For decades, the war on drugs has blistered American lives, leaving a legacy of denigration and disaster.

Often, we manage to adapt and absorb the pain it leaves behind while working to dismantle unjust laws and institutions, comforting ourselves and others who are disturbed by the very same issues. Other times the harm becomes so great it creates a wound that stops us in our tracks. One such moment occurred with the killing of Breonna Taylor earlier this year in Louisville, Kentucky.

At 26 years old, Breonna Taylor had already figured out how she could lift her community and those around her. As an emergency medical technician, she dedicated her time and life to others safety and well-being.

Her life was cut short just before 1:00 am on March 13, when three other public servants, Officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankinson, and Myles Cosgrove, executed a no-knock warrant and fired more than 20 rounds into her home. Eight of those bullets struck her body, and no medical assistance was provided by the police officers who so jarringly awoke her and her boyfriend that night.

And while her death occurred over 100 days ago, the wound remains fresh today because she continues to receive no justice. The men who killed her walk free, and two maintain their jobs as police officers even after they displayed such disregard for the loss of an innocent.

But this is how the war on drugs works, and how it will continue to work until the United States deems otherwise. As we fight and wait for that day, Breonna Taylors death forces us to stop and face the hard truth. It is not just about the war on drugs as a strategy, but also about its tactics, and the people who suffer due to its enforcers carelessness and brutality.

The Louisville Police investigation that lead to Taylors death centered around two men suspected of selling drugs roughly 10 miles away from her home. Breonnas address was included in the investigation under suspicion that her ex-boyfriend received drugs and stored cash there.

The warrant was a so-called no-knock warrant, which gave police permission to enter Taylors apartment without warning and without identifying themselves as police.

In the middle of the night, Taylor and her current boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were awoken by a loud banging at the door. The police officers claim they identified themselves as law enforcement though Walker said he heard no such identifying claim. He only knew, he later said, that someone was breaking down the front door in the dark of night.

Defending himself, Taylor, and their home, Walker fired his legally licensed firearm, invoking protection from Kentuckys castle doctrine and stand your ground law. These measures mean a person who uses a gun in self-defenseagainst, say, midnight intruders breaking into their homeis not liable for criminal or civil charges.

The shot fired by Walker struck one of the unannounced men in the leg, and the police fired back, striking Breonna Taylor in the hallway of the home. Taylor was killed, and Walker was unhurt but arrested. Even after the gunfire, he appeared unaware that the men firing at him and his girlfriend were police officers. He had the presence of mind to call 911 and tell a dispatcher that somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.

The police found no drugs in Breonna Taylors apartment. And though Walker was initially charged with the attempted murder of a police officer, prosecutors later dropped the charge. As it turns out, the suspect, Breonnas ex-boyfriend, was already in custody when the officers executed the warrant.

Without any previous drug convictions or related incidents on Taylor or Walkers records, this warrant and its mishandling were both aggressive and unprofessional. The Louisville Metro Chief of Police has since stated publicly that no-knock warrants are usually executed by SWAT, making the events of March 13 seem more askew. Since the fatal night that Taylor died, the Louisville city council has banned the use of no-knock warrants with a new ordinance called Breonnas Law. And while this regional progress is meaningful, there is much to do to realize it on a national scale.

With more than $1 trillion spent on classist and racist tactics like these since 1971, no-knock warrants are just one tactic in an overflowing toolkit used to carry out the war on drugs.

Additionally, Breonnas family has filed a lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police, claiming that the pressure to raid her home was compounded (or even originated) from gentrification efforts in west Louisville, alleging a Place-Based Investigations team was targeting Taylors neighborhood. While it has yet to be proven by the court of law, what is true is that gentrification continues to be a powerful weapon in the war on drugs.

The police report of the incident isnt merely sparse and lacking detailit contains outright fabrications. It lists Breonna Taylors injuries as none. The report claims police used no force to enter the apartment, when in fact, they used a battering ram to break open the door. The discrepancies arent mistakes, but intentional erasure of the facts.

Knowing what we do, we must take it as evidence that Breonnas death wasnt just coincidental, but an example of systemic racism.

(AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

The officers who killed Breonna Taylor have faced almost no consequences for their reckless actions. After a long public outcry, Louisville officer Brett Hankinson was fired from the department effective June 23, 2020. Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove remain on the job. None of the three have been arrested or charged for killing an innocent woman while she slept.

But this is how the war on drugs works: Accuse, arrest, kill, and cover up. Excuse it all by tarnishing the victims as drug dealerseven dedicated public servants like Breonna Taylor.

The war on drugs rests in part on the widespread assumption that police are telling the truth, but case after case after case, we can see thats simply not true. They are assuming guilt before innocence, delivering punishment before protection, and ruining lives. In the case of Breonna Taylor, thelies and the behavior are too blatant to ignore or explain away.

The United States has complex problems layered with systemic racism, mishandling of funds, sexism, and injustice. Breonna Taylors case is just one example of many. The war on drugs is one of many strategies used to enforce antiquated laws and make space for police brutality. But its important to not gloss over her murder just because shes not alone.

There are so many more names and storiesGeorge Floyd, Atatiana Jefferson, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brownand each one has a story as compelling as Breonna Taylors. She paid the ultimate price for doing nothing more than sleeping in her home in the middle of a pandemic between shifts as a public servant, saving lives.

(AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

What can you do to help? Plenty. Work to change unjust drug laws, of course. But there are several other actions you can take to bring more visibilityand perhaps justiceto Breonna Taylors case, including:

Read the original:

How the war on drugs killed Breonna Taylor - Leafly

The claim making the rounds was false: That Barack Obama, elected in 2008 as Americas first Black president, had not in fact been born in the United States.

That didnt stop the smear from gaining traction, in an effort fueled by people including hard-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of InfoWars and by future president Donald Trump himself, who fanned the birther flames in 2011 as he advanced in the political arena.

According to Trumps longtime associate Roger Stone, it was an effective strategy: Trump understands among Republicans theres a very substantial majority who have questions about Obamas origins and how he just pops up out of nowhere to become a national figure and whether he was, in fact, eligible to serve as president, Stone told FRONTLINE in 2016.

Jones, Stone and Trump have all vigorously denied allegations of racism, with Jones saying he has protested against the KKK; Trump saying, I dont have a racist bone in my body!; and Stone pointing among other things to his opposition of the racist war on drugs.

But the success of the false theory embraced by Jones and Trump has been found to be correlated to racial grievance. One academic study found that among white Americans, birther beliefs are uniquely associated with racial animus; another indicated that belief in birtherism is a function of both partisanship and racial resentment.

Experts FRONTLINE spoke with echoed that assessment.

In birtherism, what you see is a group of Americans who resent the fact that there is an African American president in the White House, reporter Yamiche Alcindor of PBS NewsHour says in the FRONTLINE documentary United States of Conspiracy. And Alex Jones and all sorts of other people hand them this excuse that its, well, he wasnt born in this country, this is really all a lie, and he is actually not who he says he is.

Anna Merlan, a journalist who has covered conspiracy theories and misinformation for years, is blunt. The conspiracy caught fire because people were uncomfortable with the idea of a Black president, and they were eager to believe any number of racist smears against him, says the author of Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power. I mean just plainly, it was racism.

Birtherism would not be the first or last time conspiracy theorists like Jones whether wittingly or not tapped into aspects of race or racism to further their message. Described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as almost certainly the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America, Jones has at times stoked fears about racial conflict and the spread of Islam while making his primary argument that global elites are part of a secret conspiracy that controls the world. Jones has also made false claims about the LGBTQ community.

Additionally, critics say Jones has fanned anti-Semitic flames as part of his conspiratorial worldview. He has tapped into stereotypes about Jewish people, though he denies that he is an anti-Semite. The term globalist, heard often on his programs, has complex roots and has been described in some use cases as an anti-Semitic dog whistle.

Hes been able to mobilize people based on their fears. And based on for some, for many their ignorance, says Christina Greer, author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream.

Sometimes, Jones has been forced to apologize. Thats what happened as part of a settlement after he published a video that falsely said the yogurt maker Chobani, which makes a point of employing refugees, had been caught importing migrant rapists. But Jones claims have found an audience.

