it from the LEAP web site .

I am very sad to have to report that Judge Eleanor Levingston Schockett died Saturday, January 12, 2008, at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.

Eleanor was a close friend, a colleague, and an unbeatable advocate for sensible thinking in a world that is desperately in need of such people.

I had the pleasure of spending several weeks in the company of Judge Schockett over the last four years. Eleanor joined LEAP by email, July 2, 2003 saying:

"I retired from the circuit bench Dec.31, 2002. (I served two six-year terms). I was referred to this organization by John Chase of the November organization. My interest in this subject dates back to 1958 when I wrote my senior paper at Tulane Law School on the administration of the drug laws in the United States. Matters have only gotten worse in the intervening years as I observed when in the Criminal Division of the Court. The main reason I did not take senior judge status is that I wanted to have my civil rights back, so I could speak out on political as well as judicial issues. I am in full agreement with your mission statement and would like to do whatever I can to contribute to a more responsible drug policy."

It wasn't very long before we realized we must recruit her as a member of the LEAP Board of Directors. Eleanor sat through what seemed at the time to be endless hours of board meetings as we shaped our organization. Her advice was always clear and concise. On many occasions she saved us from making major mistakes.

In those four years, Eleanor never turned down a venue arranged to present LEAP's goal to end drug prohibition. She was absolutely tireless. I had the honor of traveling with Eleanor and retired Detective Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, Eddie Ellison, to New Zealand. In two-weeks we made 90 presentations in that country. Then we were off to a week at the International Harm Reduction Conference in Melbourne, Australia.

My wife accompanied us on that trip and became another of Eleanor's many friends. Eleanor visited us at our home in Medford, Massachusetts many times.

Eleanor fought cancer for the last year, but after a regime of chemotherapy thought she had beaten it. She never complained about her own plight. She told me how ridiculous it was that doctors in North Carolina would charge her $105 per pill to alleviate the nausea caused by her chemo treatment when a simple marijuana cigarette would have accomplished the same thing -- without the side effects. She said that just made her more determined to work to end prohibition of all drugs.

Judge Schockett traveled to New Orleans last December to join 1,200 of us at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference. She spoke on one of the panels and helped us plan our strategy for our continued struggle.

We will all miss her wonderful sense of humor and her biting wit. She was never shy about stating her views on drug policy or about standing up for people in need. When I think of all I have learned from Eleanor and all the ways she has touched my life I feel very sad to have lost her, and that with only this relatively short amount of time with her. I can not imagine how her family feels after knowing Eleanor for a lifetime. Without her LEAP will not be the same. But I can almost hear Eleanor repeating Joe Hill's famous words as he faced his imminent death, "Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize." We will miss her....

DALLAS - Many Texans busted for misdemeanor marijuana possession still are being jailed despite a new state law that allows police to issue a citation instead of making an arrest, according to a newspaper report.
Texas lawmakers hoped to ease jail crowding with the new legislation, which took effect Sept. 1, but some local prosecutors worry what message getting a mere ticket for pot might send. "It may ... lead some people to believe that drug use is no more serious than double parking," Collin County prosecutor Greg Davis said in today's editions of The Dallas Morning News.
The Travis County Sheriff's Department is the only law enforcement agency in the state known to be taking advantage of the new legislation, according to the newspaper.
Prosecutors in Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties said they have no plans to set up a system dealing with citations for misdemeanor possession, which is less than 4 ounces of marijuana.
In addition to easing crowding, the new law also would theoretically keep officers on the street instead of making runs to jail for nonviolent offenders.
The Dallas County Jail has a history of being understaffed and crowded, which has led, in part, to repeated failed state inspections.
But Dallas County officials worry that because the misdemeanors still could result in a case for prosecution, citations raise issues like making sure suspects appear in court and that no one is misidentified. Full Offence.....

U. S. Drug Czar John Walters is essentially the head cheerleader for the drug war bureaucracy. Like all bureaucrats, his goal is the continuation and expansion of his bureaucracy. All bureaucracies want more power and more money. The drug-war bureaucracy is no exception.Marijuana is the linch pin of the drug war bureaucracy. Without marijuana prohibition funding for the so-called war on drugs would be reduced substantially.
There are not enough heroin, cocaine and meth addicts to justify their huge budgets.The only way to achieve victory in the so called drug war is to
re-legalize all of our now illegal drugs so they can be sold in licensed, regulated and taxed businesses.Victory is not the goal of the drug war. Victory in the drug war would mean that the drug war bureaucracy is out of business.
Victory in the drug-war would mean that our robust prison building industry would come to a screeching halt. Victory in the drug-war would mean that thousands of so-called drug warriors would be looking for a job or working at quickie marts.

Irish Labor Party Debates Cannabis Legalization
News2020.com
November 24th 2007

The Irish Labor Party discussed whether to decriminalize or legalize cannabis at its annual convention last Friday, but deferred the matter to its National Executive for further discussion. Putting cannabis on the party agenda was the handiwork of party whip Emmet Stagg, who has long been a proponent of legalization. Emmet Stagg Ireland has some of the highest cannabis use rates in Europe, Stagg noted. He does not wish to encourage cannabis use, he said; only to regularize a drug that is readily available across the country. Leaving the weed illegal creates criminality and drives young people into the hands of drug dealers, he said. "I'm advocating its control, standardization, legitimization and taxation. I am recognizing the fact it is freely available," Stagg said. "Everywhere you go it is available from criminals," he said.

But after contentious debate, the party voted to defer a decision on adopting legalization or decriminalization as part of the platform. By a narrow margin, and following the lead of former party leader Pat Rabbitte, delegates voted to refer the matter to the National Executive for further discussion. While Rabbitte urged caution at the conference, he did say that policymakers need to be thinking outside the box when it comes to cannabis. Labor is the third largest political party in Ireland. It is currently in the opposition.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — A U.S. Department of Justice assessment released last week reports that marijuana "eradication" campaigns such as California's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) are driving producers to move to indoor sites, including suburban homes, confirming longstanding criticisms of the effort.

Although CAMP has seen a 1,200 percent increase in plant seizures in the past decade and is poised to set a record again this year, the National Drug Threat Assessment 2008, released Nov. 8 and available at http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs25/25921/25921p.pdf , states that marijuana production operations in the Pacific region (including northern California, the Central Valley, and the Sierra Nevada mountains) "are extensive, widespread, becoming more sophisticated, and increasing in size," while "marijuana availability is widespread."

Further, the report adds, "Federal, state, and local law enforcement reporting indicates that vigorous outdoor cannabis eradication efforts have caused major marijuana producers, particularly Caucasian groups, to relocate indoors, even in leading outdoor grow states such as California and Tennessee." The report specifically cites suburban homes as one type of site used for such operations, and predicts that the trend will continue: "DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] and criminal groups ... will adapt to the increasing law enforcement pressure and improved detection capabilities associated with outdoor grow sites and will most likely shift operations indoors ... [T]he groups will produce higher-potency marijuana year-round, allowing for an exponential increase in profits derived."

"The Department of Justice has confirmed everything we've been saying about CAMP all year," said Bruce Mirken, San Francisco-based director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. "If you want criminal gangs moving in next door to grow marijuana, if you want to make those criminals unbelievably rich, and if you want to guarantee that marijuana becomes more potent, current policies are working perfectly. If you think that's crazy, then it's time for California to regulate marijuana production just like we regulate wine."

With more than 23,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.

Search for new uses for heroin and marijuana
Medical Science News
November 2nd 2007

The world's leading expert on the opium poppy has joined forces with researchers working on another infamous drug-producing plant - cannabis - in hopes of finding new uses for the much-maligned sources of heroin and marijuana.

Peter Facchini, professor of Biological Sciences and Canada Research Chair in Plant Biotechnology, has received a $650,000 NSERC Strategic Project Grant to create new varieties of opium poppy and cannabis that can be used for medicinal and industrial purposes, but will have no value as illicit drugs. And his work is taking him where few Canadians have gone before: Deep underground into the country's ultra high-security medicinal marijuana growth facility. "It's certainly unusual for a plant biochemist to work in a copper mine hundreds of metres underground," Facchini said. "This is a really great project that involves two of the world's most important medicinal plants and is clearly unique in the plant biology field."

Facchini and a new team of U of C postdoctoral researchers have teamed up with Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems Inc., the National Research Council - Plant Biotechnology Institute, the Alberta Research Council and the University of Saskatchewan to create and study mutant varieties of opium poppy and cannabis in an unused portion of a copper and zinc mine near Flin Flon, Manitoba. Prairie Plant Systems produces medicinal marijuana under contract with Health Canada in this state-of-the-art facility.

Despite awareness of the importance of crop diversification for the long-term success of agriculture in Canada, few plants are cultivated for the production of high-value bioproducts. Opium poppy accumulates the alkaloids morphine, codeine and thebaine, and cannabis produces psychoactive cannabinoids and is used as a source of high-quality fiber and oil. The domestic market for codeine, morphine and oxycodone, which is derived from thebaine, is in excess of $1.6 billion annually, all of which is currently imported. "Canada is well-positioned to support the development of new crops cultivated for the production of valuable bioproducts, such as pharmaceuticals and fibers," says Facchini. The research will identify novel genes for use in the metabolic engineering of opium poppy to accumulate high-value pharmaceutical alkaloids and to block cannabinoid production in cannabis. The latter will allow for a safe, legal, made-in-Canada cannabis crop that will have virtually none of the mind-altering chemical of marijuana but can be grown for hemp fibre, oil and food.

"The overall theme of this work is to modify plants to make them more useful as crops and chemical factories," Facchini said. "Alberta is quickly becoming a leader in this area, especially in the area of biofuels. The immense potential of plants as sources of high-value bioproducts for the agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors also needs attention."

The Biosecure Underground Growth Chamber is in a mine owned by Hudson Bay Smelting & Mining Co. Ltd. Facchini says it is a superb venue for his research. "It's not what you would picture an old mine shaft to be. It's clean and well-lit, it's kept at a constant temperature and it's one of the most secure places in the country," he says. "It gives a whole new meaning to 'mining our data.'"

The Hague - The Amsterdam prosecutor's office called for a four-month prison sentence on Thursday for a Frenchman who killed and cut up his dog after eating hallucinatory magic mushrooms. Jeremy Venzin, 29, "ate hallucinogenic mushrooms and smoked cannabis nearly every day in the two weeks prior to the incident," according to a psychiatric study. Police found Venzin in his van on July 13, his motionless nude body covered in the blood of his furry companion. The vehicle was parked along one of the canals in the centre of the Dutch city. He had slit the dog's throat and then skinned it before cutting it open to pull out the organs. He told police officers that he had killed the dog to liberate it from the demons that were living inside it and that the end of the world was near. During testimony Venzin denied he had made those statements. Judgement is expected on November 8

Karen Tandy Resigns As DEA Chief
Stop the Drug War
October 29th 2007

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) head Karen Tandy is resigning, an agency spokesman announced Monday. Tandy, who was the first woman to hold the top job in federal drug law enforcement, served four years as director. She will leave to take a position as a senior vice president with Motorola. Karen Tandy "It just doesn't get any better than this -- leading 11,000 extraordinarily gifted people in DEA around the world who sacrifice everything to live our dangerous mission 24-7, every day of the year, in order to protect America's children and communities," Tandy said in a statement announcing her resignation . "I will forever remain grateful to President Bush for this opportunity."

During Tandy's tenure, the DEA took credit for combating the growth of clandestine methamphetamine labs, which have declined by nearly two-thirds in four years. But the primary reason for the decline in home-cooked meth is the result of laws restricting easy access to precursor materials, both at the state and federal level. The decline in home meth labs has also resulted in meth of higher quality produced in Mexican super lab being imported into the US in greater quantities.

Tandy also expanded the DEA's presence in Afghanistan, now home to 93% of the world's opium supply. While the agency claims successes, including "historic extraditions of Taliban-connected drug lords," the poppy crop this year is 34% larger than last year, and the trade continues unabated.

But Tandy's most lasting legacy will probably be her leadership of the DEA as the agency cranked up its futile war against medical marijuana patients, producers, and dispensaries in California. Under Tandy's tenure, the DEA has conducted dozens of raids against operations legal under California law, in spite of the expressed opposition of state and local officials in many cases. The operations have been so unpopular in California that DEA raiders routinely have to call on local law enforcement to provide protection against outraged citizens protesting their raids. Tandy, a former associate deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, will serve as Motorola's top spokesperson for public policy, focusing mostly on global telecom policy, trade and regulation.

Britain's North Wales Police Back Chief's Call for Drug Legalization
StoptheDrugWar
October 21st 2007

Last week, we reported on North Wales police chief Richard Brunstom's call to legalize drugs in a paper he released in response to a call from the Home Office for input on the direction the country's drug policy should take. Since then, Brunstrom's remarks have ignited a firestorm of controversy, but his force has stood behind him. On Monday, the North Wales Police Authority approved plans to send Brunstrom's paper on to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

The North Wales Police Authority passed three of Brunstrom's recommendations:

• That the Authority submits a response to the current Home Office consultation on drugs strategy.
• That the Authority submits a response to the forthcoming Welsh Assembly Government consultation on the all Wales substance misuse strategy.
• That the Authority urges the repeal of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and its replacement with a Misuse of Substances Act, based upon a new 'hierarchy of harm' that includes alcohol and nicotine.

Independent legalization cover (courtesy Transform) While Brunstrom's stand has excited criticism, he has also picked up at least one prominent supporter. Lord Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons, told The Independent Brunstom's prescription was on the money. "The present regime has failed in every way. If you look at prohibition of alcohol in the US, it failed. The Chief Constable's suggestions must be considered seriously. We've got to stop the dealers who cause so much misery for society."

He added: "I used to reckon that 80 percent of those people received into prison were misusing a substance of some kind when they came in. The amount of acquisitive crime connected to drug abuse is immense. That is why there needs to be a new approach."

A fourth Brunstrom recommendation, that the Police Authority affiliate with the Transform Drug Policy Foundation , a leading British drug reform group, is on hold pending discussions between Transform and the authority. Transform is nonetheless quite pleased with the results so far.

"It is hugely significant that the call for a legal regulation and control of drugs has now been publicly supported by the North Wales police authority, and they are to be congratulated in taking a bold stand in this urgent and vital debate," said Transform executive director Danny Kushlick. "There are many high profile individuals who support this position, but this sort of institutional support really puts the debate center stage. We hope to see other police authorities following their lead, and we look forward to the Police Authority affiliating to Transform in the near future. The Government have tried their best to avoid this debate in the current drug strategy consultation and review process, not engaging with any policy alternatives despite the obvious failings of the current approach that the North Wales police highlight so clearly," Kushlick continued. "The call from the North Wales Police Authority makes the continued evasion from meaningful debate impossible: the Government must now engage with the significant and growing body of mainstream opinion calling for pragmatic moves away from prohibition towards evidence based regulatory alternatives."

While Transform is pleased, neither the government nor the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is smiling. In response to a question from a North Wales parliamentarian this week, Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said that strict enforcement of the drug laws was needed.

The ACPO, for its part, suggested that Brunstrom's ideas were a "counsel of despair." ACPO president Ken Jones issued a statement saying Brunstrom's views were "his personal views, to which he is entitled," and that ACPO disagreed. "ACPO does not agree with the repeal of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 or the legalisation of drugs -- this is arguably a counsel of despair," Jones said. "The reduction of harm caused by drugs to our neighborhoods is a priority for chief officers across the UK. According to the Drug Harm Index it has been reducing since 2001. This is a complex pernicious global problem. Moving to total legalization would, in our view, greatly exacerbate the harm to people in this country, not reduce it. It simply does not make sense to legitimize dangerous narcotic substances which would then have the potential to ruin even more lives and our neighborhoods."

