Drug Harm Index Under Scrutiny

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A focus on harm
Mark Easton, BBC News – UK

(snip)

The index has its critics who argue that it conflates two different types of harm: the harms from using drugs and the harms from a policy of prohibition. The campaigning Transform Drug Policy Foundation puts it this way (A Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs 2005 [444 KB PDF]):

“The failure to disaggregate drug use harms from drug policy harms or, specifically, prohibition harms, is a major obstacle to meaningful evaluation of existing policy and consequently, to the rational development of potentially more effective policy responses.”

Nevertheless, the idea that we should focus on reducing “harm” rather than simply “crime” is increasingly embedded in Whitehall thinking – and the implications could be far-reaching.

(snip)

Soca’s definition of “harm” goes beyond illegal drug running and the economic costs of crime – this is a complex measure by which the agency pursues all its activities. Physical, social, environmental, economic and structural harms are considered at every level – from the personal to the international:

“SOCA‘s focus is not solely on the criminals and the offences they are committing” the agency explains, adding that their “operational business now focuses more sharply on the question of what will make a tangible and lasting difference for those who are being adversely affected”.

Looking at crime through the harm prism may make us reconsider priorities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/05/a_focus_on_harm.html

A warning against cannabis

If there’s a good side to the incident at Hospital Hill, it’s that there are decent people in cynical times.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/columnists/rosemary-mcleod/2410739/A-warning-against-cannabis

UK may need Class D, but nothing will save Rosemary McLoud?

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

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Retired judge says it is time to end war on marijuana.

David A. Nichols was a Whatcom County, superior court judge for 20 years, retiring in 2004. [Washington State (Seattle is Christchurch Sister City) ]

DAVID NICHOLS – THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

Posted on Saturday, Mar. 21, 2009

A recent letter to the editor argued against reforming marijuana laws, missing the mark entirely in my opinion. After serving as a Whatcom County superior court judge for 20 years, I can assure you that the prohibition of marijuana has been a colossal failure. Arresting, prosecuting, and jailing people are an expensive and ineffective way to address a public health issue.

We should take a lesson from recent anti-tobacco public education campaigns targeted at youth. Youth initiation rates of cigarette smoking have plummeted in recent years, both in Washington and nationwide. We did not have to arrest a single cigarette smoker to accomplish these successes.

It is time we take a hard look at the irrefutable fact that marijuana prohibition is causing more harm than good. I think we can do better. That is why I support Senate Bill 5615, which has been introduced in the Washington state Legislature. This bill would make adult possession of small amounts of marijuana a civil infraction instead of a misdemeanor crime. The state estimates that the bill would save Washington taxpayers over $16 million each year, and the experience of the 12 other states who have already taken this step demonstrates no negative impact to their communities.

It is my fervent belief that this state and nation must come to recognize that continuing to treat drug users as criminals perpetuates an evil that rewards the drug sellers and corrupts our society. Until we honestly and appropriately deal with the entire drug issue as a health problem analogous to tobacco or liquor, and not as a “war” we cannot win, we will continue to reap the whirlwind of huge world-wide illegal drug profits which are costing us billions, threatening the stability of nations, causing soaring crime rates and diverting money which is sorely needed elsewhere.

The pending legislation in Olympia is a first step toward a rational approach to the drug problem and deserves to be supported by all of us.

With the exception of a few brave souls willing to stake their careers on speaking out, the nation and world are mystifyingly deaf and mute to the reality that the “war on drugs” not only is not working; it is having the opposite effect of escalating the problem exponentially.

The present generation has forgotten that emotions also ran rampant in the years leading up to Prohibition. Convinced that alcohol was evil and that society would be ruined if it were not outlawed, Congress was persuaded to pass legislation which had the inevitable result of encouraging the black market to flourish, allowing organized crime to gain a foothold which it has never relinquished, to seize control and enjoy huge profits, requiring the creation of colossal state and federal police forces to combat the crime and wasting millions of dollars, only to be repealed when enough people realized that the efforts were availing nothing. We now sensibly have liquor under state control, and treat addiction as a health problem.

