During this COVID-19 quarantine, three controversial, internationally-acclaimed documentaries about Philippine politics had been shared by their filmmakers online for Filipinos to watch for the first time.

Last May, Lauren Greenfield's "The Kingmaker" was streamed, laying bare Madame Imelda Marcos' enduring belief from the Martial Law days up to the present time -- that "perception is real, truth is not" -- straight from her own mouth. In June, on Independence Day, Ramona Diaz's "A Thousand Cuts" was streamed for free on YouTube for 24 hours, two days before a local court found its embattled subject, Rappler founder Maria Ressa, guilty of cyber-libel.

This weekend, a third hard-hitting political documentary by an intrepid female filmmaker is being shared online. "Aswang" by Alyx Ayn G. Arumpac had its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam last November 2019 where it won a major award. Since then, it had also been screened in a couple of big human rights film festivals, and won the Amnesty International award at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival held virtually last May.

"Aswang" is about the aggressively heated war on drugs launched in 2016 in fulfillment of presidential campaign promises. Various tragic stories during this drug war among the urban poor had been tackled by several filmmakers like Brillante Mendoza, Erik Matti and Lav Diaz in the past couple of years. The most recent one was Ben Rekhi's gritty "Watch List" released in cinemas just a month before the quarantine.

In contrast to these works of fiction, Arumpac brought her camera directly to the scenes of actual crimes to tell the grim aftermath among the families left behind. We see the real people and their emotions, not mere actors. We hear their own words, not lines penned by a scriptwriter. We may have seen these families in short clips on the evening news, but here, they are given a little more time to tell their grievances.

Children who live in these grim slum conditions were highlighted by Arumpac. Her narrative began with the death of teenager Kian Lloyd de los Santos allegedly at the hands of cops. From there, Arumpac picked one of Kian's much younger friend Jomari to serve as a focal point of her film. Left to fend for himself while his parents were both incarcerated, the precocious, street-smart urchin Jomari had prematurely jaded pronouncements, which were in stark contrast with his innocent glee in shopping for superhero slippers and basketball jerseys to wear.

In between stories of the drug war, the director and her editors also factored in some side stories to further drive home her point against the dire conditions suffered by the urban poor. There were scenes from a fiery street protest against the leadership, with the presidential visage used as the basis of a satanic effigy. There was also a detour to describe the case of how human rights officials freed a number of male and female inmates who were kept sealed in a dark, humid, putrid cell hidden behind a filing cabinet.

We may say we have heard all of these things already from the news, perhaps ad nauseam for some. However, when these painful scenes are compiled together in a documentary like this, the tragic human drama is amplified a hundredfold. It aimed to jolt us out of our privileged seats of comfort and direct our eyes to these "invisible" socio-political tragedies happening right under our line of sight.

How coincidental that it would be streamed to the Filipino public just days after the anti-terror bill was signed into law, and the day after a one-sided congressional vote took down a mass media giant. The timing could not have been more uncanny.

This review was originally published in the author's blog, "Fred Said."

Excerpt from:

Documentary review: 'Aswang' captures the horror that is the war on drugs - ABS-CBN News

As the world has been gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the global war on drugs has continued in ways that are both surprising and tragically familiar. Indeed, as recent examples from across the globe have shown, the drug war is already often used as an excuse for authoritarian measures with ulterior motives.

Recently, in a live stream moderated by the Open Society Global Drug Policy Programs Matt Wilson, three essential voices on this topicSheila Coronel, the director of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at the Columbia University School of Journalism; Geoff Ramsey, director for Venezuela at the Washington Office on Latin America; and Aqeela Sherrills, director of the Newark Community Street Teamdiscussed the link between the drug war and authoritarianism, as well as the lessons reformers and civil society actors can use to promote justice instead.

Watch the video above to learn more.

See the article here:

How Authoritarianism Fuels the War on Drugs - Open Society Foundations

SOUTH DEERFIELD Two hundred and eighty-five alumni have signed an open letter to the Frontier Regional School administration calling for educational reform on the topics of race and racism.

Mariel Brown-Fallon, a 2011 alumna of Frontier Regional School, said she worked with several other alumni to organize the letter to the superintendent, curriculum director and principal, which was submitted Monday morning. The letter, signed by alumni who graduated between 1984 and 2020, offers suggestions on how to change the way these topics are taught at Frontier.

There is momentum building for systemic changes to be made at the school, Brown-Fallon said, to help better prepare young people to graduate with the context they need to understand our increasingly complex and racially informed world.

In the letter, alumni emphasized that this issue is not unique to Frontier. Students and schools across the country are beginning to reckon with the fact that core curricula have excluded the voices, history and experiences of Black Americans.

As a result, the historical narrative of America that we give students is often a sanitized, white-centered version that doesnt convey an accurate telling of who we are or where weve come from, the letter reads. When you know better, you have a responsibility to do better. As a country and a community, it is imperative that we rethink the way that we teach our children and young people about history and their relationship to it.

To this end, the letter alumni signed supports seven main suggestions for overhauling the way students learn about race and racism in the United States.

These suggestions include:

Developing or adopting a Race and Racism in the U.S. course, and making it a requirement for all juniors and seniors.

Assigning summer reading that tackles issues related to race and racism, and including the voices and work of Black authors.

Holding schoolwide screenings of films and documentaries that discuss what racism looks like in America today (mass incarceration, police brutality, war on drugs, etc.).

Bringing in outside trainers or facilitators to hold workshops by grade to discuss bias, privilege and racism.

Adopting a zero-tolerance policy for slurs and hate speech including racial slurs and symbols (verbal, written, graffiti or worn on clothing).

Establishing tangible support systems that help to foster a safe, inclusive and healing environment for students of color.

Prioritizing diversity and hiring more people of color at Frontier.

Were not asking to throw out textbooks, Brown-Fallon said. Were asking to take small steps now to start immediately educating students on the things they are seeing going on across the country.

On Saturday, 200 to 300 high school students led a march in South Deerfield advocating not only for police reform, but also for changes in high school history curricula to include Black history.

Frontier Principal George Lanides said the letter came with good timing as the school Monday held the first meeting for a newly formed committee assembled for the purpose of furthering education on anti-racism and equity. Lanides said the group is composed of teachers, parents, students and administrators.

This is something that the staff is invested in, Lanides said. We understand how important it is and we will continue doing the work.

According to Lanides, Assistant Principal Scott Dredge, a graduate of 1997, responded to the letter from alumni, and asked that his name be added to the list of signatures. In the letter, alumni say they did not spend meaningful time learning about the ways in which slavery and deep-rooted systemic racism impacts and informs the world today.

While some of us have graduated more recently than others, we all believe that critical events, time periods and stories specifically those related to the enslavement of African-Americans, the Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement were skimmed over or completely absent from the curriculum taught during our middle and high school careers, the letter reads.

While Lanides said the recent deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are unfortunate catalysts, he also said its a good thing people across the country are being active in their response.

Emily Lucero, class of 2009, said she was invited to sign the final letter. Being of mixed heritage her mother is white and her father is Native American Lucero said the conversation is relevant to more than just Black history.

Growing up in a primarily white population, Lucero said she always had a sense she was different.

I could relate to feeling like an outsider, but I dont feel half of what Black Americans are feeling, she said.

Amanda Mozea, class of 2013, said she didnt fully realize her high school education was lacking until after she graduated. Mozea is a Black woman of mixed heritage her mother is white and American, and her father is from Nigeria.

I had a sense of it when I was a student, but I didnt really have the vocabulary to put that experience in context, Mozea said.

Mozea went on to graduate from Harvard University with a bachelors degree in social justice studies. She took courses focused on racism and contemporary issues in America, learning about education equity, health and criminal justice.

Mozea said one of the biggest things she added to the letter is the suggestion to establish tangible support systems that help to foster a safe, inclusive and healing environment for students of color. This could include hiring more teachers of color, creating a safe space for students to speak with a designated teacher on issues of race, or creating a path for direct communication between students and administrators.

As a person of color who went to Frontier, Id say there is a really strong Confederate culture at Frontier at least when I went there, Mozea said. There were lots of students with Confederate flags on their hats, or boots with American flags on them. They did not get the deep, profound irony of that.

She said there were instances where the N-word was written in graffiti on lockers. She also heard the N-word spoken out loud, and each time she would report it, only to be told nothing could be done if nobody else said they heard it, too.

