The world of psychedelics is painted with neon colors and smiling, white hippies with long hair who use hallucinogenic substances for wild, recreational trips. But psychedelics like LSD, MDMA (also known as molly or ecstasy) and psilocybin (also known as magic mushrooms) have a much richer history in their use as therapeutic medicines, which existed in Indigenous communities long before Western culture and medicine discovered them.

Host Anita Rao talks about the history, science and culture behind psychedelic medicine with Ismail Ali of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Chapel Hill psychiatrist Dr. Hani Elwafi, UK-based Dana Saxon and Oakland-based therapist Leticia Brown.

In recent years, clinical trials have identified multiple psychedelics as treatments for mental health disorders ranging from depression and anxiety to obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. The FDA gives this status to treatments that may have significant benefits over existing therapy. In 2018 and 2019, the organization granted the designation to two different treatments using psilocybin - one for treatment-resistant depression and one for major depressive disorder.

Host Anita Rao talks with Ismail Ali, policy and advocacy counsel for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, about how psychedelic medicine came to be stigmatized and criminalized, the turn toward medicalization and what culturally responsible regulation and policy reform may look like in the future. Rao also speaks with psychiatrist Dr. Hani Elwafi and marriage and family therapist Leticia Brown about how they incorporate psychedelics into their therapeutic practices. And Dana Saxon joins to talk about her personal experience microdosing psilocybin to treat her depression.

The Healing Trip

Dana Saxon was diagnosed with depression in 2002. She tried Prozac. She tried therapy. For 15 years, nothing seemed to work.

Finally, after living in the Netherlands for a few years, she decided to try an alternative therapy: magic mushrooms.

She planned to microdose taking one-twentieth to one-tenth the amount of a recreational dose, or just enough to feel benefits in the mind and body without taking a full trip. But the research she did recommended taking a full dosage to prepare for the microdosing sessions.

It was an eye-opening experience.

Saxon recorded herself over video, and as she did, she saw another person looking back at her. That person looked like a panicked monster. But as she continued to talk to herself about what she was seeing, she became more aware of issues that had been plaguing her mind below the surface.

"This person inside of me that I was now seeing very clearly was not a monster," she said. "It was someone very scared, very lonely, feeling very unsafe in this world."

By the time the trip ended, Saxon said she felt like she had been through at least a couple of years of therapy.

Psychedelics, which translates from Greek to mean mind-manifesting, are a category of natural and synthetic substances that trigger altered states of consciousness.

Psychedelics work for healing purposes by making the mind more able to process troublesome subjects that may be harming a persons wellbeing, said Dr. Hani Elwafi, a psychiatrist in Chapel Hill.

Elwafi works with an FDA-approved medication and hallucinogen called ketamine to practice psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Instead of taking a daily medication that reduces symptoms much like Tylenol might reduce a fever but not necessarily get to the source of an infection molecules of ketamine can help someone to relax in conditions ... and to feel safe in confronting sources of anxiety, sources of fear, he said.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is not the best form of treatment for everyone, and the substances should be used in a responsible and educated way.

How the Mushroom Got Its Bad Spots

What we have seen over the years is that demonization has, over time, shifted into appropriation.

For centuries, psychedelic substances have been used by Indigenous communities for community and therapeutic purposes purposes that continue in the present day.

They've often been used in community intergenerationally as rites of passage, or as initiations, or as containers in which various kinds of political, social, personal, healing and community work can be done, said Ismail Ali.

But when colonizers reached the North and South American continents, they demonized the use of plant medicines.

The strategy and tactics of European colonizers ... was based on the rupturing of cultural contexts and knowledge-holding containers, said Ali. Which included places like ceremonies where some of these substances were utilized.

This messaging that discouraged psychedelic substances continued centuries later, making an appearance during the war on drugs. In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act and listed MDMA, LSD and other substances as the most dangerous drugs with high rates of addiction and low medical benefit.

One of the things that we know that happened with the war on drugs is that in addition to Black and brown folks being penalized at rates very different from their white counterparts, we also received these messages about drugs being bad, said Leticia Brown, marriage and family therapist at Doorway Therapeutic Services in Oakland. It makes complete sense that you think this isn't for you.

Despite the growing interest in psychedelics among medical communities in the present day, limited access to psychedelic-assisted therapy in communities of color has continued to reinforce their stereotype as white people drugs. In a review of 18 psychedelic studies from 1993 to 2017, researchers found that over 80% of study participants were white.

What we have seen over the years is that demonization has, over time, shifted into appropriation, Brown said.

See the article here:

The Great Power And Great Responsibility Of Using Psychedelic Medicine - WUNC

President Donald Trump said this morning, America will always rise up, stand tall and fight back. | Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

BREAKING MORE BIG NEWS IN THE MIDDLE EAST President DONALD TRUMP announced that he spoke to HAMAD BIN ISA BIN SALMAN AL KHALIFA, the king of Bahrain, and Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU today, and they agreed to the establishment of full diplomatic relations between Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain.

-- LEADERS from BAHRAIN will join leaders from the UAE and ISRAEL in Washington on Tuesday, where they will participate in a signing ceremony.

CNNS VIVIAN SALAMA (@vmsalama): Important to note that Bahrain is basically an extension of Saudi Arabia (they are physically linked by a causeway but the Bahraini monarchy is also heavily reliant on Riyadh). This could not have happened without the blessing of Saudi Arabia. But also We mustnt forget that Bahrain was home to a major uprising during the Arab Spring, which saw a brutal crackdown led by Saudi Arabia. It sits only 60km from Iran & w/its Shiite majority under Sunni rule, it sees major benefit in this anti-Iran solidarity effort brokered by US.

AND NOW THEY PAUSE: THE STANDARD politicking we live through has been mostly paused for the day, as we begin the 20th year since the Sept. 11 attacks.

JOE BIDEN said explicitly this morning at the New Castle airport in Delaware that he wouldnt be campaigning or making any news, per pooler CHRIS CADELAGO.

TRUMP this morning in Shanksville, Pa.: The heroes of Flight 93 are an everlasting reminder that no matter the danger, no matter the threat, no matter the odds, America will always rise up, stand tall and fight back. Our sacred task, our righteous duty and our solemn pledge is to carry forward the noble legacy of the brave souls who gave their lives for us 19 years ago.