But it is ACPO and its fellow prohibitionists who are on a path to nowhere, Brunstrom retorted. Three million people take illegal drugs in Britain, he noted, while 2.5 million are alcoholics and 9.5 million addicted to nicotine. "This is a real counsel of despair if one chooses to look at the evidence. Seizures of drugs in the UK are less than 1%. In 2003 the UK stopped 10% of heroin coming in and only 15% of cocaine."

Meanwhile, as the debate continues, so does Britain's drug war. The Home Office announced Thursday that the number of drug offenses police reported in the second quarter of this year was up 14% over the same period last year. That's another 55,000 drug arrests for the British police, courts, and prisons to deal with.

A pot-filled parody of Harry Potter that started out as a spoof on rabble.ca's discussion forum, babble, is now a published novel that has grabbed international media attention. Dana Larsen posted drafts of each chapter of Hairy Pothead and the Marijuana Stone, on babble over the course of six months, from December 2006 to June 2007, to the amused and delighted feedback of other forum participants. He also posted it on the Cannabis Culture forums.

“I wanted to motivate myself by having an audience that was reading it,” says Larsen. “If I put it on the forum and people said they liked it, it would motivate me to write the next chapter. I had a good response, and people wanted to know what would happen. That helped my creative juices to get going.” As the novel progressed, Larsen got together with marijuana activist and publisher of Cannabis Culture, Marc Emery, and illustrator Gary Wintle to turn his written sketches into a finished book. The book will be published in full-colour, soft-cover magazine format and released in October.
When he approached mainstream publishers with his manuscript, they liked it but were afraid of being sued for copyright infringement. Larsen isn't worried, though. J.K. Rowling's people haven't been in touch, “nor would I expect them to be. I'd be very surprised if they contacted me for any reason. We haven't done anything illegal. Parody is allowed.”

The national and international media coverage he received after just one e-mail press release pleases Larson, but doesn't surprise him. “Harry Potter is so popular and marijuana is popular,” he reasons.
The fact that it is being published by controversial marijuana activist Marc Emery doesn't hurt either. Emery faces extradition to the U.S. for distributing marijuana seeds by mail across the border.
The novel itself combines the humourous adventures of Hairy Pothead with consciousness-raising about marijuana. “I wanted to entertain and amuse people before anything else,” says Larsen. “It's hard to talk about marijuana without it being political due to the nature of the prohibition against it. After reading my book, I hope you have a lot of information about cannabis and hemp in your mind that wasn't there before.”

As the nominated federal NDP candidate for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country Larsen hopes that marijuana activism will become less controversial and more common in politics. “At one point, it was a big deal to be gay, but now it's not a big deal. For most people, it's not a big deal if you smoke pot. But in the political arena, you won't find many MPs or MLAs who say, 'Sure, I smoke pot and I enjoy it.' I'd like to see that transition, like the gay rights movement, for the marijuana rights movement as well.”
The book launch for Hairy Pothead and the Marijuana Stone will be held this Saturday at the Vancouver Seed Bank, starting at 2 p.m. Michelle Langlois is on the staff of rabble.ca and writes from Toronto, Canada.

UTRECHT, 03/10/07 - The strength of the cannabis sold in the tolerated Dutch drugs bars known as 'coffee shops' has decreased. The level of THC, the main constituent, has dropped from 17.5 percent in 2006 to 16 percent in 2007, according to figures presented by the Trimbos Institute yesterday.
Since 1999, Trimbos has carried out research for the Health Ministry into the strength of cannabis products sold in the 'coffee shops'. Until 2004, the THC content increased substantially, to more than 20 percent. "Since then, a swing has taken place."The THC level is nevertheless still many times that of cannabis that grows naturally, which generally has values of 2 to 5 percent. The strength of the Dutch 'weed' is so high due to sophisticated cultivation techniques and equipment, which is freely available in shops.
For the first time since the measurements started in 1999, the price of cannabis has gone up. The price was even 20 percent higher than last year. The price of imported hash also rose.

The average price of one gram of cannabis is now 7.30 euros. "The higher price and the drop in THC content are probably the result of the intensified efforts of the police to trace cannabis growers. The decrease in supply leads to a higher purchase price for the coffee shops," Trimbos explained.
Another striking result is the substantial drop in the THC content of imported hash. This decreased from 18.7 percent in 2006 to 13.3 percent in 2007. There was also a slight price rise, from 7.30 to 7.70 euros on average.
"It is possible that climatic conditions in the country of origin, in most cases Morocco, led to a poorer harvest, resulting in lower hashish proceeds. Another possibility is that the more stringent policies in Morocco in relation to hashish have led to reduced income and fewer exports."

Recipes for illegal drugs and the possession of equipment to make them will be banned under proposed South Australian government legislation.
SA Attorney-General Michael Atkinson on Tuesday introduced legislation to parliament that banned the possession of drug-related recipes and equipment without a reasonable excuse. Mr Atkinson said under the legislation people would have to prove why they have equipment used in the hydroponic cultivation of cannabis or face a maximum two years jail or a $10,000 fine.
The laws would also apply to equipment for clandestine drug laboratories and drug recipes, including those to make "hash cookies" and alike that involved marijuana, he said, Full Ban...

Civil Guard recovered the drugs in two operations in Almonte and Isla Cristina. There were two important drug hauls in Huelva province on Wednesday, where Civil Guard seized a total four tons of cannabis resin in separate operations in Almonte and Isla Cristina. Seven people are in custody, according to the report in Huelva Información. Officers recovered more than two and a half tons of the drug in the first operation on the Playa del Hoyo, in Isla Cristina, early on Wednesday. No arrests were made on that occasion.
The arrests came in Almonte when officers on surveillance swooped on the Playa Castilla, after earlier that day, the remains of a boat were found on the shore and the drugs were found buried in the dunes. The suspects are four from Ukraine, another from Lithuania, and two Spaniards.

A pro-cannabis lobby group says an ingredient in cannabis may prevent mad cow disease. The National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml) says a French study shows cannabidiol may be effective in preventing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known as mad cow disease. Scientists at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France found cannabidiol - a non-psychoactive ingredient - may prevent the development of prion diseases, the most well known of which is BSE.
Researchers found cannabidiol inhibited the accumulation of prion proteins in infected mice and sheep.
Norml spokesman Chris Fowlie said the discovery added to the scientific evidence supporting Green MP Metiria Turei's bill to legalise the medicinal use of cannabis. "[It] should be supported by any MP with a clear head. Unfortunately most politicians act like mad cows whenever cannabis is mentioned," Mr Fowlie said.

Czech Marijuana Users to Get Lesser Penalties
Pravo
Sept:16th 2007

Czech deputies responsible for writing an amendment to the penal code are proposing much lesser sentences for pot smokers, mushroom eaters, and possibly, marijuana growers, the Czech daily Pravo reported August 27. There is a possibility the amendment will include no penalty for growing small amounts of marijuana for personal use, the paper said.

Current Czech drug laws make no distinction between marijuana and so-called hard drugs. Under that law, anyone producing illicit drugs is subject to five years in prison. But while the law makes no distinction, judicial practice does. In most cases, the possession of "quantities lesser than great" (in the case of marijuana, up to 20 cigarettes) is handled as an administrative offense, not a criminal one.

The proposed amendment would completely remove the possibility of a five-year sentence for simple marijuana possession, making the maximum sentence one year. The maximum sentence for small-time growing would most probably be six months.

Berlin (dpa) - Claudia H has become the first German to be allowed legal access to cannabis to treat the multiple sclerosis she has been suffering from for 14 years.
Strict conditions apply to the permit, which came into effect in late August, and the treatment has to be conducted under the supervision of a doctor. Despite the widespread evidence that cannabis can help MS patients, as well as cancer and HIV/AIDS sufferers, counter their pain and assist in curbing weight-loss, German doctors are not allowed to prescribe it.
A synthetic alternative is available in the form of Dronabinol, the active ingredient in cannabis, but the state health insurance will not pay the costs, and 60 capsules can cost up to 2,000 dollars.Many patients resort to illegal sources for the drug, enduring the hassle of negotiating the drug-dealers' milieu and running the risk of brushes with the law, Full Approval...

From the ground, the pine forests near the North Carolina line appear unremarkable - rows of trees that eventually will be chopped down to make way for a housing development.
But hidden among the trees, easily visible only from the air, is a bumper crop of what some experts consider South Carolina's most lucrative harvest: marijuana.
More than 30,000 marijuana plants were seized in two July busts just south of Charlotte, N.C., bringing the total amount of pot seized this year to 38,000 plants. That's nearly three times the number confiscated across South Carolina in all of 2005, and nearly as many as were seized statewide last year.
State and federal authorities, and experts in marijuana policies, say that what appears to be a bumper crop of the illicit plants this year is due to two factors: bolder and more sophisticated marijuana growers producing more of the drug, and law enforcement getting better at finding the grow operations, Full Crop....

'eight years to life under New York's Rockefeller laws'
StoptheDrugWar
August 29th 2007

Former New York Rockefeller drug law victim turned reformer Veronica Flournoy died last week of lung cancer in a Florida hospice. Flournoy, 39, a heavy drug user in her younger years, was snagged in an undercover drug operation and sentenced to eight years to life under New York's draconian Rockefeller laws. Flournoy served her minimum sentence, then collected her two young children and tried to begin life anew with her family. But the lung cancer, which appeared while she was in prison and which prison doctors told her not to worry about, left her with little time.Prison opened Flournoy's eyes to the injustice of the drug war, and she never forgot her fellow prisoners. Flournoy participated in rallies designed to pressure polticians to undo the Rockefeller laws and even consented to using her terminal illness in a move to heighten the pressure. She appeared in a February public service announcement sponsored by the William Moses Kunstler Fund aimed at Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) and other state politicians who have been slow to act on vows to reform the state's harsh drug laws.

The coroner has found a cannabis-affected driver caused a car accident last year which killed seven people at Donald in Victoria's north-west.
The coroner found the driver of a car failed to give way to a van. The car driver, Max Purdue, was found to have recently used cannabis which would have affected his judgment. The coroner said Purdue's lack of judgement was the primary cause of the accident. He also recommended the State Government continue its education campaign about the risk of driving under the influence of drugs.
Kevin Millard's parents died in the accident and he says he is glad his father, who was driving the van, has had his part in the accident cleared up. "Life's hard but each day gets a little bit easier, you learn to deal with things," he said. He says the collision should never have happened.
"I'd just like to get the message across that drugs and driving are very, very dangerous," he says. Mr Millard says people need to understand the consequences of drug-driving.

VALE - Like other marijuana fields found in Oregon this month, a big pot harvest on public land discovered Tuesday by an Oregon Army National Guard aircraft in remote Malheur County may be part of a larger Mexican national growing operation.
The Malheur County case involves 15,000 pot plants cultivated in the southwest corner of the county near the border of Harney County, approximately 150 miles southwest of Ontario and Vale. The big grow was first spotted Tuesday from the air during an “eradication flight” by the Oregon Army National Guard, and then authorities Wednesday traveled on foot to the site of the grow.
“It has the earmarkings of what has begun to be referred to as Mexican national grows,” Malheur County Sheriff Andy Bentz said Thursday.
Authorities determined some of the plants had been harvested, others were drying, and around 15,000 plants were still in the ground. The pot grow was located near White Horse Creek Basin. The exact location of the grow is not being released. A man from Central California was arrested Wednesday near the area of the pot field for unlawful manufacture of marijuana. That man, Sergio Lopez, 26, is lodged in the Malheur County Jail and he is also being held for federal immigration authorities, Bentz confirmed Thursday. At least two additional suspects in the case are at large, Bentz confirmed. Authorities believe a stolen dump truck, that later caught on fire, was used by suspects connected to the marijuana grow operation who were attempting to leave the area, Bentz said. Marijuana was not inside the truck, the sheriff confirmed. Before Lopez was arrested he hitchhiked until he was picked up by a citizen. He had also called police, Bentz said, because he was “lost.” Full Flight....

But for more than a decade the Cairns father-of-two, who turns 60 tomorrow, presided over one of Australia's most sophisticated marijuana-growing cartels. The former bank manager and grazier was yesterday sentenced in Cairns Supreme Court to 13½ years' jail for his role as head of the multi-million-dollar syndicate. Justice Stanley Jones, in sentencing, said Lane was "second to none" in the organisation.
"You were responsible for marketing of the drug, distribution of profits, conversion of cash into gold, (and the) keeping of accounts," Justice Jones said.
Lane and four other syndicate members were yesterday sentenced after a three-year joint police and Australian Crime Commission investigation traced the syndicate to Europe and across Australia.
Officers at the time of the arrests in May 30, 2006, said it was one of the biggest and longest-running drug operations found in several decades. Chiefs earn $300,000 per crop. The syndicate used helicopters to ferry men and supplies into remote bush camps on an outback cattle station, near Chillagoe, producing tonnes of high-grade cannabis every year.
Syndicate chiefs earned up to $300,000 each crop, paid in cash and gold bullion, with most of them burying it in secret caches including down a mine shaft at Mt Mulligan.
They used drug mules, paying up to $30,000 a trip, to travel to Amsterdam and bring back thousands of high-potency cannabis seeds.
Crop-sitters were paid $3000 a week and set up elaborate camps with tents, gas fridges, irrigation systems and cryovac machines to package the finished product. Helicopters, semi-trailers Helicopters would then carry the marijuana, worth between $3 million and $4 million a crop, to waiting semi-trailers which transported it down a network of inland roads and into the Sydney and Melbourne markets between 1995 and 2006. Lane, unshaven and his shirt crumpled, waved goodbye to his family as he was led away. Helicopter pilot Peter Pantovich - former manager of the Bolwarra Station, 75km southwest of Chillagoe - was sentenced to eight years for his role.

What are the sex effects of marijuana?
Sexuality.about.com
August 14th 2007

Marijuana comes from the hemp plant called cannabis sativa, and has long been considered to have aphrodisiac qualities and various sex effects, both positive and negative. Mention of the sex effects of marijuana can be found in the Arabian Nights , and is recognized in Ayurveda medicine . Marijuana has also been associated with the practice of Tantra .
As you read the pros and cons of marijuana and sex below, keep in mind that drug effects are rarely simple, and there is no true “wonder drug” that will give you every benefit without any drawback (or vice versa). Also, because sex is more than just a physiological process, drugs may impact your psychological and social experience of sex in unpredictable ways.

Does marijuana make sex better?

• At lower doses, marijuana may alter how you sense and perceive sexual stimuli in ways that enhance sex. People report that their awareness of touch is heightened, and their perception of time can change. So things "feel" better, and sex seems to go on longer as well.
• For men, marijuana may shift attention away from their usual focus on the penis. In one survey of 800 men, 83 percent found that marijuana enhanced sexual pleasure, but this was unrelated to their erections or ejaculatory control.
• In another study, 75 percent of men said that marijuana increased sexual pleasure and satisfaction, 68 percent reported that it enhanced their orgasm, and 39 percent found that it increased the duration of intercourse.
• Women are even more likely than men to report enhanced sexual desire with marijuana use. In one study, 90 percent of women reported that marijuana increased feelings of sexual pleasure and satisfaction to varying degrees, and 40 percent of women reported that marijuana increased the quality of their orgasm. Full Orgasm....