Im both really angry that its taken until now to have these discussions, and grateful that its finally happening, Mozea said. Im very hopeful that there will be tangible changes coming from this.

More:

Frontier alumni call for reform in race education - Amherst Bulletin

Enough has been enough for centuries now.

We are witnessing a reckoning in the streets and in statehouses across the country because of the violent, expansive and devastating effects of the criminal legal system on Black communities. Protests across the country have called for an end to police violence and systemic racism, prompting an overall reimagination of what our policies and institutions can do to create healthy, safe and just communities instead.

How can we turn this call for change into action? As we advocate for solutions that shift resources away from over-policing and mass incarceration, we must also repair past harms as a way to build a better future together. Policymakers and advocates can do this through the enactment of Clean Slate policies that bring a measure of justice and equity to millions of Americans.

There are countless people whose lives have already been upended because of the institutionalized racism inherent in the criminal legal system. Decades of federal, state and local policies and practices, like the War on Drugs, disproportionately targeting Black people and communities of color have made it so that one in three Americans is burdened with a criminal record. For 70 to 100 million people, these records createlifetime barrierstoobtaining living wage jobs, stable housing, education and much more. Leaving them behind is not just.

Thats why governments should enact and implement Clean Slate policies, which clear all eligible criminal records without requiring that the person navigate a process where the cards are again stacked against them. It is a tangible way to begin repairing past wrongs while providing a measure of hope to those whose lives have been derailed because of the expansive reach of the criminal legal system.

Most people do not realize that millions of criminal records are already eligible to be expunged under current law. But in all states, the existing processes are complicated, time-consuming, slow-moving and expensive. In fact, one study shows that the existing processes leave nearly 95 percent of eligible people behind. These barriers should not be our reality.

At Code for America, where I lead the criminal justice program, we work to ensure that the government delivers services to everyone with dignity and respect. Through our landmark Clear My Record program, weve demonstrated whats possible in delivering record clearance services, automatically and at scale. Now, building on this and other record clearance efforts, we should expand these initiatives across the nation.

In Pennsylvania, for example, the states new Clean Slate policy sealed 2.8 million cases in March, despite the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home orders and court closures.

Other states are on the verge of implementing similar policies were working directly with their governments to design and implement Clean Slate processes that are impactful, efficient and achievable. Clean Slate policies are more important now than ever, as court closures and backlogs mean that it will be even more difficult to participate in economic recovery. A criminal conviction should not be a lifetime sentence to poverty.

An old criminal record is damaging for people it creates a ripple effect on families and communities. The barriers to opportunity because of an old criminal record means that parents cannot provide for their children, that schools remain underfunded and that people cannot go back to school, find stable housing, obtain good jobs or get professional licenses. These barriers lead to increased rates of poverty and homelessness, coupled with a chronic lack of access to the social safety net and other programs. Police are often tasked with solving for our disinvestment in public schools, public health and safety net programs leading to even more over-policing.

Lawmakers are confronted with the reality that there are over 30 million people out of work and predictions that unemployment levels could exceed those of the Great Depression. Just like the criminal legal system, economic recessions disproportionately harm Black and Brown communities, and everlasting criminal records play a substantial role. Nationally, there are over 40,000 laws that allow employers and landlords to discriminate against someone with a criminal record. It should be no surprise then that people with criminal records have been experiencing crisis-level unemployment for decades. On average, people achieve a 25 percent earnings increase within one year of clearing their record.

As we reckon with the racial and economic injustices woven into our American story and heal from the public health and economic crises of 2020 we must design a future that ensures governments can serve all of us. States should follow the lead and momentum of Pennsylvania, Utah, North Carolina, California and others to pass Clean Slate policies.

Our country needs a path to recovery that is equitable, inclusive and just.

Evonne Silva is the senior program director of Criminal Justice at Code for America, where she leads a team that develops civic technology aimed at transforming the criminal justice system.

Go here to see the original:

There is no just future without a Clean Slate | TheHill - The Hill

We see this war reflected in the language that gets used by politicians, policymakers, journalists and healthcare workers.

As the invisible enemy rolled in, entire economies halted as populations sheltered in place. We were told to hunker down for the long battle ahead and to support our troops, the health care workers, fighting on the front lines.

These military-inspired metaphors serve a purpose. Unlike the dense linguistic landscape of science and medicine, their messages are clear: Danger. Buckle Down. Cooperate.

In fact, studies have shown that sometimes military metaphors can help unite people against a common enemy. They can convey a sense of urgency so that people drop what theyre doing and start paying attention.

However, as someone who has studied the way language influences behavior, I know that this kind of rhetoric can have long-term effects that are less positive, particularly within health and medicine. In fact, research has shown that these metaphors can cause people to make decisions that go against sound medical advice.

Militarized rhetoric was popularized with the War on Drugs, a term coined by President Richard Nixon in an effort to reduce illicit drug use in the U.S. Since then, the language of war has seeped into our collective lexicon. Were currently engaged in a war against climate change. Some argue theres a war on Christmas, while others say theres a war against truth.

So its only natural that when a new, deadly virus emerges, the warspeak persists.

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Military metaphors arent new to medicine; theyve long played a role in shaping patients relationships with illness. Cancer is a key example of this. The cancer is an enemy, invading the patients body. Patients are told they must fight, that they are at war, and they must be strong while they receive treatments that target those enemy cells for destruction.

The fact they are used so often indicates that these metaphors serve a purpose. Theyre simple and straightforward, helping us comprehend and categorize something thats complex and unpredictable.

But this framing contains a potentially dangerous undercurrent.

Language affects cognition, and cognition affects our behaviors. Wartime language has been shown to alter our behavior and not always for the better.

In war, opposing sides are engaged in a struggle. Whoever survives longest and fights hardest wins. Strength and confidence are commended, while fearful behaviors are viewed with contempt. The World War II poster Keep calm and carry on exemplifies this mindset. The underlying message of the so-called War on Terror was to not allow fear to disrupt our lives. There was a major focus on returning to life as normal, and the return to national pastimes, like baseball, was thought to play a huge role in helping the country heal.

These approaches can appear helpful, but in the case of the coronavirus medical advice suggests physical distancing and mask wearing. Unfortunately, this guidance requires disruption. To stay home is to change your routine, to wear a mask is to appear weak and afraid and to avoid everything that makes up our daily routine is to let the enemy win.

Research shows that military metaphors lead to negative behaviors in other health situations. People may become more likely to take risks, overtreat themselves and be less likely to engage in preventive activities. For example, some people may not want to appear afraid of sun exposure, and this can make them less likely to use sunscreen. Others may continue seeking treatments for terminal diseases despite the debilitating side effects because they dont want to be seen as having given up.

The way war metaphors emphasize strength can also stigmatize those who do become sick: Theyre now seen as weak.

The dichotomy of strength versus weakness implies choice, as though those who were infected chose to surrender. In reality, that which makes us appear strong and confident in a war only works in the context of a battle with other humans. It goes without saying that something like a virus or an illicit drug has no grasp of human psychology, so displays of confidence are meaningless.

Theres also a more insidious element of war-like metaphors that frame public policy initiatives.

During war, the public is generally more open to actions that arent tolerated in peacetime. The construction of Japanese internment camps during World War II and the depiction of immigrants as invaders to lay the groundwork for their indefinite detainment are stark illustrations of this phenomenon.

In the world of research and medicine, war and war metaphors have been shown to contribute to unethical research. The battles against certain diseases have led researchers to violate their ethical responsibility in an effort to win the war for the greater good. For example, in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis experiments researchers justified not treating almost 400 African-American men for syphilis or even telling them they had the disease in order to learn about natural disease progression.

During the pandemic weve seen discussions of health care rationing and the prioritization of some lives over others in a way that wouldnt normally be acceptable. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick openly advocated that older people should volunteer to die to save the economy.

When we describe a virus as an enemy to be defeated, it shifts our perceptions about how to respond to the virus and can cause the public to behave in illogical ways.

As states across the U.S. start to reopen, only to find out the virus continues to spread unabated, these military metaphors could be causing more harm than good. It may be time to change the way we talk about the virus.