We have also been smart enough to treat tobacco use the same way. Cigarettes are regulated but not proscribed. We have left it to the culture to censure cigarette smoking, which has been far more effective than if we criminalized their use.

Why cannot we understand that, even though alcohol and nicotine abuse cause far more damage and loss of productivity to our society than do drugs, by not criminalizing their use but treating their misuse as a health problem instead of a crime has allowed us to avoid all the problems that now beset us as we wage the “war on drugs?”

If we ever want to stop the craziness and futility of our present anti-drug approach, we must de-criminalize possession and use of all drugs. Education, addiction treatment and state regulation need to replace arrests, trials, jail sentences, growth of cartels and drug gangs, corrupt government institutions, and the mindless head-bashing against brick walls that characterize what we are doing now.

It will never work. It didn’t work in the past. If we would only study the past, maybe we would not be condemned to repeat it. Read More…

Dave is also an excellent artist having exhibited throughout Northwest. His art may be viewed (here and) at the Blue Horse Gallery in Bellingham, The Insights Gallery, Anacortes, WA & the Seaside Gallery, Laconner, WA.

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Legalize Drugs to End Border Violence – Miron

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Harvard Lecturer: Legalize Drugs to End Border Violence

(Published 03/24/2009 by Talkleft)

Another voice in the small but growing crowd urging legalization of drugs to end the Mexico drug war violence: Harvard Senior Lecturer in Economics Jeffrey Miron.

Argument 1: Prohibition creates violence. It happened with alcohol and gambling. End the prohibition, end the violence. [More…]

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after. Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it’s permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question. The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs (emphasis supplied.)

But, there are other reasons, according to Miron: Such as, legalize drugs, reduce bribery.

Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade.

Criminalization of drugs erodes our constitutional rights:

Prohibition erodes protections against unreasonable search and seizure because neither party to a drug transaction has an incentive to report the activity to the police. Thus, enforcement requires intrusive tactics such as warrantless searches or undercover buys. The victimless nature of this so-called crime also encourages police to engage in racial profiling.

Prohibition is bad for national security:

Prohibition has disastrous implications for national security. By eradicating coca plants in Colombia or poppy fields in Afghanistan, prohibition breeds resentment of the United States. By enriching those who produce and supply drugs, prohibition supports terrorists who sell protection services to drug traffickers.

Prohibition harms the public health:

Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other conditions cannot use marijuana under the laws of most states or the federal government despite abundant evidence of its efficacy. Terminally ill patients cannot always get adequate pain medication because doctors may fear prosecution by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Prohibition breeds disrespect for the rule of law:

Prohibitions breed disrespect for the law because despite draconian penalties and extensive enforcement, huge numbers of people still violate prohibition. This means those who break the law, and those who do not, learn that obeying laws is for suckers.

And the number one reason that may resonate with the public in these perilous economic times: Prohibition is a financial drain.

Federal, state and local governments spend roughly $44 billion per year to enforce drug prohibition. These same governments forego roughly $33 billion per year in tax revenue they could collect from legalized drugs, assuming these were taxed at rates similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. Under prohibition, these revenues accrue to traffickers as increased profits.

President Obama‘s new plan to spend $700 million for border security is the wrong approach. And that’s in addition to Merida:

The funds, meant to assist what administration officials described as an “anti-smuggling effort,” will complement ongoing U.S. aid to Mexico under the Merida initiative, a three-year $1.4 billion package aimed at helping Mexico fight the drug cartels with law enforcement training, military equipment and improved intelligence cooperation.

The war on drugs is a failure. Plan Mexico will crash and burn.