I think that Alex Jones is able to tap in to some real deep, dark fears that white Americans explicitly have about the future of their country, whos in it, whos controlling it, and their placement in it, Greer says.

In the aftermath of George Floyds killing, Jones and InfoWars have pushed conspiratorial narratives warning that Black people are violently targeting white people. Another InfoWars host, Owen Shroyer, described the Floyd circus as a total hoax of police brutality, and then riots and protests, and then an empty casket. Jones has denied that he is racist. He also claims that the media, leftists and Black Lives Matter are stoking racial tensions as part of a George Soros-funded plot to control humanity.

On his July 13 show, he said, I dont sit here and say that I care about brown people, Black people, pink people, polka-dotted people, speckled people humans because Im some virtue signaler. I genuinely want to see humanity work together. I genuinely want to see us all use our skills together to go to the stars and beyond. I hate watching the really Satanic, pedophile Satanists at the top play us off against each other, and Im really tired of it.

In the same episode, Jones claimed that when he was younger, he got in over 100 fights with Black people, and almost every time, they initiated it, and said that, I guarantee you, theres no Black people out there that have ever had 100 white people start fights with them.

The conspiratorial worldview promoted by Jones has served as a gateway drug and an entry point for the radicalization of white supremacists, Reveal reported in 2018. Thats in part because seeing the whole world as a massive conspiracy is a foundational part of the white nationalist mindset, Reveals Aaron Sankin and Will Carless wrote. The story Jones tells his audience about the world and their place in it requires an oppositional other and, often, that other is defined by racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,they wrote.

In an interview conducted with FRONTLINE during the making of United States of Conspiracy, a former InfoWars staffer spoke out about his experience working with Jones. Josh Owens, a former InfoWars video editor, says he was sent by the host to report on a community of Muslims in the U.S. that Jones believed was training extremists and that when Owens found nothing sinister, he felt pressured to post a false story anyway.

We posted headlines that were made up, that Sharia law was in America, that this was a training camp, that these people were extremists, Owens said. And none of it was true; it was all fabricated, it was all made up it was built on a foundation of Islamophobia.

Calling it wrong and reprehensible, Owens said that experience was part of what spurred him to eventually leave InfoWars. I will probably carry that guilt with me the rest of my life. So there is no excuse for it. And Jones is not to blame for that entirely; Im also to blame because I was the one there doing it.

Conspiracy theories have long existed. They help disenfranchised ordinary people talk about systems of power that exclude them, Anna Merlan says. But as the FRONTLINE documentary United States of Conspiracy explores, conspiracy theorist thought made fresh inroads into the American political mainstream when Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative, began appearing on Jones show and when he brokered an appearance by then-candidate Donald Trump.

Earlier this month, Stone himself came under fire for appearing to dismissively refer to a Black radio show host who was pressing him on President Trumps commutation of his prison sentence as a Negro with whom he didnt feel like arguing. Though it was heard live, Stone denied making the remark, said there had been technical audio difficulties, and said in a statement that any person who knows him knows I despise racism! He has used the term in connection with insults of other Black figures in the past, for which he has apologized.

As conspiracy theories some reflecting bigotry have spread, the internet and social media have helped to fan the flames.

We all know of conspiracy theorists from the days before Twitter or Facebook. And those people were sort of isolated and shunned, and everybody felt like they had their number, Elizabeth Williamson ofThe New York Times tells FRONTLINE. But with social media and the internet, they find each other. And they push that message to millions of people.

Though Jones and InfoWars have been banned from platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, he has still successfully harnessed the internets power to unite people who have a shared anti-elite ideology that sometimes intersects with and thrives on bigotry.

The interesting thing about the Internet is that it builds community for good or for ill, Greer says. And so, you can find support groups if youve been through a tragic situation. You can also find people who feed in to your negativity or your fears or your bigotry. You can become radicalized because you can find a community who can groom you in a lot of ways to sit in your feelings where you believe that they are correct and that they are okay. And so, thats what Alex Jones has been able to do.