BIDEN and VP MIKE PENCE met at Ground Zero and exchanged pleasantries and an elbow bump. BIDEN also consoled an elderly woman using a wheelchair who was holding a picture of her son, who she told Biden had died at age 43. Biden took the image and looked it over, reflecting on losing his own son, Beau. It never goes away, Biden said. She repeated his words. The NYTs Todd Heislers great photo of Biden and Pence

IF YOU READ ONE THING DAVID MARANISS on A1 of The Washington Post, from Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001: September 11, 2001; Steve Miller Ate a Scone, Sheila Moody Did Paperwork, Edmund Glazer Boarded a Plane: Portrait of a Day That Began in Routine and Ended in Ashes

WHAT NEW YORK IS READING -- Trump administration secretly withheld millions from FDNY 9/11 health program, by the N.Y. Daily News Michael McAuliff: The Trump administration has secretly siphoned nearly $4 million away from a program that tracks and treats FDNY firefighters and medics suffering from 9/11 related illnesses The Treasury Department mysteriously started withholding parts of payments nearly four years ago meant to cover medical services for firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics treated by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, documents obtained by The News reveal.

[Program director David] Prezant was never able to get an explanation After years of complaining, Prezant did get a partial answer when Long Island Republican Rep. Pete King put his political weight behind the inquiry. That answer was that some other agency in the city has been in an unrelated feud with the feds over Medicare bills. For some reason, Treasury decided to stiff the FDNY. Neither the Treasury Department nor the White House answered requests for comment. Daily News

A message from Morgan Stanley:

We honor all those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center on September 11th, including 13 Morgan Stanley employees. #neverforget

Titus Davidson, Jennifer De Jesus, Joseph DiPilato, Godwin Forde, Lindsay Herkness, Albert Joseph, Charles Laurencin, Wesley Mercer, Rick Rescorla, Nolbert Salomon, Steven Strauss ,Thomas Swift, Jorge Velazquez

HAPPENING TODAY -- Soldier to receive Medal of Honor after helping save 70 captives from execution by Islamic State, by WaPos Alex Horton: The team of elite U.S. Army soldiers had already freed dozens of captives at the Islamic State compound when an urgent plea crackled over the radio: Another team nearby on the roof of a burning building was taking enemy fire from multiple sides.

1st Sgt. Thomas P. Payne peered through his night-vision goggles in the predawn hours of Oct. 22, 2015, midway through a daring prisoner rescue in northern Iraq. A fellow soldier had already been shot. Lets get into the fight, he told another soldier before climbing a ladder to reach the rooftop, then dropping grenades and firing down through holes to the floor below. Then came the earsplitting staccato of detonating suicide vests, shaking the buildings foundation.

The next step, Payne and the team understood, was to enter the building, where dozens more prisoners were still trapped. The award will make Payne, 36, the first recipient of the award in the fight against the Islamic State and the first living Delta Force recipient since the counterterror units creation in the late 1970s. The Army has said the mission was one of the largest rescue operations in history.

Happy Friday afternoon.

JUST PUBLISHED -- Peter Thiel Met With The Racist Fringe As He Went All In On Trump, by BuzzFeeds Rosie Gray and Ryan Mac

SCOOP -- ICE flew detainees to Virginia so the planes could transport agents to D.C. protests. A huge coronavirus outbreak followed, by WaPos Antonio Olivo and Nick Miroff: The Trump administration flew immigrant detainees to Virginia this summer to facilitate the rapid deployment of Homeland Security tactical teams to quell protests in Washington, circumventing restrictions on the use of charter flights for employee travel, according to a current and a former U.S. official.

After the transfer, dozens of the new arrivals tested positive for the novel coronavirus, fueling an outbreak at the Farmville, Va., immigration jail that infected more than 300 inmates, one of whom died.

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STEEL YOURSELF -- Well put them down very quickly: Trump threatens to quash Election Night riots, by Quint Forgey: The remarks from the president came in an interview with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro set to air Saturday, in which he was asked how he would respond to incidents of rioting should he be declared the winner on Nov. 3.

Well put them down very quickly if they do that. We have the right to do that. We have the power to do that, if we want, Trump said. Look, its called insurrection, he added. We just send in, and we do it very easy. I mean, its very easy. Id rather not do that because theres no reason for it, but if we had to, wed do that and put it down within minutes. POLITICO

DEPT. OF VERY BAD NEWS -- 911 dispatchers slammed with calls about QAnon-backed false claims about wildfires, by CNNs Donie OSullivan: [L]aw enforcement agencies described 911 dispatchers being overrun with calls about a false online rumor that Antifa members had been arrested for setting the fires a claim promoted by the anonymous account behind the QAnon conspiracy theories.

The incident highlights how online conspiracy theories, a sustained right-wing campaign to create increased fear of anti-fascist groups, and amplification of false claims by QAnon followers, have real consequences. CNN Business

-- NBCS BEN COLLINS (@oneunderscore_), who covers this beat: Nobody is appropriately gauging how quickly QAnon (and Q by other names) has taken over among suburban and rural white women. It is everywhere. I, too, am mentally and emotionally struggling with how many people have come to believe something simultaneously so stupid and dangerous. But pretending like it isnt happening and that were better than this isnt working. Its a crisis happening in a mom group text near you.

TIMES CHARLOTTE ALTER in Kenosha, Wis.: How Conspiracy Theories Are Shaping the 2020 Electionand Shaking the Foundation of American Democracy

CHOOSE YOUR NEWS NBC: Democrats are nervous about Trumps persisting edge over Biden on the economy WAPO: Trumps lead over Biden on the economy appears vulnerable, a potential turning point

REALITY CHECK -- Donald Trump isnt at risk of running out of campaign cash, election data shows, by Business Insiders Dave Levinthal: Sorry, Biden backers. President Donald Trump is not running out of campaign cash. Trumps overall reelection effort remains flush with 53 days until Election Day, particularly when compared to where it stood around this time four years ago.

[N]either campaign appears in jeopardy of running out of money, no matter how aggressive its 11th hour spending gets, prominent Democrats and Republicans both acknowledged in interviews this week. Insider

ANOTHER WOODWARD ANECDOTE, via FOX NEWS HOWARD KURTZ: The presidents view of the press is reflected in one conversation [in Rage] about another book, A Very Stable Genius, by Washington Post reporters Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig. Trump took issue with one anecdote and said this is all made up. Woodward said they were excellent reporters with sources and this was a good-faith effort.

Trump retreated to 70 percent of it is made up. Woodward said that journalists sometimes got things wrong but were making good-faith efforts. Well, Trump joked, I have Russia and Sean Hannity with me. Fox News

MEDIAWATCH -- Leaked Documents Show Russian Trolls Tried to Infiltrate Left-Wing Media, by The Daily Beasts Adam Rawnsley and Max Tani: The Russian trolls private chat logs and emails, reviewed by The Daily Beast, show they tried to get their American contributors to write for Jacobin, a leading socialist outlet; recruited from Truthout, a left-leaning nonprofit news site; and tried to buy their way onto the website of the long-pedigreed liberal outlet In These Times.