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A slight rise in drug crime (Sallies)

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A slight rise in drug crime

Drug offences rose slightly between 2007 and 2008 from 18,908 in 2007 (year ending 30 June) to 19,259 in 2008. Within this overall rise there was a shift in the composition of these offences with more Cannabis related offences (14,449 to 15,288) and fewer offences for other and most often harder, drugs (4,450 to 3,971). Overall the level drug related crime is 13% lower in 2008 than in 2004 when there were 22,249 drug offences of which 18,271 were Cannabis related.

see FIGURE 20: Convictions for drug offences 2004-2008

http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/uploads/IntoTroubledWaters.pdf

Notably the Salvation Army says in its summary (Report Card)

For the available data it is difficult to know if the war on illicit drugs is being won or lost. The recent rise in cannabis related offences may indicate a changing emphasis by Police.

Cannabis Harm Reduction Squad
on route to saving someone
from themselves.
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[Actually the heading is perverse, there was a significant reduction in drug crime (13% lower) but the figures demonstrate that ‘Policing Success’ is entirely dependent on measuring cannabis convictions and thus policing practice, not prevalence of use or relative harm. The BERL Drug Harm Index report is all the more sillier! /Blair ]

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Drug Prohibition: illiberal, murderous and pointless. [the Economist]

How to stop the drug wars

Mar 5th 2009 – From The Economist print edition

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13237193

Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution

Illustration by Noma Bar

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A HUNDRED years ago a group of foreign diplomats gathered in Shanghai for the first-ever international effort to ban trade in a narcotic drug. On February 26th 1909 they agreed to set up the International Opium Commission—just a few decades after Britain had fought a war with China to assert its right to peddle the stuff. Many other bans of mood-altering drugs have followed. In 1998 the UN General Assembly committed member countries to achieving a “drug-free world” and to “eliminating or significantly reducing” the production of opium, cocaine and cannabis by 2008.

That is the kind of promise politicians love to make. It assuages the sen

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se of moral panic that has been the handmaiden of prohibition for a century. It is intended to reassure the parents of teenagers across the world. Yet it is a hugely irresponsible promise, because it cannot be fulfilled.Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless.

That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs. “Least bad” does not mean good. Legalisation, though clearly better for producer countries, would bring (different) risks to consumer countries. As we outline below, many vulnerable drug-takers would suffer. But in our view, more would gain.