The World's biggest factory for processing hemp - claimed to be the “green” building material of the future - is being planned for a Suffolk town at a cost of £3.6 million. When running at full capacity the plant will employ 35 people and enable operator, Hemcore Limited, the UK's only commercial hemp processing company, to process 50,000 tonnes of hemp straw a year. The new facility is to be installed in an existing building at the Halesworth Business Centre. Hemcore said last night that a site was selected in eastern England to ensure it was close to the majority of existing hemp growers. “This is also an area where the growing base is expected to expand rapidly as the demand for hemp products continues to increase,” said Mike Duckett, Managing Director. Installation is due to begin in January 2008 with commissioning of the new plant due to start in May.
It is expected to be fully operational in the summer of next year, with production increasing over a four year period until full capacity is
reached. Currently, 4,500 tonnes of hemp are processed at Hemcore's existing facility in Maldon. This will be closed down when the new factory becomes operational.
Mr Duckett said: “Our new facility is great news for the environment and the region's farmers, more and more of whom are already reaping the benefits of growing hemp.”
Use of hemp-based products would help the UK to reduce its carbon emissions. Emerging markets included plastics reinforcement, nutrition,
clothing and horticulture, he added. David Sillett, rural development manager at the East of England Development Agency, said the project would contribute to the adoption of more sustainable construction methods, while creating additional employment and benefiting farmers.
Hemp, which grows up to four metres high, is tolerant of both drought and heavy rain and does not require pesticides.
Environment Minister, Phil Woolas, said: “This new investment in Suffolk will provide many benefits - for local jobs, the economy, and for those farmers who will have the opportunity to help meet increased demand for this crop. “It also gives a clear signal that the UK is serious about developing the bio-economy because of the many benefits it can provide - including reducing greenhouse gases, cutting waste and pollution and helping biodiversity.” Hemp is a member of the cannabis family but has virtually no drug content. It has been used to make textiles for at least 6,000 years and was once widely cultivated in the UK to produce fibre for sails and rigging.

WA Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan demanded a toughening up of the State’s liberal cannabis laws yesterday, arguing that offenders should no longer be offered the luxury of a small fine as Alan Carpenter defended his Government’s approach to cannabis users. A day after the Australian Medical Association’s WA branch called for the controversial legislation to be rewritten, Mr O’Callaghan said cannabis users who refused to take part in a drug education program should face court. He said those who chose to attend an education class rather than pay the fine but then failed to show up should be prosecuted. His comments came despite the Premier saying Mr O’Callaghan continued to support the Government’s position. “I support the drug diversion program,’” Mr O’Callaghan said. “However, in our submission to the Government’s review of the Cannabis Control Act we will state that we want it strengthened. “We would propose to eliminate the option of taking a small fine and instead give people the option of either going to court or attending drug education classes. “If people opt to attend the education classes and don’t go within 28 days then it should trigger an offence and they should be prosecuted.” Full Options...

Smoking one cannabis joint is as harmful to a person's lungs as having up to five cigarettes, according to research published on Tuesday.
Those who smoked cannabis damaged both the lungs' small fine airways, used for transporting oxygen, and the large airways, which blocked air flow, the researchers said.
It meant cannabis smokers complained of wheezing, coughing, and chest tightness, the study by experts at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand found. The researchers tested 339 people -- those who smoked only cannabis, those who smoked tobacco, those who smoked both and non-smokers. The study found only those who smoked tobacco suffered from the crippling lung disease emphysema, but cannabis use stopped the lungs working properly. "The extent of this damage was directly related to the number of joints smoked, with higher consumption linked to greater incapacity," said the authors of the report published in the medical journal Thorax, Full Study.....

Smoking cannabis increases the risk of schizophrenia by at least 40% according to research which indicates that there are at least 800 people suffering serious psychosis in the UK after smoking the drug. Mental health groups called on the government last night to issue fresh health warnings and launch an education campaign to advise teenagers that even light consumption of the drug could trigger long-term mental health problems. The findings came after a rush of ministers declared their cannabis-smoking pasts and an order from the prime minister for officials to consider whether the drug should be reclassified amid fears about its more potent "skunk" form. Last night the Home Office said the research would be considered in that review.
The study, an analysis published in the Lancet medical journal of previous research into the effects of the drug on tens of thousands of people, provides the most persuasive evidence to date that smoking cannabis can cause mental illness years after people have stopped using it.
The overall additional risk to cannabis smokers is small, but measurable. One in 100 of the general population have a chance of developing severe schizophrenia; that rises to 1.4 in 100 for people who have smoked cannabis. But the risk of developing other psychotic symptoms among people who smoke large quantities or are already prone to mental illness is significant, the researchers say.
People who smoke cannabis daily have a 200% increased risk of psychosis. They estimate that 14% of 15- to 34-year-olds currently suffering schizophrenia are ill because they smoked cannabis, a figure previously thought to be between 8% and 10%. According to the current diagnosis rates about 800 people would have been spared schizophrenia if they had not smoked cannabis. The researchers said the evidence was the strongest yet to show that cannabis caused psychotic mental illnesses, and not just that people who were ill smoked more, Full Psychosis....

A summer intern in Illinois got more “on the job” training than bargained for when he – or she — uncovered the largest, most sophisticated marijuana growing operation that local officials have ever seen. The operation was discovered in a peaceful natural area well-known to birdwatchers for its 263 different species of birds.

Many summer interns complain that their jobs are boring and meaningless. It’s not unusual for an intern to spend three months filing paperwork in triplicate, or answering the phones. Some businesses, despite their best intentions, end up with little or no productive work for interns. That’s why this summer intern’s story is even more unusual.

An intern at the Cook County Forest Preserve near Chicago, Illinois uncovered a professional marijuana growing operation with an estimated street value of $10 million. The intern is a minor and his – or her – identity has not been disclosed, in part to thwart any retribution by drug dealers. The Forest Preserve won’t even release details about the intern’s gender or age, in an effort to protect the young employee, so we’ll simply refer to the intern as “he”.

The details that we do know are compelling enough. On June 10, the intern was researching foxes in the Forest Preserve. The Cook County Forest Preserve includes thousands of acres of natural forest scattered throughout the greater Chicago metro area. There are similar branches in neighboring counties. The scenic areas provide hiking and biking trails for residents, and are refuges for birds and wildlife, Full Exposure....

5 Million pounds worth of cannabis has been seized at Newhaven Ferry Port. Custom officers working at the port seized 2.4 tonnes of the drug which had been smuggled in from Spain on July 13. A British lorry arrived from Dieppe carrying a load which looked like oil storage tanks. When searching the lorry, officers discovered that the tops of the machines were held in place with a series of screws. When these were removed and the lids lifted they discovered a huge haul of cannabis hidden inside. It is estimated that 2.4 tonnes were seized with a street value in excess of £5 million. The driver of the lorry, a British national from Manchester was arrested, interviewed and released on bail pending further enquiries. Maria Finelli, HM Revenue and Customs spokeswoman in the South East, said: 'This was another excellent detection by Customs working at Newhaven Ferry Port. This will send out a strong warning to smugglers that the Port should not be seen as a soft touch. Customs vigilance has prevented this cannabis from reaching its destination.'

Police are shutting down at least one cannabis factory a week in their battle to contain an illegal industry created by reclassification of the drug, one of Scotland's leading police officers revealed last night. Graeme Pearson, director general of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA), said cannabis factory raids north of the Border had gone from none to 66 in the space of 12 months. In comments that will be seen as critical of senior politicians who allowed cannabis to be "downgraded" from Class B to Class C, Pearson says organised crime saw a business opportunity and quickly moved in. Pearson said Scotland's new generation of "industrial-sized" cannabis producers could be worth more than £7m - equivalent to eight million "spliffs". The SDEA chief spoke out after the government announced cannabis could be returned to Class B. That prompted numerous admissions north and south of the Border from politicians who admitted smoking the drug as students.
But Pearson warned that society faced much more severe problems as a result of cannabis use, including the increased strength of the drug. He also revealed that many people were working in the factories in conditions similar to "slavery", Full Blame....

The deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, today became the eighth member of the cabinet to admit smoking cannabis while at university.
Her admission on GMTV this morning came the day after five other cabinet ministers admitted they had broken the law by smoking cannabis. Asked whether she had ever taken cannabis, Ms Harman said: "I did, when I was at university, smoke cannabis once or twice."
But she said she had not smoked the drug since then: "I have indulged in the odd glass of wine but not cannabis."
The cabinet ministers who admitted to youthful indiscretion yesterday were the home secretary, Jacqui Smith; the chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling; the transport secretary, Ruth Kelly; the business secretary, John Hutton; and the chief secretary to the treasury, Andy Burnham.
The housing minister, Yvette Cooper, and the communities secretary, Hazel Blears, had previously admitted taking the drug in the past.
The prime minister's spokesman insisted that Gordon Brown regarded it as a personal matter and said he did not send out questionnaires asking cabinet colleagues whether they had taken drugs, More Drug Abuse.....

"Don't buy drugs. They fund violence and terror," he said
Yahooka.com
July 17th 2007

The nation's top anti-drug official said people need to overcome their "reefer blindness" and see that illicit marijuana gardens are a terrorist threat to the public's health and safety, as well as to the environment.
John P. Walters, President Bush's drug czar, said the people who plant and tend the gardens are terrorists who wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties. Walters made the comments at a Thursday press conference that provided an update on the "Operation Alesia" marijuana-eradication effort. "Don't buy drugs. They fund violence and terror," he said.
After touring gardens raided this week in Shasta County, Walters said the officers who are destroying the gardens are performing hard, dangerous work in rough terrain. He said growers have been known to have weapons, including assault rifles.
"These people are armed; they're dangerous," he said. He called them "violent criminal terrorists."
Walters, whose official title is director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said too many people write off marijuana as harmless. "We have kind of a reefer blindness,' " he said.
No arrests have been made so far in the four days of raids, the opening leg of what Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko has promised will be at least two straight weeks of daily raids. He said suspects have been hard to find because their familiarity with their terrain makes it easy for them to flee quickly. Although crews doing the raids are using Black Hawk and other helicopters to drop in on some of the gardens, Bosenko said they don't want to give the growers any warning of a raid. "We try to move in under stealth," he said.

As of Thursday morning, Operation Alesia raids had resulted in the yanking of 68,237 young marijuana plants from public lands in Shasta County. Raids already have been conducted in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, as well as on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service north of Lake Shasta and other public land near Manton.
The operation is being led by the sheriff's office and has involved 17 agencies, including the California National Guard and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It's believed to be the largest campaign of its kind in the state, Bosenko said.
The operation is named after the last major battle between the Roman Empire and the Gauls in 52 B.C. That battle was won by the Romans. With the blitz of marijuana gardens around Shasta County, Bosenko said officials hope to not only get rid of the pot, but also win back the land for the public that owns it. "These organizations are destroying our lands and wildlife," he said.
Bernie Weingardt, regional forester for the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Region, said the 28,000 acres believed to house illegal marijuana grows on national forest land throughout the state would cost more than $300 million to
revive. "These lands must be cleaned and restored," he said.
His estimate is based on a National Park Service study that found it costs $11,000 per acre to pull the plants, clear irrigation systems, reshape any terracing and replant native vegetation, said Mike Odle, Forest Service spokesman.
While Walters didn't give specific goals for Operation Alesia, he said anti-drug agencies aim to cripple the organized crime groups that he said are behind the marijuana cultivation.
"This business we intend to put into recession, depression and put its leaders into jail," Walters said.
Reporter Dylan Darling can be reached at 225-8266 or at ddarling@redding.com .
Drug czar gives warning : Local : Redding Record Searchlight

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What's At Stake:

Since medical marijuana initiatives were first passed over ten years ago, the DEA has conducted raids against medical marijuana clinics in California, recently with increasing frequency, forcing hundreds if not thousands of patients to procure marijuana in the black market instead. In a ruling issued on June 6, 2005, the US Supreme Court upheld the government's power to do this.

While this didn't change anything -- state laws protecting medical marijuana patients and their providers still are binding upon state and local law enforcement authorities -- it was a missed opportunity for the Court to rein in federal overreaching and help some of our society's most vulnerable members.

Fortunately, Congress will have a chance next week to set things right. The Hinchey amendment, to be considered during the debate on the Science-State-Justice-Commerce Appropriations bill, would prohibit the federal government from arresting, raiding or prosecuting patients who are abiding by state medical marijuana laws.

Your help is needed to get it passed, and there won't be another chance until next year at the earliest. Please visit http://stopthedrugwar.org/medicalmarijuana/ to send an e-mail to your US Representative asking him or her to vote YES on the Hinchey medical marijuana amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill. When you are done, please call your Rep. on the phone as well to make even greater impact -- call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to be connected, or use our lookup tool at http://stopthedrugwar.org/lookup.html  to get the direct number.

TALKING POINTS FOR YOUR PHONE CALL OR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Campaign Expiration Date:
September 30, 2007

The health risks of cannabis are so great that it should now be reclassified as a class B drug, carrying much greater penalties for possession and trafficking, says David Cameron's new blueprint for dealing with Britain's growing addiction problems. The Tory leader has been convinced by emerging evidence that a strong form of the drug, skunk, is causing an epidemic of mental health disorders. A report being published this week by a Conservative policy commission will confront the issue, recommending an upgrading of the drug to class B, as well as arguing the case for a complete transformation of addiction treatment in Britain.This comes as Labour and the Tories go head to head on the issue of social breakdown, with both parties competing to show they have solutions that would strengthen families and prevent antisocial behaviour, Full Ground Hog...

Rabat - Morocco, which has slashed cannabis cultivation by nearly half over the past four years, hopes to eradicate the main remaining area of cultivation in the northern Rif mountains by opening up the region and introducing substitute crops. The eradication programme encourages farmers to switch to other crops, especially on fertile land where the growing of cannabis is a recent development, he told AFP. “In the Rif mountain chain we are centring our efforts on non-agricultural infrastructure and activities such as rural tourism,” he said. “Opening these areas up plays an important role in reducing cannabis.” Production of cannabis resin, or hashish, which amounted to 3,070 tons in 2003, has already dropped by 61% in the area, according to Khalid Zerouali, a senior official at the interior ministry. That mirrors the progress across the country. A 2003 inquiry sponsored by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) using both observations on the ground and satellite pictures put at 134,000 hectares (520 square miles) the area used to grow cannabis. “This area has been cut to 72,500 hectares at present, a drop of 46%,” Zerouali said, Full Programme....

Malaysia - Unskilled worker Henok Sibuea, 30, from Sumatra, Indonesia, gathered together his savings and, like thousands of his compatriots, paid for a boat trip across the Straits of Malacca and landed here hoping to escape poverty, get a job and send money home to his wife and four children. That was three years ago. Earlier in June, Sibuea stood shell-shocked in the dock of the High Court in Shah Alam, about 30 km east of the capital, charged with possession of 5,341 grams of cannabis, or marijuana. He was sentenced to 16 years in jail and to be whipped 10 times, a sentence that brought tears to his eyes. But compared to fellow Indonesians who languish in Malaysian jails and face the death penalty, Sibuea is a lucky person. He escaped the hangman's noose because he was charged with "possession" of cannabis and not "trafficking" which carries a mandatory death penalty. According to an Indonesian embassy spokesman, "several hundred" Indonesians, a large majority of them from Aceh province on Sumatra's north-west coast, are incarcerated in jails across the country facing trials mainly for drug crimes and some for murder -- capital offences in Malaysia, More....

Indonesia: Marijuana possession should remain a crime in Indonesia, but chefs who use the herb as a traditional way to season curries should not be arrested, the country's vice president told local reporters. Cooks in Aceh province and other regions in the north of Sumatra island say they use tiny amounts of crushed marijuana leaves or seeds as a spice in certain dishes, like cannabis tika with a rogan josh sauce, 'nice' Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Vice President Yusuf Kalla said that there was "no way" Indonesia would legalize or decriminalize marijuana as some countries in western Europe have done. "It is all right to use it as a food seasoning, but it should not be fully legalized," Kalla was quoted as saying by The Jakarta Post. Kalla did not address the problems such a stance might pose to police tasked with arresting marijuana users. Officers have never previously cracked down on the use of marijuana in the kitchen or said the practice was a particular problem. Kalla and the police chief both reiterated their support for the death penalty for drug traffickers, noting that neighboring Malaysia and Singapore also execute offenders.