See more here:

How talking about the coronavirus as an enemy combatant can backfire - The Conversation US

A Catholic priest and staunch critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte fears he is being watched and could be arrested by the government after discovering videos and photos were taken of him and his congregation by police during a Mass in his Manila parish church. Activist priest, Father Robert Reyes of San Isidro Labrador Parish in Quezon City, said his parishs closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera captured uniformed policemen taking photos of him during his Sunday Mass on July 12. Father Reyes said the discovery was disturbing and had left him fearing for his security and his parishioners. Their behavior was very suspicious. If they were on official business, they should have had the courtesy to ask permission, Father Reyes said in an interview. Father Reyes is known as the running priest for bringing attention to social issues through running. In 2019, Father Reyes together with two other priests said they had received death threats for speaking out against Dutertes war on drugs. Father Reyes openly denounced extrajudicial killings saying they were contrary to the teachings of Christ. Not all the victims of extrajudicial killings are hardcore drug addicts and pushers. Many do not even have anything to do with drugs, the priest said in 2017. We must not allow the killings, the murders to continue. We must not fear and with faith stand up, speak up for the sanctity of all life. We take solace, strength and inspiration from the word of God, he added. Father Reyes has been in the Duterte administrations crosshairs ever since. In 2019, Father Reyes, together with four Philippine bishops and two other clergymen, were accused of sedition and various other crimes. Father Reyes said the charges were a desperate move to suppress dissent. He said it was likely he was under surveillance this time for criticizing a new anti-terrorism law which critics have said contains vague provisions that the government could use to commit human rights abuses. I think what they did [taking pictures and videos] was not standard operating procedure. It is an infringement, a violation of the sanctity of the Eucharist, Father Reyes said. Father Reyes said they followed the guidelines for religious gatherings set out under anti-coronavirus measures with less than ten churchgoers present at the Mass. Elmo San Diego, head of the Department of Public Order and Safety said the policemen did not violate any law and were only conducting a routine inspection to make sure quarantine protocols were followed. There was no need for prior permission. The church is an open and public place. Anyone can come in and observe, San Diego said in a statement. He warned that arrests would be made if proper social distancing and health protocols were not observed in churches. Next week, we will begin arrests, even if they are priests or imams, if they do not follow the guidelines, San Diego told a local newspaper. Father Reyes said that with the new anti-terrorism law coming into effect next week, the arrest of government critics seems likely to happen. San Diegos comments about arresting priests and religious leaders are very disturbing, especially to those religious leaders who are critical of the administration, said Father Reyes. We know how they can easily interpret violations according to their bias and without due process, he added. Support UCA News...

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See original here:

Priest critic of Duterte accuses police of spying on him - UCAN

Published: 7/13/2020 2:14:28 PM

Modified: 7/13/2020 2:14:25 PM

ATHOL The Selectboard last Tuesday approved a host community agreement with a company with plans to open a marijuana delivery business in Athol.

The attorney representing Treevit, Phil Silverman, told the board, Basically, the company is a marijuana delivery service that would deliver from retailers to individuals at their home. This is a new type of license.

If we do move forward, and were able to get a host community agreement, well probably be one of the first companies in the state of its type. Its a little bit unusual. This type of license, for the first two years of operation, is not open to all (job) applicants.

Silverman explained, The individuals that work for (the company) are from historically impacted areas; impacted by the war on drugs and such. The state is really trying to encourage these companies to give them a lift and allow them to move forward and engage in the industry.

Silverman said the board has more experience than most others in the state when it comes to working with cannabis companies and working out HCAs. The one with Treevit would differ from those previously agreed to with retail and cultivation operations.

Youre used to seeing impact fees in these host agreements, usually up near three percent of gross revenues, said Silverman. Thats not something that could really work with a company like this.

He explained further that Treevit would provide delivery services for area cannabis retailers, but operate independently.

This is not a company that buys its own marijuana or grows its own marijuana. So, it just doesnt have the kind of margins that you would see with the other companies where, because the retail price of marijuana is as high as it is, they can really afford to pay a three percent impact fee.

Silverman said another option, based on company revenue, was worked out with the town.

Weve been struggling, trying to come up with something that will approximate what the impacts are on the town, he continued. So, we came up with a structure where theres a base fee every year for five years. In the first year its $1,500, in year two $2,500, for years three, four, and five, the same $2,500.

Payments in the last three years of the agreement could increase if company revenues reach certain benchmarks.

Town Counsel John Barrett said language in the agreement should be tweaked to clarify exactly how the fees will increase with each million dollars in revenue earned by the company.

Town Manager Shaun Suhoski said the town also stands to receive additional revenues.

One of the other agreements in (the HCA) is that any vehicle owned by the company will be registered in Athol, so as the business grows and the fleet becomes extensive, the town will also receive excise tax revenue from the company.

Board member Stephen Raymond posed a question regarding security.

Usually, it would be set up through the retailer, Silverman responded. And there are pretty strict protocols on how deliveries work. You have to have two agents of the company in the vehicle at all times. All vehicles have cameras, GPS devices. There are no stops along the way. Theres a manifest signed before the vehicle leaves the retailer with the product that shows everything thats in that vehicle. He also said identification is checked at each delivery and that recipients of the cannabis must also sign the manifest, signifying they have received their order.

Ultimately, the board voted unanimously to approve the HCA.

Here is the original post:

Athol Selectboard approves host agreement with 'weed-on-wheels' business - Athol Daily News

Bodies are arriving at Anahi Ortizs office faster than he can process them.

Weve literally run out of wheeled carts to put them on, Ortiz, a coroner in Columbus, Ohio, recently told the Washington Post.

The cause of death isnt the coronavirus, however. Its drug overdoses. Ortiz says sometimes his office will get as many as nine ODs in a day and a half. The story fits a pattern emerging around the US.

Nationwide, the Post reports, public health officials are reporting alarming spikes in drug overdosesa hidden epidemic within the coronavirus pandemic. The numbers are grim.

According to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program, suspected overdoses in March were up 18 percent from the previous year nationally. In April, that figure ticked up to 29 percent. In May, the increase was 42 percent.

In many instances, these overdoses are fatal. In Ortizs case, the surge resulted in about 50 percent more deaths than the same period over the previous year.

Its no secret whats driving the overdose epidemic.

The Post says up front that emerging evidence suggests that the continued isolation in recent months are fueling the surge.

The conclusion fits what scientists have been saying about human isolation for years: its deadly. In 2016, The New York Times did a deep-dive feature on the fatal consequences of social isolation.

A wave of new research suggests social separation is bad for us. Individuals with less social connection have disrupted sleep patterns, altered immune systems, more inflammation and higher levels of stress hormones.

One recent study found that isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29 percent and stroke by 32 percent. Another analysis that pooled data from 70 studies and 3.4 million people found that socially isolated individuals had a 30 percent higher risk of dying in the next seven years, and that this effect was largest in middle age.

Loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline in older adults, and isolated individuals are twice as likely to die prematurely as those with more robust social interactions. These effects start early: Socially isolated children have significantly poorer health 20 years later, even after controlling for other factors. All told, loneliness is as important a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking.

The Times article does not discuss drug abuse, but you can add it to the list of deadly results tied to social isolation.

An abundance of research shows that substance abuse and addiction are linked to loneliness and depression. People drink and do drugs more often to cope with feelings of loneliness.

In the bestselling work Chasing the Scream, a book that explores the history of the war on drugs and drug abuse, British writer Johann Hari says human interaction is the key to overcoming addiction.

The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, Hari writes, whose own struggles with drug abuse are chronicled in the book. It is human connection.

This is why recovering addicts will tell you there is nothing worse than putting former users into isolation.

Putting hundreds of millions of healthy people under house arrest with stay-at-home orders to protect them from an invisible, highly-transmissible virus has never been done before.

We dont yet know how effective lockdowns will be (or if theyll be effective) at protecting people from the coronavirus. Nor do we precisely know the costseconomic, psychological, and humanof the lockdowns, though weve begun to see glimpses of them: mass unemployment, recession, social unrest, and psychological deterioration.

Overdoses are one part of that psychological deterioration. Another component is suicide.

One recent study found that the COVID-19 crisis could lead to a 20-30 percent increase in suicides in 2020. Thats about 20 more suicide per day, or about 7,000 annually.

"We know unemployment brings all sorts of financial hardships that lead to emotional mental health issues," Dr. Jeff Gardere, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in New York City, told ABC News.

That study focused predominantly on the economic impact of the coronavirus, not social isolation. Yet the economic impact of COVID-19 stems directly from the lockdowns, not the presence of the virus itself. (Previous pandemics did not result in widespread economic carnage.)

The costs of lockdowns go on. The National Cancer Institute recently published research showing 10,000 excess deaths in the US over the next decade because of diagnostic delays and deferred treatments in breast cancer and colorectal cancer.