See more here:

How Conspiracy Theorists Have Tapped Into Race and Racism to Further Their Message - FRONTLINE

Berkshire Roots has opened for recreational marijuana sales in East Boston, becoming the citys second adult-use store and the first in the neighborhood.

Located at 253 Meridian St., Berkshire Roots is currently offering online orders and in-store pickup service. Customers are asked to look at the online menu and schedule a pickup time, the company wrote in a news release. The store is open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday through Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Opening during the coronavirus pandemic, Berkshire Roots said a face covering or mask is required to enter the shop. Social distancing guidelines are in place inside the location and on the sidewalk, and the store is adhering to cleaning protocols required by the state, the news release said.

Berkshire Roots is headquartered in Pittsfield with a retail store and cultivation facility. There, Berkshire Roots produces branded products including flower, edibles, topicals, tinctures, capsules, concentrates and vape cartridges. The company also works with Massachusetts wholesale partners.

Our goal is to bring the Berkshires to Boston by replicating the warmth of our dispensary, providing best-in-class training to our retail team and delivering our unique Berkshires inspired products, Berkshire Roots CEO James Winokur said. The store is ready, we have great neighbors and its really a special place in Boston given the mix of cultures, language and history. We have a heavy emphasis on hiring from East Boston and surrounding neighborhoods and bringing in products that will fit our East Boston patrons needs and palette.

In March, Bostons first retail marijuana store opened. Pure Oasis, an applicant in the states economic empowerment program aimed to benefit people and communities disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs, on Blue Hill Avenue in the Grove Hall part of Dorchester.

Berkshire Roots opened in Pittsfield in April 2019, the second store to open in Pittsfield following Temescal Wellness.

Related Content:

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Berkshire Roots opens as Bostons second recreational marijuana shop - MassLive.com

Mr. President, you could make a difference here. What if you stood on the steps of Johns Hopkins Hospital and declared that anyone who needs drug treatment or mental health care in the United States should have it? What if you went back to Fort McHenry, not for a Memorial Day photo op, but to announce a war on systemic racism? What if you simply sat down with Baltimores mayor and its police commissioner and explored ways federal resources could be used to reduce homicide, not with storm troopers but by attacking the underlying social problems, including the failed war on drugs, that feed the body count? What if you walked the streets of West Baltimore and acknowledged that yes, Black lives matter and always have? Americans would surely take notice.

Excerpt from:

The year after the rat: How Trump could still help Baltimore and himself | COMMENTARY - Baltimore Sun

Netflix's The Business of Drugs explores narcotics trafficking, but doesn't fully address America's war on drugs. Here's what is missing.

Hosted by Amaryllis Fox, Netflix documentaryThe Business of Drugsoffers valuable insight about worldwide narcotics trafficking, but doesn't fully succeed indeconstructing America's war on drugs. To be fair, thedocuseries aims high by investigating the bigger picture, and how certain regions of the world are affected by modern drug production and distribution, but the downside is that many Netflix streamers, certainly in the United States, may looking for a proper breakdown of how the business of drugs specifically affects their community or region.

As a whole, The Business of Drugscovers the essentials and plenty more. Fox begins with a report about cocaine, a drug that can be easily correlated to pop culture figures, however The Business of Drugssubsequently strays from familiar talking points in favor of commentaries aboutlow-level workers who are far removed from big money exchanges. Many of Fox's intervieweesare merely pawns in a dirty game that's controlled by the big-time dealers. At its heart, The Business of Drugs on Netflix is mostly about regular, everyday people whoeither contribute to the modern drug trade or realize that it's best to stay under-the-radar. When Fox does meet up with influential figures, she doesn't hold back. And therein lies the value of watching The Business of Drugs, as the host - a former CIA agent -knows her stuff.

Related:The Business of Drugs: Why Amaryllis Fox Is The Perfect Host

The Business of Drugs on Netflix features six episodes about cocaine, synthetics, heroin, meth, cannabis, and opioids. Each standalone episode includes fascinating insight from Fox, along with insider information from people who truly understand how drug production and distribution has changed in recent years, and how the dark web affects business in America and beyond.If there's a critique to be made, it's that a world of streamers may want aclear A-B-Cnarrative rather than six episodes that continuously shift to different locations. Overall, theNetflixdocumentary effectively shows how everything connects across the globe. Buthere's whatmany streamers may be curious about.