Oak-Hills — A man was arrested for marijuana cultivation after officials found a sophisticated marijuana grow with more than 1,100 marijuana plants, officials said. Deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Victor Valley station’s Major Enforcement Team worked in conjunction with the department’s Marijuana Enforcement Team to serve a search warrant at a home in the 10400 block of Canyon Drive, according to Deputy Mike New. Around 12:30 p.m. Monday officials arrested Leonel Gutierrez, 29, of the residence on suspicion of cultivation of marijuana and theft of utilities, as he was stealing electricity from Southern California Edison, officials said, More...

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a school that suspended a student for brandishing a banner proclaiming "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," in one of the more bizarre recent free-speech cases.
The high-school pupil, Joseph Frederick, had argued that the school principal had infringed his constitutional right to free speech by suspending him in January 2002 over his apparently pro-cannabis message.
But in a five-three decision, the Supreme Court found that schools "may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use." "We conclude that the school officials in this case did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending the student responsible for it," the ruling written by chief justice John Roberts said.
Frederick was 18 when he displayed his huge banner just outside the school grounds at Juneau, Alaska in front of television cameras as the Olympic flame passed in front of a crowd, Full Free Speech....

Buying cannabis in the Dutch city of Maastricht will soon mean having your fingerprints taken, your face scanned and your biometric data recorded. The 15 coffee shops in the city are spending about 100,000 (£67,000) on a security system. Marc Josemans, head of the local coffee shop union, said it would be harder for under-age cannabis smokers to get into their shops than for a terrorist to get into Europe. "We are ashamed for this attack on your privacy", an explanatory leaflet tells customers. The coffee shops face a continual struggle to prove they are not selling to people under the age of 18 or selling more than five grams of cannabis a day to any one individual. If they can't, they risk being shut down, More....

United Arab Emirates — A Canadian U.N. official who advised the Afghan government on eradicating opium poppy crops was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison for smuggling and drug possession. Bert Tatham, 35, of Vancouver, British Columbia, was arrested April 23 during a one-hour stopover at the Dubai International Airport, after being caught with a half a gram of hashish, and two poppy bulbs. He pleaded innocent. Tatham's attorney, Saeed Al-Gailani, argued at the arraignment last week that his client inadvertently carried a small amount of drugs because part of his job was to collect "tons of drugs every day" in Afghanistan. "His trousers must have mistakenly picked up the tiny quantity of hashish," al-Gailani said. As for the poppy bulbs, al-Gailani said Tatham was taking them to Canada "for experiments and education." Full Tolerance...

Farmers File Lawsuit Against DEA to Grow Industrial Hemp
Earthtimes.org
June 19th 2007

BISMARCK, N.D. Two North Dakota farmers filed a lawsuit today in U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota in an effort to end the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) obstruction of commercial hemp farming in the United States. If successful, the legal action would result in licensed hemp farmers receiving assurances that no federal agency could hold them criminally liable under the Controlled Substances Act. Vote Hemp's grassroots supporters are funding the legal action. A copy of the complaint is available online at: http://www.votehemp.com/legal_cases_ND.html . The farmers -- State Rep. David Monson from Osnabrock and Wayne Hauge from Ray -- were issued their state licenses to grow industrial hemp from North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson in February 2007. At that time the farmers applied for a DEA permit to grow industrial hemp and import live seed. Over the next few months, however, the agency's inaction on the applications fueled frustration in North Dakota's legislature. When lawmakers concluded that DEA had no intention of working cooperatively with the state's first-in-the-nation hemp farming rules, the North Dakota legislature voted overwhelmingly to drop the DEA licensing requirement from the statute, Full Lawsuit....

Investors have been feeling more relaxed about cannabis-based medicine maker GW Pharmaceuticals in recent months after it signed a surprisingly strong deal to out-license its main drug, Sativex, in the giant US market. The deal was with Japan’s Otsuka. When GW unveils first-half results on Tuesday it will generate a bit more goodwill with shareholders if it can give details of further collaborations with Otsuka to research the potential of drugs based on cannabis in other areas, such as obesity. The company, which has bitterly disappointed investors in the past, will be under pressure to give guidance on its progress in filing Sativex as a treatment for muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis patients with European regulators. The company may also have more details of trials using the drug for cancer pain in the US.

Rapper Paperboy was arrested earlier this week after police found $1,200 (£600)-worth of marijuana in his car. The Ditty star - real name Mitchell Johnson - was stopped by Merced, California, authorities on Wednesday night and a subsequent search of his car revealed his large stash of the illegal drug. Johnson was taken into police custody and charged with the transportation of marijuana for sale, suspicion of possession and sale of marijuana and possession of more than one ounce of marijuana. The rapper has reportedly been under police investigation for several weeks, but a search of his West Coast residence shortly after his arrest failed to uncover any further incriminating evidence. His bail has been set at $20,000 (£10,000), according to AllHipHop.com.

Victoria Flournoy and Crystal Ferguson
StoptheDrugWar
June 16th 2007

Two women victims of the drug war on our minds this week, one who went all the way to the Supreme Court and won, only to be murdered a few days ago, and one who suffered long years in prison under New York's draconian Rockefeller drug laws and won her freedom, only to be vanquished by a cancer that grew untreated while she was behind bars.

Down in Deltona, Florida, Rockefeller drug law prisoner turned reform advocate Victoria Flournoy is in a hospice surrounded by family as she lies dying of cancer. The pains in her chest that prison doctors told her to ignore turned out to be lung cancer, which has now spread to her brain. She is 39.

When she was sent to prison doing eight-to-life, Flournoy already had a two-year-old daughter. Her second child was born in prison. When she got out, she collected her children and for an all too brief time was able to enjoy life with her family.

But she didn't forget the women she left behind in prison. She turned up at drug reform rallies. And she continues to fight the good fight. Even as she now lies dying, a public service announcement urging New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer (D) to live up to his promise to reform the Rockefeller laws is airing.

Meanwhile, in Columbia, South Carolina, Crystal Ferguson, the poor, black woman jailed for testing positive for cocaine when she gave birth to a daughter at a Charleston hospital in 1991, was killed along with one daughter in an arson fire last month. Another daughter, Virginia, the one born in 1991, was away at camp. Ferguson's lawsuit against the hospital, Ferguson v. City of Charleston, South Carolina , resulted in a finding that the drug testing of pregnant women without their consent amounted to an illegal search. The case also brought the complex issues of race, class, pregnancy, and drug use to national attention.

After the Supreme Court victory, Ferguson faded back into the shadow, quietly raising her two daughters in a mobile home in a modest neighborhood. Her surviving daughter, Virginia, told the State newspaper she didn't like to talk about her mother's case, but that her efforts to get out of a life of poverty had inspired her. "All you see is either homeless people or something. Nobody wants to try. She wasn't like that. She wanted to try," Virginia said. "But I guess it didn't work out." Both will be missed.

Drug retailers wired the back door of their cannabis factory to the mains - risking the lives of police, neighbours or anyone who tried to enter the North Street, Romford, house. It is thought to be the first time the deadly tactic has been used in the borough. "It could have killed somebody", said a Havering Police spokesman. "This is something that is becoming more prevalent across these types of premises, but this is the first time it has happened in this borough." Cannabis was being sold out of the makeshift factory at 201 North Street - a former mini-cab office - for an unknown length of time until the crooks fled just days ago. Officers, who fortunately got in through the front door on Sunday, June 3 were drawn to the drug house after being tipped off by a member of the public when the door of the property was found open and the front window smashed. But there was nobody inside to arrest - just drugs-making equipment left to take back to the police station. Said the police spokesman: "When officers went inside there were no plants, but lighting and ventilation equipment for the use of cultivation." More Death...

Ulster's increasing drug trade in home-grown cannabis is being foiled from the sky by police. The PSNI's hi-tech helicopter is being successfully used to spot cannabis factories, according to Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland, reducing production of the drug and preventing it from hitting the streets. The chief has also warned that more cannabis plants are being grown by unscrupulous drug dealers in the province because of difficulties importing the drug into Northern Ireland. He has revealed that, over the past 12 months, three cannabis factories have been discovered in the greater Belfast area by the helicopter's heat-seeking device. He told how the helicopter was recently being used over the Lisburn area to assist in a missing person search when the device picked up a cannabis factory. "If the helicopter is up and about it can very quickly locate large heat areas, like a cannabis factory which uses heat lamps, More Surveillance...

One third of Britain's Euro MPs support the decriminalisation of cannabis, according to a study. They were second only to the Dutch in their support for a change in the law. Research by Manchester University shows a significant proportion of British MEPs who answered a survey believe the drug should be made legal despite growing health fears over its use. There are thought to be two million regular users of the drug in Britain. Studies suggest it is linked to severe mental illness such as schizophrenia. Thirty-seven of Britain's 78 MEPs took part in the study. The findings were made as part of a survey of all Members of the European Parliament, which showed that around a fifth supported a change in the law. Only MEPs in Holland showed stronger support than Britain, with 83 per cent backing wider decriminalisation. The study comes days after NHS figures showed an 85 per cent rise in the number of cannabis-related hospital admissions in England.New figures showed the number of people needing hospital treatment over the past 10 years rose from 520 in 1996 to 946 last year. Government ministers downgraded cannabis from a class B to class C drug three years ago, More Support....

On the BBC News website last Thursday there was a report that hospital admissions in England due to cannabis-induced psychosis have risen by 85% under Labour. The story was covered also by the Daily Telegraph and Scotsman newspapers, among other media. I assume the figures quoted by Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley are correct, but they are hardly proof that Labour government turns people into drug fiends. After all, it is only in relatively recent times that a serious attempt has been made to assess the level of cannabis use, and the NHS has linked psychiatric admissions to use of this psychotropic plant. On Friday, the BBC published another article on cannabis, this time featuring two victims of excessive cannabis use, both of whom are now recovered. So that's two scare stories in as many days. Does the BBC now intend to provide some balance, and publish articles featuring cannabis users who partake moderately of the drug, and with no ill effects? There are in the UK millions of regular users of the weed, and the numbers abusing it are relatively small by comparison, Full Stats....

A joint operation between National Police and Customs Authorities on Friday night has seized 2.5 tons of cannabis resin on a beach in Las Amoladeras, in La Manga. Police say in a press release that ten people were arrested after a Customs helicopter spotted a suspicious-looking boat approaching the coast. Authorities were waiting on shore, and the arrests were made at 4am: five Spaniards and five Moroccan nationals. The drugs haul would have brought a street value of 3.7 million Euros.

"I wrongly forget them in my pockets," W.H. told the court"
StoptheDrugWar
June 9th 2007

Travelers headed to Dubai should take a thorough inventory before heading for the airport. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is currently taking an extremely hard line on cannabis offenses. Last week, an Italian visitor was sentenced to years in prison for a microscopic portion of hashish, and this week, a British citizen faces a similar punishment for inadvertently carrying a similarly miniscule amount of hash and marijuana. On May 31, the Dubai Court of First Instance found a 24-year-old Italian man identified only by the initials "A.D." guilty of smuggling and possessing 1/100th of a gram of hash after he arrived at the airport. The quantity discovered -- 1/2800th of an ounce -- is too small to be usable and so tiny that the fact it was detected at all is remarkable. A.D. told the court he did not realize the hash was there. "I didn't intend to bring the drugs," he told presiding Judge Abdul Majid Al Nezamy. "I forgot it in the inner pocket of my jacket." That didn't matter to Judge Al Nezamy, who sentenced the unfortunate Italian to four years in prison to be followed by deportation. Now a 25-year-old Briton known as "W.H." faces the same fate. He was busted coming in with 0.07 grams of marijuana and "two barely noticeable slivers of hashish," as the Gulf Times put it. Again, the hapless traveler said he had forgotten the drugs were there "I wrongly forget them in my pockets," W.H. told the court. W.H. goes back to court next week. A.D. is already serving his sentence.

There are over 2m regular users of cannabis. Mental health hospital admissions in England due to cannabis have risen by 85% under Labour, figures show. In 1996-7, there were 510 admissions, rising to 946 in 2005-6, data obtained by shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley revealed. Over the last five years alone there was a 65% rise, with experts saying the figures were "the tip of the iceberg". The government said it had been clear on cannabis - it was illegal and should not be used. Cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in the country with over 2m regular users. This might be down to better recognition, but I would say these figures are just the tip of the iceberg. Professor Robin Murray of London's Institute of Psychiatry. The figures obtained from Health Minister Rosie Winterton in a written House of Commons answer are for patients admitted to hospital in England because of a mental or behavioural disorder due to the use of cannabis, More...

Recently, it was reported the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) proposes to explore decriminalisation of marijuana (weed) when it next forms the government. Aside from the obvious attempt to use the issue to win itself some badly needed public attention, the proclamation, if true, is worth serious discussion. The ubiquitous “weed” has inspired some; intrigued others; pre-occupied law enforcement authorities and brought “divine” inspiration to the Rastafarian, all at the same time. Legend has it that marijuana was first discovered on the grave of King Solomon. It is believed that this elegant species of the flora group would grow just about anywhere tropical, if only the police, army and criminal harvesters would leave it alone. It is suspected that worldwide, billions of dollars are spent every decade, hunting and destroying the marijuana plant. Billions more are spent tracking, arresting, jailing, trying, convicting and imprisoning thousands of determined producers, distributors and consumers. Billions more are spent seeking to grow, protect, harvest, preserve, disguise, ship, distribute and consume cannabis each decade. Remarkably, even in the face of such violent suppression, the herb continues to grow and multiply and the battle over the ganja plant rages on with no end in sight. Many people will testify that marijuana has helped them manage different medical conditions. It is believed that repeated testimonies by patients, as to the effectiveness of ganja in bringing relief from glaucoma, inspired Professor Manley West, eminent pharmacologists and, Full Exploration.

Cannabis fields against climate change? Growing cannabis might be a contribution in fighting global warming. “Cannabis is the only plant that likes polluted air”, so says Sander who specializes in developing growing techniques for the cannabis growing community. A few years ago this Belgian suffered from a series of lord hemorrhage, but no medicine could bring back his health except for cannabis. We are all familiar with the fact that trees filter the air of CO2 (carbon dioxide). Some scientists even state that mass tree planting would solve the climate problem completely. “But no tree is so eager to use a frequent dose of CO2 as the cannabis indica and sativa”, so says Sander. That is what they use for THC production. With extra CO2 in the air the THC level which is usually around 8%, may increase up to 15%. And, the plants are too busy absorbing CO2 that they hardly take on other toxins such as cannabinoïds. Considering the Kyoto climate agreement, Sander is thinking about guerilla actions. Like planting weed illegally in out-lying, hidden places. The government should consider cannabis fields as an alternative to buying fresh air elsewhere in the world. As they were actually planning to in order to achieve the goals of Kyoto.

"a jury that felt like it had to follow the instructions of the court"
StoptheDrugWar
June 2nd 2007

A federal jury Wednesday found "Guru of Ganja" Ed Rosenthal guilty for a second time of growing hundreds of marijuana plants in what is no more than a symbolic victory for federal prosecutors. Because Rosenthal has already served a lenient one-day sentence after he was first convicted of the same charges in 2003, US District Court Judge Charles Breyer, the presiding judge in the case, has already ruled that he cannot be resentenced. Rosenthal's original conviction was overturned on appeal. Vengeful federal prosecutors angered by his public criticism of their methods retried him knowing they could not further punish him. They even filed additional charges that Judge Breyer threw out as vindictive. The trial itself was noteworthy for the mass refusal of medical marijuana movement people subpoenaed to testify for the government to do so. Equally noteworthy was their escaping without contempt citations -- at least so far. Rosenthal grew the plants to produce medical marijuana for use in California, where it is legal, but his defense was unable to explain that to the jury because it was blocked from doing so by Judge Breyer. Federal law and the federal courts do not recognize "medical" marijuana. Neither was Breyer willing to let defense attorneys go too far in urging the jury to vote its conscience, Full Prosecution....