Clearly, postponing procedures and deferring care as a result of the pandemic was prudent at one time, but the spread, duration, and future peaks of COVID-19 remain unclear, he wrote in an editorial published in Science. However, ignoring life-threatening non-COVID-19 conditions such as cancer for too long may turn one public health crisis into many others. Lets avoid that outcome.

One recent UK study indicates that more children have died from National Health Service treatment delays than the coronavirus.

Will lockdowns save more lives than are claimed due to overdoses, suicide, medical deferements, and the numerous other costs, such as surging extreme poverty?

We dont know. But considering the weak correlation between lockdown severity and COVID-19 deaths, theres reason for skepticism.

Utility of lockdowns aside, we should ask if government overseers have the right to pick which lives are saved and which are forfeited. As one writer has pointed out, policymakers are essentially playing out the Trolley Problem in real life, gambling that intervention will save more lives than it claims.

This serves as a useful reminder of an uncomfortable truth economist Antony Davies and political scientist James Harrigan recently observed: policies cannot save lives; they can only trade lives.

Good policies result in a net positive tradeoff, Davies and Harrigan wrote in The Philadelphia Inquirer. But we have no idea whether the tradeoff is a net positive until we take a sober look at the cost of saving lives.

A basic axiom of economics is to look to both the seen and the unseen effects of a given law or action, each of which gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects, to quote Frdric Bastiat.

If we focus only on the immediate effects of lockdownslives immediately savedbut ignore their rippling effectsthe economic devastation, extreme poverty, suicide, overdoses, and deferred medical treatments that result from themwe make the mistake of the bad economist.

Such a mistake is not merely foolish. It is deadly.

Link:

The Washington Post Exposed Another Deadly Cost of COVID-19 Lockdowns: "A Hidden Epidemic" of Drug Overdoses | Jon Miltimore - Foundation...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) CBS2 is taking on the hard question: Where does the conversation about race go from here?

CBS2s Maurice DuBois spoke with David Simon, former journalist, author and creator of hit TV shows, about policing and the war on drugs.

I think the demonstrations are necessary, Simon said.

Simon has spent most of his career writing about police in urban America, including 15 years as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun.

I want to start here David with your take on whats going on right now in society, people in the streets, more police killings it seems by the week. What are you seeing? asked DuBois.

The thing that has changed in a profound way and necessarily for the better is the power of the cell phone, of the smart phone, with its camera, with its video camera, said Simon. The fact that everyone has one. The city is awash in visual imagery, in an immediate agency.

Simon is best known for creating the hit HBO TV series The Wire, a drama about drugs plaguing Baltimores neighborhoods thats told from the perspectives of the cops and drug dealers. Simon believes the war on drugs is at the root of the problems were facing today and it leads police to arrest Black and brown men for petty crimes and minor offenses.

A lot of people are saying you know what, people of color and poor people are being over-policed, said Simon.

To the people who say look, drugs are destroying African-American and Latino communities across the country, youre almost saying its a victimless crime. What do you mean by that? asked DuBois.

It absolutely is a victimless crime. Its a medical condition, said Simon. The drug war is effectively a war on the poor. Its a means of using social control on people of color and people in poverty by the ruling class. Thats all it has ever been. Im not here to defend drugs. Drugs do an inordinate amount of damage.

PHOTO GALLERY:George Floyds Death Prompts Days Of Protests In NYC

Where does one begin to attack this at a societal, at a policy level? How do you get at this? asked DuBois.

Most Americans, you know, its not just our politicians, weve asked them to be tough on crime, said Simon. Weve asked them to be tough on drugs. It feels good to us, the notion that we can stop this stuff at the border or that we dont have to treat it like a health concern that it is, that we can arrest our way out of the problem. That feels good.

How much of a role in the greater culture does TV play here? These cop shows, two of which were just cancelled, said DuBois.

Youre asking somebody who did among other things hes done, I did a cop show, said Simon.

A little different, said DuBois.

Well, thank you. I had great fun taking a flame thrower to the idea of the police as being in any remote way the solution to what the problem was, said Simon. The Wire was intended, and I hope we executed well enough, as a critique of the actual mission of the drug war.

Where does the change begin, what does the change look like? asked DuBois.

Well, the change has to be the voters start asking for the right things. They start demanding from their district attorneys and their states attorneys and their mayors and their county executives the arrest rates for real crime, said Simon.

Police are good at one thing. Theyre not good at social work. Theyre not good at, theyre not good at running community basketball leagues. We can hire people to do those things. Police are good at one thing: Theyre good at taking out the trash. And by that I mean the one guy whos making their post, or their district, or their sector untenable. The guy whos shooting people, guy whos raping people, the guy whos burglarizing churches, the guys whos robbing corner liquor stores. Find out who that guy is and arrest that guy, he added.

What do you say to those Americans who are sitting back waiting for this thing to wash over? asked DuBois.

Its only going to get worse. The incidents are not going to disappear. The cameras are not going to go away and were going to be confronted by what weve created time and time again until we transform the mission, said Simon.

Simon also said some of the money from police budgets could be used for other programs. He adds that Baltimore, where he lives, hasnt been properly policed in two generations and crime has actually increased.

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The Hard Conversation: Writer David Simon, Creator Of The Wire, Talks With CBS2s Maurice DuBois About Policing In America: Transform The Mission - CBS...

Todays world is awash with Fiat Money.

Fiat means let it be so.

Fiat money is token currency supplied and regulated by governments and central banks. Its value relies on a government decree that it alone must be used as legal tender in paying for anything in that country. Its value falls as its supply increases.

Fiat money is not new Marco Polo described its use in China over 700 years ago. Travellers and traders entering China were forced by Kublai Khan to exchange their real money (gold and silver coins and bars) for his coupons, made from mulberry bark, each numbered and stamped with the Khans seal. The Khan decreed that local traders were forced to accept them (legal tender). Foreigners got the goods, the great Khan got the bullion and the Chinese traders got the mulberry bark (a bit like getting the rough end of a pineapple). By controlling the supply and exchange rates for mulberry money, he became fabulously wealthy, and his citizens were impoverished.

During the American War of Independence, the colonial rebels had no organised taxing power, so they printed the Continental dollar to finance the war. As the war dragged on, they printed too many dollars, and its fast debasement gave rise to the phrase Not worth a continental. Later, in the American civil war, confederate paper money used to support the army also became worthless. It was widely referred to as shin-plaster, after its highest value use in helping to bandage wounds.

Many dictators over the years tried the fiat money trick, but so many lost their heads or their thrones that it fell into disuse, being replaced by trusted real money such as English sovereigns, Spanish doubloons, Austro-Hungarian thalers and American gold eagles. Only in wartime (or in a COVID panic) are people sufficiently distracted or scared to allow rulers to secretly tax everyone who holds their depreciating pretend money. (Keynesian academics promote this destructive policy for peace time use.)

The last century or so has seen the explosion of big governments and big wars race wars, class wars, world wars, regional wars, the war on want, the war on drugs, the war on inflation, the war on terrorists, the war on carbon and now the COVID world war.

All wars cost heaps of money. They are so expensive that to raise the full cost from honest taxes alone would cause a revolt.

The monetary watershed was the First World War, which saw governments mobilise all community resources to the war effort. Money printing plus ration cards were their main tools. Money creation destroyed currencies everywhere. The cost of the war destroyed the German currency and the replacement papier mark was subject to the terrible German inflation of 1923 which gave rise to the Marxists followed by the Nazis.

Even the mighty pound sterling was fatally weakened, and the discipline of the gold/silver standard was gradually destroyed. The British gold sovereign, first minted by Henry VII in the 16th century, disappeared from circulation at the height of the Great War in 1917. The British pound became a fiat currency in 1931 and silver started to disappear from British and Australian currency in 1945 after the Second World War. Even the mighty US dollar started on the road to ruin during the Vietnam War and gold convertibility was suspended by Richard Nixon in 1971.

We have seen the death of much of the worlds funny money in just the last 40 years. For example, in Peru, one million Intis would buy a modest home in 1985; five years later it would not buy a tube of toothpaste. Brazil had so many new banknotes they ran out of heroes to print on them.

In Vietnam in the 1980s, factories had to hire trucks to carry the bags of dongs to pay the Tet (New Year) workers bonuses. In 1997 in Zaire, it took a brick-sized bundle of 500,000 notes of the local currency to pay for a meal no one bothered to count them. On the Yugoslav border in 1989, tourists foolish enough to change hard currency for Yugoslav dinars got 14 cubic metres of dinars. Dinars can no longer be measured in millions or billions, but only in cubic metres. It had become a cubic currency. These grim records were eclipsed in November 2008, when Zimbabwe suffered inflation of 98% PER DAY.

