Rethinking Indonesia’s ‘War on Drugs’ – The Diplomat

Posted on by

ASEAN Beat|Society|Southeast Asia

Can the Global Commission on Drug Policys advocacy help change Jakartas harsh drug laws?

On January 29, the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP), one of the worlds leading bodies advocating for global drug policy reform, will be co-hosting a seminar called Sustainable Development in Indonesia: What Can Be Learned From Global Best Practice in Drug Control? in Jakarta. The purpose of this forum is to open dialogue with government officials, business executives, and civil society members as to potential modes of progressing todays drug policy in Indonesia. The discussion could not be more prescient.

Formed in 2011, the GCDP has advocated for drug policies based on scientific evidence, human rights, public health, and safety, for all segments of the population. The GCDP consists of Commissioners from around the world, including both former heads of states and influential figures from the private sector, with their Secretariat based in Geneva, Switzerland. The current chair of the GCDP is Ruth Dreifuss, the former president of Switzerland (1999) and an instrumental policymaker behind remedying the Swiss drug problem at the end of the 20th century. Other members of the Commission have included Geoff Gallop (former premier of Western Australia, 2001-2006), Jos Ramos-Horta (former prime minister and president of Timor-Leste (2006-2007; 2007-2012), Csar Gaviria (former president of Colombia, 1990-1994), business magnate Richard Branson, and the late Kofi Annan, among others.

The members who are traveling with the GCDP to Jakarta will be speaking on a host of issues, all curated around implanting change to the modern drug policy in Indonesia. Currently, all narcotics are prohibited in Indonesia. The criminalization of drugs has led to compulsory rehabilitation in detention, corporal punishment, forced urine testing, and mandatory registration as means of administrative punishment for those arrested for drug-related offenses.

After beginning his first term as president in 2014, Joko Jokowi Widodo announced the resumption of executions of convicts sentenced to the death penalty, an act that had been subject to a moratorium since 2008 under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The lifting of this moratorium is extremely pertinent to the war on drugs as in Indonesia narcotic-related offenses can also lead to death row. It has happened numerous times over the years, perhaps most famously with the Bali Nine, two of whom have been executed under Jokowis administration. Since Jokowi took office, 18 drug offenders have been executed.

With the recent legalization of medical marijuana in 2019 by fellow ASEAN member Thailand, there is some hope for Indonesias drug laws to change in the not-too-distant future. Furthermore, policy changes in Malaysia highlight that Southeast Asia, a region once synonymous with draconian drug laws, has progressed. However, there are still countries in the region that show regression and use aggressive force against those involved with narcotics. The most troubling case of an intensifying war on drugs is Rodrigo Dutertes Philippines, which has caused death and destruction at unprecedented levels. Some human rights activists claim the war on drugs has seen over 27,000 civilians killed in the past few years.

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

It is still uncertain what the panelists will discuss in Jakarta; however, if past reports are any indication, expect advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty, ending penalties for drug possession for personal use and cultivation of drugs for personal consumption, and implementing alternatives to punishment for low-level, nonviolent actors in the drug trade. All of these recommendations would be a change of course, if heeded by Jokowi and his current administration.

The Global Commission on Drug Policys seminar on Sustainable Development in Indonesia: What Can Be Learned From Global Best Practice in Drug Control? will take place on January 29. LBH Masyarakat and the School of Law Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia are co-sponsoring the discussion. The event is open to the public.

Will Doran conducts independent research and analysis regarding the war on drugs and drug policy reform in Southeast Asia. Currently, he is assisting with research at LBH Masyarakat in Jakarta. He is a graduate of the SOAS, University of London.

Excerpt from:

Rethinking Indonesia's 'War on Drugs' - The Diplomat

What happened to the ‘War on Drugs’? | Other Commentary – Journal Inquirer

Posted on by

Americas War on Drugs is over.

Unfortunately, for our society, the drugs won.

Since its inception, America has been suffering defeats. Filling up prisons with drug offenders and giving stiff sentences, penalties, and fines havent discouraged people from using drugs. Our efforts to stop drugs from entering the country have failed. And illegal substances across the board are more potent than ever.

Though the above illustrates how the battle has been lost, the most powerful display of drugs dominance over our society is the implementation of harm-reduction methods. This ideology accepts that we have lost and utilizes different practices to make the use of narcotics less harmful.

Its Americas white flag, and as we wave it, we see things occurring in our society that would have never been considered during the early stages of the war. Safe injections areas with free needles for IV drug users, decriminalization of illicit drugs, and opioid replacement drugs are components of this effort.

There is a noticeable shift in what these new practices are trying to achieve. Things have changed from trying to prevent drug use to avoiding the consequences of drug use. As our society becomes more interested in stopping the spread of disease and preventing overdose deaths, it is ignoring the core issue: substance abuse.

After fighting a losing battle for so long, something needs to be done to mitigate the fallout of Americas failed War on Drugs.

The biggest problem I see is that harm-reduction might be seen as the only option we have.

As our society moves further away from tackling the main issue, the concessions we make may lead to more significant implications in the future. As harm-reduction becomes more popular it may make it impossible to stop substance abuse from being an accepted way of life. Im afraid thats what we are doing by making it safer and more comfortable for people to be a drug addict.

The existence of practices like this undermines the drug addiction prevention education we have been trying to get our children to utilize from a young age.

Im not against stopping the spread of disease and preventing death but arent we sending the wrong message. We have been telling people that drugs are harmful and to Just say no. It appears that we are shifting to: Just say no. But if you do say yes, we have clean needles and a place to hang out while you inject your body with poison.

It just doesnt have the same ring to it.

The War on Drugs may be over, but we need to find other ways to help those afflicted with addiction. Making drug-use less harmful doesnt help people get off drugs; it does quite the opposite.

As we look to the future, I suggest we create policies and initiatives that focus on drug education and prevention and stay away from methods that undermine it.

Things are bad, but if the evolution of drug use over the past couple of decades has shown us anything, its that things can get worse. Maybe its time we reconsidered how helpful harm-reduction really is.

Marcel Gemme has been helping people struggling with substance abuse for over 20 years. His website is Addicted.org.

Read the original:

What happened to the 'War on Drugs'? | Other Commentary - Journal Inquirer

A Brief Global History of the War on Weed – The Daily Beast

Posted on by

This piece originally appeared in The MIT Press Reader

I want a Goddamn strong statement on marijuana I mean one on marijuana that just tears the ass out of them. By God we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss. I want to hit it, against legalizing and all that sort of thing.

Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States

Before the war on drugs put marijuana farmers firmly in its crosshairs, cannabis was being grown openly and with commercial success on every continent on earth, much as it had been for centuries.

This ancient and extensive history of cannabis farming has given rise to the idea that prohibitions put in place in the mid-20th century were the first of their kinda whirlwind of racial, political, and economic forces that successfully used marijuana prohibition as a pretext for suppression. By contrasting prohibition with our ancient history of cannabis farming, some historians make our modern-day drug laws appear irregular and shortsighted. In his seminal (and controversial) book on cannabis,The Emperor Wears NoClothes(referred to by many legalization advocates as the Hemp Bible), Jack Herer opens with the following line:

For thousands upon thousands of years, all over the world, whole families came together to harvest the hemp fields at the height of the flowering season, never dreaming that one day the U.S. government would be spearheading an international movement to wipe the cannabis plant off the face of the earth.

Yet, while unprecedented in scope, the United States war on drugs was not the first of its kind. The reality is that marijuana has been controversial for almost as long as humans have been farming it. Many societies throughout history have banned cannabis cultivation and use. What many of these crackdowns and prohibitions have in common is social and economic inequality, or a distrust of the unknown. When members of a minority or lower class embrace marijuana use, the ruling class moves to outlaw marijuana as a form of suppression and control. Marijuana is perceived to be a threat to the order of society, and stamping it out naturally begins with a prohibition on cultivation.

As a case in point, the ancient Chinese might have been the first cannabis farmersand, as far as we know, were the first to write about psychoactive marijuanaand yet they may also have been the first to reject it as a socially acceptable drug. The rise of Taoism around 600 BCE brought with it a cultural rejection of intoxicants. Marijuana was then viewed as antisocial, and derisively dismissed by one Taoist priest as a loony drug reserved for shamans.The sentiment persisted into the modern erato this day, marijuana struggles to disassociate itself with the stained history of opium in China.

Muslim societies have a complex relationship history with marijuana. Hashish use spread widely with the expansion of Islam in the seventh century CE, and remains popular today. Early Arabic texts referred to marijuana as the bush of understanding and the morsel of thought.Yet traditional theologians believed Mohammed prohibited marijuana use (the Koran [2: 219] prohibits intoxicants, but how that word should be interpreted is still up for debate). One prominent theologian associated marijuana with the dreaded Mongol empire, and many upper-class Muslims pushed for prohibition, for fear that marijuana use would disrupt the labor force. In the end, some societies tolerated marijuana use or turned a blind eye; others (such as Damascus in 1265) embraced prohibition.

Sufi Muslims took these tensions to the next level. The mystical Sufis believed that spiritual enlightenment could be reached by an altered state ofconsciousness, and a mind-bending drug like marijuana would seem a logical vehicle to reach that state. Sufis believed hashish was a vehicle not only to personal enlightenment but to direct communication with Allah. These beliefs did not go over well with the rest of mainstream Islam, however. To make matters worse for the Sufis, they were often lower-class laborers. That marijuana use was therefore central to a religion perceived to be a heretical challenge to religious, economic, and political order made the plant an easy target for authorities.

In 1253, Sufis were openly growing marijuana in Cairo, Egypt. The government, claiming that Sufism was a threat to society, raided their farms and destroyed all their crops. Undeterred, the Sufis made deals with farmers in the Nile River Valley to grow marijuana on their farmlands. This successful agricultural partnership lasted until 1324, when Egyptian troops raided the countryside and destroyed all the marijuana they could find. For Sufis and marijuana farmers, the situation only got worse. Martial law was imposed in 1378, and this time the authorities destroyed more than marijuana crops: entire farms and farming villages were burned to the ground. Farmers were imprisoned or executed, and hashish users had their teeth pulled.Despite this swift and vicious crackdown, the demand for hashish remained strong. The cycle of cultivation, consumption, and crackdown continued in Egypt for centuries.

Marijuana was then viewed as antisocial, and derisively dismissed by one Taoist priest as a loony drug reserved for shamans.

Islam was not the only major world religion to feel threatened by marijuana. Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal ban on cannabis in the first year of his papacy, in 1484. At the time, marijuana, along with other mind-altering plants, was being cultivated for medicinal and spiritual applications throughout Europe by pagans who were considered to be witches and sorcerers. The Christianity of Pope Innocent VIII, however, was predicated on a future fulfillment in the afterlife, and a rejection of momentary pleasures or enlightenment. The pagans growing marijuana profoundly challenged this premise by promising spiritual enrichment in the present, with a plant grown right here on earth. Pope Innocent VIII thus wasted no time in addressing this existential threat, declaring cannabis to be an unholy sacrament of the satanic Mass. The pagans who cultivated it were persecuted into imprisonment, exile, or death.

Colonial empires, with their unfailing concern for a robust military and hard-working labor force, have often viewed marijuana with suspicion. Though the Spanish were one of the first colonial empires to encourage thecultivation of hemp in the Americas, they were not as enthusiastic about marijuana. The Spanish governor of Mexico issued an order in 1550 limiting cannabis farming because the natives were beginning to use the plant for something other than rope, write Robert Clarke and Mark Merlin in their book Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany. White South Africans, descended from Dutch or British colonialists, passed a series of laws in the 19th century designed to crack down on the cultivation and use of marijuana by indentured Indian farm workers, who were viewed by whites as societal contaminants and a threat to civil order.

The Portuguese empire also struggled to control cannabis. The Portuguese wanted to foster a strong hemp-producing workforce just like those of their colonial rivals, but they considered marijuana a pernicious vice, especially when used by slaves. The Portuguese introduced marijuana prohibitions to many of their African colonies, including Zambia and Angola. Nonetheless, explorers to the region noticed marijuana being grown nearly everywhere and used by all the tribes of the interior, according to a report published by the Transnational Institute.

One reason Portugal may have been lenient on marijuana farming in Brazil is the fact that the Queen of Portugal herself was using it while stationed there during the Napoleonic wars.

When the Portuguese brought slaves to Brazil in the 16th century, the slaves brought marijuana along with them, as seeds were sewn into the clothing they wore onto the slave ships and then germinated upon arrival. Whatever strains they were using must have been well adapted to the Brazilian landscape; marijuana was soon growing from the coasts to the Amazon and everywhere in between.For the most part, marijuana cultivation was permitted during Portuguese rule. But when Brazil gained its independence in the early 19th century, Rio de Janeiros municipal cannabis prohibition started a chain reaction of prohibitions around the country aimed at curbing marijuana use among slave populations.

One reason Portugal may have been lenient on marijuana farming in Brazil is the fact that the Queen of Portugal herself was using it while stationed there during the Napoleonic wars.This wasnt the first time Napoleon Bonaparte was involved in the history of marijuana. Several years earlier, in 1798, Napoleon had launched the French campaign into Egypt and Syria, a large-scale offensive designed to cut off British trade and liberate Egypt from Ottoman rule. After the initial conquest, Napoleon attempted to maintain local support by embracing Islamic culture and scientific exchange. An unusually large percentage of French forces in Egypt (totaling around 40,000) were scientists and scholars, and were responsible for establishing libraries, laboratories, and research centers that went on to make significant contributions in a number of disciplines.