Medical Marijuana Researcher, Advocate Dr. Tod Mikuriya Dead at 73
StoptheDrugWar
May 27th 2007

Dr. Tod Hiro Mikuriya, MD , a psychiatrist, prominent researcher, and medical marijuana advocate, died Sunday night at his Berkeley, California, home. He was 73 years of age. Tod Mikuriya Mikuriya, who was a member of DRCNet's Board of Advisors, earned a medical degree at Temple University, then completed a psychiatric residency at Southern Pacific General Hospital in San Francisco before joining the US Army Medical Corps. After military service and serving at state hospitals in California and Oregon, he directed marijuana research at the National Institutes of Mental Health in 1967, but quickly quit, citing political interference with research results. He turned to a private practice in psychiatry, but his clinical interest in marijuana never waned. In 1973, he published the pioneering "Medical Marijuana Papers," an anthology of journal articles on cannabis therapeutics, and he later founded the Society of Cannabis Clinicians.

Mikuriya was deeply involved in the campaign for Proposition 215, the groundbreaking 1996 initiative that made California the first state to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana. After Prop 215 passed, Mikuriya served as Medical Coordinator of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, the Hayward Hempery, and the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers' Club -- organizations established to provide access to medical marijuana for patients.

In 2000, Mikuriya founded the California Cannabis Research Medical Group , a nonprofit organization "dedicated to conducting quality medical marijuana research, to ensuring the safety and confidentiality of all research subjects, and to maintaining the highest quality of standards and risk management."

In 2003, Mikuriya was placed on probation by the Medical Board of California after an investigation into allegations of unprofessional conduct in 16 cases since 1998. Mikuriya and his supporters said he was being targeted for his medical marijuana advocacy. He appealed the board ruling, and continued to practice up until his death.

Dr. Mikuriya remained an ardent and animated advocate of medical marijuana, and more broadly, social justice, up until the end. His vision, principles, and perseverance are to be emulated. They will certainly be missed.Mikuriya contributed a collection of papers that are available in DRCNet's Drug Library, Schaffer Library section, online here . Listen to the DrugTruth Network's half hour tribute, including interviews with Mikuriya and remembrances of friends and family, here .

Criminal chaps running cannabis factories across Hampshire are using booby-trapped windows and doors to keep people away from their premises, police have revealed. Drug retailers wire up the mains electricity to the doors and windows to keep rival gangs out and to protect their cannabis plants from being seized. Two cannabis factories uncovered at properties in Southampton during the past few weeks have found to be booby-trapped. Now police are urging landlords to be extra cautious when visiting or conducting checks at their properties. Their warning to landlords comes after many of the 87 cannabis factories which have been uncovered across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight during the last 12 months were found to be rented out. "This is a very sinister development and we need to make sure that people are aware of the potential danger they can face, Full Developement...

Cannabis plants have been put on display at the Chelsea Flower Show to educate visitors about the uses plants can be put to. A special licence was required to grow the plants and to show them at the Royal Horticultural Society’s premier event.A special licence was required to grow the plants and to show them at the Royal Horticultural Society’s premier event. It was claimed to be the first time that cannabis plants have been at the show but, to the disappointment of many intrigued visitors, the variety on display is different to the one popularly known as weed. The Cannabis sativa plants are the strain better known as industrial hemp and were being shown to illustrate the uses of plants in modern society. They have been carefully cultivated to be rid of any hallucinogenic or medicinal qualities and are grown strictly for their fibre. The fibres can be used as an alternative to cotton and as horse blankets. They are also regarded as a highly efficient insulator for homes. Hallucinogenic varieties, those kept away from Chelsea, are thought to have medicinal qualities and are undergoing trials in the hope that they can be offered as a prescription drug to ease the pain of cancer and multiple sclerosis patients. The decision to display cannabis was taken by the South East England Development Agency which wanted to show the uses of plants other than for gardens and food crops. The cannabis specimens will not be offered to the public as part of the traditional plant sell-off on Saturday.

A bill that would allow California farmers to grow non-psychoactive hemp passed the Assembly May 10 and now heads to the state Senate, where it is also expected to pass. A similar bill passed the legislature last year, only to be vetoed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Authored by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine), AB 684 would pave the way for California farmers to eventually -- not immediately -- grow the plant, which is used to make food, clothing, paper, body care, bio-fuel, and auto products. If the bill were to be signed into law, industry organizations like Vote Hemp and the Hemp Industries Association, as well as the California Certified Organic Farmers, have vowed to challenge the federal ban on hemp planting. Schwarzenegger cited the federal ban when he vetoed last year's hemp bill. He claimed it would put farmers in jeopardy of federal prosecution. But proponents of this year's bill are hopeful the governor will relent. "Passage of the hemp farming bill in the Assembly is a sign it is likely to reach Governor Schwarzenegger's desk for the second year in row," said Vote Hemp legal counsel and San Francisco Attorney Patrick Goggin. "The mood in Sacramento is this bill is consistent with California's effort to be leader on US environmental policy. Hemp is a versatile plant that can replace polluting crops such as cotton and is taking off as an organic food and body care ingredient. It is time to jump into the expanding market for hemp that California companies currently import from Canada and elsewhere." American hemp product manufacturers currently have to import their raw material from China, Canada, or one of the more than 30 other countries that allow hemp production. It is the only crop that is illegal to grow in the US, but legal to import.

"Nobody ever came home stoned and beat up their wife,"
Bbc.co.uk
May 19th 2007

Singer George Michael has said the world would be an "easier place to live with" if cannabis was legal. Speaking to ITV chat show host Michael Parkinson, the star said he was not "advocating" the drug for everyone. "Nobody ever came home stoned and beat up their wife," the 43-year-old former Wham! singer said. Earlier this month he pleaded guilty to driving while unfit through drugs after he was found slumped over the wheel of his car in a London street. 'Self-destructive' He blamed his behaviour on the death of his mother, Lesley, in 1997. "I know I have a very self-destructive tendency since my mother died, I have got to be honest. That has kind of made itself clear in other ways," he said. During the interview he also, Full Beating....

KABUL: In a walled compound near Kabul, two members of Colombia's counternarcotics police force are trying to teach raw Afghan recruits how to wage close-quarter combat.
Using mock wooden AK-47 assault rifles, Lieutenant John Castaneda and Corporal John Orejuela demonstrate commando tactics to about 20 new members of what is intended to be an elite Afghan drug strike force. The recruits - who U.S. officials say lack even basic law enforcement skills - watch wide-eyed.
"This is kindergarten," said Vincent Balbo, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief in Kabul, whose office is overseeing the training. "It's Narcotics 101."
Another DEA agent added, "We are at a stage now of telling these recruits, this is a handgun, this is a bullet."
It is a measure of Afghanistan's virulent opium trade, which has helped revive the Taliban while corroding the credibility of the government, that U.S. officials now hope that Afghanistan's drug problem will someday be only as bad as that of Colombia. While the Latin American country remains the world's cocaine capital and is still wracked by drug-related violence, U.S. officials argue that decades of counternarcotics efforts there have at least helped stabilize the country.
"I wanted the Colombians to come here to give the Afghans something to aspire to," Balbo said. "To instill the fact that they have been doing this for years, and it has worked."
To fight a Taliban insurgency flush with drug money for recruits and weapons, the Bush administration recognizes, More......

Cannabis smokers are unwittingly funding Islamist extremists linked to terror attacks in Spain, Morocco and Algeria, according to a joint investigation by the Spanish and French secret services. The finding will be seized on both by campaigners for a harsher clampdown on cannabis and by those who argue that legalisation is the only way to end a petty dealing trend that is dragging growing numbers of teenagers into crime. The investigation by the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia and the Renseignements Generaux was launched after Spanish police found that the Islamists behind the March 2004 bombings in Madrid bought their explosives from former miners in return for blocks of hashish. The bombings claimed 191 lives. Spain's role as a transit point for drugs was highlighted last week when Madrid hosted the US Drug Enforcement Agency's annual conference. Experts heard not only that North African hashish was funding terrorism in Europe, but also that West Africa had become a new hub for South American cocaine shipments bound for Europe, Full Plot.....

Snapshots of the Drug War
News2020.com
May 13th 2007

Day after day, week after week, year after year, the war on drugs in the US is filling court dockets across the land. This week, we visit three different jurisdictions to get a snapshot of the role of the drug war down at the local courthouse.

In April, district court judges in Grayson County, Texas, about an hour north of Dallas, sentenced 95 people on felony charges . Of the 95 cases, the most serious charges in 16 were for simple methamphetamine possession, making that charge by far the most common of any before the court. Most people convicted of meth possession were given probation. One person was charged with enhanced meth possession and sentenced to 14 years, while two were charged with possession with intent to distribute. One got 20 years, the other got 10 years probation.

Seven people were sentenced for simple cocaine possession, with sentences ranging from probation to a month in jail to 10 years in prison. One person was sentenced for enhanced cocaine possession and got 6 years, while one other was sentenced for possession with intent to distribute and got 15 years. Four people were sentenced for possession of more than four ounces but less than five pounds of marijuana; two got probation, one got one year, and one got two years. One person was sentenced to two years in prison for possession of more than 50 pounds of marijuana.

Probation violators made up a sizeable contingent, with 13 being sentenced in April. Drug offenders accounted for nine of the violators, with meth, cocaine, and marijuana each accounting for three violators. Every drug-related probation violator was sent to prison, as were all other probation violators, More...

Police in Norfolk have vowed to take a tough line on drug pushers as new figures show drug-related deaths have almost doubled in two years. Latest government figures show 60 people in the county died as a result of taking drugs in 2005 - a rise from 34 deaths in 2003. Now, in the wake of a series of successful drugs raids on properties across the county, Norfolk Constabulary says it will continue to take a hard line on drugs, and vowed to do all it can to catch and imprison organised dealers. Det Sgt Dave Mytton oversaw seven raids in Norwich in the past fortnight, which resulted in 11 arrests and the seizure of about 2,000 cannabis plants. He said: “I hope this recent series of raids and arrests has sent out a strong message to criminals. We will not tolerate it and are taking action - if you are involved in plying this trade, it is only a matter of time before we turn up on your doorstep.” In Suffolk, there were 25 drug-related deaths in 2005, in Hertfordshire there were 43, while in Cambridgeshire there were 26. Essex showed a slight increase from 45 deaths in 2003 to 47 in 2005. Penny McVeigh, chief executive of Norwich-based drug and alcohol advisory service Norcas, said: “The sad truth of the matter is that the number of problematic drug users continues to increase across the country - and Norfolk is no exception, Full Slaughter..

Sat., May 5, 4:20pm. Free. Broad and South sts. 215.268.7087. www.phillynorml.org. Here’s a riddle: What’s got 200 heads, is over three blocks long and reeks of patchouli oil? The Global Cannabis March kicks off this weekend, organized by the Philadelphia chapter of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws). Philly NORML is devoted to decriminalizing marijuana and ending the drug war. NORML chapters all over the country will host rallies the same day, and similar rallies will take place in more than 200 cities all over the world. So what makes this rally special? “This year is the 70th anniversary of marijuana prohibition. And just like alcohol prohibition, the war on drugs puts all the power in the hands of the criminals,” says Robert Dougherty, chairperson for PhillyNORML. The boisterous group of stoners and activists come with a police escort and a permit to both picket and host guest speakers. The march will conclude at Headhouse Square with lectures and tables distributing leaflets about how you can get involved in the legalization effort. All the info is given up top so you won’t have to rely on your memory. Don’t space it, you damn hippies. John Steele

Two men have appeared in court after cannabis with an estimated street value of several hundred thousand pounds was found hidden in a truck in Birmingham. West Midlands Police Proactive Crime Team said they seized what is believed to be between 60-100kg (136-220 lbs) of cannabis on Saturday. Officers stopped the vehicle coming from a port in the south of England and searched it in a yard in the city. The men are accused of conspiring to supply controlled drugs. The pair appeared before magistrates in Solihull on Saturday and were remanded in custody. West Midlands Police said the arrests were the result of an intelligence led operation. The drugs are being forensically examined and dependent upon weight are believed to be worth between £300,000 to £500,000.

Nathaniel Campbell Jr. admitted to the court that he knew it was against the law to have cannabis in his possession but said he needed the substance for his personal use. Campbell as a result was convicted and fined $5,000 for cultivation of the drug, after pleading guilty to the charge. He was also charged with possession of cannabis and was convicted, reprimanded and discharged on that offence. A search warrant was executed by the police on Saturday, 21 April on Campbell’s home. During the search the police found a green bushy substance resembling cannabis, which the Bendals man admitted was indeed the drug. “Officer a little herb,” he was reported to have said. The search continued and a white foam box containing cannabis plants was found in the front of the man’s yard. Seven other plants were uprooted from the yard. Campbell was taken to the Bolans Police Station and arrested and charged.

Throngs of people gathered in the Amherst Common Saturday afternoon for the 16th annual Extravaganja. The event, organized by the University of Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (CRC), is centered on the message that the social cost of the war on drugs outweighs the benefits, and drug laws, specifically those pertaining to marijuana, need to be changed. "We made the laws, and we can change them," said John Werner, the president of the UMass CRC, to the crowd.
Werner cited some of the problems marijuana laws cause college-aged people. A law in Massachusetts states that if a student has a single narcotics offense on record, he/she is ineligible for financial aid. "People are being kept out of college for small infractions," Werner said. He said that when people are jailed for marijuana offenses, it's harder to find a job when they're released. In turn, this may cause them to turn to crime. The laws also take resources away from combating more dangerous drugs. "I think there are drugs that are dangerous, and marijuana is not one of them," said Werner. "No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose." Full Dosage...

Illinois’ latest attempt to legalize medical marijuana is getting support from a surprising source — religious leaders. “The moral issue is relief of suffering,” said the Rev. D. Jay Johnson of the Union Avenue Christian Church in Litchfield, Ill. Johnson is one of more than 40 state religious leaders named in a letter distributed to legislators as they consider changing Illinois law to allow use of marijuana for treating pain and nausea in medical patients. But opponents also are leaning on religious morality as a central part of their argument. They say that the real purpose of the movement is to legalize recreational pot and that well-meaning clergy are being duped, Full Devine Intervention..

New York Assembly Passes New Rockefeller Law Reforms
StopTheDrugWar.Org
April 21st 2007

The continuing effort to undo New York's draconian Rockefeller drug laws took another step forward Wednesday as the state Assembly passed a bill that would expand the availability of drug treatment and give judges greater discretion in sentencing. The push comes three years after the legislature enacted modest initial reforms, but since then only 177 of the state's 15,000 drug prisoners have won sentence reductions.

The new bill would:

• Increase judges' discretion and allow some people convicted of first- and second-time drug offenses to receive treatment and probation instead of prison terms.
• Set up drug courts in every county, to make efforts to get drug offenders into treatment programs.
• Raise the weight thresholds for certain drug offenses so that the possible sentence times are reduced.
• Create or expand "second chance" programs for low-level drug defendants, such as the Court Approved Drug Abuse Treatment program, in which offenders' cases can be dismissed or reduced to misdemeanors upon successful completion of treatment.
• Create enhanced penalties for violent drug dealers and people who sell drugs to children.

"The modest reform to the Rockefeller Drug Laws enacted in 2004 and the extension in 2005 to provide for the re-sentencing of some class A-II offenders was a beginning, but unfortunately, despite pledges made by then Gov. George Pataki and the Senate to make additional changes, no further action was taken. The Assembly's repeated passage of significant drug law reform legislation for years went unnoticed by the former executive and the other house," said Speaker Sheldon Silver as the vote neared.