The evidence of Failure

Nowadays the UN Office on Drugs and Crime no longer talks about a drug-free world. Its boast is that the drug market has “stabilised”, meaning that more than 200m people, or almost 5% of the world’s adult population, still take illegal drugs—roughly the same proportion as a decade ago. (Like most purported drug facts, this one is just an educated guess: evidential rigour is another casualty of illegality.) The production of cocaine and opium is probably about the same as it was a decade ago; that of cannabis is higher. Consumption of cocaine has declined gradually in the United States from its peak in the early 1980s, but the path is uneven (it remains higher than in the mid-1990s), and it is rising in many places, including Europe.This is not for want of effort. The United States alone spends some $40 billion each year on trying to eliminate the supply of drugs. It arrests 1.5m of its citizens each year for drug offences, locking up half a million of them; tougher drug laws are the main reason why one in five black American men spend some time behind bars. In the developing world blood is being shed at an astonishing rate. In Mexico more than 800 policemen and soldiers have been killed since December 2006 (and the annual overall death toll is running at over 6,000). This week yet another leader of a troubled drug-ridden country—Guinea Bissau—was assassinated.Yet prohibition itself vitiates the efforts of the drug warriors. The price of an illegal substance is determined more by the cost of distribution than of production. Take cocaine:
the mark-up between coca field and consumer is more than a hundredfold. Even if dumping weedkiller on the crops of peasant farmers quadruples the local price of coca leaves, this tends to have little impact on the street price, which is set
mainly by the risk of getting cocaine into Europe or the United States. Nowadays the drug warriors claim to seize close to half of all the cocaine that is produced. The street price in the United States does seem to have risen, and the purity seems to have fallen, over the past year. But it is not clear that drug demand drops when prices rise. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that the drug business quickly adapts to market disruption. At best, effective repression merely forces it to shift production sites. Thus opium has moved from Turkey and Thailand to Myanmar and southern Afghanistan, where it undermines the West’s efforts to defeat the Taliban.Al Capone, but on a global scaleIndeed, far from reducing crime, prohibition has fostered gangsterism on a scale that the world has never seen before. According to the UN’s perhaps inflated estimate, the illegal drug industry is worth some $320 billion a year. In the West it makes criminals of otherwise law-abiding citizens (the current American president could easily have ended up in prison for his youthful experiments with “blow”). It also makes drugs more dangerous: addicts buy heavily adulterated cocaine and heroin; many use dirty needles to inject themselves, spreading HIV; the wretches who succumb to “crack” or “meth” are outside the law, with only
their pushers to “treat” them. But it is countries in the emerging world that pay most of the price. Even a relatively developed democracy such as Mexico now finds itself in a life-or-death struggle against gangsters. American officials,
including a former drug tsar, have publicly worried about having a “narco state” as their neighbour.The failure of the drug war has led a few of its braver generals, especially from Europe and Latin America, to suggest shifting the focus from locking up people to public health and “harm reduction” (such as encouraging addicts to use clean needles). This approach would put more emphasis on public education and the treatment of addicts, and less on the harassment of peasants who grow coca and the punishment of consumers of “soft” drugs for personal use. That would be a step in the right direction. But it is unlikely to be adequately funded, and it does nothing to take organised crime out of the picture. Legalisation would not only drive away the gangsters; it would transform drugs from a law-and-order problem into a public-health problem, which is how they ought to be treated. Governments would tax and regulate the drug trade, and use the funds raised (and the billions saved on law-enforcement) to educate the public about the risks of drug-taking and to treat addiction. The sale of drugs to minors should remain banned. Different drugs would command different levels of taxation and regulation. This system would be fiddly and imperfect, requiring constant monitoring and hard-to-measure trade-offs. Post-tax prices should be set at a level that would strike a balance between damping down use on the one hand, and discouraging a black market and the desperate acts of theft and prostitution to which addicts now resort to feed their habits. Selling even this flawed system to people in producer countries, where organised crime is the central political issue, is fairly easy. The tough part comes in the consumer countries, where addiction is the main political battle. Plenty of American parents might accept that legalisation would be the right answer for the people of Latin America, Asia and Africa; they might even see its usefulness in the fight against terrorism. But their immediate fear would be for their own children.That fear is based in large part on the presumption that more people would take drugs under a legal regime. That presumption may be wrong. There is no correlation between the harshness of drug laws and the incidence of drug-taking: citizens living under tough regimes (notably America but also Britain) take more drugs, not fewer. Embarrassed drug warriors blame this on alleged cultural differences, but even in fairly similar countries tough rules make little difference to the number of addicts: harsh Sweden and more liberal Norway have precisely the same addiction rates. Legalisation might reduce both supply (pushers by definition push) and demand (part of that dangerous thrill would go). Nobody knows for certain. But it is hard to argue that sales of any product that is made cheaper, safer and more widely available would fall. Any honest proponent of legalisation would be wise to assume that drug-taking as a whole would rise.There are two main reasons for arguing that prohibition should be scrapped all the same. The first is one of liberal principle. Although some illegal drugs are extremely dangerous to some people, most are not especially harmful. (Tobacco is more
addictive than virtually all of them.) Most consumers of illegal drugs, including cocaine and even heroin, take them only occasionally. They do so because they derive enjoyment from them (as they do from whisky or a Marlboro Light). It is not the state’s job to stop them from doing so. What about addiction? That is partly covered by this first argument, as the harm involved is primarily visited upon the user. But addiction can also inflict misery on the families and especially the children of any addict, and involves wider social costs. That is why discouraging and treating addiction should be the priority for drug policy. Hence the second argument: legalisation offers the opportunity to deal with addiction properly.By providing honest information about the health risks of different drugs, and pricing them accordingly, governments could steer consumers towards the least harmful ones. Prohibition has failed to prevent the proliferation of designer drugs, dreamed up in laboratories. Legalisation might encourage legitimate drug companies to try to improve the stuff that people take. The resources gained from tax and saved on repression would allow governments to guarantee treatment to addicts—a way of making legalisation more politically palatable. The success of developed countries in stopping people smoking tobacco, which is similarly subject to tax and regulation, provides grounds for hope. A calculated gamble, or nother century of failure? This newspaper first argued for legalisation 20 years ago (see article). Reviewing the evidence again (see article), prohibition seems even more harmful, especially for the poor and weak of the world. Legalisation
would not drive gangsters completely out of drugs; as with alcohol and cigarettes, there would be taxes to avoid and rules to subvert. Nor would it automatically cure failed states like Afghanistan. Our solution is a messy one; but a century of manifest failure argues for trying it.