The discovery of hashish may not have been seen as a breakthrough at the time, but it had a great effect on European culture and literary thought. Prior to the French campaign in Egypt, hashish wasnt well known in Europe and certainly wasnt commonly used. The 40,000 French troops stationed in Egypt, however, quickly learned about it. Hashish was ubiquitous in Egypt at the time, bought and sold in cafs, markets, and smoking lounges. Lacking access to their customary French wines and liquors and encouraged by Napoleon to embrace Egyptian culture, many French troops took up hashish.

Unfortunately, hashish was still associated with Sufi mystics and looked down upon by the Sunni elite. After Napoleon went back to France, the general he had left in charge of Egypt, General Jacques-Franois Menou, was a noble-born French revolutionary who married into an upper-class Sunni family after taking command of Egypt. For Menou, the prospect of a hashish ban killed two birds with one stone: It would appease the Sunni elite by cracking down on Sufis, and alleviate a perceived public health problem among the French troops. Theordre du jourbanning the cultivation, sale, and consumption of cannabis, considered by some scholars to be the first drug prohibition law in the modern era, came down in 1800. It opens with the following:

Article One: The use of strong liquor, made by certain Muslims with a certain grass [herbe] called hashish, and smoking of the seed of cannabis, are prohibited throughout Egypt. Those who are accustomed to drinking this liquor and smoking this seed lose reason and fall into a violent delirium, which often leads them to commit excesses of all kinds.

Whether or not Menous order was the first modern penal law on drugs, it largely failed to work (a fact that should come as no surprise to us in the 21st century). Hashish continued to be produced, sold, and consumed widely throughout Egypt, and it came home with French troops when they left Egypt in 1801. It wasnt long before hashish was being widely used in France and the rest of western Europe.

They become ravished by ecstasy, and delivered from all worries and cares, and laugh at the least little thing.

Despite efforts by authorities in Europe to paint hashish as an unstable and dangerous substance,many of the Romantic periods most accomplished artists and writers were brought together because of cannabis. Dubbing themselvesLe Club des Hachichins(Hashish-Eaters Club), luminaries such as Thophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Grard de Nerval, Victor Hugo, Honor de Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas would meet in Paris to take hashish and exchange notes on their experiences.They rejected mainstream attempts to associate hashish with what was regarded as Orientalbarbarism and, through their writings, normalized marijuana use and popularized the Romantic eras bohemian creed:lart pour lart(art for arts sake).

Across the Channel, the British Empire wrestled with the conspicuous presence of cannabis in India. As a native plant to the Indian subcontinent, cannabis could be found growing in the wild by hunter-gatherers, and was likely cultivated by the earliest agrarian settlers. Psychoactive marijuana strains featured prominently in early texts of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Tantrist religions. As the Indian marijuana farming industry matured over time, the harvested product was divided into three gradients, all of which remain available today.

Bhangis the cheapest, most prevalent, and lowest-quality marijuana; it consists of crushed leaves, seeds, and/or flowers, and produces the least potent high. On the other end of the spectrum,Charasis the highest-quality and most expensive marijuana in India. It is sold as a highly potent hashish produced from plants grown in the most desirable cannabis-producing farmlands of the Hindu Kush and Himalaya mountain ranges between 4,000 to 7,000 feet. It remains one of the most revered marijuana products in the world today. Somewhere in betweenBhangandCharasisGanga. A mid-grade crop in both price and potency,Gangais cultivated from well-cared-for female plants, and consists of a mixture of resin and cannabis flower.

One of the first Europeans to write about the Indian marijuana industry was a Portuguese doctor named Garcia da Orta. He wrote ofBhangin 1563:

The Indians get no usefulness from this, unless it is in the fact that they become ravished by ecstasy, and delivered from all worries and cares, and laugh at the least little thing. After all, it is said that it was they who first found the use of it.

The commission found (as its predecessors did) that marijuana cultivation is nearly impossible to eradicate, and argued that it produces no evil results in the first place.

Some 200 years later, the British mulled over the possibility of a marijuana prohibition in India. The Indian ruling class and the British governor-general of India pushed for a total ban, fearful that marijuana would create social unrest. The British Parliament, however, had other ideas. Short on cash, the government saw the marijuana industry as an opportunity to raise some revenue. They taxed cannabis in 1790, and three years later, established a regulatory framework to issue licenses to farmers and sellers.

The tax-and-regulate scheme worked to some extent. But in a vast landscape where cannabis grows in the wild, many farmers and their crops escaped the tax. The British encouraged the regulatory system to decentralize, allowing cities and states to experiment with different taxation schemes. Theresults were mixed. The strength of the black market was frustrating enough that the British Parliament considered prohibition measures in 1838, 1871, 1877, and 1892.But ultimately the measures failed to pass, because the tax revenues that did come in couldnt be ignored.

Temperance movement advocates persisted, however, driven by the evils of opium use which they associated with cannabis. Parliament responded by commissioning the most comprehensive government study of marijuana in human history. The seven-volume 3,500-pageReport of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commissionof 1894 to 1895 called over a thousand witnesses from around the world. The findings emphatically rejected the alleged grounds for prohibition. The commission found (as its predecessors did) that marijuana cultivation is nearly impossible to eradicate, and argued that it produces no evil results in the first place:

Total prohibition of the cultivation of the hemp plant for narcotics, and of the manufacture, sale, or use of the drugs derived from it, is neither necessary nor expedient in consideration of their ascertained effects, of the prevalence of the habit of using them, of the social and religious feeling on the subject, and of the possibility of its driving the consumers to have recourse to other stimulants or narcotics which may be more deleterious.

The commission went on to recommend a tax-and-license scheme for the marijuana farming industry:

The means to be adopted for the attainment of [control and restriction] are:

This may represent the first time in history a government study has recommended a centralized marijuana farming scheme. Comprehensive as it is in other respects, however, the commissions report does not elaborate on this centralization proposal; it merely suggests that the most effective way of limiting supply is to grant licenses for cultivation in such a way as to secure supervision and registration of the produce.

Despite the commissions efforts, Parliaments endorsement of its report was lukewarm. As a result, the marijuana farming trade continued unchanged, with taxation and licensing of cultivators continuing to be hit and miss.Bhangwas informally grown nearly everywhere;Gangacrops were, for the most part, produced on government-licensed farms; andCharaswas importedfrom the Hindu Kush and Himalayas.This basic structure persisted into the global prohibition era of the 20th century. The proposal to centralize cultivation was largely forgotten after the commissions report was published. But a century later, government regulators trying to find their way through the post-prohibition era of the 21st century would come to recognize its advantages.

The history of marijuana farming tells us that when prohibitions are imposed, they almost always come from the ruling class. Marijuanas role as a spiritual, medicinal, or recreational drug of the poor working classes stokes fears among the elite that the political, religious, or economic order that has served them so well may be disrupted. There arent, therefore, many cases where marijuana was embraced by the ruling class and persecuted from below. But the story of the Bashilange tribe suggests that marijuana users can be targeted from any angle.

In the mid-19th century, the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa was a vast wilderness, and it was controlled by the Bashilange tribe. The Bashilange were ruthless fighters, eating the bodies of their victims and enslaving their prisoners. They enacted few laws, save a requirement that other tribes in the region pay tribute to their supremacy or face a certain death. While exploring these lands, however, the Governor of German East Africa observed a remarkable shift in the Bashilanges culture. The tribe had discovered marijuana, and rapidly embraced the plant as a pillar of their tribes identity.

Tribesmen of the Bashilange dubbed themselves the Sons of Cannabis, and soon passed laws to promote peace and friendship. They rejected cannibalism and were no longer permitted to carry weapons in the village. They stopped killing their rivals, and started having more sex. Marijuana was smoked regularly and at most important events, including religious ceremonies, holidays, and political alliances. Formerly known for being cold-blooded killers, the Sons of Cannabis became tranquil marijuana-growing peacemakers.

Unfortunately, their rivals did not share the Sons of Cannabiss newfound love of peace and friendship. Many tribes lost respect for their former rulers and stopped making tribute payments. With weakening support in the region, the Bashilange tribe splintered. The Sons of Cannabis, no longer the fearsome fighters of yore, were overthrown by their fellow tribesmen who yearned for a return to the tribes dominant past. The new regime reinstitutedthe tribes violent practices, and largely returned the Bashilange to its former warring nature.

Jack Herer may have been using hyperbole when he claimed that cannabis farmers throughout history could not have conceived of the 20th centurys crackdown on marijuana. The historical record illustrates that while many regions of the world have tolerated or embraced marijuana farming in the past, plenty of others have seen authorities attempt to exterminate farmers and their crops. Targeting the first step in the supply chain is a logical starting point for prohibitionists, and marijuanas role as an agent of religious, political, or economic change has long made it a threat to the established social order.

Our marijuana-farming ancestors of the past could have told us, based on experience, that when prohibitionists come after cannabis, they will do so in predictable ways. They will use rhetoric to associate the plant with violence, depravity, and other more dangerous drugs, as the European temperance movement did in France and Great Britain. They will use a militarized show of force to eradicate crops, persecute farmers, and dissuade the next generation from growing marijuana, as the Ottomans did in Egypt. They will portray marijuana users as religious extremists or dangerous minorities, as Pope Innocent VIII did in Europe, Sunni Muslims did in the Middle East, or white South Africans did in South Africa. The best-case scenario, they might say, is that the authorities will turn a blind eye to the unstoppable forces of supply and demand, much as the Portuguese did in Brazil or the British did in India.

In telling us this, our marijuana-farming ancestors might as well have been writing the playbook for the 20th-century war on drugs. The cannabis prohibition era in the United States did not invent this greatest hits collection of tactics that prohibitionists have been using for centuries; it simply brought them all together in one place, and injected them with more financial and military resources than any prohibition movement in history has ever seen.

Ryan Stoa is an associate professor of law at the Concordia University School of Law and the author of Craft Weed, from which this article is adapted.

Link:

A Brief Global History of the War on Weed - The Daily Beast

Dawsey: Detroit wants weed, but city officials still are fighting the war on drugs – Deadline Detroit

Posted on by

The writer is a local freelancer, author and former reporter at The Detroit News, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer.

By Darrell Dawsey

The war on drugs has been a failure. For most of us, thats not breaking news.

Even many of the staunchest former drug warriors have long conceded that the reckless, draconian criminal justice policies that grew out of the 1980s and '90s drug epidemics have done little to stop the flow of drugs or eliminate Americans' taste for getting high.

Instead, four decades of moralistic thrashing has left the United States with little to show other than one of the world's largest incarceration rates and the exorbitant costs of a sprawling prison-industrial complex.

Recognizing this, political leaders at all levels and in both parties have begun to rethink policies that led us here. In a new age of reform, talk of locking 'em up and tossing away the key has segued into discussions about eliminating mandatory minimums, ending racial disparities in sentencing, bail reform and marijuana decriminalization/legalization.

Even Michigan got its purple ass in on the act when voters decided in 2018 to make weed legal not only for medical use, but for recreational consumption as well.

Then theres Detroit.

Whose community benefits?

Despite the statewide vote, despite the recent successful opening of a handful of recreational marijuana dispensaries in the metro area, leaders in the city continue to give a middle finger to the majority on the legalization issue.

Related: This Is Metro Detroit's First Recreational Weed Shop, Jan. 21

At no time has this disregard for voters been as starkly clear as this week, when a Detroit councilman and the citys police chief teamed up to put forward dishonest, confusing and contradictorymarijuana policy proposals.

Councilman James Tate, the man behind an expiring temporary ban on implementation of legal recreational weed sales in the city a lawmaker openly refusing to follow the law announced this week he would maintain this prohibition until at least March 31. Never mind that Tate and the council had more than a year to address the matter before legal dispensaries went online. Never mind that the city will continue to lose out on tax dollars legal dispensaries generate. Never mind that numerous enterprising and law-abiding Detroiters, eager to cash in on a multi-billion-dollar legal weed market, are left idling on the sidelines while Tate continues to stall and fake interest in a community benefits regulation that he swears hes looking into in the name of the same people hes cutting out of the game.

Think about that: In one of the blackest cities in the country, an African-American city councilman keeps black entrepreneurs out of a booming legal market and uses the thin veil of support for community benefits to do it.

(Meanwhile, as NORML attorney Matt Abel pointed out in Metro Times, Detroit remains home to 528 bars, 427 licensed liquor stores, and 585 beer and wine licenses.)

As if that wasnt bad enough, Police Chief James Craig, a man whos never been accused of passing an opportunity to posture for TV, came out of his face this week with an outlandish claim that more than half of the murders in Detroit in 2020 have been related to black-market marijuana sales.

Reefer madness

I will be the first to concede the police should have a better handle than most of us on the causes of local crime. But in a city still awash with crack, heroin and other drugs commonly associated with violence, claims that the marijuana market has suddenly become Detroits biggest hub of bloodshed and mayhem ought to be backed with evidence.

So far, Craig has yet to produce any. (And simply pounding a podium doesnt count.)