"This bill provides reforms that are long overdue," he continued. "It would expand the availability of drug treatment programs, allow judges to order non-violent, lower-level offenders into mandatory treatment for addiction and substance abuse and assure that prisons are most often used for serious drug offenders, offenders with violent histories and those who cannot or will not succeed in drug abuse treatment. We are confident that with the help of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the Assembly's long-standing commitment to make the state's drug laws smarter, fairer and more effective will become a reality," added Silver.

"The opposition will say we are soft on crime," said Jeffrion Aubrey (D-Queens) who chairs the Assembly Committee on Correction and who authored the bill. "But we understand the revolving door of criminal justice and we want to shut that door."

Transform, a drug policy foundation, has attacked the government's record on drugs following the publication of a report for the UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC).
Despite the formal position of the foundation – that the prohibition of drugs is one of the great "social policy catastrophes of the 21st century" it has offered several suggestions for how drugs policy in the UK can be improved without taking such radical steps.
Transform's director, Danny Kushlick, spoke exclusively to Politics.co.uk. He urged the government to remove drug policy from the Home Office and transfer it to a different department, such as the Department of Communities and Local Government.
He also supported calls made recently by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), which argued that drug policy should concentrate of harm minimisation instead of criminalisation, More.....

Decades of Government attempts to control illegal drugs have had "minimal" impact on levels of use and led to a position where Britain has the worst addiction levels in Europe, a report will say this week. In the latest piece of research to underline the failures of drug policy by Labour and Conservative administrations, the report is understood to point out that up to one in three people arrested on suspicion of crimes is using hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
The new UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC) will say that Britain has the highest level of problem drug use and the second highest level of drug-related deaths in Europe.
This is despite sustained attempts to prevent young people trying drugs. It will say: "Despite successive Governments' attempts to control the demand for and supply of illegal drugs, drug policy appears to have had minimal impact on the overall level of use in the UK."
The number of heroin addicts has surged from about 5,000 in 1975 to more than 280,000 today. Estimates suggest that drugs cost society up to £13 billion a year in crime, health and other bills. Some have questioned the need for another major study of drugs policy that largely draws on Home Office and health statistics, Full Stats.....

2007 MMA CONCERTS ARE BLAZIN!

2007 American Marijuana Music Awards concert is 25 August in NYC, live music from Outlaw Nation, Herbal Nation, Rich Hardesty, T.H.C (True High Class) and The Herbillest with Paul Bullock as MC and guest appearance by Marlon Asher!

2007 American MMA Concert tickets -   http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/9469

Our International 2007 MMA Judges

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Stu of Undercover Music   http://www.undercovermusic.com.au  (Australia)

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Brian Lee of Green Fever http://www.myspace.com/ greenfeverrockroll (Australia)

Fitzy and Debs Elemental (UK)

A young chap who grew cannabis on his parent's Shelbourne property trafficked 15pounds of the drug within one year, a court heard yesterday. Daniel Webb, 21, pleaded guilty to nine charges in the Bendigo Magistrates Court, including trafficking, cultivating and possessing cannabis. Police found a hydroponic growing room in a tool shed when they raided his family's Nixons Road property on September 5 last year. Police prosecutor Senior Constable Mark Snell said police found three mature cannabis plants,
They also found seven separate amounts of cannabis, cannabis seeds, scales and tubs of cannabis butter when they searched a unit Webb shared with his brother. It was claimed a variety of weapons, including swords, double-edged knives, a slingshot and baton, were also found. While police were conducting the search, a man Webb knew arrived at the property and police established he was there for the purpose of purchasing cannabis, said Sen-Constable Snell. The court heard Webb was interviewed at the Bendigo Police Station the following day and was clearly under the influence of drugs, Full Influence...

The dictionary meaning of the word ‘rave’ is to ‘talk wildly, as in delirium.’ For a younger crowd, substitute dance, for talk. Though the rave party concept is old, even prehistoric by today’s standards, since it began in the 1960s, it continues to appeal to the hip youngsters of today for its mixture of a mood of abandon, electronic music and sadly, drugs.

Rave parties are quite common in parts of Goa, and in and around Mumbai too and occasionally, when the police gets to know of them, they get busted, as happened over the weekend. The Pune cops walked in, disguised as party goers, and arrested nearly 300 youngsters from different parts of the country.

It’s interesting to note that the cyber and economic crimes cell of the police picked up information on the party, since the word on the rave had been spread through a website. Even more intriguing is the fact that the party took place on Holi weekend, when Indian revelers Full Rave....

Thousands of cannabis plants worth millions of dollars have been seized by the NSW Police Force under Strike Force Hutching, the 2006 / 2007 phase of the Cannabis Eradication Program. In the most recent raids last month, more than 3500 cannabis plants of varying sizes were seized from forest areas in the Mid North Coast and Manning Great Lakes local area commands.
The drugs, which have since been destroyed, have an estimated potential street value of almost $8 million. Two people have been charged with drug offences.
Drug Squad detectives work closely with local area commands, the Police Airwing and the Dog Unit to target cannabis plantations throughout NSW each year.

Since July 2006 they have raided more than 50 sites, seizing just under 6000 plants with an estimated potential street value of more than $10 million. The plantations are found on private land, in state forests and in national parks. Commander of the Drug Squad, Detective Superintendent Greig Newbery, said police would continue to target the cultivation of cannabis throughout NSW.

“The Cannabis Eradication Program has been running successfully for a number of years and plays an important role in reducing the availability of cannabis on the street,” Det Supt Newbery said. “We work closely with local area commands, whose intelligence-based investigations are integral to the success of this program, and are assisted greatly by information provided to us by the community.
“The NSW Police Force will continue to heavily target people involved in the cultivation and supply of cannabis throughout NSW within the full extent of the law.”

Other results from the 2006 / 2007 Cannabis Eradication Program include:
Richmond Local Area Command: A number of sites were targeted in November last year and resulted in the seizure of 1862 cannabis plants with an estimated potential street value of $1.89 million. Three men were charged with drug offences.

Coffs/Clarence Local Area Command: Police raided sites in late January and early February seizing more than 400 plants with an estimated potential street value of $736,000. But the NSW Police Force’s targeting of cannabis plantations is not limited just to the Cannabis Eradication Program.
On the 19 January 2007 a joint Drug Squad and Mid North Coast Local Area Command operation led to the seizure of more than 2000 plants with an estimated potential street value of $3.3 million.
Just two weeks later more than 2300 plants with an estimated potential street value of just under $5 million were seized near Cooma in a joint drug squad and Monaro Local Area Command operation. Three men were charged with drug offences and are currently before the courts.

Amsterdam: Puzzled witnesses to a road crash on a Dutch motorway realised why the occupants of a stricken van fled so quickly when police arrived and found hashish worth 15 million euros in the vehicle.
A police spokeswoman said the van contained 3,000kg of hashish and was heavily overloaded, although police did not know whether this had caused the crash. "A van-driver heading to Amsterdam lost control of his vehicle and it tipped over... Witnesses were confused as to why a man of Oriental appearance got out and ran away even though no one was hurt in the accident," she added. The hashish would be destroyed immediately, she said. Soft drugs are legally banned in the Netherlands but under a policy of "tolerance", buyers are allowed to have less than 5 grammes of cannabis in their possession. Government-regulated coffeeshops which sell cannabis can keep stocks of up to 500 grammes. But they need to buy bigger stocks to supply smokers and so sometimes turn to illegal suppliers.

In an interview with Tommy Sheridan, the Solidarity MSP, on radio station Talk107, Mr Findlay said legalisation could help control use of some drugs by taking them out of dealers' hands. He said: " I'm talking about putting it in a legal structure, so you could buy it as you can buy alcohol, and it would give authorities, not just the police, but medical authorities and so on, that level of control. The alternative is the same, and the same is causing harm, and the same cannot be acceptable and we cannot just let this drift on."
Mr Findlay said drugs damaged not just individual, but the economy as the amount of money that was siphoned off by dealers was enough to run a small country. The QC, who was Scotland's top legal aid earner in 2006, said that while he did not like drugs, and had never tried cannabis, a more radical approach was needed.

Building on a 2005 law that made it a felony offense for people to operate methamphetamine labs in homes where children are present, a Nevada legislator has introduced a bill that would subject people growing even a single marijuana plant to the same penalties. Under the bill, they could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

The bill, Senate Bill 6, was introduced by state Sen. Joe Heck (R-Las Vegas), who doesn't see any difference between undertaking a complicated and risky chemical process and growing a plant. "You are exposing children to dangers when you are selling any illegal substance out of your house or growing any illegal substance out of your house, so you should be held to the higher penalties," Heck told the Senate Human Services and Education Committee. "If a guy has a couple of (marijuana) plants in there (now), he could be out in a week," Heck said. "But if there is a child present, with this, now he could serve five to 15 years for exposing that child to the dangers of this activity. The very behavior of small children puts them at risk around these materials, including marijuana," Heck said. "As any parent knows, the first place a toddler places anything they find is in their mouth. What if this object is a marijuana plant?"

But during the Monday hearing on the bill, representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and the Clark County (Las Vegas) Public Defenders Office urged legislators to think twice. "The way the bill is currently drafted states that someone could be growing marijuana for their personal use and not for the purposes of distributing it, selling it or engaging in drug trafficking and they would be treated as if they were engaged in those activities," said Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada.
The proposed new law amounted to "shooting fleas with cannons," Peck said, adding that it could impose an even greater burden on the state's overflowing prison population. "No one who is testifying in support of the bill can actually talk about the implications in respect to the incarceration rate," Peck said.

Applying the same penalties to meth lab operators and pot plant growers is inappropriate, said public defender Jason Frierson. "The reason that statute was written the way it was is because meth labs have a tendency to explode and the chemical components, the fumes and the chemical burns -- the exposure to those were the reasons for the greater penalties," Frierson said. "As I read it, this is treating the growth of one marijuana plant similarly with the existence of a meth lab in the presence of children."

The usual suspects supported the bill, including the Nevada District Attorneys Association, the Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association and the Peace Officers Research Association. "It is our belief that anytime you have drugs and children together, it is a dangerous combination, a dangerous mix," said Kristin Erickson, a Washoe County deputy district attorney speaking for the state association.

Nevada is a state where medical marijuana is legal and patients or caregivers can grow up to three or four plants, but the bill makes no mention of that.

Proposed Draconian Drug Law in Namibia
Stopthedrugwar.org
Feb 10th 2007

A proposed tough new drug law in Namibia that would send any drug offender to prison for 20 years—no matter which drug nor how small the quantity—ran into a buzz saw of opposition at a public hearing in the national capital, Windhoek, this week. Rastafarians, the arts community, legal scholars, and legal aid groups alike used the first of three days of public hearings to condemn the proposed measure as unduly harsh, and many called openly for the legalization of marijuana, according to a report in The Namibian .

But attendees at the hearing were not shy about criticizing the law or calling for the legalization of marijuana. "If lawmakers think that this law will bring the crime rate down, they know very little," argued local artist Elmotho Mosimane. "Why in 2007, while the rest of the world is moving in the opposite way, are we going this route? In Amsterdam, where it is legal, where I can smoke marijuana in a bar, the crime rate is very low. How do we know that this law was not just brought in because of someone's personal feelings and convictions?" he asked the panel.

Lawmakers should consider the large number of people in Namibia who smoke marijuana and whether it really wants to jail them for decades, said media practitioner Augetto Graig. "No study has been made to establish how many people consume marijuana ... If such a study is completed thoroughly, I'm sure you'd find that these are at all levels of society, from the lower levels all the way up to parliamentarians," he said. "Where will you house all these people? Jails are already overcrowded, and we know that our jails have a reputation for being factories that create criminals."

But it wasn't just Rastas and bohemian artists who objected to the proposed law. The punishments envisioned were disproportionate to the offenses, said attorney Kaijata Kangueehi of the Magistrate's Commission. "The sentences are just too extraordinary, in the sense that they are way too heavy," Kangueehi argued as he handed the panel a 29-page presentation. "Nowhere in the Act is it looked at the quantity a person is caught with. If you are found with an amount which fits in a match box, you're treated the same as if you were caught with two tons. You don't need Solomon's wisdom to understand the unfairness of that situation," he said.

The Namibian Legal Aid Center also raised objections to the harsh sentences in the proposed law and even raised questions about its constitutionality. Namibians would find the sentences "shocking," especially when compared to alcohol, the group argued. "The effects of alcohol on neighbors and families are documented in our newspapers every day, yet it would appear that our legislature rightly accepts that it is a personal choice should one wish to use or abuse alcohol, insofar as the rights of others are not being violated."

The Legal Aid Center recommended that proposed sentences be drastically reduced. "If it is found that minimum sentences must be entertained in respect of certain drugs, the length of sentences should be considered, a period of six months to 12 months being suggested. This would coincide with most rehabilitation treatment periods," the organization said. The Center also called for drug sentences to be served "at a facility specifically designed for such rehabilitation purposes."

The Center objected to the language about promoting "instruments or literature for illegal consumption of drugs," arguing that it could lead to people being prosecuted for selling rolling papers or water pipes, or even for promoting any literature or video related to reggae music or Rastafarianism, where marijuana smoking is part of a religious ceremony. "This provision would almost certainly offend against religious freedom and freedom of thought, consequence and belief which is protected under article 21 of the Namibian constitution," the Center said.

Namibia's new drug law is not a done deal yet. If legislators are actually listening to the people at the public hearings on the law, they will go back to the drawing board.

Landlords in Kirklees are being urged to be vigilant for tenants who may be cultivating cannabis in their properties. The warning follows the discovery recently of nearly 200 cannabis plants at an address in Batley and 12 plants at an address in Dewsbury Moor. Inspector Ian Gayles from the Kirklees North Neighbourhood Policing Team said: “Both of these seizures are from rented properties and we would urge landlords to be on the lookout for any unusual activity. “Cannabis plants are grown in brightly lit houses and there is an unusual pungent smell in the immediate vicinity of the property. “Occupiers are likely to be coming and going with electrical equipment, bags of compost and fertiliser. Whilst the latter would not be an unusual sight if they were being taken to a shed, garage or garden, questions should be asked if they are going through the front door. Full Illuminations.....

"Overkill"
Bavid Borden
Stopthedrugwar.org
Jan 6th 2007

Images from the war in Iraq have become a daily sight on the cable news networks. One of the bits of footage that recurred this week was a tape of US soldiers forcibly entering a home, presumably looking for insurgents or other perpetrators of terrorist violence.

Though the image ran only as background to the discussion by news reporters about the US political situation, it jumped out at me. What I found striking was how carefully the soldiers did their job. With carefully measured force they pushed the door open, stood to the side, cautiously looked in, and only then entered -- with guns drawn, of course, but slowly and carefully. It struck me because of how strong a contrast it seemed to the way paramilitarized "SWAT" teams here in the US do business. Originally SWAT teams were created as select units to be used in high-intensity emergency situations -- hostages, snipers, that sort of thing. They were deployed a few thousand times a year back then, but now the annual number is about 40,000. According to "Overkill," a report issued last year by the Cato Institute, the great majority of SWAT deployments are for routine serving of search warrants in minor drug cases. Typically, or at least commonly, the SWAT teams don't show the kind of care and restraint that our soldiers in Iraq did when entering that building. Instead, we often see the black-clad SWAT officers rapidly battering down the door, running in and shouting, setting off flashbang grenades, and pointing guns at the heads of the confused and disoriented adults, children and pets who were unfortunate enough to be at home when it happened. The raids tend to be done very early in the morning or in the middle of the night, to increase the disorientation and confusion. Of course, this also increases the trauma, even when no one winds up getting physically hurt.

Not surprisingly, criticism of these tactics can get intense. Many police defenders will defend them just as intensely. Among the main arguments is that police need to use these tactics, because some of the people inside are dangerous criminals, who will have more of a chance to pull their own guns and shoot if they don't. One of the counterarguments is that such tactics tend to escalate the situations -- most of which are in fact do start out as routine and non-dangerous -- into something more tense, more shocking, more likely to end in needless tragedies.