The Business of Drugs may not necessarily be about the United States'decades-long war against narcotics, but many Netflix streamers will indeed correlate the term "war on drugs" with American culture, whether it's Ronald Reagan's presidency during the '80s or the rise of cocaine distribution in Los Angeles. The first episode features an interview with a Compton, California cocaine dealer, who offers a Drug Distribution 101 commentary about pyramid structures. The second episode about synthetics references the bizarre K2 "Zombie Outbreak" in Brooklyn, and the MDMA episode acknowledges an American counterculture that's mostly associated with California. What's missing, it seems, is a proper investigation about what transpiresbetween coastal cities like New York and Los Angeles.

To its credit, The Business of Drugs doesn't point out that Amaryllis Fox is the inspiration for a new Apple TV+ series starring Brie Larson. The Netflix docuseries also doesn't acknowledge that Fox is married to Robert Kennedy III, the grandson of the late Robert F. Kennedy, the 64th Attorney General of the United States.Such information could easily distract viewers from the central message, and could affect one's perception of the host, in one way or another. The fact remains that Fox is an accomplishedCIA veteran, a woman who was inspired to investigate terrorism after the 9/11 attacks on America. Fox's commentariesare sharp and blunt,but the Netflix documentarywould've benefitted more with extra emphasis on the host's credentials.

The Business of Drugson Netflix features a revelatory sequence about coca production in Colombia, and how the port town of Buenaventura is so crucial to international distribution. There's also a segment about low-level coco producers who understand their place in the overall infrastructure, and know that they need to accept their bosses' price levels (which seeminglyhaven't changed for decades). The Business of Drugs' first episode even includes a sharp comparison between the modern cocaine "monopsy" (Mexican cartels) and Walmart. What the docuseries lacks, however, is a commentary about COVID-19and how the Coronavirus has affected the business of drugsin 2020. But isn't that that a fascinating premise for The Business of Drugs season 2 on Netflix?

More:Athlete A True Story: What Netflix's Documentary Leaves Out

Batwoman Season 2 Won't Recast Ruby Rose, Replacing With New Character

Q.V. Hough is a Screen Rant staff writer. He's also the founding editor at Vague Visages, and has contributed to RogerEbert.com and Fandor.

View original post here:

Business Of Drugs: What The Netflix Documentary Leaves Out - Screen Rant

MOVIE REVIEW

MOST WANTED

Rated R. Streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Google Play.

Grade: A

A true crime saga of yesteryear that remains eternally relevant, Most Wanted recounts a complex caper that spans nations and involves law enforcement, grifters, crusading journalists and a sap, a Canadian drug addict railroaded into a Thai prison for 100 years.

With echoes of Midnight Express, the drug smuggling classic of the 70s that put gullible Westerners in Third World nightmares, Most Wanted is far more sophisticated.

It doesnt romanticize its sweet but dim (very dim) junkie Daniel (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) and sees him, rightfully, as a pawn of just about everyone he meets.

Out of prison and homeless, Daniel is happy to find work on a yacht. Picker (Jim Gaffigan, just terrifically sleazy) is also a druggie, inveterate liar and supreme hustler who cons Canadian undercover cops into believing hes connected to Thailands international drug trade.

Sure, hes transparently, comically devious but not to the Canadian Security Intelligence Services undercover cops, led by Stephen McHatties Frank Cooper, who have no qualms giving him thousands of dollars for information and, crucially, a drug kingpin whom they can nail for importing kilos of Thai heroin.

Thats where dim Daniel is so useful.

Writer-director Daniel Roby has such a terrific eye for faces and an incisive way of photographing his large cast, that the story with its many facets could unfold silently, for these pictures really do tell the story.

Roby uses Gaffigans hairy bulk like a bulldozer that seethes and steams over every obstacle, whether its Cooper the cop whose pinched features suggest his bloods been sucked dry by Dracula or the very pale, frequently half-naked Daniel, who is continually seen as a figure ready to be lain on an altar and sacrificed.

