XPost: alt.drugs.psychedelics, alt.drugs.pot, rec.drugs.cannabis
From: bliss@mouse-potato.com

Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1096 -- 5/12/20
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1096

A Publication of StoptheDrugWar.org
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Table of Contents:

1. END DRUG PROHIBITION TO FIGHT ORGANIZED CRIME, WORLD LEADERS SAY
[FEATURE]
The Global Commission on Drug Policy has released a new report on how to
most effectively target organized crime, and that includes moving toward
legal, regulated drug markets. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/11/end_drug_prohibition_fight

2. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
Just a couple of miscreant men in blue this week, and they were both
apparently slinging weed. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/06/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

3. US IMPRISONMENT AT LOWEST RATE SINCE 1996, DR. BRONNER'S KICKS IN $1
MILLION FOR OR PSILOCYBIN INIT, MORE... (4/30/20)
The former Honduran National Police chief just got indicted on drug
charges in New York City, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps just bestowed a huge
gift on the Oregon psilocybin initiative campaign, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/30/us_imprisonment_lowest_rate_1996

4. MT JUDGE BLOCKS E-SIGNATURES FOR POT INITIATIVE, EUROPE FLOODED WITH
COCAINE DESPITE PANDEMIC, MORE... (5/1/20)
No electronic signature-gathering for the Montana marijuana legalization initiatives, a Canadian psychedelic decriminalization petition has
enough signatures to send it to the House of Commons, Mexico's Jalisco
New Generation Cartel is handing out crisis supplies in Puerta Vallarta,
and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/01/mt_judge_blocks_esignatures_pot

5. TRUMP AUTHORIZES RESERVES TO FIGHT CARTELS, MURDER SPIKE IN CIUDAD
JUAREZ, MORE... (5/4/20)
President Trump has authorized the Defense Department to call up
military reserves as he ramps up a campaign against the cartels, a
Nebraska medical marijuana initiative plans to continue
signature-gathering, the legal pot industry is still hiring, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/04/trump_authorizes_reserves_fight

6. KANSAS WEED WARRIORS PAY FOR BAD RAID, NY MUSHROOM DECRIM BILL FILED, MORE... (5/5/20)
A psilocybin mushroom decriminalization bill has been filed, Joe Biden
again calls for marijuana decriminalization, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/05/kansas_weed_warriors_pay_bad

7. MN HOUSE LEADER FILES MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION BILL, DC PSYCHEDELIC
DECRIM CAMPAIGN CATCHES BREAK, MORE... (5/6/20)
A Republican pollster in Pennsylvania calls on GOP legislators to
consider supporting marijuana legalization, new New York City drug
testing rules go into effect next week, a Minnesota legalization bill is introduced, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/06/mn_house_leader_files_marijuana

8. CARTEL COVID CURFEW IN CULIACAN, SF PROVIDING BOOZE, BUDS, BUTTS TO QUARANTINED DRUG USERS, MORE... (5/7/20)
The coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc with global drug markets, the Sinaloa Cartel has imposed a coronavirus curfew on a city of nearly a
million people, San Francisco is taking a harm reduction approach to quarantined drug users, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/07/cartel_covid_curfew_culiacan_sf

9. TRAFFIC SEARCHES DECLINE WITH MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION, BUT RACIAL
DISPARITIES PERSIST, MORE... (5/8/20)
A new study reports that driving while black is still a thing even in
legal marijuana states, Joe Biden touts some coercive, but non-carceral approaches to drug offenders, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/08/traffic_searches_decline

10. PUSH TO HELP MARIJUANA BUSINESSES IN NEXT COVID BILL, COCA AND
CONFLICT IN BOLIVIA AND COLOMBIA, MORE... (5/11/20)
Advocacy groups are pushing for marijuana businesses to be included in
the next coronavirus relief bill, a pair of Oregon drug reform
initiatives are teaming up for signature-gathering, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/11/push_help_marijuana_businesses

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================

1. END DRUG PROHIBITION TO FIGHT ORGANIZED CRIME, WORLD LEADERS SAY
[FEATURE] https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/may/11/end_drug_prohibition_fight

For nearly a decade now, a collection of former heads of state, high
political figures, businessmen, and cultural figures have been working
to reform drug policy at the national and international levels. Known as
the Global Commission on Drug Policy
(https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org), this group of planetary
elders (https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/about-usmission-and-history/commissioners-page)
has been busy issuing reports
(https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/reports) at the rate of one a
year on how to reduce the harms of prohibitionist drug policies and what
would be more effective and humane alternatives.

Now they've just released their latest report, Enforcement of Drug Laws: Refocusing on Organized Crime Elites (https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/reports/enforcement-of-drug-laws), which takes on the perverse and insidious ways drug prohibition actually empowers and encourages criminal enterprises, and counsels nations and
the global anti-drug bureaucracy to find a better way. That includes
pondering the possibility of drug legalization and the taming of illicit markets through regulation -- not prohibition, which has demonstrably
failed for decades.

The commission rolled out its report Thursday with a virtual
presentation on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3RpfxlAh3U).