Tragedies like the killing last year by Atlanta police of 88-year old Kathryn Johnston. When the police stormed her apartment, Johnston, not able in the scarce seconds available to her to thoughtfully reason that the armed, loud, sudden invaders of her home were in fact just police who meant her no harm, took out a gun given to her by her niece for her protection in the tough neighborhood she lived in, and opened fire. She wounded three of the invaders (er, peace officers), before they were able to shoot and kill her. Obviously the SWAT tactics did not produce a favorable outcome in this case, neither for Johnston nor for the officers themselves. Of course, it turned out to be a wrong address, no drugs were found there, and it was all based on the uncorroborated word of an anonymous, paid informant. Various indicators of police misconduct have come out in the media since that time, one by one contradicting statements made by department spokespersons under pressure to hide the severe blame that the department deserves.

And so we come back to our soldiers in Baghdad, the ones in that video, despite the great peril of their situation showing such care when entering the suspected insurgent house, despite the very real possibility that someone inside would try to shoot them or blow them up. I'm sure that things have gone wrong with the conduct of US troops on plenty of occasions, because that is built into the nature of war. But I also get the sense that the way these particular soldiers handled this raid is in fact what was expected of them, and that that is what our soldiers usually do.

And so I have trouble accepting the police argument that they have to use paramilitary tactics in routine drug raids for the sake of police safety. What about safety for the rest of us? I respect the risk our police officers take every day, just be being police officers. But the purpose of the job is to protect the public safety, not to put members of the public in danger. There are extremely few law enforcement situations in which police in the US are under as much potential threat as our troops are in every day in Iraq. If our soldiers can show as much care and restraint as they demonstrated while hunting insurgents in Baghdad in that news video, our police can do so too while serving routine search warrants on suspected, low-level, nonviolent drug offenders here.

Also, many police clearly don't know how to properly handle these kinds of tactics -- the dozens of needless killings in recent decades under circumstances similar to Kathryn Johnston's demonstrate that pretty clearly. It's time to re-separate our police and military and turn our police officers back in peace officers as they were intended to be. It's too late to save Kathryn Johnston from the horrible fate Atlanta police inflicted on her. But it's not too late to save the next Kathryn Johnston.

The discovery of two well developed cannabis plots in Northland confirm the drug is still popular despite the methamphetamine boom, police say. Trampers discovered the plots – covered in netting for pest-protection – in the Whanui Conservation Area, about 10km north of Whangarei. Detective Sergeant Grant Smith, head of the Northland police organised crime squad, told the Northern Advocate police expected to find and seize a record number of cannabis plants this growing season. In the past five years cannabis plant seizures had been steadily increasing, showing cannabis was still the "base funding" for other drug and criminal offending. The trend in Northland was a return to larger, more commercial crops, he said. Police praised the trampers who left discreet marks and photographed identifiable trees to help police locate the plots.

Tacoma> As 2006 draws to a close, drug-enforcement chappies in Washington say they have destroyed more than 150,000 marijuana plants this year as part of a joint state and federal eradication effort. That's nearly the same as last year, when a record 150,000 plants were destroyed under the Washington Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said in a news release. This year's seizures have led to more than 360 arrests and 290 weapons seizures. Officials attributed the number of destroyed plants to the movement of drug traffickers from Canada to Washington in an effort to avoid tightened border security. "Washington state is susceptible to both outdoor marijuana growers, who typically use and damage public lands to ply their illegal trade, and previously Canadian-based indoor cultivators attempting to avoid cross-border detection," said DEA special-agent-in-charge Rodney Wambat. Agents said growers have dammed streams, clear-cut forest lands, used large quantities of insecticide and killed wildlife to aid outdoor drug-growing operations.

Official documents issued by the United Nations are often dull enough to induce sleep. Despite dealing with the most important of policy issues, U.N. documents normally rival the official publications of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or the Federal Register as soporifics. Begin reading any randomly selected document issued by one of the many U.N. departments and offices and before long your eyes will probably glaze over and sleep softly beckon. That’s probably why the world press missed the chance to report that the United Nations Office of Drug Control, or UNODC, had inadvertently made the case for ending cannabis prohibition in its 2006 World Drug Report. What the world press did report was what they were told to report. Rather than actually bother to read the 420 pages of the recently issued 2006 report, reporters gathered their information entirely from the short September 12, 2006, Full Laugh.....

A cannabis farm was uncovered by police after a mid-morning raid on a Nelson house. Acting on intelligence from members of the public, police in riot gear burst into a property on Hallam Road shortly after 11-30 a.m. on Tuesday.Shocked residents looked on as police stormed the house, but were reassured when community support officers circulated information leaflets explaining why the incident was taking place. While undertaking a search of the house officers uncovered what they called a "sizeable quantity" of cannabis being grown in the loft space. Sgt Mick Nichols said: "We found about 25 large cannabis plants when we entered the house. We also found drug growing equipment and drug paraphernalia." A local man, in his 30s, was arrested by police at the scene and was detained in police custody pending further questioning. Sgt Nichols praised local residents for their involvement in helping police with their inquiries.

A 78-year-old pensioner who smuggled cannabis into Stafford prison for her son has been jailed for 18 months. Stafford Crown Court heard that Edna McArthur was already subject of a suspended sentence for an almost identical offence, involving cocaine, at a different prison. McArthur, of Dingston Road, Dorking, admitted supplying her son Alan with cannabis and possessing the drug with intent to supply. Judge Paul Glenn told her: “Drugs cause huge problems in prison. You may have been pressurised by your son but you chose to ignore the inevitable consequences of your action.”The nine-month sentence for the earlier offence was activated and mCArthur was jailed for a further six months for the new offences, to run consecutively. Miss Carol Knotts, prosecuting, said Arthur was seen passing a package to her son that contained 12.5 grammes of cannabis. A second package, hidden in her bra, contained a similar amount.

BC Business-Academic Panel Tells Government to Consider Legalizing Drugs
StopTheDrugWar.Org
December 10 th 2006

A very establishment advisory group to British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell has advised the Liberal leader that if he wants to deal with crime and illegal drugs in the province, he has two starkly contrasting choices: Legalize it, or unleash an all-out drug war. The panel from the BC Progress Board made the recommendations in a research report released November 15, " Reducing Crime and Improving Criminal Justice in British Columbia: Recommendations for Change ."

The BC Progress Board is a group of 18 businessmen and academics selected by the provincial government to provide advice on economic and social issues. Simon Fraser University criminologist Rob Gordon, a board member, was the report's primary author.

The report comes as BC grapples with crime rates higher than the Canadian average. The board identified illegal drug use and the drug trade as one of four motors driving crime in the province. The others were deficient child rearing and services, mental illness, and the "impoverished and unstable lifestyles" of many people living in inner urban areas.

In its second recommendation to Premier Campbell, the board said that "the provincial government must address the problem of the illegal trade in drugs in a clear and consistent manner." The first option it listed was to "lobby the federal government to legalize the trade, perhaps limiting access to products to adults in the same way that access to alcohol and tobacco is limited."

That would allow the government to treat drug use and abuse as public health -- not criminal justice -- problems and would allow the government to obtain revenue from taxing the sales of drugs.

But the BC Progress Board was careful to note that it was not endorsing drug legalization, merely providing options for the provincial government. The board's second recommendation on drug policy made that perfectly clear. In the event legalization proves impossible to implement, the board suggested, "the provincial government should provide the resources to eliminate the drug trade entirely in the province." Alternately, the board suggested a combination of recommendations one and two. The province should first spend 10 years trying to wipe out the drug trade, then move to legalization.

While the board's recommendations are not exactly a clarion call for legalization, the panel put the idea squarely on the table.

Belgian Representative Stijn Bex of the left liberal party Spirit has become the first Belgian elected official to publicly join the growing Cannabis Social Club movement. The movement is designed to create associations of marijuana users who come together to grow limited amounts of marijuana to satisfy their needs without resorting to the black market. A project of the European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD), cannabis social clubs currently operate in Spain and Belgium.
Stijn BexThe cannabis social clubs are a concrete manifestation of ENCOD's Freedom to Farm campaign, which, according to the cannabis social club web site, is "aimed at the right of every adult citizen in the world to grow and possess natural plants for personal use and non-commercial purposes."
In an open letter to the newspaper De Morgen, Bex announced he would become a member of Draw Up Your Plant, a cannabis social club in the Antwerp area. Draw Up Your Plant is working to establish a marijuana collective farm on the principle of one plant per member. Under current Belgian drug policy, possession of one female marijuana plant by an adult is given the lowest law enforcement priority.
Draw Up Your Plant is planning to start its first indoor garden at the end of November, and ENCOD reports that Belgian authorities plan some sort of hostile response. But the group is building support among the media, and now it has its first MP.

AZALEA — Narcotics officers busted a marijuana grow Monday that led to the arrest of one man and the seizure of a dump truck load of pot plants worth more than $1 million.
Officers with the Douglas Interagency Narcotics Team were scouting the outdoor grow Monday afternoon in a rugged area near Galesville Dam when they encountered two men, according to a DINT press release.
The two men fled on foot, but officers caught up with 24-year-old Gonzalez Pedro Bravo of Albany. The second suspect was able to elude police and has not been located, Full Tale......

Barely days after police intensified operations against drug trafficking, marijuana (cannabis sativa) fields have been confirmed in the thick forests of Nyungwe National Park. The national tourism office (ORTPN) has disclosed that the drug is cultivated by people living around the park. "We are faced with a very big problem of drugs in this park. It (cannabis) is grown by Nyungwe forest encroachers most of whom have lived in this game park for over ten years," the Chief Warden, Francoise Bizimungu, said.
Speaking to The New Times in an exclusive interview at the ORTPN office in Kitabi, Southern province on Thursday, Bizimungu said, most of the gardens were being discovered by game rangers as they trail poachers, Full Problems...

Sheriff's deputies arrested an Inglewood man Wednesday on suspicion of selling high-grade marijuana on the popular want-ad website craigslist.org. Eugene Church, 20, was arrested after he offered to sell marijuana to an undercover detective at a prearranged location in Agoura Hills. Church had 5.5 ounces of marijuana in his car at the time, Sheriff's Capt. Ron Nelson said. He is being held on $200,000 bail. "We catch the dumb ones," Nelson said.

A mother whose son died after a history of cannabis-induced psychosis has teamed up with a charity to fund a cautionary play for secondary schools. The family of 22-year-old Giles Brown believe it was the use of cannabis that cost their son his life. He was found frozen to death in an outbuilding in Keighley near his home last New Year.
Now Giles' mother Diana Bayliss, with the help of family and friends, has raised £3,000 in his memory and is using it to get actors into schools with an emotional theatre production. The money has been channelled through the Hearing Voices charity to Full Monty actor Steve Huison's Shipley-based Shoestring Theatre Company, Full Sadness...

A large hydroponic cannabis plantation has been discovered in a house in Sydney's north-west. Police searched the Carlingford home, on Pennant Hills Road, about 6pm (AEST) on Tuesday following a tip-off that it was being used to cultivate cannabis. Inside the house, police found sophisticated hydroponic apparatus and a large number of cannabis plants, up to one metre in height, in several of the rooms. Police allege there were between 50 and 100 plants, Full Tale..

Arusha, Tanzania, To drive home his stance against drug consumption, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has ordered his compatriots to immediately stop growing cannabis, the main narcotic product consumed in the country, a local daily paper, The Guardian reported Tuesday. The paper said Kikwete emphasised the negative impact of cannabis use on the youths as he pronounced the order during a rally in Musoma, Mara district (north), at the weekend. He praised the engagement of the population in agriculture, but deplored the cultivation of cannabis by some villagers, commended the police for being successful in the fight against armed robbery, the paper added. In an operation carried out last April, the Tanzanian police seized 68 firearms, 221 kilos of cannabis, 853.5 grammes of heroin and destroyed two hectares of cannabis plantation.

2 gang members arrested after police found imported cannabis resin worth up to £172,000 - Lancashire's biggest seizure of the drug - at a Burnley house have been jailed. The town's Crown Court heard how the remnants of a large ecstasy haul were also discovered at the empty property in Hilary Street, in March. Cannabis was growing in two sealed bedrooms and the kitchen was used for no other purpose than as a distribution centre for drugs, Full Sentence....

An Ohio County Sheriff's Department truck is piled high with harvested marijuana plants seized from a site near North Park Friday. Nearly 4,000 marijuana plants, some nearly 8 feet tall, were harvested from a site near North Park in Wheeling, according to a spokesman for the Ohio Valley Drug and Violent Crime Task Force. The seizure of 3,850 plants was the largest to occur in Ohio County in recent memory, officers noted. No arrests have been made and none are expected, officers said late Friday. Without surveillance, arrests would not be possible, an officer noted. The plants were discovered by an unidentified individual who apparently stumbled on them recently, task force officers noted. The individual reported the matter to Wheeling Police Department detectives, who verified the information and then reported it to the task force, Full Tale.....

Heavy Cannabis Use Not Independently Associated With Cardiovascular Risks
August 11th 2006
Norml.org

San Francisco, CA : Heavy marijuana use is not independently associated with high blood pressure or other cardiovascular risk factors, according the findings of a 15-year longitudinal study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Cardiology .

Investigators at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, assessed the association between marijuana use and caloric intake, body mass index (BMI) and cardiovascular risk factors in 3,617 young adults participating in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults project (CARDIA). Though heavy self-reported use of cannabis was associated with higher caloric intake (3,365 calories per day in those who used cannabis >/= 1,800 days over a 15 year period versus 2,746 calories per day in non-users), marijuana use alone was not associated with higher levels of triglycerides, atherosclerosis, or blood pressure among respondents.

Investigators did note that the heavy use of cannabis and alcohol together was positively associated with cardiovascular risk factors.

A previous review of cannabis use and cardiotoxicity published earlier this year in the journal Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology reported that moderate marijuana use likely poses little cardiovascular risk in humans.

In human trials, cannabis smoking is typically associated with a dose-dependent increase in heart rate and blood pressure in marijuana-naive subjects, though users often become completely tolerant to these effects over time. By contrast, cannabinoid administration in animals is typically associated with vasodilation, transient bradycardia and hypotension . The administration of synthetic cannabinoids has also been shown to lower blood pressure in animals and has not been associated with cardiotoxicity in humans.

In addition, recent studies demonstrate that anandamide and other endocannabinoids profoundly suppress cardiac contractility in hypertension and can normalize blood pressure .

Police in South-Western Sydney raided two homes in Greenfield Park on Monday, seizing $1 million worth of cannabis. Both houses were located on Smithfield Road. The two houses were raided at 11:30 AM AEST on Monday where police found what they called "ellaborate hydroponic set-ups". Police seized 360 cannabis plants in addition to a large quantity of processed cannabis. At the time of the raids, there was nobody at home.Charges have been laid over the discovery, and two people have been nicked,but police say they are continuing investigations. According to police, the Wetherill Park Target Action Group are cracking down on the cultivation of hydroponic cannabis.

A judge said yesterday that a man caught on camera watering 354 cannabis plants at Lake Eppalock had to be more than a gardener. Massimo "Max" Paris, 36, pleaded guilty to cultivating a trafficable amount of cannabis and cultivating cannabis at his then home in Tullamarine. Defence lawyer David Brustman told Melbourne County Court that Paris was paid $2000 to tend to the crop at Patons Road, where he was captured on police surveillance between November 29, 2004, and January, last year, when he was arrested by Bendigo Crime Investigations Unit detectives, Full Flim....