None of the outlets showed any interest in content from the Russians or their shady business offers. But the outreach by PeaceData, a facade of a publishing operation linked to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency and built up by American freelancers, demonstrates the ecumenical approach the Russians are taking to pollute the information ecosystem. Daily Beast

THE ATLANTICS CHRISTIAN PAZ: The Neglect of Latino Voters: The stakes have never been higher for millions of Latinos devastated by the pandemic and the economic crisis. That doesnt mean theyll vote.

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THE NEW COLD WAR -- Trumps first TikTok move: A China quagmire of his own making, by Meridith McGraw: Trump has backed himself into a corner. His moves against TikTok are part of a broader tough-on-China push he has made a centerpiece of his reelection campaign But each time he has chosen to face off with China over trade, 5G technology or Hong Kong he has ended up at a critical moment when he has to find his way out of a jam.

This time around, Trumps way out isnt clear. If China delays a TikTok sale or scuttles the deal altogether Trump will be forced either to relent with Beijing or to ban the viral video app outright from U.S. soil. If Trump blinks, he risks looking like he caved to Beijing weeks before the election. If Trump follows through with his threats, he risks Chinese retaliation against the U.S. business community, not to mention angering millions of TikTok-loving Americans. And a deadline looms Trump asked for a deal to be completed by the week of Sept. 20.

VACCINE UPDATE -- China Injects Hundreds of Thousands With Experimental Covid-19 Vaccines, by WSJs Chao Deng: China National Biotec Group Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, has given two experimental vaccine candidates to hundreds of thousands of people under an emergency-use condition approved by Beijing in July, the company said this week. Separately, Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. said it has inoculated around 3,000 of its employees and their family members, including the firms chief executive, with its experimental coronavirus vaccine. WSJ

-- NYT: From Asia to Africa, China Promotes Its Vaccines to Win Friends, by Sui-Lee Wee: The Philippines will have quick access to a Chinese coronavirus vaccine. Latin American and Caribbean nations will receive $1 billion in loans to buy the medicine. Bangladesh will get over 100,000 free doses from a Chinese company.

Never mind that China is still most likely months away from mass producing a vaccine that is safe for public use. The country is using the prospect of the drugs discovery in a charm offensive aimed at repairing damaged ties and bringing friends closer in regions China deems vital to its interests. NYT

WAR REPORT -- Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq have increased, says U.S. commander, by NBCs Courtney Kube: More than eight months after a barrage of rockets killed an American contractor and wounded four American service members in Kirkuk, Iraq, militia groups continue to target U.S. military bases in that country, and the frequency of those attacks has increased.

ANOTHER INVESTIGATION -- House Democrats probing $250M coronavirus messaging contract, by Daniel Lippman and Dan Diamond: Senior House Democrats have launched an investigation into the Trump administrations awarding of a $250 million communications contract to help defeat despair and inspire hope over the coronavirus pandemic, as they questioned the political motivations behind the taxpayer-funded messaging campaign. The lawmakers are also calling on the administration to halt the contract while its under investigation. POLITICO The letter

RACIAL RECKONING -- Restraining Device Involved in Daniel Prudes Death Has Controversial History, by WSJs Shan Li: The restraining device that contributed to the asphyxiation death of Daniel Prude has garnered increasing controversy in recent years, figuring in at least 10 wrongful-death lawsuits since 2010 as advocates for criminal-justice changes and academics have called for better training and better regulation of the devices use by law-enforcement officers.

Although little known to the public, spit hoods have been used for decades by police, prison guards and medics to keep someone from biting or spitting. They are meant to prevent injuries and the spread of disease. Some academics who study policing say spit hoods may be deceptively simple to use, but without proper training of those applying the hoods, people placed in them can suffocate or choke on their own vomit while wearing the hoods. WSJ

-- NYT: Black Police Chiefs, Feeling Squeezed, Face Criticism on All Sides, by John Eligon: Some Black chiefs have had negative interactions with police officers while out of uniform, and they are expected to smooth out tensions between Black residents angry at the police and officers who recoil at the suggestion that they harbor racial bias.

The chiefs are lauded for trying to change the system, but also knocked as traitors by some of those in blue and in the communities they come from. Some chiefs have knelt with protesters, but they have also overseen officers deploying tear gas at demonstrations. NYT

MUCK READ REUTERS: Big Pharma wages stealth war on drug price watchdog, by Caroline Humer: As evidence grew this spring that the drug remdesivir was helping COVID-19 patients, some Wall Street investors bet on analysts estimates that its maker, Gilead Sciences Inc, could charge up to $10,000 for the treatment. Then a small but increasingly influential drug-pricing research organization, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), said the treatment only justified a price between $2,800 and $5,000. Shortly after, Gilead announced it would charge about $3,100 for a five-day treatment and $5,700 for ten days - in line with the ICER recommendation.

The episode illustrates the growing power of the Boston-based nonprofit to hold down U.S. drug prices. Over the past five years, ICER has pressured drugmakers to lower the cost of nearly 100 drugs. It aims to play a similar role with emerging COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. Health insurers increasingly use ICER's fair-value analyses to limit access to expensive drugs or to negotiate steeper discounts with drugmakers. Reuters

VALLEY TALK -- Facebook Appeals Move to Curb EU-U.S. Data Transfer, by WSJs Sam Schechner: Facebook Inc. is appealing a preliminary order by Irelands privacy regulator to suspend its data transfers from Europe to the U.S., pushing its stance in a case with wide-ranging implications for global tech businesses.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK -- The American Enterprise Institute is welcoming seven new scholars: Scott Winship, who most recently was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress; Elaine McCusker, former Defense Department comptroller; William Greenwalt; Amitabh Chandra; Steven Kamin; Philip Wallach; and Kevin Kosar.

BONUS BIRTHDAY: Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon correspondent

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POLITICO Playbook PM: Bahrain follows UAE in normalizing with Israel, and the 9/11 truce - Politico

National has resurrected its "War on P" with a promise to fund an intensive treatment programme and 13 detox beds to reduce methamphetamine harm.

The party's drugs policy, launched by National leader Judith Collins in Hawke's Bay on Monday, includes a promised $50 million in contestable funding for community-based harm reduction programmes, and more drug dogs at airport and ports to stop drugs entering the country.

We can either decide that were going to lose the war, or were going to decide to take it seriously, Collins said.

The use of this drug tears families apart, fuels violence, enriches criminals and destroys lives. We cannot tolerate the continued misery this drug causes, which leads to rising levels of violence and poverty, and widespread social harm.

Maarten Holl/Stuff

National has accused the current Government of dropping the ball in the fight against meth.

READ MORE:* Government quietly scraps Meth Action Action Plan 2020 * Helen Clark takes job at Global Commission on Drug Policy* Dave Armstrong: Progress in war on drugs won't come by locking more people up* Editorial: More prisons are not the answer

Methamphetamine, colloquially named "P", remains a drug of choice in New Zealand, and a tough stance on methamphetamine was a hallmark policy of the former National Government.