Moreover, when Deadline Detroit reached out to our law enforcement sources, lets just say Craigs claim drew skepticism, including from some of the same officers on the streets dealing with the citys violence.

You might have people who do marijuana, said one DPD detective, but I dont think (the violence) is because of marijuana.

Asked about the chiefs claim that 60 percent of the citys 2020 killings so far have been because of the black market weed trade, the detective was even more forthright: Its ridiculous.

But this being Detroit, inconvenient truths -- especially about poor folks and people of color -- dont stop public policy shitshows.

Because of this alleged surge in weed shootings, the chief said hell soon be deploying a task force (sigh) to crack down on black-market dealers who carry guns. "We're going to be aggressive about it, while still adhering to constitutional policing," said Craig without a hint of irony.

Yes, James Craig the same chief who treats hyperbolic graffiti scrawlings as legitimate threats against cops, who patrols Facebook for social media posts that bad mouth him, who wants to turn the city into a surveillance state with shoddy facial recognition tech, who openly worries about brutal cops being overcharged by the county prosecutor after beating down people in Greektown wants you to know that, even as hes conjuring up weed-related shooting sprees to justify crackdowns on marijuana dealers, hell still be safeguarding your constitutional rights.

Uh huh.

People have spoken and want to smoke 'em

Or we could just say fuck all that and bow to common sense and the will of the voters by getting on with the business of opening up the legal market. After all, if Detroit were allowed to actually foster a thriving legal market for weed, the underground market would not be such a draw anymore.

"This crime is not being caused by marijuana, but by the prohibition of marijuana," Abel told The Detroit News. "What we need to do is make it available through retail stores, but the City Council has been dragging their feet on that for more than a year."

Tate could still pretend to be pushing for community benefits. And Craig could still arrest all the illegal gun-toters that he wants without tossing a wet blanket on lawful marijuana users.

We all know you dont have to like a law, or a democratic expression of the peoples will, to follow and respect it.

But the last people youd expect to have to explain this to are those charged with making the laws or those who are supposed to enforce them.

Earlier:

Detroit Council Delays Recreational Pot Sales for 2 More Months, Jan. 21

See the original post here:

Dawsey: Detroit wants weed, but city officials still are fighting the war on drugs - Deadline Detroit

The Mormons standing up to Mexicos drug cartels: ‘We have to overcome our fears – The Guardian

Posted on by

After nine women and children were shot dead by cartel gunmen in the barren hills of Mexicos Sierra Madre Occidental, 100 members of their fundamentalist Mormon community fled the country for the United States.

Cousins Julin and Adrian LeBarn lost nine close relatives in the ambush, but they never considered leaving the country of their birth. Instead, they have launched a quixotic campaign for justice not just for their slain kin, but for the many thousands of people murdered or vanished amid Mexicos cartel violence.

We have to overcome our fears and do whatever we can to put a stop to this shit, Julin told the Guardian.

The two cousins nut farmers from the high plains of Chihuahua state make unlikely anti-crime activists. But they hope that they can help persuade others to rise up and pressure their public officials to put an end to the bloodletting.

It is no small ambition in a country which last year saw its highest number of homicides since records began and where mass killings fall quickly from the news cycle. Victims of the drug wars are often seen as complicit in their own deaths, and their families left to suffer in silence.

But Julin LeBarn argues that Mexico has endured enough suffering and has precious little left to lose. People have to experience enough fear, enough pain, in order for them to say: what else can they do to me? He added: Its happened to me.

In Mexico, victims relatives and anti-crime activists often end up being targeted themselves, but the LeBarn clan has stubbornly refused to keep quiet, speaking out against both organized crime and the security policies of President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador.

LeBarn recognizes that such outspokenness is only possible because of his familys binational status: their ancestors moved to Mexico in the late 1800s to avoid US polygamy laws, and almost of all of the clan retains US nationality.

Partly because of that, the massacre dominated headlines around the world and prompted the US president to call on Twitter for WAR against Mexicos cartels.

We have dual citizenship. We have the protection of the FBI and Donald Trumps tweets that scare the bejesus out of some people. Who the hell else is going to say something? he said, between sips of macchiato in a crowded Mexico City Starbucks.

They kill four women yesterday in Ciudad Jurez and tomorrow its not going to be news. [But] they killed three women and some kids from our family and its international news, he said.

But the familys relative privilege, also brings responsibility with it, he argued. Were the face and the voice of those women and everyone thats suffering in Mexico.

The LeBarn family first rose to national prominence in 2009, when they refused to pay a ransom after a 16-year-old from their community was kidnapped. The boys elder brother Benjamn LeBarn led a brief campaign to demand action by the authorities and encouraging others to resist extortion before he and his brother were murdered.

Two years later, Julin joined an anti-violence caravan led by the poet Javier Sicilia who hoped the cross-country convoy of victims would force Mexicans to face up to the devastating impact of the violence.

On Thursday, LeBarn will march again with Sicilia who has called for new peace caravans across the country which will converge on the national palace this Sunday.

The new campaign is itself a bleak indicator of the limited progress successive governments have made towards establishing rule of law. Crime statistics have continued to break new records every year: 35,588 people were murdered in 2019 and some 62,000 people have vanished since the current war on drugs was launched in 2006.

Sicilia confessed that he had never planned to organize another national protest, but told the Guardian: I just couldnt take so many more deaths, especially what happened to the LeBarns women and children murdered in such a repugnant, outrageous way.

Lpez Obrador, or Amlo, promised to end the militarized strategy of his predecessors in favor of a vaguely defined strategy of moral renovation and addressing what he considers the root causes of violence: poverty and corruption.

But so far, his promise of hugs not bullets has proved ineffectual: the massacre of the Mormons came just days after gunmen from different groups massacred 13 policemen and besieged an entire city. Meanwhile a new national security force has focused more on stopping Central American migrants than catching drug traffickers.

Caldern sends in the army

Mexicos war on drugs began in late 2006 when the president at the time, Felipe Caldern, ordered thousands of troops onto the streets in response to an explosion of horrific violence in his native state of Michoacn.

Caldern hoped to smash the drug cartels with his heavily militarized onslaught but the approach was counter-productive and exacted a catastrophic human toll. As Mexicos military went on the offensive, the body count sky-rocketed to new heights and tens of thousands were forced from their homes, disappeared or killed.

Kingpin strategy

Simultaneously Caldern also began pursuing the so-calledkingpin strategyby which authorities sought to decapitate the cartels by targeting their leaders.

That policy resulted in some high-profile scalps notably Arturo Beltrn Leyva who wasgunned down by Mexican marines in 2009 but also did little to bring peace. In fact, many believe such tactics served only to pulverize the world of organized crime, creating even more violence as new, less predictable factions squabbled for their piece of the pie.

Under Calderns successor, Enrique Pea Nieto, the governments rhetoric on crime softened as Mexico sought to shed its reputation as the headquarters of some the worlds most murderous mafia groups.

But Calderns policies largely survived, with authorities targeting prominent cartel leaders such as Sinaloas Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn.

When El Chapo was arrested in early 2016, Mexicos president bragged: Mission accomplished. But the violence went on. By the time Pea Nieto left office in 2018, Mexico had suffered another record year of murders, with nearly 36,000 people slain.

"Hugs not bullets"

The leftwing populist Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador took power in December, promising a dramatic change in tactics. Lpez Obrador, or Amlo as most call him, vowed to attack the social roots of crime,offering vocational trainingto more than 2.3 million disadvantaged young people at risk of being ensnared by the cartels.

It will be virtually impossible to achieve peace without justice and [social] welfare, Amlo said, promising to slash the murder rate from an average of 89 killings per day with his hugs not bullets doctrine.

Amlo also pledged to chair daily 6am security meetings and create a 60,000 strong "National Guard". But those measures have yet to pay off, with the new security force used mostly to hunt Central American migrants.

Mexico now suffers an average of about 96 murders per day, with nearly 29,000 people killed since Amlo took office.

The president has every right to hug people who are attacking him, but he has a monopoly on the use of force and the tools of security, said LeBarn. He has absolutely no right whatsoever to ask any citizen to embrace people that are murdering his family.

He is at pains to stress that he is not an opponent of Amlo, who has twice met members of the LeBarn family since the massacre, and promised that the case will not languish in impunity.

But the familys activism and speculation that Donald Trump might push some kind of intervention against Mexican cartels has stoked a visceral reaction from the presidents most ardent supporters. Hashtags telling the LeBarns to leave Mexico have surged on social media.

Adrin LeBarn, whose daughter Rhonita Lebarn was killed in the Sierra Madre ambush, said he was long used to being labelled a vendepatria or traitor.

Im a nobody over there [in the US] and Im a nobody over here. Im a vendapetria both ways, he said, switching between Spanish and halting English.

Both LeBarns argue that any attempt to confront Mexicos security crisis needs to start at the bottom, unpicking the networks of corruption which have contaminated government at all levels.

And they are skeptical at the idea that any further US involvement could help. If the US were to send a drone to kill [senior Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael] El Mayo Zambada that wouldnt solve a thing, said Adrin.

Read more from the original source:

The Mormons standing up to Mexicos drug cartels: 'We have to overcome our fears - The Guardian

Matthew in the Middle: Whats wrong with America today? – Eureka Times-Standard

Posted on by

If you want to know whats wrong with America today, read the book Tightrope: Americans Reaching For Hope, which also ran as an abbreviated New York Times opinion piece called, Who Killed the Knapp Family by Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl DeWunn. It tells the story of a school bus Nicholas rode in a rural Oregon town in the 1970s, not much different from Humboldt. 25% of the children on that No. 6 school bus are now dead in their 50s or younger, mostly from alcohol, drugs, suicide and/or reckless accidents. Of the five Knapp family kids who had once been so cheery, four have died. Farlan died of liver failure from drinking and drugs, Zealan burned to death in a house fire while passed out drunk, Rogena died from hepatitis linked to drug use and Nathan blew himself up cooking meth. The only surviving child, Keylan, spent 13 years in a state penitentiary. The Knapp family went from a typical middle-class American family to being decimated in a generation.

Among the other local kids on that bus, Mike died from suicide, Steve from a motorcycle accident, Cindy from depression and a heart attack, Jeff from a daredevil car crash, Billy from diabetes in prison, Kevin from obesity-related ailments, Tim from a construction accident, Sue from undetermined causes. And then theres Chris, who is presumed dead after years of alcoholism and homelessness. At least one more is in prison, and another is homeless.

We live in two Americas today. One America lives in the major urban cities (think professional sports franchise cities) and the other in the vast rural areas. Look no further than the 2016 election map. One has careers, not jobs. One has equity and assets, not debts. One has income streams, salaries and bonuses (along with insanely high housing prices and atrocious traffic), not minimum wage. One has employee benefits, not public assistance.

I recently had lunch with a good friend of mine who spent most of his adult life working various union jobs on the Samoa Peninsula. He talked about during the 1960s, 70s and even the 80s the Samoa Peninsula had over 1,200 people working union jobs with living wages, benefits and a defined benefits (monthly check) retirement plan. One by one, the saw mills and then the pulp mills went out of business until Evergreen Pulp Mill finally shut down in 2008. The same decline happened with our local timber and fishing industries.Like many other parts of rural America, first the good-paying jobs disappeared, partly because of technology, robotics and globalization, but also because of political and corporate pressures on unions. Then Congress changed the tax code for a distribution of power and wealth toward corporations and billionaires. Second, there was an explosion of drugs heroin, crack cocaine, meth, oxy and now fentanyl. This was augmented by the aggressive opioid marketing campaigns by pharmaceutical companies. Third, the war on drugs sent many mothers and fathers to jail, imploding families and perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

Working-class towns across America disintegrated because of lost jobs, broken families and depression, magnified by alcohol and drugs. The suffering was invisible to those at the top, but the results were brutally evident for all to see. Open your eyes next time youre driving around Old Town, Downtown or on Broadway. Since 1988, American schools have become increasingly segregated by race and wealth. Children in lower income school districts perform on average four grade levels behind those in wealthy districts. One in seven children dont graduate from high school and one in seven children lives with a parent suffering from substance abuse. Suicides are at their highest rate since World War II. More than 7 million Americans have suspended drivers licenses for failure to pay child support or court-related debt, meaning they may not reliably show up for work.

The sad thing is those at the lower income strata who voted for Trump, hoping he would rescue them. However the number of children without health insurance has increased by more than 400,000 under the Trump Administration. If you havent figured out yet, Trump is not the answer. He couldnt give a rats ass about those 20% of Americans at the bottom of society. Say what you want about President Trump, however he understands one simple fact: A sociopath beats a socialist every day of the week and twice on Sundays. My biggest fear this November.

Matthew Owen resides in Eureka, and believes the First Amendment allows for free speech, even when married to a Humboldt County supervisor.

Originally posted here:

Matthew in the Middle: Whats wrong with America today? - Eureka Times-Standard

Cannabis experts are hoping 2020 will be the year that New York finally legalizes weed – MarketWatch

Posted on by

Cannabis advocates are cautiously optimistic that 2020 will be the year that New York state finally legalizes marijuana for adult recreational use, marking a milestone for the legal business.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has included legalization in his budget proposal for the new fiscal year, projecting it could generate $20 million in revenue in fiscal 2021, growing to $63 million by fiscal 2022 and $188 million by fiscal 2025.