Most people fortify themselves with a bowl of cereal, a piece of toast and cup of coffee or tea before heading to work for another day. But as an exclusive report in today's Sunday Telegraph reveals, an alarming number of workers rely on something much harder. As many as a quarter of a million people take illegal drugs during their working day. Many of these employees work in dangerous industries such as construction and transport, where an impaired decision can snuff out a life. It's not hard to find evidence of the disturbing level of illegal drug use in the workplace. Last week, workers at a Sydney construction site were observed climbing on and off their scaffold to smoke marijuana, Full Impairment...

Seattle Hempfest Sues City
Stopthedrugwar.org
August 4th 2006

Who would have thought the organizers of the Seattle Hempfest , the world's largest marijuana law reform rally, would have to take legal action against the progressive city of Seattle and one of its art museums? But that's exactly what happened Monday, when Hempfest announced it was suing the city over its failure to process the permit application in a timely manner and its failure to address transportation and access issues caused by construction at Seattle Art Museum.

The Hempfest takes place each year at Myrtle Edwards Park, a narrow strip of land adjoining Puget Sound just north of downtown Seattle. Access to the park is limited, and the Seattle Art Museum's ongoing construction at its Olympic Sculpture Park leaves only a 14-foot-wide point of access for the estimated 150,000 people that will attend over Hempfest's two-day run. Hempfest organizers say they are running out of time and cannot wait any longer for permits and resolution of the access issue. The permit application for the event was filed on January 3, and the city should have replied within 60 days, but has yet to do so. Nor has it arrived at a transportation plan that addresses the crucial access issue.

"Since the late fall of 2005, Hempfest has been meeting regularly with Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and city officials to resolve all issues and allow adequate space for pedestrian access, as well as access for police and fire officials. Public safety is a top priority for Hempfest," organizers said in a press release announcing the lawsuit . "Construction of the Olympic Sculpture Park is in risk of jeopardizing public safety and depriving the public use of a major park," said Vivian McPeak, Executive Director of the Seattle Hempfest and plaintiff. "After months of negotiations with the City and SAM, I am confident that there is room for both the Sculpture Park and Hempfest," he added.

Organizers were quick to clarify that Hempfest will take place. Period. This year's event, set for August 19 and 20, features dozens of musical acts and speakers. This year's line up includes former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper and Seattle City Council President Nick Licata (not to mention DRCNet associate director David Guard). Hundreds of exhibitors will sell hemp wares and dozens of organizations, including the ACLU and NORML and DRCNet, will recruit for their organizations and advocate an end to the drug war.

Roadside screening devices capable of detecting "drug-drivers" are expected to be introduced within two years, The Scotsman has learned. The UK government is set to give the green light by January for the development of new equipment to catch people who get behind the wheel after taking illegal drugs. Home Office sources say manufacturers have already been told about the likely requirements of the kits, which will look for drugs such as heroin, cannabis, Ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines. It is anticipated that a pilot scheme, Full Screening....

Police uncovered yesterday a 100-kilo batch of hydroponic cannabis in Corinth, in the Peloponnese, hidden on board a refrigerator truck in what authorities described as the biggest drug find of its kind in Greece. Police said that the hydroponic cannabis, also called skunk, had been smuggled on board the truck transporting frozen meat from the Netherlands. Two Greek nationals, both aged 45, along with a 50-year-old Albanian man, were arrested in connection to the operation. Authorities said that they followed the vehicle, which entered Greece from Patras, to the driver’s home in Corinth. A raid of the home and truck uncovered the cannabis, hidden among frozen chickens, a gun, 31,610 euros in cash and 10 counterfeit 50-euro notes. Police are searching for two more men, including a 27-year-old Greek man though to be the head of the operation.

Marijuana is not a soft drug and Australians should be aware of how dangerous it can be, an anti-drug campaigner says. Drug Free Australia chairman Craig Thompson is urging the community, young people in particular, to change their thinking about cannabis because of its serious effects on health. "The road fatalities caused by cannabis-intoxicated drivers, links to cannabis and psychosis, birth defects and greater potency of the drug are just a few issues of enormous concern," Mr Thompson said. He says cannabis continues to be accepted as a low-risk, non-addictive drug, but this is not the case, Full Freedom.....

Results of clinical trials of cannabis have been mixed and it now seems there are fundamental problems with how our bodies respond to the stuff
If anecdotes and ancient medicine are to be trusted, cannabis is a wonder drug. Yet results of clinical trials have been mixed and its use in modern medicine remains limited. Now it seems the reasons may be practical as much as political and cultural: there are fundamental problems with how our bodies respond to the stuff. Some compounds in cannabis, including THC and cannabidiol, interfere with a natural signalling system throughout our brains, nerves and immune system. This system, which produces its own cannabis-like compounds called endocannabinoids, plays a role in many medical conditions including pain, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, depression and schizophrenia, More...

Police busted an outdoor marijuana grow operation in Northeast Portland which bordered a high school soccer field, authorities said Wednesday. The pot plants are visible on the right side of the fence. The only thing separating the marijuana plants from the Parkrose High School soccer field was a fence, said Sgt. Brian Schmautz, spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau. “All a student would have to do is reach out and grab some dope,” he said. Although school is not currently in session, many people use the soccer field during the summer and those who do complained to police about the visible marijuana plants, More Dope....

Police in France said today they had thwarted an attempt by a group of marijuana smokers to roll the world's longest joint by seizing a work in progress measuring 80 centimetres in length. "At some point, these young people had wanted to craft a joint of 1.12 metres to beat the world record in the discipline and get it officially registered," a police officer in eastern France said. "We don't know who had the idea. Sometimes ideas are created in an astonishing way," he said. During an investigation targeting a group of four smokers in the eastern Vosges area of France, police discovered the giant joint containing 70 grams of cannabis resin. It had not been finished because of a lack of tobacco. One of the smokers is to appear before a court charged with drug use on October 19. Two minors will appear before a juvenile court on October 6.

Lebanon— A corrections officer of nine years was arrested Monday for accepting money and marijuana from an undercover agent, according to the warden's assistant at Warren Correctional Institution outside of Lebanon. Michael Miller of Clarksville was arrested at Showcase Cinemas in Mason at 12:30 p.m. after accepting $600 in cash and four ounces of marijuana with the intent of smuggling the drugs into WCI, said Mark Stegemoller, warden's assistant. More..

Winthrop Harbor — A 21-year-old man was arrested after police found marijuana worth $120,000 growing on state property near North Point Marina and at his home.Winthrop Harbor, Lake County Metropolitan Enforcement Group and Illinois Department of Natural Resources police teamed up for a two-month investigation that led to the seizure of 120 plants at the two locations. A resident provided the initial tip that someone was growing marijuana plants on state property near the marina and officers confirmed they were cannabis and notified MEG. Evidence then was obtained that identified the grower as Daniel W. Pocklington, Full Identifaction....

An energy healer and her three sons have been arrested over a $2 million cannabis haul on Sydney's north shore. Gilla Mogilevsky, a devoted student of Kabbalah – a religious mystical system of Judaism – was arrested at her home in St Ives early today. About 40 armed police raided another three adjacent homes belonging to the 53-year-old woman, allegedly uncovering just under 1000 cannabis plants worth an estimated $2 million. Two of Ms Mogilevsky's sons, aged 23 and 24, were also arrested at St Ives while a third, aged 26, was arrested on the Gold Coast with the help of Queensland police. Detectives are seeking his extradition to New South Wales, police said, More.....

A farmer who caught two men stealing his cannabis crop has been jailed on firearms and kidnapping charges. And Judge Louis Bidois had some advice for Melios Kyriakides Newman, who he said panicked and made the wrong decisions. "You could have told them to drop the dope, fired a couple of shots in the air and they'd probably have cut their losses and left." Newman (29), of Opunake, was appearing for sentence in the Hawera District Court yesterday for unlawful possession of a firearm (.22 rifle), cultivation of cannabis, intentional damage and kidnapping, at Oeo on March 19. He was given leave to apply for home detention, Full Expedition....

An eight-metre boat carrying women and children has been used in a plan to allegedly smuggle cannabis from Papua New Guinea (PNG) to Yorke Island. Customs officers from Thursday Island found up to 659 grams of the drug aboard the traditional PNG vessel when they searched it at Yorke Island on Friday, June 30. The vessel had travelled from Daru in PNG and was bringing guests to a wedding ceremony on Yorke Island. During a search of the vessel, Customs officers noticed that an empty fuel drum was unusually heavy. Closer examination allegedly revealed the cannabis concealed inside .Full Code...

Singapore: Acting on a tip-off, narcotics officers arrested 6 people and seized over 8 kilogrammes of cannabis. The drugs, with a street value of $280,000, is the Central Narcotics Bureau's largest seizure since 2004. The arrests came after a dramatic chase of the suspected syndicate leader, who sped off and dashed through two red lights. Narcotics officers managed to intercept the vehicle at Pioneer Road but the suspect locked himself in. The officers had to smash the windscreen before they could arrest him. Narcotics officers also arrested five others - two are believed to be the leader's associates and the rest, his clients.

A young chap found to have almost three-quarters of a kilo of herbal cannabis at his Blackburn home has been sentenced to 12 months in prison. A court was told that Atif Ali had used the drug as relief from a painful condition.
And, in order to fund the habit, he sometimes supplied to friends. Ali, 22, of Lancaster Road, Blackburn, appeared at Preston Crown Court, having pleaded guilty to possessing a Class C drug with intent to supply. The skunk-type drug had a street value of £4,700. Ali had no previous convictions for supplying, or possession with intent, Full Intent....

Police have estimated that cannabis plants seized from a city house have a street value of more than £250,000. A team of officers smashed their way into the property in North Street, Stanground, Peterborough, at about 7.30am yesterday. They say they found more than 640 plants which were being grown in five different rooms under high-powered lights. Speaking at the scene, Detective Constable Shanie Nayar said it was believed the plants had been in the house for at least three months. She said: "This was an intelligence-led operation which has resulted in the recovery of a large number of cannabis plants, Full Intelligence....

A 21-year-old man was arrested last night and charged with the murder of Tony Stanlake, whose mutilated body was found at Red Rocks. The accused will appear in Wellington District Court this morning. Police have seized a dark blue Subaru Legacy sedan they had been seeking. They had earlier sought the driver of a Subaru Legacy which became buried to its bumper at Owhiro Bay on Saturday night.A 1995 four-door vehicle with sunroof and spoiler was found at a Wainuiomata address and is now being forensically examined, Full Decapitation...

Police have recovered 100 kilogrammes of mbanje worth $3 billion after intercepting a Harare-bound Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (Zupco) bus at Mabvuku turn-off along Harare-Mutare road early yesterday morning. Officer Commanding Harare Suburban Superintendent Washington Mundanda said police arrested three men -- Trymore Shayamombe (23) Methias Kembo (25) and Obert Mapawona (22) -- in connection with the discovery. He said police stopped the Zupco bus and conducted a search resulting in the recovery of three bags containing the drug stashed in the boot, More Mbanje....

Homicide squad detectives are investigating whether a mix of marijuana and mental illness was a factor in four murders in the past month. Two young men and a couple who left behind a young child were the victims of fatal stabbings in the space of nine days. It is suspected psychosis brought on by marijuana may have been a factor. Drug counsellors have warned super-potent, genetically modified dope grown in suburban houses is severely affecting some users, Full Illness.....

Cons are getting high on a massive haul of drugs being thrown over their jail walls - and then reeled in with makeshift fishing lines. Almost half a million pounds worth of cannabis has been chucked into Wormwood Scrubs in west London in the past year, the People can reveal. Prison officers seized 8.5 kg in the last six months before amateur anglers among the 1,000 inmates could hook it. But authorities believe the total drugs drop amounts to at least ten times more, More Throwing....

A former pot grower who turned himself into an expert on hydroponic marijuana grow operations has failed in a bid to prevent another Saskatchewan pot grower from going to jail. Jason Hiltz, twice convicted of growing cannabis, offered his services as an expert witness for the defence in the trial of Mark John Evanishen, 35, charged with several offences related to growing pot in an old rural school near Saskatoon. Hiltz, of Saskatoon, testified at the trial, describing the operation run by Evanishen as "low end," but Evanishen was convicted of a handful of charges Thursday anyway, Full Testimony....

Herts police raiding a drugs factory this week and learned that the county is fast becoming a prime area for 'cannabis commuters'.Organised criminal gangs are moving cannabis-growing operations out of London to Hertfordshire to evade Met Police crackdowns in the capital. We have already revealed how one £30,000 drugs factory was being run beside a school and youth club in Ware. But Hertfordshire Constabulary sent out a strong message to dealers and growers on Tuesday, when more than 40 officers raided a house in Gonville Crescent, Shephall, in Stevenage. Full DNA....

There is a long-standing debate as to whether cannabis (ganja) use causes persons to become mad. I have deliberately avoided this discussion but almost every day, as a mental health professional, I am confronted with the issue. How extensive is cannabis use in Jamaica? The last survey, done in 1997 among students in school, indicates that one-third of students 'have ever used cannabis in one form or other over a lifetime'. In terms of recent use (use in the past 30 days) only 10 per cent of students admitted to this. The mental disorder that some persons contend is associated with cannabis smoking is schizophrenia. Yet, only about two per cent of the population has this condition in Jamaica and in most countries where this disorder has been studied. So, from these figures we can say that most persons who use cannabis do not become mentally ill, Yes.....

2 people were sleeping in a car at a traffic light at the intersection of Southern Boulevard and Royal Palm Beach Boulevard. An officer observed the car sit through two cycles of the traffic light without moving. The officer approached the car and noticed the two occupants sleeping. They were disoriented and there was an odor of marijuana coming from the car. The driver ignored commands to keep his hands on the steering wheel and kept reaching behind his seat. He was placed in handcuffs. A search revealed a cigar tube with marijuana inside his pocket and a glass pipe in the glove box.

2 men have been charged over allegedly using an 8m boat carrying women and children to smuggle cannabis from Papua New Guinea to a small Australian island in the Torres Strait. Customs officers from Thursday Island found up to 659 grams of the drug aboard the traditional PNG vessel when they searched it at Yorke Island last Friday. The vessel had travelled from Daru in PNG and was bringing guests to a wedding ceremony on Yorke Island. During a search of the vessel, Customs officers noticed an empty fuel drum was unusually heavy, Full Story....

Larimer County - Police seized 65 pounds of marijuana and 50 plants from the home of a man injured in an accident while trying to evade police. On Sunday, police responded to a report of menacing at 181 Ramona Drive in Livermore and began their search for William Moylan, 36. During the search, a rollover accident happened on County Road 74 East. Police realized that Moylan was the driver. Police said he managed to escape from the vehicle before they could arrest him. Officers went to his home at 136 Haystack Drive where the female tenant, Michelle Wilson, allowed them to search for Moylan. Full Tale....

'over 64 kilogrammes of compressed ganja'
Stabroeknews.com
July 3rd 2006

Five persons, including a nursing mother, who were arrested following the discovery of over 64 kilogrammes of compressed ganja in a Norton Street house, made an appearance last Friday in the Georgetown Magistrate's Court. Anthony Williams, Kirk Browne, Roshelle Gordon, Sherwin Browne and Raj Paul, all pleaded not guilty to the joint charge of trafficking in narcotics. Gordon was released on $100,000 bail by Acting Chief Magistrate Cecil Sullivan after it was revealed that she had a one-week old baby. The others were remanded to prison by the magistrate. It is alleged that last Thursday the defendants at Norton Street, Lodge had 64 kilogrammes, 545 grammes of cannabis sativa for the purpose of trafficking, Full Tale....

10 flats owned by a convicted drug retailer are to be sold, with the proceeds going to the public purse. The flats in Dundee belong to Paul Cox, who was jailed two years ago after being caught with cannabis resin worth more than £80,000. The properties can be sold under legislation allowing the proceeds of crime to be seized and are expected to raise £150,000 once mortgage repayments have been made. Cox also had substantial savings, most of which were recovered by the Crown. He was jailed for 3 years.