This is a notorious if terribly familiar look at corrupt, lawless police, entrapment, intimidation. And a couple of good guys.

They are led by Toronto investigative journalist Victor Malarek (Josh Hartnett), who really did pursue a story no one cared about, even though it was an innocent Canadian citizen jailed for life and a patsy for a coverup by law enforcement.

Hartnett, strikingly tall, lean and fearless as Malarek, conveys the bitter realities of a diminished press with diminished resources.

This being 1989, the war on drugs meant headlines and lots and lots of money for drug buys and information. And virtually no progress with the war.

Pilon, a ringer for Caleb Landry Jones of The Outpost, almost makes us forgive Daniels frequent and continued stupidity. In reality, Daniel was Alain Olivier. As the films postscript makes clear, for the crooks and slimebags involved, justice was hardly served, mostly evaded.

Continue reading here:

Most Wanted an arresting true crime tale of drug smugglers - Boston Herald

Calling it punitive and backwards, advocates want the B.C. government to rescind proposed legislation that would allow youth to be held in hospital against their will after a drug overdose.

The B.C. Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions has announced it is putting Bill 22 to amend the Mental Health Act on hold.

But critics want it nixed entirely.

If passed, Bill 22 would change the Mental Health Act to allow medical staff to involuntarily detain youth in hospital for up to a week to stabilize them, to allow time to contact family, and to create a plan for treatment.

Its reprehensible, said Hawkfeather Peterson, president BC/Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors.

The amendment robs youth using illicit drugs the right to make decisions about their own treatment or care, Peterson said at a press conference Monday.

When policies completely dehumanize marginalized populations it makes a statement, Peterson said.

All you're doing is creating greater barriers to access and care, they said. Making it so that overdose prevention is further away and less accessible to people that are already deemed at great risk of death and dying.

Youth using drugs are already suffering from trauma, and enforced care will cause more harm and only frighten them from seeking health supports, Peterson said.

And as far as I am concerned our government has proclaimed youth do not deserve the same rights and protections as others.

Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy has drawn fire since announcing the prosed changes June 23, with critics citing lack of consultation, increased and adverse harms to the health of youth using drugs, along with the violation of their rights.

On Monday, Jennifer Charlesworth, B.C. Representative for Children and Youth, also expressed concern around resorting to coercive health care on youth to address the opioid overdose emergency in B.C.

The ministry proposed the amendment as one way to deal with the dramatic spike in illicit drug overdose deaths that have occurred during the pandemic.

June was B.C.s deadliest month on record for overdose fatalities. A total of 175 people died, the latest toll in the declared public health emergency now entering its fifth year.

The province should provide more comprehensive and wrap-around services to youth using drugs and their families, particularly in their communities, Charlesworth said.

I can appreciate that the Ministry of Mental Health is endeavoring to find ways to meet the needs of young people with significant substance use disorder, Charlesworth said. But youth need to have some sense of control over their lives, including making decisions around substance use and their own treatment, she said.

My perspective is that the focus needs to be on developing a robust array of voluntary services and supports, said Charlesworth, citing significant gaps in service and long wait lists for existing programs.

But we dont have an adequate voluntary system of (treatment for) substance use.

Stabilizing youth with substance use disorders in hospital involuntarily without having enough harm reduction, treatment or recovery programs in place for them and their loved ones when they were released is futile, Charlesworth said.

Stabilization for what? Charlesworth said. If we really want to make a difference, we need to make sure we have the supports in place.

As well, the ministry was criticized Monday for not consulting the groups most likely to be affected by the bill.

Kukpi7 Judy Wilson of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs said the proposed legislation was an example of the systemic and historical oppression of First Nations people.

What Bill 22 will do is put them in a punitive type system, where many of our Indigenous people have already experienced institutionalization, stemming from the forced genocide from residential schools, Wilson said.

It isnt a reform, its a step backwards. So, the message to the province is there are no amendments that would make this bill salvageable.

There's a need for huge investment in detox and treatment, she said, adding they should be developed in consultation with Indigenous people, culturally safe and take place in communities where people live.

Kali Sedgemore, a youth outreach worker and harm reduction advocate, said nobody had consulted young drug users, the very people impacted by the proposed policy.