Passage of such legislation is not a sure thing, however.

A similar effort last year fell apart when lawmakers were unable to agree on the details, specifically the correct measures to ensure that the communities that were disproportionately punished during the 40 year long U.S. war on drugs would benefit from a new legal industry.

Crystal Peoples-Stokes, a Democrat from Buffalo who is New York state Assembly Majority Leader and pro-legalization, welcomed Cuomos proposal.

However, the only legislation that I can support will include a statutory commitment of significant resources directed to communities harmed by mass incarceration resulting from the so called war on drugs, and a robust economic and social equity plan for access to the new industry, she told MarketWatch in emailed comments.

Read also: Marijuana companies are bad at forecasting, analyst says

Cuomo is taking a different approach this year with plans to create a new Office of Cannabis Management to specialize in cannabis regulation and create the framework for medical, adult-use and hemp programs.

Central to the plan are provisions to ensure social equity licensing opportunities. Sales will be restricted to adults of 21 years of age and older and quality controls will be used to ensure the safety and potency of products, including labeling, packaging, advertising and testing.

See: Shorting cannabis stocks was a billion-dollar idea in 2019

These efforts will be done in coordination with neighboring states Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Cuomo said in a statement. Further plans include the creation of a Global Cannabis and Hemp Center for Science, Research and Education with SUNY and other partners.

Experts agree that the time is ripe for New York to fully legalize the drug with public support at an all-time high. A Siena College poll released on Monday found voters in favor of legalization by a 58% to 38% margin, the highest level yet recorded by Siena.

Rob DiPisa, co-chair of the Cannabis Law Group at law firm Cole Schotz, said hes hopeful but also a bit skeptical about a deal being done. Its the same lawmakers and the same issues, he said.

Still, the states $6 billion budget deficit may persuade some skeptics of the need to create a new revenue source and taking a unified approach with other legislatures may also act as a catalyst, he said.

Read: Cannabis stocks rocked as FDA warning undermines case for CBD investments

Cannabis alone cant plug all the deficits, but it can be part of a cocktail of revenue generation, he said. And working with neighboring states makes sense to ensure the tax structures are similar and discourage cross-border buying that would sees states compete for revenue.

Coming a little late to the cannabis party 11 states and the District of Columbia have already passed laws legalizing recreational cannabis use gives New York the advantage of learning from others, said DiPisa.

They are taking some social equity measures from Illinois. So far, no state has got everything right, he said. Illinois started legal sales of cannabis on Jan. 2.

See: Drakes attempt to trademark Canadas weed warning label hits a stop sign

Then there is the thorny issue of taxation.

Cuomo is proposing three levels of taxes, starting with a 20% tax on the sale of product to a retailer. Cultivators would be taxed at the rate of $1 per dry weight gram for flower, at 25 cents per dry weight gram of cannabis trim, and at 14 cents per gram of wet cannabis. Local counties or cities with a population of 1 million or more would be entitled to another 2% sales tax.

As California companies know all too well, high taxes can have the effect of truly crippling the nascent sector as it makes it all but impossible for companies to compete with the black market, which continues to dominate in the Golden State.

A recent report by Boulder, Colorado-based BDS Analytics and San Francisco-based ArcView Market Research found that about 80% of cannabis transactions in California are black-market deals, eating into the revenue available to legal players.

A slow and complex licensing process in California has also meant fewer store openings than expected, further exacerbating the problem. Companies unable to access the market are now running out of money, and many are laying off staff, cutting costs and getting creative with fundraising.

Read now: U.S. pot retailer MedMen says its trying to use stock to pay its bills amid cannabis industrys cash crunch

Related: Cannabis companies are having a horrible summer as scandals mount and stocks slide

The situation is almost as dire in Canada, the first G-7 country to legalize weed for adult use in October of 2018. Canadian companies have also suffered from a slower-than-expected rollout of retail stores that has allowed the black market to thrive. MKM analyst Bill Kirk said the stubborn price gap between legal and illicit weed is encouraging Canadians to use the black market. The average legal price in the fourth quarter was C$10.30 ($7.83) a gram in the legal market versus C$5.74 a gram in the illicit market.

Cristina Buccola, founder of Cristina Buccola Counsel PLLC and a former general counsel at publication High Times, said taxation is key. If its too high, it shuts down the industry before it begins.

But its also important how tax revenue is spent and Buccola would prefer to see a plan to reinvest some of the money raised in services for the very communities that were devastated during the years of prohibition.

Plenty of people who have been negatively affected by prohibition might not want a license, for example, she said. But they might want to work on mental health issues, or job training. Thats the kind of community reinvestment we need to see.

Buccola agreed that addressing New Yorks enormous illicit market is a challenge, but a key factor in creating a viable industry. Its about bringing the actors from the legacy market over to the legal market and that will take time. We need to ask what services those people need to make that change.

See: Aphria stock slides on weaker-than-expected earnings, but other cannabis shares shine

Whatever happens in 2020, experts agree that New York is a major market for the industry and bringing in New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania at the same time would be a big move forward.

Those are monster markets and we already have Massachusetts, said Korey Bauer, portfolio manager at the Cannabis Growth Fund from Foothill Capital Management. It would be a big step forward to descheduling at the federal level.

The ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF MJ, -4.65% has fallen 40% in the last 12 months. The S&P 500 SPX, -0.90% has gained 26% in the same time frame, while the Dow Jones Industrial DJIA, -0.58% has gained 19%.

Cannabis Watch: For all of MarketWatchs coverage of cannabis companies: Click here

Read the original:

Cannabis experts are hoping 2020 will be the year that New York finally legalizes weed - MarketWatch

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on Federal Cannabis Reform Policies and the War on Drugs – Cannabis Now

Posted on by

Cannabis reform is one of the hot topics in the upcoming 2020 elections. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is the Democratic representative for Hawaiis 2nd Congressional District and one of the partys presidential hopefuls. Since 2017, Rep. Gabbard has introduced multiple bills to remove cannabis from Schedule 1, including the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act and the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act to end federal cannabis prohibition and provide clemency to those affected by the war on drugs.

Rep. Gabbard will be speaking via Skype at the International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco, February 6-7.

Cannabis Now: What do you believe to be the biggest hurdlepreventing the end of federal cannabis prohibition?

Rep. Gabbard: Simply a lack of political will. In 2017, I introduced the first-ever bipartisan bill that would end the federal prohibition of marijuana by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act. Unfortunately, Congressional leadership at the time blocked us from getting a hearing on this important legislation, despite having nearly 10 percent of the Members of the House as co-sponsors and growing support from the public. But times have changed.

We are seeing more bipartisan support for an end to prohibition, as well as other related marijuana bills on the floor. 61 percent of Americans support legalization, and 31 states have legalized cannabis. My Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act passed the House Judiciary Committee with a bipartisan 24-10 vote, and now awaits consideration by the full House.

Why is ending federal cannabis prohibition so important toyou?

Our archaic marijuana policies based on stigma andoutdated myths have been used to wage a failed war on drugs. The so-calledWar on Drugs has exhausted our law enforcement resources, burdened ourcriminal justice system, decimated communities, fractured families, and turnedeveryday Americans into criminals. Over-criminalization and mass incarcerationhave become the new norm. And rather than treating addiction to opioids andother drugs as a healthcare issue, we arrest and jail those who need help.

Our current criminal justice system favors the rich and powerful and punishes the poor putting people in prison for smoking marijuana, while allowing corporations like Purdue Pharma, who are responsible for the opioid-related deaths of thousands of people, to walk away scot-free with their coffers full. We have a system that is allowing Big Pharma to aggressively push these highly addictive drugs, knowing how addictive they are, we have doctors who are not being held accountable for their irresponsible treatment. By decriminalizing marijuana and helping addicts rather than jailing them, we will create a fairer, more ethical criminal justice system and cut our prison populations by 50 percent.

In Congress, I have introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act, which would remove marijuana from the Federal Controlled Substances list and allow states the freedom to regulate marijuana without federal interference. I have also introduced The Marijuana Data Collection Act, which would study the effects of state legalized medicinal and non-medicinal marijuana programs on state revenues, public health, substance abuse and opioids, criminal justice and employment.

Ive introduced the Opioid Crisis Accountability Act, which would hold big pharma accountable for distributing and pushing these highly addictive drugs on the American people. I have also cosponsored legislation to work with communities to respond to this devastating opioid crisis by providing grants, education, outreach, prevention, and treatment services.

As President, I will work to end the present hypocritical drug policies that hurt rather than help the American people and reward the reckless greed of Big Pharma and the drug lobby. We must end the failed war on drugs and end the federal marijuana prohibition, pardon those convicted of minor possession charges and expunge past records. And we need to reform our drug laws and treat drug addiction as a healthcare issue, not a criminal justice issue.

What inspired you to lead the charge for reintroducingH.R.1588 Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2019?

Our archaic and outdated marijuana laws are turningeveryday Americans into criminals. Every day, the economic and social impactsof marijuana prohibition are having devastating effects on communities acrossthe country.

Millions of Americans have fallen victim to the failed Waron Drugs, tearing families apart, disproportionately harming minoritycommunities, and overcrowding an already strained prison system. Marijuana useis a personal choice and should not be a criminal act. For many years I haveworked to end the marijuana prohibition and am proud to push this legislationforward that will begin to right the wrongs of the past and invest incommunities who have been most harmed.

We must pass the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act to ensure that marijuana consumers and state-licensed marijuana businesses are protected from undue federal interference. It will help reduce the strain on our criminal justice system, amend federal law to agree with cannabis changing cultural status, recognize the plants therapeutic benefits, and reduce contradictions and confusion between federal and state marijuana laws.

Hawaii will become the 26th state to decriminalize possession of cannabis on January 11, 2020. Whats your position on legalizing recreational use in the state?

Momentum is headed in the right direction. I think that we are only going to see more progress being made. There are some incremental cannabis reforms in the state, such as a bill that lawmakers approved last year to add opioid addiction as a medical marijuana qualifying condition, however, this was vetoed by Governor David Ige. Even in a state like Hawaii, if you look back to the governors statements about why he vetoed that bill, there are still a lot of myths and outdated information and stigma that are being used as excuses to not push forward these very impactful policy changes.

So that is one of the main reasons that is spurring my bill, the Marijuana Data Collection Act, to be able to provide this from the National Academy of Sciences as an undisputed collection of data and studies saying you cant dispute this. The purpose of this legislation is to collect and synthesize relevant data and to generate a federally recognized, neutral report regarding the impact of statewide marijuana legalization schemes. Such a report will assure that federal discussions and policies specific to this issue are based upon the best and most reliable evidence available at this time. We cant afford to wait given the devastating negative impact it is having on the people of this country.

As a retired combat veteran, what are your thoughts onveterans not having access to cannabis through the VA?

Many dont realize that even in states where cannabis has been legalized, veterans are still prohibited from accessing it through their VA medical benefits. Thats one reason why I introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act to remove marijuana from the Federal Controlled Substances list. There are so many states that show and prove in their statistics that for those who have legalized medical cannabis, or adult-use cannabis, there has been a direct correlated drop in opioid addiction and opioid-related deaths. In Hawaii, in 2018, there was overwhelming bipartisan support for a bill that was passed that would allow those who are addicted to opioids to qualify for medical cannabis in our state. The governor vetoed this bill that passed with overwhelming support. The reason that he gave was theres just no data to prove that medical cannabis will help someone who is addicted to opioids. I got so angry because I know people whose lives have been saved because they were able to get off of those opioids and they had access to medical cannabis, they found a path towards recovery and towards a new lease on life.

At the federal level, weve got todo our job to deschedule marijuana completely, but also see that samereflection in the laws that are being passed in our states. Ive introducedlegislation in Congress to support research within the VA called the MarijuanaData Collection Act that commissions the National Academy of Science, a neutralfederal agency, to collect data and information from states like Hawaii andNevada and California and Colorado and others that have passed laws to legalizecannabis in one level or another to provide an undisputed set of facts, statistics,and information that would counter the misinformation and myths that are sooften used to strike down laws that would help open up access to medicalcannabis. It is our nations responsibility to ensure that our veterans receivethe care, services, and benefits theyve earned and deserve and that includesthe ability to choose cannabis as a treatment instead of addictive opioids.

What is your position on reform for those most damaged bythe war on drugs and prohibition?

We need to provide clemency andpardon those who have been unfairly sentenced due to archaic marijuanapolicies, especially to those who have only been convicted of minor possessioncharges. As President, I will use clemency to release 25,000 people during myfirst term, and reform our criminal justice system so that no American willhave to go through years in prison and have their family torn apart for simplypossessing or smoking marijuana. I will reform mandatory minimum sentencing,the unfair cash bail system, implement sentencing reforms, improve prosecutortraining, re-classify drugs with proven medicinal benefits, and removemarijuana from the Federal Controlled Substances list.

Our archaic marijuana policies disproportionately affect communities of color, as does our entire criminal justice system. In Congress, I have introduced legislation to decriminalize marijuana. I am also a co-sponsor of the Marijuana Justice Act of 2019, which reforms unjust federal marijuana laws, and empowers minority communities that have been the most impacted by this failed War on Drugs.