In this free guide, discover how a currency crisis could drain the supply of circulating cashand how you can keep your standard of living when going through it. Download the free guide now.

Most governments are good at destruction concentration camps, gulags, dictatorships, genocide, mob rule, world wars andthe destruction of sound money. Fiat money is their underhand method of official larceny and few people realise that robbery is happening until it is too late.

Future generations will look back in wonder at modern monetary madness. Words like peso, rouble, rupiah, baht, won, rouble, ringgit, inti, dinar, tolar, ostmark, dong, lira, zloty, cordoba, sole, cruziero, and yuan will join shin-plaster as descriptions of worthlessness. The Euro, Pound, Renminbi, Yen and Dollar are on the same slide to oblivion (the Australian dollar has lost over 90% of its purchasing power in the last 70 years).

Real money is always measurable by weight, such as pounds, grams, pennyweight and ounces of gold and silver, or carats of gemstones. It cannot be counterfeited or corrupted easily. But fiat money relies for its value on the honesty and openness of the rulers.

What is the cause of inflation and devaluations? It is simply loose monetary policy (watering the monetary milk). With the spread of democracy and more violent forms of mob rule, governments try to pretend they can satisfy the demands of the mob/electorate without taxing anyone. Todays Covid cash splash is an extreme example.

Even a monetary fool such as Castro could see what caused Cubas inflation. In 1993 he stood up at a rally and declared: There are nine billion too many pesos in Cuba.

Dictators solve this problem by regular currency recalls. They declare yesterdays shin-plaster worthless and issue a new lot, favouring their cronies, bankers and patrons. Eventually, none of their paper money is acceptable, even with legal tender backing, and barter or a foreign currency like the US dollar gains circulation.

Fiat money allows politicians to secretly steal your savings to fight yet another war on someone or something. Next we will see a war on speculators, or hoarders and calls for a world currency.

UN One-Worlders will not let this COVID crisis go to waste. They dream of one-world government (the National Cabinet writ large) with no circulating cash and mandatory use of digital money (credit card currency). The Climate Alarmists would also like to use a digital money monopoly to promote their war on carbon. They could control and ration what we buy and consume lettuce, tofu, bicycles and green energy only, with no overseas trips and no secret buying of diesel, bacon or beef.

We have already seen the start of their war on cash digital money will join mulberry money, shin plaster and cubic currency in the long history of failed political money. While people are focussed on Social Distancing and Contact Tracking one-worlders are secretly planning to recall banknotes and abolish cash. Then they can ration the money available to each of us each month (cutting it off for white males once they reach their use by date?).

Does anyone believe the Euro would have survived the Second World War? Would the Islamic world or China accept a currency based largely on political promises of an enemy such as the US? Only real money like gold, silver and barter goods are universally acceptable across all borders.

The Euro has been weakened by Brexit and the Climate Wars it will not survive a real crisis. The Soviet Rouble block, established by force and maintained by official counterfeiting, could not survive withdrawal of the Red Army. And the globo-dollar? Never.

Imagine the future of credit card electronic money when hackers or a neutron bomb destroys the electrons backing it. Or when the green energy grid collapses and the swipe-and-go terminals go blank? What will you use to buy food or petrol on the day after tomorrow?

What is the solution?

We should oppose all sly moves to ban cash transactions in favour of the universal use of credit cards on the flimsy excuse that handling cash may spread the COVID virus. Dont let our cash money become the biggest COVID casualty. Swapping paper money for a monopoly of electronic money is a bad deal.

And we should always be free to save our cash and protect the value of our savings by investing in real assets or sound money like gold and silver. No tin-pot dictator, when he fled, took his own currency. For many people in the world, a store of gold coins, silver coins, gemstones or a bit of productive land has allowed them to survive or escape when their government became too oppressive or lost a war, and the local fiat money became a cubic currency.

Regards,

PS:

Learn about the critical factors that affect the rise and fall of the Aussie Dollar. Download your free copy of this special report: Will the Aussie Dollar Enjoy a Post-Pandemic Resurgence?

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The Sneaky COVID War on Cash - The Australian Tribune

A Black Lives Matter march in Washington, D.C., on June 2, 2020. (Julia Nikhinson/The Diamondback)

Views expressed in opinion columns are the authors own.

The past few days have been a bit of a roller coaster for myself and the broader Jewish community.

First, Philadelphia Eagles player DeSean Jackson took to Instagram and posted anti-Semitic remarks which were falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler. Next came Jacksons slew of convoluted apologies, along with New Orleans Saints player Malcolm Jenkins defense of Jackson, as he claimed Jewish people are not Black peoples problem whatever thats supposed to mean. Finally, the fast-fashion retailer Shein decided to sell a swastika pendant necklace. After intense outrage and criticism, the brand apologized and claimed they were instead selling the Buddhist swastika.

Our country is in the middle of a crucial movement to tear down the oppressive impacts of anti-Black racism. Yet that larger movement doesnt preclude us from fighting against other forms of injustices, like anti-Semitism. Its not only possible, but imperative, to fight against anti-Semitism and racism at the same time.

Racism and anti-Semitism have vastly different impacts and origins in this country. For more than 400 years, racism in the U.S. has been both systemic (ingrained throughout wide-ranging institutions) and systematic (intentionally enacted). Its manifestation in the form of slavery, Jim Crow laws, the War on Drugs and the current racially imbalanced criminal justice system demonstrate racisms continued chokehold on this country.

As a form of discrimination, anti-Semitism functions quite differently. Its been played out over thousands of years, including Jewish expulsion from Christian nations, prejudicial behavior and the atrocity of the Holocaust. It can be seen today in the form of ethnic slurs, spray-painted swastikas and violent attacks on synagogues across the country. However, the U.S. simply doesnt have laws and systems which implicitly oppress Jewish people in the same way it does to Black people and people of color.

Due to their experience as oppressed groups, Jewish people and Black people have experienced similar but not equal instances of prejudice that bind them together in the fight for equality. Henry Moskowitz, a Jewish activist, was a cofounder of the NAACP. Jewish individuals were also crucial philanthropists for civil rights groups, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Martin Luther King Jr. led as its first president.

Yet, Ive witnessed social media silence from some of my Jewish friends and family on issues of race and inequality. As someone who identifies as white and Jewish, Ive been fortunate enough to grow up in an area where Ive benefited more from my white privilege than I have been antagonized by anti-Semitism. Thats not the case for every Jewish person especially for Black Jews and Jews of color. But only speaking out against anti-Semitism is harmful for both Jews and everyone else.

Nobody should be picking and choosing which forms of discrimination theyre fighting against. Jewish people need to speak up loud and clear against racism in this country, especially when it trickles into our own communities. Black people and people of color need to speak up loud and clear against anti-Semitism, as such rebuttals often fall upon deaf ears if theres no Jewish person to call it out.

We can, and should, be actively working against all forms of discrimination. In the midst of the larger racial reckoning in this country, calling out other forms of oppression can feel like a distraction. However, its crucial to recognize that fighting anti-Semitism doesnt come at the cost of fighting anti-Black racism. Oppression against one is oppression against all.

Maya Rosenberg is a rising junior journalism and public policy major. She can be reached at maya.b.rosenberg@gmail.com.

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Anti-Semitism and racism go hand-in-hand. That's why we need to fight both. - The Diamondback

Culture Movies

The myth of theaswanghas always been used to bring pesky kids to heel; in this documentary, it is the government that has terrorized the citizenry into obeisance. By ANDREW PAREDES

It feels right that first-time documentarian Alyx Ayn Arumpac should present the spectre of Dutertes bloody drug war as a bogeyman. InAswang, which won the critics FIPRESCI Award when it premiered last November at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the director provides hushed, intermittent narration about the catchall Philippine monsterwhich covers everything from shapeshifters to vampires to the infamousmanananggalas images of bodies sprawled on pavements unspool onscreen. The myth of theaswanghas always been used to bring pesky kids to heel; inAswang, it is the government that has terrorized the citizenry into obeisance.