They should have consulted with people especially with youth like us, said Sedgemore, a member of 'Namgis First Nation with lived experience around substance use.

Youth can be experts on what is going to affect them, Sedgemore said, adding health authorities werent necessarily going to represent youth perspectives.

A premise of the proposed legislation is that there are loving family members and adequate supports waiting for a youth that has been detained in hospital, Sedgemore said. But thats not the case for many youths, both Indigenous or not, who are in care and dont a have support systems to rely on, Sedgemore said.

Its sad, Sedgemore said. But we need to recognize youth in care would be greatly impacted (by the legislation) so you dont go to a loving home or afterwards or anything like that.

Due to a backlog of bills, the ministry wasnt able to get Bill 22 through before the end of the legislative session, Darcy stated in an email to National Observer Monday.

The delay allows the ministry to do more consultation, Darcy wrote.

This is a challenging topic and this does give us a chance to pause, Darcy said.

Well take this time to talk to more people about the work that we were already thinking about doing with our partners on safeguards in regulation to protect young peoples rights.

The Bill 22 proposal was based on a pilot program running at BC Childrens Hospital and with advice of doctors who specialize in treating young people struggling with severe problematic substance use, the ministry said.

Additionally, the ministry worked with the First Nations Health Council, First Nations Health Authority, Mtis Nation BC, First Nations Health Directors Association and the Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society to develop the amendments.

This is just one piece of the work were doing. Our primary focus has always been building the voluntary system of care, Darcy said.

The minister noted the province has established 19 Foundry youth centres, as well as building two new and upgrading six existing First Nations-run treatment centres, along with other measures.

These have been challenging discussions, but we all have the same goal of protecting young people and ensuring they get trauma-informed, culturally safe care.

Rochelle Baker/Local Journalism Initiative/Canada's National Observer

See the original post:

Youth who overdose on drugs need to be helped, not detained, advocates say - National Observer

Tengku Chanela Jamidah, a descendant of the Pahang royal family, moved to the U.S. from Malaysia about two years ago.

Shortly after her arrival, while in a deep meditative state, she had a vision of herself making music with crystal bowls, Tengku Chanela told the South China Morning Post earlier this week. That vision changed her life.

I knew the universe was sending me a sign, she said. That being the case, the former fashion and beauty brand entrepreneur and mother of two ditched the fashion world for health and wellness instead. Tengku Chanela now operates two studios in Las Vegas and Los Angeles that focus on sound healing and meditation.

It was her own experience with CBD, she said, that made the decision easy to make. In 2018, I started taking CBD oil for anxiety, insomnia and chronic pain. It was mind-blowing. The diverse use of this plant, coupled with how transformational it was in improving my quality of life, encouraged me to share about it with others, she said.

Tengku Chanela is spreading the message through her social media and her work with the Malaysia Society of Awareness, a non-profit working to destigmatize cannabis. A petition from the group, calling on the government of Malaysia to allow cannabis research, education and medical consumption, is approaching 90,000 signatures.

Currently, Malaysia has some of the harshest cannabis laws in the world. Possession of more than 200 grams can lead to the death penalty, while possession of up to 50 grams could lead to maximum of a decade in prison. That could soon change, though.

Last summer, then Malaysia health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad began speaking about reforming the nations approach to medical cannabis.

Drugs have destroyed many lives, but wrongheaded governmental policies have destroyed many more. I think its obvious that after 40 years of war on drugs, it has not worked. There should be decriminalization of drugs, Dzulkefly said, according to CNBC.

Tengku Chanela, of course, agrees with this stance, at least when it comes to cannabis. Earlier this month, she posted a photo to Instagram, teasing a new CBD tincture, and routinely posts positive messages about the power of plant medicine.

Decriminalization and reclassification should be something we need to prioritize, she wrote in a post last month. Please educate yourself.

As Tengku Chanelas work continues in the U.S., she told the SCMP that she has no pressing plans to return to Malaysia. Not any time soon. It may be a while before I return, if ever.

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This Malaysian princess has ditched her royal roots to become a cannabis and wellness queen - The GrowthOp