The Marijuana Justice Act of 2019 removes marijuana and THC from Schedule I drugs, eliminates criminal penalties for those who import, export, manufacture, distribute, or possess marijuana. It also provides grants to reinvest in those communities who have been most largely impacted by the war on drugs in particular, communities of color. These grants provide job training, health education services, covering expenses related to expungement of convictions, investing in community centers and other public services.

As President, I will grant clemencyand expunge records of those who have been unfairly sentenced by marijuanalaws, invest in and redress communities of color who have been indiscriminatelyimpacted by the War on Drugs, and treat addiction as the public health crisisthat it is, not a criminal justice issue.

To hear Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and other industry leaders share their thoughts about domestic and international cannabis industry opportunities, while networking with entrepreneurs and lawmakers from all over the world, make sure youre at the International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco, February 6-7.

TELL US, what do you think of Rep. Tulsi Gabbards cannabis policies?

See the original post:

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on Federal Cannabis Reform Policies and the War on Drugs - Cannabis Now

MLK and the Black Misleadership Class – Florida Courier

Posted on by

ADVERTISEMENT

The birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is commemorated each year at thousands of events in literally every U.S. city.

Yet, the martyred human rights leaders political philosophy is totally absent from the agenda of todays Black Misleadership Class, a grasping cabal of hustlers and opportunists that have grown fat and infinitely corrupt through their collaboration with the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.

Their freedom train was the Democratic Party, the half of the corporate electoral duopoly that allowed colored folks to ride as first-class passengers as long as they didnt question the schedule or the destination.

The budding Black misleaders hopped on board the Democratic Party express to the boardrooms of corporate power at about the same time that Dr. King was making his definitive break with the evil triplets infernal machinery, including both corporate parties.

In his April 4, 1967 Beyond Vietnam A Time to Break Silence speech at New York Citys Riverside Church, Dr. King burned his bridges with the nations top Democrat, despite President Lyndon Johnsons indispensable role in pushing civil and voting rights and anti-poverty bills through Congress and championing an affirmative action rationale that as spelled out in his 1965 speech at Howard University was a principled endorsement of reparations for crimes committed against Black people by the U.S. society and state.

Johnson went further than any previous U.S. president in acknowledging Black American citizenship rights and grievances, even as the Republican half of the electoral duopoly was preparing to assume the role of White Mans Party through Richard Nixons Southern strategy.

Yet Dr. King, a proponent of peace and democratic socialism, understood that the way to the Promised Land was not through Black collaboration with the evils inherent in capitalism and its ceaseless, predatory wars. I have come to believe that we are integrating into a burning house, King told his friend, Harry Belafonte.

By 1967, Vietnam War was consuming the promises of Johnsons Great Society. America was undeniably the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, King declared. The U.S. had already killed a million Vietnamese, mostly children, but it was also a war on Americas poor.

I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube, King told the crowd at Riverside. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. That meant breaking with the Democrats and their president.

More importantly, in his Riverside speech Dr. King framed the Vietnamese as engaged in a righteous struggle to complete their long quest for sovereignty and independence. King broke with imperialism, the consummate expression of the all three triple evils. So they killed him the next year.

The National Security State, the protector of the capitalist order to which both parties are beholden, then proceeded to crush the Black movement to the left of Dr. King most fiercely in the Gestapo-like assault on the self-determinationist and staunchly anti-imperialist Black Panther Party in the bloody year of 1969.

By 1970, the Black Radical Tradition lay mostly in the graveyard, and the way was clear for the Black Misleadership Class to monopolize Black politics on behalf of their corporate overseers.

The rise of the almost entirely Democrat-allied Black Misleadership Class is perfectly coterminous with construction of the Black Mass Incarceration State.

The New Jim Crow was a bipartisan project, initiated under Democrat Lyndon Johnsons Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which vastly increased the manpower and funding for local police departments, and was put on hyper-drive by Republican President Richard Nixons War on Drugs a War on Blacks that never ended, but was re-declared by Republican President Reagan and reinforced by Democrat President Bill Clinton.

At the local level, the exponential growth of the Mass Black Incarceration regime was administered by increasingly Black city governments, which oversaw and processed the deportation of millions of Black men, women and children to the Prison Gulag. Virtually all of these Black operatives of race and class oppression are Democrats. And all of them are celebrating their own political ascension as the wondrous outcome of Dr. Kings dream.

By 2014, 80 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus was voting to continue the Pentagon 1033 program that funnels billions of dollars in military weapons and gear to local police departments. Four years later, 75 percent of the Black Caucus voted to make police a protected class and assault on cops a federal crime.

Although the Black misleaders were quick to join the domestic war on the Black poor, African American public opinion remained war-averse, skeptical of U.S. motives on foreign shores. In 2003, only four Black members of Congress backed George Bushs invasion of Iraq.

But the advent of the Black Democratic president a misleader par excellence gave much of the Black Caucus a free pass to play warmonger. Half of the Blacks in Congress voted to continue the bombing and regime change in Libya, an African nation, in the summer of 2011. None of the Caucus has raised serious objections to the U.S.-aided slaughter of more than six million Congolese under Presidents Clinton (Dem.), Bush (Rep.), Obama (Dem.), and Trump (Rep.). The American military occupation of much of the African continent through AFRICOM is a non-issue among the Black misleaders.

RUSSIA!!! on the other hand, is an existential threat to our democracy, say the Black Democrats, who are eager to pledge their allegiance to the same CIA and National Security State that assassinated Patrice Lumumba, murdered Malcolm, King and scores of Black Panthers, and worked hand in glove with White-ruled South Africa to kill thousands of freedom fighters across the continent.

The Black misleaders are as silly as they are shameless, but they are not ineffectual. No White man could eviscerate Dr. Kings radical legacy, or make Malcolm X appear harmless to the imperial order thats a job for the Black Misleadership Class.

While Dr. King rejected an alliance with the triple evils, Black Democratic misleaders describe their deal with the Devil as smart, strategic politics. They whip up war fever against small, non-White nations that seek only the right to govern themselves, behaving no differently on the world scene and sometimes worse than Donald Trump. They shame and weaken Black America, and have joined the enemies of life on Earth.

King would shake his head, mournfully. Malcolm would keep his tight smile, doggedly. Then both would organize to expose and depose the Black Misleadership Class.

Glen Ford is executive editor of BlackAgendaReport.comEmail him at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

See the original post:

MLK and the Black Misleadership Class - Florida Courier

New ya ba ‘brand’ detected in North – The Phuket News

Posted on by

CHIANG RAI: Authorities say a new drug production gang may be emerging along the countrys northern border, following the seizure of 1.7 million methamphetamine pills.

Soldiers display seized speed pills during a media briefing in Chiang Rai yesterday (Jan 25). Three men are in custody. Photo: Chinnapat Chaimol

The packages containing the ya ba pills bore an eagle logo, which law enforcement officials have not seen before, according to Col Chatree Sa-nguantham of the Pha Muang task force.

Three young men were arrested in an operation carried out by soldiers from the task force in Muang district of Chiang Rai on Friday (Jan 24) night.

The soldiers were deployed to the Nong Bua reservoir in tambon Bandu at around 10:30pm on Friday following a tip-off that illicit drugs were going to be smuggled from the border area in Mae Sai district to an area near the reservoir.

They later spotted a white Toyota Innova with Bangkok licence plates parked near the reservoir, with three men standing nearby. The soldiers asked to conduct a search and found 13 sacks inside.

The sacks contained 1.7 million speed pills and the three men were arrested, Col Chatree said yesterday (Jan 25).

The suspects were identified as Apirak Homros, 26, of Sankhaburi district in Chai Nat; Takeshi Shinoda, 23, of Mae Taeng district in Chiang Mai; and Sarawut Jariyakitwanchai, 26, of Wiang Chai district in Chiang Rai. The trio were handed over to the Bandu police station for legal action.

Col Chatree said one of the suspects was a Thai-Japanese national as his father was a Japanese.

Wa State in Myanmar has long been known as a key methamphetamine producing area in Southeast Asia. It is the hub of an ever-expanding production and export enterprise that is now finding more markets beyond Southeast Asia.

Ample supplies have worsened the regional methamphetamine epidemic, as it now costs as little as 40 baht to buy a ya ba pill in Bangkok. Thats down from 200-300 baht a few years ago, and is about the same price as when former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched his bloody war on drugs in 2003.

The scale of the problem in Thailand alone is enormous. The number of methamphetamine tablets seized in 2018 in the country - 515 million - exceeded the combined seizures reported from all countries in the region in any preceding year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

See original here:

New ya ba 'brand' detected in North - The Phuket News

‘Bath Salts’ Feel Like a Drug From the PastBut They’re Still Wreaking Havoc – VICE

Posted on by

When a group of powerful, legal stimulants burst onto the drug scene in the UK and U.S. a decade ago, they caused a media frenzy.

In Britain, mephedrone came virtually out of nowhere in 2009 to become a hugely popular drug with university students, clubbers and rural teenagers. Dubbed "meow meow" by newspapers and sold online as plant food, it was the killer drug that made people rip off their own scrotums. Yet behind the hype, to young people using it, the drug ticked all the boxes: it was legal, it got you very high and you didnt have to buy it from a street dealer. You could buy it online and get it delivered to your front door in 24 hours.

Meanwhile in the U.S., mephedrone and other synthetic cathinones such as methylone and MDPVsome of which were sold as bath saltsand later alpha-PVP, which became known as "flakka," became popular. Some of these drugs were either mixed in with, or replaced, the MDMA that fueled the EDM scene. Others inspired media coverage around their alleged ability to turn people into flesh-eating zombies (though it was later discovered that particular attacker had only used weed).

But then these drugstechnically called synthetic cathinonesvanished from the mainstream. Synthetic cathinones were banned in the UK and U.S. in 2010 and 2011, swiftly removing their unique selling point as a legal hit. Meanwhile, the purity of the drugs they were designed to replicate, such as MDMA and cocaine, had begun to rise. Cathinones fell out of favor with most users and dealers. Instead they went underground in the UK and U.S., used in the main by much smaller, more socially excluded populations, such as the street homeless and long-term drug injectors, as well as in chemsex scenes.

While synthetic cathinones are mainly drugs of historical note now in the UK and U.S., their arrival having kick-started the modern online drug trade, elsewhere on the planet they have become major drug market players. Now, a decade after becoming the go-to drugs of a new generation of young party kids in the U.S. and UK, mephedrone and other synthetic cathinones are now all over Russia, Eastern Europe and some countries in Asia.

While Silicon Valley millionaires pay $1,000 a night for organic magic mushrooms with a trip guide, and middle-class Londoners pick up deluxe cocaine for 100 a gram in West End bars, people living in relative poverty are snorting and injecting the psychoactive equivalents of knock-off designer clothes to get their stimulant high. Cathinones of varying quality and toxicity have become part of a new wave of cheap highs feeding the bargain basement of an increasingly divided global drug market.

So how did they come to dominate traditional drugs in some parts of the world?

Until four years ago, most prohibited substances entered Russia through its seaports. Cocaine from South America, ecstasy from the Netherlands and amphetamine from Belgiumall of them arrived in St. Petersburg and Ust-Luga to disperse to Russian cities and European transit destinations.

But in 2016, the situation in Russia changed. A huge clampdown on the smuggling trade, of everything from illegal furs to alcohol and drugs, and the arrest of key smugglers momentarily strangled the supply of banned substances in the country. Well-established dealing networks were lost. Drugs imported from Europe such as ecstasy, amphetamine and cannabis stopped going through ports so easily. With diminished supply, these drugs soared in price.

Wholesale drug suppliers came to the conclusion that Russia needed a new product. The criteria were simple: its manufacture should be easy and inexpensive, and the potency strong. Despite it having been banned in Russia in 2010, mephedrone was their solution.

Russian police raided a drug lab near Moscow Jan 17, 2020, and seized at least 66 kg of mephedrone and 600 liters of liquid containing synthetic drugs. IMAGE: Russian Federal Security ServiceTASS via Getty Images

Russia has little data on drug prevalence, forensics, drug-related deaths and convictions. But the evidence from online markets, police seizures and drug experts indicates cathinones have risen to usurp a variety of drug scenes in Russia. Earlier this month a clandestine lab outside Moscow producing mephedrone for online sales was busted. Police arrested five suspects and found 66 kg of mephedrone, 600 litres of liquid containing synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals.

On Hydra, the largest Russian darknet market, mephedrone is more popular than weed. There are more clandestine online shops selling mephedrone than any other drug and the most drug reviews on the site are about mephedrone.

Teenagers wear Metallica-logo "Mephedrone" t-shirts, while the musician Mukka has a song called Girl With A Bob Cut, with the chorus: "In my yard, there is a girl with a bob cut walking/She loves mephedrone, she loves mephedrone. And I am so in love with her." The video, which has 11 million views, features a couple meeting in a club and getting trashed before the girl ODs and is buried the next day by her lover in the snow.

On the encrypted messenger app Telegram, numerous channels talk about using mephedrone and alpha-PVP. Many of these mini-blogs are written in Beatnik style, like cult Russian underground writer Bayan Shiryanov, and describe addiction to cathinones. Some have 10,000 subscribers and act as entry points into online drug markets.