National has accused the Labour-led Government of taking an ad hoc and piecemeal approach to meth, after it scrapped the partys Meth Action Plan when coming into power.

Justice Minister Andrew Little has said the Government was taking a more balanced approach to reducing harm from crime. Police Minister Stuart Nash has said the Government was going after methamphetamine by targetting gangs through an increase in police recruits.

The action plan would be rebooted under Nationals new policy, with Collins saying the party would unify the resources of justice, health, police, and customs.

Bejon Haswell/Stuff/Stuff

National Party leader Judith Collins has announced the partys drug policy in Hawkes Bay, on Monday. (file photo)

There is no single solution to what has become a scourge on our society. A National government will tackle this problem from all angles, addressing both demand and supply," Collins said.

The party wants to trial the Matrix Methamphetamine Treatment Programme in 11 unspecified locations across the country.

This intensive outpatient programme, developed in the US and already being piloted in Nelson, has people who want to stop using meth attend three sessions a week for 20 weeks. The party intends for people in the programme to be tested for drug use each week.

National has promised 13 detox beds for methamphetamine, and will ensure each District Health Board has at least one bed. A full-time specialist that can assist with detoxing would be available at each DHB.

National health spokesman Dr Shane Reti said there were currently seven in-patient beds for methamphetamine across the country, and the additional beds would cost $2m each year.

The Matrix treatment programme would cost possibly $8m a year, he said. The party intended to reveal the overall cost of the policy at a later date.

We are costing policies, but theyll be out in the fiscal plan. When we put it all out together, youll see it, Collins said.

Dom Thomas

National justice spokesman Simon Bridges said the party would further fund drug intelligence work by agencies.

Police and Customs officers would also refer methamphetamine users to health of social support or proactively inform them of treatment options, when users are identified through frontline police work or small seizures of the drug made at the border.

National justice spokesman Simon Bridges said the party would ensure a strong response from law and order agencies would disrupt distribution of meth.

There would be more funding how much was unspecified for police and customs drug intelligence capabilities. National, in its policy document, said it would crack down on illegal cash smuggling what aided Chinese and South American crime syndicates.

There can be no tolerance for the dealing and supply of methamphetamine. Those who peddle this drug are responsible for the misery and social harm it causes, Bridges said.

Former National leader John Key waged a War on P while in Government, after declaring a crackdown on the drug was a top priority in 2009.

Testing of wastewater earlier this year shows meth makes up more than half of the drugs detected, which include MDMA, cocaine, and heroin but excludes cannabis.

Police estimate meth use causes $16m in social harm each week, or $884m in harm each year.

See the article here:

Election 2020: National brings back its 'War on P' with promised spend on meth-harm reduction - Stuff.co.nz

A cannabis dispensary in Oregon, USA. Photo:WireStock/ AlamyStock Photo

Drug experts have this week called for more ethical cannabis markets, warning that current examples are dominated by rich, white businessmen and do not redress the harms caused by prohibition.

The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a global network of around 200 NGOs, has released a set of principles it hopes will advance social justice, equity and human rights within legal cannabis markets.

The reports 20 key principles for creating more just cannabis industries include protecting the rights of drug users, helping people who were criminalised for their involvement in the cannabis trade to progress into the legal markets, ensuring the weed industry is a fair and equitable employer, and involving local communities.

Ann Fordham, IDPCs Executive Director, warned: As the momentum for cannabis regulation grows, we cannot leave the design and implementation of the new legal markets solely in the hands of private interests.

Recreational cannabis is currently legal in Canada, ten US states and Uruguay, while medical cannabis is legal in an additional 21 US states and in around 50 countries, including the UK.

As noted here, here and here by VICE News, current legal cannabis markets are as the IDPC warns not doing enough to atone for harms caused by the war on drugs, nor are they doing enough to uphold rights, promote public health, protect the environment or resist being captured by corporate interests.

Launching its report, Principles for the Legal Regulation of Cannabis, the IDPC said: Communities that have borne the brunt of the war on drugs are being excluded from these legal markets. Not only does this mean they do not benefit from these critical reforms, but these developments are serving to further entrench and exacerbate inequality.

The report warned that Canadian corporations currently control over 70 percent of the Colombian and Uruguayan cannabis markets, while Black, indigenous and people of colour own less than 20 percent of the U.S. weed market.

Legal regulation has the potential to become a powerful tool to redress decades of criminalisation, economic exclusion and lack of access to appropriate health care, the report said.

However, legal markets can also be captured by corporate interests, fail to include comprehensive measures to redress the harms brought by the war on drugs, and further criminalise people that remain in the illegal spaces inevitably persisting outside any regulated market.

Originally posted here:

Global Drug Body Recommends 20 Ways to Improve the Cannabis Industry - VICE

As a small nonprofit media organization, we rely on institutional support and the generous support of our readers to keep NACLA's extensive web coverage available free of charge.A donation in any amount helps to ensure we can continue providing the highest-quality coverage of the region, as we have done for over 50 years, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and in solidarity with the global Black Lives Matter movement.With summer drawing to a close, we humbly ask for your support. nacla.org/donate

A Colombian army major recounts how a civilian coca eradicator, tasked with ripping out the crop, sets off an IED.

The blast wave exploded his eyeballs, the major says.

This is one of many jarring anecdotes in journalist Tony Muses new book, Kilo: Life and Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels, an equally horrifying and captivating account of the Colombian drug world since the 2016 Colombian peace agreement with the FARC.

Muse takes the role of the major telling the storyhe becomes the narrator, in third-person omniscient. After the blast, the coca eradicator became a live, screaming skull with holes for eyes, Muse writes. The eradicator had to be evacuated by a Black Hawk helicopter, but the nearest hospital was 45 minutes away. Doctors operated on him for five hours. Finally, he died of a massive heart attack. He was only 33 years old.

Some soldiers tell you these details because they dig your reaction, Muse continues. This major seems bummed out by the ordeal.

In Muses estimation, the major took no pleasure in detailing the ordeal, but what about Muse himself? This question pervades Kilo.

Americanized narconovelas are the new mafia drama, with Narcos and Sicario replacing The Sopranos and Goodfellas (although, arguably, Scarface and Al Pacinos terrible Cuban accent started the trend.) Nonfiction books like Kilo are starting to hit the mainstream too, from Ioan Grillos El Narco to Anabel Hernndezs Narcoland.

These TV shows and movies flirt with educational moralizing, but mostly just care about retaining viewers. The books are different. They are written by some of the most respected reporters covering Latin America, and with clear intention to portray the terror of the drug warand the complicity of the U.S. public.

Early on in Kilo, Muse visits a Wild West cartel town. At a brothel, he interviews a 19-year-old Venezuelan migrant and sex worker who, according to Muse, has seen more of humanity in this ghastly cell than Ill see in several lifetimes.