Not that youll see much of the government in this full-length documentary. No government officials are interviewed, and Duterte himself is portrayed only as an effigy to be burnt. Arumpacs mission is to take you straight to the ground where the carnage occurs, on the streets where the battlefronts in the administrations war on drugs are drawn every night. Or more specifically, as one activist who runs a morgue for John Doe corpses puts it in the opening minutes of the film, a war on drugusersnot on druglords. As per this concerned citizens speech, his funeral parlor once used to process around one corpse a month; in the months after Dutertes ascension to Malacaang, it started to receive around a thousand bodies a day. By December 2016, based on real numbers data, the running total of John Does being brought in had ballooned to 31,232.

The statistic is a sobering one, and fairly anonymous.Aswangdoesnt care to identify its protagonists or provide names to the people whose traumas and tragedies are portrayed onscreen. Thats because the victims of Dutertes war on drugs are themselves nameless. They are the poor huddled in cramped hovels whose faces are taped up then dumped on the streets by shadowy death squads. They are the weeping mothers who lament their beautiful sons murders. They are brothers whose pent-up angeramazinglydoesnt stop them from declaring, I am for Duterte but what they did to my brother is wrong.

Sometimes a case will flare up and ignite momentary indignation, such as the 2017 slaying of 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos, whose dying words to the police were a plea to be spared because he had a test the following day. And it is at Kians wake in Caloocan thatAswangintroduces us to the documentarys putative hero: a precocious little boy identified only as Jomari, who raps with his friends along garbage-strewn estuaries and stages mock police raids using scavenged scraps of wood as weapons. Jomari is another kind of orphan to the drug warboth his parents have been jailed on charges of drug useand so he is left to wander the streets alone, becoming ourde factoguide.

Halfway through the documentary, Jomari drops out of sight, andAswanggains suspenseful mileage on the question of whether both the mythologicalaswangof our collective nightmaresand the metaphoricalAswangof the documentary had finally coalesced and claimed him. As Arumpac and her crew set out to find him, they interview a faceless woman who describes in minute detail her time being imprisoned in a secret cell at the back of a Manila police station, a dank, narrow space hidden behind a cabinet where she and fellow detainees allege policemen kidnapped them and kept them without charges, extorting thousands of pesos from them in exchange for their release.

But, as the documentary points out, neither this bombshell discovery in April 2017 nor Kians homicide the following August were enough to rouse the populations anger, nor put a dent in Dutertes popularity. (An eyebrow-raising radio report once placed the public support for his drug war at 85 percent).

Its a lot to take in, which probably explains why other documentaries likeThe Kingmakerfalters when it tries to shoehorn Dutertes drug war into other topics. There is just so much violence, so much paranoia, so much heartbreak, evenAswangs harrowing 84-minute running time cant possibly unpack everything about this waking nightmare.

But whatAswangdoes right is frame its subjects in impeccable aesthetics. Tanya Haurylchyks stark cinematography benefits from Arumpacs callbacks to Brockas bleak palette in such social dramas asMaynila Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag, and editors Fatima Bianchi and Anne Fabini keep things moving at an unremitting pace. And of course, there is the genius of Arumpacs narrative gambit: theaswanghas long been used to terrorize and lullAswangasks us if we will ever wake up.

Aswangwill be available to stream starting Saturday, July 11, until Sunday, July 12. Visitaswangmovie.com,the films Facebook pagefacebook.com/aswangmovieor the films Twitter accounttwitter.com/aswangmovieat around 6pm Saturday for the link to watch it for free.

Photos from the official website

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This award-winning docu on the drug war is quiet, suspenseful, impeccably-made - ABS-CBN News

Washington football

Regarding Washington could change its mascot, (C1, July 4): I would like to make a modest proposal to defuse the rancor over the name of a football team. Lets change the name the American way. The owner of the team should put the name up for auction. The highest bidder wins, and names it by any name he chooses. Problem solved in true American fashion. If you can sell naming rights to stadiums, then why not teams?

John Johnson, Nederland

Confederate monuments

Regarding Confederate legacy is imaginary and hateful, (A19, July 5): It seems to me that if the majority of citizens in a city want to remove Confederate statues, then they should do it. But after the offending statues are gone, what have we done to make peoples lives better? What if we decided to end the so-called war on drugs and instead treated drug addiction as a medical problem? Instead of focusing on locking people up, we could be helping individuals overcome drug addiction. Often they are struggling financially and they are disproportionately people of color. Im not saying it would be easy or cheap, but it would improve American lives.

David J. Maschek, Sugar Land

Lets be clear. The Dick Dowling statue was removed because it depicted Dowling in a Confederate uniform, not because it failed to meet Richard Parkers artistic standards. Parkers fervor in supporting its removal expanded into an attack on the sculptor personally. Frank Teichs Confederate sentinel was duplicated across Texas, but he was not the personification of the Confederate cause. He accepted those commissions to support his family and did so at a time when most Texans, including those writing for this newspaper, thought such statues were just fine. Didnt like the Dowling statue? What about Teichs base for Hermann Parks statue of Sam Houston? Or his obelisk at the parks reflecting pool? Or our own Texas State Capitol, built by stone cutters hired by Gustav Wilke and working under Teichs supervision. Parkers attack on sculptor Teich was gratuitous and a diversion from the more serious subject of how best to confront racism.

Susan Teich, Houston

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Letters: Let Washington's new mascot go to the highest bidder - Houston Chronicle

Police in New South Wales, Australias most populous state, have seized more than $100-million worth of cannabis in 2020, according to Pondering Pot.

The website, which dubs itself Australias leading cannabis news source, noticed that the police force was frequently sharing busts over social media so the publication decided to put together a running tally for them.

The list is not exhaustive, and is based only one what the force has shared on social media, but it adds up to $100.5 million worth of cannabis. The largest bust occurred last month, when police reportedly seized $22 million worth of cannabis and dismantled 20 large-scale grows.

As you can see, the NSW Police Force has spent more than a bit of time and money tracking down and slightly hindering NSWs cannabis black market, reads the blog.

Didnt they get the fax? The war on drugs has failed. All over the world. And Australia isnt any different.

According to government reports, cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in Australia. In 2016, medicinal cannabis was legalized and in September 2019, the Australia Capital Territory passed a bill to legalize possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use, though the law conflicts with federal regulations that still prohibit the plant.

A 2016 poll from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey found that nearly 75 per cent of Australians do not support the possession of cannabis being a criminal offence.

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Police in New South Wales have seized more than $100-million worth of cannabis in 2020 - The GrowthOp

David BienenstockJuly 13, 2020

Police receive a portion of cannabis tax revenue in most legal states. That's now being challenged by activists and public officials. (AdobeStock)

t a time of growing civil unrest over abusive policing, theres now a growing debate over how muchif anyof the revenue generated by legal cannabis should go to the police.

In every state with legal adult-use sales, law enforcement agencies currently get a significant cut of the action. Just how much of the money you spend at the dispensary ends up funding police varies widely by state and municipality, but in Los Angeles alone the amount easily tops $22 million per year.

Activists in cities around the nation are now calling on public officials to significantly defund law enforcement at every level. And that includes breaking the connection between cannabis tax revenue and police budgets.

That pressure is having an effect. In California, some advocates are calling on lawmakers to stop giving cops a financial windfall from cannabis legalization. In Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler recently vowed to cut off his citys weed-to-police pipeline entirely.

But at the same time, state-licensed cannabis companies are looking to law enforcement to protect their investment in legality.In California, an influential cannabis industry backed trade group continues to push for increased law enforcement, and harsher penalties, to tamp down competition from the still booming illicit and unregulated underground market. But other industry leaders are questioning the move to increase policing at a time when millions across the country are demanding their public officials defund the police.

Meanwhile, police in every state continue to play it both ways. Theyre perfectly happy to get paid to bust people for weed or to regulate its cultivation and sale, even if it means doing both at the same time.

The nonprofit Public Health Institute offered these recommendations in its recent report on California cannabis taxes and police budgets. (Click to enlarge image.)

In 2019, a report by the Portland City Auditor showed that 79% of revenue from a cannabis tax that voters approved to fund drug and alcohol treatment, public safety investments, and support for neighborhood small businesses actually went to the citys Police Bureau.

Thats around $3.6 million per year at a time when the Chief of Police just resigned amid controversy over the forces treatment of protesters and history of racially biased policing, including disturbing ties to white supremacist groups.

Dr. Rachel Knox says that figure should be reduced to zero. Knox, a Portland-based physician who specializes in medical cannabis, is the chair of the Oregon Cannabis Commission, a member of Portlands Cannabis Policy Oversight Team, and a board member of the Minority Cannabis Business Association.