Mom, we are all sick with mephedrone, less often alpha, writes Deep in sin. You and Iwe go crazy for these two and die on withdrawal. The authors are mostly teenage girls, or people who pretend to be teenage girls, hoping to get cash by posting referral links to shops or by leaving their card number and asking people to donate.

According to data analysis from a Telegram channel called DrugStat, prices for a gram of mephedrone in Russia start from $25. In contrast, a gram of cocaine starts from $130. Synthesis of mephedrone in Russia can get as cheap as 30 cents a gram from what I've heard, said Andrey Kaganskikh, a freelance Russian journalist who has investigated Russias drug problem. Prices for mephedrone dont differ that much around the country because it can be synthesized almost anywhere. Underground labs making synthetic cathinones have also been found in Eastern Europe. Since 2013, a number of factories related to cathinone production have been dismantled in Poland and Slovakia.

As with the drugs they are slowly replacing, synthetic cathinones come with risks. Their ingredients are far more varied and unpredictable than their traditional counterparts. Because most are habit-forming, and have been adopted by injectors, they have been responsible for a rise in acute psychosis, blood-borne infections, and deaths in the regions in which they are used.

According to Nikolay Tumanov, a Russian doctor-narcologist, cathinones can cause "anxiety, pseudo-depressive disorders, sleep disturbances, aggressiveness, panic attacks, in fact a destabilization of the nervous system." While synthetic cathinones have been linked to a significant number of deaths in Eastern Europe, many of these are poly-drug poisonings, making the risk difficult to gauge.

Cathinones, mainly mephedrone and alpha-PVP, have also gained a market foothold in Georgia, a country situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe.

Since Georgia declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, personal freedom is valued highly and the country now has a flourishing, young electronic dance music scene. Here, the media calls mephedrone killer salt after several fatal overdoses linked to mephedrone at clubs and festivals in 2017, resulting in the drug being banned in 2018. Even though it has an even more dangerous reputation than mephedrone, alpha-PVP has become prevalent in the country among students and older users who often vape or inject the drug.

In Georgia, unlike in many countries, cathinones are not just cheap substitutes for other drugs, they are rival products. On Matanga, a popular clearnet website for buying illegal drugs, both mephedrone and alpha-PVP are more expensive than MDMA. The potency of alpha-PVP, which makes it more cost-effective than mephedrone and cocaine, likely explains its popularity in a country where the minimum wage now amounts to only $7 a month.

In Poland, mephedrone has become a growing problem among young people, according to the number of patients admitted to Nowowiejski Hospital in Warsaw after a mephedrone binge, which rose steadily between 2010 and 2018. The 8kg seizure of mephedrone in Pozna last year and other recent seizures across the country indicate a strong market for the drug, which is probably the result of how easy it is to synthesize, said the Social Drug Policy Initiatives Jerzy Afanasjew.

On the Polish drug market, mephedrone is more of a brand than a specific substance, says Afanasjew. What survived the blanket ban on new psychoactive substances are mostly mephedrone analogues, like 4-CMC, but nobody really knows, because users simply refer to the new analogues as crystal. Nobody cares if it's mephedrone if it works like a speedy euphoric party drug.

Eastern Europes affair with cathinones is not all-encompassing. For example, drug prevalence data shows Czechs and Slovaks, who neighbor Poland to the north, have not taken to them. Up until recently, despite the rise of cathinones in Russia, Ukraine has resisted cathinones. However, experts in Ukraine said that mephedrone has seen a steady growth due to its low cost and strong euphoric effect, and word of mouth increases its popularity every month.

While the epicenter of global synthetic cathinone use appears to be on Europes eastern fringes, these drugs have also been taken up in other parts of the world. Synthetic cathinone abuse is the fastest-growing drug problem in the small east Asian country of Taiwan, according to the latest statistics from the countrys Food and Drug Administration.

Little is known on cathinone use in Taiwan, although most users are young men. The drugs have been linked to an alarming rise in fatal ODs. Mephedrone, produced in nearby China, is the most detected cathinone in Taiwan, followed by methylone, while new derivatives have recently been added to the controlled illicit substances list. Cathinones are sold online as cute products such as Rainbow Little Devil and Hello Kitty and often advertised as containing "organic ingredients." Police have seized the drugs packaged as coffee, candy, cookies or chocolate.

In 2012, mephedrone took off in India, where it was branded poor mans cocaine. At the same time, what were called loophole drugsa name for legal highs containing mainly synthetic cathinones and synthetic cannabinoidswere being widely distributed and abused in Japan. In both countries, these drugs were responsible for a high number of arrests and admissions into psychiatric hospitals. But since new legislation and heavy police crackdowns, cathinones are no longer so cheap and readily available. However, the quantity of mephedrone seized and reported by the Indian Narcotics Control Bureau in recent years, for example a 50g haul in Mumbai earlier this month, indicates that its still a common drug.

Synthetic cathinones are not just being used around the world to substitute recreational drugs, but as alternatives to heroin. Anya Sarang, President of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice in Moscow, said alpha-PVP is popular among injecting users in Russia because it is more cost-effective than other drugs. In Russia, using alpha-PVP is not a matter of choice or personal preferences but rather a marker of poverty, she said.

A similar scenario has likely occurred in Georgia. Natia Natenadze, a Master of Addiction Studies, says web bought alpha-PVP is now more on the Georgian drug market than heroin.

In Poland, drug injectors are mainlining cathinones despite the blanket ban and crackdown on legal high shops. According to Bartosz Michalewski, who works with drug users on a daily basis at the Monar clinic in Krakow, "100 percent of them are shooting cathinones." He said they are usually people who are living on the streets who are injecting cathinones because heroin is harder to get hold of in the city.

In both Hungary and Romania, shortages in the availability of heroin in 2010 and 2011, along with the increased availability of cathinones sold as "legal highs" in headshops and online shops, meant that cathinones have now largely replaced traditional drugs among injecting users.

The switch to cheap cathinones was most notable within poor, segregated Roma communities in the two countries, where people are severely disadvantaged on every levelhousing, education, employment, and health. Cathinones like pentedrone (a more MDMA-like, liver-toxic drug than mephedrone) and lesser-known cathinone analogues are common here. They are often sold in branded packets, usually in combination with other drugs, yet few people know exactly what's in them, as the government rarely tests them.

Unlike heroin or amphetamines, whose effects are longer-lasting, users of cathinones need repeated hits, so often shoot up three to ten times per day. Alina Dumitriu, a drug outreach worker at ARAS (the Romanian Anti-AIDS Association) in Bucharest, Romania told VICE that the more chaotic use of cathinones have increased needle sharing, making users even more vulnerable to infections such as HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis. In addition, the consequences of injecting cathinoneslike skin erosion and large holes at overused injecting sitespredisposes users to cellulitis and other potentially serious bacterial infections.

Harm reduction services in Hungary are also facing similar problems, which have been exacerbated by a lack of financial resources, according to Peter Sarosi, a human rights activist and drug policy expert. NGOs that provide harm reduction programs in some of the most impoverished parts of Budapest, which are home to many Roma people who live in deep poverty, have had funding and support from Hungarys right wing government cut to shreds. Since closing down the two largest harm reduction programs, thousands of high-risk drug users have become invisible to the treatment system, so it is impossible to keep track of infection rates such as an HIV outbreak.

Estimates of cathinone use across the world, especially in countries that do not routinely test seized drugs or new psychoactive substances, are highly likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

In many countries, data on synthetic cathinone use is either lacking or entirely absent. In addition, drug-detection dogs and routine urine drug screens do not detect synthetic cathinones, meaning the scale of their global use may be largely underestimated. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have identified close to 170 synthetic cathinones on their drug markets since 2009. However, only a handful of these are well known.

The law, it seems, is being played for a fool. Strict narco-policy has not only failed to stem the flow of these drugs in Eastern Europe and Taiwan, it is the reason new and dangerous cathinones are being introduced on the black market. As most countries continue to wage a war on drugs, the question is not whether cathinones will continue to spread, but which ones, and where they will take hold.

Read more:

'Bath Salts' Feel Like a Drug From the PastBut They're Still Wreaking Havoc - VICE

Laying it Out: Can’t change minds? Then change the system – Medicine Hat News

Posted on by

By Medicine Hat News Opinion on January 25, 2020.

The conversation was about a minute-and-a-half old when he uttered the words.

Neither of us had met this man before, though Jeremy and I both knew his wife a little she had stopped at the Medicine Hat News trade show booth for a quick hello and had just introduced us to her husband.

We quickly found ourselves on the same side of a topic regarding the media, and the exchange had been quite pleasant to that point. So you can imagine our surprise when he casually tossed in the phrase, Its like those f***ing low-life refugees, as if this was just how anyone would speak.

This moment in time is a couple years old now, and the end of the story is that nothing else happened. It was so unbelievably awful and out of left field that Jeremy and I were both too stunned to speak. And heres the thing all this time later, I still dont know what to say.

How do you defend people escaping war-torn countries to someone who would clearly rather those people stay home and die? I dont think you can.

Ive spent a lot of time this week thinking about local mom Kym Porter, who has been extremely active in her advocacy for people who use drugs ever since her son died of an accidental opioid overdose. I had mentioned to her a few weeks ago that I was planning to write about addiction at some point soon, and I was going to use the need for supervised consumption sites as the foundation of my piece.

Then this week happened.

Not only did Premier Jason Kenney suggest relocation or closure of sites in a Tuesday announcement, he showed his true feelings about those battling addiction when he tweeted out one of the most vile columns ever written, authored by a man who was trying to set a record for ways you can dehumanize people in one sitting.

And so, instead of going through the usual process of collecting information for Laying it Out, I havent been able to get the story out of my head of that time a man Id just met offered up his pure hatred of refugees as if we were discussing our favourite colours. What can I possibly say to those who oppose supervised consumption to convince them of its life-saving necessity when all too many of those people would rather addicts not be saved at all?

If the premier of Alberta believes in an invasion of meth heads who are out of their bloody mind and then refers to the NDPs callousness and regressiveness in setting up drug sites, I think its fair to say hes not the only one who feels this way about addiction.

Youre welcome to wait for the results of the panel report that had strict instructions not to include harm reduction in its findings, but at this point I feel like we can surmise Kenneys plan for supervised consumption without wondering if Albertas 4,587 reversed overdoses and zero deaths matter to him. Even if the benefits of keeping everyone alive were laid out in terms of cost savings, I dont think it would outweigh the disdain for the drug users very existence.

So if we cant even come together in agreement on these peoples value as human beings, let alone how to help them not die, maybe its time we find a new approach. I might see them as victims worth saving, and you might see them as low-life criminals, but we can all agree that society has failed in dealing with the problem.

And if the argument over supervised consumption doesnt convince you of the need for systemic change, then what else do you need? Examples of this systems failures are piling up everywhere but a consumption site takes one of the harshest realities and concentrates it into one spot, focusing everyones attention all at once.

So the question is, What are we looking at?

Are we looking at societys worst, or the worst thing about society? Are we looking at people who deserve jail but not life, or the failure of a decades-long war on drugs?

Do you see a need to go full United States and start imprisoning en masse with minimum punishments that equal our current life sentences? Or do you see the result of a revolving-door jail system that has no historic evidence of reducing drug use, or crime?

Is this just people too stupid or lazy to succeed? Or is this decades of income inequality manifested into poverty at its most tragic, rock-bottom level?

No matter how you view it, supervised consumption is one of the purest examples we have of society going wrong, and our current governments plan to deal with that is to ignore the experts and promote further hatred. Even if you love everything Kenney has said or implied, all his plan will do is take a tragic but concentrated issue and sprinkle it back around the affected cities.

It is a nothing solution to a problem that is only getting worse, and the UCP leader doesnt much care for the victims of it. That might be fine when its just unsightly low-lifes that you can assume no one else cares about either, but how will you feel if the next victim lies in the bedroom down the hall?

Will the premiers expert-ignoring plan of simply scattering the users be enough for you then?

Scott Schmidt is the layout editor at the Medicine Hat News. Contact him at sschmidt@medicinehatnews.com. All opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the News editorial board.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Originally posted here:

Laying it Out: Can't change minds? Then change the system - Medicine Hat News

Winnipeg’s crime will not be solved by cop consultation – The Manitoban

Posted on by

Common-sense approaches to drug and crime issues often fail to consider the history of policing, forgetting the hard lessons of the war on drugs namely the so-called iron law of prohibition, the idea that as criminalization of drug use ramps up, so does the strength and danger of drug use. Police-based solutions create a kind of arms race between the police and those who sell drugs, leading to increased militarization of both police and crime, as well as putting people who use drugs at risk by compromising the supply of drugs.

Communities should be building their capacity to take care of themselves without police involvement. There are countless opportunities represented by harm reduction strategies such as safe injection sites and serve the people initiatives like free-meal provision, mental-health supports and safe, accessible housing among others. Ultimately, the goal should be removing the conditions that create these issues namely poverty, an inevitable consequence of the settler-colonial capitalist system by implementing policy that works toward full employment, strengthening the social safety net and legalizing drugs.