She asks him why he is writing a book. I do this because I hope what I report will change the world, he replies, self-aware of his naivete. If the world knows the truth, things can change.

Kilo doesnt dwell on the policy failures of supply-side eradication, though, or examine crop substitution programs. It is light on academics, NGO researchers, and government officials, and the dry facts, figures, and proposals that come with them.

Muse clearly came to the same conclusion as Netflix showrunners: that the best way to attract people is morbid tales of violence with high stakes. Maybe Muses motivation is to reach policymakers or create a groundswell of outrage. Or maybeas a natural storyteller and someone whos had a touch of the war crazies as he writeshe just needs to share these unspeakable details.

About a sicario who has killed at least two thousand people, Muse writes, The knowledge alone that a man like Iguano exists is enough to change you. The spectrum of evil is broader than you thought. The dark knowledge expands the mind, stains the soul. Muse has learned the truth, and he needs to pass it on.

Whether or not it will effect change, Kilo is undeniably gripping. There is such a saturation of Colombian cocaine content that I was skeptical we needed another account of Pablo Escobar and the irony of Medelln becoming a top tourist destination. Yet Muse easily justifies the need for his book.

For one, he is covering new ground. Colombias drug landscape changed dramatically following the 2016 accords, and Muses reporting is both current and thorough. He details the failures of the implementation of the peace plan, the power vacuum it created, and even timely developments such as the arrest of the Honduran presidents brother on drug trafficking charges. While he delves into the obligatory history of Colombias storied pastand sometimes gets bogged down by the foundation mythsKilo is still a necessary new volume to understanding the contemporary state of the global drug trade.

Second, the journalism is astonishing. While Muse has reported from the frontlines of Iraq and Syria, his forte is Colombia, where he has lived for more than 15 years. The conceit of the book is that Muse follows a kilo of cocaine, from harvest and processing in the rainforest to trafficking and smuggling in the cities. It is clear Muse is not a dilettante but has spent years working on the subject. He establishes himself as a credible expert passively, through access alone. This is not parachute journalism and could not have been achieved through even the most expensive fixer. Muse embeds with both cocaine pickers and a military crew tasked with eradicating the crop, with low-level enforcers and top drug traffickers, and finally, with the top U.S. Coast Guard cutter patrolling the Pacific for smugglers.

Occasionally, Muse lifts the veil to reveal how he managed to insert himself into these situations, including a few moments of sheer terror when he thinks he will be killed. For the most part, though, the reader is relegated to the back seat, thankful for the opportunity to serve as witness.

And finally, Muse is as gifted a writer as he is a reporter. Using the first-person is always a risky maneuver for a foreign correspondent, but Muse heightens the tension by framing the book through his own perspective. Every scene in the book feels more immediate, especially because he has an eye for details that make Kilo unfold like a novel. Sometimes they are as small as a sticker on the back of a traffickers motorbike reading, If God is with me, then who would be against me?

It seems unbelievable that Muse is able to record such minutiae in the thick of life-and-death scenarios, but its essential for adding humanity to an otherwise nihilistic world. He writes with an empathy that demonstrates hes not just an adrenaline junkie pretending to care about those trapped in a vicious cycle. He cares about his characters and portrays them as real people in impossible situations.

After all, Muse understands the drug trade for what it is. In one of his most affecting passages, he describes the amount of the money and effort that goes into ripping out coca bushes, only for them to be replanted almost immediately: An eternal, pointless circle.

It feels like a cruel, divine punishment, he writes. Sisyphus is the patron saint of the war on drugs.

Leo Schwartz is a reporting fellow at Rest of World. He was previously the web editor at NACLA.

More here:

Kilo: Life and Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels (Review) - NACLA

The monster in the title of I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad doesn't refer to the criminal cops it chronicles, but it would be easy to make a case that that's what they were. These plainclothes officers held certain parts of the city in a reign of terror that reads like a lost season of The Wire.

The story of Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force, and the swath of criminality and violence it created rather than terminated, is chronicled in I Got a Monster by ex-alt-weekly editors Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg in a staggering feat of research. The two painstakingly reconstructed the actions of the crew from trial testimony, evidentiary text messages, transcriptions of calls from jail and from tapped phones, and dozens of interviews. Orlando Weekly spoke with the authors about how the GTTF can be seen as a microcosm of the "counter-insurgent" mindset of modern police departments a mindset that's spreading across the country, as we've seen in the increasingly militaristic response to protesters.

Soderberg: I Got A Monster tells the story of the Gun Trace Task Force, a Baltimore police squad whose objective was to seize guns and locate gun dealers (essentially doing what police do with drugs, but with guns, all under the auspices that it would curb violence) and instead robbed people, stole drugs, dealt drugs, planted evidence and routinely violated people's constitutional rights. Our book focuses on how these cops responded to the 2015 Baltimore Uprising following the death of Freddie Gray and their last year in action, when they went on a particularly shocking crime spree that lasted almost until they were federally indicted in 2017. It is a gang story, except here the gang is the police.

Woods: And on the other side, since the gang is the police, the investigator is Ivan Bates, a Black defense attorney who had been battling Wayne Jenkins, the squad's white leader, in court for years. The story begins when Jenkins steals more than $100K from Bates' client. So, reversing the cat-and-mouse game you normally have in true crime, where a cop goes after a criminal, we have the defense attorney investigating the cop (who is the criminal) and piecing together the crimes because no one in the system would listen.

Baltimore has a reputation as a high-crime city. Is that deserved? And what makes I Got a Monster more than just "a Baltimore story"?

Soderberg: The crime here is very real. Especially the homicide rate which has surpassed 300 homicides per year every year since 2015. The nature of that violence, though, is what's maybe not perceived accurately or at least, it's often simplified. There is deep and pervasive segregation. There is a severe lack of jobs because of deindustrialization. There is an unaccountable political and business class who see it as their only job to give tax breaks to developers and their other buddies at the expense of working people.

And there is, as our book shows, just a shocking level of police corruption here and that is part of that violence too. Cops in Baltimore were creating crime and running a criminal enterprise within the police department. The police corruption is part of, for example, The Wire it's there occasionally but what we came to see is that corruption defines the Baltimore Police Department.

Woods: Sometimes it feels like there is no legitimate authority in the city. While we were writing the book, the police commissioner who took over after the GTTF indictment was sentenced to prison for cheating on taxes and the mayor was busted in a crazy, and lucrative, children's book scheme. And like Brandon said, there's 300-plus homicides a year and a clearance rate of around 30 percent meaning the cops aren't going to get the guy who shot your brother. So people are scared on all sides and arm themselves. That's what the GTTF was created to respond to but it only added to the chaos, corruption and violence.

This task force obviously believed their wrongdoing didn't matter because it was in service of taking down "bad guys." Would you say this is applicable to the police in general? Becoming more so?