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Holmes & Co.: [on] the Marijuana Question

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“I’ve long believed the public is way ahead of the politicians on drug policy, especially when it comes to marijuana.” The gutless wonders on Beacon Hill (Boston, Mass./Blair) couldn’t even bring themselves to vote on the petition to remove all criminal penalties for simple possession of marijuana. Holmes & Co.: [on] the Marijuana Question. – Rick Holmes, see [http://blogs.townonline.com/holmesandco/]

The funding contributions of G. Soros (even if at arms length via his funding of the wider goals of the Open Society Institute) his little to do with any argument rationalising drug prohibitions. If Soros had indirectly provided resources to UNESCO, would that make him a saint? He, nor the argument at hand is defined by the nominal contribution he made. His contribution, again indirectly, aided the “thru the maze” International Healthy Drug Policy Symposium held in

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Wellington, New Zealand recently. It drew participation of those politicians who professed the wisdom of accepting new evidence, weighting harm reduction and whom to a tee, argued for holding the prohibitory line. Notably the attendees, primarily drawn from the treatment sector, participation ‘fee’, even if indirectly subsidised by Soros, gave politicians (Hon Peter Dunnes speech notes) and Police a platform to defend prohibition. (albeit absent one credible cannabis consumer in the room. Some test? – in fact, for one advocate of d-classification, contrary to and apparently very offensive to Police National Drug Intelligence Bureau’s well, intelligence, was threatened by one Police representative [Stuart Mills, the head of the NDIB], with getting a ‘couple of his brothers down’ presumably as silent dissent was not allowed outside the Symposium either. )

In the Spotlight Peter Dunne’s Address to International Drug Policy Symposium

This symposium is indeed timely as it occurs shortly before a particularly significant high-level meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which will meet next month to discuss progress made in meeting the targets set out in the 1998 declaration of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session. New Zealand is one of over 180 members of the United Nations that are parties to the three United Nations Conventions, under which worldwide drug control is based.

As a signatory to the Conventions, New Zealand is an active member of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs and I will be representing this country at the high-level segment next month in Vienna, where the course for international drug control for the next ten years will be charted. I expect that Member States will agree to a new Declaration acknowledging both the achievements over the last ten years in containing the drug problem worldwide, but also how far we still have to go to achieve our goals for eliminating or significantly reducing the manufacture, marketing and supply of illegal drugs.

We know, too, of the widespread use of cannabis in our society, across many age and socio-economic groups, and the calls from a number of quarters for the law to take a softer approach to its use, because it is allegedly not as dangerous as other drugs.
Let me make it very clear this morning: relaxing the current laws on cannabis is not on this Government’s agenda. Too many mental health problems, respiratory diseases and health and social problems that we already have to deal with are associated with cannabis, and we do not accept the argument that softening the laws will somehow resolve these issues. It simply will not.

The opportunity was lost to argue much cannabis use, indeed most cannabis use is non-problematic. Nor discussed was the ‘legislative rules and regulations model’ – Class D, passed “by Order in Council” [Nov06.2008 Royal assent] an international conventions compliant classification respectful of adult choice for recreational use of psychoactive ‘soft’ drugs that makes full provision for place of sale, packaging, manufacture, cultivation, advertising, and health promotion with consumer protection administered by the Ministry of Health.