"This report has a new perspective on the problem of organized crime,"
said commission member Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand
and former head of the United Nations Development Program. "Organized
crime is a challenge in every society, and if it gets into the political
realm and starts corrupting political systems, that is a huge issue, and
it has done that," she said.

"Where the commission comes from is that we're saying 'drugs are being
caught up in this' because of the refusal of the international community
to accept that drugs need to be responsibly regulated," Clark continued.
The attempt to prohibit them has actually been a license for organized
crime to build a half-trillion dollar a year industry peddling stuff.
Could we take drugs out of that through responsible regulation?

As president of Colombia between 2010 and 2018, Juan Manuel Santos
mediated a peace treaty with the leftist guerrillas of the FARC and won
a Nobel prize for his efforts. He also presided over a country that is perennially in contention for being the world's largest cocaine
producer. He knows about what drug prohibition can bring.

"I come from a country that has fought drug traffickers and drug
trafficking for so long and has probably paid the highest price of any
country in the world -- Colombia has lost its best leaders, best
journalists, best judges, best policemen -- and we are still the number
one exporter of cocaine to the world markets," Santos said. "Corruption
and drug trafficking go hand in hand. The most dangerous and protected individuals often escape, while ordinary people who happen to use
illicit drugs see their lives destroyed by the war on drugs," he argued.

"To fight organized crime, we must follow the money," Santos continued.
"People are realizing that a war that has been fought for a half century
and has not been won is a war that has been lost, and so you have to
change your strategy and your tactics if you want to be successful.
Corruption, violence, profits, and prohibition are very closely related.
You do away with prohibition, you regulate, you bring down the profits,
and immediately you will start to see an improvement in violence and corruption."

The commission's work centers around five pathways (https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/the-five-pathways-to-drug-policies-that-work),
explained commission chair and former Swiss president Ruth Dreifuss.

"It is putting health first," she said. "Second, it is also giving
priority to the use of some of these substances for their medical
benefits. It is one of the dramatic situations also, mainly in poor
countries, that the people have no access to scheduled pain killers. The
third pathway, which we think is very important, is to end the
criminalization of people who use drugs. The fourth chapter of our
reform program is that we have to deal with the criminality related to
drugs, and that is why we issued this report today. And the last point
is that we have to take control. The state -- reasonable and responsible
people -- have to take control of drug markets and not let them stay in criminal hands."

While the 52-page report provides a detailed, evidence-based examination
of the challenges of grappling with criminal groups that thrive under prohibition, it summarizes its findings with five basic recommendations
for national governments and at the United Nations, whose anti-drug
treaties form the legal backbone of global drug prohibition. These are:

* States must acknowledge the negative consequences of repressive law enforcement approaches to drug policies and recognize that prohibition
forges and strengthens criminal organizations. Sharing such conclusions
with the public must then feed national debates to support bold drug
policy reform. (We all know the litany by now: From racially-biased and militarized policing and over-incarceration in the United States to
bloody drug wars in Mexico and Colombia financed by prohibition profits,
to the murderous and repressive anti-drug campaign in the Philippines, enforcing drug prohibition has dreadfully harmful consequences.)
* States must analyze the transnational and trans-sectorial nature of criminal organizations, to review and reform the current exclusive focus
on law enforcement. (Drug trafficking organizations don't just traffic
drugs; they tend to get their fingers in whatever illicit enterprises
can turn a buck for them, from wildlife smuggling to counterfeiting to extortion. And maybe we'd be better off devoting more resources to
treatment and prevention instead of trying to suppress and arrest our
way out of the problem.)
* States must develop targeted and realistic deterrence strategies to
counter organized crime and focus their response on the most dangerous
and/or highest profiting elements in the criminal market. States must
also reinforce interdepartmental cooperation to address criminal markets
in a broad sense, not solely drugs, and develop effective transnational coordination against trans-border criminal groups and international
money laundering. (It's both cruel and ineffective to target drug users
and street-level dealers for arrest and prosecution. But the recent
Mexican experience has shown that the alternative strategy of going
after "kingpins" can lead to an increase in violence as gang lieutenants
engage in murderous struggles to replace each capo killed or captured.
It's a real dilemma -- unless you undercut them by ending prohbition.)
* States must consider the legal regulation of drugs as the
responsible pathway to undermine organized crime. (This increasingly
seems like a very reasonable approach.)
* UN member states must revisit the global governance of the
international drug control regime in order to achieve better outcomes in
public health, public safety, justice, and greater impact on
transnational organized crime. (It's way past time to nullify or amend
the anti-drug treaties that guide international drug policies.)

The Global Commission on Drug Policy has laid out a framework for
radical reform. Now, it's up to the nations of the world and the
international institutions that bind us together to act.


================ ...
___________________

It's time to correct the mistake:
Truth:the Anti-drugwar
<http://www.briancbennett.com>

Cops say legalize drugs--find out why:
<http://www.leap.cc>
Stoners are people too:
<http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
___________________

bliss -- Cacao Powered... (-SF4ever at DSLExtreme dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cacao that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)