Woods: Like the rest of us, these cops grew up watching all of the movies and shows that tell us that great cops break rules to get bad guys. They get the job done and they also buck against the bureaucracy and we love them. Wayne Jenkins was exactly that kind of cop. We all made him. But just like he wanted to be the best cop, I think he wanted to be the best criminal. But we, as a society and often as reporters, overlook cases of police misconduct and violence because we are eager to believe they are taking down bad guys.

Soderberg: What informed these cops' criminality especially Jenkins' is the logical extension of American policing: People are the enemy (even though cops are supposed to "protect and serve"), crimes must be stopped by any means necessary (even if that creates more crime) and police are in a war with the citizens (a war on drugs but also in Baltimore, a very similar "war on guns"). This kind of thinking is common in police forces everywhere and it enables corruption. You see this behavior all around the country right now at protests where cops are attacking protesters. If this is what the police will do to people who are in public, you can only imagine what these cops are doing when no one is recording them. And through FBI wiretaps and body camera footage, for example, we were able to see what the GTTF were doing when they thought no one was watching or listening to them.

Do you think these guys saw what they were doing as more important than just getting paid? Were they shoring up their power in a moment where white people were starting to question police tactics?

Soderberg: What happened in Baltimore in 2015 is what happened in Ferguson in 2014 and what happened nationwide this summer following the police killing of George Floyd. We understood these cops in our book as a "counter-insurgency." They were out there to crush the protests and then after the protests ended, destroy any insurgent sense citizens still felt. They did this by aggressively and illegally policing. They went harder after the uprising.

You see that now across the country. People protest police violence and the cops show up and get violent, proving the activists' point. Then the cops use protests or even just public criticism of the police as a reason why they have to keep doing the kind of policing everyone wants to stop. It's a pretty good scam.

Woods: Paradoxically, the more crime there is, the better it is for police. Every time we surpass the old record of annual homicides, people call for more money for the police, which often translates into overtime for individual detectives and officers. And less accountability as long as you're getting guns that the department can put up on Twitter and Facebook, people will look the other way. So if you are stealing drugs and money, you're creating chaos on the streets, which leads to more crime. Which leads to more leeway and more overtime.

You started work a few years ago, but IGAM came out in summer 2020, when it seems like consensus has finally been reached on the idea that policing as it's being performed now simply does not work. Do you feel optimistic about change happening?

Soderberg: I'm not optimistic, but it is encouraging that more and more people are seeing through the rhetoric that protects police and realizing it for what it is. Trump's rhetoric, police being more brazen in showing just who they protect (or what they protect, which is property) is all terrifying but it also shows that people in power are scared. Also like Trump, there doesn't seem to be a bottom to the corruption. Take these stories about the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department having a gang in the department called the Executioners, for example. You can't "reform" that.

What with the ongoing investigation and the fear of retaliation, the logistics of making this book had to be challenging. The public records requests alone must have been insane.

Woods: We had a long email exchange with one of the former cops, who was in federal prison, and we spoke with the cocaine-dealing bail bondsman who was probably Jenkins's closest co-conspirator. But it was also really important to us to talk to the people who had been victimized by the task force. They are the Freddie Grays and George Floyds who lived.

Soderberg: And while there were public records requests, nearly all of them were ignored by the police. One of the few they responded to was to charge Baynard $40,000 for Jenkins' department emails. So even public information here in Baltimore is an extortion racket by the police, you know?

We also would go to the scenes of crimes and walk around and reconstruct the robberies and cross-reference it with details from our interviews and documents and testimony. So that was all used to build out the book's events because the book (which is all true, just to be clear) really feels like a novel more than conventional reporting. I wanted it to be a piece of investigative journalism that felt like a movie.

As I said, IGAM could be seen as just another wild "Baltimore story." But these task forces and undercover units exist in most, if not all cities. How much oversight is there? How can citizens get a sense of what's happening with the police in their own city?

Soderberg: In terms of what citizens can do, here are two fairly easy things. The first is that whether you support "defund" or "abolish" or aren't sure about it or hate it but want there to be changes in policing, you need to concede that those ideas are not any more "outrageous" or "not feasible" than cities spending huge chunks on their budget on police who always ask for more, are unaccountable and are harming citizens. It is very useful to just imagine what a world without police or very different police looks like.

The second thing: Try to understand how policing works. I Got A Monster is really intimate and by being so close to them, it's a case study in how corrupt cops operate. I'm glad you mention these kinds of task forces and plainclothes units because it's central to this book and I think, many of the problems with policing. We give these plainclothes cops a lot of power, little oversight, and let them run wild. It's almost like a shadow police force: guys in unmarked cars in cargo pants and henleys driving around looking for people to roll up on, throw against a wall, chase, whatever. The lack of oversight is the point. The cops in I Got A Monster got away with it because they were also producing results: seizing guns, making arrests. The corruption can't be extracted from what is considered "good policing" with plainclothes.

Woods: Over the last generation, we've all but abandoned the 4th Amendment. We need more 4A absolutists, because, in every single town in America, the police have the capacity to engage in some versions of these crimes, because of the power we have given them. We have created a shield of invisibility around police departments everywhere at the same time that we have given them more power both power over citizens and firepower. We're seeing similar cases coming out of Mount Vernon, New York, and I think we'll see a lot more in coming years. But if you want to know about dirty cops, talk to public defenders. Defense attorneys in general, but especially public defenders, are the heroes of the book.

More:

The Authors of an Ugly Story About Cops-Turned-Robbers Discuss Why Police Seem to Be at War With Citizens - Cleveland Scene

Networks of drug users and harm reductionists have been repeatedly devastated as overdose deaths surge amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that community is grieving the death, on September 7, of Jesse Harvey, a harm reduction leader in Maine.

Jesse founded Journey House Recovery in December 2016 and the Church of Safe Injection (CoSI), a grassroots distributor of harm reduction supplies, in 2018. He advocated for expanding syringe service programs and introducing safe consumption sites. He wrote a short article for Filter last year, condemning Maine legislators rejection of SCS.

Members of the harm reduction movement are mourning his passing and recognizing his important contributions. In a statement posted to Facebook announcing his death, Journey House honored his vision and incredible enthusiasm that brought the organization into existence in 2016. His legacy will live on at our recovery residences and in the greater recovery community, they wrote.

Jesse worked so hard and was so genuine in every minute of that work, wrote author and journalist Travis Lupick. He only wanted to help people. He was idealistic, in the best way possible.

It has been reported that police believe Jesses death to have been from an overdose; that has yet to be confirmed, however.