Read it slowly: New Zealand is the first country in the world to avoid the moral hazard, treat drug sales more like alcohol, and legally regulate potentially ‘any drug’ – by executive order guided by expert advice. The model or ‘restricted substances regulations’ creates an opportunity to self regulate and deliver significant economic benefits.

Consider this extract from The budgetary implications of drugs prohibition: Italy, 2000-05. Marco Rossi, Universita’ La Sapienza.

“From a budgetary point of view, our results clearly showed that the main implication of prohibition consist in the loss of the monetary taxes on drugs sales: about 4/5 of the total fiscal cost of prohibition. In particular, cannabis prohibition was very costly: almost 2/3 of the total cost of drugs prohibition in Italy from 2000-05 are attributable to its prohibition only.
This study addresses only the criminal justice costs of enforcing drugs prohibition; it does not addresses any possible change in prevention, education, or treatment activities. Prohibition also has other budgetary implications, as it tends to generate crime, and it lowers drugs

Class D goes to UN?
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consumers’ health. Anyway, in this study we omitted to estimate the budgetary implications of of these prohibition-induced effects, as we omitted to estimate the income taxes that could be levied on legalized drug dealers’ profits.”

New Zealand has stretched the possibilities up for discussion at the upcoming UNODC/UNGASS review process, but it has largely gone unnoticed even in New Zealand. Not a jot. No one cared. It is what former Prime Minister Rt Hon. Helen Clark described as “partial prohibition”, with Police, Justice, Corrections et al. bound by Ottawa Charter conventions.

Putting ‘Class D’ in the mix resolves the tensions surrounding ‘vexing issues’ like the media’s and politics propensity for information asymmetry while removing the moral hazard (state as drug dealer) problem surrounding the quality of drugs in a retail sales perspective.

No one gives a whit that there are thousands of variants of the drug ‘alcohol’ taxed such that best is dearest = dearest is best.

Yet we still classified illicit drugs as ABC, where A is not supposed mean ‘really excellent’ and by dint of prohibition, ensure they then sell at the highest ‘social cost’?

Class D resolves the policy tensions economically and maximises the social dividend. It deserves a wider audience.

Associate Minister of Health, Peter Dunne at Healthy Drug Law said “New Zealand has a separate classification and regulations for substances considered to have psychoactive

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properties, but representing a low risk of harm. These can be legally supplied and used, but with restrictions around age, marketing and availability. We believe this to be a potentially more effective approach to low risk substances rather than having them remain uncontrolled and unregulated. ”

suggestion: Google (“Class D” Cannabis)

(PS: my dog is called Holmes. Sherlock was the first injecting drug user in British Literature. The culturally imbued health promotion message is ‘if your going to do serious drugs, make sure your best friend is a Doctor’. )

—
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Spokesperson on Climate Change, Environment and Associate ‘Shadow’ Law And Order.
http://www.republicans.org.nz/

Social Ecologist ‘at large’
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
http://blair4mayor.com/
http://efsdp.org/

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

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Collapse of the Capital Markets.

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Over the past six-eight years the MildGreens have often made the claim that were illicit drugs to be globally legally regulated, the capital markets would collapse. (cf: Narcodollars for Dummies, introduced to NZ’s SCOOP by the MildGreens). While our comment was aimed at the fiscal risk created by pump and dump when black money is laundered, the destabilised banking markets we see today are inseparable.

In a ringing endorsement of that claim the following headline substantially agrees.

U.N. crime chief says drug money flowed into banks
Reuters
Sunday, January 25, 2009

VIENNA: The United Nations’ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year.

“In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital,” Costa was quoted as saying by Profil. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”

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The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had found evidence that “interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities,” Costa was quoted as saying. There were “signs that some banks were rescued in that way.”