It is outrageous that we are funding the disruption of our own communities with money meant to uplift us, Knox said in a statement. We must end this insult to our communities and focus 100% of those dollars to a health equity framework immediately.

In June, the MCBA, the OCC, and other local stakeholders renewed their call for all cannabis revenue to be diverted away from policing.

On June 9, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler pledged to do just that. A little more than a week later the Portland City Council approved a new budget stripping $2 million in cannabis revenue out of the police budget.

With police budgets coming under scrutiny nationwide, this same debate is now taking place in every city and state with legal cannabis. Its also happening in states that are about to legalize, where the same cops out busting people right now are also lobbying to get a piece of the action once the laws change.

In California, a state where voters passed adult use legalization in 2016, legislators in Sacramento are considering a significant escalation of cannabis enforcement.

The California Bureau of Cannabis Controls latest budget proposal includes a request to create a new 87-member police force tasked with combating illicit marijuana growers and distributors. While a slate of bills moving through the legislature seek to sharply increase penalties for those caught operating in the states still-booming underground cannabis market.

All of the money to fund these new enforcement initiatives would come directly from taxes generated by Californias legal cannabis industry, and some of the industrys biggest operators rank among among the most vocal backers of the bills.

The United Cannabis Business Association (UCBA), a Los Angeles-based trade group, actually sponsored AB 2122, a bill that would impose stiff fines (up to $30,000 per violation per day) on persons engaging in commercial cannabis activity without a license, with that money going right back to the police who make the busts.

AB 2122 will put another tool in our enforcement toolbelt that we can use to limit access to the untested, untraceable, untaxed and often dangerous products flowing through illicit stores every single day, according to UCBA President Jerred Kiloh. The size and scope of the illicit market poses not only an existential threat to the industry, but also puts the health and well being of Californians at risk.

UCBAs Board of Directors includes some of the biggest players in Southern California cannabis. The same group has also threatened to sue Los Angeles unless the city ramps up its cannabis enforcement.

Its easy to understand why heavily taxed business owners would resent competition from illicit operators who sell unregulated and untaxed products at a cut rate. And their appeal to public health is not hyperbole; illicit-market vape cartridges tainted with vitamin E oil directly caused last years EVALI / VAPI health crisis.

But not everyone in the industry shares UCBAs enthusiasm for more policing and harsher sentences as the way to protect both public health and fair competition

The entity that was responsible for the racist implementation of the criminalization laws [should not be] also getting the windfall of the money that is being generated from legalization, said Flojaune Cofer, a representative for Public Health Advocates, which just released a report called California Cannabis Tax Revenues: A Windfall for Law Enforcement or an Opportunity for Healing Communities?

Despite the legalization of cannabis in 11 states (and counting), the authorities still arrest over 600,000 people every year in the United States for marijuana. To put that number into perspective, somebody got arrested in the time it took you to read this paragraph.

Perhaps the police seized their victims money, or car, or home as part of the billions they take in every year via civil asset forfeiture. Perhaps the bust was an elaborate sting operationfunded, planned, and executed as part of a drug task force grant from the federal government. Or perhaps a couple of beat cops assigned to patrol a predominantly Black neighborhood simply decided to find someone to put in cuffs 20 minutes before their shift ended, so they could get paid overtime for filling out the paperwork.

Police, as the frontline soldiers in the War on Drugs, have found countless ways to cash in as part of the prison-industrial-complex. Which explains why they so vociferously oppose legalization every time it comes up for a vote.

But now the cops want to have it both ways.

After a century of waging a racist, cruel, and unconscionable war against a beneficial plant and marginalized peopleand losingthey shamelessly position themselves to get paid on the back end too.

And its working.

To understand how we can disrupt this weed-to-police pipeline, we must first understand how and why it got built in the first place.

In 2010, a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed a statewide cannabis legalization ballot initiativeProposition 19 ahead by 11 points just a month before election day. But the measure ultimately fell well short, with only 46.5% voting in favor.

When the smoke cleared on that stinging defeat, proponents pointed to a well-funded opposition campaign led by local and state law enforcement groups as the primary reason public support cratered in the final weeks of the campaign.

In 2016, those same law enforcement groups once again opposed legalization in California, but this time their counterattack was largely symbolic, and the initiative (Proposition 64) passed easily and became the law of the land.

So what changed?

Lynne Lyman co-authored Prop 64 and headed the campaign to get it approved by voters. She recalled that the decision to direct a percentage of the money raised by taxing cannabis to law enforcement was absolutely part of a successful strategy to diminish opposition from police organizations, as well as a major concession to then-Gov. Jerry Brown.

We were never going to get the governors support, Lyman told Leafly. The best we could hope for was that he would keep his mouth shut and stay neutral, which is what he ultimately did.

During the campaign, we sometimes talked about money going to law enforcement because that polled well among swing voters at the time, Lyman added. Though my personal feeling has always been that the police dont need another penny.

Californias Prop. 64 mandated specific earmarks for the allocation of tax revenue from the legal cultivation, distribution and sale of cannabis. This includes funds for regulation of the industry itself, research into the plants medicinal properties, community reinvestment, drug abuse treatment and prevention, and environmental remediation, plus money sent directly to the California Highway Patrol (to study impaired driving) and local law enforcement.

That last provision proved controversial at the time, particularly among those whod been targeted by the police for cannabis. But Lyman said such a compromise was necessary to serve the greater good of ending cannabis arrests for adults and removing cannabis enforcement as a common pretext for abusive policing.

Its a very different world right now than it was when we were drafting Prop 64, she said. In 2015, not giving law enforcement a slice of the pie was simply not an option. But now its unequivocally time to draw a line in the sand. We dont need the police involved in enforcing legal cannabis. We want unarmed municipal inspectors like every other industry. And police dont need any more funding, they get more than enough public money as it is.

Earlier this year David Downs, Leaflys California Bureau Chief, crunched the numbers on legal cannabis in California and found that in 2019, the state took in about $635 million in state and local cannabis tax revenue.

Given all the various kinds of cannabis taxes collected at the state, county, and local levelall at different rates, and with different allocationsits almost impossible to put a precise figure on how much of that money goes to law enforcement.

But its important to note that in addition to police budgets, significant funding from legal cannabis in California supports a wide range of progressive programs, including:

At the local level, Californias state agencies do not distribute any cannabis tax money to cities and counties that ban retail dispensaries or outdoor home cultivation. Otherwise each municipality sets its own rules.

For example, if you drop $100 on OG Kush at one of Los Angeless licensed cannabis dispensaries, youll be handed a bill for $136, which covers an excise tax to the state ($15), a sales tax to Los Angeles County ($9.50) and a city cannabis tax ($11.50)and thats on top of taxes and licensing fees already paid by the grower and the distributor.

In 2020, the legal cannabis industry will pour $128 million into the City of Los Angeless annual budget: $84 million in business taxes, $30 million in sales tax, and $14 million in permit fees.

All of that money goes directly into the citys general fund, which is then portioned out in a budget approved by the Los Angeles City Council.

Since the LAPDs annual budget of $1.8 billion currently constitutes 17.5% of overall municipal spending, that means at least $22.4 million in cannabis revenue goes directly to local law enforcement each year.

Los Angeles voters created this local weed- to- police pipeline in March 2017, when they voted overwhelmingly in favor of Measure M, which set a licensing structure for cannabis businesses, while simultaneously directing the City Council to create an official Social Equity Program, tasked with developing and implementing cannabis policies that seek to center equity in cannabis policy reform. particularly for low income and minority community members.

But while the city, and by extension the police, quickly started raking in cash from legal cannabis, the Social Equity Program languished due to a lack of funding and political will. Two years after the passage of Measure M, roughly 1,000 licenses had been granted to cannabis businesses in Los Angelesall before the Social Equity Program got up and running.

Then came a March 2019 meeting between local cannabis activists and city officials to discuss the future of the program. At one point, according to multiple sources in the room, the City Council presidents assistant chief deputy revealed that $10 million originally set aside to fund the Social Equity Program had just been diverted to cover a shortfall in the LAPDs overtime fund.

Ultimately, amid a public outcry, some of that funding was restored, but the incident made the citys priorities crystal clear.

A year later, however, things look very different.

As protests against abusive policing continue across the country, Los Angeles recently announced a temporary halt on overtime pay for the LAPD. Meanwhile, the LA City Council is moving forward with a complete overhaul of the Social Equity Programone that would grant temporary approval to all social equity license applicants and limit all new storefront retail licenses and delivery licenses to social equity applicants until 2025.