After all, the drug and crime epidemic is not the product of people making morally poor decisions it is structural and should be approached as such. By beginning with an analysis of the issues that takes the socio-economic structures that produce such issues as its basis, we can move beyond the common-sense moralism the idea that the problem is people choosing to use drugs, or sell them, or participate in any other criminalized activity which only serves to create moral panic, villainizes people that use drugs and has historically proven ineffective in actually helping people.

As part of his anti-crime work with the community organization Point Powerline, Point Douglas community activist Sel Burrows has released part two of his three-part report on recommendations for improving safety in the downtown area. Part one which stressed disrupting criminality through the involvement of downtown residents was released in December, and part three is expected to be released in February.

Part two of the report makes several recommendations on preventing what Burrows refers to as criminal and anti-social behaviour. Many of the recommendations are geared toward building community involvement in enhancing safety downtown which in itself is unproblematic. Where problems begin to appear is in the nature of the involvement being put forward.

Underneath this series of seemingly common sense, easy to implement recommendations is an approach to drugs and safety that primarily benefits property owners who face declining property values from high rates of crime at the cost of people that use drugs and other groups of marginalized people who would likely face the negative impacts of increased policing. When approaching issues of safety, we need to centre on the fact that the police in Canada are a settler-colonial institution that functions to maintain structural oppression by force. The police are an instrument of social control above all else.

Recommendations such as setting up a tipline specifically for taxi drivers to inform police about potential crimes make sense, but only if you accept that policing, and ultimately the law, can be used toward ends that are beneficial to the community not just to property owners. The decades-long experience of the war on drugs has demonstrated that actions based on such assumptions only serve to make drug use more dangerous and increase the militarization of the police, making the city far more dangerous for the marginalized people who usually bear the brunt of police violence.

To be blunt, no property in owners or thieves hands is worth more than the lives of people who use drugs, nor the lives of the marginalized people that tend to live in areas hard-hit by crime. No progressive solution to the current drug and crime epidemic should involve the police, rather, we should be excluding them.

Further, according to a recent poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute, trust in the criminal justice system in Manitoba is the lowest in the country.

If we want to help make our communities safer, we should start by listening to them to understand why this lack of trust exists, and proceed together from there instead of insisting on continued police involvement even as a last resort as Burrowss report does.

When approaching social issues like crime and drug use, its not enough to count on the systems that produced the issues to resolve them.

We need to go outside of established institutions and build our own working-class institutions. Building a larger police presence may achieve some extent of immediate results, but we need to ask questions about what this does on a structural level.

Go here to see the original:

Winnipeg's crime will not be solved by cop consultation - The Manitoban

Drugs and gambling should be legal but tightly regulated- the government’s treatment of both shows grotesque failure – inews

Posted on by

OpinionThese two popular pastimes leave a trail of devastated lives. Yet one is sanctioned by the state, the other treated as a pariah

Sunday, 26th January 2020, 4:25 pm

Lewis Keogh seemed to have everything. He had a good job, his own flat in Leeds, a loving family and close friends. One day he told his father Peter that he had a bit of a gambling problem while they watched a football match. It was just in passing, said the retired publishing executive from County Fermanagh. I knew him as a very grounded guy, very strong-minded, and he said hed kicked it so it seemed ok. But it was not. Lewis, like many problem gamblers, hid the shame and torment over his inability to control a compulsion that led to huge losses.

At the age of 34, this likeable man took his own life. One more tragedy tied to an industry that has grown richer, smarter and far more pervasive in society as it exploits technological advances to snare players and swell profits. After his death, Peter understood why his son was playing their shared online Scrabble games in the middle of the night. He could not sleep since he was playing online poker. Now Headingley, his former amateur football team, wear the logo of Gambling With Lives, a campaign group set up by bereaved parents, on their shirts. What lovely contrast to all those professional clubs with grubby gambling shirt deals.

Lewis left behind a note with Addiction is cruel written in big letters. He was right - it is a horrible affliction for any human being to suffer, especially when the hook is so hard to evade. I have spoken to many addicts, seen too many lives wrecked by this awful condition. Yet just imagine if Burnley was backed by LoveHeroin rather than LoveBet, or Stoke City wore Drugs365 not Bet365 on their shirts? Sounds daft, doesnt it? Yet since talking to Peter and other parents who faced similar plight after writing a column last month on our corrosive betting culture, I have been wondering if there is really much difference between gambling and drug-taking?

i's opinion newsletter: talking points from today

Both activities start as something fun. In Lewiss case, something as innocuous as playing the machines in an Enniskillen arcade every day while waiting for the bus back to his rural home aged twelve. For many people these things remain fun, a harmless way to pass time with pals that leaves little deep trace on their lives. But for a substantial minority, this fun turns into something much darker, a devastating form of mental illness that can destroy families and careers. For a significant minority, this pastime proves fatal. They end up dead, whether through sudden overdose or sad suicide in some lonely spot.

The big difference is legal status. Betting used to be grudgingly allowed and tightly controlled until 2007, when Tony Blair foolishly unleashed the sector just as online gaming turned it into an activity available at all times and for all ages. As one critic said, this was analogue reform at dawn of the digital age - and it proved disastrous as the industry adopted the tricks of social media to lure, capture and keep players. Now gambling is not just permitted but heavily promoted, spreading its tentacles through sports such as football that always seem to put money before morality. The legacy is an estimated 500 suicides a year - many of them young men, their sense of self-worth crushed by fear they can never escape the betting demon.

Drugs, by contrast, are banned - except for alcohol, of course. This is flawed policy. Look at the millions using them - or the falling prices and rising purity of cocaine. Drugs kill more people - in Britain, at least, since we are responsible for one-third of drug-related deaths in Western Europe due to political obsession with prohibition. Many die due to illegality, since users do not know what they ingest and are often scared to seek help. Then there is the linked violence as crooks fight to control a lucrative trade. Mike Barton, former chief constable of Durham, explained on BBC Question Time how prohibition inevitably leads to more violence and recruitment of children. This is a Darwinian spiral of violence, he said. We are never going to arrest ourselves out of this problem.

Boris Johnsons stance, like so many other politicians since Richard Nixon started the daft War on Drugs, is to promise tougher action. This only shows weakness, since the really tough action would be to push sensible reform that could save lives of citizens. But far easier to spout the usual hollow platitudes. So the prime minister recently told breakfast television: I want to see crime come down. I want to see the county lines drugs gangs wound up.they are killing young kids. We all want to see crime come down, Boris Johnson. But I believe it is Westminster in effect killing kids with its stubborn refusal to reform failed policies, as highlighted so brilliantly by Barton.

These two popular pastimes leave a trail of devastated lives and dead bodies. Yet one is sanctioned by the state, even spraying vast sums of money around politics and sport; the other treated as a pariah, a prop for politicians to pose as hard guys even when they have dabbled themselves in the past. There are differences: one blots out mental pain, the other offers false hope. Yet the reality is that both these money-spinning activities should be treated in similar style: legal, yes, but tightly regulated, with children protected and marketing rigidly constrained like tobacco. Politicians should use the proceeds of high taxes on their products to fund major expansion of treatment facilities to help the inevitable casualties.

Ultimately there is one giant similarity between drugs and gambling: they show grotesque political failure with horrible and sometimes fatal consequences. What are the odds of Westminster waking up to rectify its mistakes?

A long shot, Id say - but happy to lose that bet.

Visit link:

Drugs and gambling should be legal but tightly regulated- the government's treatment of both shows grotesque failure - inews

President Trump’s Iran strategy is working | TheHill – The Hill

Posted on by

The media told us that Qassem Soleimani was beloved, but they weren't telling the truth. The media told us that President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump denies telling Bolton Ukraine aid was tied to investigations Former senior Senate GOP aide says Republicans should call witnesses Title, release date revealed for Bolton memoir MOREs strike on Soleimani would unify Iran behind its terrorist regime, but they werent telling the truth there either.

In recent days, weve seen the people of Iran rise up to refute the propaganda that Soleimani was a beloved general and unequivocally condemn a corrupt government that wastes billions on terror adventurism around the world.

Weve seen Iranians take to the streets to protest their governments shootdown of a plane full of innocent civilians.

Weve seen Iranians walk around American and Israeli flags on the ground rather than trample on them.

Weve seen Iranians declare, They are lying that our enemy is America! Our enemy is right here!

While Democrats have scorned President Trumps actions and mourned the terrorist leader Soleimanis death, these anti-government protests show that Trumps Iran policy of containment is working.

By acting decisively to take out Soleimani, President Trump has shown solidarity with a people held hostage to a brutal and murderous terrorist regime.

By pursuing a strategy of containment, rather than the last administrations strategy of appeasement, President Trump has opened a window of opportunity with Iran that is playing out even now.

Containment brought down the Soviet Union. Appeasement didn't.

When the United States contended with the Soviet Union in the Cold War, containment hemmed in the expansion of communism until the Soviet Union's own internal weaknesses forced it to abandon its dreams of empire.

Containment allowed America to counter Soviet pressure through a patient but vigilant reining in of the Soviet Unions expansive tendencies.

By not withdrawing into isolationism, but also not violating the sovereignty of Eastern European nations, America's strategy of containment led to the breakup of Soviet power and the collapse of communism.

Containment worked throughout history, and it works today.

The people of Iran are yearning for freedom and liberty. They are fed up with an oppressive government that habitually chooses to undermine their well-being and security, and they are destabilizing Irans regime from within.

In the past three months, Irans leaders have killed 1,500 protestors, injured 4,800 protestors, and arrested over 7,000 protestors. Only last week, their security forces continued to respond to protests with violence by firing live ammunition and tear gas into the crowds.

As Irans regime continues to reveal its brutality and oppression, its becoming ever clearer to the world, to America, and to the people of IranIran must change its pattern of aggression, abandon its nuclear ambitions, and respect the freedom and liberties of its citizens.

Just as in the Cold War, containment is the best way for America to stand with the Iranian people and pursue security in an evolving bipolar world.

This strategy creates incredible risk. It also provides a remarkable opportunity to win alliances, contain aggression, and stand for freedom. President Donald Trump is doing just that.

As they determine their future, the Iranian people are not alone. America stands with the people of Iran as they fight for their freedom and speak out against oppression. As President Trump continues his strategy of containment, we remain committed to standing in solidarity with those who love freedom.

Rep. Mark GreenMark GreenPresident Trump's Iran strategy is working Trump says he will 'temporarily hold off' on declaring Mexican drug cartels as terror organization Trump says he will designate Mexican drug cartels as terror organizations MORE is a graduate of West Point and a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was part of the mission to capture Saddam Hussein, and he interviewed Saddam Hussein for six hours on the night of his capture. He serves on the House Homeland Security and Oversight committees.

Read more here:

President Trump's Iran strategy is working | TheHill - The Hill

When sarkari Gurus, Babas and godmen remind you of Tsarist Russia and Rasputin – National Herald

Posted on by

Like Vasudev, he too has grabbed land, with or without government complicity like in the Aravalli or the elephant corridor in Assam - which should not really belong to him.

He was doing pretty well until he decided to escape from the Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi in women's clothing and gratuitously equated that with Chhatrapati Shivajis daring escape from Aurangzebs prison in Agra. Since then, instead of sticking to his kapalbhati and anulom-vilom which, admittedly, he had a huge hand in popularising, he has claimed to be the original formulator of the Demonetisation theory as a means to curb black money.

If true, we all by now know what a disastrous policy demonetisation was and all the more reason for the government to put a twenty feet wide distance between themselves and Ramdev. But failure and exposure just does not stop Ramdev. After suggesting that he would behead anyone who does not chant Bharat Mata ki jai (what about those who prefer Jai Hind instead, I wonder, like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Indira Gandhi) Ramdev now is calling on the government to take action against all those clamouring for freedom from the governments oppression.

Continued here:

When sarkari Gurus, Babas and godmen remind you of Tsarist Russia and Rasputin - National Herald

Career Employees Allege EPA Leaders Silenced Them on Key Deregulation Effort – GovExec.com

Posted on by

The Environmental Protection Agency suppressed the work of its career employees and dismissed legitimate science in taking a key deregulatory action, dozens of former and current employees have alleged. The employeesare asking investigators to discipline the top officials responsible.

The complaint, issued by the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, concerned orders from EPAs top brass during its process of repealing the Waters of the United States rule implemented during the Obama administration. The current and former employees, made up mostly of EPA staff but also ofArmy Corps of Engineers and Fish and Wildlife Service workers, called on the EPA inspector general and scientific integrity officer to launch investigations and hold the political appointees accountable. They named EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and a half-dozen top officials in the agencys offices of Water and General Counsel in their complaint.

The complainants said political leadership consistently violated provisions of EPAs Scientific Integrity Policy throughout the deregulatory process. That included when career employees were explicitly cautioned not to provide formal comments on the rule that would then become part of its docket, resulting in those comments being withheld from the public. This also violated a provision of the integrity policy that prohibits leadership from intimidating or coercing scientists to alter scientific data, findings or professional opinions, PEER wrote on behalf of the former and current employees.

PEER noted its complaint reflected the views of all 44 signatories and multiple individuals could personally substantiate each of the allegations. The rule, commonly referred to as WOTUS, defines what is subject to EPA anti-pollution enforcement under the 1972 Clean Water Act. A 2015 EPA rule significantly expanded that definition.