Profil said Costa declined to identify countries or banks which may have received drug money and gave no indication how much cash might be involved. He only said Austria was not on top of his list, Profil said.

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Judge, A Heartless Bastard "Beneath Contempt".

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A cannabis campaigner [and ME sufferer/Blair] who admitted supplying the class C drugs to other pain sufferers has escaped a jail sentence – but received a stern warning from a judge. During sentencing at Plymouth Crown Court, Judge Francis Gilbert made it clear to Stuart Wyatt – who wants to see cannabis legalised for use in pain relief – that he was not above the law. During an exchange with Wyatt’s advocate Ali Rafati, Judge Gilbert responded sharply to the news that the 36-year-old’s “use of cannabis was ongoing” to mitigate the pain he constantly suffered.

Judge Gilbert replied: “Well, that’s his misfortune, isn’t it? I’m afraid the reality is your client is or has been acting illegally and breaking the law.”

“You must understand cannabis is an illegal drug, whatever view you have about it,” he said. “It’s not your privilege to choose whether what you do is lawful or illegal. There is no excuse. You’re subject to the law like any other person.”

He then sentenced Wyatt to eight months for producing cannabis and 12 months for supplying cannabis, to run concurrently, before suspending it for two years.

Outside court Wyatt, supporting himself on two walking sticks, said: “I’m shocked that after two years of trying to get a dialogue or debate within Government, I’m not allowed to say a word in court.

“I’m stuck in the position that the only drugs available to me – anti- psychotic or anti-depressant drugs with pain-killing effects – would cause damage to my mental health. My mental health is the only healthy part of my body that remains”, he said.

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Campaigner-using-cannabis-walks-free-court/article-621063-detail/article.html

One could wonder at this Judge’s sense of propriety when in a previous case he gave a sentence of nine months (suspended) for importing >600kg of tobacco a known killer!!

Stuart Wyatt’s case was all the more interesting for the fact that he wasn’t caught doing anything wrong.. he was caught because the police were investigating another matter and just happened to find his weed.

—
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

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Reform, A Political Opportunity

Image via Wikipedia While much of the discussion (and protest) for change is very US centric it must not be forgotten that on a global scale the US acts cravenly, often under arms but more subtly through ‘international relations’ and delegations. Uncle Sam’s goal is to pervert the required ‘resolving of the tensions’ pushing its largely moral reformist (thus religious) policy position.

Americans pay dearly for this ideology, but so to does the rest of the world.

“It is often forgotten that health is the first principle of drug policy.” – Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Marijuana Law Reform No Longer a Political Liability, It’s a Political Opportunity

January 13th, 2009

Voting ended late last week on the President-Elect¹s website Change.gov. As was the case in December, questions from the general public pertaining to marijuana and drug policy reform proved to be extremely popular.

Of the more than 76,000 questions posed to Obama by the public, the fourth most popular question overall called on the incoming administration to cease arresting and prosecuting adults who use cannabis. And in the sub-category “National Security,” the most popular question posed by the public pertained to amending U.S. drug policies as a way to try and halt the ongoing violence surround illicit drug trafficking in Mexico and other nations. ( for more see http://blog.thehill.com/ article by Deputy Director Paul Armentano, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws )

The continuing arrogance of the US Congress/administration and its political and religiously deluded vehicle for maintaining the international ignominy of the “War on Drugs”, the Single Conventions and covenants, stands as the single biggest unresolved issue on this planet. It is in the way of even climate change and peace… so long as it is the single largest ‘fixable’ contributor to destabilised nation states, institutionalised corruption and chronic and systemic racist, ageist and sexist human rights abuse. Without wholesale reform of the drug laws the rest is just pretence for expediency. Non-feasance on a planetary scale. Seriously, political arses should be whupped for this devious practice of ‘self interest before others’.

Repudiate the Single Conventions on Narcotics – ‘for God’s Sake’

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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Drug Policy Rendered Down

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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