In his work, Jesse was serious, dedicated and passionate. In his life, he was this big crazy, nutty goofball that just always loved making jokes and making people laugh, Kari Morissette, executive director of the Church of Safe Injection, told thePortland Press-Herald. Its a huge loss for the harm reduction community as a whole. Everybody knew of Jesse. He changed a lot of peoples perceptions on a lot of things and molded the way the people approach harm reduction in this area.

***

As a fellow 20-something drug user dedicated to popularizing harm reduction and building community power, I considered Jesse a role model. I first met him in 2019 while I was passing through Portland, Maine. We knew of each other through the online grapevine, and soas so many millennials doI hit him up on a whim to hang out while a friend and I were in town.

He eagerly accepted and invited us to join him on a ride. He had to drop off some safer injection gear to a Church member. We met at his house, the entrance crowded with boxes of syringes and naloxonea sign of good company. Loading up his beloved red Honda, we drove around handing out supplies, chatting with folks. We stopped by one of the Journey House locations, where he introduced us to the residents and we played with a dog roaming the house. The hospitality and openness expressed by Jesse felt exceptional.

The author (left), her friend (center), and Jesse doing harm reduction supply distribution in April 2019.

Im not going to lie: I had been second-guessing our impromptu meet-up just before we arrived. I was wary if how Jesse would regard myself and my friend: a trans woman and a gender-nonconforming dyke. Its no secret that certain sects of harm reduction can feel like a bit of a boys club, whether that means heterosexual male drug users are being prioritized or that men are listened to over the rest of us. Nonprofit harm reductions chronic neglect or exploitation of sex workers feels exemplary of this atmosphere of male chauvinism.

But Jesse was different. It wasnt simply that he asked for our pronounswhich was great! Rather, he was genuinely interested in the lives and experiences of queer and trans people who use drugs, and how he could better show up for us. Half a year later, after I had co-founded the now-defunct trans harm reduction collective Do It Safe, Heaux! (DISH)which was partially inspired by his Churchwe would DM on Instagram about how his work could better reach queer and trans people who use drugs. Hed offer me his own advice for my organizing work, like the best wholesalers for heat-resistant meth pipes. I cant say I know any other cisgender, heterosexual harm reductionist who was so ready to make time to build a collaborative relationship with a trans woman.

***

The last nine months of his life had been rough. Jesse allegedly faced rights violations while held at a a notorious jail-based civil commitment program in Massachusetts, as I reported in January. It was only a few weeks since being released in February that Jesse, like the rest of us, had to face the COVID-19 crisis.

He began using again in March soon after a bad interaction with a cop while distributing harm reduction supplies amid the lockdown. The police officer told Jesse, as well as Kari Morisette, who recently recounted this to the Bangor Daily News, that their distribution efforts were not a public health necessity.

Thats despite the reports of increasing overdose deaths in the state since the pandemic exploded. Even before the effects of COVID-19 were felt by Maine drug users in spring 2020, many among them were already fatally overdosing in higher numbers of statistical significance during this years first quarter, compared to the final three months of 2019.

Jesse had told me that the erasure of his work, as one of the few local harm reduction providers to keep going in the early days of COVID-19, was not limited to the cop. There is currently a City of Portland Public Health Department narrative out that they are the only ones providing harm reduction services, when in fact they are providing almost none, Jesse wrote to me in a March 27 email. They shut down for COVID19 and are only now suddenly reopening in a very fake and tokenizing way. And they pretty much with one tweet tried to erase the work that our church was doing the whole time they were closed.

On a single Sunday in late March, his rag-tag group served almost 100 people. He told me he and his Church members distributed 1,220 syringes, 47 naloxone kits, 40 crack pipes, 106 meth pipes and over 50 fentanyl test strips. If we hadnt been there, the 97 people we served would have still used drugs, just with contaminated syringes instead and/or without a fentanyl test strip or lifesaving naloxone, he wrote.

Jesse seemed to be increasingly disillusioned and frustrated by the inadequate institutional attempts to support people who use drugs. In mid-July, he forwarded me his provocative response to an email he received from a Maine Department of Corrections case manager, inquiring about an incarcerated client looking to join Journey House when released that month. Jesse was no longer working for Journey House, he informed the worker, going on to express a sense of pessimism about what established systems could do for people who use drugs.

If your client ever relapses, its probably best that he DOES NOT GO to a hospital to seek treatment or the state might fuck him too, Jesse responded, seemingly referring to his civil commitment experience earlier that year. And God forbid hes black, then theyd just shoot him dead.

There was something surreal about the email thread: a carceral bureaucrat just looking to shuffle a body out of a cage and into a home, only to be met by Jesse expounding the violence of the war on drug users in graphic metaphors. He wantedand neededthe world to be different, and he did so much to make that happen. Jesse embodied the harm reduction tenet described by writer Tracy Heltonin a tweet mourning Harveys death: [W]e do the things that need to be done- whether they are comfortable, feasible, legal, or even funded.

Yet his world remained recalcitrant.

All this pain, psychosis, misery, suicide attempts, relapse, OD, etc and for what? All to fatten up the sacrosanct prison industrial complex that is so fiendishly thirsty for the dripping blood and the severed and dismembered limbs of societys lower classes and anybody who isnt white, wrote Jesse in the July 16 email. Its classicide and white supremacist genocide unfolding right before us daily. And we just watch it and go about our days, and the bureaucrats making $80k/yr just schedule a meeting to schedule another meeting.

It shouldnt take the loss of life to compel the state and society to work in support of drug users health, power and autonomy. Drug users have been envisioning the paths forward for years: from safe consumption spaces to a safe supply, from housing for all to drug legalization. Even with mass death, only crumbs have been delivered to activists by politicians and bureaucrats, like the expansion of take-home methadone, and some wins are even being rolled back, as seen with the recent closure of a busy safe consumption site in Canada.

I wasnt close with Jesse, but from our working relationship, I know he will not rest in peace until all drug users are safe, healthy and have the resources to self-determine their lives.

CoSI is raising funds for Jesse Harveys family and his September 19 candlelight vigil. Donations can be made to their Venmo: @churchofsafeinjection.

Link:

Rest in Power, Jesse Harvey - Filter

Come November 3, Oregon residents will have a chance to approve the most far-reaching drug reform measure ever to make a state ballot when they vote onMeasure 110, the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act. While the initiative indeed expands drug treatment, what makes it really revolutionary is that it would also decriminalize the possession of personal use amounts of all drugs, from psychedelics to cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as heroin and other illicit opioids.

While successful marijuana legalization initiatives in a number of statesand possibly four more in Novemberare nothing to sneer at, even if pot were legalized nationwide, more than a million people are likely to be arrested on drug charges in a year. In 2018, the last year for which data is available, there were more than1.65 million drug arrests; only 663,000 of them were for marijuana. Historically, just under nine out of ten drug arrests are forpossession, which means that drug decriminalization nationwide would result in somewhere north of a million fewer drug arrests each year. That would be more than a million fraught encounters police avoided, every year.