Meanwhile, calls from within the cannabis industryand from consumers to end the flow of cannabis revenue to law enforcement are steadily intensifying.

According to Lynne Lyman, the best way to turn this political momentum into tangible results is by getting directly involved.

Do not support ballot measures that allocate the revenue to the General Fund, or to law enforcement specifically, she said. Insist on some percentage of the revenue going to a community reinvestmentfund, that would be made available to communities and individuals most impacted by the war on drugs.Build a broad and diverse stakeholder table to discuss and recommendrevenue allocation along the prioritiesyou identifyin that community. And attend and speak at City and County budget meetings to voice your opposition to any cannabis revenue going to police.

Veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock is the author of "How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High" (2016 - Penguin/Random House), and the co-host and co-creator of the podcast "Great Moments in Weed History with Abdullah and Bean." Follow him on Twitter @pot_handbook.

Originally posted here:

Cannabis taxes fund the police. Here's how to change that - Leafly

Demonstrators hold their fists up as they stand near the Emancipation Memorial at Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C. (Olivier Douliery / Getty)

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Though it may feel like a new catastrophe happens every day, the catastrophic failure of our institutions to assure the basic safety and security of marginalized people is a historic phenomenon traceable to the origins of our republic. The pandemic and economic collapse have disproportionately affected Black, brown, and indigenous communities, immigrants, and women. The people who flooded the streets in the wake of yet more police killings of Black people understand that these reverberations are nothing new. Thats why they are demanding a fight not for piecemeal reforms but for liberation.Ad Policy

This moment calls for a bottom-up deconstruction of our oligarchic racial and gender caste system and reconstruction of a just and equitable system. Anything less is unacceptable.

The first step is to understand the unequal power dynamic that allows systems of oppression to persist. Specific and identifiable actorscorporations, establishment politicians, the rich, white people, men, and US citizens each hold varying levels of outsize power and privilege. When they wield that power for their own interests at the expense of marginalized communities, they write and rewrite the rules that create and sustain an inherently violent hierarchy.

Take corporate America. From Amazon to Walmart, the same corporations that now loudly proclaim that Black Lives Matter continue to force Black, brown, and immigrant workers to go back to work in the middle of a pandemic that is deadlier for these communities. They continue to profit from paying poverty wages (and often stealing wages), maintaining unsafe working conditions, misclassifying the status of workers and denying workers their voice and dignity on the job. These corporations refuse to shoulder any of the costs of ensuring their workforces can afford child care even as many children cannot return to school. Instead, the cost and time of that burden falls on families or the grossly underpaid care workforce made up of predominantly Black and brown women. The pandemic has further concentrated the power and control of employersespecially mega-corporations like Amazon and Walmartover workers, smaller businesses, and whole communities. Meanwhile, regulators turn a blind eye to corporate and elite malfeasance, even as we see the proliferation of coercive over-policing against Black and brown communities.

But the power of people protesting on the ground is not lost on ruling powersthose who sit atop our American caste system. Political and economic elites recognize that movements are making an impact and many elites are counter-mobilizing to suppress our demands and further concentrate their power by dismantling our democratic institutions. The militarization and escalation of the police response to the protestsegged on from the White Houserepresent an assault on the democratic principles of free speech and association and bottom-up people power. Republicans have been suppressing marginalized voters for decades. And now, they are moving to delegitimize and defund critical election infrastructuresuch as the Post Office and the need for vote-by-mailthat we need to assure a fair and safe election in November.

We are witnessing a power struggle over the heart and soul of Americas future. While the establishment fights to uphold the status quo of racial and gender oppression, economic subordination, and the hoarding of political power, our communities are fighting for what we need to live a life of dignity just like everyone elsethe ability to go to the doctor when were sick, to provide healthy food for our families, to have a warm bed to sleep in every night, to have safe and affordable care for our children and to live with joy and not fear. Ordinary people of all races, led by the Movement for Black Lives and many others, are engaging in deconstruction of our racial and gender caste system and the reconstruction of a new system based on liberation and justice.

After the defeat of the Confederacy, the United States made the collective choice to engage in the project of radical Reconstruction. Lasting just a little over a decade, this vast experiment was at the core a fundamental redistribution of power from Southern slaveholding oligarchs to Black Southerners. Vital public goodslike public education systemswere created for the first time and financed by fairer taxation to pay for them. Inclusive democratic expansion resulted in Black political power for the first time. Inequality declined and well-being increased to the benefit of allBlack and white alikein that short experiment of a multiracial democracy. In essence, an Abolitionist movement forced a rupture of our American racial caste system. In the words of historian Eric Foner, we rewrote the fundamental rules of the nation and the Constitution itselfthe foundation of our racial caste systemto create a Second Founding.Current Issue

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But power and domination always seek a comeback after defeat. Americas social hierarchy, rooted in a Southern plantation economy central to the countrys system of racial capitalism, reasserted itself with the new racial rules of Jim Crow. This created not only systems of formal segregation, but also the de facto enslavement that comes with debt peonage, indentured servitude, and the rise of the modern prison industrial complex. Powerful political actors remade our original caste system for a new era and century. Think of this as American racial caste system, 2.0.

It took decades of organizing from the 1920s through the 1950s, catalyzed by the Black Freedom movement, to usher in what the late Manning Marable called the Second Reconstruction: the civil rights movement in the 1960s. This brought a formal end to Jim Crow segregation and secured landmark reforms like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (known as the War on Poverty), the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Lets call this Reconstruction 2.0.

Yet, much like political elites at the end of the first Reconstruction, defenders and beneficiaries of racial hierarchy sought retrenchment. The years to follow saw the rise of Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and a conservative political movement, the Southern strategy of racialized dog-whistle politics, the war on drugs and the rise of modern mass incarceration, and an outright attack on public goods, welfare protections, voting rights, and civil rights apparatus. Conservativesand many liberal supporterseffectively recreated levels of segregation, racial wealth gaps, and an erosion of civil rights unseen since before Brown v. Board of Education, or what we might call American racial caste system 3.0. Black leaders in the civil rights and welfare rights movements like Ella Baker, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Johnnie Tillman, and Bayard Rustin saw the work of anti-racism and liberation as bound up in a deeper rejection of militarism, imperialism, and capitalism itself. Needless to say, this radicalism was fought vociferouslyand has since been read out of history by the liberal myths of nonviolent civil rights activism.

As was the case in the first and second American Reconstructions, the broad-scale and wide-ranging Black Lives Matter movement of protests and organizing today is likely the largest movement in U.S. history. This movement that has drastically sped up changes in public opinion didnt arise out of thin air. Like plate tectonics, grassroots and movement organizers have been doing the invisible work of community and digital organizing, political education, reimagining public safety and our social contract and mobilizing people to take action that helped to make this a seismic moment in American politics. It is an earthquake that is upending our foundational 400-years-old racial caste system.

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Andcruciallythe current uprising is unfolding with and alongside other popular movements for racial, gender, and economic justice. The immigrant rights movement, the movement for reproductive health care and womens economic justice, the climate justice movement and the struggles for worker justice in many ways exist in deep allyship with the Movement for Black Lives. And in some cases, the Movement for Black Lives is also a voice for other justice movements that seek to change the social, economic, and political rules.

This intersection and ascendance of multiple intertwined movements is cause for great hope for this moment to lead to transformative change. Mass movements operating across multiple constituencies and practicing deep fusion with each other have an opportunity to usher in what Rev. Dr. William Barber has called a third American Reconstruction.

The blueprint for Reconstruction 3.0 is being defined as we speak by directly impacted people engaged in struggle. Bold ideas for change are emerging from the ground up that, taken together, present a comprehensive vision of liberation for all marginalized people. It is a vision that is about simultaneously deconstructing our centuries-old racial caste system and reconstructing our communities, our economy and our democracy. The objectives of this deconstruction and Reconstruction 3.0 include:

This political project of Reconstruction 3.0 is already underway. There will inevitably be defenders of the old racial caste regime and backlash to the new world being forged beneath our feet. We believe we will win. As the Movement for Black Lives reminds us, its a all hands on deck, no elbows moment. On the superhighway to freedom, while we might be moving in different lanes and at different speeds, lets ensure were all headed in the right direction to emancipation and justice.

Originally posted here:

From Uprising to Reconstruction - The Nation