Ketina Elbaum, a spokeswoman for the EPA inspector generals office, said it had received the complaint and it would be under review soon by our leadership team. The science integrity office had yet to formally receive the letter as of Tuesday afternoon. Upon receipt, the officewill determine whetherthe allegations would indeed amount to a violation of the integrity policy. At that point, it would inform complainants about potential limitations to confidentiality before creating a timeline of events. It would then pore over documents and talk to all relevant parties to hear both sides before presenting its findings to a subcommittee to draw a conclusion. That panel would not recommend any discipline, but instead determine what steps, if any, were necessary to uphold scientific standards.

That review would take between six weeks and six months, and the office would likely coordinate with the IG. It could defer to the IG entirely if, for example, it determined the case was too high profile to handle. Francesca Grifo, EPAs top scientific integrity official, said at a public meeting last year her office takes formal allegations seriously. When it receives one, she said, her staff goes a little crazy over it.

The regulatory rollback, finalized in September, also violated the scientific integrity policy by failing to use the highest quality science, the complainants said. EPA dismissed key research and scientific findings used during the 2015 process, they explained, while noting EPAs own scientific advisory board criticized the WOTUS degulation as a departure from recognized science.

EPA officials instructed employees to respond to public comments from a policy or legal stance, rather than a scientific one, the complaint alleged, which PEER said led to the stifling and oppression of science and experts opinions. The complainants said the rule was not merely a difference in scientific opinion, but instead amounted to excluding and manipulating established science. The integrity policy calls for the highest quality of science, but PEER suggested EPA instead suppressed it.

Political appointees dismissed [career scientists] with no justification, the former and current workers said, and in the process politicized the agencys analysis.

EPA has qualified expert scientists on staff at [headquarters] and across the country, but this expertise was suppressed and dismissed, the complainants concluded. Because of this, EPAs career employees were not given the opportunity to do their best work or contribute their expertise to the development of the rule.

They cautioned a failure to act would set a dangerous precedent going forward.

Failing to take actions in this matter will show that EPA has abandoned all pretense of making science-based decisions, which is counter to its mission of protecting human health and the environment, they said.

Inquiries at EPAs Science Integrity Office have spiked under the Trump administration. Employees at agencies like EPA, NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have previously told Government Executive they are facing unprecedented interference from political leadership, including rollbacks of previous work and meddling in research. Scientists reported being left out of key meetings, feeling fearful in their offices and a general sense of low morale. A Union of Concerned Scientists survey in 2018 found federal employees felt stymied by censorship and interference from political appointees, including 50% who said political considerations were hindering agencies' ability to make science-based decisions.

More here:

Career Employees Allege EPA Leaders Silenced Them on Key Deregulation Effort - GovExec.com

Rodgers: Financial oppression as Bahamians unable to readily invest abroad – EyeWitness News

Posted on by

NASSAU, BAHAMAS The inability of Bahamians to readily invest their money abroad has resulted in financial oppression, according to a well-known ophthalmologist.

Dr K Jonathan Rodgers underscored local investment options were unattractive during a lecture hosted by local think-tank The Nassau Institute on The End of Exchange Controls.

Rodgers noted that while there are advantages to having the Bahamian dollar as fixed currency 1.1 with the US dollar, a key disadvantage was what he referred to as financial oppression.

Rodgers said while having a fixed currency limits currency speculation Bahamians were also disadvantaged.

Due to the fact that Bahamians cant readily invest their money overseas, they are forced to invest it locally, he said on Wednesday night.

One of the most common investments locally is real estate. That is one of the reasons it costs so much and that combined with high transactions fees make it almost prohibitively expensive for the average persons to invest in real estate.

Rodgers continued: Its madness. As an alternative you can put it in a government bond but two years ago our sovereign debt got downgraded one level above junk status and they are not quite as safe as they used to be so you have to think twice about that. He also argued due to low interest rates on savings and services fees, Bahamians were losing money saving with commercial banks.

Financialoppressionforces you into these types of investments, he said.

On the possibility of the Bahamian dollar being devalued, Rodgers said: You always hear people saying, especially on the radio and talk shows.

That the Bahamian dollar will never devalue beach it is pegged to the US dollar. Absolute nonsense. Our currency is grossly overvalued. When you have an overvalued currency you tend to import more than you should and export less than you could. Government often has a falls sense of security with this one to one peg.

This why they dont have any problem borrowing in US dollars, he added.

More here:

Rodgers: Financial oppression as Bahamians unable to readily invest abroad - EyeWitness News

The crisis in Iran: An oppressive regime and its voiceless people – Middlebury Campus

Posted on by

One head off by Nikahang Kowsar, the writers father, a political cartoonist. Originally published here.

What has unfolded since the morning of January 3, 2020 has been incredibly difficult for me to unpack as an Iranian-born Canadian citizen and a U.S. permanent resident. To summarize the sequence of events, the United States, under President Donald Trump launched an airstrike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force, sparking an escalation in tensions between the Iranian regime and the U.S.. Iran then launched over a dozen missiles to two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. Four or so hours later, a Ukrainian passenger plane, UIA Flight 752, crashed in Tehran after take-off. After initially blaming the crash of engine failure, the Iranian government admitted to mistakenly launching a surface-to-air missile (some reports now say two missiles were launched).

To put it simply, the recent events involving the Iranian regime have been overwhelming. Although I am against escalating tensions in the Middle East, the narratives of Soleimani and the Iranian regime presented in western media, specifically concerning Soleimanis popularity and the general opinion of the Iranian people, are entirely false. It is disheartening that world powers economically involved with Iran have turned a blind eye to the Iranian regimes ongoing abuse of power and attempts to silence its opposition. The powerful individuals within the Iranian regime are not humans: they are monsters who must be held accountable for all the pain and suffering they have caused their innocent people and those affected by Soleimanis actions outside of Iran.

I am adamantly against the current regime and its treatment of the Iranian people. My family would not have had to leave Iran if the regime allowed its citizens to practice their human rights. As my father likes to say, there may be freedom of speech, but there is no freedom after speech. The Islamic Republic of Iran consists of a broken government, economic disparity and minimal human rights, where the Ayatollahs and the rich become richer and the rest are left to suffer. I have always wished for the fall of this disgraceful regime, and hope the death of Qasem Soleimani could be the beginning of the end.

Soleimani, who dictated Irans foreign policy, was the second most powerful man in the country. He was personally sanctioned by the U.S., the European Union, and the United Nations, and the U.S. even deemed him a terrorist. Until his death, many of you may not have even heard his name. But to many Iranians, he was either seen as a selfless hero or a murderer. Soleimanis minority of supporters was made up of regime sympathizers who favored expansionism and military interventionism in hopes of returning to the glory Iranians once enjoyed during the Persian Empire.

Under Soleimanis leadership, the Quds Force has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, as well as hundreds of U.S. soldiers in the region. The Islamic Republics financial and military support for its proxies and allies is alarming because it has placed greater importance on power over the condition of the Iranian people.

The Iranian regime declared the days that followed Soleimanis death national days of mourning, closing businesses, workplaces and schools during that period. Protests erupted in some cities with Soleimani supporters chanting death to America. The Iran state media outlets released videos of the streets of major cities packed with black-clad mourners. The funeral procession for Soleimani eventually led to a stampede that killed 70 mourners and injured over 100 other people.

It is difficult to gauge the reactions of Iranians living in Iran because of the restrictions on communication within the country. A prominent tweet reposted by Shaun King, an outspoken civil rights advocate and journalist, claimed 82% of Iranians inside the country looked favorably upon Qasem Soleimani. This statistic originated from a 2019 study conducted by the University of Marylands School of Public Policy. This data was collected by interviewing 1,000 Iranians inside the country via phone interviews. The methodology of this study is problematic because it is a common belief in Iran that the government has all phones tapped, so how could Iranians comfortably express their true opinion over a presumably tapped phone?

A more credible study done in 2018 by the Group Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) surveyed over 19,000 Iranians, 80% of whom lived inside Iran, through a secure online survey platform shared via social media networks. Only 0.2% of respondents said they would vote for Qasem Soleimani in a free election. While I understand that not all of Soleimanis supporters would vote for him for president, these findings are an indicator of Soleimanis perceived popularity among Iranians.

Prominent American news media outlets have brought on foreign policy experts and political analysts to weigh in on the escalating tensions with the Iranian regime, deafening the public to important matters at hand. Republicans have proudly supported the accomplishment of Trump in ordering the airstrike that killed a terrorist. Democrats have expressed their fears of what the regime and its allies may do, and have focused on how the crisis is Trumps way of diverting attention from his impeachment.

Since the UIA Flight 752 crash, U.S. media coverage has diminished because the crisis no longer appeals to the U.S. public or the political agenda of U.S. politicians. But the crisis in Iran is not just a political matter: it is a matter of human rights and holding a corrupt regime accountable. These events remain relevant to millions of innocent Iranians who continue to live through the dire conditions, even if theyre not deemed important enough to be covered by U.S. media.

U.S. media coverage has diminished because the crisis no longer appeals to the U.S. public or the political agenda of U.S. politicians.

In a recent interview, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked whether she supported the protesters in Iran. She diminished the majority of protesters opposing the regime by focusing her response on protests involving Solemanis supporters because they were protesting against the U.S.. Pelosis disregard for the majority of Iranians is a representation of how the Iranian people have been treated by foreign governments, which have disregarded the regimes oppression of the Iranian peoples rights.

The IRGC has a long history of hindering the Iranian peoples right to freely express their opinions: most recently, over 1,500 were killed during the November 2019 unrest protesting the exponential spike in fuel prices. Since the regimes admission of guilt to their role in the UIA Flight 752 crash, thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of major Iranian cities, chanting Shame on you to the IRGC forces and calling for Ayatollah Khamenei to step down. The IRGCs response? Firing tear gas and sometimes shooting and killing its own people.

Irrespective of international response, the Iranian government will continue to silence its own people with excessive force throughout these protests because this crisis has placed them in a vulnerable position. During these trying times of conflict, I ask you to go after the facts and to not be afraid to question what your favorite politicians may say. Evidence surrounding these events will continue to come out, and the Iranian people will continue to risk their lives by sharing damning evidence on social media platforms displaying the regimes troubling actions in hopes of uncovering the truth that the regime frequently tries to hide from the world. Innocent Iranians have suffered far too long and deserve to be heard. The Iranian regime refuses to give a voice to the voiceless, so as a free society, we must hear those who are trying to speak up.

Niki Kowsar is a member of the Middlebury class of 2021.5

Follow this link:

The crisis in Iran: An oppressive regime and its voiceless people - Middlebury Campus

Opposition slams UP CM Yogi Adityanath for warning to anti-CAA protesters – The Hindu

Posted on by

The opposition parties on Thursday slammed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for warning anti-CAA protesters that azadi slogans raised by them will treated as sedition.

While the Samajwadi Party drew an analogy with the British rule, the Congress termed it a language of dictators.

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister in a rally in Kanpur on Wednesday had said,If azadi slogans are raised here like they used to be raised in Kashmir, then it will come in the category of sedition and stringent action will be taken by the government.

Reacting to it, Senior SP leader Ram Govind Chaudhary said the British too had described freedom fighters as terrorists.

Now their successors or those who had sided with them are terming those raising azadi slogans traitors, he said.

He said there was no need to to get perturbed by such warnings. Their countdown has started and that is why they are ranting, Mr. Chaudhary said.

The SP leader alleged that the Chief Minister was threatening women against those hell bent on dividing the country.

Azadi is the birthright of all countrymen and those denying it will have to depart in the same manner as Hitler, the SP leader said.

SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary too said the dissent against the CAA is being dubbed as treason by the chief minister, which is against the very essence of a democracy.

The Chief Minister is threatening women who are demanding their rights, Mr. Chaudhary asserted.

When asked about the chief ministers allegation that the SP was funding anti-CAA protests, Chaudhary said, This amounts to making a mockery of peoples emotions.

Protests are on in all the states, including north-eastern region. Are we distributing money in all states, Mr. Chaudhary wondered.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu said the CM is speaking a language of dictators.

If raising voice against the governments oppression and politics of hatred is treason, the government should first arrest me, Mr. Lallu said, adding that since the protests have rattled the government, it is accusing the Congress of sponsoring them.

If people are on agitation path over this issue, why is the government not addressing it, Lallu said.

At a public meeting in Kanpur, the chief minister had said, ...I would like to say from the soil of India, and especially the soil of Uttar Pradesh, that in the name of protests, if azadi slogans are raised here like they used to be raised in Kashmir, then it will come in the category of sedition, and stringent action will be taken by the government.

You have reached your limit for free articles this month.

Register to The Hindu for free and get unlimited access for 30 days.

Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day's newspaper in one easy-to-read list.

Enjoy reading as many articles as you wish without any limitations.

A select list of articles that match your interests and tastes.

Move smoothly between articles as our pages load instantly.

A one-stop-shop for seeing the latest updates, and managing your preferences.

We brief you on the latest and most important developments, three times a day.

Not convinced? Know why you should pay for news.

*Our Digital Subscription plans do not currently include the e-paper ,crossword, iPhone, iPad mobile applications and print. Our plans enhance your reading experience.

Excerpt from:

Opposition slams UP CM Yogi Adityanath for warning to anti-CAA protesters - The Hindu