Our current drug laws can ruin lives based on a single mistake, sticking you with a lifelong criminal record that prevents you from getting jobs, housing and more, Bobby Byrd, an organizer with the More Treatment for a Better Oregon campaign, said in apress release.

If Oregon voters approve the measure, the state will be in select company. At least 25 to 30countries, mostly in Europe and Latin America, have drug decriminalization laws on the books, with the most well-known beingPortugal, which pioneered the way, decriminalizing drug possession in 2001. Instead of being arrested and jailed, people caught with less than a 10-day supply of illicit drugs there are given a warning and a small fine or asked to voluntarily appear before alocal commissionwhose aim is to determine whether the person needs drug treatment and if so, to offer it to them at no expense. (It helps that Portugal has universal health care.)

Drug decriminalization has worked for Portugal.According to a Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) report, before drug decriminalization, Portugal suffered rapidly increasing drug overdose deaths, a high number of people who got HIV through needle-sharing, and the country led the European Union in drug-related AIDS. A delegation led by DPA visited Lisbon in 2018 and found that since decriminalization, though, the number of people voluntarily entering treatment has increased significantly, while overdose deaths, HIV infections, problematic drug use, and incarceration for drug-related offenses has plummeted. Not bad at all.

It was just three years ago that the Oregon legislature approveddrug defelonizationmaking drug possession a misdemeanor instead of a felonybut now advocates are already prepared to push further down the Portuguese path. Thats because while,according to the state Criminal Justice Commission (CJC), drug defelonization indeed resulted in felony drug convictions dropping by nearly two-thirds after the bill was passed (from 5,183 in 20162017 to 1,992 in 20182019), it also included a nearly tenfold increase in misdemeanor drug possession convictions. That translates into only a slight decline in overall drug arrests, from more than 10,000 in 2016 to 8,903 in 2018.

Under Measure 110, those misdemeanor drug arrests would vanish as drug possession gets reclassified as a mere violation,punishableonly by a $100 fine or by completing a health assessment with an addiction treatment professional. Those who are deemed to benefit from drug treatment could go to an addiction recovery center, one of which will be located in every organization service area in the state. Those centers, as well as additional funding for treatment, will be paid for with revenues from marijuana sales taxes.

The measure is backed byDrug Policy Action, the political and lobbying arm of DPA, which has put $2.5 million into the campaign already, DPA director of media relations Matt Sutton said in an email exchange. And thats just the beginning, he added.

Well continue to invest in terms of what it takes to win it, he said. The campaign is starting a variety of different ads and raising awareness in the final push. Weve invested a lot already and were very committed to it financially. We think this is winnable.

So, why Oregon and why now?

We have to start somewhere, said Sutton. Oregon is a very progressive state and has really been the leader on a lot of drug policy reforms. It was one of the first to decriminalize [and legalize] marijuana, one of the first to legalize medical marijuana, one of the first to defelonize drug possession. Its no surprise that Oregon would be an attractive state to do this in.

The special nature of this year, with its double whammy of enduring [the] pandemic and its long, hot summer of street protests around racial justice and police brutality, makes drug decriminalization all the more relevant, Sutton said.

Having a state like Oregon that has been a progressive leader take this on will signal to the rest of the country that this can be done and that its not actually that radical of a proposition, Sutton added. And just in terms of everything thats happened this yearCOVID-19 and the awakening to racial injusticeit just doesnt seem [like] such a radical proposition. With COVID-19 weve seen the discrepancies in the health care system.

Its the same communities that are being overpoliced and have been hit hardest by the war on drugs, he continued. And people are realizing that the war on drugs is racist. The real reason behind the war on drugs was to criminalize and marginalize communities of color, and weve demonized drugs and the people who use them. The drug war hasnt made drugs less accessible to youth, but instead, we get a lot more people incarcerated and dying of drug use. The more we criminalize it, the more dangerous it becomes.

In anAugust report, the state CJC made clear just what sort of impact drug decriminalization would have on racial inequities, and the results are impressive: Racial disparities in drug arrests would drop by an astounding 95 percent.

The report also found that decriminalization would radically reduce overall drug convictions, with projected convictions of Black and Indigenous people declining by an equally astounding 94 percent.

This drop in convictions will result in fewer collateral consequences stemming from criminal justice system involvement, which include difficulties in finding employment, loss of access to student loans for education, difficulties in obtaining housing, restrictions on professional licensing, and others, the report found.

This report only scratches the surface, Kayse Jama, executive director ofUnite Oregon, said in apress release. Drugs are too often used as an excuse to disproportionately target Black and Brown Oregonians and economically disadvantaged communities.

This initiative addresses those racial disparities more than anything, said DPAs Sutton. It will help those communities that have been down for far too long. A lot of the economic problems we see there are a result of decades of drug war, taking generations of people out of their homes and saddling them with felony convictions. This would be a huge win in taking drug reform to the next level. It doesnt solve all the problems of drug prohibitionpeople would still be charged with distribution and drug-induced homicidebut it would still be a huge step forward.

And now, a broad coalition of change agents are uniting to push the initiative to victory in November.Endorsementsrange from national and international groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, AFSCME, the National Association of Social Workers, and Human Rights Watch, as well as dozens of state and local racial justice, human rights, and religious groups and groups representing health and social welfare professionals.

Weve received an incredible amount of support, and its really broad, said Sutton. And there is no organized opposition.

If things go well in November, DPA and its lobbying and campaign arm, Drug Policy Action, are already planning next moves.

We just a few weeks ago [on August 6] releaseda national frameworkfor drug decriminalization, the Drug Policy Reform Act, Sutton added. This has been a goal of DPA all along and where our work is focused today, all drug decriminalization. We think that people are ready for that. We decided to release the framework right now just because of everything happening in the country especially around racial justice issues. People are seeing the direct impact of the war on drugs and the racial disparities.

Were already looking ahead at other states where we could replicate this, he revealed. Some of the first states to legalize marijuana would likely be the first to consider drug decriminalization.

Once again, Oregon voters have a chance to burnish their drug reform credentials, only this time with the most dramatic attack yet on drug prohibition. If they approve Measure 110, they will truly be the drug reform vanguardand blaze a path voters and legislators elsewhere will surely follow.

Phillip Smith is a writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent ofDrug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has been a drug policy journalist for the past two decades. He is the longtime author of the Drug War Chronicle, the online publication of the non-profitStopTheDrugWar.org, and has been the editor of AlterNets Drug Reporter since 2015. He was awarded the Drug Policy Alliances Edwin M. Brecher Award for Excellence in Media in 2013.

This article was produced byDrug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. The Drug Policy Alliance is a funder of Drug Reporter.

Read more here:

Oregon is on the cusp of a major drug reform: Decriminalizing everything - AlterNet